Thursday 23 April 2009

Woman's bra saves her life!

Bras, in my experience, are more trouble then they are worth. You can never find the perfect fit, a nice style or one that suits all lifestyles. But I wonder when this woman bought her bra, whether or not she knew it would save her life!

The unnamed 57-year-old woman from the West side of Detroit was shot at by one of three intruders as she looked out of her window and saw them raiding the house next door. The bullet deflected off of the underwire of her bra thus saving her life.

She was taken to hospital but released the same day and Detroit police said "she sustained injuries but they're not life threatening."

Local police Sgt Eren Stephens Bell told the Detrioit News: "We need to get some bulletproof vests made from that. It is some strong wire."

Wednesday 22 April 2009

TV Talent


When Susan Boyle walked on stage on TV talent show Britains Got Talent, the audience and viewers at home laughed. Little did they know she could actually sing!

I myself admit I judged this book a little to harshly by its cover and just watched it because I thought it would make me laugh. How wrong myself and i'm sure many others like me were!

The 48-year-old wowed the TV show judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan by singing West End song 'I Dreamed A Dream'.

The audience and viewers were endeared by her as she admitted she had never been kissed and acted a bit, for want of a better word, 'kooky' on stage.

But now it has emerged the wonder from Blackburn, West Lothian, has infact been kissed and more than once! She recently admitted “That was made as a joke! Never been kissed? I’ve never stopped.”

Although she does have a good voice, I wonder if she would have been as much of a hit without the silly spinster story thrown in? Who knows?

What we do know is that there is some fierce competition in this years show including the very cute Shaheen Jarfargholi from Swansea, whose rendition of 'Who's Loving You' by the Jackson 5 raked in 13.5 million viewers, giving it the biggest TV ratings of the year so far. Susan and Shaheen are favourites to be in the final says the sun dubbing the competition, 'Boyle V Boyo'.

Thursday 9 April 2009

Police Power.....Mad!


Last week during the G20 protests a man was struck by a police officer and died.

Ian Tomlinson, 47, was trying to get home from his newspaper selling job, through the Royal Exchange Passage when he was struck in the leg with a baton by a metropolitan police officer and pushed to the ground. Bystanders are said to have helped Mr Tomlinson up, but he collapsed three minutes later of a heart attack and died.

Footage shows the newspaper vendor trying to get home to Smithfield past police cordons. He had his hands in his pockets, his back to the officers and it is alledged he was in no way part of the protest.

The independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating the death.

I wonder, after looking at the pictures in the newspaper, why the officer chose to attack a man, not making any trouble and clearly just walking? I could understand a mistake perhaps if the scene was busy and there were lots of people creating havoc, but from the stills of the footage, it appears to be quite empty.

I was reading John Kingdom's Government and Politics in Britain, thinking about how much power the police on the streets should really have.

Kingdom writes that 'One of the defining characteristics of the state is the right to use violence' but that it needs to be used with caution or we run the risk of becoming a 'police state'. He also writes that 'Policing involves two broad functions 'fighting crime and maintaining public order'.
I think, that there is a very thin line between these two concepts. Yes, the police should fight crime in order to maintain public order, but there is a difference between keeping the peace and using violence in order to make a point.

In the case of the officer who hit Ian Tomlinson, no one knows exactly what was going through his mind at the time, in his eyes, he may have been trying to make a point that the police presence was there to stop anything kicking off, however he made the vital mistake in using a weapon. This raises the point of militarization. Using military style force to maintain order. 'Once officers are armed, mistakes can be fatal'. (Kingdom:670:ch21).

In 1994 the Criminal Justice and Public order Act was put in place giving the police the right to restrict protestors amongst other things. Of course this is a vital act given the amount of protests that have led to violence, but this should not protect the officer in question, and the footage will clearly show that he used force in completly the wrong circumstance. A similar case of police violence which led to the death of a person was Oliver Price in 1990, who died after being held in a head lock by a police officer.

Kingdom also writes that 'characteristically the police are associated with certain attitudes towards race, gender, class and ideology'. Looking at the stills, Mr Tomlinson does fit the lower class model, tracksuit bottoms, a shaved head and quite a big figure (I do not want to generalise here, I am just looking through the eyes of the officers) so this reiterates the police attitudes. It is however a very shocking incident, and it just shows that the police are giving too much freedom when it comes to policing the streets. Luckily there are witnesses in favour of Mr Tomlinson's family, and the footage, as it would not suprise me if the police got away with this by twisting the facts as has been done in the past, to protect the reputation of the Police Force in Britain. A quote from Kingdom 'There are grounds for believing that policing in the UK is a model for the world'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7992783.stm
John Kingdom: Government and Politics Chapter 21.

