First To Last Cut

One story above all others caught my attention  this week ..... in Germany (along with the Czech Republic), they still medically castrate sex offenders ..... but only if they want it. Now you might think that anything that made the world safer for women and children would be applauded, especially as this is an entirely voluntary process.

And it works .... recent research revealed that of the 104 people operated on between 1970 and 1980, only 3% re-offended, compared with nearly half of those who refused castration or were denied it by the authorities re-offending. So by my reckoning, castration meant there were 101 women and children who were not raped, compared to just 52 who were safe when the uncastrated offenders were released from prison.

Sex Offenders US

When you consider that in the USA for example 'The National Center for Victims of Crime' states that the odds of a child becoming a victim of a sex offender is 1 in 3 for girls, and 1 in 6 for boys, then we need to consider radical approaches.

In October Russian lawmakers gave first-round approval to a bill that would impose chemical castration on repeat sex offenders. Poland legalized the procedure in 2009 for offenders who rape minors or close relatives. Britain, Denmark and Sweden offer chemical castration drugs to sex offenders on a voluntary basis.

But of course the human rights brigade is all over it, with the 'Council of Europe' (europes leading human rights watchdog) complaining. Of course in these PC times the 'human rights' of a rapist and pedophile to retain the equipment to offend again on their release, is higher than the 'human rights' of women and children not to be victims of these animals. But then that's just the norm in the west now.

We really have lost our moral compass, when sex offenders 'rights' to be able to re-offend are of more importance than those of their victims rights to be safe  ....

Arab Spring Or Arab Winter

'Shabiha prisoners lay face down on the ground, hands tied behind their backs.

One-by-one, their heads were cut off. The man wielding the knife said, tauntingly, to the first: "This is for freedom." As his victim's neck opened, he went on: "This is for our martyrs. And this is for collaborating with Israel." ' ....... this is an extract from a BBC report on the capture and execution of government forces, by the rebels in Syria. The Shabiha (or ghosts) are the government paramilitary forces, and are apparently always executed by the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The West should really be careful of what they wish for, the 'Arab Spring'  was at its best fraught with dangers, and like all revolutions, at its worst will throw up the worst kind of animals .... remember the French and Russian Revolutions both threw up monstrous systems (the Guillotine and the Gulags for example), and its not hard to imagine the kind of Sunni theocracy that may end up running every state in the Arab world (apart from Iraq, which is Shia and aligned with the persians of Iran).

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) are no angels

These Sunni 'freedom' fighters, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), in Syria have already started attacking the Christians and the Alawites, and like in Egypt, will soon start the process of ethnic cleansing in non Muslim areas once we have helped them get into power. We have opened a Pandoras box in the Arab world, and much like that in the post communist Balkans, we may well live to regret what we have done.

The 'Arab Spring' is turning ever darker, and the likelihood is that the Sunni's will attempt to drive out the remnants of Christianity from the region - ethnic cleaning or genocide, call it what you will, but once the Muslims have expelled or killed every 'Non Believer' from the Middle East or 'Muslim lands', then their expansion into other areas is inevitable.

Worth Her Weight In Gold?

Apparently in Iran, many marriage contracts are specifying in the dowry agreement that the wife will receive gold coins equal to her weight should the marriage end in divorce. How easy it is to enter into these agreements when you are a Muslim man who wants to pop his cherry ..... and oh how they live to wish that they had stuck to solo efforts!

It seems that the divorce rates in Iran have risen by 5.5% recently and now some thousands of Iranian men who are unable to pay have ended up in in prison. Now apart from the funny element of this story, biter bitten so to speak (if you want Sharia law, then you can't moan when it works against you).

Iranian Dowry Police?

It occurs to me that one consequence of this is that you wouldn't want your wife to get fat .... imagine what this divorce cost calculation would mean for men in the US or UK?

In fact I found out for you .... a woman who weighed 12st (and that's a light one these days!), would cost you $4,340,075.80 .... This her weight of 168 pounds in gold based upon the current spot gold price of $1,771.50 per ounce. If you want to weigh up the real cost of a divorce from your sweeter and better half (Iranian Sharia style), then go here where there is a calculator for this.

Yet another good reason to resist the calls for Iranian style sharia law in the west.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

In Afghanistan, illiterate mobs have been whipped up to rampage in the streets because the US army burnt a few terrorists Korans. So far this mob violence has probably cost upwards of twenty lives, and with many more injured. I can only point out once again that hundreds of copies of the Koran have been blown up, burnt and defiled with human blood, in the frequent bombings of mosques in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Somalia to name just a few places where this frequently happens.

How many Korans blown up in mosques?

At the same time as these protests cost lives in Afghanistan, an attack in Iraq kills 55 Muslims as both the Shia population and the police are targeted, while in Pakistan, many Sunni Muslims die as a car bomb hits Peshawar bus stop. You can't make this up ..... the apparently low value put on human life in the Muslim world is almost breathtaking.

If they put even one tenth the value that they claim they do on life and even the Korans, into efforts for peace then they would finally stop the bloodshed that rages seemingly forever across the Muslim world.

Bought In The USA

The US Presidential race is throwing up some interesting stories this time, and after my stories on allegations of  election rigging in Russia, the news that after recent Supreme Court decisions that overturned campaign financing restrictions, the US election is now apparently open to a select bunch of money-men to manipulate is possibly no great surprise.

Take Sheldon Adelson, a casino billionaire ($25bn est), and a man who has decided that the fight against "the continuation of the socialist-style economy" (a view incidentally, that he apparently shares with Newt Gingrich), is worth $110m of his money to back Mitt Romney.

Sheldon Adelson - Kingmaker?

Apparently these donations make him by far and away Mr Romney's biggest backer (over 90% of his campaign funds), but apparently the idea of this one man financing of the election of the next possible President of the USA is not considered an issue in the land of the free capitalist .... but then as he is fighting the idea that "the redistribution of wealth is the path to more socialism, and to more of the government controlling people's lives", maybe its considered OK?

But from this side of the pond it looks a strange kind of one man one vote democracy ... with the billionaire being that one man.

Sex and Race

Currently eleven Muslim men  of south asian descent are on trial in the Liverpool Crown Court for the alleged grooming and sexual abuse of five  non Asian victims, one as young as age thirteen, in the northern town of Rochdale. Sadly this is an increasingly common offence that the media have under reported in the past, for reasons upon which we can only speculate. I have mentioned this kind of 'race crime' before ( although for some reason when the victims are white girls and the alleged perpetrators are Asian men, its not a 'race crime' in PC la-la land), and I won't labour the point again.

However, in an obviously related story, there have been violent clashes between youths and police in Rochdale as white gangs have attacked asian businesses, apparently in response to the reports coming out of the trial. Its only after 24 hours of trouble that the national media in the form of the BBC have connected the two events in radio reports.

Alleged perpetrators and response

 
This is the sort of PC nonsense that first ignores this string of Asian paedophile gangs operating in the north of England, then when it can't ignore it, downplays the 'racial elements' of the offences, and then finally makes no connection between the cause and effect of the two events. I can't say whether these men are guilty or not, as the trial continues this week, but I can comment on the spineless broadcast media, for their playing PC race politics, rather than reporting truthfully on these stories while little girls get groomed and raped.

Its because this sort of event is going on in many towns, and is then being largely ignored by politicians and the national media, that there is increasingly violent racial tensions in many northern towns .... if this issue isn't tackled honestly and head on, then there will be more trouble in the years to come.

An Inconvenient Truth

This is just an observation, but its my opinion that the biggest victim of the philosophy of Political Correctness is 'The Truth'. The biggest exponent of PC is the BBC. Here for example are their 'Have Your Say' forum rules ....

"We reserve the right to fail comments which...

• Are considered likely to disrupt, provoke, attack or offend others
• Are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable
• Contain swear words or other language likely to offend"

So for example pointing out that there are no English Born MP's representing seats in Scotland, while there are a number MPs born in Scotland (and incidentally other MPs born in Wales, Germany, Africa, India, and Pakistan), representing English seats, apparently breaks these house rules of the BBC ... however as this is in fact the truth, then the BBC should not be able to stop it being said. But they act like an unelected government of the left, where the only truth is their version of the truth.

The Faceless Censors

So for the record, of the 533 MPs representing English constituencies, around 65 appear to have been born outside England.  Of this approx number of 65 non-English MPs representing English constituencies this excludes those MP's such as David Cameron who was born in England (but whose father was an Aberdeen born stockbroker), and who has spoken publicly about his heritage.

The full list is said to be here (and I haven't checked it fully) but it seems to be correct ..... the BBC acts as its own judge and jury against any complaints, so effectively is able to impose its own world view on the public, but that doesn't make the truth any less the truth, but it does drive it out of the public arena.   

