In England, Big Brother watches you, but he won't stop you from getting robbed.

That's the word from the Guardian, anyway:

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

[...]

Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. "CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure," Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working."

More training was needed for officers, he said. Often they do not want to find CCTV images "because it's hard work". Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.

Raise your hand if you're surprised...

You might just be a Nazi if...

...you use plastic bags, according to Baltimore City Councilman James Craft.

Heh. I guess the Baltimore City Council has finally solved all big problems.

The Official Baby-snatchers of Arlington County

In a case of big government gone insane, Nancy Hey and Christopher Slitor had their 3-week-old daughter Sabrina taken from him by Arlington County (VA) Child Protective Services. Why? Because an anonymous and unsubstantiated claim that he and his wife were starving the child:

After more than two years of legal wrangling with the county’s Child Protective Services (CPS), Arlington Circuit Court Judge James Almand terminated the couple’s parental rights in June 2007.

But nine months earlier, Sabrina’s parents were completely exonerated by Virginia CPS hearing officer George Walton, who noted in his official report that, despite the baby’s worrisome 10-ounce weight loss soon after her birth by Caesarian section, nothing in the her medical record indicated she had ever been in danger. There was also no evidence, Walton added, that Sabrina’s “failure to thrive” resulted from parental neglect.

In fact, the record showed the opposite: Nancy Hey – who suffers from a developmental disorder that makes it difficult for her to recognize non-verbal signals from others – and her husband fully cooperated with medical professionals and CPS workers throughout their ordeal. In any case, Sabrina was at her proper weight when she was taken away by county officials, two days after her parents told social worker Dana Zemke that they were retaining a lawyer. Arlington Judge Esther Wiggins Lyles signed the removal order with neither Hey nor Slitor even aware of the proceedings, much less being present to contest the decision. Sabrina went to a politically influential local professional couple with no training as foster parents, despite CPS requirements that foster couples be trained before being entrusted with children.

At this point, even if Hey and Slitor win, they lose. To quote Ezra Levant, "the process is the punishment". Regardless of the final outcome, they will still have their legal fees, while the state will have none. If they can't reverse the custody decision, they lose their daughter. If they regain custody rights, they've lost two very important years of Sabrina's life to the nanny state.

(h/t the Corner)

PA Man Arrested for Complaining

Watch out, DPUD, you're probably next. Marshall Pappert, a resident of the Pittsburgh suburb of Bridgeville has learned a valuable lesson about government effectiveness. He, speaking for both himself and his fellow neighbors, has taken the government to task for not dealing with a ready-mix concrete company in their neighborhood guilty of air pollution violations. According to the neighbors, the company begins running trucks at 2am, and the dust the company produces is so bad that residents can't even open their windows. The city and county officials have finally dealt with the problem:

The breaking point came when Pappert left three voice mail messages at the office of borough Manager Lori Collins.

"I'm asking you as a Bridgeville resident of 56 years to resign and get off of your position. Do the right thing," Pappert said in one message to Collins.

His messages accused the borough manager of going back on a promise to collect dust samples from homes and have them tested.

"You never did that. You said you were going to come over here with (Solicitor) Richard Ferris within a week. You told me that you were going to take a silicate sample, and that was it. And for four months, you left me wondering why you didn't," Pappert said.

Bogats said Pappert's messages gave him cause for concern because of "his voice tone, his voice influx, the anger that was present in his voice."

Bogats arrested Pappert on a charge of harassment, which is a criminal summary offense.

"In that voice mail that he left, did he curse?" Parsons asked.

"No," Bogats said.

"Did he threaten?" Parsons asked.

"No," Bogats said.

"What did he do that rose to the level of a crime?" Parsons asked.

"In section 2709 of the Pennsylvania crimes code, dealing with harassment, it specifically states that when a person, they harass, annoy or alarm an individual based upon the conduct, then it's harassment," Bogats said.

Emphasis mine.

They've quoted a Pittsburgh-area ACLU lawyer who feels this is a violation of Pappert's First Amendment rights, and I'm inclined to agree. Any small government-minded lawyers in the area feel like helping the guy out?

Another Evil of Western Society

It must be interesting to live in a world where you see conspiracy around every turn. It's a lot easier than personal responsibility. The latest Western distraction to be forced on Muslim society? Greenwich mean time:

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

[...]

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

Just so we have our facts straight: Britain setting up a standardized system of time is bad, but setting up a standardized culture and religion under a global 7th-century caliphate is good. Gotcha.

Plan on dancing on the steps of Jefferson's Memorial to celebrate his birth?

