I read the news today oh boy! Page 1,735

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32763215

ExEgyptian premiere Morsi sentenced to death on the same day as Morrisey rumoured to be dead?

Every day is like Monday for him, hang the despot

nb Muslim fashion and modesty confuses me.

Very pretty and competent Muslim lady reporting on US raid on channel 4 news.

Head scarf, along with rather short skirt.

What gives?

(please add own smutty reedit)

Who needs free will anyhow? :)

So today a court in Northern Ireland ruled that a baker had discriminated against his client by refusing to provide him with a cake with a pro-gay-marriage slogan on it.

Interesting that.
He didn't refuse to serve him because he was gay. He's served the customer before and since this incident. But he wasn't going to make that cake.
And now he's told he's broken the law.

So, next time the BNP want a cake, every baker in the country will know to comply, knowing they have no right to refuse.

And to the comedy writers on here; if a politician now asks you to provide him for some gags for his speech at the party conference, you can't refuse because you don't agree with his politics.

Well, admittedly the court decision isn't a precendential one.
But one does despair at the way things are going.
Mankind seems to be growing more stupid.

Quote: Gussie Fink Nottle @ 19th May 2015, 8:29 PM BST

So today a court in Northern Ireland ruled that a baker had discriminated against his client by refusing to provide him with a cake with a pro-gay-marriage slogan on it.

Copycats!

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/02/bakery-same-sex-oregon-fined-wedding-cake/22771685/

Political correctness has jumped the shark.

The SNP trying to take Dennis Skinner's seat in the HoP.

Aresoles Have they no respect?

Things like this make me think we take a f**kin' great chainsaw cut Scotland off and give it a big shove in the direction of Iceland.

Quote: Gussie Fink Nottle @ 19th May 2015, 8:29 PM BST

Who needs free will anyhow? :)

So today a court in Northern Ireland ruled that a baker had discriminated against his client by refusing to provide him with a cake with a pro-gay-marriage slogan on it.

Interesting that.
He didn't refuse to serve him because he was gay. He's served the customer before and since this incident. But he wasn't going to make that cake.
And now he's told he's broken the law.

So, next time the BNP want a cake, every baker in the country will know to comply, knowing they have no right to refuse.

And to the comedy writers on here; if a politician now asks you to provide him for some gags for his speech at the party conference, you can't refuse because you don't agree with his politics.

Well, admittedly the court decision isn't a precendential one.
But one does despair at the way things are going.
Mankind seems to be growing more stupid.

I agree with you.

Equality should be on the basis of everyone's right to say no. Not a requirement that everyone has to say yes. Any ruling on any matter on the lines of the above involving any social group - the BNP is a good example - is effectively for a legal rape, ie force, rather than upholding the principle of consent.

What the individuals in this case are doing is enjoying the benefits of an idiot law. As you say, that has considerable knock on effects on everyone else. Their equality should be to open their own cake shop and tell ever Jack and Wendy who want a polka dots and roses for their big day to bugger off.

Notwithstanding those points, I find all the stances as trivial as they are annoying. The key points are the fat cat lawyers are raking it in as always and as daButt points out the United Kingdom is now an American state, albeit one engaged in civil war with the Celts. There will be nothing of Britain by 2020.

It would be nice to discover if there is now ANY bastion of the Establishment or even one of its eager footsoldiers left who is not either trying to silence the population as if this were Bulgaria in the 1960s or smash up as much of the infrastructure as soon as possible. Their nannies really should have made them play with other kids more so their first instinct wasn't to break every piece in the meccano box.

WTF was that website again? :|

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3087953/An-orgasm-day-lower-man-s-risk-prostate-cancer-20-study-reveals.html

There's an old pub called "Ye Olde Fighting Cocks" which animal rights have got their knickers in a twist about. And their spokeswoman was a Yank! Bloody hell! I hope they don't cave in to the arseholes.

I agree that Cock Fighting is barbaric but this is an ancient English pub.

Quote: A Horseradish @ 19th May 2015, 10:02 PM BST

I agree with you.

Equality should be on the basis of everyone's right to say no. Not a requirement that everyone has to comply. Any ruling on any matter involving any social group on the lines of the above - the BNP is a good example - is effectively for legal rape, ie force, rather than upholding the principle of consent.

Not like you to agree with a wishy-washy libertarian. ;)

What was once a liberal ideal has been turned into a political dogma, the latter now as strictly enforced as the former previously was oppressed.

We've gone from a country in which nobody was permitted to 'promote' homosexuality to a country where nobody is permitted to criticise it.
A 'must not' has become a 'must'.
Laisser faire is just not something politicians seem to understand.

Moreover, I have grown somewhat tired with the political class using gay rights as a liberal fig leaf; draping themselves in the colours of western liberal values whilst savaging more general liberties for the past twenty five years.
It is hard to find any other social group aside from homosexuals which has had its rights extended in the past quarter of a century.

