Pakistan's army: as inept as it is corrupt

"The armed forces account for 20% of Pakistan's national budget, totalling $5bn last year according to official statistics. But the actual figure, already staggering for a country with high levels of illiteracy and malnutrition, is likely to be much higher."
...
"Every one of Pakistan's democratically-elected civilian leaders has been forced to abdicate by the army. A general has directly ruled the country for 34 of its 62 years of existence."
...
"According to Ayesha Siddiqua, in her seminal study, "Military Inc", the army's private business assets are worth around £10bn and it owns a handsome share of the country's business and land. The generals, as a result, appear to be more interested in leveraging control over businesses, properties and politics."

(Mustafa Qadri)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETE SEEGER ninety years old today.
This gent seems to have been around all my life, though it turns out I can't have heard his music before 1950 when, with the Weavers, he first made his mark on popular music, with "On Top of Old Smokey". From then on I was hearing his stuff without knowing his name; "Tzena, Tzena", "Goodnight Irene", "Wimoweh", and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine". Was that last one of Irish origin? The Irish loved it.
Then in the sixties, with the folk revival, Pete came into his own, the Doyen of the genre. Over here we had Ewen McColl, an affine of Pete's, though I'm not sure how the relationship would be described - half-brother-in-law? Comrade McColl was a lot less fun than Comrade Seeger, whose music continued to bother the charts. The songs, not usually his own but refashioned in his style, were taken up by popsters and became Known to a mass audience beyond the folksong community; "Wimoweh", "Guantanamera", "Sloop John B", others I can't think of at the moment. The bloke has been a massive influence on the popular music scene, with his own interpretations and those of his disciples and borrowers. I don't know how many modern artists would cite Comrade Pete as an influence, apart from Springsteen. It should be a multitude.
And to top it all he outlived that creep McCarthy, and all those other witch-hunters and red-baiters; Nixon, Bobby Kennedy, Reagan, et al.
And he hasn't finished yet.

"I'd rather be called red by a rat than rat by a red." (Michael Quill)

MAY DAY

"In this Mesopotamian prescription of a plague on all their houses we must not forget though the opponents of the war back home as well. For while many may feel vindicated by what subsequently happened, it was their hand wringing and magnification of every set back or mis-step that played a key role in undermining the political will to achieve more in southern Iraq."
Mark Urban of the BBC.
This fellow will go far in the corporation.

On the "not guilty" verdicts on the Beeston trio, Ali, Saleem and Shakil -
What intrigues me about this is how things have changed since the 1970s. Then when an IRA bomb went off all the muskers had to do was grab some handy Paddies, verbal them up, and a jury would do its duty and find them guilty as charged.
This time the jury has chosen not to believe the prosecution's tale. Is it anything to do with the behaviour of the police of late? Jean Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson, the lies the police told, and their ever changing stories as the facts emerged little by little?
Of course back then it was possible to beat a confession out of an innocent person in custody, but it happened too often to be allowed to continue.
Then again it may be the number of convicted "bombers" who were later released and (officially)compensated that could make a jury think twice about taking police statements as reliable.
Who knows? Not me, I expected a guilty verdict regardless of the quality of the evidence. After all these were Muslims, with BEARDS. Perhaps I should have had more faith in the jury system, but a long memory makes that difficult.

Franklin Rosemont, Wobbly and Surrealist, obiit April 12th 2009.

"My mother died a year ago ...", Lampard plays that dog-eared sympathy card again.

He's rich
He's spoiled
He's selfish
He plays for Chelsea
He's got a look like a kid who carried the can for something someone else did.

What's not to like?

I can't wait to read Marina Hyde's take on this.

JACK JONES
Not the worst union general secretary. He appears not to have lined his pockets from members' dues, which makes a pleasant change. Damning with faint praise? Maybe, but any praise for a TU full-timer is a departure for this old grouse.
Fought in Spain; carried on in the class struggle after retirement, unlike his old mucker LORD Scanlon. Not a bad record when all's said and done.
The press has used Jack Jones's passing as an excuse to revive all that cobblers about "the overweening power of the unions" in the seventies. Speaking as a rank and file member of the T&G in the 60s, 70s and 80s, I have to wonder why that power, if it existed, was not used to improve our lot. The power of the unions at grass rooots was minimal, in the construction industry anyway. Because the union bureaucrats were invited to Downing Street for the proverbial "beer and sandwiches" the lying press can portray their organisations as having some influence over government policy. They were going there to make deals with the government and the employers' organisations, deals that gave very little to the people they were supposed to represent. Still the old canard is now firmly established. We were the enemy within, lazy, overpaid, strike-prone.
Lies, lies, lies!

28th APRIL 2009

INTERNATIONAL
WORKERS
MEMORIAL
DAY

REMEMBER THE DEAD - BUT FIGHT FOR THE LIVING !

Gather 10.30 am at the statue of the unknown
building worker at Tower Hill next to the Tower
of London, Tower Bridge. Rally with speakers.

March from Tower Hill to the Health and Safety
Executive (HSE) headquarters in Southwark St.
Continue the march to City Hall, London, SE1 for
Rally with speakers from 12 noon

CONTACT: 077 477 95954



INTERNATIONAL WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY

April 28th 2009



WHY SHOULD YOU
JOIN OUR PROTEST?

Every year throughout the world more people die from work activity
than die in wars. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), estimated
that, globally, about 2.2 million people die every year from occupational
accidents and diseases, with 270 million workers suffering serious
non-fatal injuries and another 160 million workers suffering from
short or long term illness from work-related causes.

In Britain the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), our safety police, say
in the last 25 years, over 2,800 people have died from injuries received
as a result of construction work. In 2007/8 there were 72 construction
fatalities. Many more have been injured or made ill. The government
say there are currently 4,000 deaths a year from asbestos exposure.

The government, in its drive to de-regulate and cut costs has become
even more business friendly. Cuts to the budget of the HSE mean HSE
inspectors visiting workplaces and enforcing the law has declined
(overall from 1,483 inspectors in 2004 to 1,238 in 2008). The number of
HSE prosecutions is also in decline (overall 1,720 offences prosecuted
in 2003/4 to 1,028 in 2007/8). All of this in a period when accident
rates remain high. The courts still fine some companies a few thousand
pounds following a worker death. The number of jailing following a
worker death is not much more than a dozen.

WHY PROTEST TO LONDON’S MAYOR?

The Mayor of London has control over two massive public sector projects
– the Olympics site and Crossrail. It is necessary to remind the Mayor
we want these projects built safely with fair employment practices for all.

THE RECESSION IS A HEALTH AND SAFETY ISSUE?

The Economic Collapse threatens your Health and Safety; it’s the filthy
rich that caused it – It’s not foreign workers, But its workers in all countries
who are being made to pay for it. Resist and get organised join a
Trade Union and establish active workplaces and community committees,
Demand that there is no increase in workplace fatalities and major
injuries. Demand the government not allow our jobs to be lost with
all the poverty and ill heath this will cause. Demand not just the nationalisation
of the banks but also all major industries. Demand the end of
privatisation of all public sector bodies. Demand the reinstatement
and expansion of construction direct labour organisations and all other
public services. End all agency and bogus self-employment by having
workers directly employed.

