Shipman bungler escapes action

He has still to face a drugs handling charge though.

The detective whose failings probably left Harold Shipman free to kill three more times learned yesterday that he will not face trial on a charge of perjury.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has decided there is insufficient evidence to pursue Det Insp David Smith, despite the fact that he lied on oath to a High Court judge.
The decision, which may allow the officer to retire following a two-and-a-half year suspension from Greater Manchester Police, has enraged relatives of Shipman's victims.
Britain's most prolific serial killer had already murdered more than 250 of his patients by the time Det Insp Smith was called in. He failed either to speak to Shipman or to check whether he had a criminal record. He then lied both to his superiors and to the inquiry headed by Dame Janet Smith.
Det Insp Smith, who has been paid more than £100,000 in wages since his suspension on full pay, was also criticised by another judge over his role in a separate murder investigation. David Barnshaw, a drugs dealer, was murdered in 1999. Six men were later charged, but their trial was halted when it emerged that police had deliberately withheld evidence and failed to disclose information to the defence.
During that case Judge Penry-Davey, sitting at Preston Crown Court, accused Det Insp Smith of "not telling the truth''. The officer was suspended in relation to both matters on August 1, 2003. He has yet to appear before an internal disciplinary panel.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission confirmed in January that neither he, nor four other officers involved in the Barnshaw murder trial, would face criminal charges.
A spokesman said at the time: "We will now wait for Greater Manchester Police to submit a decision outlining what disciplinary proceedings, if any, are appropriate.''
Det Insp Smith, 48, was asked to investigate Shipman in March 1998. A partner in a neighbouring medical practice in Hyde, Manchester, had expressed concerns to the local coroner, who called in the police.
During the investigation Det Insp Smith failed to ask for autopsies and toxicology tests on two victims, and denied having been told by Shipman's whistle-blowing colleague, Dr Linda Reynolds, that the bodies would have been available for testing at the time.
The Shipman Inquiry concluded that many of his mistakes were made because of a lack of experience and supervision and that he was "out of his depth''. Dame Janet said he lied about what Dr Reynolds had told him "in an attempt to evade responsibility for his failure to arrange an autopsy".
The detective's failure left Shipman free to kill three more of his patients. Danny Mellor, whose mother, Winifred, was one of Shipman's later victims, reacted with fury to the decision.
"It's astonishing that the CPS had the words of a High Court judge to go on and they still couldn't find enough evidence," he said. "I feel that at least a jury should have been given the chance to come to its own conclusion." Mr Mellor said there seemed to be "an inordinate reluctance" to prosecute police officers.
Jayne Gaskell, who believes she lost both her parents to Shipman, said she was appalled that Det Insp Smith's case had yet to be resolved. "I can't believe that this man has been paid so much for so long to do nothing while families like ours are denied justice."
Mrs Gaskell's father, Sydney, is thought to have been murdered in 1979. Sixteen years later Shipman gave her mother, Bertha, 69, a lethal injection of diamorphine. Mrs Gaskell said: "People probably died because Mr Smith didn't carry out that first investigation properly. He should not be being paid and I'd like to see him cut out without a pension."
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said disciplinary action against Det Insp Smith was still under consideration. Mr Smith, who is believed to live in the Glossop area of Derbyshire, could not be contacted last night.

Size matters!

Now I have your attention................
This is constructive use of ones time I think.

In the following extract from Words, Words, Words, language expert David Crystal shows how to estimate the size of your vocabulary...

As adults, our passive vocabulary is usually a third larger than our active vocabulary. We understand far more words than we routinely use.

How can we find out what our active and passive levels are? Most people are intrigued by the question, and would like to know how large their wordhoard is. One method of calculation is given below.

i. Take a dictionary, any dictionary...

Take a medium-sized dictionary - one between 1,500 and 2,000 pages. Aim for a sample of pages which is 2 per cent of the whole. If the dictionary is 1,500 pages, that means a sample of thirty pages; 2,000 pages will give you forty. Ensure the sample is exactly 2 per cent, to make the final calculation easy (see below).

ii. Spread the sample

Break the sample down into a series of selections from different parts of the dictionary - say (for a thirty-page sample), six choices of five pages each, or ten choices of three pages. It isn't sensible to take all pages from a single part. If you chose letter U, for instance, you would find yourself flooded with words beginning with un-. But do make sure you include some prefixes. A representative sample would look like this: words beginning with CA-, EX-, JA-, OB-, PL-, SC-, TO-, and UN-.

iii. Check the words

Begin with the first full page in each case - in other words, if you are looking for EX- and you find a few EX- words at the bottom of the page, ignore them and start at the top of the next page.

Go through all the words on each page of your sample. Divide your page margins into two columns. (Alternatively, you can write the headwords out on a separate sheet of paper.) If you think you know a word, but would not use it yourself, put a light pencil tick in the left-hand column. If you think you would, in addition, actively use the word, put a tick in the right-hand column. This is the difference between your passive and active vocabulary. You may need to look at the definition or examples given next to the word before you can decide. Ignore the number of meanings the word has: if you know or use the word in any of its meanings, that will do.

In a more sophisticated version, you can have three columns under each of these headings. For passive vocabulary, you can ask yourself: 'Do I know the word well, vaguely, or not at all?' For active vocabulary, you can ask: 'Do I use the word often, occasionally, or not at all?' If you are uncertain, use the final column.

Make sure you don't miss any words out. Some dictionaries cluster (or 'nest') words together in bold face within an entry, just showing their endings, as in nation, ~al, ~ize. Don't ignore these. They are different words. Also include any phrases or idioms, such as call up and call the tune. Ignore alternative spellings: an example like Caesarean/Cesarean counts as just one word.

iv. Add up the ticks

Add up the ticks in each column, and jot the totals down at the bottom of each page. Then add up all the page totals. Multiply by 50 (if your sample was 2 per cent of the whole). The result will be, more or less, the size of your personal vocabulary.

The procedure, of course, doesn't allow for people who happen to know a large number of non-standard words, such as dialect words, which won't be in this kind of dictionary. And if you are, say, a scientist, it will underestimate your specialist vocabulary too. But the figure it gives will be an approximation of your everyday wordhoard. And it will be larger than you think.

Anecdotage

Reading through a web page about development of language and came across this

Anecdotage

Anecdotal dotage; that advanced age where all one does is relate stories about "the good, old days."

This word really means "anecdotes considered as a whole." But I stumbled across it in the dictionary today, and the "anecdotal dotage" idea just sort of leaped out at me. However, I've subsequently discoverd that The Oxford English Dictionary not only lists this sense of the word — and defines it, succinctly, as "garrulous old age" — but it has a citation that dates all the way back to 1835!

That is me defined then!

That question/

From today's Telegraph.

Could it be that one day, not too far off, the English will embark on a boycott of Scotch whisky, turning instead to the Irish or the American or, if all else fails, the Spanish stuff? Might a time come when English housewives exile Scottish products from their trolleys? Could the Scotch egg have had its day?

I ask these questions as a British journalist resident in Barcelona who has spent time in Britain recently talking to people about the West Lothian question. And I ask not in a fanciful spirit, because I have seen how here in Spain people have set about an aggressive, organised and extraordinarily effective boycott of Catalan goods on grounds rather less pressing than the undemocratic Westminster practice of allowing Scottish MPs to vote on English laws over which they manifestly should have no say.

Plain speaking

Don't know who wrote this - it is an anonymous comment on a blog that I regard as rubbish so I'm not linking it. However, I do agree with what the nameless person says.

That Sadaam was evil, and that life in Iraq under his rule was hellish is beyond denial. But the continued survival of Sadaam accomplished one major thing: a lid was kept on the perpetually bubbling tensions between shiites and sunnis. As in all dictatorships, internecine ethnic/religious conflicts are put on the back burner, as all can at least agree that the man in power is opressing everyone. Once the tyrant is deposed, all those long-simmering hatreds bubble over, and that is the case at present in Iraq. Forget the nespapers that report we are "crawling toward" civil war in Iraq---we are there already, babe. As Iraqi seeks to kill Iraqi, it begs the question, "What are we doing there anymore?" We're certainly not stopping or slowing down the slaughter, as dozens or hundreds die every week through car bombs or rocket attacks. How long can we remain there, before both sides realize that what they have in common a desire to get us out, once and for all? Then, it will be open season on American troops to an extent we haven't yet seen there. Are we supposed to babysit this country for the next several decades? We must at some point say, "Look, we've done all we can do. We got rid of your dictator. The rest is up to you." Will it continue to be a bloodbath there? Of course. But this fight started long before we got there, and buzzwords like "democracy" really don't count for much in an 800-year-old family squabble.

Oh dear!

This does not seem to have hit the airwaves just yet but it seems that dear old Ken Livingstone is being his cuddly self again. This guys stuff is normally - I think I can say this without a problem - kosher and he reports thus:

During the course of a press conference this morning in which the Stratford City Consortium was being discussed, Ken Livingstone apparently expressed the following views on the Reuben brothers - a pair of jewish property developers who are involved in the project:

"If they're not happy here perhaps they could go back to Iran and try it under the Ayatollahs"

I haven't the full context of the quotation: but it seems to be connected to a falling out between two of the property companies involved in developing the Olympic Village site in Stratford: one of which is headed by the Reuben brothers. Ken Livingstone seems to be backing the other property company in the dispute. Some background on that story is here.

This seems to me to be unfortunate, at least, for the following reasons:

1. The "Ayatollahs" have a record of doing this sort of thing to Iranian jews; while Ahmadinejad says this sort of thing.

2. Ken is in the process of appealing against the Standards Board's suspension, which arose from his comparison of a jewish reporter to a "concentration camp guard". A sensible person might think now was a good time not to go round making quips about jews and the sorts of people who might want to do them in.

3. The Reuben brothers were born in Bombay to Iraqi parents of Jewish descent. Indeed, a quick search suggests that they are supporters of the charity Medical Aid for Iraqi Children.

4. It is a bit off when politicians go round telling any immigrant to "go back" to anywhere "if they're not happy here".

I wonder what the Ken spin on this will be. My money is on:

(a) I had no idea that these well known jewish property developers were jews;

(b) They are plutocrats, and the plutocrats supported Hitler, dontchaknow; or

(c) This all is really about Israel.

UPDATE

I've spoken to somebody who was at the press conference.

Basically, the context of this quotation is the business deal that I mentioned above.

Livingstone started by talking about other transactions in whcih the Reuben brothers have been involved. He goes on to suggest that, whereas other property developers he has worked with - and he names two with jewish names - are genuine Londoners, who care about jobs and creating great buidlings - the Reuben brothers are all about "how much money they can squeeze out of every single deal".

In the next question on the Reuben brothers, Ken Livingstone says that they have never come to see him personally. Then he speculates that they are "not happy" and suggests that they go back to Iran and see if they do better under the Ayatollahs.

I expect there will be an official transcript against which this can be checked.

Requiat the cat

RIP Humphrey. The 'house cat' employed as a mouser at 10 Downing Street until the arrival of the B Liars has died in retirement at the home of the civil servant to whom he was banished. Apparently Mrs B Liar said that cats were unhygienic. Apart from having doubts on her ability to recognise hygiene given the company she keeps, I would say that cats are far more hygienic than politicians - they only lick their own arses!

Exercise your mind

4 Noble Truths

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Four Noble Truths (Pali, "cattari ariya saccani") are taught in Buddhism as the fundamental insight or enlightenment of Sakyamuni Buddha (the historical Buddha), which led to the formulation of the Buddhist philosophy.

1. Dukkha: There is suffering and impermanence in life for all beings.
   
2. Samudaya: There is a cause for Dukkha, which is attachment and desire (tanha).
   
3. Nirodha: There is a way out of Dukkha, which is to eliminate attachment and desire.
   
4. Magga: There is a path that leads out of Dukkha, called the Noble Eightfold Path.

This outline form is exactly that used by doctors of the Buddha's culture when diagnosing and prescribing for a disease: identify the disease, its cause, whether it is curable, and the prescribed cure. Thus the Buddha treats suffering as a "disease" we can confidently expect to cure.

Because of its focus on suffering, Buddhism is often called pessimistic. But since Gautama Buddha presented a cure, Buddhists consider it neither pessimistic nor optimistic but realistic.

The Four Noble Truths was the topic of the first sermon given by the Buddha after his enlightenment. He gave the sermon to the ascetics with whom he had practiced austerities.

If I have any readers of these missives, I commend the Noble Truths as worth of further examination. They may use a form of words with which we are unfamiliar but the ideas strike a chord with me. Dukkha only says that life is hard. Don't I know it! The cause of most of this can be established and, once that is done, there is a way to improve things. Go on - open your mind. I dare you.

Nice stamp

Back in the day, when I had to submit police reports and case investigation papers, it would have been nice to have had the ability to add such a stamp to the paperwork.

Are we there yet?

Back in the days, I used to deal quite often with people who were running skim-off funds, slush funds, building improvement trusts - they had a variety of names. What they had in common was a source of funds that was kept very confidential and were controlled by one or a few persons only. Whilst they were fiddles, they were more short-circuits of fiscal controls.
However, sometimes, the guy in charge found themselves in need of a temporary - or longer - boost to their funds. Ah! the good old slush fund. That is when things got dirty. Suppose it still goes on really. Nice young couple find themselves a bit short of the mortgage money. Put in extra effort but still a bit hard-up and not rewarded as they feel they deserve.
The picture is just here as a joke you understand. No connection with the story of course.

Test for the ladies

OK ladies - you've seen enough. Now close your eyes and tell us how many dogs in the picture?

My bleeding heart goes out to....

...these people.

We have been following the little-noted collapse of stock prices on several markets in the Arab world. The New York Sun picks up on an article in the U.K. Telegraph:

It is known for Porsche-driving princes and the lavish lifestyles of the oil-wealthy, but this week Saudi Arabia’s rich kids have been selling their cars and even rushing to the doctor after a whirlwind stock market crash saw huge profits perish.

Heart-attacks, stress, hospitalization, and panic selling are all reported results of the Saudi collapse, which has seen tens of billions of dollars in losses in a fortnight.

This week alone the Saudi market fell by 20%, with only the promise from a prince to invest $2.6 billion temporarily stemming the financial bleeding.

The losses have been particularly hard felt in the share-mad kingdom, where more than a third of the 17 million population dabble in the stock market. With years of soaring profits fuelled by ever-higher oil prices, small investors have rushed to get in on the action. Now panic and despair have hit the almost 60% of Saudi investors who are small dealers speculating with family savings.

“Many individuals have pulled their savings out of banks and put it into local stocks, with many even borrowing to the limit to do so,” a vice-president at Riyad Bank in the Saudi capital, Khan H. Zahid, said.

