Left for dead in the bushes

Jul 18th, 2016 10:19 am | By

The punishment for reporting a gang rape is…another gang rape. By the same gang.

There has been outrage in India after a student was allegedly gang-raped by five men who had also raped her three years ago.

Police are yet to make any arrests although the 21-year-old was attacked last week in Rohtak town in the northern state of Haryana.

She had been pursuing a case in court against the five men, when she was attacked on Wednesday.

The woman said she was forced inside a car and the men tried to strangle her.

She was seriously injured and left for dead in the bushes. A passerby saw her and took her to the hospital.

She’s a Dalit.

Geeta Pandey of BBC News Delhi offers analysis.

The gang rape of the student in Rohtak, allegedly by the same men who raped her three years ago, is an example of how callously the authorities treat victims of rape.

Questions are being asked about how the five men, who were accused of a serious crime like rape, were free to conduct another attack.

There is also the question of why the victim and her family were not provided with any security when they said they had been threatened.

If they were higher caste, and richer, and more important…maybe security would have been forthcoming.



“Yes of course, I strangled her,” he said

Jul 17th, 2016 5:42 pm | By

Qandeel Baloch’s brother confirmed that he killed her. He’s fine with it. No problem. She was embarrassing, so obviously he had to make her dead. Women who make men feel ooky don’t get to go on being alive.

Police presented Azeem before the media in Multan, where he confessed to killing her. He said people had taunted him over the photos and that he found the social embarrassment unbearable.

“Yes of course, I strangled her,” he said.

Of course. What else is a man supposed to do when his sister causes social embarrassment that he finds unbearable? His feelings of social discomfort are obviously infinitely more important than a trivial thing like her life.

Azeem said he acted alone and was “not embarrassed at all over what I did.”

“I was determined either to kill myself or kill her,” he said as he was being led away.

And so of course he killed her and not himself.

The Multan police chief, Akram Azhar, says authorities will charge Azeem with murder and seek the “maximum punishment”. Murder carries a potential death sentence, but under Pakistani law the family of the victim would be able to pardon him.

And since the family of the victim is also the family of the murderer, and the victim was a whorey slutty whore who made them feel embarrassed, obviously they will pardon him – so the whole thing is a farce. Why even bother to arrest and charge him?

Nearly 1,000 women are killed by close relatives in Pakistan each year in so-called “honour killings” for violating conservative norms on love and marriage.

That’s bound to be a very conservative estimate, since in most cases the close relatives keep the whole thing secret.

Baloch’s brother had allegedly told her to end her social media activity, which had won her legions of fans, but left many dismayed. She shot to national attention in March when she released a video promising to perform a “striptease” if the Pakistani cricket team won the world Twenty20 cricket championships.

Although Pakistan did not win, she still danced on camera, saying the performance was in honour of the victorious Indian team. She was unapologetic about upsetting conservatives in the Muslim-majority state, where radical forms of Islam have grown in popularity in recent years.

She recently described herself as an “inspiration to ladies who are treated badly”.

And the men who hate them.

She had recently demanded that the government provide her with security after receiving death threats, but no help was given. She told the media she was considering moving abroad with her parents as she did not feel safe.

In one of her last interviews, she talked about being forced to get married against her will at the age of 17 to an uneducated man, whom she described as “an animal”. “I said: ‘No, I don’t want to spend my life this way.’ I was not made for this. It was my wish since I was a child to become something, to be able to stand on my own two feet, to do something for myself.”

And it was her brother’s wish to stop her, and he won.



Something did

Jul 17th, 2016 4:55 pm | By

Well, if you want to turn the sadness dial up you can always look at Qandeel Baloch’s Twitter.

July 15 – the day her brother strangled her to death.

July 14

As a women we must stand up for ourselves..As a women we must stand up for each other…As a women we must stand…

If you follow the link, you get the Facebook Not Here message.

