Archive for October, 2007

Mass Intestination!

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

Heh, the title is from the film ‘Fortress’ which you, of course, must see:

The story of Fortress takes place in drastically overpopulated America of the year 2017, where each woman is allowed only one pregnancy. John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) flee to Mexico when she becomes pregnant after the death of their first child. They are captured by border police and sent to the Fortress, a subterranean high-security prison owned by the Men-Tel corporation and operated by “Zed-10,” an omnipotent computer system, and a sadistic, genetically “enhanced” warden (Kurtwood Smith) who has nefarious plans involving Brennick’s wife and unborn child.

Amazon

In this film, the prisoners are fitted with small, wireless, surgically implanted agony devices that, by voice command, can ‘intestinate’ any prisoner by name. When someone is misbehaving in ‘genpop’ all the warden has to do is say, “intestinate Jones!” and the prisoner Jones will have excruciating pain inflicted upon him in his abdomen. It looks like the effect of a Taser hit, only without the wires.

Which brings us nicely to:

Shock tactics
Hundreds of children no other school wants — from the autistic to the merely troubled — attend a centre in America where electric shocks are administered for even the smallest misdemeanour. Forced to wear 10lb backpacks with electrodes attached to their skin, they never know when their teachers will deliver this ‘behaviour-modification’ therapy. Why hasn’t the school been closed down?

Jennifer Gonnerman

Rob Santana awoke terrified. He’d had that dream again, the one where silver wires ran under his shirt and into his pants, connecting to electrodes attached to his limbs and torso. Adults armed with surveillance cameras and remote-control activators watched his every move. One press of a button, and there was no telling where the shock would hit – his arm or leg or, worse, his stomach. All Rob knew was that the pain would be intense. Every time he woke from this dream, it took him a few moments to remember that he was in his own bed, that there weren’t electrodes locked to his skin, that he wasn’t about to be shocked. It was no mystery to him where this recurring nightmare came from – not A Clockwork Orange or 1984, but the years he spent confined in America’s most controversial “behaviour-modification” institution.

In 1999, when Rob was 13, his parents sent him to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, in Massachusetts, 20 miles outside Boston. The institution, which calls itself a “special-needs school”, takes in all kinds of troubled kids – autistic, mentally retarded, schizophrenic, bipolar, emotionally disturbed – and attempts to change their behaviour with a complex system of rewards and punishments, including painful electric shocks to the torso and limbs. Of the 230 residents, about half are wired to receive shocks. Eight states send students to this institution, with New York providing the most. The price tag for a year there is $220,000; states and school districts pick up the tab.

The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center is the only institution in the US that disciplines students by giving them electric shocks, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters, or any of more than 2.2m inmates in US jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, there have been numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York-state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high-school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the programme continues to thrive – in large part because nobody, except desperate parents and a few legislators, seems to care about what happens to the hundreds of kids who pass through its gates.

In Rob Santana’s case, he freely admits he was an out-of-control kid with “serious behavioural problems”. At birth he was abandoned at the hospital, traces of cocaine, heroin and alcohol in his body. A middle-class couple adopted him when he was 11 months old, but his troubles continued. He started fires; he got kicked out of preschool for opening the back door of a moving school bus; he cut himself with a razor when he was six. His mother took him to specialists, who diagnosed him with a slew of psychiatric problems: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Rob remained at the Rotenberg Center for about 31/2 years. From the start, he cursed, hollered and fought with employees. Eventually the staff obtained permission from his mother and a court to use electric shock. Rob was forced to wear a backpack containing five 2lb battery-operated devices, each connected to an electrode attached to his skin. “I felt humiliated,” he says. “You have a bunch of wires coming out of your shirt and pants.”

Rob remained hooked up to the apparatus 24 hours a day. He wore it while jogging on the treadmill and playing basketball, though it wasn’t easy to sink a jump-shot with a 10lb backpack on. At night, he slept with the backpack next to him, under the gaze of a surveillance camera.

[…]

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/

And so on.

How long will it be before ordinary schools demand that the students are fitted with some sort of control device? They are already requiring that backpacks be transparent, breaking the arms of students for dropping cake, requiring students to pass through metal detectors to enter, policing the hallways with armed guards, making the schools more like prisons than schools by any definition.

In this age of pain compliance and its widespread use, the answer must be ‘not long’ methinks. It is a logical and small progression from the preceding incremental nastiness that I listed above.

Like it says in that great film THX-1183, “It all happened so slowly that most men failed to realize that anything had happened at all”.

That is what we are seeing every day.

As for ‘Fortress’, lets look at the elements of the plot line one by one:

The story of Fortress takes place in drastically overpopulated America of the year 2017,

Check, that’s coming.

where each woman is allowed only one pregnancy.

Check, that’s coming.

John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) flee to Mexico when she becomes pregnant after the death of their first child. They are captured by border police and…

Will there still be a ‘Mexico’ and a border in 2017? Hmmmm!

…sent to the Fortress, a subterranean high-security prison

Check, already here, ‘Supermax’.

owned by the Men-Tel corporation

Check, already here, prisons are now run by corporations as routine.

and operated by “Zed-10,” an omnipotent computer system

That’s coming, guaranteed.

and a sadistic, genetically “enhanced” warden (Kurtwood Smith)

Check, save the enhancements.

who has nefarious plans involving Brennick’s wife and unborn child.

The state already has this covered, right?

And there you have it.

Is there anyone out there that thinks any of the above either has not happened or is not very much on track to happen?

If there is, I want to be smoking what you are smoking.

Someone Finally GETS IT

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

This man almost GETS IT:

He is saying what we have been saying for YEARS about the impotence of 20th century strategies (demonstrating, petition writing, candle vigils etc. etc.) against the 21st century war machine and the Murder Inc. Cabal™

[…]

I am asking you to disrupt the business as usual on your campuses. It wont be enough as it has become painfully obvious to simply mimic the techniques and the cool chants of the ’60s and ’70s anti-war movement. Our current anti-war movement is impotent.

We need new ideas, we need youth. We need YOU YOU YOU to wake up. A new age and a new war demand new ways of protest. Where are these new ways these new ideas going to come from?

They are gong to come from YOU.

YOU young people.

YOU young students who have been anethstetized for too long.

Its time to snap out of it.

[…]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fzt4Q9VCpc

Something the losers at StopWar need to heed and obey clearly.

Anyone with one working brain cell knows that the old rules do not apply to this new game; not because the old rules were not good but because the ‘other side’ is playing by a different set of rules that the StopWar, CodePink, sheeple have not yet woken up to.

Clearly, and thankfully, there are many people who are waking up. That video has been seen by 2,038,058 people.

It is not too late!

En Gardasil! – Touche!

Monday, October 29th, 2007

Now we have this:

Schoolgirls to get ‘cancer jab’

Human papillomavirusHPV causes most cases of cervical cancer

Schoolgirls in Britain will be vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer from September 2008, ministers have announced. This goes further than recommended by experts, with all aged 12-13 eligible, and a catch-up campaign up to 18.

It is thought that vaccinating against human papilloma virus (HPV) could save hundreds of lives in the UK each year.

The vaccine is given in three injections over six months at a cost of around £300 a course.

Note the syntax, that schoolgirls WILL BE VACCINATED. Not, ‘parents will be offered vaccination for their children’. And all that this difference implies.

Note also that ‘Boys will not be vaccinated under today’s announcement, after the JCVI said it was not cost-effective.’ Not cost-effective. There you go, the ultimate deciding factor is cost. Not health. Which is bizarre, as this will cost 100-200 million of your GB pounds per annum to save around 300-700 lives, depending on who is giving the figures. Cost-effective?

Note finally that the vaccine to be used has not been chosen. Imagine the lobbying going on! This is multi-multi-millions over many years… Do you trust our politicians not to be ‘influenced’ in any way, and to come to the best decision for spending your taxes? Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?

We would say this is a piece of Public Heath Theatre. Are you clapping along in the audience?

——

Below are excerpts from emails relating to the previous En Gardasil post. They are a lesson in trust. Trusting your source, or not, and remembering that ‘good’ lies are no better than ‘evil’ ones. An open, curious mind is a very sharp weapon.

