Pandering

This is what multiculturalism ends up as.
This is what diversity will get you.
This is what happens when you go soft on minorities because of the above.
This is what lowering standards to get minorities into positions of authority (aka tokenism) brings you.
This is what failure to assure excellence in our education system has brought us too.
This is the price we now have to pay for the failure of the political classes, socialists and the MSM to listen to the concerns of the ordinary people of England.
Our cities burn, minorities riot, the followers of a foreign and malignant fascistic political system dressed in the trappings of a religion have been allowed to settle in numbers in some of our cities and demand their own laws. The indigenous population have been derided by politicians as being bigoted to even question it. When they marched in protest they were called Nazi's, scum, vermin, knuckle draggers, right wing and racist, yet it was not they who rioted.
And when the dust settles, the cover up will begin, those who burned our cities and attacked our police and ordinary folk will claim victim status yet again, it's already happening on the BBC as excuse after excuse is trotted out about cuts and police brutality by so called community leaders.The usual soundbite fools like Ken Livingstone are being dragged out too to try and put a political slant on the mindless looting by trying to blame the current government for a mess of the previous governments making.
There have even been attempts by some on the left to draw parallels with violence exhibited at EDL protests in an effort to divert blame or ameliorate the situation, save only the EDL have never burnt buses, set fire to buildings, looted shops, attacked homeowners and robbed them. These were the same people who hunted desperately for any kind of link between Anders Brievik and the EDL even to the extent of inventing a few.
This is what happens when those in power and their accomplices simply don't listen to ordinary people.

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Hatchet jobs

There is a saying that "A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on" and this seems to be the case in speculation about Anders Brehing Breivik and his links to the so called "Far Right" in the UK.
Guardian.

Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused of the murder of at least 92 Norwegians in a bomb and gun massacre, boasted online about his discussions with the far-right English Defence League and other anti-Islamic European organisations.

Well, I can't speak for all the EDL, I'm just an ordinary guy who supports them, however I can confirm from what I do know from various people higher up in the organisation is that until yesterday the EDL had not heard of him before.
Mail.

He is thought to have posted messages on a Norwegian website expressing admiration for the EDL and an extremist group called Stop Islamification of Europe.
It is Breivik’s online profile that has provided the authorities with most information about him so far.
His Facebook page, which was blocked soon after the killings, listed his interests as bodybuilding, ‘conservative politics’ and freemasonry. He also had a liking for violent video games and American TV drama series Dexter, about a forensic blood spatter pattern expert with the Miami police who hunts down and kills criminals in his spare time.

Express.

THE Right-wing psychopath behind ­Norway’s bloodbath was involved with the English Defence League, the Sunday Express has learned.

Twisted Anders Behring Breivik, who left 92 dead in a co-ordinated bomb and gun rampage, advised the EDL how to stir up anti-Islamic hatred.

He not only admired the far-Right group, but also harboured dreams of setting up Norway’s version to combat the country’s growing Muslim population.

This is also untrue, there already is a Norwegian Defence League, has been for months and no they haven't heard of him either.

PRESS RELEASE FROM NDL
It is with disbelief and sadness that we have received news of the tragedy at the government building and on the island.
Our goal has always been to provide information about the conflict between Western values and Islam, violence and terror is the means … we firmly reject.
The terrorist acts be connected with a person who is against multiculturalism and Islam, we must emphasize that the suspect has never been a member of our organization.
People who advocate violence, racism or extremism has been and will be banned from NDL.
This is in every way a setback for the debate in Norway. For us who want a fair debate, this is a situation we fear will be used against us. Our values are freedom of speech, equality, peace and democracy. It is our fear that the discussion will now end up in a track where our arguments are met with hatred and incoherent arguments.
But today is the day our condolences, thoughts and sympathies are with survivors, relatives of those killed, AUF and the Norwegian people.
A total NDL condemns the terrorist attacks on 22 July 2011. A date that will forever stand as a day of mourning in the country’s history.
Admin in NDL

I also have a few questions about this entire incident myself, perhaps they'll be answered one day though it might take a while.

1. If Anders Behring Breivik was anti-Islam, why didn't he attack a mosque rather than government buildings on a day when the government was not working?
2. How come he only set up his Facebook and twitter accounts 5 days ago. Straight away he is on FB with right wing stuff, and only one tweet. According to the Huffington Post he did have a Stormfront account which is no longer available and the Stormfront site is also apparently down.
3. I do not believe that one man could assemble and prime a massive car bomb and set it off, all on his own. Then slip away, disguise himself as a policemen, travel 20 miles across the land connecting the two fjords, commandeer a boat (or passage on a boat) to travel across to the island, carrying nothing more than the unremarkable weapon a police officer would normally have to hand (as he doesn’t seem to have excited any suspicion until he opened fire on the assembled teenagers) whereupon he shoots 70+ people dead (some of the 93 deaths so far, for which he is responsible are by drowning while trying to escape). The A team couldn’t have managed that and there were 4 of them. And their adventures were fiction.
4. If, as we are told, the Norwegian Prime Minister was due at the Island that day, why was the place not crawling with security as you just know it would be days before any such visit.

Personally I don’t believe that a ‘right wing Christian conservative’ gunman who hates Muslims and admires the EDL went berserk alone to kill 100 teenagers simply because that’s what right wing Christian conservatives do. Yet that, despite the evidence is exactly what the press want us to believe.

More about → Hatchet jobs

Sorry, but you're wrong

Speed cameras, two words that polarise opinions to a certain extent from those that see them simply as revenue raisers to those who think they reduce speed and save lives.

Express.

A bereaved mother will lead a protest against a county council's decision to axe speed cameras.

Claire Brixey's son Ashley, 20, was killed in a crash in Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire, in 2004 when the car in which he was a passenger landed upside down in a swimming pool after the driver lost control.

Ms Brixey, who lives in Standerwick on the Wiltshire/Somerset border, has been a road safety campaigner since the crash.

In the protest on Friday in Trowbridge, she will urge Wiltshire County Council to reverse a decision to end its road safety partnership scheme.

Yet government statistics reveal that speed cameras are totally ineffective at preventing the vast majority of accidents. Exceeding the speed limit was attributed to only 3% of cars involved in accidents. 97% of car crashes have nothing to do with breaking the speed limit.

Ms Brixey said: "I cannot just stand by while the council puts an axe to vital road safety services that save so many young lives here each year. They need to know how appalled local communities are about this. Most people fully support cameras and feel safer with them turned on.

"When I heard in the news the Government saying they were ending a 'war on motorists', I thought that all they were doing was enabling people to break the law and endanger lives by speeding.

You would think that Ms Brixey, as the loss of your son is colouring you view, however as for public support for speed cameras, well, there are two parts to this lie (and yes it is a lie, though Ms Brixey clearly believes it)...

In the first place the government and various supporters and vested interests have put huge resources into trying to convince the public that speed cameras are a good idea. It's not at all surprising that the non-driving population accepts the claims at face value - why would a non driver question the claims at all? Obviously they have convinced some drivers as well. What a shame they didn't put those resources into a real method for improving road safety. It is highly illogical to suggest that road safety can be improved by lying to the public about specific road dangers.

Part two of the lie involves the survey methods (and particularly the survey questions) which have been designated by the Department for Transport. The questions are quite obviously loaded to elicit the desired response.

With loaded questions and a misled public it should come as no surprise that they are able to claim that public opinion supports speed cameras.

SafeSpeed: analysis of official surveys of speed camera approval (click here)
Admiral Insurance: (independent survey)

Ellen Booth, campaigns officer for road safety charity Brake, said: "Increasingly, decisions being made on speed cameras are more about politics and less about facts.

"The fact is that speed cameras reduce speeding and save lives."

BRAKE is a fake charity with its own entry at fakecharities.org ... unfortunately, the fake charity site is down at the moment, however it is known BRAKE spend 50% of its income on salaries and the majority of its money comes from public funding, to no doubt tell the government what it wants to hear. However speed cameras actually appear to cause more accidents than they prevent, as speed cameras have triggered at least 28,000 crashes since 2001, according to new research.Anyone who drives will have noticed that people on seeing a speed camera will automatically brake, even if they are going below the speed limit, putting the vehicle behind in occasional danger. Accidents were reducing before speed cameras came along, cars were being made safer for drivers and pedestrians if hit, so speed cameras were not really a major cause in road safety, though most drivers had them twigged as revenue raisers early on in their lifespan.
So, sorry for your loss Ms Brixey, but you're wrong, speed cameras may save some lives, however as a cost effective solution to road safety, they make no sense at all, they don't reduce speed save in the narrow area they cover, they don't reduce accidents (and seem to cause a good few) and now that government funding is being removed from them, it seems councils don't think they are that effective either. Speed is not the problem, unsafe driving is and always will be the problem and artificial limits on speed are not the solution, some drivers can be perfectly safe driving at 100 mph on a motorway, yet others can frighten the life out of you at 30 mph on a built up area, it's down to ability and concentration, usually not speed.

