Chief drug adviser David Nutt sacked over cannabis stance (Guardian, Friday 30 October 2009)
Last time scientists were told to lie in order to support government policy, on penalty of dismissal, was under Ceauşescu.
Science is no longer wanted, nor critical thinking, nor common sense, nor human rights, nor common decency. But who needs all that when we have New Labour ideology.
Friday, 30 October 2009
the new lepers
One in 10 inmates is sex offender (BBC News, Monday, 26 October 2009)
Most repressive regimes invent a term to refer to people who stand in the way of whatever the regime wants to achieve. The term is given a strong negative connotation, and subsequently the populace tends to treat those branded with the term as less deserving of life and happiness.
Examples of such terms are "infidel", "unbeliever", "sodomite", "social deviant", "subversive", "Untermensch", "asbo", and lately "sex offender", which is another concoction of New Labour's mass criminalisation programme, making clever use of Britons' innate pathological fear of sex. The term includes those who have been convicted of rape or child molestation. But it also includes a policewoman who moonlighted as a prostitute, a man who gave a woman a lift from the train station to a nearby brothel (so called domesting trafficking; yes, people have been sent to jail for that), a father owning a holiday photo of his 17 year old daughter in a bikini, people who read explicit Japanese comic books or watched videos with "extreme pornography", as well as many dozens of innocent people (innocent in every respect except that of British law) whose credit card information was stolen by paedophiles.
Responsible journalists would not use a crude term like "sex offender" for such a wide spectrum of individuals, many of whom don't deserve to be treated as criminals in the first place. But of course, we are not talking about responsible journalism here, we are talking about BBC News.
Most repressive regimes invent a term to refer to people who stand in the way of whatever the regime wants to achieve. The term is given a strong negative connotation, and subsequently the populace tends to treat those branded with the term as less deserving of life and happiness.
Examples of such terms are "infidel", "unbeliever", "sodomite", "social deviant", "subversive", "Untermensch", "asbo", and lately "sex offender", which is another concoction of New Labour's mass criminalisation programme, making clever use of Britons' innate pathological fear of sex. The term includes those who have been convicted of rape or child molestation. But it also includes a policewoman who moonlighted as a prostitute, a man who gave a woman a lift from the train station to a nearby brothel (so called domesting trafficking; yes, people have been sent to jail for that), a father owning a holiday photo of his 17 year old daughter in a bikini, people who read explicit Japanese comic books or watched videos with "extreme pornography", as well as many dozens of innocent people (innocent in every respect except that of British law) whose credit card information was stolen by paedophiles.
Responsible journalists would not use a crude term like "sex offender" for such a wide spectrum of individuals, many of whom don't deserve to be treated as criminals in the first place. But of course, we are not talking about responsible journalism here, we are talking about BBC News.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Police target hip-hop nightclubs
Police target hip-hop nightclubs (BBC News, Friday, 16 October 2009)
Detailed research identified that Muslims are the most likely ethnicity to blow up subways, so by narrowing down security checks, we can better tailor them to our requirements.
Detailed research identified that men between 30 and 35 are most likely to possess child pornography, so by narrowing down pre-dawn raids to houses of randomly selected men in that age group, we can better tailor them to our requirements.
Detailed research identified that opposition MPs are most likely to leak information embarrassing to the Labour government, so by narrowing down our unlawful arrests, search warrants and intimidation, we can better tailor them to our requirements.
"Detailed research identified which events are most likely to attract crime and disorder," a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police told BBC News.
"At the end of the day, you've got to say that certain events attract more trouble than others.
We're shifting the focus away from live music. Originally the definition of what Form 696 applied to was extremely broad so by narrowing it down, it's thought that we can better tailor it to our requirements."
Detailed research identified that Muslims are the most likely ethnicity to blow up subways, so by narrowing down security checks, we can better tailor them to our requirements.
Detailed research identified that men between 30 and 35 are most likely to possess child pornography, so by narrowing down pre-dawn raids to houses of randomly selected men in that age group, we can better tailor them to our requirements.
Detailed research identified that opposition MPs are most likely to leak information embarrassing to the Labour government, so by narrowing down our unlawful arrests, search warrants and intimidation, we can better tailor them to our requirements.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
fear of knowledge
We live in an age of fear, fear of sex, fear of nudity (cf. here and here), fear of the spoken word (cf. the whinging about swear words on radio and TV), and fear of knowledge, exemplified by:
British Museum's Aztec artefacts 'as evil as Nazi lampshades made from human skin' (Mail Online, 27th September 2009)
The fear of knowledge is perhaps the most pernicious of all, as it promotes ignorance, breeds bigotry, and engenders hatred, Fear of knowledge is what makes history repeat itself, letting people make stupid choices and start pointless wars over and over again.
New Labour is responsible for creating much of that fear, which today borders on hysteria. But let us not forget the contributions made by our 'friends' from the Daily Mail.
British Museum's Aztec artefacts 'as evil as Nazi lampshades made from human skin' (Mail Online, 27th September 2009)
Solid and scholarly as this exhibition is, I would rather not have the memory of half of these carefully preserved objects in my mind.
The fear of knowledge is perhaps the most pernicious of all, as it promotes ignorance, breeds bigotry, and engenders hatred, Fear of knowledge is what makes history repeat itself, letting people make stupid choices and start pointless wars over and over again.
New Labour is responsible for creating much of that fear, which today borders on hysteria. But let us not forget the contributions made by our 'friends' from the Daily Mail.
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