The Departure Lounge at Deathrow

Rachel Johnson, writing at the Sunday Times of London, absolutely trashes the British National Health Service over its treatment of the elderly. Johnson is commenting on the same report that I did a few days ago. It is not pretty.

My grandmother moved from her flat in Oxford to a private care home in Vicarage Gate in Kensington after my grandfather died, to be nearer to some of her five children. There were written assurances provided that the home – run by the charity that used to be the Distressed Gentlefolk’s Association – would not close, and the place would provide my grandmother with a home for the rest of her days.

Sure enough, a mere three years later the site was flogged off, as sure as night follows day, for private development. The residents were offered a move to another home, miles across town in Elephant and Castle. She was told that all the staff who had looked after her, and to whom she had become close, would accompany them. On that basis, my grandmother moved south of the river.

When she got to the new place, she saw none of the same faces, and lived in a small bedroom with a little window too high for her to look out of. Like many other residents who suffered the trauma of the move, she succumbed to what geriatric professionals called “accelerated death syndrome” and died a year later.

So I didn’t need the 100-page report issued last week by the Joint Committee on Human Rights on older people in healthcare to know that in too many cases the elderly don’t have any human rights. But when I did read it – and the report should be required reading to everyone stuck in middle youth who goes around saying things like 60 is the new 40 and clings desperately to the delusion that old age is a sad and unattractive thing that happens to other people – it made me both very ashamed and also rather relieved. My grandmother was one of the lucky ones.

Although my grandmother was ultimately betrayed by the people she depended on, she was not evicted for complaining, bullied, drugged into quietude, left in her own faeces or urine for hours, sexually abused, neglected, illtreated, starved or dehydrated. But according to the report these abuses are common, and Age Concern estimates that half a million older people are suffering them at any one time in Britain. If we treated our children and infants half as cruelly as we treat our elderly, many parents would be in prison.

Other countries are civilised in comparison. The peers and MPs visited Denmark and Sweden, where elderly people remained in situ, and as their needs increased, so did the care provided.

Johnson is not impressed with the National "Health" Service and its treatment of seniors. It kind of puts a new perspective on the Who song, My Generation:

People try to put us d-down (talkin bout my generation)
People try to put us d-down (talkin bout my generation)
Just because we get around (talkin bout my generation)
Just because we get around (talkin bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (talkin bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (talkin bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (talkin bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (talkin bout my generation)

Things they do look awful c-c-c-cold.

(Still think socialized medicine is a good thing?)

False News

I saw the item pop on Memorandum yesterday about Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu supposedly being thrown out of a hotel. The story alleged that Menchu was wearing traditional dress and that hotel staff had tried to throw her out. (I did not post about it - it sounded a bit odd - a little too juicy to be true type of thing.) Libby Spencer, blogging at Newshoggers, reports that it was, indeed, a bit too good to be true. In fact, it was made up out of the whole cloth.

Our man in Cancun, Jules Siegel, follows up on yesterday's report that Guatemalan presidential candidate Rigoberta Menchu was removed from a high priced tourist hotel because she was mistaken for a common indigenous Indian. She stated today that the reports were erroneous and she was treated as a honored guest.

Menchu and her sister Anita said none of it had happened. "This was purely an invention of the press," Anita told Latina.com today in an exclusive interview. "Nothing at all happened in the hotel, and we didn't even know about the rumor until we got on the plane to go back to Mexico City."

[The reporter who broke the story], David Romero Vara of Cancun's Enfoque Radio, admitted on air today that nothing happened to Menchu, and that the only ones who were removed forcibly from the hotel were his station's reporters.

He apologized but Menchu wasn't placated. "The media should have been more careful. The press should not play with the feelings of the public, because it can cause a lot of damage," she said.

She's right and this underscores how our US media fails us today. They care more about being first than they care about correctly reporting the facts. They simply don't fact check. They wait for the blogs to do it. Meanwhile, they pick up any sensational story that they can attribute to a named source and run with it.

I rather agree that the media has a problem right now with their objectivity and a major problem with their fact-checking. Here's the one thing I disagree with Spencer about: It was not all that big of a media hyperventilation. I just searched Yahoo and Google news - most of the links to "Rigoberta Menchu" stories in the past few days were not from major media outlets. A blog search on Technorati reveals not a whole lot of posts about this. I'm not trying to say there was no coverage - I'm just pointing out it wasn't a huge amount.

