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.

Let's get one thing clear, the BNP will not guarantee "British jobs for British workers". They cannot do any such thing, nor do they intend to. Their Fuehrer, the Welsh cyclops, has already assured British business that, should his party obtain power, they will not interfere in the market. Capitalism will be safe under BNP stewardship. Of course the BNP lie constantly, but their lies are designed to deceive the powerless, not to con the ruling class. Being a hierarchical and authoritarian organisation, they regard that class as an ally.
Nor will the Conservatives do anything different. They cannot - nor can, or will, the Liberal-Democrats. All of these parties are committed, like Labour, to the current deregulated, privatised, globalised economic midden. They will assure us that narrow nationalism, protectionism, isolationism are not the answer and will only make the situation worse.
The BNP, along with the crypto-fascist UKIP will (hypocritically)advocate just these policies, but the chances of them getting the opportunity to deliver on their promises will be slim in the extreme (mot juste). The BNP, should it achieve an electoral breakthrough, will continue along it's present route to the centre-right, divesting itself of the stormtrooper element on the way. This last will return to the wilderness and the true Nazi thuggery that is momentarily being contained by the dominant ballot-boxers.
So who will represent our disenfranchised British working class? As usual it has to be a do-it-yourself effort. The unions are there, but the full-timers will try to take the lead and head off any effective action. After all a strong rank and file threatens their places at the trough as much as it threatens employers and sell-out politicians. A strong rank and file movement, distrustful of union officials, and refusing to surrender direct action in return for fruitless negotiations and delaying tactics, is the only hope.
The signs of a fightback are already in the wind. The media are now calling the walkouts "wildcat", a favourite union-bashing term. Mealy-mouthed politicians "understand, but cannot condone". The lies, the talk of "extremism", are in the pipeline. Remember "the enemy within"?

"The reality is that EU directives and, even more so, British legislation have encouraged employers to exploit deregulated labour markets to play off one part of the workforce against another and drive down employment costs. Now that jobs are at a premium, organised workers in Britain are no longer prepared to put up with it and are ignoring anti-union laws to make their voice heard. So long as their protests continue to target employers and the government, rather than other workers, that will intensify the pressure on Brown to stop tinkering, come up with what is now long overdue: a serious programme of investment in public housing, infrastructure and transport to replace the jobs now haemorrhaging across Britain."

(Seumas Milne)
We can but hope.

Mick Hall writes on the walkouts on "Organised Rage" (See links)

"Hamas should be part of the Middle East peace process, said Tony Blair, former British prime minister and envoy to the region of the international quartet of powers, in comments published on Friday."

This from the peace (sic) envoy who has never met Hamas, and can't visit Gaza because the Israelis won't let him.

Investors in Northern Ireland's Presbyterian Mutual Society have got the begging bowl out and are asking the government to compensate them for their losses.
Surely the Lord will provide?
Or as Joe Hill put it -

Work all day,
Live on hay.
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

A recent obituary of one Cardinal Pio Laghi caught my eye - a catalogue of machinations on behalf of the far right, and against democracy. The Vatican is probably crawling with such individuals.

John Paul wanted US support for the practical assistance he was providing for the Solidarity trade union. Their cooperation spread wider than Europe, however. Laghi lobbied hard and successfully to obtain Reagan's support to cut US funding to development programmes that included provision of abortion. He also effectively tore up an outspoken anti-nuclear letter, drafted by America's Catholic bishops in 1983.
Most controversially, he conveyed to Washington that the Vatican shared Reagan's dislike of the democratically elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua. John Paul objected in particular to the presence in that country of three radical Catholic priests. Laghi was therefore privy to US efforts to undermine the Sandinistas.

...

In 1974, he was sent to Argentina. His six years there coincided with the worst excesses of the military dictatorship in what was known as the "dirty war". Many in Argentina believe that the church hierarchy supported the generals in their misrule, and that Laghi - who played tennis regularly with one of the leaders of the junta, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera - turned a blind eye to the murder and "disappearances" of thousands. "Perhaps I wasn't a hero," Laghi said later of his time in Buenos Aires, "but I was no accomplice."

"No accomplice" can be interpreted as not physically participating in the kidnapping, killing and torture.

Gabi Ashkenazi

On 27th December 2008, the suspect, as Chief of Staff, ordered the Israeli army to attack densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. For three weeks, 1,500 tons of bombs were dropped from the air on residential neighborhoods in Gaza and tens of thousands of artillery shells were fired from tanks. For 3 weeks, the army damaged and destroyed houses, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, water and electrical plants, killed more than 1,300 people, hundreds of them children, and injured about 5,300 people. Thousands of houses were bombed or shelled and 50,000 residents were made homeless, without shelter.

Prior to this, the suspect was part of a group, which implemented a siege on 1.5 million people in the Gaza Strip, denying them a regular supply of food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity for 18 months.

