Boy Racer Rapist Sent Down

I've mentioned in the past that one of the problems in the North West is a minority of Asian youths like to go pick up drunk girls and have sex with them, usually under the guise of offering the girls a lift and then pushing them into sex acts.

This one, Munshur Ali, didn't bother waiting for the drunks, he just picked up a couple of 13 year olds and gave them some vodka. Then he raped them.

I was initially a bit wary of the whole case - these 'naive' 13 year olds agreeing to drink vodka? I also note no time of the attacks is given, and it's be interesting to see what time this did all happen. I doubt these girls are quite as naive as they've been painted.

Nevertheless, there's no justification for what Munshr Ali did, he is representative of a problem the Asian community seriously need to get a grip on, and that's their young men searching for 'easy white pussy' as one has described it. Nothing wrong with going out looking for sex - hell, I think we'd need to lock up entire city centres if it was - but the preying that gets done. It's not going out chatting up to try and get lucky, it's being stone cold sober, driving around, and finding potential targets too drunk to know what they're doing. And when the line into full-on rape is crossed...

So what has the community done? They set up a site making Munshur Ali out to be a wronged angel! No thoughts that, hmmm, maybe he's been a bad boy and a spell in jail might make him, and others, think twice? Nope, it's attack the victims.

I just hope the BNP don't pick this up, they'll have a field day.

It's one thing questioning the naivite of these girls, quite another to claim they forced him to stop and take him around Tameside. Two 13 year old girls forcing a 22 year old man? Who were these girls? Thelma and Louise's mini-me's? I especially like the claims they were doing a bit of a lesbo scene in the back of the car, then tried to do sex acts on Munshur. Right out of some Hentai that one, surprised he didn't just say a tentacle monster appeared and did the deed.

Neither sides story truly adds up in my head, but maybe he'll act as a warning to other young Asians.

Manchester Evening News Does Enjoy Bias

Now the Manchester Evening News is a serviceable enough rag, but it's biases are sometimes amusing.

Not long back we had the Congestion Charge debate, and whilst it tried to look neutral in its reporting - editorial both for and against were given pretty much equal airing - it did on occasion let slip as to it's preference. For example, we had a large snowfall that made driving difficult, and indeed impossible in some areas, and one report trumpeted that a congestion charge would've solved all that - oblivious to the fact several bus services had to be cancelled, as well as disruptions to the train network. That gave me a bit of a laugh. Once I'd recovered from carting my shopping uphill for a few miles, through heavy snow that is.

It also highlighted a drinks promotion at the Tokyo Project earlier this year, thus ensuring a lot of the younger readers went to pay it a visit, then sent photographers to see the consequences - which it damn well knew beforehand - of all that free advertising. Gutter press journalism at its worst!

And yesterday Andrew Grimes, a pompous ass who wallows in verbiage and who thinks an intimate knowledge of a thesaurus equates to intelligence and wisdom, commented on the release of Megrahi being freed - and as usual with the MEN's article, readers could comment - alas in a show of Stalinist propaganda only comments condemning the release got through.

I highly recommend perusing it every now and then, the disparity between some of it's leaders and it's readership is entertaining as all hell, and you get see some journalism more appropriate to a Murdoch enterprise than one under the aegis of Guardian Media Group. But then, I suppose hypocrisy is par for the course for the Guardian and it's stable mates.

Oldham post-Panorama

Went out for a few in Oldham last night, and well...

Haven't seen so many police, they almost outnumbered the punters on the street as Friday has become something of a quiet night.

Outside of Vogue there was a metal detector to scan for knives, thing is Vogue is usually quite empty and last night was no different, meanwhile Walkabout next door was pretty busy but no detector there... Although there could be suspicions as to Vogue as there were about Brownz.

Burglers, drunk drivers and speeders probably all enjoyed last night, as the town centre turned into Police Central. Even Tokyo Project was closed upstairs, with hardly anyone in the downstairs bit.

Didn't venture anywhere near Mink or Aruba, but I doubt they were thriving.

Oldham was pretty much dying as a night out anyway, Panorama and the overkill of police may just provide the suckerpunch. I can see a couple more bars shutting in the next 6 months, and people going to Manchester or staying local.