Well don't. You'll get arrested.

Support Canadian Bloggers

The draconian body to our north, known as the Canadian Human Rights Commission, is going on a witch hunt against conservative Canadian bloggers:

The human rights commission attacks on Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn have made a lot of people aware of the danger of allowing these government bodies to regulate the speech of Canadians, and the internet has been abuzz with stories of bureaucratic abuse. The fight for free speech has begun.

As you might expect, these commissions and those who support them are not prepared to go down without a fight. In recent days, defamation notices have begun to arrive at the doors of the bloggers and website owners who have dared to comment on former human rights investigator and EGALE member, Richard Warman, or his staunchest defender, former Liberal war room strategist, Warren Kinsella. (Yes, he’s the same Warren Kinsella who ridiculed Stockwell Day’s Creationist views with a Barney doll on national television.)

Kathy at Five Feet of Fury has now reported that the lawsuits have been served. You can help these bloggers by donating to their legal defense funds (links to each of the bloggers' sites at the bottom of this post).

Warman is, of course, the same sharia-promoting imbecile that filed a complaint against Ezra Levant's magazine, the Western Standard for publishing the Danish Muhammed cartoons. Levant's videotaped inquiry before an employee of the Alberta Human Rights Commission can be found on his YouTube page. (There are about 9 clips in total, so I don't want to post them all on this post.) Here is his opening statement:

I find it interesting that people always threaten to "move to Canada" when someone they don't like gets the presidency, as if it is somehow "better" or "more free". What a joke.

CORRECTION: I was contacted by the site administration of NoApologies.ca tonight, and I would like to issue a correction. From his email:

Just a quick correction to your post. You wrote that "Warman is, of course, the same sharia-promoting imbecile that filed a complaint against Ezra Levant's magazine, the Western Standard for publishing the Danish Muhammed cartoons."

Actually, that's not quite correct. OK, it's not even close.

Warman is Jewish (as is Exra). While the guys who are going after Ezra are Muslims - one complaint, since withdrawn, was from an imam in Calgary named Syed Soharwardy. The other is from the Muslim Council of Edmonton. Nobody has been able to prove any connection between Richard Warman and these guys. Largely because they don't exist.
(The Muslims, in their darker and more honest moments, would probably be as glad to persecute Warman as they would Ezra.)

Just to be clear, like you, I have no use for Warman. I'm the site admin for noapologies.ca, (you linked to an article on our site - that's how I found you) and we fully expect to be "next" on Dickie's War-baby's list of lawsuit targets. But disdaining the man, his tactics, or his politics doesn't mean we need to sacrifice accuracy.
Just thought you'd like to know.

When I wrote this post today, I took the following passage in this post at Michelle Malkin's site to mean that Warman was the one bringing charges against both the Western Standard and the Canadian bloggers:

You need to know about this. The same tool who went after Canadian publisher Ezra Levant over the Mohammed cartoons is also targeting other Canadian conservative bloggers with “defamation” legal threats. He is trying to shut up and shut down the right-leaning blogosphere up north one blog at a time–and then is suing people who call him a censor.

I should have been more thorough, and I apologize for the error.

Everything You Need to Know about Tomorrow's DC Gun Ban Case

This is an interview with Reason Magazine Senior Editor Brian Doherty, who is currently writing a book on the District of Columbia v. Heller case, which will begin hearings in the Supreme Court tomorrow. Its just under five minutes long and pretty informative.

as much as i hate creeping facism...

...i almost hate axe body spray more. still, this is ridiculous:

A Minnesota lawmaker proposed a bill Monday urging a fragrance-free educational campaign to discourage students from dousing themselves in scents that aggravate classmates with asthma and other health problems.

Odors that fill hallways come mostly from boys who douse themselves in body sprays like Axe, said Mikolai Altenberg, a senior at Minneapolis South High School. He said the smell is "indescribable" and unavoidable.

maybe she can think up a ban for teenage whining while she's at it.

i expect all comments on this post to be anonymous

here's another example of an embarrassing republican legislator in kentucky:

[State] Rep. Tim Couch, R-Hyden, filed a bill that would require anyone posting on interactive Web sites to first register using their legal names, addresses and valid e-mail addresses.

Couch, however, said he won't push the bill -- he just wants to draw attention to the growing presence of anonymous and often mean-spirited comments on Web sites.

so, not only is the bill ridiculous on its face, couch says that he isn't even pushing the bill. that means that he wasted his time drawing up a bill that he won't even promote instead of actually working on issues people can get behind.