More on Joanne Cash
There are some stories that you know you shouldn’t be interested in, but which exercise the fascination of a car crash. I’m afraid the Joanne Cash saga is one of them. More details from James Forsyth here.
Torture? What Torture?
Call me an insensitive reactionary, but this hardly seems to be excessive in terms of interrogating a potential terrorist:
It was reported that at some stage during that further interview process by the United States authorities, BM had been intentionally subjected to continuous sleep deprivation. The effects of the sleep deprivation were carefully observed.
It was reported that combined with the sleep deprivation, threats and inducements were made to him. His fears of being removed from United States custody and ‘disappearing’ were played upon.
It was reported that the stress brought about by these deliberate tactics was increased by him being shackled in his interviews.
Sleep deprivation? Threats? Shackles? Not even any water-boarding.
If our security services were interrogating someone who possibly had information about a planned terrorist attack, I would most certainly hope that they would use these techniques if they found them to be effective.
Our Idiotic Police
From the Macclesfield Express, via Big Brother Watch:
Police are set to switch sides to warn you about home safety… by posing as burglars.
Residents could be dragged from their beds as late as 2am by police checking their windows and doors are locked in a new tactic to slash burglaries across Macclesfield.
And if the robber-cops find a way in, they won’t hesitate to hammer on the door until they wake you up, whatever the hour.
I’ve a good idea what I’d say if they got me up at 3pm, and it wouldn’t be ‘Thank you, officer’.
Unilever Threatens to Leave Britain
A predictable result of Labour profligacy, taxation, bureaucracy and hostility to wealth creation. Let’s hope that once the Tories get in they will do something to make Britain a much more business-friendly country.
Roger Helmer Defends the use of Lobbyists
David Cameron’s attack on lobbyists provokes a robust response from Roger Helmer:
Listening to lobbyists is a fundamental part of my work, and I make no apology for it. Let’s stop demonising them.
Lib Dems to Produce More Wind
There really is not too much more to add to that.
You can almost see the far-away, visionary cast in Nick Clegg’s eyes, as he imagines a future Utopia of a Great Britain infested with wind turbines:
New off-shore turbines, with blades the size of the London Eye, need to be built…
Quangocrats: Exterminate, Exterminate!
Paul Goodman outlines the best approach that a new Conservative Government can take to Labour-loving quangocrats.
Prime Minister’s Questions: Who to Believe?
I suppose it all depends upon your point of view:
I thought Gordon Brown was flailing all over the place at PMQs today, even having to resort to his ‘no time for a novice’ jibe. Cameron had him on the ropes on social care policy…It was a poor performance from the Prime Minister for the second week in a row, following a series of much more vigorous performances in January.
Or, James Macintyre:
There is no doubt that, objectively, Gordon Brown got the better of David Cameron at prime minister’s questions today, with a series of powerful put-downs against a Tory leader who sought to pick holes in the Government’s social care policy.
In the interests of true impartiality, why not watch it yourself and make up your own mind about our gloriously inept, deceitful and incompetent soon-to-be-ex leader.
Israel’s Difficulties
David Hazony on the difficulties faced by those who try to counter the lies and propaganda that come from the enemies of Israel:
Israel’s enemies have discovered a tremendously powerful insight into the human psyche: If you invent a false narrative and constantly flood the media with manufactured falsehoods to support it, especially if it is about a far-off land riddled with conflict, many people will accept the narrative no matter how many of its supporting claims are refuted. It is just far more convenient to believe it than to question it.
Environmentalism: RIP
The editors of National Review Online accurately sum up the characteristics of environmentalism:
Exaggeration and alarmism have been a chronic weakness of environmentalism since it became an organized movement in the 1960s. Every ecological problem was instantly transformed into a potential world-ending crisis, from the population bomb to the imminent resource depletion of the ‘limits to growth’ fad of the 1970s to acid rain to ozone depletion, always with an overlay of moral condemnation of anyone who dissented from environmental correctness. With global warming, the environmental movement thought it had hit the jackpot – a crisis sufficiently long-range that it could not be falsified and broad enough to justify massive political controls on resource use at a global level.
Let us hope that their conclusion proves to be true:
With the collapse of the Kyoto-Copenhagen process and the likely rejection of cap-and-trade in Congress, climate mania may have run its course.