Workers and trade union safety reps must
be given more rights in law to defend
themselves.

The government must repeal the anti-
trade union laws.

The government must fund the HSE
properly and change its enforcement
policy to be more “big stick” and less
“carrot”.

The courts must jail employers who
negligently kill workers and increase the
level of fines.

Remember the dead – but fight for the
living

The construction safety campaign is
calling on workers from all the different
industrial backgrounds, Trades Unions,
workplaces and community groups to
support this event

CONTACT: 077 477 95954

Here's a little fairy tale I've just made up.
Far away in a Labour held constituency a byelection is in the offing. The party members are preparing to cast their votes for their favoured candidate, when - Presto! - another postulant appears as if from nowhere. But no, she is sent from on high, for she is child of the Nomenklatura, Daddy is on the inside.
The electors revolt and decide to give the young lady's arse a skelping to demonstrate their independence.
To no avail; practitioners of the black arts are on hand to frustrate their plan. Behold! A ballot box with a broken seal. The ballot is declared null and void.

On a completely different subject; I think the student Ms. Georgia Gould will be selected as NEW Labour candidate for Erith and Thamesmead. I see she has the blessing of the wife of the perjuror and Berlusconi creature, David Mills, which must be a great help.

She said she pointed to her face and asked the officer: "Do you realise there are three film crews filming you?"

... and when, I wonder, will their footage be shown to the public? They might as well have stayed in bed for all the good they were.

BIAS, BULLSHIT, COWARDICE

"Haaretz gave considerable space to the BBC's findings yesterday. I'm not surprised. But why is it that Haaretz's top correspondents – Amira Hass and Gideon Levy – write so much more courageously about the human rights abuses of Israeli troops (and war crimes) than the BBC has ever dared to do? Whenever I'm asked by lecture audiences around the world if they should trust the BBC, I tell them to trust Amira and Gideon more than they should ever believe in the wretched broadcasting station. I'm afraid it's the same old story. If you allow yourself to bow down before those who wish you to deviate from the truth, you will stay on your knees forever."

(Robert Fisk)

The BBC Trust upheld a complaint by a Zionist organisation alleging bias on the part of its Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen. In this case bias = truth. The BBC is expected to broadcast Zionist propaganda, and does so on a regular basis. Jeremy Bowen is a marked man.

114 individuals who had committed no offence were arrested by the Nottinghamshire police yesterday.
G20 protesters were subjected to collective punishment last week. A passer-by was killed by a masked police officer.
Last month climate change protesters "were threatened with arrest after invoking their right to not to disclose personal details. They were also subjected to repeated searches, and police seized more than 2,000 items, including a clown outfit, cycle helmets, tent pegs and board games. The confiscation of the camp's supply of soap was justified by police 'because protesters might use it to make themselves slippery and evade the grip of police'."

Altogether now -
"Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
SA marschiert mit mutig-festem Schritt."

We often hear about the desecration of Jewish graves by anti-semites. Are all such desecrations to be condemned? Apparently not.

"... your bosses tell you that you've got an hour to get your coat and go and "we're sorry but haven't you heard about the crisis, we're going bust too, and you can forget about redundancy pay and even the pension you've accrued". The odds are that you'd feel a cross between furious, depressed and scared.
"Also, imagine you find out that last year your boss from the same company that is going bust managed to rustle up some spare change for himself for a total of $1,341,667 as well as a staggering $8,393,607 with shares and bonuses - and that your chief executive too found enough dough to take home: $1.48 million in cash and bonuses."

Funny thing -
that Channel 4 had video evidence of Mr. Ian Tomlinson being batonned by a riot cop but chose not to air it until the cat had been let out of the bag and proof of an assault was all over the internet. One might suspect Channel 4 of collaborating with the police in a cover-up.
Ken Loach's account of his experiences with TV programme commissioners is pertinent.

I also had a South Bank Show film, Which Side Are You On?, about the miners' strike, withdrawn for political reasons. I was desperate to make a programme about the strike because the news presentation of it showed the opposite of what was actually happening: the brutality of the police, the subterfuge of the government, the power of the state, the fact that the other trade union leaders were turning their backs on the miners. None of this kind of thing was talked about at the time - it was a parallel universe.
But the strike was also a time of cultural explosion in the mining areas. In almost every pit I went to there were creating writing groups. Women were active - suddenly finding that they could stand on their feet and address a couple of hundred people. It was a time when people stood tall. My film was about the miners' songs and poems. I made it in a week, and cut it quickly. Melvyn Bragg came to see it with Nick Elliott, who was a member of the LWT hierarchy. There was the sound of breath being sucked in through teeth, and heads were shaken, and I was told that they wouldn't show it. The film included some amateur footage of police brutality, which hadn't been seen. They told me that if I cut that, it could be shown.
It was screened at a documentary festival in Florence, where it was given a prize, and was eventually shown on Channel 4, but the quid pro quo was that immediately afterwards they screened a programme in which Jimmy Reid, the shipbuilders' union leader, who had become a newspaper columnist, spoke directly to camera, attacking Scargill and the miners' leadership

If there is anything to feel optimistic about today, perhaps it is the hope that we are witnessing the flowering of an effective inverse surveillance society. Inverse surveillance is a branch of sousveillance, the term coined by University of Toronto professor Steve Mann, and it emphasises "watchful vigilance from underneath", by citizens, of those who survey and control them.

Another good article by Marina Hyde on an important topic, and an addition to my vocabulary, sousveillance.

"This video is not available in your country"
According to one Bobbie Johnson in Guardian IT "Google pulled music videos from YouTube in the UK, complaining that it would cost more to show each video than it got in payment ...". Well tough shit, Google, don't you make a fortune selling the information you garner on our tastes and interests? How much is too much for you money grubbers?
I checked my del.icio.us account to see how many tagged videos were no longer accessible; Five had gone down the pan, 17 remained, mainly at last.fm or Foxy Tunes Planet, but five were labelled 'YouTube'. So presumably YouTube videos are still accessible but not via Google. The workings of the internet remain a mystery to me.
One video, I've forgotten which, is the subject of a copyright squabble involving someone called 'Archibuild Ltd'. I'm sure they're great music lovers.
Google had deprived me of a particularly favourite, "Intro and Outro" by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, but fortunately I was able to hook up to it again on last.fm.
Up yours, Google!

It’s all happened very fast. Our politicians’ French is getting worse and worse. Advertisers continue to abuse our language with each new billboard. The school system does what little it can ... That’s how low we have sunk - and all things considered, no one really gives a damn. One cuts straight to the point these days, and we simply follow suit while everything around us is falling asunder, seemingly unconscious of the downhill slope that leads from the Princess to the bloody idiot.

I find it difficult to see any progress in that.

( (François Taillandier, L'Humanité, 31st March)

You too, France?

