The apalling bird cage liner that is The Independent, has published a scandalous and purely evil hit piece against Home Schooling:

Across Britain, children are half-gleeful and half-groaning as they finally head back to school. But amidst the bustle of the school-run, there are tens of thousands of forgotten children who aren’t going anywhere. They are being denied an education – and set up to fail for life. The children left outside the school gates fall into four quite different groups – and each one is a scandal.

The Untaught One: the “home schooled.” Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to send your kids to school in Britain. If you decide to keep you child indoors and uneducated, you don’t have to inform the local authority – and nobody will come looking. As a result, we have no idea how many children are kept at home. Nobody is counting. But the current estimate is 50,000. Of course, some of these kids are well-taught – but there is disturbing evidence they are a minority.

This is a lie. Everyone who knows anything about Home Schooling knows this is a lie. Perhaps this human pig hybrid thinks that only people who are ‘educated’ in the way he was are ‘well educated’. Perhaps the frankenstein that gave birth to him can provide him with some pig human hybrid children so that he can show Home Schoolers all over the world exactly how to do it. Home Schoolers are not being denied an education, they are not forgotten and they are certainly not being set up to fail for life. Whatever that means.

When the investigative journalist Rob Blackhurst journeyed into the world of British home-schooling, he discovered 12-year-old children who had not been taught to read. The most detailed survey of British parents teaching their kids at home found that 50 per cent don’t believe in teaching literacy to eight-year-olds. This leaves Britain with a weirdly divided school system. The majority of kids are constantly cooking on the SAT-grill, endlessly tested and Ofsted-ed – while this minority are totally unwatched.

Just because Rob Blackhurst finds 12 year olds that cannot read it does not follow that Home Schooling doesn’t work or is not appropriate. Were those children dyslexic, or in some other way incapable of reading? Perhaps they did not want to read? Who knows? Either way, there are children coming out of schools who are illiterate; does this mean that schools should be abandoned? Of course not, but junk journalists like this swine do not work on logic or the facts.

The only thing that matters in education, wherever or however it takes place, is whether or not the outcome is suitable for the child, and only the parents can determine this, not some beast man or Aparatchick from a Local Authority.

It is not at all weird that there are different types of education going on in a single country. Of course, idiots like this ‘journalist’ believe that there should be one system, one way and a totally uniform culture. There is a word for this. It is a nasty word, a fighting word, and it is as ugly as this article is wrongheaded.

This means children can even disappear. Seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, who was found starved to death in her home in Birmingham earlier this year, had been withdrawn from the school system to be “home-schooled”. For precisely this reason, home-schooling is illegal in Germany.

This is another set of lies. Firstly this girl Khyra Ishaq was not a ‘Home Schooled child’ in any meaningful sense of that phrase. Her parents were not Home Schoolers. and conflating Home Schooling with this tragedy is completely absurd.

These people are nothing to do with Home Schooling whatsoever; they are freaks and anomalies and invoking them to smear Home Schoolers is the lowest form of bastardy imaginable. The millions of Home Schoolers world wide are uniformly decent. And even if there are some bad apples amongst them, all of them should not be persecuted because of that statistically insignificant minority.

Home Schooling is not banned in Germany for this reason, you ungoogling ignoramus. Home Schooling is banned in Germany because that is a fascist country, in the same way that you are a fascist. The laws banning Home Schooling date from the Nazi era, and are still on the statute books in that sad and awful country. Even the UN says that the anti Home Schooling laws there are indefensible. The stated reasons why Home Schooling is banned in Germany are:

But the court’s ruling said, instead, that schools represent society, and “it was in the children’s interest to become part of that society … The parents’ right to education did not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience.”

Government officials repeatedly have expressed a determination to stamp out “parallel societies” and that includes homeschooling. An American family of Baptist missionaries reports being threatened with deportation for homeschool, and a teenager, Melissa Busekros, eventually was returned to her family months after German authorities took her from her home and forcibly detained her in a psychiatric facility for being homeschooled.

“Even the United Nations has called on Germany to reform the way it treats homeschoolers. We appeal to the German people and German leadership to do what is right and to protect rather than attack families who choose to homeschool their children,” the HSDLA has noted.

[…]

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=935

So once again, this control addict pig journalist is lying through his teeth.

The HSLDA responds nicely to the German government’s argument:

To say that “the community has a justifiable interest” to “counteract the establishment of religious or other parallel societies motivated by a worldview, and to integrate minorities in this area” is not a legal justification, but is actually a purely political declaration. The politicization of the judiciary is a well-known hallmark of dictatorship. This is completely incompatible with a constitutional state. Also, this leaves aside the point that no verifiable evidence has been found to show that homeschooling in any country in the world has ever lead to a parallel society. In many large German societies such parallel societies thrive in spite of existing compulsory education.

[…]

http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/200806190.asp

The law here needs to be altered so local authorities regularly interview home-schooled kids. If they aren’t being properly taught, they should be required to enter the normal school system immediately.

[…]

The insufferably bad Independent

No, pig-man, the law does NOT need to be altered. Home Schooling is exploding and the children coming out of it are outperforming the human cattle like you who were blasted through squeeze chutes like the animal that you are.

People like you, childless busybody monsters, have no business telling any parent how to do anything. If you want to live in a society where people are completely controlled, you should go and live in a country like Saudi Arabia or Germany, where your views are shared by everyone.

WTF…YHBT!!!!11111

This article HAS to be a troll. It is just too over the top, too insane, too irrational, too stupid; no one could possibly be this thick, this uninformed, this backward. What sort of person talks about ‘normal schools’ and children being ‘properly taught’? Firstly, it is a person who refers to children as ‘kids’. Secondly, it is probably someone who does not have children. Thirdly, it is someone who is woefully ignorant.

The real reason this piece of trash is frightened of Home Schooling is not that some of them do not meet his high standards, but that so many of them EXCEED and OUTPERFORM the people who come out of ‘normal school’, creating a massive superclass of people who will snap up all the best University places and jobs.

This must be the real reason, because his flawed logic is so flawed, it begs a better explanation.

The comments on this article say it all:

I would like to point out that the 50,000 or so home educated children in Britian are the lucky ones. They are not constantly under the stress of endless tests. They are not ridiculed if learning to read does not come naturally to them at the statutory age of five. They learn from the start more like University students so that Higher Education is a breeze for them. They are not bullied by jealous classmates if they are bright. They can pursue interests such as horse riding or athletics. They make movies, they paint, they draw, they dance, they go to the beach when it is quiet, they have friends of all ages and from all social backgrounds. In short, they are a lot happier than the unfortunate children who are shut inside a huge, impersonal, and dreary comprehensive for increasingly long hours every day.

“home schooled’ = untaught?

Huh?

Doesn’t The Independent have any editors?

12 years in the home-education community and I don’t recognise any of the nonsense written here.

Do some proper research next time and we won’t laugh at you.

The law doesn’t state that every child should go to school – the law states that every child should recieve an education, which is an entirely different thing. The law doesn’t state that children must be taught to read or by what age, which is lucky for many schools. If they were truly held to account for every illiterate or innumerate 16-year-old they would have been closed down by now (and incidentally, being unable to read at 12 doesn’t mean being unable to read by 16). […]

What a TERRIBLE article. As a mum who is homeschooling my oldest 2 I find the first 4 paragraphs highly offensive. We have been homeschooling for 1 year, a decision not made lightly. We have had 1 visit from the LEA & in 6 months my children were “a year ahead”. We attend a home ed group & I can honestly say that NONE of the parents, some 13 + families, have the ideas discussed in these paragraphs, many children are further advanced than their peers in school. They are getting one to one teaching how could they fail to do well? […]

As a home educator for many years to three children who have special educational needs, I shall treat this article with the contempt it deserves.
Mr Hari, your comments are bias, ill informed, derisory and frankly lack any credibility […]

This is a disgracefully ignorant article, which supposes that all children in schools are receiving a good education. What about the programme “Last Chance Kids”, screened on Channel 4 the other night, which revealed the large numbers of children leaving primary school unable to read? They are hardly being given the education they deserve. […]

You have mixed the problems of badly behaved children, expulsions and abductions with the brave people who decide to take on home schooling.
Let’s look at the problems of bad behaviour that you mention. As you point out this bad behviour has led to expulsion. What is the cause of the bad bevahiour and why was it not addressed before the expulsion? This has nothing to do with school or home education. The fact is that today parents are no longer accountable for the behaviour of their children, nor is there an incentive for them to make sure they are well behaved. It’s the parents of badly behaved children who should be punished; these children need help – from their parents!
If more parents took their responsibilities as seriously as home-schoolers the world would be a better place for it!
Institutionalized education without choice is socialism – and today’s economic environment is proof enough that the country has had enough of that.

Outrageous and irresponsible reporting.

What an ignorant article. I’m sure that some children do slip through the net, but there are also a huge number of SEN children who also slip through the Local Authority net, as the LA are unable to or refuse to provide adequately for them. […]

Perhaps Kyra Ishaq would have been better off at school. Soham School, maybe, where she could have made friends with the lovely caretaker? Come off it! A criminal is a criminal.
Such prejudiced, distorted twaddle is not worthy of a supposedly serious newspaper. […]

What cobblers, as for quoting journalist Rob Blackhurst, I think you should really check again!

Home schoolers have a broader education than those poor children that have to sit in the unhealthy enviroment you calll a class room. […]

To be “educated” means to be “knowledgeable” “well-informed” “well-read” – clearly Mr Hari is none of these things as he would not write such an ill-informed and poorly researched paragraph about home education. Education in itself does not mean school and, sadly, school does not mean education. As a teacher I see far too many children who are failed by the school system. As a home educator I am proud to see my child thrive in the education my husband and I provide her that she would not be afforded at school. […]

Yet another negative article about home education, written by someone who knows nothing about it. […]

What an absolute load of tosh! I would expect far better from The Independent. Mr Hari needs to get his facts right. HE in Germany is not illegal for those reasons, this is legislation left over from the days of Nazi Germany. […]

Ignorant and sensationalist. Is this what passes for quality journalism here? […]

Home education was outlawed in Germany by the Nazis to ensure that all children were indoctrinated by Nazi propaganda in school.

Never did I think we’d be condoning such behaviour in this country. […]

How dare you try and associate home educated children with these other two criminally neglectful acts. You obviously don’t know what you are talking about. Maybe you were taught at a school? […]

Looks like this troll pushed all the right buttons!

As Home Schooling continues to grow and suceeed, people creatures like Pig-Man Johann will slither back under the rocks that they were born from, mainly because he will be employed by Home Schoolers who would never allow such an ill researched article go to print.

And finally from this scumbag’s own website, a list of people who hate him:

Since he began work as a journalist, Johann has been attacked in print by the National Review, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, John Pilger, Daniel Craig, Peter Oborne, Private Eye, the Socialist Worker, Cristina Odone, Jon Gaunt, the Spectator, Andrew Neil, Mark Steyn, the British National Party, Medialens, al Muhajaroun and Richard Littlejohn. ‘Prince’ Turki Al-Faisal, the Saudi Ambassador to Britain, has accused Johann of “waging a private jihad against the House of Saud”. (He’s right). Johann has been called ‘Maoist’ by Nick Cohen, “Stalinist” by Noam Chomsky, ‘Horrible Hari’ by Niall Ferguson, “an uppity little queer” by Bruce Anderson, ‘a drug addict’ by George Galloway, “fat” by the Dalai Lama and “a cunt” by Busted.

See this disgusting blob of flesh in motion.

How can I not add myself to this list of most(ly) honorable people?

This ladyboy, this motherfucking, pinko, commie, Fascist, son of a bitch, lard ass loser, chinless wonder, subhuman garbage is nothing but a ass an idiot a jackass a mooncalf a moron a nincompoop a ninny a nitwit a simpleton a softhead and a shit, and a perfect argument for abortion.

