Monday - August 03, 2009

Tanker driver dragged to court for smoking - even though it was a fake cigarette.

Perhaps an understandable mistake made by the council spy but heck ... all she had to do is approach the man as he suggestes here, and all could have been cleared.  But no.  This is after all England where, as my Brit wife reminds me, if there is a logical and easy way to do things, Brits will look for the hard way instead.

See the link for the photos, especially the fake ciggies.  When I quite over 20 years ago, I had to do it the hard way. Cold turkey. But I did it.
I have been informed btw, that even in the states there are stupid idiot laws that are enforceable, that says a person can not even smoke in their own freeken car once they enter the parking space where they work.  OUTRAGEOUS!  Tempted to ask what the world is coming to but fear greatly I already know the answer.
C’mon. Can’t smoke in your own car?  How bad do things have to get before ppl start saying enough, and revolting against the dictatorship of the politically correct?

Tanker driver dragged to court for smoking - even though it was a fake cigarette
By Andy Dolan

When new laws made it illegal to smoke in a company vehicle, tanker driver Chris Minihan accepted that his days of puffing away at the wheel were over.
In the two years since then he has been trying hard to kick the habit - and even invested in a fake electronic cigarette to help him.

But today the father of one will be in court to fight possible fines of up to £2,700 for smoking in a public place and dropping ash.
He claims a council enforcement officer mistook the fake cigarette for a real one when she spotted Mr Minihan during his rest-break at a picnic area.
Mr Minihan, 52, was initially issued with fixed penalty notices for £125 but elected to go to court and try to persuade magistrates he was ‘smoking’ his £38 Gamucci microelectronic cigarette.

The device contains a tiny rechargeable battery and an atomising chamber. Users plug a liquid nicotine cartridge into the chamber and their sucking on the ‘cigarette’ causes it to heat up, turning the liquid into vapour which looks like smoke.

The ‘cigarette’ lets users satisfy their nicotine craving without carcinogens or tar and without the problems of second-hand smoke associated with cigarettes.
It is exempt from the anti-smoking legislation.
Users can slowly reduce the strength of the nicotine cartridges until they have kicked the habit.

Mr Minihan, of Anfield, Liverpool, said: ‘I have been trying to quit for years, but after they made it illegal to smoke in the cab, I decided to quit for good.
‘I had heard about these devices and decided to give them a try. They do look and feel exactly like a cigarette, so I can understand why the council enforcement officer could have been mistaken.’

The officer took three photographs of Mr Minihan’s tanker at the Wigg Island nature reserve in Runcorn, Cheshire, which is managed by Halton Borough Council.
He said: ‘If she had approached me on the day I could have shown her what I was doing and the whole thing could’ve been nipped in the bud then.
‘Instead, I only found out what she had done when an official arrived at the company yard two days later to issue me with the fixed penalty notices.’
Mr Minihan claims the ‘aggressive’ official refused to accept his explanation.

He was given a fixed penalty notice of £75 for littering, which could be reduced to £50 if paid within ten days, and a second of £50 for smoking in a public place.
The driver refused to accept the penalties and was summonsed to Runcorn Magistrates’ Court. If found guilty he could be fined up to £2,700 plus costs.
Mr Minihan, who has since been made redundant from Neston Tank Cleaners in Kirkby, Merseyside, bought the fake cigarette from the online store Prezzybox.com.

He will represent himself in court, but the firm has offered to pay any costs if he loses the case.
The Health Act 2006, which came into force in July 2007, made almost all enclosed public places and workplaces smoke free. It includes work vehicles and applies to staff, customers and visitors.

Halton Borough Council said last night: ‘We cannot comment while legal proceedings are ongoing.’
Last month, Cardiff taxi driver Goldeep Singh, 46, was fined £65 with £135 costs for smoking in his cab. Singh, of Llanishen, Cardiff, had refused to pay a fixed penalty notice.

THE MAIL

Posted by peiper     on 08/03/2009 at 10:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Jack Booted Thugs • Oppression • Outrageous • UK •  
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Where politicians are concerned, you usually can’t go wrong in assuming the worst.  A. Tiger

That’s it folks.  That’s my first post for early Monday morning, and someone else wrote it for me. You may notice I did not post under humor. It’s too true for that.
Thanks Tiger.

“Where politicians are concerned, you usually can’t go wrong in assuming the worst.”
Posted by Argentium G. Tiger

Posted by peiper     on 08/03/2009 at 03:47 AM   
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   Friday - July 31, 2009

Here’s the story. Woman has child, state takes it away. She has 13 more, state takes, she having #14

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

This one really does leave me speechless.  Almost. The state keeps taking away her kids due to neglect, she says the state was right to do that but wants another chance. But she’s had 13 chances with 13 babies.  Good Grief!