Also July 14

Another on July 14

If you have a strong will power definitely nothing can let you go down..Life has taught me lessons in a early… http://fb.me/2JOC3RxH2

Nothing…except maybe an enraged brother or father, except maybe a woman-hating religious ideology, except maybe a god that hates women.

July 13



A rather more sinister trend

Jul 17th, 2016 12:35 pm | By

Chris Moos pointed out to me another Theos blog post by Ben Ryan. It too is badly written and badly thought.

A blog was recently drawn to my attention by one Dr Chris Moos that tries to paint the LSE Director Professor Craig Calhoun as a “faith warrior”. By deigning to argue that religion ought to be taken more seriously in academia in a range of different subjects as an overlooked cause Calhoun is displaying some sort of scary Christian zeal (apparently).

That last sentence really is gibberish, plus he appears not to know what “deign” means. To attempt to translate: I think he’s saying that Chris Moos is saying that Calhoun is a faith warrior because he (Calhoun) says religion should be taken more seriously. I think Ryan is also saying that Chris is being naughty in saying that. Meh. I tend to resent people who say we should take religion more seriously, and I do think it’s a form of bullying, and thus that “faith warrior” is not a bad metaphor.

It is the second half of Dr Moos’s blog that what I suspect is the real reason for the anti-Calhoun attack.

Missing word there. Contains? States? Explains? Offers? It takes a pretty bad writer to leave out a key word and not notice.

Moos led one of a series of stunts in which atheist and humanist societies show up to Freshers’ Fairs wearing t-shirts showing “Jesus and Mo cartoons”. Reports as to what happened next differ depending on who you ask, ranging between just short of the heroic martyrdom of these champions of free speech to a minor disagreement after which they were asked by the LSE to stop wearing the t-shirts or leave. This event has somehow become a cause and argument which has rumbled on now for years.

It wasn’t a “stunt.” That’s just rude. ASH societies like other societies have tables at the Freshers Fairs, and they have material on their tables and they wear relevant T shirts if they feel like it. That’s not a stunt, it’s just a thing that societies do. They weren’t asked by LSE to leave, they were asked by an officer of the LSE Student Union. The LSE SU officer really had no business doing that.

My concern over these stunts is that in this ongoing pointless dispute the protagonists are actually becoming part of a rather more sinister trend and that they have lost sight of the point of their campaigning.

First to be entirely clear – this is a deliberately provocative gesture, whatever its supporters might say to the contrary. The cartoons have been a cause celebre for years, the effect they have is well known.

Nonsense. That’s not true. Ryan may be thinking of other cartoons – the Danish Motoons and/or Lars Vilks – or he may be deliberately misleading the readers. It’s not true that J&M have been a cause célèbre for years. And that crap about deliberately provocative gesture is more of the same old bullshit by which people adopt the viewpoint of enraged theocrats in order to chastise people who are doing things that ought to be completely uncontroversial in a liberal society. It’s a bullying move, and it stinks.

If it were simply provocative that would be a bit irritating but not especially problematic – perhaps universities ought to be forced to be clearer on their stance on particular issues. However, it is the choice of target that I find distasteful. It’s the unpleasant use of jokes and mockery to create an acceptable “other”. In Britain in the past the butt of such jokes have at various times been the Irish, Jews, or among others, West Indians. Each time the effect is to justify a perception that “those people” are not welcome here or that they undermine the efforts of the rest of us. In our own time the acceptable other at which abuse can be thrown has become Muslims.

Every time these student societies decide to be provocative it is invariably Muslims who bear the brunt of the mockery. It is never Sikhs, or Hindus, or Jews or any other minority group.

Dense, isn’t he. He’s apparently forgotten all about poor dear Jesus – who is after all half of Jesus & Mo. How are Muslims bearing the brunt of the mockery when Jesus has top billing?

The guy’s a faith warrior in training.



Theos researcher says “surrender now”

Jul 16th, 2016 5:38 pm | By

A researcher at the godbothering thinktank “Theos” wrote a blog post saying France should stop being so stubborn and just do what the murderers want, dammit.

