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31 March, 2003

If you like cartoons, you should like Jim Huber's Politically correct cartoon site.


LET THEM DROWN

For disasters at sea, life jackets etc are coloured orange so that rescuers can best see people in the water. So .....

Years ago the Coast Guard experimented with pigeons in a housing under helicopters. They could spot the color orange a long way off and were trained to peck at keys showing the direction they saw something. Unfortunately in an extreme emergency forcing a water landing the pigeons were fishfood.

So nix to that idea. Better to let the people drown than the pigeons.


PC VOCABULARY

There is a good list here of the ways you can improve your vocabulary. Excerpts:

No one fails a class anymore, he's merely "passing impaired."

You don't have detention, you're just one of the"exit delayed."

Your bedroom isn't cluttered, it's just "passage restrictive."

These days, a student isn't lazy. He's "energetically declined."

Your locker isn't overflowing with junk, it's just "closure prohibitive."

Kids don't get grounded anymore. They merely hit "social speed bumps."



30 March, 2003

NORTHERN EUROPEAN = BAD

One would think that linguistics would be a pretty inoffensive subject. It is for instance well-known and obvious that most modern European languages (Italian, Polish, French, German, Greek, English etc) and some Asian languages (Persian, Hindi etc) have a common origin usually referred to as "Proto-Indo-European". But it seems that you DARE NOT ask which modern group most closely resembles those enormously influential original Proto-Indo-Europeans:

Professor Wolfram Nagel of Berlin University in 1987 argued in the journal of the German Oriental Society that Proto-Indo-Europeans must have been racially northern European. He didn't say they were a master race or destined to conquer the world, just that they were northern European. Although Professor Nagel had reached the top of his profession, his reasoned arguments based on ancient texts and artworks so appalled the learned society that they fired the journal's editors and debated whether to expel him (although in the event they allowed him to stay). This incident offers an insight into the totalitarian climate that intellectuals work under in "democratic" Germany.

I suppose if he had said that they were blacks he would have got a medal.

More here.


THE SOVIET ORIGINS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Knowing the content of the latest party newspaper was critical to avoiding internment, as public contradiction, either directly or indirectly, meant denouncement to the KGB. If you complained about being hungry when food shortages were not officially recognised, then you became an enemy of the state. If you failed to praise a Soviet hero, or praised an ex-hero, then again your fate was sealed. The need to be politically correct dominated all conversation and behaviour, as failure meant drastic penalty. Uncertainty and fear pervaded everything, nobody could be sure that an official request to visit Party headquarters meant imprisonment, torture, death, public reward or nothing important.

More here.



29 March, 2003

PC TRUMPS IGNORANCE

Under Clinton, the CIA was told to stop focusing on spying and start focusing on P.C. agenda items like global warming. Worse, the CIA staff was to become a model of P.C. ideology. One analyst retired in disgust after the agency had appointed a person to become a lead analyst for a particular country. This person was qualified because she was black, a female, and had graduated from an Ivy League college with a high GPA. The CIA was not concerned that the young woman did not speak the language of the country she was to analyze, nor had she ever visited the country.

More here


POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE AUSTRALIAN MEDIA

A Vietnam veteran and his family have been attacked by a topless woman while having a picnic at a beach. The man was forced to shield himself with a fold-up table as the woman lunged at him with a 25cm knife. "It was unbelievable --- she was shouting that she was going to kill me,'' the 52-year-old businessman said yesterday. The man, who asked not to be named, was on Darwin's Nightcliff foreshore when he was pestered by beggars. "When I told them to go away they became extremely aggressive and abusive,'' he said. ``A woman in her mid-30s was the worst. "She disappeared behind a toilet block and then reappeared, topless, brandishing a huge knife. "She came straight at me, calling me all sorts of names and said she was going to kill me. "I had to pick up the fold-up table to protect myself. She slammed the knife into it. "My wife was terrified. "Luckily the itinerant's brother turned up on the scene and threatened to break her arm if she didn't put the knife down. "She eventually did and we just packed up and left.''

The man said he reported the incident to a passing police patrol but there was nothing they could do because they were on their way to police headquarters with a full load of drunken itinerants. Opposition Leader Denis Burke said the battle to control the itinerant problem in Darwin had been lost. "The Government has done nothing to stop drunks and itinerants harassing people on the streets,'' he said. "It's about time they got tough with these people.''