According to international law, it is absolutely prohibited to bomb residential areas in a way that interrupts the lives of civilians; to carry out executions without trial, to collectively punish; to destroy or damage hospitals, schools and homes. The prohibitions against collective punishment were enshrined in the Geneva Conventions after the behavior of the Nazis in Europe during World War II when they destroyed entire villages to punish residents for sheltering the resistance. 194 countries agree with the prohibitions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

In December 2008, a complaint was filed in the Hague against the suspect, on suspicion that he had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity for ordering the siege of Gaza.

Description of the suspect: male, about 55 years old, black hair, olive skin above average height. The suspect is armed and could be dangerous.

My attention was drawn to the linked article ( 29 November 2005)by someone styled "indiscrutable" posting a comment on a Guardian article -

The BBC is often accused of an anti-Israeli bias in its coverage of the Middle East, and recently censured reporter Barbara Plett for saying she "started to cry" when Yasser Arafat left Palestine shortly before his death.
Fascinating, then, to learn that its director general, Mark Thompson, has recently returned from Jerusalem, where he held a face-to-face meeting with the hardine Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Although the diplomatic visit was not publicised on these shores, it has been seized upon in Israel as evidence that Thompson, who took office in 2004, intends to build bridges with the country's political class.
Sources at the Beeb also suspect that it heralds a "softening" to the corporation's unofficial editorial line on the Middle East.
"This was the first visit of its kind by any serving director general, so it's clearly a significant development," I'm told.
"Not many people know this, but Mark is actually a deeply religious man. He's a Catholic, but his wife is Jewish, and he has a far greater regard for the Israeli cause than some of his predecessors."

Craig Murray writes on BBC "impartiality" -

What is Really Happening
I watched BBC World News for a timed hour yesterday. In that time I saw:
Pro-Israeli (including US government) speakers - 17
Pro-Palestinian speakers - 2

Mentions of Hamas Rockets as reason for war - 37
Mentions of illegal Israeli settlements - 0
Mentions of Palestinians killed by Israel during "ceasefire" - 2
Mentions of Sderot - 12
Mentions Sderot used to be Palestinian - 0

If you don't believe me, try it yourself.

Greg Dyke, meanwhile has defended the Thomson crapout -
"Outside of Iraq, the single biggest issue that caused complaints was the coverage of Israel."
This probably means that the BBC is cowed by the Zionist propaganda machine.

The BBC - Impartial or immoral?

Well we all know the answer to that. The complaints are flooding in.

THE BBC SHOWS ITS TRUE COLOURS
The blue and white of Israel with a yellow streak overall.

A BBC spokesperson said: "Along with other broadcasters, the BBC has decided not to broadcast the DEC's public appeal to raise funds for Gaza. The BBC decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story.

That's impartiality BBC-style.

Also -
No TV station is going to broadcast Saturday's Kettering v Fulham cup match. Nothing to do with the fact that the Kettering players wear shirts emblazoned with the words "Palestinian Aid".

"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."
(Gerald Kauffman, M.P., in the House of Commons)

Listening to the news this morning I learned that 2000 Zimbabweans have died in a cholera epidemic. I'm still waiting to be informed as to how many Britons have died in the current flu epidemic.
I suppose that information will be made public in 30 years time.

I watched the re-enactment of the de Menezes killing (ITV1) last night. I don't know how accurate it was, I suppose much of it was based on police testimony to the inquest, so handle with care.
One thing became obvious; once the cops decide that you're their man everything you do is seen as confirming your guilt, nothing you do will shake that conviction. At one point J.C. got off his bus to enter a tube station. The station was closed because of the security alert, so J.C. walked away and got back on the bus to travel to the next station. "He's sussed us!" cried one observer. No need to look for another explanation.
The thing that really pissed me off about this programme was the amount of advertising that accompanied it, I estimated about 20 minutes in an hour. Diabolical! I don't often watch ITV1, like many others, so I wasn't prepared for the commercial overkill. Something else we have to thank the deregulators for.

A spokeswoman for the BBC said no complaints had been received about the Auschwitz joke but there had been five complaints about the gag cracked at pop star Will's expense.
She said: "Anyone who listens to the Chris Moyles Show will know he has an irreverent style."

Anyone who listens to this individual's turdfest will know that he is a homophobic, misogynistic (in fact, all-round) bigot. This is what the BBC calls "edgy". But there's "edgy" and there's EDGY; as the BBC producer screamed at Johnnie Walker, "Stop asking questions about the [Iraq] war!"
Anyone who listens to the man ugly people call ugly deserves to be defecated on from a great height, and the fat twat will oblige.

The Israelis have declared a ceasefire and an intention to withdraw from the killing fields, having achieved what they set out to do.
Now the stated aim was to stop the rockets directed at their communities, and they have singularly failed in this aim. So was there a hidden agenda? Of course there was; the plan was to slaughter large numbers of Palestinian men, women and children and to lay waste to a squalid patch of land peopled by those they have dispossessed, impoverished and, finally, starved. The plan was also to tell the world "We don't give a shit about the opinions of goyim. We are the Herrenvolk; live with it or die of it."