The Big Country

The other day, I was discussing the idea of a trip to the USA with colleagues at work. One of them mentioned that he had been there last March. I asked what he thought of it and he said that he and his family enjoyed it, but that it was like entering the 'land of the giants' and laughed.

I asked him what he meant and he said it wasn't like TV, where all Americans are portrayed as fit, healthy, and with good teeth. Oh no, he said, the streets were populated by 18 - 25 stone behemoths. It was eerie and disconcerting to be surrounded by such obesity. The 'standard' meal sizes in fast food outlets or restaurants were massive, and he said that they generally ordered meals for three, and shared between the five of them. Now admittedly he was exaggerating for the stories sake, but he said that the US is a 'Big' country in every sense of the word.

Typical Americans?

This made me wonder what other sins TV and movies hide by their stereotypical portrayals?

Frank Cannon - the first fat American?

For instance apart from the American private eye Frank Cannon (played by William Conrad), I can't remember ever seeing a fat American lead character until Peter Griffin in 'Family Guy'.

Peter Griffin - First true American hero?

Greek Name (Calling)

The Greek President Karolos Papoulias has lashed out at their German paymasters, especially the comments by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, which stirred yet more anger in Greece. He said about the Greek mess: "We can help, but we are not going to pour money into a bottomless pit."

Needless to say, the Greeks love of hubris was once again in evidence .... "I do not accept having my country taunted by Mr Schaeuble, as a Greek I do not accept it," Mr Papoulias said.

Mind you, when the Greeks were 'cooking the books' for the last two decades, Mr Karolos Papoulias was never far from the kitchen. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1985 to 1989 and again from 1993 to 1996, and was opposition spokesman for the other years. Greece entered the Eurozone on Jan 1st 2002 (using the 1999 government *audit figures as baseline) and he was elected as President of the Republic in in 2004 ..... in other words he was in or around the government when the cooking smells must have been everywhere!

Needless to say, the Greeks have been casting about for a scapegoat and after first trying on the 'not enough war reparations' from Germany hat for size, they have not decided that they were in fact press-ganged by Germany and France in to entering the EU and Eurozone, with one prominent Greek publisher and analyst, Apostolos Zoupaniotis, stating that "they blackmailed the country" and did "not allow the country to have a referendum," or "the people to express themselves." ....

As this poster from Greece shows, blame is pointed at the Germans ...... No love lost there then.

Nazi Merkel - Greek street posters are pulling no punches.

But as Greece is the country with the EU's second worst Corruption Perceptions Index rating (after mafia run Bulgaria), ranking 80th in the world, and also with the lowest Index of Economic Freedom rating (rank 119th), and finally a Global Competitiveness Index ranking of 90th, its hard to see where this Greek pride comes from. Corruption, together with the associated issue of poor standards of tax collection, is widely regarded as both a key cause of the current troubles in the economy and a key hurdle in terms of overcoming the country's debt problem.

* In a later audit commissioned by the incoming New Democracy government in 2004, Eurostat revealed that the statistics for the budget deficit had been under-reported (although the effect of this on the acceptance of Greece into the Eurozone is disputed), however a later study by forensic accountants has now found that data submitted by Greece to Eurostat had a statistical distribution indicative of manipulation i.e. The books were cooked.

Continental Drift

Scientists have already decided what the next 'Supercontinent' will be called in 50 - 200 million years time (which is kinda presumptuous when you think of it), as we morph from the last Supercontinent called 'Pangea' in to this next one, to be called Amasia (America and Asia).

Amasia - The Next Supercontinent

So now we know what the future looks like (although there is no chance that any 'human' will see this 'new earth' .... oh and in case you forgot what the old one looked like, here's 'Pangea'.

Pangea - The Last Supercontinent

And this is how we got from there to here ......

The Move From 'Pangea' To Now

So that's that sorted then.

Mammoth News

In one of those stories that any reader of this blog will know that I can't resist, there have been reports that a 'Woolly Mammoth' has been filmed in Siberia ..... and here's what's causing the stir

Siberian Mammoth 2012

Superficially this picture and the accompanying, but strangely short video (... less than 10 seconds long), appear to be proof positive that Mammoths survived in Siberia from the Pleistocene. But there are in fact several issues with this story that show it to be possibly not quite what it seems.

Soul Search

When it comes to people, there are in fact only three types ..... 'believers', 'not sures', and the 'non believers' aka 'the Religious', 'the Agnostics' and 'the Atheists'. Now it doesn't matter if we are born in Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim or any other religion, we are all trained from childhood to the idea that there is in fact some sort of afterlife and that we all have some sort of immortal spirit, or soul if you will.

