Manx Kippers

Well, as promised, I and a few pillars of the community were outside the Gaiety on November 11^th distributing anti-racist leaflets to blue rinse bigot groupies.
It was an eye opener. A real losers convention of cheapskates, petty tax avoiders and vinegar-titted, niggling nobodies in general desperately looking for approval from someone only slightly less inconsequential then their sorry selves. It was as if the entire Manx daytime TV and UK Gold audience had simultaneously taken out a pay-day loan to watch the kind of shyster who sold it to them.
These were people too unimaginative to even crave decent heroes. What a shower!
More seriously, about two thirds were pensioners, who took our leaflets politely enough as we wished them a good evening but invited them to read another side to the fairy stories they were about to hear. Others were classic white flighters of the kind a Manx government policy document of 1990 (with major contributions by a former PR officer for the apartheid era Sun City resort in South Africa) indicates our then leaders decided to attract to this island.
The dead wood of the current House of Keys were also there, though significantly no female, Jewish or other politicians with non white or European partners. The Chief Minister had apparently been invited to meet and introduce Farage, but passed that dubious honour to an MLC whose prejudices are so well known that hanging out in public with a Euro-fascist could not lower his reputation further. Presumably, as the public can neither elect nor dismiss this Klingon he and his chums could enjoy yet another night of free drinks without worry.
Odder still was the presence of Manx Labour politicians and various characters who like to pass themselves off as trade unionists. The official line is that they were there to observe the enemy, but why pay him to do so?
It might also be pertinent to know that they were asked to join us leafleting. One professional trade unionist gave the kind of rambling response which explains why he loses every battle with government over public service pay and conditions. The other, like the MLP's elected members, never even replied.
Another myth peddled is that the proceeds of the event do not go back to Farage or his party, and that they went to charity. Not credible.
Firstly, the only known charitable donation on the night was passing buckets round the audience for the British Legion, an empty flag-waving gesture which cost the organisers nothing.
Secondly, a Manx registered family trust can ( if professionally constructed) also be a registered charity - though not necessarily registered on the Isle of Man. The whole concept was actually dreamt up by a well known figure in the dark 1980's days of the Manx offshore industry.
A common wheeze is to register the charity in another jurisdiction where nobody would look ( e.g. Monaco or Gibraltar) but bind the trust itself by Manx law. Also, under current law only the trustees would know the name of any underlying company or where it is registered, and would only be obliged to reveal anything in the chain of structures if a police force or government agency had credible evidence of criminal activity. Given that such agencies rarely even know of the existence of such entities unless a criminal offers them up in a plea bargain this simply does not happen.
Thirdly, the lunchtime before the show, Farage supporters gave a reception for a carefully selected few at The Claremont which nobody seems to want to mention. To get some idea why this might be, take a look at http://awaitingawesternrenaissance.blogspot.com/2008/10/foreign-owners-channel-cash-to-tories.html and remember who owns the Claremont, and also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/10106554/Dashwood-Bangers-and-cash-for-Nigel-Farages-Brussels-blow-out.html .
You may also find http://www.directorstalk.com/nigel-farage-jim-mellon-paul-kavanagh-and-merryn-somerset-webb-at-master-investor-2013/ , http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/02/ukip-donor-belize-mining-southern-africa and http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/04/ukip-donor-arron-banks-shows-tax-cheque-sent-hmrc helps to give some idea how these things work and why middle ranking businessmen with massively leveraged businesses might want to bother.

Criminal classes

If we were to take this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/61318/manx-and-welsh-restorative-schemes-win-prisoner-rehabilitation-award ) at face value the local prison service has sharpened up its act with the help of some concerned and altruistic citizenry.
No, I thought that too.
So, no surprise then to find that Prison Works Isle of Man is based at The Alpha Centre, Broadway, Douglas, and according to the entry for number 1120 on the Manx charity register exists:
“to serve the spiritual, emotional, social and physical needs of offenders, ex-offenders, victims and the families of all three as well as those at risk of offending and other members of the Island Community as well as persons or groups off-island as are identified and approved on a case by case basis. Objectives include advancement of education, victim awareness, restorative justice, employment both paid and voluntary and resettlement and after-care.”

Oh joy of joys, another bogus charity run by Broadway Batwits (who, historically, tend to be rather better at hiding criminals than reforming them, by the way).

Personally, I would have thought that any contact with the type of intellectually-challenged religionistas who run this scheme could be classed as cruel and unusual punishment, and that if the future of any ex-cons might depend on them it would be nothing short of a national disgrace.

Surely the recidivism often attributed to the criminal class must be far exceeded by that of the average evangelical. And for the benefit of those who can't hold their noses long enough to look, I (who have) can also reveal that they fall into two clear subdivisions.

On the one hand, there are the 'rightists' (those who believe themselves so right about everything they never stop shouting long enough to listen to another view - and certainly not hard fact).

These are otherwise known as pastors or preachers. They tell everyone what to do and live off dumber people's money. Failing that, they invent reasons why the state should pay them to tell others what to do, on the pretence that such victims need their witless “help”.

On the other hand, we find self-pitying losers who refuse to take responsibility for themselves or anything else, who think everything in the world is somebody else's fault and that that is enough of an excuse to skive, live off family, charity and the state, and generally to sit about with a digit up the backside spouting the most banal racist, homophobic and sexist twaddle.

These make up the congregation, the preached to..... or as we smart-arse atheists have dubbed them, the sheeple.

No wonder, then, that serving convicts who have dropped out of any other education, work or rehabilitation scheme the prison can offer, ex-cons who have worn out the patience of anyone they used to call family or friends (too dumb to stack supermarket shelves and not even house-trained enough to clean toilets) or just failed criminals in general find religion so attractive. For them it is (lack of) business as usual.

Well, I am sure these misfits will be very happy together. And if they kept themselves to themselves (and more importantly funded themselves) it would be nobody else's business.
Problem is, they never will, though constantly poking their noses into ours; all the while having the bare-faced cheek to keep asking for our money to do it.

The Missionary Imposition

I've been watching, with some interest, the increasing placement of 'news' about local Catholic 'community work', especially amongst the Manx Filipino community.
Not a lot of people know this, but last year this island was sent the first Catholic missionary since the time of the Celtic saints. It isn't that the Vatican is concerned for the state of our souls, more that it is worried about missing a gravy train on which other churches were early passengers.
For over a century the island has been adequately served by Anglo-Irish priests, who established churches for a growing Irish community in the late 19^th century. It is only fair to note that in doing so they also met head on the racist prejudices of that time against both the Irish and Jewish community, which manifested themselves in everything from petty objections over planning permission through to denial of schooling, housing and social services. From the 1930's until the mid 1980's (when we started to see the arrival of evangelical bigots who couldn't cope with a newly equal Northern Ireland) it seemed that anti-Catholicism was a dead duck.
Since then, apart from the Paisleyites, everyone else got on fine until a newer wave of 'guest workers' from strongly Catholic Eastern European countries, particularly Poland. But while the church made a show of caring about the welfare of Polish workers, the blunt truth was that many were educated young professionals here to escape not just Polish unemployment but the rebirth of the Catholic extreme right, so the last thing they wanted was more interfering priests.
Which made the arrival of Filipino guest workers a relief to such clerics. Here seemed to be more fervent religionists, except that in rejecting the Marcos regime Filipinos also started to take an interest in other brands of Christianity, particularly US televangelism, which meant that while here they were ripe for turning by (ironically enough) Paisley's sectarian chums.
So a battle for souls commenced. Except that, of course, none of these churches is quite as concerned as they say about the minds and bodies of exploited workers and their families.
The real interest is that people who work here to support families 'back home' send back a large percentage of their hard-earned income. Money meant to feed, clothe, educate and provide the medical needs of less fortunate relatives, but which might, with a little misinformation, also be directed toward religious 'charities' which claim to do the same thing, while actually keeping the poor under the thumb of anti-democratic chancers who, from way before the time of theo-fascists like Mother Teresa, always prop up the likes of Marcos.
If you want to get an idea of the problem, try Googling 'Filipino Freethinkers' and seeing their lively and humorous take on such matters. I guarantee you will laugh, but also never again consider the antics of 'religious charities' in the Philippines and their Manx allies quite so innocent or well meaning.