Bye Bye, Bush
Everybody's queuing up to have a pop at the poor fellow. Even the puppet, al-Maliki, has turned on his master; Saeb Ireykat of Fatah (Israel's clients); now Milliband criticises the war on terror. He says it was a mistake. It was a mistake from the start, Davy boy, when you and your party were all for it. So how are you going to clear up the mess you made? I suggest that you arrest Tony Blair and charge him with crimes against humanity. That will be a start.

STS Bulletin no.16

"Fog of War",
MarkRegevspeak for Israeli war crimes.

White phosphorus,
= Napalm
= chemical warfare
= war crime.

The linked article, from which the following quotes are taken, is by Uri Avnery, Israeli author and activist, a founding member of the independent peace movement Gush Shalom.

"Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all."

"Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army "revealed" that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
"Later the official liar claimed that 'our soldiers were shot at from inside the school'. Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees."

"THE FAILURE to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.
"Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.
"If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter."

STS Bulletin no.15

Human shield,
Israeli for
civilian target

I note that Lucy Pinder is the first celebrity to be ejected from the Big Brother house. Just one question: who is Lucy Pinder?

Oh come on! The video is three years old. "Paki", "raghead" and "queer" were quite acceptable terms in 2006. And there was no malice. So if you're going to refer to the lad as James Hewitt's bastard please do so without malice.

From the current issue of "Private Eye" -
"According to the latest Foreign Office figures, Britain exported £18,847,795-worth of weapons to Israel in the first three months of 2008. This was a sharp increase compared to the £7.5m of weapons sales to Israel in in the whole of 2007."

Doing our bit for genocide.

"Saudi Arabia is very nervous: as is Mubarak. The Hashemites do what they do best in crisis and they lie: or they try to have it both ways. They conspire in private, and decry conspiracies in public. Israel may have crossed the thresholed when it could have made the Gaza attack into a political asset." (Angry Arab)

'Andrew Copson, director of public affairs at the BHA [British Humanist Association], said: "Reflective thoughts on the events of the day do not come only from people with 'a faith' so it is wrong for the BBC – which has obligations to its many humanist listeners just as to its religious ones – to exclude non-religious contributors from Thought for the Day.'
It's suggested that the BBC is rethinking its policy of suppressing atheist and agnostic opinion while forcing the opinions of people with all kinds of strange beliefs down our throats. We shall see.

Meanwhile the devil dodgers are up in arms about a slogan that reads "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life". They've had the gall to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority. Forget about all the claptrap they display outside their churches. They demand that the Humanists prove their claim, but don't offer to disprove it. The fact that "probably" tells us it's an opinion, not a statement of fact cuts no ice with these fanatics. Don't question the existence of Big Daddy in the Sky, don't even think about it, just believe. And if you can't swallow the fairy tale, pretend to believe.

OBAMA SPEAKS
He is "deeply disturbed" by the events in Gaza. Oh! Why?

Meanwhile -
Gordon Brown says that a ceasefire depends on the Palestinians halting the smuggling of arms from Egypt.
Angela Merkel says that a ceasefire depends on the Palestinians halting the ... (etc.)
Peace Envoy Blair says that a ceasefire depends on the Palestinians ... (etc.)
Sarkozy tells Bashshar al-Asad that he should put pressure on Hamas to halt the ... (etc.)
What happened to Berlusconi? Did his script go missing in the post?

One question - what weapons? What is the source of this intelligence? As the Israelis have been preventing food, medical supplies and fuel getting to the people of Gaza they have resorted to smuggling these essentials from Egypt. Are these the weapons that the Israelis refer to?
Why can't those Palestinians lie down and die? Don't they understand that their struggle to survive is making the Israelis unhappy?

I had to laugh when an ITN reporter asked Blair if he would condemn the slaughter of civilians by the Israelis. Bomber Blair! Of course he wouldn't.

Peace Envoy Blair has spoken at last on Gaza killing fields. I haven't bothered to read what he said as I've already read what G.W. Bush said last week.

Hooray, hooray! Peace (sic) Envoy Blair has broken cover. He has been spotted listening intently to a lecture from Ehud Barak. He appeared to have nothing to say himself.
Now on to meet some Palestinians? Of course not, silly me! The Israelis have told him that the Palestinians are all terrorists, so they won't let him meet any - for his own safety of course.

Isn't it strange - the Israelis start a bloodbath to stop the rockets being fired from Gaza. They bomb, bomb, bomb; then swamp that little patch of land with thousands of troops. Result, the rocket launching continues.
Now let me think. Once the rockets are stopped the Israelis will have to find another excuse to slaughter Palestinians. As long as the rockets fly the killing continues. Will they ever take out those rocket-launching sites?

I see that the Israelis have located the Hamas HQ under a hospital. So the hospital is a legitimate military target. I can imagine the BBC reporting it - very sad, but it had to be done. Nasty Hamas, nice Israelis, etc.

STS Bulletin no.14

"By spending its resources on rocket launchers instead of roads and schools, Hamas has demonstrated that it has no intention of serving the Palestinian people." (G.W.Bush)
Means
"Roll them tanks, Ehud, kill, kill, kill!"

Anybody seen peace envoy Blair?