We indulge in no schadenfreude over the losses of the petro-sheikhs. The people we really worry about have no use for stockmarkets or much else that was invented after the eighth century or so

Useful maxim

This was written about blogs but I feel it has universal truth in many other areas. No - I cannot remember where I found it. Anyway, the nugget of information goes like this:-

A salad bar that’s 5 miles long is as useless to me as one that’s 3000 miles long because I’m getting all the salad I can eat in the first 15 feet.

Just remember not to fill up on the cheap stuff!

Big Business business

When you read this sort of forecast, it is understandable that Google appeared to swallow principles and agree to consorship in China. To me, the forecast becomes even more impressive when one bears in mind the sort of access limits the Chinese have in place. Makes it all the more clearer though why I do not have Google-like financial rewards - too damn thick!

Four Horsemen

No real reason for this being here except I like the image.
However, I wonder if we might rename them?
Peerages, Loans, Mortgage repayments and ID Cards.

Cute idea

Great idea for those places that require registration of your whole life events just to read one scruffy article

Reincarnated

I'm not usually impressed with people doing this to dogs but this looks just so like Arafat that I could not deny myself here.
Ooh! - is this an Islamic cartoon?

Joke misfires

Reading through SEO focused blog entries, Vandetta found an article that explained how to fool Google's news system by writing fake press releases. Sensing an opportunity to experiment and play a joke on his friends, the self-described "Google fanboy" decided to see what would happen if he submitted a fake Google press release claiming the 15-year old New Jersey student was Google's youngest employee.

He managed to get himself his 15 minutes of fame quite early.

Tales from the bedroom

Because Norma seems to spend a fair part of each night singing ‘Oh for the wings of a dove’ when she is not dancing the bossa nova, I have moved my bedroom. We have a nice small room in the attic conversion area and that is now my bedroom. Not too many sloping eaves. Just one smallish Velux window so no fussing with curtains night and morning. I have set about making it into more of a den than a window.
A programmable oil heater keeps it warm and toasty once I am in bed – if I stick to the programme – without overheating the room. I’ve added a time switch extension bar so that my alarm is from a nice soft light coming on and not some raucous bell ringing. This extension also controls the music from iPod and the radio so that I get soft light, music and then news broadcast in that order. My dvd player and a nice selection of films is also conveniently to hand.
Latest add-in was a clock – time signal from the place at Rugby of course – combined with a weather centre. This has a sensor to show outside temperature so I can be in bed and know just how lucky I am to have stopped all that commuting annoyance. There is a barometer feature so I get a little man displaying what sort of clothes I need to find. Any more customizing (something to produce cold gin and tonic sir?) and I’ll have to think about a burglar alarm. Only drawback is that Sable does not like the attic area since the days when it was a pistol range and she will not come up there at all. I felt a bit off colour the other evening and it was comforting to be able to retire with my man flu to my own-design little world.

Scrabble names

In our family, Scrabble generates quite a bit of heat.

This should be OK though

Pholph's Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 30. What is your score? Get it here.

Last word - promise!

COPPERSBLOG VISITORS: WELCOME! A warm welcome for those visitors who may have strayed here via the link from coppersblog.
This site was never really intended to be anything more than a shop window for my own particular branch of specialist research and I certainly can't pretend my working day currently provides as much opportunities for dark humour and dry wit as wielding the biro of justice (or even stacking a supermarket shelf for that matter). Nonetheless, if you've made the effort to pay a visit there's a good chance you may have a passing interest in the state of ICT in the police service.
There are plenty of commentators out there volunteering hastily scribbled takes on this subject. Depending on the particular combination of pundit and soapbox, the UK police are either institutionally incompetent, bic-wielding luddites grimly hanging-on to ancient and lucrative Spanish practices, or else they are a dangerous new breed of digitally enhanced super-snoops complicit in the building a sleek new Orwellian state and absolutely itching to start data-mining the reading habits of the middle-classes. Neither stereotype stands up to much scrutiny.
Although there is a fair bit of ground to cover between two such polarised opinions, in truth, much of it will appear dull and featureless to the untrained eye. The Home Office, tripartite police authorities and the 52 forces that make up the service in the UK had been trying to wrestle a coherent national ICT service into place for over ten years, before a public inquiry into a tragic double-murder finally forced the issue. Even today there is probably less chance of over-hearing a canteen discussion between officers on the implications of CorDM and CRISP than there is of seeing the subject emerge as a sub-plot of a Sun Hill cliff-hanger.
Concepts such as 'value for money' and 'cost-effectiveness' can leave a sour taste in the mouth when used in the context of policing. As the Met recently demonstrated, it is the responsibility of the police to step up and take control when our worst nightmares manifest themselves on our streets, and this carries a heavy weight of expectation. The public want their police to be even-handed and accountable as well as an informed, accessible and visible part of their communities, yet they also want them to pursue criminality decisively and relentlessly without a second thought to time or cost.
Car chases and collars are infinately more entertaining than paperwork in triplicate. Even still, I'd hazard a guess that a majority of both the police service and the citizens they serve would prefer paperwork in triplicate over a discussion of how commoditised data-integration techniques and process-based applications can potentially deliver efficient, effective and transparent policing. Spend a little time on this site and you'll probably begin to see why.
So, if you're here because you are interested in what it's like working as a police officer in the UK, I'm going to politely redirect you back to PC Copperfield. If, on the other hand, you are interested in how ICT can be used to protect civil liberties, or are one of the thousands of IT workers involved in the massive program of ICT-led reform of criminal justice underway in this country � have a nosy about this site and, if there's anything you're interested in - or want to put me straight on - drop us a line and let me know.

Hot News! Pope is Catholic! Bears defecate in woods!

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little over 500 employees, yet has the following statistics?

29 have been accused of spouse abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?

They are members of the British Houses of Parliament, that's the same group that produces hundreds of new laws each year intended to keep the rest of us on track.

Tail of a dogs dinner decision

This appears on a blog.

Next week Parliament will get to vote on the Animal Welfare Bill. There is a free vote on whether to ban tail docking. To be honest, I haven't read around this subject yet (I will do on my train journey down to Westminster) but I'm up to be persuaded either way. On the one hand, I think I've voted to ban enough things and activities this year. On the other, chopping of a dogs tail does seem a brutal act. What are your views?

I’m sure I am not the only person who is somewhat surprised to see this admission as to how lightly one Labour politician takes his duties. Hasn’t read up on it, will do it on the train from Midlands to London – what’s that, all of two hours less other phaffing about to be done?
Tom is the Labour MP for West Bromwich East. He has a blog here. Most likely written for him – unless it is something else for his train journey. Quite a busy guy is our Tom. His own account of how his time is spent is also detailed on his blog.
Tom Watson lives in the Sandwell with his wife Siobhan. Following his election to Parliament in June 2001 with a 9,763 majority, Tom was appointed to the Home Affairs Select Committee. In 2003, Tom was made Parliamentary Private Secretary to The Paymaster General, Dawn Primarolo. He joined the government whips office at the end of 2004.
Tom sat on the Standing Committee for the Proceeds of Crime Bill, as well as the Standing Committee for the Communications Bill, the Human Tissue Bill, The Civil Partnerships Bill and the Gambling Bill.
He is vice-treasurer of the All Party Parliamentary Music Group.
He presented the Organ Donation (Presumed Consent and Safeguards) Bill to Parliament in March 2002.
Tom has recently taken part in the Police Parliamentary Scheme. The scheme entailed being attached to the West Midlands Police Force for three weeks.
The issue of tail docking has attracted considerable comment. I summarise it as one where the town dwellers have formed the opinion that a vet’s removal of the tail end on certain types of dog is cruel and unnatural. The country dwellers, in the main and as the people who know why the cropping is done, have tried to explain but, I suspect, to no avail. I have always owned sporting dogs whose tails are routinely cropped and have never noticed any stress from what is done when any bone is still unformed cartilage. I have seen whippets with torn (long) tails and that is not a pretty sight. Still, as in hunting, ill-informed might will win over the minority of those who know what the fuss is about. Doubtless, it will end up a farce just as the hunting saga. Some of the more extreme are likely to cause their dogs an injury such that removal has to be carried out on an adult dog. Wrong on the owners part but a crime that is unnecessary if common sense prevailed.
Not, I would suggest, a decision to be reached as lightly as dear Tom has decided to base his vote.

