Thursday, November 19, 2009
WHAT GLOBAL WARMING?
Here's a picture of a drilling rig. I took it while in one of Edmonton's heavy industrial areas in the South East of the city. You can read the technical specs here.
The oil price is a crucial indicator of the health of the Albertan Economy and twelve months ago it was around $US55.00 a barrel, which wasn't good. These days it's around $75 and may well be going up even more. While this may not be good news for you in the UK, it's mostly good for Alberta and even better for the oilsands around Fort McMurray. New oilsands projects are being re-started, like Suncor's Firebag Stage 3 in-situ project, Imperial Oil's Kearl Lake mine and Devon Canada's Jackfish Lake. All this is good news, unless you're an environmentalist of course, in which case the solution is to shut down the oilsands and send everyone home on horseback.
Albertans have a realistic approach to the environment. Firstly, there's a lot more of it than there is in the UK, so even if you dig up thousands of hectares of it, there's still lots left. Secondly, people know which side their bread is buttered: OK, making oil is dirty, smelly and might cause cancer, on the other hand, it pays the bills and things could be worse.
A Ratatouille Of Crap Sentencing, or Mad Judges 6
Meanwhile, back up to Manchester, where a 17-year-old student decided to go to her local park with her sisters, aged between five and 11, and her sister-in-law and s-i-l's baby.
As she played on the swings with the baby - so far, so Enid Blyton - she was approached by a mixed-sex, mixed-age gang of youths, taunted and finally attacked, being punched so hard that the pendant from her necklace was embedded in her face and had to be removed in hospital.
What do you reckon that's worth - especially given that it happened in a kids' park, and taking into account the terror and upset it must have inflicted on the victim's young sisters, never mind the damage and fear inflicted on her?
How about - for the puncher, who aged 16 has 13 previous convictions - a 'referral order'? Not even any compensation ordered because, surprise surprise, she has no income or parental support. For another member of the gang, a lad of 16 with 30 convictions, a nine month supervision order and a two month curfew which he will break because there is no possible means of enforcing it.
Moving across to Middlesbrough, where five-year-old Chloe Edwards was woken at 2am by the sound of Dean Affleck breaking into her family home armed with a meat cleaver. She apparently shouted at 18-year-old Affleck to put her dad's car keys down, at which point, gallantly, he threatened her with the cleaver.
Mr Edwards came down and chased Affleck out of his house. He escaped, opunching two girls in the face as he ran, but was later arrested and found to have a lock knife, cannabis and amphetamines on him.
For breaking into a family's houser in the dead of night, threatening their five-year-old with a machete, violence anddrugs offences mitigating possession and use of drugs, he received three-and-a-half years in a Young Offenders' Institute.
Well, at least he's off the street for the next 12 months or so.
But the killer line was delivered by Judge Peter Bowers who told him: 'You were given an amazing chance in January with a community order for a similar burglary.'
Is amazing the right word?
Is Dean Affleck active in the villages where his local judges live, I wonder?
Finally, what do you get if you smash a pint glass into another girl's face, a centimetre below her eye, on a dancefloor (an 'unprovoked' attack, notice - like there's some sort of provocation which might excuse such behaviour)?
How does 120 hours community service sound? Well, we know from Dean Affleck's case how effective community sentences are, don't we?
Even if Ashleigh Holliman actually turns up, it sounds like no sort of a deterrent or a punishment at all... which is why this sort of thing happens, of course.
Apparently Holliman is a hairdresser. She should be going somewhere for a six month holiday.
TCT
(5) comments (No swearing please.)
As she played on the swings with the baby - so far, so Enid Blyton - she was approached by a mixed-sex, mixed-age gang of youths, taunted and finally attacked, being punched so hard that the pendant from her necklace was embedded in her face and had to be removed in hospital.
What do you reckon that's worth - especially given that it happened in a kids' park, and taking into account the terror and upset it must have inflicted on the victim's young sisters, never mind the damage and fear inflicted on her?
How about - for the puncher, who aged 16 has 13 previous convictions - a 'referral order'? Not even any compensation ordered because, surprise surprise, she has no income or parental support. For another member of the gang, a lad of 16 with 30 convictions, a nine month supervision order and a two month curfew which he will break because there is no possible means of enforcing it.
Moving across to Middlesbrough, where five-year-old Chloe Edwards was woken at 2am by the sound of Dean Affleck breaking into her family home armed with a meat cleaver. She apparently shouted at 18-year-old Affleck to put her dad's car keys down, at which point, gallantly, he threatened her with the cleaver.
Mr Edwards came down and chased Affleck out of his house. He escaped, opunching two girls in the face as he ran, but was later arrested and found to have a lock knife, cannabis and amphetamines on him.
