….. and hanged by the neck until dead!

The solemn moment, of murder trials in times gone by, when the Judge donned the black silk cap to pronounce the sentence, was an instant which all killers feared, because it was the commencement of a countdown to a judicial retribution for the crime, or crimes, which they had committed. A family friend and neighbour, who also happened to be a police sergeant, once told me long ago, that he had talked an armed, violent and dangerous man into surrendering to justice based on the statement that, “Yes, you can pull that trigger, and that shotgun blast will kill me; but remember that there is a long, legal road which follows, at the end of which is a sad but dutiful man with a set length of rope, and your life will be ended by that same rope;”.

We no longer hold the power of life or death through the courts, having pusillanimously surrendered that power based on a false premise, which was,’Ah well, murderers shall serve life in prison, and surely that is punishment is enough?’ Life imprisonment, in these ‘enlightened times’ amounts to eight or nine years tops, and it is very, very rare to hear of a sentenced criminal given a tariff of more than fifteen years. That promise, together with Sky Sports tv, plasma tv sets on demand, and mecca-facing toilets, is now that which faces violent criminals of all classes.

So when these three ‘trainee jihadis’ are eventually found guilty, they won’t be greeting their 72 virgins, if such a number can be found these days as they aren’t only in short supply around Lime Street, they will be shut away in luxury, with every whim catered to, with nary a search-dog in sight. True, they didn’t succeed in killing anyone, but what if they had, and survived? They would be looking at the same sentences as they probably will get for the plotting!

My sort of justice would have a slightly different outcome; but there again, thats me, and I hold to a slightly higher standard of retribution.

a reminder that ‘this’ hasn’t gone away either.

As with the ‘Colleagues’ in Brussels, who never, ever forget a proposal once pushed forwards by the Commission; so with the fanatics who contemplate tampering with an idea which has lasted for centuries, all in the cause of ‘Equality’. Yes folks, the ‘Gay Marriage’ agenda is being rolled out once again. With Cameron leading the charge, as the whole idea seems to suit him perfectly, the ‘Gay Marriage’ plan is once again running on the Westminster rails.

Those who oppose the very idea that somehow Marriage can be bent and twisted into an institution which is ‘friendly’ towards homosexual or lesbian couples, have been condemned as ‘bigots’ by no less a figure than the Deputy Prime Minister; a statement which was speedily withdrawn from the Press Releases once the ‘spin’ men got their eyes on the words, but by that time the damage had already been done. We have often suspected that senior politicians of all parties hold the electorate in contempt, but it is nice to see proof of that contempt brought out into the public gaze.

We hear the soothing syrup of Cameron’s words as he tries to pass a change of more than major significance as just a ‘minor adjustment’, and we know how much faith to place in this particular so-called Tory’s words.

To check out whether the proposed Legislation is just a ‘minor adjustment’ or a major stumbling block, check out the words of warning produced by a senior Q.C. for the Campaign 4 Marriage, and decide for yourselves.

Statement of Intent

I have been privileged to Post as a guest on ATW, David’s blog for a few years now. Some of my posts have been received with bile and acrimony, one has even been withdrawn because I was blogging about something I have neither great knowledge of, nor sympathy with; namely Sport, and more importantly Olympic Sports: but on the whole my posts have been received by the ATW community of readers with a keen eye for detail, some amusement at some of my stances, and, in the main, consideration, respect and tolerance.

During these many blog postings, the extent of knowledge about my private life has always been controlled by myself. I have stated that I live in Durham City, but that is all. You are aware that I have three adult kids, along with three grandsons, all of whom I am inordinately proud; but apart from a very small number of photos, the wider world knows nothing of my family, or its circumstances apart from what they choose to display. That is how it should be, because my two sons each have their own families and their own lives to control. But more and more, our lives; in this most intrusive of digital ages, are becoming like as an open book.

Firstly, some statistics. In August last year, Facebook was closing in on one billion subscribers. That is an astonishing number; 1,000,000,000.00. True, most of this huge number comprise millions of small ‘circles’ of ‘friends’, although it beats me that a measure of your own ‘popularity’ is to check whether a certain number of people who have probably not only never met you, but live elsewhere upon this planet, have clicked on, or asked to be, your friend. As an elderly, but still both alert and mentally active man, I just don’t see the point! Perhaps the billion ‘friends’ would number less if they ever learned that they were viewed as ‘meat on the table’ for a bunch of cynical marketing men whose sole purpose in funding the immenseServer Farms necessary to organise and corral all these people’s details is so they can target them with adverts for goods and services. Needless to state I am not on Facebook, nor will I ever be. Everyone else can do as they please, but I not only have enough real friends, but I don’t wish the whole world to know what I am doing every second of the day.