Silly Bankers

In his diaries, the late and gloriously camp Kenneth Williams often used the euphemism 'Having a Barclays' for the act of masturbation, and it seems to me no accident that 'Barclays' or 'banker' continues as handy rhyming slang for a person who is stupid or of low character.
Barclays always was, and still is, an awful bank, and it's a pretty good bet that wherever you find sweatshops, child labour, dodgy arms deals or 21^st century slavery you will find a helpful man from that establishment if you look hard enough.

Which makes it even funnier when the PR department for the local Barclays tries to intimate it has a cuddly management who care about the dispossessed of the world and want to make things right. Now, on reading this sledgehammer-subtle piece of hackery (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/recognised-for-operation-christmas-child-efforts-1-6347796 ) I don't think even for a second Barclays actually gave money to these chancers, but it's doubly funny when the muppets who run the gaff fall for a scam which shouldn't have fooled anybody apart from home-schooled Alabama rednecks. And, of course, triple funny when reading the comments and realising that island educational standards are even lower than Alabama.

Oh, if you don't already know why I'm alternately laughing my socks off and banging my head against a wall in sheer disbelief, just go to https://sites.google.com/site/occalert/ .

And believe me, as someone who's monitored this and similar scams since Franklin Graham and his shady peers started thinking them up, the OCC Alert site is remarkably polite.  

When you start to find stories elsewhere of, for example, Franklin Graham trying to persuade George Bush to send bibles instead of aid to saturation-bombed Iraq, or Samaritan's Purse telling victims of a South American disaster that they could only shelter in tents subsidised by US Aid if they attended Baptist services and effectively renounced their Catholic upbringings, then you might see why even the Southern Baptist Convention wants nothing to do with Graham any more.

I would like to believe that in 2014 the island can finally wise up to such nonsense. But reading the inane comments I know that is still far too much to ask.

But I still wish you all the best for 2014, in the hope that at least some of us can both laugh and rise above such idiocy.

Food for thought

You can tell Christmas is close when Manx religiots and their government chums, along with the business sector, kick off a bogus charity initiative.

Take http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/food-to-be-collected-for-the-island-s-needy-1-6280278 for example, which as usual, avoids all the important questions.

For example, what percentage of material in landfill is foodstuffs? 25%... 50%.... more?

Obviously, even with highly sophisticated 'just in time' computerised ordering, major supermarkets operating on the island cannot avoid throwing away food. Tons of it ... probably daily. They cannot even reveal how much waste there is or make some deal to give it all away without lots of awkward questions. They are, after all, businesses, not charities or the social services. The real problem is, neither are Manx charities or social services.

We also cannot make the island self-sufficient, and to my mind half the problem is that government refuse to admit they are not trying - just pretending - to. Despite the homely cover story, Manx agriculture (our only real nationalised industry) is (just like its old school communist role model) geared up to high price export, not the home market, and food fairs etc. are just a way of getting us to market test and subsidise this.

But it gets worse....

To my certain knowledge a large supermarket chain gave a Manx religious charity as much leftover food as they could carry every weekend for over 30 years on the understanding it would be discreetly redistributed to the needy. Also to my certain knowledge that charity did not distribute most of what it was given (because their workers regarded many potential beneficiaries as too feckless) but regularly gave away box-loads of tinned goods to well-heeled worshippers instead. In time, after successive Saturdays on which the charity could not even be bothered to turn up and collect it (but still blocked an attempt by a pensioners support group to use it instead) the supermarket broke off the arrangement.

So, seems to me there is a simple logistical mismatch here. People dispossessed by the government of the island where they were born lack food or the means to pay for it. Supermarket chains tied in by necessity to UK and European models of fast, massive food distribution and sale must throw away tons of the stuff and cannot be seen to give it away instead. In particular they throw away enough fresh fruit and veg to feed an army of pensioners and other paupers. A government agricultural policy is based on marketing and exporting Manx luxury foodstuffs hardly anybody local likes or can afford, but not the production of cheap staple foods for local consumption.

So, (sighs deeply), rather than untangle this mess or put things right...

Supermarkets (basing their campaign on another UK idea that is not locally appropriate) encourage shoppers to buy extra stuff they would never eat themselves which (under the supervision of a social services network which isn't social … or of service .... or a network) is handed to religious Klingons who have already proved they are too idle, incompetent or bigoted to distribute it and .... need I go on?

It's like a massive pass-the-parcel game amongst career chancers and the socially irresponsible, but with rotting fruit.

Here's an idea.. why not buy up all the old eggs and rotting tomatoes on the island and throw them at twerps and hypocrites who are also well past their sell-by date? That won't solve anything either, but it would be fun, and one less trip to the landfill at public expense.

Armageddon outta here

A story no doubt supplied to the local press by a well-wisher (but not yet online) is at least news indicating the further failure of Manx evangelicals to solicit public funds for services which, to be honest, they never supplied anyway.

The Well, fleapit café in the basement of the Broadway Batwit HQ, is closing. The story suggests that this will mean a loss of vital services to several dispossessed communities.

For year the Batwits, so the insider joke goes, calculated clientele for any funding bid by plucking a prospective number of punters to one activity from thin air, adding a 0, next applying that figure to every other ‘workshop’ and suggesting the total represents different individuals. So, we can safely ignore that concern.

All you really need to know is that developers are sniffing around the area and have made discreet enquiries at the Land Registry (where the Batwits have a mole) and the Evangelical Alliance get the final proceeds of any sale of the church site.

To be fair, they would not be the only ‘local’ evangelical organisation owned and controlled lock, stock and barrel off-island and where all important  decisions over income and assets are taken by off-island individuals without consulting the apparent worshippers.

Also this week I had confirmation that at least one flat-earth sect trying to gain access to kids in island schools as guest speakers have been refused and are now, effectively, blacklisted. 

Considering which other dodgy outfits not only do so (with blatant disregard for the Education Act guidelines on religious education) but get public money I must confess I am at a loss to know what they did to overstep the mark. Shame that, as if anyone knew we could encourage the other klingons to emulate them.