Listening to the "Today" programme on BBC4 this morning, the Ian Tomlinson video being discussed. It was described as "amateur", "amateurish", "shaky", and "all over the place". Surprisingly the speakers didn't get round to describing it as worthless as evidence, though I'm sure they were dying to do so.
The interviewee described what was to be seen on the video, including the cop striking Mr. Tomlinson with his truncheon on the back of the legs before knocking him to the ground. The interviewer declared that he had not discerned the use of the truncheon. At this point I'd had enough and turned the radio off before I heard it suggested that Mr. Tomlinson was an al-Qua'ida operative - or maybe the BBC is leaving that claim to the (Daily?)Mail.
The Metropolitan Police have lied again about the death of a man at the hands of their officers. Now the story will keep changing until the media get tired of reporting it. The Guardian has a headline suggesting the assailant could face a manslaughter charge - could, but won't, Messrs Guardian. However he can expect a promotion soon.
Blair Peach, now what happened to his killer? Oh yes, I remember now, he was never charged but he WAS promoted.

Caravan buyout creates 100 jobs
This is a headline from my local paper, but when one reads the article it turns out not to be true. One local firm has bought another local firm that was in administration. The buyers have stated that this will create up to 100 jobs, i.e., a number of jobs somewhere between one and 100.
My local paper usually leaves the "up to" bit in when reporting new employment opportunities. It's always a good idea to take the figures with a pinch of salt but the paper never does. "Up to a thousand new jobs will result from these orders" says employer; that kind of thing. No-one ever revisits the story and asks "How many actual jobs were created as a result of that order/that new firm moving in?
The Hull Daily Mail, the Dr. Pangloss of jobsearch.

"Rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something."
(President Obama)
So, at last something will be done about Israel's constant flouting of UN resolutions. Oh! - North Korea - right, carry on Israel.
Then maybe this means that the USA will at last stop flouting UN resolution after UN resolution on blockade of Cuba ... or maybe not.

Well played the Scottish FA. Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor will never play for Scotland again. Well done Rangers (I never thought I'd write those words). Ferguson loses the captaincy and both wasters have been suspended without pay for two weeks.
Now imagine this happening to any of the spoilt millionaires who play for England. Actually I can't. The English FA standing up to the shirt salesmen - never!

Judge McCallum said Cockayne "thoroughly deserved to go to prison" after watching CCTV footage that showed the Robins star repeatedly kick Mr Thompson.

Then he let him walk free. Why? Well, the thug is an investment of the business called Hull KR.

A spokesman for Hull KR said: "As a club, we take the court's decision and Ben's sentence very seriously. We intend to meet with Ben and his representatives to discuss this outcome. We are not in a position to comment until this meeting has taken place."

Translation, "We're not going to do anything".

I read on jailhouse lawyer's blog that the broadcaster Nicky Campbell called someone a fascist, but later apologised. I should think so. The BBC term is "far right activist". Fascist, like extremist, can be used at the BBC when referring to left wing organisations, but never of right wingers, fascist or otherwise. I expect Mr. Campbell will be on a warning for this gaffe.
Still, no smoke without fire, eh?

A quarter of a century ago I read an article on male hair loss (a great fear of mine) and some figures therein stuck in my mind. According to the author:
One male in five starts to lose his hair before the age of twenty.
One male in two starts to lose his hair before the age of thirty.
If a man still has a full head of hair at forty he almost certainly will not go bald.

I was pleased to read this, being forty-five at the time and still in possession of my barnet, but with me there's always a nagging doubt ("knowing my luck ...", etc.).
Another snippet of information on the subject - almost an obsession with me - was a statement by a trichologist made during a television programme on the subject. If you want to know whether or not you'll go bald, he said, don't look at your father, look at your mother's brother(s). His hair will be your hair.
This too was reassuring; my father had begun to lose his luxuriant black curls around the age of thirty. Though he never became completely bald, the few wisps on the top of his head amounted to pretty much the same thing for us, his sons.
My mother's only brother, on the other hand had hair so thick that it had to be kept cropped in order for him to look civilised. His hair went grey at an early age, which seems to me to be a common trait among Irish males, but he retained that wiry crop until his death at circa seventy years of age.
Looking good for the brothers and me then. At fifty still OK, at sixty too. At sixty-five no problem, but today - horror of horrors! - the curse of calvity has fallen upon my bowed head. I'm combing miniature birds' nests out every time I groom. The hair has visibly receeded from my forehead, though the term "baldness" doesn't really apply as yet. But the hair atop my skull is thinning. I keep inspecting my scalp for visible bald patches. None so far, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.
I pray that this attrition will come to a stop. Or I would if I knew of a deity or a saint to whom to address my whining prayers. There's almost certain to be a patron saint of hair.
But then, since when did I believe in the efficacy of prayer, or an afterlife stuffed with indulgent spirits waiting to answer my petitions?
Why should I care at my age and in my physical condition, about losing my hair? Well I'm such an ugly specimen of humanity, that any form of covering is welcome , and any further exposure of my person to the public gaze will erode my self regard even further. I'm going to make a pitiful looking corpse.

Quote of the Week -
"I am not a man - I am Cantona."

This morning I heard on Sky News that "tens of thousands" of protesters were gathered on the Victoria Embankment in London. This afternoon the tens of thousands had become "thousands". I await a Metropolitan Police estimate of something like 500 marchers.

Update, 29th March. According to the police there were more than 35,000 on the March, so I'm guessing 40-60,000.

Marina Hyde on the latest FA fashion line -
"Whether you believe replica England shirts to be a tax on stupidity is irrelevant."

Jade Goody - I wish I was there. I wish I could be outside her gaff laying down flowers, with a little note attached full of misspellings. I would write something about heaven and angels and all that shit. Then I'd find somebody to hug, and I'd pretend to weep - but only if the TV cameras were there. First though I'd ring home and say, "Put Sky News on and start recording, I'm going to be on the telly."
No, on second thoughts I don't honestly think I'd bother. Still I'm sure plenty of people will; I don't think the media hacks will have to pay anybody to do it.

"I have always felt some discomfort in claiming the money, to be frank. I decided that it's simply time that I stopped – partly because mortgage interest rates have gone down and partly because I can do without it."

Tony McNulty, New Labour Minister. So you're going to give your immoral earnings back,Tone?
He's done nothing wrong, that's how the system works. Great, eh?

BLESS 'EM!

"I categorically deny that I spat at anybody. I have never done this in my whole career on the pitch ..." (Cesc Fábregas)

"Mentira, mentira ..." (Manu Chao)

Ehud Barak pontificates -
“The Israeli Army is the most moral in the world."

An Israeli soldier speaks -

“What’s great about Gaza — you see a person on a path, he doesn’t have to be armed, you can simply shoot him. In our case it was an old woman on whom I did not see any weapon when I looked. The order was to take down the person, this woman, the minute you see her. There are always warnings, there is always the saying, ‘Maybe he’s a terrorist.’ What I felt was, there was a lot of thirst for blood.”

