It feels so different watching an aircraft carrier group coming toward you than watching it sailing away from you toward another part of the world.

I’m an American who used to live in New York City. All my life, when I heard about warships, it was US warships going places far away. I never even imagined hostile warships sailing toward New York. Now I’m in Tehran, and aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis is heading our way. And as it sails, people are discussing Israel and/or the US bombing Iran as if my family and 69 million other people weren’t even here. I’m getting scared.

Most Iranians that I know don’t worry about this as much as I do, though they’re wondering how the sanctions will affect the economy. Khomeini had a famous saying that we actually saw on a sign yesterday in another town: “America can’t do anything to us.” Some friends here speculate that Bush just needs an enemy so that he can continue his programs in the US, and that Iran is the enemy du jour. I wish I could believe that.

The way I see it, somebody has to stop the US president right now, and it’s very upsetting that the Congress isn’t doing it. My frustration is greater because I’m in a country where the Internet is not completely available. For example, I tried to send a donation to Dennis Kucinich, but PayPal wouldn’t take it because of the embargo. I tried to write to my Congressperson, but the Islamic Republic blocked the communication, presumably because it was with the US government. (Sometimes news stories that I want to read are blocked, too, but there are ways around that.)

If the US and/or Israel attack Iran, it will be a war based on lies, just like the Iraq war. Iraq didn’t have WMD, but Iraqis died in the hundreds of thousands. The lies about Iran seem intended to, first, make Iran look like the new Nazi state that must be bombed so as to avoid a new Holocaust, and second, make Americans fear that Iran will hurt our soldiers in Iraq or give nuclear weapons to terrorists who will hurt us in “the homeland.”

History shows that Americans are very susceptible to demonization of particular leaders of countries that the US wants to attack. Remember Castro? Noriega? Saddam? Now it’s Ahmadinejad. Whatever people think of views attributed to Ahmadinejad, it remains the case that it’s not morally acceptable to kill people because of their president, whether that president be Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or George Bush.

I want to discuss six big lies we are hearing to justify expanding the war to Iran.

LIE NUMBER 1: President Ahmadinejad “has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the map.”

Even Al Jazeera English version based in Qatar keeps saying that. Why hasn’t this mistranslation been corrected after it’s been thoroughly exposed? (in the Guardian and prisonplanet.com)

Juan Cole, in Informed Comment, explained how “wiped off the map” was a mistranslation; Ahmadinejad was restating the official Iranian policy that the government system based on Zionism must end. And why the heck can’t newscasters learn to pronounce the man’s name? Anyone who knows Farsi could teach them in a minute. Why should we think they know what he said, in Farsi, if they can’t even say his name?

LIE NUMBER 2: The Iranian government is run by 1930s-style anti-Semites.

Last Spring, a story was planted that the Iranian parliament had passed a law forcing Iranian Jews to wear yellow badges. “Fourth Reich,” screamed a banner headline on one of the New York City tabloids. In a few days, the neocon source was disclosed and the story was completely retracted by the Canadian paper in which it was first published. The New York paper never apologized. When I mention the “yellow badges” to people here in Iran, they look incredulous. “But … that didn’t happen.” I know. But I’ll bet there are some Americans, and Israelis, who actually believe Jewish Iranians are walking around wearing yellow badges.

LIE NUMBER 3: Iran is bent on wiping out the Jews.

Maybe Americans should have a little humility and remember how recalcitrant the US was about accepting Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler during WWII. Iran has a very good history, under Cyrus the Great, of protecting the Jews. The long history of Jews in Persia is indicated by a monument to the Jewish prophet Daniel in the south of Iran. As for the European Holocaust deniers who were among the speakers at the Holocaust conference in Tehran, I just can’t figure it out, unless Ahmadinejad is trying to win popularity points with pro-Palestinian regional populations by appearing to be unafraid of Israel and the US. Or he could be a fool and/or a religious fundamentalist (like some other presidents who shall go unnamed).

LIE NUMBER 4: Iran is causing trouble in Iraq and threatening Arab states.

Everyone should be very clear: Who’s meddling in Iraq, who’s flying thousands of missions shooting at Iraqi citizens, who attacked whose diplomatic mission, who is detaining whose citizens, and who has announced that it is supporting subversive operations inside whose country and across whose border (from Iraqi Kurdistan)? Most likely some of the undemocratic and unpopular rulers in the Middle East are afraid that their own citizens may be attracted to the Iranian model. That may concern the US oil men and financiers who have business and military ties with them, but it’s not a reason for Americans to back destruction of Iran.

LIE NUMBER 5: Iran is dangerous to humanity because it’s trying to get nuclear weapons.

Other people who know more than I are writing about the nuclear issues. But regarding threats by Israel and the US to bomb Iranian nuclear research sites, that’s a violation of international law, not to mention a danger to innocent civilians. Regulating nuclear activities is the responsibility of the IAEA. So far, the IAEA has declared that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is in compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. That’s more than we can say about the USA, which is supposed to be actively disarming its 10,000 warheads, not refurbishing them and developing new kinds of nuclear weapons. Though there are good reasons to think Iran does not want nuclear weapons, let’s imagine, just for the sake of argument, that Iran would someday acquire them. Humanity has managed to live with other countries having nukes. The only reason Iran’s having nukes would be of greater concern would be if the lies spelled out above were true. But they’re lies.

LIE NUMBER 6: Iranians are looking to the USA to bring them democracy, just like the USA has brought democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq.

I’m living here in Tehran, Iran, now, with my family, as are many other Americans, Europeans, Asians, and other foreigners. We are inviting friends and relatives to come and visit. The skiing’s fine. More democracy and more civil liberties would be better, but there are elections and there are laws and there are non-governmental organizations and you can approach public officials. Whatever’s not right with this country is the business of the people here to work on. Some Iranians living in other countries want the US to “save” Iran. I don’t know, but I suspect people like that would like the US to magically bring back the good old days when the US-allied Shah sat on his throne and the well-off classes had a fine life. If anyone finds any overseas Iranians who actually are willing to see Iran bombed, I hope the reporters ask them if they have any relatives currently living in Iran. I hope Americans don’t take these has-beens too seriously.

Rosa Schmidt Azadi is a long-time peace activist, an anthropologist, and a retired civil servant who’s also a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, great-aunt, godmother, and the mother of two college students. After walking out of the smoke of the 9-11 attacks in New York City and returning to participate in the recovery effort, Rosa began working to prevent further death and destruction in other countries at the hands of the U.S. government. Participating in a peace vigil at the World Trade Center site for more than three years gave her the privilege of talking with thousands of people from all over the world about things that matter most. Dr. Azadi has earned two advanced degrees and is still learning. Currently, she’s splitting her time between Tehran, Iran, and upstate New York.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rosa_sch_070202_six_lies_you_shouldn.htm

Is it petty to take pleasure in this? No. McKeith is a menace to the public understanding of science. She seems to misunderstand not nuances, but the most basic aspects of biology – things that a 14-year-old could put her straight on.

That is a line from a sniping and rather sad article hailing the ‘taking down’ of Dr, Gillian McKeith by an ‘angry nerd’ who reported her the Advertising Standards Authority, complaining about her using the title “doctor”.

The draft adjudication from them concludes that “the claim ‘Dr’ was likely to mislead”. The advert allegedly breached two clauses of the Committee of Advertising Practice code: “substantiation” and “truthfulness”.

My problem with this article is not that this is a personal attack by some peniless (yes, ‘peniless’) losers who hate anyone who sells ‘alternative therapies’ like acupuncture. I have said enough about that in the past.

