Those Silly Brits..

[brassmonkey]

Chronicling the silly Brits and their PC lunacy and silly rules and laws.

First, we have this story. Now, with the Muslim population explosion in Britain, this story is a no-brainer:
Faith clash fear hits free parking plan

Published Date: 05 January 2009
Plans to grant Christians free parking in a town could be blocked because councillors fear causing offence to other religions.
Tewkesbury Borough Council in Gloucestershire is considering scrapping charges for churchgoers throughout its car parks on Sunday mornings.

But a majority of the working group tasked with reviewing the town's parking strategy felt the idea should not become policy as it could be viewed as unfair to other faiths.

The review will go before the council on January 20.

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Government won't let them have guns? Fine! They'll stab each other... Can you imagine having to go through a metal detector to go to a shopping mall?


Britain moves to curb rise in knife violence

A mobile metal detector is set up at a shopping center in London to deter people from carrying knives. In London alone, 85 people were fatally stabbed last year. Guns are strictly controlled in Britain and shootings rare.
In London alone, 85 people were fatally stabbed last year. The Labor government, under fire from Conservatives, puts forward a zero-tolerance policy.
By Henry Chu
January 5, 2009
Reporting from London -- Nabeer Bakurally's short life came to an end on a chilly, inky night in November, on a street in East London.

The 19-year-old was out late with a friend when a group of young men attacked them, possibly after some kind of dispute. There was a lethal glint of metal, and minutes later Bakurally lay bleeding on the sidewalk, stabbed in the heart.

His death added to a grim roll call of fatal knife attacks in Britain in 2008, possibly the worst such year on record. In a country where guns are strictly controlled and shootings are much rarer than in the United States, the surge in stabbings has propelled the issue of knife crime to the top of the public safety agenda.

Like Bakurally, many of the victims have been teenagers, including Robert Knox, an aspiring actor who had won a minor role as a student wizard in the film "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" due out this year. Knox, 18, died from multiple stab wounds in May after trying to protect his younger brother from an attacker outside a bar in southern England.

The Labor government is now talking of a zero-tolerance policy for anyone caught carrying a knife, a stance with which the opposition Conservatives agree. But that has not stopped the issue from becoming a political blame game featuring accusations of lying and replays of a popular public debate over whether British society is "broken."

Last week the Conservatives released statistics that they say show a record number of fatal stabbings in England and Wales last year -- five a week, on average, or a 30% increase since Labor came to power in 1997.

"It is quite shocking to think that these numbers are the highest since they started recording these sorts of incidents back in 1977," James Brokenshire, an opposition spokesman on public safety issues, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "It does paint this picture of knife crime having increased and the measures that the government has tried to introduce not being effective."

Among those measures is a special police operation against knife crime in 10 problem areas, including London, where more than 85 people were stabbed to death last year. It empowers police to conduct spot checks and monitor how easily minors can buy knives in shops, which is illegal here.

The government has called the crackdown a success and disputes the Conservatives' figures. But it was forced to make an embarrassing public apology last month after its own statistical watchdog criticized it for releasing misleading partial figures that officials had touted as proof of a drop in knife violence. The full statistics actually revealed a rise in some knife-related offenses.

Fed up with political squabbling, activists have organized demonstrations, including a large one in London in September. They also have mounted their own campaigns to pressure officials into action and prod communities into being more watchful of the kind of activity their youths engage in.

Gangs are increasingly a fixture in blighted urban areas, and gang warfare has scared more and more Britons into retreating behind locked doors and shuttered windows. The murder conviction of a teenager in Liverpool for the death of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, who was caught in gang crossfire, made headlines last month.

"These gangs need to be smashed," said Gary Trowsdale, a spokesman for the Damilola Taylor Trust, an anti-violence group set up in the memory of a boy who was stabbed to death in 2000, days before his 11th birthday, by two boys barely older than he. "We do have a problem in our inner cities, with poverty being rife and deprivation on a scale that American inner cities have seen for some time."

If there has been a breakdown of societal values, as many Britons believe, then the media may also have had a hand in it with such glorification of violence as in the Batman movie "The Dark Knight," Trowsdale said.

Actor Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker was an artistic tour de force, but "he spent 99% of his time on-screen holding a knife. We need to think about that," Trowsdale said.