Relax, everyone! The New York City police are really on the job these days. With rapists, murderers, bank robbers and dope peddlers, not to mention corporate thieves, rampant throughout the City, they made a significant dent in the crime statistics yesterday, March 18, when they arrested seven grandmothers aged 67 to 90 in Times Square.

"A[n] inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission cleared the Met of any wrongdoing over the arrest."
Yet they've paid Babar Ahmed £60000 in compensation for the beatings he received,and for the insults to his religion. Why? Is this another case of the PCC being a complete waste of public money? No wonder so many of their staff have resigned. Will there be an enquiry about how the PCC got it so badly wrong? No.

Patrick's Day
A poem from the Irish -
I do not know of anything under the sky
That is friendly or favourable to the Gael,
But only the sea that our need brings us to,
Or the wind that blows to the harbour
The ship the ship that is bearing us away from Ireland;
And there is reason that these are reconciled with us,
For we increase the sea with our tears,
And the wondering wind with our sighs.
(tr. Lady Gregory)

More -
Sagairt óir is cailís chrainn
bhí le linn Phádraig in Éirinn;
sagairt chrainn is cailís óir
i ndeireadh an domhan dearóil

Golden priests and wooden chalices
in Ireland in Patrick's time.
Golden chalices, wooden priests
as the wretched world stands now.
(tr. Thomas Kinsella)

Mr. Kim Ryley, chief executive of the Hull City Council - that's the man who tells the people we elect what they can and can't do in our name - earns £2000 per annum more than the Prime Minster of our proud nation. Not bad, eh?

We used to pay a bloke a tidy sum to sell the world on the delights of Kingston upon Hull; publicity officer, or some such title. I don't know if he's still on the payroll, he certainly keeps a low profile if he is. The great thing about this bloke was he wouldn't live in Hull, preferring a billet somewhere in Lancashire, which suggests to me that his heart wasn't really in his job.

Sign on a florist's stall in town -
HANG IN BASKETS

Damned CIA, they've been reading my blog. I ought to charge them a consultancy fee, but I suppose they'd claim that the argument that Israel has only 20 years of existence remaining stems from their own research and intelligence-gathering. I call it plagiarism.

"Home Office minister Vernon Coaker, who initially said the response had been 'proportionate', later apologised to MPs after it emerged the 70 police officers he claimed had been injured in clashes with protesters had suffered unrelated ailments - including bee stings and a toothache."

"The confiscation of the camp's supply of soap was justified by police 'because protesters might use it to make themselves slippery and evade the grip of police', the report says."

And this from yesterday's Telegraph -
" ... more than 1,000 serving police officers have criminal convictions."

" ... no fewer than 77 serving officers have convictions for violence and 96 for dishonesty."

I had to reproduce this letter, from today's Guardian, in full -

Your story about the chimp set me thinking (Report, 10 March). We are told that "forward planning takes considerable cognitive skills, because it requires an animal to envisage future events it will have to deal with". Perhaps we could borrow a few of these chimps to work in the FSA, the Bank of England, or the Treasury where their forecasting skills might come in useful.
Paul Twyman
Birchington, Kent

A poem to the author Julian McLaren-Ross (1912-1964) that I chanced upon yesterday. I'm not sure if it is permissible to reproduce it in full so I'll just quote a few lines and point to it. This is my kind of poetry, nothing abstract or vague about it, no need for interpretation. Author, David Collard -

We love your tales of squaddies, spivs and chancers;
Of clots and colonels, pukka sahibs, drunks;
Of chaps in digs, of salesmen, tarts and dancers,
How some are decent types and others skunks.

...

You fabulous, bibulous arch self-inventor -
With cane and dark glasses and camel-hair coat.
Seductive, productive, intransigent mentor
To thinkers and drinkers and this pisspoor poet.

I note appreciatively this reference by Angry Arab to Christopher Hitchens and his tall stories -
" Hitchens seems to want to be a part of every occasion, like Woody Allen’s Zelig."

There is a Hitchens Watch website for those who, like me, are fascinated by the great man's posturing, http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/

STS Bulletin no.19
Our BBC local radio station has a daily feature called "Mad World". This is usually a snigger at regular right wing targets, health and safety, human rights, "political correctness". It probably goes down well among those types who decry the "nanny state" but are currently demanding that the government pays their mortgage.
Anyway today's story was about Leicestershire County Council fitting "sat navs" to lawn mowers. However, a statement by a council representative made it obvious that these devices are no such thing. They are instruments for spying on employees; checking on their whereabouts and the time they take on jobs (though he didn't say so in so many words). The use of the term "sat nav" is clearly a cover-up. Needless to say it fooled the bloodhounds of the British media. Have a laugh and move on to the next silly story.

"American and British diplomats have thus made explicit efforts to build links to the Sharif camp. "Pragmatism is the order of the day," said one UK diplomat."

So Zardari is to be removed.
I'm assuming Karzai is on the way out too, as I heard a BBC report on Afghanistan that called his government "corrupt". The BBC doesn't speak of foreign leaders in this way without a signal from above.

"Who the [expletive deleted] does he think he is? Who's the [expletive deleted] superpower here?"
Bill Clinton, after a lecture from Netanyahu. Let's hope Hillary gives the Yahoo a kick in the beitsim for old times' sake.

DOG BITES MAN, no.14

"Revealed: police databank on thousands of protesters"
They're journalists and they didn't know. Didn't they suspect?

Same newspaper has an article on a blacklist operating in the construction industry. Information about potential employees could be bought from a cyberstalking outfit called 'The Consulting Association', or 'Son of Economic League', run by one Ian Kerr. He's been shut down by the data protection people. Big deal! Now what about the people whose lives he's ruined? Let's hope that they can find out if they are on the list, then those who are can sue this snake, and the blackguards who bought his services; Balfour Beatty, Keir*, Wimpey, etc. - recidivists all.

* Recte 'Kier'

A good time was had by all.
The party for rich people who want more of our money.

"Despite the wealth in the room, little money was raised on the night and instead the organisers launched a campaign to persuade the Treasury to provide a 50% tax break for donations to the UN millennium development goals."

"... The only glitch came after word got out about the tax idea, and a group of protesters from the Tax Justice Network and War on Want gathered outside the hotel and shouted 'Make poverty history! Tax the rich!' as the guests arrived."

"The Durand Line was demarcated by the British and signed into a treaty in 1893 with the Afghan ruler Amir Abdur Rehman Khan. The treaty was to stay in force for a 100-year period. According to Afrasiab Khattak, a political analyst, the areas from the Khayber Agency Northwards to Chitral, however, remained un-demarcated.

"This disputed land was legally to be returned to Afghanistan in 1993 after the 100 year old Durand Treaty expired, similar to how Hong Kong was returned to China."