Oh- and any media outlet - old or new - that ran the fraudulent story should retract and/or correct.

When Guns Are Outlawed…….

….Outlaws use knives. The Times of London reports that there has been an astonishing - no, make that appalling - increase in the number of street crimes involving knives. Remember that Britain has some of the most strict gun laws in Western society.  Which appears to bother the thugs not in the least - they have simply switched to knives and are running amok.

THE full extent of Britain’s violent crime epidemic, which yesterday claimed the life of another teenager, is revealed in shocking new figures which show that the number of street robberies involving knives have more than doubled in two years.

Attacks in which a knife was used in a successful mugging have soared, from 25,500 in 2005 to 64,000 in the year to April 2007.

The figures mean that each day last year saw, on average, 175 robberies at knifepoint in England and Wales - up from 110 the year before and from 69 in 2004-5.

The study, by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) at King’s College London, is based on the government’s own statistics. It shows that knives are used in one in five muggings, twice the frequency reported two years ago.

The new figures will renew pressure on ministers to address the rising tide of violence and antisocial behaviour on Britain’s streets.

The surge in knife crime was highlighted yesterday when police announced a murder investigation after a 16-year-old boy died following a stabbing in Bolton.

In a separate attack, Northum-bria police charged a man after an incident on the Tyne Bridge in which a policeman was allegedly attacked with a knife.

The incidents followed the death last week of Evren Anil, a 23-year-old university graduate, who died after he was attacked by a knife-wielding youth for challenging his antisocial behaviour.

Anil was responding after the youth threw a half-eaten chocolate bar through the window of his sister’s car.

Did you catch the numbers? 25,500 knife crimes in all of 2005. 64,000 in 2007 - from January to April. A straight proportion says that if that pace continues, there will be close to 200,000 knife crimes by the end of the year.

64,000(/)4=x(/)12 = 192,000

There are about 61 million people in Britain. Calculate the rate per 100,000:

192,000(x)100,000(/)61,000,000 = ~315 knife crimes per 100,000 population

This data from the United States indicates that the robbery rate for 2005 (last year available) is about 2 per 1,000 or 200 per 100,000. (The statistics may not be directly comparable, but it was the closest I could find. Working with news story data can be a bit iffy.)

By all means, please check my math - because it sure looks like Britain has a real problem on its hands. Unless there is something really wrong about the report or unless I made a huge calculation error (doubtful, it was checked by someone I trust) there is a crime wave in Britain of enormous proportions.

UPDATE: Cernig from Newshoggers corrects me on the "year to April" wording in comments. Apparently that phrase means the 12 preceding months ending in April of the given year. (I had never seen that phrasing before, but it appears to be how Britain does it.) That changes the figures considerably. However, the rapid rise in knife crimes by more than 100% is still a very serious matter.

For the record, Cernig figures it as ~164 per 100,000, my calculation now gives ~105 per 100,000. I have no idea why they are different.

When Snakes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Snakes

Two Colorado men are in custody after plotting to kill another man over a $60,000 debt. All of that isn't really unusual, things like that happen all the time. The method the two men had worked out to do in the debtor, however, is a bit unusual.

Snakes in a box.

Herbert Paul Beck, 56, was arrested Thursday in Raton, N.M., and Christopher Lee Steelman, 34, was arrested Wednesday in Lakewood.

Bail for each suspect was set at $500,000 on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and extortion.

Investigators said Steelman told them the two men discussed ways to kill Sowash and Beck suggested rattlesnakes. Beck allegedly told investigators he invested $36,000 in the company last December, and with interest was due $60,000.

The plan was to build a wooden box to hold the snakes and "the lid was to be built to allow Sowash's legs to be put inside but not pulled out."

"The final and most disturbing method to Steelman was Beck wanting to kidnap Sowash's children and use them as leverage to get the money from Sowash," according to the affidavits.

The article does not say if the snakes were in on the plot, but we're pretty sure they were. They'd cooperate just to get the victim's shoes.