After each attack the security services and beefed up. After each atrocity gallons of ink are spilt about whether it is time to rethink laïcité (the famous French model of secularism) or the nature of Republic French values.

That’s how badly he writes. Apologies for making you read it.

If it’s true that after each atrocity gallons of ink are spilt about whether it is time to rethink laïcité, then people should save their ink, or rather their keyboard tapping. No, it is not time to rethink laïcité, nor is it time to rethink women’s rights or LGB rights or Kashmir or anything else the murderers may or may not be Aggrieved about. No, one does not respond to mass murder by doing what one thinks the murderers want.

But as for real change to have come from these tragedies? It seems like the increasing militarization of public spaces, with more and more armed police and soldiers, has been the only meaningful consequence. The lack of change, or at least the sense of a French state finding a way forward, creates a collective hopelessness and a helplessness. Tragedy fatigue is real; the more tragedies that occur without prompting a change the less willpower there will be to create something. There is a remarkable capacity to accept even the most appalling situations as normal.

It’s quite remarkable what Ben Ryan is saying there. He’s complaining about France’s failure to change at the behest of mass murderers. He’s saying that failure to change at the behest of mass murderers creates hopelessness – as if there were a universal desire for France to do what the murderers want. He’s saying the mass murders – the “tragedies” – should prompt change.

This is the moment to call for a new approach to French society and secularism. It is now, surely, clear to anyone with eyes to see that the hopes of creating a purely civil identity in which religion and race are irrelevant are failed. It is time the French state begins recording data on the religion of its citizens, so that it can see how trends are emerging and be responsive to the reality on the streets, not just vague assumptions and prejudices.

It’s time to question again whether aspects of laïcité that seem to disproportionately hurt minority faiths (and especially Islam) are a sensible approach to pluralism and to remove those aspects that are doing more harm than good at fostering integration. Schools need the freedom to address religious and identity issues in the classroom. It’s time to stop pretending that Frenchness can sweep these issues under the carpet and start “doing religion”, not just opposing extremism.

He reminds me of that nice Maréchal Pétain who shook hands with Hitler so politely that one time.



Testing, testing

Jul 16th, 2016 3:45 pm | By

No no no. We don’t need a “Sharia test.” That’s ridiculous.

Newt Gingrich says we do.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has suggested testing all US Muslims to see if they believe in Sharia, and deporting those who do.

Mr Gingrich’s comments follow an attack in the French city of Nice, which has killed at least 84 people.

His comments echo the sentiments of Donald Trump, who has said Muslims should be banned from entering the US.

That’s a crap idea for civil rights reasons and basic decency reasons, but even if it were acceptable to go around “testing” citizens and immigrants in that way, believing in Sharia would be the wrong criterion. I hate religious laws in general, and the ones that conflict with secular human rights in particular, but many millions of people believe in them, and we can’t seal them all off. I dislike religious conservatism and don’t want it interfering with people’s rights, but I don’t get to exile all the religious conservatives. Most people who believe in Sharia do not believe in mass murder. Gingrich is being a scaremongering xenophobic fascist by saying what he said.



The transfer of those lands identified

Jul 16th, 2016 12:00 pm | By

The Republicans have added a Bundy-party clause to their platform.

The Republican platform committee met this week to draft the document that defines the party’s official principles and policies. Along with provisions on pornography and LGBT “conversion therapy” is an amendment calling for the indiscriminate and immediate disposal of national public lands.

The inclusion of this provision in the Republican Party’s platform reflects the growing influence of and ideological alliance between several anti-park members of the GOP and anti-government extremists, led by Cliven Bundy, who dispute the federal government’s authority over national public lands.

“Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states,” reads the adopted language. “We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified.”

That’s what the armed robbers who stole Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last January were demanding – the transfer of federal land to the states.

The provision calls for an immediate full-scale disposal of “certain” public lands, without defining which lands it would apply to, leaving national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and national forests apparently up for grabs and vulnerable to development, privatization, or transfer to state ownership.

What could possibly go wrong?

“I have long believed that public lands are an equalizer in America, where access to public lands ensures that you don’t need to be a millionaire to enjoy the great outdoors or to introduce your children to hunting, fishing and hiking,” said Senator Martin Heinrich during a recent floor speech on ALEC-funded land seizure legislation. “This land grab idea is just as ludicrous as denying climate change, just as detached from reality, and similarly comes at the expense of our public health and protection of our public lands and resources.”

It’s just as ludicrous, but I don’t agree that it’s just as detached from reality, because that’s not the issue. The issue is one of values or goals, not one of facts. It’s not a fact that it’s good to ensure that you don’t need to be a millionaire to enjoy the great outdoors or to introduce your children to hunting, fishing and hiking; it’s a value, aka a preference, aka a moral view.

But it definitely is a value, and the Republican one is despicable.



2,745 judges

Jul 16th, 2016 10:40 am | By

And Turkey.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called the insurrection “a stain in the history of democracy” at a news conference on Saturday in Ankara, the capital. He raised the death toll in the clashes to 265, with 1,440 people wounded, and he said 2,839 military personnel had been detained.

Early Saturday, soldiers surrendered on a bridge that traverses the Bosporus, one of two bridges that the military shut down as the coup attempt began Friday evening. Footage showed abandoned military clothing and helmets along the bridge. The government also moved on a military school in Istanbul, arresting dozens.

Disciplinary actions extended to the judicial system on Saturday as an oversight body, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, announced that 2,745 judges had been dismissed, the Anadolu agency reported.

That’s not a good sign. That looks like Erdoğan making himself more of a dictator than ever.



One way or another

Jul 16th, 2016 9:25 am | By

The BBC reports arrests in the Nice slaughter.

Five people believed to be linked to the man who killed 84 people in Nice are in police custody, the Paris prosecutor’s office says.

Three arrests were made on Saturday and two on Friday, including the man’s estranged wife, Le Monde reported.

Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a lorry into crowds marking Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais on Thursday before he was shot dead by police.

So-called Islamic State claimed one of its followers carried out the attack.

A news agency linked to the group, Amaq Agency, said: “He did the attack in response to calls to target the citizens of the coalition that is fighting the Islamic State.”

Not everyone believes it though.

Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was known to the police as a petty criminal, but was “totally unknown to intelligence services… and was never flagged for signs of radicalisation,” prosecutor Francois Molins said.

However, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he was “in [one] way or another” linked to radical Islam and Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the attack bore the hallmarks of jihadist terrorism.

A neighbour of Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who used to live in a high-rise block of flats on Boulevard Henri Sappia with his family, said he did not believe the 31-year-old was involved with IS.

Samiq, who did not want to give his surname, told the Press Association news agency: “I never saw him going to the Mosque. He was not a Muslim. During Ramadan I saw him smoking.”

Whatever. He wanted to kill a bunch of people for the fun of it, or he wanted to kill a bunch of people for the fun of it plus Allahu akbar.



Controversial, provocative, notoriety

Jul 16th, 2016 8:24 am | By

Well today is looking gruesome – Erdoğan is busy purging judges as “plotters” by way of making himself even more of a dictator, IS says Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was one of theirs, and Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian has been murdered by her brother for being Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian.

Pakistani social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch has been killed by her brother in an apparent ‘honour killing’ in the province of Punjab, police say.

Ms Baloch, 26, recently caused controversy by posting controversial pictures of herself on social media, including one alongside a Muslim cleric.

She caused controversy by being controversial. Got it.

This is, of course, the BBC yet again reporting violence from the point of view of the perpetrators, which I wish they would learn to stop doing. They did it with Salman Rushdie, with the Motoons, with Lars Vilks, with Charlie Hebdo, and now they’re doing it with Qandeel Baloch. She didn’t “cause controversy”; some people chose to consider her pictures of herself “controversial.”