Now she says screw the state, I’m gonna have another and let the state keep picking up the tab.  Which they have been doing. She now carrying number 14.

Earlier today a letter arrived from our probate attorney informing us that the the Inland Revenue, Brit version of our IRS, is questioning the value of the house the wife inherited from her mother.  We got the value appraisal in writing from a real estate agent.  Quite honestly, I wish the place were worth a ka-zillion dollars as that might be something to look forward to.  In any event, we had to to come up with a LOT of money a few months ago to pay the tax ppl on the value given us at the time.  BUT ... if the Inland Rev. folks believe this place is worth more, then we’re gonna have to scramble for the extra money. Fine.
But it sorely pisses me off knowing where the money goes.  MPs on vacation “fact finding” trips to warm waters and couples like the ones here.
Both on the dole and no surprise.

Stay Tuned.

‘I’ll go abroad to keep my baby’: Pregnant again mother of 13 vows to save new baby as sister calls for her to be sterilised

By Emily Andrews, Julie Moult, David Wilkes and Beth Hale
Last updated at 11:26 AM on 31st July 2009

A pregnant woman who has had all 13 of her previous children taken into care has vowed to flee abroad to prevent social workers taking away her 14th.

Theresa Winters, 36, says leaving the country could be the only way she and partner Tony Housden will be allowed to keep the child.

It comes as her sister Louise Walls said she was ashamed of her own sibling and called for her to be sterilised.

Miss Winters, a heavy smoker who was herself taken into care as a teenager, accused social workers of failing to help her achieve her deepest wish of having a family and she would keep giving birth until she is allowed to keep one.

She told the Sun: ‘Leaving the country would be the easiest thing to do. If we had the money we would go tomorrow.

‘Then these people wouldn’t be able to touch us.

‘People think we’re bad parents but we’re not. We have changed - since we had the first five babies anyway.

‘No one has given us a chance since then.’

Miss Winters has now spent more than 10 years of her life pregnant and is four months from giving birth to her 14th child.

Mr Housden, 36, said: ‘We don’t want to scrounge off taxpayers’ money. We want to work and do the right thing but we don’t feel we’re being given a chance.

‘If we could leave the country we would. Then we would grow up like a real family and keep our baby.’

The couple, who live on £1,100 in benefits, believe they could save enough money to move abroad.

Louise Walls, 37, accused her sister of having more children out of ‘pure spite’.

The mother-of-three told the Daily Mirror: ‘She should be sterilised. She’s going to end up with 20 kids taken into care.

‘It has to be stopped. I’m ashamed to be her sister.

TIMELINE TO THERESA WINTERS’ CHILDREN

August 1992 - Girl

January 1994 - Boy

January 1995 - Boy

September 1996 - Boy

September 1997 - Boy

May 1999 - Girl

June 2000 - Girl

June 2001 - Boy

September 2002 - Girl

November 2003 - Boy

January 2006 - Girl

March 2007 - Girl

March 2008 - Boy

photos and the rest of this article click here.

Posted by peiper     on 07/31/2009 at 09:01 AM   
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   Wednesday - July 29, 2009

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

One Down -

And One To Go -

Posted by Drew458     on 07/29/2009 at 09:27 PM   
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JUST TOOOO STUPID TO IGNORE. AND A MOONBAT AWARD GOES TO ..Barking and Dagenham Council

Barking and Dagenham Council

Yeah, no kidding folks. That’s the name for real.  Barking and Dagenham Council.

So here’s the story .... and I won’t even attempt to add anything or try to make it funnier coz I can’t. 

Drippy health and safety police ban swimmers from doing lengths

By Jaya Narain
Last updated at 8:13 PM on 29th July 2009

Swimmers at a council pool have been banned from doing lengths for health and safety reasons.

They have been told they may only swim across the width of the pool as it makes it easier for lifeguards to ensure their safety.

Regular users of the Dagenham Swimming Pool in Essex say the rules are a clear indication that Britain is gripped by ‘health and safety insanity’.

Local resident Dean Bradford, 33, who has used the pool for more than 20 years, said the ban on lengths was a farce and would impact young and old alike. The municipal pool is 33.3 metres long (108ft) and 25 metres wide (85ft) and attracts thousands of users each week.

Mr Bradford said: ‘A lot of elderly people swim lengths of the pool to maintain their stamina and health and young people swim lengths to become better swimmers.

There are also those people who swim lengths as part of a training regime to compete in the sport. With the Olympics just around the corner I thought we were meant to be encouraging sporting excellence.