……..

May I burn down that straw man?

Aspirin is safe; that is the difference between it and Guadakill. Aspirin was initially prepared from the bark of trees. It is a naturally occurring medicine, unlike Guardakill which is a man made poison.

There is *no straw man here*. Aspirin and STW are used, in my context, to denounce your point on alum, i.e. that just because you don’t understand how something works doesn’t mean it must be distrusted. One could apply this to all homeopathy, I just picked SJW at random. According to ‘the science’ SJW is no more effective than a placebo.
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/stjohnswort/#science
And that from the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

St Johns Wort is also a naturally occurring plant, and is therefore much safer and preferable as a medicine. It also has a long history of safe use.

Now, HERE is a straw man. I would guess there are many more deaths from digitalis than Gardasil will ever manage, despite also being a plant with a long history of safe use. Aspirin kills 500 people in the US per year, apparently. Just a stat, and probably through misuse, but its still a killer. One can twist anything… omigoditsachemical! …. its all about context.

Alum has been used for /just/ 60 years and has recently been ‘proven’ safe on paper, when anyone who has used it has known it is safe in vivo. And yes, I’ve used it and taken it.
http://www.drugresearcher.com/news/ng.asp?id=49797-alum-given-clean

Together we could say “Who do you trust?”. Or, “Why trust one drug and not the other?”, as someone clever once said. Now we both know the answers to /those/ questions.

Mankind is much better off living inside and with his environment. Guardakill is an unnatural medicine; the need for it is artificial, the lust behind its making is the lust for money, and while the medicine itself is not evil, the people who make it most certainly are.

I would agree with this. What I wouldn’t agree with is throwing petrol and matches on non-existant straw men. There should be enough real, substantive data and well-argued opinion (and there is) to let people come to their own conclusion… that only a fool would inject their child with ‘GovDrugX’.

Guardasil has killed people. That is a fact.

No it’s not! You can show people the reality, but you can’t make up ‘the truth’. Those FDA reports should put enough doubt in anyones mind about Gardasil, but there is no “Gardasil Kills – Fact”. If one starts sounding like the Daily Mail, credibility flies out of the window.

The rules of peer review do not extend into the coroners office, and those recorded deaths and the numbers of people damaged are *not* opinion. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is not going to falsely attribute death to a vaccine (I would imagine) which is where those numbers come from.

Wrong again! I read all the FDA/VAERS reports last night and not a
single one attributes death to Gardasil.

Not.
A.
Single.
One.

They merely report adverse effects in anything from minutes to weeks following Gardasil vaccination. Many of the patients had other injections at the same time. Many had so long between jab and death that mentioning Gardasil seems nothing more than thoroughness.

Now, you KNOW what I think of these ‘medicines’, and you know what I will do for my daughter. If drugs like Gardasil and chickenpox vaccineare to exposed for the fraudulent, greed-soaked tripe that they are then it must be done through strong, coherent argument and not by setting flame to reality.

—————————————–

just because you don’t understand how something works doesn’t mean it must be distrusted.

It shouldn’t be distrusted by itself, but when people are compelling you to take it, common sense says (at least to me) it has to be 100% understood before compulsion. There shouldn’t be any doubt over the mechanism or the elements, otherwise, it should be 100% voluntary.

Gardasil is so new and novel WITHOUT teh accelerant it should absolutely not be mandatory, or anywhere near mandatory. Also no one has pointed out that HPV is not like chickenpox or the flu – it spreads only in a very particular way, by sex. Vaccinations should be used where disease is spread non consensually, i.e. through sneezing – where the public health is at risk, and even that is a near bogus rationale.

But I digress.

One could apply this to all homeopathy, I just picked SJW at random.

Homeopathy is voluntary, as all medicines should be. If it works, then you keep using it. Gardasil doesn’t work to provide life long immunity, and so it is broken out of the vial. By the time a 12 year old reaches drinking age its efficacy will be gone. It is a total sheep dip vaccine.

According to ‘the science’ SJW is no more effective than a placebo.

I don’t believe these studies, in the same way that the anti-homeopathy brigade to not believe the century plus of of trials that homeopathic medicines have been through. These people have an agenda that has nothing to do with health, and everything to do with control of science.
But I digress again.

And that from the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

which is run by the US government, the same organization that mandates vaccines like Guardakil. YEAH, I’m really going to trust *them*.

Aspirin kills 500 people in the US per year, apparently.

and so, should we now ban aspirin or provide defenses against it that are mandated by law? The numbers are almost the same as those who die from Cervical Cancer…

Just a stat, and probably through misuse, but its still a killer. One can twist anything… omigoditsachemical! …. its all about context.

exactly, and Gardasil is the same as anything else; /until it is mandated/ this is the biggest problem with it. Anyone can produce any medicine they like. You are free to take it or not, after you have made a jugement in concert with your doctor. That is your and my right.
Gardasil and the politcs surrounding it break, sour and queer the relationship between patient and doctor. That is probably its most evil effect.

Together we could say “Who do you trust?”. Or, “Why trust one drug and not the other?”, as someone clever once said. Now we both know the answers to /those/ questions.

I trust the one that is old and not mandated. I do not trust the one that is new and mandated. That is my rule, and I apply it to all my medicines. I will not be a party to experimentation or the recouping of someone’s R&D.

If someone I trust explains that Alum is safe in a very particular context, then I will trust it, otherwise, I do not trust any medicine without looking into it myself and getting other opinions.

There should be enough real, substantive data and well-argued opinion (and there is) to let people come to their own conclusion… that only a fool would inject their child with ‘GovDrugX’.

This is about trust. We cannot trust the people who make Gardasil and anyone who promotes it because the whole programme is tainted from the off. People cannot come to that conclusion on their own because it is hard to be a dissenting voice in this matter if you do not have the credentials.

there is no “Gardasil Kills – Fact”.

So you are telling me that the report that attributes the deaths of
those girls to Gardasil is false, yes?

Wrong again! I read all the FDA/VAERS reports last night and not a single one attributes death to Gardasil.

then what you are saying is that Judicial Watch are libeling Merc. Both things cannot be true at the same time.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/6428.shtml says unambiguously that the deaths are related to Gardasil. Are you saying that they are lying?

http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/GardasilVAERSUpdatedDeaths0907.pdf

??? so the above is a forgery? Help me out here!

That is a VAERS report listing Gardasil as the cause of death!

they would NEVER list Gardasil as the cause of death if they were
not absolutely sure would they not?

What have I missed here?

I’m not sure what the reality is; VARERS says ‘death by Gardasil’ you
say no such reports even exist.

The ambiguity, the complexity, everything about it screams out to me that it must be totally shunned. An impenetrable reality is as bad as a lie, and in the face of that, taking the risk is just not an option.

Then add into the mix that Justice Watch had to sue for the information, the case is closed; these guys are evil and their medicine is no good!

————————————————————–

So you are telling me that the report that attributes the deaths of those girls to Gardasil is false, yes?

JudicialWatch’s conclusion that G-causes-D is OPINION based on a misinterpretation of official documents. The reports never link G and D. They are simple, clear reports which state known facts about each case.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/6428.shtml says unambiguously that the deaths are related to Gardasil. Are you saying that they are lying?

Not lying per se, but distorting beyond reasonable limits. As I said
previously, this does no good and leaves them looking like rabid haters without the ability to construct a strong enough argument from the available information, without resorting to screeching FEAR! EVIL! DEATH!

That is a VAERS report listing Gardasil as the cause of death!

NO!!! Read that pdf!
Lets see…
1st page: ‘Gardasil did not cause the patients death’

P.2 ‘Cause of death was sudden death’. Other factors involved. Does notblame Gardasil.

P.3 All just hearsay! A nurse who heard from a nurse… and anaphylaxis DOES NOT occur 3 days after exposure. It’s a bit quicker than that. Ask anyone with a peanut/bee sting allergy. Does not blame Gardasil.

P.4 Hearsay! Bloodclot 2 weeks after vacc. Could have been any cause! Does not blame Gardasil.

P.5 Death 2 weeks after vacc. No direct link at all. Does not blame Gardasil.