Captain Calamity Crashes Again

The head British Royal National Lifeboat Institution for Newquay, Cornwall is practically begging a local sailor to please find another hobby. Why? Well, since Glenn Crawley bought his catamaran in 2003 he has been pulled out of the water by the RNLI a dozen times. That isn't counting the number of times fishing boats and others have rescued him.

A sailor nicknamed "Captain Calamity" was urged to find a new hobby yesterday after costing lifeboat crews £25,000 for a string of rescues.

Glenn Crawley, 51, has capsized his catamaran dozens of times, prompting costly rescue missions for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

The retired electrician and engineer from Newquay, Cornwall, began sailing his boat, aptly named Mischief, in 2003 and was forced to call emergency crews three times in the first year alone.

Since then RNLI teams have been called out for Mr Crawley on a further nine occasions, costing £2,200 a rescue.

Local fishermen have also plucked him from the water several times.

Earlier this year he was rescued four times in four hours.

Gareth Horner, the Newquay RNLI operations manager, said his team was "getting to the end of our tether".

"We have lost count of the times we have launched to this chap and his boat. It's about time he tried another hobby - it's obviously not for him. We view it as completely irresponsible as our time could be spent saving lives elsewhere," he said.

Crowley maintains that he never calls for help - other people do. He says it is all part of "extreme sailing". The RNLI should simply send Captain Capsize the £2,200 bill for each rescue. Crowley will get extremely tired of extreme sailing extremely quickly.

I Don’t Think They Grasp The Concept

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard has responded to reports that the US government is debating whether to label that organization a terrorist organization. So to object to the Revolutionary Guards being labeled 'terrorist' the commander promises increased terrorism.

I think maybe he missed a few classes at diplomacy school. Like all of them.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - The commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted on Saturday as threatening to deal heavier blows in future against the United States after Washington said it may label the force a terrorist group.

The Iranian daily Kayhan said commander-in-chief Yahya Rahim Safavi made clear the Guards would not bow to U.S. pressure and would use all their leverage against the Americans.

Kayhan did not provide direct quotes from the speech in the central city of Isfahan on Thursday.

U.S. officials said on Wednesday that Washington may soon name the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist group, a move that would enable Washington to target its finances.

Interesting that they did not provide direct quotes, only the gist of it. It must have been enough of an open threat that Tehran did not want the actual words in circulation.

Use Biofuel: Kill The Planet

This is one that will make you wonder if you should laugh or cry. Two scientists have calculated the effects of switching to biofuels on the capture of carbon and have reached a pretty different conclusion than is being touted by the true believers. They say it is better for the planet to keep burning fossil fuels and plant more forests than it is to use biofuels.

It sounds counterintuitive, but burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel. So say scientists who have calculated the difference in net emissions between using land to produce biofuel and the alternative: fuelling cars with gasoline and replanting forests on the land instead.

They recommend governments steer away from biofuel and focus on reforestation and maximising the efficiency of fossil fuels instead.

The reason is that producing biofuel is not a "green process". It requires tractors and fertilisers and land, all of which means burning fossil fuels to make "green" fuel. In the case of bioethanol produced from corn – an alternative to oil – "it's essentially a zero-sums game," says Ghislaine Kieffer, programme manager for Latin America at the International Energy Agency in Paris, France (see Complete carbon footprint of biofuel - or is it?).

What is more, environmentalists have expressed concerns that the growing political backing that biofuel is enjoying will mean forests will be chopped down to make room for biofuel crops such as maize and sugarcane. "When you do this, you immediately release between 100 and 200 tonnes of carbon [per hectare]," says Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust, UK, a conservation agency that seeks to preserve rainforests.

The researchers looked at the initial carbon production to produce biofuel, say by torching a rainforest, and figure it would take 50 to 100 years to recapture the resultant carbon. That and all the carbon needed to produce the fuel make biofuel a real losing proposition for the planet.

The biofuel craze is already causing rainforests to be burned to the ground so palm oil can be produced. It is also leading to the eradication of the orangutans. Not to mention the looming water shortages and global food shortages. A lot of things that are being pushed as solutions for global warming are, in fact, much worse for the planet than is being acknowledged by the true believers. Take a look at Sudbury, Ontario if you don't believe it. You can see that from space.

