Insane in America

Crime & Punishment, Gripes, Terrorism No Responses »

Aug 212008

The USA is determined to address what it sees as possible criminal or terrorist potential by temporary workers. It’s doing this by deporting people, who have committed an offence, back to their country of origin. This seems quite reasonable, except that they are doing this regardless of the time they’ve spent in the US, or the length of time since the offence.

In the case of 35 years old Welsh born Zak Ashenhurst, 35, his offence was firing a gun into an empty swimming pool and was committed some 20 years ago. Ok a silly offence, possibly dangerous at the time, but done when he was a child! Not only was he a child, but was recovering from Osteomyelitis which he had feared would kill him and was a little ‘stressed’ at the time to say the least! He fronted the courts at the time, was fined, and pulled himself back into line. He went on to create a good life.

He married an American girl and had two children Zaky, 12, and Nicki, five. And has worked ever since.

Over the years the Green Card residents use to maintain their right to work in the US expired and was renewed without incident… until a few weeks ago when officials unearthed his old conviction and, using laws unused for decades, decided he was a risk to national security and threw him in prison.

He was there for a month until he was removed from the country and deported back to the UK yesterday.

This ridiculous and unfair decision has left Zak in what is now almost a foreign country, and unsure whether his family, all American citizens, will be allowed to join him!

Nobody is underestimating the dangers of terrorist activity but surely the lunacy of deporting a solid citizen for something he did as a youngster should be obvious even to a faceless bureaucrat? The *most* that should have been done was to use Zak as a role model for the thousands of kids that are running wild in US schools! The example of someone who make a mistake and turned his life around should be a positive message used to help otehrs who might be heading down the wrong path! It should not be a cause for further punishment!

The situation is entirely ridiculous and the UK foreign office should be doing all it can to ensure that his family is allowed to join him… if the want to! After all, these are American citizens effectively being told they must choose between living as a single parent family in their homeland or joining their father in a foreign country and facing an uncertain economic future.

The utter unfairness of it just can’t be over stated – though I doubt the US administration would be concerned about this one small family unit, no matter how abysmally it’s treated them.

Edit:
Having trawled around looking for more information I turned up this gem. According to The Star News, this sort of treatment is nothing new. Back in 2004 an 83 year old guy, nominally a ‘Frenchman’ who had committed a long forgotten minor offence, was deported back to Paris despite having lived in the US for 52 years! He was kept in prison for 7 months before being sent back to a country he knew little about and despite him having nowhere in France to go!

Home of the free? Think again!! Right now in the USA Xenophobia rules.

Potter Potted!

Entertainment, Gripes 3 Responses »

Aug 182008

For reasons which seem to have more to do with greed than customer satisfaction Warner Brothers have determined it’s in their best interests to postpone the release of “Half Blood Prince”, the highly anticipated film of the sixth book in the Harry Potter series!

Anyone who would like the film released on its original date might be advised to make their way over to ‘Petitions Spot‘ and make their mark. When I visited to sign up there were already 32,000 signatures on the petition so there’s a groundswell of opinion trying its best to push WB into action. This just echoes the furore erupting all around the internet on forums and blog sites everywhere. There are even moves to flood Warner Brothers with snail mails in an effort to make them realise they are alienating their potential audience!!

The trailer was a real tease… but to *now* tell us that instead of November we’ll have to wait until July was just plain cruel!!

Drowning… with a rictus grin!

Gripes, Health No Responses »

Aug 182008

No doubt *all* of us will be glued to our tv’s later on as the most famous discipline of the entire Olympic schedule begins in earnest.

Yes… Synchronised Swimming will be using the pool vacated by the real swimmers. Oops… did I say ‘real’… of course I meant ‘other’ swimmers.

Yet I still ask myself just what the hell this ludicrous so-called sport is doing in the Olympics? Realistically it has no credible credentials as a sport. Activities such as Aerobics and rock climbing have more right to be there than this lot.

Just *why* do the officials allow this bunch of maniacs lurching through the water grinning like baboons on prozac to pollute our screens and embarrass real athletes?!?!

If any of you out there can defend synchronised swimming and justify its inclusion in the Olympic calendar… please do it.

(and don’t get me started on BMX biking as an Olympic sport… !!!)

Who needs the armchair critics?

General Ramblings, Gripes, Health 3 Responses »

Aug 182008

I’ve been quietly seething over the armchair critics who are bitching in the media about how *badly* our people are performing at the Olympics because they are *only* coming home with silver or bronze medals instead of gold.What a crock of crap this is!!