P.6 Another 2 week gap Does not blame Gardasil.

P.7 States ‘manner of death natural’!!!! Does not blame Gardasil.

P.8 History of heart problems, died of heart problem. Does not blame Gardasil.

P.9 Viral sepsis and secondary infection. Symptoms started BEFORE last vaccine. Does not blame Gardasil.

P.10 Hearsay, no cause of death reported. Does not blame Gardasil.

Are you now seeing the difference between the official VAERS reports and the conlusions/opinions in the JudWac piece?

then they would NEVER list Gardasil as the cause of death if they were not absolutely sure would they not?

See above; Gardasil is NEVER listed as cause of death by VAERS.

Why trust one source and not another?
Just because JudWac appear to agree with our stance on BigPharma does not mean they are virtuous truth-givers. They have their agenda, just as Merck does.
We at Blogdial should know better though, and decide for ourselves.

Now, who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? ((C) Groucho)

What have I missed here?

The blindingly obvious! That Mercks clinical trial, and JudWac’s take on the VAERS reports are all spin to support a position, and somewhere under it all, crushed and splintered, lies the reality.

I’m not sure what the reality is; VARERS says ‘death by Gardasil’ you say no such reports even exist.

VAERS NEVER EVER says death by Gardasil.

The ambiguity, the complexity, everything about it screams out to me that it must be totally shunned. An impenetrable reality is as bad as a lie, and in the face of that, taking the risk is just not an option.

But we can find the reality, when we remember to treat JudWac with the same basic scepticism that we treat Merck. I would like to believe JudWac, but they give me no reason to do so when I look at the reality behind what they are saying.

these guys are evil and their medicine is no good!

And JudWac are misguided, severely biased, narrow-minded, blinkered scaremongers whose stance does not stand up to the most preliminary of scrutinies. But we have found this out, and we can understand the reality. We can take each for what it is and still know that Merck is evil, and that JudWac is at least trying to stand on the right side.

Man given enough rope, hangs himself

Monday, October 29th, 2007

Minister detained at US airport

Shahid Malik

Mr Malik said he had also been stopped and searched last year

Britain’s first Muslim minister, Shahid Malik, says he is “deeply disappointed” that he was detained by airport security officials in America. The international development minister was stopped and searched at Washington DC’s Dulles airport after a series of meetings on tackling terrorism.

Mr Malik, MP for Dewsbury, West Yorks, had his hand luggage checked for explosives when returning to Heathrow.

He said the same thing happened to him at JFK airport in New York last year.

On that occasion he had been a keynote speaker at an event organised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alongside the FBI and Muslim organisations, to talk about tackling extremism and defeating terrorism.

‘Respect needed’

Mr Malik said he had received numerous apologies and assurances from the US authorities after that incident.

But he was again searched and detained by DHS officials on Sunday.

Mr Malik said two other Muslims were also detained.

“I am deeply disappointed,” he said.

“The abusive attitude I endured last November I forgot about and I forgave, but I really do believe that British ministers and parliamentarians should be afforded the same respect and dignity at USA airports that we would bestow upon our colleagues in the Senate and Congress.

“Obviously, there was no malice involved but it has to be said that the USA system does not inspire confidence.”

What an IDIOT.

He is upset because he wasn’t given ‘respect’. He implies that it’s OK if other innocent people are treated this way because they are not diplomats. This man is seriously Out Of Touch.  The wrong person in the wrong job.

Mr Malik has acted like the pompous, elitist snob he obviously wishes to be, corrupted by the impression of petite power he thinks he holds. He is a part of the problem, and will be amongst the first against the wall.

Attack Iran and you attack Russia

Saturday, October 27th, 2007

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Friday, October 26, 2007

The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran tells Asia Times Online that essentially Putin and the Supreme Leader have agreed on a plan to nullify the George W Bush administration’s relentless drive towards launching a preemptive attack, perhaps a tactical nuclear strike, against Iran. An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia.

But then, as if this were not enough of a political bombshell, came the abrupt resignation of Ali Larijani as top Iranian nuclear negotiator. Early this week in Rome, Larijani told the IRNA news agency that “Iran’s nuclear policies are stable and will not change with the replacement of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council [SNSC].” Larijani will keep attending SNSC meetings, now as a representative of the Supreme Leader. He even took time to remind the West that in the Islamic Republic all key decisions regarding the civilian nuclear program are made by the Supreme Leader. Larijani actually went to Rome to meet with the European Union’s Javier Solana alongside Iran’s new negotiator, Saeed Jalili, a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), just like President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

In itself, the Putin-Khamenei meeting was extraordinary, because the Supreme Leader rarely receives foreign statesmen for closed talks, even one as crucial as Putin. The Russian president, according to the diplomatic source, told the Supreme Leader he may hold the ultimate solution regarding the endlessly controversial Iranian nuclear dossier. According to IRNA, the Supreme Leader, after stressing that the Iranian civilian nuclear program will continue unabated, said. “We will ponder your words and proposal.”

Larijani himself had told the Iranian media that Putin had a “special plan” and the Supreme Leader observed that the plan was “ponderable”. The problem is that Ahmadinejad publicly denied the Russians had volunteered a new plan.

Iranian hawks close to Ahmadinejad are spinning that Putin’s proposal involves Iran temporarily suspending uranium enrichment in exchange for no more United Nations sanctions. That’s essentially what International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammad ElBaradei has been working on all along. The key issue is what – in practical terms – will Iran get in return. Obviously it’s not the EU’s Solana who will have the answer. But as far as Russia is concerned, strategically nothing will appease it except a political/diplomatic solution for the Iranian nuclear dossier.

US Vice President Dick Cheney – who even Senator Hillary Clinton now refers to as Darth Vader – must be foaming at the mouth; but the fact is that after the Caspian summit, Iran and Russia are officially entangled in a strategic partnership. World War III, for them, is definitely not on the cards.

Let’s read from the same script
The apparent internal controversy on how exactly Putin and the Supreme Leader are on the same wavelength belies a serious rift in the higher spheres of the Islamic Republic. The replacement of Larijani, a realist hawk, by Jalili, an unknown quantity with an even more hawkish background, might spell an Ahmadinejad victory. It’s not that simple.

The powerful Ali Akbar Velayati, the diplomatic adviser to the Supreme Leader, said he didn’t like the replacement one bit. Even worse: regarding the appalling record of the Ahmadinejad presidency when it comes to the economy, all-out criticism is now the norm. Another former nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, told the Etemad-e Melli newspaper, “The effects of the [UN] sanctions are visible. Our situation gets worse day by day.”

Ahmadinejad for the past two months has been placing his former IRGC brothers-in-arms in key posts, like the presidency of the central bank and the Oil, Industry and Interior ministries. Internal repression is rife. On Sunday, hundreds of students protested at the Amir-Kabir University in Tehran, calling for “Death to the dictator”.

The wily, ultimate pragmatist Hashemi Rafsanjani, now leader of the Council of Experts and in practice a much more powerful figure than Ahmadinejad, took no time to publicly reflect that “we can’t bend people’s thoughts with dictatorial regimes”.

This week, the Supreme Leader himself intervened, saying, “I approve of this government, but this does not mean that I approve of everything they do.” Under the currently explosive circumstances, this also amounts to a political bombshell.

As if anyone needed to be reminded, the buck – or rial – stops with the Supreme Leader, whose last wish on earth is to furnish a pretext for the Bush administration to launch World War III. If Ahmadinejad now deviates from a carefully crafted strategic script, the Supreme Leader may simply get rid of him.

[…]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2007/261007_b_attack.htm

I don’t care what anyone says about Vladimir Putin. The President of Russia has some GRAPEFRUITS.

A demonstration of ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend‘.

All the people who say that an attack on Iran is ‘nuts’ and the infinite losers who will do nothing but light a candle in response to another mass murder episode, and every other gutless piece of trash are all made to look like what they are in the face of this statement.

Even if it never happens, i.e. the defense pact doesn’t come to full fruition, to say these words, and to enter into even an informal defense pact with Iran shows some real guts, some BALLS.

