The dangers of Princess Juliana airport St Maarten/St Martin

A KLM 747 landing



A US Airways 757 landing



Some photos of landings



And finally an Air France Airbus getting ready to take-off

What a bloody stupid place to stand...

BBC reporting

If an Israeli soldier spat at a Palestinian child you just know that it would be front page news on the BBC "news" website. However when A Palestinian attacker wielding an axe kills an Israeli boy and wounds another in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, the coverage is restricted to a single page hidden away on the Middle East news page.

In the Israeli soldier case, the BBC would have sympathetic portrayals of the poor Palestinian boy and some bleating from Jeremy Bowen about how brutal Israeli soldiers are. But as it is only an Israeli boy that has been killed the coverage is somewhat different.

"A Palestinian attacker wielding an axe has killed an Israeli boy and wounded another in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, police say."

Is there is some doubt that one boy was killed and another wounded? Why "police say", can the reporter not confirm this or does it just make the story look like a claim rather than established fact?

"The incident took place in the Bat Ayin settlement south of Bethlehem. The attacker is reported to have escaped.

Doctors said the fatality was a 13-year-old, Shlomo Nativ, while a seven-year-old boy suffered serious wounds.

The military wing of Islamic Jihad and Imad Mughniyeh Group said they carried out the attack, Israel Radio reports."

Has the reporter not checked whether these groups have claimed responsibility or does he prefer to cast some doubt?

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the attack as a "senseless act of brutality against innocents".

Reports say it appears to be the latest of sporadic attacks by Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territory.

It is also the first such incident since the right-leaning government of Prime Minister Netanyahu took office."

So is the reporter insinuating that the attack was in response to Mr Netanyahu taking office. Is his becoming Prime Minister so vile a thought that Palestinians felt they had no choice but to kill a child?

"There are fears that the killing could heighten tensions between the Israeli cabinet and the Palestinians."

Those awful Israelis getting tense just because an Israeli child has been murdered by a Palestinian, how could they be so vile.

"Mr Netanyahu's foreign minister has declared his government will abandon the Annapolis agreement and go back to the so-called roadmap for peace."

Nice turn of phrase "so-called roadmap for peace", nice. Nice statement that it is Israel abandoning the Annapolis agreement; I presume that the BBC reporter believes that the Palestinian leaderships want nothing but peace with Israel; maybe they should read Hamas' charter and listen to what their leaders say.

"According to the roadmap, the Palestinians first have to take a number of steps on security before going on to solve the final issues involved in creating their own state, the BBC's Paul Wood in Jerusalem says."

Those horrid Israelis want the Palestinians to standby the terms of the roadmap and actually do something positive rather than send rockets and terrorists into Israel; how unfair of Israel.

"Israeli TV reported that the attacker was a local Palestinian.

A massive search by police and the army is now under way around Bat Ayin, which is inhabited by about 1,000 religious settlers. "

Odd how religious Jews are so described whereas the avowedly Islamic group Hamas is never described as religious.

"Settler leader Shaul Goldstein said security guards managed to shoot the attacker, but he escaped.

One witness, who said his name was Avinoam, described trying to wrestle the man.

"I was near the settlement offices when I saw a Palestinian with an axe running toward me," he told Israeli television.

"I managed to block his arm, we fell to the ground and struggled but he managed to run away.

"I called for help, another resident fired at him, but missed.

"When I got up, I saw a child wounded in the head. I cried to warn his mother, who ran toward him," he said."

The BBC manage to hide the direct descriptions of what happened near the end of the report, hopefully most people won't read that far. Somehow I think that an attack by an Israeli on a Palestinian would have the horrific events right at the top of the article so as to raise the levels of anger at Israel

"More than 400,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas which were captured by Israeli in the 1967 war.

All Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory are regarded as illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. "

The standard BBC rubric; no mention of what caused the 1967 war, no mention of the surrounding Islamic countries endless war on Israel, no mention of why the Palestinians are refugees (hint look at the attitude of the surrounding Arab countries to the Palestinians). It is odd how only Israel is expected to give up territory it won in a defensive war, what other country is expected to do similar?

The BBC proud to vilify Israel and Israelis and protect all Palestinians.

Lazy journalism

According to Simon Cable in The Mail

"The singer (Bono) is currently enjoying a break at the exclusive St Barts resort in Barbados with his wife of 26 years, Ali and supermodel turned photographer Helena Christensen."

Simon Cable reports that the 48 year old singer

"revealed a rather hefty set of 'man-boobs', while his rather dashing stubble has been replaced by a thick goatee beard."

Leaving aside Bono's looks which seem fine for a man of his age, it's his politics I find repulsive, I was wondering where this exclusive St Barts resort on Barbados was. Somehow I think Simon Cable may be confusing the rather British island of Barbados with the very chic French Caribbean island of St Barths/St Barts (actually St Barthelemy) some miles away to the North West.

Maybe Simon Cable could take a leaf out of the uncredited Daily Mail Reporter who managed to report on Helena Christensen who was "spotted in a tiny purple bikini as she holidayed in St Barts.

"After all that report continues "She is in the Caribbean resort with son, Mingus, nine, U2 frontman Bono, his wife Ali Hewson and their children, Elijah, nine and seven-year-old John."

You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh...

The BBC have been giving much prominence to the Catlin Arctic Survey and its endeavours. On 3 April the BBC informed us that

"A team of polar explorers has travelled to the Arctic in a bid to discover how quickly the sea-ice is melting and how long it might take for the ocean to become ice-free in summers."

So it was with some amusement that I read on today's BBC update that: " After enduring ferocious weather, it has emerged that British explorers studying the Arctic are struggling with a series of technical problems.

A portable radar device, known as Sprite, designed to make millions of measurements of the ice thickness, has been dogged by breakdowns and uncertainties.

Another instrument, SeaCat, meant to measure the temperature and salinity of the water beneath the ice-cap, has malfunctioned as well.

...

But when the expedition, the Catlin Arctic Survey, set off in late February, it encountered an unexpected wind chill as low as minus 70 degrees Celsius, and the technology failed. "

There is something rather amusing about this group of unbiased scientists individuals (I'll come back to what these people are in a moment) trying to prove global warming and encountering surprising cold in the Arctic!


Now to the members of the "Ice Team", from their own website's pen portraits we gather the following information:

"Pen Hadow

Director and Head of Surveying, Catlin Arctic Survey

Pen rose to international fame when he became the first to complete one of the last polar challenges – trekking solo without re-supply from Canada to the North Pole. This feat was thought by some to be harder than climbing Everest solo without oxygen, and some polar experts had begun to think the challenge impossible.

Pen is also the first Briton to trek without re-supply to both North and South Geographic Poles. He has been a professional polar guide for 18 years. Pen will be responsible for all surveying and observational procedures for gathering the water column, sea ice and weather data.

Pen (46) is increasingly featured in the media as a national spokesman on environmental and climate change issues, based on his knowledge of, and concern for, changes in the North Pole environment. He has featured in public speaking line-ups for environmental events alongside HRH The Prince of Wales, Al Gore, Lord Coe and Sir Jonathon Porritt. "

So the team leader is a committed environmentalist whose in-depth knowledge of the Arctic didn't prepare him for the cold of an Arctic winter; I am so impressed.

"Ann Daniels

Field Operations, Catlin Arctic Survey

Ann Daniels, on achievement alone, is one of the world’s leading women polar explorers. Ann first went to the Arctic Ocean in 1997, when she took part in the lead team of a five-group, relay-formatted expedition to the North Pole.

It was during this expedition that Ann (44) fell in love with the polar regions and the challenges of expedition life. In 2000 she co-led a five-strong, 700 mile sledge-hauling trek to the South Pole which became the first British women’s team to complete this journey. Then in 2002 Ann became one of two women, in an originally three-strong team, to reach the North Pole after a gruelling 500 mile, 80-day epic trek in atrocious conditions.

And, in 2005, Ann set off to attempt to become the first woman to trek solo to the North Pole, but despite keeping to her mileage schedule, her hitherto perfect expedition was forcibly airlifted off the ice when on Day 21, through no fault of her own, her permit was withdrawn by Russian officialdom. Pen considers her the most capable polar operator on the Arctic Ocean, hence her primary role as navigator. "

So Ann is a polar explorer and navigator with no scientific background mentioned.