The Germans do not like ‘Der Google’:

The Federal Office for Information Security warned Internet users of the new browser Chrome. The application by the company Google should not be used for surfing the Internet, as a spokesperson for the office told the Berliner Zeitung. It was said to be problematic that Chrome was distributed as an unfinished advance version. Furthermore it was said to be risky that user data is hoarded with a single vendor. With its search engine, email program and the new browser, Google now covers all important areas on the Internet.

This is so absurd its laughable, and I would laugh if it wasn’t so serious.

These idiots are warning Germans not to use Chrome to surf the internet (wtf else is it for?) because it is unfinished. Guess what you morons: all software is unfinished by nature. It remains unfinished because:

• users expectations are not static
• operating systems are not static
• competition is not static
• security issues are not static

Anyone with experience in software will be aware of this, and certainly anyone who calls themselves an expert will know this. Perhaps that is why a government agency has come out with such a completely stupid statement.

Finally, they shoot themselves in the foot with the final part of this farcical bullshit.

If it is ‘risky that user data is hoarded with a single vendor’, then it is also risky that user data, citizen data, is hoarded by a single vendor: THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT.

OR ANY GOVERNMENT for that matter.

Certainly, no government that can put out a statement like this should be trusted with an empty USB key, let alone the private data of millions of Germans, since they are obviously computer illiterate. Can you imagine these same people in charge of all ID card data, all passport data, medical data, and all other private data to do with the German people? It is unthinkable, even without knowing how stupid and incompetent they are.

As for Google covering all important areas of teh internetz, this is just total nonsense. You can choose any number of other services for search, email and everything else. You can sign up for Google services under any name that you like, multiple times. You can encrypt the data you store on Google’s servers so they they cannot read it. You can delete your account at any time. Google Chrome is even beginning to address the coming privacy backlash by having a primitive private browsing mode built into Chrome.

Compare this with the German Government:

• COMPULSORY ID card
• COMPULSORY school
• COMPULSORY single identity
• COMPULSORY single vendor
• NO LIABILITY if they destroy your life accidentally through negligence
• NO COMPENSATION if they destroy your life

and if you disobey them, they DESTROY YOUR LIFE with police and financial ruin.

In every way, even if Google were as evil as Micro$oft, any sensible person would choose to have their identity and all the services listed above handled by Google rather than the German government. With Google you are a customer, not a servant, and of course, Google doesn’t tax you.

In any case, what are the risks this spokesperson talks of? Its the German government that is snooping into people’s emails, not Google; surely he should be FOR Google taking everything to make his STASIesque job easier. Remember, this is the same criminal German government that conspired and had stolen to order the details of bank accounts from a sovereign country; a criminal act of international espionage and base theft of the kind that ‘organized crime’ does:

One German politician is unapologetic, and deserves credit for at least stating the matter bluntly: “[That this was illegal] is irrelevant. What Germany will do is confront every tax suspect with the option of whether they want to drop their trousers and cooperate or possibly go to jail.”

These people are bastards. They are also illogical. There are no two ways about it. What makes it worse is that they are illogical bastards, dirty criminals, liars and thieves.

Down wiv school: children are best educated at home
This week need not be back-to-school week. Parents as well as their kids can benefit from home education

It is back-to-school this week. All over the country, stressed parents made last-minute dashes to the shops to force children to try on clumpy school shoes. Then they got up early, hurried their children into cars or on to buses, got stuck in jams, arrived later than intended and said a rushed goodbye. Then they found that the children had gone. Relief may have been mixed with melancholy, loss and a hope that the children were all right behind those high windows, told what to do by strangers.

The return to school is a well-established part of the journey of life. It seems normal, right and inevitable. But actually it is none of these things. Yes, it is normal in the early 21st century. But if modern civilisation started about 10,000 years ago, this way of treating children has been “normal” only for the last 2 per cent of the time. It is a new, artificial construct designed to provide education at low cost. It certainly was not created to provide a pleasant or socialising experience for children.

Schools are not clearly “right”, either. People tend to think that what everyone does and what they themselves experienced must be right. But there is nothing obviously ideal about delivering your children to other people who do not love them as you do, and who are likely to teach them things with which you may disagree. And sending children to school is not inevitable. Under the law, children must be educated. But they do not have to be educated at a school. There is another way.

Home education is not for everyone – not even a large minority. It is a luxury in most cases. The parent who becomes a home teacher earns no money. There have to be savings, or partners, husbands or wives must be willing to pay the bills. But lots of well-educated wives do not work and could save money by home educating. For those who can find a way, home-educating is a glorious, liberating, empowering, profoundly fulfilling thing to do. Far more people should try it. At present it is estimated that about 50,000 children are taught this way. The number has jumped from a decade ago but is still very few compared with America.

I have just finished two years of teaching my younger daughter, Alex, now 11. We have become very close. Many fathers see their children at supper time and a bit more at weekends. Alex and I were with each other all day, every weekday, in all sorts of places and circumstances. We knew and shared thoughts, ideas and feelings. I believe the closeness that we developed will benefit our relationship for the rest of our lives.

We had enjoyable educational trips to France, Italy and China. Instead of learning about the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius from a text book, Alex and I climbed up to the rim and peered into the still-smoking crater. We visited Pompeii and Oplontis to see the parts of Roman civilisation that had been preserved by the most famous of its eruptions.

One of the beauties of home education is that you can teach children things that you want them to know – some of which are not taught in most schools. I wanted Alex to know something of the origin of the Universe, and astronomy. We studied far more history than schools do, including overviews of Rome, China and Britain. We looked at the Second World War, using DVDs of the superb Channel 4 series on it. We started learning Italian. But all parents would have different ideas of what they want their children to know. You can go for whatever you think important. This is freedom, thrilling freedom. You don’t have to teach just what some civil servant in Whitehall has lighted upon and stuck in the national curriculum.

[…]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4677730.ece

A deceptive and unfortunate title (remember the wall-mart sold t-shirts that were removed because they disparaged Home Schoolers?) but I digress.

This is a brilliant article, written by James Bartholomew who authored a book ‘The Welfare State We’re In’ that was praised by Milton Friedman.

Its about time an article like this was printed in a national newspaper, and we can expect more I am sure, as the truth about Home Schooling spreads organically through the mass. Yes, ‘the mass‘.

And as we can read from some of the many comments on this article:

Hope that the homeschoolers will begin to withold the part of the Council tax and Government taxes that go into social engineering and dumbed down twaddle that passes for curriculum content in those holding pens of misery called schools.
chris, Dorchester, England

It is a little scary to think that every child in this country is taught exactly the same thing by the powers that be; education or indoctrination of government approved ideologies?

Children become adults by learning and socialising with adullts: parents and family. Not insecure teenagers!
Nathan, Cambridge, UK

It has already started!

Sonny Scott

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo, Ms.

You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.

It’s a big family by today’s standards – “just like stair steps,” as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair and girls with braids, in clean but unfashionable clothes follow mom through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.

There’s no begging for gimcracks, no fretting, and no threats from mom. The older watch the younger, freeing mom to go peacefully about her task.

You are looking at some of the estimated 2 million children being home schooled in the U.S., and the number is growing. Their reputation for academic achievement has caused colleges to begin aggressively recruiting them. Savings to the taxpayers in instructional costs are conservatively estimated at $4 billion, and some place the figure as high as $9 billion. When you consider that these families pay taxes to support public schools, but demand nothing from them, it seems quite a deal for the public.

Home schooling parents are usually better educated than the norm, and are more likely to attend worship services. Their motives are many and varied. Some fear contagion from the anti-clericalism, coarse speech, suggestive behavior and hedonistic values that characterize secular schools. Others are concerned for their children’s safety. Some want their children to be challenged beyond the minimal competencies of the public schools. Concern for a theistic world view largely permeates the movement.

Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids, and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in California.

Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much?

Methinks American middle-class people are uncomfortable around the homeschooled for the same reason the alcoholic is uneasy around the teetotaler.

Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render unto Caesar the things that Caesar’s be, but they draw the line at their children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state (and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in return.

Just as the jealous Chaldeans schemed to bring the wrath of the king upon the Hebrew eunuchs, we are happy to sic the state’s bureaucrats on these “trouble makers.” Their implicit rejection of America’s most venerated idol, Materialism, (a.k.a. “Individualism”) spurs us to heat the furnace and feed the lions.

Young families must make the decision: Will junior go to day care and day school, or will mom stay home and raise him? The rationalizations begin. “A family just can’t make it on one income.” (Our parents did.) “It just costs so much to raise a child nowadays.” (Yeah, if you buy brand-name clothing, pre-prepared food, join every club and activity, and spend half the cost of a house on the daughter’s wedding, it does.) And so, the decision is made. We give up the bulk of our waking hours with our children, as well as the formation of their minds, philosophies, and attitudes, to strangers. We compensate by getting a boat to take them to the river, a van to carry them to Little League, a 2,800-square-foot house, an ATV, a zero-turn Cub Cadet, and a fund to finance a brand-name college education. And most significantly, we claim “our right” to pursue a career for our own “self-fulfillment.”

Deep down, however, we know that our generation has eaten its seed corn. We lack the discipline and the vision to deny ourselves in the hope of something enduring and worthy for our posterity. We are tired from working extra jobs, and the looming depression threatens our 401k’s. Credit cards are nearly maxed, and it costs a $100 to fuel the Suburban.

Now the kid is raising h… again, demanding the latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work … and there goes that modest young woman in the home-made dress with her four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow. Wouldn’t you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug face?

Is it any wonder we hate her so?

[…]

http://www.djournal.com/pages/default.asp

And this of course, is why the people at the TES, The Guardian and irrational talking heads like Professor Alan Smithers and all the other imbeciles, child hating teachers and other ignorant, absurd, family hating, liberty destroying anti-education zombies hate home schooling and home schoolers.

They hate our freedom.

They hate anyone that has the freedom they do not have, the success they do not have and the relationships they do not have and are incapable of fostering. Instead of learning from people who are better than they are and who live better lives than they do, and changing their own lives, they want to destroy anyone that does not mindlessly suffer as they do. They hate the fact that the reward for choosing non-conformity is a fast track into university. They hate the fact that home schoolers appear to have their cake and eat it…and not get fat children. They are frightened of difference. They are the same people who were for segregation and every other artificial social barrier enshrined in the law. They are the same people who were for Apartheid, Jim Crow and all those other, nasty, inhuman laws.

Yes indeed, these home school haters are everywhere. You know the type:

• They are officious whilst not having any official capacity.
• They speak with a loud, authoritative voice that leaves no space for rebuttal.
• They have no imagination, no idea of what liberty is and hate all that is not conforming.
• They always say, “but what would happen if……” thinking that only bad things can happen outside of the ‘norm’.
• They don’t know any history, and never look for it before they open their mouths.
• They are creatures of pure bitterness and are driven by pure jealousy.

I pity them as much as I despise them; as much as they hate the home schooler and the world view that they come from.

Home schooling is growing at a fantastic rate. In the end, it will seem as ordinary as rain.

In the meantime, we will have to contend with many ill considered articles written by ignorant self hating pigs. Thankfully, the internets make it possible for each of these articles to be instantly rebutted and shot down. The internets make it possible for home schoolers to connect with one another creating an impenetrable shield of truth that no lying education correspondent can cut through; home schoolers will never be alone, isolated and ripe for attack.

The retards amongst you will require a disclaimer.

If you choose to work and send your child to school are you a bad parent? Does it indicate that you do not love your child as much as a home schooling parent does? Of course not. Sending your child to school is your absolute right, and no one has the right to say to you that you are doing the wrong thing, and you should do what someone else is doing.

That is the difference between US and THEM; WE accept that it is a parent’s right to bring up their children in any way that they see fit, no matter what anyone thinks. THEY believe that there is only ONE good and proper way to rear a child, and that way is THEIR way, and all people who do not accept this must be made to conform to THEIR way of thinking and doing.

We are better than them®

And that is a FACT.

Would you like to know more?

A flagship database intended to protect every child in the country will be used by police to hunt for evidence of crime in a “shocking” extension of its original purpose, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

ContactPoint will include the names, ages and addresses of all 11 million under-18s in England as well as information on their parents, GPs, schools and support services such as social workers.