‘By banning lengths all these people are being marginalised and will have to go elsewhere. I think it is totally insane.’

Mr Bradford said he was told by the pool manager that they would need to have an extra lifeguard on duty if people were swimming lengths, as it was more difficult to keep an eye on them and there was not enough funding to pay for one.

But Barking and Dagenham Council, which runs the pool, said they had changed the swimming lanes to run width-ways to help people training for 50metre and 100metre events and to free up more space in the shallow end of the pool for less confident swimmers.

A council spokesman said: ‘This enables people who are less confident to swim lengths of the shallow end to help them get fit and also it makes it easier to see where people are swimming and what they are doing. It’s about variety, giving a whole host of swimming options.

‘Most people who are training for events don’t want to swim 33.3 metres, it doesn’t fit in with the distances involved. It’s not all about health and safety although it is true it does make it easier, they can use different staffing levels. It’s easier for the staff and it’s better swimming.’

But Mr Bradford said: ‘This is just the nanny state gone mad and it’s affecting my life and other people’s lives. It’s another obstacle for people trying to get fit and healthy.’

The council spokesman said the changes affect morning and lunchtime swimming sessions and if feedback was not good the lanes could be changed back to lengths.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 07/29/2009 at 02:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Nanny State • UK •  
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ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE NANNY STATE MAKING DECISIONS FOR US. FOR OUR OWN GOOD OF COURSE.

And likely it’s also for the kiddies.

It bothers me not just because they (govt.) are taking away individual decision making. Not that alone.
It also bugs me because I can’t understand why people with more education( then what I got), can not figure out that folks who want it will simply double up and buy more.  Why can’t they see that?

They want the size of soda cans made smaller and candy bars to be cut from the present 57 or 58g, to 50g.  Will that 7g make that much difference? And will the candy makers drop their prices?  Uh huh.

Something else that is really bizarre. In an unscientific poll on the Daily Mail site, 22% of ppl think that the govt. is right.  Twenty Two percent of those polled would prefer to allow someone else to be responsible for their thinking.  Not a very good sign.

Chocolate bars could be made smaller to help fight obesity

By Sophie Borland
Last updated at 11:32 AM on 29th July 2009

Chocolate bars could be cut in size to help fight the obesity epidemic.

The Food Standards Agency wants the average bar to be reduced by up to a fifth to reduce daily calorie intake.

It has drawn up plans for confectioners to make voluntary changes to the size of their snacks.

By 2012 the watchdog wants all confectionary to weigh no more than 50g - currently Mars bars are 58g and Bounty bars 57g.

Manufacturers have also been asked to sell bite-size bars as single items rather than as part of multibags.

They will be discouraged from promoting large supersize items - such as the Maltesers ‘Big Bag’ and - Mars ‘Duo’ - and instead encouraged to offer healthier snacks as alternatives .

By 2050 up to 60 per cent of Britons will be obese and the cost to the National Health Service estimated to reach more than £8.4 billion.

The plans, drawn up in an FSA consultation, also propose that within six years, fizzy drinks should be sold in 250 ml containers instead of standard 330ml for most brands.

They propose that drinks’ ‘added sugar’ levels are reduced by 4 per cent within three years in the hope that consumers will be gradually weaned off very sweet beverages without noticing the lower sugar content.

Gill Fine, from the FSA said: ‘We are not telling people what to eat. We want to make it easier for people to make healthier choices — to choose foods with reduced saturated fat and sugar — or smaller portion sizes.’

‘We are committed to working in partnership with Government and its agency to help consumers eat more healthily - and reformulation is just one of the ways in which we will continue to make a real difference.’

FOR MORE

‘We are committed to working in partnership with Government and its agency to help consumers eat more healthily

What they’re committed to is playing health bully. 

Posted by peiper     on 07/29/2009 at 10:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Health and Safety • Health-Medicine • Nanny State • UK •  
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   Tuesday - July 28, 2009

OBSCENITIES and THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE … It okay coz it’s only the bible. Not the Koran.

The wife found this one small item included in his larger article covering other subjects.
I think he should have led with it.

It’s a sign of some very horribly twisted and unwelcome times, I believe you’ll agree.

Can you begin to imagine the violence we’d witness were this the Koran?  Or any other religion for that matter.

I guess Christians just don’t frighten anybody and so they are all fair game for sick, twisted, vomit inducing minds.

Oh and in case you’re wondering. Nope. So far there haven’t been any street demonstrations reported or threats of death made to the gallery.
Maybe it’s time though.

OBSCENITIES SCRAWLED IN THE BIBLE AND SUPPORTED BY PUBLIC FUNDING.