The problem with this is the cult of science, and the erroneous belief that only ‘science’ has the correct world view.

The world view of science and the way some of its practitioners works is fundamentally flawed. Those that use science and the scientific method as a tool are perfectly acceptable and reasonable; the bad guys are the ones that think anyone who does not share their world view are heretics, a ‘menace’ and something to be attacked.

What exactly does ‘a meanace to science’ mean? Science is a method and a process it is not a religion, or a person, or a goal in itself. It is a tool that works very well when it is used correctly, but sadly, many ‘scientists’ don’t have the honesty or professional integrity to apply science equally in all cases. This is why we still have ‘scientists’ like Seth Shostack and the other ostrich posturing lunatics that refuse to look at the best UFO evidence. It is why we have personal unrelenting attacks on harmless dietitians. It is why, after one hundred years of proven efficacy there are still ‘scientists’ who think that Homeopathy is hogwash. What pathetic people these are.

I hope that Dr Gillian McKeith takes some of her millions and buys herself an honorary doctorate; then she can call herself Doctor whenever she likes. But I digress.

Any of these ‘scientists’ who want to help people should prepare their own books and products instead of trying to destroy the work of other people. Sadly when they actually take you up on this, we end up with products like Thalidomide and every other noxious poison the likes of Bayer, GSK, Merc come up with year after year.

Everyone is fed up to the teeth with bad science of the kind that produces Thalidomide. Everyone wants to lead a more natural, less aggressive life. The people who gleefully demonize anyone who is trying to cater to this need show their own inhumanity. What is interesting about Dr Gillian McKeith is not that she is not a ‘real’ doctor, but that so many people are seeking a better way of living. This is never addressed of course, as they whip around in a dervish frenzy beating their bibles and calling for her to be disemboweled.

But of course, these monsters do not think that human beings have any value; they are only interested in spreading their vile religion to the exclusion of all other thought. They are religious fundamentalists of the worst kind, and they bring into disrepute all the real scientists who say nothing, but get on with good and beneficial work every day of every week, for a pittance of money.

Put plainly, I don’t care if Dr. Gillian McKeith thinks that hanging a crystal over your stomach will cure your bellyache. It is her absolute right to think that, and to sell that as a service to anyone who will buy it. Critical thinking skills will not be spread by shutting people up. It wont be spread by skeptic ‘scientists’ attacking anything outside their dogma. If you want to make the world a better place go teach in one of those hell hole schools. That is what you need to do if you want to teach people how to think.

Do something REAL with your life.

The day before Christmas, the German newspaper, Erlanger Nachrichten published a picture of the eight-member Busekros family standing happily together around an advent wreath. The title of the accompanying article was “Only families open the way for new perspectives“. On the first of February this year, the Busekros’ oldest daughter was torn from her family by force, thanks to a judge’s ruling : Compulsory admittance to the Klinikum Nuremberg-Nord, a psychiatric clinic for children and young people and loss of parental custody.In summer 2005, 15 year old Melissa was told that she would have to repeat the 7th grade at the Christian Ernst Hig Gymnasium (a high school where one can obtain the Abitur, the highest German high school diploma) due to her bad grades in math and latin. The situation in the class played no small part in creating this state of affairs – the high noise levels and cancelled classes prevented her from receiving the educational assistance she needed during school hours. As Melissa had good grades in all the other subjects, repeating the whole year would be mostly a waste of her time, as well as the fact that she would now be in a class even more problematic than the previous year’s. Thus, it was decided by Melissa and her parents that she would be tutored individually at home to meet her specific needs. At her own wish, Melissa only took part in Music and sang in her school choir. The school and the local school authorities were not satisfied with this solution, and consequently expelled Melissa from the school, allocating her to the local Hauptschule (the lowest in the German three-tier high school system.The Busekros continued educating their daughter at home, with their other school-age children still attending school. At the end of the school year 2005/2006, Melissa was no longer subject to full-time compulsory schooling. In spite of this the Youth Welfare Office (Jugendamt) in Erlangen appealed to the local Family Court, which ordered Melissa and her parents to appear at a hearing, which was consequently attended solely by her father. Melissa was overseas at that point. However, the authorities didn’t relent and wanted to know in detail where Melissa was, resulting in an unannounced visit to the family by the Judge of the Family Court.

The Busekros family is known and much loved by all their neighbours. Their willingness to be photographed for an article in the local newspaper demonstrates that they have nothing to hide. That was not good enough for the officials. On Tuesday 30th January just after 7am, Mrs Busekros and her children – Mr Busekros had already left for work – were startled by the appearance of social workers and police officials who demanded that Melissa be handed over to them immediately. They had as authorisation a decision by the Erlangen Court (case no. 006 F 01004/06) of the 29th of January. It stated “The relevant Youth Welfare Office is hereby instructed and authorised to bring the child, if necessary by force, to a hearing and may obtain police support for this purpose.”

Melissa was brought into the Child Psychiatry Unit of the Nuremberg clinic and was subjected to an interrogation in the presence of the specialist Dr. Schanda. After this interrogation, about three and a half hours after she was coerced into the clinic, Melissa was returned home. Her relieved parents and her five younger siblings, who didn’t know when they would ever see Melissa again, as well as Melissa herself didn’t know that the worst was still to come.

On the afternoon of the 1st of February, the judge of the Family Court, representatives of the Youth Welfare Office, along with fifteen police officers, marched up to the Busekros home, to haul Melissa off to the Child Psychiatry Unit of the Nuremberg clinic. The judicial decision authorising this also removed Melissa from her parents’ custody, according to her father, Hubert Busekros.This treatment was justified by the psychiatrist’s finding, two days previously, that she was supposedly developmentally delayed by one year and that she suffered from school phobia. […]

http://www.netzwerk-bildungsfreiheit.de

Home schoolers get a really hard time in Germany. It is ILLEGAL to school your children at home, because, as the European Human Rights Court confirmed:

…that society has a significant interest in preventing the development of dissent through “separate philosophical convictions.” WND

The law against home schooling was introduced by the Nazis it is incredible that this law has not been removed from the statutes, and its even more amazing that the EU says its all ‘OK’.

Do I really have to spell out your right to educate your children in whatever way you want?

Hmmmm I wonder if these laws apply to Koran schools, or Catholic schools, or any other religious schools? Surely these institutions foster “separate philosophical convictions”.

And separate philosophical convictions to what exactly? Where are these convictions written down for you to follow?! Its all nonsense on sticks obviously.

LONDON, England (CNN) — A woman was injured Wednesday when a suspected parcel bomb exploded at government agency in western Britain, the third such incident in as many days, police said.

The bomb detonated at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea, south Wales. (See Map)

“One female has been taken to hospital with injuries, which are not believed to be life-threatening,” a police statement said.

“A cordon has been put in place and nearby residents are being evacuated as a precautionary measure.” The DVLA said the injured woman dealt with the company’s mail.

On Tuesday, two people were injured when a similar device exploded at a business center in Wokingham, southwest of London, police.

The bomb targeted Vantis, a company involved in processing speeding fines.

On Monday, a padded envelope exploded at an office belonging to Capita Group, which administers the $16 daily fee meant to cut down on traffic in central London.

Police have yet to say whether the explosions were linked, but Britain’s Home Secretary, John Reid, has expressed concern.

“Naturally, these incidents are worrying. It is important that we allow police to get on with their investigation without undue speculation,” he said.

Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper quoted police saying the bombs could be the work of a “militant motorist.

An anti-speed camera campaigner identified as “Captain Gatso” said his Motorists Against Detection organization was not responsible for the bombs, the Daily Mail said.