The irony was a few years back Oldham could be dangerous, there were a lot more bars, a lot more idiots and hooligan groups who'd start at the top of Yorkshire Street and then proceed down fighting, vandalising and threatening. No police about then either.

Now you just get the idiots after throwing-out time.

Ah well, to each it's season I suppose.

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi Freed

I'm conflicted on this, whilst it's apparent a massive miscarriage of justice occurred with the original Lockerbie trial, this should've come about by an appeal.

Megrahi's cancer must've been a boon to the US and UK governments, whose complicity in tampering and withholding evidence to secure a conviction was statism at its vilest, as it now saves them a highly embarrassing day in the sun.

I have little time for all the conspiracy theories, there are plenty out there to pick as to why they selected Megrahi as the fall guy, so I'm not bothered as to whys and wherefores, merely to the fact the people responsible for this mass murder have not been, and are unlikely ever to be, brought to justice.

So all you fuckers complicit in denying the families of those killed justice, maybe you can sleep a little easier. After all if you've managed stay quiet all these years, it certainly won't be your conscience troubling your sleep, merely the worry of loss of face or employment.

The Dilution of Education

When it comes to escaping poverty there are two requirements, an education and a work ethic. Education gets you better pay, better jobs, and a work ethic means employers want to retain you.

Labour has waged war on both of these, with the end result being a devalued education system and a generation with a disturbing level of layabouts.

Today is A-Level results day, and we see yet another record breaking amount of A grades against a backdrop of teachers warning monkeys could get A-Levels, and universities shifting the goalposts in order to ensure students are prepared for university.

Labour are desperate to get young people to stay in education, so they intend to raise the leaving age to 18 and try to get as many people in university as possible, in order to ensure they're not unemployment statistics.

This is damaging to peoples educations, especially the poorer pupils who previously were able to escape the angry zoo's of school into the more moderate, relaxed environment of college and focus on being educated and getting good grades, as opposed to dodging bullies. Labour have condemned them to suffer further, and so damage their chances of escaping poverty.

Reducing the minimum wage for under 22's - which acts as quite the ceiling to anyone that age trying to get a job - isn't on the table, as Labour would rather fail our children than admit error in their ways.

Universities are going to find their resources stretched, meaning their students are going to suffer, meaning their educations and results will too.

Degrees, becoming more commonplace, shall be devalued - before long Masters will be the 'new' Bachelors.

We seriously need a change, I would propose the following:

An exam to be taken at 14 years of age in English Language, Mathematics and Basic IT Skills - anyone passing this will then be able to leave school if they have found employment or an apprenticeship.

GCSE's to be looked at. Lets make them a proper exam again, that handles the actual subject - most GCSE exams are now exercises in reading comprehension, and not in the actual subject they represent. Providing Physics students with a labelled chart of the EM spectrum is bad enough, but making it multiple choice is just taking the piss.

Same with A levels.

And instead of trying to get everyone highly educated, lets set targets - 50% of the school population to leave with GCSE's, half of those to gain A Levels, and half of those with A Levels to get degrees. And as the %'s increase in line with a smarter population, you make the exams harder in order to keep those %'s roughly in line with each other.

In addition, we look into sponsored vocational qualifications, which would include work experience, and the removal of a minimum wage below 22. You want to work on cars? Fine, school will help, a local garage gets some cheap help for a year, and of the helps good you may end up an apprentice, and later a valued employee - a career ladder married to the qualification.

That way a GCSE is seen as a valid qualification, so is a A Level, and a degree - and if our GCSE's are the equivalent of another nations degree in a century, then so be it. We'll be a nation of brainboxes with our graduates the envy of the world, commanding high salaries and headhunted by companies across the globe.

And best of all, the ones who are better are vocational studies are helped.

Chances of this happening? Fuck all. Save up, place your kids in private education and network like crazy to find them jobs.

MPs Pay

Iain Dale is enquiring as to how much we think MPs should be paid, in response to comments from Sir Patrick Cormack that the current should be doubled.

