The inquest into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes kicks off today. I predict that -
a) the coroner will recommend to the jury that they return an open verdict
b) if the jury returns a verdict of unlawful killing the CPS will declare that it's not in the public interest to prosecute the killers
c) we'll hear a lot about coppers who have been traumatised by the incident and deserve our sympathy and a big lump of public money.

Headline in this morning's Guardian - "Brown plans crackdown on world markets" - similar to E.L.Wistey's plans for world domination.

"This would be easier if it were a dictatorship." George W. Bush on the financial midden.
Sorry George, you're stuck with an oligarchy. Never mind, they'll soon be done with you, then you can come over to the UK for your honorary knighthood.

US presidential election campaign: some donations from the finance/insurance/real estate sector -

Obama, Barack $24,860,257
McCain, John $22,108,926
Clinton, Hillary $21,697,347

"The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR) published its weekly report on the Israeli violations in the occupied Palestinian areas in the period between 11 - 17 Sep. 2008. During the reported period, Israeli soldiers carried out 47 invasions, killed one Palestinian child, wounded 22 civilians -- including four children -- and kidnapped 39 civilians including five children." And Hillary Clinton is busy demonstrating against threats to Israel. The US press has not reported the daily threats against Lebanon from Israeli leaders. Also, there is a funny game that US press plays: Israel would make threats against some Arab country. And then somebody in that Arab country would say: IF Israel attacked us, we will fight back against Israel. It is then that the US press takes notice and then headlines: the Arabs are threatening Israel. The Arabs are threatening Israel.

(Angry Arab)

"Like scores of evangelists and hypocrites and moralists who spew and praise family values and pretend to be holier than thou and are then regularly caught cheating or found to be perverts, these Bush hypocrites who spewed for years the glory of unfettered Wild West laissez-faire jungle capitalism allowed the biggest debt bubble ever to fester without any control, and have caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

"They are are now forced to perform the biggest government intervention and nationalisations in the recent history of humanity, all for the benefit of the rich and the well connected. So Comrades Bush and Paulson and Bernanke will rightly pass to the history books as a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the USSRA."

(Nouriel Roubini)

I know I should object to the Bushwackers being called socialists, but, as it is probably the epithet that would most offend them, I'll let it ride.

"What could be better than robbing the ones who rob us and distributing the money among the groups which are denouncing this situation and building alternatives?" he asked.

What indeed?

Other banks said they would have no trouble writing off the lost money.

We know that. They've plenty of experience writing off the massive debts of defaulting governments and corporations.

Still, fair play to Enric Durán, and same again when you're ready.

STS Bulletin no.13
Short selling - prior to deregulation this was known as cooking the books.

New to Me
'Missing White Woman Syndrome', a media-based disorder. I have noticed the symptoms, but didn't realise that there was an identified syndrome. Referred to in Obsolete's blog, this day.

When I read on the BBC website that Celtic supporters were complaining about a Rangers song which included the words "The Famine is over, why don't you go home?" I thought they were overreacting. But it seems that the BBC and others are being a little coy about this song. Their reports are written in a way that suggests that the words quoted above are the cause of complaint, but not so. Here's a report that gives a better flavour of what is sung -
" ... a song which accuses Irish Catholics of ‘fondling their children’, of being Nazi sympathizers, which mocks the Great Famine and which ends in Rangers’ very own version of ‘Send the Buggers back’."
So not very accurate reporting by the BBC website, the Guardian and others.
Celtic supporters often complain of a media bias against them and their club. Is that the case here? Or are the media afraid to expose their public to the full strength of Orange bigotry in the West of Scotland?

Only a game!

Listening to Radio 4 this morning I heard one Sir Howard Davies pontificating, for a tidy fee no doubt, on the current economic situation. He informed that we could be in for another Great Depression "if governments don't get it right".
So now the moneygrubbers have cleaned up someone else will be called on to sort out the mess and backfill the mysterious "black holes". I thought the philosophy was to leave the market to find its own level. Don't tell me that that was all cobblers, that we were being conned by the sainted Milton and his Chicago Boys; that old Sir Alf Sherman was full of shit.
"Governments must intervene" is the new slogan, and the taxpayer takes on the role of White Knight.
Here's a excerpt from Sir Howard's CV on wikipedia -

His notable appointments have included Executive Chairman of the Financial Services Authority from 1997-2003. he was the first Chairman of the FSA, the single financial regulator for the UK financial sector. He constructed it from nine previously separate bodies. He was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England from 1995 to 1997, until the incoming Labour governemnt asked him to create the new regulator. Prior to this, he served for three years as Director General of the Confederation of British Industry. From 1987 to 1992 he was Controller of the Audit Commission. He was also a non-executive director of GKN between 1989-1995, and a member of the International Advisory Board of Natwest bank from 1991-95.

So the great and good Sir Howard appears to have been part of the problem before he became a consultant on solutions. It reads like he was the creator of the financial regulator that doesn't regulate. He was at the table with all the decision-makers from 1987 to 2003 as the gravy train gathered speed and hurtled towards the buffers.
Surely a peerage is in the offing.

Passing the shops on the road today I began to wonder - are the Poles a nation of shopkeepers?

"When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor."
(Steely Dan)

Will they dive? I doubt it. They've got their loot stashed away in the same dodgy banks the tinpot dictators and the drugs kingpins use. It's other people's money they gamble with and lose.
Reagan's dead, Thatcher's gaga, but their legacy lives on.

Sign here -http://www.helperraji.com/

I wonder if the present King of Morocco has carried on his father's heroin refining business (export only).

Announcing his policy of elastoplast for gaping wounds Poor Old Gordon Brown said he expected the energy companies to foot the the bill for plasters. An energy companies spokesperson then popped up and told the British public that the Prime Minister can say what he likes and the energy companies can do as they like, and their customers were going to foot the bill. Well no, he actually said that the energy companies would decide who foots the bill, but that's the same thing.
He was probably reading from a crib sheet provided by Mark Steel -
"The more we put up prices, the more profit we make, which means we won't have to pass the need for higher profits on to the customer in the form of increased prices. So, the higher the price you pay, the better off you are. If you want to pay really low prices, then next time you get a gas bill, why not send us double the amount charged, along with all your belongings?"

STS Bulletin no.12
Global Franchise Entity
Most people would call it a Premier League football club.

Hooray! Hooray! A boost in the cold weather payments; the £8.50 we never qualify for becomes £25 we'll never qualify for. Fiscal prudence indeed!

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination ... The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

I repeat - unhinged.

I love these names of Glocky Mom's brats: Bristol, Track, Trig, Willow, Piper, all sort of unisex, or perhaps asexual. I hope she keeps breeding and coming up with even wilder stuff. This woman is unhinged and truly fit to hold high office in the Land of the Taste-Free.