"You're a 10-year-old watching Heath Ledger . . . You watch the way he uses that knife. Then you go on Sony PlayStation and play a game . . . where you're rewarded points for stabbing somebody. You go [out] on the streets and feel threatened. What are you going to do?"

Some youths now carry bladed weapons out of fear for their safety, without malevolent intent, but that needs to be discouraged because the knives can be turned on them, Trowsdale said.

The government agrees. It is calling for punishment for anyone caught with a knife. In a nod to the British affinity for publicly shaming offenders, the sentence could take the form of community service, such as clearing graffiti, during which violators would have to wear bright orange jackets stamped with the words "community payback."

"We're not going to have knives on our streets," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said recently. "We're going to protect our young people, and we're going to stop the knife crime that has caused so much damage, so much grief and so much anguish to so many families in this country."

Laborites hope that a clampdown on knife violence will help erase some of the Conservatives' lead in the opinion polls. The government must call a general election by the middle of next year.

But reducing violence of any kind could prove tough as Britain's economic gloom deepens. In the past, downturns in the economy have usually been accompanied by a rise in crime.

"We're worried," Trowsdale said. "We're going to be ever more vigilant. This is a time for everybody to think about the consequences of what this recession might bring."

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The Nanny State is at it again...

Giant plasma TVs face ban in battle to green Britain

New rules will phase out energy-guzzling flatscreen televisions as the EU brings its climate campaign to the living room

By Geoffrey Lean and Jonathan Owen
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Plasma TVs have been dubbed the '4x4s of the living room' because of their energy wastage


Energy-guzzling flatscreen plasma televisions will soon be banned as part of the battle against climate change, ministers have told The Independent on Sunday.

"Minimum energy performance standards" for televisions are expected to be agreed across Europe this spring, they say, and this should lead to "phasing out the most inefficient TVs". At the same time, a compulsory labelling system will be drawn up to identify the best and worst devices.

The moves, which follow last week's withdrawal of the 100W incandescent lightbulb, are part of a drive to slow the rapid growth of electricity consumption in homes by phasing out wasteful devices and introducing more efficient ones. Giant plasma televisions – dubbed "the 4x4s of the living room" – can consume four times as much energy as traditional TVs that used cathode ray tubes (CRTs).

Over the past 30 years, the number of electric appliances and gadgets in a typical home has almost trebled – from 17 to 47 – as a host of devices from scanners to security systems, cappuccino makers to computer game consoles have joined the more traditional kettles, irons, vacuum cleaners and cookers. And the number of televisions in homes has also grown rapidly; there are now 60 million of them, one for every person in the country.

The amount of power needed to run this electronic explosion has more than doubled in the same period, and the official Energy Savings Trust estimates that it will grow by another 12 per cent over the next four years.

The boom in flatscreen TVs, partly spurred by the digital changeover, is helping to fuel the increase, as is the growing size of the screens. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said last week: "In the past five years we have seen the main television in a household change from typically being a 24in to 32in CRT television to being a much larger flatscreen television, with screen sizes of between 32 and 42 inches becoming more and more common. Not surprisingly, this has seen the energy used by the main television in the house increase."

Different makes and models of television vary in their use of power, but a 42in plasma television may use some 822 kilowatt hours a year, compared to 350kWh by an LCD flat screen of the same size. A 32in CRT, the biggest available, would use 322kWh.

Power consumption goes up as the screens increase in size, so the trust says that a big plasma model could use four times as much electricity and be responsible for the emission of four times as much carbon dioxide as the biggest CRT; they now account for twice as much as a fridge-freezer.

Now European governments are finalising a mandatory EU regulation to set minimum standards for televisions. The worst performers will be phased out, and the rest will have to be labelled with energy ratings which, says Defra, "will make it easier for consumers to identify the most and least energy-efficient televisions available". The scheme is modelled on an existing one for fridges and other white goods which has greatly increased their efficiency over the past decade.

The EU has already agreed minimum standards for the electricity consumed in standby mode. Defra says this should cause a fourfold drop by early next year in the energy used by a TV when it has been switched off by remote control instead of the main switch. Similar steps are being taken in Australia and the United States; in the US, 275 million televisions gobble up as much electricity as is produced by 10 coal-fired power stations.

Manufacturers are responding by making their products greener. The best new plasma televisions now use one-third less energy than the average, and new LED televisions, which are more efficient, are being developed.