From The Sunday Times
July 26, 2009

Rod Liddle

Congratulations to the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow for its exciting, publicly funded installation which encourages people to scrawl obscenities on the pages of the Bible. This particular work of brilliance is called Untitled 2009 and is designed to celebrate “sexual, gender and theological diversity” - incredibly daring, isn’t it? You may think you’ve been told to celebrate diversity so often that you’ve begun to bleed from the ears, but at Glasgow, they won’t give up.

To embrace theological diversity fully I suggest the curators let people scrawl obscenities on other religious texts - such as the Koran. Meanwhile, I intend to celebrate diversity by spray-painting obscenities on the walls of Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art.

SUNDAY TIMES

Posted by peiper     on 07/28/2009 at 05:34 AM   
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   Sunday - July 19, 2009

‘Evil destruction’ of a happy family.  Read this and watch as a blood red curtain descends

Has the fuhrer state finally come to Britain?  Should we be shouting Seig Heil now?

OK, so maybe I might be a tad over the top but wait.

See if you can read this story without becoming totally pissed off big time in sympathy with this mom and dad.
I could hardly believe what I was reading.  And why should this bother me so much?
I think the answer might be my sense of fair play and justice and utter hatred of the kind of ppl I call, Hitler’s Little Helpers!
Freeken butt-wipes.

It just festers and bother the hell outta me and similar happens here on a regular basis.
It’s beyond me how this sort of thing can happen and take so long to resolve and in fact this case is not finished yet.
Fuckin’ commie/nazi fruitcake bastards.

Time for my blood pressure meds.

‘Evil destruction’ of a happy family
A system involving social workers, police and courts took a child away from loving parents for no apparent reason

By Christopher Booker
Jul 2009
Two weeks ago I reported as shocking a story as this column has ever covered. It described how a loving family was torn apart when the parents were arrested by police on what turned out to be wholly spurious charges, so that their three children could be taken into care by social workers. As reported on another page, it now seems this awful episode has come to a happy ending.

However a new case has lately been surfacing, if anything even more shocking. This also involved the arrest of two parents and the abduction of their child by social workers, in a story so bizarre that, at last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Gordon Brown was asked about it by the family’s MP, Charles Hendry, who has long been concerned with the case because the mother is a vice-chairman of his local Conservative Association. The family’s horrified GP says that, in 43 years of medical practice, he has never “encountered a case of such appalling injustice”.

I first planned to describe this case in April, but was pre-empted by the draconian reporting restrictions on family cases, which, for reasons which will become tragically clear, have now been partly lifted.
The story began in April 2007 when “Mr Smith”, as I must call him, had a visit from the RSPCA over the dog-breeding business he ran from the family home. He had docked the tails of five new-born puppies – a procedure that had become illegal two days beforehand. Unaware of this, he promised in future to obey the new law.

Three days later, however, at nine o’clock in the morning, two RSPCA officials returned, accompanied in cars and riot vans by 18 policemen, who had apparently been tipped off, quite wrongly, that Mr Smith had guns in the house.

Armed with pepper spray, they ransacked the house, looking for the nonexistent guns. The dogs, released from their kennels, also rampaged through the house. When Mr Smith and his wife, who was three months pregnant, volubly protested at what was happening, they were forcibly arrested in front of their screaming five-year-old daughter “Jenny” and taken away. Two hours later, with the house in a shambles – the dogs having strewn the rabbit entrails meant for their dinner across the floor – social workers arrived to remove the crying child.

Held for hours in a police cell, Mrs Smith had a miscarriage. When she was finally set free, she returned home that evening to find her daughter gone. It was the beginning of a barely comprehensible nightmare.
Her husband was charged with various offenses connected with the dogs, including the tail-docking, but was eventually given a conditional discharge by a judge who accepted that he was “an animal lover” who had not been cruel to his dogs.

Far more serious, however, was that the social workers seemed determined to hang onto the child, now in foster care, on the sole grounds that they had found the house dirty and in a mess (the “animal entrails” played a large part in their evidence). This was despite the testimony of a woman Pc (who had visited the house a month earlier on a different matter) that she found it “clean and tidy”. Two hundred horrified neighbours, who knew the couple as doting parents of a happy, well-cared-for child, were about to stage a protest demonstration when they were stopped by the police, on the social workers’ instructions that this might identify the child.

For more than two years the couple have been fighting through more than 100 hearings in the courts to win their daughter back. From a mass of evidence, including psychiatric reports and tape recordings made at meetings with her parents (only allowed in the presence of social workers), it is clear she has been desperate to return home. It is equally clear that considerable pressure has been brought on the child to turn her against her parents.
One particularly bizarre psychiatric report was compiled after only an hour-long interview with the little girl. When she said she had once choked on a lollipop, this was interpreted as signifying that she could possibly have “been forced to have oral sex with her father”.