(Nir Rosen)

"According to the latest figures the Israeli armed forces has 500,000 men and women under arms, Hamas has approx. 600-6000. Israel 3,501 tanks, Hamas 0. Combat aircraft, Israel 393, Hamas 0. Israeli defense budget, 9.5 Bn, Hamas total annual funding, 50 million for civilian and military projects. Israeli dead since bombardment began, military 0 civilians 5, Palestinian total, 408 dead, 44% of whom were women and children." (Organised Rage)

One man, George Bush, can open his mouth and stop the slaughter immediately. The fact that he does not tells us that he approves, and probably ordered it. I'm damned if I know why. Is it connected to his love of frying people when governor of Texas; his keenness to order air strikes on Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis? Is it pure unadulterated bloodlust? Does he wish to go down in history as another Pol Pot?

"All civilian deaths are to be condemned, but since Israel is their principal practitioner, Euro-American cant serves only to expose those who utter it. Overwhelmingly, the boot of murder is on the other foot, ruthlessly stamped into Palestine by a modern army equipped with jets, tanks and missiles in the longest-armed oppression of modern history." (Tariq Ali)

A good article by Comrade Tariq, though he soft-pedals a little too much on Hamas for my taste. I suppose anybody would look good when compared to the mass-murderers of Mount Zion.

I will also copy the words of Dr. Schlomo Schmeltzmann quoted by one commentator -
"In my childhood I have suffered fear, hunger and humiliation when I passed through the Warsaw Ghetto, through the labor camps, to Buchenwald. Today, as a citizen of Israel, I cannot accept the systematic destruction of cities, towns and refugee camps. I cannot accept the technocratic cruelty if the bombing...I hear familiar sounds today...I hear "dirty Arabs' and I remember 'dirty Jews'. I hear about 'closed areas' and I remember ghettos and camps. I hear 'two legged beasts' and I remember 'Untermenschen' ('subhumans')...Too many things in Israel remind me of too many things..."

"Voilà, voilà, ça recommence" ... (Rachid Taha)

"Obama has made no public comment on the strikes, which Israel launched on Saturday. Aides have repeatedly said he is monitoring the situation and continues to receive intelligence briefings but that there is only one U.S. president at a time."

While the above is true Obama has sent one of his errand boys, one Axelrod, to remind the media of what he said before the campaign for the presidency. This was basically - go ahead Israel, kill more Palestinians.

Terrorists start young in Gaza; the youngest of these little girls was four years old. I'm sure the hero who ended their short lives will receive a medal.

"I wish to bathe in the blood of Palestinian babies." (Condoleezzaa Riice)
Did she say that, or have I got the quote slightly wrong?

"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."
(Haaretz, via Angry Arab)

Eighteen months ago a wise man wrote -
"Now the Palestinian people have a government vilified by western governments and media. Hamas are 'terrorists', so anything that happens to the Palestinians now is of their own doing. Let slip the dogs of war. The world's third most powerful military state feels threatened by its sickly Islamic neighbour. The Hamas fighters will be easily defeated, unlike the better armed Lebanese Hizbullahi fighters. Then the massacres can begin, and we in the West can stand by and watch with a clear conscience."
No, wait a minute, it wasn't a wise man, it was me. The US/Israeli game plan was that obvious. My conclusion is - the Palestinian people have been sentenced to death by Washington. They are to be snuffed out. "La question arménienne n'existe plus", said the Turk. A similar fate awaits the Palestinians; first Gaza, then the West Bank, then the Israeli Arabs. It may take some time, but it's achievable. Who will prevent it? The UN? The EU? The Arab League?
There will be hand-wringing, but the FINAL SOLUTION is in the interest of all the world powers.

EVIL, EVIL, EVIL -
What is to be done to stop these savages? As long as the most powerful state in the world continues to bankroll the genocide, it will continue unabated.
Where, I wonder, is Peace Envoy Blair today? Let me guess, halfway up some billionaire's arse.

Sad to hear of the death of Harold Pinter, our most important playwright. When I first saw Donald Pleasance in "The Caretaker", I heard people I'd been listening to for years - dossers, drifters, misfits. Pinter got it down, nailed it. I thought "This bloke's met the same people I've met". Had anyone done it before? I don't know, but Pinter's was the first that I heard doing it, That made him brilliant in my eyes, and ears.
I listened to the BBC report on his death last night. After talking about his work the reporter got on to his politics, the phrase "champagne socialism" was used. His anti-war, pro-human rights stance was treated as some sort of mental aberration that detracted from his work and somehow diminished his stature. It causes one to wonder if BBC reporters and commentators are required by the conditions of their contracts to belittle anyone whose political position is too far to the left (which, for the BBC, need not be far).
If someone like Pinter can go from relative poverty to achieve fame and fortune through a talent that brings pleasure, and perhaps, enlightenment to others, and then use an influential voice deliver a progressive message, that is no bad thing. Break out the champagne, comrades. But continue to speak for the the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised, the imprisoned, the tortured; and bollocks to the begrudgers the BBC.

