Freak Snow in Australia – I Blame Global Warming!

Because you know, it is either Bush’s fault or global warming. There’s been heavy snow in Australia and people don’t know what’s going on.

HEAVY SNOWFALL HAS hit parts of Australia in what has been described as the coldest July weather in four decades.

It came as a surprise in particular in Queensland which is known as the ‘Sunshine State’

They don’t know how much snow, because they are that unprepared.

The Guardian reports the snow has fallen in parts of the country where this type of weather is so rare that they do not have the tools to measure it.

(Hat tip Small Dead Animals)

Violent Crime Rates In Canada, Australia, the UK and the US – The US Looks Pretty Good by Comparison

Via twitter… I hate it that folks can post things without providing links to their source material. So here is a link. Comparing international trends in recorded violent crime. Courtesy of the Australian government

Trends in recorded violent crime in England and Wales, the United States, Canada, and Australia, rate per 100,000 persons, 1962-2004

It is interesting to note that the law virtually outlawing private handgun possession in the UK was passed in 1997. Given the rate of increase that the violent crime went through in the years after that, do you think it was a success?

Of course things in the UK got a bit better after 2005 – if they had stayed on that trajectory it would have been crazy. You can find numerous article extolling how the crime rate decreased (marginally) in the years after 2005.

And the UK does have one of the lowest rates of GUN homicide. (That data is easy to find – they shout it from the top of Wikipedia at every chance available.)

The way the UK Home Office reports crime statistics has me bamboozled. I am currently wading through “detection rates” which basically means “cases closed” but I can’t find rates on crimes recorded or occurred. I also can’t find anything except “crimes against the person” which I take to be all kinds of assault, lethal or not. If I can figure out their overall murder-rate, I will either update this post or post another entry. Gun-crime is usually a smoke-screen. In this case it almost certainly is, because if violent crime increased that much since 1998, I would guess murder went up as well. And it doesn’t matter to the victims if they were shot, stabbed or bludgeoned, it only matters to the folks producing the statistics.

Another Set of “Special Rights?” Or When the Police Are Part of the Problem

Blacks in the old south, knew they couldn’t call the police to solve hate crimes. Gays in Australia face the same problem. The police are the gang responsible for the crimes. Pressure grows for inquiry into Sydney’s gay-hate killings – Star Observer.

The whole thing is disturbing, but this paragraph sums up the problem.

Mid-last year, it was revealed by Fairfax Media and Star Observer that at least one witness had seen Rosendale’s assailants [Alan Rosendale, who survived a beating at Moore Park in 1989] entering a car with registration plates that matched an unmarked police car. Officers tasked with investigating the incident at the time did not take a statement from Rosendale, and instead listed the identity of the alleged attackers as “a gang of skinheads”.

The witness, Paul Syme, was then informed that the officers allegedly responsible for the attack had been disbanded. No further investigation took place.

The Right loves to talk about the “special rights” everyone wants. Women’s Rights have been described as being “special” in the past year. (Hint: The first Women’s Rights Congress took place in the 1840s, when women couldn’t vote, own property, etc. Even in the 1970s, the Republicans defeated the Equal Rights Amendment – can’t grant those girls equal rights!) I won’t mention the plight of blacks. But it would be nice if gays could walk down the street secure in the knowledge that the next group of cops they meet weren’t a bunch of gay-hating, gay-bashing a-holes who would never be prosecuted for their crimes.

Yeah, I know, that is just crazy talk.