A rather disturbing story. But what is missing from it? In Darwin an "itinerant" is an Aboriginal -- a black. But very few readers outside Darwin would know that. I once lived at Nightcliff myself so I know the area. The press reported the story under the heading "Topless woman attacks picnic".


There are some good spoofs of what it takes to be PC here and here



28 March, 2003

INCORRECT FAMILY PHOTOS

While snapshots of family or friends are important ways to brighten a monochromatic cubicle, some pictures on the desk could benefit from a dress code when employees push the skin envelope with their desktop photographs of bikini-clad girlfriends or bare-chested husbands. Provocative pictures could result in sexual harassment claims, lost productivity or a tarnished company image, say employment experts.


PC CUBA

My first conscious exposure to Political Correctness was in 1959 - the first year of Castro's revolution in Cuba - while attending an indoctrination session at a neighborhood elementary school in Havana. There I learned for the first time of the claimed superiority of life in the Soviet Union vs. the U.S. There I also learned that the word "companero" (filtered version of the communist "comrade" - Fidel was denying his communist preferences) was the correct way to refer to the other members of the new Cuban society-in-the-making. Mr., Mrs. and Miss were no longer acceptable

More here.



27 March, 2003

SOME WORDS NO LONGER EXIST

In October 1995, NSA issued an Expurgated Scrabble Players Dictionary ("ESPD"), calling it OSPD3, omitting approximately 167 words labeled as offensive to specific ethnic, racial, sexual and other groups, such as the words "dago", "jew" and "fatso". Hasbro, the NSA's parent, gave as major reasons for the change its desire to promote Scrabble in elementary schools using the OSPD and complaints by offended ethnic groups.

More here


Thought Reform 101

At Wake Forest University last fall, one of the few events designated as "mandatory" for freshman orientation was attendance at Blue Eyed, a filmed racism awareness workshop in which whites are abused, ridiculed, made to fail, and taught helpless passivity so that they can identify with "a person of color for a day." In Swarthmore College's dormitories, in the fall of 1998, first-year students were asked to line up by skin color, from lightest to darkest, and to step forward and talk about how they felt concerning their place in that line. Indeed, at almost all of our campuses, some form of moral and political re-education has been built into freshman orientation and residential programming

More here


PC RUINS ZIMBABWE

Mugabe is now widely execrated, and rightly, but blame for him began late. Nothing is more astonishing than the silence about him for so many years among liberals and well-wishers _ the politically correct. What crimes have been committed in the name of political correctness. A man may get away with murder, if he is black. Mugabe did, for many years.

More here



26 March, 2003

UNSAFE TO REPORT HISTORY

Lamb, who is white, told her students that some people in the 1960s -- not Lamb herself and not in 2003 -- had said the acronym NAACP stood for "Niggers Ain't Acting Like Colored People." She then followed that up by saying such comments are not common today.

She lost her job over it. More here


GREENIE MADNESS

AN Adelaide lake will be transformed from saltwater to freshwater to eradicate a mutant seaweed under a South Australian government plan. The government said today it supported the plan to use freshwater to rid the seaweed, caulerpa taxifolia, from West Lakes in Adelaide's west. The invasive seaweed was initially noticed in the saltwater lake last year. SA Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Minister Paul Holloway said today freshwater would be pumped into the lake and saltwater removed under the plan, at a cost of $3 million. He said the seaweed should be killed after two weeks of the lake becoming freshwater. Once the seaweed was eradicated, the lake would revert again to saltwater, Mr Holloway said.

Of course the seaweed won't come back after the lake reverts to saltwater, will it? And if it does what's another $3 million of taxpayer dollars? More here


WORDS FAIL ME

As U.S. troops roll toward the Iraqi border this week, they have been given orders on two matters of decorum: no throwing candy to Iraqi children, and no displaying flags regimental, state or even the American flag. Officials say the flag could give the citizens of Iraq the wrong idea about the convoys of artillery, ammunition and soldiers. They are not, these officials say, an army of conquest, intent on claiming Iraqi land or treasure for the United States, but a liberation force. They are concerned that streams of American flags would be seen as provocative.

More here



25 March, 2003

GREEN MILITARY

"In California's Mojave Desert, Marines can only train during the daytime so as not to trample endangered tortoises. Live or simulated fire is off-limits and all vehicles are restricted to roads. Hawaii's Makua Military Reservation was shut down in 1998 in response to lawsuits seeking to protect a tree snail, and Navy SEAL training on Coronado Island in California is restricted because of the snowy plover bird."