I try to avoid obscene* language on the web, but I can't resist this yarn about the execrable KKKelvin McK. in yesterday's Guardian Diary -

"In 30 years of employing people I've never seen racism," wrote Kelvin in the Sun yesterday, and while that may be true, one suspects he may have heard a few ripe things. Like the time, long past, when one executive wondered how South Africa would cope "when the darkies come down from the trees". Or the occasion, when the same guy told colleagues of switching TV channels because he was not interested "in a lot of fucking bollocks about an emaciated coon". The coon that time was Ghandi. It was all documented in 1990's Stick It Up Your Punter, an eye-popping account of the Sun in its wilder days - and the authors were under the impression that the executive was Kelvin. Maybe they were wrong. We all make mistakes.

* Another example of my antiquated terminology. The fashionable label is "strong language". Ghandi so spelled in the original.

Our business-friendly government, embarrassed by rocketing energy prices, asks the energy profiteers to give back some of their obscene profits to help their poorer customers. The profiteers tell the government to get stuffed, and rightly so. The facilitators of an uncontrolled market economy deserve the contempt of their beneficiaries and the wrath of their victims.
So poor old Gordon Brown tries another tack; penalising the robber barons is short-termism, he avers. He, sound man, advocates long term solutions. So that means we're all going to have more of those long-life bloody light bulbs.
Here I must quote the Baron Keynes, "In the long term we are all dead." (Under current conditions, probably of hypothermia.)
Our business-friendly government has been trying, for some time now, to "nudge" (buzz word) the energy profiteers into giving up their token racket, by which they overcharge the poorest of the poor for their gas and electricity. The profiteers respond with a "One day, maybe", and carry on with the extortion. They love to rub the government's nose in it.
Meanwhile the TV news broadcasters ask the the robber barons to send a spokesperson to defend their profiteering. The profiteers tell the newscasters to get stuffed. They do, however, send along a handout which a presenter duly reads out. Nobody would dream of telling these rogues "If you can't face questioning, we're not delivering your bullshit to the people who pay our wages." Now that would take backbone.

Our business-friendly government can't do anything to help the poorest sector of the population, but it can and will find money to help house owners (for which read mortgage owners) in negative equity. For decades now successive governments have helped the middle-classes to accrue wealth by means of small scale property speculation. Protective practices have ensured that property was a risk-free investment. Now external factors beyond government control have intervened in the UK property market. Values, it seems, can decrease as well as increase. What a shock to the denizens of that repository of all that is good, MIDDLE ENGLAND. Someone's going to pay for this. Oh yes, that'll be me and my kind.

This is what the "War on Terror" is about.

"In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002
Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County
Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC
Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of
Terrorism. Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins, Erik
Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald, and Max
Spector, face up to 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism
enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum
penalty ... They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provacateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."

I read that 80% of news coverage in our press is lifted straight from press releases. That explains a lot. Why get off your arse when the PR agencies, spin doctors and ad-men will force-feed you like a Strasbourg goose? Investigative journalism - that's one of those old expressions surviving in the vocabularies of ancients like me. Habeas Corpus is another.

What's wrong with this picture? It shows girls checking their GCSE results. Their head covering suggests that they are Muslim and are conforming to their religion's modesty rules. But one is not, her arms are bare.
This suggests to me that this whole headscarf business is about fashion, not modesty or piety. Educators should be careful and ensure that their pupils are not taking the piss. Most British people are so ignorant of other cultures, and this includes people in authority who, fearing to err on matters of faith and culture, go to ridiculous lengths to avoid giving offense. This plays right into the hands of the "political correctness gone mad" choristers. The wilfully offensive are supplied with ammunition by cross-cultural illiterates.

A personal note: when I was doing my national service training our platoon was ordered to spend one Sunday tidying up on the rifle range. I can't remember, but I think it was a collective punishment for some transgression.
Anyway, one smartarse piped up with "Sir, I'm a Catholic, we must keep holy the sabbath day." "Oh well", says the officer, "All RCs fall out!" It was pure bluff, but it worked, because the officer and the NCOs weren't catholics and were in the dark. Better safe than sorry, the Roman Candles skived off fatigues. But it was up for grabs; if a Scots Presbyterian had got his shout in first the dumb subaltern would have been equally at a loss. Unless one of the NCOs was a jock. My memory let's me down on that point.

Our refusal comes first and foremost as a protest of the separation, control, oppression and killing policy held by the state of Israel in the occupied territories, as we understand that this oppression, killing and routing of hatred will never lead us to peace, and they are all contradictory to the basic values a society that pretends to be democratic should have.

To read the full statement of these consciencious objectors click on the link to Molly and Yasmin's blog.

Forgotten History? Suppressed History?
A helpful reminder of the origins of the racist state of Croatia, whose leaders are keen on joining the EU. I recall when that sorry statelet came into being a British TV reporter speaking in reverential tones of "the flag of the ancient nation of Croatia".
The last thing any British news reporter needs is a historical context to a story.

'This summer Dinko Sakic, the 86-year-old former commander of Jasenovac, the notorious second world war concentration camp, was buried in his Ustashe uniform, the Croatian equivalent of the Nazis. After the war, Sakic emigrated to Argentina but returned after Croatian independence in 1991. He was welcomed back like a celebrity. In his interviews, Sakic repeated that he regretted nothing. What Sakic should have repented was that tens of thousands of inmates in Jasenovac were murdered under his command. He also personally executed two Jewish prisoners ... At his funeral a Dominican priest, Vjekoslav Lasic gave a speech in which he advised Croats to admire Sakic and to take him as an example.'

More on the history of our Croat allies here -
http://www.libcom.org/library/role-catholic-church-yugoslavias-holocaust-se-n-mac-math-na-1941-1945

The BBC have been at it again, acting as messenger boy for the Repressive State Apparatus. A programme about al-Qa'ida was broadcast on behalf of MI5 and was a complete fabrication. The following is lifted from the Guardian Diary -

Interesting noises from the BBC following items on our front page and here in the diary telling how spooks keen to taint the al-Qaida brand spun a line to documentary makers, the better to reinforce the impression that the terrorists are in crisis. "We are pushing this material to UK media channels, eg, a BBC radio programme exposing tensions between AQ leadership and supporters," the experts wrote in a leaked document. We noted that a programme, Al-Qaida's Enemy Within, was broadcast on Radio 4 on August 7. It was repeated on the World Service on Wednesday. The BBC said there was no link between the Whitehall spinning and the programme as transmitted, though Nicola Meyrick, the executive editor of radio current affairs, now reveals on her blog that the reporter and producer "did have some contact" with the spooks while the programme was being made. However they did not meet them until the main batch of interviews had been completed, Meyrick insists. The spooks supplied her team with briefing materials, but she says they didn't use them. It was "a completely independent and impartial piece of journalism", she writes. And so we could conclude that the spooks were exaggerating. It's happened before, apparently.