Ms Baloch’s parents told The Express Tribune that she was strangled to death on Friday night following an argument with her brother.

They said her body was not discovered until Saturday morning. Her parents have been taken into custody, the Tribune reported.

Ms Baloch had gone to Punjab from Karachi because of the threat to her security, police say.

Maybe she thought she would be safer with her family? Poignant, isn’t it.

“[Her] brothers had asked her to quit modelling,” family sources quoted by the Tribune said.

Sources quoted by the newspaper said that Wasim was upset about her uploading controversial pictures online and had threatened her about it.

There again – the BBC has to help Wasim work up indignation at her, by saying yet again that her pictures are “controversial.” Listen, in Pakistan it’s “controversial” for a woman to walk around with a naked head; that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to see it that way.

Jill McGivering adds some analysis.

Qandeel Baloch used social media to find fame and the reactions there showed the feelings she inspired, from admiration to disgust.

Some called her death “good news” and even praised her suspected killer. Others said it was wrong to condone her murder, even if she was flawed. Some showed outright support.

Qandeel Baloch has been dubbed Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian. There are comparisons: the provocative selfies, the pursuit of celebrity, the controversial rise to notoriety.

Blamey blamey blamey, again. There’s no need for the BBC to label her selfies “provocative” or her status “notoriety.” She’s already dead – I don’t see why the Beeb needs to throw mud at her.

But in Pakistan, women, especially poor ones, still lack basic rights, from schooling to choosing a husband and violence against them is rife. The country struggles with sexuality and especially with “immodest” women.

The fact that many of Qandeel’s videos went viral suggests a titillating fascination with confident female sexuality – along with fear of its power and of her assertion of independence. However she lived her life, tweeted one, it was her life.

It was her life, but the BBC will pin pejorative labels on it after she’s been murdered, all the same.



Not just a few colonels

Jul 15th, 2016 3:51 pm | By

More from the BBC:

An army group in Turkey says it has taken over the country, with soldiers at strategic points in Istanbul and jets flying low in the capital, Ankara.

A statement read on TV said a “peace council” now ran the country and there was a curfew and martial law.

Erdogan is saying no it hasn’t, this is just some hotheads. He told the people to resist and that he’d be there to help as soon as possible.

PM Binali Yildirim had earlier denounced an “illegal action” by a military “group”, stressing it was not a coup. He said that the government remained in charge.

The military group’s statement on national broadcaster TRT, read by an announcer, said that democratic and secular rule of law had been eroded by the current government. There would be new constitution, it said.

This isn’t the first time secularism has been defended (or imposed, depending on your point of view) by the military.

One European Union source told Reuters that the military action “looks like a relatively well-orchestrated coup by a substantial body of the military, not just a few colonels”.

Visiting Moscow, US Secretary of State John Kerry said he hoped for peace and “continuity” in Turkey.

“Continuity” could mean a lot of things.



Would you prefer frying pan, or fire?

Jul 15th, 2016 3:41 pm | By

And now for something completely different – a military coup in Turkey. The BBC is live updating.

Summary

  1. A Turkish military statement read out on television says it has taken over power
  2. The prime minister says security forces have been called in to deal with the situation
  3. Military jets and helicopters are seen flying over the capital, Ankara
  4. Military vehicles are said to be blocking bridges in Istanbul and gunfire is heard
  5. Turkey soldiers launch ‘illegal action’

Then a frightening reminder:

New British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson ‘very concerned’

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/754071415612116992

Not reassuring.

Military coups are not legitimate, but neither is theocracy.



Merely to satisfy the cruelty

Jul 15th, 2016 11:29 am | By

The New York Times:

The toll of an attack on a Bastille Day fireworks celebration in the southern French city of Nice rose on Friday to 84 dead and 202 injured, as the government identified the assailant as a 31-year-old native of Tunisia, extended a national state of emergency and absorbed the shock of a third major terrorist attack in 19 months.