[homebase]

Gordon Brown brings Britain to the edge of bankruptcy

Iain Martin says the Prime Minister hasn't 'saved the world' and now faces disgrace in the history books

They don't know what they're doing, do they? With every step taken by the Government as it tries frantically to prop up the British banking system, this central truth becomes ever more obvious.

Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. Despite all the sophistry and outdated boom-era terminology from experts, I think a far greater number of people than is imagined grasp at root what is happening here.

The country stands on the precipice. We are at risk of utter humiliation, of London becoming a Reykjavik on Thames and Britain going under. Thanks to the arrogance, hubristic strutting and serial incompetence of the Government and a group of bankers, the possibility of national bankruptcy is not unrealistic.

The political impact will be seismic; anger will rage. The haunted looks on the faces of those in supporting roles, such as the Chancellor, suggest they have worked out that a tragedy is unfolding here. Gordon Brown is engaged no longer in a standard battle for re-election; instead he is fighting to avoid going down in history disgraced completely.

This catastrophe happened on his watch, no matter how much he now opportunistically beats up on bankers. He turned on the fountain of cheap money and encouraged the country to swim in it. House prices rose, debt went through the roof and the illusion won elections. Throughout, Brown boasted of the beauty of his regulatory structure, when those in charge of it were failing to ask the most basic questions of financial institutions. The same bankers Brown now claims to be angry with, he once wooed, travelling to the City to give speeches praising their "financial innovation".

Does the Prime Minister realise the likely implications when the country joins the dots? He has never been wild on shouldering blame, so I doubt it. But Brown is a historian. He should know that when a nation has put all its chips on red and the ball lands on black, the person who made the call is responsible. Neville Chamberlain discovered this in May 1940 with the German invasion of France.

We're some way from a similar event. But do not underestimate the gravity of the emergency and potential for disgrace.

The Government's bail-out of the banks in October with £37 billion of taxpayers' money was supposed to have "saved the world", according to the PM, but now it is clear that it has not even saved the banks. Our money kept the show on the road for only three months.

As the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable asks: where has the £37 billion gone? The answer, as Cable knows, is that it has disappeared down the plug hole.

It is finally dawning on the Government that the liabilities of the British banks grew to be so vast in the boom years that they now eclipse the entire economy. Unfortunately, the Treasury is pledged to honour those liabilities because it has guaranteed not to let a British bank go down. RBS has liabilities of £1.8 trillion, three times annual UK government spending, against assets of £1.9 trillion. But after the events of the past year, I wager most taxpayers will believe the true picture is worse.

Meanwhile, the assets are falling in value. This matters, because post-nationalisation these liabilities are now yours and mine.

And they come piled on top of the rocketing national debt, charitably put at £630 billion, or 43 per cent of GDP. The true figure is much higher because the Government has used off-balance sheet accounting to hide commitments such as PFI projects.

Add to that record consumer indebtedness and Britain becomes extremely vulnerable. The markets have worked this out ahead of the politicians, as usual, and are wondering what to do next. If they decide our nation is a basket case, they will make it so.

The PM and the Chancellor , both looking a year older every day, tell us that for their next trick they will buy more bank shares, create a giant insurance scheme for bad debt, pledge to honour liabilities without limit, cross their fingers and hope it all works. The phrase "bottomless pit" springs to mind for a reason: that is what they have designed.

In this gloom, the Prime Minister has but one slender hope: that somehow, by force of personality, the new President Obama engineers a rapid American recovery restoring global confidence, energising the markets and making us all forget this bad dream.

Obama is talented but he is not a magician. Instead, Gordon Brown's nightmare, in which we are all trapped, is going to get much worse.

[brassmonkey]

Wow... I knew the English were bowing to Islam, but I had no idea they were so homo-friendly. It's a good thing we got out when we did. Actually, I hope this attitude is considered fanatical over there, and not mainstreatm:

Teach the pleasure of gay sex to children as young as five, say researchers

By Steve Doughty
Last updated at 5:31 PM on 20th January 2009


Children as young as five should be taught to understand the pleasures of gay sex, according to leaders of a taxpayer-funded education project.

Heads of the project have set themselves a goal of 'creating primary classrooms where queer sexualities are affirmed and celebrated'.

The ambition was revealed in documents prepared for the No Outsiders project run by researchers from universities and backed with £600,000 of public money provided by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Classroom

Children as young as five should be taught about gay sex, an education project has said (file picture)

The stated purpose of the project - which is operating in 14 primary schools - is to stop bullying and prejudice aimed at homosexuals.