Ethical Bankruptcy

I suppose most locals view plans to establish food banks on the island with some surprise or amusement (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/54342/food-bank-to-be-set-up-in-the-isle-of-man for some grisly details, but don’t take any of it as ‘fact’).

It is no surprise to see churches involved in this, as they so often are in plans to abolish the welfare state. Disgruntled government insiders warned me months back this was coming, after the Department of Social Neglect was encouraged by evangelical bloodsuckers to look at a notorious Liverpool scam being operated by other faith-frazzled fraudsters.

 At least three schemes have been jostling for a government green light. No surprise that the worst one is first out of the block, but a huge shame.

Just two names tell me this is a scam, even without bothering to check in more detail. Firstly, the involvement of Church on the Rock - still apparently dominated by a clique which hid sexual abuse of under-age girls by a former pastor until a 1999 court case (after which, for obvious reasons,  they ‘rebranded’). Secondly the involvement of the Trussell Trust, a UK charity which will raise alarm bells in any seasoned investigator of charity abuse.

For a start, this is also the second coming of the Trussell Trust.

The first (England & Wales charity number 1061207) ran from 1997 to 2007 (i.e. roughly the period when EU redevelopment grants to the former Soviet bloc were being handed out like sweeties, the monitoring process was so flawed that local schemes in those countries were disbarred from benefitting and cash flowed back in suitcases to Western religious ‘charities’ in turn controlled from the US). During that period the public emphasis was on ‘aid’ to countries like Bulgaria, rather than the Northern Irish and Scottish feeder schemes – in turn descended from 1980’s schemes run by lunatic fringe churches whereby, effectively, a clueless UK government employed churchworkers to perpetuate sectarian division instead of abolishing it.

The second version (England & Wales charity number 1110522) grabbed what loot was left and reinvented itself around the perceived increase in UK poverty and disempowered communities. See http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/SIR/ENDS22/0001110522_SIR_20120331_E.PDF for more details.

From a UK precedent set with Tesco I’m guessing one of scams which will be pulled locally is to collect leftover produce from Manx supermarkets for supposed ‘redistribution’ to the ‘deserving poor’. This is not a new idea.

To my certain knowledge the biggest UK supermarket chains have been handing boxloads of produce close to sell-by dates to island religious organisations since at least the early 1980’s, though because supermarkets never like to reveal just how much perfectly good food gets binned there was no publicity. Also to my certain knowledge, much of it got snapped up by middle class worshippers and never reached needy families, because by their twisted logic those families were not ‘deserving’.

When, on two occasions, I told genuine community groups about this source of free food it was the Zombie Carpenter’s freeloading chums who blocked letting them in on the discreet distribution. I suspect they will do so again, just as I fully expect they will use their monopoly over the supply as a means to pack out their empty pews. Some of the newcomers will have learnt this by watching how Samaritan’s Purse build Baptist puppet churches throughout Eastern Europe.

In short, not a welcome development and not a genuine attempt to tackle increasing inequality on the island. But then, this is inevitable if Manx evangelicals are so closely involved with the very government departments which create inequality and destroy all attempts by ordinary Manx people to keep community going.

But is it really safe?

I was busy elsewhere so can only now suggest treating a new outfit called Safe, Strong, Secure with some caution. I hope I am wrong about this, but want people to be safe and not sorry, hence the advice to look carefully before you consider running.

If you took the latest blurb (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/support-for-victims-of-domestic-abuse-1-5457625 ) at face value someone (obviously not a local) is trying to do something positive about the island's hidden domestic violence problem.

Actually, one major problem is that it is not hidden. In fact it is almost obligatory for any bloke who wants to fit into our sad little Manx macho subculture to boast about how he knocks ‘his’ womenfolk into line - at least if he wants to get on in business or the public sector.

It is one of the first things any visitor or new resident notices about this place. Even the most conservative women I know who have settled here from elsewhere still regularly remark what knuckledragging neanderthals Manx men can be.

So, if anyone was serious about naming, shaming and dragging the island into the same century as civilised countries we should all get behind that. And if this project really is, then fine.

Another problem is that the root of all this Manx misogyny is religious, and that because the religious right have discreetly infiltrated social projects – inevitably including all with government links or funding – then the problem is buried, not solved. I look at the list of possible allies and note Victim Support (hopelessly under the mucky thumb of Broadway Batwits, as is the Women's Refuge), Samaritans (prodnose godbotherers galore)  and the Salvation Army (hardly friends of women or the gay community on their local track record). And the linked problem to that (as anyone who has tried to get to the roots of Manx misogyny discovers pretty quickly) is that - far from dealing with casual sexism, actual physical or psychological violence and the oppression of women and small kids in general - Manx churches breed and protect the worst culprits, and will pull any string they have to in government to make sure the victims go unheard and the perpetrators keep their safe little public and ‘third sector’ jobs.

And it gets worse, because when I spotted the original BBC article last year that sparked off the first meeting (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-19948528 ) something else rang alarm bells. To be precise, the mention of a UK charity called Restored.

For those who never check out these things, Restored (England & Wales charity number 1136774) is part of a 50 strong international Christian alliance, led by some heavyweight US rightist churches and in the UK partnered to Tearfund ( which is remarkable amongst British charities as possibly the only one requiring paid staff and volunteers to sign a pledge vowing to uphold homophobic and misogynist values).

Quoting from their own entry on the England & Wales Charity Register, the objectives of Restored are as follows (and do note the order of importance):

“1 TO ADVANCE THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC BY SUCH EXCLUSIVELY CHARITABLE MEANS AS THE DIRECTORS SEE FIT FROM TIME TO TIME
2 TO PROMOTE HUMAN RIGHTS (AS SET OUT IN THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND SUBSEQUENT UNITED NATIONS CONVENTIONS AND DECLARATIONS) THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, SPECIFICALLY WITH A VIEW TO ENDING VAW AND TRANSFORMING RELATIONSHIPS, BY ALL OR ANY OF THE FOLLOWING MEANS:
* MONITORING ABUSES OF HUMAN RIGHTS
* RESEARCH INTO HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES
* PROVIDING TECHNICAL ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AND OTHERS ON HUMAN RIGHTS MATTERS
* CONTRIBUTING TO THE SOUND ADMINISTRATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
* COMMENTING ON PROPOSED HUMAN RIGHTS LEGISLATION
* RAISING AWARENESS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES
* PROMOTING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
* PROMOTING RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AMONG INDIVIDUALS AND CORPORATIONS
* INTERNATIONAL ADVOCACY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
* ELIMINATING INFRINGEMENTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS”

I have to suggest that placing the care and safety of abused Manx women and kids into the hands of monsters with a long record of such abuse is a little like putting the Taliban in charge of girls education in Afghanistan.

I hope I am wrong, and I hope that from somewhere within the sick and twisted belly of the Manx church beast some decent women have met up and said “Enough! We are going to put things right”.

I know some such women, so I hope; but I will not believe it until I see some hard evidence of change.

Bit busy, so here's some other libertarians instead

This week family duties prevent me spending time on the blog, so I can only refer you to some excellent stuff by fellow libertarians.