Just qualifying for the Olympics makes them heroes in my book. Getting any medals at all in any sport or discipline puts them so far ahead of the rest of us that in sporting terms at least they are beyond criticism!

Every Olympic competitor who takes part has this *one* opportunity to make their mark on the record books and each one wants to be *the* winner. It isn’t a case of one wants it more than another… just that on the day, on the hour… on the minute… *that one* competitor is stronger or better than everyone else.

There’s no shame whatever in coming second… or third… or even last in the field. No matter if you come 100th in the race… you are *still* the hundredth fastest out of a world population numbered in billions.

A case in point was Tamsyn Lewis who yesterday sobbed herself out of the stadium having come last in her 800 metres semi-final. She was so overwrought she was unable to talk coherently to reporters who wanted to know what happened. Later she defended her performance… but in reality she shouldn’t have to! She’d worked hard to get as far as she did and whilst it might have been personally disappointing, just for her to have fought through to the semi-final was an achievement!

Yes… when I see the Green and Gold up on the podium having creamed all opposition, I feel a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye… but I feel a surge of national pride just seeing one of our people taking part in any event!! If they win it’s just a bonus.

Good onya guys… one and all. First or last… we’re proud of you just for being there.

Public Breastfeeding in Wales? Nope.

Gripes, Health 1 Response »

Jul 292008

I was reading a little straw poll on the Wales Online website which asked a question I’d have thought shouldn’t even need to be asked today.

The question is “Do you think it’s acceptable for women to breastfeed in public?” The answer was so obviously ‘yes’ that I was amazed that the results of their poll showed 78.4% actually voted *no*! No doubt these are descendants of the same people who put bras on cows, and skirts on piano legs for fear of overstimulating their little brains with lascivious thoughts.

Breastfeeding Icon World Breastfeeding Week 2008 runs from August 1 – 7 2008 and it looks like this would be a good time for antiquated backwaters of the world to learn the facts of life. Are people really still embarrassed by doing something so natural?

Come on Wales… get a grip. What do you think those lumps of fat hanging off a woman’s chest are actually there for?? Decoration?? Geez.

Edit:
On re-reading this I thought I should make it clear the comment “get a grip” was in no way intended to refer to the parts of the females under discussion…

Surely it can’t just be me?

Food, Gripes No Responses »

May 302008

Have a look at this pasta sauce lid. Tell me if you notice anything a little ‘odd’ about it.

Latina Pasta Sauce lid

Not obvious yet?

Ok… have a look at the wording two lines under the ‘Fresh Sauce’ bit. See it now?

I’ll write it out so it’s clearer…

CAUTION: CONTAINER BECOMES HOT WHEN HEATED. HANDLE WITH CARE

Maybe it’s just me but that makes absolutely *no* sense to me whatever. I’m all for product warnings in places where inadvertent and/or unexpected damage or trauma may be caused by something but I just can’t imagine a situation where anyone would expect to heat something and *not* expect it to get hot?? Otherwise why on earth would they be heating it?

Am I that far off line that I’m the only one who thinks this is bizarre??

Kids grow up so fast these days!

Gripes, Health, Society No Responses »

May 252008

Following on from the furore about the exploitation of 12 year old girls by using them in sexually explicit photography, we now have the case of a 12 year old girl in Victoria who told a judge that she thinks she is a boy and is being allowed to change her sex!!

Amazing though it seems, a judge has given permission for this girl to be given hormone treatment in order to prevent her sexual development into a mature female. S/he is also going to be allowed to change her birth certificate, passport and Medicare card details to give her a boys name.

Whilst s/he won’t be allowed to undergo surgery before age 18 she will be allowed at age 16 to begin testosterone therapy to help her develop a male physique and facial hair.

I’ve said it before and will say it again… and no doubt will repeat it many times into the future… the law is an ass. For all that 5 ‘experts’ have sided with her, there must surely be room for doubt that this decision is (on her part) irrevocable). People aged 12 are repeatedly told they are too young to decide, for instance, which parent to live with in the case of a divorce, too young to have sex, too young to drink alcohol or take certain drugs… yet this girl is deemed old enough to decide she wants to change sex?? Give me a break please!

I think this decision is itself tantamount to child neglect. The sheer androgynous physique and psychological attitudes of prepubescent girls should be enough for any psychiatrist to doubt the stability of this child’s decision making process especially when what has been described as one of her primary fears is of oncoming menstruation! Well d’uh!!