This story should have been all over the news – its a little odd that it was not. Does this mean that it is really true? Stories like this are not left out of the news by accident. Lets see what Google News says:

Only TWO RESULTS at the time this was posted, one of them TWENTY HOURS OLD.

From a comment on Raw Story, the second place in the results:

October 26th, 2007 at 01:31:15 From: Eyeball Kid
Putin..
has a growing sphere of influence at this time, and he’s not willing to allow Bush to start bombing next door. While Putin’s commitment hasn’t made any news in fascist America, you can bet that the White House is listening with all ears. Putin is upping the ante. And well he should. He knows that US influence is on the sharp decline. He know that foreign policy dunderhead Bush is leaving a vacuum of leadership that Putin is all too willing to fill. And the writer is probably correct that Cheney is fuming at Putin’s master diplomatic stroke. Cheney/Bush want to mortally weaken Iran. Now the risks have increased to levels perhaps too high to execute an attack. What Putin did is what the US Dems could not do: largely neuter the Bush/Cheney juggernaut. Spreading war is one of the few ways that the Cabal could run away from the US’ collapsing economy. War would allow them to continue borrowing more money, on an “emergency basis”, for the indefinite future. If Putin puts a stop to the madness, the Cabal will have to pause and look within at the cancer that’s spreading throughout its own body. There will no longer be a distraction. In the waning months of this most disastrous presidency, the Bush/Cheney death knell can now be heard all the way to Moscow. For the Cabal, there is no way to go but down.

I like it.®

Visitors to Japan to be fingerprinted

Friday, October 26th, 2007

By Mariko Sanchanta in TokyoPublished: October 25 2007 01:32 | Last updated: October 25 2007 01:32Millions of visitors to Japan will be required to have their photographs and fingerprints taken from next month as part of new immigration procedures meant to help prevent terrorist attacks.

The move, which includes fingerprinting longtime permanent foreign residents, marks the first time a country other than the US has introduced such procedures. The US adopted similar measures following the September 11 attacks and the UK and European Union are considering introducing comparable requirements.

The new measures have been attacked by human rights groups, which have said the collection of biometric data could play into the hands of Japanese xenophobes and raises privacy issues.

“This will further the perception in Japan that foreigners are terrorists and at the same time rejects the idea that the Japanese could be terrorists as well,” said Makoto Teranaka, secretary-general of Amnesty International Japan. “In fact, all recent terrorist attacks have been conducted by the Japanese,” he said, pointing to the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult.

The new procedures are part of an amendment of Japan’s Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, which contains measures to prevent terrorism. The measures come into force on November 20. In certain instances, Japan will be able to share its biometric data with other governments.

The move has been criticised by many foreigners living in Japan, particularly as the government has said it wants to make Tokyo an international financial centre. It also coincides with the government’s long-running Visit Japan campaign, which aims to increase the number of foreign visitors. Last year, more than 8m people visited the country, up from 5.2m in 2001.

Though Japan invited public comments on the new measure, one could only do so in Japanese.

If a foreigner refuses to be fingerprinted and photographed, he or she will not be permitted to enter the country.

Certain individuals, including “special permanent residents” (which include longtime ethnic Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese and Brazilian-Japanese residents), people under 16 and diplomats will be exempted from the new procedures.

Financial Times

Fingerprinting tourists and anyone for that matter will not prevent ‘terrorist attacks’.

Like the article says, the people who do ‘terrorist attacks’ (more accurately, mass murder by poison) are JAPANESE not TOURISTS, and even if they fingerprinted all Japanese citizens alive that would not prevent another gas attack.

Some Japanese citizens have a long standing problem with foreigners so maybe this insane measure is a consequence of that; in any case, thats Japan off of my list of places to visit!

Another Post Tipping Point post.

UPDATE!

Amnesty International calls bullshit:

[…]

Amnesty International is calling for the immigration plan to be abandoned.

“Making only foreigners provide this data is discriminatory,” said Sonoko Kawakami of Amnesty’s Japan office.

“They are saying ‘terrorist equals foreigner’. It’s an exclusionary policy that could encourage xenophobia.”

The new system is being introduced as Japan campaigns to attract more tourists.

More than 6.7m foreign visitors came to Japan in 2006, government statistics show. Immigration officials say they are unsure how long tourists can expect to wait in line for the checks to be made.

Britain is set to require non-European foreign nationals to register biometric details when applying for visas from next year.http://www.news.com.au/
[…]

And amazingly, they think that this will HELP bring new visitors to Japan!

What is ‘intercalation’?

Friday, October 26th, 2007

The clocks change shortly, which brings us to this fascinating piece of information. Islam forbids ‘intercalation’, which Wikipedia says is:

Intercalation is the insertion of a leap day, week or month into some calendar years to make the calendar follow the seasons or moon phases. Lunisolar calendars may require a combination of both adjustments.

The solar year does not have whole number of days, but a calendar year must have a whole number of days. The only way to reconcile the two is to vary the number of days in the calendar year.

In solar calendars, this is often done by adding to a common year of 365 days, an extra day (leap day or intercalary day): this makes a leap year of 366 days.

The Decree of Canopus, which was issued by the pharaoh Ptolemy III, Euergetes of Egypt in 239 BC, decreed a solar leap day system.

In the Julian Calendar as well as in the Gregorian Calendar that improved it, intercalation is done by adding an extra day to February in each leap year. In the Julian Calendar this was done every 4 years. In the Gregorian calendar years whose number is evenly divisible by 100 but not 400, were exempted in order to improve accuracy.

The solar year does not have a whole number of lunar months either, so a lunisolar calendar must have a variable number of months in a year. This is usually 12 months, but sometimes a 13th month (an intercalary or embolismic month) is added to the year.

ISO 8601 includes a specification for a 52-week year. Any year that has 53 Thursdays has 53 weeks; this extra week may be regarded as intercalary.

The determination of whether a year has intercalation may be calculated (Julian, Gregorian and Hebrew calendars), or determined by observation (Iranian calendar).

Absolutely fascinating.

Here is a page that explains it further in the context of Islam:

Annulling intercalation

In the ninth year after the Hijra, as documented in the Qur’an (9:36-37), Allah revealed the prohibition of the intercalary month.

The number of months with Allah has been twelve months by Allah’s ordinance since the day He created the heavens and the earth. Of these four are known as forbidden [to fight in]; That is the straight usage, so do not wrong yourselves therein, and fight those who go astray. But know that Allah is with those who restrain themselves.

Verily the transposing (of a prohibited month) is an addition to Unbelief: The Unbelievers are led to wrong thereby: for they make it lawful one year, and forbidden another year, of months forbidden by Allah and make such forbidden ones lawful. The evil of their course seems pleasing to them. But Allah guideth not those who reject Faith.

This prohibition was repeated by Muhammad during the last sermon on Mount Arafat which was delivered during the Farewell Pilgrimage to Mecca on 9 Dhu al-Hijja 10 AH:

O People, intercalation is an addition to unbelief, through it [God, Allah] leads the unbelievers astray: they make it permissible one year and forbid it [at their mere convenience] the next one to elude the timing of what God forbade, so that they make permissible that which Allah forbade [fighting in the forbidden months], and forbid that which Allah has made permissible [fighting in other months]. And [now, this year] time has turned the way it was the day God created Heavens and Earth [The intercalary months since the creation of Heavens and Earth have all canceled out (summed up to whole years)]. The year is twelve months, four of them are forbidden, three successive: Dhu al-Qi’dah and Dhu al-Hijjah and Muharram; and the Rajab of Mudar which is between Jumada and Shaban.[4]

The three successive forbidden months mentioned by Muhammad (months in which battling is forbidden) are Dhu al-Qi’dah, Dhu al-Hijjah, and Muharram, thus excluding an intercalary month before Muharram. The single forbidden month is Rajab. These months were considered forbidden both within the new Islamic calendar and within the old pagan Meccan calendar, although whether they maintained their “forbidden” status after the conquest of Mecca has been disputed among Islamic scholars.

File under, “you learn something every day!”.

Is it a bird, is it a plane …

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Bush’s sense of humor

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

This is from CNN:

!!!

Right in your face.

In case you are not yet aware.