The general thrust these days is: "Oh come on, it's all in the past, nobody's interested any more, it didn't work, that's all, everyone knows what the Americans are like, but stop being naive, this is the world, there's nothing to be done about it and anyway, fuck it, who cares?" Sure, as they say, sure. But let me put it this way – the dead are still looking at us, steadily, waiting for us to acknowledge our part in their murder.

(Harold Pinter)

Goodbye too to Eartha Kitt, who told Lyndon Johnson what she thought of his South-East Asian war, and found herself out of work in her native land for four years. What did Orson Welles call her, the sexiest woman alive? Something like that.

Speaking to reporters in Downing Street, the prime minister said: "What I have learned from this byelection is that people are prepared to support governments that will help people through the downturn and offer real help to people."

"However, a briefing paper obtained by the Mail on Sunday said the government was looking at plans to abolish some of the £500m in interest free loans from the social fund handed out to more than 1 million benefit claimants each year.
"The document suggested that, in future, some of the loans would be made through credit unions, which charge interest rates of up to 26.8%."

"Why don’t 90 percent of the abuses of power we look at on this site get covered by the national media?" Asks a reader of the linked (US) report. Simple, the mainstream media have power and they abuse it. "Power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot", as some hypocrite who could have curbed that power once said.

DAVY GRAHAM

"At the age of 15, Davy Graham was filmed playing an incredibly complex guitar arrangement of Cry Me a River," says McTell, looking at his copy of Graham's debut album. "All of us guitarists - Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Jimmy Page, myself - owe it all to this wonderful musician. For my 19th birthday, a friend of mine bought me a copy of Anji and I was the first person on my block to learn to play it. That was my big achievement. But Davy never runs out of ideas, and there has not been anyone who has come close. He was on the same level as Miles Davis and all of the jazz guys, and the rest of us couldn't really pretend to understand what he was doing."

I was looking for an article on Davy to link to when I came across these words of Ralph McTell's. I didn't find the article, so I'll just copy out this story from a clipping. The article is by Will Hodgkinson who called Davy "gracious but eccentric".

"A trip to a nearby pub ended in disaster, when hearing Roll With It by Oasis on the pub stereo induced a panic attack in Graham. We returned to his flat, and for the rest of the evening he stood in the middle of his bedroom and played the mandolin with his eyes closed, smiling in beatific concentration."

Quite understandable really.

I've just learned of the death, yesterday, of the great Davy Graham. One of the giants of British music, on whose shoulders others stood in order to see further. I've seen and heard him on TV, in films and on the net; I have most of his recorded output, but I never saw him live. Now I never will. This is sad news for me, and, I'm sure, for many others.
The Guardian (per Ben Myers) has collected the video clips which are on the internet, and published them in one place. I've linked to them.

Muntadhar az-Zaydi - good idea, poor execution. Or was "the dog" too nimble for him? As someone has pointed out, Bush got plenty of practice in dodging the draft.
I hope the poor fellow gets out alive, but I fear the worst. Bush's request for clemency is one that the Iraqi puppets will feel able to ignore.
He is a journalist, let's hope his colleagues show some solidarity.

There's one born every minute, goes the saying - and any one of them would qualify to run a British bank.
"Cupidity plus stupidity", whose definition was that?

Should have joined the Euro.

Re yesterday's comment that the assassins of Jean Charles de Menezes would soon be promoted - it turns out that the officer who gave the order to kill has already been promoted.
Why is it that a police officer who kills is guaranteed promotion?

The two Doncaster lawyers have been struck off by the Law Society for ripping off sick miners. Now they're out of work and will have to survive on the £150 million they stole from their clients. Sorry, did I say stole? My mistake, they didn't steal anything, it seems. So they won't be paying anything back.
They took advantage of their position to exploit the working class - that's capitalism, folks, nothing wrong with that.
All this reminds me of the VENDSIDE scam; a firm set up by officers of the scab union UDM to cheat sick miners out of their compensation money. Whatever happened to those thieving, belly-crawling parasites? Nothing, I suppose. After all they did sterling work in their day for the boss class and its agent, the Thatcher government.
Interestingly Beresfords and Vendside/UDM were in cahoots at one time.

Now it can be told. The coroner at the Menezes inquest tried to clear the court of the public and the press while he addressed the jury. The public refused to leave (God bless 'em!). The coroner placed a gagging order on the media, preventing them from reporting such unusual occurrences as the defence team's boycott of his summation.
All his machinations were in vain, the jury returned a verdict he didn't want, but not, unfortunately the one that the one they would have returned had he not forbidden it.
The Home Secretary has issued a statement sympathising with the police in their inability to do the job properly.
I predict that the killers will be soon be promoted.

Speaking to reporters in Downing Street, the prime minister said: "What I have learned from this byelection is that people are prepared to support governments that will help people through the downturn and offer real help to people."

That was then, this is now -
"James Purnell was accused of introducing a version of the American 'workfare' today after he published plans to ensure that most benefit claimants are preparing for employment.
"The work and pensions secretary said that under the proposals in his white paper on welfare reform 'virtually everyone' claiming benefits would have to do something in return for their money."
...
"Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said that, while the Tories were supportive of the plans, they were almost identical to their own ideas, published in January."