If you have been following the lies, half-lies and obscurantist twaddle posing as ‘research’ behind UK attempts to introduce alcohol minimum pricing, then take a look at some intelligent analysis instead at http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/a-total-ban-on-alcohol-advertising-the-next-logical-step-0 .

You also really, really need to take advantage of a free download opportunity for a 75 page paper (i.e. a small book) by Chris Snowdon. He demolishes the myth that “sinners”—those who drink, smoke, and eat 'unhealthy' food—cost more to society than everyone else. Then he suggests that this fairy story has been perpetuated in large part because “government has no incentive to tell the public that these groups are being exploited and the affected industries dare not advertise the savings that come from lives being cut short by excessive use of their products.”

Strong, funny, provocative… and also properly researched, which is more than you can say of the guff from ‘health bodies’ which has recently been sprayed all over the UK media like so much Friday midnight adolescent upchuck. See it at http://cei.org/studies/wages-sin-taxes .

 By the way, you can keep up with Chris at his blog, Velvet Glove Iron Fist, to the right of this page.

Elsewhere Dick Puddlecote, another excellent libertarian blogger, has been uncovering some astounding stuff about shady goings on at Westminster between politicos and the sock puppet ‘public health’ outfits they use to pretend the public have been consulted before losing their civil liberties.

Last week, (see http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/exclusive-attempt-to-kill-plain.html ) Dick revealed exclusively that Anne Milton, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health, had held a meeting - which was initially hidden from her official ministerial record - with ASH and the APPG on Smoking and Health, the aim of which seemed to be to discount a massive public objection to the ‘plain packaging’ of cigarettes. It has been all over the libertarian blogosphere since, but not picked up by the ‘proper press’. Funny that.

This week (see http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2013/02/earl-howe-held-inappropriate-meeting.html ) he found CRUK - a bogus ‘cancer charity’ that these days seems more interested in underwriting government sock puppets than researching causes or cures for cancer - try to take it further.

Well, what a surprise. Bogus charities who depend on government for the majority of their income (in return for pretending to lobby government on ‘our’ behalf for the introduction of draconian social policies that their sponsors thought up in the first place) holding secret meetings with those parts of government who don’t directly employ them, aimed at making sure that genuine public opinion about such policies is buried, disbarred and, in general, struck from the parliamentary record.

Granted, this nonsense happens in the UK in far more sophisticated ways than, say, the clumsy broom cupboard fumblings between fundie charities and their dim Manx political friends. The thing to bear in mind, though, is that we will see this pitiful drivel produced as ‘fact’ and ‘academic research’ over here before inevitable attempts to parrot UK policies.

For one thing, because the Manx government are either too dim or too idle to do their own research on public health issues. For another, because Manx health and social care professionals seem a little undereducated themselves.

How else would you explain this (see http://www.gov.im/lib/news/education/collegehealthfay.xml) being presented quite seriously as ‘health education’?

Freak alert

As if older people on the Isle of Man don’t have enough to worry about (what with the second worst pensions in Europe and the closure of most useful government-run care facilities) now Manx wrinklies have Esther Rantzen leeching off them. At least, that’s the public warning I read today behind http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=47484.

I doubt there is any serious comment on Manx social life to be made by a professional prodnose and child-frightener who, almost single-handedly, could be held responsible for the explosion in British child-abuse, the decline of professional childcare and the seemingly unstoppable growth of the cod-psychological quackery industry that passes itself off as ‘child protection’. Faced with the growth of such emotional fascism and village-idiot level hysteria any halfway decent and responsible parent may sensibly decide to get a pump-action shotgun and be prepared to use it any time one of these freaks raises its empty head anywhere near the fruit of your loins.

I think that is becoming rather clear to many of us. Which may be why the goofy-toothed ‘mare is now being let loose on another vulnerable age-group, one which market research has indicated can be made into ‘victims’ ripe for exploitation by the lowest form of social menace known to humanity, the third sector ‘care professional’.

Anyway, what is this 21^st century Matthew Hopkins (or at least whoever is feeding her local lines) on about?

 The worst social isolation for older Manx people I am aware of involves bright individuals getting on  a bit who find primitive superstition tiresome, and who are not only bored senseless by nonsensical small town chitchat, the maintenance of Edwardian social hierarchies and other such nonsense but have actually admitted it. The problem here, I humbly submit, is caused by a combination of a lazy, incompetent public sector and the churches too many of them go to (and which don’t even realise they are dead yet). Such numpties are therefore the last people on earth anyone should throw money at in order to ‘solve’ problems which they alone create, cause or perpetuate.

But as the likes of Rantzen say so often: “(Insert uncritical endorsement of your venal and exploitative pitch for public funds here). That will be a thousand pounds plus expenses please.” 

Of government and its sock puppets

People still ask why I take a dim view of charities and the ‘Third Sector’, especially on the Isle of Man. I would have thought that by now it was obvious - especially if you ever had the painful experience of sitting in a room while those behind the worst examples try to beg money, or excuse derailing the democratic process and delaying the introduction of open, transparent government to the Isle of Man (I know, open, transparent, democracy….or even government….pigs might fly first).

Luckily the excellent Chris Snowdon of Velvet Glove Iron Fist (see right) has just produced a paper for the Institute of Economic Affairs which pretty much sums up the problem. The paper is called Sock Puppets: How the government lobbies itself and why (Chris Snowdon, IEA Discussion Paper No. 39) – probably the funniest, but most accurate, title for a serious survey on a growing social problem you will see in a long time.

The paper begins: “In the last fifteen years, state funding of charities in Britain has increased significantly while restrictions on political lobbying by charities have been relaxed. 27,000 charities are now dependent on the government for more than 75 per cent of their income and the ‘voluntary sector’ receives more money from the state than it receives in voluntary donations.”

Staggering stuff (unless, perchance, you have taken note of all the local examples of such chicanery I have banged on about, and are already worried about it). 

While, as more of a left libertarian, I do not share all the ‘areas of concern’ identified by the IEA and other free market ‘think tanks’ (and would add a problem they don’t identify – links between religious groups and the state and their effect when, for example, the ‘charity’ economic framework is abused by religious bigots for their own nasty theo-fascist ends), I do share their concern about the principles. I certainly share their conclusion, that instead of government-run pseudo-charities “….it would be better to restore the independence of the voluntary sector, safeguard taxpayers’ money and rebalance civil society in favour of grass-roots activism.”

 There’s a brief summary of the paper at http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/how-the-government-uses-charities-to-lobby-itself, or if you prefer to just go straight to the paper itself you can find it at http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Sock%20Puppets.pdf .

In the comments after the IEA summary, I was particularly taken by Phil Taylor, who says: “Could I suggest a rule of thirds? The Charity Commission should insist on the use of some designation such as "Government sponsored body" for any organization that accepts more than one third of its income from government sources of all kinds but still wishes to be treated as a charity. Once a body exceeds two thirds of its income from government sources it should cease to be a charity and should formally become an agency of the relevant department. It could then be monitored by the NAO and use a .gov.uk web address, etc. Then we would all know what we are dealing with. To re-iterate: - You could call yourself a charity as long as less than one third of your income came from the state. - Above one third you could still be regulated as a charity but you would not be allowed to use the word charity when describing yourself and would have to use a designation such as “Government sponsored body”. - Above two thirds just call yourself what you are – a part of the government.”