Via PoliGov


SHOULD GARDENING BE FORBIDDEN?

'The government must take gardening safety more seriously', announced Brian Donohue, secretary of the UK parliamentary group on gardening, reacting this week to a report that injuries due to gardening have increased by almost 50 percent in five years. Apparently one person a week is likely to die partaking of this activity, with 62,000 adults last year needing hospital treatment. Gardening is now the 'ultimate danger sport', according to one newspaper.

More here


There is a good story about insane political correctness in Edinburgh, Scotland here. Apparently ANY picture of children is incitement to paedophilia there.



24 March, 2003

A POLITICALLY INCORRECT WAR?

A U.S. reader writes:

My mother (who wishes to remain anonymous because she fears for her job) just returned home from work at Home Depot in Waltham, MA. She called me with disturbing news. The employees' lunch room has a television. It previously had been tuned to the news to allow employees to follow the war. Today, all day, the television was tuned to "Home Depot TV". Additional, there was a metal bar locked across the television in order to prevent the channel from being changed. When my mother inquired about the situation, she was told that a Muslim employee had complained to HR that he was offended by the war coverage. This is a complete outrage.

(Crossposted from Dissecting Leftism)


NO FUN FOR WOMEN

A rent-a-psychologist from Minnie Mouse University warned that women are becoming more sexually predatory, and that the audiences for male strippers no longer see it as a bit of a giggle with the girls, but as a chance to assert the dark side of their sexuality. This theory was totally undermined by footage of several groups of giggling women pointing and shrieking at oil-drenched men twirling their body parts. If this is sexual, it is certainly darkly so.

More here.


BLACKS GOOD, WHITES BAD

It took City Councilman Charles Barron and the Reverend Al Sharpton exactly one day to denounce the New York police angrily following the fatal police shootings of three gun-toting thugs and one murderous car thief this January 1 and 2.

Four days after the executions of two undercover officers in Staten Island this week_ they were shot point-blank while trying to buy a semi-automatic weapon from a gang of gun hustlers_ Barron, Sharpton, and the rest of the city's cop-haters have preserved a perfect public silence. There will be no demonstrations outside the courthouse when the murderers of Detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews are arraigned, unlike the protests that Sharpton organized outside the Bronx courthouse to scream at the four New York officers who mistakenly shot Amadou Diallo in 1999. Nor will anyone be parading coffins outside the homes of the lowlives who blew out the brains of the two Staten Island detectives, as New York's anti-cop bigots did outside the homes of the Diallo officers.

Thus are we forced to confront yet again the bizarre calculus of life, race, and criminality that reigns among cop-bashers. This calculus assigns wildly different values to lost life, depending on the race of the suspect and the victim

More here.


NAUGHTY SQUAWS

The Arizona legislature wants to ban public use of the word "Squaw" as it is said to offend American Indians. So places like Squaw Mountain will presumably have to become Native American Female Mountain. Definitely not as catchy!

More here. Via Useful Fools.



23 March, 2003

JESUS INCORRECT?

Writing in The Spectator, Boris Johnson has a hilarious account of the editing process at the New York Times op-ed page:

"Booris," said Tobin [the Times editor], "'we love it! Everybody loves it. But we have, uh, a few issues of political correctness that I have to go through with you." . . . I started to get a floaty, out-of-body sensation when he said that he had made a change to a sentence about donations of US overseas aid to key members of the UN Security Council. I had said something to the effect that you don't make international law by giving new squash courts to the President of Guinea. This now read "the President of Chile." Come again? I said. Qu,? "Uh, Boris," said Tobin, "it's just easier in principle if we don't say anything deprecatory about a black African country, and since Guinea and Chile are both members of the UN Security Council, and since it doesn't affect your point, we would like to say Chile." . . . I began the piece with the words, "Gee, thanks, guys," and Tobin wanted those words removed. For the life of me, I couldn't see why. . . . "OK, Booris, I'll tell you what the problem is. Our problem is that 'Gee' is an abbreviation for Jesus. For a century this has been a Jewish-owned paper, and we have to be extremely sensitive about anything that might offend Christian sensibilities." . . . "Jesus H. Christ," I said, "this is insane. This is utterly insane. I really think we ought to try to get that one in . . ."

