By Dorothy Thompson
Published August 1941

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become “Honorary Aryans and Nazis”; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler’s secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.

It is also, to an immense extent, the disease of a generation–the
generation which was either young or unborn at the end of the last war. This is as true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans as of Germans. It is the disease of the so-called “lost generation.”

Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work–a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.

At any rate, let us look round the room.

The gentleman standing beside the fireplace with an almost untouched glass of whiskey beside him on the mantelpiece is Mr. A, a descendant of one of the great American families. There has never been an American Blue Book without several persons of his surname in it. He is poor and earns his living as an editor. He has had a classical education, has a sound and cultivated taste in literature, painting, and music; has not a touch of snobbery in him; is full of humor, courtesy, and wit. He was a lieutenant in the World War, is a Republican in politics, but voted twice for Roosevelt, last time for Willkie. He is modest, not particularly brilliant, a staunch friend, and a man who greatly enjoys the company of pretty and witty women. His wife, whom he adored, is dead, and he will never remarry.

He has never attracted any attention because of outstanding bravery. But I will put my hand in the fire that nothing on earth could ever make him a Nazi. He would greatly dislike fighting them, but they could never convert him…. Why not?

Beside him stands Mr. B, a man of his own class, graduate of the same preparatory school and university, rich, a sportsman, owner of a famous racing stable, vice-president of a bank, married to a well-known society belle. He is a good fellow and extremely popular. But if America were going Nazi he would certainly join up, and early. Why?… Why the one and not the other?

Mr. A has a life that is established according to a certain form of personal behavior. Although he has no money, his unostentatious distinction and education have always assured him a position. He has never been engaged in sharp competition. He is a free man. I doubt whether ever in his life he has done anything he did not want to do or anything that was against his code. Nazism wouldn’t fit in with his standards and he has never become accustomed to making concessions.

Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and he has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own; it is that of his class–no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value–success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.

The saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigree is already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was a poor white-trash Southern boy, a scholarship student at two universities where he took all the scholastic honors but was never invited to join a fraternity. His brilliant gifts won for him successively government positions, partnership in a prominent law firm, and eventually a highly paid job as a Wall Street adviser. He has always moved among important people and always been socially on the periphery. His colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them, but they have seldom invited him–or his wife–to dinner.

He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him–he despises, for instance, Mr. B–because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity.

Pity he has utterly erased from his nature, and joy he has never known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains. Already some of them are talking his language–though they have never met him.

There he sits: he talks awkwardly rather than glibly; he is courteous. He commands a distant and cold respect. But he is a very dangerous man. Were he primitive and brutal he would be a criminal–a murderer. But he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi regime. It would need men just like him–intellectual and ruthless. But Mr. C is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism. He would laugh to see heads roll.

[…]

That is half of a very insightful article.

The fact that all of it rings true today means that it should be possible to create a system of government that makes it impossible for ‘the bad guys’ to take over and ruin everything. Sadly, whatever shape that government may take, it requires an educated public to maintain it.

And america does not have that any longer:

It’s called ‘The American Dream’ because you have to be asleep to believe it.

The impact of Hilary Clinton’s suggestion in the run-up to the New Hampshire caucus that the US and the UK jointly secure our nuclear facilities suggests that a strong Pakistan policy is a key in this US election. Clinton is far too savvy a foreign policy analyst to champion an idea that undermines Pakistani sovereignty and delivers what many consider our most precious commodity into western hands. But talking big about Pakistan these days is sure to ignite some election heat. Say something provocative about “the world’s most dangerous place”, and you’re sure to make headlines. And while I can’t prove the exact correlation between Clinton’s comments and her subsequent victory in the presidential primary, the media coverage she received is bound to have made a difference.

[…]

At this early stage, non of the presidential hopefuls have tossed up an acceptable vision for a US-Pakistan collaboration in the war on terror. But nuggets of wisdom do exist amongst the tangle of voices. Parsing through the different stances yields a vast middle ground in which US aid and intervention could help bolster democratic reform and undermine the threat posed by terrorism while respecting national sovereignty.

The four Democratic candidates–Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and John Edwards–are prepared to launch unilateral military strikes if there is “actionable intelligence” of a security threat, or if Osama bin Laden’s location can be verified. Not surprisingly, this stance rankles with many Pakistanis who are horrified at the thought of a US military intervention–or should I say invasion?–against Islamabad’s wishes.

[…]

But just as there’s more to Pakistan’s anti-Americanism, there’s more to the trigger-happy suggestions of presidential hopefuls. Obama is willing to continue hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid to Pakistan, but only on the condition that substantial progress is made towards closing down training camps and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan. Obama’s belief that Pakistan ‘needs more than F-16s to combat extremism’ is one that should be adopted by our government as well. For his part, Edwards is willing to maintain ties with Musharraf and continue economic and military aid to Pakistan if our government extends the reach of the legitimate government to the tribal areas. While his suggestion goes against historical trends, Edwards is correct to point out that the Pakistani government needs to exert some authority and regain respect amongst FATA residents to earn their collaboration in the fight against militancy.

[…]

Republican candidates also have a few choice suggestions. Ron Paul, who opposes aid to Pakistan, rightfully emphasizes that extremist militancy exists because US forces have ‘invaded’ and ‘occupied’ Muslim countries and maintained bases across the Muslim world for a long time prior to 9/11. His insightful comments can certainly help inform US foreign policy in the coming years. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, has explicitly stated that bombing a potential ally is a bad idea. Finally, John McCain has advocated making “a long-term commitment” to Pakistan, acknowledging that the war on terror cannot be won overnight. Although he has discussed the possibility enhancing Pakistan’s security capabilities, he is more excited about getting children out of seminaries and into schools. In the midst of these myriad suggestions lies a sensible Pakistan policy. It’s our own responsibility to guide the next American president and ensure that unilateral US action does not further destabilize our country.

[…]

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=90649

And there you have it.

It is completely clear that the Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and John Edwards are ‘business as usual’ warmongering monsters who want to drag america deeper into the quicksand, everyone understands this except the american electorate.

What is interesting about this piece is that it seems to be written as if under duress; Ron Paul is right, but, “In the midst of these myriad suggestions lies a sensible Pakistan policy”. This cannot be the case either america should be engaged with Pakistan fully or it should withdraw completely. Those are in fact, the only two different choices on the table. I suppose the writer doesn’t want to get in trouble.

For the record, again, the so called ‘extremist’ militancy is not ‘extremist’ at all, these people are really quite ordinary men who simply want to control their own destiny in their own country. If america disentangles itself from them and stops being the puppet master, they will immediately stand down. They are no more insane or extremist than the original american revolutionaries that kicked out the British, or any other freedom fighters that stood and stand firm against invasion and colonization. Ron Paul understands this, and so do a growing number of people in the west who have finally started to wake up to this and see things from their perspective.

by Lew Rockwell
It was always Murray Rothbard’s argument that while we might from time to time be short-term pessimists, we should always be long term optimists, for many reasons from economics and history.

And look at what Ron Paul has done. Building on an unmatched record in public life, and decades of serious study of Austrian economics, foreign policy, American history, and constitutional law and philosophy, he has led a movement that is rightly called a revolution.

That revolution has touched the hearts of young people–and not only young people–across the country and the world. The ideals of peace, free trade, non-intervention, the gold standard, free markets, private property, and civil liberties have never been spread so well and so widely.

The fact that up to 10% of the Republican Party base, people who have historically supported war, empire, managed trade, central banking, business regulation, and the police state–“red-state fascists,” as I have called them–is really something quite extraordinary. Among independents and some Democrats, we will do much better.

Libertarians have long exulted in Ed Clark’s almost-one percent. Ron has improved on Ed by 900%. The political fight is far from done, of course. Ron will campaign hard in Michigan, Nevada, South Carolinia, and all the Super Tuesday states. He will not give up. He will never give up.

From the standpoint of the right and good, Ron Paul and our ideas should have an easy victory. But when has that ever been true, in all of human history?

Ron and his revolutionaries face not only bad ideas from neoconservatism to socialism, but a vast apparatus of entrenched rip-off artists from the Fed and its big banks and investment houses, to the military-industrial complex. There is, we could say, much work to do, and Ron Paul will do it.

Through the primaries, the convention, and beyond, Ron and his movement will stand for liberty against its enemies. He will get more and more votes, and more and more supporters, to add to the hundreds of thousands already onboard. His presence on the national scene will only grow, and so will libertarian ideals. Murray loved Ron Paul, thought the world of him as a candidate in 1988 and as an intellectual, and so do all real libertarians and pro-liberty conservatives.

And now, by the way, on to Michigan, where people are really feeling the pain of the Fed’s deepening recession, and will be especially ready to hear Ron’s message of sound noney and no business cycles under freedom.

“Wilkes and Liberty” was the cry of English and American classical liberals in the 18th century, naming a parliamentary champion of free speech, free press, and civil liberties against government tyranny. From now on, the cry of every libertarian will be, “Ron Paul and Liberty”! We have much work to do.Roll up your sleeves and join our champion!

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/018458.html

There are the problems of the vast apparatus of entrenched rip-off artists from the Fed and its big banks and investment houses, to the military-industrial complex, but there is also the problem of the army of sheeple, of Eloi, of nincompoops, of people who are physically incapable of thinking (low IQ), the hard headed, the habituated, the delusional. These people, all of them, HAVE THE VOTE.

People in the 18th century had common sense. Men who did not own property could not vote. What we have today is a population that is too stupid to vote. That anyone, anywhere in the world, other than his relatives, could vote for John McCain is (yet another) testament to the utter stupidity of the american public.

Am I advocating the disenfranchisement of vast swathes of the american public? Hmmm! What is the inevitable outcome of the current crop of imbeciles having the vote and unthinkingly electing anyone other than Ron Paul? It means the disenfranchisement of ALL americans forever, as america is dismantled and its broken carcass subsumed into a North American Union and then a world government like human flesh absorbed into The Blob. Wouldn’t it be better if we took away the vote from these cretins BEFORE america is lost forever? In the final analysis the phrase, ‘live free or die’ if taken literally means that a free man could not and can not tolerate what the mass of dunderheads are unleashing upon him and his family.

And there you have the thinking behind the people who are determined to absolutely control everyone everywhere. They came to this conclusion decades ago, and are making sure that no one can ever cast a vote that will take away their liberty, which in this case, is predicated upon their absolute control over the population. Either that, or its all happening at random and I’m not sure if that is a worse proposition to contemplate.

Back to John McCain…

This is a man who says that it “would be fine with me” if the americans stay in Iraq for 100 years. Out loud. In public. Quite apart from all of his other insane policies, this one phrase alone should scare the flesh off of any american. What he is advocating is literally, the complete extinction of America. This is the same public that now knows that the pretext for invading Iraq was a lie. This is the same public that now believes that ‘911 was an inside job‘. Wether or not you believe that 911 was an inside job or not, if the majority of people believe that it is true, how is it possible that anyone other than Ron Paul is getting the majority of votes in these primaries? How can he possibly be equal in numbers to Judy Ruliani, arch warmonger / fearmonger whose whole campaign centers around the very 911 that they all believe is at the very least, fishy?

It boggles the imagination.

A very clever man said just before he died:

[…]

We have had the two worst Prime Ministers in our history – Edward Heath (who dragooned us into the Common Market) and Tony Blair. The harm these two have done to Britain is incalculable and almost certainly irreparable.

Whether the public can be blamed for letting them pursue their ruinous policies is debatable.

Short of assassination there is little people can do when their political masters have forgotten the true meaning of the democracy of which they are forever prating, are determined to have their own way at all costs and hold public opinion in contempt.

[…]

Daily Mail

When The Daily Mail prints an article saying that the only solution left is assassination, you know that there has been a sea change.

Live free or die. That phrase doesn’t mean ‘live free or commit suicide’. It means that you are willing to do anything unto death in order to be free. Disenfranchising the population, assassination, secession, suddenly people are actually talking about these options; not through desire for carnage and chaos and upheaval, but because every decent person has been backed into a corner and there is no way out.

A decent man with sons would not let the bovine majority cast a vote condemning his boys to be drafted into an insane man’s insane war. He has a few choices, and we all know that these choices have all been exercised in the recent past:

• Assassination,
• Disenfranchisement,
• Secession,
• Mass murder,
• Escape,
• Run for office and change the world (work in progress!),

Have I left anything out?

Oh yes:

• Join the winning side in the new feudal system!

Think about it; you keep everything you own, you get to own whatever else you like, you become one of the bosses, and there are no repercussions because the long pigs are too stupid to understand what is going on right in front of their faces.

Now, less of the horrorshow.

There have been great movements on this planet that have achieved monumental change without catastrophic bloodletting. I have said it before over and over, the only thing that you need to do to defeat the warmongers is NOTHING. No marching, no confrontation, simply remove yourself, (O.U.T.), no more participation, no more contribution, no more cooperation, no more passive obedience, no more of anything or action that helps the system work, unless the country is completely restored, all unconstitutional laws struck down and America returns. This ‘Do Not’ idea, when propagated widely is so profoundly disruptive, so powerful and unstoppable, it can topple any infrastructure. Since it is an idea, you cannot kill it. No on is marching in the streets to be arrested. No one is pitting themselves against armored personnel of the war machine. There is nothing to attack, no one to peruse, no head to cut off and nothing to capture..except the minds of your neighbors.

I do not believe that violence is right or necessary. You can get everything you want without so much as a fist fight. Assassination, disenfranchisement and other forms of violence are what our enemies use; they are the solutions of the imagiiantionless, the weak minded, mean spirited…the bad guys.