Home Schoolers: brainwash your child or face the consequences

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

As I said to you some time ago, the state will take your children from you if you refuse to promote their propaganda to your children. Read this:

Foster child to be taken away because Christian couple refuse to teach him about homosexuality

They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of caring for almost 30 vulnerable children.

But Vincent and Pauline Matherick will this week have their latest foster son taken away because they have refused to sign new sexual equality regulations.

To do so, they claim, would force them to promote homosexuality and go against their Christian faith.

The 11-year-old boy, who has been in their care for two years, will be placed in a council hostel this week and the Mathericks will no longer be given children to look after.

The devastated couple, who have three grown up children of their own, became foster parents in 2001 and have since cared for 28 children at their home in Chard, Somerset.

Earlier this year, Somerset County Council’s social services department asked them to sign a contract to implement Labour’s new Sexual Orientation Regulations, part of the Equality Act 2006, which make discrimination on the grounds of sexuality illegal.

(Article continues below)

Officials told the couple that under the regulations they would be required to discuss same-sex relationships with children as young as 11 and tell them that gay partnerships were just as acceptable as heterosexual marriages.

They could also be required to take teenagers to gay association meetings.

When the Mathericks objected, they were told they would be taken off the register of foster parents.

The Mathericks have decided to resign rather than face the humiliation of being expelled.

Mr Matherick, a 65-year-old retired travel agent and a primary school governor, said: “I simply could not agree to do it because it is against my central beliefs.

“We have never discriminated against anybody but I cannot preach the benefits of homosexuality when I believe it is against the word of God.”

Mrs Matherick, 61, said they had asked if they could continue looking after their foster son until he is found a permanent home, but officials refused and he will be placed in a council hostel on Friday.

She said: “He was very upset to begin with. We are all very close, but he’s a mature young man and he’s dealing with it.”

The couple, who have six grandchildren and one greatgrandchild, are both ministers at the nonconformist South Chard Christian Church.

When they first started fostering they took in young single mothers and their babies.

More recently they have been caring for children of primary school age.

Mr Matherick added: “It’s terrible that we’ve been forced into this corner. It just should not happen.

“There are not enough foster carers around anyway without these rules.

“They were saying that we had to be prepared to talk about sexuality with 11-year-olds, which I don’t think is appropriate anyway, but not only that, to be prepared to explain how gay people date.

“They said we would even have to take a teenager to gay association meetings.

“How can I do that when it’s totally against what I believe?”

Religious campaigners say the couple are the latest victims of an equality drive which puts gay rights above religious beliefs.

Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders have complained that the rules force them to overturn long-held beliefs.

The Mathericks are planning to fight their case in the courts with the backing of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship.

The same organisation is backing Christian magistrate Andrew McClintock who resigned from the family courts in a row over gay adoption.

He says he was forced to resign because he was not allowed to opt out of cases where he might have to send a child to live with gay parents.

The Mathericks’ case comes at a time when there is a chronic shortage of foster parents, who work on a voluntary basis.

An extra 8,000 are needed to plug the gaps in the service.

Researchers have found that continually moving children from home to home can have a devastating impact on their education and general welfare.

But a report last year revealed that the shortage of carers meant that some children in care are being forced to move up to three times a year.

David Taylor, Somerset County Council’s corporate director for children and young people, said: “No decision has been made about the deregistration of Mr and Mrs Matherick.

“The council is committed to promoting the interests of children and young people and welcomes foster carers from all backgrounds and faiths.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Now, imagine a situation where people in the UK who choose to home school are forced to sign an agreement that they will follow a state authored curriculum or face sending their children to school by force.

You can bet that such a curriculum will include philosophies and lifestyles of the kind that the Matherics do not agree with, and of course this has nothing to do with any subject in particular, but instead has everything to do with the principle of the state mandating what must and must not be taught to children. The fact that the Matherics are Christians and that they object to Homosexuality is irrelevant, and a distraction.

In the post describing a child kidnapped from its parents by council workers because the child was ‘fat’ we have an example of prejudiced council workers exerting their arbitrary will over decent people. The same is bound to happen again, and to home schoolers, on just about any pretext you can imagine – it is only a matter of time, and as home schooling is adopted in greater numbers the prejudiced and insane workers at local authorities all over the country will feel obliged to butt their ugly heads in and micro manage the lives of home schoolers.

It is essential that home schoolers in the UK refuse any and all involvement by the state. Some home schoolers welcome inspection by the ‘LA’ but this is an error; once you let them in consensually, they can then make an assessment of you and home schooling, extrapolate to all home schoolers, and then before you know it, you will all be compelled to sign agreements to teach what they want you to teach, and by teach I mean indoctrinate. Specifically, we are talking about indoctrinating your children with their beliefs on:

  • Citizenship
  • Religion
  • Sexuality
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Gender
  • Insert what you believe and they don’t here

Letting people into your home to inspect you as you home school is not a simple matter, and it is not a good idea. It is the thin edge of the wedge. It is the door to door salesman wedging his foot in your door. Once they have access to you, they are obliged to find fault with you no matter what you are doing, otherwise, they have no purpose and no job to do. That means that they will by default, come up with ways to interfere with you by at the very least issuing guidelines and at worse, coming up with legally required contracts of the type that foster parents must sign.

Helmet laws and Empires

Friday, October 19th, 2007

I ride a bicycle around London, and never wear a helmet. I have never worn a helmet in my life to ride either a motorcycle or a bicycle.

Free people do not wear bicycle helmets.

There is a completely ’21st Century British Insanity™’ piece in today’s Times ‘Alpha Mummy’ where a shrieking, hysterical, illogical, fear soaked nincompoop equates cycling with children to, wait for it…. CHILD ABUSE.

I’m not making this up.

After getting up off of the floor, being thrown down by fits of laughter as a man Tased, I read some of the comments and found this site, cyclehelmets.org which is absolutely wonderful.

First of all, no free country has helmet laws. Period.

Helmet laws spring from that same foul well of immoral laws that says you cannot ingest whatever you like, or have consensual sex in whatever way you like in the privacy of your own home – that you have no privacy, that the fruit of your labour does not belong to you, that your children do not belong to you, but to the state. These diseased ideas, that are absolutely un-British are the sort of thing ‘Eleanor Mills’ espouses by extension when she says what she said in that piece.

I will give the devil her due and say that she posed this as a question, but the fact remains that this vile thought, this absurd question actually passed her mind, and she then actually posted it on the internets. Nothing wrong with the latter of course, but honestly…I digress.

This site has the proof that cycle helmets are ineffective as safety devices, and, like the fear pumped safety mania that has spread all over the west, are just another piece of nanny statism that can be proved to be pointless. Not only that, but these useless laws the site argues further diminish the rule of law in general, since the law is plainly seen to be not only an ass, but unreasonably interfering in private matters.

Look at this graph:

The countries with more and safer cycling are where fewest cyclists wear helmets. This is a fact.

In the past, you would have read this piece by Eleanor Mills and then perhaps entered into a debate with someone about cycle helmets and how they, “make people safer”. You would have had to rely on anecdotes and gut feeling to make your point, and you might have been able to win if you were eloquent.

Now with the internets, people like Eleanor Mills can write a piece of garbage and have it shot down within ten minutes of it being published, and furthermore, everyone who knows how to click on a link will be able to trash her aberrant thought.

In conditions like this, liberty is the default result, and now we can see how it is going to happen. Logic, common sense and the facts are now no longer stuck in treacle, and time to delivery of these facts is near instant.

The Ron Paul campaign in a few short months has put complex questions into the public arena, all thanks to the internets:

Message from Ron Paul

The other day, my old sparring partner in so many Congressional committee hearings, Alan Greenspan, was on the Fox Business Channel. After Alan promoted his new book, the reporter asked if we really needed a central bank. Greenspan looked stunned, and then said that was a good question; he actually talked about fiat money vs. a gold standard. Now, the ex-Fed chairman is not about to endorse our sound monetary policy, but you know our Revolution is working when such a question is asked in the mainstream media, and this powerful man gives such an answer.

You and I are reopening a whole host of questions that the establishment thought it had closed off forever: on war, on taxes and spending, on inflation and gold, and on the rule of law and our Constitution.

As China and Japan start ‘an unprecedented flight from the dollar‘ only Ron Paul is talking about the causes and what must be done to stop it. Only Ron Paul comes up the with the numbers showing how much america is spending on running its foul empire – ONE TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

Helmet laws and empires are inextricably linked. The same urges that drive evil and venal mass murderers to spread plagues of death all over the world are the same ones that make parliaments and legislatures pass helmet laws and all the other illiberal and useless control laws that should all be removed from the statute books.

This is in no way ‘a stretch’; in fact, you can file it under ‘act locally, think globally’.

Your freedom on the local, personal level is essential to maintaining peace and non interference on the global level. When you lose your liberty and mass murderers, international gangsters, counterfeiters and vicious organized crime syndicates engineer it, the bad consequences are not only going to affect you, but your neighbours, your cities your country and the entire world.

FINALLY it is being understood, albeit at the eleventh hour.

Airlines forced to fingerprint passengers on behalf of USVISIT

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

The Homeland Security Department is trying to squash criticism of its slow development of an exit piece to the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program.

Robert Mocny, US-VISIT director, said yesterday the agency has decided a piece of the exit program will require airlines to collect biometric data of visitors leaving the country when they check in at the airport. Mocny said DHS will issue a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register by January 2008 detailing the program.

“We don’t have too many details yet,” Mocny said during a conference on identity management sponsored by the Information Technology Association of America in Washington. “The technology worked fine during the pilots, but we want to see what infrastructure is out there already.”

DHS has conducted an experimental biometric exit program at 14 major airports in the past three years.

DHS discontinued a pilot exit program May 6 based on radio frequency identification technology. DHS stopped requiring foreign nationals to use RFID-equipped US-VISIT kiosks to check out as they leave the country. Some described those kiosks as difficult to use, and the RFID tags used in the exit program proved to be unreliable.

Mocny said he would like to see airlines volunteer for the program, but many companies are against this concept, fearing it would delay check-in times.

He added that DHS’ bigger challenge will be creating an exit system for land ports.

“Our goal is to have an exit system for air and sea ports by December 2008,” Mocny said. “The exit system is important, but it was not the first thing we wanted to do. The entry system was more important.”

Despite these plans, lawmakers remain frustrated about DHS’ slow pace in developing the exit system.

Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology, said he would like to see DHS focus more on the program.

“We ask about US-VISIT every time secretary [Michael Chertoff] testifies because we are worried about visa overstays,” McCaul said. “We are still not satisfied with their response. I think it has been on the backburner because [the Secure Border Initiative]-Net has been their priority focus. I understand why, but I would like to see more focus on US-VISIT’s exit system.”

McCaul added that there is a lot of interest in Congress on secure identification cards. He pointed to a host of bills requiring technically advanced identifications such as H.R. 98, which calls for the Social Security Administration to produce cards with encrypted machine-readable electronic identification strips and an electronic eligibility database with citizenship and resident work status that employers could check potential employees against.

But he also warned that getting some of these bills passed may be tougher than before.

“The new Congress shifted toward more American Civil Liberties Union driven,” McCaul said. “It is not as much about security, but what the government is doing wrong in not protecting citizen’s privacy. It is a good debate to have, but in some areas such as the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act it is going the wrong way.”

McCaul said Mike McConnell, head of the Director of National Intelligence, said the government would have to go through the FISA court to get permission to capture 70 percent of all communication.

[…]

http://www.fcw.com/online/news/150554-1.html

Post tipping point; use the Google to find out what we have to say about this.

Vote Ron Paul.

Bad Science on display at The Guardian

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

‘Second Earth’ found, 20 light years away
Ian Sample, science correspondent
The Guardian
Wednesday April 25 2007Scientists have discovered a warm and rocky “second Earth” circling a star, a find they believe dramatically boosts the prospects that we are not alone.

WRONG.
The prospects (probability) that we are not alone do not change from day to day, they are the same and have been the same since man first looked up into the night sky.

Reality is not dependent on what we have or have not observed…or what we will admit to having observed. Is this journalist suggesting that this planet did not exist before it was observed? By extension, is he suggesting that intelligent life on other planets does not exist unless we detect it? I am sure that the people on other planets would have something to say about that.

This is illogic pure and simple. It is not science, or scientific thinking. In fact, it is more like false religion than science.

The planet is the most Earth-like ever spotted and is thought to have perfect conditions for water, an essential ingredient for life.

WRONG.
Water is not an essential ingredient for life. This is dogma. People used to say that the sun is essential for life; we now know that this is not the case. To say that water is essential for life is to fall into the same trap that previous scientists have, and really, there is no excuse for it.

Researchers detected the planet orbiting one of Earth’s nearest stars, a cool red dwarf called Gliese 581, 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra.

Measurements of the planet’s celestial path suggest it is 1½ times the size of our home planet, and orbits close to its sun, with a year of just 13 days. The planet’s orbit brings it 14 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. But Gliese 581 burns at only 3,000C, half the temperature of our own sun, making conditions on the planet comfortable for life, with average ground temperatures estimated at 0 to 40C.

FALSE.
Even if Gliese 581 was cold, there is no reason why any planet that orbits it should not be teeming with life. We know that there are forms of life, named ‘Extremophiles‘ that can live in conditions that are incomprehensibly harsh. There is no reason to suppose that life forms like this, or even more hardy than this, are not living throughout the universe. More false reasoning, and very tiresome it is.

Researchers claim the planet is likely to have an atmosphere. The discovery follows a three-year search for habitable planets by the European Southern Observatory at La Silla in Chile.

Atmospheres are not required for life, clearly.

“We wouldn’t be surprised if there is life on this planet,” said Stephane Udry, an astronomer on the project at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

Good!
Will you now concede that you would not be surprised if Alien scientists and explorers are visiting the earth right now?

I wonder!

Two years ago, the same team discovered a giant Neptune-sized planet orbiting Gliese 581. A closer look revealed the latest planetary discovery, along with a third, larger planet that orbits the star every 84 days. The planets have been named after their star, with the most earthlike called Gliese 581c. The team spotted the planet by searching the “habitable zone”.

There is no such thing as ‘the habitable zone’ this is another anthropocentric fantasy.

More trash from The Guardian.

Very easy to trash…typing exercise.

The Liberty / Common sense Virus is spreading

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

Legalise all drugs: chief constable demands end to ‘immoral laws’
By Jonathan Brown and David Langton
Published: 15 October 2007

One of Britain’s most senior police officers is to call for all drugs – including heroin and cocaine – to be legalised and urges the Government to declare an end to the “failed” war on illegal narcotics.

Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales, advocates an end to UK drug policy based on “prohibition”. His comments come as the Home Office this week ends the process of gathering expert advice looking at the next 10 years of strategy.

In his radical analysis, which he will present to the North Wales Police Authority today, Mr Brunstrom points out that illegal drugs are now cheaper and more plentiful than ever before.

The number of users has soared while drug-related crime is rising with narcotics now supporting a worldwide business empire second only in value to oil. “If policy on drugs is in future to be pragmatic not moralistic, driven by ethics not dogma, then the current prohibitionist stance will have to be swept away as both unworkable and immoral, to be replaced with an evidence-based unified system (specifically including tobacco and alcohol) aimed at minimisation of harms to society,” he will say.

The demand will not find favour in Downing Street. In his conference speech this year, Gordon Brown signalled an intensification of the existing battle. “We will send out a clear message that drugs are never going to be decriminalised,” the Prime Minister told the party.

The Tories also rejected the proposals. David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said a more effective move would be the creation of a UK border police force to stop drugs getting into the country as well as expanding rehabilitation centres. He added: “We would put police on the streets to catch and deter drug dealers and we would ensure sufficient prison capacity so they could actually be punished.”

Mr Brunstrom, whose championing of speed cameras has made him a hate figure among some motoring groups, also found his suggestion that the war on drugs was unwinnable dismissed as a “counsel of despair” by the Association of Chief Police Officers. “Moving to total legalisation would, in our view, greatly exacerbate the harm to people in this country, not reduce it,” an Acpo spokeswoman said.

But the 30-page report, entitled Drugs Policy – a radical look ahead, includes a number of persuasive voices. Today Mr Brunstrom will urge his colleagues to submit the paper to Westminster and the Welsh Assembly. In it, he quotes the findings in March this year of a Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts commission, which stated that “the law as it stands is not fit for purpose” and argues for the replacement of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act with a new Misuse of Substances Act.

That would mean scrapping the ABC system introduced by the home secretary James Callaghan with a new scale that assesses substances, including alcohol and tobacco, in relation to the harm they cause – although he admits banning booze and cigarettes is not likely.

But he notes that figures from the Chief Medical Officer have found that, in Scotland, 13,000 people died from tobacco-related use in 2004 while 2,052 died as a result of alcohol. Illegal drugs, meanwhile, accounted for 356 deaths. The maximum penalty for possessing a class A drug is 14 years in prison while supplying it carries a life term.

Mr Brunstrom indicates that there is a growing mood for change. He cites the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, which criticised the Government for failing to switch to an evidence-based policy approach. The report also includes quotes from former home secretary John Reid, admitting “prohibition” doesn’t work, and the Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, conceding “it drives the activity underground” . There is also supportive evidence from former Chief Inspector of Prisons Lord Ramsbotham, a retired High Court judge, and Scotland’s Drug Tsar, Tom Wood.

As well as hitting the country hard in economic terms – class A drug use in England and Wales costs the country up to £17bn a year, 90 per cent of which is due to crime – there are also a series of socially damaging knock-on effects, he says.

He argues that prohibition has created a crisis in the criminal justice system, destabilised producer countries and undermined human rights worldwide. By pursuing a policy of legalisation and regulation, he concludes, the Government will “dramatically reduce drug-related criminality and will enable significant funds to be transferred from law enforcement to harm reduction and treatment procedures that are known to work.”

There was a mixed response from groups that work with users. Danny Kushlick, a director of the charity Transform Drug Policy Foundation, praised Mr Brunstrom for his “great leadership and imagination”. But Clare McNeil, a policy officer for Addaction, said talk of legalisation distracted attention from the more important issue of rehabilitation. “We have some sympathy with his views and the reasons and why he believes this but we are not in favour of legalisation,” she said.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said it was ” significant” that a senior police officer had spoken out although he too thought the police chief’s views went too far. “Where he is absolutely right is that the Government’s drugs policy is failing and failing spectacularly. The refusal of the Government to think radically means we are letting thousands of young boys and girls down.

“I am not persuaded that full legalisation is the way forward but what is necessary is that a more logical and evidence-based approach is needed which is less susceptible to whims of individual home secretaries … The system does not work as it is.”

The Chief Constable’s verdict

  • British drugs policy has been based upon prohibition for the last several decades – but this system has not worked well. Illegal drugs are in plentiful supply and have become consistently cheaper in real terms over the years.
  • The number of drug users has increased dramatically. Drug-related crime has soared equally sharply as a direct consequence of the illegality of some drugs. The vast profits from illegal trading have supported a massive rise in organised crime.
  • The ABC classification of drugs is said by the RSA Commission to be indefensible and is described as “crude, ineffective, riddled with anomalies and open to political manipulation”. Most importantly, the current ABC system illogically excludes both alcohol and tobacco.
  • Mr Brunstrom says: “If policy on drugs is in the future to be pragmatic not moralistic, driven by ethics not dogma, then the current prohibitionist stance will have to be swept away as both unworkable and immoral. Such a strategy leads inevitably to the legalisation and regulation of all drugs.”
  • The chief constable asserts that current British drugs policy is based upon an unwinnable “war on drugs” enshrined in a flawed understanding of the underlying United Nations conventions, and arising from a wholly outdated and thoroughly repugnant moralistic stance.
  • He concludes: “The law is the law. In the meantime, I will continue to enforce it to the best of my ability despite my misgivings about its moral and practical worth.”

Independent

What struck me about this story is that the police man behind it says that prohibition is immoral.

Anyone with one working brain cell knows that prohibition is not only immoral, but that it is the very mother and engine of ‘organized crime’.

The Mafia in the USA was born out of the prohibition era when the manufacture, buying and selling of alcohol was outlawed.

That includes beer and wine.

The ‘war on drugs’ has been nothing more than a flimsy pretext to bring in police state measures and absurd ‘money laundering’ laws and surveillance that impact the ordinary person more than any ‘criminal’.

I single quoth criminal because no one today would say that Seagrams and any brewwer of beer is a criminal, yet, if you grow a single plant in your own garden, you can be sent to gaol for a long time. It is completely absurd, and what’s more, everyone knows it, including the poor beleaguered police who have to waste their time enforcing these insane laws.

This article says that there is a ‘growing mood for change’. This is true not only about the bogus, immoral, stupid and pointless war on ‘drugs’ but about everything. It is the same mood that is behind the mass exodus from this country. It is the same mood that is behind the meteoric rise of Ron Paul.

Everyone, everywhere has HAD ENOUGH, and they are slowly waking up, asking the right questions, and, more importantly, taking steps to do something about it.

Terrorizing Lie Machine says, “It’s Working”

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Anxiety ‘haunts primary schools’

Primary school children and their parents are suffering from “deep anxiety” about modern life, according to a study of education in England.

The Cambridge-based Primary Review’s report said the pressure of Sats tests dominated the last two primary years.

Researchers ran 87 discussions with groups of children, parents, teachers and others; 750 people took part.

The government said most children lived in better conditions than 10 years ago and rejected criticism of testing.

“Today’s children, it was generally felt, are being forced to grow up too soon, and the prospects for the society and world they will inherit look increasingly perilous,” the report said.

Climate concerns

Among those quoted in the Primary Review report are children themselves.

Many expressed concern about climate change, global warming and pollution, the gulf between rich and poor, and terrorism.

“The children were no less anxious about those local issues which directly affected their sense of security – traffic, the lack of safe play areas, rubbish, graffiti, gangs of older children, knives, guns,” the report said.

“Some were also worried by the gloomy tenor of ‘what you hear on the news’ or by a generalised fear of strangers, burglars and street violence.”

But the report added: “Where schools had started engaging children with global and local realities as aspects of their education they were noticeably more upbeat.”

The children thought the Sats tests were “scary” but felt the results informed people about how they were doing.

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7039966.stm

This is an outrageous and vile article.

This is why.

People are anxious about many things, including but not limited to:

  • the prospect of unending war
  • dangerous vaccines
  • violence in schools
  • their children being fingerprinted like cattle
  • id cards and the database state
  • exponential growth of bureaucracy
  • swingeing taxes
  • the EU impinging on British sovereignty
  • immigration from the EU
  • the police state
  • CCTV watching you 24/7 (would make ANYONE anxious)
  • the total erosion of privacy
  • mad scientists creating life
  • Neu Labour
  • Tony Bliar
  • Gordon Brown
  • Jack Straw
  • Jacqui Smith
  • John Reid
  • David Blunkett
  • Charles Clarke

all of this and more combine to make life in Britain so unpleasant that one third of people are desperate to leave the country. And yes, I DO mean ’emigrate’.

Even in the days of Margaret Thatcher, who was disliked in many quarters, her wrongs were not enough to trigger the en masse flight of the British from their own country.

That is how bad it REALLY is.

We read above that that children were consulted. On the one hand, people complain that children are not allowed to be children, but then they use them in consultations when they have no business doing so. Children are consulted about everything as if they were adults; you cannot have it both ways.

As for the fear about climate change, global warming and pollution, the gulf between rich and poor, and terrorism, the BBC is absolutely culpable in spreading the irrational fear of climate change and the global warming hoax. They have damaged children with these absurd bedtime stories and it is they that have pumped this fear into children. The same goes for ‘terrorism’; the BBC is absolutely guilty of spinning and boosting ‘terrorism’ and the fear boosting ideas surrounding it until they have reached a fever pitch. The reality is that ‘the threat of terrorism’ is not bigger now than it was when the IRA was operating, and the chances of you being affected directly by it are astronomically small. The real threat is the loss of our liberty…. But you know this.

The BBC is one of the greatest boosters of anxiety in this country, followed closely by Mad Murdoch’s lie empire and Neu Labour. It is indicative of their unmitigated gall that they put this ‘slow news day’ story on their front page, when they are one of the main culprits.

Anxiety is a state of mind. If everyone is repeatedly shown only the downside of everything then this is what the currency will be. If no one is allowed to see the entire picture and their place in it, they will feel small, marginalized and powerless (which is exactly what BBQ/HMG/NWO desire). This state of mind, on a mass scale, can be engineered for a time, and that is precisely what the BBC has been doing for over a decade. The BBC is a major cause of this anxiety, it is they who are a major factor in the terrorizing and destroying of The British State of Mind®.

Americans, as I have said so many times, have the ability to get out of deep ruts, and this is why Ron Paul has such a great amount of momentum. The spell is breaking in America, thanks the words and deeds of one honest man; people in that beleaguered land are tired of living like grey pieces of clay thrown on the devil’s potters wheel. Even the controlled press, feeling the surge and for whatever reason (not wanting to be on the wrong side of history or pure enlightened self interest) are starting to get behind Congressman Paul.

Could the same thing happen in Britain? That really isn’t the question. The question is, will there be anyone left here to make it happen.

Political Power and the Rule of Law

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

With the elections over and the 110th Congress settling in, the media have been reporting ad nauseam about who has assumed new political power in Washington. We’re subjected to breathless reports about emerging power brokers in Congress; how so-and-so is now the powerful chair of an important committee; how certain candidates are amassing power for the 2008 elections, and so on. Nobody questions this use of the word “power,” or considers its connotations. It’s simply assumed, in Washington and the mainstream media, that political power is proper and inevitable.

The problem is that politicians are not supposed to have power over us– we’re supposed to be free. We seem to have forgotten that freedom means the absence of government coercion. So when politicians and the media celebrate political power, they really are celebrating the power of certain individuals to use coercive state force.

Remember that one’s relationship with the state is never voluntary. Every government edict, policy, regulation, court decision, and law ultimately is backed up by force, in the form of police, guns, and jails. That is why political power must be fiercely constrained by the American people.

The desire for power over other human beings is not something to celebrate, but something to condemn! The 20th century’s worst tyrants were political figures, men who fanatically sought power over others through the apparatus of the state. They wielded that power absolutely, without regard for the rule of law.

Our constitutional system, by contrast, was designed to restrain political power and place limits on the size and scope of government. It is this system, the rule of law, which we should celebrate–not political victories.

Political power is not like the power possessed by those who otherwise obtain fame and fortune. After all, even the wealthiest individual cannot force anyone to buy a particular good or service; even the most famous celebrities cannot force anyone to pay attention to them. It is only when elites become politically connected that they begin to impose their views on all of us.

In a free society, government is restrained–and therefore political power is less important. I believe the proper role for government in America is to provide national defense, a court system for civil disputes, a criminal justice system for acts of force and fraud, and little else. In other words, the state as referee rather than an active participant in our society.

Those who hold political power, however, would lose their status in a society with truly limited government. It simply would not matter much who occupied various political posts, since their ability to tax, spend, and regulate would be severely curtailed. This is why champions of political power promote an activist government that involves itself in every area of our lives from cradle to grave. They gain popular support by promising voters that government will take care of everyone, while the media shower them with praise for their bold vision.

Political power is inherently dangerous in a free society: it threatens the rule of law, and thus threatens our fundamental freedoms. Those who understand this should object whenever political power is glorified.

What Does Freedom Really Mean?

“…man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan

We’ve all heard the words democracy and freedom used countless times, especially in the context of our invasion of Iraq. They are used interchangeably in modern political discourse, yet their true meanings are very different.

George Orwell wrote about “meaningless words” that are endlessly repeated in the political arena*. Words like “freedom,” “democracy,” and “justice,” Orwell explained, have been abused so long that their original meanings have been eviscerated. In Orwell’s view, political words were “Often used in a consciously dishonest way.” Without precise meanings behind words, politicians and elites can obscure reality and condition people to reflexively associate certain words with positive or negative perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden behind purposely meaningless language. As a result, Americans have been conditioned to accept the word “democracy” as a synonym for freedom, and thus to believe that democracy is unquestionably good.

The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as evidenced not only by our republican constitutional system, but also by their writings in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere. James Madison cautioned that under a democratic government, “There is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect pre-existing rights. Yet how many Americans know that the word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, our very founding documents?

A truly democratic election in Iraq, without U.S. interference and U.S. puppet candidates, almost certainly would result in the creation of a Shiite theocracy. Shiite majority rule in Iraq might well mean the complete political, economic, and social subjugation of the minority Kurd and Sunni Arab populations. Such an outcome would be democratic, but would it be free? Would the Kurds and Sunnis consider themselves free? The administration talks about democracy in Iraq, but is it prepared to accept a democratically-elected Iraqi government no matter what its attitude toward the U.S. occupation? Hardly. For all our talk about freedom and democracy, the truth is we have no idea whether Iraqis will be free in the future. They’re certainly not free while a foreign army occupies their country. The real test is not whether Iraq adopts a democratic, pro-western government, but rather whether ordinary Iraqis can lead their personal, religious, social, and business lives without interference from government.

Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the founders’ belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as any King.

Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive– and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government.

The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state– but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. The last tenuous links between conservatives and support for smaller government have been severed. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.

Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us. We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists.

Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word.

*Politics and the English Language, 1946.

Two essays by Congressman Ron Paul
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

Close but no cigar

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

Social Democratic Party drops its objections to fingerprints in ID cards

The experts on domestic and legal policy of the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the Bundestag, the lower chamber of Germany’s Federal Parliament, have withdrawn their initial objections to biometric enhancements of the new German ID card, the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel has written in a report published in the run-up to the final meeting of the representatives of the ruling coalition on the highly controversial topic scheduled for Tuesday. The Conservatives (CDU) and their partners in the ruling grand coalition, the SPD, have been working towards a solution akin to the one found for the e-passport, the paper declares. Thus apart from a digital photograph of the person in question, two of his or her fingerprints are to be integrated into the electronic ID card’s RFID chip. The approach does not provide for storage of the sensitive data outside the documents themselves. Members of the opposition have already warned that the system that was being put in place would lead to citizens being fingerprinted and photographed like criminals by the registration authorities.

>Dieter Wiefelspütz, an expert of the Social Democratic Party on domestic affairs, said he thought it was possible to countenance the inclusion of fingerprints in the ID cards that most citizens would eventually be carrying provided that “the storing of the data elsewhere has been ruled out completely.” The digital ID card was a “fascinating modernization project,” he added. Because of the potential advantages of the new document for citizens – it would make it a lot easier for them to register with authorities or have their age confirmed or checked via the Internet or when surfing the same, he pointed out – he for one would be supporting the project. For identification and authentication purposes a digital photo was good, “but a fingerprint is better still,” he declared. For Fritz Rudolf Körper, the deputy head of the parliamentary group of the Social Democrats, the party line is clear: “Fingerprints yes, but no database to go with them.” Even Klaus Uwe Benneter, the spokesman on legal policy issues of the SPD in the Bundestag, who within the ranks of the party has, to date, been a vocal critic of the project has signaled that he would be willing to drop his objections. The citizens of the Federal Republic would undoubtedly “benefit from” the biometric ID card, he said. (Stefan Krempl)

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/97169

Clearly there are people in the SDP who can feel the threat from routine fingerprinting, and the spectre of a database of everyone’s prints in a central location. What their ‘solution’ doesn’t address is the problem of taking people’s fingerprints, storing them on a card and then that card being readable and the prints, unique IDs and other information subsequently storable in a database. All it will take is one law to require this, and all the work of fingerprinting everyone will have been done on the basis that it was safe. It is called ‘betrayal’.

This problem cannot be circumvented. The SDP have to accept that in order to live in a free society, some things must be forbidden, and mandatory fingerprinting people is one of them. No concessions, no work-arounds, no compromise. The definition of freedom requires that you should not be compelled to be fingerprinted by the state for its purposes.

They at least accept that this is a very gravely serious issue, which is at least a start.