Ear Ear, whats going on 'ere then?

So, big deal eh? A senior police officer has been making tape recordings of telephone calls to the high and mighty such as the Attorney General and the IPCC. Now follows a media witch-hunt for the copper’s head on a platter. What rubbish!
Firstly, making tape recordings of significant conversations is second nature to any police officer. The first defence of the rogue is to claim that any unfortunate remark he has made was in fact dreamed up by the officer concerned. The rules regarding evidence are quite clear.

Principle

Most interviews at police stations with persons suspected of having committed indictable or either way offences should be tape recorded.
Tape recorded interviews need not be conducted in respect of persons suspected of having committed a terrorist offence or offences contrary to the Official Secrets Act 1911.
If a suspect is charged following a tape recorded interview, a Record of Interview will be prepared. This has traditionally been the responsibility of the officer present at the interview, but in some police forces 'tape summarisers' are now used.
The Record of Interview serves a number of purposes:

• To enable the prosecutor to make an informed decision on the basis of what was said at interview;


• To be an exhibit to the officer's statement;


• To enable the prosecutor to comply with advance disclosure; and


• Where it is accepted by the defence, to be used for the conduct of the case by all parties.

• 
  

Certainly, the Chief Constable was not carrying out an investigative duty when talking with the AG or IPCC. However, something made him take this course. We cannot know the previous conversations that might have taken place un-recorded but it is possible there might have been, at the very least, some ‘misunderstanding’ or confusion as to actual words that were used. Given that this government are masters of spin and obfuscation it is certainly a good idea to have an irrefutable record of discussions. If one looks at the character of Sir Ian with any suspicion, it is only fair to remember that this is the same AG who is finding difficulty in getting his words out regarding the legality of the war in Iraq.
To me, the sad thing about this is that a police officer has so lost his trust in his associates that he feels the need to record his business with them.
The AG has accepted an apology (was this recorded?). We do not know what the IPCC thinks or intends to do - if anything. However, the Indians are circling the wagons.

Police ticker

Just click in the 'blank' looking box

Rules of the house

Whilst this advice is intended for comment boxes, I think it is valid for all forum postings as well. I get really annoyed when a serious or well-structured thread gets hi-jacked by someone with their own agenda.

The other woman in my life

Funny thing - discovering this article. I was just beginning to think along the same lines.

The cat in the hat

Nice little old lady. However, there are people in this country who are so paranoid - or so far down the jobsworth road - that they have to subject her to detailed scrutiny.

The lady in the photograph is a heroine. Aged 82, she was banned from a local pub for refusing to take off her hat. The ban on hats was brought in so that CCTV could get a good look at the usual clientele of baseball-capped hoodie-wearing yobs.

Nobody in authority (Hah!) in the pub could understand that 82-year-old ladies hardly ever smash up pubs or assault staff and other drinkers, so the hat and the lady were declared to be unwelcome.

For her part, the lady stated that she was of an age and generation where a hat was de-rigeur.

Isn't science wonderful?

This came to me by way of a newsletter that I subscribe to. I note that it has been bought by the NHS. Shame that lack of funds prevented the one development that would have been of real value. If it were possible to wire these into the National Grid, I would forego some of the money spent on me in other directions. Oh - I also volunteer to press the button when the slightest tumesence is detected.

penile plethysmograph (PPG)

The penile plethysmograph (pluh-THIZ-muh-graf) (PPG) is a machine for measuring changes in the circumference of the penis. A stretchable band with mercury in it is fitted around the subject's penis. The band is connected to a machine with a video screen and data recorder. Any changes in penis size, even those not felt by the subject, are recorded while the subject views sexually suggestive or pornographic pictures, slides, or movies, or listens to audio tapes with descriptions of such things as children being molested.

Just in case my inclusion of this leads for calls for me to be so analysed (!), please read the whole thing.

See you!

This is from the blog of one of the officers who decided to carry on after the cull. It chimes with me as I have been thinking this man's point for some while

It amused me during training when we were shown the ‘corporate’ image of the police. Members of the public (good or bad) that we deal with are referred to as customers to our business and true to this senior management are no longer leaders but managers. In fact we can’t call them superior officers any more – they’re supervisors.

What amazes me is how wrong the police have managed to get the corporate image. If I walk into a show room looking into buying a car I may have a priority feature. Let’s say I want a fast car. Really fast. Don’t care about anything else as long as it’s faster than faeces off a shovel after a particularly hot curry. Unfortunately I’m also aware it’s not free, it’s going to cost some dollar. Now as I don’t build cars or design them I go to a firm that has been doing it for years. After all they know how to design a car and all about aerodynamics and engines and the like. I don’t. I give them as much money as I can afford for the fastest damn car they’ll give me for it. Guess what? The car goes fast. Yes, it might break down a few times, but then I wanted it fast not efficient, otherwise they’d have sold me a different car altogether. It’s not that comfortable either, it tends to be a bit bumpy as the suspension is quite hard. And despite ‘the customer always being right’ they wouldn’t sell me a car that was just as fast, efficient and comfortable. Not because they didn’t want to – because I couldn’t bloody afford it!

Now, call me old fashioned… and perhaps I’m going to be wrong about this one but I thought the police were there to stop crime. In fact I thought we knew quite a bit about it – the prisons are full after all. We’re not social workers, councillors or otherwise. We know how to build a fast car, councils are better at building comfortable, slow ones.

So why do we try and let the customer tell us how to build our type of car?! I don’t care how much they say they feel comfortable seeing a police officer walking the beat or how much they think it deters crime, I’m sorry to say it doesn’t. Nor does us doing it in fluorescent jackets! In fact if anything it makes crime a damn sight easier because they know exactly where we are. To build our fast cars we need LESS visibility. We need the criminal about to shoplift to wonder if the person buying a sandwich is in fact a plain clothes police officer ready to jump on him.

And guess what? Although we’d love to stop crime in the first place crime is still going to happen somewhere we’re not. Now we could do as you want and walk there or we could try and catch the person responsible for it by getting there quickly in a car. And before you try and tell me how to build my bloody fast car again no we can’t always do both, we don’t have enough mechanics working on this car and you won’t pay what it would cost to hire them.

We want to stop crime, we REALLY do. But whilst we’re spending time looking at a space where your car once was or bumbling down your residential road on foot lit up like a Christmas tree we could be saving lives or keeping an eye on the person we know stole your car in the first place and maybe even catch him at it. When we build that car people will make room on their drive for it, alongside that MPV estate they bought from the council down the road. That one might be more fuel efficient but we all know which one you enjoy the most.