Thanks to the way democracy works, there is going to be a permanent unrepresented majority who are fed up to the teeth. It is this huge population of people, numbering in the high tens of millions, who are the constituency of the free, the people who can tip the balance and force change. They are the artists, the writers, business men, scientists, the better educated, the smart; they are the ones who make everything run, and they are the ones who can bring it all to a halt should they choose to do so.

All without firing a shot, clenching a fist or appearing in public.

The dream scenario is that the system works and America changes course and the world is put off of high alert. But I have always said that, “dreams are for those who sleep” either way the power to end this is in our hands, at the ends of our fingertips.

So let’s end it.

Every person living in a sovereign state on the continent of Africa wants Ron Paul to be the next president of the USA.

Why?

Because he is going to dismantle the evil american empire. That means that plans for the Imperial outpost and control nexus AFRICOM will be scrapped, and they will be spared what many countries have suffered for decades; an invading army of bored soldiers pestering the local women, the CIA operating freely to topple governments and directly manipulate elections and business, etc etc. Had AFRICOM gone ahead as planned, it would have been….’a bad thing’.

The Way Ahead
AFRICOM is still in its early planning stages. The command began initial operations in October 2007 and is still formulating mission, staffing and location options.

[…]

AFRICOM

No, ‘jar heads’, that is not ‘the way ahead’, it is another step down the road to DISASTER and the end of America.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

All people all over the world want the old America back; the America everyone looked up to and cherished. This is probably our last chance to bring it back in our lifetime, and the enemy is trying its best to stop it from happening. They are getting desperate and brazen, like the people who control FOX News and their excluding of Dr. Paul.

Which brings us to…

The american mainstream media is digging deep to try and derail and smear Ron Paul; this time around the hideous grimacing jelly joweled troll they have put in the center of the tracks in front of the oncoming train with a ‘STOP’ sign is named ‘Jamie Kirchick’.

He has instantly been discredited thanks to the internets.

Ron Paul is not a racist. And just for the record, I would rather have an honest, strict constitutionalist racist in the white house than any of the people who are currently running for president.

Thankfully, that hypothetical scenario does not apply in any way to Dr.Paul:

January 8, 2008 5:28 am EST

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – In response to an article published by The New Republic, Ron Paul issued the following statement:

“The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.

“In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that we should only be concerned with the content of a person’s character, not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S. House on April 20, 1999: ‘I rise in great respect for the courage and high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.’

“This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade. It’s once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the day of the New Hampshire primary.

“When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.”

[…]

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

It is interesting however, that the only things they can dig up about him are the things that he says, or is alleged to have said, and they can never attack his policies.

What this tells us is that his policies are 110% sound and unassailable.

Many years ago, May 1995 to be accurate, we dedicated a large section of issue 4 of our superb magazine Rivendell (named after a BBS, not LOTR btw!) to ‘Constitutions of the World’ – here are the parts:

Part2 of Rivendell 4 in PDF Format. ‘Constitutions of the world’

Part3 of Rivendell 4 in PDF Format. ‘Constitutions of the world’

Part4 of Rivendell 4 in PDF Format. ‘Constitutions of the world’

Part5 of Rivendell 4 in PDF Format. ‘Constitutions of the world’

Part6 of Rivendell 4 in PDF Format. ‘Constitutions of the world’

You can see from the content of that issue why people like us want Ron Paul to become president; he stands for everything that we believe in and that we have believed in for a very long time.

The recent discussions in the media about Ron Paul’s comments regarding Lincoln and his political legacy got me to thinking, wouldn’t it be great if Judge Andrew Napolitano, the Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst, would weigh in on the subject. I had this thought because Judge Napolitano included a chapter entitled “Dishonest Abe” in his brilliant book, The Constitution in Exile. Judge Napolitano is a very busy man, hosting a radio show as well as appearing on television, making speeches all around the country, writing books, and practicing law – in addition to (hopefully) having a private family life. Since I am a big fan of his writing I thought I would try to pique our readers’ interest in what the judge has to say on this subject.

The first two sentences of the “Dishonest Abe” chapter of The Constitution in Exile are hard hitting: “The Abraham Lincoln of legend is an honest man who freed the slaves and saved the Union. Few things could be more misleading.” He then goes on to say exactly what Ron Paul told the Washington Post, and which seemed to mystify and confuse Tim Russert in his “Meet the Press” interview with Congressman Paul: “In order to increase his federalist vision of centralized power, ‘Honest’ Abe misled the nation into an unnecessary war. He claimed that the war was about emancipating slaves, but he could have simply paid slave owners to free their slaves . . . . The bloodiest war in American history could have been avoided.” And, as Ron Paul would likely add, all the other countries of the world that ended slavery in the nineteenth century, including Britain, Spain, France, Denmark, the Dutch, did so without a war. This, by the way, included the Northern states in the U.S. There were no “civil wars” to free the slaves in Massachusetts, New York (where slavery existed for over 200 years), or Illinois.

Lincoln’s “actions were unconstitutional and he knew it,” writes Napolitano, for “the rights of the states to secede from the Union . . . [are] clearly implicit in the Constitution, since it was the states that ratified the Constitution . . .” Lincoln’s view “was a far departure from the approach of Thomas Jefferson, who recognized states’ rights above those of the Union.” Judge Napolitano also reminds his readers that the issue of using force to keep a state in the union was in fact debated – and rejected – at the Constitutional Convention as part of the “Virginia Plan.”

He also discusses Lincoln’s Confiscation Act of 1862, under which “any slaves behind the Union lines were captives of war who were to be freed and transported to countries in the tropics. This was in keeping with Dishonest Abe’s lifelong position (his “White Dream,” according to Ebony magazine managing editor Lerone Bennett, Jr, author of Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream) of deporting all blacks from the U.S. “Colonization” was the euphemism that was used for this.

“The Confiscation Acts,” writes Judge Napolitano, “show that Lincoln did not have much concern for the slaves. He did not suggest to Congress that freed slaves should be granted civil rights or citizenship in Northern states. Once the freed slaves were transported out of the United States, they would no longer be Lincoln’s problem.” This is also why Lincoln tinkered with proposals for compensated emancipation in the border states while they were under U.S. military occupation during the war. These proposals included immediate deportation of any freed slaves. He saw the occupation of the border states during the war as an opportunity to begin ridding the country of “The Africans,” as he referred to black people, as though they were from another planet. Judge Napolitano quotes Lincoln in one of his debates with Stephen Douglas as saying what he repeatedly said throughout his adult life: “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes.” “Lincoln was more concerned about the failure of [the seceding] states to collect tariffs than he was about slavery, ” says Napolitano.

Unlike all those hopelessly miseducated neocon pundits who sneered at Ron Paul’s statements regarding how Lincoln did tremendous damage to the principles of the American founders, Judge Napolitano is well schooled in constitutional history. He writes of Lincoln’s complete trashing of the Constitution by “murdering civilians, declaring martial law, suspending habeas corpus, seizing . . . private property without compensation (including railroads and telegraphs), conducting a war without the consent of Congress, imprisoning nearly thirty thousand Northern citizens without trial, shutting down . . . newspapers, and even deporting a congressman (Clement L. Vallandigham from Ohio) because he objected to the imposition of an income tax.”

“Saying that Lincoln abolished slavery and calling him the ‘Great Emancipator’ are grossly inadequate mischaracterizations,” writes the judge. “Lincoln was interested in promoting his political agenda of centralizing government power, and freeing the slaves was only a means of advancement of that end.”

Lincoln destroyed the union of the founding fathers. He “replaced a voluntary association of states with a strong centralized government. The president and his party eagerly lifted the floodgates to the modern thuggish style of ruling that the U.S. government now employs” (emphasis added). This “opened the door to more unconstitutional acts by the government in the 1900s through to today.”

The next time you see Lincoln’s portrait on a five-dollar bill, the judge concludes, “remember how many civil liberties he took away from you.”

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo138.html

!!!!!

Our new Holford Myths site is launched today – this has been developed to counteract false information about Patrick Holford.

Anyone who challenges today’s drug-based medical paradigm effectively is a likely target for attack. Notably, since the publication of Food Is Better Medicine Than Drugs by Patrick Holford and Jerome Burne, certain drug industry funded organisations and drug-oriented individuals have campaigned to discredit Patrick Holford by spreading false allegations. The main opponents have been Ben Goldacre in the Guardian, pharmacology professor David Colquhoun, the anonymous Holford Watch and certain dieticians.

The associations with the pharmaceutical industry and/or organisations funded by the pharmaceutical industry are explored in the free e-book Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism: Ben Goldacre, Quackbusters and Corporate Science by Martin Walker for those who want to understand the modus operandi of the organised lobby against alternative and nutritional approaches within medicine.

Responses to false allegations about Patrick Holford plus direct links to extracts about Ben Goldacre, David Colquhoun, Holford Watch and certain dieticians from the above e-book can be found on www.holfordmyths.com

[…]

Patrick Holford is a man who owns a company that makes and sells vitamins and dietary supplements. He writes books, and sells them.

This is an affront to people like Ben Goldacre and his ilk. The only food you should be eating is the food that SCIENCE says you should be eating. The only thoughts you should be thinking are the ones that SCIENCE says you should be thinking. Anyone who eats anything else, who thinks anything else, who says anything other than what they believe, who does not swallow the dogma is ANTI-SCIENCE and is to be…

BURNED AT THE STAKE

Rational people are not frightened of Vitamin Sellers or book writers. They make their case cleanly and then STFU. If the thinking behind Bad Science is so great, then let them write a diet book, sell it, and then make people thinner…[booming voice] WITH SCIENCE [/booming voice]; what need have you to personally attack, ridicule and seek to destroy other people? What do you gain out of it? Who appointed these sub human monsters the protectors of the general public? Once again, if they have something better to offer, OFFER IT, do not pump the world full of negative vibes (man [or is that hairless monkey?]).

The fact of the matter is, none of these people have anything to offer, other than rancid bile, calls to disbelief and personal attacks. It goes like this; you have posts on your blog about UFOs, therefore, ALL your stuff is garbage. That is a stupid skeptic trick. That is junk science. I say “God does not exist” and so you are a fool to believe anything else. That is how they work; they do not have a better diet for you, or a better set of supplements, a different, greater belief to follow (except their utterly fallable, incomplete, and downright deadly dogma) the only thing they have to offer is ‘DO NOT DO THAT’ ‘DO NOT BELIEVE THAT’ ‘DO NOT EAT THAT’, and of course, there is nothing that you can DO with that negativity, and the newspaper it is printed on is fit only to light up your fire.

I can tell you something straight – anyone who writes a column like ‘Bad Science’ is on my shitlist from the first speck of ink on the paper. Anyone who runs other people down, who uses Stupid Skeptic Tricks is a TOTAL SCUMBAG.

Lets be clear:

Should they be burned at the stake? No.
Should they be stopped from writing in that RAG the Guardian or any other rag? No.
Are they the worst examples of human trash ever? Yes!

The point is, these attacks on Vitamin Sellers are direct attacks on MY LIBERTY. They are an affront to decent people everywhere, who just want to mind their own business and who do not want to be told what to do, what to think and what to eat and who to trade with.

People who are against Patrick Holford are Fascists. They want to forbid you from taking vitamins, they want the law to ban the sale of dietary supplements. They want you to not read his books; in effect, they want to censor him, and prevent the free flow of information across the world. They are as bad as the Chinese Government, or those guys who burned books in the 1930s.

All free people have the absolute right to publish what they want, and free people have the right to read what they like. Free people have the right to control what goes into their bodies; that means that they can eat whatever they like, inject whatever they like, smoke whatever they like, and it is no one’s business. It is not the business of Ben Goldacre and the corprophiliacs at The Guardian. It is not the business of Bayer, GSL, Novartis, Monsanto, Uncle Sam, HMG or anyone else.

Anyone who tries to shut down writers like Patrick Holford are on the side of Fascists and Fascism. They are against Liberty and against the freedom to read and to learn (and no, learning does not mean only learning what is ‘right’).

I am fed up to the teeth of the attacks on vitamins and food supplements. I am tired of reading about the weasel words of the corporate shills defending the indefensible, trying to take away my right to interact with whomever I want in whatever way I want.

In the end, these people must be put down like diseased dogs. Fox news is learning what it means to defy the force of Liberty unleashed. Their stock has taken a dip thanks to the boycott that is now running against all the sponsors of that evil station. This can be done to any company, and certainly, if the vitamin eaters and supplement takers decide to boycott a newspaper that is attacking them, the effects will be felt. Newspapers can publish whatever they like, and everyone has the right to buy and sell whatever they like…including stocks.

Some may say that I go in too hard on these subjects; part of the style of this blog during its nearly seven years of operation is to go in with all guns blazing if thats what you like. Nevertheless, in the past, when people tried to take away the liberty of free men the result was war and killing and that is what The Guardian, Skeptics and corporate shills are doing; literally attacking millions of free people; trying to erase their liberty, poison them and destroy their lives. That they are subjected only to some bad language and shouting is very lucky for them; in another age they would lose their lives…in any case, they have lost. More people than ever are turning away from Industrial Pharmaceutical Medicine and The Medical Industrial Complex. This is why they bring out the big guns to try and shoot down people like Patrick Holford – though in the case of Goldacre we are talking about a .22 not The Guns of Navarone… but I digress; the publishers of that garbage had better think twice about running hit pieces against people who are doing nothing but mind their own business – there could be big economic consequences for them, just like Fox is feeling right now.

For those morons out there who say that vitamin sellers are defrauding the public, that is not your business. There is plenty of legislation dealing with poisoning and poisoners to take care of people who sell things that actually harm buyers under the guise that it is medicine. We have enough law on the books to take care of almost every possible situation. It is you baying and whining morons who create the monster governments that stop at nothing to control everything that you do down to how and when you piss.

Make up your own minds, eat what you want, publish what you want, read what you want, think what you want and DOWN with the anti vitamin fascists!

UPDATE!

a lurker sends this

> this snippet should have been in your post:
>
> At this point it is perhaps worth pointing out
> that Goldacre won a British Science Writers (BSW)
> award, in 2003. At this time, the BSW was funded
> by Glaxo Wellcome and called the Glaxo Wellcome
> BSW Award, the very year that he began working
> for the Guardian. The drug AZT was made by
> Burroughs-Wellcome, now GlaxoSmithKline.
>
> and check out this book:
>
> http://www.slingshotpublications.com/dwarfs.html

What a nasty, foul and loathsome piece of work!

By STAN GOFF

For starters, I have become a single-issue voter. The two-front war in Iraq-Afghanistan continues to drag on; and I am thoroughly convinced that no viable Democratic nominee will stop these occupations.

The recent analysis by Allan Nairn shows that even the putative anti-war Edwards (who the press is smothering because of his anti-corporate declarations) has a backroom full of defense contractors. Clinton is a ruthless war-monger, period. Obama is employing on the sorriest, pro-Zioinist, neoliberal trash on the market, i.e., Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Clarke, and Dennis Ross, on his core advisory staff.

No one listens to me much, but in some fantasy world where they might, I would suggest that others follow suit with me here. In open primary states, cross over to vote in the Republican primaries for Ron Paul. In closed primary states, switch fast to Republican (like in the next few days).

Vote in the Republican primary; and vote for Ron Paul. Turnout will be dismally low for Republicans this year, because they have been demoralized by the Bush loons’ performances. Independents will vote Paul. The other Republicans are engaged in a fratricidal melee.

I already know what I am going to hear from all over the program-intoxicated, “I won’t endorse this-n-that position” liberal-left. Ron Paul is backward on abortion, passively racist, anti-immigrant, and on and on. Sorry, but I said I’d vote a dead cat that was anti-war before I’d vote a resurrected Eugene Debs if he showed up and supported the war. I meant that from my heart.

Cynthia McKinney is running Green, though she hasn’t got the nomination yet. Remember Cynthia McKinney? When she broke with the DLC diktat, her own party fronted another Black woman (Denise Majette) to run against her in an open primary, and Republicans crossed over massively to vote in the Democratic primary to unseat her in a foregone Democratic Congressional district.

Two can play that game. If Cynthia McKinney runs in 2008 for President, I’ll write her in if I have to just to burn a vote for Clinton or Obama. But meanwhile, Ron Paul is on our primary ballot (North Carolina), because he is running as a Republican (we have draconian ballot access conditions here for thrid-parties, thanks to — of course — Democrats).

Ron Paul is running for President. Just what are the capabilities of a President, and what are his likely courses of action… in the unlikely event he wins?

Well, he is the Commander-in-Chief, so he can bring the troops home immediately, as well as order the military-industrial complex to radically scale back. In case anyone on the left has missed the implications of this, this would be a profoundly anti-imperial development that would take the US boot off the necks of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

He is a libertarian who dislikes corporate subsidies, so he would veto the mega-billion dollar subisidies for Big Agra, Big Pharma, nuclear power company insurance policies, Weapons-R-Us, the ADM/Cargill Great Ethanol Scam,et al. He could veto the federal highway spending that is promoting sprawl. He has also stated that he opposed so-called free trade agreements.

Hello?

Don’t argue with libertarians when they are right. Many of them say that the leviathan-capitalists that dominate the world’s economy could not get as big as they are in an unfettered and unsubsidized market. Newsflash: that is actually true.

Ron Paul is a Gold Bug. For the uninitiated, that means he believes dollar-value should be pegged to a gold-standard. The implications of a return to the gold standard by the Fed are grim… for Wall Street and the military, both of which depend on massive foreign loans convered by runaway printing presses. Putting a stop to this is a Good Thing. What is the net effect?

Ron Paul may have the most outrageous personal account of race you might imagine; but what is the most horrific social catastrophe in the United States for Black and Brown folk? You guessed it: the criminal (in)justice system. The malignant growth of the American Gulag has been fueled — more than by any other cause — by the ever-more-punative criminalization of drug use and drug addiction, and the ability fo the criminal justice system to apply this criminalization with special force against African America and Hispano-Latinas. Here’s the thing. Paul opposes the criminalization of drugs. What is the net effect?

When we are at the point in history where we cannot change the electoral system, then we need to think tactically about what we can do right now. What will a Paul victory in the primaries do? Not whether a vote for Paul in the Republican primaries endorses his decentralizing philosophy on reproductive choice. President Paul will not be writing legislation. The Executive Branch decides how strongly to enforce legislation… like domestic spying fer-instance.

President Paul would close Guantanamo, halt CIA kidnappings, and gut the enforcement capacity for the PATRIOT Act.

Nominee Paul would give 2008 voters a choice between a real anti-war candidate and a phony Democratic equivocator. The intensity of anti-war sentiment in the country already forced ex-war-hawk Edwards to adopt an out-in-nine-months position to left flank his Democratic opponents.

Don’t ask yourself “what are the ideas?” If your toilet backs up, you can come up with a thousand ideas while shit-water cascades onto the floor. The question is not about ideas; it is, “What will be the net effect?”

Wanna throw a monkey wrench into a fixed electoral system? Here’s a chance.

Stan Goff is the author of “Hideous Dream: A Soldier’s Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti” (Soft Skull Press, 2000), “Full Spectrum Disorder” (Soft Skull Press, 2003) and “Sex & War” which will be released approximately December, 2005. He is retired from the United States Army. His blog is at www.stangoff.com.

Goff can be reached at: stan@stangoff.com

[…]

http://www.counterpunch.org/goff01042008.html

And there you have it. Snarfed from Lew Rockwell who describes the above as:

Another Left-Liberal Supports Ron Paul
And smacks down some of the left’s dumb arguments against him.

Points of order; Ron Paul’s ideas on ‘race’ are not outrageous in any way – and the fact that Stan Goff calls people ‘black’ demonstrates that he knows less about people than Ron Paul does. But I digress. The rest of this is almost BLOGDIAL in its absolutely pure common sense.

I especially like the bit about your loo overflowing with shit; of course, on BLOGDIAL we say, “if your loo is overflowing and the poop, pee water and used partially disintegrated loo roll is about to spill over the edge, you do not sit there and call for a white paper, go on a demonstration or write to your MP…you get the plunger and start MAKING IT GO DOWN!” … and you do this BEFORE the ‘shit-water’ even gets to the edge; as soon as you see it rising, you ACT QUICKLY.

Sadly, for america and the rest of the world, the loo has already overflowed and we are all walking in an inch of filthy water. Its not too late to call in the plumber though, and his name is RON PAUL.

An educated lurker writes:

>>From BBC reportage:
>
> For Mr Huckabee, the key word was “values”,
> with many Republican caucus-goers saying
> the former Baptist minister was someone
> “who shares my values”.
>
> His win was built on the support he got
> from evangelical voters. More
> than half of Republicans interviewed as
> they attended the caucuses said
> they were either born-again or evangelical
> Christians, the Associated
> Press news agency reported.

This report, and most brits have missed and are missing the big news of the campaign; Ron Paul.

Not everyone in the states is an ‘Evangelical’ and if it is the case that ‘more than half’ of the idiots who voted for Huckleberry are those types, then that caucus is skewed.

read this:

http://www.ronpaulnews.net

every day, and watch ALL of the videos on that site going back through the weeks. ITs worth the effort, because this man is causing a revolution in the usa, and its effects are spreading outside the usa also.

> This won’t be good for reasserting the
> separation of church and state,
> obviously.

Ron Paul advocates TOTAL separation of church and state.

> No more freedom of choice on abortion,

Ron Paul is for removing the federal jurisdiction on the abortion matter.

> but more people on
> death row.

Ron Paul is for abolishing capital punishment

> Less big government, but more diktats.

Ron Paul is for a constitutional sized federal government; ie, no diktats.

> And more ‘keeping up with the Muhammeds’

Ron Paul is for removing ALL of america’s 570,000 troops from ALL bases all over the world.

> when it comes to creating an indoctrinated
> population capable of supporting
> faith-based conflict (sick)

Ron Paul is for home schooling and the abolition of the Department of Education.

> in all
> aspects of trade, migration and power-grabbing.
> (Remember the nice lady pastor talking about
> creating an army to combat ‘The Muslims’ at the
> beginning of jesus camp? Heart-warming stuff)

Ron Paul is for open trade and cultural exchange on the personal level with all countries and all peoples without exception and without restriction.

> And the alternative?

Ron Paul!

> Blandness Inc., an everyman for the
> head-in-the-sand generation. A man as strong,
> stand-uppish and resilient
> as the celery sticks in my fridge no longer
> fit even for stock.

You mean Obama of course :)

> Gah!

Ditto.

America is undergoing a volcanic change, and now, even the Main Stream Media is beginning to get on board with the revolution, whereas before, they were entirely dismissive and even openly hostile to Ron Paul.

Why?

Because everyone of them knows that business as usual is off the table, and if America (with a capital ‘A’) is to re-emerge, then Ron Paul is the only candidate that they have who will do the job.

The media in Britain is completely clueless about what is happening over there. Just look at how The Times has been reporting it. Even British journalists in the USA are completely blind to it; read the amazingly blinkered writings of Justin Webb for a tea soaked taste.

Something BIG is happening in america; America is making a comeback, as I said it could, and its about time.

Mike Huckabee is a fraud. He is a two faced, opportunist, hypocritical, tax loving, preacher of false religion.

Of course, he is free to believe whatever he wants and he is free to preach it, but anyone who wants high office and who also wears his religion on his sleeve like a brat with a cold who keeps wiping his nose and showing it to you is simply unfit. The only thing the candidates should be talking about is The Constitution, nothing else; not morality, ‘values’ or any other bogus nonsense. Lets look at what this man is ‘for’:

Faith and Politics
My faith is my life – it defines me. My faith doesn’t influence my decisions, it drives them. For example, when it comes to the environment, I believe in being a good steward of the earth. I don’t separate my faith from my personal and professional lives.

That should make loud sirens sound in every americans head; the only thing that should GUIDE the presidents decisions is THE CONSTITUTION not your own religious beliefs. THat he explicitly does not separate his faith from his professional life(, in this case, his profession is politician and potential president of the united states, ) should signal his immediate disqualification as a candidate – this man is a religious leader who doesn’t understand the separation of church and state. People like Mike Huckabee are extremely dangerous, not because they are religious, but because they do not know what their job is meant to be and what its necessary constraints and limits are.

Marriage
I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life.

Marriage is not the business of the state. Period. This is a perfect example of religious fanaticism creeping into policy. It is also a perfect example of why this man cannot be president; his own views and not the constitution are the basis of his policy decisions. Furthermore, he has the effrontery to want to change the Constitution to reflect his own religious beliefs. The president’s job is to protect our liberty, which includes our right to express our religious beliefs, even if you believe marriage means polygamy. This man is dangerous because he believes he knows what the absolute truth is, and hence, what is good for everybody; rather like a Communist or a Fascist Dictator.

Energy Independence
The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. We will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term.

Mike Hukcabee is a religious preacher, not a scientist. He doesn’t understand anything about the dynamics of energy supply (or judging by this statement, economics) and has no business trying to organize it for the entire usa. Only the market can correctly supply energy at the greatest efficiency and lowest cost. That is true for everything, and whenever the government gets involved in a market it creates a distortion and ruins everything. Mike Huckabee is dishonest because he is saying that he can solve something that he cannot. Government needs to get out of business and let people take care of themselves. It is presumptuous that he thinks he can solve this problem, and doubly presumptuous that he thinks he is going to get a second term as president.

National Security/Foreign Policy: Iraq
Iraq is a battle in our generational, ideological war on terror. General Petraeus and our troops are giving their all to provide a window of opportunity for the Iraq government to succeed, while the Democrats are running for the exit doors.

There is no ‘war on terror’. Huckabee saying this means that he is committed to war without end, thats what ‘generational’ means in this context. Mike Huckabee is a suicidal maniac who wants to keep america at war, in other peoples business, and he wants americans to continue to pay for it in blood and cash…only there is no more cash to do it; america has to BORROW money or fraudulently PRINT IT to run its insane wars and 300+ bases around the world. There is also no more blood available, meaning that there is going to have to be a draft to replenish the soldiers for his insane quasi religious war.

National Security/Foreign Policy: War On Terror
I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. Radical Islamic fascists have declared war on our country and our way of life. They have sworn to annihilate each of us who believe in a free society, all in the name of a perversion of religion and an impersonal god. We go to great extremes to save lives, they go to great extremes to take them. This war is not a conventional war, and these terrorists are not a conventional enemy. I will fight the war on terror with the intensity and single-mindedness that it deserves.