"Shortly before midnight on August 7th Mr Saakashvili ordered a bomb barrage using Grad multiple-rocket launchers. This lasted through the night. Even his supporters agree that the use of indiscriminate Grad rockets, which killed civilians, was disproportionate and merciless. Mr Saakashvili said he was restoring “constitutional order”. But then so did Russia when it bombed Grozny in 1994. That Russia provoked Mr Saakashvili consistently is clear, but it is equally clear that Mr Saakashvili allowed himself to be provoked." (via Angry Arab)

Protesters at the Beijing Olympics, our media invariably referred to them as "human rights activists". They were no such thing, not the ones getting the oxygen of publicity on my telly anyway. They were supporters of Tibetan separatism, and "Free Tibet" was their only slogan. The billion plus Chinese suffering at the hands of the oligarchy were of no interest to those western tourists with attitude. The message conveyed to me was "Tibetans good, Chinese bad".

So who will be the next president of the USA - the black warmonger or the white warmonger? My money's still on the old white man.

The Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation (MoPDC) and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MoLSA), in separate reports, said that millions of Iraqi children are orphans, without shelter, or imprisoned in Iraqi and American controlled prisons. Recent statistics conducted by the MoPDC reveal that "the number of orphaned Iraqi children has reached 4-5 million and that there are some 500,000 street children."

A further study conducted for the UNDP by the Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science, found that "acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has almost doubled since the US invasion despite UN efforts." The study based on a survey of 22,000 Iraqi homes said that approximately 400,000 Iraqi children now suffer from malnutrition and said that acute malnutrition has increased to 7.7 percent since March 2003 for those aged between six months and five years.
Officials from Childhood Voices Association, a children's non-governmental organization, say that "there are 11,000 children addicted to drugs in Baghdad alone, that many girls aged 12 to 16 years old have been victims of rape, and that many girls aged 12 years and above have endured sexual harassment." The organization also quotes international reports stressing that "more than 1 million Iraqi children have entered the labor market with the increase in the rate of poverty (one third of Iraq's population live under the poverty line) and that they suffer violence and sexual abuse."

According to their report, 1.3 million children aged 8 to 16 years old, equal to 6.1% of the population, have become workers. It is also being reported that 1300 children are currently being held in detention centers and in government prisons."

Like the British and US media I'm too squeamish to show the images that accompany this piece, called "Destroying the Children of Iraq" at http://notinhisname.blogdrive.com/

The GCE results have been announced. The requisite hugging and squealing film clips have been shown on the TV news, and Lord Adonis is rubbing his hands. Several Hull schools have failed to meet his phoney result levels and he can look for privateers to take them over. If he gets his way they will become Macademies of Burger-flipping; or schools of snake juggling and speaking in tongues where the kids will be taught the five thousand year history of the universe.

A good role model for these new academies is getting some well deserved publicity today. This is the College of International Cooperation and Development, Winestead, East Yorkshire, where the students are taught street begging and recycling second-hand clothes (or rag-gathering, as we used to call it). Now the students are complaining about the curriculum, but as it's a private business it seems that the people who run the college and pocket the proceeds of their students' work experience are not breaking any rules.
That's the way to run a macademy - exploitation, exploitation, exploitation.

The drug cheat who shouldn't have been allowed to compete at the Olympics wins gold in her event. The BBC commentators are full of admiration for this women who has struggled against adversity to triumph. The adversity, remember, is her cheating, getting penalised, and enduring well deserved obloquy.
I wonder what the runners she beat to the gold think of it all.
As I said before, the best advice to young athletes is - do the drugs, don't do the tests, go to the Olympics.

Although I have not yet succumbed to the lure of reality television it is difficult to avoid the trailers the channels put on just before other programmes start. Thus I know that there are two elements essential to this form of entertainment-
i) someone has to break down and cry, and
ii)an inordinate amount of hugging is called for.
Soon there will be a clip show called, "100 Best Reality Show Sob Sessions", and another called "100 Best Reality Show Hugs".

I don't expect to see Christopher Brookmyre's Reality TV proposal commissioned -

Instead of a show that intrudes upon, patronises and humiliates "ordinary" people, I suggest one that intrudes upon, patronises and humiliates TV presenters and the executives behind these abominations; a show that takes apart their lives, foibles and failings and then helps them reconstruct themselves in a manner more acceptable to the prejudices of the programme's target demographic.

"This week, we'll be meeting Tabitha. She's a successful television presenter with her own production company, but she doesn't know which lap-dancing club her coke-addled boyfriend is currently favouring, and is still trying to prove her worth to a father who always seemed to love her older sister more. She recently spent more than she pays her char per annum to have her home 'spiritually cleansed', owns a wardrobe worth more than the average house and hasn't worn the wrong thing since her second-form end-of-term disco. Nonetheless, she wouldn't be able to tell you the name of the prime minister without Googling, and can't find her own £40,000 wet-room without her PA relaying directions via her BlackBerry. Tonight, we're going to help her calculate the true worth of her existence using our famous vacu-ometer. Then, after we've talked her down from the ledge, we'll have our regular consultant Deirdre on hand to give Tabitha some tips on building relationships with people whose affection won't be conditional upon her haircut."

The show is going to be called: So You Want to be a Bit Less of a Twunt.

"After all the usual sponsorship announcements and, United being United, the far-too-enthusiastic welcoming of corporate guests from Saudi Arabia ..."
Premier League football, what a spewsome affair! Beyond the hype, a cesspool.

Remember, America's present-day excesses are tomorrow's New Labour solutions.

In New York, the police department took control of school safety in 1998 under the Giuliani administration; by the 2005-06 school year, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the city employed 4,625 school safety agents and at least 200 armed officers, making the NYPD School Safety Division the 10th-biggest police force in the country—larger than those of Washington, DC, Detroit, Boston, or Las Vegas. "We are treating the kids like potential criminals," says Donna Lieberman of the NYCLU. In January, a five-year-old named Denis Rivera was handcuffed behind his back by an NYPD school safety officer for throwing a tantrum in his kindergarten class in Queens.

"There are no military installations in the city of Tskhinvali. In fact, there are no military targets at all. It is an industrial center consisting of lumber mills, manufacturing plants and residential areas. It is also the home to 30,000 South Ossetians. When Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered the city to be bombed by warplanes and shelled by heavy artillery last Thursday, he knew that he would be killing hundreds of civilians in their homes and neighborhoods. But he ordered the bombing anyway."

Mike Whitney in Counterpunch.

Ms. Julie Burchill has gone from atheist to "Christian tryer" ( My God she tries!) -

MATURITY
(by Alex Comfort)

Let them turn to the bottle
the Yogi and the rope
some of them go to Uncle Joe
some of them to the Pope -

One by one grown prosperous
of excellent intent
they set there names on the payroll
of God and Government;

one is turned evangelist,
another is turned knight:
let them go wherever they wish -
we will stay and fight.