But yes, I'm not a great fan of this sort of illiberal liberalism.
It's another one of those Blairite oxymorons. Like starting a war to spread peace.

Actually the BNP is not a good example because the baker who refuses to write on a cake "no blacks" wouldn't be in trouble. But where it all will get very complicated is if a Jewish couple make a point of going to an Islamic bakers or vice versa, knowing that they are going to be refused. If they win the case, THEY will get a nice free wedding out of it but it makes broad social relations worse, not better.

Rights have been extended to a wide range of groups since the Race Relations Act of 1976. I have been consistently supportive of all or most of them but there comes a time when one has to say that the interpretation of discrimination for FUTURE legislation needs to be redrawn. In my humble opinion, vulnerability is no longer defined by social grouping apart from in broad trends. It is most clearly defined in economics. The greatest discrimination is by the haves towards the have nots and the latter group, which includes every type of person, is being kicked in the gutter every day of the week.

Quote: Chappers @ 19th May 2015, 10:15 PM BST

There's an old pub called "Ye Olde Fighting Cocks" which animal rights have got their knickers in a twist about. And their spokeswoman was a Yank! Bloody hell! I hope they don't cave in to the arseholes.

I agree that Cock Fighting is barbaric but this is an ancient English pub.

Yep, hard to see how anyone can get their knickers in a twist about a pub's name.
What are they afraid the name might do? Corrupt everyone into wanting to see cock fighting?

It seems it's no longer enough just to have one's way (i.e. to have the ban). Instead one now pursues a scorched earth policy, seeking to utterly obliterate any sign of a past of which one disapproves.

One is reminded of the puritans under Cromwell smashing stained glass church windows and beheading church statues.
Or Egyptian pharaos and Roman emperors having their defeated predecessor obliterated from history, even gouging out the relief carvings of their name or image from temples and monuments.

Quote: Gussie Fink Nottle @ 19th May 2015, 10:39 PM BST

Yep, hard to see how anyone can get their knickers in a twist about a pub's name.
What are they afraid the name might do? Corrupt everyone into wanting to see cock fighting?

It seems it's no longer enough just to have one's way (i.e. to have the ban). Instead one now pursues a scorched earth policy, seeking to utterly obliterate any sign of a past of which one disapproves.

One is reminded of the puritans under Cromwell smashing stained glass church windows and beheading church statues.
Or Egyptian pharaos and Roman emperors having their defeated predecessor obliterated from history, even gouging out the relief carvings of their name or image from temples and monuments.

I notice you don't have anything to say about the inherent discrimination in economic inequality. ;)

I wouldn't agree with the banning of pub signs as I feel that history can't be rewritten. This one is trickier than the fighting cocks. But I think it is quite helpful to acknowledge that even in something as barbaric as early racial prejudice, there could be glimpses of humanity. The people in this picture are guilty of nothing other than being naive and they could possibly be kindly in intention. It was the state machine which was responsible for nastiness in the climate including keeping normal folk uneducated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11389651/Village-pub-embroiled-in-race-row-over-sign-showing-black-boy-being-scrubbed-in-bath-by-white-couple.html

Quote: A Horseradish @ 19th May 2015, 10:29 PM BST

Actually the BNP is not a good example because the baker who refuses to write on a cake "no blacks" wouldn't be in trouble. But where it all will get very complicated is if a Jewish couple make a point of going to an Islamic bakers or vice versa, knowing that they are going to be refused. If they win the case, THEY will get a nice free wedding out of it but it makes broad social relations worse, not better.

Rights have been extended to a wide range of groups since the Race Relations Act of 1976. I have been consistently supportive of all or most of them but there comes a time when one has to say that the interpretation of discrimination for FUTURE legislation needs to be redrawn. In my humble opinion, vulnerability is no longer defined by social grouping apart from in broad trends. It is most clearly defined in economics. The greatest discrimination is by the haves towards the have nots and the latter group, which includes every type of person, is being kicked in the gutter every day of the week.

Trust a 'radical' to try to turn this one toward economics and social deprivation again. :) Not that he's a lefty, of course. :P
Civil liberties being about not being deprived is a long stretch though, Horse.

As for the BNP, I think the example still holds.
My example didn't say anything about 'no blacks', but simply about a cake the BNP might want.

So if the baker is asked for a cake proclaiming 'Vote for a better Britain! Vote BNP!', then following this example he'd need to oblige.
In fact, we all would.

Then again, we wouldn't as the BNP aren't a fashionable cause.
But the equivalency holds up nicely.

Quote: Gussie Fink Nottle @ 19th May 2015, 10:51 PM BST

Trust a 'radical' to try to turn this one toward economics and social deprivation again. :) Not that he's a lefty, of course. :P
Civil liberties being about not being deprived is a long stretch though, Horse.

As for the BNP, I think the example still holds.
My example didn't say anything about 'no blacks', but simply about a cake the BNP might want.

