"Unregistered schools given council funding"

The BBC at its PC best.

You can guess pretty well what this is about just from the headline, but you have to slog two-thirds of the way through the article before they come out and actually say it.

There were a couple of tantalising clues along the way. They've removed the reference to the school which taught "English and Arabic" as that would have been too obvious, just leaving this to keep you going...

... inspectors said that many children were still being taught in this "murky world", with the biggest number in London and the West Midlands.

A bit like the Daily Mail articles where they don't mention the house price until the very end.

Yes, but who will stand up for the thieves and adulterers?

There has - quite rightly - been an uproar about Brunei's threat/promise to punish homosexual acts by stoning people to death. Anybody who thinks this is justifiable clearly has a very, very sick mind, because being gay or lesbian is in fact perfectly natural.

It's not 'normal' in the sense that a huge majority aren't gay, but it is still a natural part of the human condition, like being left-handed is perfectly natural. That's not 'normal' either but perfectly natural. Some people just are.

But... they intend/hope to stone adulterers to death as well. Personally, I think adultery is despicable behaviour, but it's certainly not a 'crime' that requires a state-sanctioned punishment. Maybe some readers are swingers, or think that adultery is not so serious; and maybe other readers take a dimmer view than I do, those are minor differences of opinion.

Same goes for 'thieves'. Typical Western penalties - social shaming; fines; community service or prison in serious cases (such as burglary) - seem reasonable to me. To want to chop somebody's actual hand off requires an equally sick mind as wanting to stone people to death for non-crimes like being gay or cheating on your spouse.

But unfortunately thieves and adulterers don't have their own lobby, for obvious reasons.

But apart from that, how was the birthday party?

At least 40 people are killed and 60 more injured in suicide bomb attack on gathering to mark the Prophet Mohammad's birthday in Afghanistan

Splendid bit of Indian Bicycle Marketing

With a startling lack of imagination, the Islamists have decided to have a go as well.

From the BBC:

The Muslim Council of Britain has reiterated a call for the Conservatives to launch an independent inquiry into alleged Islamophobia within the party.

The MCB has repeatedly demanded an investigation, and says there are now "more than weekly incidents" involving Tory candidates and representatives.

In an open letter, it tells chairman Brandon Lewis he must "ensure racists and bigots have no place" in the party. A Tory spokesman said it took all incidents of Islamophobia seriously.

I hope the Tories maintain a sense of humour and get Shrami Chakrabarti in to do a whitewash!

Anyway, this'll be fun! Most people can distinguish between criticism of Israel (the country) and straightforward racism towards Jewish people*. For some reason however, any criticism of Islam (a weird set of anti-democratic, anti-Western and anti-liberal beliefs) is immediately portrayed as straightforward racism merely masquerading as criticism of those beliefs, which it clearly isn't.

If it were, then those same racists would engage in Hinduism-phobia, Sikhism-phobia, Buddhism-phobia etc, which they clearly don't. Not even the EDL have been accused of those, the words don't even exist, let alone the actual -ism itself.

* Clearly, criticism of the actions of a country is always legitimate, whether correct or not, as is criticism of political, religious or other beliefs, whether correct or not. I spend a lot of time criticising what the UK government does and criticising Home-Owner-Ism, that doth not somehow make me racist, doth it?

Some people are a bit confused

From The Daily Mail:

Last April, federal prosecutors filed charges against two men suspected of spying on the opposition People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) on behalf of Iranian intelligence, Deutsche Welle reported.

The Paris-based MEK is an Islamist-Marxist-feminist militant group seeking to overthrow Iran's theocratic government. Iran has blamed the group for stirring up protests earlier this month in Iran.

I know what each of those four adjectives means, and I am sure there are plenty of groups which tick two of those boxes; if you drop "Islamist" then a group which ticks the other three is plausible; going for all four is a comedy sketch.

Life copies satire, or "a stopped clock is right twice a day"

From the BBC, 20 February 2017:

US President Donald Trump has sought to explain why he referred to a security incident in Sweden on Friday which did not actually happen.

Addressing a rally on Saturday, he had said, "look at what's happening last night in Sweden", as he listed parts of Europe hit by terrorist attacks. With no such incident reported in Sweden on Friday, the country asked the US administration for an explanation.

From the BBC, 9 April 2017:

Swedish police have confirmed they discovered a suspect device inside the lorry which was driven into a Stockholm department store on Friday. The device was found in the driver's seat, National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson said, but it was not known whether it was a bomb. Mr Eliasson also said the suspect in custody was from Uzbekistan, 39, and known to security services.

The hijacked lorry was driven into Ahlens department store in the capital. Four people were killed - 10 remain in hospital, including a child. Two are in intensive care.

Top euphemising by the French

Emailed in by MBK from The Times:

A teenage girl was killed and four people were seriously injured when a man drove a car on to the terrace of a pizza restaurant near Paris last night.

Police said that it was a deliberate act but they did not suspect terrorism, adding that they believed the man was under the influence of drugs…

The driver of the grey BMW, a 32-year-old French national, was arrested at the scene in Sept-Sorts, 40 miles east of Paris… He told police he had weapons in the car, according to the radio station RTL.

Eric de Valroger, deputy regional prosecutor, said it was “highly probable” the driver was on drugs and deliberately rammed the car into those at the restaurant.

UPDATE Surprise, surprise, it appears that the driver was just a complete arsehole, rather than one with religious motives.

There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything.

The right way

From a London Assembly press release:

Recommendations include:

• The Mayor must take a visible lead in tackling FGM. The delivery of the Police and Crime Plan must demonstrate this commitment and drive a multi-agency response to FGM.

• A pan-London campaign to raise awareness of the real dangers of FGM, signposting women and girls to the support they require.

• Communities affected by FGM should be engaged to raise awareness, strengthen community-based prevention work and provide training for professionals.

• The Mayor must support the provision of bespoke training for London’s frontline practitioners.

• Support should be given to the police, health, social care and education services, voluntary organisations and communities.

The wrong way

From Sky News:

Mandatory checks are already law in France, which has had far greater success prosecuting FGM cases. Although it has been illegal in the UK since 1987, there have been no successful prosecutions.

Ms Parker said: "All these measures to combat this despicable crime are already law in France, a country that has a far, far better record than us on FGM. Not only have they proven effective both in protecting girls in France from FGM, they also help provide essential evidence to mount prosecutions where FGM has taken place. It is time the United Kingdom caught up."