The Mad Britons' Tea Party

elixelx

Meanwhile, back in Oh-so-politically-correct Spain, those men who carry sandwich boards on the street have been banned on the streets of Madrid because carrying a sandwich board "lessens, or obviates, their human dignity!" and those who pay these men for their "human dignity" are engaging in a modern version of the slave trade....

My stomach is rumbling, I don't have enough money for a stale bread roll, but my "dignity" is in good hands!

Gabriel

"We must do what we can to eradicate this dreadful problem of knives being carried.."

Wrong Melanie. Victim disarmament isn't part of the solution to Britian's problems, it is part of the problem, perhaps THE problem at the root of all the others.

Ronnie

Gabriel, do you mean that we should all be armed rather than disarmed?

Verity

"We must do what we can to eradicate this dreadful problem of knives being carried.."

I agree. You only have an advantage with a knife if you have the longer reach. An armed citizenry doesn't have this knife problem.

An armed society is a polite society. You don't get anything close to the British level of violence in Texas, a state with a population of around 40m. The "carry concealed" - a licence to, er, carry a gun in your purse, tucked in your belt, in your briefcase - law, ensures further politeness all round.

Jack Thursby

Verity I agree with you. Blair only succeeded in disarming the law abiding. Also I have found that in the US drivers are less inclined to tailgate or cut in on you.

Verity

God made man and woman. Samuel Colt made them equal.

Verity

Jack Thursby - Certainly in states which allow the citizenry to be armed (I think that is around 37 or 38 states), folks do tend to avoid confrontation. You never know who might have had a bad day.

Blair "only succeeded in disarming the law abiding." That is all he intended to do. A population that feels helpless and at the mercy of events and violent people is easier to control. Blair is malign. His malignity showed in his face. I was amazed that people didn't see it.

oldandrew

"You don't get anything close to the British level of violence in Texas"

A quick search indicates that the murder rate in Texas is more than 4 times that of the UK.

Verity

oldnandnew - perhaps you should do a more detailed search, with some knowledge of the background. A lot of what you call "murders" are self-defence. It depends on who is compiling the statistics. There is, needless to say, a large, liberal lefty contingent who skew the figures in their reports. In other words, in their little heads, self-defence counts as murder. Police shooting a violent perp counts as murder.

You need to plough through the official records.

Robin

oldandnew

It's interesting to look at crime figures in Texas - go here: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm

I've not done this before and was surprised to see how the peak for murder, for example, was in 1982. It's a 1000/pa less now.

Verity

Robin, George W Bush signed the "carry concealed" law in about the mid-Nineties, and for sure, gun crime has gone way down since then.

It used to be that you could take your gun in your car, but it had to be on the seat next to you or on the dash. Now you can keep it in the glove compartment.

The reason you used to see pickups driving around with three or four rifles in a gun rack in the rear of the cab was, it was unlawful to have them concealed under the seats, say. It's convenient and people continue to use it, but that was the genesis of this habit.

john east

I'm not sure that I can agree with the notion of prison for fly tippers. Agreed that fly tipping is bad, but far worse is the oppressive, dictatorial, town hall bully telling us, the ratepayer, what we can and can't throw away, and on which days we can or can't put our rubbish out, all under threat of harsh penalties if we transgress.

Flytipping, however much one may disapprove of this activity, is one of the few ways we can protest this oppression. Local democracy would of course be the best route, but we all know that local democracy is irrelevant because the rules are set in Brussels not in our town halls.

The Truth Hurts

A Miracle has occured!
Yes, even an old atheist like me accepts that a Miracle has occured.......for once I agree with Melanie Phillips' article.
It makes sense.
Keep it up Melanie, you are beginning to see the light.

Of course Verity's postings lauding the carrying of firarms is complete stupidity.
Guns = Deaths
More Guns = More Deaths

I am now beginning to get a fuller picture of Verity...tartan shirt, tight jeans, cowboy boots, a beat up pick up (probably with a horned bull as a bonnet ornament), a gun rack...
am I on the right track here?