Starting around 10:45 p.m. Thursday, the attacker mowed down scores of victims in Nice with a rented 19-ton refrigerated truck before engaging in a gunfight with three police officers, who pursued him down a storied seaside promenade before finally killing him.

The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, identified the man as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who was born on Jan. 3, 1985, and raised in Msaken, a town in northeastern Tunisia.

No organized group has said “We did it!” They do say they did it when they did it, because they’re proud of doing it. The fact that they haven’t said that is a strong hint that they didn’t do it.

Mr. Bouhlel had a history of petty crime, including theft, going back to 2010, and he received a six-month suspended sentence in March for assaulting a driver during an altercation in January.

“However, he is completely unknown by intelligence services, both at the national and local levels,” Mr. Molins said. “He has never been in any database or been flagged for radicalization.”

Maybe he wasn’t “radicalized.” Maybe he just wanted to kill a bunch of people, for the sheer glorious fun of it. Maybe he wanted to live out a fantasy. Mowing people down with a big truck is one fantasy a person can have, and maybe Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel simply wanted to do that – maybe there was no more ideology to it than that, nothing but a love of violence and not enough compassion to inhibit him from pursuing his love.

“There are many children, young children who had come to watch fireworks with their family, to have joy, to share happiness, delight, amazement, and who were struck, struck to death, merely to satisfy the cruelty of an individual — and maybe of a group,” Mr. Hollande said, flanked by Mr. Valls and Health Minister Marisol Touraine, after meeting with victims and medical workers at the Pasteur Hospital in Nice.

Maybe that was the only point. People were out having fun, including children, enjoying a fireworks display just as we did here in the US 11 days ago – maybe Bouhlel’s only goal was to fuck that up.

He’s been given plenty of role models lately though, role models who did have an ideology. It’s the hot new thing, picking out a place where people are crowded together – an airport, a bar, a football ground, a music theater, a busy street – and killing as many of those people as possible.

Pick your role models carefully.



Exactly what they need

Jul 15th, 2016 10:41 am | By

A public post by Hassan Radwan three hours ago:

I’ve run out of words to express my feelings about terrorist attacks such the one in Nice last night. My condolences to the victims doesn’t seem enough. The world seems so very dark. But we have to find a way of defeating the lunatics. Yes there are many ingredients that go into making a human being commit such a horrific slaughter of innocent people, and yes I know these people latch on to extremism as a way of vindicating their own hate, twisted world view and mental disorder, but let us as Muslims at least do our bit in confronting one of the ingredients, which is without doubt the exclusivist, supremacist & dehumanising ideology that “It’s my way or the highway” – “I’m right you’re wrong – so go to Hell!” The misfits, unstable and hate-filled losers find such a simplistic supremacist ideology exactly what they need to justify and give expression to the sickness in their soul. There is no place for exclusivist religion in the 21st century. You cannot live in peace with your fellow man in the pluralistic world of today if you truly believe that your work colleague, neighbour or shop assistant deserves to be eternally tortured in Hell for not believing as you do.

That belief, to our great misfortune, isn’t inert. It goes dormant at times, in places – but it can’t be guaranteed to stay dormant at all times in all places. That belief is the firstborn child of monotheism, and it’s a lethal poison. It’s not the only lethal poison of its kind, but it sure as hell is a big one. We have to do our best to make it go dormant in all places at all times.



Des dizaines de morts

Jul 14th, 2016 5:30 pm | By

Again.

A lorry has struck a crowd after Bastille Day celebrations in the southern French city of Nice, killing at least 70 people, officials are quoted as saying by local media.

It happened on the famous Promenade des Anglais after a firework display. The driver was “neutralised”, and guns and grenades were found inside the lorry.

One image on Twitter showed about a dozen people lying on the street.

The BBC’s live page now says AFP says the death toll is 75.

Terrorism expert Claude Moniquet say it is “pretty clear” the incident in Nice was a terror attack. He says the idea was “clearly” to wait until the end of the Euro 2016 football tournament to launch the attack.

