Lunacy near and far.

Lordy, Lordy. Since my post about privacy,things have been going a little pear-shaped.
Yesterday, we saw the conviction of a 'disturbed youngster' who tried to leave a petrol station without paying, hit the young employee who ran out to try to stop him and dragged him some distance under the car, killing him. The perp got nine years.

It seems as though things have been getting out of control since the petrol prices here have been going up and up. Let's put this into perspective, the prices have been going up to levels that Brits can only dream about theirs going down to, nonetheless, driving off without paying has become a regular occurrence it seems.

Last night on the local news, a man was putting forward the view that we were going to have to bite the bullet and get cameras in.
Then another guy came on, can't remember his name, Dopey McMoron or something and made two counter comments.
The first thing he said, was not entirely stupid. He said that using cameras simply displaces crime. Hmmm. Well, OK, I can go along with that to a certain extent. I can accept that if you are talking about a bunch of lads out on the lam, they might avoid say, Woolies because it has a camera and go and shoplift in Boots if it didn't. Bad example because any British shop will have cams, but you get my drift. I can also see that if your criminal activity were say, selling drugs, you might avoid cameras and go round the back of the bike sheds or whatever. If, however, your crime is stealing petroleum distillate, you're not going to have to go off on a rampage because your fuel stealing is thwarted. Also, I realise that it takes some years to build up the level of coverage we have in Britain, but in the end, your displacement is going to have to take the form of stealing chickens from farms.

Just as a red herring, at the second school where I worked, a kid from my form was brought in by the police one morning because he had been caught attempting to steal chickens from a farm on his way into school. He was wearing his school uniform. I wondered what he had intended doing with the chickens all day had he been successful. Oh well.

Anyway, second point from Dopey was this insult to the entire audience.
'London has cameras everywhere and yet although the men responsible for the 7th of July bombings last year were caught because of the videotapes, it didn't stop it happening.' Ok. Now let me just think about this one. Very slowly. So, let us say we put some fairly cheap technology into petrol stations which would make the job of the overstretched police force easier and provide evidence in court, this somehow wouldn't be a good thing. Was he saying that catching the culprits wouldn't matter, only stopping them had any value ?
And more importantly still, he presumably sees no difference between an Al-Quaeda terrorist, prepared to die in the commission of his or her crime, and a bozo who steals petrol. Hmmm... let me think, I pretty much think a camera may deter one or two of the latter, whereas NOTHING ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH would stop the former.

But...lest you should think we don't have loonies in Britain... (though we can't spend them there (( for the sake of British friends a loony is a Canadian dollar, though not quite sure how it's spelt)))I'm grateful to Simmi for sending me this story.
Now, to be consistent with my own previous arguments about older parents, I should certainly not be casting any nasturtiums - what a versatile flower that is - about the age of the mum-to-be. But if anyone thought that Vicky Pollard was a fictional character, just read it and weep.
Simmi's comment to me was...'and no-one's being prosecuted?' Exactomundo. In fact I can cast my orange flowers. Because the age of consent in Britain is 16. So the young man is guilty of stat rape. It is also illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone under the age of 16 and yet this pregnant pre-teen is smoking 20 a day. How fortunate, since one of the many ills that can befall a baby born to a mother who smokes during pregnancy is low birthweight. I have no idea whether a lower birthweight really reduces the pain during childbirth but - well maybe she won't tear as badly. I wonder if there will be as much public outrage at this drain on society as there was about the 63 year-old woman taking tremendous care of her health during pregnancy and being supported by both her husband and the pension she has spent years building up. I wonder.

What's that I hear? Get off that soapbox? Forget it.