For breaking into a family's houser in the dead of night, threatening their five-year-old with a machete, violence and
Well, at least he's off the street for the next 12 months or so.
But the killer line was delivered by Judge Peter Bowers who told him: 'You were given an amazing chance in January with a community order for a similar burglary.'
Is amazing the right word?
Is Dean Affleck active in the villages where his local judges live, I wonder?
Finally, what do you get if you smash a pint glass into another girl's face, a centimetre below her eye, on a dancefloor (an 'unprovoked' attack, notice - like there's some sort of provocation which might excuse such behaviour)?
How does 120 hours community service sound? Well, we know from Dean Affleck's case how effective community sentences are, don't we?
Even if Ashleigh Holliman actually turns up, it sounds like no sort of a deterrent or a punishment at all... which is why this sort of thing happens, of course.
Apparently Holliman is a hairdresser. She should be going somewhere for a six month holiday.
TCT
Labels: Mad judges
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Same Differences
People often ask me if the people that I work with now are any different from my Canadian colleagues. The short answer is that they aren’t and I can see the same characters in my previous squad in Newtown as I can here. There are however some differences that reflect the differences between British and North American cultures as much as they do about different approaches to police work.
For one thing, police officers here are generally thinner and taller than those in the UK. This must be partly due to the fact that over here there’s a fitness test to pass prior to getting in and thereafter a similar test every year. This has the effect of creating a culture where it’s almost unacceptable to be fat. Canadian youth culture as a whole is much healthier than in the UK, so the pool from which recruits are drawn is healthier. I once spoke to someone who had the unfortunate duty of looking after a British teenager who was on holiday here in Alberta, the host was quite amazed that the youth didn’t want to do much more that get drunk. Par for course I said. Par for the course.
There are far fewer women in the police here than in the UK. This is probably, once again, due in part to the more exacting fitness standards, but it’s also a fact that there are significantly more, shall we say, ‘support’ positions in the UK, that tend to suit a family schedule. There’s also a greater emphasis on being in uniform and on the street, rather than ‘working hard to support our front line colleagues.’
Educational standards are much the same amongst Canadian and British police officers, but there’s no Accelerated Promotion Scheme over here, which seems to reflect a blue collar tradition of North American policing. In Britain, there’s an emphasis on investigation and procedure that is reflected in the extensive powers of arrest and search available to the police, this means that the officers see themselves as investigators or administrators rather than in the more traditional role of being on the beat. Over here on the other hand, the police have yet to hand over the streets to the criminal element and the primary job of the police is to be on the street and in uniform, so there aren’t the same number (proportionally) of specialist, denim-wearing roles that there are in the UK.
All this means that patrol officers in North America see themselves doing an important and respected job, rather than simply waiting for the next vacancy to come up somewhere else. Someone in the UK once told me that uniform was the nursery of policing, well it’s just that sort of patronizing attitude you don’t get over here.
(4) comments (No swearing please.)
For one thing, police officers here are generally thinner and taller than those in the UK. This must be partly due to the fact that over here there’s a fitness test to pass prior to getting in and thereafter a similar test every year. This has the effect of creating a culture where it’s almost unacceptable to be fat. Canadian youth culture as a whole is much healthier than in the UK, so the pool from which recruits are drawn is healthier. I once spoke to someone who had the unfortunate duty of looking after a British teenager who was on holiday here in Alberta, the host was quite amazed that the youth didn’t want to do much more that get drunk. Par for course I said. Par for the course.
There are far fewer women in the police here than in the UK. This is probably, once again, due in part to the more exacting fitness standards, but it’s also a fact that there are significantly more, shall we say, ‘support’ positions in the UK, that tend to suit a family schedule. There’s also a greater emphasis on being in uniform and on the street, rather than ‘working hard to support our front line colleagues.’
Educational standards are much the same amongst Canadian and British police officers, but there’s no Accelerated Promotion Scheme over here, which seems to reflect a blue collar tradition of North American policing. In Britain, there’s an emphasis on investigation and procedure that is reflected in the extensive powers of arrest and search available to the police, this means that the officers see themselves as investigators or administrators rather than in the more traditional role of being on the beat. Over here on the other hand, the police have yet to hand over the streets to the criminal element and the primary job of the police is to be on the street and in uniform, so there aren’t the same number (proportionally) of specialist, denim-wearing roles that there are in the UK.
All this means that patrol officers in North America see themselves doing an important and respected job, rather than simply waiting for the next vacancy to come up somewhere else. Someone in the UK once told me that uniform was the nursery of policing, well it’s just that sort of patronizing attitude you don’t get over here.