"Martin Hartley

Photographer and film-maker, Catlin Arctic Survey

One of the world’s leading expedition photographers, Martin Hartley (40) has made the polar environment his own. With nineteen photographic assignments to the Arctic and the Antarctic to date, he is uniquely placed to document the fragile state of the Arctic Ocean.

Martin's sustained commitment to capture the beauty of unadulterated landscapes and remote communities has taken him to some of the most isolated and challenging locations in the world. His in-depth technical knowledge, creative vision and ability to produce results in the most difficult of conditions makes him a highly sought after expedition and adventure photographer.

Features and interviews by and about Hartley have appeared across the spectrum of international press and photographic, travel and adventure magazines, as well as all the UK's national daily newspapers. He has the rare distinction of commissions for National Geographic publications under his belt, and with three critically acclaimed exhibitions in recent years, his work is now reaching an international audience. "

So Martin is a fine photographer with expertise in remote and challenging environments. Very laudable and anyone who can take photographs of any kind in the conditions he is experiencing has my total respect.

However, that's it. Three team members with no mention of scientific background; just a photographer, a navigator and a team leader whose mind was clearly made up about global warming and the resultant destruction of the Arctic before they left Resolute Bay.


I see at Watts Up With That that the Catlin Arctic Survey's scientific approach is being attacked from another angle. Apparently:

"Something quite odd is going on at the Catlin Arctic Survey website at: http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/

It appears that they are presenting recycled data from the biotelemetry sensors on the team. "

Do read the rest of that investigation.

Photographing the Police

I have blogged many times about the way that this most vile Labour Government and its Police Force have tried (and often succeeded) in clamping down on photographers.

This article from June 2008 asks why all photographers are assumed to be terrorists or paedophiles, this article from August 2008 reported the case of a photographer arrested for taking photos of a police car ignoring a no entry sign and this piece also from August 2008 showed some video of a PCSO exceeding his powers. This piece from October 2008 asked if you needed a licence to take photos in Middlesborough, this piece from November 2008 reported the case of a 15 year old boy stooped for suspicion of being a terrorist because he was taking photos of trains and this article from January 2009 reported on several cases of photographers being badly dealt with by the police.

From January onwards I covered here, here, here and here the Government's introduction of legislation in the form of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which became law on February 16, and which

"allows for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone who takes pictures of officers ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’." The punishment for this offense is imprisonment for up to ten years and a fine."

I was reminded of all of this as the Police have come under criticism for their possible part in death of Ian Tomlinson. I wonder if the man who took the video of the incident could find himself arrested for filming policemen... Maybe at the next demonstration the Police will first arrest all the photographers before dealing with protesters and passers-by.


As I quoted Daniel1979 in February:

"When I was at school, not too many years ago we were taught that cameras were forbidden in the Soviet Union and in East Germany. This, our liberal teacher told us was because cameras can be used to document offences of the state against civilians; as such, they were considered a tool that can bring about civil unrest and encourage protest against the Communist Governments. This particular teacher, sneered at this particular law and the system in which it helped preserve."

Welcome to the DRUK (Democratic Republic of the UK) a part of the EUSSR; a land where democracy and freedom are soon to be just words...

40 years ago today

On 9 April 1969 the first UK built Concorde took its first short flight, from Filton near Bristol, to Fairford in Gloucestershire. Concorde was science fiction made fact, for the first time the non-military could fly at supersonic speeds. The Air France Concorde crash prematurely ended Concorde's flying life and the world took a technological step backwards.


To celebrate Concorde, here's some video:



Concorde Prototype Flight from 1969 over Farnborough.



The French prototype's first flight on 2 March 1969, complete with rousing music.



Concorde taking off

"Fritzl's Approval Ratings Fall Below Brown's"

Chase me, ladies, I'm in the cavalry is back with a most humorous take on the UK political scene:

"The approval ratings of Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl have fallen below Gordon Brown's according to a Daily Mirror YouGov poll published today which suggests that Brown would win a 20-seat majority at the next election if the Conservative Party were led by Fritzl.

Just over 7% of those polled said they were satisfied with the prime minister’s performance, compared to 3% for Fritzl, and 11% for burglars. Brown must hold an election by June 2010 or declare himself Lord Protector.

The imprisonment and rape of his daughter may be taking a toll on Fritzl's approval ratings, particularly among women voters, the survey found. The Prime Minister scored higher than Fritzl on law and order and family values, though voters trusted Fritzl more to manage the economy.

Brown, who repeatedly raped the British economy during a horrific 12-year ordeal, has seen his approval ratings fall below Nigerian spammers and dog arsonists, though he retains a narrow lead over the Liberal Democrats."

Bad news for Gordon Brown

The BBC's report on the National Institute of Economic and Social Research's study which says the current economic decline is "very similar" to the slowdown at the start of the 1980s and could decline for another year and take a further two years to recover will not fill Gordon Brown with cheer.

The accompanying graph which shows great similarities between the "% fall in output from peak" between 1979-1983 and 2008 onwards is what the NIESR base their timings prediction upon. This timing would lead to the bottom not being reached until just about a year from now, which is about the latest date that the next general election can take place. So Gordon Brown either goes to the Country now and gets accused of calling it before the true extent of the economy's collapse is evident, or he waits and waits for it to improve which it looks as though it won't before it is too late for him and his shoddy party.

The shame of it is that hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs and millions will feel the pain of reduced living standards because two men and their party decided to use the asset bubble to finance their programme of social engineering.

I would like to make it clear that just as this economic bust is due to the mismanagement of a Labour government, so was the 1979-1983 bust. The 1979-1983 bust being due to the appalling mismanagement of the James Callaghan/Dennis Healey government that preceded it.

The Tamil protests and the BBC coverage, as contrasted with the BBC's coverage of the Israel/Palestinian conflict and others

I listened to a lot of BBC radio news yesterday, as I zigzagged my way across London, and I was struck by the coverage of the Tamil protests in London against the Sri Lankan government. Out of practically nowhere the BBC were giving prominence to this demonstration and protesters were talking of thousands of deaths and of the Sri Lankan government allegedly bombing civilians. The BBC are today reporting that:

"The United Nations believes up to 150,000 civilians are trapped in northern Sri Lanka and the Tamils claim they are being subjected to human rights abuses.... The United Nations says more than 2,800 civilians may have been killed and 7,000 others injured in the fighting in the north-east in the last two months. The Sri Lankan government disputes these figures."

I say "practically nowhere" because if you relied upon the BBC news for your knowledge of world affairs the Sri Lankan civil war might well have passed you by. You would be very well informed of every Israeli incursion, you would have heard endless coverage of claims that the Israelis were bombing innocent civilians, you would have heard many tear-jerking reports from the "hell-hole that is Gaza", you would have heard the coverage of every claim of Israeli brutality and of course you would have heard from all the pro-Palestinian groups whose job it is to bad-mouth Israel; all of this coverage would have been lead by BBC reporters who see their role to denigrate Israel and protect the reputation of the Palestinian terrorist organisations.

In February I reported upon Baroness Deech's comments in the House of Lords:

"No one can accuse this House of not focusing on the distressing situation in Gaza. In the past 12 months, there have been 161 Questions and Statements about Israel, Gaza and the Palestinians compared with, for example, 33 on Sri Lanka and 24 on Tibet. I mention Sri Lanka in particular because noble Lords will be aware that recently there was a well attended protest in Parliament Square about the terrible attacks on the Tamils, the hospitals under siege, the killing of 70,000 people and the many more thousands who are trapped and displaced from their homes. This has attracted little opprobrium and no calls for the obliteration of Sri Lanka or talk of its brutalisation."

The BBC, so far as I can tell, did not report this speech, I wonder why?

In January I blogged about numbers and asked:

"What are these numbers?

5.4 million

400,000

65,000

3,400

1,000


Any ideas?


Well:
5.4 million is the number of people killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo since a 1998 civil war began. That war continues today despite numerous peace treaties.

400,000 is the number of people killed in the Darfur region of the Sudan since a 2003 outbreak of violence between the government-backed Janjaweed militias and the secular "rebels" of the region. Approximately 100 additional people were killed there a few of weeks ago. Fighting continues in Darfur today.

