What price a human life?

It seems that if you are the wrong colour and of the wrong political persuasion the law considers your life of less worth than might otherwise be the case.

My friend the Green Arrow makes a number of telling points about the travesty of justice which recently took place at Stafford Crown court, many of which you will not read in the press.

The murder of Keith Brown, for let us call it what it was, and the treatment of his killer, tell us how little protection we have in our own land if we fail to bow to its current gods.

Unexpected Consequences

A few days ago, shortly before the Democratic coronation in Denver I visited the Barack Obama "Fight the Smears" website, where they display what they claim is a copy of the anointed one's birth certificate (see above) I have no idea if it is genuine or not, but I know that some people's suspicions have been raised due to the fact that you can only view miniature version of the birth certificate rather than a full sized one, hence it is not possible scrutinise it in any detail.

I will leave it to others to question the provenance of the certificate, however, I will tell you what occurred when I visited the website. The site offers the facility to e-mail a copy of a minimised document to a friend together with a pre-written message claiming that it disproves one of the smears put about about Barak the Blessed, namely that he was born outside of the USA.

I noticed that the text of the pre-written message was editable, and, being in a playful mood, I re-wrote the message and sent it to a friend, with a revised message stating that the document was a transparent fake obviously put together using PhotoShop, and clicked "Send". Later that day I was amused to discover that my friend received a message endorsed by the Obama campaign but including my revised wording claiming his birth certificate was a fake.

However, my amusement was short lived, as it seems the chosen one's people have captured my e-mail address, and as a result I have since been inundated with cheerful messages from "Barack", "Michelle" and "Joe" addressing me as "Dear Sarah" and breathlessly updating me on the latest developments in the Democratic campaign and the thoughts of the Big eared beamer..

Let this be a warning to us all, one's actions, no matter how frivolous, can have unexpected and unwelcome consequences.

Interesting article by Peter Hitchins

This article is by Peter Hitchins and published in yesterday's Daily Mail, therefore I take no credit or liability for its content. However, readers may find it of interest how often these things are now being said in the national press.

It seems that more and more people are becoming aware of what is happening to us, but, infuriatingly, as with Hitchins' article, there is a fatalism to their attitude, almost as if they feel they can not fight against what is inevitable.

That is what needs to change.

Nothing in life is inevitable, the future Hitchins paints does not have to happen. We have it in our power to change it, however, the open question is , will we?

A woman on the ticket after all

My first reaction to the news that US Republican presidential candidate John McCain had chosen the little known, and female, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, was that this move resulted from a mixture of desperation and cynicism, designed to trump race with gender, whilst the Democrats bathed in politically correct smugness at having selected the first ever black presidential candidate. At first it appeared such an obvious ploy that it seem certain to result in the worst GOP disaster since poor old Bob Dole fell off the stage in 1996.

Hence I had planned to post an article headed something like “the Affirmative Action election”, focusing on the compulsion amongst modern American politicians to out PC each other, which is certainly what yesterday's decision first looked to be.

Most regular readers will be aware of my views on the Democrat's annointed one, in respect of whom, before my friend and occasional commentator, Mark writes to remind me of the great speech Obama gave, in front of those Imperial columns on Thursday, I will say that, with a good script writer, Anthony Hopkins would probably have given a great speech also, but I wouldn't trust him in the White house either.

When she first made her entrance yesterday, Sarah Palin seemed like another character in the same mould. A politician of modest substance and achievement, thrust into the spotlight because of what she is rather than because of what she has done.

However, after having read the news and taken note of the various commentators, it may be that McCain's choice was more shrewd than it initially appeared.

The Republican vice presidential candidate certainly brings balance to the ticket, and not only in terms of age and gender. Politically, it appears the Ms Palin is somewhat to the right of Mussolini, which might win over some Republicans who consider McCain a radical pinko. A proud social conservative, she is, for instance anti gay rights and in favour of wilderness oil exploration, two areas in which I fundamentally disagree with her, but which will endear her to the capitalist, yet deeply puritan heart of middle America.

Even more vital to McCain's chances of success is his running mate's stand on abortion, she is pro-life, and more that proved her credentials by recently choosing to give birth to a child with Downs Syndrome, rather than selecting termination as so many others would have done. That decisions, which could not have been an easy one, will have endeared her to swathes of Republican voters, who will vote Republican on that issue alone.

And that is the key, those who imagine McCain chose Sarah Palin in order to appeal to disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters miss the point. Embittered Hillary supporters were only ever going to help McCain by not voting for Obama, there was never any chance of them voting Republican in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

John McCain's best chance at winning the WhiteHouse is by winning back the Right Wing ant- abortionist, anti-gay marriage Conservatives who are deeply suspicious of him personally, and it is because of them that Sarah Palin is his running mate.

In other ways also, it seemed a well timed and shrewd move and one which may work very well if McCain does win in November. Sarah Palin looks like a loyal team member who would play Bush Snr. to McCain's Ronnie Reagan when he needs an afternoon nap.

Of course, I have no idea where Palin stands on immigration, the single issue which is most troubling about the McCain candidacy. However, that issue was likely to be a problem whoever McCain chose, and America will need to undergo a revolution, at least in thought, before that monster is finally shot. As such, her views on this issue make little difference in the scheme of things.

There is also the issue of Todd Palin's ethnicity, his great-grandmother was half Eskimo from the Yup'ik trible of Central Alaska, and as a result I have seem the term “race traitor” applied to his wife on a number of forums.

I have expressed my own views of interracial relationships here a number of times, however, the human race is where it is, and to be one sixteenth Eskimo in a land, as lonely, remote and sparsely populated as Alaska, especially as Alaska was eighty to one hundred years ago is probably not that unusual. A body has needs, even in the frozen tundra. Therefore, I don't consider Sarah Palin as being in any way like the brain dead bimbos who sleep with black men, in the hope they will be roughed up a bit and called a 'ho.

Sexual attraction is based largely on appearance, and what Sarah sees when she gets into bed at night is a white man lying next to her, even if his great grandmother's daddy may have once rowed a kayak. When a woman dates a black man she knows she is dating a black man, as Todd Palin looks 100% white, Sarah could well have fallen in love with him before she knew about his heritage.

Therefore, I don't think I am being hypocritical by giving her a pass on that score.

For me, as a woman, McCain's choice of running mate has made the 2008 Presidential race a little more interesting, and has gone some way to make up for the manner in which the Democratic nomination was stolen from Hillary Clinton, as such I shall probably take more notice of it than I might have done otherwise.

However, it will not seriously make me care much either way as to who wins, be it McCain or be it Obama, they will both do more damage than good as President, and neither will change the future, which fate has in store for America. Condemned by political correctness to go within one Biblical life span (three score years and ten) from a 90% majority white nation in 1970 to what is expected to be a white minority by just after 2040, I would not rate its chances of remaining a union of fifty states by the end of this century.

However, that is a far greater concern than a single presidential contest, and one which will have to wait to be resolved until long after the present players have left the stage.

Meanwhile, I am pleased that one strong woman remains in the race, even if she is not at the head of the ticket or all I might have hoped she would be.

That said, who knows what the future holds, John McCain is the oldest man ever to run for first term president, in such circumstances, the Vice President is indeed but a heartbeat from the most powerful job in the world, and I do have to admit that the words “President Sarah” do have a certain ring to them.

Airbrushing history

I see that Britain's involvement in the slave trade will become a compulsory subject to be taught in British schools. Need we wonder what the purpose of that is? Am I being overly suspicious or will this be another exercise in making white British children feel undeservedly guilty about their heritage whilst casting non-whites as victims of cruel racist imperialism?. I am sure my suspicions are well founded, and that schools will be highly selective in what details of the slave trade they they chose to teach, also, I wonder how much accuracy and balance there will be in what is taught?

Will school children be taught that the international slave trade had been carrying on for thousands of years before Britain became, comparitively briefly, involved?. Will they be taught that 90% of all slaves were transported eastward to Arabia and Asia where there was a thriving slave trade at a time before England was a single nation, let alone Great Britain?.

Will they learn that there are currently twice as many people living in forms of slavery today, as I write this post as were transported to America in the entire North Atlantic slave trade?.

Will they be taught of Britain's leading role in ending the slave trade and eradicating across a quarter of the Earth's surface, and using our navy to prevent others from continuing the trade. Will they be taught that whilst Britain banned the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery across the Empire in 1833, Saudi Arabia did not get around to banning it until 1964 (a century after the American civil war), and in Niger it was not banned until 2003?.

in 1935, 100 years after Britain abolished slavery across our Empire, in Ethiopia an African country which had never been colonised, there were 2 million slaves. What are the chances of our children being taught that?

I doubt those facts about the slave trade are the ones British school children will be allowed to hear about.

All these details together with relevant links and sources were in an article I posted a couple of months back, which, without false modesty, I have little doubt is considerably more accurate that anything likely to appear in the forthcoming curriculum.

I can all but guarantee that facts will be re-written to produce a version of history that will fit the politically correct anti white fairy tales of our day.

In terms of re-writing history to create a past which fits a present political ideology the Britain of today is becoming more like those Eastern block countries before the fall of the Iron Curtain. I recently read the following account on K C Johnson's excellent blog about the Duke lacross hoax Durham in Wonderland, and repeat it here as I think it is very fitting.

In March 1948, shortly after a coup that installed totalitarian rule in Czechoslovakia, when the Czech Communist Party (KSČ) convened a celebratory gathering in Prague's Old Town Square. Tens of thousands braved chilling temperatures to hear KSČ leader Klement Gottwald speak. The new communist foreign minister, Vladimír Clementis stood beside Gottwald on the podium, and gave up his fur hat to shield the prime minister's bare head from the cold.