After Mrs Smith alone had been subjected to four different psychiatric investigations, which came up with mixed findings, she refused to submit to a fifth, and this apparently weighed heavily with the judge who last December ordered that “Jenny" should be put out to adoption.

In the Appeal Court 11 days ago, Mr Justice Bodey ruled that, because the mother had refused that fifth test, indicating that the parents put their own “emotional wellbeing” in front of that of their child, the adoption order must stand. When this judgment was reported, an independent social worker, who had earlier been an expert witness in the case, wrote to Mr and Mrs Smith to say he was “horrified” to learn that Jenny was “not back in their care”, having assumed for over a year that “she must have been returned home”.

Their equally horrified GP, saying that he had never “encountered such a case of appalling injustice”, wrote “the destruction of this once happy family is in my opinion evil”. So shocked was their MP, Mr Hendry ,that he last Wednesday took the highly unusual course of raising the case with the Prime Minister at question time. Numerous others who know the family well have expressed similar dismay. One neighbour, herself a former social worker, whose own daughter often played with “Jenny”, said: “I worked with children in social services for 25 years and I have never seen anything like this. It is disgusting.”

What is clear in this case, as in so many others, is that a system involving social workers, police and courts in what is an obviously very close alliance should yet again have left a happy, loving family destroyed for no very obvious reason. Almost equally alarming is the way that system manages to shield itself from the world, through reporting restrictions which it claims are designed to protect the children but which too often end up by protecting only the system itself.

BOOKER/TELEGRAPH

Posted by peiper     on 07/19/2009 at 12:06 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Insanity • Jack Booted Thugs • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Oppression • Outrageous • Terrorists • Tyrants and Dictators • UK •  
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Paedophile. You might be suspect, maybe not. Prove you aren’t. Or pay $100 and pass Go. Dumb stuff.

So then, you’re a writer perhaps of childrens books. Or maybe a journalist or a rocket scientist and you volunteer to speak to children in assembly in school.
Sometimes it could be one of those talks where adults tell kids about their job and what they do etc.

Well, now in the interest of child safety people who talk to the kiddies from a stage where there are teachers and maybe parents, ppl who answer the question the children may have, now need to be vetted BEFORE they are allowed to talk to the kids.  From a stage even. Got to make sure there is nothing smacking of child abuse in their background.  So far I suppose it’s ok. ?? Seems reasonable enough to check on people. Maybe.  But the vetting folks do ask a lot of questions
AND ... here’s a fly in ointment.

The person being vetted must pay about $100 for the vetting. In Brit money it’s something like £64.00.
I’m telling you about this as background to my first post for today. 

Potatoes and paedophiles: Why are we so afraid?

By Suzanne Moore
19th July 2009

The other day I went to a school to talk to a group of delightful 11-year-olds about journalism. They rustled their packed lunches while I talked about my working life. Most of them had not considered journalism as a career. Their headmistress asked, as I was leaving, if they now would, and a sea of arms shot up, so it was well worth the trek.

It was part of a project called ‘lunch and learn’ where kids – who have often never seen the adults in their lives working – get to hear about all kinds of jobs.

It’s undoubtedly a laudable scheme, though I was rather disturbed by the children’s interest in whether I had met Piers Morgan or not. But you can’t have everything. At no point was I alone with any of kids. But anyway, I have already been checked by the Criminal Records Bureau in order to take my own child on a school trip.

I have mentioned the ludicrousness of this procedure before, so I was very glad to see Philip Pullman refusing to be vetted in this way.

It’s very easy to write him off as some prima donna who thinks writers are superior beings, but Pullman was a teacher himself and has been outspoken about civil liberties in the past.

What he is objecting to is the fundamental notion that we are guilty until proven innocent that now governs all official thinking – thus all adults are potentially predatory paedophiles. He sums up the mood of much Government legislation and the new Independent Safeguarding Authority checks when he says ‘the basic mode is not of trust but of suspicion’.

He is backed up in his campaign by Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake. Most schools would be delighted to have any of these children’s authors visit and many successful writers do this for free. Do they need to be made to feel like criminals for their goodwill?

The children’s laureate Anthony Browne has said writers should not be treated as special, and I agree. The problem here, though, is this blanket policy of what Fine calls ‘governmental idiocy’.

Most of us can understand why teachers and those in regular contact with children need to be checked. After the Huntley murders something had to be done. Actually all the warning signs with Huntley were there: several women had been to the police with rape allegations, but the police did not follow them up or put them together.