So if the baker is asked for a cake proclaiming 'Vote for a better Britain! Vote BNP!', then following this example he'd need to oblige.
In fact, we all would.

Then again, we wouldn't as the BNP aren't a fashionable cause.
But the equivalency holds up nicely.

No he wouldn't need to oblige there because the BNP are rightly not covered by anti-discrimination legislation. Ironically, they are a very small minority post Griffin and I don't regret that one jot. But along with the weirdo sergeant-major types, obviously it had in its heyday a fair number of working class white males in its ranks. And while I don't sympathise in any way with discriminatory stances in that group, I do believe that they have probably been at least as discriminated against economically than any other group of people since the 1990s. I would almost argue as someone who passed the eleven plus and went to university that I am closer to that group in 2015 than my parents ever were having done neither of those things. I'm going back to my grandparents situation having done loads of extra things to be anything but there. I was radical. But that makes me a borderline revolutionary and there is no doubt I would be VERY uncompromising if I was in my 20s rather than beyond it.

Quote: A Horseradish @ 19th May 2015, 10:44 PM BST

I notice you don't have anything to say about the inherent discrimination in economic inequality. ;)

I wouldn't agree with the banning of pub signs as I feel that history can't be rewritten. This one is trickier than the fighting cocks. But I think it is quite helpful to acknowledge that even in something as barbaric as early racial prejudice, there could be glimpses of humanity. The people in this picture are guilty of nothing other than being naive and they could possibly be kindly in intention. It was the state machine which was responsible for nastiness in the climate including keeping normal folk uneducated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11389651/Village-pub-embroiled-in-race-row-over-sign-showing-black-boy-being-scrubbed-in-bath-by-white-couple.html

Give us a chance, mate.
If you add something on after posting, then I might not necessarily see it before I've posted an initial reply. :)

As for the racial issue, in German language there is a wonderful current example. The 'Mohrenkopf'.
You may know of Tunnock's tea cakes? They're sort of chocolate covered marsh mallowy things. they'r every popular in the German speaking world. In German this type of sweet is usually called a 'Moor's head' (Mohrenkopf).
This is now widely being changed because it's 'racist'.

But nobody can quite explain what is supposed to be racist about it.
A jam filled doughnut is a 'Berliner', one particular sausage is a 'Wiener' (a citizen of Vienna) and another is a 'Krakauer' (Krakovian).
Nobody would call these racist.

But a 'Moor's head' supposedly is racist. It seems the mere connotation with anything black is now deemed politically incorrect, whether there is anything racist about it or not.

Quote: A Horseradish @ 19th May 2015, 10:57 PM BST

No he wouldn't need to oblige there because the BNP are rightly not covered by anti-discrimination legislation.

Well, it's hard to see how anti-discrimination legislation really has covered the gay marriage cake.
You see, the baker didn't refuse to trade with the customer because he was gay.
He has served him before and since. (Hard to argue discrimination in my mind)
He wasn't even refusing to make a gay marriage cake.
But he didn't want to produce a cake with a pro-gay-marriage slogan.

Now sure, the court found that anti-discrimination law applied.
But the baker, rightly in my opinion, argued he was being forced to produce a political message with which he disagreed.
Hence my BNP example.

Quote: Gussie Fink Nottle @ 19th May 2015, 11:05 PM BST

Give us a chance, mate.
If you add something on after posting, then I might not necessarily see it before I've posted an initial reply. :)

As for the racial issue, in German language there is a wonderful current example. The 'Mohrenkopf'.
You may know of Tunnock's tea cakes? They're sort of chocolate covered marsh mallowy things. they'r every popular in the German speaking world. In German this type of sweet is usually called a 'Moor's head' (Mohrenkopf).
This is now widely being changed because it's 'racist'.

But nobody can quite explain what is supposed to be racist about it.
A jam filled doughnut is a 'Berliner', one particular sausage is a 'Wiener' (a citizen of Vienna) and another is a 'Krakauer' (Krakovian).
Nobody would call these racist.

But a 'Moor's head' supposedly is racist. It seems the mere connotation with anything black is now deemed politically incorrect, whether there is anything racist about it or not.

You are quite close to cake and Germans, aren't you. I don't know what to make of it. To my mind, that is back to pub signs. It is history alive in the prevailing culture and if the prevailing culture can't handle it then it isn't as advanced or nuanced as it should be by now. Having gone off on a particular drift, I am struggling with my own concept of revolution as it is an odd thing. Obviously it stays in my head and has nothing of practical use to offer whatsoever. Still, it envisages the retaining of many of the basics - traditions, some of which dare one say it are small "c" conservative, albeit running in parallel with decent liberal modern reform - rather than wholly accepting the tide of brushing them away plus it is a return in many ways to post war economics rather than establishing something very new. This is why I'm comfortable with SOME broad monitoring as I see that sort of stance - mine - as a protection against the modern politics. That any monitoring should partially be protecting modern politics which is smashing up so much is disturbing but it's also wryly entertaining and deeply ironic.