Tobin consulted with his higher-ups and Johnson got a dispensation to say "Gee." The op-ed appeared this past Sunday.

More here.


SOMETIMES SANITY PREVAILS

I mentioned recently a case where a Florida jury found a gun manufacturer guilty but not the person who stole the gun and pulled the trigger. I am pleased to update the story: A judge later tossed out the verdict against the gun firm.


CLOUD CUCKOO LAND

UK foreign secretary Jack Straw said before the war that what he wanted was for Saddam Hussein to make a TV broadcast admitting that he had lied about having weapons of mass destruction, and saying that he had now decided not to produce or retain such weapons. It's a strange world when the Great Powers are expected make pathetic attempts to assert their will by cajoling their enemies into making confessional statements on TV: Like an alcoholic. Perhaps the Iraqi leader should also have set up an Owners of Weapons of Mass Destruction Anonymous, to complete his repentance

More here



22 March, 2003

Incidentally, it's our understanding that the word robot is considered offensive. The politically correct term is Electronic-American


HAWAIIAN MATHEMATICS

Politically correct educators is Hawaii want to teach Hawaiian mathematics in the schools there. Apparently 1+1=2 is different there.


BOOKS OPTIONAL IN BRITISH LIBRARIES

Libraries of the future will incorporate cafes and crSches, provide expert help in basic literacy and contribute to wider social inclusion objectives. What's more, a range of respectable celebrities publicly endorsed this vision by singing the praises of libraries: Alvin Hall loves them because they're free; Dawn French uses hers for reading, eating and snogging; and Gary Lineker says 'Power up at your local library!'.

So libraries may soon become the place to be. This would be good news, were it not for the fact that the only thing that makes a library any good - its book collection - is likely to be neglected in the process.

Of course, book stocks get a mention. 'Framework for the Future' identifies the successful public library as having 'a good range of books carefully selected to meet the needs of its community'. However, 'a good range of books' is not necessarily the same as 'a range of good books'. And what are the needs of the community? Are they literary? Possibly not, for although the report emphasises the importance of reading, this is seen as a means to an end; namely, the development of citizenship skills among the socially excluded.

in the new libraries, space seems to be more celebrated than the books it could contain. These bright, open spaces are seen as focal points for visitors to gather and mingle, to chat with friends or simply to admire the view.

Spaces are occupied by 'People's Network' computer terminals, allowing the public free access to the internet. There are some excellent articles and a great deal of useful information published on the internet. However, there is no logical reason for such facilities to be provided in public libraries. After all, the private sector successfully provides internet access in coffee shops.

Furthermore, these terminals are acoustically abominable, being both a source of noise and constructed of wholly unabsorbent moulded plastic. Shoehorn a bank of these into a traditional library (as many local authorities are now doing) and the silence standard becomes impossible to maintain.

More here>


POLITICALLY CORRECT BOOK-PULPING

In good Nazi bookburning fashion, the enforcers of political correctness attempt to suppress knowledge and debate. For example, they do their best to suppress mention of any proposition that offers explanations of why some groups are less fortunate and are likely to remain so regardless of any amount of well-intended intervention -- the claim (which surely should be at least discussable) that Negroes have an inherited lower average IQ than whites, for instance.

For a striking example of such a suppression effort, witness the pulping of Brand's perfectly scholarly book on IQ by his own publisher (Wiley of the US) when the political unpalatability of his inheritance data became obvious. There is obviously no way that the politically correct brigade believe in such "bourgeois" ideals as freedom of speech.

More here.



21 March, 2003

GUNS ARE REALLY INCORRECT

A Palm Beach County, Florida, jury found a gun distributor, the original gun owner and a school board responsible for the shooting death of a teacher by a student while failing to find the student who stole the gun and the bullets and who pulled the trigger, killing the teacher, at all responsible for the murder.

Source. Thanks to Jerry Lerman for the summary.


INCORRECT AMERICAN INDIANS

The latest politically correct idea in the USA seems to be that American Indians should not be allowed to use Indian mascots or use such Indian terms as "Braves" to refer to themselves or name their sporting teams. Apparently it is supposed to be "non-racist" and "inclusive" to ban Indians from referring to their own group names and their own past. I guess that whites who refer to themselves as "Anglo-Saxons", "Germans", "Italians" etc. will be in the firing-line next. And Americans who remember and praise the deeds of George Washington must be a bad lot too by the same logic.


