Friday, December 30, 2005

The woodwork squeaks - out come the freaks


[Note attached image aligned to the right...]
Some fool called Kevin Aylward (from the land of the people who brought you Guantanemo Bay and Extraordinary Rendition, as well as carpet bombing Iraqis) feels somewhat aggrieved (you can look it up here, Kevin) at Craig Murray's publishing activities. Not that it is any of his business, frankly. Oh well, just ignore him and he'll go away - hopefullly.
Is it me, or do his eyes seem a little scary?

He has no vested interests in trying to question the credibility of Craig's arguments, naturally. Oh, no - you'd be a cynic and a traitor to suggest such a thing.

What's that you say, a conniving right wing self-publicist who sets up Blog Award competitions himself only in order to win them? I'm sure he loves his Mum really - but not in that way, no.

PS - What kind of a name is Charlie Quidnunc, anyhow?

Well done Chris Floyd

Empire Burlesque has a (what he calls) a nearly real time RSS feed of stories relating to Craig Murray and Uzbekistan. Keep an eye on how fast this is spreading ;-)

Go here.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

This Just in... (The return of lying Jack Straw)

Courtesy of the venerable Mr Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads. This concerns the ongoing lies and mistruths being spread by Blair & Straw.
We - in Cheeseland - are happy to help in any way we can.

And the source from Perfect.co.uk here.

Copied text begins:

These documents reveal a very specific list of concerns expressed by Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, and how our government responded.
At first, they attempted to dismiss the concerns. When Craig Murray pressed them on the matter, they sought to dismiss *him*:
Link to BBCi story
You may also wish to note that - in recent statements regarding extraordinary rendition - both Straw and Blair echo Craig Murray's concerns that using intelligence gained by torture is 'morally, legally and practically wrong'.
They do this while claiming to be unaware of any actual instance of torture, but they can only continue to do so while Murray remains gagged.
The writing was on the wall during the 2005 General Election when Craig Murray, standing as an independent candidate in Straw's constituency of Blackburn, was excluded from a public debate. It wasn't until Murray was forcibly removed from the building that Jack Straw felt confident enough to deliver the following answer to this question:
Constituent: "This question is for Mr Straw; Have you ever read any documents where the intelligence has been procured through torturous means?"
Jack Straw: "Not to the best of my knowledge... let me make this clear... that the British government does not support torture in any circumstances. Full stop. We do not support the obtaining of intelligence by torture, or its use."
You may also wish to read/hear the most recent denial from Tony Blair, who claims here that "I've never heard of such a thing. I can't tell you whether such a thing exists - because, er - I don't know."
Blairwatch Article

Well they *do* know, because Craig Murray *told* them.... and Uzbekistan is only part of the big picture.
Unlike other European countries, the UK is in a unique position in that, through the UK/US Intelligence Sharing Agreement, the CIA and MI6 pool all their material. So-called intelligence comes not just to Bush, but to Blair and Straw from the torture chambers of countries including Syria, the Gambia, Egypt, Uzbekistan and Morocco.