65,000 is the number of Sri Lankans killed since the late 1980s, most of which have been civilians. During the war in Gaza, the Sri Lankan government forces overran the last stronghold of the Tamil Tigers -- a group considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government -- at the expense of dozens of civilians. Approximately 50,000 government troops are currently advancing through the jungle, taking aim at the rebels.

3,400 is a conservative estimate of the number of Palestinians killed by the Jordanian government in the span of 11 days during the Black September Jordanian civil war of 1970. Palestinian estimates claimed more than 20,000 dead.

1,000 is the number of Palestinians killed as of Jan. 15 in Israel's current war of self-defense against Hamas, the vast majority of which have been terrorists.


Yet it is Israel that is condemned by the U.N., the Vatican, and the rest of the world. It is Jews that are attacked all over Europe."

And in March I mused on the BBC's coverage (or rather lack of coverage) of the war in Sri Lanka:

"Today I read an analysis article on Honest Reporting that expands upon this point, here's the set-up:

"Comparison With Conflict in Sri Lanka

It is extremely appropriate to highlight the BBC's coverage of the Middle East considering the importance that the BBC attaches to the region. During the conflict, the BBC published, on average, 4.5 articles every day dealing with the fighting. In contrast, BBC coverage of the Sri Lankan government's campaign against the Tamil Tigers group -- a conflict that resulted in an estimated 2,000 civilian deaths in January of 2009 -- produced barely one article a day.

According to human rights organizations, the conflict in Sri Lanka includes intentional attacks by both sides on civilians, attacks on hospitals (twenty attacks from December through February alone), and the use of human shields. Yet the BBC gives this conflict, estimated to have resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, less than one quarter the average daily coverage of the Gaza conflict. If the BBC is going to focus this much on Gaza, it must expect scrutiny of that coverage.""

The BBC world view is oddly biased against Israel; how many other country's leaders indiscretions become headline news on the BBC? The USA, France, Italy, maybe a few others but Israel always. The BBC seem to lose no time in highlighting any story that shows Israel in a negative light and hiding away any positive stories. Millions die in the DRC and the BBC coverage is muted, hundreds of thousands die in the Sudan and the BBC coverage is hardly wall to wall, tens of thousands die in Sri Lanka and the BBC coverage is minimal, thousands die in conflicts all over the world and nary a mention on the BBC; but when one Palestinian is shot as he drives his car at an Israeli police line the BBC cover the story with all due reverence for the Palestinian and plenty of background to show why Israel is in the wrong.

The BBC is institutionally anti-Israel and that is why they are fighting so hard to prevent the Balen report from being published.

Harriet Harman is furious and will be clamping down on this activity soon

The BBC report that:

" Chimpanzees enter into "deals" whereby they exchange meat for sex, according to researchers.

Male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts.

This is a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are.

The team describe their findings in the journal PLoS One. "

Paying for sex is dehumanising and should be illegal so I assume Harriet Harman will be calling on the government of the Ivory Coast to clamp down on this disgusting male-dominated sociological enslavement immediately.

The BBC recognise, in a small way, that people do think they are biased

Right at the bottom of the BBC's Points of View page is this:

"There are a wide variety of non BBC message boards, blogs and forums which discuss the BBC including Digital Spy, the Guardian's blogs, the Daily Telegraph's blogs and Biased BBC."

It's a sop and one that hardly anyone will see but maybe we are getting to them.

Aid to Africa

Here is a contrary point of view to the norm. Do read the whole article but here are a few extracts:

" Despite a deluge of aid between the years of 1970 and 1998, poverty on the continent skyrocketed from 11 percent of the population to 66 percent, which means over six hundred million Africans are now impoverished.....Dambisa Moyo is a unique voice in the debate over African aid. In a conversation dominated by white, male westerners—and most conspicuously by celebrities such as Bono or Bob Geldoff—Moyo is a black, African woman....Moyo earned her master’s from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Economics at Oxford. She’s worked as a consultant to the World Bank, and for the past eight years was the sub-Saharan economic expert for Goldman Sachs. It was at Goldman Sachs that Moyo began work on her book, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is A Better Way for Africa, just a few weeks ago.....

Systematic western aid, Moyo argues in Dead Aid, has essentially turned Africa into one giant welfare state. The unending stream of money has created a situation where governments aren’t accountable to their citizens: since they don’t depend on tax revenue, leaders don’t think they owe their people anything—and the people don’t expect anything from their leaders. Moreover, says Moyo, since the money flows virtually no matter what, tyrants like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (three hundred million dollars in foreign aid was sent to Mugabe in 2006 alone, says Moyo) often pilfer it and buy foreign goods, or stow it in foreign bank accounts where it does nothing to help the country. Furthermore, aid stamps out entrepreneurship. Moyo offers the example of an African mosquito net maker. When aid arrives in the form of a hundred thousand mosquito nets, the net-maker is out of business, and one hundred and sixty people (employees and dependents) are now aid-dependent. This, she says, is not a sustainable model. "

"It’s somewhat bizarre that all this evidence is out there [that aid doesn’t work], but somehow we just continue to push for more. Let’s take the capitalistic system for a second. It’s quote, unquote, not working now. We have centuries of evidence that it generates wealth and delivers jobs, and yet here we are after one bad year and we’re ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So I find it quite worrying that we can look at aid—after sixty years and one trillion dollars that haven’t worked in Africa—and we still don’t question the system...."

"There is an incentive structure for the donors, and African countries know this. They know that the World Bank can only survive if it’s spending money. So when the conditionalities are not met, the aid continues to flow anyway....The World Bank discouraged Ghana from going to the capital markets to raise money because it wanted to keep the aid flowing. We’ve seen situations where, in order to keep the system going, the World Bank has lent to countries just so they could pay off old debts. A friend of mine had a great quote: “Africa is to the development industry what Mars is to NASA.” NASA spends billions on a MARS project, but they don’t really think we’re going there. Same with aid. Billions are spent, but no one really thinks it’s going to develop Africa. It’s kind of a scam."

It's a scandal

The Sony Radio Academy Award nominations have just been published and Danny Baker is only up for one award - The Comedy Award - His nominated show is 606 and the competition are Adam and Joe, Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!, Miranda Hart's Joke Shop and The Now Show.

What no nomination for his Radio London afternoon show? This is a scandal, that is reliably the funniest chat and music show on the radio...

Also missing from the nominations are I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (the funniest radio show ever) and any recognition of media bias. How about setting up our own awards for:
1) Most biased radio programme - I nominate the Today programme
2) Most biased radio presenter - I nominate Richard Bacon
3) Most institutionally biases radio station - I nominate 5Live

Any more categories or nominations?

The "Tory cuts" narrative

Gordon Brown and the BBC are eager to spread fear about "Tory cuts" and this will be the main attack in the run up to the next general election. So it was with little surprise that I read that:

"A comprehensive spending review was due this summer. Gordon Brown has quietly told Alistair Darling to scrap it."

As the Spectator's James Forsyth writes:

"Rawnsley reports that the review is being postponed because it would reveal that the state of the public finances dictates that there will have to be huge spending cuts whoever wins the next election. If the government has to admit this, Brown’s Tory cuts attacks will lose its force.

At the moment when Labour politicians appear on TV and radio they keep asking what the Tories would cut. The media should respond by asking them what they would cut. Indeed, Darling has already said that 80 percent of the fiscal tightening will come through spending cuts. The idea that only the Tories will cut public spending is risible."

Of course the BBC will not ask such impertinent questions of their friends in the Labour party; "the narrative" is nasty "Tory cuts" by the "nasty party" as contrasted with "the saviour of the world" doing his best to save the UK economy - and nothing will divert the BBC from pushing this line.

What are they recording?

There seems to be some confusion as to whether ISPs are recording all web page accesses for possible government (and third party interrogation) or not. This confusion certainly existed at the BBC yesterday as the article devoted to this story went through quite a few changes before this sentence was added at 16:02:52:

"Please note, in an earlier version of this story we incorrectly stated that ISPs would be storing details of website visits. This is not the case. "

So what, definitively, is the case?