One of the links above has this quote from Sunita Narain, the head of the Centre for Science and Environment in India: biofuels (are) "good as an idea, bad in practice." It is about time we really reassessed the situation, before all the rainforests are gone and the last orangutan is slaughtered.

Exploitation

This item happened to catch my eye over at Memeorandum. CBS is under fire for a reality show involving kids. Specifically, it looks like the producers of the show intentionally set out to avoid laws meant to protect children from exploitation and abuse. So that they could exploit and abuse children for fun and profit.

The ads promoting “Kid Nation,” a new reality show coming to CBS next month, extol the incredible experience of a group of 40 children, ages 8 to 15, who built a sort of idealistic society in a New Mexico ghost town, free of adults. For 40 days the children cooked their own meals, cleaned their own outhouses, formed a government and ran their own businesses, all without adult intervention or participation.

To at least one parent of a participant, who wrote a letter of complaint to New Mexico state officials after the show had completed production, the experience bordered on abuse and neglect. Several children required medical attention after drinking bleach that had been left in an unmarked soda bottle, according to both the parent and CBS. One 11-year-old girl burned her face with splattered grease while cooking.

The children were made to haul wagons loaded with supplies for more than a mile through the New Mexico countryside, and they worked long hours — “from the crack of dawn when the rooster started crowing” until at least 9:30 p.m., according to Taylor, a 10-year-old from Sylvester, Ga., who was made available by CBS to respond to questions about conditions on the set…….

…….A New Mexico official whose department oversees licensing of congregant child-care settings said in an interview that the project almost assuredly violated state laws requiring facilities that house children be reviewed and licensed.

The official, Romaine Serna, public information officer for the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, said Friday that CBS had never contacted the agency. If the department had known of the parent’s allegations when the incidents occurred, she said, “We would have responded and would have assured the children’s safety.”

CBS officials say they broke no laws. “We feel very comfortable that this was appropriate from a legal point of view,” Ghen Maynard, the executive vice president for alternative programming at CBS, said in an interview Friday.

Jonathan Anschell, who oversees CBS’s West Coast legal office, said that a state labor department inspector visited the set of the show unannounced during the production. But Carlos Castaneda, a spokesman for the state labor department, now known as the Department of Workforce Solutions, said that the inspector was not allowed on the site and left without inspecting anything.

New Mexico was chosen specifically because it has no labor laws aimed at protecting kids in the entertainment industry as California does. The first thing that comes to mind here is that the parents of the children were out of their minds to allow this in the first place. But the production company looks like it really did its level best to avoid laws designed to protect children. CBS and the production company both jumped the shark here.

I think it may be that reality television is finally reaching the end of its run. There have been too many revelations of fraud for it to maintain any sort of a good reputation. Abusing kids for "entertainment" is going one step too far.

Unusual Haul

The Orlando police department held their annual gun turn in program yesterday, offering to accept - with no questions asked - any unwanted guns in exchange for a pair of sneakers or a gift certificate. They call it a huge success - but the media is playing up one of the more unusual things turned in. A "missile launcher".

Orlando emptied its bureau drawers and closets Friday of more than 300 unwanted guns — and one surface-to-air missile launcher.

The shoulder-fired weapon showed about 6 p.m. when an Ocoee man drove to the Florida Citrus Bowl to trade the 4-foot-long launcher for size-3 Reebok sneakers for his daughter.

"I didn't know what to do with it, so I brought it here," explained the man, who said he found the missile in a shed he tore down last week. "I took it to three dumps to try to get rid of it, and they told me to get lost."

After hefting the weapon designed to blow jets out of the sky, police spokeswoman Sgt. Barbara Jones commented, "I tell you, you never know what you're going to get."

They have a picture. I can't match it with any pictures of surface to air missile that I am aware of, maybe someone more familiar with those weapons systems can. But it looks like only the tube - no sights or anything else, so it really wasn't a ready to use launcher. The media kind of neglects to tell you that. But gun collectors will downright wail when they read about some of the guns that were collected - and will be destroyed. A pristine M1A Garand rifle for one.

UPDATE: My friends over Just Barking Mad have a commenter on their site who has identified the thing in the picture as a (probably empty) shipping container for an anti-armor TOW missile - not any kind of a launcher. Especially for a surface to air missile. Yet another false story.