Now I am not discussing the nature of the belief: Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant; Shia or Sunni; a follower of Krishna, Jehovah, or Allah (I don't believe that Jehovah and Allah are the same god, just look at what Muslims are currently doing in the belief that Allah will take them to paradise for doing it .... that ain't the Christian god), no I am just talking about the belief in immortality through the possession of a soul.

Now this belief certainly predates the birth of modern religions, and there is considerable evidence that shows that there was an almost world wide belief in an earth mother matriarchal type deity, administered by shamans and later possibly druids, for thousands of years before the current religions took shape.

Mother Goddess figures 25000 yrs ago - Proof belief in afterlife?

Archaeological finds suggest that both the early Homo Sapiens and that other early human species, the Neanderthal believed in some sort of soul .... they buried their fellows with ceremony and mysticism and most importantly seemingly with grave goods. These grave goods, to be carried by the dead into the next realm, only make sense if there was a belief that death was not the end, but rather the beginning.

So this belief in a spirit, or soul is likely to be very very old, but now, for perhaps for the very first time in human history, many people say that they are either not sure whether there is an afterlife (although maybe with a soul) or that there is not an afterlife and no soul. Many philosophers have debated it, and one, Blaise Pascal, described the reasons why it was best to believe in an immortal soul and god, in what became known as 'Pascal's wager' which is illustrated below.

Pascal's Wager about God.

Generally I lean towards the non belief end of the religious debate, but just occasionally I am given pause for thought ..... recently I was watching the episode of "The Simpson's" in which Bart Simpson sells his soul to his friend Milhouse, with much unhappiness until he got the bit of paper back from Milhouse.

Bart Sells His Soul - Then Suffers

This show made me stop and think. Even though I consider myself rational, and not subject to the superstitions required to believe in the supernatural .... if someone approached me and offered me a sum of money, say £10,000 or $15,000, for a signed bit of paper in which I gave them 'my immortal soul', would I do it?

The true answer?

I don't think I would, but I can't give a logical explanation as to why I wouldn't feel comfortable about doing it. This admission of my secret doubts has made me think about my belief in non belief ... this isn't as secure as I would generally like to think.

Them and US

"I am for the Declaration of Independence; he is for the writing of Saul Alinsky. I am for the Constitution; he is for European socialism" is the current rallying cry of would be Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Its a call that's apparently fallen on deaf ears, as he has seemingly just lost Nevada's Republican caucuses, and following the loss of Florida, will surely cause him to stand aside from the race soon. He has to win Texas, or he's finished.

However his claim that 'arch right winger' Mitt Romney is a secret 'European Socialist', whilst risible by any European politicians definition of 'Socialist' (Even Pres. Obama would be at best 'centre right' and mostly 'right-wing' by European standards'), is worthy of a small examination.

If 'Europe' is now the dirty word in American politics, then lets look a some of the principle policies that separate us from each other ....

The Things That Divide Them From U.S.

I guess it depends on which 'Europe' the US commentators are looking at .... Oddly, the US system of restricted health provision is far more expensive than the near 'universal' European models. The US pays 17.4% of GDP for a health system that leaves millions with minimal health coverage, while the near universal European health care model costs an average of about 10 - 11% of GDP.   

You would think that the Republicans would welcome adopting a health system that covered everyone, and was vastly cheaper to pay for, a 'win win option' for them in the elections, but then who ever said that logic has anything to do with politics?

Whats A Greek Urn?

There are four reasons why the Greek bailout will fail and Greece will leave the Euro:

1. After joining the euro in 2001, the Greek unit labour costs (a measure of wage competitiveness) have risen 32% compared with for example Germany i.e. They are paid like Germans but work like Greeks (which is the wrong way round).
2. The Greek current account deficit - which is a broad measure of its trade deficit - is still  running at 10% of GDP (total economic output) in the middle of last year i.e. The Greeks are buying 10% more than they sell and can't borrow to finance the shortfall.
3. Greek households and companies withdrew 28% of the deposits they held in Greek banks in the three years to November last year, and this withdrawal rate has been accelerating. i.e. The Greeks are having a slow run on their own banks, as companies - and increasingly ordinary Greeks - take their money out in cash, or move it to the safety of a bank account in Germany or Switzerland.
4. The Greek economy shrank 5.5% last year, and has shrunk a cumulative 12% since 2008. its predicted to shrink another 2.8% this year.