Concern is being expressed in various quarters about the viability of the nation of Pakistan. It is an ersatz nation, like the state of Israel. It was cobbled together as a secular state for Indian Muslims, and there we have one inbuilt tension, secular/Muslim. Twenty-four years after it's foundation the detached part of the nation, East Bengal, "East Pakistan", had gained its independence following a bloody "civil" war, and become the state of Bangla Desh. The Baloch in the west have fought unsuccessfully for their independence. Pakistani Baluchistan is a province under virtual occupation by the Pakistani army.
Then there's the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). This region has always had a degree of autonomy, but now the district of Swat has been, to all intents and purposes, been ceded to the Taliban. Why not go the whole hog and cut the whole province loose. It should by now be part of Afghanistan, so let the Afghans have it. Whis will weaken the Taliban in Pakistan while doing the right thing. Whether or not the Afghans want the NWFP in its present lawless state is irrelevant. If they refuse to accept the gift then the Pathans should be allowed to create their long desired Pukhtunwa and sort out their own problems.
If common sense prevails Pakistan will then cut Baluchistan loose and withdraw from so-called Azad Kashmir. Its leaders could then concentrate on consolidating the remaining provinces into a real nation, while clamping down on the religious fanatics, militias and terrorist cells that poison the body politic and threaten stability. Then there's the corruption, croneyism and nepotism to deal with.
Alas, none of this is going to happen. The army for a start would not stand by and allow it. It would make alliances with other threatened bodies, including the always useful terrorist gangs, some of whom the army helped to bring into the world, then sustained.
Allah, Army, America. Pakistan is doomed.

Cricket, according to the Islam Pasand, is unislamic. So is buggering little boys but that does not stop them. Or maybe in their perverted version of Islam buggery of children is permitted. An adult who submits to buggery, however, must die. These were the people the CIA used to finance and train in their war against the Soviet Union. Child rape or communism, which is more acceptable? Check with the CIA.
Though, if I lay my cards on the table, I'm inclined to see cricket as an unnatural act.

STS Bulletin no.18
"Community protection"
means
The UK surveillance state.

"A joint Home Office and police report recently found 80% of CCTV pictures are of such poor quality they cannot be used for detecting crime, and a police surveillance expert estimated last year that just 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV."

... but where would the companies who make programmes for digital TV be without them?
(via Obsolete)

From yesterday's 'Independent' -
"Members of the highest-ranking American delegation to tour Gaza were shocked to discover that the Israeli blockade against the Hamas-ruled territory included such food staples as lentils, macaroni and tomato paste."
...
"Yet since the end of the war in January, according to non-government organisations, five truckloads of school notebooks were turned back at the crossing at Kerem Shalom where goods are subject to a $1,000 (£700) per truck 'handling fee'."

On the 11th February I wrote -
"I read that the Israelis charge something like £100 on every wagon-load of humanitarian aid passing through their checkpoints. It sounds credible, considering that they are trying to starve the people of Gaza to death, but I'd like to find some support for the claim."

Now I read -
"And while a conference with the stated aim of helping reconstruct Gaza is subverted by efforts to prop up the PA, the Israeli government, in the style of a banana republic, is shaking down aid convoys going into Gaza. Each truck of humanitarian aid is forced to pay a $1000 'handling fee' — unless of course it’s determined to be carrying 'luxury goods' such as macaroni, in which case it isn’t allowed to enter."

Worse than I was led to believe.

Addendum: more on this -
"Israel continues to block goods on trucks from entering Karni, the one border crossing point with sophisticated security screening equipment and the capacity to handle up to 750 trucks per day. Sufa crossing, which can also accommodate trucks on a smaller scale, also remains closed. Instead, Israel requires all trucks to enter through Kerem Shalom, located near Gaza's southern tip, where every item on trucks must be unloaded, inspected, repackaged and reloaded, with a "handling fee" of US$1,000 per truck."
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/02/28/israelgaza-donors-should-press-israel-end-blockade

The Guardian reports that Blair has said that Israel must lift the blockade on Gaza. What I heard him say on Sky News was that Israel should allow more aid into Gaza. Not the same thing. Was the Guardian reporting a different interview, or were they misquoting?
I heard that Blair's priority was to "stop the violence coming from Gaza", which was the kind of thing I was expecting from him. He didn't let me down.
It turns out that the whole visit was a photo oppportunity, doubtless arranged by Tel Aviv in an attempt to give their creature some credibility on the world stage. He spent just an hour outside of his comfort zone, just inside the border at a place that was relatively unscathed by the blitzkrieg. He didn't meet any representative of the elected government, of course (verboten). He didn't meet any individual shorn of a limb or two. He didn't meet anyone grieving for slaughtered children. But the TV cameras recorded him in Gaza.
What of the remark about Israel easing the blockade? Did he stray from the script?

I imagine a discussion in Tel Aviv -
Tony: This remark about the blockade, do you really want me to say this?
Mark Regev: Yes, it's to show that you are your own man.
Tony: (gulps) My own man - er - I don't know if I can pull that one off. Can't you fix me up with an earpiece?
Regev: (sotto voce) Oy vay! Why didn't we hold out for Bill Clinton?

The other Clinton has promised $600 million to try to rehabilitate Israel's kapo on the West Bank, Abu Sallama. The people of Gaza will only get a sniff of this if they oust their preferred representatives and embrace the collaborator - some choice.

Where am I?
I was just doing a search for something I'd written and was pointed to a site called "Technorati". I'd seen the name on blogs but didn't know what it was. I assumed it was some sort of technical aid or advice site.
Anyway on the page I found a couple of references to my blog, but also an intriguing piece of information (or misinformation?). It seems that someone or something has a list of blogs in order of popularity, and I stand at number 2,506,937 on the list. Phew, the dizzy heights! My head is reeling.
The missing datum, of course, is the number of blogs being tracked, as the procedure is called. I looked Technorati up on wikipedia to find a figure of circa 27.7 million pre-2006. It seems that after Technorati claimed to be tracking another 56 million facebook blogs things get a little murky.
So what am I to make of all this? Nothing I suppose. It's just that it's better not to know that you are a statistic in yet another database, otherwise you begin to ask questions like "Why?". Well somebody reads this stuff, if only one or two people, but if a person starts to think about that a person is liable to get a little self-conscious.

Our Middle East peace (sic) envoy has finally made it to Gaza. The Israelis gave him the laissez-passer but ordered him not to talk to any Hamas representatives. What will the multi-millionaire war criminal have to say to the people of Gaza? I imagine it will be something along the lines of "You brought it all on yourselves you nasty terrorists, and there's more to come."
There's also news that the UK government is going to donate £20 million towards clearing up the Israeli-created shambles in Gaza. That'll be £20 million more than the Israelis will donate.

"The world has laid low, and the wind blows away like ashes
Alexander, Caesar,and all who were in their trust;
grass grown is Tara, and see Troy now how it is.
And the English themselves, perhaps they too will pass."
(Anon., Irish, 17th century?)