The Independent Safeguarding Authority, which has so far cost more than £16million, is not the way to stop the likes of Huntley. Its inflexibility is costly. Its price is a culture of fear.

Why do people who are never going to be alone with a child need this? Why do parents? Why live in continual denial about where the worst and most regular abuse happens? In the home, not in public places. Do we need more Baby Ps to remind us of this dreadful fact?

DAILY MAIL FOR THE REST

Posted by peiper     on 07/19/2009 at 10:05 AM   
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   Friday - July 17, 2009

m’kay so. here’s the deal. store robbed and robbed and owner says no more service to certain ppl.

The “certain people” of course being in this case, Romanian Gypsies or at least eastern European Gypsies.

So after being robbed over an 18 month period and being pretty sure he now recognizes the types, he decides to put a sign up saying he will not allow Gypsies in his store.

Along came a spider (the Keystone Kops) and sat down beside him and told him he must remove that offensive hate sign or face charges himself.
Apparently he has committed a ‘race’ crime.

The way it works here see is .... they (gypos) have ‘rights!’ Yup.  The taxpaying store owner?  Bah. Screw him.

Dance Gypsie, Drink Gypsie, Steal Gypsie .......  Oh yeah. Forgot. That last one wasn’t in the original song. Was it? Should have been.

Jeweller given police warning for banning gipsies after string of raids on his shop

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:49 PM on 17th July 2009

A respected jeweller has been given a police warning for ‘racially offensive’ conduct after banning gipsies from his shop in the wake of a series of raids by an Eastern European crime gang.

Michael Plant, 62, repeatedly called in officers after the foreign thieves - believed to be Romanian travellers - stole pieces from his jewellery shop in Altrincham, Cheshire.

Mr Plant reacted to the string of thefts with a sign in his shop window reading: ‘Sorry, we do not serve Eastern Europeans or Gypsies.’

Shortly after posting the sign, he was served with a warning from a senior police officer demanding he take it down, or face prosecution for possible race hate charges.

Despite inquiries police have been unable to trace the thieves.

Mr Plant has run the M&M Plant shop with his Austrian wife Monika, 62, for the past 22 years.

Today, he said: ‘I’m not racist, but the fact is I have been targeted repeatedly by Eastern European criminals and I should have a right to say which people come into my shop and not face allegations of racial discrimination.

‘I should be able to choose who I serve. That’s not just Eastern Europeans - if someone comes in drunk they will not be served either.

‘All I want is some common sense approach to what we have. The police are reactive rather than proactive to crime, they wait for it to happen before they solve it rather than the other way round.

‘I think these Romanians and Eastern European criminals are letting their fellow countrymen down. Obviously I don’t think all of them are bad, but how can I distinguish who is good and who is bad?

‘I’ve got a foreign wife and we have foreign friends. But some people coming in to this country illegally seem to have more rights than me.’

The series of thefts at Mr Plant’s store started 18 months ago, with the most recent last Saturday when a man’s gold wedding ring was stolen.

‘They always say they’re Spanish, but they aren’t. I speak more Spanish than them,’ he added.

‘They use distraction techniques like a child running around, and they get away with your stock. One morning I lost nine bracelets, worth well into four figures.

‘I think they must pass our name around because about every five to six weeks I get another group of people, two or three to four, sometimes with or without children. Their English is very poor. They always have gold teeth.

‘The men always dress very flamboyant with suits, they look as if they are trying to fit in with pointy shoes on, but unfortunately they go over the top and fail.

‘They come in and ask for something and we usually haven’t got it. Last Saturday we got a visit from another ‘disadvantaged’ pair from a ‘disadvantaged’ group and the result was that we lost some jewellery to them.

‘They’re quicker than Paul Daniels. It’s a couple of hundred pounds and that’s under my insurance excess.’

Officers were alerted to Mr Plant’s sign, posted on Monday morning, after a tip-off. He then got a warning from senior officers shortly afterwards offering him ‘words of advice’ about the message.

He said: ‘This sign was written in anger after the robbery. I feared we would get more in that afternoon. I just put it straight up on the door. One Saturday we got some in in the morning and some in the afternoon.

‘I emailed the local Inspector to say what I had put up on the sign and I was told to take it down immediately.

‘I put up another sign which actually said Romanian and East European Gypsies. It’s actually saying nothing, but the police are now taking offence to the word “gypsies”.

‘I’ve reported incidents to the police in the past. I’ve had several robberies over the years and the capture of criminals is very low.

‘I’m sick and tired of a country where if I put a sign on the door, I’m told I’m in flagrant disregard of the discrimination act, which would result in me going to high court being given a fine and a slap on the wrist and end up with a criminal record.

