The Sky Has Not Fallen 830


The shocking death of Lee Rigby quite naturally appals us all. The intention of the crazed little group who conceived this killing was to make it as horrible as possible in order to scare people.

Horrible, sociopathic violence happens to people from time to time. They have done since Cain killed Abel, metaphorically or literally as you choose. Here is another headline today, just as horrific:

A British soldier has been jailed for stabbing a 10-year-old boy after getting drunk on vodka while serving in Afghanistan.

Both that obscene attack and Michael Adebolajo’s appalling actions are borne out of the same conflict. But it is reasonable to suppose that both these incidents involved people with, for whatever reason, a pre-disposition to murderous violence.

Such people have always been with us and will always be with us, but fortunately they are very, very few. In a nation of 60 million, involvement in violent crime is very low. If you are the victim of criminal violence, the odds over the last decade are about one in twenty thousand that the violence inflicted on you will have any linkage to political or terrorist causation. And the odds that you will suffer any kind of violent attack are thankfully pretty remote.

We should not panic from theatrical violence, just deplore and take sober stock. Sadly if a lunatic on the bus decides to strangle you tomorrow, there are no pre-emptive laws that can stop that. We should stop pretending that the state can always prevent.


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830 thoughts on “The Sky Has Not Fallen

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  • MJ

    Suhayl: you mean it’s hot up there? Down here it’s more like bleedin’ Nivôse (or Pluviôse).

  • Suhayl Saadi

    MJ, unfortunately, it’s not hot here either. Everything – flowers, etc. – is a month behind. Bluebells ought to be late April/early May, but they’re in full bloom, here, this year in early June!

    I was referring more to my despondent internal mood/volition and thence, you know, to the fall of Robespierre and all that, as in Thermidorean Reaction, counter-revolution, etc.

  • Flaming June

    Yes Dreoilin.
    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/05/the-sky-has-not-fallen/comment-page-5/#comment-410677

    For as long as I am channelled by the trolls, I will have a new name each month. Is there a rule against doing so?

    Remind me of the name you used to use here. Jemand has had a few variations too, both of name and links to his name.

    See suggestions for next month – http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/05/the-denial-of-justice/#comment-410689

  • Dreoilin

    “For as long as I am channelled by the trolls”

    Channelled by the trolls? Are you sure that’s what you mean?

    “I will have a new name each month. Is there a rule against doing so?”

    A rule? I don’t think there are rules, per se. But Jon did ask people to pick one handle and stick to it. Also, it seems a bit pointless since you’re so recognisable. What on earth is the point of a new name every month?

    “Remind me of the name you used to use here”

    I have used “Dreoilin” here since 2005. I changed once (and announced it beforehand) to “nuid”. But I became irritated with it so I said I would be changing back to Dreoilin. Which I then did.

    “Jemand has had a few variations too”

    There is no “too” involved. I have not had ‘a few variations’. And if Jemand has used more than one name, I’m not aware of it. As far as I know Jemand can link to whatever he likes. (Within reason.)

  • Jemand

    I’ve had only the one name in all the time of posting here, with occasional changes to obvious suffixes and links to different webpages. I have never attempted to assume multiple identities nor do I have reason to believe anyone has confused my handle with another or misunderstood my comments to have been posted by someone else.

    Changing names is not breaking any rules, and no one has ever suggested as much. But it is considered bad form for good reason and petulant objections do not obviate this.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    We are legion! We are the carpenter! [sound of demonic laughter]

    ‘Channelled by the trolls’ sounds like a cross between Madame Blavatsky, Deep Throat and Shrek. I half-expect a William Burroughs-shaped anal spirit cabinet to appear and promptly swallow up Jemand, Dreolin, the month-that-used-to-be-called-Mary and the whole holy host of manifest ectoplasm.

  • Soapy

    Grownups!

    Will you ever stop fighting and get back at the thread-face.

    Or I’ll really come back and make your lives hell.

