Several deaths at an airport in Florida, caused when a man (former soldier) took a gun from his luggage after a flight.

The suspected gunman who shot and killed five people at a Florida airport with a weapon collected from his checked baggage was reportedly an Iraq war veteran known to the US authorities…

…A law enforcement official told the Associated Press that (Esteban) Santiago had walked into the FBI office in Anchorage in November to say the US government was controlling his mind and making him watch Islamic State videos.

Agents questioned an agitated and disjointed-sounding Santiago and then called police, who took him for a mental health evaluation, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

George Piro, an FBI agent in charge of the Miami field office, confirmed that Santiago had come into the Anchorage office and said he clearly indicated at the time that he was not intent on hurting anyone.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/06/fort-lauderdale-airport-shooting-florida

Meanwhile Japan has nearly totally eradicated gun crime.

Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun crime in the world. In 2014 there were just six gun deaths, compared to 33,599 in the US. What is the secret?
If you want to buy a gun in Japan you need patience and determination. You have to attend an all-day class, take a written exam and pass a shooting-range test with a mark of at least 95%.
There are also mental health and drugs tests. Your criminal record is checked and police look for links to extremist groups. Then they check your relatives too – and even your work colleagues. And as well as having the power to deny gun licences, police also have sweeping powers to search and seize weapons.
That’s not all. Handguns are banned outright. Only shotguns and air rifles are allowed.
The law restricts the number of gun shops. In most of Japan’s 40 or so prefectures there can be no more than three, and you can only buy fresh cartridges by returning the spent cartridges you bought on your last visit.
Police must be notified where the gun and the ammunition are stored – and they must be stored separately under lock and key. Police will also inspect guns once a year. And after three years your licence runs out, at which point you have to attend the course and pass the tests again.
This helps explain why mass shootings in Japan are extremely rare. When mass killings occur, the killer most often wields a knife…

…Japanese police officers rarely use guns and put much greater emphasis on martial arts – all are expected to become a black belt in judo. They spend more time practising kendo (fighting with bamboo swords) than learning how to use firearms.
“The response to violence is never violence, it’s always to de-escalate it. Only six shots were fired by Japanese police nationwide [in 2015],” says journalist Anthony Berteaux. “What most Japanese police will do is get huge futons and essentially roll up a person who is being violent or drunk into a little burrito and carry them back to the station to calm them down.”
Overton contrasts this with the American model, which he says has been “to militarise the police”.
“If you have too many police pulling out guns at the first instance of crime, you lead to a miniature arms race between police and criminals,” he says.
To underline the taboo attached to inappropriate use of weapons, an officer who used his gun to kill himself was charged posthumously with a criminal offence. He carried out the act while on duty – policemen never carry weapons off-duty, leaving them at the station when they finish their shift.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38365729

A very interesting article, well worth reading.

Yes, had you down as one who would rather steal a tin of Asda Value baked beans in thin red sauce from the mouths of unfortunates than allow them to side step hunger for a few hours – except this is West Sussex, so the chances are that it is actually Waitrose Organic Baked Beans with a twist of finely grated, home grown saffron pod, in gold tins.
Would have to be from around the world, possibly with all the questionable additives they allow in places that are not as concerned about the consumers health if we go against the WTO.
Not so sure about the prices either – our farmers would not be able to afford to farm so the land would be sold as ornamental gardens or for construction, and the WTO tariffs would add a chunk to the cost of imports.

Jamie Oliver closes restaurants due to Brexit.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is closing six of his 42 UK Jamie’s Italian restaurants.
The Aberdeen, Cheltenham, Exeter, Tunbridge Wells and in London, the Ludgate and Richmond outlets are all scheduled to close soon.
The move will affect 120 staff, whom the company said it would try to place in other parts of the chain.
The company said that the market was “tough” and the uncertainties caused by Brexit had intensified the pressures.
The price of ingredients bought in Italy has gone up because of the fall in the value of the pound against the euro since the vote to leave the EU.
Chief executive Simon Blagden said: “As every restaurant owner knows, this is a tough market and, post-Brexit, the pressures and unknowns have made it even harder.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38528547

Actually, I’m not buying it – his prices are so inflated that he could have absorbed any increases in ingredient costs for a few months; the ever present chef is more likely to have over extended himself when there is just no demand.

Then use the police. Instead of parking someone on a motorway bridge for a day, put them to better use. Then you have the armed police who spend all year either training or waiting for something to happen.

There is more to training than standing, looking threatening, over prisoners. And it is not the job of the police anyway. Would you be the one standing there trying to justify to an angry public that some event was under/unpoliced because they were standing around, guarding prisoners as they weeded a roundabout?

You really don’t have the hang of this – more money would need to be spent on guards, transport, insurance against escapes leading to endangering the public: the government is not going to spend money on a project that would put the jobs of voters at risk just to enslave prisoners.

That’s literally the case in the worst affected areas.

So you say, it helps your argument.

I’m not singling them out at all, it’s actually you that’s singling them out by making out that they never need the NHS.

No, I am pointing out that apart from cuts and bruises (which are, essentially, pennies) it is the unplanned emergencies and long term treatments that cost the most, and migrants will certainly not be coming here for such transplants or long term care. The fact is that we are getting a worse service and people like you can be trusted by the government to put all the blame on migrants whilst grossly ignoring what the government has not done or cut back on.

The no nations no borders people. ‘Clowns’ is the only way to describe them.

Is it the only joke in your repertoire? You have used it twice now – it wasn’t funny the first time, and you sarcastically called me mature when I used it.

The reason there is conflict and oppression is because of their inherent nature. It is the same in other Muslim countries. You either get oppression and human rights abuses or conflict and human rights abuses. Either a strongman dictator kills them or they kill each other. And many of them ‘escaping’ are defeated militants, hence why are predominantly young men of fighting age.

Some of them, maybe, but obviously not all of them (ask yourself what you would do, as a non-benevolent ruler, to persuade all males of fighting age that you mean business – how about detain, torture and kill all of them? That would do it).

Not a big claim at all. Pakistan alone kills 1,000 women per year just over honour and they haven’t even committed adultery or broken the law. This has been going on for centuries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/28/in-pakistan-honor-killings-claim-1000-womens-lives-annually-why-is-this-still-happening/?utm_term=.f1518216321e

Most of these figures are underestimates too.

http://www.meforum.org/2646/worldwide-trends-in-honor-killings

How many per week has Sectarian violence claimed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen. All traceable to Sharia Law.

Oh, grabbed out of the air then…

The Nazi’s razed ghettos in Poland, gassed millions, treated anyone who did not appreciate the Nazi way of life to a few short, terminal weeks in a concentration camp.
The Soviets starved millions of their own to death, destroyed their own upper elite on a whim, frequently marched their own soldiers to war at gunpoint without weapons, confined to die in the gulags anyone who survived a Nazi PoW camp, and imprisoned millions to maintain fear across their lands.
The Chinese: don’t mention the Chinese. Millions dying in camps, millions starved to death.
Religion – all religion has had a detrimental effect across the world, what with the mass slaughtering to convert unbelievers to meet their gods, and it does add up to millions.

Who knows which has had the worst effect on humanity.

People want the problem to stay in The Middle East and not here and who can blame them?

But short of rounding up all of Middle Eastern origin and putting them in special camps, thereby upsetting all, even the most moderate of them, to the point of creating a resistance movement, what will you do?

That’s a deliberately false narrative. Very few people in this country would advocate killing homosexuals. They may not agree with gay marriage but they would not advocate executing them. And the vast majority of those who do would be actually Muslims. 33% of British Muslims think women should be executed for adultery too. You try to make equivalences, but you do not understand what you are dealing with.

No? Some have advocated killing soldiers here – and did it. One man with white supremacist tendencies, last year, decided to kill an MP for nationalistic reason.
I was not talking just about Islamic extremists, more in general.

The EU is an excuse for inaction yes. The mandate since 2010 has been reducing net immigration back to below 100,000/year – a completely reasonable idea – and it hasn’t been delivered because it is impossible to do so in the EU. Therefore we have to leave. There are other examples of EU law having negative effects, like companies who don’t even export to the EU being forced to obey EU regulations. You can’t get anything done whilst you’re in the EU.

On the basis that we have been in the EU for longer than you care to remember, your last sentence is utter tripe: the UK has not died in a business sense completely over the last 40 years. This is the kind of stupidity that overshadows anything else you mutter.

So you’re back to claiming that immigrants don’t use public services? How else can you balance the budget except cuts. If spending got you out of debt, we’d never have got into it.

I’m guessing you aren’t reading what I typed. Why are you so intent on everybody in the country being deprived of these services on the off chance migrants might use them? I say again: the government has reduced spending on public services, whether they would have been used by migrants or not, and you are letting them get away with it by blaming migrants.
I am interested in your reasons why the ongoing Southern rail strike is the fault of migrants…

Well there you go, you’ve not been affected. Surgeries in affected areas have machines for booking in that ask whether you’d like English, Polish, Bulgarian etc.

Here is an update – apparently the booking in system at my surgery is affected by what language you asked to be used upon joining the surgery, according to my other half. Seems one way of doing it, but from what I recall of the waiting room it would have been full of OAPs, all comparing their surgical stocking horror stories, who would have moaned like mad if asked to choose a language.
From the same source there is a rumour that two surgeries in my area are to close, not through lack of ‘clients’ but apparently for the savings that would be made. This seems strange from the self-governing thing that was pushed through a few years ago (a friend of mine was asked if he really needed whatever expensive meds he was on, they tested him twice before coming to the conclusion that it would be better for him to keep taking them and not die than for them to withdraw them from him and face the bad publicity his death would cause. His GP was very candid with him, mentioning that it was a brought in medical accountant who had been arguing for checking the necessity of all the expensive meds on their budget).

Doctor numbers at my surgery have stayed the same but times have still gone up.

Must be the EU, eh? Bloody migrants.

Uncontrolled immigration squeezes the same stone, the only difference is that it doesn’t make a saving. Cuts and uncontrolled immigration do exactly the same thing to public services, it’s just that cuts help reduce the deficit.

No, it is just that cuts make those affected angry and then it is intimated to them that it is all the fault of immigration.

The EU is an ever expanding no nations no borders system.

So the markets are a bonus, incidental, accidental even? Like I said, the EU is many things – how about you accept that one fact?

That is plainly obvious and cannot be denied.

Watch me.

People advocating it are advocating that system. I personally know that it’s unworkable.

Sorry, I forgot to ask what your profession is, your training, your qualifications, that sort of thing. Especially in this sphere.

So it’s a no-win situation either way.

Um, personally? I haven’t seen anything in the last few sentences that would convince a jury so far.

Either we submit to a financially unworkable system of uncontrolled immigration, or we negatively affect trade, which will also negatively affect trade in other EU countries.

It was what we were warned would happen before the referendum, it was what we were told would happen after the referendum, yet you seem to be trying to convince me that our head honcho’s were not aware of it.

And I keep mentioning farmers; here is a little thing that came about via an article in the Telegraph. The World Trade Organisation has compulsory protective tariffs in place on exports which would kick in when we leave the EU’s protective umbrella: lamb at the moment carries a 30% tariff, while beef is 5o%. Be aware that 95% of our lamb exports go to Europe, and although there are (potentially unregulated) suppliers who would happily undercut these prices once applied it does not make for a very stable market.

The only difference is that the uncontrolled immigration is hurting us and benefiting them, because we are acting as a sink for it. Whereas damage to trade will negatively affect them too, so the latter is a better gamble. If they won’t allow free trade without free movement, then we will negotiate a non-free trade agreement and let everybody suffer the consequences. If it’s bloody-mindedness all round they want, then that’s what they’ll get. And I’d prefer a slightly poorer but quieter, less overcrowded living environment with fields to a marginally richer swamped one with concrete crap on every square inch of it.

Do you argue with red flashing level crossing lights? They warn you that a train is coming, you could be a fool and ignore them but the train will come anyway. And that is the thing with the warning we had concerning what part of the deal was non negotiable: we knew, they told us, it might change at some point in the future but at the moment it is what they have told us will be accepted – or no deal. You ask Norway, who have accepted the deal.

I suggested it was unlikely that so many people from so many diverse races had banded together to enact racism against an equally diverse but similar selection of races within the EU. Let’s face it, if a white person, a black person, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh and a Jew got together and beat up group containing a white person, a black person, a Muslim, a Hindu a Sikh and a Jew, it could hardly be considered a race crime.

They don’t need to band together, they can all do it individually.

Pretty much the same as what you’ve done. You haven’t made a decent argument yet, just soundbites regurgitated from the PC handbook.

Not sure what more I can say – you appear to have set your mind in the face of facts. They have told us what we would have to accept if we left and then tried to make a deal and you still believe it is bloodymindedness on their part. You seem to believe that whatever happens in Britain is because of immigrants. There are experts on both sides of the divide who can pick and choose what they say to their advantage, but somewhere someone must be telling the truth despite the yelling.
You have not made a decent argument either – I have asked for clarifications but you have chosen to ignore them, which just leads the rest of your unreferenced, wild statements to be similarly ignored. Repeating a sketchy theory multiple times does not make it true, either.

As for shortage in GPs. There are people who got all As at A-Level who have been refused places on degree courses in medicine from 2000-2005, so it’s an entirely artificially manufactured shortage in GPs.

So, under this wonderful plan, why are we ‘stealing’ trained doctors and nurses from developing countries? We get bad publicity internationally for this.

In addition, my powers of premonition astounded me. Just a few days ago:

…maybe Farage will be promoted to motormouthing on LBC, barking London the benefit of his ‘wisdom’ and slagging off those with compassion and concern for their fellow man…

Not quite replacing Hatey Katie, but I am sure the usual standard of waffle and bluster will satisfy fanboys like John…

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is to present a daily chat show on the radio station LBC.
The Nigel Farage Show will air from 19:00 to 20:00, Mondays to Thursdays, with the host describing it as “full of opinions, callers and reaction”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38517624

1942 The cargo ship Kwangtung (UK) was shelled and sunk in the*Java Sea,*south of*Java,*by Japanese submarine*I-156, which machine gunned survivors and rammed lifeboats. 101 of the 136 people aboard were killed.

1958 Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Everest, arrived at the South Pole, becoming the first explorer to do so since Captain Scott in 1912.

1967 Donald Campbell died while attempting to break his own water speed record in his jet-powered boat, Bluebird K7.

1999 The Euro is rolled out across Europe.

I’m not going to reply to all that, because I’ll get in trouble for abusing the quotation boxes (the mods don’t like it)**

Unfortunately it is the best way to refer to specific points. Replying to each point as a separate post just infuriates people interested in post counts, and making a quote box helps the reader when trying to link my points with yours. If they didn’t want quotes to be made then they would remove the facility; the chances are that there have been muppet’s who quoted an entire, lengthy post just to say ‘yes’ or ‘I disagree’, you know what I mean. But this post isn’t about quotes…

Do you know any farmers?

I have had dealings with them. I think I have even indicated that within the post to which you refer…

I’ve dealt with them much of my career. They always moan about their finances, while they drive Range Rovers, their wives Range Rover Sports, have several foreign holidays a year, and live in huge houses. I have never met a poor one, and you will find few people who have met as many as me. You are also justifying exploiting foreign workers. Why should foreign workers be paid less for a job in England than an English person would be willing to do it for? Seems somewhat bigoted.*

The thing about farmers buying vehicles is…money. They get good tax deals on them, you know that; it is why they invariably buy 4×4 cars, so that they can demonstrate business use, that they use them to check on the sheep in snow storms. Plus they are always new – the contract works that way, as you know, and usually covers maintenance and breakdown cover, which is why most companies do that rather than run a fleet of their own vehicles. Even the tractors are covered these days.

Moan about foreign holidays, but they are usually cheaper than holidays in Britain…

No, the farmers I have met did not strike me as being one meal away from starvation but, as you know, there are big differences between a man who works for himself and a man who works for someone else.

And I am not justifying exploiting foreign workers – the radio programme I listened to featured farmers (farmers who had previously been in favour of leaving Europe) complaining that Brexit would remove this labour force from their reservoir, and that the unemployed of Britain were either disinterested in the work or unable to get to work due to a lack of public transport that would get them to work in time (obviously the foreign workers live on site, although this doesn’t seem to be an option offered to British workers). But see a previous post (above).

Our economy would only have to be *relatively* attractive. Don’t forget, there are other pull factors, such as healthcare, language etc. Many eastern Europeans will learn English at school, not so much German, French etc, plus they will be somewhat deterred from many countries owing to the enormous levels of youth unemployment in other western EU countries. I’m in no way suggesting that British people are the best to do every job here, but we should make the most of who we have, and invest in training here, before becoming dependent on migrants, contributing to mass overpopulation.*

Have you noticed the Poles have been slipping away, and not returning? We are less attractive to them than we were, especially after one was murdered in Harlow for talking to his brother, in the street, in Polish, last year; Britain was savaged by the Polish media, for good reason if our countrymen can do that for as lousy a reason as not talking English to his brother – agree?

Also, my understanding is that in many countries across Europe school pupils learn two languages; I worked with a Dutch girl who also spoke German, who was confused as to why her sister chose to also learn French (in addition to English) at school, conducted a Vox Pop in London (on weapons of mass destruction, before the start of the second Gulf War) where I met a Czech kitchen hand (he said he loaded the dishwasher in a restaurant!) who had also learned Greek at school, whilst two years ago I came across a young Danish couple touring Britain who both spoke seven different European languages that they learnt through their love of travelling. Yes, there will be those for whom a foreign language is as mysterious as quantum physics is to me, but consider the fact that most British school children leave education with a very basic knowledge of French, possibly some German.

I have indicated that training in Britain involves debt; that is not to say this is not the same in Europe, but the British government’s solution always seems to be to make particular courses available but quietly close them down because they are not being taken up (about ten years ago I was researching retraining courses for the long term unemployed: an eight week forklift course (three half days a week, incidentally) with a certified qualification at the end would set you back, via student loans, around £5,000, whereas around three years ago the father of a friend of my eldest daughter was offering a similar but five day course and certificate for £1,500, paid up front though). Other courses are available, although apparently the Job Centre is reluctant to direct the unemployed in their direction so as to not force people into debt, which raises the question of who is going to make use of such training?

We cannot be responsible for the well being and prosperity of everyone. There are literally billions of people around the world who would love to live in our relatively wealthy countries, but supporting them is impossible. Better we have free trade agreements with their countries, and improve their chances that way.*

It is said that charity begins at home – it does not necessarily mean in our home… There are literally millions of people in the world who would love to live anywhere as long as it is away from the conflict taking place in their homelands.

The solution would be to sort out the conflict, but that costs money too; which would be cheaper – sort out the problem in Syria, for example, accommodate the fleeing refugees in the hope that when the conflict sorts itself out they go home, or ignore the conflict, the refugees and our part in their misery (we are not innocent, we have led along the non ISIS freedom fighters – or terrorists, as you see fit – and the Assad government, at one time or another) and hope it goes away, quietly.

Libya is another area where refugees are fleeing. It is not helped by the fact that the whole area, but especially southwards, is wallowing in poverty from which there is little escape – unless they try their luck at crossing the Med…
Throwing money at them is not much of a solution, throwing expertise might work better but surely working to keep those people in their own country, with their families, in safety and with the knowledge that something is happening to help them advance in the world rather than just ignore them – wouldn’t that be better than fishing their bodies out of the sea? Obviously Libya needs to be tamed, but a policy of non judgemental assistance (ie, something so that the locals do not feel they are being talked down to by westerners, probably by carefully chosen locals who will not push a certain mindset, let’s say, like ISIS or other terror groups…) could help prevent the area becoming a breeding ground for religious murdering maniacs.
Of course, such ‘charitable’ acts would rouse the disdain of certain segments of our political system, stoked by certain segments of the media, but the final option is to lock all the doors, bolt the gates and be scared of everyone who doesn’t look like yourself.

I wouldn’t call myself a socialist, but a centre ground ‘responsible’ capitalist. I welcome immigration, just not at anything like the levels we’ve been experiencing. We could still have 200,000 people move here every year, and decrease the population considerably at the same time: win-win.*

We could solve (or, at least, assist in solving) the problems that many of the people who used to camp at Calais had and maybe that would be a step forward in reducing that section of migration. See above.

The environment absolutely will stop the population from growing if we don’t, it always has, and always will, with every species on this planet. Before long we will have destroyed most of the grasslands that our pollinators so desperately need. I take it you’re aware of the consequences. Our bee population is already struggling, and we are about to decimate much more of their natural habitat by the building of these 70 garden villages.

Indeed. Our ecosystem requires lots of the bugs that most people consider pests; is spraying crops killing pests that we actually need as well and destroying our immune system into the bargain? I know not.
But there is a housing shortage that our political leaders have all, every single one of them, not only ignored but have seemingly encouraged – well, it is nice to think that the three bedroom bungalow your parents bought in 1970 for £1,200 is now worth £450,000 – or more – but that figure is artificial: scarcity increases value. Anyone who has invested in bricks and mortar probably has the prices of similar houses in their road flashing in the forefront of the minds whenever the subject of house building gets mentioned, with a fear that that figure will get cut in half and they will be ruined (which is unlikely, after all they have a house to live in, if nothing else).
But these homes are needed – immigrants or not, there is a housing shortage – especially affordable housing. I do remember a story from a few years back of a scheme that had been ready to build luxury homes on a brownfield site (can’t find a thing about it now) until the group involved complained that they wouldn’t realise their investment unless these houses were built in a green field location because nobody would want to spend the money they were going to ask for on homes on old brownfields: as I recall they got away with it, got their planning permission and were building on former farmland (again, as I recall, it wasn’t that they would have had to lower the price – the price was set, the location wasn’t).
It is the authorities that need to show that they have the environment at the top of the agenda (although that will be with a lot of other ‘top’s) and prove that they will do what it takes to balance what is needed with what must be done.