Another Obama misspeak that will go unreported

Barack Obama's speech at the Palaiz de la Musique et Des Congres in Strasbourg contains this little gem, as per the White House transcript when replying to a question from an Austrian journalist:

"There's a lot of -- I don't know what the term is in Austrian -- wheeling and dealing "

I wonder if Barack Obama studied geography at school? They speak Austrian in Austria... There are 60 states in the USA... I wonder how many other gaps there are in his knowledge and why the media (especially the BBC) don't report his gaffes; they sure as hell would have done if George W. Bush had made them.

North Korea

With all the publicity about the recent firing of a "rocket" by North Korea so as to either launch a satellite or test their ICBM system one fact has been ignored; as I reported last week that the TImes was reporting that:

"Missile experts from Iran are in North Korea to help Pyongyang prepare for a rocket launch, according to reports.

Amid increasing global concern over the launch, which the US and its allies consider to be illegal, Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper claimed today that a 15-strong delegation from Tehran has been in the country advising the North Koreans since the beginning of March.

The experts include senior officials from the Iranian rocket and satellite producer Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, the newspaper said.

The Iranians brought a letter from President Ahmadinejad to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il stressing the importance of co-operating on space technology, it added."

We live in ever more dangerous times and yet the Obammessiah seems to want to start the process of nuclear disarmament with the USA as he apparently accepted America's 'moral responsibility' to lead the way in disarmament because it was the only country ever to have used the atomic bomb.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action

The title of this piece is my favourite James Bond quotation, said by Goldfinger when James Bond just keeps popping up. It came to mind as I read that Morgan Tsvangirai's grandson had just drowned. His wife and now his grandson...

Are they all at it? (update)

Further to my last post I thought you might like to peruse this article from The Telegraph 07/07/07 that explains:

"Gordon Brown gave his £700,000 flat in central London to his wife Sarah weeks before he moved into 10 Downing Street, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The Prime Minister’s wife then cashed in on recent soaring property prices by taking out a special type of mortgage against the value of the flat with a private bank.

Downing Street sources said that there were no tax implications from the transaction and insisted that Mrs Brown had borrowed against the flat to give her more financial independence.

However, tax experts pointed out that the change of ownership could save the Browns thousands of pounds in income tax if Mrs Brown decided to rent out the one-bedroom flat now that the Browns live in Downing Street.

Both Mr and Mrs Brown are listed on the most recent copy of the Electoral Register as residents at the flat in Westminster. Documents filed at the Land Registry show that Mr Brown handed over the title to the flat to his wife on March 19, days before he delivered his final Budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Less than a month later, on April 17, the documents show that Mrs Brown took out a new mortgage on the flat with a branch of Lloyds TSB Private Banking Limited in Grosvenor Street, Mayfair.

Downing Street sources said that the Browns had acted legitimately, saying that Mr Brown had decided to give the flat to Mrs Brown because she did not own a property in her own name.

Mr Brown is listed in official documents as the sole owner of Drumcarling, his large family house in North Queensferry, Fife, which he bought for £210,000 in September 1990.

He received a 37 per cent pay rise to £187,311 when he became Prime Minister.

However, unlike Cherie Blair, who was a successful barrister when Tony Blair arrived at No 10, Mrs Brown, 43, has no regular income.

This means she was facing potential cash-flow problems because she was not able to obtain a bank overdraft without an income. Using the flat as collateral would mean she could borrow more.

The insider said: “She has got some money in the bank. But she does not have a steady income which would allow her to take out more than she has in the bank. All she is doing is using the value of the property as collateral in case she needs to borrow against it.”

Tax experts said Mrs Brown was likely to have used an equity release scheme to free some of the flat’s value. Such deals are used by pensioners to fund their retirement.

A Lloyds TSB Private Banking spokesman said these deals were negotiated with a private banker who would weigh up the applicants’ means and chances of repaying.

Such arrangements are not offered by normal high street banks.

A Halifax spokesman said: “Lending decisions are usually based on the applicant’s income.”

...

Tax experts said that if the Browns rented the property for £2,500 a month, bringing them £30,000 a year, the transfer of ownership could save them up to £7,000 a year in income tax.

This is because Mrs Brown would have a £5,225 income tax allowance, as well as paying at the lower 10 per cent and 22 per cent rates.

If Mr Brown still owned the flat he would be taxed at 40 per cent of £30,000 — £12,000.

Downing Street sources said there were no plans to rent the property or sell it in the next year. It would be made available for family and friends.

“She will not rent it out,” said an insider.

If the Browns do decide to find tenants, the change of ownership means that Mr Brown will not have to declare his wife’s rental income on the Register of Members’ Interests at the Commons because MPs’ spouses are exempt.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Sarah Brown’s financial arrangements are private and anything that would need to be declared would be declared.” "

It is interesting that Gordon Brown appears to have looked after his and his wife's financial affairs somewhat better than he has the financial affairs of the United Kingdom.

Are they all at it?

Tony McNulty, Jacqui Smith, Geoff Hoon, Alistair Darling and now Margaret Beckett are all at it and it looks as though we can add Gordon Brown to the list.

I presume that this is what Tony Blair meant when he said that his Government must be "purer than pure".

What really happened at the G20?

The BBC are still parroting the Gordon Brown/Peter Mandelson line that

"leaders of the world's largest economies reached a deal to tackle the global financial crisis with measures worth $1.1 trillion "

. I blogged that this was not true and explained why. Now I accept that the BBC don't read every word I write but maybe they should keep an eye on the Tax Payers Alliance website, if they did then they would read that:

" * In terms of Cold Hard Cash, the actual new money pledged to the IMF amounts to $240bn, less than one-quarter of the $1.1 trillion in the G20 headline. That $240bn is coming from just three lenders - China ($40bn), Japan ($100bn), and the EU ($100bn). None is coming from the US, and the $100bn from Japan has already been announced once, in February. So real new money amounts to just $140bn, or less than 0.2% of world GDP (pre-Crash).

* Another $250bn for the IMF is supposedly coming from lenders yet to be identified - in reality it will probably have to be raised on the global capital markets.

* The IMF's final $250bn is coming in the form of additional Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). They are the ultimate funny money, basically comprising a committed credit line on which interest is charged. Moreover, the new SDRs will be allocated in proportion to so-called IMF quotas, which means that most will go to the richest countries. And guess what - the richest countries are the ones that won't actually need to draw on them.

* The $100bn of extra lending by the MDBs (multilateral development banks, like the World Bank) will be raised on the international capital markets, not directly from G20 members.

* The $250bn extra trade finance sounds like classic vapourdosh. First, how's it going to divvied up? Second, how's it going to be measured against existing plans? And third, who's going to do the monitoring and enforcement?

Overall, it seems that $1.1 trillion headline may be a teensy bit of an exaggeration. It certainly isn't the coordinated global jump-start promised by Gordo."

Maybe the BBC haven't got around to reading any opposing views to the G20 "stimulus" or maybe they are trying really hard to keep the facts from the UK population. After all there is the small matter of the upcoming local and EU elections and Labour seats to protect.

Sheer Labour government genius

This Labour government's passion for regulation, control and form-filling seems to have no end. In addition to the new internet access recording the Labour government have decided that when the property market is collapsing they should add some more bureaucracy to it. From today the Home Information Pack (HIP) gets more onerous, thanks to Grant Shapps, the shadow Hosuing Minister we know that the new rules mean:

"* New delays if you sell your home. The Government has cancelled the 'first day marketing' provision that allowed sellers to market their home if a HIP has been ordered but not yet been completed.
* New untrustworthy Property Information Questionnaires. All Packs must have a new questionnaire completed by the seller - but the buyer cannot be sure the answers are accurate on issues like past dry rot or damp, insurance claims and the history of flooding.
* Sellers sued for honest mistakes by the buyer: Disputes about the content of Property Information Questionnaires will end up in the courts, making buying and selling even more of a legal minefield.
* Heavy-handed town hall fines: Town halls have been instructed to "identify specific cases of non-compliance and enforce the requirements" - and start fining homeowners £200 a time if they do not follow the new rules."

This Labour government just "doesn't get it" and will regulate the Country into inactivity if it is not stopped and stopped soon.

Database Britain

This Labour government do seem to have a grasp of literary history, the introduction of their latest surveillance database comes on the 6th of April 2009. The novel 1984, which this Labour government seems to have taken as an instruction manual rather than a warning, starts on 4 April 1984: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen".