[…]

CNN

First the Congestion Charging offices, then Vantis who make speed cameras and now the DVLA.

Up and down the country, from John O Groats to Lands End people are saying….

Well, what do you expect?

Using The Google:

UK: Captain Gatso Declares War on Speed Cameras
Motorists Against Destruction declare a zero-tolerance policy for speed cameras in the UK.

Captain Gatso The mysterious leader of Motorists Against Detection (MAD), an anti-speed camera group, has declared a “zero-tolerance” policy for photo enforcement in light of statistics that show the devices have caused an increase in accidents. Captain Gatso, a Tony Blair mask-wearing family man in his 40s asserted his group would begin stepping up attacks.

“This will be civil disobedience on a grand scale,” he told the Sunday Express newspaper. “We are planning to target any and all cameras until the government sees sense and re-thinks its road safety policy. Before we had speed cameras we had the safest roads in Europe. Since their introduction this is no longer true.”

The group, which claims two hundred members, has been responsible for the destruction of between 600 and 1000 speed cameras since 2000. Newly developed technologies allow for camera destruction within a matter of seconds.

“Most of the organizing group are just ordinary blokes with families who are sick of us heading towards a police state,” Captain Gatso said. “There will be a zero tolerance policy towards all cameras. We need to focus attention on what the cameras are about.”

In Liverpool, an eighteen year old was arrested around midnight on June 14 for using a hammer to smash a speed camera on New Chester Road in Birkenhead.

Source: Gatso gang return (Sunday Express (UK), 6/18/2006)

This is just the beginning. If they DARE to try and introduce ID cards, there will be civil disobedience on a huge scale. Enough is enough!

Militant motorists are well on target for achieving their initial aim of wiping out 1,000 speed cameras. Their current score is 700+ and rising daily. Cameras costing £24,000 to replace have been battered down, blown up and shot to bits from southern England to the highlands of Scotland and from Norfolk to west Wales.

Chief constables all over Britain have raised public anger levels to unprecedented heights through their policy of raising cash with speed cameras while ignoring the types of crime which have the biggest impact on people’s lives, such as burglary.

Perhaps burgled citizens need to take the same sort of affirmative action adopted by the motorists. Insisting on a personal apology from the chief constable for every unsolved home invasion would be a good start, and having their noses rubbed in their own mess might help some senior coppers to focus their minds on their failure to do the job that the customers want done.

At last.

Like I said in another post, the Congestion Charge system has to be next. It would be best (as always) to be clever about it and take them out with microwave weapons. Failing that, imagine paying the feral youths of London to climb up the poles and tape plastic bags over the cameras. There are so many ways to disrupt that system…but the most important one is a simple refusal to pay. Millions of people refusing to cooperate will destroy it utterly. The knocking out of the cameras with plastic bags could be the catalyst to wake up the motorists out of their compliant slumber.

And finally, this is why mass-like action is preferable, not only because no one gets hurt, but because there are new tools that are being used to disrupt any civil disobedience:

[…] “They just seemed to come from nowhere and they didn’t know anyone. They had rigs [lorries] but they were very clean and they didn’t look as if they’d been used.”

The new recruits spent a lot of time arguing against taking any action and spreading doubts about the need for it. “They were saying things like: ‘Think of the hospitals, what happens if it goes like 2000?'” says Gatso.

GATSO suspects someone has been in his house. “My computer disks in my study at home have been gone through. They are in a different order from the way I left them,” he says. “My paperwork is in the same drawers but not in the same order. One of the locks feels like it has been interfered with.”

Members of the group have complained that they are being followed by the same cars for long periods. Gatso says he was stopped by two men in an Audi on the A1 near Hatfield. They told him they knew what he was up to.

If these claims are true, the work is likely to have been done by local Special Branches and a secretive, Scotland Yard-based police taskforce called the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). Few have heard of it, but its role in controlling dissent is central.

Established by the Blair Government in 1998 to monitor “politically motivated disorder”, in the words of the Inspectorate of Constabulary, the NPOIU, says the Home Office, “provides critical support to forces across the UK in maintaining a strategic overview of public order issues”.

MI5’s website describes the unit as dealing with “Right and Leftwing extremists, animal rights extremists and other militant single-issue protesters”. In its seven-year history, according to the Metropolitan Police Authority accounts, its budget has steadily grown. […]

Find Articles

My emphasis.

Well. You know for sure that NO2ID Phil and all his crew are on that list.

Something tells me that this shadowy group is not powerful enough to poison the internets. The mass cannot be poisoned, it eats poison, and then collects it in a gland, where it is pointed at and laughed at. You have seen the posts everywhere, the ones by anonymous glove puppets that say “Nothing to hide, nothing to fear” in any forum discussing ID cards (there are LOTS of those on BBQ btw).

They have learned nothing from the Soviet era. It doesn’t matter how many secrete disruption groups you set up, the fact of the matter is, once the momentum is there, it is unstoppable, and today, with the internets, the build up of momentum is very fast.

Cameras Protecting Other Cameras

There is a proposal in Scotland to protect automatic speed-trap cameras from vandals by monitoring them with other cameras.

Then, I suppose we need still other cameras to protect the camera-watching cameras.

I am reminded of a certain building corner in York. Centuries ago it was getting banged up by carts and whatnot, so the owners stuck a post in the ground a couple of feet away from the corner to protect it. Time passed, and the post itself became historically significant. So now there is another post a couple of feet away from the first one to protect it.

When will it end?

[…]

Snarfed from Bruce Schneier’s Blog

It will end Bruce, when everyone reflexively smashes any ‘security’ camera that is operated by the state.

What people do in their own property is their own business, i.e. in Marks & Spencer they can have cameras wherever they like because it is a PRIVATE space. It is your choice not to shop there if they make you feel uncomfortable. Believe me, they will remove them in an instant if their profit margin is hurt by cameras.

Cameras that are in the public, operated by the state are a different thing entirely. The streets and the public spaces are precisely that, PUBLIC, belonging to EVERYONE and no authority has the right to surveil you while you are in public. You have the right to go about your business without being filmed, especially by the police.

All of these cameras should be smashed as a matter of civic duty. I have said this before, and so has Jultra, and so have many others. The fact that they have to put cameras on the cameras means that…its starting.

What would be excellent is if some geek put together a portable microwave gun that destroyed the circuits / CCD in a CCTV / Congestion Charge camera, so that you could kill any camera from a distance discreetly and effectively.

BBQ has an (shock) article by a named author on The Great Satan’s lust to be able to destroy everything:

The declassified document is called “Information Operations Roadmap”. It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act.

Officials in the Pentagon wrote it in 2003. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it.

[…]

The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.

All these are engaged in information operations. […]

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military’s psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.

“Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience,” it reads.

“Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public,” it goes on. […]

“In this day and age it is impossible to prevent stories that are fed abroad as part of psychological operations propaganda from blowing back into the United States – even though they were directed abroad,” says Kristin Adair of the National Security Archive. […]

Late last year, it emerged that the Pentagon had paid a private company, the Lincoln Group, to plant hundreds of stories in Iraqi newspapers. The stories – all supportive of US policy – were written by military personnel and then placed in Iraqi publications.

And websites that appeared to be information sites on the politics of Africa and the Balkans were found to be run by the Pentagon. […]

When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone.

It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system.

“Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will ‘fight the net’ as it would an enemy weapons system,” it reads.

The slogan “fight the net” appears several times throughout the roadmap. […]

And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to “provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum”.

US forces should be able to “disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum”.

Consider that for a moment.

The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.