The £224 million computer system was announced in the wake of the death of Victoria Climbié, who was abused and then murdered after a string of missed opportunities to intervene by the authorities, as a way to connect the different services dealing with children.

It has always been portrayed as a way for professionals to find out which other agencies are working with a particular child, to make their work easier and provide a better service for young people.

However, it has now emerged that police officers, council staff, head teachers, doctors and care workers will use the records to search for evidence of criminality and wrongdoing to help them launch prosecutions against those on the database – even long after they have reached adulthood.

It comes amid growing concern about the increasing criminalisation of Britain’s youth and the extent of the country’s surveillance society.

Only this week a report warned that teenagers were being dragged into the criminal justice system rather than being given an old-fashioned “ticking-off”, while it has also been disclosed that the DNA profiles of almost 40,000 innocent children are now being kept on the national database.

An estimated 330,000 people will have access to the data stored on ContactPoint, which is due to launch this autumn despite fears the Government’s poor record on data security will mean it puts children at risk from paedophiles.

The records will be updated until children turn 18 then kept in an archive for six years before being destroyed, meaning they can be accessed until a young person reaches 24. Those who have learning difficulties or who are in care will remain on the live system until they turn 25, so their archived records will be available into their 30s.

Little-noticed guidance published by the Government discloses that ContactPoint users can request administrators to give them archived data for a number of reasons, including “for the prevention or detection of crime” and “for the prosecution of offenders”.

The disclosure has led civil liberties campaigners to warn the entire database will be open for investigators to trawl for evidence that links young people to crime or anti-social behaviour.

ContactPoint will not include detailed case information on children, but will record if they have contact with a Youth Offending Team or “sensitive services” such as drug abuse workers, which critics say will mean it is obvious which young people have criminal records.

Investigators opening a ContactPoint file would be able to see at a glance where they had lived throughout their childhood, where they had gone to school, what contact they had with social services and who their parents or carers were, and use the information to link them to known gangs or areas of criminal or anti-social activity.

Baroness Miller, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman in the House of Lords, said: “This is truly shocking. It’s exactly the definition of a police state. The police will have the details of a whole generation for so-called crime prevention.

“It raises a lot of issues and we haven’t had a debate in Parliament about it.”

The proposed use of ContactPoint to collect evidence will raise further fears about the extent to which citizens are being spied on by the state.

Britain has more CCTV cameras than any other country, and its local authorities are increasingly using powers designed to prevent terrorism to spy on people suspected of petty crimes such as littering and failing to pick up dog mess. Ministers are also pressing ahead with a £20 billion scheme to issue all UK residents over the age of 16 with ID cards.

The launch of ContactPoint was delayed following the loss of data discs containing 25 million child benefit records by HM Revenue & Customs last year. A review of its security – which the Government refused to publish in full – found the risk of a data breach could never be eliminated.

Because of fears that certain children, including those of MPs and celebrities as well as abuse victims, will be at particular risk, a “shield function” has been created within ContactPoint to hide their addresses.

However, the new guidance states that this can be overridden if police or social workers deem it an emergency. One of the stated reasons why this may be carried out is “an investigation of a crime toward or by the child”, in a further confirmation of the intended uses of the database.

Prof Ross Anderson, an expert in security at Cambridge University, said: “This is yet another revelation about the database state that is shocking but not surprising.

“The police have always been able to look into whatever they want, but the information age changes the scale of that completely.”

Phil Booth, national co-ordinator for the civil liberties campaign group No2ID, added: “Parents should know that this is not for the protection of their children, it could be used to prosecute them. This is a serious step on from what little has been told to the public.”

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families insisted: “The purpose of ContactPoint is not crime detection, it is to help improve services to children, including safeguarding vulnerable children.

“To access ContactPoint for the purposes of prevention or detection of crime or for the prosecution of offenders, police would have to make a special request directly to the Secretary of State or Local Authority and make a case for disclosure.”

ContactPoint will be put into use by 17 councils in the North West in October and then rolled out across the country.

[…]

Telegraph

You were warned.

“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends… …when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object.” Isabel Paterson ‘The God of the Machine’

There is a new consultation, hot on the heels of the last one outlining the proposed guidelines for Local Authorities who have a ‘…a new duty to establish the identities of children missing education.’

Everything that could be wrong, is wrong with this. Lets pull it apart section by section:

1.1.1 There is wide agreement about the outcomes we all want for every child – they should be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic wellbeing.

That is completely wrong. There is no ‘wide agreement about the outcomes that we want for every child’. That is why millions of families are home educating. There is no ‘we’ in all of this. Each family is separate, and there is no collective ownership of children. Any normal parent wants their child to, “be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve”. The shape that that takes is up to each family, and has nothing to do with and cannot be defined by the state.

None of this is negotiable.

The same goes for ‘economic well-being’ this is not something that can be defined by the state, especially when it concerns future economic well-being. And for an idea of what a country looks like where everyone has a degree, just look at third world countries where there are so many people with them that many of them are bus conductors. No parent wants their child to be a bus conductor, and yet, if everyone in the country achieved a university degree, would not this eventually be the case? But I digress.

1.1.3 The guidance in this document aims to help Local Authorities (LAs) to effectively implement the duty to identify children not receiving a suitable education. […]

Everything in this document (except the database references) would be acceptable if all mention of home education was removed. Home education is not relevant to this in any way, and if this document was designed to guide Local Authorities for all cases of bad children or children at risk (which home educated children are not a subset of) then it would be fairly innocuous. Sadly, the imbeciles who authored this are clearly against home education and have, from the outset, wanted to create a system of organized harassment to suppress home education in the UK.

As I have said before, no one in a Local Authority has the right to tell a parent what is or is not ‘suitable education’ anyone with even a single brain cell can see that this is the case. A parent may want their children educated and nurtured in their culture and religion; no Local Authority Apparatchik has the right to come into your house and tell you that your child must receive facts deemed by the state to be necessary to life. The very idea should be anathema to all decent people.

1.1.4 Children not receiving a suitable education are clearly at risk of a range of negative outcomes that could have long term damaging consequences for their life chances. For example they are at risk of not attaining the skills and qualifications they need to succeed in life, and are at significant risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) once they have reached the compulsory school leaving age. They are also are more likely to be vulnerable in one way or another. They may be from disadvantaged families, (experiencing multiple risks such as poverty, substance misuse, mental ill-health and poor housing), travelling communities, immigrant families, be unaccompanied asylum seeking or trafficked children, or be at risk of neglect or abuse or disengaged from education.

The schools that the state runs produce negative outcomes that have long term damaging consequences for the life chances of British children. That is why so many people choose to home educate. Many state educated children do not attain the skills and qualifications they need to succeed in life. The system is so bad that they have to reduce the difficulty of exams so that these educationally impoverished children have a chance of getting a ‘passing’ grade. This is why universities and commercial enterprises have to set their own exams to see who can do what after 100 candidates all with 5 grade ‘A’ A-Levels come to interview but none of them can spell.

Disadvantaged families, families in poverty, substance abusers, mental health cases, travelers, immigrant families, asylum seekers, trafficked children – none of these categories have anything whatsoever to do with home educated children, and it is illogical and offensive to mention them in the same breath as the unfortunates in that list. The Local Authorities already have many duties related to these groups. They cannot run the schools they are already tasked with organizing. New Labour ministers avoid them like the plague; what is it that they fear so much about home educators that they must lump them in with these trouble cases?

This is a direct attack on a philosophical difference that home educators have with the collectivists in New Labour. New Labour does not want any child left behind…from the indoctrination and brainwashing that creates mindless drones who will believe anything that they are told, who cannot think at all, never mind think for themselves. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’; look at the results of the schools they have been running. They produced a generation of people capable of enjoying ‘Lad Mags’, an epidemic of binge alcoholism, feral street children and decent people fleeing their ‘education’ system.

1.1.5 Local authorities, through their Children’s Trust, must have robust measures in place both to identify quickly when a child is not receiving a suitable education, and to follow through with effective tracking and enquiry systems. These measures should be at the heart of the local strategies for preventing negative outcomes for children and young people, and ensuring their safety and well-being.

The best way to ensure that children do not have ‘negative outcomes’ is to make the schools that they attend good enough to achieve these results. When they are able to make the schools perform properly, the incentive to home educate will be eliminated, and the only people left doing it will be those with children who have special needs. Until they have done this, they do not have a leg to stand on on this front, quite apart from the moral aspect of a parent’s right to educate and nurture their children in whatever way they see fit.

1.2.1 This document is issued under the section 436A (inserted before section 437 in Chapter 2, Part 6 of the Education Act 1996 (school attendance) by the Education and Inspections Act 2006), which provides that local authorities must have regard to statutory guidance issued by the Secretary of State. This document provides that statutory guidance and applies to England only. Local authorities in England must take this guidance into account and, if they decide to depart from it, have clear reasons for doing so.

My emphasis.

What this means is what I asserted before. These guidelines are not new law, they are guidelines, and as such, you are free to ignore them, just as the Local Authorities are free to ignore them.

1.2.2 This document is a revised version of original statutory guidance issued in February 2007, updated to place implementation of the duty in the revised strategic context following on from publication of the Children’s Plan (December 2007); to reflect priorities that emerged since the original version was published; and to reflect local authorities’ initial experience of implementing the duty.

Translation: “We could not have possibly put all of this in the original guidelines, otherwise there might have been a rebellion.”

1.2.3 Section 436A requires all local authorities to make arrangements to enable them to establish (so far as it is possible to do so) the identities of children residing in their area who are not receiving a suitable education. In relation to children, by ‘suitable education’ we mean efficient full-time education suitable to her/his age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs the child may have.

And here is the true purpose of this entire exercise.

This is the way they are going to get every child in England into and justify the existence of ContactPoint.

Quite apart from that, this section is absurd on its face. It is not the place of the state to determine what is or is not a suitable education. It is not the place of the state to say what is or is not an efficient education, and neither is it their place to mandate full-time education.

1.2.4 The duty applies in relation to children of compulsory school age who are not on a school roll, and who are not receiving a suitable education otherwise than being at school, for example, at home, privately, or in alternative provision.

The goal of these guidelines is to create a way to sweep up all the home educating children in the UK, identify them, categorize them and put them on a database, together with the names of their parents, siblings, ethnicity and other details. See below. Once again, children who are being educated at home, privately, or in alternative provision should not be subject to being identified for this purpose, since they are being eductated quite legally. Are they going to go to all the private schools in the UK and ask for their student registers? If the Local Authority has a duty to identify every child who is not on a school roll, how are they to know which ones are being home educated and which are in private schools? The only way to know would be to collect in a database, a list of all children who are in any type of school and then the numbers that are left are ‘at risk’, and lo and behold, further in the report, we have:

Access to rolls for all providers
6.19 When the named person(s) receive notification about a child believed to be in their area it may be necessary to check the child’s name and other details, if available, against all alternative provision rolls in the local area held by the local authority and schools to see if they are already registered. One way to achieve this is to have all names of school-aged children kept on a central database which is frequently updated and can be checked by the staff members who require access. (This is not a requirement to set up new IT systems for children not receiving education. See paragraph 6.37 for suggestions for utilising existing databases).

6.20 Another way to check a child’s name and other details would be via communication links with all educational providers: this includes all schools; Pupil Referral Units; custodial institutions and other providers of alternative provision (local authorities and schools should establish a contractual agreement that providers of alternative provision will keep a register to check if the child is registered with them.

God help you if your child has the same name as another child who is a bad egg deep in the system. All it will take is for one of these Apparatchiks to misidentify you and your life will be turned into a living hell. If you let them.

They are actually saying that PRIVATE schools must turn over the rolls of their students to the Local Authority. It simply beggars belief, but it is totally logical; they want EVERY CHILD IN THE DATABASE, and being able to afford private education is not going to be an exception.