Google is approximately the same as Facebook, not in what it does but in its targeted adverts on gmail as well as on every page of ‘search results’ produced by its huge computer networks. At least Google is being honest, or as honest as they will ever admit to, with their statement that adverts can and will be ‘tailored’ to the individual consumer, but they have only just been made to ‘come clean’ over the hoovering up of personal data through unprotected WI-Fi systems on thousands of British and American homes. If they weren’t going to use it, why on earth did they specifically trawl for it while sending their camera cars out for ‘Street View’?

Apple is planning to send camera-equipped planes and satellites over you, wherever you may be, and photograph you in 3-D, whether you like it or not. Those high-grade images will be available world-wide, and just imagine what use say, a local British council will do when, by use of this free gadgetry, they establish that you have built an extension, a conservatory or a swimming pool without planning permission? I should think that Charles Farr would be having serial wet dreams at the very thought of having that sort of information at his Departmental finger-tips. This Coalition Govt’s plans for an intrusive array of spy systems which would make the Chinese blink at its all-encompassing width do not sit well from a bunch which stated that they would be reducing State intrusion into our private lives.

So, as from this morning, with regard to the snoopers and especially to Charles Farr, I am going ‘incognito’ whilst on the web, and will be adding such words as ‘nuclear’, terrorist, bomb, plutonium, allah akhbar, 72 virgins, jihad, etc. to every e-mail I send, so that when Echelon is triggered, my data, along with all the other totally irrelevant messages, will fill up the data farms far quicker than David Cameron or Theresa may could ever imagine! If you wish, you too can be invisible; click the spanner on Chrome, then go to ‘Incognito window’ and you are, to all intents and purposes, invisible! Same thing is available on IE9, or whatever browser you use.

Decline and Fall in 58 Minutes & 54 Seconds

The words in the above title includes the actual length of a BBC Documentary. Now normally, given the present state of the total left-wing bias  within the BBC as a so-called Public Service Institution, I would be either tearing the words and statements within apart, or encouraging the sneers and attacks which I would hope to be generated by my writing. But there is a very strange dichotomy within the BBC, and singularly within the non-News and Political Commentary side of things, in that occasionally the BBC does produce or broadcast a remarkably un-biased Documentary upon the strangest of subjects. Whether it be Enoch Powell, Carl Sagan, The World at War or Alistair Cooke’s America, one has come to expect brilliance in production, narration and content without the expected smearing veneer of BBC values and Lefty diatribes.

The Documentary, as mentioned in that same title, was called ‘This World, the Shame of the Catholic Church’, and those 58 minutes and 54 seconds exposed the shame, the sin and the extraordinary squirming of the most senior Catholic in Ireland, Cardinal John (Sean) Brady. If you did not watch it when broadcast, I urge you to watch it in the BBC iPlayer. Watch it because there aren’t many theatrics, not too much moody backing music; but simply because it details the shoddy political manoeuvring of senior people within the Catholic Church in the island of Ireland to protect those who did not deserve protection, whilst allowing abuse of an industrial nature to be carried on by the men who stood in pulpits and moralised to their flocks.

This is an uncomfortable post to be writing, because I have two relatives in Religious life at the moment; one of whom is a priest in Northern Ireland, the other, a dearly-loved and elderly aunt overseas. But it has to be written, because the Truth must always be brought forth, no matter who is indicted, no matter how high that person may have risen. I have written before of the abuses rained down on the small bodies of the kids who attended Bindoon in Australia, of the tens of thousands who were ‘given a new life’ in the former Colonies of the British Empire, now known of course as the Commonwealth, but nowhere has there been such cynical manipulation as with this same Catholic Church with their constant movements of peaedophile priests, and the equally-ferocious attempts to conceal the truth in order to protect the reputation of their Church

The Catholic Church used to have tremendous sway over the lives of all the Catholics both in the Republic and in the Province; but one must ask, in all sincerity, if that authority has been diminished or smashed apart by its own inaction; what has taken its place?