I may come to the light at last
as others have come there;
I think they will not put my bones
in Moscow's Red Square:

I can turn both coat and mind
as well as any man -
I think they will not put my head
towards the Vatican.

All fierce beasts grow corpulent,
mature and come to hand.
Lions lie down with sheepskin wolves -
we will see them damned.

“Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.”
George W. Bush. Seriously, that's what he said.

Some quotes I've heard or seen recently and need to record -

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."
Ernest Hemingway. Gleaned from a comment on Molly and Yasmin's blog.

"While I tell you this quite happily, I will not
go on oath as to its accuracy."
Ian Duhig, "Sweet Things" (poem).

"capitalism is the devil's wet dream"
Ani DiFranco, "Serpentine" (poem).

"90% of sci-fi is shit, but then again, 90% of everything is shit."
Theodore Sturgeon, quoted in John Patterson's column in yesterday's Guardian, Film and Music.

"They're all a lot of jumped-up fascist bastards!"
Rab Nesbitt, the Sage of Govan, in a clip on the telly last night. The clip was from the eighties, and I think he was describing Thatcherite politicians, but I reckon it'll do for politicians in general.

Can't read or write? Never mind! have a few O-levels.
Education, education, education.

According to Seumas Milne -

The CIA has in fact been closely involved in Georgia since the Soviet collapse. But under the Bush administration, Georgia has become a fully fledged US satellite. Georgia's forces are armed and trained by the US and Israel. It has the third-largest military contingent in Iraq - hence the US need to airlift 800 of them back to fight the Russians at the weekend. Saakashvili's links with the neoconservatives in Washington are particularly close: the lobbying firm headed by US Republican candidate John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, has been paid nearly $900,000 by the Georgian government since 2004.

But underlying the conflict of the past week has also been the Bush administration's wider, explicit determination to enforce US global hegemony and prevent any regional challenge, particularly from a resurgent Russia. That aim was first spelled out when Cheney was defence secretary under Bush's father, but its full impact has only been felt as Russia has begun to recover from the disintegration of the 1990s.

Behind Saakashvili, Bush, the World Bank and Ukraine, or Yulia-Timoshenkovia as it is soon to be called. So to say, as some do, that his days in power are numbered, is naive. Georgia, or Georgibushia, as it is soon to be called, knows better than to remove America's mouthpiece. Remember, Iraq was an ally of the US once.

Inflation is at 4.4% and rising. For some that figure is meaningless. Those who use up the bulk of their income on the basics; food (prices up 13%+), rent (zoom!), and fuel (whoosh!) are suffering from inflation of a much higher percentage. Most people don't believe government figures on inflation and cost of living anyway.
But help is at hand, Yvette Cooper says that the government is going to rectify things by cutting taxes. The poor are suffering so give the better off a handout. That's New Labour thinking. It's also Conservative thinking though they don't have to justify their discredited policies - tax cuts and more privatisation, same as New Labour - while the press are going for Big Business Brown and his motley milly band of top job jockeys.
Meanwhile the locusts are coming. My missus went shopping at Netto this morning and the place was crawling with middle class intruders snapping up the bargains. So we can expect that bastion of proletarian prudence to fall to the affluent and penny-pinching hordes. Is nowhere safe from these pushy people?

Mention of jockeys brings Alan Johnson PC to mind. He's keeping a very low profile in these days of backstabbing, rumour-mongering and insincere declarations of loyalty. Is he keeping aloof from this distasteful infighting? Or is he just waiting till the other contenders have sickened party members with their posturings and their ill-disguised treachery? Then he can offer his services as leader and claim the crown. My money's still on A.J.

Those Moroccans have been at it again, NOT kidnapping Aryan children. When are they going to live up to the stereotype the British media have created for them?

"We helped to trash Iraq, but we don't like it up us."

"Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor in Guantánamo, put the trial in a disturbing light. He testified that he was informed by his superiors that only guilty verdicts would be tolerated. He also said that he was told to bring high-profile cases quickly to help Republicans score a pre-election public relations coup."
From the New York Times, via Yasmin and Molly's Blog.

Salim Hamid Hamdan, having been sequestrated at the Guantanamo Gulag for five years, was put on trial and found guilty of being Usama Bin Ladin's driver. He was sentenced to five years and five months imprisonment.
I assumed that this sentence was passed because he was about to be released and might sue for false imprisonment. Having a guilty verdict against him would have forestalled that action.
However it seems I got it wrong. We are now informed that, on serving out his sentence, Hamdan will continue to be held as an enemy combatant. So Col. Davis's election connection seems to be the only reason for this farce.
Only in America - sorry! Only in not-America.

What is this fashion with TV interviewees? After replying to a question they hesitate for a second, then it's "... and yeah!" and off they go again. Or it's the alternative "... but yeah!" and away. Everybody's doing it, almost if it's required of them.
Strange!

"Bush said that the Russian attacks on Georgia marked a 'dangerous escalation' of the crisis and urged Moscow to halt the bombing."

Bush, the man of peace, eh! You have to laugh. But those Russians, couldn't even be bothered to rustle up a dodgy dossier. Call yourself a statesman, Putin?

George Bush kept human rights high on the Olympic agenda today by calling for freedom of expression and religion just hours before he was to attend the opening ceremony.

(From today's 'Guardian')

"The abuse was horrendous, it was physical, as well as psychological. It was torture," Sharp said. "When you're locked up in such a place and treated so horrifically, they don't exactly give you a calendar, but she says it was a very long time, years for sure ... They [her captors] were Americans, there's no doubt about it."
While Sharp declined to give details of the alleged abuse, Siddiqui's sister, Fauzia, told a press conference yesterday in Islamabad that Siddiqui had been "raped repeatedly". Sharp said Siddiqui was not getting proper treatment for a bullet wound, which may have gone septic.

(From today's 'Guardian')

Further thought on the "abducted child" soap opera -
Not long ago she was sighted in Morocco, land of swarthy non-Christian people. Every British racist knows that swarthy people can't keep their hands off fair-skinned women and children, so this was ideal tabloid fodder. Well, now the Belgian paedophiles and the swarthy circus folks (gipsies?) are in the frame, could the Moroccan government do a Robert Murat on behalf of its maligned citizenry, and sue a selection of British newspapers for damages and a grovelling apology?

Concerning the "abducted" child - you know, THE "abducted" child, the only one in the world:
isn't it strange that the abductors allowed their kidnap victim to wander around unguarded telling people she'd been kidnapped and the perpetrators were nearby?
Isn't it strange that the Dutch police didn't follow the sighting up and try to rescue this unfortunate, settling for passing the information on to the Portuguese police?
Doesn't it sound like pure fantasy?
Still it helps to keep the story going and to sell papers. Who, I wonder, shifts more newsprint, the long-dead Princess or the missing bairn?

