Modern technology, mediaeval laws

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-journalist-left-facing-the-death-penalty-over-twitter-posts-6804831.html

Pity 23-year old Hamza Kashgari, a journalist from Saudi Arabia who is staring at a possible death penalty for tweeting, inter alia, the following social and quasi-religious comments, the first addressing the Prophet Mohammed on his birthday and the second being a more general comment on Saudi Arabia's attitude to women:

On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more

and;

No Saudi women will go to hell, because it's impossible to go there twice.

Similar tweets in the UK would arouse little comment. Nobody has been libelled, nobody has been mobbed, nobody has incited hatred or made racist, sexist or homophobic comments. To me the first comment seems innocuous, there is a lot to be confused about in the Koran and in Mohammed's life, as there is in the Christian Bible and Jesus' life. The second comment is directed against the living hell that confronts a female child born into Saudi Arabian society - owned and traded by the family menfolk and with less legal rights than her brothers, life can be tragic for Saudi women (remember the teenage girls pushed back, by the religious police, into a burning school to die horribly because their hair wasn't covered!).

Saudi Arabia is not, however, a democracy, but is an oppressive mediaeval theocracy where poorly educated religious leaders hold sway (yes they have learnt the Koran off by heart, but they are not capable of dealing with human nature and have less general knowledge than the average 10-year old in the UK). Hamza Kashgari was the victim of a Facebook campaign calling for his execution and received 30,000 critical comments in 24-hours (presumably on twitter). The young man booked a flight to New Zealand and fled the country. Unfortunately he had to transit through Malaysia, a country that feigns human rights standards (although they still cane people). There he was seized and, despite attempts by lawyers to protect him, handed over to the Saudi police since Malaysia saw him as a terrorist (original claims that Interpol was involved have been rejected). Shame on Malaysia.

There are more articles spreading world wide, but whether they will have a positive effect on the Saudi Authorities is another matter.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=Hamza+Kashgari&pc=FACEBK&form=FBKFTA

Interestingly, those of us who tweet or blog in support of Hamza Kashgari run the risk of being hauled before a Saudi court at some time in the future:

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudi-tweeter-s-supporters-may-face-court-summon-1.980045#.Tzj6yaXOhQs.twitter

Since Malaysia has supported the Saudis in this matter one wonders whether other countries will deport/extradite re-tweeters at the behest. That should prove interesting.

I wonder what will become of those of us who have joined the Free Hamza Kashgari page on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/217865731642049/members/

Some people just don't get it do they?

Well done Kate Green. A small British brewery has seen a surge in sales after the miserable feminist MP had their beer removed from the Stranger's Bar in the House of Commons (to be replaced, with more than a dash of irony given the anti-democratic nature of the decision, by a beer called Kangaroo Court). The Slater family are delighted, no doubt, that Ms Green's intervention has got them world wide publicity that they could never have afforded otherwise. The beer is being shipped to many more outlets than previously and even London club Stringfellows is looking to stock it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9071863/Top-Totty-beer-sales-rise-after-House-of-Commons-ban.html

What Ms Green doesn't understand is that the sort of people who drink real ale are unlikely to be motivated to stop drinking a particular tipple just because some miserable harridan (IMHO), with nothing better to do, says they ought. The reaction was predictable. I looked at the prices as did so many others. If I wasn't broke at present I'd get a barrel in.

Ms Green should now make the non-drinking of Top Totty a feminist cause celebre, perhaps linked to the campaign against designer vaginas, in order to get the sisters out on the streets. This would make the brand a household name worldwide and force the Slaters to build a bigger brewery to cope with demand.

Does Ms Green not realise that some of us are sick to death of people telling us what we might drink, eat, smoke, hunt and wear whilst playing conkers, that we inevitably go in the opposite direction? On the last day before the ban on chasing certain animals with dogs I nearly went hunting for the first time in my life just to get up the noses of the fun detectors. I'd take up smoking if I didn't dislike doing it as much as I do.

My advice for an unhealthy and politically incorrect life is to eat more lard, drink Top Totty, smoke big cigars, chase foxes for all you're worth, sleep around with both sexes (ironically), make friends with your local RC priest and play conkers without health and safety goggles. The politically correct fun detectors and health obsessives shouldn't object as we'll all die young, go to the heaven they don't believe in and leave them alone to spend more time being utterly miserable as they hold yet another tedious conference on how knitting vegetables in a non-sexist way is good for the planet.

Employment opportunity for the liberated older woman

Our French cousins, God bless their cotton socks, appear not to be averse to offering unique work opportunities to older women. An unemployed teacher, aged 53, has been offered a job as a pole dancer/striptease artiste. Perhaps, as I am a young 54, there are opportunities for me to earn money as an erotic morris dancer in France. Stranger things have happened.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/emploi/2012/01/31/09005-20120131ARTFIG00500-pole-emploi-propose-un-poste-de-strip-teaseuse.php?fb_ref=plus

Top Totty - feminists strike back

Top totty is an English expression that can define a young lady, or more recently, a young man. It is complimentary in the extreme and I would love someone to describe me as top totty. The expression is familiar slang and I've heard it used many times in my life, although I don't think I've actually described anyone as such myself. Nobody in their right mind could surely be offended.