We are NOT engaged in a world war. That is a lie. If Huckabee believes that, he is delusional and unfit for command. There is no such thing as a ‘Radical Islamic fascist’ and no one has ‘declared war on the american way of life’. No one has sworn to annihilate those who believe in a free society. These are the words of the fantasy prone, warmongers, the ignorant and imbeciles. This sort of talk is the talk of Neoconservatism and insanity, and Mike Huckabee is clearly insane for believing it. A promise to fight the war on terror is a promise to destroy america utterly, by eliminating the last vestiges of its Constitution, cementing soft fascism, and murdering millions more innocent people round the world as Bush, Cheyney, Blair and Brown just have.

Cuba Policy
As President, I will enforce and implement all provisions of U.S. law governing policy toward Cuba including the Libertad Act. I will continue President Bush’s policy of pursuing indictments against any Cuban officials, including Raul Castro, responsible for crimes against U.S. citizens.

He really IS insane!!!!

Crisis Management
You need to know that your President will calmly and confidently lift you up in a crisis. During the massive emergency of Hurricane Katrina, when local, state, and federal governments were in melt-down, I stepped forward and directed the rescue and relief of 75,000 victims. Our island of success in a sea of failure was one of the reasons Time magazine named me one of America’s five best governors.

No, we need to know that our president is there defending our LIBERTY and nothing more you idiot!

Vertical Politics
Vertical Day is here and I want you to be a part of it.

Straight up to heaven?

All of this from Huckabee’s website.

If you didn’t think so before, now it must be absolutely clear; Huckabee is a totally INSANE and unfit candidate!!!!!

Barak Obama is no better; all we need to know about him is that he would invade Pakistan to find OBL. Another business as usual big government warmongering nutcase. His website’s issue page is full of meaningless twaddle, and on his foreign policy page, the word ‘constiution’ only appears once, in reference to Iraq’s Constitution.

I think that says all we need to know about that very young man.

America continues to be in VERY BIG TROUBLE. They and thanks to them, the entire world has been in a nightmare for decades. Now, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Mike Huckabee and Barak Obama want not only to blow up the tunnel, but they want to douse the light as well.

What a life!

Karen Selick

An open letter to Rob Nicholson, Canada's Minister of Justice

Dear Mr. Nicholson,

On January 21, 2008, an extradition hearing will begin in Vancouver for Marc Emery, Canada’s pre-eminent activist for the legalization of marijuana. Marc has been charged in the U.S. with conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana, and conspiring to launder money. If convicted under U.S. law, he faces possible life imprisonment without parole.

Should Marc be extradited to the U.S.? The Canadian court will almost certainly say yes. It has little choice under the Extradition Act. Marc
openly admits selling marijuana seeds over the Internet to customers around the world, including the United States, for years. His conduct would have been grounds for criminal charges here, although Canadian authorities never chose to charge him. But that’s enough under the Act to make it mandatory for the judge to commit him for surrender to U.S. authorities.

That’s where you come in, Mr. Justice Minister. Once the court has ruled, the Extradition Act gives you discretion to refuse to surrender Marc if it “would be unjust or oppressive having regard to all the relevant circumstances.”
Here are some of the circumstances you might consider relevant.

From 1999 until he was arrested in 2005, Marc declared on his income tax return that his occupation was “marijuana seed vendor.” He paid $578,000 in income taxes into federal and B.C. government coffers. He gave Canada Revenue Agency access to his bank statements and explained all his cash flows to them. The CRA graciously accepted his money without ever taking any action to put a stop to all this criminal activity.

If you believe that all Canadians benefit from taxes being collected and governments spending that tax money (I don’t, but most Canadians do), then logically you will have to concede that Marc has been a huge benefactor to the Canadian people.

As for the money laundering charge, maybe all Canadians should face U.S. indictments for having conspired with Marc to transform Americans’ outlays on recreational drugs into Canadian outlays on health care, roads, schools, etc.

Marc has helped Canadians in other ways, too. When Canada was compelled in 2000 to legalize medical marijuana by the R. v. Parker decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal, confusion reigned. Although the court had said that individuals suffering the daily pain of illnesses such as epilepsy, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS could use marijuana with their doctors’ approval, there was nowhere they could legally acquire it.

Authorized users who asked Health Canada how to get their marijuana were given the suggestion that they purchase it online from Marc Emery.
For eight years, Marc sent every federal Member of Parliament a free subscription to his magazine Cannabis Culture. Every issue included a copy
of his seed catalogue. Every single MP and all of their office staff turned a blind eye to his activities, just as Canada Revenue Agency and Health Canada had done.

The prohibition against selling marijuana seeds in Canada went unenforced for years, but the benefits of those seed sales were accepted unhesitatingly by Canadian authorities. It would be the height of hypocrisy and injustice for this country to now hand over its benefactor to a foreign government for a prosecution it declined to pursue itself.

But there’s more. Go to any internet search engine and enter “marijuana seeds.” You’ll find many seed vendors still operating without prosecution in
British Columbia and other Canadian provinces. Why is the U.S. government not seeking the extradition of these vendors? Why just Marc and his two employees Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams?

I think the answer is obvious. The so-called “BC3” have taken a principled, public stand against the U.S. government’s war on drugs. Marc in particular is a highly effective spokesman for his cause. He was never in this business primarily for financial gain, and generally kept only enough of his marijuana seed profits to live on. Instead, he has donated over $4-million and countless hours to fund court challenges, establish compassion clubs for medical marijuana users, pay medical bills for activists, sponsor conferences and protests, fund ballot initiatives, fund political campaigns and so on. For over a decade, he has been a huge thorn in the side of politicians and bureaucrats who disagree with him on the political issue of legalizing marijuana.

The Extradition Act requires you, Mr. Justice Minister, to refuse to surrender a person if the request for extradition is “made for the purpose
of prosecuting or punishing the person by reason of their…political opinion….” Please consider Marc’s long history of idealistic activism and
tell the U.S. government that you won’t let them haul this politically motivated Canadian hero off to one of their jails.

Karen Selick is a lawyer in Belleville, Ontario. kas@karenselick.com

[…]

National Post

The year starts off with a bang and a puff of smoke.

Think about it:

• A bearded man who lives in a secret remote location. Everyone knows where he lives, but no one can get to him.
• NORAD can track him. But they cant track him down.
• He has a legion of helpers that help him deliver ‘presents’ to everyone everywhere by magic. He can deliver presents to all good citizens in one night. He can blow up a building that was not hit by a plane in one day, without the weeks needed to rig it for controlled implosion.
• He is believed in by people with child like minds as a result of lies told by people who know how the world really works.
• Despite living in a remote place, he knows everything about everyone.
• You can write letters to him, and somehow, they will be delivered. Somehow, letters from him are delivered to millions by the internets.
• People who grow up stop believing in him, and then buy their own presents for themselves and their loved ones.