‘I bet if these people are caught for stealing, they probably wouldn’t even go into a magistrates court. They would just get a fixed penalty fine and that would be paid by one of the human rights organisations. The tax-payer pays for it all.

‘I’ve spoken to various people, including foreign friends of mine, and they seem to agree that the whole country is belly-up.’

Police said the Mr Plant had fallen foul of the Race Relations Act which recognises gypsies and travellers as ethnic groups.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: ‘Police received a report that a shop was displaying a sign which contained writing that was deemed to be offensive.

‘Officers have spoken with the owner of the shop. He has been advised that the notice is offensive and he has since removed it. We take all complaints of this nature extremely seriously.’

DAILY MAIL

‘We take all complaints of this nature extremely seriously.’
Nice. How about taking freeken robbery seriously too. Oh, that’s going a bit far.

Posted by peiper     on 07/17/2009 at 10:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Stoopid-People • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters • UK •  
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   Thursday - July 16, 2009

So now it’s really gonna be in my back yard is it?  I promise, no rant from me, No need,

Well, the plague gets closer all the time I guess and it shouldn’t surprise anyone considering how accommodating the PC socialist left is.

I promised no rant, not even bad language and that’s how I’m leaving it.

No link to the article which I had to copy cause as usual some papers are just plain STUPID! When I Googled the headline trying to find it though, I found even better in a way.  The Goog gave me this page which while much is dated, has some interesting links on the subject.  If you’re me of course the stories are maddening but I am not on a rant. Really.  I’m not.

LINKS FOR TRAVELERS AND RIGHTS

This is just a short blurb from a local rag here.

CALL FOR MORE SITES FOR TRAVELLERS

Twenty one extra areas for travellers need to be found in the Winchester district, the city heard last week.

A further 16 areas for travelling showpeople are also likely to be needed, although no sites have yet been earmarked., and the exact figures are still being drawn up.

In areas where possible sites have been named, the proposals have often met with fierce opposition.

“met with fierce opposition” Gosh. I can’t imagine why.
Hey .. that isn’t a rant.  It’s an observation.

Posted by peiper     on 07/16/2009 at 10:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters •  
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   Tuesday - July 14, 2009

Doing poorly

Bowling went to hell tonight. We won the first game handily, and I bowled pretty well. Then my foot gave out, and I went downhill from there. We lost the 2nd game, and the 3rd. By the 3rd game I was barely hobbliing around. Damn it.

I started getting pain in my right heel after bowling around the end of May, beginning of June. By mid June it was lasting for several days afterwords. I figured out that it’s plantar fasciitis. Ok, that’s a self diagnosis, but I have all the symptoms, so I’m pretty sure I’m right. I’m doing the wrap the arch thing, the roll on the ball thing, and for the past week I’ve been using arch support inserts on all my footwear. I thought I had it licked, until tonight. Halfway through the 2nd game it felt like my ankle was grinding around on gravel; I swear I could hear the joint crunching. Not cool. So that’s been keeping me occupied lately, and explains some of the lack of posting. I find I can only sit in front of the PC for maybe 20 minutes at a time. Maybe I need a better computer chair too.

Anyway, tomorrow I have to get out to Pennsylvania first thing to buy a couple pounds of powder. And maybe some primers, although $32 per case (1000) seems awfully expensive. OTOH, $32/K is better than Not Available At Any Price, which has been the situation around here for too long. Now that I’ve got the RCBS lube-a-matic II lubricator/sizer set up for Doc, we’re going to trade components. I’ll help him set up his RL550 press (no, it’s not a RL550B, it’s the original 550), and trade him primers and powder for bullets and brass, and we’ll share the lubing and reloading duties. Part of that estate haul was a 3 gallon bucket full of 145gr cast SWC .38s and more than 1000 empty .38Spl cases, but they need to be lubed and then loaded. 4gr of Hodgdon Universal will push them to around 950fps, and should provide just the right amount of pressure for proper accuracy. So every other box of ammo will be mine, nice plastic box included too, for a money cost of $4.25 per box. Which is about $12 less than commercial .38 ammo goes for, IF you can even find any to buy. Plus we can shoot right in his back yard, so we can load 10, shoot 5 over the chrony and 5 for accuracy, and adjust things as needed.  But all that fun will be on Thursday. Tomorrow, as soon as I get back from the powder shop, I’ve got to go to the dentist for a filling. Double Plus Fun Good.  I am SO looking forward to that.

WTF? I just flipped the TV past the All Star baseball game. And in the booth, between the Play By Play and the Color guy, was Barack Hussein Obama. Crap, now he’s taking over sports narration too? WTF? Sure, first pitch, fine. That’s tradition. Then go away. We will be seeing him out on the boat with Jim Bob catching bass next, on the fishin’ channel? Replacement goalie for the Red Wings?