Are these plans the pipe dreams of self-aggrandising bureaucrats? Or are they real?

The fact that the “Information Operations Roadmap” is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon.

And that the scale and grandeur of the digital revolution is matched only by the US military’s ambitions for it.

[…]

The article. The paper.

Now you know for sure that the worldwide ID / Biometric Net project is being cast in these terms by the Pentagon. Mark My Mords™ the documents exist.

This document states clearly that everyone other than those at the Pentagon is the enemy. ‘The Mass’, in the Baudrillard sense, is the enemy. YOU are the enemy.

But you know this!

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) — It’s always interesting to me, that in my own country, I often get assignments where I walk into a room, and everyone looks and sounds different from me. Different language. Different culture. And sometimes, different beliefs.

On this story, I crossed such a threshold.

I stepped into the taxi depot that serves the Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport, where drivers sit and wait for their next fare. In this crowded, noisy room, most of the cabbies are Muslims originally from Somalia.

“We’re doing a story about the conflict between the cabbies and the airport. The Muslim drivers have been refusing to take passengers carrying alcohol, such as wine or liquor purchased at a duty free shop,” I explained.

A group of men gathered around us.

“This is America, we have freedom of religion,” says one cabbie. We could see their feelings are intense — that the issue seems to cut to the core of their identity.

“The Metropolitan Airport Commission is discriminating against us Muslim drivers,” says Abdulkaddir Adan, a Somalian-American who’s been driving a cab in the Twin Cities for two years.

We asked Adan if he’d give us a ride, and let us interview him while he was driving. He agreed. CNN Photojournalist Derek Davis set up a “lipstick” cam, a small camera, positioned on the dashboard.

From the back seat, I asked why Adan would object if I were carrying alcohol.

“The one who drinks, the one who transports, and the one who makes a business of it, they have the same category,” he said.

“So, by my transporting my alcohol in your cab, you are sinning?” I asked.

“Sinning to God, yes,” he replied.

Adan is not alone. About three quarters of the 900 cabbies serving the airport are Muslim, and many have been regularly refusing passengers carrying beer, wine or liquor.

In the past five years, 5,400 would-be taxi passengers at the airport were refused service for this very reason, said the Metropolitan Airport Commission, or MAC. Last May, passenger Bob Dildine says he waited for 20 minutes, and five cab drivers would not give him and his daughter a ride. He was carrying wine he bought on vacation.

“They’re here to provide service to people,” said Dildine. “We were a lawful customer, and we were denied service. That’s not our way of doing things.”

MAC officials said they don’t know of any airport other than the Twin Cities where this has become an issue. MAC officials explain that the area has a growing population of immigrant Somalians, many who’ve sought jobs as taxi drivers. Last year, MAC consulted local Muslim leaders, who issued a fatwa, or religious opinion.

“It is expressly stated,” said Kahlid Elmasry of the Muslim American Society. “Transportation of alcohol for Muslims is against the Islamic faith, and therefore forbidden.”

Last September, airport officials sought a compromise, and suggested that distinctive lights could be put on the roofs of cabs operated by drivers who will not transport alcohol. That way, taxi starters — airport staff who direct people into cabs — could send passengers with alcohol to those drivers who have no objection.

“But the feedback we got, not only locally but really from around the country and around the world, was almost entirely negative,” said airport spokesman Pat Hogan. “People saw that as condoning discrimination against people who had alcohol.”

Right now, MAC says any cabbie who refuses a passenger carrying alcohol must go to the back of the line. No small thing, given cabbies often have to wait at the depot up to three hours for the next fare.

But because MAC officials have received thousands of complaints, they’re considering stiffer penalties: a 30-day suspension for a first refusal, a two-year suspension for a second.

“We’re now at a point where the drivers may have to make a choice,” said Hogan.

For Adan, the choice is clear.

“I would leave my job, instead of doing something that’s not allowed in my religion,” he said. […]

CNN

This sort of story is designed to drive people insane. Its very clever; it is a story about how america is changing (for the worse) but also how its principles are still intact (letting new people in to get on with their lives as they wish). This is a story that you cannot take at face value. It is a provocation, a red rag to a bull.

It is a story that is made to provoke bloggers to make links like this as a suggestion to these Taxi drivers, and to make other bloggers write that these people are going to end up in a paralell society, where they cater for their own needs while everyone else lives in ‘REAL-AMERICA’, where you can call a taxi and not have to think about the sensibilities of the hack, save that he wants to be paid.

But we won’t fall for it.

What would be interesting is this; imagine these (male) cab drivers deciding that they won’t carry females. There is nothing to stop them from coming to this decision….go for it dudes!

Here come some big lies:

Huge majority say civil liberty curbs a ‘price worth paying’ to fight
terror

Research finds most support compulsory ID cards, with phone tapping, curfews and tagging for suspects

John Carvel and Lucy Ward Wednesday January 24, 2007 The Guardian

An overwhelming majority of people in Britain are willing to surrender civil liberties to help tackle the threat of terrorism, the nation’s leading social research institute will disclose today. The survey found seven in every 10 people think compulsory identity cards for all adults would be “a price worth paying” to reduce the threat of terrorism. Eight in 10 say the authorities should be able to tap the phones of people suspected of involvement in terrorism, open their mail and impose electronic tagging or home curfews.

The findings come from the annual British Social Attitudes survey, based on interviews with a sample of 3,000 adults by the National Centre for Social Research

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1997179,00.html

And a clever person on the FIPR saved me some typing:

would the replies have been different if the questions had been:

are you prepared to identify yourself every time you:

(a) take money out of the bank;
(b) want to enter a shopping mall/department store;
(c) [etc]; with those data being stored so the police, social security and your boss can check where you were and what you did at any time?

would you object to being detained for a week because an anonymous informer told the police that s/he thought you were up to no good – without the police giving you any further evidence and without you being able to challenge your detention?

people are always willing to give up freedoms if they think it’ll only affect “the other”, i.e. sinister people from “other cultures” (black, muslim, hoodie). as whatshername said, it’ll be too late if you wait until the [secret] police knocks on your door …

la lotta per la liberta (e gli liberti) continua!

John Carvel and Lucy Ward Wednesday are total scumbags.

They know perfectly well that biased and malformed questions are almost always used to generate this data; the fact that they did not publish the questions proves that they are culpable, or amongst the stupidest people in the country.

Everyone knows now that we are in the middle of a historic fight for the very soul of Britain. To let this sort of thing pass unchecked is simply CRIMINAL, especially since its appearing in the same paper that Henry Porter has been doing such good work in. They will know ABSOLUTELY that this report is totally bogus, because they work IN THE SAME TEAM AS HENRY PORTER. They will have read, without a doubt, the ‘Frances Stonor Saunders’ email. THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING when they publish this without question and put their names to it.

Dirty filthy animals, against Britain, against freedom; LIARS LIARS LIARS, COWARDS COWARDS COWARDS lower than any dog, suicidal, imbecilic…

FUCKING DUMBASSES.

… and they don’t even have the brains to point out that none of the measures proposed will actually do what HMG says they are for. Even HMG admits that ID cards will do nothing to stop ‘terrorism’.

The question is, why on earth do the editors of The Guardian allow this evil drivel in their paper?

If you’ve traveled abroad recently, you’ve been investigated. You’ve been assigned a score indicating what kind of terrorist threat you pose. That score is used by the government to determine the treatment you receive when you return to the U.S. and for other purposes as well.

Curious about your score? You can’t see it. Interested in what information was used? You can’t know that. Want to clear your name if you’ve been wrongly categorized? You can’t challenge it. Want to know what kind of rules the computer is using to judge you? That’s secret, too. So is when and how the score will be used.

