Complain to council? Police come visit

Now I don't like Pauline Howe's opinions. I think they are quite vile. She thinks homosexuals are "sodomites" with "perverted sexual practices" who "spread sexually transmitted diseases" and can be blamed for the "downfall of every empire". She identifies herself as Christian, and obviously finds homosexual offensive. True to Voltaire of course I'll disagree with her, but agree with her right to express herself.

She objected, in writing, to Norwich City Council about a gay pride march. The response she got was twofold. Bridget Buttinger (let's call her "Norwich Chief Petty Fascist") replied warning her that she could face criminal charges for expressing such views. Buttinger says as a local authority it had an obligation to "eliminate discrimination of all kinds". Her letter was described as a "hate incident" because it was "motivated by prejudice or hatred".

No doubt it was such motivated. Mrs Howe was expressing an illegal opinion.

The letter concluded stating the matter had been passed to the police. Mrs Howe received a visit from two police officers to question her. Mrs Howe is a 67 year old grandmother, and understandably was quite shaken by the experience.

This is, of course, a total outrage. Mrs Howe should have the freedom of speech to be able to write to the council to complain about a gay pride march. It is her right as a citizen to hold her point of view and express it. She was not threatening ANYONE. She may herself hold views that means she supports the state initiating force, but then so does the entire Labour Party and indeed I bet most of the Conservative Party.

The Christian Institute, a campaign group, is investigating whether the council and police have breached her rights to free speech and religious freedom under the Human Rights Act.

Even Stonewall, a group campaigning for gay rights, believes the actions were disproportionate and are glad the police did not take things further.

It's outrageous. Mrs Howe should have every right to complain as she sees fit, even though I'd regard her views with utter disdain, she does not deserve to be threatened or told that her views are to be "eliminated". She can be told she is wrong, she can be ignored, but not threatened and the waste of police time and effort chasing this up is contemptible.

Yet no major UK political party will confront this.

There is nothing liberal about this - and I do wonder, how often the police confront Islamic preachers about how often they express their anti-homosexual views?

(Full story, Sunday Telegraph)

Maldives stunt just lies on climate change

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives created a widely reported publicity seeking moment on Saturday with images of him and his Cabinet holding an underwater meeting. The whole story was to highlight the alleged threat climate change would bring to the country he leads.

The report on CNN said:

Maldives is grappling with the very likely possibility that it will go under water if the current pace of climate change keeps raising sea levels. The Maldives is an archipelago of almost 1,200 coral islands south-southwest of India. Most of it lies just 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change has forecast a rise in sea levels of at least 7.1 inches (18 cm) by the end of the century.

So take away 7.1 inches from 4.9 feet and you have, more than 4 feet left. The stunt was a grotesque hyperbole.

Christopher Brooker in the Sunday Telegraph notes that the President of the Maldives was sent an open letter from Dr Nils-Axel Morner, the former head of the international Inqua Commission on Sea Level Change. It says "that his commission had visited the Maldives six times in the years since 2000, and that he himself had led three month-long investigations in every part of the coral archipelago. Their exhaustive studies had shown that from 1790 to 1970 sea-levels round the islands had averaged 20 centimetres higher than today; that the level, having fallen, has since remained stable; and that there is not the slightest sign of any rise. The most cautious forecast based on proper science (rather than computer model guesswork) shows that any rise in the next 100 years will be "small to negligible"."

So it is a monumental fraud to scare the world into thinking the Maldives will be swamped.

Furthermore, Dr Morner has sought to reassure the people of the Maldives, but its government isn't interested:

Professor Morner offered to explain his team's findings on the local TV station, to reassure viewers that their homes were not about to disappear underwater as they had been told. The government refused to allow his film to be shown. Egged on by climate alarmists, successive Maldivan leaders since the 1980s have pleaded for vast sums of international aid to save them from rising sea levels.

Brooker concludes rightly:

"If President Nasheed really believed his own propaganda, he would of course immediately ban all flights into his country and turn off the lights in all its hotels. But since this would put an end to the international tourism which is almost his country's only source of income, he would rather carry on staging his publicity stunts, while holding out the begging bowl which he hopes gullible world leaders such as Gordon Brown will soon fill with large quantities of Western taxpayers' cash."

