BNP Membership list leaked Scottish members

The BNP (British national Party) an extreme right wing political party with allegedly racist views are complaining that their BNP membership list has been leaked by disaffected party members. Oddly the BNP which opposes Human Rights legislation is now claiming that the leaking of the list amounts to an infringement of the human rights of their members. Hypocrisy is clearly not something that the BNP are ashamed of.

The publishing of the list will lead to problems for members who are serving members of the police force as membership has been deemed incompatible with being a serving police officer. Also on the list are teachers and other public servants.

There are a number of names on the list of people who are residents in Ayrshire in particular in Ayr, Irvine and Kilmarnock and the list contains the names and addresses of BNP members from other parts of Scotland. I don't intend to directly publish these names and addresses here but if you are interested then the full list in text form can be downloaded from wikileaks BNP membership list download

Update: I managed to download the list earlier but Wikileaks has since been giving a server overloaded error so you may have difficulty getting hold of the list at the moment.

Do you have any views on the leaking of the BNP membership list? Please leave a comment here and a link to your site or blog.

Dreadful abuse of Nigerian children labelled witches

I have just finished watching one of the most disturbing and upsetting documentaries that I have seen in a long time.

The documentary “Saving Africa’s witch children” was about the work of Gary Foxcroft a 29 year old English guy who with an organisation called Stepping Stones is attempting to rescue children in Nigeria who have been accused by evangelist Pentecostal preachers of being witches and wizards.

The film showed many of the children that had been rescued and told how in certain parts of Nigeria children are regularly starved, abused and beaten after being accused of witchcraft and are then, if they are lucky, simply abandoned by their parents. In many other cases children had been physically maimed for example with acid and in some cases their parents had tried to bury them alive after their communities had rejected them because of the witchcraft accusations.

One clip showed the director of the Stepping Stones Project trying to take a young girl back to her village community only to find the villagers threatening to machete the girl if she remained.

This appalling treatment of children, some of whom were no older than three months old, appears to stem in large part from the preaching of a certain Mrs Helen Ukpaibo and evangelist and self proclaimed fighter against witchcraft who appears to hold great sway in parts of Nigeria. Her Church – the Liberty Church – produced a film about child witches which was seemingly widely circulated and has resulted in this wave of horror against innocent children.

I have looked up some initial links about or to this woman and you can read about the issue for yourself. They may not be the best links available and I haven't read them in depth as I haven't much time just now to undertake a more comprehensive search.

An interview with Mrs Upkaibo?

Helen Ukpabio's own site

A blog article with comments on the issue

Mars Phoenix rover is dead RIP

In Martian fields of red blown dust and rock,
there lies a Phoenix bird, t'was neither hen nor cock,
but metal, cold and lifeless, now it cannot fly,
with the fading of a distant sun it's time for it to die.

The song it sang through Martian summer days
through black and empty space where radiation plays
was heard by men who made the bird by hand
then turned to wonderous pictures of that distant Martian land.

The Phoenix is dead, and will not rise again in flame.
The Phoenix is dead, and though it dies alone there is no shame.
The Phoenix is dead, cold on martian soil it lays to rest.
The Phoenix is dead, of human will it demonstrates the best.

In the name of ( their) God

Well after all the excitement of the US presidential elections I decided it was time to do another bit of a swoop around the Internet to see what our friends the God believers are doing these days in the names of their God(s). I was not the least bit surprised of course to find the usual stories of butchery, carnage and intolerance in the name of religion.

In the eastern Indian state of Orissa around 60 Christians have been murdered in the last couple of months by Hindu's incensed by the murder of a Hindu leader in August. The odd thing is that Maoists killed the Hindu leader but the Hindu reprisals were taken against Christians. Still I suppose logic and rationality was never the strong point for religious believers. If you can't find a Maoist to take revenge on in India then I guess a Christian must be the next best thing.

Meanwhile those cuddly Jewish settler types in Palestine continue to honour their God by regularly beating up Palestinians in the West Bank. The latest act of bravery by these heroes of the Jewish faith was to beat up a six year old child. No doubt they feel that their God is fully supportive of such despicable behaviour. Mind you the God of the Old Testament Bible isn't noted for his peacefulness is he?

Not to be outdone in the religious nutter stakes the Christians staged another flare up of violence in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem when Greek and Armenian priests resorted to punches and kicks as they yet again dispute access to the supposed tomb of Christ.

And finally to round of this carnival of religious madmen we have Islamic terrorists sowing more death and destruction and murdering more members of their own faith in synchronised car bombings in Baghdad which left around 28 dead. The suicide bombers will no doubt have faithfully worn their white underpants and been dreaming of the virgins that awaited them in heaven as they plotted to blow apart their fellow countrymen.

So it seems that all around the world the faithful are continuing to do God's work.

Hotel Living Apex Edinburgh

I am just back from a couple of days at a very interesting conference in Edinburgh which was lead by a professor from the J F Kennedy School of Government Harvard. While the conference and discussions were very interesting I must say that my experience staying at my hotel confirms once more for me that all that glitters is not gold when it comes to Hotels.

The Apex International Hotel in Edinburgh sits right beside Edinburgh Castle and is, like most Apex hotels, a modern design hotel with top clash furniture and decor. I couldn't really fault them on that count. What I have found though staying at Apex hotels is that they seem to employ a much younger staff group than many other hotel groups. I am not sure if this accounts for the sometimes slip-shod service but I suspect it is one of the factors.

Having left home around 6 am to get to the conference and then had a long day at the conference itself I decided that I just wanted to eat in my room and get an early night ready for the next day.

I was thwarted in this by the fact that no-one had bothered to leave a dining menu in the room and there was no note of the hotel reception number. So, still in a relatively benign mood, I made my way to reception and pointed this out. No problem. They would take my order there and that would be it sorted they said.

So I wearily made my way back to my room. The clock ticked on. I think I fell asleep for a while and on waking realised that it was no over an hour since I had given them my order. I wondered of course if they might have come while I was asleep but I am not that heavy a sleeper. Oh, well they are just being a bit slow I thought. So, in a slightly less tolerant mood I waited. An hour and a half had now gone by and no sign of my food.

My dilemma now was that I would have to go to reception again to check what had happened and they might try to bring my meal while I was down there. Hmmm. Wait a little longer. Approaching two hours in and I am no longer in a very tolerant mood and I go back to reception.

Ah, so sorry they say. We forgot all about your order! Give us 15 minute and we will have it with you. Some twenty minutes later and my food arrived , together with a complimentary bottle of wine.

Now I am not trying to be unreasonable here. Mistakes do happen. The trouble is that they seem to happen regularly at Apex Hotels. this is not the first time this sort of problem has occurred when I have stayed at Apex hotels. It has been a much rarer experience at other hotels.

I wonder what other peoples experience of hotels is like? How frequently do you come across this type of shoddy service?