1.2.5 In order to help local authorities achieve consistency in how they share information in order to meet this duty, this version of the guidance includes, at Appendix 1, a workbook that provides standard data definitions. The data definitions were produced taking into account the views of local authorities based on their experience of implementing the duty since its introduction in February 2007.

This is unacceptable. Period.

1.2.7 Local authorities have a duty to make arrangements to enable them to establish whether a child who is being educated at home (under section 7 of the Education Act 1997) is not receiving suitable education.

This is perhaps the worst part of all, and it is something we have covered at length. No public servant has the right or the ability to say what is or is not a suitable education, and by including this in the guidelines, they are opening the door for widespread harassment and abuse. Once again, for many parents the lack of provision of a suitable education by the Local Authority is the very reason why parents are opting to home educate. It is completely absurd that they should now be given guidelines that say they should pass judgement on families when they are manifestly incapable of providing themselves what they are looking for in a home educator.

What this boils down to is mandatory inspection. And if you do not measure up, you can be compelled to send your child to receive an inferior education.

1.2.8 ContactPoint, to be implemented across England by mid 2009, will help local authorities discharge the duty by recording the place where a child is being educated, where that is known. Where it is known that a child is being educated at home, that would also be recorded. This will enable local authorities to focus their efforts on identifying children who are not receiving education, and putting in place the necessary support. ContactPoint will also show whether a Common Assessment Framework has been undertaken with a child, and whether the child has a ‘lead professional’ co-ordinating any support required.

And there you have it. They are going to use ContactPoint to list all home educators and then pick them off one by one for inspection and shut-down. This section is completely absurd. It says that where a child is being EDUCATED at home, ContactPoint will enable Local Authorities to find children who are NOT BEING EDUCATED!

1.3.2 The duty to identify children not receiving a suitable education can make a cross-cutting contribution to a number of local priorities and should strengthen and complement existing duties. It should be incorporated into the local authority’s Children’s Trust governance and strategic planning arrangements, which are made under section 17 of the Children Act 2004, and the cross-cutting arrangements of safeguarding and inter-agency co-operation to improve the well-being of children. (Children Act 2004 Guidance http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/strategy/guidance/).

1.3.3 The relevant partner agencies are: (these are the partners referred to in The Children Act 2004 in relation to a number of duties)

• Education (maintained schools, independent schools, Academies, Pupil Referral Units, special schools and City Technology Colleges)
• Children’s Social Care
• Health (Strategic Health Authorities, Primary Care Trusts)
• Police and police authorities
• Youth Offending Teams
• Community safety teams, anti-social behaviour teams
• Young Offender Institutions
• Secure Training Centres
• local authority Secure Children’s Homes
• Housing providers.

Other key partners are

• HM Revenue and Customs
• Connexions
• statutory and voluntary youth services
• UK Border Agency
• the Fire and Rescue Service
• Other Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership agencies
• voluntary and community organisations.

There may also be others, depending on local circumstances.

1.3.4 Information Sharing Guidance was published April 2006 and can be found on the Every Child Matters website.

??!!

No doubt sensitive data from ContactPoint will be shared with all of these agencies.

Simply ASTONISHING.

6.24 Local authorities should not make “blanket” enquires (by email or hard copy). Contacting all local authorities with a list of children asking them to search their databases is seen as poor practice and the majority of local authorities will ignore this request, as it is time consuming with little reward (very rare that they find the child in their area). It is also not secure. Best practice is for local authorities to carry out thorough local checks in their own authority area before contacting specific local authorities that they believe to be linked to the child/young person that they are looking for.

Amazing. Fishing expeditions are ‘seen’ as poor practice, they are not ACTUALLY poor practice, and, “don’t bother doing it anyway, since your request will probably be ignored”. Well, I feel so much better that these goons are concerned about security!

Of course, we know that ContactPoint itself is not secure, and here, we can see an example of why that is the case. They are going to share information on every child they can get their hands on, between all agencies with a computer, and Local Authorities will be able to search private and public databases at will for any child that they cannot find in their own databases. This is going to be one of the leakiest databases ever…and it will be a database of CHILDREN!

It gets worse:

Useful information to share with another local authority in England
To enable local authorities to make their best efforts to search for a child/young person on behalf of the enquiring local authority the following basic information could be shared (as appropriate) with the named officer:

• Name (plus any know aliases)
• Date of Birth
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Parents/carers names including who has parental responsibility
• Siblings names
• Previous Address
• Previous school and date of last attendance
• Possible new address and school if known or suspected
• Previous home education
• Date child/young person left area
• If recent entry to UK – their country of origin.

Absolutely unbelievable and unacceptable.

6.26 Care must be taken to ensure information is factual and evidence based. (Also consideration should be given to guidance on “custodians of child protection register”

This is absurd. First, they want to check every home educator to make sure that the provision is ‘suitable’, and then, they want to make sure that information is ‘evidence based’. You cannot have it both ways; you cannot on the one hand lump all home educators in one basket and say that they are all putting their children at risk based on no evidence at all and then say that information should be factual and evidence based. In the law, you are guilty until proven innocent. You cannot enter someone’s house or data or communications without probable cause. These guidelines violate some of the most important principles of the law and of free countries, this is quite apart from violating the sanctity and centrality of the family.

6.27 The following may give an indication of the level of vulnerability of child:

• reason for leaving if known
• home educated child where the local authority considers that the parent is not providing a suitable education
• the child is or has been the subject of a child protection plan

[…]

You see? Suspicion is generated by the mere fact that parents are home educators. Unacceptable!

6.34 Local authorities should keep a record of children who are known to be educated at home by parents. Parents are not, however, required to inform the local authority if they decide to home educate a child who has not previously attended school.

This is insane. Local Authorities need to keep a record of all home schoolers (why?) but parents are not required to inform the local authority. How are the Local Authority going to keep records of all home educators, as the guidelines say they must? Any self respecting parent will not offer up their children to this system, and so when the Local Authority come calling and the parent says nothing (as is their absolute right), a conflict will occur.

This is bad guidance, and like the last set of guidance that ignored all the consultation entries, it is full of contradictions, prejudice, ignorance and offensive, immoral twaddle.

One thing is for sure; these guidelines will only affect the most vulnerable home educating families – the ones without money or influence, the ones who are debilitated by having children with problems. Any parent with a powerful solicitor can simply have a single letter written and these Apparatchiks will be frightened off.

These new guidelines are offensive. They are offensive because they illogical, and do not take the reality of home and state education into account. They do not take the needs of children into account. They do not take the rights of parents into account. They recklessly and violently violate the privacy of parents and children, and then share their sensitive and private data with anyone they care to, without the consent of anyone.

These guidelines are what we expected; another step in the incrementalist approach to total control and outlawing of home education in the uk.

Another interesting aspect of this is related to the German home educators experience of their Hitler written home education law (its completely banned). Germans wishing to home educate have moved to the UK and even to Iran to live freely. When the state finally decides to outlaw home education here, will they deny parents the right to move out of the country? Will it be the case in the future that everyone needs an exit visa to leave the UK? Just as it is in Germany and as I said before, if all of this is genuinely being done for the good of the children, how cold you possibly let them leave the fatherland to be educated outside of the German system in Iran, or Britain or the USA? Logically, you would have to bar all movements of all children out of the country so that you can ensure that they are receiving a suitable education in the state system.

Under ideal circumstances, we would never be confronted by Local Authority guidelines like this, or the sinister databases or anything else in this wretched document. In a a slightly less than ideal world, we would expect to see a union of all home educators in the UK to combine as a single voice to say that these guidelines are moot and will not under any circumstances be obeyed. There would be a fighting fund, the most powerful lawyers hired, a hell of a stink raised and the state humiliated and sent packing.

Sadly, we live in the worst of all possible worlds; there are many home educators who will feel that all of this is perfectly OK, who will go along with it and who will deride anyone who thinks otherwise.

We have Local Authorities and government bodies that are completely and willfully ignorant about and hostile to home schooling, who will do anything to stamp it out and will hurt any number of children that they can in order to achieve their nefarious goals.

This document is literally sickening. Every aspect of it is nauseating and what is most insulting is the fact that no matter who complains and no matter what logic is applied to it, it will be published as written, without change, because the evil people behind it (and some of the dimwitted on the receiving end of it) simply do not care about anyone’s rights.

Another nail in the coffin of Great Britain.

Read all our other posts on this subject.

So*. I read about the ‘Climate Cops’ campaign created by Npower, that

…encourage(s) children to sign up as “climate cops” and keep “climate crime case files” on their families, friends and neighbours.

The ads, run by Npower, promote a website at www.climatecops.com where “trainees” must complete three missions before they can join the “elite cadets” and “train to become a climate cop”.

These missions basically consist of a barrage of eco propaganda which the child must simply engage in in order to be accepted as a special agent of the green brigade.

The site offers a selection of downloads, including a pack of “climate crime cards“, which instruct recruits to spy on families, friends and relatives, encouraging each of them to build up a written “climate crime case file”.

[…]

http://www.infowars.com/?p=3613

Sounds nasty ay?

I surfed over to the Climate Cops website, played some of the dreadful Flash games, and read some of the propaganda. Its all as described by Infowars; pure Orwellian propaganda, junk science and brainwashing.

What piqued my interest was the offer of a ‘teaching pack’ available for the asking. So I asked.

A few days later, I received a 450g package in the post, 2nd class, filled with gloss varnished paper. I will now do an Apple product style ‘unboxing’ for you:

The package consists of:

• 1 A4 sheet printed on one side in two colors (letter)
• A CDROM holding folder, printed on both sides, 4 color process, UV varnish
• A CDROM
• A 16 page A4 pamphlet, cover thick UV varnished card, interior pages unvarnished, 4 color process throughout, staple bound (teacher notes)
• 1 A4 sheet (teacher evaluation form)
• 8 A4 sheets, printed 4 color process both sides (information cards)
• 3 A2 sheets on thick card,, 4 color process, UV varnished, folded twice (posters)
• 1 A3 envelope, one color (freepost response envelope)

The smell of ink and solvents from this package was very strong, as you can imagine.

This is an extraordinarily wasteful product, completely unnecessary in the age of the internets, which also asks teachers to print out materials for their students wasting toner and even more paper once this paper bomb arrives at its target.

Now, lets go into some of the detail of what is printed in this appalling package.

This teaching resource uses PowerPoint presentations and games to guide the student into believing Global Warming propaganda. It leaves out a staggering amount of science, uses gutter street talk in an attempt to appeal to the illiterate student, and is a transparent and foul instrument of deception.

Lets take lesson 3 as an example.

In ‘Lesson 3 – GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE’ the stated learning objectives are:

The fourth item is the one that is interesting to us; to do it, they use a series of lies and glaring omissions. Lets take a look at one or two.

The first glaring omission. Nowhere in this pack is the carbon life cycle mentioned. There is no mention of photosynthesis, or the fact that plants convert CO₂ to O₂. There is no chemistry, only the most dumbed down talking points.

The word ‘plant’ does not appear in the worksheets and related materials; the phrase ‘tree planting’ appears once, in the Sustainable Development slideshow (PDF), which is given as the answer to the question, “2) List three examples of carbon offsetting”. The phrase tree planting is left by itself, without any explanation of why it would work to ameliorate the ‘problem’. Of course this answer is in the context of the plan to measure everyone’s ‘carbon footprint’ the pretext and basis for world wide taxation and micro-management of every aspect of life.

Look at this page:

The astonishingly over-simplified diagram in the centre makes no mention of the plant life of the earth that absorbs the very gas that these liars say is causing all the problem. Why? Because the schoolchildren will instantly conclude that if plants absorb greenhouse gas (CO₂), then all we have to do is plant like crazy to solve the problem. Every pre idiocracy schoolboy knows about the carbon life cycle. By leaving out the truth about the carbon life cycle of the earth (a lie of omission) they are disarming these hapless students, removing their ability to argue logically about this subject.

The makers of this package put the following pseudo disclaimer into a slideshow to be shown to students (PDF):

But then on the subsequent page are still propagating the now discredited IPCC report as if its claims are the absolute truth:

I think you get the gist of all this.

