MEA management - dimmer switch fitted as standard

Ever wondered how serious a publicly run agency with responsibility for energy supplies is on the Isle of Man?
On the evidence of a short encounter with one yesterday, the answer is ‘not very’. In fact, while I used to think 25 watt was just a rating on a light bulb I now think it is a warning that should be tattooed across the foreheads of MEA (Manx Electricity Authority) management.
While in Douglas yesterday we looked for something fairly simple – an energy efficient lightbulb to use in a lamp with a dimmer switch. And on Strand Street there’s a shop called ‘Bright Ideas’, supposedly the MEA advice point for those trying to do the right environmental thing around the home.
They didn’t have any. In fact, they didn’t have many low energy light bulbs or other energy-efficient devices at all, and neither do any of the local branches of the MEA, which is why we had to ask at this ‘specialist advice centre’ in the first place.
Their sole suggestions for stockists were a home improvement centre hated by environmentalists in an out of town retail park only reachable by car, and one private shop 15 miles further south from Douglas. As my wife said, the Manx government seriously expects that, in order to save the energy from one standard light bulb, people should make a private car round trip of up to sixty miles.

Harry Taylor, Harry Taylor, Taylor Taylor, Harry Harry

A while back I posted on Harry Taylor, a joker who taped religious cartoons from Private Eye on the walls of the ‘prayer room’ at John Lennon Airport.
Harry so upset the hyper-sensitive zombie worshipper who minds this slur on Lennon’s name that he ended up in court, on three charges of ‘causing religiously aggravated harassment.’ I think that might be ‘talking sense to spookchasers’ to the rest of us.
After just 15 minutes ‘deliberation’, a loaded jury (all swore on the Bible, so hardly tried by his peers as the law demands) found him guilty. And yesterday sentence was passed - or at least, some prat in a silly wig got malevolent.
Harry got a suspended six month prison sentence for two years, a five year ASBO, an order to carry out 100 hours’ unpaid work and £250 costs.
You can read a local report at www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2010/04/24/militant-atheist-harry-taylor-hit-with-asbo-for-offensive-images-in-john-lennon-airport-100252-26307049/ to find out more.
Terry Sanderson, from the National Secular Society, was quick to explain why this misjudgement sends us back to the Stone Age and sets yet another dangerous precedent when he commented:
"The six month sentence may have been suspended, but it is still totally out of proportion for what Mr Taylor did. The professional 'offence takers' in religious communities will now feel that they have a strong weapon to use against anyone who is critical or disapproving of them. It is, in effect, a blasphemy law that covers all religions and is much more powerful than the one which was abolished two years ago."
But I’m also intrigued in the report that the judge:
“… imposed the Asbo, which bans Taylor from carrying religiously offensive material in a public place.”
Now, for one thing, if he’s saying Harry shouldn’t walk about with a Koran or a Bible that might be a relief. In fact, can we demand that Asbos are passed immediately on all the wild-eyed lunatics who, for example, tried to drown each other on Peel Beach at Easter?
For another, how does material from a magazine on open sale at one place in the airport miraculously become ‘offensive’ when it is read in a hang-out for the superstitious elsewhere in the building. That sounds barmier than transubstantiation.
And is this really a victory for the Deluded Herd, and their continued demands for the ‘right’ to a privileged existence which no-one else may mock or question? Do all religions have the right to express themselves in a public place anyway?
Tell you what, let’s test that fantasy.
Imagine a bunch of saffron robed, tambourine-bashing folk with funny haircuts turn up at John Lennon Airport and start dancing around singing the following catchy ditty:

Harry Taylor, Harry Taylor,
Taylor Taylor,
Harry, Harry.

Nope? Thought not!