Seems to me qualifications and experience should have some bearing on pay and, when you think about it, any ministerial briefs they can hold.

After all, we've seen the results of what happens when clueless ministers rely on Whitehall Mandarins and get their egos massaged by consultancy firms. They even undermined the entire NAO to evade how companies like Capita would take them out to Michelin starred eateries, jollies such as all-expense paid trips to Wimbledon and their stands helpfully 'sponsored' at various flesh-pressing events.

You get multi-billion pound IT failures.
You get the expensively subsidized railway system.
You get second rate military equipment and unnecessary aircraft.

You get, due to incompetence, a great amount of waste, money being spent in the wrong areas, dead soldiers and frighteningly inefficient government.

Perhaps it's time to re-evaluate how things are done, curiously Gordon Brown has indicated one way forward - peerages to bring in qualified ministers - which could form the foundation of future governance. The MPs acting as mediators between the electorate and the unelected ministers, with the power to remove the ministerial brief should they prove bad at their job. Whilst having unelected Ministers sits uneasy with me, it's an improvement over what we have now.

Unpalatable Realities (2) - Torture

Following on from my post on terrorism being justified in certain situations, I thought I'd make it into a little series taking a look at the horrible things we do to our fellow man for various reasons.

Justification, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and rather than take a binary look into nasty things I much prefer to consider why people would do such a thing, and whether or not they're effective. So today I'll turn my beady eye upon torture, something human history is replete with - pretty much any nations history will introduce you to all kinds of inventive devices, dreamed up by the cream of utter bastardy across mankind's blood-soaked history, with the express purpose of extracting information from someone through the medium of excruciating pain.

From the Chinese spit-roasting thieves to near-death, to heretics being sat on a big, sharp, spike and getting weighted down, to waterboarding Al Qaeda suspects we do have a rather disturbing psychopathic streak running down our information-gathering activities...

Humans, along with many other hominids, have what is known as Mirror Neurons - these fire when recognize an emotion on others allowing us to feel a measure of empathy. It's a very good way of baselining a form of biological ethics, where seeing something we don't like being done to us, being done to someone else, causes a measure of sympathy and disgust for the cause of the action.

We don't like pain, so we generally learn that causing pain is bad via these mirror neurons. Of course, they can be overridden, but by and large being disgusted by torture indicates you're a good human being and your biologically-based morality compass is working well.

That is one argument against torture. There is also the fact that it generally doesn't give good results, although thats more to do with the torturers than the torture.

For example, if someone doesn't know what you're asking and you're not believing them, they will eventually tell you something to make the pain stop - who can blame them? Which is why you ensure you already know they have the information beforehand.

Torture is pretty useless for fishing expeditions - you'll get a load of false data, but if you've caught the guy with the information, they will give it up when there are no more lies in them.

The question is whether it's right or wrong, and well, I guess it depends on who you are, and what you're doing.

Ask yourselves this, if your kid had been taken and you had someone who knew where they were, but wasn't interested in telling you, where would your line be drawn?

Next up, our species biggest pastime and something of a biggie; War.

Justifying Terrorism

From Obo's blog, it seems Millipede has come out and said that terrorism can sometimes be justified.

As a fan of V for Vendetta I can hardly disagree. Although it seems odd for a minister to say it, it is at least refreshing to see a New Labour zombie say something other than the usual meeja-friendly, beige, lets-not-be-controversial crap.

Millipede says:

“Yes, there are circumstances in which it is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective.”

In the UK we are a tad touchy over terrorism, mainly over the problem with Northern Ireland and, more recently, the likes of Al Qaeda. But then we're not justifying them, others did - parts of the US happily funded the likes of the IRA, and you can find any number of anti-west types cheering on loony fundies.

It's been said before, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter - we even use semantics, trying to differentiate by saying 'insurgent' which is a Less Scary Word than 'terrorist' - 'surge' sounding like a dynamic, heroic charge, vs 'terror' which invokes Dracula with an AK-47.

Never though I'd find myself defending a Millipede, not least over a subject like justifying terrorism. In light of unpalatable realities, I may do a post next week on torture and where it is actually of use. First, I'm off to London.