"The minister also criticised the treatment of some customers forced to pay higher charges because they use pre-payment meters or who can only be served by a single supplier, warning that the government would take action to stamp out unfair charging."

Oh yes, It's going to happen one day.

I bought some stamps, second class, yesterday. What did I get? A special Christmas print depicting transvestites, ugly men dragged up as ugly women. What is it about men dressed as women that people find comical? And what is it about this exercise in bad taste that the Post Office deems aesthetically pleasing?
I'm at a loss.

March 19, 2008
I will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. We can responsibly remove 1 to 2 combat brigades each month. If we start with the number of brigades we have in Iraq today, we can remove all of them [in] 16 months. After this redeployment, we will leave enough troops in Iraq to guard our embassy and diplomats, and a counter-terrorism force to strike al Qaeda if it forms a base that the Iraqis cannot destroy.


December 7, 2008 (Meet the Press)
We are going to maintain a large enough force in the region to assure that our civilian troops--or our, our, our civilian personnel and our, our embassies are protected, to make sure that we can ferret out any remaining terrorist activity in the region, in cooperation with the Iraqi government, that we are providing training and logistical support, maintaining the integrity of Iraq as necessary. And, you know, I--one of the things that I'll be doing is evaluating what kind of number's required to meet those very limited goals.

THE KISS OF DEATH
Henry Kissinger, mass murderer, sponsor of terrorists, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has given his seal of approval to Obama's security appointments.
I suppose "change" could have meant bombing different countries.

A school in Chesterfield is closing down its library and sacking the librarian. The school is to become a "virtual learning environment". Is that virtual as opposed to real? I expect we'll soon hear a statement from the department that used to be "of education" that students, who used to be pupils, are to be reclassified as customers. It's all about choice, you see.
It seems that books are no longer "cool", to use a middle class expression. Schools all over the country are closing down their libraries and joining the Microsoft dependant multitudes. Soon their student-customers will be able to work towards qualifications in text messaging,video gaming, and operating a Mcd.n.lds till.

De Menezes coroner rules out unlawful killing verdict (today's Guardian)

Who could have predicted that? Not me, my money was on him recommending an open verdict, but he's gone further and said he wants "lawful killing". Cheeky bleeder!

One leader of the Bajrang Dal (a paramilitary Hindu right-wing group) described his own role with pride: "There was this pregnant woman, I slit her open. ...They shouldn't even be allowed to breed. I say that even today. Whoever they are, women, children, whoever, nothing to be done with them but cut them down. Thrash them, slash them, burn the bastards. ... The idea is, don't keep them alive at all; after that, everything is ours." ... All of this is terrorism, but most of it doesn't reach the world's front pages. When it does make it into newspapers outside India, the word "terrorism" is rarely used. The result is a perception, in India and abroad, that Muslims are the bad guys in every incident of terrorist violence.

(via Yasmin and Molly's blog)
More than 2000 Muslims were massacred in Gujarat in 2002 - poor people, native people, and no Europeans. Hovels were ransacked and destroyed, hotels, airports and railway stations were untouched. So not such a big story then?
When I first heard reports of the Battle of Mumbai I thought, "This is Muslim payback for 2002", but not so according to the Indian authorities. So what is the truth? We're not going to get that from the Indian authorities, or the Pakistani government, or for that matter from the British or US intelligence apparatus.
Is there a "Deccan Mujahidin"? Were the terrorists trained and equipped in Pakistan? Could the attentat have been executed without local support and intelligence? The Indians appear to be peddling that line. Could just ten gunmen have caused such mayhem and held out against armed police and military for so long?
The British media were selling a line that this outrage was directed at westerners, and that people holding British and US passports were being singled out. The casualty figures don't support this claim - 188 dead, of whom 28 were foreigners, one being British. It appears from these figures that no particular group was targeted; that this was the kind of atrocity favoured by fascists (stategy of tension) and religious terrorists. That is, there was no goal beyond maximum human casualties and maximum destruction of property; in other words terrorism in its purest form.

Addendum: I forgot to mention that governments sometimes use this form of terrorism in order to make their populations less resistant to their arrogation of excessive powers, and suppression of civil rights. An external agent is always blamed.
I also forgot to acknowledge the linked article by Professor Martha Nussbaum.
There is some unconfirmed information on the terrorists on wikipedia under the title "Deccan Mujahidin.

'A former communications intercept operator says U.S. intelligence snooped on the private lives of two of America's most important allies in fighting al Qaeda: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer.'

'David Murfee Faulk told ABCNews.com he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" ...
A spokesman for Blair, who stepped down as Prime Minister in 2007, said there would be "no comment" on Faulk's allegations.'

Special relationship, eh? Did nobody trust that "pretty straight sort of guy"?

