2009 February 11 « Talking Bollocks

Archive for February 11th, 2009

Feb

Drug Classification – Spinning the truth

Categories: Bollocks, Drugs and Politics
Tags: cocaine, David Nutt, don't trust adults, Drug Classification, Druge reclassification, Drugs, ecstasy, heroine, Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, sending the wrong message, spinning the truth, the establishment always lies about drugs

This morning I listened to the news on the BBC and heard Professor David Nutt say that the drug ecstasy should be downgraded from Class A to the less serious Class B as it was no where near as dangerous as other Class A drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Then I listened to a member of the current government say that this was outrageous and that this would send the wrong message to people.

“Send the wrong message” – Now what does that remind me of? Oh yes, “Spin”.

It seems to me that the Blair/Brown regime has built an edifice of bullshit by continually worrying about what “message” it is sending. It seems to me that if you have a grading scheme for drugs but place everything in the top category from fear of “sending the wrong message” you undermine the whole scheme.

Having encountered drugs as a teenager I well remember the obvious falsehoods and hysteria put out by “the establishment”. This misinformation directly contradicted our own experience and we quickly learned not to trust adult opinion on the subject.

When considering what message the government should be sending the government should simply tell the truth. Ah, but the truth. I don’t believe that Blair or Brown would recognise the truth if it stood up and kicked them in the teeth. Come to think of it the truth has kicked Brown in the teeth in the form of “No More Boom and Bust” ….oops!, ….the biggest bust since the Wall Street Crash. Yet he still hasn’t recognised it.

I guess that when it comes to the subject of drugs “the establishment” will always be TALKING BOLLOCKS.

Thanks to the BBC for the chart above and Wikipedia for the figures below.

Offence	Court	Class A	Class B	Class C
Possession	Magistrates	6 months / £5000 fine	3 months / £2500 fine	3 months / £500 fine
Possession	Crown	7 years / unlimited fine	5 years / unlimited fine	2 years / unlimited fine
Supply	Magistrates	6 months / £5000 fine	6 months / £5000 fine	3 months / £2000 fine
Supply	Crown	Life / unlimited fine	14 years / unlimited fine	14 years / unlimited fine

Feb

Israel degrades the concept of democracy

By jonesxxx Leave a Comment

Categories: Politics and religion
Tags: democracy, Gerald Kaufman, hamas, israel, Israeli election, israeli opression, israeli right wwing, jewish fundementalist, jewish suffering, palestine, palestinian suffering, thought experiment, two wrongs don't make a right

The Israeli election has been in the news today and the results are almost in. It seems that Kadima got the most votes, followed by Likud, followed by Israel Beiteinu followed by Labour and some other parties.

Israeli election results, 2009

As if Kadima and Likud were not right wing enough it seems that Israel Beiteinu want every Israeli “citizen” to take an oath of allegiance to Israel! Others want to expel Palestinians from Israel.

Well, we may not like it but they have right to vote for their own government don’t they?

Let’s try a thought experiment:

All the descendants of the persecuted Pilgrim Fathers return from the United States to the English East Midlands. They declare that this land was given to them by God and that Melton Mowbray is their undisputed capital. They fight with and expel most of the current inhabitants and manage to hold onto Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, and parts of Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire.

They declare this area to be their country but occupy the rest of the Eats Midlands and start planting fundamentalist Puritan settlers there in segregated enclaves defended by their troops.

They then hold elections but only let their Puritan Pilgrim Father descendants vote.

Is that democracy? Doesn’t sound like it to me.

I believe that the world looks the other way when it comes to Palestinian suffering because of the horrendous suffering of Jews during World War 2. perhaps this is understandable but it is not right. Jews did suffer terribly about 50 years ago, we can’t change that. But Palestinians are suffering now.

Past injustice perpetrated on Jews does not justify the acceptance of Jews as perpetrators of injustice.

Are Jews around the world really going to continue their uncritical support for a country which starts expelling people because of their religion or ethnicity?

The following video has British Labour MP Gerald Kaufman’s take on events: