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One Law For All: ‘Sharia law: neither equal not free’
May 31, 2012 — xanthippaFrom an email from Miriam Namazie:
Update on Baroness Cox’s Equality BillOne Law for All has been spending a lot of time recently working with Caroline Cox and her team in promoting the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equalities) Bill. The aim of the Bill, which was introduced to the House of Lords last year, is to make arbitration services in the UK subject to equality laws and to bar any arbitration where parties are of unequal standing; for example, it would disallow arbitration providers placing greater weight on the testimony of one party over another, as is the case with sharia law where a wife’s word is worth only half of her husband’s. The Bill will also create a criminal offence and make it illegal for arbitration bodies to pretend they have greater jurisdiction than they do – in other words, preventing them from misinforming people that they must obey their rulings. It will also place a duty on public bodies in the UK to inform women of their rights under British la w.The Bill is due for a second reading in the House of Lords this October. Many Peers have already pledged support but we need your help in persuading them further. If you have time, please write to any members of the House of Lords and ask them to consider the seriousness of this Bill and its need in maintaining a society where all people are equal before a single secular and democratic law. In your letter, you could point out to Peers that the Islamic Sharia Council and the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal both openly acknowledge that the testimony of women is given less value than that of men, that custody of children is awarded to fathers regardless of the circumstances, and that sharia family law permits, and therefore encourages, domestic violence and the abuse of women and children. You can find out how to write to Peers here: http://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-a-lord/lord/. You can read the bill here: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2012-13/arbitrationandmediationservicesequality.html.‘Equal and Free?’, a book of evidence compiled in support of the Bill, can be found here: http://equalandfree.org/download-file/downloads/EqualandFree.pdf. It includes testimony from women who have been through the sharia family law system here in Britain, as well as charities and groups which work closely with these women. It also looks at other religious tribunals, such as the Beth Din, and the effect the Bill may have on arbitration more broadly.Debates and ConferencesOne of the issues of concern to those deciding whether to support the Bill is that it may represent an infringement on religious liberty. One Law for All maintains that the right to freedom of religion ends at the point where other people’s rights begin. Sharia family and criminal law represent a serious infringement upon the rights of women to receive a fair hearing and to live without violence or the threat of violence. We will be holding a debate on this issue in the coming months and will invite members of both Houses of Parliament to attend – further details will follow. For more information on other speaking engagements and events, visit: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/category/events/.Child ProtectionAs has been mentioned, sharia family law awards custody of children to fathers from a pre-set age regardless of the circumstances, and regardless of whether the father is abusive or violent. Again, the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal and the Islamic Sharia Council do not deny this fact. It is also known that matters of child custody and contact are being increasingly heard by sharia bodies, increasing the isolation of Muslims in Britain and endangering the children of Muslim parents who may be excluded from the protections provided by British law – which places the wellbeing of the child as the paramount consideration in all questions of this kind. We have been pushing this message very strongly at the House of Lords; all Peers have now received a copy of ‘Equal and Free?’ which contains details of how sharia family law is flouting legal norms in matters of child protection, and the danger this represents &ndas h; it is creating a parallel legal system, based on religion, in the UK.Support us!December will mark four years since the establishment of the One Law for All campaign. A lot has changed in the public debate on Sharia law and equality as a result of our campaign. If you want to and can, please help us to continue our essential work. To donate to the work of One Law for All, you can either send a cheque made payable to One Law for All to BM Box 2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK or pay via Paypal. We also need regular support and for supporters to commit to giving at least £5-10 a month via direct debit. You can find out more about how to donate or join the 100 Club here: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/donate/.Also, if you shop online, please do so via the Easy Fundraising’s website: http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/register-supporter/?char=40474. It won’t cost you anything extra but can help raise much needed funds for One Law for All.Finally, if you haven’t already signed up to the One Law for All campaign, please join the nearly 29,000 people and groups that have: http://onelawforallpetition.com/onelaw/onela300.php?nr=40155035.Thanks againWarmest wishesAnne Marie WatersOne Law for All SpokespersonNOTES1. The One Law for All Campaign was launched on 10 December 2008, International Human Rights Day, to call on the UK Government to recognise that Sharia and religious courts are arbitrary and discriminatory against women and children in particular and that citizenship and human rights are non-negotiable.2. For further information contact:Maryam NamazieAnne Marie WatersSpokespersonsOne Law for AllBM Box 2387London WC1N 3XX, UKTel: +44 (0) 7719166731
Recording and photographing on-duty cops is a Constitutional right in the US
May 19, 2012 — xanthippaYes!!!
“Because recording police officers in the public discharge of their duties is protected by the First Amendment, policies should prohibit interference with recording of police activities except in narrowly circumscribed situations,” reads the DoJ’s letter (pdf). “More particularly, policies should instruct officers that, except under limited circumstances, officers must not search or seize a camera or recording device without a warrant. In addition, policies should prohibit more subtle actions that may nonetheless infringe upon individuals’ First Amendment rights. Officers should be advised not to threaten, intimidate, or otherwise discourage an individual from recording police officer enforcement activities or intentionally block or obstruct cameras or recording devices.”
Oh, and citizen journalists – regular people – have as much of a right to record the police as official members of the press!!!
This is good news indeed!
A tiny step in the right direction for Columbia
May 10, 2012 — xanthippaPerhaps it is not a giant leap, but a tiny – yet important – step for Columbia:
‘The Colombian House of Representatives Wednesday passed the first draft of a bill that seeks to legalize illicit crops.’
…
‘Representative Hugo Velasquez Jaramillo, who proposed the bill, explained that although the cultivation of plants would be legal under the new legislation, the processing and trafficking of drugs would remain subject to criminal sentencing.’
It would be unreasonable to expect Columbia to go further than this – for now. The fear of US reaction to even this must be felt…
But, letting the highly destructive US-led prohibitionism dictate the drug policy of many countries has only had disastrous consequences.
Not only is prohibitionism anti-freedom (in a very real sense, it claims greater property right over the citizen’s own body for The State than the citizen’s own claim to self-ownership), it enriches and strengthens organized crime. In some countries, this undermines governance to such a degree that civil liberties cannot be exercised at all!
Obviously, it is in no-one’s interest (except, of course, the organized crime groups and the ever-more-militarized police forces which grow to combat them) to continue with drug prohibition: the evidence is there for all to see. Still, I doubt that most people are willing to look…
But, let’s not spoil the moment: Columbia has taken a step in the right direction. Let’s hope more countries follow – and that this is just a small step in a long march towards eventually abolishing all drug laws!
A Climte Change Conference with an actual debate of the science
May 9, 2012 — xanthippa‘The Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-7) will take place in Chicago, Illinois from Monday, May 21 to Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at the Hilton Chicago Hotel, 720 South Michigan Avenue. The event will follow the NATO Summit taking place in Chicago on May 19–21.’
This is one Climate Conference which promises to actually address the science and not just the politically correct rhetoric. It is also likely to address the issues arising from faulty or downright fraudulent science on the topic of Anthropogenic Climate Change:
‘On November 22, 2011, a second batch of emails among scientists working at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit was released by an unknown whistle-blower. “Climategate II” revealed prominent scientists concealing data, discussing global warming as a political cause rather than a balanced scientific inquiry, and admitting to scientific uncertainties that they denied in their public statements. ‘
Did I mention that Vaclav Klaus, the Czech President, will deliver the first dinner speech, on Monday, May 21st?
Of course, not everyone is planning to be there. Donna Laframboise of NoFrakkingConsensus, for one, has distanced herself from this event over concerns about Heartland’s ethics.
…lost shipments of bubonic plague…
May 9, 2012 — xanthippaWho needs bio-terrorists with immunology researchers like we have?
‘But many epidemiologists and public health experts say poor handling inside laboratories, rather than bioterror, is the real threat. More than 100 accidents in high-security labs took place between 2003 and 2009, involving everything from flu-infected ferret bites to dropped vials of encephalitis, slips with Ebola needles and lost shipments of bubonic plague. The 1977 “Russian flu” epidemic may have involved a lab escape. Less accidentally, anthrax used in the 2001 attacks almost certainly originated in U.S. military laboratories.’
Of course, there have been a lot of questions about the origins of some recent epidemics: say, from Mexican neighbourhoods right next to immunology research facilities….
In the mainstream media, we have – of course – not heard enough to put the pieces together, and only those epidemics for which there were already developed vaccines got any press at all, even though some much more virulent and deadly epidemics occurred. (Example: 4 strains of hemorrhagic fever epidemic occurred almost simultaneously at one such Mexican neighbourhood a few years ago…thousands got sick, hundreds died – but most press has not deemed this news-worthy.)
From when, in my student days, I had an opportunity to peek into immunology labs, I have been a strong critic of their lack of rigorous adherence to proper scientific procedures and their flawed governance. But, if I start ranting on that topic, I will be typing for days and never post this…
Let me just say that it was sufficient to make me highly skeptical of the scientific validity of any claims to come out of specifically ‘medical’ laboratories. Most people working there have such an inflated sense of purpose that they don’t think that regular rules of proper science apply to anyone of such exulted status as theirs.
On a related note…
Have you ever read a novel where some rogue group develops a deadly virus in a dastardly plot to kill everyone but the chosen few, whom they protect with a vaccine?
No immunologist would go for this!
Why?
Because vaccines just aren’t that effective.
The best estimates are that the efficacy rate (how they actually protect people in the real-world) of vaccinations is less than half their effectiveness as measured under laboratory conditions. In Canada, vaccines with as low efficacy rates as 17% have been approved. (Yes, I cannot support these numbers, but know this directly from an immunologist who resigned in disgust over the approval…and who is still active in the field, so it is imperative that I protect this source.)
That means that less out of 10 people vaccinated, between 2 and 5 will actually derive any protection as a result of having been vaccinated. (Since the efficacy rate is about half the rate in labs, so even the best vaccine will not give any protection to half the people who receive it.)
Remember, the purpose of vaccination is sufficient ‘herd immunity‘ to slow down transmission, not individual protection!
While even many run-of-the-mill MD’s are unaware of these statistics, most immunologists are. So, the novels with the ‘vaccinate ‘our people’ and release a deadly virus’ would not be carried out by any immunologist, because they understand the limitations of vaccination.
Which, really, is something we should all be educated about.
After all, if we think we are protected from a disease, we will not take the same precautions against catching it as if we were aware that we may – or may not – be protected…a very important distinction with real-life consequences.
Don’t get me wrong: I am convinced that vaccines are a very powerful tool. I just think that any tool, if used improperly, has a potential to do more harm than good. Vaccines are no different!
Reason TV’s ‘Nanny of the Month’ awards for April, 2012
May 1, 2012 — xanthippa
Hey, that’s just like in Ender’s Game – you know, that award-winning, classic sci-fi novel for youth that a teachecher in North Carolina got suspended for reading from to students? (OK – you don’t learn about the chip in the clothing that tracks the students’ every movement until book 2 in the series, Ender’s Shadow, but you get the picture…)
The pitfalls of ‘big’ medicine
April 30, 2012 — xanthippaThis is the problem with ‘scaling up’: something necessarily gets lost in the process.
I recall when the Canadian government was ‘standardizing’ their IM/IT infrastructure, implementings seamless inter-operability and portability and other optimization measures: the result was that the whole system was now monolithic, with the necessary loss of flexibility and adaptability to specific, perhaps non-typical applications.
But it gets worse: the only vendors who could service this behemoth were those who were bundling and re-selling ‘the one big solution’. No independant little companies with clever, efficient and cost-effective solutions for particular applications could possibly penetrate this marketplace.
It got even worse: when employees, burdened by the monolithic ‘optimized’ system would write their own bits of code to add back the functionality their specific little segment needed, but which was lost due to this stadardization, they were not celebrated as innovators – they were punished as rogues and ‘not team players’ and, eventually, this sort of innovative initiative had been completely stamped out of our Federal civil service.
This predictably depressing – but important to read nonetheless – article in Washington Monthly shows how this process had occurred in the US, as hospitals strove to optimize their purchasing practices: they had ‘optimized’ them to such a level that now, highly superior products that would save lives – but which come from small innovators – have little or no chance to even enter the market, much less succeed in it.
‘ … Edward Goodman, the hospital’s director of infection control, wrote a letter to the purchasing department, saying Shaw’s product was “essential to the safety and health of our employees, staff and patients.” But Shaw soon learned that the enthusiasm of health care workers was not enough to gain him entrée; the hospital initially promised him a contract, only to back out three months later. Though he didn’t realize it at the time, Shaw had just stumbled into the path of a juggernaut. ‘
…
‘… One of the first witnesses was California entrepreneur Joe Kiani, who had invented a machine to monitor blood-oxygen levels. Unlike other similar devices, Kiani’s worked even when patients moved around or had little blood flowing to their extremities, a crucial innovation for treating sickly, premature infants, who tend to squirm and need to be monitored constantly for oxygen saturation—too little and they suffocate, too much and they go blind. But most hospitals couldn’t buy Kiani’s product because his larger rival, Nellcor, had cut a deal with the GPOs. ‘ (Note: GPO’s are the ‘purchasing optimization’ which has now gridlocked the hospitals, preventing them from purchasing better, safer and cheaper equipment.)
It also highlights something that ought to be a ‘no-brainer’, but that seems to be a mystery to our law-makers: exempting anyone – ANYONE – from anti-trust, anti-racketeering and similar legislation is destructive and will end badly, no matter how noble the motivations may be.
‘Then, in 1986 Congress passed a bill exempting GPOs from the anti-kickback provisions embedded in Medicare law. This meant that instead of collecting membership dues, GPOs could collect “fees”—in other industries they might be called kickbacks or bribes—from suppliers in the form of a share of sales revenue.’
‘…But, as with many well-intended laws, the shift had some ground-shaking unintended consequences. Most importantly, it turned the incentives for GPOs upside down. Instead of being tied to the dues paid by members, GPOs’ revenues were now tied to the profits of the suppliers they were supposed to be pressing for lower prices. This created an incentive to cater to the sellers rather than to the buyers—to big companies like Becton Dickinson rather than to member hospitals.’
The article is long – but important and we should heed its message!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 