Linked video on the Hull accent - one clown tells us that Hull people say "er ner" for "oh no", "sner" for snow, and "fern" for phone. He then reads a poem containing the words toad and folk. Does he pronounce them TURD and FURK? Of course not, he says tawd and fawk. I think it's called cognitive dissonance; or maybe it's brainwashing.
Anyone who wants to hear the Hull accent in all its glory should listen to the actor Peter Martin. I don't know, maybe he's retired, he used to be in Emmerdale. Barry Rutter, another Hull-born actor, does it when playing rough-arses, but, being a stage actor, he probably has other accents. Tom Courtenay, however, has gone all posh on us, though I seem to recall him doing "Hull" in "King and Country", when he played a squaddie sentenced to death for desertion.

They just won't let it lie
Two examples -
i)The Vatican has decided to forgive John Lennon for saying, forty years ago, that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. I always thought he'd said that they were more famous than Jesus. Whichever word he used he was right at the time. He didn't say that they were in anyway superior to J.C., or that they'd taken his place in the hearts of the Church Militant, just that they were better known.
Of course the nutty devil-dodgers in the Land of the Free did their pieces over the remark and built a bonfire of the inanities, but that's the Yanks. The rest of the world, most of whom were not Christians, wondered what the fuss was about, if they even knew about the fuss. What did the Pope of the day say? Probably, "Trouble with beetles? Send for pest control!"
Whenever the Pope or one of his minions makes one of these anouncements I hark back to the Maid of Orleans, the girl the Catholic Church burned as a heretic in 1431, and pronounced a saint in 1920.

ii) Diego Maradona, one of the greatest players to grace the beautiful game comes to Britain. What do the British (English?) media want to talk about? The bloody "Hand of God!" Let it go, for Christ's sake, let it go!

An interesting statistic on the radio (BBC Radio4) this morning; 50% of respondents to a survey on religion in Britain stated that they didn't believe in God. Now where are their opinions heard on the airwaves? I've listened to homilies from practitioners of Buddhism, Judaism and Sikhism on the BBC, but if you lumped the adherents of all those religions together they wouldn't amount to 10% of the population. Naturally I would expect no other policy from the BBC, voice of the established order. Shut us out, it makes no difference, our numbers increase.

I liked Paul Ross's comment on his brother in hiding, "He's on the Sachs offenders register."

"Despite being the 7th richest man in the United Kingdom (Guardian, 2003), with extensive business and political dealings in the UK, and being a person of interest in the US Presidential election, Nadhmi Auchi's name has, as far as we can establish, not appeared in a major British newspaper since May when the censorship attacks began."

A tale of censorship featuring in the latest Private Eye.

URGENT: Kidnapped by the Israeli Navy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date : 11-18-2008

Fifteen Palestinian fishermen along with three internationals have been kidnapped in Palestinian waters by the Israeli Navy. They were fishing seven miles off the coast of Deir Al Balah, clearly in Gaza fishing waters and well within the fishing limit detailed in the Oslo Accords of 1994.

The fishermen and the human right's observers were transferred from 3 separate boats to the Israeli warships. Other Palestinian fishermen reported that the 3 boats were seen being taken north by the Israeli Navy.

The three internationals are Andrew Muncie from Scotland, Darlene Wallach from the United States and Victor Arrigoni from Italy. The U.K., U.S. and Italian embassies in Tel Aviv have been contacted and know about the abductions.

Please call the Israeli Ministry of Justice at +972 26 46 66 66 and register your outrage over these illegal actions by the Israeli Navy. Then call the Embassies in Jerusalem and make sure they know that many of us are appalled by Israel's illegal search and seizure.

Stephen Brown, UK Consulate +972 25 41 41 00
U.S. Consulate General + 972-2-6227230
Luigi MATTIOLO, Italian Ambassador +972 3 5104004

Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

_At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

_Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

_Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

_University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.

_Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.

_Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

_A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'

_In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."

Ho-hum!

"All these people that run studios - they go to Washington, they hang around with senators, they hang around with CIA directors, and everybody's on board."

(Bob Baer, ex-CIA)
Or how the CIA runs Hollywood. I knew "Animal Farm" was a propaganda job, I didn't know the CIA owned the film rights. Did you see "The Quiet American (disowned by Graham Greene), "The Recruit", "The Good Shepherd", "Charlie Wilson's War"? Then you've been got at by the American Stasi. Any deprogramming courses available?

I see that Plastic-Features Ronaldo can't manage on £120,000 a week and wants a £40,000 pay rise.
How much is it that United owe? £667,000,000? In for a penny in for a pound, more cream for the fat cat. The punters will stand for it, they always have.

Armistice Day
I joined all the other grey heads at the cenotaph to remember the fallen. Some younger people there as well, but mostly grey panthers. Only three left of the WWI veterans, so they say. Fred Karno's army, parade dismissed.

We are Fred Karno's army
The ragtime infantry
We cannot fight, we cannot run,
What ****ing use are we?
And when we go to Berlin
The Kaiser he will say
"Ach,Ach, Mein Gott!
What a bloody rotten lot."
We're the ragtime infantry.

I think it went like that.
Also the ninetieth anniversary of the death of the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who died of his wounds as the church bells rang out to mark the ceasefire.

Où sont Raynal Billy Dalize
Dont les noms se mélancolisent
Comme des pas dans une église
Où est Cremnitz qui s'engagea
Peutêtre sont-ils morts déja

Some lived , some died.