The end of the era of internet freedom came this morning as the EU and this Labour government's plan to monitor their citizens' every move takes another step closer to completion. From this morning all internet activity by every internet connection must be stored for one year by the ISP, this includes email traffic, visits to web sites and telephone calls made over the internet. Of course this information will be accessible by police and the security services so as to combat crime and terrorism. Of course in reality the information will be accessed by many public bodies and quangos, including local councils, who will thus be able investigate any number of minor misdemeanours or just look for evidence to embarrass difficult or undesirable persons.

The UK's Labour government who seem to have an insatiable desire to monitor and control every aspect of their citizens' lives was the prime mover for this EU-wide system of recording and it is to the UK's Home Office that we must turn for the justifications:

"It is the Government's priority to protect public safety and national security. That is why we are completing the implementation of this directive, which will bring the UK in line with our European counterparts."

"Without communications data, resolving crimes such as the Rhys Jones murder would be very difficult if not impossible."

And then the excuse that has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese:

"Access to communications data is governed by Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act which ensures that effective safeguards are in place and that the data can only be accessed when it is necessary and proportionate to do so," he said. "

We all know how well the RIPA safeguards have worked to date, just look through the cases that I and other bloggers have reported and see councils using the Act to fight littering and to check whether parents are abusing school catchment area rules. Now councils and the government will have access to almost unthinkable levels of personal data without any real safeguards.


This database is not an isolated example of Labour implemented state surveillance, here's a few examples that I could think of, please feel free to add your own in the comments:
1. DNA Database - 3 million entries so far of anyone who is arrested, even if never charged let alone found guilty. The data stays on the database forever as it is virtually impossible to have it removed.

2. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems record the movements of millions of vehicles every day and are in the process of being linked to a central database to record every movement you make in your vehicle.

3. Oyster Cards - If you register your Oyster Card, currently still optional, then every journey you take is recorded and stored.

4. Spy in the sky - The introduction of black box type equipment in every car is set for 2013, so every vehicle journey would be monitored foot by foot for speed limit infractions or in the future unauthorised journeys by carbon criminals

5. Every journey outside of the UK now has to be logged in advance along with personal data. How long before this is used to restrict foreign travel by "carbon criminals" or persons suspected of taking currency out of the Peoples State of the EU?

6. ID cards - "papers please"

7. NHS database - It is rumoured that MI5 already have access to the patients records stored on this database; who else might have access soon?

8. Galileo European tracking - the EU's rival to GPS is an unnecessary and expensive system unless the rumours that the Galileo chip will be placed in every new mobile are true. In which case if you own a mobile telephone your every movement will be tracked and recorded, and if you don't own a mobile telephone that will look suspicious.


Welcome to the sort of State surveillance that the Stasi could only have dreamt of. From today the State and its subsidiary vectors of control can monitor every web site you visit, every telephone call you make over the internet and every email you send or receive.

What of the future? I blogged some time ago about the state information televisions in public places ahead of the 2012 Olympics that are likely to become permanent fixtures. How long before CCTV cameras are plentiful enough that they are monitoring every street, to fight crime and terrorism, one every 100 metres... 50 metres... one per house...

Unconvincing arguement of the day

The Mail report that:

"A Government-funded charity was at the centre of a row last night after a magazine it publishes for children appeared to depict Christians as Islamaphobes who regard Muslims as terrorists.

In a cartoon strip, a boy wearing a large cross around his neck is shown telling a friend that a smiling Muslim girl in a veil looks like a terrorist.

He later confronts her and shouts: ‘Hey, whatever your name is, what are you hiding under your turban?’"

Do take a look at the picture and read the whole story and decide for yourself but do also not the comments made by the Who Cares? Trust chief executive Natasha Finlayson. She said that

"she had no intention of withdrawing it, describing the cross as ‘bling’ rather than a religious symbol.

She said the charity had received a complaint but did not agree the cartoon was derogatory towards Christians.

‘I am a Christian myself, so when a woman called us, I went back and looked at the comic strip from her point of view,’ Ms Finlayson said.

‘I am sorry that she is upset but I don’t share her view. When I saw the cartoon, I didn’t think of that character being a Christian because I saw the cross as ‘bling’, as jewellery.

‘To me it is a cartoon about bullying rather than discrimination or religion.’"

For some odd reason I don't find that argument particularly convincing...

This cannot be right; Geoff Hoon's housing arrangements

The Mail reveal that:

"The Cabinet Minister who sent Britain's Armed Forces into the Iraq war claimed expenses on his constituency house and rented out his London home - while living throughout the conflict in a palatial grace-and-favour apartment in Whitehall.

Former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, now Transport Secretary in Gordon Brown's Government, lived rent-free for three-and-a-half years in Admiralty House, London, once occupied by Winston Churchill.

He used the opportunity to earn money from the London house he had declared to the Commons authorities as his 'main home' by renting it to a private tenant via a commercial lettings agency.

At the same time he claimed more than £70,000 in a 'second-home allowance' on his home in Derby, close to his constituency of Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.

In effect, it meant that during the war, and for three years afterwards, Mr Hoon had one home absolutely free, a second one covered by Commons expenses, and a third one which had initially been funded by expenses, paid for by rent.

And when he gave up his grace-and-favour apartment, he bought a new £635,000 London home and changed his 'main home' declaration which meant he could use his second-home allowance to help pay for it - and provide a home for his adult son."

The Hoon of course has an excuse:

"Mr Hoon insists he has done absolutely nothing wrong and maintains everything was approved by the Commons authorities."

But if he cannot see that what he has done is wrong then he is even more amoral than others in this most vile government. The "Tory sleaze" of the 1990s was individual and often over-played by a Labour leaning media (lead of course by the BBC), this Labour sleaze is worse, far worse and of course played down by that same media cabal.

The thirty-sixth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award goes to the second worst Chancellor of the Exchequer of recent years, Alistair Darling. The Times reports that

"THE chancellor, Alistair Darling, has admitted that he and his Treasury officials got it wrong over the length and severity of the recession and that he will be forced to tear up his economic predictions.

He will slash his growth forecast in the budget and warn that there will be no economic recovery until the end of the year, dashing hopes that last week’s G20 summit will be followed by an early upturn. “It’s worse than we thought,” Darling said this weekend. "

Worse than we thought? "No shit, Sherlock"

In case you were wondering, the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer of recent years award would have to go to Gordon "nose picking liar" Brown.

"they pretended they had won. So they invented the $5trillion figure"

Peter Oborne explains that Gordon Brown is guilty of telling more Brownies, this time alongside Barack Obama:

"Although Gordon Brown and President Obama had originally hoped to get world leaders to agree to such a 'fiscal stimulus', they actually failed to secure a single penny of extra government spending anywhere in the world.

Rather than admit defeat, however, they pretended they had won. So they invented the $5trillion figure. They arrived at the number by adding up the extra government borrowing expected to take place in

G20 economies between 2008 (when the recession began) and 2010 (when world leaders hope it will end). It is a completely arbitrary figure.

The next fabrication concerns the claim that G20 leaders agreed a 'programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy' - worth some $1.1trillion. It was this headline-grabbing figure which caught everyone's imagination - yet sadly, it too is mainly a bogus number because much of the money had already been pledged in recent months.

Almost half of that $1.1trillion - some $500billion - takes the form of extra money for the International Monetary Fund to bail out countries that run into trouble during the economic downturn.

Although Gordon Brown brazenly asserted that this was new money, this is simply not true. Japan, for example, gave $100billion to the IMF last November, while the EU offered the same sum earlier this year.

...

Next, Gordon Brown claimed that some $250billion has been raised to regenerate world trade with the help of extra finance. Once again, his claim is an invention.

Indeed, the small print of the G20 communique suggests only $3-4billion of new money has been committed, and the $250billion figure is only a vague pledge.

I fear that the more we look beneath the headlines of the London summit, the more its achievements look threadbare. I would estimate that no more than $250billion of the much vaunted $1.1trillion is genuinely new money.

The true story is that Gordon Brown seems to have corralled fellow leaders into perpetrating a gigantic collective fraud on world public opinion."

I am beginning to wonder if the UK and the USA are so dominated by a left-wing media that their government leaders can do what they want, when they want and lie as much as they like without any repercussions. Are we that far along the road to totalitarian government?

Snouts in the trough update

Guido has the latest round-up, and there's a lot to keep up to date with.