What this tells any analyst is two really big things:

1. That not only are things not getting better, but that even if they were, its not fast enough, and
2. The Greek public are pulling out of their own economy, to put their money into Germany's (whilst also dodging even more Greek taxes, thus making the situation worse).  

Only A Greek Hero Can Get Them Out Of The Mess!

In even starker terms, the Greeks have only one option in order to be able to compete within the European or world markets ..... massive wage cuts.

I remember at the time of entry into the Euro that the Greeks all hiked up their wages, and lost their competitiveness. The locals told me that they were entitled to be paid 'like Northerners' once they entered the Euro Zone.  In the past, devaluations of the Drachma had always compensated for local wage inflation and brought competitiveness back, but now that didn't happen as the Euro was supported by the Germans.

By the time that they default, the Greeks may well have abandoned their own economy and banks to the foreigners who lent them money, and be the only people not hurt in the fallout ..... now that will be a trick worthy of Odysseus himself if they pull this off.

Love on The Dole

In a story that displays everything that’s wrong in the Welfare benefits system in the UK, the BBC has run a post about the proposed cap on the amount of benefits a family can receive. I can only assume that the BBC picked this particular family of unemployed husband and wife and their seven kids living in north Wales, so that we workers can feel sorry for them.

He was an I.T. programmer who found that work in his ‘specialised field’ dried up, and he stopped work 10 yrs ago – he apparently didn't feel the urge or need to retrain or branch out into other programming fields. Frankly any programmer worth their salt could have found contract work easily up until a couple of years or so …. There are I.T. contractors working at my office now.

This man and his families current benefit level is £30,284.80 pa net (US $47,943.87 pa) .... and he justifies his benefit levels and the expenditure it supports as follows:

• Pubs - 'I go out once a week, on a Friday night. I meet up with my mates in the pub and have three or four pints'... most married men can only do the same.
• Satellite TV - 'We get the Sky Movies package because we're stuck in the house all week - otherwise we wouldn't have any entertainment.' – Freeview TV is not good enough for a man who hasn't worked for a decade
• The family all have mobile phones - 'My wife and I have mobile phones, and so do all of the teenage children. You try telling teenagers they're going to have to do without their mobiles and there'll be hell to pay.' – noticeably he doesn't need one to look for work.
• Cigarettes and Alcohol – His weekly household shop includes 24 cans of lager, 200 cigarettes and a large pouch of tobacco - ‘On the cigarettes, my wife tried to give up, but she missed one appointment on the course and they threw her off it.' – he apparently has never tried to give up, but then he needs his beer and cigarettes to sit and watch his satellite TV package when he’s not going to the pub.
• Life in North Wales - 'this is social housing in Wales, so the rent is hardly massive. If we rented privately in this area, then the cost would be four or five times as much.' – meaning he has a house which is subsidised already and for which the government pays the rent.

North Wales - There are worse places to be.

He goes to bed and gets up as he wishes – he has no worries over having a roof over his head, he has no issues about commuting to work every day, or losing his job, or where the next mortgage (rent) payment is coming from. In fact his only concern is that by capping his benefits he may have to give up his 24 cans of beer, his Sky movie package, his cigarettes, or his Mobile phones.

We have posted on this benefit trap once or twice before, and in one of those posts we highlighted the case of a woman who while not working and apparently medically disabled, was having children with different men, and who considered that ‘the state is my breadwinner’.

This lifestyle is so attractive, that millions in the UK apparently aspire to it – family and security with no worries … indeed many people in the EU and elsewhere in the world share this same aspiration, which is maybe why getting into to the UK and on to the benefits gravy train, is such a popular pastime at Heathrow and other entry points in the UK. As a government minister recently said “Importing economic dependency on the state is unacceptable”.

In the meantime the political cronies of the Labour and Liberal Parties in the House of Lords (there are no real lords there anymore), have voted consistently to ensure that there is no adequate cap on benefit payments, despite the obvious public appetite to stop this gravy train.

Many of us would suggest that the limit of £26,000 (US $41,160.60) is still far, far, too generous, and with way too many exemptions on even that amount. A limit of closer to £20,000 net pa (which would still be very generous), would be more likely to encourage the idle to return to work, and prevent people like this man from drifting into to the comfort zone of a supported lifestyle that most can only aspire to, and that couldn't reasonably be attained by normal work.

There is something very rotten in the state of the UK (or Denmark if they are stupid enough to be as generous), when it’s benefit culture and the lifestyle that it can support, props up so many who require so much and who return so little.