I heard on a news programme (Russia Today) that Oleg Deripaska has debts that are greater than his total assets. So, in effect he's poorer than me. However he still counts as a billionaire and has access to limitless credit. Nobody dare start calling in the IOUs as in probability they won't get all their money back, so they keep throwing money at him to stop him going under. A sort of Micawberist approach I suppose. We may be in the gutter but we're looking up at the Canary Wharf Tower.
I've never been able to figure out how the global economy "works". Now I'm beginning to wonder if anybody has really got a handle on it.

Give to the rich to help the poor? An idea worthy of Bono(Marina Hyde)

Some quotes -
"Mehta enlisted the Nobel prize winning economist Sir James Mirrlees to come up with a plan to address the shaming statistic that Britain's richest 20% donate 0.8% of their income to charity, while the poorest 20% give 3%."

"One suspects Mirrlees is a Nobel economics laureate much in the same way that Henry Kissinger is a Nobel peace laureate."

"Depressingly, Mirrlees and Mehta have already been granted two meetings with the Treasury, at which they insisted the scheme should be extended to those whose tax affairs are offshore, in effect allowing the use of UK taxpayers' money to be directed by tax exiles - and giving them tax relief for the privilege."

They are trying to get tax cuts for people who don't pay tax. How is that going to work?

Ms. Hyde adds a new word to my vocabulary of contempt - fauxlanthropy

I'm grateful to that chevalier d'industrie, Sir Fred Goodwin, for showing us who is really running this country. The elected government demands that he give back some (some, mind you) of the public money that he's rewarded himself for overseeing the biggest cock-up in the history of British money-grubbing. The good knight's response, "Away and keich!"
The British people are now in possession of this heap of debt, as they own over 80% of the shares. But here's the best part, they are non-voting shares. So the people saddled with this massive burden will not be able to do anything to stop the board members from continuing to award themselves big pay rises and juicy bonuses.
Isn't capitalism wonderful?

I confess to having been moved by Gordon Brown's words on the death of Ivan Cameron.
Yet here was a man I dislike, speaking of a child unknown to me, the offspring of a man I despise.
I have to warn myself, this is a politician speaking, so there is always a subtext. I recall Claude Cockburn's unspoken question when interviewing politicians -"Why is this bastard lying to me?"
A gent going by the name "Sabretache" places Brown's words in a wider context -

Genuine sorrow is the only humane response to the news of the death of Ivan Cameron and, like the Prime Minister, I too offer sincere condolences to David and Samantha Cameron on their tragic loss.

But watching Gordon Brown's statement in the Commons yesterday I could not help but note that, in the strange, cocooned, self-righteous and self-absorbed moral universe we inhabit in this country, some children are more precious and some parents' 'unbearable sorrow' more worthy of empathy than others.
Brown said:
"Every child is precious and irreplaceable and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure."
Quite so; but where were his words of condolence about the preciousness of the 450 children so recently killed by the Israeli military in Gaza? Or the unbearable suffering of their parents? and all in the worthy cause of self-defence we are told - so that's alright then.

Frankly, the grossness of the double standards make me sick.

I saw the film "Gomorra" last night. I was wondering - do Italians need sub-titles to follow the dialogue? The Neapolitan dialect was so thick as to sound in places like a grunted code. It was probably laced with some impenetrable argot - who knows? The only time intelligible speech featured in the dialogue was during contract negotiations in Venice. Otherwise the actors could have been speaking any language.
I have a question about this film. How could it have been made without the tolerance, if not the co-operation, of the Camorra clans it was depicting? We are informed that three of the actors have since been arrested and charged with Camorra linked offences. I know that Saviano tells us in his book that the Guappi are obsessed with gangster films, and imitate the behaviour and the language they see and hear on the big screen - but taking part in a film that exposes their murderous organisations?
In fact, when I read Saviano's book, I was surprised at how well the organisation ("sistemi") came out of it in areas such as business efficiency, prompt delivery, decent pay levels, care of prisoners' families. Apart from the bloodletting the Camorristi were depicted as successful and fairly benevolent capitalists. According to Saviano all the top Italian fashion houses rely on the Naples crime organisation for manufacture (contracted out) and transportation.
It is not strong-arm tactics but efficiency and competitive pricing that keep outfits like Gucci and Armani in partnership with the Camorra.
It is said that, unlike Hollywood products like the "Godfather" series, "Gomorra" does not glamorise the gangsters or depict them as in some way honorable men. I think that's true, but nonetheless it may serve the purpose of the organisation by showing it as powerful and invincible, and as an integral part of the Italian economy. I'm sure they got something out of the deal as they allowed the film to be made on their territory.
Saviano is supposed to be in hiding from the Camorra. Perhaps so, he named the gangs, their bosses, their spheres of influence and of business activity. The film is not so specific.

Addendum, 23.2.09: I've found out that "Gomorra" did have subtitles for Italian audiences -

Gomorra, il film di Matteo Garrone premiato a Cannes, tratto dal libro di Roberto Saviano, è interamente recitato in dialetto; un napoletano strettissimo, incomprensibile senza l'aiuto dei sottotitoli in italiano.

(La Stampa,30.5.08)
I also read that there were discussions between the film makers and the camorristi before filming began, but haven't learned yet what what was on the agenda.

Damian Hirst - no talent, lots of money.

Cartrain - copies the work of a talentless turd; not much hope for him as an artist. No hope for him as a money-grubber, when he hands over his few quid to to the loathsome bunco-artist.

30 Rock back on the box tonight. At last, something worth turning the telly on for. Welcome back Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Jack McBrayer, et al.
I'm hoping to see more of Jack Donaghy's family.

"Obama's first foreign trip" (Guardian headline)
My money was on Israel, but I was wrong.

I see that there's a British version of the US "Law and Order" TV series on the way. In this version the role of the District Attorney's office is taken by the Crown Prosecution Service. So they've already given the game away if the programme is true to life. If the suspect is rich or a politician all charges will be dropped; if a poor and powerless person the full force of the law will come down on them, and the tabloid press will be called in to blackguard them. A guilty verdict will ineviably follow.

"Gambaccini also condemned Moyles – who had audience of 7.3 million weekly listeners on average in the last three months of 2008 for his breakfast show – for his apparent homophobia towards the likes of singer Will Young, which he said merely reinforced negative stereotypes."

7.3 million, all of them, no doubt, included in the quarter of the population who believe that our planet is less than 10,000 years old.

Mr. Gambaccini should tread warily. He'll get the chop before the bigots.

"The US has gone too far with Guantánamo and the tortures. MI5 does not do that," (Stella Rimington, blackmailer, perverter of the course of justice, and spy)
Doesn't need to, Stella, the Yanks are happy to do it for our secret police.
Does this stance coincide with Conservative Party policy? Is SR the Tory spokesperson on the surveillance state? She was certainly happy to commit felonies on behalf of Thatcher. Now, under a Labour government, she has developed a social conscience.

Cameron is going to free local government from the shackles of centralised bureacracy; those shackles forged by his patron saint, Lady Gaga. Ah! The Thatcher legacy, it rears its ugly head once more. Now, under a Labour government, it's all wrong.

