I try to conceal my admiration for Mark Steyn as a journalist and thinker, but it doesn't work- so why bother? Scroll down these NRO '06 predictions and you'll find some of the boldest and more interesting predictions for the coming year from the man himself. The one I liked the most was:

'Osama bin Laden will continue to be dead, and will be confirmed as such.'

Food for thought. There's also one about the fall of the German Government. And then there's the funny one at the end.

Maybe though, a new, saner dawn is just around the corner for the Beeb (an early New Year's resolution, perhaps?). I sometimes find a little snippet on the Beeb which indicates that somehow things might be changing. I am an optimistic sort, and dislike the feeling that I am unevenhanded. So, I'm linking this article about the Polish decision to stay in Iraq.

According to the BBC report there currently:

'The new conservative government's decision reverses the previous leftist administration's plan to pull troops out in early 2006.'

I highlight the point. 'Leftist' sounds a bit almost well, pejorative, especially when set against the 'conservative government' part. Of course I don't ask for a slant towards the right, but it's a small point I think I ought to acknowledge.

I really had to share this little gem from the American Expat's site. Not only does Scott skewer the BBC's anti-Bush/America bias in two recent posts, he also gets entertaining comments like the following:

'In a very deep and beautiful way Mr. Bush has penetrated to the innermost core of the BBC, where everything is interpreted in the light of his existence. It really is poetic justice that the BBC should be housed at, of all places, Bush House.'

Latest example of BBC Bush hysteria here. I think 'buff' is a term they reserve for eccentric amateur followers of the arcane, and US Presidents they have no respect for.

Basic stuff

Ok, I said I'd pop back, and here I am. Well, actually here I am- within a mighty stone's throw anyway. Quite wintry, which I gather the UK is beginning to feel as well (Christmas passed with the usual lack of whiteness, apparently, as indeed it did here by and large).

But while surfing, I found an item which has been buzzing in certain Brit-blogs for a day or two now. PC Coetzee (not to be confused with JM, who 'constructs representations of people slipping their chains') has been doing too much pesky arresting. What struck me about it was the comment from Coetzee's Chief Inspector that gave as an example of this fault 'arresting people who have failed to appear in court'

That's why I so admire PC Coetzee- he enforces the law. He forces people to face the courts which their alleged crimes are said by British Parliament-passed laws to merit. Last year (04) I faced a court on about three occasions over one motoring case(when postponements are considered I actually readied myself to face it about five times- and part of this time while not even UK resident). I won my case, which was a minor one, without a lawyer. I don't think it should have taken that long; it certainly shouldn't have been postponed at all (due to lack of court time). The reason probably lies partly in the fact that many cases have to be scheduled but the defendants fail to show, thus creating chaos and an atmosphere of disorder throughout the system.

It's all about enforcement really. If they enforced the law they wouldn't need, and wouldn't be able, to have catch-all police policies that rely on convicting those who allow themselves to be convicted. They would then have the respect of all: the real offenders, who would understand that to offend is to be forced to face the law, and the generally law-abiding person, who would be less likely to be targeted just because of a mild temporary lapse (not my case, actually; I was innocent altogether, and proved to the court's satisfaction that the prosecution- shifty coves the lot- had no case) and would then consider a general policy of good-citizenship more rewarding.

Failure to appear in court is a crime fundamental to all others. It's basic stuff and the stuff of a basic law-abiding society. And the idea that a Chief Inspector can just dismiss it with a curt criticism of one of his best officers (from a community- the white South African immigrants- to whom we already seem to owe a debt for their expertise and uprightness) is just fairly sickening and equally predictable. The sickening part is that it's something that could so easily be addressed had not the liberloids their heads up their backsides. You know where people live (and soon you'll know it even better); they can't get away; yet you let them, to the detriment of the entire system.

Anyway, on the theme of the basics, Mark Steyn is remembering the Tsunami relief effort, and there seems to be this same lack of sense which has infected many aspects of the British establishment (see this sickeningly shallow nonsense masquerading as common sense as St Jack tells us Christmas cards are ok. Thanks Jack). It makes me ask whether this Christmastide we should not be asking whether liberalism (in the sense of treating certain majorities as though they were the real sponsors of iniquity, on racial or historical grounds, in defiance of actual racial or historically based data- with the corollary that certain minorities are either on historical or racial grounds to have a false reality cocooned about them) isn't actually a kind of virus which impairs the life-support system of a decent society and a sensible mind.