Four years later, a wave of anti-Semitic show trials occurred throughout the Eastern Bloc; Czechoslovakia experienced the most spectacular purge. In late 1952, the government denounced Clementis, KSČ first secretary Rudolf Slánský, and twelve other prominent Communists as "Trotskyite-Zionist-Titoist-bourgeois-nationalist traitors, spies, and saboteurs." Eleven of the fourteen arrested leaders were Jews. All were found guilty in show trials; eleven, including Slánský and Clementis, were executed.

The trials' outcome required creating a new, politically correct, version of the past. Propagandists eliminated the executed party members from communist history books. Clementis, for instance, was airbrushed from the photograph at the Prague demonstration hailing the coup. In the KSČ's version of history, all that remained of the former foreign minister was the cap that he had placed on Gottwald's head.The true story of Clementis and his fur cap comes from the opening of Czech dissident Milan Kundera's novel, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. To one of the novel's characters, the tale showed how "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." For historians, Clementis' fate illustrates the willingness of totalitarian regimes to alter the past to align with their contemporary political interests; and, from the other side, the need for scholars to resist such efforts.

I think we can be reasonably confident that Gottwald's hat will have lot in common with the history of the slave which will shortly be taught to our children.

Farewell my beautiful Zimbabwe

Last year, Justine Shaw was forced to flee her beloved Zimbabwe. Like millions of others, she had suffered years of threats, poverty and intimidation at the hands of Robert Mugabe's men. Here, she recounts how paradise turned to poverty – and her fears for the elderly parents she left behind

_______________________________

The cursor hovers over the "send and receive" icon and I hesitate before pressing enter. I haven't heard from my parents for a week. Although I know the telephone line had been faulty, I desperately hope that it has been fixed – however temporarily – simply so they can reassure me they're OK.

I have three new emails. The first informs that I have enough FlyBuys points to purchase free electronic products online. It has been 19 months since my husband, two children and I settled in Australia, and yet, I'm still amazed by the giveaways, promotions, sales and bonus offers.

The second email is deleted immediately. It's advising me to resend it to seven friends within 10 minutes or be cursed with years of hardship. It's already disappeared, but suddenly I feel superstitious. I'm a Zimbabwean. For years I've binned emails like this. Perhaps all my fellow countrymen did the same? It certainly seems that nothing but misfortune and bad luck have shrouded our beautiful country for more than a decade.

The third message is the one I've been waiting for. I'm relieved and happy, eager to hear my parents' news. I still retain a desperate longing to keep up to date with the dismal state of affairs unfolding at home. The recent flawed election process has once again propelled Zimbabwe into the news and my appetite for information about the situation is insatiable.

My parents, left in the capital, Harare, form part of a population subjected to unabated, deplorable actions sanctioned by their government. In five months' time, I can initiate an application for a visa that will hopefully give them the opportunity to begin a new life with us here in Australia. Whenever I hear from them, left behind there, I feel a terrible sense of guilt, and find myself wondering.... Could I have made a difference had I stayed?

Continue reading here

A denial of greatness

The number 2012 bus rolled into the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing and out pored a ramshackle group of people, of varying shades and ethnicities, who proceeded to perform what appeared to be a waddling dance, whilst pretending to wave their rolled umbrellas at the bus. All the diversity quota selected figures from a Common purpose wet dream were there, a black man with dreadlocks, an a Asian in one type of turban and a black woman in another type, hers in a shade of canary yellow only seen on women recently arrived from Lagos, and usually at the front of an NHS queue.

Amongst them were a smattering of white people, but they were clearly there merely to make up the ethnic mix rather than as a representation of the historic, native, population of London, a group whom the Guardianista approved organisers seemed almost embarrassed to acknowledge.

The requisitely diverse dancers were then replaced by a mixed race girl who won the X-factor and went on to have some hits in the USA, who, together with an ageing rocker sang a sanitised version of “Whole Lotta Love”. This was supposed to represent London as we inherit the Olympic torch.

After the show with which the Chinese had just entertained the world, the British performance at the Olympic handover ceremony was cringingly embarrassing, not even redeemed by the village hall amateurishness of its effect, as the politically correct message was obviously deliberate.

The only respite from the grinding awfulness of the show came in the beautiful, if androgynous, form of the worlds second most famous living Briton, David Beckham, who obediently kicked a ball into the politely applauding if perplexed audience. Never was the Essex born Adonis's habitual expression of self effacing embarrassment so fitting, and no doubt so widely shared.

Was that the best we could do? Was that how London, for centuries the greatest city on earth, is now to be portrayed, is it how we, who live here want our city to be portrayed, indeed, as London is the capital of our nation, is that how we, the British, want our nation to be portrayed. Is that really how we want the world to think of us?

It was certainly how the politically correct guardians of our image wish to portray us, in their self hating desire to reinvent everything that was once viewed as British. Who can doubt that at the centre of planning for what one is reluctant to refer to as the "show", was a desire to flick a large 'V' sign at British history, because certainly there was no evidence of British history, or indeed London's history on show in Beijing on Saturday.

What does it say about us as a country? More importantly what future has a nation which has rejected its past?