Gordon Brown - orator or fool

Matthew Parris has an excellent column on Gordon Brown's recent speech to the EU:

"I've just read one of the worst speeches by a British prime minister it's been my misfortune to encounter in 40 years following politics. Wilson had folksy evasiveness; Heath, wooden principle; Thatcher, tin-eared persistence; Blair, slimy charm. In every case you could tell why they'd got the job, even when you hated what they were doing with it.

But this? This hole in the air encased in a suit of clunking verbal armour? This truck-load of clichéd grandiloquence in hopeless pursuit of anything that might count as the faintest apology for an idea? Words fail me.

They certainly failed Gordon Brown, addressing the European Parliament this week. No wonder everybody's now watching the MEP Daniel Hannan's riposte, uploaded on to YouTube - for the sheer, blessed relief of finding anyone still standing as the grey ash came bucketing down.

Where shall I begin? Shall I bother? Is he worth it?

...

Enough. There's something wrong in our politics, something big and bang-in-the-middle: a howling question that is not about the global economy at all. It's about domestic leadership. It's about Mr Brown. He isn't any good. He's failing. He's embarrassing. He's dreadful. His colleagues know this. Yet they are gripped with a terrible fatalism, sliding towards election defeat as though catastrophe were unavoidable."

Do read the rest, the usual masterful stuff from Matthew Parris.

"police interpreted soundproofing equipment and wiring from his musical studio as a potential sign of illicit activity"

Read the whole story of Victor Frederick, 63, who was arrested and strip-searched just yards from his home, only moments after his partner Andrea Heath and their daughter had infra-red gun sights trained at them and were told they would be shot if they moved. Yes it's another police raid on an innocent man, whilst those who regularly incite terrorism and defile the minds of their communities' youth.

One world government?

Maybe those conspiracy theorists were right all along. The G20 meeting seems to have set in place a process of global quantitative easing and a single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué puts it is writing:

"We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,"

SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that have not been used for around half a century.

So have the G20 leaders actually activated the IMF's power to create money and begin global quantitative easing? If they have are they creating a de facto world currency? If so, who controls this currency?

Maybe Gordon Brown's prattling about a New World Order is more than just empty rhetoric, maybe we are all about to be made subjects of a World Government with (heaven forbid) Gordon Brown as its Finance Overlord.

If this could come true then maybe David Icke was right all along...

When is a trillion not a trillion?

The answer is; when it is a Gordon Brown announced trillion. The FT report that:

"When all the sums are added together, rather than $1,100bn, the new commitments appear to be below $100bn and most of those were in train without the G20 summit."

Incredible, a Gordon Brown announcement that includes reannouncements of old money and aspirations rather than concrete promises - it's like his budgets all over again.

Of course the BBC are more than happy to parrot the Gordon Brown line without any critical analysis, that is reserved for Conservative policies.

"Are you worried yet?"

In November I asked if you were worried yet about the UK having to go to the IMF for money. Today I read that an unnamed "senior Cabinet minister" has told the Daily Telegraph that Britain should not be afraid or ashamed of taking money from the International Monetary Fund (no quotes). Apparently this unnamed "senior Cabinet Minister" is also reported as saying

"that the new fund would not be like the 1970s version and should not be seen as such. He said there would be nothing wrong if America or Britain used the facility.

He said: "Previously a country would only go if they were in a very bad state. It was a bit like going to accident and emergency to get urgent help.

"This new facility will not be like that. It is a bit more like getting wellbeing care or even like going to a spa to recuperate."

A "spa", a f***ing spa; do these people have no shame, no sense of reality, no sense? This Labour government have brought the UK close to bankruptcy and the spinmeisters try and make any call for assistance seem like a short break at Champneys.

It does seem that we are governed by the most dishonest bunch of shysters that have ever governed this country. I am absolutely fed-up with the lies, the deceit, the spin; the way that they would claim that black was white if they felt it would help their cause.

The time has come for the honest, hard-working, tax-paying, majority in this Country to say "NO, NO MORE, WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH! In the words of Oliver Cromwell -

"You have sat for too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

I think the Daily Mash have Gordon Brown's number

The Daily Mash have Gordon Brown and the rest of the G20 leaders bang to rights:

"THE G20 summit made you giggle like a schoolgirl last night after producing a shiny $1 trillion coin from behind your right ear.

At the close of an historic meeting in London, Gordon Brown delighted his fellow world leaders by crouching down asking you if you had any money.

When you frowned and shook your head, the prime minister moved his hand up to your right ear where he produced a big, golden coin before adding: "Really? Well, what do we have here?"

Mr Brown then gave you the coin, patted you on the head and urged you to spend it all on sweets.

But as global markets applauded the miracle of the golden coin, experts urged caution, stressing Mr Brown's playful generosity is what is known in the real world as an 'illuuuusion'.

Tom Logan, of the Institute for Studies, said: "It allows you to carry on spending money on sweets while convincing yourself that you will not, at some point, have to start paying it back. Forever. And ever. And ever.

"I'll be honest with you, we're now in so much debt that if you can summon up the courage to look at your share of it you will scream, faint and shit your pants all at the same time.

"Not only that but the coin does actually belong to some Chinese and Saudi Arabian gentlemen and if they don't get it back they will make you dance naked on a table and turn your house into a bathroom for their racehorses."

He added: "What the coin basically means is that your retirement will last the eight seconds it takes for you to collapse at your work station, fall to the floor and die and up until that point you'll be taxed every time you use the letter 'A'.

"Enjoy your sweets."

Monitoring us every turn of the wheel

I saw this Daily Mail article and had to take a couple of days before commenting. The report claims that:

"Drivers face having their every move tracked by a 'spy in the car' black box.

The system will constantly check a vehicle's speed - making cameras redundant - and allow for pay-as-you-go tolls.

The £36million EU project is partly funded by the UK Government and backed by car makers and the telecoms industry.

It will be unveiled later this year with a view to its integration into future cars. Manufacturers suggest this could be as early as 2013.

Vehicles fitted with the system will emit a constant 'heartbeat' pulse revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. "

Yes they want every car in the EU to be tracked 24/7 so enabling the EU (for by 2013 the EU will be the de facto government of Europe) to charge per kilometre driven and to fine anyone who drives 1kmph over the speed limit or maybe who exceeds their Carbon allowance by driving too far in any particular week.

Of course the EU have their justifications ready and they are the justifications used every time another liberty or freedom is taken from us:

"EU officials believe the technology will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. "

The totalitarians just don't get it do they? And we don't believe them when they make claims like this:

"The Department for Transport said there were no plans to make the system mandatory in new cars. Its introduction will be on a voluntary basis, according to Paul Kompfner, manager of the Cooperative-Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems project.

The next line is even more sinister;

"He added: 'A traffic controller will know where all vehicles are and even where they are headed. "

How will they know where they are headed? Will we have to apply for permission before starting any journey? Will we need to apply 24 hours in advance and give personal details and reasons for each journey. Is this to be an extension to the recently announced and soon to be implemented foreign travel database?


We need to get rid of this fascistic Labour government, leave the EU and start a return to decent liberal values in the UK but I fear it may be too late.

Even a dead cat bounces (update)

On Thursday I reported that the Nationwide had said that property prices increased by 0.9% compared with the previous month in March and said that even dead cats bounce. Yesterday I read that: "UK house prices fell by 1.9% in March compared with the previous month, according to the Halifax.".

So now we know that only a proportion of dead cats bounce.

Joe Biden

Steven Crowder with more on Joe Biden's gaffes than the MSM have managed so far, I wonder why...


Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.

Is the UK a Police State?

Read what Deputy Assistant Commissioner David Gilbertson (retd) says:

"From: David Gilbertson
Sent: 04 March 2009 14:02
Subject: Excessive Powers of Arrest by Police - Petition to the Prime Minister

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

PLEASE READ ON, THIS IS NOT A 'SPAM' MESSAGE

Most people are unaware that in 2005 a fundamental change in police powers was quietly passed into law; a change that directly affects the life and liberty of you and every person in this country.