Monday, November 16, 2009
After The Stabbing, Unemployed Miller Celebrated And Told His Brother That He Had 'Done A Paki'.
Kunal Mohanty was a young Indian naval officer who had come to Glasgow College of Nautical Studies to train to become a master mariner.
On his way to a restaurant one night, three days before he would have taken his finals and returned to India (where his wife was expecting their first baby), he unfortunately encountered 25-year-old waster Christopher Miller.
Miller asked Mr Mohanty if he had a cigarette. When Mr Monhanty replied that he did not smoke, 'Miller, without warning, produced a knife and slit his throat'.
Later, Miller 'celebrated with friends' and told his brother that he had 'done a Paki'.
Mrs Mohanty lost the baby as well as her husband, and Mr Mohanty's bewildered parents have had their lives ripped apart.
For this, Miller received life with a minimum of 18 years.
If this revolting piece of garbage keeps his nose clean in jail, he'll be out in his early 40s (and probably on day release long before that).
How on earth can that be a suitable sentence for this appalling act?
He should never be released.
Most disgracefully, Bill Aitken, Member of the Scots Parliament for the Conservatives, suggests that had Miller's victim been white, or had he not shown any racial motive for the killing, an even shorter sentence would have been in order.
Aitken said, 'This was a particularly brutal crime with racial overtones which deserved an exemplary sentence. The judge probably got it more or less right.'
The mind boggles.
Meanwhile, Mr Mohanty senior told the Times: 'European countries are supposed to be well-educated, well-mannered and advanced.'
Unfortunately, these are descriptions that simply do not apply to Christopher Miller and thousands, perhaps millions, like him.
(10) comments (No swearing please.)
On his way to a restaurant one night, three days before he would have taken his finals and returned to India (where his wife was expecting their first baby), he unfortunately encountered 25-year-old waster Christopher Miller.
Miller asked Mr Mohanty if he had a cigarette. When Mr Monhanty replied that he did not smoke, 'Miller, without warning, produced a knife and slit his throat'.
Later, Miller 'celebrated with friends' and told his brother that he had 'done a Paki'.
Mrs Mohanty lost the baby as well as her husband, and Mr Mohanty's bewildered parents have had their lives ripped apart.
For this, Miller received life with a minimum of 18 years.
If this revolting piece of garbage keeps his nose clean in jail, he'll be out in his early 40s (and probably on day release long before that).
How on earth can that be a suitable sentence for this appalling act?
He should never be released.
Most disgracefully, Bill Aitken, Member of the Scots Parliament for the Conservatives, suggests that had Miller's victim been white, or had he not shown any racial motive for the killing, an even shorter sentence would have been in order.
Aitken said, 'This was a particularly brutal crime with racial overtones which deserved an exemplary sentence. The judge probably got it more or less right.'
The mind boggles.
Meanwhile, Mr Mohanty senior told the Times: 'European countries are supposed to be well-educated, well-mannered and advanced.'
Unfortunately, these are descriptions that simply do not apply to Christopher Miller and thousands, perhaps millions, like him.
Labels: Mad judges
Friday, November 13, 2009
Mad Judges (4): The Days Of Lenient Sentences Are Over!
As Polis Man pointed out in the comments to Mad Judges (3), it wasn't Judge Richard Bray who cut the violent and multiply convicted thug Kane Johnston's sentence from three years to one, in was Lord Justice Beam Me Up 'Scott' Baker, if you please. In fact, Judge Bray was the hombre who handed down the original three years. Not enough, given that Johnston would only have served a fraction of that anyway, but we've seen worse. So apologies to Mr Bray.
Mind you, he is the dude who claimed recently that 'the days of lenient sentences are over' and promptly weighed off one Thomas Boyce for a whopping 18 months. So a latter-day Judge Jeffries, then?
Not exactly.
Boyce, 23, had punched his ex-girlfriend, the mother of his child, in the stomach one night, after she had the temerity to ask him where he'd been lately and could she have the money he owed her. Later, he threatened to stab a police officer (he was seen with two knives) and smashed up a pallet and hurled it at another constable.
Let's tick the boxes:
1. Is this Boycie character an utter waste of space? Check 'Yes'.
2. Is he contributing anything to society apart from mayhem, and children he leaves the rest of us to pay for? Check 'No'.
3. Does he have 'a long history of drunk and drug problems'? Check 'Yes'.
4. Does he attack women? Check 'Yes'.
5. Is he prepared to pull out knives on cops? Check 'Yes'.
6. Does a sentence of 18 months for the above prove that 'the days of lenient sentences are over' for violent thugs? Check 'Er... no.'
TCT
Labels: Mad judges