What was the purpose of Saturday's excruciating performance? Will it attract visitors to Britain? Will it attract investment? I doubt it

Do tourists come to Britain to “embrace our multicultural society” or do they come in search of our heritage and our history.

Apart from the relatively small number who come here for that noisy, crime infested and overcrowded street party going on this weekend, overwhelmingly they come for the later and not the former.

They come looking for a London steeped in white European history, a London of palaces and Christian churches, of Shakespeare's Globe, Tower bridge and a living story richer than almost any other city on Earth. They come to the city which houses the mother of parliaments, the essential birthplace of democracy and the form of law most widely adopted throughout the world.

People from across the word come to visit that capital of a nation from which more that is good and noble and more which has benefited mankind has flowed than any other. They came to the land which was the leader in bringing an end to an international slave trade which had existed for millennia, a land from which was responsible for more advances in medicine, science and human knowledge than almost any other, and to experience a culture which has had more impact on the world than any other, overwhelmingly for the good.

London as a city in its own right and as the capital of our great has given great things to the world, and it is a travesty that the real London was not celebrated this weekend. Gangsta rap and zoo nation do not represent London, they do not represent Britain, they are symbols of what is being done to us, but not of what we are.

The Pride of Zimbabwe

Whilst Britain is rightly proud of its success at the Beijing Olympics, where as I write, we are current ranked fourth with an impressive overall medal tally of 47, including 19 Golds, I note that, once impressive sporting nations such as South Africa (76th with one silver medal) and Zimbabwe languish much further down the table.

Zimbabwe at number 38 has done better than South Africa by winning a total of four medals, one gold and four silver. Interestingly, all of Zimbabwe's medals were won by a single athlete, swimmer Kirsty Coventry, unless the other members of the Zimbabwe Olympic team can pull off a surprise victorty before the closing ceremony later today it seems that Kirsty will be the only one who will not return home empty handed.

Zimbabwe is sorely in need of some good news and Kirsty Coventry's remarkable achievement has all the ingredients of a feel good story. However, given that she is a member of that shrinking group of Zimbabwean citizens whom he frequently blames for ever growing number of ills currently confronting his unhappy country, it will be interesting to see how Uncle Bob chooses to play this one.

Publicising Paedophilia

As the world's most famous living convicted paedophile Paul Gad, a.k.a the ex-pop star Gary Glitter was pursued by the world's media across half of Asia. At times the cameras focused on his face in such close up, one could almost count the unhappy one time singer's nasal hairs. There is little chance of the press attention letting up, and we can be sure that the faded star's every movement will make newspaper headlines for weeks to come.

The flashbulb frenzy which accompanied Gad's appearances at airports from Vietnam to Bangkok, Hong Kong and finally Heathrow, threw into sharp focus those paedophiles whose activities the press choose to publicise and those they do not.

Some may claim that that Gad's one time celebrity status was responsible for the level of media attention, which clearly is true to a degree, but many otherwise obscure individuals with no famous past will find their faces plastered across the front pages and TV news stories if they are exposed as a paedophile.

In fact, paedophiles do not have to be one time celebrities for their mugshots to head up the evening news, what they do have to be, however, is white.

According to the press reports Paul Gad went to an Asian country and sought out under aged indigenous girls for sex, and as a result it became a major international news story. However, when large numbers of Asian men in British cities and target under aged indigenous girl for sex the news media falls silent.

As we have seen before with the young white boys who are falling unreported victim to the imported crime waves on our streets, the sacrifice of our young girls is also going on beneath the press radar. If the victim is white and the predator is not, it is not news, no matter how young and vulnerable the victim may be.

To kill the killers?

Reading the reports from Boise Idaho whilst the jury deliberate on the fate of convicted paedophile and child murderer Joseph Duncan III, I suspect that most of us, were we to find ourselves on that jury would find it hard not to vote for his execution. The details of the crime are truly horrific. Having bludgeoned their mother, prospective step father and 13 year elder brother to death, Duncan kidnapped two young children and subjected them to weeks of torture and sexual abuse, culminating in the torture and murder of the 9 year old boy in front if his eight year old sister.

The court were left in little doubt of Duncan's guilt, as he had filmed much of the abuse, including scenes of extreme violence where he had screamed at his young victims that he was the devil and that he enjoyed seeing little children suffer.

As the film was played to the weeping jury who are charges with deciding whether he should die, or spend the rest of his life in prison, I suspect that there is little doubt as to what their final verdict will be. However, irrespective of the actual outcome, it is hard to imagine what possible benefit society will gain from keeping someone like Joseph Duncan alive any longer that it takes to ensure that he is made fully aware that he is going to die and that he is going to Hell.

Of course, many would argue Joseph Duncan III is not the example one should consider when judging the rights and wrongs of the death penalty, for he is a man who is unquestionably guilty, and self evidently evil. In the wider context, only a minority of killers fit the monster costume quite so snugly.

There are many reasons why people kill, none are forgivable, but not all killers are as irredeemably damned as Joseph Duncan.