More government mugs on drugs

Ah well, even as the UK and Manx governments introduce a pointless ban on one ‘legal high’, the market has moved on (see, for example http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/18/drug-replace-ban-mephedrone).
For the benefit of public sector drones, I think you’ll find that’s called ‘market research’. Businesses in the real world do it all the time. What’s known in marketing as ‘SWOT analysis’ (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). Basic FE college stuff for business studies kiddies, but harder than rocket science, apparently, for bumbling public sector and ‘third sector’ parasites who live off the taxes of others.
There’s a really, really simple point here which the clueless anti-drug industry is missing. Drug dealers weren’t flogging legal highs, innovative and quite legal small businesses were.
The folk behind such initiatives are well used to thinking on their feet, for example to avoid being overtaxed or burdened with long term liabilities. They spot new trends and jump on while they’re rising, they jump off well before flat-footed government employees create obstacles or the market in last year’s novelty item collapses. These are not thugs sleeping with a sawn-off beside the bed to see off competitors; they’re embryonic Richard Bransons.
Which makes it all the funnier to see our local drug czars continuing to pimp the fundie product of Christofascist ‘family values’ cults (see
http://www.gov.im/lib/news/education/freedrugandalcoh.xml) under the pretence of ‘educating parents’.
Can I just make another simple observation on this?
In my entire experience of life - in numerous UK inner cities - I have never heard of a drug dealer brazen enough to claim his product offered life after death. And I have never heard of a junkie dumb enough to believe it.
Evangelical Christianity? Now THAT is a drug industry that needs some serious investigation if civil servants and small town politicians need a point to their lives. A scam run by the totally unscrupulous, patronised by the totally clueless.
And while we’re looking at ‘government mugs on drugs’, try
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/04/absolute-non-surprise-of-week.html for some views from the UK libertarian community.
Even wilder is http://www.cnbc.com/id/36267220/ , where I saw something I wouldn’t believe possible. A Texan Republican talking sense about drug issues.

Spreading the hate, or the Isle of Marmite

I think the Tourist Department is missing a trick.
On 29th March, Marmite unleashed a spoof election campaign featuring the Love Party and the Hate Party, running in tandem with what passes for a chance for Brits to choose their next oppressor, complete with smarmy party leaders, unlikely election promises and what have you. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/29/marmites-ads-parallel-election for a brief idea, and http://www.facebook.com/MarmiteHateParty?v=app_4949752878 for an example of one party line.
Now when I saw the latest Hate Party telly ad I could have sworn they were threatening, if victorious, to ban Marmite-lovers to Guernsey. Bit rough I thought, and anyway, the Isle of Man already has past form running internment camps where Mosleyites were treated as royalty, while black International Brigade veterans and Jewish refugees were treated like scum. We also have current form on locking up minority religion remand prisoners from the Asian and Indian subcontinents (before deporting them quietly without so much as a court hearing) and pretending asylum–seekers don’t exist, so why not us?
But as it happens, the Hate Party are only threatening to round up Marmite stocks, not Marmite-eaters. Even so, it seems to have stirred up Guernsey residents (see http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2010/04/03/guernsey-targeted-in-marmite-ad-campaign/ ).
Mind you, if the idea is to regard Marmite as a pollutant, even the combined ranks of Manx treehuggers and their greenwashing government and corporate sponsors cannot deny that the Isle of Man has pollution problems already. In fact, in less literate parts of the island, major pollutants actually get elected.

Gita Saghal in her own words

Further to the Gita Saghal story, a statement by Gita has appeared in a Standpoint article by Nick Cohen.
I assume Cohen picked it up from an agency, as I can’t imagine any reason why she’d give it exclusively to one journalist if she wanted genuinely interested people to know (rather than apologists for military action in the Middle East), and as it’s also appeared elsewhere I reprint in full below. For anyone who needs Cohen’s take on the issue in full, you can find it at http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2917 .