This evening on Radio 4 will be broadcast a programme I intend to miss. One David Aaronovitch is going to tell us what happened to the generation of '68, "the cream of his generation". Well he was 13 years old at the time and I was 29, so I may not be counted among the cream. According to this expert (translation: "know-all, mamzer") "most have become part of the establishment they rallied against". Most? Of all those tens of thousands? Here's one who became part of New Labour's underclass, and I imagine there are more like me than the sell-outs Aaronovitch "networks" and schmoozes with, and who he thinks are representative of the soixante-huitards.
The left has always been used by the greasy pole climbers, particularly the Labour Party ("left" being used very loosely here). "Shits that passed in the night", to borrow Albert Meltzer's phrase. I think of people like Prescott who posed as militants and waited to be bought off. People like Blair (once of CND) who joined the Labour Party when others were deserting it in droves, knowing how easy it would be to rise to the top and take it over, aided by the middle class Nomenklatura, Mandelson and his Machiavellian kind.
The first time I saw Aaronovitch he was fronting a TV book programme. He impressed me (adversely) by throwing a book he didn't like across the studio. An attention grabbing gimmick and a despicable act. I've loathed the man ever since. He speaks of himself as if he is a socialist, probably meaning that he votes Labour. This, he believes confers some validity on his constant criticism of anyone (so many) to the left of himself. He is a jackal in sheep's clothing, and he'll always find work at the BBC, along with Michael Gove, Bernard Ingham, Anne Leslie and Melanie Phillips.

Not everybody was a fan.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn represented the dubious moral claims of the protagonists during the Cold War, especially the American-led side. There is no doubt that Solzhenitsyn's literary greatness or genius was highly exaggerated, and the Nobel committee's decision is only one proof. This man who was lionized as a symbol of freedom was a fascist, through and through. If American knew more about him and his views they would think twice about honoring his memory. He hated everything about America and Americans, and complained about the music that Americans listened to. He argued that Americans unlike other people would not fight for an ideal. He was truly an obscurantist, anti-Semite, reactionary, traditionalist, misogynist, and a man living in the past--the medieval past. He volunteered in communist organizations early and not so early in his life, and then later would claim that he was a struggler against communist tyranny. In fact, he dreamed of writing a definitive history of the Bolshevik Revolution, before he decided to celebrate the pre-Bolshevik past. He defended the successor organization to the KGB, and would express the most reactionary views against progress and freedom. And the numbers he claimed about the communist past and the number of prisoners were simply invented by him.

"Angry Arab" (As'ad Abu Khalil)

Thatcher WAS a fan, though she couldn't pronounce his name. But then she was also a fan of Pinochet.

New to me: Globo-cop
Yesterday I used Phil Ochs' phrase "Cops of the World" to describe US foreign policy. Today I found a snappier term. Welcome to my vocabulary, "Globo-cop".

'Beyond our shores, America shoulders additional responsibilities on behalf of the world...' [US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates]

'This is truly mind-boggling. "On behalf of the world"??? When, pray, did "the world" ever ask the US to "shoulder" these responsibilities?

'Answer: Never.' [Helen Cobban]

Saudi Arabia has issued a series of postage stamps honouring women. Angry Arab has noted that there is not one depicting a woman being stoned to death, but expects one soon.

Gary McKinnon will be extradited to the USA to be made an example of. The "cops of the world" may be stupid, but God help anyone who mocks them for it. "Your security is really crap"; no surprise there. Their system in toto, social, economic and political is crap, but rather than try to clear up their own mess they prefer to bring the rest of the world down to their level, where greed coupled with stupidity ensures chaos.
"The world's most dangerous hacker", come off it! American hyperbole! The most powerful war-making machine in human history is in danger from a bloke with a computer looking for UFOs. Still, when he's manacled, shackled and hobbled, and surrounded by overweight gunslingers he might begin to look like some mass-murderer. If the TV cameras get it right McKinnon could be America's next bogeyman.
If the British state was not so compromised by its role as junior partner in war crime we might be able to insist that the US improves its human rights record before we hand our citizens over to the US justice system. Unfortunately we have gone too far down the American road act so independently.
"Increasingly, more and more Americans are guarding more and more American prisoners for more and more years, and this amidst the lowest crime rate in decades." (Mumia Abu-Jamal on Death Row, USA). In Britain the government is to build three new prisons to hold ten thousand extra prisoners. These will, no doubt be managed by private security firms, American style. More and more Britons ... (etc.) Yes, locking people up is a flourishing business. Train now to be a screw because the alternative is to be a con.
I'd like to make a little prediction here. David Hanson, the minister currently responsible for building more and more prisons and privatising the service will one day have a well paid post on the board of a security firm that has lucrative contracts in our prison system.

All those photographs of Barry George in the papers; I was racking my brain trying to think who he reminded me of. Then it came to me - Ricky Gervais, but without the flab.

Addendum, August 4th: I saw Barry G. being interviwed on the news yesterday. He's put on a bit of weight, so the flab remark is redundant.

I see the BBC is showing a series about Saddam Hussein, starting this evening.
A drama series about a dead man nobody liked, so no need to stick too closely to the facts.
I imagine that this was made with one eye (maybe both eyes) on the US market, so the facts will have to be massaged to get the approval of those potential buyers who were the biggest cheerleaders for the war party, and enthusiastic transmitters of official lies.
I doubt that we will hear about the CIA's regular reports to Saddam on the whereabouts of his enemies in exile; enemies who subsequently suffered violent deaths. That was at the time that George Bush, Senior, was head of the CIA.
Will we see a re-enactment of the US Ambassador's interview with the Iraqi leader? You know, the one where she gave him the US Government's green light for the invasion of Kuwait.
Will we see western politicians and media blaming the Iranians for the gas attack on Halabja?
Will we see British experts designing and building the bunker Saddam was able to hide in while American and British flyers bombed innocent Baghdadis?
So much to dramatise, so little time.

Ah! The BBC and the charity racket. Nothing ever changes. These people are recidivists, incorrigible, beyond reform.
But who will be punished for these crimes? Why, the long suffering British public, whose licence money will go to pay off the fine. Don't, for Christ's sake, touch the offenders' inflated and unearned salaries!
Still the money goes back into the public purse instead of being wasted on the shite that passes for entertainment.

“I do not like the ads on the shirts of hockey or football players. You’d think Coca-Cola is playing against Pepsi-Cola.” (Vaclav Havel)
I wonder if he ever said anything as critical of money-grubbing, - sorry, liberal capitalism - when he was in power.