Hopefully no nutjobs are planning anything bad whilst I'm down there, after all getting killed by a terrorist after posting this would be horribly ironic.

Panorama, Oldham, Drinking and Half-Assed Solutions

Whilst away I got to see Panorama's damning indictment of Oldham and it's drinking, and well, it was missing a few things. I've already done a piece on Oldham, prescient as it turns out.

And whilst Panorama did do some good investigating - not simply blaming the pubs as the Council and Police are desperately trying to do, but also highlighting the 'pre-loading' with cheap alcohol that goes on - they also missed out a fair bit.

For example, they didn't mention how the smoking ban has made pre-loading part of the whole night out experience though... After all, if you can smoke and drink cheaply inside, why go to the pub so early? Of course that way you drink more, no playing pool, quiz or fruit machines, or having to wait for bar staff to serve you.

The number of bars quoted wasn't entirely accurate, it included ones that aren't flesh pits - the Ashton Arms and Hark to Topper are quieter affairs, and I think their counting included The Bar, which hasn't been open for over two years now, Buddha, which closed last year, and Brownz which has been closed for a couple of months.

It was also quite careful not to film overly much in the bars - the filming in Vogue displayed the place was dead, something that is reflected across all bars in Yorkshire Street until around 11pm. It was also amusing that the queueing example was done in TV21, a bar in Manchester's Northern Quarter, rather than any bar in Oldham.

Other parts were missed out, the whole Brownz issue - a bar that was closed down when, after months of trouble, it exploded into a frenzy of stabbing and fighting. It's owner has now scrapped appealing the closure, no surprise given the police suspect the owner and his son of various less-than-legal activities, and described him as being unfit to hold a licence - which was the source of so much of the violence.

It also trotted out some horrific rape stats, also missing out some vital information. It's an unpleasant fact, and one I'm surprised the attack dogs of the BNP haven't jumped on yet, that there are those minority youths who feel its a good idea to pack into a car, put on some loud music and go cruise for drunken 'easy white pussy' in the early hours of the morning. It's not unique to Oldham, but seeing a tricked-out car filled with teenage and early-20's sober Asians trying to pick up drunken vulnerable girls, worse the wear and separated from their friends is an ugly scene.

They're not the only problem, but they are a substantial one, and one that also helps fuel the racial divide. I think it's really only their own community that can handle it - given how difficult rape cases are, and how few are even reported, the police aren't going to make a dent in it.

It also completely failed to tackle the large drugs problem, cocaine usage has shot up in Oldham and is now a regular part of many peoples nights out. The clubs and bars would prefer you didn't take it in, and if caught in possession or use of it will get barred. You will not, however, be arrested - they're not going to call the police as that's going to drive away custom, and might just give the police the idea to exercise the sniffer dogs, and that's something no one wants. Not enough cells for starters...

There was also no mention of just how much the footfall and pub-counter alcohol sales have crashed over the last decade. Just 5 years ago you could go out on a Thursday, and every bar on Yorkshire Street - and there were more bars than now - was thriving with a much greater range of drink promotions than there are now. I have fond recollections of going into the Litten Tree, where they did a Stock Market Crash drinks promotion - prices would change depending on sales, and occasional drinks prices would 'crash', one night I managed to demolish an impressively large amount of Southern Comfort on the cheap.

We have less promotions, less bars, less alcohol sales in the pubs, and somehow that's equated to greater violence? Hows that work then?

The Panorama programme was an interesting show, but it barely scratched the surface and only showed a couple facets of the problems facing Oldham. The Council is desperately trying to clean up Oldham's image, but they're part of the problem - they have no idea of what's going on, and as such their solutions are based upon faulty premises.

Off on my holidays, and another kind of Social Contract...

Off on my hols with the better half for the next couple of weeks, much needed - especially since a client of a client (IT and subcontracting is a Russan Doll affair...) decided to drop a load of must-be-done work at the last minutes.

And as an addendum to Charlotte Gore's rather interesting debate on the Social Contract, I'd like to add there is another form of Social Contract and that is Not Being A Dick.