Perhaps she *is* a ‘boy trapped in a girls body’, but I hope for her sake this idiocy is abandoned until she is mature enough to be able to make a considered choice. Adults are supposed to protect children from making irrevocable decisions that that could change for the worse the entire course of their lives… not encourage them by compliance!

Edit:
More on this story with information supplied by a relative that the girls mother has pressured and brainwahsed her years to persuade her she is really a little boy… for further details read this news report.

Drip, drip, drip, drip…

Crime & Punishment, Government, Gripes No Responses »

May 222008

That ‘dripping’ is the sound of the steady erosion of privacy and individual freedom as the UK descends still further into the realms of Big Brother and the advent of the Police State.

Bizarrely, to me at least, it’s a Labour government that is currently creating a Data Communications Bill to be presented as part of the Queen’s Speech come November.

In practice the government will oversee a massive database that will examine and store *all* SMS and email messages sent in, from, through the UK each year. The stats reported are that around 3 billion emails are sent each day and around 60 billion text messages set per year.

Yet again, as with the ID cards scheme, the emphasis is on the prevention of terrorism and maintenance of public order. On the surface this is all well and good, and a perfect justification for such a massive incursion into a citizens private life, well it might be when a benevolent government is on power, but what happens if the databases are put to the wrong use? Who will protect civil liberties if all the rights to those liberties, so hard fought for and won, have been silently destroyed in the name of expediency?

The old adage “An Englishman’s home is his castle” is becoming a hollow joke.

It’s bad enough that there is already a requirement for companies to hold on to the records themselves for twelve months. To have to pass them on to the ‘government’ is going too far by a long way.

The UK is drifting slowly into a Big Brother scenario day by day and personal freedoms are being eroded one drip at a time….

… drip, drip, drip.

More rubbish about rubbish.

Gripes, Society No Responses »

May 222008

Despite my complaints about UK rag, The Daily Mail in the last post, I *did* read several of the stories. One that caught my eye was yet another story about the bizarre garbage collection laws currently being enforced in draconian style by kerbside Nazis.

In this particular case a 22 year old woman has been fined £265 for putting her bins out a day early. She no doubt now has a criminal record that she will have to declare when she applies for a job or passport etc and could well be counted against her in many areas of her life.

The sheer idiocy of these regulations is highlighted by a case in which a 73 year old man has found that his garden waste bins will no longer be emptied because he put cabbage stalks in his. The local Nazis decided these counted as ‘kitchen waste’ and not ‘garden waste’. I wonder how they determined that the stalks hadn’t come from his garden?? Actually this is similar to yet another case the article reports where the bins of a partially sighted 95 year old man were deemed unsuitable for collection because he’d accidentally put a ketchup bottle and empty coffee jar in the wrong bin. What a compassionate country the UK has become when they are comfortable to turn on old soldiers for something so trivial?

Whilst I understand the concerns about yobbo’s setting the bins alight, and the need to make sure ‘recycling’ can be carried out efficiently the imposition of these laws and fines is reducing the country to a laughing stock around the world.

Surely someone somewhere can rein in the insanity? Perhaps the old “Keep Britain Tidy” campaign could be resurrected?? Anything would be better than this ongoing idiocy.

In the meantime of course, young Zoe Watmough has to find money she hasn’t got, to pay Bolton Council a fine that should never have been imposed.

On the media’s tale.

Gripes No Responses »

May 222008

I’ve been perusing the UK papers again and have spent a while looking through The Daily Mail which I’m sure I remember as a right wing, but basically even handed paper with some good editorial comment. The online version seems to either belie this memory, or the social situation in the UK has deteriorated to the extent there *is* no ‘good news’ for them to print!

The front page today (22nd May 2008) has the following headlines: Violence between Man. U and Chelsea football fans, child starved to death, husband dies on doorstep, and… well there’s just a multitude of stories of death, degradation and misery.

Surely there is more to the human condition in the UK than this? Maybe there’s a segment of the population that thrives on reading about the worst things people do to each other.

Maybe it reinforces those stereotypes that enable them to think everyone with a leather jacket is out to rob them, if two kids walk down the street then they are a gang and out to cause trouble, that anyone other than a ‘white anglo-saxon protestant’ must be an immigrant living off the dole etc.

Maybe? I’d love to see the research breakdown regarding their target audience and how well the paper meets the requirements. Now *that* would make fascinating reading… more so than the paper itself perhaps.

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