Posted by Drew458     on 07/14/2009 at 09:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life •  
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   Monday - July 13, 2009

The Headline is:  Segregation in schools is fueled by ‘White Flight.’ Look familiar?

Oh, now this is a huge surprise. Aren’t you all surprised too? Ppl of like background and something in common (language too?) wanting to be among their own.
Not to mention a better environment for their offspring. 

Segregation in schools fuelled by ‘white flight’

Warwick Mansell and Polly Curtis The Guardian, Friday 10 July 2009

Schools in parts of England are becoming increasingly segregated, deserted by white parents if they find their children becoming outnumbered by pupils from ethnic minorities, a report by a think tank set up to promote community cohesion has warned.

Councils should consider allocating school places using lotteries in some inner-city areas to tackle a growing phenomenon of “white flight” in the education system, the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo) said.

Its study, which focused on 13 local areas including Bolton, Sunderland, Oldham, Hounslow and Bristol, concluded: “Many of the schools and colleges in the areas we have studied are segregated to a greater or lesser extent and the evidence available to us at a local level suggested that this was generally worsening over recent years.

“This reflects in part residential segregation, but it also reflects parental choice, despite the fact that most people we spoke to in focus groups wanted their children to have a mixed education. Parental choice tended to push people to what they saw as the safe option, where children with similar backgrounds went.”

It added: “We heard strong evidence of ‘white flight’ in a number of areas.”

ICoCo was set up in 2005 to research and promote community relations. Nick Johnson, its director of policy and author of the report, said: “‘White flight’ is certainly happening in specific areas of England. In the case of one school in Blackburn, once the number of non-white pupils got above 60%, white parents started saying they did not want their kids being the odd ones out.” Segregation reduced the chance for young people to mix with their peers from different backgrounds, said the report.

Johnson added that councils should consider allocating school places by lottery, a scheme that has been trialled at some schools in Brighton. “If you did that in Blackburn or Bolton or Oldham, it would have a dramatic effect on the schools’ composition ... if you accept the argument that all forms of segregation in education are bad, you do need to do something about it,” he said.

(turns out however that not all forms are bad. Are they? For example, studies have reported that girls do better in all girl schools. You may argue with that I suppose but that’s what’s being claimed. And many interviews with younger girls seem to bear it out. On the other hand, forced integration due to social engineering works against human nature. And I doubt it makes many friends.)

The report found that less popular schools with spare places sometimes admitted large numbers of immigrant pupils in a short time. It cited the case of an unnamed school at which, at the end of 2005, 85% of pupils were white British. Over the next two terms, pupils from 15 to 20 Somali families were admitted.

“Many white parents reacted negatively, arguing that their children were being disadvantaged by large numbers of non-English speakers. By September 2006, 60 white children had been removed from the school ... and the percentage of black and minority ethnic pupils rose to 45%. But many white families stayed,” the report said.

(Right. “many families stayed.” Wanna bet those were the unfortunates that either could not afford to move, or were themselves slaves to the left and PC)

Researchers also found evidence of pupils of different ethnicities not mixing even when they were sharing classes and playgrounds.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 07/13/2009 at 07:08 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Education • UK •  
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   Wednesday - July 08, 2009

UK has paid off their entire national debt, fixed all the roads and bridges. So said Drew yesterday.

Actually, this is Drew’s quote.

Computerized cameras and automatic squealers on your garbage cans! Unreal. I’m so glad the UK has paid off their entire national debt, fixed all the roads and bridges, provided food, clothing, and shelter to all (not just MPs), etc., that they can afford to waste tax money like this.

Now that was in response to a post yesterday with regard to trash bins and spying on same etc.

By chance this morning I found the following uncredited article in our morning paper.  Somethin’ to do with a bridge. Couldn’t resist the post.

AMBULANCES TOO HEAVY TO CROSS SUSPENSION BRIDGE
The Telegraph

Ambulances have been banned from traveling over Clifton suspension bridge because they are too heavy.

Instead, they will have to take a 2.5 mile detour, which will put an extra six minutes on a journey and raised fears that it could put patients at greater risk.

The ban was imposed after the Great Western Ambulance Service introduced a fleet of ambulances that exceeded the bridge’s weight limit.

Staff who operate the bridge, which has a mechanism that weighs approaching vehicles, said they would consider allowing ambulances on a “life or death” call.
But the ambulance service says the bridge has now been struck from their route effecting their fleet of 103 ambulances.

Posted by peiper     on 07/08/2009 at 02:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Health and Safety • Scary Stuff • UK •  
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