However, at a seminar at Exeter University tomorrow, supporters of the group will go beyond the anti-bullying agenda and discuss 'pleasure and desire in educational contexts'.

A document prepared for the seminar and couched in convoluted academic jargon says: 'The team is concerned to interrogate the desexualisation of children's bodies, the negation of pleasure and desire in educational contexts, and the tendency to shy away from discussion of (sexual) bodily activity in No Outsiders project work.


'The danger of accusations of the corruption of innocent children has led team members to make repeated claims that this project is not about sex or desire - and that it is therefore not about bodies.

'Yet, at a very significant level, that is exactly what it is about and to deny this may have significant negative implications for children and young people.'

No Outsiders is led by researchers from Sunderland University and also involves academics at the Institute of Education and Exeter University. Books, puppet shows and plays are used to teach children about same-sex relationships.

During the project, the seminar paper says, its members have 'challenged each other to go beyond imagined possibilities into queer practice'.

The seminar will 'question the taken-for-granted of the supposedly sexless, bodiless and desire-less primary classroom' and examine 'the place of the research team members' own bodies, desires and pleasures in this research'.

The discussions provoked a furious reaction from critics of the homosexual rights agenda. Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: 'When an adult who is working in a primary school suggests that children should explore their sexuality, that should result in a complaint to the police.'

Patricia Morgan, author of studies of family life and gay adoption, said: 'The proposal is that primary school classrooms should be turned into gay saunas. This is about homosexual practice in junior schools. The idiots who repealed Section 28 should consider that this is where it has got them.'

Project leader Dr Elizabeth Atkinson said the seminar had no connection with No Outsiders work in classrooms. 'The seminar is part of a long-standing academic debate and has nothing to do with schools,' she said. 'It has no connection with sex education.'

Section 28, the law which banned the promotion of homosexuality in state schools, was repealed five years ago. Current guidance on sex education says it should not promote sexual orientation or sexual activity.

[homebase]

Jan 22, 2009 0:02:09 GMT -5 brassmonkey said:

Wow... I knew the English were bowing to Islam, but I had no idea they were so homo-friendly. It's a good thing we got out when we did. Actually, I hope this attitude is considered fanatical over there, and not mainstreatm:

Teach the pleasure of gay sex to children as young as five, say researchers

Another example of special interest groups using public money to fund their agenda and ram it through the bent over mainstream.

[homebase]

Jan 5, 2009 10:39:13 GMT -5 brassmonkey said:

Government won't let them have guns? Fine! They'll stab each other... Can you imagine having to go through a metal detector to go to a shopping mall?


Britain moves to curb rise in knife violence

Beyond the headlines:

England Gun Ban Update

[brassmonkey]

I wish they would air this on television in every state! Americans are inching ever closer to being treated just this way..

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* News
* UK news
* British identity and society

Measure smiles, not just GDP: British 'among least happy in Europe'

* Amelia Gentleman
* The Guardian, Saturday 24 January 2009
* Article history

Tired, suspicious, bored and lonely: the British fare poorly in a new, detailed study which ranks European countries according to a sense of national contentment.

Britain comes third from the bottom in western Europe in the National Accounts of Wellbeing report, published today.

The report, by independent thinktank the New Economics Foundation (Nef), is one of a number of projects aiming to study the concept of wellbeing.

Researchers asked 42,000 people in 22 countries around 50 questions based on two concepts: personal wellbeing, and broader social wellbeing, looking at how relationships with others contribute to personal happiness.

Ranked on social wellbeing alone, Britain came 15th, with Denmark and Norway ranking top.

Answers to questions reveal that young people in Britain have the lowest levels of trust and belonging in Europe, matched only in Bulgaria and Estonia. A fifth of the population reports having restless sleep most or all of the time, and 28% say they almost never wake up feeling rested.

Across Europe, the British have the second lowest levels of energy (trailed only by Spain). Britain is also the most bored nation in western Europe, with 8% feeling bored most of the time; a fifth said they felt their everyday activities were neither valuable nor worthwhile.