I have long been ambivalent as to the rights and wrongs of the death penalty, not only for the reasons most often given in its opposition, namely the fact that innocent people have been convicted and indeed executed.

but also, because I doubt it's effectiveness as a deterrent. Certainly from my own point of view, were I to be convicted of murder I would consider death only slightly less attractive than spending the rest of my life in prison.

I speak there as a woman, but, were I a man, and looking at the type of existence I would face in a male prison, especially in America , I have little doubt that death would seem a far kinder option.

Another argument against the death penalty is that it is one of those decisions which should never be left to a politician or made for crowd pleasing reasons. America has the death penalty today because of politicians who pandered to public opinion and many believe that if the British public had their way the hangman would be back in business.

However, who would they hang?

Consider for a moment the opinion much of the British public have of Maxine Carr, a woman, in fact guilty only of giving the man she loved, and wrongly believed innocent, a false alibi. However, in the mind of the many, unable to see beyond the image of the two children her lover killed, Carr has become a monster often spoken of in the same breath as Rose West and Myra Hindley. Were her fate to be left to the Madame Defarges in the public galery it would not be a happy one.

Maxine Carer killed nobody, but what of others who did? Should public opinion have been allowed to decide the fate of the children who tortured and murdered the Liverpool toddler Jamie Bulger? How many could step back from the horror of that killing and see the killers for what they were, two ten year old boys, evil and demonic ten year old boys but ten year old boys all the same.

As the killers, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, were taken to court crowds attacked the police vans, and one has to wonder what would have happened had the mob got their hands on those children.

Politics, race and news management play a large part in how we view criminals, it is claimed that in the past black people were likely to be punished more severely for their crimes to placate public opinion. If that is so, then one must condemn it for no life should be taken to satisfy a prejudice. However, one only has to look at the yelling politically motivated crowds mobbing the courts in Philadelphia where three white boys are accused of killing a Hispanic paedophile (whom the US press refuse to call a paedophile on account of his race) or those who picketed North Carolina's Duke University after false rape claims were made against three Lacrosse players in 2006, to know that racist mob justice comes in many shades in the 21st Century.

As society, we must never allow the law of the mob to decide what is justice.

Thou shalt not kill states the commandment and we can not change that by pretending it said “Thou shall not commit murder”. Death is final, and once a man has been executed he can not be brought back to life, mistakes can not be put right.

However, for all my good intentions and all my right sounding words, I look at the picture of Joseph Duncan and that of the 9 year old boy he hung by the neck, whilst beating him with a belt, before “accidentally” eviscerating him, then shooting him in the head and burning his battered little body in front of the child's younger sister, and find it hard to believe a civilised society could keep such a creature alive.


In Britain, Zeeshan Shahid, Imran Shahid and Mohammed Mushtaq, the men who kidnapped and tortured 14 year Kriss Donald before setting him on fire whilst he was still alive remain in prison, fed, clothed and sheltered by the tax payers, still able to see and touch family members in a way that Kriss's mother can not see or touch the son they stole from her. What benefit does society gain from the many thousands already spent, and many more still to be spent in keeping them alive?

If the Tennessee eventually summon up the courage to try those accused of the rape, torture and murder of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian and if they are found to have done what they are alleged to have done to those two young people, would it be justice to let them live?

I can ask myself these questions in the face of my fine words, but can only answer, I don't know.

_____________________________

Update: I have added a poll in the right hand column of the blog where people can express their views on the death penalty

The problem continues

It seems that Sarah Maid of Albion remains flagged as a possible "Spam blog", and, although unlike some people in this predicament, I can still post, I have perform a word verification test before I can do so.

I understand from this posting on another site the problem is quite wide spread and I have no idea how long it will take to resolve, however, oddly, that post is dated August 1st and my problem did not start until the 18th. One would assume that, if Blogger was aware of the problem three weeks ago, they would have turned their robots off until they resolve it.

As I understand that quite a few people who are in this situation are unable to post at all, please note that I have two back up blogs Sarah Maid of Albion II where I archive some of my better articles, and Sarah's Albion blog which is over at Wordpress in case there is a wider problem with Blogger. Until this problem is resolved I will post to all three blogs.

I am also a reasonably regular "guest" poster at the The Home of the Green Arrow, please bookmark those blogs, so that, if the worst comes to the worst, and this blog either falls silent or disappears altogether, you will know where to find me.

If anyone has any previous experience of this problem, or knows how to contact Blogger I would be very grateful for their advice. When I tried to contact blogger, having spend twenty minutes fighting my way through their filter FAQs they told me my e-mail address "didn't exist" (which will be a surprise for all the real spammers who write to me there!!)

To quote regular commentator Alanorei "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that everybody isn't out to get you" - Murphy

Thanks

Sarah

We shall see

This evening when I decided to make some posts, I found that in order to post a message I was required to provide a word verification. When I clicked on the link which promised an explanation, I saw the message below, which says that "The Spam detection robots" had identified this blog as a possible "Spam blog" and that if I wanted to remove the word verification, I would have to apply for the blog to be reviewed by a "human being".

