Quote of the Day 28.5.2006

"Like it or not, the Thatcher era was good for this country. Accept it. Move on." - lyncho99 on GameFAQs

Quotes of the Day 22.5.2006

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd" - Edith Sitwell

"That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time" - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Quote of the Day 17.5.2006

"NUKE LABOUR" - Today's Daily Mirror

Quote of the Day 16.5.2006

"Don’t forget, abortionists will smile, pat you on the head and extract a load of cash from you before killing your child and wrecking your life." - Ros Power

While I do not agree Ros on somethings, we do share common ground on the issue of abortion.

Homeless recycling cans straight into gangster gold

NAGOYA--Organized crime is generally thought to involve guns, drugs, prostitution and other unsavory illegal acts.

What about mobilizing homeless people as runners to sneak old aluminum cans from recycling bins?

If it's organized, and it's a crime, it's good enough for the yakuza.

Last October, Aichi police arrested two bosses from the Kodo-kai, a Nagoya-based affiliate of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, after they were caught running an aluminum can ring in downtown Nagoya parks.

One of the gangsters established a company. Then they set up four huts in the parks to serve as aluminum can collection centers.

They hired staff to collect cans from homeless people at about 80 yen per kilogram, and then resold them to recycling businesses for 120 to 130 yen per kg.

With about 40 tons of cans coming in a month, the men were clearing about 2 million yen in monthly profit.

By comparison, the city of Nagoya only collected 306 tons during all of 2004, indicating that more cans were being pinched than collected.

That's a lot of money going straight from city coffers to gangsters' pockets.

"For citizens of the community, who had been diligently involved in the recycling effort, the fact that the cans ended up funding organized crime came as a shock," said a city assembly member in November. "The city must come up with appropriate measures that will satisfy the community."

"We will seek effective measures, including improvement of legislation," a city official replied.

Until that day, though, the city's hands are tied. Although it has received complaints about recycling drop-off stations getting trashed, the city does not have a law forbidding people from pilfering cans from those stations.

As a result, much as Al Capone was eventually caught for tax evasion, the police could only arrest the gangsters for violating the city park law--essentially, squatting.

In Tokyo and other big cities, municipalities have their own bylaws to keep recyclable material from the hands of profiteers.

Tokyo's Setagaya Ward prohibits the taking of items from collection stations, and in Yokohama, recyclables become city property by ordnance the moment they are dropped off. The Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo has arrested operators who scour collection stations on suspicion of theft or ordinance violation.

In Nagoya, insisted a city official, that would not work.

"Those bylaws were passed with the aim of restricting newspaper recycling operators from coming around in their trucks and picking up bundles of old paper," the official said. "They wouldn't stop the homeless from pinching aluminum cans."

The official also pointed out the difficulty in enforcing such laws.

"If we are going after cars, the operators could be easily tracked by their registration plates. It is going to be a lot more difficult trying to pinpoint homeless people," the official said.

"There are 14,300 aluminum can collection stations. Patrolling all of these places is just not realistic."

Furthermore, simply forbidding the practice is not as easy as it sounds. Aluminum cans are the most valuable, followed by steel cans, which fetched 9 yen per kg in fiscal 2004, according to city officials. By comparison, glass bottles fetched 1 yen for 2 kilograms. Some homeless people manage to live on aluminum recycling alone.

"A major part of homeless in Nagoya make their living by collecting aluminum cans," said Yutaka Onishi, president of Sasashima Hiyatoi Rodo Kumiai (Sasashima day laborers association), a private organization that helps homeless people strive to become financially independent.

"Regulations will only interfere with their efforts."

One 63-year old homeless man who lives in a park downtown agreed.

"There are very few day-labor jobs around," the man said. "Collecting aluminum cans is the only way to make a livelihood. The city is pushing us out of town with every pretense such as the Nagoya Expo."

The homeless man then added ominously, "If they decide to ban our can collection, there is going to be a riot."

The city is meeting with the Aichi prefectural police to figure out what to do, and has been asking other municipalities for advice.

"We do want to prevent (our recycling program) from being used by gangsters," said one official.

"But at the moment, we don't see any credible breakthrough measures taking shape either."
For now, the Al Capone approach is the only option.

On Feb. 7, the Nagoya District Court sentenced one of the Kodo-kai bosses to 18 months in prison, and called the scheme both "malicious, and extremely profitable."

At the trial, however, the defendant openly revealed his intention to continue the recycling business in the future.

Next time, he said, he just won't do it in the park.

Quote of the Day 14.5.2006

"The answer is, we can’t, and it’s no great coincidence that practising homosexuals are at the forefront of the pro sexual-anarchy movement, a movement that has spread so much destruction and misery, mindless left-wing critical theorising and the wholesale demoralising and general intellectual vandalism of society." - Ros Power

While Ros Power makes a good point about the degeneration of society as a whole, it is inaccurate to blame homosexuals alone for the mess we find ourselves in at present. Heterosexuals also played a leading role in debasing society with the culture of permissiveness such as members of The Beatles and the media plus sleazy politicians on all sides of the political divide.

Quote of the Day 12.5.2006

"Knowing your enemy is the quickest path to victory." - Solid Snake in the first trailer for Super Smash Bros. Brawl

The Truth About RESPECT

For those of you who have not yet read Oliver Kamm's blog, here are a few quick fire points to bear in mind about RESPECT and its minions.

1. The infamous RESPECT Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green & Bow and self-publicist George Galloway has repeatedly defended the record of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, despite the international condemnation it received from the majority of United Nations’ members.

2. That during an interview for Prison Planet.com on 9.9.2005, Gallas blamed world Jewry for their own persecution at the hands of anti-Semites, bringing Adolf Hitler to power in Germany and for unleashing the current wave of terrorism across the world.

3. That on a recent edition of his TalkSPORT radio show, Gallas criticised the Labour administration for legalising “sodomy for 16 year olds” in reference to the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill of 1999, despite voting in favour of it at the time.

4. That RESPECT is a fascist organisation in the same vein as other far-Left groups such as the Japanese Communist Party between 1922-1945 and a number of French Socialists during the 1930s. During her recent view to Britain, RESPECT compared Condoleezza Rice to the wartime fascist leader Oswald Mosley.

5. That RESPECT is a front organisation for the far-Left Socialist Workers Party. The SWP stated during the Third Gulf War (2003) that “by far the lesser evil would be reverses, or defeat, for the US and British forces”. The SWP also played host to the anti-Semitic jazz musician Gilad Atzmon at two of it’s annual Marxist jamborees.

Party Political Post: 2006 Local Elections

As I assume most of you will know, this year's local elections will be held tomorrow and it should go without mentioning that those of you who are eligible to vote should vote for your local Conservative candidates. Only a strong Tory representation at local government level can stop the BNP from growing as a mainstream political force and hasten the departure of Tony Blair and New Labour from office.