Mosley 'orgy' injunction refused

Mosley 'orgy' injunction refused (BBC News, Wednesday, 9 April 2008)

Mr Justice Eady said an order would make "little practical difference".

Can News of the World now put child pornography on its website? I mean, there is already so much of that on the internet that it would make "little practical difference".

British privacy laws are shite. All individuals are entitled to privacy until some turd from the tabloid media or the 'respectable' media (if there's such a thing in Britain) gets his grubby little hands on details of anyone's sex life.

There is no reason why it should be so. In most civilised countries it isn't. Cf.:

French sites fined for linking to privacy-invading content (OUT-LAW News, 10/04/2008)

Six guilty of terrorism support

Six guilty of terrorism support (BBC News, Thursday, 17 April 2008)

Let me be clear about this, I intensely dislike these islamofascists and all they stand for. And yet, it is a sad day for free speech that some of them were convicted of nothing more than 'inciting terrorism overseas', or in other words, for remarking that the invasion of Iraq was not quite legitimate.

During World War II, the British actively supported the French Resistance. Especially the communist movements were involved in guerrilla warfare against the German forces, and after the war, resistance fighters were treated as heros, in France and in Britain alike. (For those who lack any historical awareness: yes, the French communist resistance did actually exist and is not just a fabrication of 'Allo 'Allo!.)

In a moral sense, there is no comparison between resistance movements in occupied Europe in World War II and the mixed bunch of maniacs who wreak havoc in Iraq in the name of some psychopathic child molester from the dark ages. Formally however, some of the insurgents could well claim to act out of the same motivations as the French Resistance, namely kicking out occupiers who have no business being there.

The men on trial in Kingston Crown Court were not insurgents but were sympathetic to insurgents, and that is against the law these days. What is next? Should people who are sympathetic to people who are sympathetic to insurgents be put in jail too? In that case, could this post get me in trouble? Somehow, I don't think so, as my skin is white, my name is British, and you won't find me anywhere near a mosque. So what's the problem?

Fighting for free speech in Turkey

Fighting for free speech in Turkey (BBC News, Saturday, 12 April 2008)

In 2006 alone, 1,700 people were tried under article 301 of the Turkish penal code ("insulting Turkishness").

Anyone who believes that proponents of all the Britishness nonsense have the interests of a free and humane society at heart is sorely mistaken:

Pupils 'to take allegiance oath' (BBC News, Tuesday, 11 March 2008)

Recommended reading:

Did you say 'Britishness?' (Turkish Daily News, Friday, March 14, 2008)

proportionality

Family's shock at council spying (BBC News, Friday, 11 April 2008)

In 2005, Tony Blair said:

Any such powers should only be undertaken with the greatest of hesitation and only in circumstances that demand it.

(Blair defends house arrest plans, BBC News, Wednesday, 2 February, 2005)

Such NuLabour rhetoric is far from original. The enabling act (Ermächtigungsgesetz), which was passed on 24 March 1933, granted Hitler full legislative powers. A day before, Hitler had said in the Krolloper:

Die Regierung wird von dieser Ermächtigung nur insoweit Gebrauch machen, als dies zur Durchführung der lebensnotwendigen Maßnahmen erforderlich ist. [...] Die Zahl der Fälle, in denen eine innere Notwendigkeit vorliegt, zu einem solchen Gesetz die Zuflucht zu nehmen, ist an sich eine begrenzte.

(The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures. [...] The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one.)

The RIP Act was presented to us as an instrument to fight paedophilia and terrorism, but it is now being used to monitor school applications for three-year-olds.

Are you afraid of losing your civil liberties? Then wake up, you no longer have any.

Addendum: Spy law 'used in dog fouling war' (BBC News, Sunday, 27 April 2008)

Blair urges bigger role for faith

Blair urges bigger role for faith (BBC News, Thursday, 3 April 2008)

An antitheist's task is easy these days.

paedophilia and intelligence

The brains of law makers and law enforcement agencies stop functioning as soon as paedophilia is involved. Examples are witnessed every day:

'I was falsely branded a paedophile' (BBC News, Thursday, 3 April 2008)

Be afraid, be very afraid, merely for living in Britain.

Sex offenders face website bans (BBC News, Friday, 4 April 2008)

Sex offenders' e-mail addresses are to be passed to social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo to prevent them contacting children.

One can get any number of free e-mail addresses by a few mouse clicks. Sex offenders don't know this of course.

Iraq Autonomous Region

Brown decision not to attend Beijing games opener 'not a boycott' (Guardian, Thursday April 10 2008)

By hinting at someone else's moral wrongs, one distracts attention from one's own. This was known to Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, and as it might be known to the British people as well, Brown was wise to go about it with care.