Section 110 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 was 'tacked onto' an otherwise acceptable piece of legislation and allows ANY police officer in England and Wales to arrest, (i.e. physically detain, handcuff and take to a police station for a DNA sample), ANY person, for ANY offence, no matter how trivial and whether or not a power of arrest previously existed for that offence. People can now be, (and have been), arrested and detained under Section 110 for not wearing a seatbelt; dropping litter; shouting in the presence of a police officer, climbing a tree, and building a snowman. Whereas police officers used to have to justify every arrest and be aware of whether or not a particular piece of legislation gave them power, they no longer have to do so. The power to deprive someone of their liberty should only be exercised in the most extreme circumstances, yet young and inexperienced police officers, (and soon, PCSO's), are being trained that arrest and detention of a suspect is the first option in most encounters with the public. This sweeping power is being roundly abused on a daily basis in all of the 43 police forces in this country and puts you, your wife, husband or partner, your children and your friends at risk of arbitrary action by the police.

I spent 35 years of my adult life in the Police Service and am appalled by what it has become, largely as a result of powers such as those granted under Section 110.

Petitioning the Prime Minister will probably do little to stop the drift of this country to what has been described as a 'Stasi State' but I would nonetheless ask that you consider placing your signature on the petition - if only to see how the government responds to genuine concern from thoughtful citizens.

If you are sympathetic to this project, please forward this message and link to other friends, colleagues or bodies concerned about civil liberties.

The link to the petition is below:


http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PowersofArrest/

Thank you,

David Gilbertson QPM
(formerly Assistant Inspector of Constabulary
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary,
Home Office (retired 2001)) "

The great orator strikes again

I have given many examples that put the lie to the claim that Barack Obama is a great orator. He can give a great speech if he can read it from his teleprompt screens but his off the cuff comments and answers to questions are often barely better than gibberish. John Crace picks up on this, here's an extract but do read the whole piece:

""I, I, would say that, er ... pause [I HAVEN'T A CLUE] ... if you look at ... pause [WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] ... the, the sources of this crisis ... pause [JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] ... the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] ... a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system ... pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF SHIT BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that ... pause [I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] ... here in Great Britain ... pause [SHIT, GORDY'S THE HOST, DON'T LAND HIM IN IT] ... here in continental Europe ... pause [DAMN IT, BLAME EVERYONE.] ... around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er ... pause [I'VE LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT AGAIN] ... the highly integrated, er, global capital markets that have emerged ... pause [I'M REALLY WINGING IT NOW]. So at this point, I'm less interested in ... pause [YOU] ... identifying blame than fixing the problem. I think we've taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so, not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring banks are adequately capitalised, er, dealing with the enormous, er ... pause [WHY DIDN'T I QUIT WHILE I WAS AHEAD?] ..."

I assume that the BBC did not cover this question and answer even though the question came from their number 2 toady Nick Robinson.

Barack Obama is not as clever as he is made out to be, not as good a speaker as he is made out to be and is considerably more dangerous than most people could believe he might be.



UPDATE:
This appears to be part of the video of the above Barack Obama answer or at least the result of another Obamamessiah teleprompt failure.

It's cuddly Ken Livingstone

The former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has found himself a new job - guest hosting, in George Galloway's absence, on Iran’s Press TV. His presenting skills are worse than I thought they would be but his views on Israel are as clear as ever. A suitable replacement for George Galloway indeed.

Financial Terrorism?

Sean Brodrick thinks so and explains why in a piece for Money and Markets; take a read and get worried.

Even a dead cat bounces

The news that:

"House prices rose in March for the first time since October 2007, according to the Nationwide.

The building society said that property prices increased by 0.9% compared with the previous month. "

is surprising but then even a dead cat bounces and the UK housing market sure looks like a dead cat to me; it is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker!

It's a stiff! Bereft of life, It rests in peace! ...

It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibule!!

Gold

The G20 communique includes this "use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales". What agreed IMF gold sales? The gold price has, unsurprisingly, tanked; it is down 2.9% so far today.

So gold looks to have taken a downward turn, I see this as a temporary blip in the rising trend for gold prices. High worldwide inflation must surely mean gold increasing in value; no?

Talk of gold leads me to remind you that it was of course Gordon Brown who ordered the Bank of England to sell half the UK's national reserves after first pre-announcing the sale so as to depress the market price. I believe that the price of gold rose around 17% after that sale.

"72 per cent say they are seriously worried by the national debt"

The Spectator reports that:

"For the last 15 years, a four-letter word has terrified and paralysed the Conservative leadership: cuts. When it has been deployed by Gordon Brown on the electoral battlefield, the Tories have had no defence. Even after they surrendered and signed up to Labour’s spending plans, Mr Brown still accused them of planning ‘deep and painful cuts’. It is, as it happens, a charge entirely without foundation. Even now, the only people openly saying that state spending is too high are a bunch of supposed oddballs: Norman Tebbit, John Redwood — and 72 per cent of the British public."

Read the whole of the article by Fraser Nelson but be aware that Gordon Brown is watching, noting and plotting his next attack on Tory Cuts - this line of attack is his best chance of winning the next election and he will play it hard and he will play it often. It is a line that will be trotted out by Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Peter Mandelson etc. etc. etc. in every interview, in every speech and in every advertisement from now until the elction. It is a line that will be enthusiastically repeated and amplified by the BBC and it is a line that may well win enough waverers back to the Labour party.

Men bad, women good - pushing the feminist agenda

The BBC love to push the "men are bad, women are good" meme and here they go again. Apparently:

" Sisters spread happiness while brothers breed distress, experts believe.

Researchers quizzed 571 people aged 17 to 25 about their lives and found those who grew up with sisters were more likely to be happy and balanced. "

Speaking for myself; I have no sister but do have one brother, he is a total and utter c**t and I wouldn't even waste the urine or the time to piss on him if he was on fire.

Hmm maybe there is something in that research after all...

More brainwashing Obama style (update)

Further to my earlier post about the brainwashing of children by Obama supporters, something that I have mentioned before, I found this report that pushes the point even harder. Whilst it could be argued by some that the video I refer to above is not the direct result of Barack Obama's team, this is...

The US House of Representatives has just passed the “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education” (GIVE) bill and here are some of its provisions:

"SEC. 1304. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows:

SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:

(1) Attempting to influence legislation.

(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.
…

(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization."

So this bill would forbid any student in the brigade from participating in "engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization." That means no church attendance or witnessing.

It is claimed that "Obama’s plan is require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months as part of the brigade. His goal is one million youth!"


There are some very scary things happening under the new Barack Obama's regime and they are happening very quickly. I am surprised that more fuss is not being made, surely the media are not that supine - oops sorry, of course they are...

Why bother being honest or helpful?

The Mail report:

"A college student who found a mobile phone while out celebrating his 18th birthday was arrested after handing it in to police.

Teenager Paul Leicester was arrested for 'theft by finding' and detained for four hours."

Do read the whole story and pay attention to the reporting of the Police's reaction:

"A police spokesman explained the complaint of theft was subsequently withdrawn and Paul was released without charge.

Sefton Area Commander, Chief Supt Ian Pilling, said: 'Merseyside Police has contacted Mr Leicester in relation to the incident and he does not wish to make a complaint against the police. As a matter of course we are reviewing the circumstances of the arrest.'"

And the police wonder why they have lost the respect of the law-abiding majority in this country. Why bother being honest and helpful when the police's knee-jerk reaction is to suspect you and get your details on the DNA database.


A query - What is 'theft by finding'?

PMQs 1 April 2009 - Another Brownie?

Per Hansard here is a question and answer:

"Mr. Garnier: The Prime Minister and his noble Friend Lord Myners have now had 24 hours to consider whether they can confirm what Lord Myners said to the Treasury Committee about Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension arrangements. Does the Prime Minister understand that his Ministers are now held in public ridicule and contempt, and is it not time that at least one of them resigned?

The Prime Minister: I see that the hon. and learned Gentleman has risen to the occasion today. Lord Myners has made it very clear that he was told of something that he was led to believe was a contractual obligation but was a discretionary matter. That is the issue that UK Financial Investments Ltd is taking up with the Royal Bank of Scotland; that is the basis on which we are considering legal action; and that is the basis on which UKFI will use its votes in the annual general meeting to promote legal action."

I'll repeat the key part of Gordon Brown's answer "Lord Myners has made it very clear that he was told of something that he was led to believe was a contractual obligation but was a discretionary matter." I have added "in fact" where I presume Gordon Brown would have put it were he not all but incapable


The FT's report from 26 February

quotes Lord Myners as saying "As I have already made clear, it was only last week that the Government became aware that the decision of the previous Board of RBS may have been a discretionary choice."