Of course I have applied accordingly.

However, as we all know, things are not always as they seem, and a number of blogs which express views which might not win them the Politically Correct Society seal of approval tend to suddenly disappear.

It will be interesting to see where this latest development leads.

Should Sarah Maid of Albion "suddenly disappear", I would like to thank my loyal readers for their support.

Sarah

Gun law?

A number of people have written to me asking me to write an article in praise of guns, arguing that increased gun ownership reduces crime and increases personal safety. It is a view genuinely held by many of my correspondents, particularly those from the USA, and one I know they hold with all sincerity.

However, I can not write that article, because I am not convinced by the argument. The fact remains that in countries such as America, where gun ownership is widespread, the chances of being the victim of gun crime is considerably higher than in nations where guns are controlled. According to the Gun control network, admittedly not an objective source, the difference is that in America your chances of being killed by a gun is almost 4 for every 100,000 population, whereas in the UK, where the ownership of hand guns is banned and the ownership of hunting rifles is subject to strict licencing rules, the figure is 0.15 per 1000,000, it is hard to argue against such figures.

I have some sympathy for the argument that it is crazy that whilst the British Olympic target shooting team have to practice overseas, there are any number of illegally held guns on the street and available to criminals. I also acknowledge the craziness when in countries such as the USA, and in states like, for instance Virginia, where there are probably more controls over the sale of cigarettes than there are over the sale of guns, to designate certain areas as gun free zones, when surely it is obvious that the truly dangerous will ignore such regulations. However, I don't accept that the tragedy at Virginia Tech in 2007, could have been averted had the professors been armed, a claim I have heard argued on various forums. It is indicative of the Atlantic divide that such an argument would seem ludicrous in Britain, yet highly sensible to many Americans.

Despite the illegal guns on the street, as I sit here, I have no idea where I could obtain one, and I am sure the same applies to around 95% of the population. That does indeed mean that 5% of the population do know how to get hold of a gun, and a proportion of them will obtain a gun, and if I am unlucky enough, to cross their paths they may kill me. However, in many states in America, the figures are reversed and 95% of the adult population have access to guns, and surely that is more dangerous.

Therefore, although I am open to the argument that the current UK legislation unfairly penalises law abiding gun enthusiasts, I feel that may be a price worth paying and I am certainly in favour of strong gun controls


However, I am aware from the contents of my inbox that this is a contentious issue, and many do not agree with me., As I said above there is a distinct Atlantic division of opinion, and as such it might be a diverting topic to discuss. Hence I welcome comments to this post from those who have strong opinions either way, it will not change the law, but it might change some views, and I promise that I will not reject any (on topic) post on this topic, unless they are offensive, threatening or illegal.

Too white for the BBC?

This weekend saw the best Olympic results for Great Britain in 100 years, and even and as a nation we should feel a great sense of pride for our fantastic home grown athletes. Yesterdays was the first time Britain has won so many medals in a single day since the London Summer Olympic games of 1908.

For the first time in decades Great Britain is in third place, behind only the host nation and the world's last remaining superpower. It does not get much better than that, we could not hope for better in the lead up to 2012.

However, yesterday's news coverage on the BBC and Channel 4 suggested that the results were not quite as enthusiastically welcomed in the Newsrooms across the nation as they may have been in its living rooms. I am only guessing but a glance at the triumphant athletes may give us a clue as to why, is it possible that they are all a little too shining white to please the TV opinion formers. How can they possible sing the praises of the British winners when those winners are all so unfashionably indigenous.

Could that be why, the day that team GB scored our greatest result in a Century, both the BBC and Channel 4 devoted at least half of their Olympic coverage to a Jamaican athlete called Bolt.

Mr. Bolt did very well, and we all applaud him, however these were two British news channels, reporting on British TV, on the day of Britain's greatest Olympic achievement since the dawn of the 20th Century. On that day, what other nation on earth would spend 50% of their coverage reporting on the achievements of a foreign athlete? In a post praising our sportsmen and women, it would seem inappropriate to call our media by the name they deserve, but it starts with 'Scum' and ends with 'bags'.

Congratulations to our victorios sportsman, our national media may not appreciate you but we, the British people do.

The day America hung free speech

As we long suspected, the United States of America long ago did away with any pretense that pays anything other than lip service to the first amendment. Contrary to the intensions of the founding fathers, Americans are now permitted to speak freely of that which they are permitted to speak.

Speech, however, which falls outside the parameters of what is permitted can result in the full force of the law descending upon a the speaker. 19 year old Jeremiah Munsen has been sentenced to four months in prison for the crime of driving past a group of marchers with a few makeshift nooses hanging from the back of his pick up truck.

Given that those marching in support of the murderous young thugs collectively known as the Jennas 6 have created massive lie on the back of a few nooses, what better answer to them than to use the symbol of their dishonesty against them. Young Mr Munsen should be applauded for the cleverness of his commentary and use of free expression, however, it was his bad luck that he lives in America, the land of the "free to say the right thing

In America you can shoot a burglar dead with impunity, but God help you if you offend him or mention his race.