Alcohol may stop mental illness

MODERATE drinking may protect against the onset of mental illness in the elderly, according to new research. A long-term study of more than 700 people, aged 65 and over, found that moderate drinkers had a much lower risk of developing mental health problems than either heavy drinkers or teetotallers.



20 March, 2003

We all naturally feel sorry for deaf people but this article gives an insight into what a horror "Deaf culture" has evolved to be.


HOMELESSNESS NOT SO CORRECT

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, has compared the homeless to the baby Jesus, saying in December 1999 that Christmas celebrates "the birth of a homeless child."

"Criminalizing the homeless, with mass arrests for those whose only offense is that they have no home, is wrong," Mrs. Clinton said during her Senate campaign.

BUT:

As many as half of the homeless have criminal records, and some have committed serious violent crimes, including rape and murder.

"There's no question that a certain percentage of homeless people on the street are dangerous or violent," said Heather Mac Donald, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who has written extensively on the issue. "These are not gentle lambs."

Miss Mac Donald said liberal activists achieved a "public relations coup" by popularizing the term "homeless" and creating an image of the people once commonly called "bums" as harmless and innocent victims of society.

But police in many communities recognize the threat posed by the homeless, and some charities devoted to helping the homeless concede that many of their clients are former convicts.

A survey two years ago by the Boston Rescue Mission found that 49 percent of their clients said they had criminal records, and 32 percent said they had spent time in prison, while 12 percent said they were discharged directly from a prison to a shelter.

More here.


Colouring contest beer row

YOUNG children have been encouraged to colour in a beer logo as part of a Moonee Valley Racing Club competition. It featured a picture of a horse with the words "Carlton Draught" written underneath. Children who entered were given the chance to win a toy hamper. The club has since apologised to members, but is refusing to cancel the competition. Australian Drug Foundation chief executive Bill Stronach said the club showed a "total lack of common sense".



19 March, 2002

Road closed due to 'sex season'

IT'S mating season, and the National Park Service believes that spotted salamanders, wood frogs and other amphibians should be able to let nature take its course - without being run over. That's why they're closing eight km of a road that passes through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.


DEAD GIRAFFES HAVE RIGHTS TOO!

When Washington's National Zoo denied a local reporter the medical records of a dead giraffe, a strange thing happened: A battle within the animal-rights community came to life. As zoo director Lucy Spelman explained to the Washington Post reporter, the zoo could not release the files because to do so would violate the "privacy" rights of animals. The principle, she explained, was akin to doctor-client privilege: Handing out records would violate the "curator-zoo animal relationship."

More here


A Leftist Australian State government has banned balloons because they are bad for the environment in some mysterious way. And the source of their advice about the harmfulness of the balloons? A 9 year old girl! Greenpeace eat your heart out! See also here



18 March, 2003

YES .... WELL ... 'NUFF SAID

"ST HILDA'S, the last all-female college in Oxford, voted yesterday against letting in men... Penny Berrill, the junior common room president, said: "I'm ecstatic. We're a women's college and we're sticking by women's education." ...Jessica Lennard, 20,... said: "We need to get rid of the stereotype that girls at St Hilda's are unattractive, socially inept lesbians and stupid."

Via Limbic nutrition


Gunman shoots security guard, Guard gets arrested for murder

"An armed robber was shot dead today after grappling with a security guard during a raid on a Securicor van.

The guard, who was also shot in the leg, has been arrested in hospital for murder.

The drama happened after three men attacked the security van as it arrived at a Tesco supermarket in Leytonstone. As the robbers started firing, the Tesco guard tried to wrestle a gun from one of the gunmen. In the scuffle the gun went off, hitting the robber in the head. The guard was hit in the leg as six shots were fired. The robber died later in hospital and the guard was in a stable condition. The injured men were taken to hospital by an air ambulance which landed in the Tesco car park."

British law is the law of the madhouse. More here. Via Limbic Nutrition


A NON-RELIGIOUS EASTER??

The link to the story about hot cross (very cross!) buns that Peter put up seems to be for subscribers only so here is more information plus a link to a different newspaper:

Officials in the London borough of Tower Hamlets decided to remove Hot Cross buns from menus this year. The spokesman added: "We are moving away from a religious theme for Easter and will not be doing hot cross buns. We can't risk a similar outcry over Easter like the kind we had serving pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. We will probably be serving naan breads instead."