Now, consider the devastating (for them) but liberating (for the rest of us) effect on the Manx pseudo-charity racket if Tynwald looked at that idea.

Oh, of course, they can’t. That would involve identifying which black holes they’ve been throwing public money down, explaining why they thought it was a good idea, and then taking back responsibility for the public services we thought we were paying them to provide.

Putting the real dealers out of business

I was stunned when I read this (http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=43818), though not for the reasons DASH want me to be. But when I read this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=43808) I actually cheered, then laughed when I realised that also isn’t all it seems.
What stuns me is that the Manx government has been putting over £100K annually (a sum roughly equivalent to 80% of Swithinbank’s basic salary) into an organisation which struggles to achieve what any motivated volunteer on any island housing estate could do in their spare time if they wanted to. In addition it presents itself as having ‘specialist expertise’ yet relies on inaccurate, biased and out-of-date information pumped out by UK ‘dependency specialists’ rather than objective (and by any comparison cutting edge) information readily available to any rank but engaged amateur with access to the internet. Until now I honestly thought DASH’s government funding would be closer to the sum we know they still receive (i.e. around £27,250), and even that seems about £26,250 more than any voluntary group operating at this level needs.
It was tempting to believe that the Department of Anti-Social Careerism had finally come to its senses, until you consider that the money ‘saved’ is, by remarkable coincidence, about the same annual sum it needs to put aside to cover Swithinbank’s pension. This was the point at which I burst out laughing. Knowing that Swithinbank was employed in the first place because of his ability to cut costs, source off-island funds and put in place structures whereby ‘independent’ charities do the social care and philanthropic trusts provide the money and materials, yet government pulls all the strings, it makes sense. Perhaps his final juggling act was to fund his own retirement.
Interestingly a follow-up misinformation plant from DASH (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/health/govt-funding-bombshell-for-drug-charity-claims-service-under-used-1-4303761 ) was quickly removed from the IOM Newspapers website, then reappeared heavily re-written and minus all but the most innocuous public comments. To be fair, most of the comments on the original version were so bonkers they might have come from prospective DASH clients. They certainly showed a lack of social engagement, some distancing from reality and a blinkered knowledge of current affairs peculiar to those fuelled by only the most down-market tabloids.
But it will be interesting to see what that ‘alternative service model’ will be, and especially if a ‘reformed’ cokehead now functioning as a quasi-pastor for an evangelical ‘drug charity’ will have anything to do with it. To my knowledge this outfit have friends within at least two relevant government departments, and the backing of other evangelical outfits who draw money for the (non) provision of Manx ‘public services’, in at least one case paid directly to an off-island parent which in turn acts as little more than a clearing account for ‘donations’ to a major church. As these venal, self-serving parasites, though worryingly under-informed (and under-educated in either the formal or professional senses in their fields of ‘expertise’), also featured prominently in the setting up of the Chief Minister’s Task Force on Drugs and Alcohol we can anticipate a smaller, but equally useless, public program which claims to be tackling drug abuse but actually just underwrites the activities of a shady business community which rots more minds and wrecks more families on this island than heroin dealers ever did.
Bottom line – we don’t need the ''alternative service model' either, because professional drug prevention agencies don’t work, and the best thing government could do is stop pretending it knows what it is doing and just butt out. The only thing that works is when a community decides if it wants neighbours and workmates dealing or taking currently illegal drugs or not, then what it wants to do about it. The only models I have ever seen over the decades that work are informal ones run by relatives and friends of those affected. They got people off stuff that was killing them simply by being around until they stopped taking it, and if they didn’t think the drug dealers should be there they just closed down the estate to them. It’s not rocket science, just compassion and taking an old fashioned pride in what you do and where you live and work.
The only thing government can or should do is deal with the strictly physical and medical aspects of drug dependency. They can provide adequate medical care, and if they are really serious they can (a) deal with the poverty and social inequality that makes the weakest people most dependent on drugs and (b) consider if the illegality of the drugs is a bigger problem than the physical damage they may cause.
As no-one else will say this, I will. If a cheap and easy local supply of Class A drugs dried up on the island tomorrow, the call centre operations which form the backbone of the offshore finance industry would close within weeks. Call centre workers get through days of battery chicken existence at a frantic pace by necking illegal stimulants or, if they can’t get those, semi-legal steroids which they obtain under the pretence of being dedicated gym bunnies. Their employers know and turn a blind eye to this, with the better ones offering professional counseling to employees whose habit gets out of hand and the worse ones constantly replacing staff (always at entry level wages and on short term contracts) who they expect to burn out within a year or so.
Maybe a better answer to the real problem is to legalise some of the substances, and let the market do the rest. Faced with a choice between reasonably priced merchandise of certifiable quality from reputable high street stores and the current options, the skanks selling milk and baby powder cut with knock-off East European pharmaceuticals whose name and provenance (never mind chemical construction) nobody can be sure of will go to the wall.
Of course government and local employers (even the wisest, bravest ones) are not going to go with that. Which is why all anyone can do is decide for themselves, and, where or if they think a problem exists, to get together with a few friends and sort it out.
Forget politicians, forget social services and any other government employees after a steady income and a good pension, and especially forget evangelical shysters. Like the smack dealers, they are just out for an easy living, and if we deny them that they will eventually get off our backs – or at least find a scam with less risk.