Jeremiah Munsen is paying the price for not saying what he is supposed to say, for not believing what he is supposed to believe, and questioned a lie which he was not supposed to question.

He is another victim of the lie which now has a vice like grip on the heart and testicles of the land we call the last remaining superpower, where the much vaunted constitution protects only those who embrace the new realities, where truth is only true if it complies with the new myths and other truths which do not comply become hate crimes.

In Jena Louisiana six black youths beat a white boy unconscious, and yet in the new reality, which created a whole new new story about "white trees" which never existed, and half truths about nooses, they, not the beaten white boy are viewed as the victims. For questioning this madness Jeremiah Munsen had to be punished.

Jeremiah Munsen - punished for the crime of free expression in America

It is to America's shame that so few shouted "NO"

The fog of war

Unlike the recent theft of Kosovo from Serbia, the rights and wrongs of the current territorial dispute over South Ossetia are a little less clear. However, given that the BBC and Channel 4, together with both the UK and US governments have rushed to portray Russia as the aggressor and Georgia as the victim. it is a fair bet that Georgia has been up to no good.

Given the vagaries of the media's moral compass the very fact that Russia appears to have been the victor in the latest skirmish will invariably result in it being cast as the villain, however, difficult to accept as many in the press may find it, sometimes might can be right and now and then the underdog turns out to be a cur.

A alternative perspective on events can paint a very different picture and what appeared certainties can be a little more ambivalent.

If you were to ask a Russian to explain the recent series of events, they would probably respond that greater Ossetia is an overwhelmingly Russian area, by some estimates 90% hold Russian passports. Georgia has made numerous attempts to suppress the region and, as a result Russian peacekeeping troops have been in Ossetia for years and were approved in international agreements so as to protect the citizens of the region from attacks by the Georgian military.

Despite the international agreements Georgia, not Russia, started this war by the very fact that Georgia invaded Ossetia. Thousands of Ossetian civilians became refugees due to the Georgian assault and Russia responded in order to protect the Ossetian people, fighting the Georgia military so it could not continue its invasion.

It is not the way the BBC are reporting events, but does that make it any less true?

Dangerous Liaisons

Further to the somewhat less than serious article I wrote the other day regarding the over employed actor Morgan Freeman, I note that, as one of my regular correspondents, Benny, commented, Mr Freeman was not alone in the vehicle which was involved in a traffic accident in Mississippi. His travelling companion of that evening was a white woman, and she sure wasn't Miss Daisy.

The woman in question goes by the intriguing name of Demaris Meyer a resident of Memphis, who apparently owned the car Freeman was driving.

I would not presume to speculate as to what Morgan Freeman (71) was doing driving 48 year old Ms Meyer's 1997 Nissan Maxima around Charleston at 11:30 at night, but it does seem that he wife of 24 years, Myrna, may have done some speculating of her own, as she filed for divorce a few days later

Assuming, as Myrna Freeman apparently did, that her husband's relationship with Ms. Meyer was an affectionate one, this again raises the perplexing question of why so many interracial relationships appear to involve a black man and a white woman.

I have written about this phenomenon previously , and it is certainly one which is heavily promoted by the media, and we are led to believe that many black men view having sex with a white woman as talisman and symbol of success, although I don't know how true that is.

However, as a woman who has so far been immune to the apparent charms of black men, one has to ask the question, what's in it for the sizable minority of white women who seem so eager to cross the interracial divide?

Before some of my politically correct correspondents write in to make the spurious claim that black men treat white women better, than white men do, I have to tell you that the statistics do not back you up.

Statistically, as even the sainted Barrak Obama admits, black men are far more likely than white men to abandon their partners and families. When the partner is white and the children mixed race they are even more likely to be abandoned, as the regiments of poverty stricken white girls living on benefits as they attempt, with varying degrees of success, to raise mixed race children will testify.


Furthermore, black men are statistically more prone to domestic violence and in many cases are only too happy to advertise the fact, it is, after all not generally white men who sing the sort of gangsta rap lyrics about “slapping up their bitches” which tend to make so many black rappers such celebrities.

Without even venturing into the subject of crime, it is quite clear that, in general black men are nowhere close to being Prince Charmings in their treatment of women, a fact supported by no less a figure than the US Democratic presidential candidate. Even without Obama's endorsement, white women must know the truth, particularly those who live in the inner cities, where the evidence is all around them.

Let us also lay to rest the claim that black me are better endowed in the underpants department. Even though this may be true in some cases, although certainly not all, as is usually the case with equipment the bigger something is the less well it works, and, as is always the case with men, the larger their vehicle the less well they drive it.

In fact I think the answer may lie more with the women themselves than with the myths. One should not generalise, and there certainly are exceptions, but by and large the white women who are most likely to be seen with black men tend to fall into two distinct groups.