Living in a crime scene

In 24 hours, more than 100 calls about snowball incidents were reported to police in south east Kent. Police reminded the public, that people throwing snowballs could be prosecuted for assualt in cases where they are used to attack people causing injury. In one incident, a stone hidden in a snowball hit a moving bus and caused £1,000 damage. "We are not being killjoys and know children enjoy having fun in the snow. What we are saying is - do it safely," said Ch Insp Paul Wilczek.

Well, I'm glad we got out alive. Massive cash heists and now this!

Blog pet

adopt your own virtual pet!

Clue - feed it treats!

Jedi

As I'm down as a Jedi in the last Census, I had to do this survey!!

Sith Lord You scored -50 on the Force Sensitivity/Jedi Chart!

Other Sith like you are: Darth Vader, Count Dooku (Darth Tyranus), Darth Revan and Darth Malak. You are the Sith Lord, evil incarnate. You have completely succumbed to the dark side. There may be some light left in you but you work your hardest to crush it out if you feel it. Your complete power is only limited by one thing, your master. You take joy in killing and striking fear into the hearts of others as you have no real concern for anyone but yourself. You may not have all you want, but you do have a great deal. In time, you may even kill your master taking the roll for yourself, as all Sith eventually do... or die. You most likely are a very good fighter and are more then a match for nearly everyone. You should be careful of Jedi Masters and Knights as they will seek to destroy you as you are evil, as well as watch your own master and any apprentices you may have as they will both seek chances to destroy you as well. The life of a Sith is kill or be killed. ____________ Thank you for taking my test, if you have any comments, complaints or anything you'd like to see changed/added, please contact me through here or my email (zabomb56@hotmail.com).

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on Force Sense

Link: The Jedi Test written by zabomb on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Christian attitude

I try and avoid going into my attitude to Christianity. Just say I was immersed in it when young by an aunt who would nowadays be described as a fanatic. Her views were so extreme that I came to doubt what I was being told and I never went back as a believer. However, there is an article in today's Telegraph that has identified what I see as a major doubt I have always entertained. It covers foregiveness and acceptance of what comes our way as being God-driven.

Yet more - sorry!

Here is something from a officer that helps confirm what I suspected.
Police blogs are dropping like flies. Internal investigation committees are being set up, and mass emails sent to police to warn them of the dangers of blogging. Thats what I've heard anyway...
On a serious note, I can understand why senior management don't like blogs. It is very, very rare that a blog expresses their agreement with an 'official policy', and sings the praises of what a good job the police are doing. On the whole, blogs are used to rant and rave about them. With these 'anti-policy' views being thrown about, its no wonder they are slightly perturbed. However, going around threatening blogs is not the best way to deal with this!
Have any of you ever wondered why we write blogs? Why we spend our own free time putting our thoughts down on virtual paper, for all to see? The simple reason is because no matter how much we talk at work, no one is listening. There are NO forums for ordinary police officers to stand up and say "Thats good on paper, but THIS is what happens on the street". We can't knock on your doors and say "We've tried this policy, and I know it makes you look good to the public, but its causing more problems for us, because of THIS". There really isn't any way for us to do this.
We can't speak to our supervisors about the problems that policy causes - well to be more accurate, we could but it won't help. Sergeants are just as annoyed at most of them as us, and could only pass them to the inspectors. Inspectors are too busy managing all of the teams and policies, and might pass them to the Superintendants. The Superintendants are 1) Too busy playing buzzword bingo at the latest meeting and 2) Too far removed from the ordinary officer on the street to understand the problems brought to them.
Blogging is our only way to vent our frustration, and yes, we do want the public to know how frustrated we are (and WHY we are frustrated) because all that senior management teams care about is the view they give to the public. I honestly believe that senior management teams don't actually care anymore about catching criminals or solving crimes, which is what every officer joined to do. They only care about getting that extra detection, making those statistics look a little better, putting one more high visibility jacket (doesn't matter if its an officer or a PCSO) out onto the street so that the public will see them.
I could be wrong. Perhaps I have badly misjudged you. Its possible - I've never met you. I've never seen you. I've only read your blanket emails, seen your name at the bottom of every new policy. If I am wrong, and you truly do care, give us a proper chance to speak.

Another bloody survey! When will he give them up?

You are a Social Conservative (28% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (30% permissive) You are best described as a: Totalitarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

My small mind finds it funny

Three little birds - what's funny about that?

Muzzled like dangerous dogs

Afraid I am still wound up about the edict issued in relation to police officers blogging.
One of the things mentioned in the warning was

....... the 'impact of expressing views and opinions that are damaging to the organisation or bring the organisation into disrepute' must be considered. Disciplinary proceedings may be considered.

We have not seen very much of the Commissioner Blair recently. I am sure that there is a damned good case for considering how his 'views and opinions brought the organisation into disrepute' at the time the man on the tube train was executed. Even if one ignores his reckless making of statements that were untrue, there is the situation where he was the head of a force that came into disrepute and he has a responsibility there. Has that ever been considered? Will we see disciplinary proceedings instituted against him?

Another point I am uneasy about is the general state of the force. None of the blogs I read - and I think I got just about every one there was - were insubordinate as I would regard it in a disciplined force sort of way. All appeared reasonable in expressing frustration at the way the force was organised which reduced the service they should be giving the general public. So, why did these reasonable police officers feel that there was no point in addressing matters through their chain of command? There will always be malcontents in any organisation. None of the bloggers I read came into this category; I saw enough disgruntled employees in my own civilian career to recognise them. What though will be the effect of this unnecessary censorship? Will it send the writers and their friends off in a state of excitement at the way their organisation values them and the way they perform their duties?

I'm stressless!

But what is one to do if sex itself is a stressful event?

And so it begins.........

Read this. It shows the state to which a once great Police Force has sunk. Instead of doing anything about the matters commented upon, it has chosen to shoot the messenger. Not so long ago, much was being spouted from on high about freedom of speech and how essential such a freedom was; how highly it was valued and how it had to be protected. I put the rot in the Met down to the day it changed from being a Police Force to a Police Service.

On Friday 3rd March 2006, the Management Board of the Metropolitan Police Service issued the following statement to all members of staff:

'Recently the organisation has become aware of a series of web-logs or blogs - where authors - claiming to be police officers - have offered their views on a number of issues in a highly personalised, often controversial manner.'

This statement is followed by 'guidance' on writing blogs. In summary, this states that although 'blogging' cannot be stopped, the 'impact of expressing views and opinions that are damaging to the organisation or bring the organisation into disrepute' must be considered. Disciplinary proceedings may be considered against posters of material that may be (among other things) defamatory, offensive or otherwise inappropriate.

I have committed no crime. I have compromised no police operations. I have received no payment for anything published on this blog. All opinions expressed are my own.

It is therefore with deep regret and great sadness that I must announce that I will no longer be submitting posts to this blog. I cannot challenge New Scotland Yard. I am weary indeed and cowardice is my bedmate. The protection of my family must take precedence.

To each and every one of you - take note of what has happened here and be afraid.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever. - George Orwell

Major police victory in fight against racism

Gollies public enemy No1
By ANDREW PARKER

COPS raided Donald Reynolds’ shop — and seized three GOLLIES on display in his window.


Stunned Donald, 53, is being investigated over the “racially offensive” black dolls and could face prosecution.

Police rang on a Sunday saying there had been “an incident” at his premises.

Fearing a break-in, he dashed to the shop — but was told there had been a complaint about the gollies.

Donald said: “I thought it was a joke but the officer loaded them in his car.

“I’m furious. It’s political correctness gone mad. I’m not racist, just trying to make a living.”