U.S. customs agencies have been quietly operating this system for several years. Called Automated Targeting System, it assigns a “risk assessment” score to people entering or leaving the country, or engaging in import or export activity. This score, and the information used to derive it, can be shared with federal, state, local and even foreign governments. It can be used if you apply for a government job, grant, license, contract or other benefit. It can be shared with nongovernmental organizations and individuals in the course of an investigation. In some circumstances private contractors can get it, even those outside the country. And it will be saved for 40 years.

Little is known about this program. Its bare outlines were disclosed in the Federal Register in October. We do know that the score is partially based on details of your flight record–where you’re from, how you bought your ticket, where you’re sitting, any special meal requests–or on motor vehicle records, as well as on information from crime, watch-list and other databases.

Civil liberties groups have called the program Kafkaesque. But I have an even bigger problem with it. It’s a waste of money.

The idea of feeding a limited set of characteristics into a computer, which then somehow divines a person’s terrorist leanings, is farcical. Uncovering terrorist plots requires intelligence and investigation, not large-scale processing of everyone.

Additionally, any system like this will generate so many false alarms as to be completely unusable. In 2005 Customs & Border Protection processed 431 million people. Assuming an unrealistic model that identifies terrorists (and innocents) with 99.9% accuracy, that’s still 431,000 false alarms annually.

The number of false alarms will be much higher than that. The no-fly list is filled with inaccuracies; we’ve all read about innocent people named David Nelson who can’t fly without hours-long harassment. Airline data, too, are riddled with errors.

The odds of this program’s being implemented securely, with adequate privacy protections, are not good. Last year I participated in a government working group to assess the security and privacy of a similar program developed by the Transportation Security Administration, called Secure Flight. After five years and $100 million spent, the program still can’t achieve the simple task of matching airline passengers against terrorist watch lists.

In 2002 we learned about yet another program, called Total Information Awareness, for which the government would collect information on every American and assign him or her a terrorist risk score. Congress found the idea so abhorrent that it halted funding for the program. Two years ago, and again this year, Secure Flight was also banned by Congress until it could pass a series of tests for accuracy and privacy protection.

In fact, the Automated Targeting System is arguably illegal as well (a point several congressmen made recently); all recent Department of Homeland Security appropriations bills specifically prohibit the department from using profiling systems against persons not on a watch list.

There is something un-American about a government program that uses secret criteria to collect dossiers on innocent people and shares that information with various agencies, all without any oversight. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect from the former Soviet Union or East Germany or China. And it doesn’t make us any safer from terrorism. […]

This essay, without the links, was published in Forbes.

They also published a rebuttal by William Baldwin, although it doesn’t seen to rebut any of the actual points. “Here’s an odd division of labor: a corporate data consultant argues for more openness, while a journalist favors more secrecy.” It’s only odd if you don’t understand security.

It also needs to be pointed out that all over the world, in countries without a widespread credit card system, most airline tickets, no matter what the destination, are bought with cash.

That means that any ‘third world’ traveller has been given a higher score thanks to this bogus metric, when in fact its absolutely normal to buy airline tickets with cash all over the world.

These people are totally insane.

But you know this.

Blair wants ‘super-Asbos’ for violent thugs
David Cracknell, Political Editor

TONY BLAIR is to mount a final assault on Britain’s thug culture by introducing restrictions that will curb potential yobs’ movements even before they have committed an offence.

After attempting to tackle antisocial behaviour, he is proposing to introduce a “violent offender order” (Voo) targeted at those whom police believe are likely to commit violence.

These new “super-Asbos” will be aimed not only at people who have a history of violent behaviour or who have just left prison but also those who may not yet have committed an offence.

According to a Home Office document outlining the plan, to be published next month, the measures will ban potential trouble-makers from certain areas or mixing with certain people, alert police when they move house and possibly force them to live in a named hostel, give details of vehicles they own and impose a curfew on them.

The orders will last for at least two years, with no upper limit. Any breach could lead to up to five years in jail. Ministers believe police will apply for 300 to 450 Voos each year.

The measures will be seen as a last-ditch attempt by Blair to rescue his legacy on law and order before he quits No 10 in the summer. Despite the prime minister’s boast that overall crime has been falling for the past decade, violent crime is rising.

A report out today, by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies in association with The Sunday Times, reveals that almost half of the offenders caught by police are getting away without a court punishment, robberies have risen and murders are up by a third. Street muggings remain stubbornly high.

The Voos are designed to be a “preventative measure”, according to the Home Office paper. “It would mean that, where an individual was known to be dangerous but had not committed a specific qualifying offence, restrictions could still be placed on their behaviour,” it says.

Like Asbos, the police or probation service would apply for the orders to the civil courts, where the threshold for proof is lower than in a criminal case. The document says the process will therefore be much quicker and hearsay evidence will be permitted to obtain an order against a suspect. Any breach of the order would be a criminal offence.

Unlike Asbos, which solely cover antisocial behaviour, Voos would be targeted at thugs who would be placed on the violent and sex offender register, a national database for intelligence on people deemed to be a serious risk to the public.

Ministers are concerned that the Asbo regime has failed to give police and the authorities enough powers to tackle potentially violent offenders.

The paper identifies a series of “risk factors” that could lead to a person being targeted for the new order. These include a person’s formative years and upbringing, “cognitive deficiencies”, “entrenched pro-criminal or antisocial attitudes,” “a history of substance abuse or mental health issues”.

Factors could also include a person’s domestic situation or relationship with their partner or family, as well as more obvious signs such as “possession of paraphernalia related to violent offending (eg, balaclava, baseball bat), or extremist material”.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, the civil rights campaign group, said: “Haven’t we seen enough already with Asbos and control orders? This sounds like another incredibly broad power, with more legislation — another quick fix undermining natural justice and not making us any safer.”

[…]

Times Online

Yes indeed; they called it… ‘Pre-Crime’

Minority Report is the cause for all of our woes. I can guarantee you that the computer illiterate sub-human trash of the likes of Bliar had no idea of what was possible (maxing out the Totalitarian vibe-wise) until he saw the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Minority Report’ (heaven knows he would never have read the book) and then, turning to somoene in his black lair he would have asked, “Could we actually do this?” whereupon some consultant disguised in human form would have said, “Yes, but it would take time“.

It was probably as stupid as that.

The totally seductive idea of being able to prevent crime, not just murder, but all crime, Pre-Crime style, probably made Bliar wet his pants. Knowing that a precognitive mutant solution was not to hand, he did the next best thing: Legislation.

Read the comments here, in response to this BBQ article. Critical mass is approaching, make no mistake about it. People are slowly waking up.

We even have words like this, which are as the sweetest music to my ears:

Mr Cameron! Make it part of your manifesto that you will roll back all the infringements on my long-held & fought for British rights & way of life and you will have this life-long Labour supporter’s vote.

And thats a promise.

– Ian Fergey, Braintree, Essex

From this article, on the outsourcing of M|5’s bogus ‘terror’ alert ‘service’.

Let the runaway chain reaction begin.

Finally, ‘The country that brought you Hitler’ brings you ‘the Prum Treaty’:

Police across Europe to share DNA database

David Rose
Sunday January 14, 2007
The Observer

Police and security services in the European Union will share access to an unprecedented range of individuals’ personal data under a radical package of measures to be discussed by EU justice ministers this week. It allows agencies in different countries to search one another’s databases – DNA records, fingerprints, vehicle details – and other personal information. Even if someone has no criminal record and their DNA is not on a database, police can ask their foreign colleagues to collect a sample.

The measures, known as the Prum Treaty, after the German town where it was signed, are being championed by Germany, which holds the EU presidency. Documents obtained by The Observer show that the Germans are also holding secret talks with top US officials in an attempt to conclude a data-sharing agreement with America – first for Germany alone, then for the EU […]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1989902,00.html

Almost everyone in the UK now knows reflexively why this is wrong.

At last, we are beginning to get results.

by Paul Craig Roberts

Bush’s “surge” speech is a hoax, but members of Congress and media commentators are discussing the surge as if it were real.

I invite the reader to examine the speech. The “surge” content consists of nonsensical propagandistic statements. The real content of the speech is toward the end where Bush mentions Iran and Syria.

Bush makes it clear that success in Iraq does not depend on the surge. Rather, “Succeeding in Iraq . . . begins with addressing Iran and Syria.”

Bush asserts that “these two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.”

Bush’s assertions are propagandistic lies.

The Iraq insurgency is Sunni. Iran is Shi’ite. If Iran is supporting anyone in Iraq it is the Shi’ites, who have not been part of the insurgency. Indeed, the Sunni and Shi’ites are engaged in a civil war within Iraq.

Does any intelligent person really believe that Iranian Shi’ites are going to arm Iraqi Sunnis who are killing Iraqi Shi’ites allied with Iran? Does anyone really believe that Iranian Shi’ites are going to provide sanctuary for Iraqi Sunnis?

Bush can tell blatant propagandistic lies, because Congress and the American people don’t know enough facts to realize the absurdity of Bush’s assertions.

Why is Bush telling these lies? Here is the answer: Bush says, “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

In those words, Bush states perfectly clearly that victory in Iraq requires US forces to attack Iran and Syria. Moreover, Bush says, “We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.”

What do two US aircraft carrier attack groups in the Persian Gulf have to do with a guerrilla ground war in Iraq?

The “surge” is merely a tactic to buy time while war with Iran and Syria can be orchestrated. The neoconservative/Israeli cabal feared that the pressure that Congress, the public, and the American foreign policy establishment were putting on Bush to de-escalate in Iraq would terminate their plan to achieve hegemony in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq would mean the end of the neoconservatives’ influence. It would be impossible to start a new war with Iran after losing the war in Iraq.

The neoconservatives and the right-wing Israeli government have clearly stated their plans to overthrow Muslim governments throughout the region and to deracinate Islam. These plans existed long before 9/11.

Near the end of his “surge” speech, Bush adopts the neoconservative program as US policy. The struggle, Bush says, echoing the neoconservatives and the Israeli right-wing, goes far beyond Iraq. “The challenge,” Bush says, is “playing out across the broader Middle East. . . . It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time.” America is pitted against “extremists” who “have declared their intention to destroy our way of life.” “The most realistic way to protect the American people,” Bush says, is “by advancing liberty across a troubled region.”

This, of course, is a massive duplicitous lie. We have brought no liberty to Iraq, but we have destroyed their way of life. Bush suggests that Muslims in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine are waiting and hoping for more invasions to free them of violence. Did Bush’s invasion free Iraq from violence or did it bring violence to Iraq?

It is extraordinary that anyone can listen to this blatant declaration of US aggression in the Middle East without demanding Bush’s immediate impeachment.

Republican US Senator Chuck Hagel declared Bush’s plan to be “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.” In truth, it is far worse. It is naked aggression justified by transparent lies. No one has ever heard governments in Iraq, Syria, or Iran declare “their intention to destroy our way of life.” To the contrary, it is the United States and Israel that are trying to destroy the Muslim way of life.

The crystal clear truth is that fanatical neoconservatives and Israelis are using Bush to commit the United States to a catastrophic course.

[…]

Anti-War

We of course, know that bush doesn’t know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims:

[…] The Iranian government doesn’t ’sponsor terrorism’. The entire cause of ‘terrorism’ is USUKs interference in other people’s countries. Look at this documentary to find out just how IGNORANT Bliar and Bu$h are; the killer part is where the presenter recounts the event where Bu$h took some Shias and Sunnis to the Super Bowl. They talked. Somehow, the discussion came round to Islam, and someone mentioned that Sunnis and Shias sometimes….’don’t get along’, whereupon The Great Satan said, “You mean that there is more than one kind of muslim?”. […]

BLOGDIAL

If americans (and by americans, i mean the 50% that don’t agree with fascism) need to ‘step up to the plate’ and DO SOMETHING about the preparations for an attack on Iran.

At the very minimum, they (the 50%) should stage a seven day national strike. Everyone and every business that is against expanded war close up shop for one solid week.

Thats not so hard is it?

Brown to end Blair’s terror strategy

[…]

Mr Brown, who backed the 2003 Iraq invasion, said he had since learned that only so much could be achieved against terrorists and religious fanatics by brute military force, intelligence, security work and policing. In terms that will appeal to many Labour supporters but anger Mr Blair — and some in Washington — he said the fight to stop “extremist terrorist activities” would only be won after world leaders triumphed in a peaceful battle for “hearts and minds”.

Suggesting that he would not follow Washington into any future military action against rogue nations such as Iran, Mr Brown said the kind of “cultural war” fought by the West against Communism in the 1940s and 1950s could be a “model” for the next chapter of the war on terror. […]

Telegraph

Gordon has no clue at all. Thats because he doesn’t understand the era that he is in.

There can be no ‘cultural war’ in this age, because of…The Internets.

All the people he is talking about waging a cultural war against are already completely immune from cultural attack; this is why they are in a state of unprecedented cultural cohesion and frictionless networking.

For example, have you ever noticed the insanely great music that accompanies the ‘Juba’ videos, or those ‘messages from the front’ where IEDs blow up armored vehicles? There is a huge culture of ‘Nasheeds‘ music made from only the human voice, which are:

Nasheeds (Arabic: ??????; also spelt Nasyid in Malaysia) are Islamic-oriented songs. Traditionally, they are sung a cappella, accompanied only by a daff. This musical style is used because many Muslim scholars interpret Islam as prohibiting the use of musical instruments except for some basic percussion. Despite what might be considered a handicap, Nasheeds are spreading across the music network as many people admire the purity and simplicity of the music.

Look at the guys in that nasheeds.com link. They are not going to swallow any propaganda, no matter how much it is sugared, and whats more, they are putting out their own thoughts ideas and music that outclasss and outperform anything that Gordon ‘The Grotesque’ Brown and his UK based PR scum-bags could ever come up with, the main reason being that they are on the side of righteousness.

The only way PM in waiting Gordon G. Brown can ever hope to take the UK off of the shit list is to REPENT and to totally disengage in the bogus ‘War on Terror’ and completely drop all of its hideous side effects. That means immediate withdrawl from all countries where this US led insanity is taking place, repealing all Bliar’s anti-terror legislation and measures, and promising never to follow The Great Satan into the abyss again. He might even consider paying reparations for the crimes that were committed by his government.

That is the only thing that will put it all right. You cannot tell one billion people that their religion is the new Communism that needs to be defeated, and then expect to win. Not only is Islam not analagous to Communism, but even if it was, the tools of any ‘cultural war’ are in the hands of everyone with a cellphone. Every blogger, email writer and text messager is a soldier in this war. There is no way that you can defeat that. To get a good understanding of what an insurmountable task this would be, should you be stupid enough to try it, read, ‘In the Shadow of the silent Majorities‘:

The whole chaotic constellation of the social revolves around that spongy reference, that opaque but equally translucent reality, that nothingness: the masses. A statistical crystal ball, the masses are ‘swirling with currents and flows,’ in the image of matter and the natural elements. So, at least, they are represented to us.

Written in 1978 and first published in English in 1983, In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities was the first postmodern response to the delusional strategies of terrorism. At a time when European terrorists were taking politics into their own hands, Baudrillard was the first to announce that the “critical mass” had stopped being critical of anything. Rather, the “masses” had become a place of absorption and implosion; hence the ending of the possibility of politics as will and representation.

The book marked the end of an era when silent majorities still factored into the democratic political process and were expected to respond positively to revolutionary messages. With the masses no longer “alienated” as Marx had described, but rather indifferent, this phenomenon made revolutionary explosion impossible, says Baudrillard.

The mass absorbs all the social energy, but no longer refracts it. It absorbs every sign and every meaning, but no longer reflects them… it never participates. It is a good conductor of information, but of any information. It is without truth and without reason. It is without conscience and without unconscious. Everybody questions it, but never as silence, always to make it speak. This silence is unbearable. It is the simulation chamber of the social.

As a mere shadow cast by power, the silent majority and its hyper-real conformity have no meaning and nothing to say to us. To that, terrorism responds by an equally hyper-real act equally caught up from the onset in concentric waves of media and of fascination.

It aims at the mass silence, the masses in their silence. It aims at the white magic of simulation, deterrence, of anonymous and random control, and by the black magic of a still greater, more anonymous, arbitrary and more hazardous abstraction; that of the terrorist act.

Remarkably prescient, Baudrillard’s meditation on terrorism throws light on post-September 11th delusional fears and political simulations. MIT Press

“A ‘cultural war’ fought by the West against Communism in the 1940s and 1950s” cannot and will not work in the 21st century. The Mass will not accept any message, as Baudrillard points out so cleanly for us. The Internets prevent any lie from taking hold for too long, and they (The Internets and the people who operate in them) are getting stronger and stronger and better and better at doing this job.

Gordon Brown is an idiot, an member of the murder Inc. cabal cabinet, a criminal, a liar, a man without any new ideas, a man without morals and a real threat to the UK if this is the best quality of his thinking. Anyway, a man guilty of mass murder has no place being in charge of this great country. But I digress.

Check out these websites, where you can get your own Nasheeds:

http://www.islamway.com/
There are some Nasheeds buried in there; good luck finding them!

http://www.anashed.net/anashed/ashretah/jwad_al_fjr.html
This site has ‘the one with the horses’, ‘Jawad Al Fijr’ that you hear in all the videos.

http://www.nsheed.com/sounds/sounds.php?mqtaa=24
For the ladies?

http://nasheed.worldofislam.info/
500 megz of nasheeds here. Leech away.

http://www.streetdawah.com/nasheeds.html
Collections on CD.

Lord Bush wants to bring back the draft.

Thanks to The Internets, all those young americans can get a foretaste of what they can expect if they are stupid enough to obey.

This guy has another idea about how they can get more cannon fodder. He’s not kidding either:

The government could perhaps grant citizenship to any illegal immigrant who was willing to serve for two years. The government could also grant amnesty to people in prisons throughout the country willing to serve for two or more years. Of the over 12 million illegal immigrants and the millions of Americans in the prison system, I believe we could easily fill the ranks of those servicemen who need to return home, especially those who have families to care for.

In all likelihood we will remain in Iraq indefinitely. Remember, we are still in all of the countries from all major wars since World War II. The only way we can leave Iraq is if they can defend themselves against Iran, as they have been enemies at war for years.

Having Saddam Hussein in Iraq kept Iran in check. We have altered the balance of power in that region and it is now our moral duty to defend Iraq. It is our fault that there is now civil war in Iraq and that hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed.

Can you say, “Starship Troopers”?

its going to be ‘another one of those years’.

Here we go….

Rethink on ID card computer plan

This is yet another lie. Saying that it is a ‘rethink’ implies that there was thought given in the first place. This is demonstrably not the case.

The government has abandoned plans to build a new computer system as part of the national identity cards scheme.

Instead information will be held on three existing and separate databases.

So, we will have three times as many points of access than before. Well done! And in any case, these three DBs will have to be synchronized for the real time magic to happen, so it will for all intents and purposes act like a single database.

This data, wether it is held on one or a thousand different computers should not be held at all. That is the thing that needs to be understood by HMG.

Home Secretary John Reid denied this was a “U-turn” saying it would save money, lead to greater efficiency and lower the risk of fraud.

Lies lies and more lies. They now know for sure that these measures will not prevent people from getting fake ID issued to them, complete with bogus NIR entry. The whole thing is a sham and a lie, and they all know it. This is being done to line the coffers at Schlumberger and the other vendors who look to make a trans-generational killing on the fleecing of the UK citizenry.

All non-Europeans already in the UK – not just those arriving from 2008 – would have to register biometrics, such as fingerprints or iris scans.

This is bollocks. Imagine a piece of legislation saying that you had to be fingerprinted like a criminal just to enter or stay in the UK…uh oh, thats exactly what they are talking about. When the millions of people who came to live here did so over the last forty years, they did so on the premise that they were coming to live in a free country. Now they are changing the agreement, and saying that you must now sign up for their fascist police state, or get out. This is so wrong it beggars belief.

The controversial National Identity Register (NIR) was originally proposed as a single “clean” computer system built from scratch to avoid repeating mistakes and duplications in the government’s computer systems.

We have been through this garbage soooo many times, and over such a length of time….now we are winning. Finally.

‘Lower risk’

Now the information will be spread across three existing IT systems, including the Department of Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Customer Information Service, which holds national insurance records.

Once again, it will be held between three different systems, all of which will need to be synchronized. It is a disaster times three, no doubt about it.

Mr Reid denied IT companies had wasted millions on preparation work for an entirely new system, saying the industry had been consulted on the move.

AT WHOSE INSTRUCTIONS WAS THIS MONEY WASTED you dirty swine? And now you are going to spend MORE money putting in a system that millions will reject out of principle, knowing full well that it will do nothing to stem the tide of people, stop any crime whatsoever etc etc.

“Doing something sensible is not necessarily a U-turn,” Mr Reid told reporters.

White is black, day is night, right is wrong, up is down, hot is cold, war is peace, freedom is slavery.

“We have decided it is lower risk, more efficient and faster to take the infrastructure that already exists, although the data will be drawn from other sources.”

YOU have decided this? Upon consultation with whom? Based on what parameters? This is more bullshit….and they know it.

Iris scans

The move was welcomed by campaign group No2ID.

Spokesman Michael Parker said campaigners had been warning the Home Office for years about the dangers of “putting all your eggs in one basket” when storing data.

Indeed.

Biometric information will be stored, initially, on systems currently used for asylum seekers, while biographical information will be stored on the DWP’s system.

So, your prints (should you be stupid enough to hand them over) will be stored with asylum seekers, where, thanks to the imperfections of biometric systems, you can be mistaken for someone who is not British, and who is in fact, the lowest creature in the Neulabour mind-set. That MIGHT be OK if you are not brown. And I don’t mean Gordon Brown.

Other information, on the issue and use of ID cards, will be stored on the existing passport service computer system.

Which we already know is a broken system that can allow near instant cloned passports, and which of course is open to all the insider abuse that Whitehall is already renowned for.

Mr Reid also announced proposals to force foreign nationals from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), who are already in the UK, to register their biometrics, such as fingerprints and iris scans.

And just how is he going to do that, and who in their right mind is going to agree to it?

This is already due to happen for those applying for visas to come to the UK from 2008, but Mr Reid said: “We are going to look at how we could do it for people who are already here.”

I would suggest that you look very hard at all of this and then throw it all in the garbage. There is no way that any self respecting person is going to knuckle under to your fascist bullshit.

Fake identity

He said the ultimate aim was to make all foreign nationals from outside the EU to register their biometric details but the scheme would begin with people re-applying to stay in the UK.

This will be challenged in court, and they will fail. You cannot treat people like criminals. Period.

He said he wanted to tighten up exit controls at ports and airports, as well as entry requirements.

“We want to count everybody in and count everybody out,” said Mr Reid.

Why? What will this achieve? What crime will it prevent? The answer is there is no reason for this, it will achieve nothing and that it will not prevent a single crime.

Foreigners from outside the EU would not be able to get a National Insurance number unless they have a biometric identity.

Like they even CARE. All the illegal workers DONT WANT A NATIONAL INSURANCE NUMBER YOU NUMBSKULL.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said a consultation paper would be published in the New Year.

Will this be like the previous consultation, where 5000 ‘noes’ were counted as one ‘no’ simply because they originated from a single website? Like that consultation that got all the facts right, that you are admitting were right only after MILLIONS of pounds have been wasted?

Don’t even PRETEND that this consultation paper will have any weight, its just an insult, and we are tired of these insults and your lies you dirty bastard.

Mr Reid said ID cards would help tackle illegal immigration, identity fraud, fight organised crime and terrorism, help protect vulnerable children by allowing better background checks and improve public services.

He said that? really?!?!?!?!?

They would not stop people having a fake identity, he conceded, but would prevent people having multiple identities, which he said were most often used by “crooks, terrorists and fraudsters”.

You have GOT to be kidding!!!!!! This is the STUPIDEST thing I have ever heard from Fascist Labor. If your prints are in the DB and a system operator is compromised, then you can have multiple identities. Period.

“You can go around claiming the first time you are John Reid, but you can not then come round a second time claiming you are Liam Byrne,” he said, by way of illustrating his point.

No one, would ever claim to be John Reid. That is just ABSURD. Honestly, even CRIMINALS have some shame.

Civil liberties

The plans were laid out in an action plan which Mr Reid said was a “countdown” to the introduction of ID cards.

The only thing we are ‘counting down’ to is the end of your evil regime you dog.

ID cards are due from 2009, becoming compulsory for anyone applying for a passport from 2010. Critics question their cost and the impact on civil liberties.

The card will contain basic identification information including the name, address, gender, date of birth and photo of the cardholder.

A microchip would also hold biometric information.

BBQ

And yet again, (and no surprise) BBQ fails to live up to its responsibilities, and lets this all slide by.

Pure unadulterated evil, and its ever compliant supporter.

SHAME ON YOU!

A new civil liberties controversy has flared up over the news that police chiefs are considering using high-powered microphones to “eavesdrop” – as critics will see it – on crowds at the London 2012 Olympics.

A high-ranking officer told the BBC the proposal to strengthen security by using microphones alongside closed-circuit TV involved “taking public surveillance to an entirely new level”.

But the former home secretary David Blunkett called publicly on the government to block the scheme.

He told BBC Radio Five Live’s Weekend News programme that the suggestion was “simply unacceptable”, and smacked of the “surveillance state”.

As you walk down the street you expect to be able to have a private conversation
David Blunkett

Mr Blunkett said the idea echoed the fictional authoritarian Brave New World of Aldous Huxley’s novel.

“As you walk down the street you expect to be able to have a private conversation,” he said.

“If you can’t guarantee that – and here is someone speaking who has been pretty tough in terms of what should be available to protect society – I believe we have slipped over the edge.”

As you walk down the street, you expect to be able to have a private conversation.

This simply CANNOT be real.

Does the subhuman adulterer actually think this? Is he joking? This is the very same loathsome David Blunkett that did all the evil that we railed against…..

But Mimi Majick chimes in:

Its because he is BLIND; sound to him is equivalent to sight for us. That is why he understands this. It shows you why you shouldn’t have somebody who is disabled in a position like Home Secretary, because they cannot represent us. He cannot possibly understand what having CCTV cameras in the street means, because he has no sight.

And I agree totally, and have said this before; a blind Home Secratary cannot judge what is obscene and what is not obscene because he cannot see porn.

But I digress.

This BASTARD now wants to defect from the dark side (no pun intended) and join the side of what is right?

What utter rubbish.

This proves yet again that the people behind the push for ID cards, biometrics and all that other hogwash simply don’t understand what it is that they are doing. They don’t understand the consequences, the ramifications, the results, and if it all gets rolled out, the police will be in charge and they will have the power to silence any politician that goes up against them because they will be able to see into every bedroom, every bank account and every nook and cranny of this great country. No one in any position of power will dare defy them because it means, as in the case of asshole Blunkett, that adulterous affairs will be exposed, and in the case of Bliar, bribery uncovered.

Told you so!

and this from Bruce’s November newsletter:

We can’t turn back technology; electronic communications are here to stay. But as technology makes our conversations less ephemeral, we need laws to step in and safeguard our privacy. We need a comprehensive data privacy law, protecting our data and communications regardless of where it is stored or how it is processed. We need laws forcing companies to keep it private and to delete it as soon as it is no longer needed.

And we need to remember, whenever we type and send, we’re being watched.

Foley is an anomaly. Most of us do not send instant messages in order to solicit sex with minors. Law enforcement might have a legitimate need to access Foley’s IMs, e-mails and cell phone calling logs, but that’s why there are warrants supported by probable cause–they help ensure that investigations are properly focused on suspected pedophiles, terrorists and other criminals. We saw this in the recent UK terrorist arrests; focused investigations on suspected terrorists foiled the plot, not broad surveillance of everyone without probable cause.

Without legal privacy protections, the world becomes one giant airport security area, where the slightest joke — or comment made years before — lands you in hot water. The world becomes one giant market-research study, where we are all life-long subjects. The world becomes a police state, where we all are assumed to be Foleys and terrorists in the eyes of the government.

http://tinyurl.com/ymmnee

Yes indeed. What you are describing is not a ‘giant airport security area’ but a Prison Planet.

Me too Me too!!!! :

Passengers at Heathrow had their fingerprints taken for the first time yesterday, in tests which could lead to routine biometric scanning at Britain’s airports.

A high-tech scanner was unveiled by the Government and eventually all passengers could be required to have iris and face scans.

Initially, passengers are being invited to have their fingerprints scanned in return for skipping boarding queues. If the scheme, known as miSense, proves succesful, it could be rolled out across the UK…

Telegraph

Copycat imbeciles!

All there is to say about The British US-dependent Nukular Deterroristent:

“Mother, may I?”

Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship?

The Department of Homeland Security has proposed that airlines and cruise ships be required to get individual permission (”clearance”) from the DHS for each individual passenger on all flights to, from, or via the U.S. Unless the answer is “Yes” — if the answer is “no” or “maybe”, or if the DHS doesn’t answer at all — the airline wouldn’t be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane or ship.

The Identity Project, along with the World Privacy Forum and John Gilmore, has filed comments with the DHS objecting to this proposal as a violation of international human rights, First Amendment rights, and privacy and government accountability laws.

This is the third of three identification-related “rulemakings” in the last month and a half in which the DHS has proposed to restrict the right to travel. IDP has filed formal objections to each of these proposals:

• Expansion of US-VISIT fingerprinting, photographing, and lifetime dossiers on visitors to include permanent U.S. residents (green card holders)
• The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative to require passports for travel between the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Latin America
• Conversion of the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) for international ships and plane travel into an advance permission system