[…]
Fingerprints
T5 will have shops, cafes and bars like any other airport, and some of those are already fitted out – Harrods to name one.The terminal also has some new features, particularly in the area of security.

HEATHROW TERMINAL FIVE SECURITY

Every passenger will have their photograph taken and fingerprint scanned at passport control. Their fingerprint will be checked again at the gate before boarding.

“It’s so we can make sure that the person who turns up at the gate is the same one who checked in,” Mr Pearman says.

Another state-of-the-art addition involves X-ray scanners which screen hand luggage before they enter departures.

Never used before, the Advanced Threat Identification system is designed to detect explosives and liquids in baggage and automatically divert suspicious bags to one side for further examination.

In fact, the entire building is designed with security in mind: “We’ve been able to work security in, rather than try to add it on afterwards,” Mr Pearman says.

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7015785.stm

This is of course, a total lie.

This building has been built with Security Theatre in mind…but you know this, because we have written about the abomination that is Terminal 5 before.

This nauseating piece of propaganda from BBQ by the completely ignorant ‘Victoria Bone’ is astonishing in its breathless promoting of Terminal five in nothing but glowing terms.

She completely leaves out any negative consequences to the fingerprinting of criminals passengers, and this is in the light of the huge fight against biometric ID cards that is going on in this country. Such an omission can only be by design, and that therefore means this article is pure propaganda and part of a ‘softening up’ exercise for the British population, who, if they were told about what this really means to them, might refuse to fly out of Terminal 5 altogether.

Richard Rogers has made one of the worst buildings in the history of mankind. His firm is going to be responsible (unless the building is retrofitted and fixed to work correctly) for a violation of humans on a scale bigger than the concentration camps of Germany; Up to 30m passengers will travel through Terminal 5 every year.

Millions of people are going to be processed through this infernal machine, by his design, humiliating, violating and dehumanizing them for no other reason than that it was possible to do.

History will judge this building and its designer after the biometric fad and ‘security’ (Security Theatre) hysteria are over over.

They will say that what Richard Rogers has done with this Terminal 5 was pure evil, architecture in the service of Fascism and it will cast a dark shadow over any other building or success he ever had.

I for one, I will never travel through this building. I will not submit to this Fascism and inhuman architectural experimentation.

SHAME SHAME SHAME once again on BBQ for this blatant piece of propaganda.

SHAME on Richard Rogers, who has designed this Fascist monstrosity.

I pray that the truth about this building gets out and that people refuse to mover through it.

And for you people who do not know anything about identity and security, a quick recap.

There is absolutely no reason to take people’s fingerprints and photographs as they check in.

First of all, this is being done not only for international flights, but for ALL FLIGHTS including domestic ones. That means that if you, a British Citizen, want to fly to Manchester you have to be fingerprinted.

Inside your own country!

That is INSANE.

The reason why they are doing this is that travelers on international flights and domestic flights are mixed in one large unsegregated departure lounge, unlike any other airport in the world, where passengers flying on domestic and international flights are normally separated by walls. If someone got on a flight that connects through terminal five, it could be possible for them to get onto a domestic flight and then evade immigration control since the passenger area is mixed. To fix this problem with the building, they are fingerprinting EVERYONE so that this loophole is closed.

This has to be the stupidest mistake ever in the history of architecture.

The article above does not mention this of course, since it is propaganda.

Secondly, when you check into an international flight in a properly designed airport, you go to the international departure lounge and show your passport, which has your photo in it. The staff check your face against the picture in your passport. The name in your passport is checked against your name in your ticket. You are let through.

When you get to the gate, you show your passport again and your ticket stub, and the staff check your face against the photo in your passport, and the name on the stub. You are let onto the flight.

Fingerprinting you is nothing more than Security Theatre; this extra step adds no extra security to the normal process of checking in, and similarly, taking another photo of you in addition to the one you have in your passport adds no extra security whatsoever.

This is total Security Theatre, insanity and vendor driven garbage.

And there you have it.

By all means, tell everyone you know about this outrageous and vile building.

‘A Coup Has Occurred’

Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who leaked the secret Pentagon Papers history of the Vietnam War, offered insights into the looming war with Iran and the loss of liberty in the United States at an American University symposium on September 20. Below is an edited transcript of Ellsberg’s remarkable speech:

I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.

If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.

Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.

And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran – an escalation – which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps.

It’s a little hard for me to distinguish the two contingencies; they could come together. Another 9/11 or an Iranian attack in which Iran’s reaction against Israel, against our shipping, against our troops in Iraq above all, possibly in this country, will justify the full panoply of measures that have been prepared now, legitimized, and to some extent written into law. …

This is an unusual gang, even for Republicans. [But] I think that the successors to this regime are not likely to roll back the assault on the Constitution. They will take advantage of it, they will exploit it.

Will Hillary Clinton as president decide to turn off NSA after the last five years of illegal surveillance? Will she deprive her administration her ability to protect United States citizens from possible terrorism by blinding herself and deafening herself to all that NSA can provide? I don’t think so.

Unless this somehow, by a change in our political climate, of a radical change, unless this gets rolled back in the next year or two before a new administration comes in – and there’s no move to do this at this point – unless that happens I don’t see it happening under the next administration, whether Republican or Democratic.

The Next Coup

Let me simplify this and not just to be rhetorical: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It’s not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9/11. That’s the next coup, that completes the first.

The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution, … what the rest of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world – in checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.

There have been violations of these principles by many presidents before. Most of the specific things that Bush has done in the way of illegal surveillance and other matters were done under my boss Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against Americans.

I could go through a list going back before this century to Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus in the Civil War, and before that the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 18th century. I think that none of those presidents were in fact what I would call quite precisely the current administration: domestic enemies of the Constitution.

I think that none of these presidents with all their violations, which were impeachable had they been found out at the time and in nearly every case their violations were not found out until they were out of office so we didn’t have the exact challenge that we have today.

That was true with the first term of Nixon and certainly of Johnson, Kennedy and others. They were impeachable, they weren’t found out in time, but I think it was not their intention to, in the crisis situations that they felt justified their actions, to change our form of government.

It is increasingly clear with each new book and each new leak that comes out, that Richard Cheney and his now chief of staff David Addington have had precisely that in mind since at least the early 70s. Not just since 1992, not since 2001, but have believed in Executive government, single-branch government under an Executive president – elected or not – with unrestrained powers. They did not believe in restraint.

When I say this I’m not saying they are traitors. I don’t think they have in mind allegiance to some foreign power or have a desire to help a foreign power. I believe they have in their own minds a love of this country and what they think is best for this country – but what they think is best is directly and consciously at odds with what the Founders of this country and Constitution thought.

They believe we need a different kind of government now, an Executive government essentially, rule by decree, which is what we’re getting with signing statements. Signing statements are talked about as line-item vetoes which is one [way] of describing them which are unconstitutional in themselves, but in other ways are just saying the president says “I decide what I enforce. I decide what the law is. I legislate.”

It’s [the same] with the military commissions, courts that are under the entire control of the Executive Branch, essentially of the president. A concentration of legislative, judicial, and executive powers in one branch, which is precisely what the Founders meant to avert, and tried to avert and did avert to the best of their ability in the Constitution.

Founders Had It Right

Now I’m referring to that as a crisis right now not just because it is a break in tradition but because I believe in my heart and from my experience that on this point the Founders had it right.

It’s not just “our way of doing things” – it was a crucial perception on the corruption of power to anybody including Americans. On procedures and institutions that might possibly keep that power under control because the alternative was what we have just seen, wars like Vietnam, wars like Iraq, wars like the one coming.

That brings me to the second point. This Executive Branch, under specifically Bush and Cheney, despite opposition from most of the rest of the branch, even of the cabinet, clearly intends a war against Iran which even by imperialist standards, standards in other words which were accepted not only by nearly everyone in the Executive Branch but most of the leaders in Congress. The interests of the empire, the need for hegemony, our right to control and our need to control the oil of the Middle East and many other places. That is consensual in our establishment. …

But even by those standards, an attack on Iran is insane. And I say that quietly, I don’t mean it to be heard as rhetoric. Of course it’s not only aggression and a violation of international law, a supreme international crime, but it is by imperial standards, insane in terms of the consequences.

Does that make it impossible? No, it obviously doesn’t, it doesn’t even make it unlikely.

That is because two things come together that with the acceptance for various reasons of the Congress – Democrats and Republicans – and the public and the media, we have freed the White House – the president and the vice president – from virtually any restraint by Congress, courts, media, public, whatever.

And on the other hand, the people who have this unrestrained power are crazy. Not entirely, but they have crazy beliefs.

And the question is what then, what can we do about this? We are heading towards an insane operation. It is not certain. It is likely. … I want to try to be realistic myself here, to encourage us to do what we must do, what is needed to be done with the full recognition of the reality. Nothing is impossible.

What I’m talking about in the way of a police state, in the way of an attack on Iran is not certain. Nothing is certain, actually. However, I think it is probable, more likely than not, that in the next 15, 16 months of this administration we will see an attack on Iran. Probably. Whatever we do.

And … we will not succeed in moving Congress probably, and Congress probably will not stop the president from doing this. And that’s where we’re heading. That’s a very ugly, ugly prospect.

However, I think it’s up to us to work to increase that small perhaps – anyway not large – possibility and probability to avert this within the next 15 months, aside from the effort that we have to make for the rest of our lives.

Restoring the Republic

Getting back the constitutional government and improving it will take a long time. And I think if we don’t get started now, it won’t be started under the next administration.

Getting out of Iraq will take a long time. Averting Iran and averting a further coup in the face of a 9/11, another attack, is for right now, it can’t be put off. It will take a kind of political and moral courage of which we have seen very little…

We have a really unusual concentration here and in this audience, of people who have in fact changed their lives, changed their position, lost their friends to a large extent, risked and experienced being called terrible names, “traitor,” “weak on terrorism” – names that politicians will do anything to avoid being called.

How do we get more people in the government and in the public at large to change their lives now in a crisis in a critical way? How do we get Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for example? What kinds of pressures, what kinds of influences can be brought to bear to get Congress to do their jobs? It isn’t just doing their jobs. Getting them to obey their oaths of office.

I took an oath many times, an oath of office as a Marine lieutenant, as an official in the Defense Department, as an official in the State Department as a Foreign Service officer. A number of times I took an oath of office which is the same oath office taken by every member of Congress and every official in the United States and every officer in the United States armed services.

And that oath is not to a Commander in Chief, which is not mentioned. It is not to a Führer. It is not even to superior officers. The oath is precisely to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Now that is an oath I violated every day for years in the Defense Department without realizing it when I kept my mouth shut when I knew the public was being lied into a war as they were lied into Iraq, as they are being lied into war in Iran.

I knew that I had the documents that proved it, and I did not put it out then. I was not obeying my oath which I eventually came to do.

I’ve often said that Lt. Ehren Watada – who still faces trial for refusing to obey orders to deploy to Iraq which he correctly perceives to be an unconstitutional and aggressive war – is the single officer in the United States armed services who is taking seriously upholding his oath.

The president is clearly violating that oath, of course. Everybody under him who understands what is going on and there are myriad, are violating their oaths. And that’s the standard that I think we should be asking of people.

Congressional Courage

On the Democratic side, on the political side, I think we should be demanding of our Democratic leaders in the House and Senate – and frankly of the Republicans – that it is not their highest single absolute priority to be reelected or to maintain a Democratic majority so that Pelosi can still be Speaker of the House and Reid can be in the Senate, or to increase that majority.

I’m not going to say that for politicians they should ignore that, or that they should do something else entirely, or that they should not worry about that.

Of course that will be and should be a major concern of theirs, but they’re acting like it’s their sole concern. Which is business as usual. “We have a majority, let’s not lose it, let’s keep it. Let’s keep those chairmanships.” Exactly what have those chairmanships done for us to save the Constitution in the last couple of years?

I am shocked by the Republicans today that I read in the Washington Post who yesterday threatened a filibuster if we … get back habeas corpus. The ruling out of habeas corpus with the help of the Democrats did not get us back to George the First it got us back to before King John 700 years ago in terms of counter-revolution.

We need some way, and Ann Wright has one way, of sitting in, in Conyers office and getting arrested. Ray McGovern has been getting arrested, pushed out the other day for saying the simple words “swear him in” when it came to testimony.

I think we’ve got to somehow get home to them [in Congress] that this is the time for them to uphold the oath, to preserve the Constitution, which is worth struggling for in part because it’s only with the power that the Constitution gives Congress responding to the public, only with that can we protect the world from mad men in power in the White House who intend an attack on Iran.

And the current generation of American generals and others who realize that this will be a catastrophe have not shown themselves – they might be people who in their past lives risked their bodies and their lives in Vietnam or elsewhere, like [Colin] Powell, and would not risk their career or their relation with the president to the slightest degree.

That has to change. And it’s the example of people like those up here who somehow brought home to our representatives that they as humans and as citizens have the power to do likewise and find in themselves the courage to protect this country and protect the world. Thank you.

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/ellsberg2.html

Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented U.S. Effort More Extensive Than Previously Known

By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 22, 2007; Page A01

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department’s Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.

The Automated Targeting System has been used to screen passengers since the mid-1990s, but the collection of data for it has been greatly expanded and automated since 2002, according to former DHS officials.

Officials yesterday defended the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked to any violations of the law. But civil liberties advocates have alleged that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms about the government’s ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any errors, activists said.

The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans’ exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used to impede their right to travel.

“The federal government is trying to build a surveillance society,” said John Gilmore, a civil liberties activist in San Francisco whose records were requested by the Identity Project, an ad-hoc group of privacy advocates in California and Alaska. The government, he said, “may be doing it with the best or worst of intentions. . . . But the job of building a surveillance database and populating it with information about us is happening largely without our awareness and without our consent.”

Gilmore’s file, which he provided to The Washington Post, included a note from a Customs and Border Patrol officer that he carried the marijuana-related book “Drugs and Your Rights.” “My first reaction was I kind of expected it,” Gilmore said. “My second reaction was, that’s illegal.”

DHS officials said this week that the government is not interested in passengers’ reading habits, that the program is transparent, and that it affords redress for travelers who are inappropriately stymied. “I flatly reject the premise that the department is interested in what travelers are reading,” DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said. “We are completely uninterested in the latest Tom Clancy novel that the traveler may be reading.”

[…]

Washington Post

This is of course, a bald faced lie; if they are not interested in what a person is reading, then they would not collect data on the titles of books that you are carrying with you when you travel.

These people are so thick that they cannot even come up with a plausible lie to tell, they just come up with insane non-sequiturs like, “we are not interested in it, thats why we do it”.

As loath as I am to help out the perpetrators of this utter evil and the de destroyers of the american way of life, I have to point out a single reason that a skilled liar might give for the retention of a list of books people are carrying into the USA.

Numbers Stations.

Hell-spawn Chertoff could assert in terror movie plot style that they need to keep a list of books people are carrying because section of the text from these books might be used as One Time Pads to decrypt messages sent by OBL from his secret mountain lair.

It would go like this:

“NSA needs to have a list of all books being carried with travelers so that they can load their 25 million CPU supercomputer under mount Rushmore with the texts of all these books and then run them brute force against all classified ads, Numbers Station transmissions and every other possible source of encrypted messages.”

There you have it. And there are some people in the USA who would willingly drink that Kool-Aid and then preach it like religion, and there are millions more who would subsequently believe it unquestioningly, and then conveniently forget that it ever happened a year or two down the road.

The fact that traitors like Chertoff do not bother to come up with lies like that, which whilst being improbable are at least open to sound bite debate, shows just how sure they are that they are going to take over the usa and grind it into dust.

Back to the gist; RFID tags in books and other property will make this sort of association of objects to people much easer. They will (or do they right now?) then keep a list of ‘bad books’ or ‘suspicious literature’ any of which will cause you to be flagged should you buy them or be detected carrying them.

And if you think that avoiding the land of the great satan will keep you out of their databases:

Ann Harrison, the communications director for a technology firm in Silicon Valley who was among those who obtained their personal files and provided them to The Post, said she was taken aback to see that her dossier contained data on her race and on a European flight that did not begin or end in the United States or connect to a U.S.-bound flight.

“It was surprising that they were gathering so much information without my knowledge on my travel activities, and it was distressing to me that this information was being gathered in violation of the law,” she said.

James P. Harrison, director of the Identity Project and Ann Harrison’s brother, obtained government records that contained another sister’s phone number in Tokyo as an emergency contact. “So my sister’s phone number ends up being in a government database,” he said. “This is a lot more than just saying who you are, your date of birth.”

Edward Hasbrouck, a civil liberties activist who was a travel agent for more than 15 years, said that his file contained coding that reflected his plan to fly with another individual. In fact, Hasbrouck wound up not flying with that person, but the record, which can be linked to the other passenger’s name, remained in the system. “The Automated Targeting System,” Hasbrouck alleged, “is the largest system of government dossiers of individual Americans’ personal activities that the government has ever created.”

Astonishing.

And finally, from the bug-eyed beelzebub pocket devil Chertoff:

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in August 2006 said that “if we learned anything from Sept. 11, 2001, it is that we need to be better at connecting the dots of terrorist-related information. After Sept. 11, we used credit-card and telephone records to identify those linked with the hijackers. But wouldn’t it be better to identify such connections before a hijacker boards a plane?”

What ‘we learned’ you little devil, is that america is as vulnerable as any county is to being dismantled from the insiede and all it takes is a few evil and intelligent traitors to pull it off.

Furthermore, and stepping forward into the frame, what you should have learned (by now) is that there is a consequence to killing people in foreign countries (Vietnam). There is a consequence to imposing regimes on people (Iran, Operation AJAX) interfering with other peoples anything.

Now, with everyone running from the dollar like it is the plague, and the chinese threatening to destroy america without firing a shot, the american government is finally and literally going to pay for all the evil it has done, and the american people are very sadly going to pay for the evil that they have allowed to happen and which they have explicitly endorsed with their votes; remember this is all is entirely the fault of the voting public, who returned a war criminal to office, and who seem to be resisting the only man who can save America (with a capital ‘A’).

Once again. If there is one country on this earth that can turn such a disaster around it is the US of A.

They can be a great people…they wish to be.

The Government is considering placing all people on the organ donor register automatically unless they “opt out”. Currently only a quarter of Britons are on the register and the waiting list for organs is at a record high.

But a system of presumed consent – which operates in several other countries including Sweden and Austria – has proved controversial in the UK.

At present, the family has the final say unless a person has actively put themselves on the organ donor register or expressed their wishes.

The family does not have the legal right to veto or overrule those wishes even if they disagree.

Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, backs changing the law to drive up donation rates but some critics have argued against it. Sir Liam’s Scottish counterpart, Harry Burns, has said the public is not ready for a system of presumed consent.

Today, Health Secretary Alan Johnson announced that the Organ Donation Taskforce – set up in 2006 to look at barriers to organ donation – would examine the issue in detail.

The taskforce will focus on the moral and medical issues around presumed consent, including whether the family of somebody who has died should be given the final say on organs for donation.

Mr Johnson said: “We know that around 8,000 people in the UK need an organ transplant but only 3,000 transplants are carried out each year.

“With more than 400 people dying every year waiting for a new kidney, heart, lung or liver, we need to do everything possible to increase organ donation.

“The Chief Medical Officer’s annual report helped put the idea of presumed consent into the public arena to be debated.

“This is a sensitive issue, but it is vital that all possible options for increasing the number of organs available for transplant are explored.”

Elisabeth Buggins, chair of the Organ Donation Taskforce, said: “I am very pleased that the taskforce has been asked to explore this incredibly important issue.

“We will establish a special sub group to take this work forward which will examine the complex medical, ethical, legal and societal issues.”

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the number of people waiting for organ transplant had reached a record high. UK Transplant said 7,234 patients were waiting at the end of March, up 8 per cent on the previous year.

Currently, more than 14.5 million people (around 24 per cent of the population) are on the organ donor register.

The British Medical Association (BMA) supports a system of presumed consent for organ donation for those over the age of 16, where relatives’ views are taken into account.

The Human Tissue Act 2004 states that no organs and tissue can be removed without the consent of the dead person or their relatives.

Adrian McNeil, chief executive of the Human Tissue Authority, said: “As we said in our statement in July 2007 in response to the Chief Medical Officer’s recommendation, any move to a system of presumed consent would require a change in the law.

“There would need to be extensive consultation and debate before that happened.”

[…]

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

The first thing that comes to mind is what are the religious implications; for example, what rules govern the 1.6 million Muslims in the UK once they are dead?

Internets say:

[…] Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, issues the following Fatwa:

“Organ donation is permitted in Islam if it is done within the permissible limits prescribed by the Shari`ah.
The following are the conditions scholars have stipulated for donation:

Conditions associated with a living donor:

1. He/she must be a person who is in full possession of his/her faculties so that he/she is able to make a sound decision by himself/herself;

2. He/she must be an adult and, preferably, at least twenty-one years old;

3. It should be done on his/her own free will without any external pressure exerted on him/ her;

4. The organ he/she is donating must not be a vital organ on which his/her survival or sound health is dependent upon;

5. No transplantation of sexual organs is allowed.

Conditions associated with deceased donors:

1. It must be done after having ascertained the free consent of the donor prior to his /her death. It can be through a will to that effect, or signing the donor card, etc.

2. In a case where organ donation consent was not given prior to a donor’s death, the consent may be granted by the deceased’s closest relatives who are in a position to make such decisions on his/her behalf.

3. It must be an organ or tissue that is medically determined to be able to save the life or maintain the quality of life of another human being.

4. The organ must be removed only from the deceased person after the death has been ascertained through reliable medical procedures.

5. Organs can also be harvested from the victims of traffic accidents if their identities are unknown, but it must be done only following the valid decree of a judge.”

[…]

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/

Hmmm and my emphasis.

The Muslim Religious Council initially rejected organ donation by followers of Islam in 1983; but it has reversed its position, provided that donors consent in writing in advance. The organs of Muslim donors must be transplanted immediately and not be stored in organ banks. According to Dr. Abdel_Rahma Osman, Director of the Muslim Community Center in Maryland, “We have no policy against organ and tissue donation as long as it is done with respect for the deceased and for the benefit of the recipient.”

[…]

http://www.redcross.org/donate/tissue/relgstmt.html

and finally:

A. 5. This question is very much debated by the jurists (Fuqaha’) in recent years. It is a matter of ijtihad and some jurists consider it permissible while other prohibit organ donation and transplantation. The Supreme Council of Ulama’ in Riyadh (as per their resolution no. 99 dated 6 Dhul Qi’dah 1402) has allowed both organ donation and organ transplantation in the case of necessity (idtirar). They use the principle of Maslaha and the principle that every thing is permissible unless it is forbidden. According to these jurists, the organ can be taken from the body of a living person with his/her consent and approval and also from the body of a dead person. In the case of a living person, the jurists have stipulated that this donation should not deprive him/her of vital organs. It should also not cause risk to his/her normal life. The Fiqh Academy of the Muslim World League, Makkah also allowed organ donation and transplantation in its 8th session held between 28 Rabi’ul Thani – 7 Jumadal Ula, 1405. The Fiqh Academy of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Jeddah during the year 1408 and the Mufti of Egypt Dr. Saeed al-Tantawi also allowed the use of the body organs of a person who has died in an accident, if the necessity requires the use of any organ to cure a patient, provided that a competent and trustworthy Muslims physician makes this decision.

It is important to note that most of the Fuqaha’ have allowed the donation of the organs only. They do not allow the sale of the human organs. Their position is that the sale of human organs violates the rules of the dignity and honor of human being and so it is haram. Some jurists suggest that because people have become too materialistic and it may not be possible to find a free organ, so under necessity one can purchase the organs, but a Muslim should never sell his/her organs.

Some Egyptian as well as Indian and Pakistani jurists do not permit organ donation or transplantation. They argue that our bodies are Allah’s trust (‘amanah) with us and we do not own our bodies. So as it is haram to commit suicide, it is also haram to give away part of one’s body. But this does not seem to be a strong argument. Allah owns every thing and every thing that we have is a trust from Allah, but Allah allowed us to use things for our benefit and to give them to others for their benefit. Suicide is a termination of life for no purpose and it is haram according to the specific rules of the Shari’ah, but organ donation or transplant is for the benefit of oneself or others and there is no rule of the Shari’ah that forbid it.

[…]

http://www.pakistanlink.com/religion/re10-04-96.html

Fascinating…internets led me to this tract about sperm donation in the Middle East, starting with Israel:

This focus on the “local moral” is found in another award-winning book on the topic of IVF. Titled Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel, this book by medical anthropologist Susan Martha Kahn (2000; see also her article in this special issue) takes us into the often arcane world of Jewish Halakhic law, where male rabbis legislate on the appropriate uses of IVF for their followers. Kahn carefully describes how these rabbinical debates and decisions affect the actual practice of Israeli IVF. For example, third-party donation of gametes, including sperm donation, is allowed, since Jewishness is seen to be conferred through the mother’s side, particularly through the act of gestating and birthing the baby. However, most conservative rabbis prefer that non-Jewish donor sperm be used, to prevent adultery between a Jewish man and a Jewish woman and to prevent future genetic incest among the offspring of anonymous donors in this small, intermarrying country. Furthermore, debates have revolved around whether surrogacy should be allowed for infertile couples, using single or married surrogates. Generally speaking, single Jewish women are preferred as surrogates, both to avoid the implications of adultery for married surrogate women and to confer Jewishness through a Jewish woman’s gestation of the fetus. Finally, because the Jewish state is pronatalist—with the state subsidizing up to six cycles of IVF or up to the birth of two IVF children for any given Jewish patient—rabbis have generally been permissive when it comes to single career women, as well as lesbian Jewish mothers, conceiving children through assisted conceptive means.

Kahn’s fascinating and frankly funny book details the sometimes dizzying rabbinical arguments regarding morally appropriate and inappropriate reproduction. In so doing, the book bespeaks the importance of local religious moralities in the contemporary world of Israeli assisted conception. There, doctors in many clinics serving orthodox Jewish patient populations attempt to practice IVF according to the moral dictates set forth by religiously conservative rabbis. The IVF laboratories in these clinics are full of orthodox women called maschigots, who literally peer over the shoulders of laboratory technicians to make sure that the correct sperm and correct eggs are being united—so as not to produce a mamzer, or an illegitimate child. In her book, Kahn is explicit in stating that the American consumer model of free-market reproductive medicine has yet to take hold in Israel, with its concern over religious guidelines. Nonetheless, Israel’s relative permissiveness over the use of donor gametes, surrogacy, and single and lesbian motherhood stands in stark contrast to the Muslim Middle East, including both neighboring Egypt and Lebanon, where I have conducted my own ethnographic research on IVF.

and now Sunni Islam:

Sunni Islam and IVF
IVF was first practiced in the Sunni Muslim world, with clinics opening in the mid-1980s in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, all Sunni-majority countries. The Grand Shaikh of Egypt’s famed religious university, Al Azhar, issued the first widely authoritative fatwa on medically assisted reproduction on March 23, 1980. This fatwa—issued only two years after the birth of the first IVF baby in England but a full six years before the opening of Egypt’s first IVF center—has proved to be truly enduring in all its main points (Inhorn 2006a). In fact, the basic tenets of the original Al-Azhar fatwa on IVF have been upheld by other fatwas issued since 1980 and have achieved wide acceptance throughout the Sunni Muslim world. Sunni Islam, it must be emphasized, is the dominant form of Islam found in the Middle Eastern region and throughout the Muslim world. Between 80 and 90 percent of the world’s Muslims are Sunni, and more than 90 percent of Egypt’s citizens are Sunni Muslims, the rest being predominantly Coptic Christian.

The degree to which these official Sunni Islamic fatwas on IVF have affected the actual practices of the Middle Eastern medical profession is also quite striking. For physicians, the dominant Sunni religious opinion on IVF has been made known to the Middle Eastern medical community through the writings of Gamal I. Serour, one of three founding members of the first Egyptian IVF center and the director of Al-Azhar’s International Islamic Center for Population Studies and Research. In article after article (Serour 1992, 1994, 1996; Serour and Omran 1992; Serour, El Ghar, and Mansour 1990, 1991; Serour, Aboulghar, and Mansour 1995), Serour has spelled out the main points of the Sunni Islamic position on medically assisted conception, as follows:

• Artificial insemination with the husband’ssemen is allowed, and the resulting child is the legal offspring of the couple.
• In vitro fertilization of an egg from the wife with the sperm of her husband followed by the transfer of the fertilized embryo(s) back to the uterus of the wife is allowed, provided that the procedure is indicated for a medical reason and is carried out by an expert physician.
• No third party should intrude into the marital functions of sex and procreation, because marriage is a contract between the wife and husband during the span of their marriage. This means that a third party donor is not allowed, whether he or she is providing sperm, eggs, embryos, or a uterus. The use of a third party is tantamount to zina, or adultery.
• Adoption of a donor child from an illegitimate form of medically assisted conception is not allowed. The child who results from a forbidden method belongs to the mother who delivered him/her. He or she is considered to be a laqit, or an illegitimate child.
• If the marriage contract has come to an end because of divorce or death of the husband, medically assisted conception cannot be performed on the ex-wife even if the sperm comes from the former husband.
• An excess number of fertilized embryos can be preserved by cryopreservation. The frozen embryos are the property of the couple alone and may be transferred to the same wife in a successive cycle, but only during the duration of the marriage contract.
• Multifetal pregnancy reduction (or so-called selective abortion) is only allowed if the prospect of carrying a high-order pregnancy (i.e., twins, triplets, or more) to viability is very small. It is also allowed if the health or life of the mother is in jeopardy.
• All forms of surrogacy are forbidden.
• Establishment of sperm banks is strictly forbidden, for such a practice threatens the existence of the family and the “race” and should be prevented.
• The physician is the only qualified person to practice medically assisted conception in all its permitted varieties. If he performs any of the forbidden techniques, he is guilty, his earnings are forbidden, and he must be stopped from his morally illicit practice.

interesting…

and finally:

Muslim IVF patients use the term “mixture of relations” to describe this untoward outcome. Such a mixture of relations, or the literal confusion of lines of descent introduced by third-party donation, is described as being very “dangerous,” “forbidden,” “against nature,” “against God”—in a word, haram, or morally unacceptable. It is argued that donation, by allowing a “stranger to enter the family,” confuses lines of descent in patrilineal Islamic societies. For men in particular, ensuring paternity and the “purity” of lineage through “known fathers” is of paramount concern (Inhorn 2006b). As one Sunni Muslim man, a high school biology teacher, summarized the problem:

The most important thing is that we are Muslims. If there is faith in carrying out this operation using sperm from the husband and ova from the wife, then this is okay. We cannot accept what happens in the West. We heard some women “hire the womb” of another woman, or take sperm. According to our religion, this is called ikhtilat in-nasab, “mixing relations.” We consider it some kind of zina, prostitution. Because there are many hadiths from the Prophet Muhammad that confirm this. If you put your sperm in another woman besides your wife, you go to hell. This is adultery. There is a hadith on adultery. “If you put your sperm in another woman other than your wife, you are going to commit a sin.” People asked the Prophet, “How?” He said, “If you put it in your wife, you are going to be rewarded from Allah.” They said, “Yes.” He told them, “But this is also the case if you put it in the wrong womb. You are going to have punishment.”

In addition to the consequences of mixed bloodlines and adultery, bringing such donor children into the world is considered unfair to the children themselves, who would never be treated with the love and concern parents feel for their “real” children. Such a child could only be viewed as a bastard—an ibn haram, literally “son of sin.” Thus, a child of third-party donation starts life off as an “illegal” child. The child is deemed illegitimate and stigmatized even in the eyes of his or her own parents, who will therefore lack the appropriate parental sentiments (Inhorn 2006b). As one Sunni Muslim IVF patient stated

:

And so on, from PubMed

That was a major digression, but worth it.

Essentially, this goes right back to wether or not a person is the property of the state or not. When you are dead, the state is trying to confiscate your body and then use it as it sees fit. They already do everything they can to steal your property after you die, so why not steal your body also?

Like the screengrab above from THX-1138, what will happen in the end is that they will compel you to have your health actively monitored and store the results in a database (a decedent of the NIR) so that they can then harvest your body parts on demand while you are still alive or under certain conditions, i.e., if you are a freshly executed criminal.

The people at Bizarre magazine have pointed out to their readers, the details of a most illogical, immoral, unjust, unworkable, idiotic, ill conceived and undemocratic piece of legislation, to be debated in October.

This bill is an illiberal bill, which no free society would even dream of tabling for debate.

It is part of the the new Criminal Justice Bill, which will make it illegal to possess certain images.

Lets take a look at what the bill says, and tear it to pieces.

64 Possession of extreme pornographic images

(1) It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an extreme pornographic image.

(2) An “extreme pornographic image” is an image which is both ~

(a) pornographic, and

(b) an extreme image.

First of all, its a good thing that the servant of satan David ‘scumbag adulterer’ Blunkett is no longer in high office; we would have no one to finally determine what is or is not pornographic or extreme.

People have been over this for the entire twentieth century. Careers and lives ruined, businesses trashed and yet, ‘here we go again’. If two people want to create an image, whatever it is, it is their business, it is also their business if they want to publish those images and it is their absolute right.

The laws of copyright are enough to protect people who publish images (model releases etc etc) and the criminal laws covering violence of all kinds are adequate to protect people whose images are taken during acts of violence.

This law is simply not needed. It is yet another knee-jerk jack-boot reaction. More on that downwards.

(3) An image is &quotpornographic” if it appears to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

Nonsense. People can be aroused by anything, including pictures of feet. This definition does not work.

(4) Where an image forms part of a series of images, the question whether the image appears to have been so produced is to be determined by reference to ~

(a) the image itself, and

(b) (if the series of images is such as to be capable of providing a context for the image) the context in which it occurs in the series of images.

(5) So, for example, where ~

(a) an image forms an integral part of a narrative constituted by a series of images, and

(b) it appears that the series of images as a whole was not produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal, the image may, by virtue of being part of that narrative, be found not to be pornographic, even though it might have been found to be pornographic if taken by itself.

So, if you have a movie where there is a plot where something bad happens that’s OK, but if you take a still from that film and distribute it, then that is a crime.

That is INSANE.

(6) An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following ~

(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,

so all the stills of people being killed in Iraq who have their shoes off are now illegal. Very smart!

(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,

This line says more about the people who drafted this bad bill than any decent person would care to know. What about serious injury to a persons feet? As we all know, there are people who are obsessed in a sexual manner with feet; why are these parts of the body singled out? It is just irrational nonsense.

(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,

First of all, corpses do not have rights. Secondly, you cannot do violence to an inanimate, non-living object which is what a corpse is. This bill is written by someone with no experience of life, the arts or the history of pornography, and dare I suggest, the law.

(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.

This is entirely problematic.

By extending these rights to animals, you go down a slippery slope ending in the banning of meat. But I digress. This part of the bill not only outlaws the depiction of images of real bestiality, but it outlaws, simulations of bestiality you can never, ever ban the depiction of something from someone’s imagination, that is the ultimate restriction of your right to free thought and expression.

An image of an act, conjured from the imagination is protected speech. There are no victims, no animals are harmed; there is no crime, unless you consider thinking to now be a crime.

Then there is the aspect of images conjured from the imagination that are not staged photographs, i.e. simple drawings made with paint, or crayons or computer graphics. Those images too would be subject to this absurd legislation.

Your first thought when you read about this is that it is designed to prevent the ‘Mr. Sebatians‘ of this world from making and distributing images of their consensual S&M fun and games, but actually, it encompasses everything, and not just those works.

(7) In this section “image” means ~

(a) a moving or still image (produced by any means); or

(b) data (stored by any means) which is capable of conversion into an image within paragraph (a).

This is interesting from a technical point of view; all files can be turned into images and sounds; what you need is the right tool to do it. Going into the details here would be a major digression, but suffice to say, you can (circular) file this in the same place where the arguments covering DVD decoding codes (strings of nummbers) and DCMA violating t-shirts are stored. Use the Google.

(8) In this section references to a part of the body include references to a part surgically constructed (in particular through gender reassignment surgery).

???!!!

It is a defence if

(c) that the person ~

(i) was sent the image concerned without any prior request having been made by or on behalf of the person, and

(ii) did not keep it for an unreasonable time.

What is a reasonable amount of time?

It’s all garbage clearly.

Now on to the reason why this part of the bill exists.

A woman’s daughter was brutally murdered by an insane man who liked to look at ‘violent images’. This grieving mother modeled herself on Mary Whitehouse and collected 50,000 signatures in a petition that caused this bad law to be written.

I have some questions.

Why is it that a petition of 50,000 people results in a new law being written, an absurd and bad law, but if MILLIONS of people sign a petition against road pricing, that is TOTALLY IGNORED?

How is it that two million people can march in the streets of London in the biggest ever demonstration in this country’s history against an immoral illegal and predictably murderous war, and they are TOTALLY IGNORED?

Those are rhetorical questions of course, as we know the answers.

This is another piece of knee jerk legislation, as is the way in this country, where the law is created by newspaper editors and grieving parents with a disproportionately loud voice.

We see it with the ban on dangerous dogs (brought in after a child was savaged), and the ban on handguns (after some nutter killed some children, in that case, with a gun). The same process unfolds every time; the parents ‘go public’ the newspaper editors get behind them and pressure parliament to ‘DO SOMETHING’ or look like they are soft on crime.

The only law that comes out of this is bad law, and it is bad law every time.

What is also shocking (actually, not really shocking because this is normal behavior for them) is that the government gives the excuse (as Bliar did for his police state measures) that only a small number of people will be affected by this legislation.

This is astonishing and evil in equal measures.

If one person has their rights taken away by this law, we all suffer. Thats like saying, “we will only exterminate a small number of people to solve this problem”. Everyone’s rights are as precious and important as everyone eles’s and you cannot take away someone’s rights and then justify it because the numbers of the victims will be small.

I’m not making this up.

And you can read all the other lies and deceptions that they regularly take out of the Fascist Neu Labor toolbox at that link.

Needless to say, no one will obey this law should it come into force. Thanks to the internets, you can look at whatever you like in the privacy of your own home, and no one will know what you are looking at as long as you are computer literate and take the necessary precautions.

The days of risking mail order to get your copies of ‘Piercing Fan International Quarterly‘ are over, and so are the days of legislation like this being enforceable.

You BASTARDS.

Accept HillaryCare or Face Homelessness

Kurt Nimmo
Wednesday September 19, 2007

“Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care but she rejected the notion of punitive measures to force individuals into the health care system,” reports News for clueless Yahoos.

Sure, Clinton rejects “punitive measures,” that is if you consider homelessness and the prospect of starvation, enforced by the government, something less than punitive. Clinton said “she could envision a day when ‘you have to show proof to your employer that you’re insured as a part of the job interview—like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination,’” Yahoo News continues. In other words, you’ll need HillaryCare in order to get a job, no word on how you’ll be able to afford it after months of unemployment. Call it a Catch-22, one the scribes over at the Associated Press did bother to mention.

Incidentally, for a presidential selectee, Clinton is awful stupid, even though former fed mob boss Alan Greenspan thinks she is a genius. Every single state in the United States allows for vaccination medical exemptions and a few even permit philosophical and/or religious exemptions, although the American Medical Association is attempting to put an end to this and force your children to be injected with thimerosal (i.e., mercury), formaldehyde, aluminum, and other toxins.

In other words, your children are not required to “show proof of vaccination” to enter school, although not going to a federal “education” indoctrination center may be considered a blessing.

Clinton is not stupid, of course. Rather she is an accomplished liar—on par with her war criminal husband—and a conniving Bilderberg doorstop, determined to impose the globalist agenda, even if it results in your kids ending up autistic, thanks to a mercury cocktail lovingly injected.

“On Tuesday, Clinton began airing a 30-second ad statewide in Iowa and New Hampshire promoting her new health care plan. The ad reminds viewers of her failed effort to pass universal health care in the early 1990s, trying to portray a thwarted enterprise as one of vision,” News for Yahoos continues. “The ad also highlights her support as senator for an expanded Children’s Health Insurance Program and for more affordable vaccines…. Her health care plan would require every American to buy health insurance, offering tax credits and subsidies to help those who can’t afford it. The mandatory aspect of her proposal, however, gets glossed over in the ad.”

It stands to reason Clinton’s plan will be “mandatory”—under penalty of taser-wielding, ninja-black drabbed SWAT cops—and, soon after she is selected by way of Diebold, Clinton will make sure millions of kids are stricken with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, seizures, mental retardation, hyperactivity, dyslexia, and other developmental disorders, such as autism.

[…]

http://adereview.com/blog/?p=48

Kurt! Kurt! Kurt! Kurt! Kurt! Kurt! Kurt!

An NHS primary care trust has warned of a new risk to the confidentiality of medical records stored under the National Programme for IT [NPfIT] after a celebrity was admitted into hospital and more than 50 staff viewed the patient’s records.The warning by North Tees Primary Care Trust raises questions about whether hundreds of thousands of NHS staff who would be able to view electronic records under the NPfIT would have their accesses to information policed robustly.

Systems that support electronic patient records – a central part of the NPfIT – produce audit trails of who has accessed what information. But it’s unclear whether busy NHS employees would have adequate time to police audit trails

And Computer Weekly has published evidence of a culture in the NHS that is incompatible with tight lax security. Smartcards have been shared so that busy doctors can share PCs without having to log on and off each time. This means it can prove difficult to establish who has accessed confidential patient information.

North Tees Primary Care Trust says that the unauthorised access by staff of patient records presents a “new security risk” under the Department of Health’s Care Record Guarantee – which gives an undertaking to patients that their confidential data will be protected from unauthorised access.

The trust says in a paper to the Board:

“A new security risk … has been identified as part of the Care Records Guarantee. This risk is around staff inappropriately accessing [a] patient’s records who are not part of their care load. It was noted in an audit that a recent admission of a celebrity to a hospital had revealed over 50 staff viewing the patient record… Staff should only access records of patients with whom they have a legitimate relationship.”

The document paper adds that trusts have to demonstrate that regular audits are undertaken and that they have “disciplinary procedures in place to deal with breaches”.

If staff wanted to access the medical records of a well-known individual or anyone else they were interested in, the risk with paper-based medical records would be smaller because the files would ordinarily be held in one location, and may not be accessible remotely. It’s unlikely that dozens of staff could view a paper record without drawing attention to themselves.

Evidence on the security risks of electronic records was submitted to the House of Commons’ Health Committee by the UK Computing Research Committee, which is an expert panel of the British Computer Society, the Institution of of Engineering and Technology and IT-related scientists.

It said: “As a general principle, a single system accessible by all NHS employees from all trusts maximises rather than minimises the risk of a security breach. It increases … the opportunity for access to any one patient’s data from some point on the extended system… it is important that a formal analysis is carried out to identify risks and show that they have been reduced as low as reasonably practicable.”

A spokesman for North Tees Primary Care Trust said the accessing of a celebrity’s records took place elsewhere, not within the trust. The spokesman was unable to give any details of the incident or where it took place.

Links:

Smartcard sharing by an NHS trust – a breach of IT security or a practical way around slow access to the NHS Care Records Service?

Care Record Guarantee [for example on the confidentiality of patient data]

Loss of 1.3 million sensitive medical files in the US – possible implications for the NHS’s National Programme for IT

Department of Health and Connecting for Health security flaws

Major reports on NHS and NPfIT

Evidence submitted by UK Computing Research Committee to the Health Committee on the Electronic Patient Record

Report raises further NPfIT concerns – British Computer Society [Security]

Computer Weekly

My emphasis.

And of course, if the spine is implemented as they desire, you can multiply the 50 Hippocratic violators, nosey parkers, scumbags by 1000 as every terminal connected to the spine will be able to see everyone’s records without restriction.

The same goes for ContactPoint, the child violating database, and of course, the nearly aborted NIR/Identity Card.

All of these systems will be abused from the day they go online.

One can only hope that some brave person leaks the personal details of every member of parliament and the house of Lords and their many offspring, so that we can see whose daughter had an abortion, which of their children is on anti-psychotics, who has been beating their wife, which MP is infertile, which MP(s) have Gonorrhea / Syphilis / HIV etc etc.

THEN we will start to hear loud howls of disdain for the system, with rapid moves to dismantle it and then blame the previous administration(s) for the failure.

In the meantime, you really must have your records physically deleted from your GPs computer, so that the data does not get snarfled into the NHS Spine. If you do not even bother to ask, then you only have yourself to blame, when all of a sudden you are surprised when your new employer says, “I hope that we wont have any more skiing accidents while you are working with us; we need your commitment to us to be 100%”.

Yes.

Your employer got a hold of your medical records and saw that you broke your leg whilst on holiday in the Alps two years ago.

How did he do it?

YOU LET HIM you JACKASS!!!

UPDATE

Of course, this is not a ‘new security risk’ as the report fallaciously states; this security risk is inherent to these poorly designed systems

Before the measles vaccination, measles used to be considered like chicken pox is today, a nuisance, and nothing more. Why, just because we have a vaccination for it has it suddenly become worthy of HUGE FRONT PAGE HEADLINES? Will chicken pox get the same treatment when the drug peddlers come up with a vaccination against it? Smacks of hysteria and sheep shearing to me.

Irdial; Blogdialian Blarchive, July2nd 2002. http://www.irdial.com/blogger/archive/2004_09_05_blarchive.html#109455661950837288

You can find more preminiscences on Chickenpox vaccines, and our early discussions on their proposed by using the Blarchive search.

Their relevance is cranked up a notch today by this story, the thrust of which we will now deconstruct:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6990643.stm

Children may get chickenpox jab
The Department of Health is to consider a mass vaccination of children in England against chickenpox.
There are now 2 chickenpox vaccines, licenesed for use in the UK since 2002. But the market is tiny, as it costs 60-90 pounds sterling from a private clinic. Which means GSK and Sanofi are missing out on a few quid.
Experts have been drafted in to weigh up the benefits following a recommendation from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
http://www.advisorybodies.doh.gov.uk/jcvi/members.htm

This bit of the article makes it sound like the JCVI is acutely concerned about varicella infection rates and mortality. However, there is nothing on their site about a varicella vaccine report. The minutes of 18th October 2006 say “The JCVI had proposed that subgroups be set up to look at rotavirus vaccines and varicella zoster vaccines. This had not yet been possible they but would be set up shortly.”

From 2001: “Varicella Vaccine

The Committee discussed varicella (chickenpox) vaccine and its potential use in the UK. The Committee agreed that, as far as the vaccine’s use in the wider population was concerned, there was insufficient information on which to make any recommendations. However, the vaccine’s use in health care workers could be considered more immediately as data on its use in this group was available. The vaccine was not yet licensed for use in the UK. A sub-group would look at this further.”

And from 2002, when the vaccine was licensed:

“Effectiveness and cost effectiveness of varicella vaccination This paper suggested that the key factor in the effectiveness of any varicella immunisation programme is the impact on zoster. Based on the assumptions in the paper and the available evidence, the case for routine infant or pre-adolescent immunisation had not been made.

The Committee welcomed the paper. It was suggested that the data offered very much a minimum estimate of the burden of disease. However, based on the current data available the paper’s conclusions were reasonable.”

So what has changed their collective mind? According to the most recent study in the British Medical Journal, deaths from chickenpox are decreasing.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7337/609/a

In context, so as not to scare you with the word ‘deaths’ or an image like this:

Chickenpox can be fatal

it should be noted that deaths predominate among the very immunocompromised, and are often ‘varicella-associated’, which means you die from a secondary infection such as pneumonia while trying to fight off chickenpox or shingles.

Peanuts can be fatal.
Ballpoint pens can be fatal.
It’s all about context.

So then, in 2006;

“13. VARICELLA
The Committee recognised that varicella was an area of increasing importance with recent evidence that vaccine prevented shingles in the elderly. However this is a complex area because of the potential impact of chidhood infection on transmission dynamics at older ages. It was agreed that a sub-group should be setup in the near future to consider the issues.”

This advisory committee are not convinced, are they? But just a few months later and here we are, front page of BBQ News, and about to jab every kid in the land.

From The Telegraph we discover that the news is actually that,

“The Govenment’s advisors, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation have set up a sub-committee into chicken pox and will meet later this year or early next year for the first time.

It will investigate the impact of a vaccination programme for all or selected groups and the cost effectiveness of such a plan.
Advisers have previously rejected calls for chicken pox vaccination in the UK.”

Which is what was in the JCVI minutes from almost a year ago. So what does this lead us to conclude? That someone has fed this story to the press, to increase it’s profile. The Daily Mail will, no doubt, have horror stories about chickenpox spreading like a rash across it’s pages as you read this.

We have, of course, told you before of the major reason behind MMR and now varicella vaccination, and it is money. It is cheaper for the NHS to give you a jab than it is to send a doctor to see your sick child. This is the monetary justification of HMG.

It is essential that the shareholders of GlaxoSmithkline, Merck et al., who make these vaccines, recoup their R&D costs and make substantial profit. Their ideal target market is EVERY PERSON ALIVE. Trebles all round for them, and for the PR companies working on their behalf, if (no, WHEN) HMG adopts a policy of vaccination against chickenpox. The greed of these companies and their financial clout, allied with the corrupt thinking of HMG mean it is all but inevitable that you will be “offered” chickenpox vaccination very soon.

But is there a health-based reason for choosing to vaccinate? In short, no.

The chance of complications from chickenpox are insignificantly higher than the chances of complications from the vaccine.
The protection from natural infection is lifelong. Vaccine-mediated protection is estimated at 9 years. Or if you believe the optimists, 10-20 years.

Since a major reason behind the vaccine is to cut adult deaths (at 40-years plus, in the main) the vaccine is, useless.

So there we go.

Once again the public are being lined up to take a shot in the arm simply to fill the boots of a drug company, at the behest of the government. And they will do it in their droves!

But they can’t say they haven’t been warned.

[…]

From the lab of the scientist and Immunologist Dr. Alun Kirby, “the man who keeps BLOGDIAL honest”.

“My love/hate relationship with Bill Maher fluctuates wildly from episode to episode. Though I love his politically incorrect sense of humor and the fact that he provides a forum for people with differing views to debate, I do hate his scapegoat arguments and constant contradictions. Still, last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher was a classic episode, mostly due to the always charismatic Mos Def, whose off the cuff bluntness drew applause and laughter in juxtaposition to Maher’s counterproductive defense of the establishment.

I’m afraid of having my account deleted for posting the full episode, but Tullycast seems to have it all if you’re interested:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO1w1H3iZUU

This is a truly wonderful and vivid example of the slavery inured, corporate brainwashed, ostrich posturing american who despite everything, every piece of evidence, every vibration of common sense, still believe that 2 + 2 = 5.

This Bill Maher, who makes the right noises, appears to do so only because it is in vogue to be ‘alternative’, because there are ratings in it. This is why he believes Islam is a religion of violence above all others, and refers to some author to back up his nonsense. Bill Maher is part of the problem, not only because he has a popular TV programme and is himself asleep and therefore no threat, but because he is an ordinary citizen that cannot wake up, and it is people like him that keep the nightmare going, individuals believing the nightmare is reality, that day is night, that hot is cold, that water is dry…people like him who have their finger in the Dyke, believing that if they remove it thy will die and every thing will end when in fact, they are on the wet side drowning and taking their finger out will release and violently launch them them into dry land and the world of the waking.

Note Bill’s posture (leaning away from his guests like they are going to explode) as he speaks to these two men, and note also how his english deteriorates when he talks to them…I’m sure its all completely involuntary.

Council takes overweight child into care

Sarah Knapton
Monday September 10, 2007
The Guardian

A child has been taken away from his parents because, it is understood, they were not coping with his disability and social workers became anxious about his weight.

Social services in Tower Hamlets, east London, removed the boy earlier this year and placed him in council care. He has not been returned to his home.

Social workers were concerned about his increasing bulk which was far above normal for a boy of his age. The council said it could not comment on individual cases.

It follows the case of an eight-year-oldboy who was nearly taken into care this year after reaching 14 stone, more than three times the average for a boy of his age. His family claimed the youngster had an intolerance to fruit and vegetables.

North Tyneside council allowed him to stay with his family after his mother promised to change his diet.

Britain has one of the worst records for childhood obesity in the world.

Around 1 million under-16s are considered dangerously overweight, leading to fears that the country is facing a health timebomb.

In an attempt to tackle the problem the government has launched campaigns to increase fruit and vegetable consumption and has poured cash into school sports schemes. The overall cost of obesity to the NHS is currently around £1bn, with a further £2.3bn to £2.6bn for the economy as a whole.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,,2165891,00.html

This is an interesting story for several reasons, and thank you to that special lurker for bringing it to the attention of BLOGDIAL Man dem.

Now.

As far as I know, there is no legal definition of overweight. Without such a definition, those council workers rely on their personal prejudices to determine what a fat child is.

In Wales, this might mean a fatter child than a one living in Tower Hamlets, where a thinner child is the average.

It is completely absurd that workers in a council can exercise their personal prejudice in this way, and this has a direct bearing on those parents who Home Educate.

If a Home Educator teaches her children that there is such a thing as Sin, and a worker in Camden Council does not believe that this is the case, the council worker, by the example of this ‘overweight’ child, could remove that child from its parents so that it is taught ‘correctly’.

There is no difference between feeding a child’s stomach and feeding its mind, and if you accept that prejudiced workers at any council can take a child from its parents for the ‘protection’ of the child’s well-being in the case of obesity, then there are no limits to what these people can do.

They can take your child because you refuse to:

• vaccinate your child.
• put your child on a diet.
• visit the doctor.
• teach pluralism / multiculturalism / ‘tolerance’.
• {insert your particular belief and exercise thereof}

What they are saying is that your children do not belong to you, and you are not the ultimate parent; your children belong to the state, the state is the ultimate parent, and the state allows you to keep your children as long as you do not disobey their guidelines.

Of course, they refuse to pay for your children to attend good schools, demand taxes from you so that they can finance these evils on you and your family, and they expect you to just sit there and TAKE IT.

You will note that this child lived in Tower Hamlets, where the family is most likely to be poor and uneducated and unable to defend themselves. No council worker in a wealthy borough would DARE do such a thing to a wealthy family, because they know that they will instantly be on the receiving end of a well financed lawsuit, or even worse, be faced with parent that are themselves lawyers.

These laws and council actions are for the poor and uneducated only, who are the eternal victims on this planet.

Open letter to the Generalbundesanwaltschaft against the criminalization of critical academic research and political engagement

On 31st July 2007 the flats and workplaces of Dr. Andrej Holm and Dr. Matthias B., as well as of two other persons, were searched by the police. Dr. Andrej Holm was arrested, flown by helicopter to the German Federal Court in Karlsruhe and brought before the custodial judge. Since then he has been held in pretrial confinement in a Berlin jail. All four people have been charged with “membership in a terrorist association according to § 129a StGB” (German Penal Code, section 7 on ‘Crimes against Public Order’). They are alleged to be members of a so-called ‘militante gruppe’ (mg). The text of the search warrant revealed that preliminary proceedings against these four people have been going on since September 2006 and that the four had since been under constant surveillance.

A few hours before the house searches, Florian L., Oliver R. und Axel H. were arrested in the Brandenburg region and accused of attempted arson on four vehicles of the German Federal Army. Andrej Holm is alleged to have met one of these three persons on two occasions in the first half of 2007 in supposedly “conspiratorial circumstances”. The Federal Prosecutor (Bundesanwaltschaft) therefore assumes that the four above mentioned persons as well as the three individuals arrested in Brandenburg are members of a “militant group,” and is thus investigating all seven on account of suspected “membership in a terrorist association” according to §129a StGB. According to the arrest warrant against Andrej Holm, the charge made against the above mentioned four individuals is presently justified on the following grounds, in the order that the federal prosecutor has listed them:

– Dr. Matthias B. is alleged to have used, in his academic publications, “phrases and key words” which are also used by the ‘militante gruppe’;

– As political scientist holding a PhD, Matthias B. is seen to be intellectually capable to “author the sophisticated texts of the ‘militante gruppe’ (mg)”. Additionally, “as employee in a research institute he has access to libraries which he can use inconspicuously in order to do the research necessary to the drafting of texts of the ‘militante gruppe’”;

– Another accused individual is said to have met with suspects in a conspiratorial manner: “meetings were regularly arranged without, however, mentioning place, time and content of the meetings”; furthermore, he is said to have been active in the “extreme left-wing scene”;

– In the case of a third accused individual, an address book was found which included the names and addresses of the other three accused;

– Dr. Andrej H., who works as urban sociologist, is claimed to have close contacts with all three individuals who have been charged but still remain free;

– Dr. Andrej H. is alleged to have been active in the “resistance mounted by the extreme left-wing scene against the World Economic Summit of 2007 in Heiligendamm”;

– The fact that he – allegedly intentionally — did not take his mobile phone with him to a meeting is considered as “conspiratorial behavior”.

Andrej H., as well as Florian L., Oliver R. und Axel H., are detained since 1st August 2007 in Berlin-Moabit under very strict conditions: they are locked in solitary confinement 23 hours a day and are allowed only one hour of courtyard walk. Visits are limited to a total of half an hour every two weeks. Contacts, including contacts with lawyers, are allowed only through separation panes, including contact with their lawyers. The mail of the defense is checked.

The charges described in the arrest warrants reveal a construct based on very dubious reasoning by analogy. The reasoning involves four basic hypotheses, none of which the Federal High Court could substantiate with any concrete evidence, but through their combination they are to leave the impression of a “terrorist association”. The social scientists, because of their academic research activity, their intellectual capacities and their access to libraries, are said to be the brains of the alleged “terrorist organization”. For, according to the Federal prosecutor, an association called “militante gruppe” is said to use the same concepts as the accused social scientists. As evidence for this reasoning, the concept of “gentrification” is named – one of the key research themes of Andrej Holm und Matthias B. in past years, about which they have published internationally. They have not limited their research findings to an ivory tower, but have made their expertise available to citizens’ initiatives and tenants’ organizations. This is how critical social scientists are constructed as intellectual gang leaders.

Since Andrej Holm has friends, relatives and colleagues, they now also are suspect to be “terrorists”, because they know Andrej. Another accused individual was blamed for having the names of Andrej Holm and of two others charged (but not jailed) in his address book. Since the latter are also deemed to be “terrorists” – this is how “guilt by association” is established.

Paragraph § 129a, introduced in Germany in 1976, makes it possible for our colleagues to be criminalized as “terrorists”. This is how, through § 129a, the existence of a “terrorist group” is claimed.

Through these constructs, every academic research activity and political work is presented as potentially criminal – in particular when politically engaged colleagues who intervene in social struggles are concerned. This is how critical research, in particular research linked with political engagement, is turned into ideological ring leadership and “terrorism”.

We demand that the Federal Prosecutor (Bundesanwaltschaft) immediately suspend the § 129a-proceedings against all parties concerned and to release Andrej Holm and the other imprisoned from jail at once. We strongly reject the outrageous accusation that the academic research activities and the political engagement of Andrej Holm are to be viewed as complicity in an alleged “terrorist association”. No arrest warrant can be deduced from the academic research and political work of Andrej Holm. The Federal Prosecutor, through applying Article § 129, is threatening the freedom of research and teaching as well as social-political engagement.

Initial signatures by:
Prof. Dr. Manuel Aalbers (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Prof. Dr. Rowland Atkinson (University of Tasmania, Australien), Prof. Dr. Lawrence D. Berg (Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Diversity & Identity, University of British Columbia), Prof. Dr. Neil Brenner (New York University, Sociology), Prof. Dr. Craig Calhoun (President, Social Science Research Council, and University Professor, Sociology, NYU), Prof. Dr. Mike Davis (Prof. of Urban History, Irvine/USA), Dr. Michael Dear (Professor of Geography at the University of Southern California/Los Angeles), Prof. Dr. Michael Edwards (The Bartlett Centre for Architecture and Planning, UCL, London), Prof. Dr. Geoff Ely (University of Michigan, Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor), Prof. Dr. John Friedmann (University of California, Los Angeles), Prof. Dr. Herbert Gans (Columbia University, New York), Prof. Dr. Alan Harding (University of Salford, UK), Prof. Dr. Michael Harloe (University of Salford, Vice-President), Prof. Dr. David Harvey (Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York), Prof. Dr. Andreas Huyssen (Villard Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Columbia University), Prof. Dr. Martin Jay (Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History, University of California Berkeley), Prof. Dr. Bob Jessop (Lancaster Universtiy), Prof. Dr. Roger Keil (York University, Toronto, Canada), Prof. Dr. Rianne Mahon (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada), Prof. Dr. Peter Marcuse (Columbia University, New York), Prof. Dr. Margit Mayer (Freie Universität Berlin), Prof. Dr. Frances Fox Piven (President of the American Sociological Association, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, City University New York), Prof. Dr. Andrew Ross (New York University, New York), Prof. Dr. Saskia Sassen (Columbia University, New York, and London School of Economics) Prof. Dr. Andrew Sayer (Lancaster University, Sociology), Prof. Dr. Richard Sennett (Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, Bemis Professor of Social Sciences at MIT, Professor of the Humanities at New York University), Prof. Dr. William Sewell (The Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and History Emeritus, University of Chicago), Prof. Dr. Neil Smith (Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography, Director of the Center for Place Culture and Politics, Graduate Center of the City University of New York), Prof. Dr. Michael Storper (Centennial Professor of Economic Geography, London School of Economics, and Professor of Economic Sociology, Science Po, Paris), Prof. Dr. Erik Swyngedouw (University of Manchester, UK), , Prof. Dr. Peter J. Taylor (Loughborough University, UK), Prof. Dr. John Urry (Lancaster University, Sociology), Dr. Jennifer Wolch (Professor of Geography at the University of Southern California/Los Angeles).

Media contact to solidarity group in Berlin: einstellung@so36.net
German lawyer and media contact for Germany:
Wolfgang Kaleck
Immanuelkirchstrasse 3-4
D-10405 Berlin
Germany
fon: +49-(0)30-4467-9218
fax: +49-(0)30-4467-9220

Media contact for international affairs:
Prof. Dr. Neil Brenner (New York University, fon: USA-212-998 8349)
Prof. Dr. Margit Mayer (Freie Universität Berlin, fon: 030-8385-2875)

[…]

http://www.statewatch.org/swpubs.html

And these are the people that the UK wants to get into bed with.

These are the people who are in charge of the EU, whose arrest warrants are now good throughout the EU.

The fact of the matter is that this is only the beginning. If the signatories to this document and anyone else who values their freedom do not do something to stop the root cause of this, the war machine, then they might as well not bother doing anything. Certainly, petition signing will not help these people after they have been arrested.

I wonder just what has to happen before these people take anything seriously. Do people have to be kidnapped off of the street and tortured to outrage them into action? Obviously not since that is already happening. Of course, the people who are suffering rendition are not Germans, so they don’t count. Do people (specifically their German colleagues) have to be executed without trial just for doing the above? Will that be enough to spur them into action?

For a bunch of academics they are not very bright.

I sympathize with these people.

They want to believe that the world is still run by decent people. That despite the outrageous power grabs, insane laws, illegal wars and venal leaders, that in the end, everything is still essentially the same, and that decency will win out. They want desperately to believe that they merely have to point to injustice for it to dissolve under their righteous gaze.

I am sorry to report that the world is not like that anymore, because decent people are not behind the judges benches or the police uniforms or in the legislature. Those men could be arrested, imprisoned and executed and no amount of petition writing will save them. Indeed, no amount of pressure can even get them out of gaol.

It must be very startling and sad for these people to finally wake up to find that everything they counted on is gone, and their whole world is destroyed. How horrifying it must be to them as the realization that they may have to pull down everything that they depend upon and believe in in order to restore justice and freedom.

In the end, they are going to be forced to make a choice. They are going to be forced to choose a side. Outrage is just the very beginning, and their enemies are well advanced in their plans. They already have the camps ready to hold them all, and of course, none of these academics have guns, after having been brainwashed into thinking that guns and gun ownership are ‘a bad thing’.

If they ever decide that enough is enough, what are they going to do against a well equipped army?

You ‘demand’ that the “‘Bundesanwaltschaft’ immediately suspend the § 129a-proceedings against all parties concerned”. And if they say ‘no’ THEN WHAT ARE YOU GONG TO DO?

Maybe if there are some chemists amongst them they can fashion some home made weapons…but I digress, these people would rather die than defend themselves, their colleagues or their liberty.

And that is why all is lost.

The United States has the capacity for and may be prepared to launch without warning a massive assault on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, as well as government buildings and infrastructure, using long-range bombers and missiles, according to a new analysis.

The paper, “Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East” – written by well-respected British scholar and arms expert Dr. Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and Martin Butcher, a former Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and former adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament – was exclusively provided to RAW STORY late Friday under embargo.

“We wrote the report partly as we were surprised that this sort of quite elementary analysis had not been produced by the many well resourced Institutes in the United States,” wrote Plesch in an email to Raw Story on Tuesday.

Plesch and Butcher examine “what the military option might involve if it were picked up off the table and put into action” and conclude that based on open source analysis and their own assessments, the US has prepared its military for a “massive” attack against Iran, requiring little contingency planning and without a ground invasion.

The study concludes that the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran’s WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order. The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

• Any attack is likely to be on a massive multi-front scale but avoiding a ground invasion. Attacks focused on WMD facilities would leave Iran too many retaliatory options, leave President Bush open to the charge of using too little force and leave the regime intact.
• US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours.
• US ground, air and marine forces already in the Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan can devastate Iranian forces, the regime and the state at short notice.
• Some form of low level US and possibly UK military action as well as armed popular resistance appear underway inside the Iranian provinces or ethnic areas of the Azeri, Balujistan, Kurdistan and Khuzestan. Iran was unable to prevent sabotage of its offshore-to-shore crude oil pipelines in 2005.
• Nuclear weapons are ready, but most unlikely, to be used by the US, the UK and Israel. The human, political and environmental effects would be devastating, while their military value is limited.
• Israel is determined to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons yet has the conventional military capability only to wound Iran’s WMD programmes.
• The attitude of the UK is uncertain, with the Brown government and public opinion opposed psychologically to more war, yet, were Brown to support an attack he would probably carry a vote in Parliament. The UK is adamant that Iran must not acquire the bomb.
• The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

When asked why the paper seems to indicate a certainty of Iranian WMD, Plesch made clear that “our paper is not, repeat not, about what Iran actually has or not.”

[…]

Most significantly, Plesch and Butcher dispute conventional wisdom that any US attack on Iran would be confined to its nuclear sites. Instead, they foresee a “full-spectrum approach,” designed to either instigate an overthrow of the government or reduce Iran to the status of “a weak or failed state.” Although they acknowledge potential risks and impediments that might deter the Bush administration from carrying out such a massive attack, they also emphasize that the administration’s National Security Strategy includes as a major goal the elimination of Iran as a regional power. They suggest, therefore, that:

This wider form of air attack would be the most likely to delay the Iranian nuclear program for a sufficiently long period of time to meet the administration’s current counterproliferation goals. It would also be consistent with the possible goal of employing military action is to overthrow the current Iranian government, since it would severely degrade the capability of the Iranian military (in particular revolutionary guards units and other ultra-loyalists) to keep armed opposition and separatist movements under control. It would also achieve the US objective of neutralizing Iran as a power in the region for many years to come.

However, it is the option that contains the greatest risk of increased global tension and hatred of the United States. The US would have few, if any allies for such a mission beyond Israel (and possibly the UK). Once undertaken, the imperatives for success would be enormous.

Butcher says he does not believe the US would use nuclear weapons, with some exceptions.

“My opinion is that [nuclear weapons] wouldn’t be used unless there was definite evidence that Iran has them too or is about to acquire them in a matter of days/weeks,” notes Butcher. “However, the Natanz facility has been so hardened that to destroy it MAY require nuclear weapons, and once an attack had started it may simply be a matter of following military logic and doctrine to full extent, which would call for the use of nukes if all other means failed.”

[…]

Political Considerations

Plesch and Butcher write with concern about the political context within the United States:

This debate is bleeding over into the 2008 Presidential election, with evidence mounting that despite the public unpopularity of the war in Iraq, Iran is emerging as an issue over which Presidential candidates in both major American parties can show their strong national security bona fides. …

The debate on how to deal with Iran is thus occurring in a political context in the US that is hard for those in Europe or the Middle East to understand. A context that may seem to some to be divorced from reality, but with the US ability to project military power across the globe, the reality of Washington DC is one that matters perhaps above all else. …

We should not underestimate the Bush administration’s ability to convince itself that an “Iran of the regions” will emerge from a post-rubble Iran. So, do not be in the least surprised if the United States attacks Iran. Timing is an open question, but it is hard to find convincing arguments that war will be avoided, or at least ones that are convincing in Washington.

Plesch and Butcher are also interested in the attitudes of the current UK government, which has carefully avoided revealing what its position might be in the case of an attack. They point out, however, “One key caution is that regardless of the realities of Iran’s programme, the British public and elite may simply refuse to participate – almost out of bloody minded revenge for the Iraq deceit.”

And they conclude that even “if the attack is ‘successful’ and the US reasserts its global military dominance and reduces Iran to the status of an oil-rich failed state, then the risks to humanity in general and to the states of the Middle East are grave indeed.”

Raw Story

My emphasis.

Just read some of the comments on this story:

Well, if it happens, there’ll be violence here, guaranteed.
Igor | Email | Homepage | 08.28.07 – 11:40 am

Which ever dumb bastard gives the order for this, he should be shot dead on the spot.
The Lone Ranger | Email | Homepage | 08.28.07 – 11:47 am

How entertaining. Some of you idiots seem to think we live in a democracy. What you or I think doesn’t mean shit. They will first attack here, probably in September then say the “Database” opps I mean Al-CIAda hit us, then we can have a “justifiable” war with Iran. China and Russia, who have invested billions, will be less than over joyed and we will really be in deep shit. We will have martial law in this country which will lead to very serious infighting which will lead to a civil war. Most likely at least half of us will be dead by next year, with thousands starving as there is not currently enough food in this country to feed us all for any length of time and there will be no incoming shipments. There will be no food, water or electricity in the cities therefore you can elect to die there or in a camp, transportation will be provided. Those currently not in denial will have acquired the necessary supplies, literature, and so forth to begin an existance anew far from current population centers. The military will act much as they presently do but the areas they patrol will contain individuals that are well armed and very much accustomed to the use of such arms and that will eventually eliminate the relatively few and very worn out military we now have. Then my friends the few that are left may, if not poisoned by radiation sickness as our returning troups currently are, be able to pick up the pieces and start again.

Wake up and smell the roses for soon they will all be dead.
John | Email | Homepage | 08.28.07 – 10:02 pm

and so on…

if you had read the last comment twenty years ago, you could be forgiven for thinking that they were the words of a ‘nutcase’, but now, in 2007, with everything we know about the preparations in the USA for ‘something bad’ taking place they don’t seem so odd.

This is a strange situation. Everyone has advance warning of this attack. As we know, the people who could mobilize an army to prevent this, illegal, unprovoked, insane, criminal, attack from taking place are not intending to do anything that will be in any way effective.

One thing is for sure. If they do attack Iran and then try any sort of ground offensive, the Iranians will immediately go to guerilla warfare and the IEDs will start blasting the invaders from day one. They will also probably take this opportunity to eliminate anyone who is not ‘on side’ in their own country…though there will be few of them, because this outrage will most likely erase their differences in the short term. Or maybe not. Either way, an attack on Iran will be a disaster from every possible angle. It will be an act of absolutely pure evil, and no one who participates in it can claim that they ‘didn’t know’ they were being lied to about WMD or fall back on any other excuse, thanks to the debacle that is Iraq.

This time they will be guilty from the instant the order is given, and indeed, anyone who follows those orders should be shot, as the commenter says.

There is no excuse, no justification, no reason, no fact, no extrapolation of fact that a reasonable person could use to order this attack…but of course, we are not, and never have been dealing with reasonable people.

You know that.

James Randerson, science correspondent
Tuesday August 21, 2007

Police used a remote-controlled spy drone to watch crowds at the V festival at the weekend, the first time the technology has been used at a major public event.

The 70cm-wide flying surveillance device, fitted with high-resolution still and colour video cameras as well as infrared night vision capability, was used to keep tabs on people thought to be acting suspiciously in car parks and to gather intelligence on individuals in the crowd.

Staffordshire police said the drone’s images did not lead directly to any arrests, but one reason for using it had been to deter would-be thieves. It was not flown over the main arena because of fears that a crash might cause injuries.

The battery-operated drone’s four carbon-fibre rotors are so quiet they cannot be heard from the ground once it is higher than 50 metres, and at 100 metres up it cannot be seen with the naked eye. It can fly 500 metres high, but the Civil Aviation Authority has set an operating limit of 120 metres. The vehicle, which takes off vertically, can be flown even when out of sight, because it beams images back to video goggles worn by the operator.

[…]

Guardian

The idiot who wrote this failed to ask this crucial question:

How can a drone that a criminal doesnt know is watching, deter that crimninal? The very fact that it is silent means that it cannot frighten off or deter anyone.

The rationale (false reasoning) used to justify CCTV is that it acts as a deterrent because criminals can see the cameras.

Is there not a single person at the Guardian with a working brain cell, that has the guts to rubbish this garbage?

…and this is from a SCIENCE writer.

From Bruce Schneier’s Cryptgram:

In this otherwise lopsided article about security cameras, this one quote stands out:

“But Steve Swain, who served for years with the London Metropolitan Police and its counter-terror operations, doubts the power of cameras to deter crime.

“‘I don’t know of a single incident where CCTV has actually been used to spot, apprehend or detain offenders in the act,’ he said, referring to the London system. Swain now works for Control Risk, an international security firm.

“Asked about their role in possibly stopping acts of terror, he said pointedly: ‘The presence of CCTV is irrelevant for those who want to sacrifice their lives to carry out a terrorist act.’ ”

And:

“Swain does believe the cameras have great value in investigation work. He also said they are necessary to reassure the public that law enforcement is being aggressive.

“‘You need to do this piece of theater so that if the terrorists are looking at you, they can see that you’ve got some measures in place,’ he said. ”

Did you get that? Swain doesn’t believe that cameras deter crime, but he wants cities to spend millions on them so that the terrorists “can see that you’ve got some measures in place.”

Anyone have any idea why we’re better off doing this than other things that may actually deter crime and terrorism?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/08/01/nyc.surveillance/index.html

And once again, for the thousandth time.

Unpaid fines may stop people leaving UK

• Home Office plan outlined in ‘e-borders’ scheme
• Huge amounts of data likely to be produced

Alan Travis, home affairs editor

Tens of thousands of people who have failed to pay court fines amounting to more than £487m would be banned from leaving the country under new powers outlined by the Home Office. Ministers are also looking at ways of using the new £1.2bn “e-borders” programme to collect more than £9m owed in health treatment charges by foreign nationals who have left the country without paying.

The programme, to be phased in from October next year, will also allow the creation of a centralised “no-fly” list of air-rage or disruptive passengers which can be circulated to airlines.

The e-borders programme requires airlines and ferry companies to submit up to 50 items of data on each passenger between 24 and 48 hours before departure to and from the UK. With 200 million passenger movements in and out of the UK last year to and from 266 overseas airports on 169 airlines, an enormous amount of data is expected to be generated by the programme.

Passenger numbers are expected to rise to 305 million a year by 2015 and ministers claim the £1.2bn programme is the only way to provide a comprehensive record of all those seeking to enter and leave the UK. The immigration minister, Liam Byrne, claims that the programme will create a kind of border control, with information being passed to police and security services before passengers board a plane, boat or train: “It will create a new, offshore line of defence – helping genuine travellers, but stopping those who pose a risk before they travel.”

However, the long-term nature of the programme means that by 2009 only half the passenger movements in and out of Britain will be logged in the e-borders computers, and even by 2011 coverage will have reached only 95%.

A Home Office assessment of the secondary legislation that is being used to implement the programme gives some early indications of who, other than suspected terrorists and international criminals, will be on the British no-fly list and be banned from travelling to and from the country. It floats the idea that provisions should be introduced to ban travel overseas for the tens of thousands of offenders who have not paid outstanding court fines or failed to discharge confiscation orders made against them. Although no official estimate exists of the number of people who have to pay court fines the amount they owe has now reached a record £487m, with a further £300m in unpaid confiscation orders.

Passengers will be further encouraged in future to book their tickets and check in online. Other suggested benefits of the e-borders programme include easier identification of those who falsely claim non-domicile or non-resident status to avoid UK income tax, thought to be costing as much as £2bn a year, and those who wrongly claim social security benefits despite having left the country.

[…]

Guardian

Like we have said so many times before; none of this is about ‘terrorism’, the original reason they gave for proposing all of this in the first place. It is all being done to totally control everyone in the UK.

The nonsense of unpaid fines is just that, nonsense. If they succeed in putting all of this together, your fines will be withdrawn from your account automatically without your consent.

This piece in the guardian gives you the reader a false impression of what is being created. Once all the tools are in place, they will not only be able to control who can and cannot leave the UK, but they will also control all of your money and movements as you live in the UK. They will be used to control who can and cannot have a bank account, or credit card for example. Who can and cannot travel on the underground or a train. Who can or cannot buy alcohol. They will do all of this with the ID card / NIR / your thumb, which will be the talisman without which you will be able to live.

They will keep registers for everything. By getting yourself on the ‘no underground list’ when you try and tap in to board a train, the gate will not open. When you try and buy a pint of beer your thumb will tell the barmaid not to serve you, because you are on the ‘no alcohol’ register. When you go to withdraw money, you will find your account locked because you are on the ‘no financial transactions’ register. Since you will be compelled to swiped for just about anything you want to do, the government will have total control over the goods and services that you will and will not, by decree, be able to access.

If you do not believe this, then you are a fool.

And as for non-domicile or non-resident claims to avoid income tax, the people who are doing this will simply leave and not come back to the UK, and spend their trillions in less hostile countries.

‘e-borders’ like USVISIT is an affront to decent people, will cost billions of pounds netting only a few petty criminals while making some IT contractors very rich. The population of Britain, and now passengers traveling here, are to be reduced to cattle by this proposal, and it is pure evil, just like USVISIT is.

Use the google to see what we have written on this.

Alan Travis of course, has no idea about what he is writing, failed to connect the dots between the proposed e-borders and USVISIT and how the latter has cost billions and caught only 1500 ‘criminals’.

The Guardian fails again. No surprise there.

Update…

You will remember that in the Soviet era and till today, as is the case today in many undemocratic and unfree countries, you have to get what is called an ‘exit visa’ in your passport before you are allowed to travel. This is completely abhorrent to all decent people. Only in totalitarian states does the government have the power to stop you from traveling outside of your country, and guess what, this is precisely what the proposals above create; an exit visa system for the UK.

By creating a list of people who cannot travel and checking your name against it in realtime, the government is essentially granting you an exit visa at the time you are checked. The permission to leave is the visa. The way things work in a free country, you can come and go as you please; its your private business. Britain is like this now; when you turn up at the airport, you simply show your passport and get on the plane and that is it; this is certainly true for people with nationalities that do not require a visa for entry, and it should NEVER be the case that a BRITISH person should be checked to see if their exit visa is in order.

Read this list of countries and their exit visa requirements:

Afghanistan
“The Constitution provides for these rights; however, certain laws limited citizens’ movement. The passport law requires women to obtain permission from a male family member before having a passport application processed. In some areas of the country, women were forbidden by local custom or tradition to leave the home except in the company of a male relative. The law also prohibits women from traveling alone outside the country without a male relative, and male relatives must accompany women participating in Hajj.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41737.htm

Algeria
“The law provides for freedom of domestic and foreign travel, and freedom to emigrate; however, the Government sometimes restricted these rights in practice. The Government does not permit young men who are eligible for the draft and who have not yet completed their military service to leave the country if they do not have special authorization; however, such authorization may be granted to students and to those persons with special family circumstances.” (…) “The Family Code does not permit married females younger than 18 years of age to travel abroad without their guardian’s permission.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41718.htm

Armenia
“The law requires authorities to issue passports to all citizens, expect for convicted felons; however, an exit stamp may be denied to persons who possess state secrets, are subject to military service, are involved in pending court cases, or whose relatives have lodged financial claims against them. An exit stamp is valid for up to 5 years and may be used without limit. Men of military age must overcome substantial bureaucratic obstacles to travel abroad.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41668.htm

Bahrain
“The 1963 Citizenship Law provides that the Government may reject applications to obtain or renew passports for reasonable cause, but the applicant has the right to appeal such decisions before the High Civil Court.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41719.htm

Belarus
“The Constitution provides for freedom of movement in and out of the country; however, this right was restricted at times. Official entry and exit regulations specify that citizens who wish to travel abroad must first obtain an exit stamp valid for 1 to 5 years. Once the traveler has a valid stamp, travel abroad is not restricted by further government requirements and formalities; however, the Government could intervene to invalidate stamps that had been issued.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41671.htm

Benin
“The Government maintained documentary requirements for minors traveling abroad as part of its continuing campaign against trafficking in persons.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41588.htm

Bhutan
Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation “The law does not provide for these rights, and the Government placed some limits on them in practice. Citizens traveling in border regions were required to show their citizenship identity cards at immigration check points, which in some cases were located a considerable distance from what is in effect an open border with India. By treaty, citizens may reside and work in India. In addition, ethnic Nepalese claimed that they were frequently denied security clearances, which is a prerequisite for obtaining a passport form. The ethnic Nepalese said that since the clearances were based on the security clearance of their parents, the clearances frequently excluded children of ethnic Nepalese. All citizens must have a security clearance from the Government.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41739.htm

Brunei
“The Government restricts the movement of former political prisoners during the first year of their release.” (…) “Government employees, both citizens and foreigners working on a contractual basis, must apply for approval to go abroad, which was granted routinely.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41636.htm

Burma
“An ordinary citizen needs three documents to travel outside the country: a passport from the Ministry of Home Affairs; revenue clearance from the Ministry of Finance and Revenue; and a departure form from the Ministry of Immigration and Population. In 2002, in response to the trafficking in persons problem, the Government tightened the documentation process in ways that hinder or restrict international travel for the majority of women.” (…0 “The Government carefully scrutinized prospective travel abroad for all passport holders. Rigorous control of passport and exit visa issuance perpetuated rampant corruption, as applicants were forced to pay bribes of roughly $300 (300,000 kyat), the equivalent of a yearly salary, to around $1,000 (1 million kyat) for a single woman under 25 years of age. The board that reviews passport applications denied passports on political grounds. College graduates who obtained a passport (except for certain official employees) were required to pay a fee to reimburse the Government for the cost of their education.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41637.htm

Congo, Democratic Republic of the “Married women were required by law to have their husband’s permission prior to traveling outside the country.” (…) “Local authorities in the Kivus routinely required Congolese citizens to show official travel orders from an employer or government official authorizing travel.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41597.htm

Cuba
“The Government severely restricted freedom of movement…” (…) “The Government imposed some restrictions on both emigration and temporary foreign travel. By year’s end, the Government had refused exit permits to 836 people, but allowed the majority of persons who qualified for immigrant or refugee status in other countries to depart.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41756.htm

Ecuador
“The Government requires all citizens to obtain permission to travel abroad, which was granted routinely. Military and minor applicants must comply with special requirements.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41759.htm

Egypt
“Males who have not completed compulsory military service may not travel abroad or emigrate, although this restriction may be deferred or bypassed under special circumstances. Unmarried women under the age of 21 must have permission from their fathers to obtain passports and travel.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41720.htm

Equatorial Guinea “All citizens were required to obtain permission to travel abroad from the local Police Commissioner, and some members of opposition parties were denied this permission. Those who did travel abroad sometimes were interrogated upon their return.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41601.htm

Eritrea
“Citizens and foreign nationals were required to obtain an exit visa to depart the country.” (…) “Citizens of national service age (men 18 to 45 years of age, and women 18 to 27 years of age), Jehovah’s Witnesses (see Section 2.c.), and others who were out of favor with or seen as critical of the Government were routinely denied exit visas. Students who wished to study abroad often were unable to obtain exit visas. In addition, the Government frequently refused to issue exit visas to adolescents and children as young as 5 years of age, either on the grounds that they were approaching the age of eligibility for national service or because their diasporal parents had not paid the 2 percent income tax required of all citizens residing abroad. Some citizens were given exit visas only after posting bonds of approximately $7,400 (100,000 nakfa).”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41602.htm

Gabon
“The Government intermittently enforced an internal regulation requiring married women to obtain their husbands’ permission to travel abroad. During the year, there were numerous reports that authorities refused to issue passports for travel abroad with no explanation. There also were reports of unreasonable delays in obtaining passports, despite a government promise in 2003 to process passports within 3 days.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41604.htm

India
“Under the Passports Act of 1967, the Government may deny a passport to any applicant who “may or is likely to engage outside India in activities prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India.” The Government used this provision to prohibit the foreign travel of some government critics, especially those advocating Sikh independence and members of the separatist movement in Jammu and Kashmir.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41740.htm

Indonesia
“The Constitution allows the Government to prevent persons from entering or leaving the country, and sometimes the Government restricted freedom of movement.” (…) “The Government prevented at least 412 persons from leaving the country during the year. The AGO and the High Prosecutor’s Office prevented most of these departures. Some of those barred from leaving were delinquent taxpayers, while others were involved in legal disputes.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41643.htm

Iran
“The Government required exit permits (a validation stamp in the passport) for foreign travel for draft-age men and citizens who were politically suspect. Some citizens, particularly those whose skills were in short supply and who were educated at government expense, must post bonds to obtain exit permits.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41721.htm

Israel
“Citizens generally were free to travel abroad and to emigrate, provided they had no outstanding military obligations and were not restricted by administrative order. Pursuant to the 1945 State of Emergency Regulations, the Government may bar citizens from leaving the country based on security considerations.” (…) “In addition, no citizen or passport holder is permitted to travel to countries officially at war with Israel without special permission from the Government.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41723.htm

Jordan
“The law requires that all women obtain written permission from a male guardian to apply for a passport; however, women do not need a male relative’s permission to renew their passports. In the past, there were several cases in which mothers reportedly were prevented from departing with their children because authorities enforced requests from fathers to prevent their children from leaving the country.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41724.htm

Kenya
“Civil servants and M.P.s must get government permission for international travel, which generally was granted.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41609.htm

Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of “The regime only issues exit visas for foreign travel to officials and trusted businessmen, artists, athletes, academics, and religious figures. Short-term exit papers were also available for residents on the Chinese border to enable visits with relatives in bordering regions of China.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41646.htm

Kuwait
“The Constitution does not provide for the rights of freedom of movement within the country, freedom of foreign travel, or freedom to emigrate. The Government placed some limits on freedom of movement in practice.” (…) “Unmarried women must be 21 years of age or older to obtain a passport and travel abroad without permission of a male relative. Married women must obtain their husbands’ permission to apply for a passport. A married woman with a passport does not need her husband’s permission to travel, but he may prevent her departure from the country by placing a 24-hour travel ban on her through immigration authorities. After this 24-hour period, a court order is required if the husband still wishes to prevent his wife from leaving the country. In practice, however, many travel bans were issued without court order, effectively preventing citizens (and foreigners) from departing. All minor children under 21 years of age require their father’s permission to travel outside the country. There were reports of citizen fathers and husbands confiscating their children’s and wives’ travel documents to prevent them from departing.” (…) “The law permits the Government to place a travel ban on any citizen or foreigner who has a legal case pending before the courts. The law also permits any citizen to petition authorities to place a travel ban against any other person suspected of violating local law. In practice, this has resulted in many citizens and foreigners being prevented from departing the country without investigation or a legal case being brought before a local court.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41725.htm

Laos
“Citizens who sought to travel abroad were required to apply for an exit visa. The Government usually granted such visas; however, officials at the local level have denied permission to apply for passports and exit visas to some persons seeking to emigrate.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41648.htm

Lebanon
“All men between 18 and 21 years of age are subject to compulsory military service and are required to register at a recruitment office and obtain a travel authorization document before leaving the country.” (…) “Spouses may obtain passports for their children who are less than 7 years of age after obtaining the approval of the other spouse. To obtain a passport for a minor child between 7 and 18 years, the father or legal guardian needs to sign the request to obtain a passport.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41726.htm

Libya
“The Government requires citizens to obtain exit permits for travel abroad…” (…) “A female citizen must have her husband’s permission and a male escort to travel abroad.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41727.htm

Morocco
“The Ministry of Interior restricted freedom to travel outside the country in certain circumstances. In addition, all civil servants and military personnel must obtain written permission from their ministries to leave the country.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41728.htm

Oman
Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, Repatriation, and Exile “The law does not provide for these rights; however, the Government generally respected these rights in practice.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41729.htm

Pakistan
“Government employees and students must obtain “no objection” certificates before traveling abroad, although this requirement rarely was enforced against students. Persons on the publicly available Exit Control List (ECL) are prohibited from foreign travel. There were approximately 2,153 names on the ECL. While the ECL was intended to prevent those with pending criminal cases from traveling abroad, no judicial action is required to add a name to the ECL.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41743.htm

Qatar
“In general, women over 30 years old did not require permission from male guardians to travel; however, men may prevent female relatives and children from leaving the country by providing their names to immigration officers at ports of departure. Technically, women employed by the Government must obtain official permission to travel abroad when requesting leave…”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41730.htm

Saudi Arabia “Citizen men have the freedom to travel within the country and abroad; however, the Government restricted these rights for women based on its interpretation of Islamic Law. All women in the country were prohibited from driving and were dependent upon males for transportation. Likewise, they must obtain written permission from a male relative or guardian before the authorities would allow them to travel abroad. The requirement to obtain permission from a male relative or guardian applied also to foreign women married to citizens or to the minor and single adult daughters of Saudi fathers.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41731.htm

Senegal
“Some public employees, including teachers, are required by law to obtain government approval before departing the country; however, human rights groups noted that this law was only enforced against teachers and not other public servants.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41623.htm

Seychelles
“Although it was not used during the year, the law allows the Government to deny passports to any citizen if the Minister of Defense finds that such denial is “in the national interest.””
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41624.htm

Singapore
“The Government may refuse to issue a passport and did so in the case of former ISA detainees. Under the ISA, a person’s movement may be restricted.” (…) “Male citizens with national service reserve obligations are required to advise the Ministry of Defense if they plan to travel abroad. Boys age 11 to 16½ years are issued passports that are valid for 2 years and are no longer required to obtain exit permits. From the age of 16½ until the age of enlistment, male citizens are granted 1-year passports and are required to apply for exit permits for travel that exceeds 3 months.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41659.htm

Sudan
“The Government denied exit visas to some categories of persons, including policemen and physicians, and maintained lists of political figures and other citizens who were not permitted to travel abroad.” (…) “Women cannot travel abroad without the permission of their husbands or male guardians; however, this prohibition was not enforced strictly, especially for NC members.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41628.htm

Swaziland
Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation, “The law does not provide for these rights, and the Government placed some limits on them in practice. Citizens may travel and work freely within the country; however, under traditional law, a married woman requires her husband’s permission to apply for a passport, and an unmarried woman requires the permission of a close male relative.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41629.htm

Syria
“Travel to Israel is illegal, and the Government restricted travel near the Golan Heights. The Government also denied human rights activists, leaders of opposition groups, and other individuals permission to travel abroad, although government officials continued to deny that this practice occurred. Government authorities could prosecute any person found attempting to emigrate or to travel abroad illegally, any person who was deported from another country, or anyone who was suspected of having visited Israel. Women over the age of 18 have the legal right to travel without the permission of male relatives; however, a husband or a father could file a request with the Ministry of Interior to prohibit his wife or daughter’s departure from the country”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41732.htm

Tunisia
“The law provides that the courts can cancel passports and contains broad provisions that both permit passport seizure on national security grounds, and deny citizens the right either to present their case against seizure or to appeal the judges’ decision. The Ministry of Interior is required to submit requests to seize or withhold a citizen’s passport through the public prosecutor to the courts; however, the Ministry of Interior routinely bypassed the public prosecutor with impunity. The public prosecutor deferred to the Ministry of Interior on such requests.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41733.htm

Turkmenistan
“The Constitution does not provide for full freedom of movement; although the Government took steps to ease restrictions on freedom of movement, restrictions remained.” (…) “In January, the Government eliminated the exit visa requirement, following international pressure from the diplomatic corps, the OSCE, and the U.N. The elimination of the exit visa regime allowed the majority of citizens to travel abroad; however, the Government maintained a “black list” of those not allowed to travel. Some members of minority religious groups, regime opponents, relatives of those implicated in the November 2002, and those suspected of having “state secrets” were not permitted to leave the country.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41714.htm

Ukraine
“Exit visas were required for citizens who intended to take up permanent residence in another country…” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41715.htm

United Arab Emirates “Custom dictates that a husband can bar his wife, minor children, and adult unmarried daughters from leaving the country by taking custody of their passports.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41734.htm

Uzbekistan
“The Government required citizens to obtain exit visas for foreign travel or emigration, and while it generally granted these routinely, local officials often demanded a small bribe.” (…) “Authorities did not require an exit visa for travel to most countries of the former Soviet Union; however, the Government severely restricted the ability of its citizens to travel overland to neighboring Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Turkmenistan and restricted and significantly delayed citizens attempting to cross the border to Tajikistan. Authorities closed the border with Afghanistan to ordinary citizens.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41717.htm

Vietnam
“Although the Government no longer required citizens traveling abroad to obtain exit or reentry visas, the Government sometimes refused to issue passports. The Government did not allow some persons who publicly or privately expressed critical opinions on religious or political issues to travel abroad.”
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41665.htm

Doreen Lawrence attacks Tory frontrunner, saying black people will not vote for him

Patrick Wintour, political editor
Saturday August 4, 2007

Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, yesterday launched a fierce personal attack on Boris Johnson, saying he would destroy multicultural London if elected mayor, and that no informed black person would vote for him.

Ms Lawrence, who does not normally become involved in party politics, said she had been moved to make the criticisms by her anger at Mr Johnson’s attitude to the Macpherson inquiry in 1999 into the Metropolitan police’s failure to bring her son’s killers to justice 14 years ago.

Her intervention comes as David Cameron, the Tory leader, steps up his efforts to woo the black vote in the capital.

Ms Lawrence said: “Boris Johnson is not an appropriate person to run a multi-cultural city like London. Think of London, the richness of London, and having someone like him as mayor would destroy the city’s unity. He is definitely not the right person to even be thinking to put his name forward.

“Those people that think he is a lovable rogue need to take a good look at themselves, and look at him. I just find his remarks very offensive. I think once people read his views, there is no way he is going to get the support of any people in the black community.”

Mr Johnson wrote a series of articles at the time of the Macpherson inquiry, claiming some of its recommendations were born of political correctness and that the furore around the murder had created the whiff of a witchhunt against the police. The inquiry team found the police institutionally racist.

Mr Johnson was especially condemnatory of a “weird recommendation that the law might be changed so as to allow prosecution for racist language or behaviour ‘other than in a public place’.”

“Not even under the law of Ceausescu’s Romania could you be prosecuted for what you said in your own kitchen,” he wrote. “No wonder the police are already whingeing that they cannot make any arrests in London. No wonder the CPS groans with anti-discrimination units, while making a balls-up of so many cases.”

He argued that “the PC brigade, having punched this hole in the Metropolitan police, is swarming through to take over the whole system” and went on to say that he feared “what started as a sensible attempt to find justice for the family of Stephen Lawrence has given way to hysteria”.

In his articles – mainly in the Daily Telegraph – Mr Johnson also made it clear that he believed there had been “grotesque failures in the Lawrence murder case, and they may well have originated in racism”, adding the police officers “may have jumped to the wrong conclusions due to a racialist mindset”.

In another article, presumably for stylistic effect, he has referred to children as “piccaninnies” and described the “watermelon smiles of black people”.

Ms Lawrence said such remarks made it surprising that Mr Cameron was backing Mr Johnson. “[David Cameron] says he is trying to change the Conservative party from its past, and support multiculturalism, and bring in new communities, then supporting Boris Johnson is not a way of doing that.”

[…]

Guardian

This woman is insane.

Under ‘Red Ken’ Livingston, London has been turned into the very model of dehumanized surveillance grid living, where everyone’s privacy is violated routinely by a system that he personally implemented; the ‘Congestion Charge’. It was Red Ken who extended it despite the explicit objection of the majority of Londoners.

Under people like him, the so called ‘blacks’ will have an increasingly hard time as the biometric net / Quantized Human Pleb Grid is rolled out. They will be the ones routinely stopped and fingerprinted. They are already the ones most represented in the appalling and unprecedented DNA database. It is people like Boris who are for removing these monstrosities; she should be FOR him not AGAINST him.

This woman simply is not thinking:

She added: “He felt that people should be entitled to say what they want. It sounds to me that what he believes is that because something is said and done in private it is acceptable, but clearly it can never be acceptable to hold those views. Anyway, what is said in private normally manifests itself out in public.”

See what I mean?

Not once does this deranged person mention a single policy that Boris wants to implement. But this is not about policy. This is about the inmates taking over the asylum.

What has happened to her is unbelievably sad, but it has clearly caused her to become irrational. The media have made her into a sort of saint figure, and they listen to and print her every word uncritically. This is crazy. Her suffering of an unimaginable injustice does not qualify her to set the standards by which we should all live, and I deeply despise people who want to control what we can and cannot say.

Boris Johnson, as a British man® is free to write whatever he wants. This is the freedom that people in Britain have, and just because he has a sense of humor that someone somewhere might find offensive, this does not exclude him from running for office, and it does not mean that he would not make a brilliant Mayor of London. I would rather have a ribald Boris as Mayor of London tearing down the Congestion Charge system, anonymising the Oyster Card system, mandating that busses take cash, reinstating the Routemaster, overturning the smoking ban … returning London to what it is meant to be, than some politically correct, fascist police state facilitator who is turning the entire city into a giant concentration camp.

Increasingly, people are going to have to accept that people ‘say things’. All sorts of things. The internets can bring you these things instantly. This woman would have us living in a paranoid world where everyone is thinking one thing and writing another; where everyone is writing as if they are under surveillance, where their freely expressed thought can come back to ‘haunt them’ in the future, as PC witchunters Google their words for expressions of forbidden thought.

That is not a world where any decent person wants to live and work. It is the world of fascism, and people who say things like she does are the absolute enemies of mankind … and she has every right to say it, as wrong headed as it is. This unelected figurehead has the right to say whatever she wants, and so does Boris. That is freedom of speech in a free country. She should not be toppled from her position as a ‘community leader’ for spouting twaddle, and Boris should not be put off the list of Mayoral candidates for using his own unique brand of expression. Everyone can choose for themselves who they want to control London…that is where the person is elected.

But I digress…

Everyone is going to have to accept that people write what they write, and this has no bearing on the sort of person they really are, or what their policies are and how efficiently they implement them. If we do not accept this, then only the people who have never written are going to be ‘fit to be employed’ or ‘fit for office’. If someone doesn’t write, keeping their innermost ghastly thoughts (if a thought can be ghastly) secret and to themselves, this doesn’t mean that they are ‘nice’, or that they will be able to do the job well. If someone only writes smooth things, does this mean that we can trust them more? Of course not. What we have to talk about are ideas applied to problems and then performance and execution. Writing for fun or employment has nothing to do with either of those things, and these personal attacks on Boris Johnson are just childish, stupid and pointless. Opinion must always be separated from Policy. Informal thought written down is NOT POLICY.

Lets see what Boris wants to do with London / what he is informally thinking shall we?

Transport

A dedicated cyclist, Boris Johnson wants to get rid of “Ken Livingstone’s 18-metre-long socialist frankfurter buses” and speed humps “which necessitate the need for 4x4s”. He has attacked legislation on car booster seats for children as “utterly demented”.

He has bemoaned “the unbelievable and chronic chaos on the tube” and the state of the railways, observing: “The fundamental problem is not that the train companies are monstrously abusing the travelling public, though they are … Gordon Brown and the Treasury are … making them pay so much for the franchise that they simply don’t have enough to invest in services.”

I agree with all of this.

Marriage

“David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith are plainly right to extol the benefits of marriage, and, if a £20 tax credit would really begin to bubblegum together our broken society, then that would clearly be a price worth paying … It is outrageous that the benefit system should be so heavily skewed in favour of single parent families,” Johnson wrote recently.

Marriage is good!

Diversity and integration

The Tory MP has argued that society must “inculcate … Britishness, especially into young Muslims”, adding: “We should teach English, and we should teach in English. We should teach British history. We should think again about the jilbab, with the signals of apartness that it sends out, and we should probably scrap faith schools.

“We should forbid the imams from preaching sermons in anything but English … we cannot continue with the multicultural apartheid.”

Last year he said localism could lead to sharia law because “large chunks of the Muslim population” did not feel British. He added: “Supposing Tower Hamlets or parts of Bradford were to become governed by religious zealots believing in that system?”

The Mayor of London cannot forbid people from preaching in Arabic… or Latin for that matter. This is just TALK. Real democracies have checks and balances in place so that no matter what the personal opinions of elected officials are, they cannot violate your rights. Sadly, the Mayor of London can violate your rights willy nilly, and there is nothing that you can do about it. If a bad man, like Red Ken is in charge, then bad things like the Congestion Charge can and will happen. The rights of people in the UK need to be enshrined….but thats another blog post.

Inequality

He admits the low tax rates enjoyed by many in the City are “odd”, but argues: “Without their efforts, there would be no squillions, and a windfall tax might simply kill the goose.” He suggests philanthropy should be encouraged instead.

He has accused Labour of waging a middle-class war against “the bottom 20% of society – the group that supplies us with the chavs, the losers, the burglars, the drug addicts and the 70,000 people who are lost in our prisons … They keep them snared in a super-complicated system of means-tested benefits … They tax them an exorbitant proportion of their incomes.”

Completely correct, and he is completely right about Philanthropy, as are others.

The environment, Housing, Health its all good. This is a man who has some common sense, who is not in thrall to political correctness, which means that he is free thinking. We need free thinkers…heavens above, we need people who can THINK. That is why Boris Johnson should be Mayor of London. ‘Shock Jock’ Nick Ferrari is just thick, and anyone who used to be ‘ShowBiz Reporter at The Sun’ shouldn’t be left in charge of a ten penny piece let alone one of the greatest cities mankind ever created. Ken Livingston has been an unmitigated disaster. Whoever the lib-dems are fielding they are unelectable thanks to their absurd local income tax ‘ideas’.

and finally, a nifty comment from a real person:

Bye ken, and welcome Boris, who is someone who will say what we all feel, and not scared by the do gooder groups, who so many bow down to now!

– Graham, Southend on sea, UK

from This is London

See what I mean?…again?

U.N. rapporteur raps Britains’s law on fingerprinting foreigners
BC-UH-Britain-Racism
By Sara Sasaki

LONDON. July 18 – A special U.N. rapporteur on racism on Thursday criticized Britain’s new immigration legislation on fingerprinting and photographing all foreign visitors as a process 0f treating foreigners like criminals.

Ooudou Diene. on his last day of a six-day visit to Britain to conduct a follow-up of his report on racism, said at a press conference in London the immigration bill that just passed through Parliament on Wednesday “illustrates something I have been denouncing in my reports for four years.”

“It is the fact that, especially since Sept. 11. there has been a process of criminalization of foreigners” all over the world, he added.

The enacted legislation will allow immigration officials to take biometric data from foreigners age 16 and above as pari of measures to light terrorism, enabling them to check for past deportees and anyone designated as a terrorist by the justice minister.

But Diene warned that the fight against terrorism is being used against foreigners worldwide and governments are criminalizing them when they are actually supposed to protect them.

The measures of the new legislation exclude ethnic Irish and other permanent residents with special status, those under 16, those visiting Britain for diplomatic or official purposes, and those invited by the state.

But foreigners living in Britain without special permanent residence status such as those on a work visa will also be fingerprinted and photographed at immigration upon arrival.

Alter his visit t to Britain last July, Diene said racial discrimination in Britain is “deep and profound,” and expressed concerns over the treatment of Scottish indigenous people, Muslim and Hindu minorities living in Britain and new immigrants originating from Asia, the Middle East Africa.

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http://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html