Liverpool council, which is controlled by the Liberal Democrats, said that the symbol of the cross had the "potential to offend" and buns will no longer be served to children. Despite this ruling, the council confirmed that it will continue to organise special menus to celebrate events as diverse as the Chinese New Year, Italian National Day and Russian Independence Day.

Apparently you cannot recognize the most holy day in the Christian calendar but you can recognize anything else.

More here


PC TYRANNY REVERSED

Readers might also be pleased to hear that the other instance of PC tyranny mentioned by Peter -- a college professor who forced students to write protest letters to President Bush for course credit -- has been reversed:

Glendora, CA - In rapid response to the intervention of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the administration of Citrus College (California) has undone a terrible injustice - and has avoided a moral and legal nightmare. A Citrus College professor had compelled undergraduate students to write anti-war letters to President George W. Bush -penalizing the grades of students who dissented or refused to send the letters. The Citrus College administration, working closely with FIRE, resolved the situation. "When fully informed of a frightening violation of freedom of conscience, the college administration responded swiftly and boldly to restore liberty and to undo the harm already done," said Thor L. Halvorssen, FIRE's chief executive officer.

17 March, 2003

DEAF PEOPLE SHOULD NOT SPEAK

If Christy Smith, the first disabled competitor on Survivor, thinks she's facing adversity in the Brazilian jungle, wait till she gets back home and faces some of her deaf fans.

As the newest and most visible deaf celebrity on TV, Smith, 24, has become a magnet not only for praise, but also scathing criticism. On one hand, the deaf community is proud of the Colorado native who is a graduate of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the world's only liberal-arts college for the deaf.

But on the other, many deaf people are angry that she is not openly displaying more pride in deaf culture. They want her to use sign language when she speaks, and to teach other members of her all-female tribe how to sign. They are particularly critical of her choosing to read lips and speak instead of insisting on a sign-language interpreter during the Darwinian game show. Those choices are particularly insulting to strong proponents of deaf culture.

More here. Thanks to Orrin Judd for the tipoff.

Comments? Email me


NO FREE SPEECH IN BRITAIN

The words of someone who was sent to jail in Britain for expressing politically incorrect views on race:

The judge at our trial exhibited the typical do-gooder liberal attitudes in this respect. He could not possibly gainsay, and therefore condemn someone for saying, that blacks perform intellectually at a lower level than whites. At the same time his emotions could not bear the thought that this state of affairs was unchangeable and not capable of remedy by education and social engineering. The first thought was just about acceptable to him; the second was not. It is essential to the liberal's faith in his ability to guide people forward that he have the capacity to lift up the low by civic action, whatever their depressed condition. Offend that faith, and you make the liberal very angry!"

More detail here

Comments? Email me


AUSTRALIANS KNOW HOW TO BE POLITICALLY INCORRECT!

AUSTRALIA'S first purpose-built beer school will open tomorrow. Draught Beer Fundamentals will be taught at the Carlton Draught Beer Academy at Adelaide's Regency Institute of TAFE as part of a certificate in hospitality.

More detail here

Comments? Email me



16 March, 2003

NO TO TATTOOS ON SAILORS??

On board the US Navy ships gathered in the Gulf, commanders have declared war_on offensive tattoos. A new Navy rule has banned 'tattoos/body art/brands that are excessive, obscene, sexually explicit or advocate or symbolise sex, gender, racial, religious, ethnic or national origin discrimination'

More here

Comments? Email me


IT'S NOT MY FAULT IF I STEAL A CAR AND CRASH IT

St John's Children's Home was closed in 1997 following a damning report into the death of Gary Morrison, aged 15, who crashed a stolen car while in the care of staff at the home. In March, 1993, another resident, Sally Anne Cattell, 14, died when a stolen Metro she was driving crashed. Warren Lewin, aged 15, died in similar circumstances in December, 1989, while under supervision of staff at St John's.

More here

Comments? Email me



15 March, 2003

CATCHING CRIMINALS INFRINGES THEIR RIGHTS!

Just weeks ago, a British drug dealer convicted of smuggling a quarter of a million pounds sterling worth of drugs won 3000 pounds compensation at the European Court of Human Rights because the Customs and Excise investigators had illegally tapped his pager, thereby infringing his human rights!!