When Jesus saves everyone gets screwed over

I have to giggle and groan sympathetically at this (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/give_up_bags_for_lent_1_4273789 ) for several reasons.
Firstly, because it nicely illustrates the difficulties faced by a non-religious person trying to do something right on the Isle of Man. All a self-congratulatory Christian chancer has to do to get branded a ‘good person’ is wave a cross about a bit and mention Jesus. Anyone else actually has to do good work, and without the obligatory nod to Jesus Freakery it never gets recognised as good anyway.
But also because it is a prime example of the dangers of government-run pseudo-charities, slave labour schemes and co-operating with evangelical bigots in order to get your message across.
Just to ‘deconstruct’ things and make it all a little clearer….
Muriel was one of the founder members of Isle of Man Freethinkers, so having to link the campaign to a smug religious orgy of ‘self-denial’ must make her grit her teeth. Though on the other hand, as ‘unfashionable’ class warriors point out, for all the worthiness and common sense behind them green campaigns and campaigners can also be fuelled by a smugness and tendency to perpetuate prejudices of class, (perhaps less consciously) race and the legacies of colonialism which have never gone away. Attitudes and prejudices whose most common exponents are evangelical Christians.
Then there is the problem of government run pseudo-charities. Having a dialogue with government is one thing, allowing your charity or community campaign to be used as a career springboard for chancers looking for a cosy government contract, or for civil servants to dictate your local policies in return for a seat at the table with them (which is way too common in a Manx ’Third Sector’ chiefly administrated by civil servants), or just allowing your charity to be used as ‘proof’ of the forward thinking of the Manx government in return for a government grant to your UK parent…?
Can any member of the public take your campaigns seriously if even you don’t?
Prison slave labour schemes – another bugbear of mine. See the Campaign Against Prison Slavery link to the right for a fuller picture, but the simple fact is this. The ‘punishment’ of a prisoner is to be deprived of liberty. End of.
Rehabilitation which involves work schemes – especially on the Isle of Man – is a sick joke. If you want to teach somebody to have some dignity by holding down a job and paying their way in society instead of robbing – fine. But the point is that employment is based on an exchange of ‘goods’, so if you ‘work’ you get paid.
Well informed prison charities (i.e. none that can operate on the Isle of Man) have suggested schemes whereby a prisoner works for a ‘proper’ company and is paid a reasonable wage. As it’s unhelpful or undesirable for them to have that much cash in prison, the money can then be banked in an account used to address practical problems when they get out – for example to set them up with accommodation. Alternatively, it could go straight to their family so the prisoner has the self-respect of knowing they are supporting them – legitimately – while inside.
Curiously, neither large companies nor the faith-based hypocritical wowsers who run ‘rehabilitation’ on the Isle of Man want to know about that. No short term profit for them, you see. Better, like Shoprite, to get a product (which only benefits you) made free (and even with public donations), then latch on to the publicity generated by a Department of Home Affairs which rather than preventing crime perpetuates it – even to the extent of nurturing the next generation of criminals.
Co-operating with evangelical bigots? St Thomas’s, by virtue of having the ‘right’ to appoint deluded loons (sorry ‘practicing Christians’) as staff which the current Diocesan representatives on the school board insist on exercising, has a head teacher who takes flat-earth superstition seriously. His predecessor was a decent middle-of-the-road Anglican, but when he retired no Anglican teacher wanted the job so rather than give it to a reputable professional the Diocese picked a Broadway Baptist punter, reputedly a creationist with equally startling views on most things. Given that some of that tribe are millenarians (a Christian subculture that thinks Armageddon is imminent and you should do nothing to stop it) he may even believe environmentalism is a distraction of the Devil.
Fair play to any non-religious person who wants a better island and world and engages with this cretinous, deep-rooted bigotry and nonsense to try and get it. Personally though, my nod to a ridiculous Christian tradition is to give up self-flagellation for Lent.
And after Easter? Well, long time until Saturnalia in December, but, with some effort, I am sure I can find ways to knock out my inner policeman and actually enjoy the process of bringing misanthropic vacuity to its knees – while simultaneously encouraging everyone else to get off them.

I want a refund

“What we have seen in Britain over the last fifteen years is a politicisation of 'civil society' and the rise of state-funded astro-turfing. Under the leadership of Suzi Leather, the Charities Commission has actively encouraged NGOs to campaign while the government has encouraged them to take statutory funding. It should be no surprise that this subverts and undermines democracy. That was surely the intention. When businesses do this, we call them what they are: front groups.”
So says Chris Snowdon, who could almost be talking about the Isle of Man, except that we don’t have a Charities Commission - or indeed any recognisable professional or governmental oversight of the island’s biggest licence to subsidise incompetence with public funds, spread superstition and peddle extremist claptrap.
For a glimpse of the model for taxpayer funded behavioural change that we are increasingly seeing over here too, see
http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-are-we-paying-for-this-part-1.html which deals with the admission that the UK government is, after all, underwriting a bogus anti-smoking ’charity’ and using it as a means to push through behavioural change that taxpayers have not signed up to.
And there’s more on a similar theme at
http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-are-we-paying-for-this-part-2.html, where the links between various local authorities, the NHS and a ‘grassroots’ website, asking people to sign up to a campaign to introduce a minimum alcohol pricing law, are clearly outlined.
“Why”, asks Snowdon “…. is the government—which has supposedly not made its mind up about minimum pricing—allowing taxpayers' money to be spent on an astro-turfing project designed to get people to sign up to a "movement"?
Happens all the time in the Isle of Man, Chris, except here they’re called ‘government consultations’, and run by people who just happen to be employed by the bogus health charities which benefit most, having been chosen to do so by people who just happen to be paid-up members of extreme pro-life groups in their spare time (some would say in our time, and certainly with our money, which makes us unwilling sponsors of such faith-led fascism too).
Snowdon concludes: ”Regular readers will be familiar with fake charities and state-funded NGOs masquerading as 'civil society'. It might take a little homework to find out that ASH, Alcohol Concern, Friends of the Earth, Brake, Sustain et al. are largely dependent on statutory funding for their existence, but it can be done. This website is not unusual in using government money to lobby for policy, but it is unusual in that it is doing so anonymously and without disclosing the source of the campaign. If this is not against the rules then the rules are worthless.”
In the Isle of Man it is worse. Here the rules are made by the worthless.

Worried? Me?

I wasn’t going to blog this week, mainly because I was told to get out of the way and read a book while Management and Junior Management did something important.
Problem was, a joke about busybodies in the book connected with some things I read this week, one story about a completely bonkers fundraising initiative involving a charity known to my friends and relatives as ‘Hangman’s Rope’ (because every time the public give them further licence to act, something else innocent dies), and another an ‘advisory’ evening on a health matter where, on the face of it, yet another bunch of rich, superstitious new-agers want parents to disregard good medical advice because of something they heard from a friend of a friend who read it on the back of a Tofu wrapper. Both the head-scratchingly inane ‘fundraiser’ and the new age unhealth warning demonstrate the continued persistence of that irritating phenomena, the Manx busybody of independent means.
Funnily enough, many such press releases enter cyberspace due to a once very strait-laced hack whose idea of ‘edgy’ used to be wearing a pink Argyle pattern sweater to play golf. Then, some years back, he got it into his head to try hallucinogenic mushrooms, which led to such a bout of soul-searching that he signed up for life with an evangelical cult. This, I humbly submit, may explain a lot of things.
But this is the problem now that Britain no longer has an empire. Once upon a time village idiots (especially interfering, pathological do-gooders who engage in charity work), could, after adolescence, be dispatched to the colonies to boss around natives until they either got killed by beri-beri or lead poisoning (courtesy of a bullet or two from an exasperated native employee or spouse).
True, those who miraculously survived sometimes retired here and could even bring the empire’s problems home by going into politics.
I can think of one who was so dull-witted he was unemployable here, even by the church which gave steady employment to his relatives, and was dispatched in utter desperation by his family to Kenya. There he failed dismally to make his mark or even get into white mischief, then came home once there were no older relatives to stop him and eventually drifted into a career as a political deformer from which he was only recently and forcibly retired, and where his weekly questions were so pointless and his blustering speeches so grey they made even his father’s sermons seem inspiring.
Another, similarly dispatched in his youth further East, rose to the top of what Interpol used to consider the most corrupt police force in the former British Empire – apparently not just without a stain on his character but without even noticing that his real employers were the Triads. No surprise, then, that he also went into Manx politics upon retirement, where he was highly respected for his work on issues of morality, law and order.
But that was in another era, when there were still far-off countries where a pompous (if semi-literate) buffoon could be safely absorbed into some minor regional bureaucracy. These days the only market for such chumps is Eastern Europe, because a century or more of colonial mistakes have made Africa, India and the Far East immune to even the most virulent forms of British idiocy, and as US tele-evangelists pump far more dirty money into such countries than puny Brit godbotherers, even ‘charity work’ with demented evangelical outfits is drying up.
But always remember the Romanians saw off Ceacescu. In fact, from my relatives I know of a long history going all the way back to Vlad The Impaler of unwanted interlopers being disposed of in colourful ways, and greedy illiterates with political ambitions ending up in unmarked graves then being quickly forgotten by their former near neighbours and collaborators. So even siphoning off EU aid to build substandard cow shacks passed off as ‘sheltered housing’ and ‘schools’ in the hope the roof stays on long enough for the tourist trade to pick up and the site to be sold on for ‘redevelopment’ no longer seems like a safe career option.
The real difficulty will be when the latest generation of demented ‘social reformers’ come home for good.
Their colonial era predecessors left in times of Manx economic hardship and retired to an island of full employment where the economy was bolstered by a growing offshore finance industry. The new generation were unemployable here even in such good times, which was precisely why they were packed off in the first place.
If they return to an island where employment and the economy are both far less certain, then even their superstitious relatives and chums in the public sector will never find paid employment for all of them. And as they are demonstrably dumber than any ‘at risk’ subculture they might be let loose ‘advising’ to, one struggles to think of any career choice other than living off the state at an even lower level of subsistence than, say, an evangelical minister with a franchise from a US parent church.
I might worry a lot if I could stop laughing long enough.
You are welcome to try both, possibly even at once.

Oh ye of little faith!

As I hope every sensible person will have realised by now, Age Concern is a notorious bogus charity that preys on the elderly while posing as a pressure group. In reality most of their real lobbying is on behalf of the pensions and insurance industry with which it is so closely linked, having (with the help of such powerful interest groups and the blindness or sheer lack of social concern of politicians and civil servants) simply put every small, local and genuine charity worried about older people out of business. This also explains why the policies it wants most involve the private health industry taking on 'vital services' which the government can 'no longer afford'.
Considering these links to private (i.e second rate and cost-cutting) health I have often wondered why it needs to beg so much money from the public .Or perhaps that is just a charade too, like other local bogus charities most of whose income, policies and even 'voluntary help' is actually provided by government.
Still according to this week's Courier, this 'charity' is looking for a member of the clergy to lead a sponsored abseil laughingly entitled 'A Leap Of Faith'.
So here is my question to the religulous.
If any of the clergy really had so much faith, why would they need a rope?
Mind you, I still would not pay to watch them jump without one. On principle, I never support bogus charities, or any other drain on the weak and vulnerable.

Bogus charity bingo night goes ballistic

Last November ( see http://clingingtoarock.blogspot.com/2011/11/another-day-another-parasitic-quango.html ) I prophesied that a Manx bogus charity was running out of government funds and would launch a new moral panic to stay in business. To recap, I said that Isle of Man Alcohol Advisory Service had “struggled for a year or two now to justify further direct government funding, or to use their relationship with government to demand ‘charitable donations’ from local retailers in return for not further infantalising the whole process of buying alcohol.” I then outlined how they would join forces with a similar British government puppet charity to talk up the ‘dangers’ of gambling until someone threw enough money at them.
Not only have I been proved right, but a report today (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/study_to_provide_insight_into_gambling_1_4133011 )suggests that (1) they’ll split the loot with their Brit ally and (2) in the process open up a process of back door taxation of Manx businesses to subsidise a Brit government ‘third sector’ initiative.
Funnily enough, this means the Brits get to tackle an entirely imaginary ‘social problem’ without having to spend a penny or employ a single public sector ‘professional’ or ‘expert’. Sadly, that doesn’t mean the problem of the imaginary social problem will go away too.
This all began when in 2007 GamCare received 80% of a £3.5 million budget set aside on government mandate by the UK gambling industry to ‘promote responsible gambling’. They were hoping to bump that up to £5.34 million in 2010 and 2011, but the latest accounts they’ve submitted to the Charity Commission suggest that the gambling industry told them where to get off, also that the ‘charity’ still gets no other income apart from their gambling industry hush money.
And on today's 'news', I should also say that the pseudo-survey is a classic marketing scam, and now a bog standard tool for the moral panic industry.
As I’ve explained elsewhere, the trick is to decide what answers you need, then set the questions and participant parameters so that you can get no others. It is ridiculously easy, as the full results and methodology will not be in the public domain, old fashioned rigorously neutral academics able or willing to find the time to take such nonsense apart are thin on the ground, and even cynical lay people tend to take such surveys at face value if they’re for a ‘good cause’ or concern a matter which decades of biased reporting lead us to falsely believe is a ’social problem’.
A classic example is the infamous regular ESPAD 'surveys' of ‘’under-age drinking’ which, here and elsewhere, have kept an entire bogus therapy industry in funds for over a decade now. But even right wing amateurs like the Mothers Union are getting in on the scam (I mentioned their scare tactics over ‘parenting’ some while back, and now it seems they have David Cameron’s ear, so keeping tweedy geriatrics with one foot in ga-ga-land off the backs of decent parents is going to be an increasing problem in the coming year).
If only such imaginary problems and the proponents of their equally imaginary solutions could go away or be forgotten as quickly as bad dreams.
Sadly, I would not bet on that any time soon. Not considering the amount of public money wasted dreaming them up, along with ever more pointless employment opportunities for the bogus therapists involved.

Evangelicals steal Christmas from the poor - again

According to a story at http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_184186.html
“Over 4000 shoe boxes filled with gifts are on their way to disadvantaged children from the Isle of Man.”
If you believe that, I have some shares in a tapioca mine you might like to buy.
On the basis that Samaritan’s Purse demand £1 from anyone daft enough to give them a box, what we do know is that the con-artist behind this scam - Franklin Graham, the repugnant offspring of televangelist Billy Graham – is at least another £4,000 richer because of Manx people with more money than sense. I also wonder if it will get to him the same way funds from other offshore havens used to.
SP, having failed to find anyone dim enough to register and front a bogus Manx or Channel Isles ‘sister charity’, used to have a strange aversion to receiving the donations in a cheque. On at least one occasion, under the guise of a visit to a regional headquarters, a volunteer was instructed to get on a plane with the hard cash in a briefcase, so that it could be added to the donations from that area rather than being traceable to an offshore source.
This, by odd coincidence, would mean the parent charity in the US had no audit trail to a place the IRS takes a particular interest in. In the drug trade (so a helpful Agent Scully lookalike from the FBI once explained to me and others on an FSC money-laundering course) this is known as ‘smurfing’. Funnily enough, in times further back, it was also the favoured method by which rogue Irish politicians delivered their skim-offs and pay-offs to Manx and Jersey banks to hide it from the Irish tax authorities.
What we also know is that those trying to prevent religious conflict in some poorer countries have just got 4,000 new problems, courtesy of the same idiots. Because we also shouldn’t believe the statement that “Children in countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Liberia and Romania will benefit from the gifts.”
SP have a habit of switching the destination after the boxes leave the donors, but never telling them. For example, a few years back, having led everyone to believe they were going to Russian ‘orphanages’ which had been handily photographed during a flying visit in a previous year, the boxes were reloaded onto an SP owned plane flying to Pakistan with one of their US media crews. Once dropped in a Pakistani disaster zone, they were filmed by SP’s PR unit and paraded in front of the world’s press. The PR unit got back on the plane and flew back to their luxury Carolina media headquarters, where the film and photos were glossily repackaged for next year’s campaign literature.
The boxes? Who knows – but by that time they were unfit for use anyway, so probably dumped on the nearest rubbish tip.
As if Franklin Graham and his despicable cohorts would care about starving Muslims anyway. This is, after all, the guy who even Southern Baptists shunned after he suggested the US Army fly Bibles into Iraq along with the initial invasion force.
This is the outfit who would only allow victims of a Southern American disaster to use tents provided to SP by a US government agency if they formally renounced Catholicism first, and whose tame US Army chaplains told astonished refugees from bombing in Iraq that they could only use the refugee centre showers after attending prayer meetings and bible classes.
Every year I’m pleasantly surprised by the continued willingness of Manx people to help the less fortunate.
But I’m disgusted by the evangelical pondlife who take advantage, and line their pockets by stealing from the world’s poorest people.

Drink up, light up, keep calm and carry on

Well, another day, another bit of pointless legislation from the Manx government.
Last week, (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/legal_high_is_banned_after_death_of_teen_1_4059791) we became the laughing stock of Britain by outlawing a substance that wasn’t even found here until some numpty of a drug advisor, desperate for another year of public subsidy, downloaded a stock advice sheet from a similarly clueless or dishonest UK pseudo-charity.
The slim justification for this was selective misreading of a medical report on the death of a girl who may have (but more probably did not) acquire some from a much older man in between necking a lot of alcohol and we know not what else. As nobody involved in the inquest bothered to read the full medical report - so even the coroner does not know what other factors there were to the death (pre-existing medical conditions, social or psychological issues) - and the doctor who made it was not asked to look for any other evidence, the simple truth is we do not know why she died, and will never know, because it might be inconvenient.
Away from the pseudo-war on drugs, evidence this week of the real war by the Manx government on civil liberties at http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/should_smoking_ban_be_extended_1_4073426.
As ever, it is dressed up with a lot of false concern for poor ikkle kiddie-widdies.
Oh, grow up!
Does anybody on this island know one car-driving family so impoverished the car doesn’t have windows that wind down? Or one parent so indolent or evil they don’t open them?
If such a creature existed, and was ever the pig-ignorant stereotype these twonks take as a bog-standard parent, isn’t it far more likely that they would damage their kids in a far nastier way, and already have lost them to social services?
Similarly, how many folk do you know so selfish they light up in a company vehicle which may be driven or used by others, rather than being provided for their sole use?
I know none…. Zilch…. nada. And over the years I have worked for plenty of companies which owned vehicles, and with some pretty unsavoury workmates.
And once those red herrings are smoked, we are left with the real question.
Why is the state butting in on one more of the few private spaces left to individuals to chill out?
Some do it by listening to the radio, some by chucking their car a bit too fast round the Mountain Road. Whatever!
The point is, the state has no business telling its employers and sole income source if we can light up in a private vehicle. No more than it had stopping people who, by common consent, wanted to smoke in a closed area of a pub or other public building. No more than it has rationing alcohol to over-25s in weekly allowances any grown adult would consider nearer to a quick lunchtime snifter.
Wake up and smell the coffee - before they ban that too!
A government, guided only by tabloid hysteria, junk science, bogus charities (which it alone underwrites and in many cases picks staff and committees for) and other know-nowt freeloaders and prodnoses, is whittling away at any small pleasure enjoyed by consenting adults.
Time to do something about it, even if that ‘doing’ is, like Spanish bar-owners and customers, to simply, daily and en masse ignore a fatuous law until it is taken back off the books because it is impossible and impractical to police.
In other words, carry on as normal with your lives. Do that long enough, ignore the noise pollution of (self-appointed) experts and bansturbators long enough, and, who knows, we might just get enough peace to enjoy a quiet fag and a pint.

Pass the bucket

I’ve now read two reports of the recent overblown and underpowered ‘conference’ which was supposed to find out if we have poverty and neglect here on Moaner’s Isle.
Facts and truth are as remarkable for their absence as they would be anywhere else except a collection of government-run puppet charities and their klingons. As I said last month when it was first publicised (see Poverty of Theory, Neglect by Government ) : “If these overpaid parasites have to ask they are more useless than we already knew, and we really need to ask in return why they have claimed so much public money for decades.”
Because, make no mistake, all that is going on – as ever – is the usual suspects whipping up more moral panic over inequality THEY perpetuate, in order to beg more public funds, in order to carry on whipping up moral panics, in order to beg more public funds, in order to perpetuate their useless existence. Maybe they have to, because nobody with an ounce of common sense would employ them for a real job.
The first version of several impartial reports (handily written by a Children’s Centre PR dogsbody then copied slavishly by ‘proper’ hacks) appeared at http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=41577 , where it was noted that: “It was organised by The Children's Centre whose chief executive John Knight hopes it will now lead to united efforts to tackle the issue."
It won’t.
For some clues as to why not, you could pick up the story as it eventually appeared in a newspaper now not only owned and controlled off-island but soon to be printed elsewhere too. See http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/health/poverty_in_the_isle_of_man_1_4041528 for a few clues as to who got paid just to turn up, who got paid to not only turn up but pose as ‘experts’, and who got paid to do both and then had the cheek to beg for more cash.
The non-academic with no peer-reviewed research on the topic to his name (from the Sunday kick-around league non-university with no track record in social sciences) must have felt right at home.
I also noted a social services bigwig who once spent an hour arguing that collecting accurate information on the precise numbers of and circumstances for women needing places of local refuge from violence was counter-productive, because she already ‘knew’ instinctively and didn’t think either the government or the public needed hard facts. Their role was just to hand her a blank cheque every time she demanded one.
She got her way because, as a highly overpaid and under-qualified Home Affairs executive pointed out at the same inter-departmental pow-wow, it was so much easier to blame all Manx social problems on people with dark skin, and also costs nothing in time, resources or research.
Then there’s the public sector key worker who, a decade ago, spent two hours listening to clueless Ulster godbotherers give a lecture on ‘drug education’ in which they couldn’t list (never mind actually give the correct chemical name of) several widely available illegal substances of the era, or the signs of their abuse, or cite one academic source which had identified either a medical danger or a social cause for concern for the drugs (no longer in circulation) of two decades before which their talk actually centred on. After this highly professional presentation both they and the faith barn they proposed to work from were also offered public money.
Or the authority on youth work whose bogus ‘youth club’ closed after no more public money was wasted on it: because as passing police officers kept reporting, the kids outside were just standing there, not members. Because they would rather stand in the winter street than enter a premises where staff, after nicking the sound equipment, had tried to frame innocent kids for it, not to mention assaults on girls under the age of consent who were ‘advised’ by police that allegations against ‘decent’ church leaders by anyone with a petty crime record would not reach court. Which they did not.
So, nothing to see, nothing to report. Just more begging bowl business from the usual recidivists.
Ho hum.