The Blair War Crimes Foundation is collecting signatures -
http://blairfoundation.wordpress.com/signatories/

THE THATCHER LEGACY

A reality TV show about a woman dying of cancer.

850 workers sacked at an hour's notice. Some of them have worked for the firm for five years, but will, I suspect, receive nothing in the way of redundancy payment.

I'm sick of right wing commentators and truth twisters blaming all the ills of our society (for such an entity exists) on the "permissive sixties" or liberal do-gooders. Credit where credit's due. If it's down to the old witch and her coven don't try to pass the buck. Let's record the results of her mad career.
That last word is open to interpretation.

Fat Ali Usmanov tightens his grip on Arsenal and everybody's comfortable with it - well, everybody who has access to the media. Being a polite people we none of us wish to draw attention to Ali's record of violent crime.
Is he a fit and proper person to own an English football club? Of course he is, he's filthy rich.

Tony Blair, the Middle East Peace (sic) Envoy is taking a million dollar bribe from a Zionist organisation. A "pretty straight sort of Guy" would refuse such a sweetener, but Tone ...

A Faith Foundation washes dirty money clean. Hallelujah!

STS Bulletin no.17

Witness B was asked by Dinah Rose QC, for Mohamed: "Was it your understanding that it was lawful for Mr Mohamed to be transferred to the US authorities in this way?" Witness B replied: "I consider that to be a matter for the security service top management and for government."

Translation: "I was just obeying orders."
The old Nuremberg defence

How many descendants of Sigmund Freud are there in this country? How many of them are in positions of influence? How many of them are right wing shits?
I was just wondering.
I hate the paintings of Lucian Freud.

I owe Baruch Obama an apology. I'm sure he's waiting for one since reading my last posting about him (February 4th).
It seems that the gagging of the Britsh judges over torture at Guantánamo was not his idea. He made the demand in response to a request from our Foreign Secretary, Popeye Miliband. The reasoning goes like this: everybody knows that the Americans are torturers; most Britons aren't aware that we handed people over for torture and got access to the information they gave up (subcontracting the dirty work); so if our government's involvement comes out in court the press will have to reveal what they've been suppressing for years, that our secret police are torturers by proxy.
Up steps nice President Obama to cover Blair/Brown/Straw/Miliband's collective fundament.

The Special Relationship doesn't just exist in the British ruling class's imagination after all. That's an eye-opener for me.

"But what a feeder club the City has been, with Labour having given 23 bankers honours since 1997. Four of them scored life peerages, and seven were knighted. Three were made government ministers, two appointed to senior posts within Downing Street, 10 have been placed on eminent councils, seven on agencies and quangos, while just the 37 have been drafted in to head up taskforces, or sit on commissions and advisory bodies."

(Marina Hyde)
Now they all have to be weeded out before they cause further damage.

This gives me cause for concern -

"Goodwin headed up taskforces examining both the New Deal and credit unions."

Does this mean that the credit unions are doomed?

SAME DOG, SAME MAN
"No officers to face charges in De Menezes case

"Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to comments more than 50 years ago, when Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans."
(from yesterday's Telegraph)

I was attending a catholic school nearly sixty years ago, and we were taught then that evolution was the only sensible explanation of life on Earth. We were also taught that God created the universe, so I suppose the deity just sort of let things develop independently after opening the proceedings.

Another thing we were taught was that blaming the Jews for the death of Christ was a load of cobblers. The Messiah died for the sins of all mankind, so wherever he was born he was going to be topped. He chose to be born among Jews because, I suppose, he was a traditionalist, chosen people and all that.
Anyway, imagine my surprise when a Pope pops up sometime in the 1970s and declares that the Catholic Church no longer blamed the Jews for killing Jerusalem Slim. What could it mean? Had my teachers been filling our heads with heretical thoughts? Should I have been shouting "Deicide!" at Joe Hyam the barber?
I wonder if the Vatican has trouble keeping up with the rest of the Church Militant.

Over time I've developed my own ideas about where we come from and where we're going, and what we should be doing in the meantime. They don't involve much of that stuff we got at school, but you have to start somewhere.

Tony Blair’s failed attempts to secure peace in the Middle East have cost British taxpayers at least half a million pounds.
...
Middle East expert and author Avi Shlaim said: “No one takes him seriously. He said he’d reduce the number of Israeli checkpoints, but since he’s been there, it’s risen.”
Mr Blair is believed to have made £15million since leaving office, including book deals and speaking tours. Last night, he was unavailable for comment.

I've been trawling through my old postings (backblog?) for details of a poacher turned FSA gamekeeper demanding that the government put right the things that he'd done wrong. It was all their fault really for appointing such a useless, dishonest lump as himself (subtextual, of course).
It wasn't Crosby, so the FSA must be stuffed with such creatures.
Anyway, I didn't find it, but I came across this gem, and had to give it another airing -

Labour should celebrate "huge salaries in Britain" not question their morality, the business and enterprise secretary, John Hutton, will say tomorrow.

What a difference a year makes.

Personally I hope that Netanyahu gets the gig. The Palestinian situation cannot get any worse whoever is raining fire and brimstone on them. Anyway, they reckon it's the IDF, not the politicians, who are in control of genocide policy now, needing to make up for the Lebanese humiliation.
No, the Yahoo can't make things worse for the Palestinians, but he can make things a damned sight worse for the Israelis. He's a dyed in the wool neo-con. Benefit cuts, privatisation - let's hope he makes that war loving nation feel the pinch. And I hope he takes the Nazi Lieberman on board. Nail your colours to the mast, O Israel, organise some Nuremberg style rallies: learn to goose-step.

I read that the Israelis charge something like £100 on every wagon-load of humanitarian aid passing through their checkpoints. It sounds credible, considering that they are trying to starve the people of Gaza to death, but I'd like to find some support for the claim.

"I was there when the secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve came those days and talked to members of Congress about what was going on... Here's the facts. We don't even talk about these things.
On Thursday, at about 11 o'clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to a tune of $550 billion being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two.
The Treasury opened up its window to help. They pumped $105 billion into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks.
They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts, and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic and there. And that's what actually happened.
If they had not done that their estimation was that by two o'clock that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.
Now we talked at that time about what would have happened if that happened. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it."

US Congressman Paul Kanjorski (emphasis added)

One day someone will switch off the life support.

Crying all the way to the bank is not sound policy in these troubled times, so I imagine Mr. Scolari will be crying all the way to a safety deposit after Abramovich has bought back his three year contract.
Eventually Roman Arkadievich is going to cotton on, keep his manager, and sack the whole Chelsea squad - treacherous, self-serving malcontents.

So which mass murderer will be trying to form a government in Tel Aviv? And what ragbag of religious freaks, trigger-happy land grabbers and Judaeo-fascists will be taking over?
If ever there was a convincing argument against proportional representation it's Israeli government - tail wags dog.