"This is what people mean when they talk about a broken society," said Nic Marks, one of the report's coauthors. Nef wants its study to encourage governments to rely less on economic indicators and GDP, and more on measures of happiness. The report states that a "myopic obsession with growing the economy has meant that we tend to ignore its negative impacts on our wellbeing, such as longer working hours and rising levels of indebtedness. It has created an economic system that has squeezed out opportunities for individuals, families and communities to pursue activities that promote wellbeing."

[brassmonkey]

Food police come knocking on your kitchen door... to tell you what to do with your leftovers

By Andy Dolan
Last updated at 8:15 PM on 25th January 2009

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When you are preparing a meal, the last thing you need is an unwanted caller at the door - especially one armed with advice about what to do with the leftovers.

But in a Government initiative to reduce the amount of food that is thrown away, officials are quizzing householders on their doorsteps about food consumption and how best to make use of their freezers.

The 'food champions' also offer home cooks advice on what portion sizes to prepare as well as recipe ideas to use up leftover scraps.
Food police

Officials plan to visit people at home at dinner time to 'advise' them on meal sizes, what to do with leftovers and how to minimise waste

But the officials, who will also explain the difference between 'best before', 'use by' and 'sell by' dates, have been dismissed as 'food police' by campaigners who said the scheme was the latest example of Government 'nannying'.

In a trial in six local authorities across Herefordshire and Worcestershire, the officials have been recruited on full-time contracts to visit an estimated 24,500 homes dispensing dietary advice and tips on how best to reduce the estimated one-third of all food bought which is thrown away.

They will call at homes throughout the day, including lunchtimes and in the early evening, when many people will be busy preparing dinner.

If successful, the eightweek trial could be rolled out to other authorities around the country.

Each official, dispatched to the streets after one day of training, will be paid between £7.43 and £8.49 per hour, with a bonus for working on a Saturday.

If all 25 million households in the UK were visited in the same way, 8,000 officials would be required at a cost of tens of millions of pounds.
Food police

The food police will be paid to explain 'use by' and 'sell by' dates, and to tell people how best to use their freezers

TaxPayers' Alliance campaign director Mark Wallace said: 'This is a prime example of excessive Government nannying, and a waste of public money and resources.

'We are in the middle of a recession - where every penny is even more valuable. The last thing people need is someone bossing them about in their own kitchen.

'These people sound more like the food police than food champions.

'If the Government has money sloshing around, it should give it back to the taxpayer, not spend it on schemes like this.'

The £30,000 project has been devised by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a Government quango based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, charged with tackling Britain's food waste mountain.

In 2007, WRAP advised families to give up the Christmas pudding - which it said often goes to waste - and instead eat any leftover mincemeat, which could be reheated and then served with ice cream.

Fran Oborski, a Liberal councillor on Wyre Forest Council, Worcestershire, said she was 'concerned' by the move.

She said: 'I'm all in favour of banning food waste but if the Government wanted to seriously tackle this problem they should ban buy-one-get-one-free offers - because they are what encourage people to buy food they do not need.'

But a Department of Health source said the scheme was designed to focus people's attention on healthy eating.

'By hitting people at home, rather than in supermarkets, we can get inside their lives', he said.

'It's only by knocking on doors you can find out what they are having for their tea and offer some healthy suggestions.'

The project is part of WRAP's Love Food Hate Waste nationwide campaign to reduce the third of food bought and then thrown away each year - at a cost of £8billion.

The 'food champions' aim to help householders avoid buying items they will not consume. They will also offer tips on home composting.

Julia Falcon, from WRAP, said: 'There is a benefit to residents, because if they can cut back on what they throw in the bin, they will make a personal saving.

A lot of the advice seems common sense but our research has shown that not everyone heeds it.

People are confused by date labels and end up throwing out food while it is still in date.'

A spokesman added that householders would be offered advice, if they wanted it, but they were under no obligation to speak to the officials.

According to WRAP, the average family wastes around £600 of food per year. Earlier this month it emerged the NHS was paying fat people up to £425 if they met personal slimming targets and successfully kept the weight off for six months.

The 'Pounds for Pounds' scheme is being run by Eastern and Coastal Kent primary care trust in conjunction with Weight Wins, a private company which runs incentive schemes for firms to persuade staff to lose weight.

News of the 'food champions' scheme comes a fortnight after the Tories claimed taxpayers are footing a bill of more than £100million for the salaries of nearly 5,000 bureaucrats in Whitehall 'non-jobs', such as staff 'whose post or work is no longer being carried out'.