It is nauseating propaganda for the educationally submnormal.

“My house is proper old; and it is not insulated or double-glazed”.

That is the sort of English in this pack. That is the ‘thinking’. Of course, Etonians and Hone Schoolers will not be subjected to this garbage; the latter may do so only to demonstrate how utterly stupid the masses are, and how they are being corralled like pigs into the squeeze chutes….but I digress.

Finally, lets look at a particularly odius section.

Now, the person who was operating Adobe InDesign CS3 (5.0) on this occassion, forgot to put the image of the star beneath the list of Climate Change created disasters, so here they are:

2004 tsunami in South East Asia
2005 earthquake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir
2005 flooding in New Orleans, USA
2005 tornado in Birmingham
2006 drought in Australia
2006 eruption of the Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador
2007 flooding in the UK
2007 flooding in South East Asia
2007 forest fires in Greece
2006 drought in Australia
2006 eruption of the Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador
2007 flooding in the UK
2007 flooding in South East Asia
2007 forest fires in Greece

Now, at the bottom right of this page, in the smallest possible type:

comes this disclaimer:

*This activity is speculative. It is not currently possible to provide concrete scientific evidence to suggest that climate change is responsible for any of these events.

I wonder how many people would not bother to read the disclaimer, or who would read it and dismiss it. The sort of children who are spoken to with phrases like ‘Our house is proper old’ are not the fine print reading sort.

Make of it what you will.

The propaganda push for the Global Warming hoax is still going strong. They are repeating the same discredited lies over and over, and what is worse, they are recruiting an army of Orwellian snoops to enforce the new and completely insane regulations, so that everyone goes around with unwashed clothes, unwashed bodies, no fun, no freedom and a standard of living so reduced as to render this and the other technologically advanced countries unrecognizable to its citizens that will remember what life used to (and should) be like.

Of course, none of this needs to happen; what is for sure, is that the way out will not come from the classrooms where this propaganda is being spread.

* I loathe writing that contains sentences that begin with the word “so” don’t you?

From today’s Daily Mail:

Sharia law SHOULD be used in Britain, says UK’s top judge

The most senior judge in England yesterday gave his blessing to the use of sharia law to resolve disputes among Muslims.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said that Islamic legal principles could be employed to deal with family and marital arguments and to regulate finance.

He declared: ‘Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.’

In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips signalled approval of sharia principles as long as punishments – and divorce rulings – complied with the law of the land.

But his remarks, which back the informal sharia courts operated by numerous mosques, provoked a barrage of criticism.

Lawyers warned that family and marital disputes settled by sharia could disadvantage women or the vulnerable.

[…]

Daily Mail

Of course, the hoards of ignorant pigs like the first commenter on this story:

UK, I am so sorry for you. That is incredible.

– Susan, Colorado, USA, 03/7/2008 20:14

are coming out howling about how this is such a terrible thing. What is the most terrible thing of all is that these people cannot think.

What this judge has said is that for private contracts people should be free to choose a Sharia court for resolutions of disputes.

Do you understand what that means?

It means that if you choose to be governed by Sharia Law in your financial or marital dealings, you should be free to do so.

There is absolutely no problem with this whatsoever. HSBC already offer Sharia Compliant bank accounts, and Mick Jagger excused himself from paying extortion money for his divorce since his marriage was governed by a different law to UK law. The article itself says that, “Orthodox Jews operate Beth Din courts which operate according to ancient Jewish Law”. And allow me to digress, but why do they not call Sharia Law, “ancient Sharia Law”?!?! Sharia Law is many things, but modern is not one of them!

What this judge is suggesting is a great thing.

It means that you are FREE to obey your conscience in whatever way you like, as long as you do not break the law of the UK. This judge is actually expanding the freedoms of the British, against the current trend of Parliament legislating away everything, every liberty that has been built over the last 1000 years, and the judiciary backing them up to the hilt.

What he is NOT saying is that Sharia Law should be incorporated into British law, and that everyone, muslim or not, should be made to obey it. That would be and should be completely unacceptable. Sadly, many people out there, like this ignoramus from Colorado, do not understand anything about their rights, the rights of others, and the many options you have as a free human being.

People who want to follow Sharia have the right to do so. That is none of my, or your business. They can get married in whatever way they like, divorce in whatever way they like, lend and borrow money in whatever way they like and pray in whatever way they like. That is what it means to be free, and anyone who is against that is not for Liberty. In fact, true libertarians hold that the state has no business sanctioning and regulating marriage in the first place.

Lawyers are against this because by settling disputes without them, they are cut out of the loop. The same goes for all the other professions that leech off of the law; anything that undercuts them and causes them to lose status and money is a threat. People solving their own problems privately and at liberty are a threat to the system. This judge, by going against that grain is actually demonstrating a great deal of wisdom and even handedness. He will be boiled in oil for it of course.

Now, the ignorant amongst you will say, “but what about women’s rights!??!” We are not talking about women being forced by religious dictate to do anything that is illegal in the UK. We are not talking about illegal and repulsive Sharia punishments being legalized either. What we are talking about, and what this judge is talking about, are consensual contracts only; everything else to do with the ‘clash of cultures’ is completely covered by the law in the UK, the UK law takes precedence at all times, and the objectionable elements of Sharia law have absolutely nothing to do with the subject we are discussing right now.

There seems to be no end to the hoards of people eager to cut their own heads off in this insane hatred for all things Islam. Even when something comes along that increases freedom, real options (in this case, opt outs) people rail against it reflexively without THINKING and applying these scenarios to themselves.

This is our greatest problem today; the absence of THINKING.

The title of this post is a reference to the unmissable film Idiocracy. But you know this!

And you also know that Bill Rammell and his sick ilk are predators thinning the herd of its intelligent people…enough of that…read on:

Working classes ‘have lower IQs’

Working class people have lower IQs than those from wealthy backgrounds and should not expect to win places at top universities, an academic has claimed.

Newcastle University’s Bruce Charlton said fewer working class students at elite universities was the “natural outcome” of class IQ differences.

The reader in evolutionary psychiatry questioned drives to get more poorer students into top universities.

The government has criticised Dr Charlton’s comments.

Dr Charlton said: “The UK Government has spent a great deal of time and effort in asserting that universities, especially Oxford and Cambridge, are unfairly excluding people from low social-class backgrounds and privileging those from higher social classes.

“Yet in all this debate a simple and vital fact has been missed: higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes.”
The fact that so few students from poor families get into Oxbridge is not down to “prejudice” but “meritocracy”, he said.

Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell said: “These arguments have a definite tone of ‘people should know their place’.

“There are young people with talent, ability and the potential to benefit from higher education who do not currently do so. That should concern us all.”

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “It should come as little surprise that people who enjoy a more privileged upbringing have a better start in life.

“It is up to all of us to ensure that not having access to the social and educational benefits that money provides is not a barrier to achieving one’s full potential.”

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/7414311.stm

Neu Labour vermin once again, try to have it both ways.

On the one hand, they want to screen children for criminal tendencies that are passed on genetically, and then on the other hand, say that high IQ cannot be passed down to children genetically.

Lets think about this logically.

If it is the case that IQ can be passed down genetically, and that people having a high IQ self select, i.e. they only breed with people who also have high IQs, and if it is true that people who have high IQs tend to be wealthy, and if we equate wealth with class, then it follows that higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes, and it also follows that they are more likely to win places at and be more represented in the best universities.

Of course, many couples meet in university, creating a trans-generational high IQ feedback loop, reinforcing the whole phenomenon. But I digress.

You cannot have it both ways.

You cannot discriminate against families for their ‘genetic criminality’ and target them with screening, and then say that the science behind it is discriminatory when it comes to the other side of the curve, the high IQ, built for genius superclass that are naturally predisposed to win places at university through exams.

This has nothing to do with money. Only it is to do with money.

If Bill Rammell was really serious and honest about this, he would drop the sour grapes whining and push for the creation of a university where only financially and genetically disadvantaged people are allowed to attend. But this is not about getting education to disadvantaged people (de-gene-rates); this is about the prestige of going to Oxbridge, and the ancient, boring, fruitless class struggle that fossils and throwbacks like Rammell have been engaged in for a mind numbingly long time.

Guess what Bill, no one is buying your bullshit philosophy. You people are like a rock and roll band that have been let loose in a hotel room on tour, smashing it to pieces, throwing the TV out of the window, drinking the mini bar dry, ordering everything on room service and then wasting it. For ten years.

Without the rock and roll.

Government doesn’t create anything; they steal from one person to give to another. In this case, they want to steal the futures of people who have the natural ability to make use of attending university, to give places to people who do not have that ability.

Imagine if we applied Bill Rammell’s twaddle to sport. By his measures, the England team should be made up of people who cannot play football or cricket, simply because it is not ‘fair’ that genetically disadvantaged people do not get a chance to represent their country in sport on the international sceene. What Bill Rammell’s ideas do is create teams that will always lose. And no, there is nothing wrong with winning or competition.

The worst effect the Bill Rammells bring about in this is that each time they interfere with meritocracy, the future is altered into a worse state, as people who can improve technology and everything else are shunted into timelines where they do not have any results or influence, thanks to being cut off from the environment of the best intellects and the jazz effects of being around other smart people.

This is the real and tragic effect of jealousy politics. It hurts everyone in the long run.

They don’t care about any of this of course, and it should none of it should come as a surprise to anyone; these are, after all, the people who have been deliberately dumbing down everything they touch for a very long time.

Finally, I wonder if Bill Rammell would prefer to have a doctor who was the result of his scheme working on his brain in surgery or someone who got their qualification because they are capable?

Bill, you’re fucked up, you talk like a fag, and your shit’s all retarded!

The gipsy mother who forced her daughter of 13 to marry a 14-year-old boy yesterday dismissed British values as irrelevant to her.

Renata Gural said she was unconcerned by the outrage over the teenagers’ Romany wedding ceremony at a pub in East London.

Mrs Gural, 31, who is pregnant with her sixth child, said: “I’m not bothered what anyone thinks.

“I’ll be the one who decides if my daughter is old enough to marry. I got married when I was 14 in such a ceremony and it hasn’t done me any harm.

“Just because I live in Britain doesn’t mean I’ve got to behave the way you lot think is right. I’ll live my life the way I want and that includes the way I bring up my kids.

“I don’t care what the neighbours think, or social services. It’s not my problem people around here don’t understand our culture and values.”

I, of course, agree with her 100%.

The Daily Mail revealed earlier this month how her daughter, Bozena, married Bezo, the son of another gipsy family originally from Poland, in front of 150 guests at the Central pub in East Ham.

A community elder clasped the couple to his chest, bound their hands in a scarf, kissed them both on the lips and pronounced them man and wife.

The guests then danced all night as a Polish band played raucous gipsy music.

Sounds like fun!

No Coke for me thanks!

Bozena said yesterday she was “really happy” with married life, adding: “For the first time in my life I feel like a proper grown-up.

“Before I was just a little girl and then suddenly there I was – married. That’s every girl’s dream isn’t it?”

It is every decent girl’s dream, of course; many modern British girls are not decent, and the whirlwind of problems that have been whipped up by their poor upbringing are turning parts of Britain into violent, ‘no go’, prison-like pig styes.

Bozena continues to share a cramped two-bedroom terraced house in East Ham, with 14 relatives. Her parents do not make her, or any of her siblings, go to school.

Quite right too.

Neighbours say the family, who live on benefits and do not pay rent, are terrorising the street by playing loud music late at night, throwing rubbish into neighbours’ gardens and spitting on their windows.

Now, if that is true, that is bad.

IF it is true; remember, this is a newspaper story.

Bezo wants his young bride Bozena to move in with him and his parents two miles away in Manor Park.

But she wants to stay at home, saying she would miss her mother if she left.

Her mother insisted the young couple had not consummated the marriage and that she will not allow her daughter to have sex until she is 18.