More about → Sorry, but you're wrong

Advertising

Advertising, love it or loathe it (usually loathe) is a ubiquitous part of todays life, with agencies and businesses trying to tell us how much we need/desire/want a product or service. Even the government is in on it, though in true Labour style they appear to be using it for propaganda as well as party political purposes.

Telegraph.

The Government has become the biggest spender on advertising in the country for the first time, new figures have disclosed. 

The revelation has drawn Conservative claims that ministers are using taxpayers' money to "buy the general election".

The Central Office of Information spent £207.9 million on advertising last year, more than any other organisation, according to Marketing magazine. 

The next biggest spender was Procter and Gamble, the consumer products group, which spent £155 million in 2009.

Government spending on advertising and marketing rose while commercial companies were reducing their expenditure. Companies including Marks & Spencer and Renault cut their spending by half.

Total spending by the top 100 advertisers fell by 10 per cent from 2008, the figures showed.

By contrast, COI spending rose by 13 per cent from 2008.

Some £85 million of public money was spent on television advertising. Another £52.1 million went on radio spots. Press spending was £47.4 million.

The Tories say state spending on advertising is rising as the general election approaches.

Separate figures disclosed earlier this month showed that Government advertising spending reached £30 million in January.

Francis Maude, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: "This has all the hallmarks of a banana republic, trying to buy the election by abusing public funds."

I think the Tories have a case, though to my mind the biggest abuse was the drowning dog/global warming/climate change clip which was biased, unscientific and just plain wrong as well as feeding on the fears of children. Still I think government advertising ought to be limited to just plain facts as well as the translation services slashed to just native languages (those native to the Islands, not the immigrants)
However the problem appears to go a lot deeper.

BBC.

The Office of Fair Trading should investigate the impact council-funded free newspapers are having on regional papers, a committee of MPs has said.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee said it was concerned about the growing number of council papers and the effect they were having on local democracy.
Some were "misleading in nature" and showed political bias, the report said.

Classic case of Pot, kettle, black there from the MP's considering what the government gets up too with its advertising.

Many local papers have closed in recent years with some editors blaming the effect of council-funded publications.

Research from the Newspaper Society last year found that nine in 10 councils now print their own newspaper.

Paul Burstow, the Liberal Democrat MP for Sutton and Cheam, led a debate on the issue in Westminster earlier this year in which he highlighted the impact that council newspapers, funded by local taxpayers, were having on the health of the independent local press.

He highlighted one example of a London council which produced a 72-page paper which includes news, reviews, TV listings and restaurant features. Meanwhile the local paper has seen its circulation drop by 62%.

In the report by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on the future for local and regional media, committee chairman John Whittingdale said the industry was facing "unprecedented challenges".

So the taxpayer is picking up the bill for free newspapers for all too, all your news, tv, local gossip and political propaganda in one dose delivered to your door and coming out of your taxes whether you voted for the sods or not.

He said: "This has led to the closure of a large number of newspapers, many commercial radio stations becoming loss-making and the possible end of regional news on commercial television.
"This has serious implications for local democracy."
While it was important for local authorities to communicate with their citizens, it was "unacceptable" that councils could set up publications in direct competition to local newspapers and "act as a vehicle for political propaganda", he said.
The MPs recommended making it mandatory for publications to clearly state on their front page that they are published by a local authority.

Communicate, yes, tell us how great the ruling political group is no. And putting a local authority logo on the front doesn't address the problem either it's just more advertising, paid by us, given out free to everyone including those who don't pay for it. No wonder the local papers are struggling, the councils run short on money they just put the rates up, the local paper puts its prices up they lose customers.
This waste of public money both national and local should be one of the first things to go, it isn't necessary, nor is it a vital front line service.
There is scope for a massive range of cuts in government spending, no front line services need be affected, all they have to do is trim the fat from stuff like advertising and translation services, prune back the bureaucracy, simplify not continually quantify.
Not that I'm going to hold my breath till it happens, the Tories if they get in might be better, but I have my doubts, Cameron still seems wedded to a big spending state ideal.

 

More about → Advertising