More recently the name has been given to a particularly fine blonde beer that has won awards. It is brewed by a small craft brewery, Slater's of Stafford, and is described as 'a stunning blonde beer full bodied with a voluptuous hop aroma'. The range of blonde beers developed by small breweries has enhanced the real ale drinker's taste experience and I can vouch for more than one or 2 of them.

The small breweries have also expanded the naming of beers such that we are no longer limited to Best Bitter, Bitter and Mild, as in my youth. Now we drink beers with names like Hobgoblin, Dog's Bollocks, Goliath, White Wych etc etc. The fun is drinking beers with silly names and unusual flavours. There are some fantastic ruby beers on the market, some lovely porters and even a handful of new milds. I love drinking the wide variety of real ales on offer and will go out of my way to avoid the disgusting nitro-brews. Luckily we have real ale in the George Birkbeck Bar (my post-grad drinking haunt) although both the Doom Bar and Directors had run dry last night.

Sadly I think we will be denied the opportunity to try 'Top Totty' at Birkbeck because of political correctness. This fine award winning ale was on sale in the Strangers' Bar in the Palace of Westminster until the fun detectors stepped in and had the brew removed. There was nothing wrong with the beer, but the pump plate contained a representation of a nubile blonde lady in bunny girl outfit. This was deemed as offensive by fun-detector in chief Kate Green MP, shadow Minister of State for Equalities (Labour - Stretford and Urmston).

Kate Green is one of those MPs who had nothing to do with her constituency prior to her selection. She is also one of Labour's token women having been selected from an all wimmin shortlist (an acceptance that she lacked the personal qualities necessary to compete in an open selection process and could only make it by using her sex to her best advantage). This sort of feminist is the worst sort. Whilst she might have been selected on merit from a field that deliberately excluded 50% (ish) of Labour Party members, she ultimately did not obtain her candidacy in an equal competition.

Those of you who know me well will be aware that I am very big on equality of opportunity and don't do quotas or positive discrimination, concepts I find offensive in the extreme. Tackling discrimination is achieved by demanding that everyone has equal opportunities.

That is by the by, the problem was that the lady in question felt that the picture objectified women. The adverts showing David Beckham in his undies objectify men in the same way. It's okay. All human beings are sexual creatures and we all think of sex several times a day - women and men. It's normal. It's healthy. It is not offensive. The lesbian MPs would have found a picture of an attractive young lady sexually appealing (my lesbian friends are more robust in their sexual attitudes than any of the men I have known in my life).

I do not know what motivates Kate Green, but she is representing a working class area and could at least adopt a working class attitude. Those of us from genuine working class backgrounds seem to have more of a 'live and let live' attitude than the middle-class socialists, who are puritan and serious in the extreme. All human beings have bodies, some of us are lumpier than others. There is nothing wrong with any human body, naked or clothed. Absolutely nothing. Some of us are prettier or more handsome than others and turn a few heads. That's normal. I look admiringly on a fine pair of breasts. Girls like callipygian men; I like callipygian girls. Ms Green was married - surely her husband had something more than a ready wit and great intellect (my selling points, along with a tenderness and patience in bed that guarantees orgasms galore, as it turns out). Has Ms Green never fantasised about naked men? Has she never felt the urge to be spanked over her desk? She must have led a very dull life if she has no peccadilloes or sexual fantasies.

Sadly there seems to be something wrong with this woman (IMHO) and she now wants a dignity at work debate in the House of Commons. What a waste of time. Why are British feminists so embarrassing? What about a debate about forced marriages, female circumcision or honour killings? These things affect young girls in our community. Girls with UK passports are shipped to Africa and Asia for a 'holiday' and their labia and clitorises are sliced off. Other girls have been murdered for not complying with some macabre mediaeval approach to male dominance. Young girls with UK passports are forced into marriages against their will, despite the government's best efforts. Other women's issues include the fact that women in the sex industry, particularly prostitutes, cannot ply their trade in safety because of puritanical restrictions that discriminate against working women. These are real issues that remain unresolved, yet Ms Green thinks that seeing a bunny girl is offensive (did she never see those male beefcakes who danced in their thongs?).

For Ms Green, should she stage through, here are some images that sexualise men:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=male+dancers&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Jv8qT7znIsqXOv3rxZoO&sqi=2&ved=0CD4QsAQ&biw=1366&bih=643

I leave you with an image to conjure up. When I was 20 I lived in a house in Finsbury. There were 5 or 6 of us, IIRC. I was the only straight guy. One of the regular visitors was Terry O'Neill, a caption writer from Reuters, who was also a poet. Terry was a tall man with a beer gut to die for. He used to walk the streets of Islington wearing nothing but a kaftan and sandals. He described himself as Islington's international poet and produced a wonderful book of poetry that included a poem entitled, 'I wish I was a bunny boy.' Terry performed this on stage wearing a pink, crotch hugging, bunny boy outfit. I wonder what Ms Green would have made of a 6' 6" middle aged gay guy in a pink bunny outfit!

