The European Refugee “Crisis”

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Sep 032015
 

The news has been filled for a few weeks now with stories about "immigrants" making their way into Europe through various routes – across the sea to the Greek islands, and across land through Hungary. Of course technically they are all travellers until they stop moving and set up home (at which point they are immigrants unless they stopped moving before they left their home country.

It turns out that most of the travellers are from Syria or from Afghanistan which makes them refugees.

This is a special category of migrant, and such migrants have the right under international law to seek and enjoy asylum.

child_sea4

Anyone trying to limit that right of asylum is almost certainly a criminal under international law, and morally bankrupt to boot. Those thinking that we can't take any more should take a long hard look at that dead child above; you are as responsible for that death just as much as if you beat that child to death personally.

There is no refugee crisis except in the sense that the refugees are not being treated properly. The fact that Europe was going to see an increase in the number of refugees was entirely predictable given the situation in Syria; particularly given that Turkey is hosting 1.7 million refugees. If anything there has been a crisis of political leadershiop amongst European politicians, and a failure to take a strong moral position. With a handful of exceptions.

The UK government is busy playing osterich games by pretending that by dealing with the Syrian crisis in Syria will make all the refugees disappear. Yes the ultimate solution is to sort out the situation in Syria, but in the meantime there are refugees dying. 

The EU needs to start funding the cost of dealing with refugees so that the countries least able to afford to don't have to pay a disproportionate amount (i.e. Greece).

The EU needs to set up safe, secure, and comfortable refugee centres where refugees can be accommodated, assessed, and then allocated a new country to go to.

The EU needs to allocate refugees out amongst all of the countries of the EU on a fair basis, and need to shame the reluctant into accepting their fair share.

And we all need to slap down those who oppose treating the refugees properly.

 

Another Senseless Killing in the USA

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Aug 272015
 

So there has been another senseless killing in the USA, and the world has reacted by asking Americans to "Please stop killing each other". If you read this blog religiously, you will probably recall previous occasions when I have mentioned gun control (and related issues), but bear with me. One slightly tacky thing to point out is that this senseless killing onl made the news because it was shown on live TV – senseless killings in the USA are so common (I could probably link to hundreds of similar articles) that this would not ordinarily be newsworthy.

The gun control fans have of course emphasised that the USA needs proper gun control, and I'm not going to disagree. 

Any society as sick in terms of violence as the USA needs strong gun control because it's citizens cannot be trusted not to run amok.

Those who want to hang onto their guns need to come up with a solution to the problem of violence in the USA and they need to stop parroting ridiculous excuses for why guns should not be controlled.

The Great Airport VAT Robbery

 Politics  No Responses »
Aug 122015
 

A link to the story in the media.

Because without a link some people might believe that this is all a conspiracy story. After all, I'm fond enough of commenting on stories of corporate greed, and this one is pretty unbelievable.

Apparently retailers have been cunningly claiming back VAT on purchases made by consumers who are travelling outside the EU. Perfectly legal, except that the total price that the consumers are paying is not reduced.

If you look at a invoice or receipt, it will usually have a line for each item listing the cost, and another line at the end totalling the VAT due. That charge for the VAT is supposed to be paid to the government. If VAT is not payable, it is not unreasonable to cross out the VAT line, deduct it from the total payable, and pay the reduced amount.

It would be amusing to try this in an airport shop.

One additional detail that has a bearing here, is that to claim back the VAT, the shops have to produce a copy of the boarding pass from people leaving the EU in order to claim the VAT back. Apparently the shops have been demanding a copy of the boarding pass from everyone and sometimes claiming it is for security purposes (which of course carries the unspoken threat of being arrested and if the airport police are bored, being prodded with automatic weapons and given a free body cavity inspection).

The retailers are claiming that it is too much like hard work to charge two different prices (one with and one without the VAT), which may well be a reasonable objection. If they don't claim the VAT back.

Now if there were a likely looking geezer speaking in a Cockney accent, hanging around the boarding gate for flights to the USA, and demanding a "Kray tax". And waving at someone dressed in a police uniform and carrying a machine gun, and saying that you uneed to pay or you'll get arrested, it would be something not entirely unreasonable to call it robbery.

So would it not be reasonable to call what these shops are doing robbery too?

 

70 Years After Hiroshima

 History  No Responses »
Aug 082015
 

It is approximately 70 years since the first nuclear fission bomb to be dropped was delivered to Hiroshima.

Which is obviously a terrible thing to have occurred. The death toll (approximately 80,000) from a single weapon was astronomical, but when you compare it with other incidents where civilians were killed in war (such as the Nanjing Massacre when between 40,000-300,000 Chinese were killed) it becomes a little less "special".

Yet those other massacres seem to be less well remembered despite many having a death toll comparable to Hiroshima (or Nagasaki). There is a series of conventions on the conduct of war (the Geneva Conventions) that includes provisions for prohibiting attacks on civilians.

However these provisions seem to be optional and widely ignored by military leaders and their political masters whenever it becomes inconvenient.

Radiation poisoning is one aspect that would seem to make Hiroshima "special" but there are other incidents where civilians continued to die after the initial attack :-

  • Civilian victims of gas attacks during WWI which continued well after the war (in the region of 200,000).
  • Victims of delayed action munitions such as minefields and cluster bombs. 

Even the notion that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were so terrible that it should never be repeated does not make these incidents unique – gas attacks during WWI inspired the complete prohbition of chemical warfare (which worked out so well).

But Hiroshima is special; it is special to the victims, the victims' families, and the survivors. But that sort of special also applies to all of the other massacres of civilians; they are all special to those personally involved in them. And to be frank they should be special to everyone who believes that civilians should not be targets in warfare.

It is special in another way – it is probably unique in the effect on the Japanese governments past, present, and hopefully future in the sense that the government is opposed to warfare.  

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