Speaking to reporters in Downing Street, the prime minister said: "What I have learned from this byelection is that people are prepared to support governments that will help people through the downturn and offer real help to people."

Ed Balls, the children's secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the chief secretary to the Treasury, have launched an attack on the so-called London living wage – the £7.45 an hour recommended minimum for all workers in the capital. They claim it would be "artificial, inflationary" and not "necessary or appropriate."

Barack Obama -> Rahm Emanuel -> Benjamin Emanuel -> Irgun Tzvi Leumi ->
The bombing of the King David Hotel
The Deir Yasin massacre
British soldiers hanged with piano wire.

Barack "Skinny Legs" Obama -> Arnold Schwarzenegger -> Gustav Schwarzenegger -> the Nazi Party.

Obama's next selection, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? Well, maybe his son.

I really resent having to listen to all that meaningless guff about the stock market with every news bulletin. I wonder, what percentage of the population actually owns shares? Certainly a minority, and anyone with a real interest in this form of gambling will need more than the basic information giving that comes with the news. No this is propaganda. It's saying "If this doesn't concern you then you are a nobody. You count for nothing, and don't forget it."
Dr. Joe Moran of Liverpool John Moores University described these messages from our masters as being " ... like a prayer or an incantation", and " .. a daily tutorial in neoliberalism, the lesson is always the same: you can't buck the market."
Utah Phillips also commented on this in his own way.

The Talking NPR Blues
By U. Utah Phillips

I turned on my radio… spun the dial
Thought I'd listen to some news for a while
I grabbed the knob, spun it around,
Got NPR… here's what I found…

Real news? Hardly a trace
Just one damn marathon market place
The Nasdaq's up, the Dow's in the cellar
And NPR sold out to Rockefeller

Hostile take over… Real hostile.

Well I hear about all the anti trust
And all the day traders who bit the dust
Mergers, buyouts and acquisitions
Low down crooks in high positions

Wheelers, dealers, and CEO's
Fired and paid off through the nose
Buying yachts and fancy homes
With the bail out money from the savings and loans

And I get pissed… Off that is.

It's dot com this and dot com that
The underwriters are getting fat
On airwaves stole from you and me
By a bunch of thieves called the FCC

They don't give a damn what we want and need
They've all caved in to corporate greed
And sold us out to the ruling class
Well the whole damn bunch can kiss my… …Dot Com!

This is a family show folks
The FCC says watch your language
English
What's yours?

I got tired of being treated like a veg
So I called up the station and canceled my pledge
In a mighty act of liberation
Sent the money off to my community station

I said "I love you"

But if you blow it
I'll sure as hell let you know it
I'll knock the radio off the shelf
Buy a transmitter and do it myself

Whitebeard the Pirate

This is radio station H O B O
Broadcasting on a vagrancy of 60 to 90 days
Signing off
For now.

A couple of people making points that I'd like to endorse -

First Jo Brand in the latest edition of the Radio Times: "Too much comedy these days attacks the same targets. There's a huge anti-chav/anti-poor people thing going on; almost an Orwellian situation, where we set up poor people to laugh at them. That's why I've never been much of a fan of Little Britain. I think the targets are just too easy. I'd rather see comedy having a go at rich people, powerful people, right wing people."

Next Gore Vidal to David Dimbleby on US politics: "I know the territory. I'm surprised you even asked me, because I know too much about the subject - you like to get people who don't know much about the subject." (from yesterday's Guardian)
The old fellow knows the BBC well.

Angry Arab writes -

"Remember me when Obama will endorse an Israeli war on a refugee camp and on a Lebanese village, and he will call that justified self-defense. Remember me when Obama will mourn the deaths of Israelis and will celebrate the deaths of Arabs and Muslims. Remember me when he orders his first bombing campaign on some remote area of Pakistan. Remember me when he betrays the poor in favor of Wall Street. Remember me when he will betray the aspirations of black people in favor of the white middle class that is now the headline of the Democratic Party. Remember me when Obama will not fight for his health reform plan, and will he not deliver on many of his promises. Remember me when Obama will stick to his campaign promise of opposing gay marriage. Remember me when when Obama will continue to blame the failure of the American occupation of Iraq on the Iraqi people themselves."

Well I got it wrong, the old white man couldn't rely on his fellow party members to rig the election. This is not a new experience for me; before the last presidential election I predicted that Bush would win a second term, and would immediately reintroduce the draft.
Now we have to ask; how long before someone makes an attempt on Obama's life. Place your bets, Messieurs-Dames. Next question how long before he bombs somebody? Angry Arab says within six months, I give him 18 months if he can survive the "lone nut's" bullet that long. I reckon the CIA will be training some lone nuts up in case Obama does attempt something radical. I should add that the odds against him doing anything to upset the 2% who own 50% are long indeed. I quote, "Look, I am a pro-growth, free-market guy, I love the market."

"Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama?"

That from Ralph Nader's open letter to Obama (linked).
Over here it was a short step from "Things can only get better" to war crimes. Or as Pete Townshend put it
"Here comes the new boss,
Just like the old boss".