Saturday 5 November 2005

Apply for ID Card early - instructions

The image will enlarge if clicked. (Note confident use of 'will')

Muslim "problem" - another cure?

I see this as a reasoned and well-expressed posting.
How To Fix Europe's Muslim Problem
To figure out why Muslims integrate so poorly into Western societies you have to look at why other religious have integrated well. If you do that, the solution to Europe's problems with Muslims is obvious - free their women. This will be expensive but bring huge upside.This behavior comparison technique is used by criminologists to cut through liberal cant. If social conditions made Johnny bad, how come other kids in the same school/housing/family turned out fine?Europe and the US are full of people from poor and backward nations who play a productive and peaceful part in their new societies. For example, here's another snip from the Theodore Dalrymple piece used in the post on muslim killers (my emphasis):Many young Muslims, unlike the sons of Hindus and Sikhs who immigrated into Britain at the same time as their parents, take drugs, including heroin. They drink, indulge in casual sex, and make nightclubs the focus of their lives. Work and careers are at best a painful necessity, a slow and inferior means of obtaining the money for their distractions.UK society contains Hindus and Sikhs at all levels - they have strong community spirit, but they intermarry with and are respected by the native Brits.The big difference is the way these religions treat women. Here's how Indian Hindus see Indian Muslim treatment of women.THE NATIONAL Commission for Women has done a distinct service to society by coming out with its report on the status of Muslim women in India. Penned by Syeda Saiyidain Hameed, it is literally the `Voice of the voiceless.' Many girls are married off before they are 15. The man has the right to have more than one wife. And he can divorce them at will - with the triple utterance of the word talaq. This talaq can even be conveyed by phone or post-card. ...There is a vicious circle of large families, poverty, little education and less employment. According to the 1991 census, Muslims are 12.12 per cent of the population. But only 4 per cent of Indians who finish school are Muslim. Only 4 per cent Indians in government jobs are Muslim. And nobody seems to know how to break this vicious circle. To an objective observer the solution is clear enough; there must be a ban on polygamy and triple talaq. A divorced woman - and her minor children - must be maintained as long as she does not remarry. They must have smaller families and they must take greater care to send their children to school.Of course Indian Hindu society, like our own, has only recently ceased to treat women as inferiors. But unlike Muslim society it has made the transition, for example electing a woman as president in 1966. The Sikh religion appears to have treated women as equals earlier than any other society:Against this backdrop it is significant that Sikhism, one of the world's youngest religions, accorded women complete equality with men in all spheres of life over five hundred years ago.All of which explains why the US and UK have so many Hindu and Sikh women professionals.This isn't intended to romanticize women, who are of course often extremely irritating and lack a proper interest in, for example, the finer points of cars. But it doesn't take a lot of analysis to see that a society that suppresses the talents of half of its people is going to lose out against one that doesn't.So the way to civilize the Muslim killers hiding in Brit society & the rioters in France and Denmark is to free their women. This big project is vastly preferable to the alternatives of deporting and/or repressing tens of millions of people.To achieve this, European societies have to ensure that Muslim women are fully educated, that they are protected from brutalization by Muslim males, and that the Muslim quasi-legal basis for treating women as chattels is extirpated.As well as changes in laws, this will need lots of cops - preferably women and probably armed. Cops to keep the streets safe for women, cops to make sure that young women are not prevented from attending school (common in the UK), cops to bust very family member who commits or abets an honor killing or beating (common in Germany), cops to protect the educators.And look at the upside! Native Europeans are not reproducing enough and face dilution by Muslim incomers. If they do nothing, they'll be overrun by barbarians, whereas if they free Muslim women their societies will peacefully prosper.