Proper parental care. These people are decent, caring people, who look after their children with the sort of ferocity that is sadly gone from the average British heart, which is now more than likely to be pumping milk rather than blood. And skimmed milk at that.

Their marriage is not recognised under British law, but there are fears that similar underground ceremonies could become common as the number of gypsies in Britain rises following the eastwards expansion of the EU.

They are probably less likely to be divorced also, unlike the average brit, who is more likely to get divorced than anyone else in Europe.

Romania and Poland, which have large Romany gipsy (or Roma) populations, have taken a tough stance on such weddings by threatening prosecutions on underage sex charges.

Only because they want to be in the EU and are trying to ‘normalize’ ‘their’ ‘cultures’.

This has led to concerns that they may move to the UK instead.

Because Britian, amazingly, is still a free(er) country, and as long as these people do not spit on their neighbor’s windows, they will be left alone to get on with their lives and be happy.

That is the way it is supposed to be.

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Nicholson, a long-time campaigner against child weddings, claimed the young couple would “be scarred for life” by the experience.

I took a quick look around for some facks (yes, ‘facks’) to smash Emma with; it seems she never married, has no children and was a computer programmer.

Any parent understands what it means to rear and nurture a child; Roma parents may want their children to grow up in a Roma culture. That is their absolute right, and Emma has no business saying that they will be ‘scarred for life’ by their own culture. It is patently absurd. Now, if these Roma adopted a 14 year old English Rose from Glostershire, and forced her to marry…well, that is a different story. Maybe.

They married on April 28 after a deal stuck between their fathers soon after they arrived in Britain three years ago.

There are estimated to be nearly 100,000 Roma in Britain, although no figures are available for how many have arrived from Eastern Europe. For centuries they have encouraged their children to marry young.

Often girls are “promised” to a boy from the age of seven or eight in return for a cash dowry. It is considered essential that the girl is a virgin.

Indeed. Just like it was considered essential that Diana was a virgin.

When you attack the Roma, you attack your own freedom to believe what you like and live the way you want to live.
Remember that when the outrage begins to well up as you read one of these stories.

This is a comment on an article that appeared in The Telegraph about the highly offensive spying of Poole council on an innocent family, who were judged to be guilty before proven innocent:

Just ponder for a moment. Ten short years ago, nobody in the world would have thought that the once proud British people could, by self infliction, descend to a debt ridden proletariat, with possession and use of the instruments and trappings of a quasi Stalinist dictatorship, in the incompetent, arrogant hands of what are supposed to be servants of the public.

You have corrupt politicians, with their fingers consistently in the till, above the law, and ears ever deaf to the electorate which put them where they are. A current chancellor who lacks the fiscal competence to add up his wage slip, because he never had one before he got this job as a convenient stooge for the previous carrier of the budget box. A plethora of ‘employment’ Ministers, who have proved to be anything but employment ministers for the intrinsic population, crying ‘skills shortage, skills shortage,’ like demented parrots, justifying the cry for the bird seed of the ever cheaper labour of mass unskilled immigration, to sustain their bankrupt policies. An ‘elf Minister, presiding over the third largest ‘employment’ factory in the world, with a large proportion of the ‘employees’ putting their wages above patient care. An anti English Egyptian born ‘Kulture Minister’ performing like a latter day Beria, systematically eradicating the history and soul of everything a country, once in the vanguard of what freedom stood for. A Home Secretary divided by two, because the job is now too big for a single NULabour politician to cope with, with an avalanche of foreign laws imposed on the British, without referendum promised in two elections. A part time defence secretary, and a military with no kit, because the armed forces never did figure in Labour, other than as an accountants cost saving exercise. This trough fed entourage crowned with an unelected Prime Minister, who fiddles his TV License, and whose revealed former capabilities, with ten years of ‘growth,’ but nothing in the bank, are now staring everybody over there, squarely in the wallet. But by far and away the biggest crime of all, was the calculated erosion of educational standards for the masses, to the point where a sixteen year old state sink school ‘graduate,’ could not compete against the abilities of a nine year old from the former colony of Singapore. Education, Education, Education? More like Educashun, Educashun, Educashun, with a ‘so what’ ‘Minister’ most aptly demonstrating the zenith of NULabour teachings. If Britain continues down this path, it is guaranteed accelerated descent into a third world satellite banana republic of the EUSSR.

With this ‘leadership’ at the helm, it is little wonder that the sub Stalins of local government have got the green light to misuse anti terrorism legislation, to intrude on every aspect of your lives. You already have Zampolits of the rubbish police, chipping your dustbins. Now you have the state machine commissars tailing three year olds, presumably in a flasher mack driving a Russian Fiat copy. I assure you, that to the rest of the free world you have become a very sick joke. It would be comical if it were not tragic. You are now a United Kingdom in name alone. It is hoped that if you ever get the chance of another election, and your Ministers have not worked sufficient overtime to convert it to the Zimbabwe variety, you will remember when NULabour again makes promises in a manifesto, that, to avoid their obligations to the people, they went to the time and trouble of a court case to have it legally declared to be not worth the paper it was printed on. Be careful which library books you read, the fact that you are still reading books, instead of dosing your brain with state Television soap, may attract the unwelcome attention of a Kulture Zampolit.

Posted by Michael Barningham on April 11, 2008 12:25 PM

Judging by the comments to this article, we are quickly approaching the tipping point in the UK, where everyone will, seemingly, spontaneously cry, “enough is enough” and the whole system will be explosively reconfigured so that it looks more like the Real Britian^™ that we all knew and loved.

Schools could be raided by police to crack down on knife crime, Ken Livingstone proposed today.

The Mayor suggested that fingerprinting and DNA profiling could be used to help to identify youngsters who threw away weapons. He also called for tougher sentencing for those involved in stabbings to prevent others going down the same route.

What this actually means is that all pupils in London need to be fingerprinted, DNA swabbed and put into a database so that when they find the one or two bad guys (or girls) with knives, they can be identified.

Ken Livinston is certifiably insane; the true inheritor of Stalin’s mantle, after the living reincarnation of Stalin himself, Gordon Brown.

However, there are likely to be concerns over the civil liberties implications of his proposals for schools.

Right!

Mr Livingstone told LBC radio: “So many kids now are carrying a knife because they think someone else might try and stab them and, of course, very often they end up being stabbed with their own knife.

So many. So we have to rape them all in order to stop them. Ken, you are a scumbag, full stop.

“I think you need a really high-profile crackdown and I’d be quite prepared where we know some schools have a particular problem – as long as the teachers and parents are up for this – you suddenly flood the school with police and you arrest everyone carrying a knife.

As long as the parents are ‘up for this’ its OK to rape children. Riiiiiiiiight.

“I know a lot of them will drop them on the ground but with fingerprints, DNA profiling, we’ll identify most of the people carrying those knives.”

Ken is a police state fantacist, a hideous gargoyle control addict, and a monster. Only his will matters, as we saw with the extension of the Congestion Charge zone, despite 70% of residents saying ‘no’ he went ahead anyway.

He added: “Judges have got to recognise the need for exemplary sentencing to get the message home – carry a knife, you’ll go to prison. You can’t carry a knife then expect to get 20 hours community service.”

Judges are best suited to interpret the law. Ken should get a broom out and sweep the streets of London. He cannot even do that correctly. Many parts of London are no better than pig styes and he is responsible for it.

The Mayor was accused of insensitivity to the families of two teenagers stabbed to death last week when he declared that “if it bleeds, it leads” the news. His aides said he made the comments before he had heard about the murders.

Ken is insensitive to anything but his own perverted desire for absolute power.

Mr Livingstone admitted there would be civil liberties concerns over his proposals on knife crime. There could also be legal issues as police must arrest suspects before taking fingerprints or DNA swabs.

In other words, guilty until proven innocent, yet again.

The total aim of police state boosters like Fascist Ken.

Ken, Brown, Smith and the other mass murdering perverts like to sprinkle the magic sauce of DNA technology on every problem. Now they want to sprinkie it onto children. The fact of the matter is that the problems that create knife crime will not be stopped by taking knives out of the hands of people who need them. These measures are plasters applied to shotgun wounds. But I digress. This ‘plan’ has not been thought out, will be rejected as absurd, and shows Ken Livingston scrambling around for big headlines because he is running scared of Boris Johnson. That is what this is all about, pure and simple.

Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate Brian Paddick said the support of local communities was more important, adding: “The way to tackle gun and knife crime is not to demonise young people but to rebuild trust between police and the community.”

[…]

Evening Standard

What-ever.

All of these people are vile, repulsive beasts, and none of them have even the slightest bit of imagination.

Let us help them.

If you want to stop knives entering a school, you expel all of the trouble-making students.

And that is it.

Teachers know intimately who the bad people in their schools are. If they were allowed to run their schools AS schools and not makeshift borstals then this problem would disappear over night.

Q: But what happens when the children that are expelled are out roaming the streets like feral beasts?
A: That is the problem of the negligent parents and the police.

etc etc.

Home Schooling parents, alerted to the vile smear carried out by the anonymous liar at BBQ have all received the same response from lie central:

Dear Mrs XXXXXXXXXX,

Thank you for contacting the BBC News website.

We agree that our first attempt at an explainer piece on parental responsibility and Scarlett Keeling confused the issue of her case and that of home education.

We are sorry for that confusion and have now updated the piece in order to make it clearer.

Thank you again for your views which we value.

Yours,

BBC News Website

Notice how this is from yet another filthy cowering slimebag who will not put their name to this communication.

Here are before and after screengrabs of the original article and their ‘second attempt’. Perhaps if they make a THIRD ATTEMPT they will actually get it right. ‘Third time lucky’ as they say:

The fact of the matter is, in Goa the law and courts of India have jurisdiction, not the law and courts of the uk, so any reference to this girl in that aspect is just stupid, unless the anonymous swine who wrote this is suggesting that parents should not be allowed to leave the UK with their children unless they have been issued with exit visas. But I digress.

This is a sad story about a crime. That crime has nothing to do with Home Schooling, or the laws in the UK concerning children. FULL STOP.

Let us now re-write this article for the numbskulls at BBC News:

Title: Parental Responsibility.

Fifteen-year-old Scarlett Keeling was killed while on an extended visit to India with her mother and siblings.

The title now makes sense. What is an ‘extended’ visit? Extended in terms of what exactly? No vague language should be allowed.

Her mother, Fiona MacKeown, has been criticised for taking her children out of school and leaving the teenager while she travelled without her for part of the trip. But what are the rules surrounding parental responsibility?

First of all, WHO CRITICIZED HER? This is like Fox News saying, “some people say” as a clever way of injecting editorial spin into a subject or discussion. No reasonable journalist uses these shabby techniques; if someone said something, SAY WHO IT WAS, or DO NOT CITE THE WORDS.

This “some people say” technique is the shoehorn for this entire article. Once you eliminate it, almost the whole piece is erased.

Here are some of the laws and guidelines that govern schooling and child supervision in the UK.

Irrelevant, since this crime happened in India, not Britain.

When is it appropriate to leave a child alone?

There is no legal age limit for leaving a child on his own.

However, it is an offence to leave a child alone if it places him at risk.

Under the Children and Young Persons Act, parents can be prosecuted for neglect if they leave a child unsupervised “in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health”.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) believes it is unacceptable for a child under 16 to be left alone overnight.

It says most parents would be happy to leave a 16-year-old alone for an evening, but would not leave them for a weekend.

That is not a law making body, and their opinion is irrelevant. Each parent has the right to bring their children up as they see fit. Full stop. BBC uses quotes from these irrelevant organizations because they can’t get legitimization from any other quarter for bogus pieces of ‘journalism’ like this. Clearly the author (whoever it is) is not qualified to write on this subject, otherwise, they would have put their name to the piece as, “education correspondent” or whatever.

Is it compulsory for children to attend school?

Education is compulsory in the UK, but attending school is not.

Home education is an option and parents are not required to register or seek approval from the local authority to educate their children at home.

Neither does home education have to take place solely in the family home.