She says:

“On Friday 9th April, 2010 Amnesty International announced my departure from the organization. The agreed statement said, ‘due to irreconcilable differences of view over policy between Gita Sahgal and Amnesty International regarding Amnesty International’s relationship with Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners, it has been agreed that Gita will leave Amnesty International.’
I was hired as the Head of the Gender Unit as the organization began to develop its Stop Violence Against Women campaign. I leave with great sadness as the campaign is closed. Thousands of activists of Amnesty International enthusiastically joined the campaign. Many hoped that it would induce respect for women’s human rights in every aspect of the work. Today, there is little ground for optimism.
The senior leadership of Amnesty International chose to answer the questions I posed about Amnesty International’s relationship with Moazzam Begg by affirming their links with him. Now they have also confirmed that the views of Begg, his associates and his organisation Cageprisoners, do not trouble them. They have stated that the idea of jihad in self defence is not antithetical to human rights; and have explained that they meant only the specific form of violent jihad that Moazzam Begg and others in Cageprisoners assert is the individual obligation of every Muslim.
I thank the senior leadership for these admissions and for their further clarification that concerns around the legitimization of Begg were of very long standing and that there was strong opposition from Head of the Asia programme to a partnership with him. When disagreements are profound, it is best that disputes over matters of fact, are reduced.
Unfortunately, their stance has laid waste every achievement on women’s equality and made a mockery of the universality of rights. In fact, the leadership has effectively rejected a belief in universality as an essential basis for partnership.
I extend my sympathies to all who have fought long and hard within Amnesty International to match the movement’s principles with its actions. I know many of you have been bewildered by this dispute and others deeply shamed by what is being done in your name. You may have been told that that debate is not possible in the middle of a crisis. I agree that there is indeed a crisis and that the hardest questions are being posed by Amnesty International’s close human rights allies, particularly in areas where jihad supported by Begg’s associates, is being waged.
I am now free to offer my help as an external expert with an intimate knowledge of Amnesty International’s processes and policies. I can explain in public debates, both with the leadership and inside the Sections, that adherence to violent jihad even if it indeed rejects the killing of some civilians, is an integral part of a political philosophy that promotes the destruction of human rights generally and contravenes Amnesty International’s specific policies relating to systematic violence and discrimination, particularly against women and minorities.
During these last two months, human rights gains have been made to defend the torture standard and to shame governments who have been complicit in torture through their ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policies. But the spectre that arises through the continued promotion of Moazzam Begg as the perfect victim, is that Amnesty International is operating its own policies of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’
So I invite you to join me as I continue to campaign for public accountability at this moment, which comes but rarely in history, when a great organisation must ask: if it lies to itself, can it demand the truth of others? "

Gita Sahgal
Former Interim Head of the Gender, Sexuality and Identity Unit, Amnesty International

For what it's worth, I don't see this as a reason for anyone to stop supporting Amnesty, and I certainly won't. It's simply another of hundreds of conversations people to whom Amnesty's work is important have with each other. Any member of a local group, or who's ever attended a national AGM and seen the staggering range of 'special interest' groups trying to thrash out some common line, knows that.
In my experience Amnesty is the only campaigning organisation of size with a membership crossing all manner of social groups and views which isn't solely led from the top by a professional clique whose first (or only) aim is to perpetuate a crisis long enough to get a career out of it. Most of the effective work, and decision-making, is taken at grassroots by ordinary members who often hold conflicting views yet agree a middle ground to get stuff done.
The only walkout in recent years I know of was the closing of all UK Amnesty local groups affiliated to Catholic schools or colleges. That was done on direct orders of the bishops, and ultimately the Vatican, because they couldn't bully Amnesty into taking a pro-life line which would have negated the rights of others (and women in general). It was opposed by almost all the individual members of those groups, who just found other local groups where religious bigots could not interfere.
The current issue, while unfortunate, is simply not on that scale, and not even irreversable given enough grassroots pressure, say at the next UK AGM.