Tony Blair and Jack Straw have lied about their use of intelligence gained by torture and their awareness of the practice of torture. They will be allowed to continue these lies if the following information is suppressed.
Copy and paste this text into a new document. Save it to your hard drive. Make a back-up and send to a friend.
And then post a copy to your website.
Use this timeline for added context if you wish (for added illumination, compare the treatment of Craig Murray to that of David Blunkett, who was allowed to leave office - and then return! - 'without a stain on his character'):
More on this.
Legally, Blair and Straw are on extremely shaky ground here. Morally, they don't have a leg to stand on.
Show it, prove it, share it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter #1
Confidential
FM Tashkent (Ambassador Craig Murray)
TO FCO, Cabinet Office, DFID, MODUK, OSCE Posts, Security Council Posts
16 September 02
SUBJECT: US/Uzbekistan: Promoting Terrorism
SUMMARY
US plays down human rights situation in Uzbekistan. A dangerous policy: increasing repression combined with poverty will promote Islamic terrorism. Support to Karimov regime a bankrupt and cynical policy.
DETAIL
The Economist of 7 September states: "Uzbekistan, in particular, has jailed many thousands of moderate Islamists, an excellent way of converting their families and friends to extremism." The Economist also spoke of "the growing despotism of Mr Karimov" and judged that "the past year has seen a further deterioration of an already grim human rights record". I agree.
Between 7,000 and 10,000 political and religious prisoners are currently detained, many after trials before kangaroo courts with no representation. Terrible torture is commonplace: the EU is currently considering a demarche over the terrible case of two Muslims tortured to death in jail apparently with boiling water. Two leading dissidents, Elena Urlaeva and Larissa Vdovna, were two weeks ago committed to a lunatic asylum, where they are being drugged, for demonstrating on human rights. Opposition political parties remain banned. There is no doubt that September 11 gave the pretext to crack down still harder on dissent under the guise of counter-terrorism.
Yet on 8 September the US State Department certified that Uzbekistan was improving in both human rights and democracy, thus fulfilling a constitutional requirement and allowing the continuing disbursement of $140 million of US aid to Uzbekistan this year. Human Rights Watch immediately published a commendably sober and balanced rebuttal of the State Department claim.
Again we are back in the area of the US accepting sham reform [a reference to my previous telegram on the economy]. In August media censorship was abolished, and theoretically there are independent media outlets, but in practice there is absolutely no criticism of President Karimov or the central government in any Uzbek media. State Department call this self-censorship: I am not sure that is a fair way to describe an unwillingness to experience the brutal methods of the security services.
Similarly, following US pressure when Karimov visited Washington, a human rights NGO has been permitted to register. This is an advance, but they have little impact given that no media are prepared to cover any of their activities or carry any of their statements.
The final improvement State quote is that in one case of murder of a prisoner the police involved have been prosecuted. That is an improvement, but again related to the Karimov visit and does not appear to presage a general change of policy. On the latest cases of torture deaths the Uzbeks have given the OSCE an incredible explanation, given the nature of the injuries, that the victims died in a fight between prisoners.
But allowing a single NGO, a token prosecution of police officers and a fake press freedom cannot possibly outweigh the huge scale of detentions, the torture and the secret executions. President Karimov has admitted to 100 executions a year but human rights groups believe there are more. Added to this, all opposition parties remain banned (the President got a 98% vote) and the Internet is strictly controlled. All Internet providers must go through a single government server and access is barred to many sites including all dissident and opposition sites and much international media (including, ironically, waronterrorism.com). This is in essence still a totalitarian state: there is far less freedom than still prevails, for example, in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. A Movement for Democratic Change or any judicial independence would be impossible here.
Karimov is a dictator who is committed to neither political nor economic reform. The purpose of his regime is not the development of his country but the diversion of economic rent to his oligarchic supporters through government controls. As a senior Uzbek academic told me privately, there is more repression here now than in Brezhnev's time. The US are trying to prop up Karimov economically and to justify this support they need to claim that a process of economic and political reform is underway. That they do so claim is either cynicism or self-delusion.
This policy is doomed to failure. Karimov is driving this resource-rich country towards economic ruin like an Abacha. And the policy of increasing repression aimed indiscriminately at pious Muslims, combined with a deepening poverty, is the most certain way to ensure continuing support for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They have certainly been decimated and disorganised in Afghanistan, and Karimov's repression may keep the lid on for years - but pressure is building and could ultimately explode.
I quite understand the interest of the US in strategic airbases and why they back Karimov, but I believe US policy is misconceived. In the short term it may help fight terrorism but in the medium term it will promote it, as the Economist points out. And it can never be right to lower our standards on human rights. There is a complex situation in Central Asia and it is wrong to look at it only through a prism picked up on September 12. Worst of all is what appears to be the philosophy underlying the current US view of Uzbekistan: that September 11 divided the World into two camps in the "War against Terrorism" and that Karimov is on "our" side.
If Karimov is on "our" side, then this war cannot be simply between the forces of good and evil. It must be about more complex things, like securing the long-term US military presence in Uzbekistan. I silently wept at the 11 September commemoration here. The right words on New York have all been said. But last week was also another anniversary - the US-led overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. The subsequent dictatorship killed, dare I say it, rather more people than died on September 11. Should we not remember then also, and learn from that too? I fear that we are heading down the same path of US-sponsored dictatorship here. It is ironic that the beneficiary is perhaps the most unreformed of the World's old communist leaders.
We need to think much more deeply about Central Asia. It is easy to place Uzbekistan in the "too difficult" tray and let the US run with it, but I think they are running in the wrong direction. We should tell them of the dangers we see. Our policy is theoretically one of engagement, but in practice this has not meant much. Engagement makes sense, but it must mean grappling with the problems, not mute collaboration. We need to start actively to state a distinctive position on democracy and human rights, and press for a realistic view to be taken in the IMF. We should continue to resist pressures to start a bilateral DFID programme, unless channelled non-governmentally, and not restore ECGD cover despite the constant lobbying. We should not invite Karimov to the UK. We should step up our public diplomacy effort, stressing democratic values, including more resources from the British Council. We should increase support to human rights activists, and strive for contact with non-official Islamic groups.
Above all we need to care about the 22 million Uzbek people, suffering from poverty and lack of freedom. They are not just pawns in the new Great Game.
MURRAY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter #2
Confidential
Fm Tashkent (Ambassador Craig Murray)
To FCO
18 March 2003
SUBJECT: US FOREIGN POLICY
SUMMARY
1. As seen from Tashkent, US policy is not much focussed on democracy or freedom. It is about oil, gas and hegemony. In Uzbekistan the US pursues those ends through supporting a ruthless dictatorship. We must not close our eyes to uncomfortable truth.
DETAIL
2. Last year the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov as a friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seven thousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of speech, without freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of assembly, without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous with medieval serfdom.
3. Uzbekistan's geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the population of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all the other states in a region which is important to future Western oil and gas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here, and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years.
4. Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the contrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduce any meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid - more than US aid to all of West Africa - is related to comparative developmental need as opposed to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov's vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He - and they - are in fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?
5. I was stunned to hear that the US had pressured the EU to withdraw a motion on Human Rights in Uzbekistan which the EU was tabling at the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. I was most unhappy to find that we are helping the US in what I can only call this cover-up. I am saddened when the US constantly quote fake improvements in human rights in Uzbekistan, such as the abolition of censorship and Internet freedom, which quite simply have not happened (I see these are quoted in the draft EBRD strategy for Uzbekistan, again I understand at American urging).
6. From Tashkent it is difficult to agree that we and the US are activated by shared values. Here we have a brutal US sponsored dictatorship reminiscent of Central and South American policy under previous US Republican administrations. I watched George Bush talk today of Iraq and "dismantling the apparatus of terrorĂ¢€¦ removing the torture chambers and the rape rooms". Yet when it comes to the Karimov regime, systematic torture and rape appear to be treated as peccadilloes, not to affect the relationship and to be downplayed in international fora. Double standards? Yes.
7. I hope that once the present crisis is over we will make plain to the US, at senior level, our serious concern over their policy in Uzbekistan.
MURRAY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Transcript of facsimile sent 25 March 2003 from the Foreign Office]
From: Michael Wood, Legal Advisor
Date: 13 March 2003
CC: PS/PUS; Matthew Kidd, WLD
Linda Duffield
UZBEKISTAN: INTELLIGENCE POSSIBLY OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE
1. Your record of our meeting with HMA Tashkent recorded that Craig had said that his understanding was that it was also an offence under the UN Convention on Torture to receive or possess information under torture. I said that I did not believe that this was the case, but undertook to re-read the Convention.
2. I have done so. There is nothing in the Convention to this effect. The nearest thing is article 15 which provides:
"Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."
3. This does not create any offence. I would expect that under UK law any statement established to have been made as a result of torture would not be admissible as evidence.
[signed]
M C Wood
Legal Adviser
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter #3
CONFIDENTIAL
FM TASHKENT (Ambassador Craig Murray)
TO IMMEDIATE FCO
TELNO 63
OF 220939 JULY 04
INFO IMMEDIATE DFID, ISLAMIC POSTS, MOD, OSCE POSTS UKDEL EBRD LONDON, UKMIS GENEVA, UKMIS MEW YORK
SUBJECT: RECEIPT OF INTELLIGENCE OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE
SUMMARY
1. We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek intelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are fighting the same war against terror.
2. I gather a recent London interdepartmental meeting considered the question and decided to continue to receive the material. This is morally, legally and practically wrong. It exposes as hypocritical our post Abu Ghraib pronouncements and fatally undermines our moral standing. It obviates my efforts to get the Uzbek government to stop torture they are fully aware our intelligence community laps up the results.
3. We should cease all co-operation with the Uzbek Security Services they are beyond the pale. We indeed need to establish an SIS presence here, but not as in a friendly state.
DETAIL
4. In the period December 2002 to March 2003 I raised several times the issue of intelligence material from the Uzbek security services which was obtained under torture and passed to us via the CIA. I queried the legality, efficacy and morality of the practice.
5. I was summoned to the UK for a meeting on 8 March 2003. Michael Wood gave his legal opinion that it was not illegal to obtain and to use intelligence acquired by torture. He said the only legal limitation on its use was that it could not be used in legal proceedings, under Article 15 of the UN Convention on Torture.
6. On behalf of the intelligence services, Matthew Kydd said that they found some of the material very useful indeed with a direct bearing on the war on terror. Linda Duffield said that she had been asked to assure me that my qualms of conscience were respected and understood.
7. Sir Michael Jay's circular of 26 May stated that there was a reporting obligation on us to report torture by allies (and I have been instructed to refer to Uzbekistan as such in the context of the war on terror). You, Sir, have made a number of striking, and I believe heartfelt, condemnations of torture in the last few weeks. I had in the light of this decided to return to this question and to highlight an apparent contradiction in our policy. I had intimated as much to the Head of Eastern Department.
8. I was therefore somewhat surprised to hear that without informing me of the meeting, or since informing me of the result of the meeting, a meeting was convened in the FCO at the level of Heads of Department and above, precisely to consider the question of the receipt of Uzbek intelligence material obtained under torture. As the office knew, I was in London at the time and perfectly able to attend the meeting. I still have only gleaned that it happened.
9. I understand that the meeting decided to continue to obtain the Uzbek torture material. I understand that the principal argument deployed was that the intelligence material disguises the precise source, ie it does not ordinarily reveal the name of the individual who is tortured. Indeed this is true - the material is marked with a euphemism such as "From detainee debriefing." The argument runs that if the individual is not named, we cannot prove that he was tortured.
10. I will not attempt to hide my utter contempt for such casuistry, nor my shame that I work in and organisation where colleagues would resort to it to justify torture. I have dealt with hundreds of individual cases of political or religious prisoners in Uzbekistan, and I have met with very few where torture, as defined in the UN convention, was not employed. When my then DHM raised the question with the CIA head of station 15 months ago, he readily acknowledged torture was deployed in obtaining intelligence. I do not think there is any doubt as to the fact
11. The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely known. Plainly there are, at the very least, reasonable grounds for believing the material is obtained under torture. There is helpful guidance at Article 3 of the UN Convention;
"The competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the state concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights."
While this article forbids extradition or deportation to Uzbekistan, it is the right test for the present question also.
12. On the usefulness of the material obtained, this is irrelevant. Article 2 of the Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer:
"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
13. Nonetheless, I repeat that this material is useless - we are selling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful. It is designed to give the message the Uzbeks want the West to hear. It exaggerates the role, size, organisation and activity of the IMU and its links with Al Qaida. The aim is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe, that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.
14. I was taken aback when Matthew Kydd said this stuff was valuable. Sixteen months ago it was difficult to argue with SIS in the area of intelligence assessment. But post Butler we know, not only that they can get it wrong on even the most vital and high profile issues, but that they have a particular yen for highly coloured material which exaggerates the threat. That is precisely what the Uzbeks give them. Furthermore MI6 have no operative within a thousand miles of me and certainly no expertise that can come close to my own in making this assessment.
15. At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.
16. I have been considering Michael Wood's legal view, which he kindly gave in writing. I cannot understand why Michael concentrated only on Article 15 of the Convention. This certainly bans the use of material obtained under torture as evidence in proceedings, but it does not state that this is the sole exclusion of the use of such material.
17. The relevant article seems to me Article 4, which talks of complicity in torture. Knowingly to receive its results appears to be at least arguable as complicity. It does not appear that being in a different country to the actual torture would preclude complicity. I talked this over in a hypothetical sense with my old friend Prof Francois Hampson, I believe an acknowledged World authority on the Convention, who said that the complicity argument and the spirit of the Convention would be likely to be winning points. I should be grateful to hear Michael's views on this.
18. It seems to me that there are degrees of complicity and guilt, but being at one or two removes does not make us blameless. There are other factors. Plainly it was a breach of Article 3 of the Convention for the coalition to deport detainees back here from Baghram, but it has been done. That seems plainly complicit.
19. This is a difficult and dangerous part of the World. Dire and increasing poverty and harsh repression are undoubtedly turning young people here towards radical Islam. The Uzbek government are thus creating this threat, and perceived US support for Karimov strengthens anti-Western feeling. SIS ought to establish a presence here, but not as partners of the Uzbek Security Services, whose sheer brutality puts them beyond the pale.
MURRAY
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

copied text ends.

So, what do you make of all that, then?

No, don't worry - that smell is the self-combusting trousers Jack Straw is currently sporting.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Just to help out the Foreign Secretary

Some notes you may well have forgotten to pop in your diary:

Iraq poses a threat to the world because of its manufacture and development of weapons of mass destruction.”
Jack Straw, 24 March 2002

What we are talking about is chemical weapons, biological weapons, viruses, bacilli and anthrax - 10,000 litres of anthrax - that he [Saddam] has.”
Jack Straw, 17 March 2003

If Saddam Hussein does ... readmit the weapons inspectors and allow them to do their job... then the case for military action recedes to the point almost of invisibility and that is obvious.”
Jack Straw, 15 September 2002

I have every confidence - and I have expressed that confidence - in the weapons inspectors ... As long as this regime is in place, and as long as it is refusing to co-operate, the inspection process becomes well-nigh impossible.”
Jack Straw, 17 March 2003

Never once did I come to this House and say that I believed that we should not give the weapons inspectors more time because I did not think that they were going to get any more co-operation than they had had in the past.”
Jack Straw, 27 November 2003


And some (as ever) helpful clarification from Donald Rumsfeld:

We know where [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”
30th March 2003

Jack Attack


Jack Straw enjoys a 'personal request' from a junior White House advisor

So, our old chum Jack ‘Jet Set’ Straw knows nothing about CIA flights transporting Terror Suspects through the U.K.
His now famously selective memory obviously needs a little jogging, or at least a gentle stroll. The Clinton administration asked (according to ‘Serpent’ Straw) asked three times for such rendition to take place. BTW – I’m with Sandi Toksvig on this, when she asked ‘Isn’t rendition that bobbly stuff you used to put on walls in the 70s?’
Maybe he's trying to put into practise (or indeed re-promote) his moving text given to the Prison Reform Trust 'Making Prisons Work', assuming, of course, that the new edition includes the sub-header 'Well, Secret Ones For Your Politically Expediant Allies, at least'
Meanwhile, the ACLU in the U.S. says "the [CIA] has broken both US and international law." - It is acting for a man allegedly flown to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan.
Let’s see how that little gem of a case works out.
Meanwhile it would seem that the Blair/Straw/Rest of the Cabinet brown-nosed stance to the Bush administration and their catalogue of ongoing atrocities in their Guantanemo Bay illegal prison in Cuba, torturing at Abu Graib, etc etc etc are now keen to go into major damage limitation on the evidently thorny (for them) topic of extraordinary rendition. Condo-Leaser Rice has been dispatched over to Yoorp to play the bully boy to EU countries and reminding them of their duty to support the ‘war’ on terror.

But Straw is by no means out of the woods yet. Oh no. Diego Garcia is going to be troubling the Janus Straw in the not-too-distant, of this we can be sure.
It would seem that, according to the Guardian:

“Straw is also facing calls to allow MPs and human rights groups access to Diego Garcia, the British island in the Indian Ocean being used as a US military base. It has long been suspected that the island has been used to hold or transfer terror suspects to secret US jails."

And as if this isn’t enough to keep the little poodle busy, one of his Ambassadors has fucked up in the diplomacy stakes, this time it’s on Poland.

Whheeeeeee! Watch him spin his way out of this one. The twat.

Git of the Day

I thought I’d be doing something on Jack Straw today, as I am usually gripped by the blood-rage whenever I hear his snivelling lying whine issue forth my radio in the morning afore setting off to work; But no, I have some other grist for the mill. Albeit rather fatty and unwholesome grist. Yes, step forward Richard Miniter, erstwhile journalist for the New York Times and novelist. NYT not being a laudable source of balanced valuable information I’ll grant you, but Mr Minit has made his home there, as well as publishing such gems as ‘Disinformation – 22 Media Myths that undermine the War on Terrorism’, and ‘Shadow War – The untold story of how Bush is winning the war on terror’. The second of those I’d really like to read, as a) I need a good laugh, and b) Sure some Einsteinian law may be under severe attack if he honestly believes he can stretch the facts that far.
Mind you, the ‘Bio’ section of his own website, and you start to get the picture of where this clown comes from, idealogically, at least.
Pop facts, people:

Miniter's latest book is entitled 'Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror'. Based on exclusive interviews and official documents, the book challenges many widely-held notions: that Bin Laden was trained or financed by the CIA in the 1980s, that Halliburton profiteered in Iraq, that profiling Arabs at airports would stop terrorism, and that the U.S.-Mexico border is an open door for Al Qaeda.

So Rummy & Cheney are off the hook eh, Dick? That is your name, isn’t it – Dick?

Friday, December 09, 2005

Latest Speech by Blair*

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. . . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."


*Well, not actually Blair - but Hermann Goering in 1946. Don't half sound alike though, don't they? If not in actual words, then most certainly in deeds.

Friday, November 25, 2005

Oh Dear - Cat/Bag Interface Functionality Breakdown

The Beeb have got it....

Make Them Tell Us What They're Up To...

Support this.

Mr Ireland's Magnificent Octopus

"...all in the cause of peace, and the war on terror".

Scary Genius.

Keep track of the D-Notice...

Firstly, the Hindu Times.
Secondly - strangely, another Indian newspaper.

Google search: here.

And for those who like their news with a little Hollinger spin: go here.

Well, Well. Looky what we have here...

Firstly, apologies for the extended absence. It would seem the ghost of Ronnie Raygun is still inhabiting the White House. His classic 'We start bombing Russia in 5 minutes' has been (it has been alledged) updated by the Rev Dubya (from the Church of Voting Rigging War-Mongering Psychopath).
And as his loyal poodle, Our Tone has D-noticed any reference in the media to the FACT THAT GEORGE BUSH SAID HE WAS GOING TO BOMB AL-JAZEERA.
Since when do we have to pander to the insane media control of the U.S.? Well, of course the obvious answer is 'ever since Thatcher, and her new incarnation, Anthony Blair'.
But this is truly crazy.
Boris Johnson has promised to publish the document, if it comes into his possession, and you can bet your cinammon buns that it'll be here as well.
Watch this space.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Cheap Shot (But it had to be done)

Re-instate you? I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that.

The Curse Of Leerdammer Strikes!

Well, well. Poor old David. Ooops, my hypocrasy-o-meter just went off the scale.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Oh - Do please just GO!

Can we please be rid of this fucking fool? Does he have to shoot someone in order for Bliar to no longer support him?

Friday, October 28, 2005

And the moral of the story is, children?

Don't ever - EVER - fuck with The Onion.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Friday, October 21, 2005

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Blind Cherry Pie

No, it's not a lesser-known Delta Blues Man, having to relocate from a submerged New Orleans, it's a cheap dig at that arrogant son-of-a-windowdresser David "Would You Like To Touch My Stick?" Blunkett. Lees than sure in my own mind how on earth he does it, it would seem our David has obviously significantly more charm with 'the ladies' than that which he usually displays when in conversation with the media.
Perhaps it's the dog, girls love the dog...
Well, let's face it, it couldn't be anything to do with honesty or decency now, could it? Or, god forbid, paranoia?
Example
Example
Example
Example

Enough for you? Check out the picture (complete with worrying crimson halo) here.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Like a rolling BORE!!!!!!

Would someone just please shoot Bob Dylan now, so we can get it over with, get the tributes out of the way, and forget all about him.
He was never, and will never be, as good as The Beatles.

All the current BBC Arselikhan 'films' by directors (who are now so past their prime it's laughable) are driving me up the feckin' wall.

At least sometimes I find a glimmer of hope out there in the dark.

The True Face of Evil

Forget Lucifer - she's already here!

Poor old Philip Hayton, being teamed up with grimacing gorgon Kate Silverton. It's all become too much for him, and he is no longer the 'Man from Aunty', having quit after 37 years with the Beeb. A sad day.
Now, it would seem we are left with yet another Sophie Wrayworth buffoon-a-like.

Anyhow, coke-snorting mediaslag, sorry - agent Alex Armitage (head of the Noel Gay Artists outfit) has leapt to the defence of his clueless talking head Silverton, saying typically unspecific, yet barbed words suggested the problem lies with Hayton.

Lest we forget, Noel Gay Artists also represents: Richard Littlejohn (oh my god), Rod Little (well...), and, of course everyone's favourite 'Today' programme presenter - Sarah Montague; For that last one alone they should be doused in kerosene and made to rub themselves on Charles Clarke.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Superb

All completely true, of course.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Trogdor For A Rainy Day

Meet Herbert



adopt your own virtual pet!

But is it Art? Answer: No!

If you have 40-odd seconds to waste - take a look at this.
"I grasp daily for what I pretend are certain tangabilities in my life, grasping, and always I am surprised"

What a load of film-student-up-my-own-arse pretentious old toss.

In his Vlog's 'Statement' Shannon Noble (do you think he might be a yank?) notes that "I have the potential to pontificate endlessly".
Perhaps he should get his head out of his rear end and get a ruddy job. I rather suspect he is trying to set himself up for a career in advertising, though (in his dreams, more like).
Quote of the decade: "My pretentious nature shines like the waxy surfaces in a car commercial."
Quite. But one which you are unlikely to direct in the near future, you knob.

T-Mobile - Liars & Providers of Shoddy Service

Well, it would seem that the jolly chaps over at T-Mobile are a big bunch of liars. Kieren McCarthy was nearly stung by them in their wonderful attempt at obfuscating the non-service they offer in terms of sending and receiving email from one's (his) mobile phone. I suspect he is not alone on this.
They cunningly use a lot of back chat and delaying tactics to make sure you exceed your '7 days to cancel' cooling off period, so that you are locked into the good ol' 12 month contract.
Kieren, luckily is a smart and persistant kind of guy, and managed to get them to fess up to their services' lamentable shortcomings.
The transcript (and an MP3 recording of the conversation are available here.
As may be evident from my tone, I'm not the biggest fan of T-Mobile, and think their customer service veers between crap and diabolical (on a good day).
My lovely other half recently tried to get an upgrade through them to a more 'Business Usage' friendly kind of tariff, and ended up having her contract cancelled by T-Mobile, apparantly on some whim of one of their internal divisions. She was only informed of this when she rang to enquire where her new phone was. Superb.
For myself, I tried to get a new phone out of them earlier on this year, and when (due to no fault of my own whatsoever) the phone was stolen before it even got to me, T-Mobile claimed that in order for me to get another phone, I would have to pay the £200 for the old one. Naturally, I refused, and asked to get a PAC number to take my custom to another network. Once again, they said I'd need to settle the 'outstanding' £200 on the account before they could do this. Just to re-iterate, this was for a phone I had never received. Cool, eh?
7 weeks later (!), I managed to get them to cave in, and at this point took my custom to a slightly more reliable service provider, where I have been realiably informed that 'The future is bright'. Enough clues?

Added to this, the new chav-friendly ad campaigns ('Mates Rates' - oh please....)that T-Nobile (intentional) are running, it seems pretty clear to me that as a telecom provider they should be avoided at all costs - those costs mainly being shouldered by oneself.

Avoid!!!!

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Introducing the Beyond Journalists

Moving Right Along - (Yes, the pun is intentional.) Here's the first two.


Rick Moran (No, I'm not going to do the obvious joke), a 'beyond journalist' for the Thinker has his own little blog, bless him. It's called Rightwing Nuthouse. And, no, I'm not linking to it. He's on the dole, though, but a "rabble rouser" (his words, not mine) all the same. Well, that's nice.

He has some great connections and writing credits, though. Rush Limbaugh amongst them (not linking to him either, ferchrissakes - oxygen of publicity, and all that)

Richard Baehr - He's a real gem. He is a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, former Education Director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of Illinois. A real rennaisance man. Don't criticise him, though, or you'll be labelled a fascist.

More On (Moron) The American Thinker

Oh Dear. It would seem that those jolly chaps at Registerfly might not be as squeaky clean as (blah, blah, blah....)
Check this out.
Oh, and this.

So, fake banks, dodgy financial operations and 'The American Thinker'.

Draw your own conclusions.

Another little gem from the 'About Us' page of the 'Thinker' which might be a small clue is this: "The right to exist, and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us."

So that's alright, then.

Hmmm. Free and Open, eh?

Continued from below...
"The American Thinker is devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans. Contributors are accomplished in fields beyond journalism, and animated to write for the general public out of concern for the complex and morally significant questions on the national agenda.
There is no limit to the topics appearing on The American Thinker. National security in all its dimensions, strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military is emphasized. The right to exist, and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us. Business, science, technology, medicine, management, and economics in their practical and ethical dimensions are also emphasized, as is the state of American culture."

OK, fine, all nice and proper. But - strangely, when you whois the domain it gives you this:

RegisterFly.com - Ref# 17472644
Whois Protection Service - ProtectFly.com (afypv2tgru8uc1y@protectfly.com)
+1.8458183604
Fax: +1.8456984014
P.O. Box 969
Margaretville, NY 12455
US

And then, when you whois Registerfly.com, you get this:
RegisterFly.com, inc.
Domain Administrator (sales@registerfly.com)
+1.9737362545
Fax: +1.9737361355
623 Eagle Rock Avenue
Suite #7
West Orange, NJ 07052
US

I suppose one could always call them to share one's views on the 'morally significant questions on the national agenda'.
I wonder if they'd answer the phone?
Not that I'm suggesting for a moment that you should try. Oh no. Certainly not. I'd never do that.

I feel easy in my mind that these anonymous bunch of 'beyond journalists' are fully accountable and transparent to public scrutiny. Damn! - got that wrong too.

Twilight's Last Gleaming (Of Sense)

Or not, as the case may be.
The American Thinker (oh, please...) tells it like it isn't.
He (or she, though I doubt it somehow) obviously has forgotten the 'fully fuelled aircraft - tall buildings interface scenario' that took place a couple of years back.
Mind you, the BBC could be responsible for September 11th as well. No, really, it could!

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Sign up for this. Do it now.

No, don't argue - go and do it now!
Why haven't you gone and signed up yet?

Go There Now

Legitimate use of Bad Language

Good old Tim Ireland, he's up to no good again, or if you agree with his point of view (like I do), causing some good ol' fashioned trouble for the hard of thinking amongst us... [Sun & Daily Mail readers, for those of you who are still confused with what the hell I'm banging on about.]

Slow off the mark, I'll grant you, but...

Examples of the many instances in which moustaches could be considered an error when sported in public life.

Too good to pass up.



By the restorative powers of Durum Wheat, may his noodly appendage touch us all.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Oh, and while we're not on the subject...

The current cost of the 'endeavour' in Iraq to the U.S. is $5 billion/month.
Total Cost to date: $320 Billion

So, in my math, that means the flood defense programs being asked for in New Orleans would have taken mere days worth of budget for Iraq.

Governor Blanco this year had asked for $105 million dollars for levee improvements, but the oh-so-generous Dubya thought it best to cut that figure to $40 million.

But there was no chance that there would be any flooding problem, surely?

Oh, wait a moment... what did you say?

Wise Words

"High gas prices are a sign of a failed presidency."
~Dick Cheney, 1998

Oh well....

Monday, August 08, 2005

Gits of the Day #3

The murdering shits of the IRA seek to get away with hiding behind the 'might' of Gerry Adams (murderer) and stop themselves be extradited to Colombia to serve their rightful terms in jail.
So much for the 'peace process'.

Well, Gerry is such a good (arse) soul, isn't he?

Ben Cohen - Ha Bloody Ha!

Cuddly little Benjamin Cohen seems to have had the shit dumped on him regarding his vain attempt to implicate everyone in the loss of the itunes.co.uk domain name.

The cheeky chappy [whom BBCi loves to call an 'internet entrepreneur'] has been told to go shove it.

Perhaps he queered his own pitch when it was disclosed he had tried to sell the domain to Napster. Doh!

The judge described Conehead's application as 'flawed'.

MacUser UK are obviously as big a fan of the The Cone-ster as I am, as they even mention a fuller account of the judges' summing up - 'flawed, late and unnecessary'.

What a shame for the poor young lad. You could email him if you want to: ben@cyberbritain.co.uk.

Git.

Monday's Big Git

Hey, that's real tasteful!
Right up there with the 'Hindenburgh' Souvenir Box of Matches...

Keith Fieler (Feeler?) has developed* a really crap game called 'Mind The Bombs' that he is tarting around the net with.
[* I suspect not, actually]

I was going to link to his site, but you've got Google, haven't you?

Allegedly, this is all in 'support' of the terrorist bombing victims in London in July. But, he is happily based in Californication. And he has links to lots of online casinos, including a referral click-through on his ugly and badly designed website.

Anyhow, let's cut to the chase - here's his Whois lookup.


Fieler, Keith [KF-157]
19587 Tonkawan Road
Apple Valley, CA 92307, US
Phone: (760) 946-2869
Email: tavistock2005@hotmail.com

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Just in case we forget...Steven Milligan

An upstanding Tory MP*.

*(This is an outright lie)

I know we shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but they can't sue, so what the hell?

Go here.
Or here.

or indeed, here.

So, Jeanette Winterson was right, eh?

Monday, August 01, 2005

Knives Out, boys...

Irritable Duncan-Smith (for it is he) has been ruffling the feathers of the wannabe Grandees in Westminster and beyond, it seems. Just to start the blood letting early, rather than actually wait until the elections start, he's laid the axe to two fellow Tories and has said that he will not only quit as an Tory MP, but run as an independent candidate if the two greasy ne'er do wells who were responsible for his downfall are allowed to run as Tory candidates. Bitter, no - certainly not.
Mind you, having seen Dr Vanessa Gearson, she has the same kind of scary eyes as Ruth Kelly (probably as 'Christian' as her, as well). Gearson used to work for IDS as head of the office for non-reelection or some such claptrap.
Mark McGregor is a bit more media-savvy, has gotten himself a website n'all. More on him soon.

Friday, July 29, 2005

I laughed until I cried...

All these years, I just knew that Tiny Computers were shite.

Ahhh, justice is sometimes oh-so-very sweet.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Not a club I'd want to be a member of...

Oh dear, those jolly chaps at the Grauniad has gotten themselves into a bit of a pickle.
As Steve Busfield points out, Dilpazier Aslam has been shuffled out of the door due to his unsavoury connections.

Now why could the Daily Mirror have done that with Piers Morgan ages ago?

Kick 'em when they're down

Apologies, I just can't stop laughing at this. He's one ugly muthafucker, too.
Very bad beard skills, if you ask me.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Hey George, can you hear us?

Probably not. But then I'd have been surprised if anyone would choose to listen - it would be too disturbing.

Geneva Convention, pah!

The old 'God made me do it' defence

Bless him, Mohammed Bouyeri got sent down for quite a long time by a court in the Netherlands. In cunning legal fashion, he 'told the court he had acted out of religious conviction'.

The Beeb report goes on to say: '..clutching a copy of the Koran, he said that "the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet".'

Odd thing is, I can't find any reference to that in the Koran.
Maybe he has the new Penguin version.

His sentence carries no possibility of parole. Oh well.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Just helping out..

With Mr Ireland's campaign.Religion! Jehovah!

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Update

Been on my hols - got some stuff to catch up with, but will be with you shortly.
:-)

Had to get the Quick Gits up and posted, though.

Quick gits this morning

Quick note on a person who is registered to own the domain
www.mercy-publicity.com
who claim to be raising money for the London Bombing Victims.

Yeah, right. I'm sure they are.

Ruben Hariri
mag@openlate.co.uk
+1.5550000000
Mercy Publicity Group Inc.
1462 18th Avenue
San Francisco,CA,
UNITED STATES 94122

Incidentally, the [openlate] domain is registered to some who lives at:

92 - 102 East Street
Braintree
Essex
CM7 3JW
They claim to be called Freeola Ltd....

and here's a Streetmap link, just in case you'd like to visit them in lovely Essex.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Just so we're clear...

A very nice and efficient person at the London Development Agency just supplied me with the following information:
***
Thank you for enquiring into the London Development Agency and the Olympic Games.

The Government and the London Development Agency have both provided £10m to London
2012 to support the bid. London 2012 have also raised around £9m of private funding
from business, bringing the total to £29m.

In addition a further £10m was made available by the Government and the LDA to fund
projects that supported the bid - including developing the Master Plan for the Lower
Lea Valley if we win and sponsoring a number of sporting events around the country.
***

Watch this space....I will be gathering more info over the next couple of days.

Genius. Sheer Genius.

Chicken Yoghurt does it again!

Oh, and a belated 'Well Done' to Hilary Clinton for all her efforts helping New York secure their bid for the 2012 Olympics... sorry, what? They didn't get it?... you're joking....?

[What do I know? I honestly thought Paris was going to win]

Kansas - The Progressive Education State

Which is why we should all bow down to the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I think the oddest thing about Creationists is that they always speak in terms of destruction and death. Just seems a little odd.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Oh, and sorry...

Lots of bad language over the last few posts. Shouldn't post when I'm 'tired and emotional'.
Fuck it.

Just to continue the anti-American theme

So New York (a city, I might add, I'm extremely fond of) needs to have the Olympics because of what the date challengened Yanks call '9-11 sympathy vote'?

Don't think the IOC agree, no matter what bloody Hilary Clinton spins herself into a daze saying to support their clueless bid.

We'll see at lunchtime on Wednesday.
When Paris wins.
[snigger]

Freedom of speech? Not if you want to keep your job, matey..

What a bunch of morons. So, by the fact that the BBC had sought you out to hear your opinions of copyright-related issues, you get fired for speaking your mind to the nation's leading public broadcast news service.
How very enlightned of Aldcliffe Computer Systems. Tossers.

Whatever you do, don't use these contact details to tell them what wankers they are:

Anne Salmon
Aldcliffe Computer Systems Ltd
St Leonard's House
St Leonardgate
Lancaster LA1 1NN
01524 384043

or

directors@aldcliffe.com

Monday, July 04, 2005

What a complete WANKER!

This man is such a tosser

Friday, July 01, 2005

And we all voted for this, right?

Typical bloody Yanks. My way or the highway.

Did anyone actually do the math of [high buildings + madmen in aircraft] = a subtle message from without your borders?.

Go figure.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Always nice to see a friendly American face

Not that this is one of them.

Worth noting is the interesting use of graphic design on the 'Meetup' icon halfway down the left hand nav.

Sheer class!

Friday, May 20, 2005

On a darker note

This campaign seems to be building up some momentum.

Orange, are you listening?

Sunday, May 01, 2005

It's that ol' devil - Jack Straw again...

OK, last one before the World This Weekend...
Our old friend Jack Straw was in uber-obfuscation mode last Monday on the Today programme (BBC Radio 4, 08.11 hrs, April 25th).
Apologies for this having taken so long to get online, but it's been quite a busy week, as you've probably noticed.

I've broken the interview audio file into four MP3 files (most players will happily deal with these - if you're having trouble, leave a message, and I'll see if I can reformat them), so that you don't have one large download in order to listen.
The first 3 are about 4.6MB in size, the last chunk is just 584K.

First Bit
Second Bit
Third Bit
Last Bit

Now, there are a couple of challenges for you, dear listener, which take the form of a Pop Quiz:

1. How many times does he say 'with great respect' ?

2. How many times does he try to take John Humphrys off topic?

3. Do you think that the answer he gives about David Kelly and Bliar's two incongruous answers is anything short of disgraceful?

Oh, and I've included a little remixed musical version - just for my own entertainment, you understand.

Are those burning pants I smell?

Yes, I think it might well be.

Another Clueless 'New' Labour Witch



Luckily, we didn't really need a UK Car manufacturer. Not that this 'genius' could have helped.

Religious Zealot



...but what's wrong with having a Roman Catholic (...heavily connected to Opus Dei", btw) and clueless witch in charge of your childrens' education?

Friday, April 29, 2005

Ricin Crispies - direct from The Guardian's Ministry of Truth department

Since the Guardian has chosen to delete the following story from it's website, I thought it might be useful to re-post it here.

The actual question is, of course, why did they delete it in the first place?
I'm sure it wasn't government pressure. No, definately not. No way.
Anyhow - doesn't matter, cos here it is:
________________________________________________________________

Fake Terror - Ricin Ring That Never Was


Yesterday's trial collapse has exposed the deception behind attempts to link al-Qaida to a 'poison attack' on London By Duncan Campbell The Guardian - UK 4-15-5


Colin Powell does not need more humiliation over the manifold errors in his February 2003 presentation to the UN. But yesterday a London jury brought down another section of the case he made for war - that Iraq and Osama bin Laden were supporting and directing terrorist poison cells throughout Europe, including a London ricin ring.


Yesterday's verdicts on five defendants and the dropping of charges against four others make clear there was no ricin ring. Nor did the "ricin ring" make or have ricin. Not that the government shared that news with us. Until today, the public record for the past three fear-inducing years has been that ricin was found in the Wood Green flat occupied by some of yesterday's acquitted defendants. It wasn't.


The third plank of the al-Qaida-Iraq poison theory was the link between what Powell labelled the "UK poison cell" and training camps in Afghanistan. The evidence the government wanted to use to connect the defendants to Afghanistan and al-Qaida was never put to the jury. That was because last autumn a trial within a trial was secretly taking place. This was a private contest between a group of scientists from the Porton Down military research centre and myself. The issue was: where had the information on poisons and chemicals come from?


The information - five pages in Arabic, containing amateur instructions for making ricin, cyanide and botulinum, and a list of chemicals used in explosives - was at the heart of the case. The notes had been made by Kamel Bourgass, the sole convicted defendant. His co-defendants believed that he had copied the information from the internet. The prosecution claimed it had come from Afghanistan.


I was asked to look for the original source on the internet. This meant exploring Islamist websites that publish Bin Laden and his sympathisers, and plumbing the most prolific source of information on how to do harm: the writings of the American survivalist right and the gun lobby.


The experience of being an expert witness on these issues has made me feel a great deal safer on the streets of London. These were the internal documents of the supposed al-Qaida cell planning the "big one" in Britain. But the recipes were untested and unoriginal, borrowed from US sources. Moreover, ricin is not a weapon of mass destruction. It is a poison which has only ever been used for one-on-one killings and attempted killings.


If this was the measure of the destructive wrath that Bin Laden's followers were about to wreak on London, it was impotent. Yet it was the discovery of a copy of Bourgass's notes in Thetford in 2002 that inspired the wave of horror stories and government announcements and preparations for poison gas attacks.


It is true that when the team from Porton Down entered the Wood Green flat in January 2003, their field equipment registered the presence of ricin. But these were high sensitivity field detectors, for use where a false negative result could be fatal. A few days later in the lab, Dr Martin Pearce, head of the Biological Weapons Identification Group, found that there was no ricin. But when this result was passed to London, the message reportedly said the opposite.


The planned government case on links to Afghanistan was based only on papers that a freelance journalist working for the Times had scooped up after the US invasion of Kabul. Some were in Arabic, some in Russian. They were far more detailed than Bourgass's notes. Nevertheless, claimed Porton Down chemistry chief Dr Chris Timperley, they showed a "common origin and progression" in the methods, thus linking the London group of north Africans to Afghanistan and Bin Laden.


The weakness of Timperley's case was that neither he nor the intelligence services had examined any other documents that could have been the source. We were told Porton Down and its intelligence advisers had never previously heard of the "Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, containing recipes for ricin and much more". The document, written by veterans of the 1980s Afghan war, has been on the net since 1998.


All the information roads led west, not to Kabul but to California and the US midwest. The recipes for ricin now seen on the internet were invented 20 years ago by survivalist Kurt Saxon. He advertises videos and books on the internet. Before the ricin ring trial started, I phoned him in Arizona. For $110, he sent me a fistful of CDs and videos on how to make bombs, missiles, booby traps - and ricin. We handed a copy of the ricin video to the police.


When, in October, I showed that the chemical lists found in London were an exact copy of pages on an internet site in Palo Alto, California, the prosecution gave up on the Kabul and al-Qaida link claims. But it seems this information was not shared with the then home secretary, David Blunkett, who was still whipping up fear two weeks later. "Al-Qaida and the international network is seen to be, and will be demonstrated through the courts over months to come, actually on our doorstep and threatening our lives," he said on November 14.


The most ironic twist was an attempt to introduce an "al-Qaida manual" into the case. The manual - called the Manual of the Afghan Jihad - had been found on a raid in Manchester in 2000. It was given to the FBI to produce in the 2001 New York trial for the first attack on the World Trade Centre. But it wasn't an al-Qaida manual. The name was invented by the US department of justice in 2001, and the contents were rushed on to the net to aid a presentation to the Senate by the then attorney general, John Ashcroft, supporting the US Patriot Act.


To show that the Jihad manual was written in the 1980s and the period of the US-supported war against the Soviet occupation was easy. The ricin recipe it contained was a direct translation from a 1988 US book called the Poisoner's Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson.


We have all been victims of this mass deception. I do not doubt that Bourgass would have contemplated causing harm if he was competent to do so. But he was an Islamist yobbo on his own, not an Al Qaida-trained superterrorist. An Asbo might be appropriate.


________________________________________________________


Duncan Campbell is an investigative writer and a scientific expert witness on computers and telecommunications. He is author of War Plan UK and is not the Guardian journalist of the same name

Thursday, April 28, 2005

How many pages was it again, Mr Straw?

Lying Blair toady Jack 'Out of a Job' Straw make the lightning rounds of the media outlets over the last 14 hours or so, following on from the worryingly timely revelations about the Attorney General's advice about Iraq to the lying leader.
For it is Blair.

Why does he keep mentioning the amount of pages in the submissions made to Parliament?

In the interview he gave to The World Tonight (BBC Radio 4, 22.00hrs), included him saying (at my count) the figure 12 seperate times.

Blinding us with numbers, perhaps in the hope that we should be impressed by his superb memory. Surely not...

It would be a cynical man indeed who would suggest such a thing.
Ahh, so that'd be me, then.

Friday, April 22, 2005

IRAQ!

Go here. Do this.

Do it now.

That is all.


Well, what are you bastards waiting for?

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Mr Craig Murray

Here is a man who needs both your attention and support.
His name is Craig Murray, and he is doing something very valuable.

So - go take a look.

Beacuse, let's face it - you hate Jack Straw as much as any sensible person should, don't you?

Friday, March 11, 2005

Out of the west came an odious fool

That'd be Jack (Let's Bomb Iraq) Straw, the man who just can't say no. Unles the question involves illegal and unsupported incursions/invasions into other countries. But, strangely, not Zimbabwe. I'm sure his conscience doesn't bother him. He had that taken out as a three for two with his reason and his morality.
Chicken Yoghurt has the details.

Move along people, there are links to be checked out here...

Jack Straw lying with Colin Powell [and it's pronounced the normal way; normal spelling - normal pronounciation]

Jack Straw lying to Parliament

Jack Straw lying alongside his f**king lying boss.

Jack Straw lying about something else.

It's bloody endless. Unless we vote these fuckers out.
Let me put it plainly: Jack Straw is a mealy mouthed, lying, two-faced weasel who no more deserves your vote than a hedgehog deserves to be cooked after being coated in clay.

[Oh, and apologies to John Martyn for bastardising his wonderful song lyric.]