He says there has been no official confirmation of guns or grenades being found in the truck, but if those reports prove to be true, it would indicate a “more elaborate” and “more professional” plot.

Again again again.

 



No Department for Energy and Climate Change for you

Jul 14th, 2016 1:18 pm | By

Unbelievable. Teresa May has killed the climate change department.

The decision to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been variously condemned as “plain stupid”, “deeply worrying” and “terrible” by politicians, campaigners and experts.

One of Theresa May’s first acts as Prime Minister was to move responsibility for climate change to a new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

Only on Monday, Government advisers had warned of the need to take urgent action to prepare the UK for floods, droughts, heatwaves and food shortages caused by climate change.

Climate change is largely a product of business and energy and industry, and action on climate change tends to be antagonistic to many branches of business and energy and industry, so folding it into a Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy is giving the hens a nice new dormitory inside a fox’s den.

To put it another way, Business shouldn’t be in charge of climate change.

Former Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted: “DECC abolition just plain stupid. Climate not even mentioned in new department title. Matters because departments shape priorities, shape outcomes.”

Craig Bennett, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, pointed out that a major report into the effects of climate change on Britain had made clear that it was already happening.

“This is shocking news. Less than a day into the job and it appears that the new Prime Minister has already downgraded action to tackle climate change, one of the biggest threats we face,” he said.

“This week the Government’s own advisors warned of ever growing risks to our businesses, homes and food if we don’t do more to cut fossil fuel pollution.”

But it’s only businesses, homes and food. No big deal.



Ne regrettez rien

Jul 14th, 2016 11:57 am | By

So Ginsburg took it back.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court on Thursday expressed regret for her recent remarks about the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, saying they were “ill-advised.”

“On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them,” Justice Ginsburg said in a statement on Thursday. “Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.”

In general, they should. But a potential Hitler isn’t “in general.” Hitler didn’t run on a platform of killing all the Jews, after all. German voters didn’t know that was what they were voting for. He was just an ordinary anti-Semite and right-winger when he ran, albeit one with a history of violence and a prison record. It’s not safe to assume that Trump won’t really be the racist bully he seems to be if he gets elected. It’s not safe to assume he’ll be sobered by the responsibility if that happens. So I’m not convinced RBG was wrong to deviate from the usual custom for judges.

Few legal experts had expected Justice Ginsburg to offer the apology that Mr. Trump demanded. Justices typically remain largely out of the public eye and are insulated from political pressures and news media coverage that can compel action.

But the torrent of criticism, especially from supporters and allies of Justice Ginsburg, appears to have pierced that protection.

Former Justice Antonin Scalia, who died this year, was often the target of demands for apologies for his acerbic comments from the bench or in speeches. They generally did not materialize, though the justice did apologize to reporters in 2004 after a deputy federal marshal ordered them to destroy recordings of a half-hour speech by Justice Scalia at a Mississippi high school.

At least RBG didn’t say she would be more circumspect “going forward.”



Bleach

Jul 14th, 2016 10:03 am | By

Can’t anyone put a stop to this?

“Parents hold their child down – three of them holding them down – and give this stuff as an enema,” says Emma Dalmayne. “Many feed it to their children. They even put it into their babies’ bottles.”

Dalmayne, a stay-at-home mother and autism campaigner from London, is describing Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), a “supplement” being sold online to parents as a “cure” for their autistic children. But MMS is essentially bleach. It is 28% sodium chlorite, and when used as instructed, generates chlorine dioxide – a potent bleach that’s used to strip textiles and for industrial water treatment.

It’s been around for years, people have been campaigning against it for years, but it’s still being marketed. People are still advertising bleach as a cure for autism – bleach to be ingested, not bleach to disinfect the garbage bin.

It is highly dangerous to ingest. Taken directly, MMS can cause severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, damage to the gut and red blood cells, respiratory problems, and can be fatal. “MMS can cause serious damage to health and in some cases even death,” says a spokeswoman for the Food Standards Agency (FSA). “Anyone who has bought these products is advised to throw them away.”