Amnesty doesn't always do the right thing

Not long ago I blogged on the suspension of one of Amnesty International’s leading advisors on womens rights (see 'Amnesty, the Taliban and womens rights - getting the balance right') and mentioned a petition to get them to see sense.
Though the petition was signed by numerous academics and womens right activists from around the world, and taken up in the UK by groups like Women Against Fundamentalism and Southall Black Sisters, it hasn’t worked.
Gita Saghal and Amnesty have parted, and I suspect she was pushed rather than jumping. There’s a story on it at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7095732.ece .
As some of the right wing drivel in the comments section shows, the worst UK victims of her departure will be those Amnesty needed to support most. Women around the world facing male violence, and nearer home especially lesbians, gays and abused women who might have been safe if only the UK’s racist mess of an asylum policy worked as it should.
I cannot believe Amnesty screwed up this badly. As it happens, I also don’t think the UK should have caved in to CIA thugs who snatch and torture UK citizens to fit racist myths used to perpetuate the US war industry. But a personal friend, currently writing a Ph.D. around whether Islamism is one of the new religious varieties of fascism (and also a hardcore anti-fascist rather than the wishy washy UAF variety) has convinced me we should be wary of Moazzam Begg and his Cageprisoners group.
Without doubt, serious Amnesty membership has problems. I’ve had my own - airy-fairy liberals who only want to back safe celebrity victims and think pointing out unpleasantness gives the general public ‘negative vibes’, faith organisations who tried to dictate local group policies at my old college or more recently.
You end up wondering if your limited time could be more profitably used elsewhere. Which is a shame, because even as you wonder some poor sod somewhere is having their fingernails pulled out or their relatives bumped off to shut them up, and then you worry some more that you might have stopped that.
I don’t know the answer either. But I’m mad at Amnesty’s kneejerk, play safe bureacrats for making me reconsider membership of the group I used to be proud my daughter first played a part in when, aged two, she drew a picture used for a greetings card sent to an Iranian trade unionist.

(Morning) Service as normal with the temperance nazis

Having gone to bed far later than is good for an over-the-hill hellraiser I missed the first part of The Big Question on the Beeb this morning, and only had time to laugh at clueless faith junkies for 25 minutes.
Bummer.
The question I did catch concerned drinking and driving, or more exactly if people should be allowed to drink any alcohol at all and then drive a car. Such is the power of temperance nazis that Campbell had problems finding anyone brave enough to say responsible adults should be able to do so in moderation.
The two gents who did were a journalist from a car magazine (and not of the Clarksonian variety) and a libertarian whose name I didn’t catch - I think a Libertarian Party speaker but possibly Libertarian Alliance as they once expressed somewhat determined views in a press release on this topic.
The journalist, reasonably I thought, said a law which treated some serious inebriate who kills while driving his Jag at speed through a built up area and a responsible citizen who has a pint of mild with a family Sunday lunch in a country pub then drives home safely in exactly the same manner is (a) bonkers and (b) bad for business and leisure interests.
The libertarian said, in essence, that drink driving laws don’t work and we’d be better off encouraging a culture in which people take personal responsibility for their actions. He also pointed to the experience of Sweden, where the permitted alcohol level is far lower yet the figures for drink-driving deaths are far higher.
As I wasn’t in the room, I could then laugh my socks off as a broad cross-selection of fanatical halfwits tried to outscream each other. Two of the loudest were the Catholic Herald’s most notorious ex-editor and that black lady vicar from Hackney who Lambeth sends whenever Anglicans need to look all-inclusive on the telly.
Funny thing is, I suppose they were both on the panel to stop it looking like the senile godbotherers who cynics like me snigger at before they even open their mouths.
Earth to Nick Campbell – you’re not fooling anyone, son. Give up now.
More seriously, it did highlight the fact that the deluded herd are easily fooled by any old emotional tosh, not just that nominally concerning their imaginary mate, and that even those with expensive educations start screaming in dissent before, not even during or after, a contrary argument has been offered or the evidence has been heard.
Sad, isn’t it? But also another reason why I think it is right to highlight not only the freethinking but also the libertarian aspects of topics I raise, and to look at ways of doing so which draw from both traditions rather than slip unconsciously into the secular methodism which, in my view, holds us back.