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Gerry Kelly - Bless Him

Gerry Kelly - Justice spokeman for Sinn Fein.

So, Mr Kelly, do you represent murderers?
It'd be nice if you could let us know.
Either Sinn Fein is the political wing of the IRA or they are not.
Do you support the offer of the IRA to kill the murderers of Mr McCartney or do you not?

It's time to make your bloody minds up, you murdering shits.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Sir Spam-A-Lot (second today!)

And this afternoon's winner of the Sir Spam-A-Lot award for creative shite is the owner of:
california.com

These f*ckers identify themselves as follows:

Administrative Contact :
Loebig, Larry
(LL49)
larry@GLOBAL.CALIFORNIA.COM
1624 FRANKLIN ST STE 30
OAKLAND, CA 94612-2811
US
Phone: (510) 287-8450

Technical Contact :
Putney, Bill Hostmaster
(BP155)
billp@WWPC.COM
5780 Balmoral Drive
Oakland, CA 94619
US
Phone: (510) 531-2412


Whatever you do, don't ring them up or anything.
That would be wrong.
Bad person!

Sir Spam-A-Lot (an ongoing series)

This nice man would like to offer great trading information, and at no cost!
Apart from, that is, your bandwidth used to download his crap.

Here are his Whois details:

Daniel Johnson,
whois.2004-06-23.tkcfmmzdwda5jcseghvcmyfz.nospam@1sthost.net
Unit 2, 7 Cheapside
Reading, Berkshire RG1 7AG
GB
014355 147089

Snappy email address, complete with the hilarious 'no spam' tag; What a riot!
The phone number, of course, is dud.

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Intel - A suitable case for treatment

Certain things make me smile, other things make me chuckle, some things make me laugh out loud, and some things cause me to soil my trousers, I'm laughing so much.

From yesterday's 'Register' came one such thing.

Read it and weep (with laughter).

Monday, February 28, 2005

Greedy - Us?

Well done, Music Industry executives!
Not content with abragating all responsibility for having to provide a cheap jewel case and some badly printed inside sleeve with your tawdry wares, it would seem that legal downloads are now 'too expensive'.

Genius at work, truly. Kazaas all round, methinks.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Kevin Hendryx - Reviewer Extraordinaire!

Long years ago, back in the early days of Middle Earth, BBC Radio 4 commisioned Brian Sibley to adapt a 13 hour full cast dramatisation of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. A stellar [in terms of Radio & Stage] cast was assembled, and off they went. Ian Holm starring as Frodo, John Le Mesurier as Bilbo, Robert Stevens as Aragorn, etc etc. Jane Morgan and Penny Lester headed up Production, and a masterpiece of modern radio drama was born.

Kevin Hendryx didn't like it, though. He understands the subtlety and nuance that go into the making of top-drawer drama. That would be why he listens to it in his car. I'm surprised he can hear anything over the rattle of his gun rack.
He also doesn't like the 'silly music and singing in places', and would prefer a straight narrative reading. Bless him. I had a quick check around, and found that there were quite a few songs in the text of LOTR [the book, Kevin, the book]. In fact someone has gone so far as to put them to music. Which is nice. Not quite my cup of tea, but I'm sure it's pleasant enough.

Although claiming himself to be the 'great Tolkien buff', his failing memory must has missed the numerous songs. Easily done, I suppose.

But what really puts the tin lid on it is saying that the Riders of Rohan in this excellent production sound "like Monty Python Vikings, frankly".
What The F**k?

Could anyone suggest how we stop this maniac from poisoning the bitstream of the internet further?

Pretty please?

Yeah, Kevin's Back!

Good God! Some people just aren't content with just 15 minutes of fame. It would seem the footling hobbit from Austin, TX is at it again.
I think he must have updated his Amazon profile, because there are some worrying new additions to his list of interests. Scottish bagpiping has crept in now, much to the wider world's concern, and he has been holding forth of the crap BBC kilted soap 'Monarch of The Glen'. It's always nice to hear Texans let us know that something is as charming as a day in Brigadoon.
So, that would something that only happens once every 100 years, or am I misconstruing for comic effect?

It's always nice to see reviewers on Amazon being ignored by the online shopping public. To see the phrase

3 of 22 people found the following review helpful


always makes me smile. Sick puppy that I am.

Kevin's NB on Season 2 of Star Trek TNG "The Pakleds never fail to make me laugh".
What need one add to that?

Newtonian Phisicks Part 2 - How To Argue Your Way Out Of A Wet Paper Bag

Stephen Newton, [ex-Hunt Sab for those of you who don’t know him] the Labour Party apologist and all-round master of the obfuscatory school of debate and interchange was railing against our chums over at BackingBlair.co.uk, and thought he’d made his case rather well.
Just for the record, then:

It’s not a London Underground ‘film’, the swf file is Flash content. [Err - Internet, heard of that, have we?]
BTW, you managed to describe it correctly first of all, but obviously that was before the medication kicked in.

Oh dear, oh dear, Stephen. Why doesn’t your argument remain consistent? Could it be that this erstwhile master of the
Museum of Spam
[whatever…] has taken to dealing out what he collects?

Who can say?

Newtonian Phisicks Part 1

Quick one, and one which is probably known to Hunt Saboteurs present and passim [see below] are the comments of the ex-executive of the League Against Cruel Sports.
I would hate to suggest that hunting is the right [wing] thing to do, but the comments are interesting. Especially that of Miles Cooper -

...(Mr Cooper) concludes, "That the League is responsible for briefing and guiding MPs is worrying enough, given its inability to mount well balanced argument which takes full account of the implications. More worryingly still is the prospect that this Labour Government could seriously contemplate the abolition of ‘sport’ hunting given the likely animal welfare implications and the Leagues clear long-term aim with regard to shooting."

God forbid that any organisation so worthy would stoop to underhand [or just plain inept] tactics. Stephen, any comments from you?

How long is a piece of string?

Or how big is our solar system, exactly?

Have a look here.

Protecting Idiots In Democracy

Been away for a while, ironically looking after someone else's website. Ho Hum. But the antics of Stephen Newton have really started to irritate a number of people. I, on the other hand, am just rather curious as to why [especially as an ex-Hunt Sab...] he seems unable to grasp the simple structures of the english language. But then [as an ex-Hunt Sab] perhaps he's just too stupid to read carefully. That's little harsh, I'll grant you, but probably true. The estimable Mr Newton has been popping his garters at the Backing Blair.co.uk site and the rather intriguing story they ran about a DOS attack that happened last week. He is under the odd impression that this is some vast and pervasive conspiracy that seeks to undermine the very fabric of..... etc etc etc. He even goes so far as to cite Stalinistic methods on the part of Backing Blair to further their claims of a DOS attack.
Cretin.
And of course, if it were indeed any great surprise, he's one of those luminaries who love to spout on Amazon's review boards. They're everywhere, I tell you - everywhere! Back in the real world, however, Backing Blair is a website worth your time, and I for one will be flyposting their downloadable posters everywhere I possibly can.