Nasheed is a fraudster, perpetuating his fraud to whoever will listen, enjoying the tourism from environmentalists that it generates ("last chance to visit Maldives") and with the begging bowl out ("it's not our fault, but come fly to see us").

Of course the Guardian swallowed it like the true believers they are claiming the Maldives would be the first nation submerged.

UKIP may go bankrupt

The UK Independence Party has one key policy - withdrawal from the European Union. A policy that was popular enough for it to come SECOND in the European Parliament elections earlier this year, behind the Conservatives.

It now faces bankruptcy. Why? Because one of its major donors was not on the electoral roll for the year the donation was given. He had been on the roll for years. The Court of Appeal demanded UKIP should be fined, and all up faces a bill of £750,000 including legal fees.

The Liberal Democrats received a major donation from a gentleman found guilty on a £10 million fraud charge, and has been excused.

The whole story is on BBC reporter Michael Crick's blog, with Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph also expressing concern that if UKIP is forced under, it will only benefit the Tories and the BNP (the latter becoming the next possible location for some anti-EU votes to go).

I don't have much time for UKIP, as it is no pro-freedom party, but it does provide an outlet for an important point of view - that the UK's EU membership is largely a one-way street of benefits. It would be rather scandalous if UKIP is shut down months out from a general election.

Delahunty scared of education freedom

To say Catherine Delahunty has said something crazy is to state the bleedingly obvious.

So here we go again. On Frogblog she said:

"It wasn’t much fun waking up this morning to the news that the Ministry of Education will no longer be providing advice to primary schools on arts, science, technology, or physical education – nothing in fact, except the “three Rs”: reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. This latest assault on the public education system by the National Government is just plain stupid.

It also heralds the undoing of a robust curriculum. There is no educational justification for such a narrow focus, when all the evidence points to the importance of a holistic educational experience at primary school level"

Horror of horrors no more ADVICE to schools on certain subjects. What will they do? How will they cope? How can anyone teach anything without advice from the Ministry of Education?

What this means is that central government will no longer be directing how arts, science, technology and PE will be taught. It is a devolution of power to schools to make their OWN decisions. They wont get central government assistance on those subjects, they will need to figure it out for themselves or get together with other schools (or whoever they wish).

It is clear that the subjects will NOT stop being taught. Principals claim it might make those subjects a lower priority, which of course should be up to each school.

This move is a GOOD thing.

It is only a BAD thing if you believe education should be centrally dictated, that all schools should teach the same and use the same techniques. Schools MIGHT take it as a chance to be innovative, to think for themselves and deliver education in those subjects for what parents want.

Delahunty is spinning it as being the end of education in those subjects, which is nonsense.

In fact, the more central government abandons directing schools the better. Schools should be driven by parents, NOT bureaucrats, as to how and what they teach.

However, I can see why the Greens really are upset:

"Through this same cut, we have now lost all the Sustainability Advisors"

In other words, propagandists for the Green perspective on science, philosophy and history. No more taxpayer funded brainwashing of children to suit one certain agenda.

Another step forward would be for all schools to simply be funded on a per pupil basis and let the school innovate, decide what to teach and how, and then parents choose what school to send their children too. No centrally dictated curriculum (but schools could collaborate and share information and develop their own ones).

Now that really would frighten those who fear education being driven by what suppliers think consumers (parents) would like. Including, of course, the National Party.

BNP on Question Time?

Probably a mild win for the BNP - unprecedented platform for publicity. Nick Griffin came across as defensive, but relatively moderate, claimed he had transformed the BNP from being racist and fascist to being a party for indigenous British people to defend their rights.

He would have solidified his own supporters, except the profoundly racist who might think he's a sellout. However, who knows what other side the BNP shows in private.

For the rest of Britons? He probably gained support for his views on Islam and immigration generally, but every single non-white person who confronted him, he said he was happy letting them stay in Britain.

So in conclusion? Well done BBC - you probably gave the BNP more than it lost.

TV licence fee payers will be thrilled you gave them this oxygen of publicity, paid for by them.