"Ahmadinejad said today, "We're not pulling back... not one iota." They are very adamant." (Jerusalem Post, 25th July)
As opposed to being just a teensy bit adamant.

"Sumer is icumen in" quoth the old rhymester.
"School's out for Summer" sang Alice Cooper.

It's the season of the twocker, the rodeo-rider, the firebug and the casual B&E merchant. Now as the weather's warming up we have to keep all doors and windows firmly closed and locked, for school is out and the gurriers are on the loose.
Overhead the police helicopter circles. We pray for rain.

"Peace in the Middle East? Not while there's one Palestinian left alive."
Barack (call me Baruch) Obama
Not verbatim, but that's what it sounded like to me.

Over 14 million people could find themselves in fuel poverty in the near future, if new figures from gas giant Centrica predicting a 70% rise in gas prices prove accurate - nearly a quarter of the population.

Evil old Radovan Karadzic has been captured at last. Hooray, hooray! Now all the kiddies can sleep safely in their beds. On to the next pantomime villain.
Karadzic is accused of being behind the massacre of Bosnians, which was an unforgivable crime against humanity. He is yet to be tried but I'm confident that, if he lives to hear a verdict, that verdict will be "guilty". After all the US wants his head on a plate.
Unforgivable crimes against humanity are in a different league from forgivable crimes against humanity. These last include -
The massacre of over half-a-million Indonesians by Suharto and the Indonesian army.
The massacre at No-Gun-Ri, Korea
The massacre at Deir Yassin
The destruction of Fallujah
The war crimes of the Nobel Laureate, Henry Kissinger

While Bosnians were being massacred by Serbs, Serbs were being massacred by Croats - but who gives a toss about Serbs?

I can't understand why food prices are rising so rapidly in a free market economy with untrammelled competition. Now let me think ...

Agriculture conglomerate Cargill said on Monday that its third-quarter profit rose 86 percent to $1.03 billion on strong growth in its commodity sourcing and finance business. It said the largest profits came from its origination and processing segment, which processes and sells food commodities.

Associated Press, April 14, 2008

Hedges watched how ten- and eleven-year-old Palestinian children were lured to their neighborhood’s perimeter fence by taunts from a loudspeaker on the Israeli side. “Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!” The Israeli voice barked insults at the boys’ mothers. The boys responded by hurling their rocks at the jeep with the loudspeaker. The Israelis shot at them with M-16s fitted with silencers. Hedges found the victims in the hospital, children with their stomachs ripped out, and with gaping holes in their limbs.

Writing for “Harper’s Magazine” (see The Nation, March 11, 2002), Hedges wrote: “Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered. Death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights in Sarajevo, but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”

So plans are afoot to give the Queen of the Night a state funeral. Funny thing -
The last person to be so honoured was Winston Churchill. He, let us recall, ordered the military to gun down striking miners at Tonypandy.
Thatcher provoked the miners into industrial action to save their livelihoods, then used the full might of the state to crush their resistance.
From these two facts we can assume that, though the British establishment despises all British workers, the vials of its venom are reserved for the miners.
At the time of Churchill's death a public subscription was set up to commemorate the old alky appropriately. Some newspaper, The Daily Mail or the Daily Express (memory fails) rang the Miners Union office in Tonypandy and asked if they would be making a donation. "No", was the reply. The paper then attacked the miners of Tonypandy for their niggardliness towards the great man (still, better than murdering them I suppose). Such are the people we are supposed to rely on for a balanced account of current events, political, social and industrial.
SCUM!

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

But didn't have the guts to tell him what a disgusting piece of work he is.
"Before I leave I'll just piss all over you", said he. Well no, he didn't but he might as well have. I imagine if he'd pissed on Gordon Brown that gent would have declared, "Oh, that's lovely and warm Mr. President."

The US Senate has given that nation's secret police a licence to tap the phones of anyone they take a dislike to. Senator Obama was among the toadies who voted for, of course.
Jesse Jackson has been overheard remarking that he'd like to cut off Obama's nuts. Too late, Reverend, someone beat you to it (Murdoch?).

Workers organise globally to fight a multinational exploiter. "It's coming soon for a' that ..." July 5th, protest against *$$ union-busting - on four continents; in 22 or more countries; in towns and cities such as London, Birmingham, Brighton, Paris, Moscow, Melbourne, New York.

Walking round the town this morning I was struck by the growing number of big, big women that are about. Hull could be becoming a chubby-chaser's paradise. I wonder if there's a niche tourist market there that could be exploited.

You may not be interested in private equity…but private equity is very interested in you!

Did you know that in the UK?

- Over 3 million workers or 1 in 5 private sector workers now works for a company that is owned by a private equity fund.

- * Five of the 10 largest private equity-owned companies in the UK effectively paid not a single penny of UK corporation tax in 2005/06. Despite combined sales of more than £12bn and operating profits of more than £400m, in total the 10 companies received a £11m corporation tax credit from the exchequer*

More and more companies around the world, including hundreds here in the UK, are being bought up and sold off by a type of firm that takes pride in their lack of transparency, ability to rack up debt, cut costs and jobs and exploit the tax system so they pay little or no tax. The volume of private equity deals has grown 600% in the last five years. In 2006, private equity firms spent US$725 billion buying out companies. Today, they can potentially mobilise more than US$2 trillion – enough to buy McDonalds 38 times over!

Private equity companies have gained massive influence, power and wealth because they've stayed invisible to public attention and scrutiny. It is time for that to change!

On Thursday 17 July 2008, thousands of trade unions, community organisations, environmentalists, workers and activists will be taking part in a global day of action against KKR - are actions planned in 100 cities in 25 countries. These actions will send a loud and clear message to private equity firms like KKR that we are sick and tired of a few people getting even richer and ruining our lives and the planet in the process.

What we are teaching them is to buy the same trainers and wear the same labels. We're teaching them that they can get the money for a house by going on some reality show.You ask a lot of young people what they want to be when they are older, and their only answer is "famous".

We give media attention to supermodels who take drugs or attack their staff. We give it to pop stars who get off jail more times than is funny, and to singers who are killing themselves before our very eyes. And we give it to the reality-show public who end up "famous" and make their money by either (for men) causing trouble and shagging around or (for women) appearing everywhere in their underwear

(Noel Clarke)

Or as Tony Blair would describe it, "Education, education, education."