I try to avoid mentioning products and services, unless adversely, on these pages, but I have to sing the praises of Aleksandr Orlov. He is a star. On rare occasions advertising people manage to amuse and not to annoy.
www.comparethemeerkat.com

Phil Brown, Hull City manager, on the transfer window -
"It is a destabilising period that creates a false market and allows non-footballing people to run the game."
He further calls it "a farce", and who but the parasitical agents and febrile hacks will disagree? I still don't know what was going on with the Arshavin business, only that he's now an Arsenal player.

"OBAMA AND THE POLITICS OF BOLLOCKS"
(John Pilger)

"On 31 January, unaware he was being filmed, Israel's ambassador in Australia described the massacres in Gaza as a 'pre-introduction' – dress rehearsal – for an attack on Iran."

"For Netanyahu, the reassuring news is that Obama's administration is the most Zionist in living memory – a truth that has struggled to be told from beneath the soggy layers of Obama-love."

Listening to the News Quiz today I heard something disturbing. A survey has revealed that one third of people in this country believe that God created the world less than 10,000 years ago, while less than a quarter believe in evolution.
I know that stupidity and gullibility are on the rise here, a result of an education system designed to produce unquestioning consumers rather than well rounded citizens, but I didn't realise that the rot had penetrated so deeply.
My only consolation is that I don't place much faith in surveys or in the people who conduct them, you pay your money and they produce your result. It's important to know on whose behalf the survey was conducted, but those figures ...

Another edgy* BBC "personality" has made a stand for bigotry in broadcasting. He's offended the disabled, he's offended the people of Scotland. If the idiots have taken offense then his show's ratings will plummet.

I now read that the gobshite has apologised, though it's not clear who to; the Prime Minister, the disabled, the Scots, the idiots?
The Guardian is running a poll asking if the gobshite should be sacked. Of course he should, along with everyone responsible for foisting the prat on the public - but he's safe.

* BBCspeak for gobshite.

"Everyone knows that there are things that you just do not say about the host newspaper, the owner, the editor, the advertisers, the government, the government’s allies. BBC journalists know what they should and should not say about Israel."
...
"Consider, for example, that it is an unwritten rule of corporate reporting that very ugly motives cannot be imputed to our government or its leading allies. They may err and blunder, but it is unthinkable that they would kill thousands, or millions, of people because it was in the best interests of elite power. It is unthinkable that they would deliberately kill the poor to terrorise other poor people to accept poverty. It is unthinkable that they would actively seek to promote violent conflicts because they have a monopoly on violence. It is unthinkable that they would seek to create enemies because doing so has multiple benefits in pacifying the domestic population, justifying arms budgets, and providing a rationale for attacking poor people overseas".

These quotes are from a piece on Mick Hall's blog (link), ex Medialens.

"We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich." (Mr. Peter Mandelson, 1998)

"Business Secretary Lord Mandelson today told the Royal Bank of Scotland it risked alienating the public by offering 'exorbitant' bonuses to its traders and senior bankers." (Independent, 5th February 2009)

... and the bankers said "We'd love to help you Mandy, but we're too busy helping ourselves. We hope you didn't deposit your £1 million payoff from the EU in one of our banks (snigger, snigger)."

THE STORY SO FAR
Three days in office Obama approves a bombing of targets in Pakistan that kills 20 people. The president is blooded, he's the right stuff.
Since then he's ordered the CIA to continue delivering prisoners to foreign countries for torture and execution.
Now he's ordered the British government to gag judges who are likely to refer to the US torturing Guanánamo prisoners.

Oh yes, CHANGE.
Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose.

I have to quote Ehud Olmert's put-down of a political opponent, "When did he ever shoot anyone?"

I've just learned that yesterday was the centenary of the birth of Simone Weil - a strange lady, but one whose heart was in the right place, and whose loyalties were always to the poor and the disadvantaged.
There are some catholics who propose her for canonisation, but she was never a catholic. Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, was baptised a catholic, so he has more chance of becoming a saint than poor Simone.
On the same subject, Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement has also been proposed for canonisation. Dorothy, who spent her adult life helping the poor and opposing war and injustice, may have been a catholic but she's definitely not going to make it into the communion of saints - unlike Jose Escrivá, friend of Franco and founder of Opus Dei; or Maximilian Kolbe the anti-semite.

Demands of Lindsay Oil Refinery workers, as passed at yesterday's meeting -

No victimisation of workers taking solidarity action.
All workers in UK to be covered by NAECI Agreement.
Union controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available.
Government and employer investment in proper training / apprenticeships for new generation of construction workers - fight for a future for young people.
All Immigrant labour to be unionised.
Trade Union assistance for immigrant workers - including interpreters - and access to Trade Union advice - to promote active integrated Trade Union Members.
Build links with construction trade unions on the continent.

Xenophobia my arse!

(Via Organised Rage)

Mandy ratchets up the blackguardry -

"We should keep our sights set firmly not on the politics of xenophobia but on the economics of this recession," (Lord Mandelson of the good ship Queen K)

The spirit of Julius Streicher lives on.

The working class
can kiss my arse
I'm only interested in the filthy rich.
(Lord Mandelson of that-awfully-common-place-in-the-North-East-of-England-whose vulgar-denizens-used-to-vote-for-me-ha-ha)

No British jobs for British workers.
David William Donald Cameron, PC, titular Lord Snooty)

Well at least they're being honest about it.

A letter from the Greek Socialist MP, Theodoros Pangalos, to the Israeli ambassador to Greece -

Dear Mr. Ambassador,
Thank you for the 3 bottles of wine that you sent me as season’s greetings. I wish to you, your family and everybody in the Embassy a happy new year. Good health and progress to you all.
Unhappily I noticed that the wine you have sent me has been produced in the Golan Heights. I have been taught since I was very young not to steal and not to accept products of theft. So I can not possibly accept this gift and I must return it back to you.
As you know, your country occupies illegally the Golan Heights which belong to Syria, according to the International Law and numerous decisions of the International Community.
I take the opportunity to express my hope that Israel will find security inside its internationally recognized borders and the terrorist activities against Israel territory by Hamas or anybody else will be contained and made impossible, but I also hope that your government will cease practicing the policy of collective punishment which was applied on a mass scale by Hitler and his armies.
Actions such as those of these days of the Israel military in Gaza remind the greek people of holocausts such as in Kalavrita or Doxato or Distomo and certainly in the ghetto of Warsaw.
With these thoughts allow me to express to you my best wishes for you, the Israeli people and all the people of our region of the world.

The backlash is gathering momentum -
"that's not the right thing to do and it's not defensible." Gordon Brown
"Strikes are never the way forward." William Hague; not for the employers he speaks for anyway.
Mandelson says "Get on your bikes!" Or on a ferry to the Continent.
On Sky News a hack was asking a union rep if the protest had been taken over by the BNP. That looks like the official line. "You are dupes of the far right" (media speak for neo-nazis).
Meanwhile, somebody named Pat McFadden has called in ACAS. So the cheap labour importers are going to sit round the table with union bureaucrats, and in a few months time they'll tell the men outside the gates what they've decided. I predict that their agreement will be something of a damp squib, but what the hell! The protests will have petered out, so - mission accomplished.