More here

Comments? Email me


SOCIAL WORKER STRUCK DUMB

A trainee social worker wrote to me as follows:

The main criticism about my performance during my recent Practicum was that I used the word "girls" when referring to other women in my team. It was considered to be ageist. I agreed that I did indeed use this term and asked what the Manager would suggest as an alternative. I told her I had thought about using the term "ladies" but considered it to be elitist. So now I am left with the mouthfull "other members of my team".

Comments? Email me


RACES DO EXIST!

Under the influence of political correctness, a lot of biological scientists have in the past pooh-poohed the reality of race and said that all races are more or less the same genetically. It is interesting, therefore, that the latest DNA research establishes what every honest observer has known all along -- that there are different races, that they are genetically different and that the differences in the genes correspond to how people generally group the races.

More here.

Comments? Email me



14 March, 2003

Mt Nipple divides ski resort

PRESSURE from uncomfortable skiers and other tourists in Wyoming, USA, has prompted the Grand Targhee Ski and Summer Resort to change the name of one of its mountains. Mary's Nipple is now just Mary's, and signs with the word "nipple" have been covered with tape.

More here.

Comments? Email me


OPERATING THEATRE CORRECTNESS

Not exactly a laughing matter is the way political correctness can actually endanger lives. Take, for instance, the case of a UK surgeon reported in the UK Daily Telegraph who had to stop in the middle of surgery because the immigrant nurses employed by Britain's cash-strapped National Health Service could not understand enough English to follow his instructions. He filed a complaint claiming that patient's lives were being put at risk by nurses who do not understand English. The immediate result? A threat of disciplinary action against the surgeon for racism!

More here.

Comments? Email me



13 March, 2003

'Apparent Assassination'

Serbia's Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic is dead. Reuters reports he "was shot in the chest by two large caliber sniper bullets fired from a distance." Reuters calls this an "apparent assassination." We kid you not.

From WSJ.

Comments? Email me


ROYAL GUARDS HAVE INCORRECT HATS

Military officials are looking for alternatives to the traditional bearskin helmet worn by the Sovereign's Foot Guards for ceremonial occasions. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is seeking a suitable artificial fibre following complaints from animal rights campaigners. The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says it is not necessary to use real skins. But the MoD said attempts to find a alternative have so far been unsuccessful. The foot-high bearskins are worn with the ceremonial scarlet tunics by the Grenadier, Welsh, Irish, Scots and Coldstream Guards regiments.

More here.

Comments? Email me



12 March, 2003

Unfriendliness is PC

How heavily the obsession with equality influences the PC movement can perhaps be seen most clearly in the actions of a British welfare agency who banned a job advertisement because it discriminated against UNFRIENDLY PEOPLE! A company placed the advertisement looking for a "friendly person" for a catering-related job but the local Job Centre rejected it because they said it "may discriminate against certain applicants". See here (originally from the Bolton Evening News of June 7th., 2002 but no longer online at that site).


THOMAS THE TRAUMATIZER

And Thomas the Tank Engine is politically incorrect because he has "too many crashes" for a children's cartoon!


A POLITICALLY INCORRECT TEDDY BEAR

A popular children's book about a teddy bear called Bromley who climbs Uluru has incensed Aborigines and reignited the debate over who controls Australia's most recognisable and famous natural feature. Aborigines living around Uluru, or Ayers Rock as it used to be known, say the book is insulting to their beliefs and should be withdrawn from sale or rewritten without reference to climbing the rock.

Maybe a Golliwog would have been OK.

More here



11 March, 2003

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS VERSUS FREEDOM OF RELIGION

Political correctness even has the potential to trump religious freedom. Church schools in the Australian State of Queensland had only a narrow escape from it in 2002. The Labor Party government in Queensland tried to pass a law that would have forbidden them from rejecting gays as teachers in their schools. An escape clause for church schools (but not other schools) was built in only at the last moment after some heavy lobbying.



10 March, 2003

INCORRECTNESS CAN COST YOU

Political correctness has now been entrenched in law in many countries -- as was shown in 2002 in Australia: An Australian conservative Senator gave a private interview in which he spoke disparagingly but not unreasonably or abusively of Australian blacks. The outcome? He was eventually found guilty in the Federal Court of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act -- at a cost to him of $10,000.


POLITICALLY CORRECT CRAYONS

The Crayola company in the U.S. changed the names of two of its crayon colours recently. "Indian Red" was deemed to offend American Indians and "Flesh" was deemed to insult everyone else!