I've just found out, I'm not as poor as I thought I was. According to the Rowntree Trust a pensioner couple needs £265.92 to reach the basic standard of living , as follows:

Food and drink £60.65
Clothing and footwear £9.93
Housing costs £103.64
Household goods and services £20.20
Personal goods and services (inc health) £23.65
Transport £4.65
Social and cultural activities £43.21
Total £265.92

I just totted up joint pension (Missus and me), rent rebate, council tax rebate and free prescriptions, and I find I'm just over a fiver to the good. I imagine though with spiralling inflation the Rowntree figure is already in need of an update. Add to that the threat of worse to come, coupled with our income remaining unchanged until next April - now I'm depressed!
I also learned recently that we're not in fuel poverty. That's if you pay out more than ten percent of income on the gas and the lecky. I'm on one of those pensioner schemes, but we still pay just under ten percent (9.8).
That reminds me, I didn't take account of the annual fuel handout for pensioners, I think it goes up to £250 next time, which would mean something close to another fiver a week. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!
But am I happy with all my wealth? No, I just want more, more, MORE.

Meanwhile the middle class are feeling the pinch according to our reliable [sarcasm] media. They are deserting Waitrose and Marks and Spencer and buying their victuals at downmarket Aldi and Lidl. We've been patronising Aldi for years and we thought it was upmarket. We've noticed that of late Aldi's prices have rising fairly rapidly, and we'll probably have to leave it to the suburban invaders soon. Let's hope they don't take a fancy to Netto, that would probably see us resorting to scavenging from food store skips.

Two sports journalists' clichés that can now be discarded:
"Spain, the serial underachievers" (or underachievers with other qualifying terms)
"Never write off the Germans".
New clichés please!
The only thought that spoiled my pleasure at Spain's defeat of Germany was that the old racist Aragonés is now a hero. The "No to Racism" slogan on display at every game was a pretty meaningless gesture considering most of the participant teams and their supporters.
Now it's forward to the greatest sporting event of the year, starting July 5th.

'Payslips seen by the Guardian show that one man worked a 39-hour week and took home just £8.80 after his entire monthly rent was deducted in one week, in breach of the law. A second worker was paid £79.20 for a 63-hour week and a third worked 70 hours a week for just £66. As they were registered as self-employed they did not receive holiday or sick pay. One man had £228 taken from his pay in one week for tools. The men each had a further £76.80 deducted weekly as their payment to the "construction industry scheme", which technically registers them as self-employed, meaning their employers have no requirement to pay national insurance.'

'A spokesman for the department for business said that the construction industry was covered by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate. "The reason we have not extended the GLA [Gangmasters Licensing Act] into construction is because there has been no consensus to do so and we have felt there are more effective ways to tackle abuses in the sector."'

Well no, Mr. Spokesman, it seems there aren't. Another worthless voluntary code that's good for a laugh down at the lodge or the golf club. No consensus means "The construction industry bosses wouldn't wear it".

"Israel is a strong and close friend of the United States, and is confronting grave threats from Gaza to Tehran." (Barack Obama)


"I haven't checked lately, but last I heard 14 Israelis have been killed by Gaza rockets since 2000, while according to Betzelem, in 2006 alone, Israeli forces killed 660 Palestinians, most of whom are from Gaza. Israeli forces have slain entire families. Since 2000, almost 4,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, half of them children, and more than 20,000 wounded. This doesn't count deaths due to lack of proper medical care and medicines since Israel closed Gaza's borders. So if Israel is facing grave threats, then Gaza's threats are apocalyptic, yet they go unmentioned. Meanwhile, Iran has no army, navy or air force while Israel has the 4th most powerful military in the world with over 200 nuclear warheads and is making practice flights to bomb Iran.
This will be another long 4 years ..." (Yasmine, see link)

The rightward march of Senator Obama is turning into a gallop. He has now come out in favour of capital punishment and has become a fan of the gun lobby (well they do give good "donation"). Ralph Nader finds him to be "too white". Too right! I'm expecting a paean of praise to the Ku Klux Klan any day now.

"... Obama told the Tesco boss: "It is in your interest to ensure the communities where you do business, and the leaders of the workers in the industry, are heard and that their concerns are heard and respected."
Admirable sentiments from the candidate for change. It would be nice if he said something similar to two of America's biggest anti-union corporations, Walmart and Starbucks.
But hold! What did he say about Hillary Clinton's relationship with Walmart? He criticised her for sitting on the Walmart board for six or seven years, and added "I would never shop there". Immediately after this bold stance Obama's wife resigned from the board of Walmart's main supplier.
Once Hillary was out of the way, Barack laid his cards on the table. "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy," said he, "I love the market." To prove his bona fides Barack has appointed Jason Furman as an adviser. Here's Jason on Walmart:

"Studies have reached conflicting conclusions about the impact of Wal-Mart on local labor markets, with some finding that it creates more jobs than it displaces and others finding that it reduces jobs and nominal wages ["depends who's paying for the research, Jason" Jemmy H.]. Personally, I don't put a huge amount of stock in any of these findings because I believe that Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve decide the total number of jobs nationwide. If anything, the greater competition and productivity growth associated with the growth of Wal-Mart may have played a role in allowing the Federal Reserve to tolerate the high level of job creation in the 1990s.

"But I understand why progressives are so upset about low wages and inadequate benefits. I am also upset by the rise of inequality and the relatively slow economic progress that the bottom 80 percent of Americans have made over the last several decades. I just think Wal-Mart is the wrong place to put the blame or to expect the solution."

I reckon Senator Obama will be singing the praises of Walmart soon.

A week ago a the wife of a terrorist bomber was jailed for 15 years for not disclosing her husband's intent to commit the crime. She denied knowledge but, as she was aware of her husband's extreme views the jury was persuaded of her guilt.

On Friday Michael Ross was found guilty of a racist murder committed 14 years ago. He was a suspect at the time, but his father, a police officer, lied to the investigating officers to clear him of suspicion. A witness who feared to come forward at the time because of the father's police connection, did so at last.

Asked about his father lying to protect his son while a serving officer, Mr Smith said: "It is a decision he has made as a father protecting his son. Given his position as a police officer, that was an extremely frustrating scenario."

Quite so, Mr. Smith, we can't expect a police officer to measure up to the same rigorous standards as a Muslim woman.

How to privatise the education system -
Devise a method of categorising successful schools as failed.
Hand them over to businesses along with large amounts of public funds.
Allow the new schools to issue their own qualifications, in subjects such as burger flipping, shelf stacking, and spying on colleagues.
Recognise these qualifications as equivalent to A-Levels.

Alternatively, just turn the schools into sweat shops, contract them out to the highest bidder (or source of the fattest bribe), and make speeches about lessons learned from the tiger ecomomies of the Far East.

The camera loving charlatan, Raj Persaud, has been exposed as a plagiarist. He claims his dishonesty (or aberration) was a result of pressure induced by taking on too many commissions. Plain English - pressure brought on by greed.
Like so many of these quacks and thimble-riggers Persaud has been promoted by Madeley-Finnegan PLC, motto, "There's one born every minute".

In the latest crackdown on illegal immigrants the immigration services are going to "name and shame" employers of this infinite source of cheap labour. Oh yes! I heard this on the news so I know it's going to happen.