Tuesday 7 April 2009

Parky tells it how it is.....


The television legend that is Michael Parkinson never ceases to amaze me. I think he is brilliant. He speaks the truth. And yet again he has graced the world with his wise word.

There is no denying at this moment in time the subject of Jade Goody's death is somewhat a sensitive point amongst many of the public, as people are still mourning and she was taken so young. However the idea that she was a 'saint' and a 'martyr' seems a tad far fetched. Well to me anyway! Which is why I am really glad Parkinson has had his say and brought everyone back down to earth.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that her death had been turned into a media circus, and no matter how sad it is for her two children and everyone she left behind, death is a part of life, people die everyday!

In a recent interview Parkinson told the Radio Times "Jade Goody has her own place in the history of television and, while it's significant, it's nothing to be proud of. Her death is as sad as the death of any young person, but it's not the passing of a martyr or a saint or Princess Di."

Not one to shy away from voicing his opinion Parkinson also referred to Jade as "ignorant" and claimed that she represented "all that's paltry and wretched about Britain today".

It is absolutly wonderful that her passing has led to more people getting cervical cancer screenings and raised mass awareness of the disease. But however sad, I do think that the British Public have a guilty conscience for all the bad things they said about the young women, and this is there way of repenting. If Jade hadn't died, would we like her?


http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Michael Parkinson

Monday 6 April 2009

Madonna shown no Mercy


Last week Madonna travelled to Malawi in a bid to adopt yet another orphan, this time a young girl, Mercy James. She was however denied the adoption.

When a child is deemed better off in a poverty stricken Malawi with high infant mortality rates rather than joining a rich family in a developed country, it begs the question, why?

Judge Esme Chombo ruled Madonna was ineligible to adopt Mercy last week as she did not qualify as a Malawian resident. But surely this does not matter considering Madonna adopted David Banda in 2006 from Malawi.

Although Madonna has gone through a very public divorce in recent months, both herself and Guy Ritchie have tried to keep life as normal as they can for the children, and there is no doubt that the child will have everythin she needs. So why is the judge denying this little the girl the right to a better life?

When it comes to adoption from poor countries, if the family is checked, deemed safe and approved in every other way other than nationality or residency, I think children should be given the chance to improve their lives, it seems selfish not to.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.televisioninternet.com/news/pictures/madonnadavid.jpg

Sunday 5 April 2009

Lecture 5 Government and Politics-Local Government


The most interesting thing I gained from this lecutre was definatly the information on the NIMBY's.
It took me back to last year in my hometown of Redhill, which is home to one of the most fundamentalist Mosques is the UK. There were plans to build an even bigger Mosque, which everyone in the town agreed was nessecary due to the influx of Muslims in the area, however when told it would be built within the town things went a bit sour and the locals became very against the idea saying there was no room already and that they have one and that is enough.
I wouldn't say I was a NIMBY because if something is set to benefit me I want it as close as to me as possible, however, on that particular occasion the people who attended the Mosque got a bit bitter and last year on March 23rd they marched through our town centre up to the Mosque declaring their religion as superior and damning Christianity, whats worse is the demonstration was held on Easter Sunday. I found this highly irritating as their reasoning was that the birthday of the Muslim prophet Mohamed had clashed with Easter Sunday, when it was infact the previous Thursday.
I was however very happy at the amount of English Christians who lined the march with British flags and signs saying 'I'm not racist, but I don't care!'

http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/Alerts/alert013.html

Empiricism and A-Priori

An empirical idea is based upon direct experience. An idea that can be backed up with proof and evidence. It's kind of like the whole I wont believe it untill I see it thing.

In comparison, APriori is an assumption which we believe to be true, a knowledge that is gained from deduction. A Priori knowledge is independent of experience. Galen Strawson wrote that an A-Priori argument is one of which "you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world". (www.wikipedia.org./A-priori). A common example of A-Priori knowledge is mathematics, "if I have two apples now, and I plan to add three apples, I will have five apples. This is knowledge gained deductively. I did not actually need to get the three other apples and place them with the first two to see that I have five" (http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Irrational_APriori.html).