Returning to my office, dinner in hand, a parked driver thought he'd try and wet me with his windscreen washers as a bit of a laugh. Ha fucking ha. Naturally I kicked his window in, dragged him out and beat him into a bloody pulp... Not.

But I could've done. If I was less of a wuss. Or I'd had a bad morning. Or I'd had a few pints. Or I was some kind of psychopathic chav or chavette.

We go on about violent assault, and how society has got nastier, well there's a converse to that - and that's people acting like arseholes frankly deserving a good kicking. I don't mean because of the way they look, or what they say - but how they treat others. If you plan to inconvenience people for your own personal jollity, expect other people to do bad things to you for their own personal vengeance.

First lesson everyone needs to learn is How Not To be A Dick. It's not hard, some folk just need a remedial class on it.

Right, holidays here I come!

Will the VOO do?

More inane post-prison crap from a government that has abandoned both punishment and rehabilitation.

The point of prison, in fact the whole point of a judicial system is when you have committed a crime and served the state-mandated consequences of it are:

• You are punished for your transgression
• You recognize the error of your ways, or if you do not, then you are at least deterred from repeating the crime
• Any victims feel a measure of vengeance

There are only three parts to it, and third ones pretty much down to the victim(s) thus leaving the state with two things to manage. Shouldn't be particularly hard for a nation that's been knocking around longer than most, managed to dominate most of the planet at one time or another and has exported it's language, laws and science across the globe.

In short, punishment is something you should seek to avoid having repeated on you, and whilst being punished be provided some form of counselling to see where you went wrong, and how you can be placed onto a path that isn't going to criminally inconvenience anyone when your sentence is completed.

Crime and Punishment. Criminal and Rehabilitation. Where is the complexity in understanding the relation between the left hand side of those, and the right hand side?

New Labour can't understand it. In their little fucked-up corner of criminology you send a criminal to prison to get them out of your, and societies hair, for a while. It means you get numbers. And New Labour like numbers, it allows them to trot a large amount of meaningless statistics, compiled by meaningless civil servants, and delivered by some meaningless ministers to an uncaring public who'd just wish someone would do something about the little bastards turning their local area into something like the OK Corral.

Numbers mean it looks like they're doing something, and that's something else New Labour like. Being seen to be doing something. Doesn't matter is there's no end product, it's the display of effort that counts in their minds. After close to 12 years people are getting a little tired at seeing their taxes being flung in the general direction of a problem without any plan, thought or strategy in sight.

So now we have the VOO, or Violent Offender Orders, which are described as 'ASBO style', which given ASBO's have been abject failures and turned into the junior criminal fraternities version of a Scout badge, isn't high praise or placing a high bar on success.

Essentially New Labour have decided that since their punishments don't work, and their feeble attempts at rehabilitation don't work, and they really could do with a bit more prison space, so people who have served their time can be punished further. Not sure how that'll fly with Human Rights Act, but the Howard League for Penal Reform are already bashing it.

Rather than combating their failure of caretaking the judicial system, they're plastering over the faults and hoping the whole thing will stick together. Just like the bunch of political cowboys they are.

ASBO's, VOO's and their ilk are implicit admissions of utter failure, and the fact people have lost faith in the ability of the police, courts and prisons to do their functions shows that's its not lost on the general public.

You do the crime, you do the time. On occasion the time may be longer than you'll live, and that is reflective of the severity if what you've done. But if your crime attracts a length of time within your lifespan, then that should be it - slate cleansed. Sure, the state needs to keep track of what you've done, so if you do another crime your past exploits can be taken into account for sentencing.

But if you keep your nose clean, that should be that. Now though the state wants to keep punishing you, which means either they haven't done their job properly, or they're just bastards. Or both.

If you are not rehabilitated, or not suitable chastised, you should not be freed. That is the point of justice, it isn't a bloody holiday camp, it's not there to temporarily keep criminals out of society.

Crime and Punishment. Criminal and Rehabilitation. They used to be linked, time to reforge them.

Ban Claims for Lib Dem 'Success'

It's time to ban claims that Lib Dems could do well in elections, or even become the UK's second political party.