It’s poison. Poison poison poison. It will kill you. It’s stuff you keep in a locked cupboard if you have young children. Yet people are marketing it as something to ingest.

Kerri Rivera, a prominent proponent of MMS and author of Healing the Symptoms Known as Autism, says: “Almost all of the people with autism have high levels of pathogens; virus, bacteria, parasites and heavy metals. Chlorine dioxide kills pathogens and helps the body to detoxify itself. It is considered safe at doses we use for weight.” She adds: “There are over 225 people who no longer have autism after using it.”

Weapons-grade quackery, and lethal to living beings.

Dalmayne has discovered a Facebook group for parents of autistic children – many from the UK – that’s centred on these “cures”. With the tagline “Solving the puzzle one drop at a time”, the more than 9,000 members of the group discuss using chlorine dioxide, often posting photos of their children with skin rashes and bleeding – “bragging” that it’s a sign it’s working or asking for help when they’re afraid.

“People post, ‘my child can’t walk because she’s/he’s doubled up in pain’ or ‘their urine’s pink’,” Dalmayne says. “One had three seizures in a day. But they’re always told by the other members, ‘That’s normal. That’s the autism leaving them.’” The people being given the “solution”, who are discussed in the group, range from vulnerable adults to children as young as 10 months, Dalmayne tells me. “It’s like they’re going to war with their own children,” she says.

That’s so terrifying.

Although the FSA’s food crime unit is working with councils and government departments to combat the promotion and sale of MMS, Dalmayne says the law needs to be changed. While it is unlawful to sell a product such as MMS that is injurious to health, “you can say, ‘this is a cure for autism’ – and right now there’s nothing we can do about it”, she says. She is campaigning with Change.org for the government to introduce legislation to ban the marketing of products to the public based on the false claim it will cure autism, as is already the case with alleged remedies for cancer.

I just signed that petition.



You couldn’t make it up

Jul 13th, 2016 5:04 pm | By

I guess we’re all living in a surrealistic comedy show based on a competition between the UK and the US on who can put more absurdly unqualified and dangerous people in minor jobs like head of state or head of foreign affairs.

Or to put it another way, I go out for a couple of hours and come back to find that Boris Johnson is Foreign Secretary. Boris Johnson! Is Foreign Secretary!

Mr Johnson said he was “very humbled” to be appointed foreign secretary.

He said Mrs May had made a “wonderful speech” earlier, saying there was a “massive opportunity in this country to make a great success of our new relationship with Europe and with the world”.

But Lib Dem leader Tim Farron predicted Mr Johnson would “spend more time apologising to nations he’s offended” than working as foreign secretary.

Slate has a partial list of the offendings.

  • In 2003, Johnson described U.S. President George W. Bush as “a cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected, inarticulate, who [epitomizes] the arrogance of American foreign policy” in an unsigned editorial in the Spectator.
  • In a 2005 Telegraph column, he wrote “…compared with the old British Empire, and the new American imperium, Chinese cultural influence is virtually nil, and unlikely to increase….Chinese culture seems to stay firmly in China. Indeed, high Chinese culture and art are almost all imitative of western forms…. The number of Chinese Nobel prizes won on home turf is zero, though there are of course legions of bright Chinese trying to escape to Stanford and Caltech.”
  • In a 2006 column, also for the Telegraph, Johnson wrote “For 10 years we in the Tory Party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing.” After backtracking furiously, he said he would “add Papua New Guinea to my global itinerary of apology.”

Naturally it makes sense to appoint someone who has a global itinerary of apology to the job of Foreign Secretary.

  • In an op-ed published in April, he claimed President Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office upon assuming the presidency in 2009 because “it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire—of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” comments several leading British members of Parliament (rightly) condemned as racist.

He’s been rude about both Clinton and Trump.

Interesting times.



101 photoshops

Jul 13th, 2016 4:11 pm | By

The National: the newspaper that supports an independent Scotland: