A Quick Fire Overview

Okay, for a change I thought I might change the format of my next blog and compile a small summary of my thoughts for the week into one..

I would hate to think that the government would even think of taking advantage of the glorious rampage to tackle the national deficit by unscrupulously disposing of services which we don’t even see in the chaos.  Heaven forbid they go further and hide any other misdoings behind the visible figures..  Keep an eye on them.

Somali pirates seem to be having a “wail of a time” at the moment, primarily because they aren’t being countered with effective responses, nor in many cases can they be effectively tried when caught due to a lack of stable government and diplomatic legal procedures in their homeland.  Okay, so it’s possible to argue that some of the pirates are may be people desperate enough in their plight, or forced to serve organised crime from without and within their country.  So, here’s a possible solution.  Set up an international blockade around Somalia, including the coastline.  Nothing gets in or out of the country without a search and documentation – zero tolerance.  Anyone caught in breach of import/export rules established to distinguish between benign inventory such as food and such provisions and malevolent items such as weaponry will have their cargo seized and under the initial presumption of being an innocent party to criminal coercion, they will be detained and handed over for a fair trial (based upon humanitarian and international maritime laws) to establish their role, their circumstances and the names of any of their contacts.  Make it known that anyone who resists detention will have their cargo destroyed and they will be summarily executed.  I would guess that’s a little more effective in both action and disincentive than patrolling 4km square areas with underpowered, ill-equipped boats.  It’s funny that the oil and cargo companies don’t take this all more seriously, unless of course it’s all a compensation scheme to make more money claiming on the missing cargo.. hmm..

Finally, on the matter of voting rights for prisoners.. please, come on guys!  GET A GRIP!!  There are very few times that I agree with a number of politicians at once, but I get the feeling the members of the European Parliament simply haven’t sat and thought about the raison d’etre for incarceration where this little legal morsel is concerned.  When someone is imprisoned they have a right to fair conditions and treatment, but ethically they cannot be granted a slice of political decision-making whilst they are imprisoned.  As a criminal they may have been removed from society for any number of reasons, from murder to fraud, but the one thing which unites them all is the fact that incarceration means the loss of some basic freedoms of choice.  This is their punishment.  Since the abolition of capital punishment, prison itself is now supposed to be the ultimate civilised disincentive to criminal behaviour, but if they are to be allowed any influence the system which holds them, we may as well grant them the right to decide whether or not they are imprisoned.

Peace