This is completely irrelevant to the case of a murder in another country. It is astonishing that after being flooded with letters from Home Schoolers, these beasts are persisting in making a link between a murder in India and Home Schooling in Britain.

How long can youngsters be taken out of school?

The Independent Schools Council, which represents about 1,200 of the 2,500 independent schools, said each school would have its own policy on allowing pupils to be taken out for extended periods.

If you are paying the fees to a school, they are rendering a service to you. If you decide to remove your child for any reason at any time, this is your absolute right. In any case what on earth does The Independent Schools Council have to do with a murder case in India? NOTHING.

For state schools, parents can take children out of school for up to 10 days per year. However, this has to be approved by the school and may meet with opposition by officials.

Actually, your children are not the property of any school, and you can remove your child from a school at any time for any reason. Since the state is rendering you a service, there is an argument that they have the right to exclude your child should you break their rules, but other than that, they have not right to control you, or what you choose to do with your children, no matter what the law says.

Once again, none of this has anything to do with a murder case in India.

Some schools may refuse to release a pupil and the decision partly depends when in the year it happens.

For example, removal of children during an exam period would – in all likelihood – result in a refusal.

Irrelevant; and I would like to see a school try and stop parents taking their children away from school. The whole idea is completely absurd, apart from being nothing to do with the sad story of this girl.

Amazingly, that is where the propaganda piece ends.

All we are left with is a fraction of the first sentence, ‘the slug’ and the title and thats it!

Clearly this article should just be deleted in its entirety, since none of it can be salvaged.

We are sorry for that confusion and have now updated the piece in order to make it clearer.

They have totally failed to ‘make it clearer’. The only thing that is clarified is that these animals, take license payer’s money and then lie and spin and smear and disparage whilst hiding behind anonymity.

Nauseating and totally unacceptable behavior.

and here is a very concise ‘tear-apart’ of this piece and its feeble re-write, by a Home Schooler:

It is clear that one or two – often anonymous, as in this case – members of your staff have it in for home education, and “Q & A: Home education and responsibility” is a case in point.

The article strongly implies that home education had something to do with the death of Scarlett Keeling. Apart from the fact that British law is irrelevant to the case, the law relating to leaving children unattended is separate from home education.

While it is true to say that had Scarlett Keeling attended school then she wouldn’t have been in Goa at the time, this is as ridiculous as saying that home education would save the lives of all children killed in traffic accidents on their way to school.

By using the tragic circumstances of Scarlett Keeling’s death as an excuse to “discuss” the law relating to home education, the writer deliberately places home education in a negative light.

The discussion – albeit biased – is a legitimate one, but not in this context. The fact that Scarlett Keeling was home educated had nothing to do with the circumstances surrounding her death.

No British laws were broken by her mother, and in any case, British laws no longer apply to India. The implication of the article and the context of the discussion was that Scarlett Keeling’s death resulted from Fiona MacKeown’s lifestyle choices and that the law relating to these choices should therefore be tightened up. Apart from being thoroughly vindictive in tone against Ms MacKeown, it is completely unacceptable that the BBC allows its writers to use such a case to question the option of home education and the laws relating to it.

If a child dies or is attacked on a school trip, the BBC doesn’t decide to attack the lifestyle choices of his parents. Perhaps the BBC can bring itself to apply the same standards to families that choose to educate their children outside of school. It is too much to ask the BBC to stop discriminating against home education, but please do not use a completely irrelevant case to do so.

BANG!

A lurker writes:

Hi. I visit Blogdial when I can to get a different take on what’s going on.

I know that home schooling is a topic that comes up from time to time and wanted to share something that noticed on the BBC website earlier today. I am not sure about whether I am confused (and therefore missing the obvious connections) or whether this is a blatant attempt at linking a tragedy to home schooling without even the pretence that the two have a common link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/devon/7291792.stm

The death of Scarlett Keeling, 15, in Goa has highlighted the issue of parental responsibility and the law relating to education.

I have been reading about this girl’s death, or murder as now seems more likely. It is a tradgedy that this girl died and even more so if it turns out that she was indeed drugged, raped and then murdered.

However, I am still trying to find a link between her death on a beach in Goa and the law relating to education and more specifically to home schooling which takes up about half of the BBC’s piece.

The only thing that I can think of is that she might have been out of school during term time, but since she was with her mother and siblings (ie not a truant), and presumably the school knew where she was, this should really not have been an issue.

From what I have read, Scarlett was prone to experimenting with drugs but does not seem to have been arrested or have priors on this or any other count, so this does not appear to be an issue either and a link between this and laws on education or home schooling seem tenuous.

The only question seems to be that her mother left her with friends while she went with her other children to a neighbouring area. In my mind this is a separate issue and can be related even less to laws on education or home schooling.

I freely admit that my research into this non-existant, but even if she did have a record and she had been taken from school during term time without the school’s knowledge, the fact remains she was enrolled in a school even though it may be regarded as quite alternative (I am providing the link as it looks like a very cool project http://www.smallschoolhartland..org/).

In fact a previous BBC news article quoted:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/devon/7275977.stm

“Staff and pupils at Scarlett’s school – The Small School in Hartland, which has only 23 students – said they had been deeply affected by her death. “

Starting from this basis I do not see any link between her death and home schooling or why it should even enter into the equation, yet the BBC piece devotes about half of the text to home schooling. Not only that, but the paragraph immediately preceding the start of the home scholing section is titled “When is it appropriate to leave a child alone?”.

Am I missing something here?

Is this really just using the headlines surrounding this girl’s death possibly at the hands of someone in Goa to try and suggest that home schooling is somehow at fault?

Or to equate home schooling to leaving a child alone?

Or even that small community based schools are bad because they are similar to home schooling and nowhere near as protective of the children as a large state run school would be?

Maybe I am just confused and if Scarlett had been enrolled at the local comprehensive then none of this would have happened and she would have gone on to become a happy and productive member of society or maybe an MP or MEP even.

What do you think?

Bye for now.

Xxxxx

Well, first of all this is a typical BBC propaganda piece, without an author so there is no one who is accountable. These people are the worst human garbage behind keyboards, and they are rabid statists and control freaks.

This death has nothing whatsoever to do with Home Schooling, and neither do any of the other bogus stories that the BBC posts where they weave Home Schooling into a horror story with their poisonous lie spinning loom.

Home Schooling is under attack by these scum-bags, for several reasons.

Those jackasses that managed to produce children and who also work at the BBC are green with envy of the families that Home School; lets face it, Home Schoolers are a very fortunate lot, living lives that BBC types would love to lead, whereas they have to work their bollocks (and tits) off to pay their mortgages while their children are being brainwashed in inferior schools.

They know full well that the many Home Schooled children that are now entering the system are going to beat their inferior children for places at University. As you read BLOGDIAL, you will know that Universities in the USA are bending over backwards to attract Home Schooled students because they are simply superior in every way. By extension, these BBC animals know that what will inevitably follow is the exclusion of their children from jobs at the BBC, which of course, they feel belong to their children by virtue of the fact that they work there now.

This is a class war issue, pure and simple. The BBC editorial control and the anonymous writer in this case, have lumped Home Schoolers in with Etonians as a class of people who have unfair ‘privilege’ and advantage by being Home Schooled while everyone else has to suffer a substandard education at the mercy of the state. Like Etonians and Harovians, Home Schoolians get fast track access to the best in higher education, and all the downstream advantages of that. This deep and bitter resentment is doubly compounded by the fact that Home Schooling families have better family lives than they do. They eat together, spend quality time together and actually know each other, unlike the BBC drones who only get to see their children for a short time every day after work, when they are completely exhausted and unable to be fulfilled.

Finally, Home Schoolers do not watch television.

That is their greatest sin.

Once again, this is a pure propaganda piece. It suddenly switches, without any reason, to ‘How many children are taught at home?’ out of nowhere. It is a vile, nasty baseless piece of garbage writing, delivered on command, as part of a long term strategy to dismantle Home Schooling in the UK. The people ordering this sort of bogus report know full well that they are building a dossier of cases that will eventually be trotted out as sufficient proof that there, “is a need to change the law”. We must remember that ContactPoint was justified on the death of a single girl – this is how they operate. In the case of Home Schooling, because such a tragedy is not likely to happen, Home Schooling parents being the least likely to fall into the class of people that abuse their children, they would have to wait literally until the end of time for a ‘Climbie’ to materialize to help them outlaw Home Schooling. This is why they have to build up a dossier over years, and this case, though it has nothing whatsoever to do with Home Schooling, fits the bill, because they can lie on the record via the BBC.

The fact of the matter is, Home Schooling is growing, and will continue to grow. American home schoolers are very organized, and there are millions of them; they have already reached the tipping point, and legislation over there is mostly retreating from the tidal wave of change.

Britain, sadly, is always 20 years behind america, so we will have to wait until the evidence is so ‘in your face’ that the paid liars at the BBC cannot ignore the facts any longer. Then the headlines will transform overnight to, “Should more children home School?”, instead of the biased, baseless, brainwashing attacks they peddle now.

That is what I think.

by Dr. Ron Paul

We live in one of the most difficult times in history for guarding against an expanding central government. We are seeing a steady erosion of our freedoms. We have arrived here because our ideas, our words-and the actions that follow-have consequences. Homeschoolers, by and large, understand that bad ideas have bad consequences, and even the best of intentions can have unintended consequences. We need to understand exactly what ideas brought us to this point. We can then, I hope, reject the bad ideas and reform our thinking toward a better set of intellectual parameters. Our goal should be to identify what ideas are now shaping our culture and work to sow the seeds of liberty for the generations who will come after us.

Currently, the mood of our country is dominated by a powerful word:fear. Fear is not always the product of irrational thinking. However, once experienced, fear can lead us away from reason, especially if it is extreme in duration or intensity. This kind of fear is a threat to rational liberty. When people are fearful, they are more willing to irrationally surrender their rights. The psychology of fear is an essential tool of those who want us to increasingly rely on "the powers that be" to manage the apparatus of the central government.

Clearly, people seek out safety and security when they are in a state of fear, and the result is often the surrender of liberty. We must remember that liberty is the ultimate security.

Our love for liberty has been so diminished by fear-of everything but God-that we tolerate intrusions into our privacy that most Americans would have abhorred just a few years ago. American history, at least in part, is a history of people who refuse to submit to the will of those who have no rightful authority over them. Yet we have increasingly empowered the federal government and its agents to run our lives, far beyond their jurisdiction to do so. The seeds of future tyranny are being sown and many of our basic protections from government oppression are being undermined. We tolerate new laws that allow the government to snoop on us, listen to our phone calls, track our financial dealings, make us strip down at airports, and even limit the rights of habeas corpus and trial by jury. Like some dysfunctional episode of the Twilight Zone, we have allowed the summits of our imaginations to be linked up with the pit of our fears, all to serve man.

Paranoia can be treated, but the loss of liberty resulting from the fear of man is not easily cured. People who would have previously battled against encroachments on civil liberties now explain the “necessity” of the temporary security measures” Franklin would have railed against. This would not be happening if we had remained vigilant, understood the importance of individual rights, and refused to accept that the sacrifice of liberty is justified by a “need” for security—even if it’s just “now and then.” As Americans, we must confront our irrational fears if we are to turn the current
tide against the steady erosion of our freedoms. Fear is the enemy. The confusing admonition to “fear only fear itself” does not help. Instead, we must battle against irrational fear and refuse to succumb to it.

Fortunately, there is always a remnant who longs for truly limited government, maintaining a belief in the rule of law combined with a deep conviction that free people and a government bound by a Constitution are the most advantageous form of government. They recognize this idea as the only practical way for prosperity to be spread to the maximum number of people, while promoting peace and security. Their thoughts are dominated by a different and more powerful word: freedom.

If we intend to use the word “freedom” in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: freedom is living without government coercion.

If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog of rhetoric and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians often use to deceive us. We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must also teach these truths to our children.

Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a governmental false security blanket beckons. Self-reliance and self-defense are American virtues; trembling reliance on the illusion of government-provided security is not.