Defend yourself

I got this from the Lexis legal site.
The Bill to change the law on resisting intruders received early rebuffs in Government, signalling it will struggle to become law. Under the plan, only those who use "grossly disproportionate force" against an intruder would leave themselves liable to prosecution. At present, the law allows homeowners to use only "reasonable force" in defence of themselves and their homes.
To my cynical but untutored eye, this looks like another Government dogs' dinner on the part of those who draw up planned legislation. Opponents say that the existing law is sufficient and there have been very few - albeit well-publicised - cases where charges have been brought. We have the present standard of "reasonable" force with the proposed barrier for the new Act being "grossly disproportionate" force. So, beyond reasonable or plain disproportionate will be OK. Who will decide what is ordinary disproportionate (?) and what is grossly etc? On this sort of thing, are the fortunes of my friends in wigs made.

My dog continues to amaze me. She is wary of dogs we meet in public - she was bitten by a rogue Labrador when a pup. We were walking in some woods today and she was off checking on her stock of rabbits. Coming along the path towards me was a fairly large Alsatian. He was very alert and stopped, hair raised, and snarled at me. It was not the sort of snarl that would respond to kindness and the mutt did not sit when I gave it a trainer's sort of instruction. I was just adjusting my balance to give it a quick kick in the slats if it came closer when Sable appeared. She stood alongside me and snarled at the much larger dog. Not a trace of fear. The other dog went off sideways into the undergrowth and that was that.

In her case, what she did was well within the bounds of reasonable never mind disproportionate.

Friday 4 November 2005

Mt wife The Project Manager - Part TWO

The work in our bathroom has now been completed. Despite B & Q rather than because of them.
Individually, each part of their survey, fitting and customer service team seem capable of doing a good job. The problem seems to be getting them all on-side as one team. We had a delivery that was short of all items and included a unserviceable item. We were given a date for uplift of the broken item and delivery of the items required. That took place but we still did not have a complete set of bits. Various suggestions were put forward as to what would happen next. As we had had so much faffing about, we insisted on very close estimates as to the time things would happen.
This attitude was not catered for. Then came the suggestion that everything be put back for a week whilst everything was collected. We did not want this - their not being able to get it right in six weeks convinced us it would not happen in one. Then we realised we had sufficient parts to deal with the bath replacement. This, of course, was all we really wanted. We told B & Q we were so dissatistied that we were cancelling the works on w.c. and hand basin. They agreed to this so we had a result.
Well done Norma - we'll make a project manager of you yet!

Wednesday 2 November 2005

Afterthought

I wrote about The Master and his article where he expressed wish to a a pole-dancers' pole. When I wrote it there was something in my mind that I wanted to add. It just would not come to me.
This morning I woke up and straight away remembered. The singer Blondie used to sing a song in which she expressed the wish
I wanna go to Heaven before I die

That's what I wanted to add. Strange how the mind works isn't it?

OK - see what your result is

I am 19% Idiot.
Friggin Genius
I am not annoying at all. In fact most people come to me for advice. Of course they annoy the hell out of me. But what can I do? I am smarter than most people.

Tuesday 1 November 2005

Examples abound

I recently bought a book on creative writing as I thought it might lead to something. I'm still being creative about that idea. However, that man whom I now follow like a disciple, has just posted this.
We are not entirely without ambition. Often I have seen a young lovely in Bangkok, on Patpong or Nana Plaza or Soi Cowboy, revolving without excessive clothing around a brass pole in a dim club with disco thumping in the murk and almond eyes watching for a flicker of interest. I do not want to be president, nor a Rothschild nor a computer magnate. But a brass pole in Bangkok, that I could be.

Snap

In the late 1970s Snoopy embarked upon a journey to visit Daisy Hill, only to find that the puppy farm had been replaced by a six-story parking garage.


This is the same sort of dreadful event that happens to me. The vandals destroy my heritage.

Monday 31 October 2005

Sorry - this is a must

Iranian kills woman when she proposes
Mon Oct 31, 2005 12:19 PM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A 52-year-old Iranian has been sentenced to death for killing his 70-year-old lover when she asked to marry him, a newspaper reported Monday.

A court report in the Etemad daily said a taxi driver, identified only as Hamidreza, became furious when his elderly lover Setareh proposed marriage.

"I went to her house and she said she had deep feelings for me and suggested we get married," he told the court.

Hamidreza explained he already had a wife and children. "She then got frustrated and slapped me," he said.

The man knocked her unconscious and suffocated her with bed-sheets before making off with her jewelry.

I haven't put a link to this as this is all there is and and veracity issue would be minor compared to this.

But, just think - if this guy came to England we would all be enjoined to think of him as one of us and make him welcome.

Mind you, if there are any other 70 year-old Iranian women (any nationality considered though) who wish to - and can - keep a 52 year-old interested by sex alone, please give her my details.

Sunday 30 October 2005

Time out

I found this on my wanderings. Sums up how I seem to be feeling right now. So, though this is nicked from another - it's my message for a while.
Back Soon
Despite what the above picture suggests, I haven't gone to the beach, nor am I currently walking into the sea never to be heard of again. I'm merely very tired and distinctly uninspired. Mind too full and too empty at the same time. And although it's pathetic, I hate looking at or even thinking about a neglected weblog page containing nothing more than the ongoing self-pity that has characterised recent posts. So I'm taking a break for a while. Back soon. Ish.

Something more on avian flu

This is from Diamond Geezer - so, not much doubt about his origins.

H5N1 Chistmas

Hi Mum. Hi Dad.

Sorry, but for the first time in my life I'm not able to be with you this Christmas. At least it's not my fault, it's that damned bird flu. Even if I was allowed to leave London, which I'm not, I don't think I'd ever be able to get round the Felixstowe Exclusion Zone. I've heard they shoot people who try to cross the M25 now, so it's really not worth the risk. And I understand things are really bad up your way too, all coughing and choking and spluttering everywhere. Maybe if you'd realised Norfolk was a county full of potentially disease-ridden turkeys you wouldn't have moved there in the first place. Is Bernard Matthews still on the critically ill list?

London's a very strange city at the moment, or at least it was the last time I dared venture out a couple of days ago. I bet I looked really stupid wearing a dustmask, but I'd still rather look stupid than risk catching something. The streets of East London were as empty as you might expect, although Christmas lights still shone defiantly in a few windows. It took a couple of hours until I finally found a shop that was still stocked and open. I'd never normally pay fifty quid for some rice and a few tins of something with a foreign label, but these are desperate times. I passed a handful of sick-looking people lying under blankets in doorways with the telltale red splotchmarks across their faces. You'd think the authorities would have taken them off the streets by now, but the few council lorries I saw seemed to be busy transporting corpses instead. I shan't be going out again.

I've not been into the office for ages, which suits me because taking the tube was starting to feel like a kind of viral Russian roulette. But it's strange staying indoors all day every day. At least there's the internet for company, but when the power cuts come I just curl up under the duvet with a good book. Much better than the endless public information films on the telly anyway. All those surplus IKEA tealights are starting to come in very useful - I hope yours haven't run out yet. The wailing from the flat directly above me finally stopped last night. All that constant moaning and wheezing was really getting on my nerves, but somehow the empty silence is far far worse. And I'm still waking up every morning and praying that my light sniffle hasn't developed into anything more serious. So far so good - it's probably just a cold - but's it's really worrying all the same.

So, I'm celebrating Christmas with three cards, a box of handkerchiefs and one of my remaining cans of lager (I'm saving the other one for New Year). I stockpiled a turkey ready meal in the freezer last month before this whole crisis worsened, but I fear it's semi-defrosted too many times now. Maybe I'll just have to make do with the last of the Advent chocolates for lunch. Then, if the electricity holds out, I'll listen to the King's Christmas Broadcast - see if he can wring an ounce of hope out of the whole dreadful situation. Sorry I've not managed to buy you a present this year. BUPA sold out of online gift subscription packs weeks ago, and multipack boxes of tissues are just too bulky to post. I'm glad to that hear you're both still fit and well (see, that flu jab in October
was worth it), and long may the two of you stay that way. Happy clucking Christmas.

2,000th US soldier killed in Iraq

If you are able
save for them a place
inside of you
and save a backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.