(To Terry and my gay friends I owe a lot - I was taken to some of the best gay bars in London and learnt things my mother never told me.)

Transparency - theme of the day....

Should we pity Eirian Walsh Atkins (EWA) who resigned from her job on Friday having been caught tweeting about Unlock Democracy (UD), a leftish leaning campaign group seeking, inter alia, greater transparency in the lobbying industry (to which they belong)? EWA wished that UD would die and offered to help them along. The problem was that EWA's job was as head of constitutional policy in the Cabinet Office, a position that sits on the front line of government policy making just where it meets the lobbying world.

Unlike many lobbyists who have a cosy relationship with government departments, UD encourages people to write to their MPs (lobbying) and raise issues of constitutional import. UD is not well funded, although Joseph Rowntree Foundation money has come their way in the past, but is very active.

The following 2 links provide details:

http://www.spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/tamasin-cave-mainmenu-107/5479-government-lobbying-reforms-in-disarray

http://unlockdemocracy.org.uk/blog/entry/whitehalls-cosy-relationship-with-the-lobbying-industry-needs-to-die

Sadly I cannot link to the Times as I won't pay cash to a Murdoch newspaper.

Getting their ACTA together?

So the UK, along with 21 other EU nations, has signed up to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. At the same time the rapporteur (the MEP designated to bring the matter to the European Parliament) has resigned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16757142

The BBC highlights key issues raised by Kader Arif, a French politician and Member of the European Parliament for the south-west of France. He is a member of the Socialist Party, which is part of the Party of European Socialists, and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade. M. Arif is indignant about the lack of transparency in the process and is quoted as follows:

I condemn the whole process which led to the signature of this agreement: no consultation of the civil society, lack of transparency since the beginning of negotiations, repeated delays of the signature of the text without any explanation given, reject of Parliament's recommendations as given in several resolutions of our assembly.

M. Arif, when referring to resolutions can point to this amongst others:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2011:308E:0088:0089:EN:PDF

This resolution was made in 2010, but not published until 2011. The details are as follows:

The European Parliament,

— having regard to Rule 123 of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas negotiations concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are ongoing,

B. whereas Parliament’s co-decision role in commercial matters and its access to negotiation documents are guaranteed by the Lisbon Treaty,

1. Takes the view that the proposed agreement should not indirectly impose harmonisation of EU
copyright, patent or trademark law, and that the principle of subsidiarity should be respected;

2. Declares that the Commission should immediately make all documents related to the ongoing
negotiations publicly available;

3. Takes the view that the proposed agreement should not force limitations upon judicial due process or weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy;

4. Stresses that economic and innovation risks must be evaluated prior to introducing criminal sanctions where civil measures are already in place;

5. Takes the view that internet service providers should not bear liability for the data they transmit or host through their services to an extent that would necessitate prior surveillance or filtering of such data;

6. Points out that any measure aimed at strengthening powers of cross-border inspection and seizure of goods should not harm global access to legal, affordable and safe medicines;

7. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Commission, the Council and the parliaments of the Member States.

Could the fact that the treaty is not just about the EU, but covers the following other countries have anything to do with it?

Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Mexican States, the Kingdom of Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Singapore, the Swiss Confederation and the United States of America

So, given that, as a member state, the UK was aware of this resolution and others like it, why did we sign?

There will be a debate in the European Parliament in June. I hope readers make their MEPs aware of the issues surrounding ACTA and push for a vote against it.

Happy New Year

I suppose I ought to say a Happy New Year to my small coterie of irregular followers, or my irregular coterie of small followers.

I'm not anticipating any personal involvement in elections as a candidate this year - the incumbent in Witney seems unminded to change tack and I don't see his Lib Dem acolytes, unwilling though they might be, jumping ship in a hurry.

There are no local elections in Carterton this year so I don't have to concern myself with that. I suspect that the developments planned to the west of Carterton will proceed despite the objections of most people I know; certainly the pressure is on to get the plans sorted before any incumbent councillor has to fight an election based on the issues.

I'm continuing my studies at Birkbeck College in London and, as I've borrowed a lot of money to take a LLM, the focus is on completing those in style.

I'll be observing the odd election if I can squeeze it in, but there is no knowing, until the invites to bid come out, whether I will be available on the correct dates. I'm off to Kazakhstan in a few days as a short-term observer, but that will have minimum effect on my studies. The opportunity to go to Russia to observe the Presidential elections has just come up again, but I can't afford the time. That's a pity as I would love to return to Russia having spent a joyous few days in Moscow and Ekaterinburg during Putin's first election. I was selected in 2007 to observe the Parliamentary elections, but failed to get into the country when all of the observers' visa applications were rejected (in my case twice)! Turkmenistan, which has elections this year, is also likely to be a no go because of timing considerations, but perhaps I'll get back to Belarus for a third time if the UK sends observers to the Parliamentary elections there. Minsk is one of my favourite foreign capitals.

Now to finish my essays before term starts!