The fist group tend to be women of low intelligence and generally low self esteem, it is this group, who seem to believe that their bodies are all they have to offer, and that a woman's highest ambition is to become pregnant and get a council flat. The colour of the man is less important than his willingness to pay her attention, hence the women in this category tend to become impregnated and abandoned quite rapidly, and sadly, in some cases, quite frequently.

In fairness, such women are also likely to be impregnated by white men, but statistically when that happens, they are less likely to be abandoned.

The other type of white women who favour black men, tend to be more glamorous, albeit glamorous in a somewhat over the top manner. One of my correspondents, who wrote to me a while ago, told me that, when she was young, there was an expression used to describe women who dressed in rather trashy and overstated / over painted manner, who were said to be “looking for a black man”. It is an interesting expression, and I don't think I can be accused of unfairness by suggesting that many of the white women who are more affectionately inclined towards man of races other than their own, do tend to favour an appearance which enable them to aspire to an image which would sit more comfortably within the lyrics of a gangsta rap number.

Be honest, how often do you see a white women without make up, the hair colour she was born with, wearing jeans and sneakers dating a black man?

That said, the fact that one can can identify specific groups of women who are likely to find the company of non white males more appealing, still does not answer the question “why?”. Particularly in relation to the second group, which can include some bright, or, at least shrewd women. Why would they willingly choose relationships which they are no less likely to become victims than the council house aspiring single mothers, indeed probably even more likely than that group to be the victims of violence?.

As I was pondering this conundrum, a portly figure in towering heels and with a raucous, and most unwholesome, laugh sprang to mind. Cynthia Payne, Madame Cyn of Streatham, or at least, if not the lady herself, her willing and loyal clientèle.

Mrs Payne's clients were mostly intelligent, and usually well to do, men, who actively sought out women who would abuse, violate and humiliate them, for such men being treated badly by members of the opposite sex was something they actively craved, often at some significant risk to themselves. Given the thriving trade in dominatrices in the more discrete areas of London, even in the face of the credit crunch, it would seem that significant numbers of men still have such needs.

If some men have a need for masochism the same must surely be the case for some women?

Before the accusations start flying, I am not for one second suggesting that some women deserve what they get on account of what they wear. Violence against anyone, male or female is unacceptable in all circumstances, and I condemn it unreservedly.

However, is it possible that women with a certain need subconsciously or otherwise seek out a partner who will fulfil that need, even if that need is to be treated badly?. Fantasy is a very powerful part of sexuality and can lead people into dangerous territory, it can lead many otherwise intelligent men to women like Mrs Payne, and, similarly, throughout history it has led certain women to bad boys, occasionally very bad boys.

It is an acknowledged if bizarre fact with serial killers, particularly sadistic sexual killers, that the greater the brutality of their crimes the larger their post bags, stuffed with fan mail from primarily female admirers. The fact that such men are usually locked away for life provides a safety barrier between them and their correspondents, however, that does not entirely remove the danger from the fantasy.

It may be that the media's failure to report the truth about violence against women lulls some white women into a sense of security, by providing them with a false safety barrier, and the belief that they can indulge a fantasy whilst risking only a slap, although some pay a higher price.

Is this a Eureka moment? Have I answered a question which has long perplexed me? I don't know, I do not share the fantasy, so I don't know how potent it is. If it is an answer, I don't think it is the whole answer, but I certainly think it is part of the answer.

Despite my politics and my instincts, I would be fool to deny that love can cross racial barriers, however, true love has little to do with many of the interracial relationships currently so fashionable in our society and in which various other factors are at play. In many of those relationships the women are not treated well, in some they are treated very badly, and I wonder if, as with the men who paid to be abused by Cynthia Payne, for some white women, that might be the point.

Appeal for the Heretical Two

As readers may recall, Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle, the 'Heretical Two' are currently in custody in California after appealing for political asylum in the USA.

Their legal team in the UK's main concern at present is to organise an appeal for funds in Britain. Full details of which are published today at the Home of the Green Arrow

I am sure that many will regard this as none of their business, or may feel uncomfortable in supporting people who have been convicted by a court of law. However, we should not forget that Sheppard and Whittle's crime was to express an opinion, in writing on their "heretical" internet site.

In Britain that can be a criminal offense, surely that can not be right.

For that fact alone, I believe these men deserve our support, for without free speech there is no freedom.

Even those who strongly oppose what the Heretical two wrote must surely be concerned by the blanket press silence about this case, it is now almost a month since Sheppard and Whittle fled the country, and since then the only press report I am aware of was in the Yorkshire Post on July 16.

Why? surely the fact that British citizens have applied for asylum to Britain's closest ally is a newsworthy story? Yet, this story is being totally suppressed in both the US and UK media, That form of media censorship is political and it is not something which should happen in a democracy.

The fact that it is happening is something which all of us, whatever our political affiliations, should find very frightening.

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‘The enemy of subversive thought is not suppression, but publication: truth has no need to fear the light of day; fallacies wither under it. The unpopular views of today are the commonplaces of tomorrow, and in any case the wise man wants to hear both sides of every question.’ Sir Stanley Unwin