Donald had stocked up with several hundred gollies along with other gift items to sell in his hardware shop in Bromyard, Herefordshire.

Dozens of the gollies were snapped up in weeks.

Donald said: “They went to to middle-aged people who remembered them from childhood. I’m in shock. If the police put as much time into catching criminals as they have into this nonsense, the country would be a safer place.”

West Mercia Police acted under Section 5 of the Public Order Act. It outlaws displaying “offensive material likely to lead to alarm, harassment or distress”.

A spokesman said: “It is not a crime to sell these dolls but a member of the public found them racially offensive. We take these matters very seriously.

“Inquiries are ongoing. We cannot say yet if Mr Reynolds will face charges.”

Worcester Racial Equality Council said gollies “may worsen race relations”.

SUN journalist Anthony France, a black Briton, called the police action “lunacy”.
He said: “I spoke to several black and Asian friends about this. None had a problem.

“We do have a problem with rap records which use the N-word in lyrics. But I can’t see the police raiding HMV.”

Yep, tax payers money well spent on that police force.

The problem used to be that they were referred to as golliwogs; wog being a name that gives great offence to our middle-eastern friends. I've never found out why. A very serious word went around the Army in about '65 stamping very hard on the word 'wog'. Within about two days, all soldiers had changed to 'golli' Similar ability with words in Hong Kong when Sir Murray MacLehose was Governor. In a very short time he became 'Jock the Sock'

On the stupied p.c. front, I heard from an old colleague the other day. He had used an old buzz-word from the '90s - 'brain storming' He was immediately jumped by tyhe bright eyed young things who claimed it was a very offensive term to people with cerebral palsy. Of whom there were none at his meeting.

Your Birthdate: August 15

You take life as it is, and you find happiness in a variety of things. You tend to be close to family and friends. But it's hard to get into your inner circle. Making the little things wonderful is important to you, and you probably have an inviting home. You seek harmony with others, but occasionally you have a very stubborn streak. Your strength: Your intense optimism Your weakness: You shy away from exploring your talents Your power color: Jade Your power symbol: Flower Your power month: June

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Education - with an agenda?

'Britishness' Looks like the Fabian Society want our schools to teach the British Empire to kids in order to integrate our society.

Thats nice.

Who bets that the history they wish to teach will centre on nasty philistine British Colonials massacring peaceful natives.

The fabian society presents itself as 'left of centre'. Perhaps the BBC should give some time to a right of centre 'Think Tank.'

What we really need is some honest history taught in schools, history which shows both sides of the coin, the good and the bad. And what we really need is a BBC which gives air time to people other than woolly minded 'left of centre' intellectuals.

Ah - conspiracy

When you click through, check the update at the bottom of the page. There is a link to a police officer - click on that. My old eyes ain't what they used to be but it seems the officer has a very close double!

Wanted - full metal jacket world

I am Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior drill instructor.
From now on you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be sir.
Do you maggots understand that?

A very scary man. Just what we need to have training people. Not just soldiers but everyone - students, traffic wardens, community liaison officers. The discipline would be good for them.

Cartoon - not many riots

Were THESE the good old ways that went with good old days?

From our local paper’s archive of 100 years ago –
At Kelso Burgh Police Court on Saturday, Bailee Neil on the Bench, a tramp who is blacklisted in Berwickshire, was charged with having attempted to purchase a glass of beer at the Red Lion Hotel. He pleaded guilty and was dismissed with an admonition, being warned that he would be punished if he repeated the offence.
Happy days eh? Proceedings on a Saturday, blacklisted – one assumes this means barred from pubs and not outlawed just by his presence in the County. Mere use of the ‘black’ in listed would draw howls of condemnation today.

My life

I sit here in my well-heated study. Messing around in my own time, at my own pace on my chosen subjects. Other than SWMBO, no one is in a position to tell me what I have to do. Within reason, I have no financial worries and my health, whilst not faultless, is well enough and under control.
So – where am I failing? Why am I not like almost everyone whose plight is described in detail in endless blogs as hard, miserable and unfulfilling?
I suppose it is because I am a smug bastard and, after a number of years on the same stormy waters as those I read, I have found a safe harbour. What is that saying about me and lifeboats?

Take note of this

Steal this button here "

Angel food

Whilst I do not 'do' Lent, I make a point of the appropriate festive meal.
I just love pancakes. With lemon. And sugar. And in quantity.

View from the other side

There are plenty of blogs from coalition forces in Iraq which allow some insight as to how things are running from an individual's point of view. Doubtless, the writers have to exercise some form of self-control over their content. What has not been so easy to locate however, are blogs from Iraqi residents. Some have to be discounted as ranting. Others are very parochial. Just now and again, one comes across something worth while. I've been following this woman for some time and I think I'm hooked.

Columnists

Thought today looked as if it would be a bare news day. No – come on, behave. I meant that there would be little of interest. I took the wallet for an airing when I went to collect our usual paper and got a slack handful of the other papers just to have a change of diet.
What gets me is the number of columnists. Each paper has about five or more who are obviously hung on hooks somewhere and lifted down to do a 1,000 words on just about anything under the sun. They are instant opinion shouters. I wonder if their columns are genuinely felt or written from hacking into someone else’s conscience.
What would be interesting would be to follow them for a few weeks and see if they slip up and contradict themselves in any one column against another. What I will do is set myself the task of writing a column on a random subject and then seeing how one compiles things to get a finished result. I do not think they will figure here or anywhere else though.

ID Cards

This deserves the wildest readership. Not that I fool myself by thinking that this blog is more widely read than where this extract came from. If just one extra pair of eyes sees it, that be worth the effort.


The scene: An anonymous provincial town in middle England somewhere. Four plotters gather together in a darkened room. The year is 2008.

Plotter 1: Right everyone. Today is the day. Is everyone ready?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone a 'clean skin' that has avoided the attention of the greatest security agencies in the world?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Does everyone have a rucksack packed with explosive?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone fully aware of our warped religious justification for committing mass murder?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone suitably brainwashed that they will follow my commands without question?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone willing to die in the name of their cause?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone in possession of their ID cards?

All: Errr....

Plotter 1: What? What if you require access to key services on the way to cause carnage on the transport infrastructure of Britain?

All: Err...

Plotter 1: Right that's it. Take off those bloody suicide belts. No ID card no mass murder. If it wasn't for that blasted Blair we would have got away with it.....

Laid back

Say what you like but police here in Scotland are really very laid back.
For example, where else would they have security at a high-risk event provided by constables on pedal-cycles?

Pile it high - get it cheap

I sometimes go wandering off into the realms of the financial advice givers. Not that I wish to put my pennies in the stock market but just to see what is happening. Who is giving what? Who is screwing us this week? What is the latest clever idea?
Turns out that I knew the guy who does this one. Not that that makes it anything special but he does have the 'sod 'em' attitude that I like to read. Don't just look at the front page - have a wander round the departments as well.
No - he does not buy me drinks for clicks!

HOW many millions?

That Tonbridge raid seems to have re-awakened the general publics' fascination with rogues, dodgy geezers and 'faces' from the days of The Sweeney. I do not think today's likely lads will end up with the advice "You're nicked my son" as the half-nelson is applied following the obligatory chase over what looked like a World War II bombsite. There has been a bit too much 'The Krays only hurt their own sort and, anyway, were kind to old ladies" apologia for widespread admiration of a good job well done. The police are making much of the trauma that the family - including a young kid - sustained. They do not want to encourage others to have a go at what is a fairly easy target. It does look as if the gang were not as well advised as they might have been. Taking easily-identified readies took up time in the depot that could have been put to better use and having to abandon it just opens up further forensic avenues for the fuzz. Even I have dropped the argot - fuzz and not The Filth!

Innovation

Here's a great idea.
I supply the image. Readers write the blog!
Should be interesting?

Yet more about clever dogs. Getting to be a dog day?

This book has sold well. I'm not surprised at that; yellow Labradors are not as clever as the black ones but that is still well clever. I am surprised at the way the author goes on about what the dog taught him about enjoying life and making the best of what went on around him.

Balance

I think I've asked the question "Where are the Arabs I used to know?" somewhere in this blog of mine. By that, I meant the gentle and kindly Muslims who could sit and discuss religious matters with even the most brutal and licentous soldiery without taking or giving offence. They were not doing this as if they were some form of Islamic 'Uncle Tom' but because that is how they saw their belief directing their lives.
I think I've found two. They are, I'm afraid having to do it against a backdrop of 'those cartoons' but the points they make are very valid. Please have a read - I'm sure it will pay dividends in understanding a complex matter.

Good dog!

Old pointy nose is no trouble about this sort of thing but, as we live in a flat, this would have been neat for her to know.
She would be mortified at the indignity of learning it now though!

Take the boy out of the country

Whilst I'm really quite happy here (despite occasional doubts about some of the denizens), there are times when I miss the Great Wen that is London. Things like this, for example,

It's a rule that the days I take off work have to be bloody horrible, and today's just horrible, isn't it? It won't even have the decency to snow. It'll be alright once it gets dark since cold, wet nights are always more bearable than dismal, damp days in my book. Sod it, I'm pulling the curtains.

Out and about last night, trying to find a decent pub to watch the football in and winding up in an odd place next to Scotland Yard, where a Russian bloke got laughed at for wondering why a pub full of English people wasn't solidly behind Chelsea. He's got a lot to learn...

Got there by District Line, travelling on one of those recently done-up trains. Is it me, or do they not look quiet right? That dull colour scheme's common on the continent, but on the usually-colourful Tube? A bit strange. Especially because the old trains had that proper London Transport moquette on the seats which also used to appear on the buses.

And one day, our grandchildren will sit up in wonder at the thought that once upon a time, we used to get buses and trains which didn't talk to us all the time. Almost all the Tube does it now. ("The train is for North Greenwich.") The new trains do it. ("We shall shortly be arriving at... Westcombe Park.") Some buses do it, especially the ever-irritating "please stand well clear of doors" - route 422, I'm looking at you. (Or, for nostalgia freaks: "Welcome to Millennium Transit route M1. The next stop is at the Dome," followed by a spiel about how good the bus was, and how it wouldn't be ripped to shreds in six years' time after being converted into a crap route to Bexleyheath.) The trams in Croydon have them, and just when I was thinking the Docklands Light Railway was a refuge from them, its new trains have them too.

Obviously, there's a good reason for them to be there, but do they all seem that bit more intrusive than the ones you hear in other cities? A chime and a few words is all you hear on other metros, and even in Sheffield the trams have a cosmopolitan coolness about their announcements.

But here it's a full orchestra of beeps and clumsy announcements which suggest someone's been a bit tight with the budget. "Change here for Docklands Light Railway and City Airport bus link." Not at Canning Town any more, love. And the Central Line voice was telling you to change at Bank for "Network SouthEast" long after it ceased to exist, and long after the Tube had taken over the Waterloo & City Line.

And it's going to spread... soon, there'll be more voices on the buses too, telling you where the bus is going and what's coming up next. "Welcome to night bus N1. This bus is for Thamesmead. The next stop is at the Strand. Please do not be sick on the person next to you. Have a good journey."

Nohari - The Result!!

Arena (known to self and others) intolerant, cynical, callous

Blind Spot (known only to others) insecure, irrational, dispassionate

Façade (known only to self) withdrawn, impatient, insensitive

Unknown (known to nobody) incompetent, inflexible, timid, cowardly, violent, aloof, glum, stupid, simple, irresponsible, vulgar, lethargic, hostile, selfish, unhappy, unhelpful, needy, unimaginative, inane, brash, cruel, ignorant, distant, childish, boastful, blasé, imperceptive, chaotic, weak, embarrassed, loud, vacuous, panicky, unethical, self-satisfied, passive, smug, rash, overdramatic, dull, predictable, inattentive, unreliable, cold, foolish, humourless

Dominant Traits

100% of people agree that BigFatJohn is intolerant
100% of people think that BigFatJohn is insecure
100% of people agree that BigFatJohn is cynical
100% of people think that BigFatJohn is irrational
100% of people think that BigFatJohn is dispassionate
100% of people agree that BigFatJohn is callous

All Percentages

incompetent (0%) intolerant (100%) inflexible (0%) timid (0%) cowardly (0%) violent (0%) aloof (0%) glum (0%) stupid (0%) simple (0%) insecure (100%) irresponsible (0%) vulgar (0%) lethargic (0%) withdrawn (0%) hostile (0%) selfish (0%) unhappy (0%) unhelpful (0%) cynical (100%) needy (0%) unimaginative (0%) inane (0%) brash (0%) cruel (0%) ignorant (0%) irrational (100%) distant (0%) childish (0%) boastful (0%) blasé (0%) imperceptive (0%) chaotic (0%) impatient (0%) weak (0%) embarrassed (0%) loud (0%) vacuous (0%) panicky (0%) unethical (0%) insensitive (0%) self-satisfied (0%) passive (0%) smug (0%) rash (0%) dispassionate (100%) overdramatic (0%) dull (0%) predictable (0%) callous (100%) inattentive (0%) unreliable (0%) cold (0%) foolish (0%) humourless (0%)

Created by the Nohari Window on 24.2.2006, using data from 1 respondents.
You can make your own Nohari Window, or view BigFatJohn's full data.

Rubbish

...other news items: ecologists have concluded a study into the woodland defecation habits of ursus actos and the Pope has appeared on television discussing his Catholic faith....

Don’t really know what has made me post that. I just seem to find it funny. Sorry about that.

Blair knows his history

This refers to yesterday's blog but was sent to me by an e-mailer. I normally refrain from going back to history that I do not know well and I have some prejudices from the 1940s anyway but this shows what can happen. Very few of the voters really have much idea of manifesto matters and few have the interest to dissect forthcoming legislation. My correspondent saw a possible link, I can see it if I squint a bit. Make up your own minds eh?

Quote:

The Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz in German) was passed by Germany's parliament (the Reichstag) on March 23, 1933. It was the second major step after the Reichstag Fire Decree through which the Nazis obtained dictatorial powers using largely legal means. The Act enabled Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his cabinet to enact laws without the participation of the Reichstag. The formal name of the Enabling Act was Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich ("Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich"). Though the Act had formally given legislative powers to the government as a whole, these powers were for all intents and purposes exercised by Hitler himself; as Joseph Goebbels wrote shortly after the passage of the Enabling Act: The authority of the Führer has now been wholly established. Votes are no longer taken. The Führer decides. All this is going much faster than we had dared to hope. Formal cabinet meetings were rare during the whole Third Reich and non-existent during World War II. It is indicative of the care that Hitler took to give his dictatorship an appearance of legality that the Enabling Act was formally extended twice by the Reichstag (by then a puppet of Hitler) beyond its original 1937 expiration date. The passage of the Enabling Act reduced the Reichstag to a mere stage for Hitler's speeches. The opposition parties were suppressed or banned, and eventually even the parties making up Hitler's coalition yielded to government pressure and dissolved themselves. On July 14, 1933 the government decreed a law eliminating political parties other than the Nazi Party. By this, Hitler had fulfilled what he had promised in earlier campaign speeches: "I set for myself one aim ... to sweep these thirty parties out of Germany!"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act

Glossary

Debate it as much as you will, but there is a new vitality surrounding blogging. Even the blogs of the depressed and fanatic throw up new words and phrases or give new meaning to familiar old concepts. So much so that there is now a new service that seeks to amplify and explain some of these new forms. Good say I. The idea of a blog is to communicate and anything that assists in that is to be welcomed.

Damn

I had chosen yesterday as the winner in the sweep to forecast when this announcement was made

TEHRAN, Iran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the United States and Israel on Thursday for the destruction of a Shiite shrine's golden dome in Iraq, saying it was the work of "defeated Zionists and occupiers."

Speaking to a crowd of thousands on a tour of southwestern Iran, the president referred to the destruction of the Askariya mosque dome in Samarra on Wednesday, which the Iraqi government has blamed on insurgents.

"They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.

"These passive activities are the acts of a group of defeated Zionists and occupiers who intended to hit our emotions," he said in a speech that was broadcast on state television. Addressing the United States, he added: "You have to know that such an act will not save you from the anger of Muslim nations."

The bombing set off a string of sectarian attacks in Iraq. Angry crowds thronged the streets, militiamen attacked Sunni mosques and at least 19 people were killed.

Abolish Parliament Act

Yes, I know it is scaremongering. Yes, I know it won't come to pass. Tes, I know I'm reading it wrong.

However - just go and look at what this says.

Think of all the Freedom to Irritate The Government laws we have - this could be used to destroy them in one fell swoop.

From Letters to the Times.

Sir, Clause one of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (Comment, Feb 15) provides that: “A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision for either or both of the following purposes — a) reforming legislation; b) implementing recommendations of any one or more of the United Kingdom Law Commissions, with or without changes.”

This has been presented as a simple measure “streamlining” the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, by which, to help industry, the Government can reduce red tape by amending the Acts of Parliament that wove it. But it goes much further: if passed, the Government could rewrite almost any Act and, in some cases, enact new laws that at present only Parliament can make.

The Bill subjects this drastic power to limits, but these are few and weak. If enacted as it stands, we believe the Bill would make it possible for the Government, by delegated legislation, to do (inter alia) the following:

· create a new offence of incitement to religious hatred, punishable with two years’ imprisonment;

· curtail or abolish jury trial;

· permit the Home Secretary to place citizens under house arrest;

· allow the Prime Minister to sack judges;

· rewrite the law on nationality and immigration;

· “reform” Magna Carta (or what remains of it).

It would, in short, create a major shift of power within the state, which in other countries would require an amendment to the constitution; and one in which the winner would be the executive, and the loser Parliament.

David Howarth, MP for Cambridge, made this point at the Second Reading of the Bill last week. We hope that other MPs, on all sides of the House, will recognise the dangers of what is being proposed before it is too late.

PROFESSOR J. R. SPENCER, QC
PROFESSOR SIR JOHN BAKER, QC
PROFESSOR DAVID FELDMAN
PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER FORSYTH
PROFESSOR DAVID IBBETSON
PROFESSOR SIR DAVID WILLIAMS, QC
Law Faculty,
University of Cambridge

Think of all the burdensome regulation the bill would allow ministers to get rid of:

Magna Carta (1297), c. 29: "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed, nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right."

Habeas Corpus Act 1679, s. 1: "Whensoever any person or persons shall bring any habeas corpus directed unto any sheriffe or sheriffes gaoler minister or other person whatsoever for any person in his or their custody and the said writt shall be served upon the said officer or left at the gaole or prison with any of the under officers underkeepers or deputy of the said officers or keepers that the said officer or officers his or their under officers under-keepers or deputyes shall within three dayes after the service thereof as aforesaid...make returne of such writt or bring or cause to be brought the body of the partie soe committed or restrained unto or before the lord chauncelior or lord keeper of the great seale of England for the time being or the judges or barons of the said court from whence the said writt shall issue or unto and before such other person and persons before whome the said writt is made returnable according to the command thereof, and shall likewise then certifie the true causes of his detainer or imprisonment ..."

Parliament Act 1911, s. 7: "Five years shall be substituted for seven years as the time fixed for the maximum duration of Parliament under the Septennial Act 1715."

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, s. 58(1): "A person arrested and held in custody in a police station or other premises shall be entitled, if he so requests, to consult a solicitor privately at any time."

Devil on earth

I have been proud to live in Scotland, I have felt welcome and think I regard the Scots as a race with whom I can live at peace. There is always one though that starts off a faint tremor - are there more out there like him?
It was only a few days back I was discussing with a friend whether some people were just so evil and wicked that they should be put to death just as soon as there was the slightest justification. Hopefully, someone in the prison community where he will be held might just share this opinion. I rest my case.

Oh well - nice idea anyway

This is extracted from a UN report on what the Arab world needs to do.
No need to study it too hard - just look at the section I have emboldened. That is the end of that idea then.

Area's literacy, life expectancy up; income, productivity lag
CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- Arab countries trail much of the world in economic growth and need to make changes in political and social institutions, but gains have been made in areas such as education and health, according to a U.N.-commissioned study.
Called the Arab Human Development Report 2002 and released Tuesday, the study compiled data over the last year and a half for the U.N. Development Program. It details achievement and stagnation in 22 Arab countries since the 1970s.
"The report was written by Arabs for Arabs," said Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, the U.N. Development Program's assistant administrator and director of the regional bureau for Arab states.
"It's intended to provide an accurate diagnosis of the problems facing the region in order to help find solutions."
Hunaidi said the report concludes that Arab countries "need to embark on rebuilding their societies" on the basis of:
"Full respect for human rights and human freedoms as the cornerstones of good governance, leading to human development";
"The complete empowerment of Arab women, taking advantage of all opportunities to build their capabilities and to enable them to exercise those capabilities to the full";
"The consolidation of knowledge acquisition and its effective utilization. As a key driver of progress, knowledge must be brought to bear efficiently and productively in all aspects of society, with the goal of enhancing human well-being across the region."
The study lists several positive developments.
Life expectancy in the Arab world has increased by 15 years, literacy for adults has doubled, women's literacy has tripled, and mortality rates of children under 5 have dropped by two-thirds, the study said.
The study said the "incidence of dire poverty" is lower than in any region in the developing world.
"Daily caloric intake and access to safe water are higher," said Mark Malloch Brown, the U.N. agency administrator, in a foreword.
"Overall, it shows that Arab states have made substantial progress in human development over the past three decades," Brown said.
The study said the Arab world needs improvements in economic, social and political institutions. It calls for the promotion of good governance by providing more opportunities and freedom and by liberating women and others in need.
"It underlines how far the Arab states still need to go in order to join the global information society and economy as full partners and to tackle the human and economic scourge of joblessness, which afflicts Arab countries as a group more seriously than any other developing region," Brown said.
"And it clearly outlines the challenges for Arab states in terms of strengthening personal freedoms and boosting broad-based citizen participation in political and economic affairs."

Just a bit of balance

This is not pretty but maybe puts some recent events into a real-world perspective. In the first incident, it is clear that the police are acting under instructions.