Meanwhile The Guardian amongst others has reported that Sir Tom McKillop, the former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, has issued a point-by-point rebuttal of his account of Sir Fred Goodwin's £703,000 annual pension including this statement

"Yesterday McKillop insisted that the bank felt "contractually bound" to pay the pension to Goodwin. "There was no question of any discretion to be exercised in relation to Sir Fred's pension and no discretion was exercised in this regard by any RBS director," McKillop said.

He insisted that at no point did Myners or any other government representative try to alter "any of the contractual terms relating to Sir Fred's pensions". He said Myners had been told the pension would be "enormous" and that Bob Scott, who ran the bank's remuneration committee, had told the minister on 12 October that the pot would be £15m-£20m."

I wonder where the truth lies...

Purple prose

"his eyes were narrow with creamy pleasure and he pushed forth his chin, stretching his lower neck. "

Not Mills and Boon but Quentin Letts in the Mail, you may want to read it all to see who is being described thus, and why...

No other point of view allowed

Do not ever confuse the BBC for an impartial news reporting organisation; every news story must be filtered through their filter of prejudices. Here is an example: Miss Universe, the Venezuelan beauty queen Dayana Mendoza, visited the US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay and put her thoughts on her website. Since she was there to visist the troops she was quite positive about the experience:

""We hung out with the guys from the East Coast and they showed us the boat inside and out, how they work and what they do, we took a ride around the land and it was a loooot of fun!

"We also met the Military dogs, and they did a very nice demonstration of their skills. All the guys from the Army were amazing with us.

"We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how they recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting."

She goes on to extol the virtues of the water around the bay - "soooo beautiful!" - and ends her entry: "I didn't want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful." "

To the BBC, Guantanamo Bay is evil, a symbol of all that is wrong with the USA and "the West" and a cause of Islamic terrorism, so the report is aggressive and mocking - is it normal BBC practice to draw out the vowel sounds in written reporting like this: "a loooot of fun!" and "soooo beautiful!"?

Something the BBC still won't cover - Tea Parties

The US Tea Party movement is increasing in size, you can read about their plans for the 15th April at sites such as this one. The BBC are not even mentioning this grass-root movement on their Americas news page.

Oddly I seem to remember weeks of coverage before the Million Man march some years ago and for any number of US "rights" marches; I wonder why the difference...

Ridiculous claim of the day

Some eco-protester interviewed on either 5Live or Radio London this afternoon was allowed to state that Climate Change was killing 150,000 people a year. Of course the presenter did not comment or challenge, after all why should anyone from the BBC challenge an eco-mentalist - what they say is the unvarnished truth .

Peter Lilley wants an answer from Ed Miliband - somehow I doubt he'll get a meaningful one

"Dear Secretary of State

You recently slipped out, without notifying Parliament, a massive revision of the estimated costs and benefits of the Climate Change Act.

I hope that on consideration, you will agree that changes amounting to nearly £1 trillion require both discussion in, and explanation to, Parliament. This is particularly important given the extraordinary way the government treated its own original estimates of the costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

You will recall that your original estimates of costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill showed that its potential costs (1) at some £205 billion were almost twice the maximum benefits of £110 billion. This was embarrassing for you because the reason governments are required to publish an Impact Assessment giving estimates of costs and benefits of any Bill is to enable Parliament to “determine whether the benefits justify the costs” (2).

In this case, on the basis of your figures, they clearly did not. Moreover, your initial calculations were based on the original target of reducing emissions by 60%, which was increased to 80% during the passage of the Bill. Normally each extra percentage reduction will require increasing marginal costs and generate declining marginal benefits. So the higher target was likely to make the disparity between costs and benefits even worse.

You nonetheless ignored your own department’s figures, refused to discuss them and proceeded to drive the Bill through – surely the first time any government has recommended Parliament to vote for a Bill which its own Assessment showed could cost far more than the maximum benefits?

However, you promised to produce revised estimates though, rather bizarrely, not in time for Parliament to consider them but after Royal Assent.

Five months have passed since then. Inevitably such a lengthy delay arouses suspicions – aggravated by the scale of the changes – that the figures have had to be heavily massaged to remove the original embarrassment.

The new figures for both costs and benefits have indeed been changed dramatically. As so often in the debate on Global Warming – when the facts don’t fit the theory they change the facts.

As recently as your last departmental question time on 5th March your Minister of State, Joan Ruddock, suggested to me that the original estimate of potential costs of up to £205 billion might be too high. She said “We are likely to find that the costs, which covered a very large range, were exaggerated…” Yet despite correcting for any previous downward bias the revised figures you have now published are not lower but substantially higher. The bottom of the new range for costs is in fact £324 billion – nearly 60% higher than the highest figure I have been quoting. And the top of the range is now £404 billion.

In other words the government now estimates that the Climate Change Act will cost every household in the country between £16,000 and £20,000 each.

When it comes to your revised estimates of the benefits, however, we enter Alice in Wonderland territory. Even though costs have broadly doubled, the embarrassment of them exceeding your own estimate of the maximum benefits has been eliminated. The benefits have been dramatically increased tenfold from £105 billion to over £1 trillion. I congratulate on finding nearly £1 trillion of benefits which had previously escaped your notice.

But surely such an astounding discovery merits explanation? The one element of the revision which is mentioned appears, of itself, to justify doubling estimates based on the previous methodology. But where did the rest of the newly discovered benefits arise from?

As you know, having studied physics at Cambridge, I do not dispute the existence of a greenhouse effect, though I am sceptical about the model building which seeks to amplify it. I support sensible measures to reduce CO2 emissions, economise on hydrocarbon use and help the poorest countries adapt to adverse climate change whatever it cause – as long as the measures we adopt are sensible and cost effective. But we cannot judge what is sensible and cost effective if we do not have reliable figures, and subject them to proper parliamentary scrutiny.

When the Department slips out figures which it appears to be unable to explain, unwilling to debate and which are so flaky they vary by a factor of ten - it can only provoke scepticism.

I should be grateful if you could answer the following questions:

1) When will Parliament be given an opportunity to discuss these new figures?

2) What is the explanation of the huge revisions in costs and, more particularly, benefits?

3) Why has it taken five months to produce these revised figures?

4) What is the purpose of publishing Impact Assessments which are ignored or not available until after Parliament has considered a Bill?

5) Which minister signed off the required declaration that the original Impact Assessment “represented a reasonable view of the likely costs, benefits and impact”?

6) Can you confirm that the costs of the Climate Change Act amount to between £16,000 and £20,000 for every UK household?

7) Can you confirm that the revised cost estimates still exclude transitional costs (which could amount to 1% of GDP up to 2020), ignore the cost of driving British firms overseas, and assume that all businesses identify and immediately apply the most carbon efficient technology available?

8) Can you confirm that although the costs of the Act will fall on UK households the benefits will largely accrue to the rest of the world?

9) Can you confirm that the Climate Change Act binds UK governments to pursue the targets regardless of whether other countries follow our lead (or indeed whether the climate warms or not)?

Yours sincerely

Peter Lilley

(1) Cost estimates exclude transitional costs which were put at about 1% of GDP until 2020, omit the cost of driving carbon intensive UK industries abroad which was said to be significantly likely, and assume that businesses will identify and implement immediately the optimum new carbon efficient technologies.

(2) Impact Assessment Guidance - BERR"

Thanks to Iain Dale for the spot.

Keep a weather eye open for answers to these Written House of Lords Questions

Lord Leach of Fairford to ask Her Majesty’s Government at what point during the period of warming since the Little Ice Age they consider that an anthropogenic warming signal greater than 0.25°C per century was observed; and what the implications are for climate change policy. HL2726

Lord Leach of Fairford to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the rate of increase in global mean surface temperatures between 1975 and 1998 was similar to the rates of increase observed between 1860 and 1880 and between 1910 and 1940; and, if so, what the implications are for their policy on anthropogenic warming. HL2727


Somehow I doubt that the answers will be that illuminating.

What will the big news story be today?

The Conficker virus or the anti-capitalism protests in London; you pays your money and you takes your chances.