The King of Tangentopoli strikes again. I wonder if this means Tessa Jowell's old man gets away with it.
(via Jailhouselawyer, prisonersvoice.blogspot.com)

Having seen the Alex Cox film "Searchers 2.0" the other night and enjoyed it I thought I'd have a look at Mr. Cox's website to see what he was up to. I was wondering after seeing the film why he didn't do more work in the UK. However his perspective on the USA and its denizens is more interesting than all that Hollywood cobblers, so maybe they need his contribution more than we do.
On the site I came across this observation on the candidates in the presidential election. I thought I'd lift it as it chimes with my own opinion.

Murdoch's declaration of support for Barak Obama is perfectly apt. All three 'candidates' and both 'parties' support the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. All three will bomb or invade Iran if pushed to do so. All three will attempt to privatize Social Security. Indeed, I had an interesting conversation with an Obama fund-raiser on the phone. Being a foreigner, I don't contribute to American elections or political parties, but just for the heck of it I told him I wouldn't support Obama unless he promised to shut down the permanent US military bases and pull all US troops out of Iraq. The fund-raiser said Barak couldn't do that; this guy knew all about the fourteen permanent US bases, and he said: "America is a big country. We have serious needs. We're not going to withdraw from the world. Our needs are too great for that."

It appears that Murdoch's Bitch is not going to be serviced by the electorate of Haltemprice and Howden* after all.

* This is Hull with an X for "no publicity". The name "Hull" and the term "middle class" are not supposed to feature in the same sentence, you see. Behold, a broken taboo.

Right - 42 days: I suppose everybody's said their piece and moved on. I just want to say that the Parliamentary Labour Party is nothing but a parcel of whores, and dirt cheap compared to the Democratic (sic) Unionist Party.
I don't know what David Davis is up to but it must be in furtherance of some personal ambition. He resigns his seat and then says he'll stand in the by-election he's brought about - and of course he'll win. Apart from the fact that nobody with a chance of saving their deposit will be standing against him,the truth is the electors of Alan cum B'stardia would vote for the Yorkshire Ripper if he was wearing a blue rosette. Murdoch's attack dog (Murdoch's bitch?) will bring a little colour to the media circus. As I recall "colourful" became the Conservative Party's codeword for racist MPs, after "gay" entered became common currency and it was no longer necessary for the press to refer to closet homosexual public figures as colourful (nudge, nudge).
After the disgraceful result some sufferer from phallocephalia contacted the local BBC radio station with the following suggestion: when the next bomb goes off the station should invite David Davis on to justify his opposition to the 42 day detention. NO DUMBO! If another bomb goes off Davis's stance will be proved the correct one.

Afterthought - phallocephalia, I may have coined a word. I must do a word search to see if it exists already, intellectual property and all that.

Interviewer "How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year?"
Vidal "I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred."

Interviewer "Well, it was a great pleasure talking to you."
Vidal "I doubt that."

Naomi Klein on business-friendly Obama and his would-be puppeteers.

Great news! The Raytheon nine (below, June 3rd) have been acquitted by a jury of their peers.

"The outcome of this case has profound implications.
The jury has accepted that we were reasonable in our belief that: the Israel Defence Forces were guilty of war crimes in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; that the Raytheon company, including its facility in Derry, was aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes ..." (Eamonn McCann)

"Unfortunately for the president, many historians have already reached a conclusion. In an informal survey of scholars this spring, just two out of 109 historians said Bush would be judged a success; a majority deemed him the "worst president ever."

This via "Angry Arab" (www.angryarab.blogspot.com)

A couple of things that caught my ear over the weekend -

"Sitting Bull says history is nothing more than disrespect for the dead."
Buffalo Bill and the Indians (Robert Altman, director)

"Women got my number
But they don't call 'cause they don't care"
Waymore's Blues, Part II (Waylon Jennings)

"And we hold these truths to be self-evident
Number1, George W. Bush is not president
Number 2, America is not a true democracy
Number 3, The media is not fooling me."
Self-evident (Ani DiFranco)

"He was rushed to an NHS hospital in Salisbury," Everett explains, "only to be put in a filthy ward where he had to wait three days for a scan. He was then discharged on the point of death without a diagnosis. We were horrified. They did f--- all."
Rupert Everett on his father's illness. Many of us could tell horror stories like this. I have one I'd love to tell if I could find a way to do so without making big trouble for individuals.
Everett has other targets; the Catholic Church, the military and those who volunteer to serve in it. How much of this is genuine indignation, and how much is a need to épater les bourgeois it's impossible to say. His anger over the treatment of his father must be real. If only we all had access to a safer alternative to the "reconfigured" NHS.
And Sharon Stone is "deranged"; suspicion confirmed.

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation - that should bring in the megabucks and keep the the "straight kinda guy" in the manner to which he's become accustomed as a sponger extraordinaire.
Has anyone in the UK an atom of faith in this dishonest, deceitful, sanctimonious hypocrite?
Still, top marks for brass neck.

Angry Arab writes:

If Obama is elected president, I am sure that he would order the bombing of some Arab or Muslim country in the first year of his presidency to 1) prove that he really is not a Muslim after all; 2) to underline his patriotic and militaristic credential; 3) to prepare for his second term run; 4) and to receive a standing ovation as soon as he enter AIPAC's convention hall.

I agree, but I don't believe Obama will be elected. If he isn't assassinated, and that's a distinct possibility, he will lose to the white man. We are talking about US politics. Obama is a pathetic heap, who has already expressed his approval of - NO! - enthusiasm for, Israeli war crimes. His boast earlier on that he had received millions more in donations than Clinton2, was just a revelation that he is deeper in hock to the ruling elite than she is. That would scupper any attempt at social reform that was ever contemplated (if any ever was). Change OK, change for the better - forget it!

I open the latest copy of the Radio Times and what's the first thing I see - a photograph of the loathsome Cilla ("I love Thatcher") Black. I turn the page quickly and see Terry ("I'm an English knight") Wogan. I move on; Michael ("How's your sex life?") Parkinson. It gets worse; a bloody big picture of the embodiment of evil herself - Thatcher! And to add insult to injury Plastic Features Ronaldo, a spoilt millionaire footballer I loathe even more than Snotnose Terry and "Drug free" Ferdinand. Answer the call of Real Madrid you lens loving poseur!
This edition of the Radio Times was directed at me personally. It could only have been made worse if Brian Ferry and Nobo had been added to the parade of malevolence, bad taste and self-regard.
Recently a correspondent complained in the Letters Page that the magazine had become a Doctor Who fanzine. Come back Doctor, I beg you.

'Asked whether his first romantic encounter was homosexual or heterosexual, Vidal replied that he had been "too polite to ask".'

The old fellow's in good form. Robert Chalmers' interview covers a lot of well trodden ground, but he elicits some remarks worth recording.