well groomed

From the Guardian

The first attempt at a nationwide assessment of patterns of child sexual exploitation reveals that 26% of those who engage in on-street grooming of young girls are Asian. But Peter Davies, the director of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (Ceop), which carried out the research warned against jumping to any conclusions from the findings on the ethnicity of offenders because the data gathered by his investigators was incomplete, not nationwide and of poor quality.

Either the results are worthless and therefore should not have been published OR there is a genuine problem with child abuse among the Asian community compared to other ethnic backgrounds within the population of the UK.

But then CEOP have form for producing rubbish, don't they?




As an aside when I tried to look at the report, following the link in the Guardian article it took me to a .pdf of a report by Age Concern. Not sure how that's linked to this story but .. .. ..

24,000

From the BBC:

US officials have released thousands of pages of e-mails sent by Republican politician Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska governor.

The documents were released on paper, and news organisations have begun scrambling to process and scan them.

The state is releasing about 24,000 pages of e-mails from Mrs Palin's first 21 months as governor, but authorities withheld about 2,000 pages, citing executive privilege and privacy concerns.

I thought the whole point of email was that it could be stored electronically thus reducing the use of paper. To release 24,000 pages of emails printed out on paper has to have been designed to be the most awkward way of complying with the request. Clearly someone wasn't happy about it ......

smoking

EDM 1851

That this House welcomes the provisions of theTen Minute Rule Bill to stop smoking in cars with minors present; notes that research conducted by the British Lung Foundation found that over half (51 per cent.) of eight to 15 year-olds have been exposed to cigarette smokewhen confined in a car and 86 per cent. of children across the UK want people to stop smoking when children are in the car; further notes with concern that around four million people in the UK continue to smoke near children and over 300,000 children in the UK present passive smoking-related illnesses to their GP every year; and callson the Government to ensure that measures are taken to improve child protection in this area.

This Early Day Motion, which is supported by 21 MPs, had me thinking.

If 50% of children have been exposed to smoke why are only 2.5%* attending their GP with "passive smoking-related illnesses"? Surely if the two things were linked - exposure to smoke and smoking related illness, the correlation would be much higher?

Why haven't these MPs called on the government to do something about the infestation of children rather than trying to further restrict the actions of smokers?

Why have five Lib Dems (two of whom also signed EDM 1501) called for restrictive measures to "improve child protection"? Don't they understand what the term liberal means?

Why wasn't I surprised to see Caroline Lucas had signed this?

At what point will the hounding of smokers end? We can't smoke in enclosed public spaces and there are moves to prevent us from smoking in outdoor spaces, our own homes and our own cars. Why not just make tobacco illegal and everyone will just stop using it like they did with cocaine, cannabis and heroin.


Labour MP Alex Cunningham will be introducing his Ten Minute Rule Motion to parliament on Wednesday 22nd June 2011

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to make provision for a ban on smoking in private vehicles where there are children present; and for connected purposes.

Even in opposition they want to micromanage your life and lifestyle.

















* According to this report from 2002 there are 12.1 million children in the UK

Dead Empire: This Curse

Not necessarily my thing but hey, it might be yours?