Informing members that they're relevant, going to be successful or more popular than 'the fuckwit ensconced in Number 10' are leading to "completely unattainable aims."

Airbrushing the truth that Vince Cable is the only recognizable Lib Dem, or claims of competence from the parliamentary party, it has been claimed, can lead to Lib Dems associating self-esteem to the success of the party, leading to waves of depression and buggering off to more successful parties. Banning this will allow many Lib Dems become more comfortable with the shape of their party.

It's been claimed that young Lib Dems in particular were under increasing pressure due to "completely unattainable policies or electoral aims that no Lib Dem can live up to in real life".

Bit like models and adverts then.

Harman's Sister Act

Sisters are doin' it for themselves.
Standin' on their own two feet.
And ringin' on their own bells.
Sisters are doin' it for themselves.

What would Aretha think? Harriet 'godfuckingawfulthing' Harman thinks widdle ladies need help in the Labour Party. Apparently us men "cannot be left to run things on their own", which tells you all you need to know about how she views equality, and women need a helping hand into power rather than making their way by being better than other candidates.

I assume then she's a massive fan of Margaret Thatcher. Probably got posters of her and everything.

You have to wonder why she joined the Labour Party, a group that was formed in Working Mens Clubs and for whom women have either been a sexist-named sop (Blair's Babes) or ignored (Brown's Buggeroffs). The Tories may be filled with a few chinless twats, but they do appreciate merit when they see it.

Ah. If it was based on merit she wouldn't get within farting distance of power would she?

Blinky Wants to put CCTV in 'Bad Families' Homes

According to the Sunday Express at any rate.

There are some truly terrible families out there and years of mismanagement by both Labour and Tory governments have fostered a world they can breed in, but sticking CCTV in peoples homes?

They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

It's the fucking Truman Show meets Shameless. People will be monitored? Checked by guards? Sorry, have I awoken in some strange new reality where the fucking USSR won the Cold War? Feels like it.

Anyone like to place bets when the first scandal from this happens? Some council estate floozy appearing on YouTube? Videos of the children making their way into kiddie fiddler rings? It's bound to happen.

And how much longer before what is considered a problem family is extended? This is worse than ID cards, Balls - and the rest of the New Labour Programme - have comprehensively failed to help the poor and needy, destroyed social mobility, demolished education, demoralized the nation, and now finally wish to take the coup de grace of turning the benefits class (for this is who this will be aimed at) into their pet sheep.

Tagged, monitored, profiled and filed.

Welcome to the Village.

HMG Adventure Holidays...

The government plans to send 500 unemployable graduates, from poor backgrounds, across the seas so they can, uh, build schools and things!

Jesus wept! So young Bob from Salford, who shockingly can't get meaningful work after getting an impressive 2:1 in Cheese Studies at the Mickey Mouse University (it would've been a first, but alas his New Labour Education meant he tended to spell his cheeses incorrectly, 'caerphilly' as 'kuhfili' for example), can now go build schools in Costa Rica.

But wait, there's some small print!

But according to the Times, graduates must raise £1000, buy their own flights and cover the cost of vaccinations to be eligible

Right. Because people from poorer backgrounds can afford that, especially during a recession - joined up government at it's best! It's like a Monty Python sketch!

You can just imagine Palin walking into an office, with Cleese sat behind a desk.

MP: I've come for the chance to build schools for poor people.
JC: Have you really? Jolly good! Tell me, have you got the £1000 and the ability to buy flights to Costa Rica?
MP: I 'ave! I 'ave!
JC: Oh. That is a shame. See, this is only for poor people, and if you can afford that you're obviously not eligible. Not poor enough see?
MP: What if I said I didn't have it?
JC: Well, now, then you couldn't go because you wouldn't have raised the necessary funds or fly there.
MP: So, there is no actual way of doing this then?
JC then sings I'm an Uncivil Servant (Just Fuck Off Will You?)

Anyone going on this will either not have that poor a background, or just be getting themselves into more debt to fund it. But hey, that's 500 people off the unemployment figures - although when it's creeping over 3 million, 500 hardly seems many.