Verity

Truth Hurts - Oh, yoo ar raht! Ah wuz jes' fixin' to stop lollygaggin' around and go toss me a steak - or mebbe a Lefty, dunno yet; ain't shot no one yet today - on that ol' grill. But Ah'm gittin' thar. Couple more o' them ol’ S'uthen Comforts an Ah'm up fer a parteee!

Need more ahce in yer drink, hun?

Miranda Rose Smith

Not everybody on this website knows what a "fly tipper"is. Someone who tips over trash dumpsters? By the way, the Mad Hatter DID have an excuse. 19th century hatters frequently suffered from mercury poisoning.

covadonga

The only real shock in this gobbledegook is that they referred to the 5-year olds as pupils instead of "students".

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear elixelx: Where did you hear or read that men carrying sandwitch boards have been banned from the streets of Madrid? I'm not calling you a liar, I believe you're repeating the information in good faith, but I believe SOMEBODY made that up. Happy Succot to all the religious Jews on this website.

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear The Truth Hurts: If Verity is an American, her pickup wouldn't have a horned bull as a BONNET ornament, it would have a horned bull as a HOOD ornament.

Pesky Pundit

Gabriel:

You are so right! Wherever "gun control" measures have been legislated, "gun crime" goes up exponentially. One is twice as likely to become a victim of gun crime in London than in New York City - three times more likely in Manchester.

If you take guns and weapons away from the law-abiding, then the law abiding citizenry are at the mercy of armed criminals. I understand that that is what life has become in the UK - a small island that is being governed by even smaller men. I'm surprised erectile dysfunction isn't already prevalent among Britain's male population. Having no balls usually affects men "down there" after all. You have my deepest sympathy.

Ronnie, I thought Gagriel was EXTREMELY CLEAR, so I surmise that you must be extremely stupid for asking for clarification....

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Verity: On your response to Truth Hurts-BRAVO!!!!

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear The Truth Hurts: What exactly are "firarms?"

Verity

Miranda Rose Smith - I was going to point that outstanding faux pas out myself, but meanly decided to let it stand in all its ineptitude. Truth Hurts clearly imagines himself quite the man of the world and on easy terms with American lingo.

Verity

"cowboy boots". What the hell are "cowboy boots"? Another linguistic provincialism, I'm afraid.

No one in the Southwest or the West has ever referred to "cowboy boots". Your attempts to use American terminology are skin-crawling. I'm sorry if the truth hurts ...

Verity

Miranda Rose Smith asks the very pertinent question: "Dear The Truth Hurts: What exactly are "firarms?"

They are environmentally friendly bullet-free guns that shoot very sharp evergreen needles harvested from fir and pine trees and brought to yew from the American north, like the great state of Alaska, for example.

The Truth Hurts

Dear Miranda Rose Smith: What exactly is "sandwitch"?

Verity

The Truth Hurts - If'n y'all don't know, why the hail should she tell ya?

Robbit

Verity,

You said: "Blair is malign. His malignity showed in his face. I was amazed that people didn't see it."

Absolutely correct. An old friend of mine now long dead, by no means right wing, a prof of history in the A.J.P. Taylor mould onec said to me, way back in the early 1990's and well before Blair had ascended to the Chairmanship of the Party and... "Don't trust Tony Blair. The reason is very simple. He is always smiling with his mouth but, but just look closely, he never smiles with his eyes." A sound bit of advice and insight. Just look at any footage of Blair and you will see it. Indeed, his malignancy showed in his face. And I to am amazed that people never saw it.

Tom

I'm with Melanie insofar as small children (and some adults) are incapable of articulating their thoughts and feelings. Even if they were so capable, bureaucracies are incapable of listening.

The best way to ascertain a small child's opinion about whether a particular class is worthwhile is to ensure that attendance is entirely optional and then determine whether he wishes to attend it.

Only a parent or one who is close to the child is qualified to determine if he genuinely wants to attend. (If he doesn't, it will be obvious, although most adults will ignore the signs.)

Remember that every individual, of whatever age, is responsible for his own education. With this responsibility goes the right to manage that education.

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear The Truth Hurts: TOUCHE!!!I'm sorry I took so long to get back to you. I was away.