Many, if not most, homeschoolers have fought on some level for the freedom to teach their own children. Most have had to stand against a tide of disapproval from friends and family. Some parents have dealt with strife in their church over the issue. Too many have been questioned by local authorities who don’t understand the limits of their jurisdiction; some have withstood the scrutiny of state and federal laws, courts, and law enforcement who have overstepped their constitutional bounds. Still others have suffered fines, imprisonment, and separation from their children at the hands of a government that claims to be “protecting” the children. All homeschoolers have tasted a morsel of freedom that many others still can’t comprehend. Homeschooling parents still regularly face questions such as, “Can you do that?” “Do they let you do that?” “Is that legal?” It all comes down to a proper understanding of jurisdiction and submission to delegated authority. Homeschoolers, by and large, maintain that the authority for determining the education of their children rests solely with parents. This spark of freedom must be fanned into a flame, not just among homeschooling fathers and mothers…but among the generation they are training up in liberty.

Ironically, the Constitution which protects our freedoms was conceived in a time of great crisis. The founders intended to place inviolable restrictions on what the federal government could do even in times of national distress. America must stand against calls for the government to violate the Constitution—that is, to break the law—in the name of law enforcement. America was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny is as great as, if not greater than, any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must pass it on to our children, showing them how to resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society. Otherwise, our own government will become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist could ever hope to be.

Remember, a citizen's relationship with the State is never voluntary. Every government edict, policy, regulation, court decision, and law is ultimately backed up by force, in the form of police, guns, and jails. The problem is that politicians are not supposed to have power over us-we're supposed to be free. We seem to have forgotten that freedom means the absence of government coercion. That is why political power must be fiercely constrained by the American people. We can't wait for "our man" in Congress to do it. We must accept and take responsibility to keep government within its well defined boundaries, training our children to do the same.

The desire for power over other human beings is not something to celebrate, but something to condemn! The worst tyrants of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were political figures: men who fanatically sought power over others through the apparatus of the State. They wielded that power absolutely, without regard for the rule of law.

Our constitutional system, by contrast, was designed to restrain political power and place limits on the size and scope of government. It is this system-the rule of law – which we should celebrate, not political power. In a free society, government is restrained, and therefore, political power is less important. As defined by the Constitution, the proper role for government in America is to provide national defense, a court system for civil disputes, a criminal justice system to prosecute acts of force and fraud, and that's all. In other words, the State's role in our society is as referee, rather than an active participant.

Those who hold political power would lose their status in a society with truly limited government. It simply would not matter much who occupied various political posts, since their ability to tax, spend, and regulate would be severely curtailed. This is why champions of political power promote an activist government that involves itself in every area of our lives, from cradle to grave. They gain popular support by promising voters that the government will take care of everyone, while the media shower them with praise for their bold vision.

Political power is inherently dangerous in a free society. It threatens the rule of law and thus threatens our fundamental freedoms. It is the antithesis of freedom. Those who understand this should object whenever political power is glorified.

Our founding fathers understood this and endeavored to create the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else.

It is incumbent on a great nation to remain confident if it wishes to remain free. By no means should we be ignorant to real threats to our safety, against which we must remain vigilant. We need only to banish to the ash heap of history the notion that we ought to be ruled by our fears and those who use them to enhance their own power. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society provides the incentive to protect the liberties we enjoy. The greatest chance for peace and maximum prosperity comes within a society respectful of individual liberty.

It is important to know how we got where we are today. But, rather than focus on where we have failed, we should concentrate on the ideal of freedom. The freedom we enjoy today is the direct result of the commitment of men and women who refused to compromise their ideals. Certainly they failed at times, but they understood that the goal was liberty. We owe the founding fathers of our country a tremendous debt of gratitude. They created a society based on the radical idea that the purpose of government was to protect the rights of the individual-inalienable rights granted by God, rather than privileges granted by the State. Whereas God is "no respecter of persons," the same cannot be said of the State, no matter how well-intentioned it may purport to be.

We can reclaim our independence, not with guns, but with our voices. We can reject creeping statism and encourage the blessings of liberty for our land. It will require work and it will require commitment. It will also require a willingness to stand firm for our beliefs. It will not be done in one election cycle, nor will it necessarily be achieved in our lifetimes. Indeed, as others have done before us, it may require that we give our very lives. But that is a small price to pay compared to the sacrifices made by those who founded the United States of America and fought to give her birth and defend her freedoms.

Liberty. Freedom. Self-determination. These goals are as worthy of our attention today as they were over two centuries ago in a hot convention hall in Philadelphia. Just as devotion to those goals brought forth this great nation, a renewed adherence to liberty, which we teach to our children, can save our nation today.

Our founding fathers felt it was worth pledging their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" to secure and defend liberty. Do we?

[…]

http://homeschooltoday.com/articles/articles/sowingliberty.php

This says everything you need to know about, oh so many things, and what I like about Ron Paul is that he says it all very concisely and beautifully.

The sound of Ron Paul’s words are the sound of what America used to be like; when it was a country of real people, and not cowering frightened children who cannot even find their own land on a map.

I do disagree with Dr. Paul on one point. It is more than possible for us to see the return of the real America and liberty in our lifetimes. Who would have thought that we would see Nelson Mandela 1) out of gaol, and 2) president of South Africa? During the reign of Apartheid, typing those letters in that order would have seemed like the most absurd fantasy, but it came to pass, much quicker than we ever imagined it would.

And there was no blood bath.
And Nelson Mandela is a world-wide hero.

There is no reason that the restoration of America cannot happen within the next eight years. All we have to do is work for it, and not take ‘no’ for an answer. It means doing surprisingly little on an individual basis…but you know this, because you have been reading this blog for the last seven years.

We are already way down the road to it happening, and to many people, the liberation of America will come as a complete surprise.

While we are on this subject, the evil Neil Cavuto has interviewed Dr. Paul again. It is clear by the demeanor of that Fox News mouthpiece, that Neil Cavuto understands that Dr. Ron Paul is the only one telling the truth about the destruction of the dollar. It is clear by his uncharacteristicly quiet and gentle treatment of Dr. Paul that he has done his homework on this and found that the assessment given by Dr. Paul is the absolute truth. Somewhere, deep inside Neil Cavuto, as in the case of Anakin Skywalker, “there is good in him”. He behaves almost as if he is ashamed to be working for Fox as he interviews Dr. Paul; gone is the bombast, the illogical rhetoric, the insufferably rude interrupting – what we get instead, is a respectful introduction, questions quietly put, nodding in agreement and generous space given for all the answers.

Watch it for yourself.

This is how it starts. People start to wake up, and even the enemies cool down, end the rhetoric, listen more than they talk, behave as if humbled, and then all of a sudden, there is a tipping point, and they are on our side.

I just had to share with you this piece: A Commentary on the Teaching of Mathematics, by James Jackson of Carlisle, Ind. It appeared in “Echoes” (winter 1994), published by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Ind. “Echoes” took it from the 1993-94 issue of “21st Century” (not otherwise identified).

The commentary takes the form of a series of story problems:

In 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of this price. What is his profit?

In 1970: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of this price, or $80. What is his profit?

In 1970 (new math): A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100, and each element is worth $1.00. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set M. The set C of the costs of production contains 20 fewer points than set M. Represent the set C as a subset of M, and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set P of points?

In 1980: A logger sells a truckload of wood for $100. His cost of production is $80, and his profit is $20. Your assignment: underline the number 20.

In 1990 (outcome-based education): By cutting down beautiful forest trees, a logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? (Topic for class participation: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?)

In 1996: (profit-driven education): By laying off 40% of the its loggers, a company improves its stock price from $80 to $100. How much capital gain per share does the CEO make by exercising his stock options at $80? Assume capital gains are no longer taxed, because Republicans feel this encourages investment.

In 1997: A company out-sources all of its loggers. The firm saves on benefits, and when demand for its product is down, the logging work force can easily be cut back. The average logger employed by the company earned $50,000, had three weeks vacation, a nice retirement plan and medical insurance. The contracted logger charges $50 an hour. Was out-sourcing a good move?

In 1998: A laid-off logger with four kids at home and a ridiculous alimony from his first failed marriage comes into the logging company’s corporate offices and goes postal, mowing down 16 executives and a couple of secretaries, and gets lucky when he nails a politician on the premises collecting his kickback. Was outsourcing the loggers a good move for the company?

In 1999: A laid-off logger serving time in Folsom for blowing away several people is being trained as a COBOL programmer in order to work on Y2K projects. What is the probability that the automatic cell doors will open on their own as of 00:01, 01/01/00?

In 2000: (internet in every classroom) Do a web search on forest, trees and logger using two different search engines. E-mail your results to the teacher.

In 2008: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of this price. What is his profit? First, tell us what your strategy will be to solve the problem. Form a hypothesis based on the rubric to test your strategy. Perform a calculation based on your hypothesis, and then discuss why you came to the answer that you arrived at.

Snarfled from Consent of the Governed.

I ROTFL at the COBOL.

I was immediately reminded of the IQ test from Idiocracy:

“If you have 1 bucket with 2 apples and another bucket with 5 apples, how many buckets do you have?”

Its all true!

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) — German tax authorities are chasing as many as 1,000 wealthy Germans in one of the largest tax investigations in the country’s history, spokesmen for the Ministry of Finance said Tuesday.

Spokesman Stefan Olbermann told CNN the government paid more than $6 million for a DVD that was stolen from a Liechtenstein bank and contains the names of many prominent Germans who may be involved in tax fraud scams there.

The most prominent suspect so far is former Deutsche Post Chief Executive Klaus Zumwinkel. Police raided Zumwinkel’s private house and his offices at Deutsche Post last week and arrested him, though the arrest warrant was later lifted.

Zumwinkel is believed to have evaded almost $1.5 million in German taxes by investing in foundations in Liechtenstein, a tiny Alpine country between Switzerland and Austria, said Bernd Bieniossek, a spokesman for the state prosecutor.

Police and tax authorities raided private homes and banks in cities across Germany on Monday and the German government is calling on those involved to turn themselves in to the police and thus avoid a jail sentence.

When asked by CNN what kinds of people were being investigated, another spokesman for the Finance Ministry, Torsten Albig, said most were prominent and wealthy Germans.

A spokesman for Metzler, a private bank, said police raided its Frankfurt and Munich offices Monday. The spokesman said the bank has opened its banking records to the police, which it was legally obliged to do. Private banks deal with wealthy clients.

Olbermann said German authorities believe the DVD containing the names will be valid court evidence even though the German Foreign Intelligence Service bought it from a man who had stolen the data from Liechtenstein bank LGT.

Germany believes Liechtenstein, with its lax tax laws and culture of secrecy, is complicit in allowing German tax evaders to park their money in the principality.

Liechtenstein Prime Minister Otmar Hasler planned to arrive in Berlin on Tuesday for a long-planned trip to Germany and was to hold talks with German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel planned to urge the government in Vaduz to do more to crack down on German tax evaders.

Zumwinkel resigned from his position as the CEO of Deutsche Post, one of the world’s largest logistics firms, Friday. Deutsche Post announced Monday that Frank Appel, a member of the company’s management board, would take over.

[…]

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/19/tax.evasion/index.html

WTF?

The German government pays SIX MILLION DOLLARS for a STOLEN DVDR so they can chase their wealthy citizens?

You cannot make this stuff up.

This is the sort of behavior we expect from the MAFIA, but then again, the German government is a criminal organization, just like the Mafia; their ‘legitimacy’ comes from their numbers not any inherent right to govern and steal.

Why should these rich Germans pay tax in Germany? it is obvious that the German government is corrupt, as they think nothing of PAYING FOR STOLEN GOODS from criminals in other countries, and not only paying, but paying astronomical and extortionate amounts of taxpayer money.

This is the uniform society that the Germans are seeking to protect by banning Home Schooling; one where paying millions of Euros to burglars and criminals to facilitate the arbitrary punishment of Germans is perfectly OK.