Posts by Tom Semmens
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Do you have a citation for this? It's a horrifying stat if true.
From the same Nina Power story in the Guardian quoted above:
"...When you look at the figures for deaths in police custody (at least 333 since 1998 and not a single conviction of any police officer for any of them), then the IPCC and the courts are seen by many, quite reasonably, to be protecting the police rather than the people..."
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A Londoner I work with shrugged his shoulders and said “What do they expect? people are pretty pissed off”.
Illuminating:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8630533/Riots-the-underclass-lashes-out.html
Not so much the actual opinion piece but the comments section is the thing that unintentionally underlines how dysfunctional and bitterly divided British society now is.
The mob may be opportunistic thugs and looters, but they are also a symptom of the all pervasive class war that is flaring more brightly that ever in Britain.
people are criticising the police response, but at the end of the day even Murbarak’s total dictatorship relied on at least the acquiescence of the governed. When the spell and veneer of that acquiescence to authority is broken, anarchy reigns. the Metropolitain police are totally discredited in the eyes of those they repress most often. Hundreds have died in police custody in the last two decades and the IPCC have convicted not a single officer. Policing vacillates between bullying the middle class with kettling and totally abandoning “no go” areas to youth gangs. The Murdoch scandals have revealed the police as just another corrupt part of a British ruling elite that is run along the lines of an organised crime family. In a animal sense, the marginalised mobs are sensing the general weakening in the moral authority of the discredited capitalist ruling elites from Tel Aviv to Greece to London.
Imposing austerity on the poor and squeezing the middle class whilst bailing out the global financial sector to the tune of billions is starting to have its consequences.
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Hard News: Fixing Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
Or they are living in apartments constructed without double glazing and sound proofing - apartments presumably approved by the same council that wants a vibrant street life...
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I strongly oppose the mixing of entertainment areas with residential apartments and my heart sinks every time I see yet another example of what is basically the council doing a favour for it’s developer mates. This is simply because our draconian approach to noise control combined with our shoddy building practices means the minute some apartments go up street life is killed stone dead. As has been noted, in practice the mixed use areas these apartment occupy seem empty most of the time.
The idea is a fine one, but a typical apartment in Auckland is poorly built with little or no sound proofing or even installed air conditioning – and no one in their right mind wants to open a business where the most trivial noise complaint can send them broke.
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Now we’ve got this wonderful new development with the event centre, plenty of room for outdoor screens in Karanga Plaza and bars, restaurants, etc – all that plus the Viaduct and the fantastic stuff that has been hapeening at Britomart – why did we build the bloody awful “Cloud” again? Could not this area have been modified slightly and used as “party central?” For the money wasted on the Cloud they could have extended the tram tracks to Britomart, and linked up the entire bottom of town. The whole ill-fated idea of developing the wharf for the RWC seems like little more than a monument to a John Key brainfart.
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Richard Simpson is the best of the candidates. However, his inconvenient habit of occasionally being swayed by facts will mean he'll last precisely one term as a National Party MP.
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and Bowden – the chair and spokesman for Stanz – continues to put JWH-018 in the Kronic product.
Anyone following Mr. Bowden of late can have little doubt he has gone totally troppo.
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Of course, Bishop Brian isn’t the only one to tell his new acolytes what to think. And one could argue that having a member of a creepy cult as the senior writer for the Wall Street Journal is way, way more scary than anything the brylcreemed Bishop can conjure.
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Field Theory: Gruts, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Surely the mark of a true gentleman is that he can discuss *anything* with propriety, delicacy, accuracy and tact.
My rule of thumb is never discuss in public an item of male apparel that you wouldn't discuss with a random dude standing next to you at the urinal of a pub in the case of an embarassing accidental eye contact. "Nice hat" always works. Hats are implicitly cool and involve a safe upward gaze. I suggest saying "I like your undies" would bring an instant hush to the lavatory. Tee shirts are OK if they uber-cool. English laundry wearers always appreciate feedback on their fine taste.
Otherwise, it is totally gay talk.
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Men should only discuss hats in public internet forums.