  • Dreoilin

    Caoimhe O’Nó? That’s a mangled non-name if ever I saw one … it’s neither Irish nor English nor anything else. Sillyness personified.

  • Kibo Noh

    O/T
    5 22pm

    “Accidentally saw the inside of the internet” or didn’t look when it crossed the road and ended upon the windscreen of the Space Station?

    .

    Dreoilin, you ungrateful wretch. I mangled a load of phoenetic neurones trying , obviously with no success, to celtify my moniker and that’s all the thanks I get! I don’t think I’ll ever get my brain round Irish spelling. Was it invented as an act of revenge against anglophone occupiers? If so then Iraqis and Afghanis please take note. You can have the last laugh.
    .

    Will redouble my efforts.

  • Dreoilin

    Oh Kibo Noh, I’m sorry.

    I don’t know if you’re male or female, but for starters, Caoimhe is a female name. If by any chance you’re male, you’ll be wanting something else.

    The reason I said it was neither Irish nor English, was the combination of the apostrophe and the accent (fada) on the O. For example, the name O’Hanlon would never have a fada in it, and the Irish version would be (was, originally) Ó hAnluain.

    The word “No” is hard to translate. It depends on the question. “Is it?” or “is something …?” would be answered with “it is not”. And that would be “Níl”. (But in the past tense it would be “Ní raibh”.) The closest thing to a straight “No” would be “Ní hea”.

    So it’s not really just the spelling, it’s the whole construct, the grammar, as well.

    “Was it invented as an act of revenge against anglophone occupiers?”

    I doubt it. It’s said to be as old as Greek.

    I don’t know what Kibo Noh means or where it came from, but if you tell me I could perhaps translate it for you. (I’ve already Googled it without success.)

    “didn’t look when it crossed the road and ended upon the windscreen of the Space Station?”

    LOL 🙂 I got that on Twitter and transcribed it “as was”.

  • Kibo Noh

    @XanderMackay
    3 Jun, 2013 – 8:29 pm
    “Kibo Noh == Cui bono ??”
    .
    Spot on! You win a luxury weekend at a famous Spa Hotel Near Clonakilty whose name I can’t remember. Your mystery guide and masseur for the weekend will be drawn at random from this blog’s crack team of trolls. Your voucher will arrive on the ether once you have put yourself into a deep trance.
    ……………………………..
    @ Dreoilin. Thanks for the mini tour of the mysterious and wonderful (no irony meant for once) Irish language.
    I think you see now that my only option was a phoenetic linguistic muddle.
    The silliness is my way of taking brief mini-holidays from the sheer bloody awfulness of the stuff we are having to confront, each on of us in our own unique way.
    I love visiting this blog. Keeps me focussed on things that matter. But I appreciate the moments of levity and Ben’s late-night musical wind-downs.
    Keep on keepin’ on.

  • Dreoilin

    “I think you see now that my only option was a phoenetic linguistic muddle.
    The silliness is my way of taking brief mini-holidays from the sheer bloody awfulness of the stuff we are having to confront, each on of us in our own unique way.
    I love visiting this blog. Keeps me focussed on things that matter. But I appreciate the moments of levity and Ben’s late-night musical wind-downs.”

    Yes, I’m with you entirely, on all of the above.
    Take care

  • Suhayl Saadi

    This shit needs to be stopped. Now. Is someone trying to spark communal riots, because this type of activity seems almostr designed to achieve that outcome? All we need now are some pigs’ heads in mosques… These attacks on people who happen to be Muslim are heinous. Setting fire to a school full of children is attempted mass murder. Is this the EDL, or plausibly deniable synmpathisers, are they a franchise umbrella? Or might it be the hard state’s very own finest agents provocateurs – how very convenient that ‘EDL’ is being daubed all over these places. If similar events were occuring in other places, we automatically would think the last of these options the most obvious. There is no reason why all three options might be applicable, simultaneously, though.

    http://uk.news.yahoo.com/suspicious-fire-islamic-boarding-school-105917014.html#qm52HQc

  • Stevie

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