Now, let us find out what it’s REALLY about:

Bin Laden: Should Governments Perpetuate the Bin Laden Myth?
Austin Cline,

Problems with the Bin Laden Myth:
Although Bin Laden was originally based upon the figure of Old Nick, a patron saint of big government, today Bin Laden is wholly secular. Some people object to him because he is secular rather than religious; some non-religious object to him because of his religious roots. He is a powerful cultural symbol which is impossible to ignore, but this doesn’t mean that he should simply be accepted without question. There are good reasons to dispense with the tradition.

Governments Have to Lie About Bin Laden:
Perhaps the most serious objection to perpetuating belief in Bin Laden among citizens is also the simplest: in order to do so, Governments have to lie to their citizens. You can’t encourage the belief without dishonesty, and it’s not a “little white lie” that is for their own good or that might protect them from harm. Governments should not persistently lie to citizens without overwhelmingly good reasons, so this puts supporters of the Bin Laden myth on the defensive.

Governments’ Lies About Bin Laden Have to Grow:
In order to get kids to believe in Bin Laden, it’s not enough to commit a couple of simple lies and move on. As with any lie, it’s necessary to construct more and more elaborate lies and defenses as time passes. Skeptical questions about Osama must be met with detailed lies about Osama’s powers. “Evidence” of Bin Laden must be created once mere stories of Osama prove insufficient. It’s unethical for Governments to perpetuate elaborate deceptions on citizens unless it’s for a greater good.

Bin Laden Lies Discourage Healthy Skepticism:
Most citizens eventually become skeptical about Bin Laden and ask questions about him, for example how he could possibly travel around the whole world in such a short period of time. Instead of encouraging this skepticism and helping citizens come to a reasonable conclusion about whether Bin Laden is even possible, much less real, most Governments discourage skepticism by telling tales about Osama’s supernatural powers.

The Reward & Punishment System of Bin Laden is Unjust:
There are a number of aspects to the whole Bin Laden “system” which citizens shouldn’t learn to internalize. It implies that the whole person can be judged as naughty or nice based upon a few acts. It requires belief that someone is constantly watching you, no matter what you are doing. It is based upon the premise that one should do good for the sake of reward and avoid doing wrong out of fear of punishment. It allows Governments to try to control citizens via a powerful stranger.

The Bin Laden Myth Promotes Anti-Libertarianism:
The entire Bin Laden myth is based on the idea of citizens giving up liberty for safety. There’s nothing wrong with staying safe, but Bin Laden makes it the focus on the entire life of the citizen. Citizens are encouraged to conform their behavior to Governmental expectations in order to receive ever more guarantees of safety rather than keeping their liberty. In order to make Terror watch lists, Government pays close attention to what informers tell them their neighbors are doing, effectively encouraging an unbridled STASI style informer based police state.

Bin Laden is Too Similar to Jesus and God:
The parallels between Bin Laden and Jesus or God are numerous. Bin Laden is a nearly all-powerful, supernatural person who dispenses rewards and punishment to people all over the world based upon whether they adhere to a pre-defined code of conduct. His existence is implausible or impossible, but faith is expected if one is to receive the rewards of safety. Believers should regard this as blasphemous; non-believers shouldn’t want their kids prepared in this way to adopt the police state and the loss of their civil liberties.

The Bin Laden “Tradition” is Relatively Recent:
Some might think that because Bin Laden is such an old tradition, this alone is sufficient reason to continue it. They were taught to believe in Osama as citizens, so why not pass this along to their own? The role of Bin Laden and false flag terrorism in modern life is actually quite recent — the mid to late 20th century. The importance of Bin Laden is a creation of cultural elites and perpetuated by business interests and simple cultural momentum. It has little to no inherent value.

Bin Laden is More About Governments than citizens:
Governmental investment in Bin Laden is far larger than anything citizens do, suggesting that Governments’ defense of the Bin Laden myth is more about what they want than about what people want. Their own memories about enjoying freedom may be heavily influenced by cultural assumptions about what they should have experienced. Is it not possible that kids would find at least as much pleasure in knowing that Governments are responsible for terrorism, not a supernatural stranger?

The Future of Bin Laden:
Bin Laden symbolizes terrorism and perhaps the entire ‘war on terror’ like nothing else. An argument can be made for the importance of the CCTV camera as a symbol for safety (notice that there are no reduction in crimes from them), but Bin Laden personifies terror in a way that groups cannot. Bin Laden is, furthermore, a very secular character by now which allows him to cross cultural and religious lines, placing him in an important position for the entire world rather than for Christians alone.

Because of this, it’s plausible that giving up on Bin Laden will mean abandoning much of the ‘war on terror’ altogether — and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. There’s a lot to be said for people dismissing the anti freedom, militarized police state of modern America and focusing instead on the freedoms of the Constitution. Ignoring Bin Laden would symbolize this choice. There’s a lot to be said for adherents of other religions refusing to allow Bin Laden to become part of their own traditions, representing an intrusion of Western culture into their own.

Finally, there’s also a lot to be said for nonbelievers of various sorts — humanists, atheists, skeptics, and freethinkers — refusing to be co-opted into a religious obedience. Whether Bin Laden in particular or the ‘war on terror’ in general is treated as defined by government or religious traditions, neither are religions which nonbelievers are part of. Government has strong secular elements, but those are primarily commercial — and who is going to invest themselves in a holiday all about commerce and who can spend the most money on credit?

The future of Bin Laden will depend on whether people will care enough to do anything — if not, things will continue on the same course they have been on. If people care not to be taken over, borg-like, by America’s ‘war on terror’, resistance may reduce Osama’s status as a cultural icon.

[…]

http://atheism.about.com/od/christmasholidayseason/p/SantaMyth.htm

Thank heavens.

Now maybe liars in search of a cause like ‘creator of teh internets‘ Al Gore, and the pig ignorant ‘no more thought’ Sheryl Crow and her ilk will pipe down the bullshit.

Or maybe not; it will only be when the press start to ask them proper questions that they cannot answer (or when their bs is trashed off camera by scientists embarrassing them into a little curled up mess) that they will realize that the jig is up and they had better put up or shut up but either way sod off with their hysterical anti-human, anti-science religious nonsense which is on the verge of becoming a major embuggerance thanks to the nincompoops at the UN and their legislative boosters.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Yes, UFOs do exist, Japan’s top government spokesman said on Tuesday.

The comment by chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura drew laughter from reporters at his regular briefing on government policy.

Earlier the cabinet, responding to an opposition lawmaker’s question, issued a statement saying it could not confirm any cases of unidentified flying objects.

“This is an issue that the nation is interested in — it is a defence issue and a confirmation operation needs to take place,” Ryuji Yamane, a lawmaker from the main opposition Democratic Party who submitted the question to the cabinet, told Reuters.

“But the government does not even try to collect information necessary for the confirmation.”

Machimura, asked about the government’s view on UFOs at a regular press conference, told reporters that the government can only offer a stereotyped response.

“Personally, I definitely believe they exist,” he said, apparently tongue in cheek.

But the prime minister stuck to the official view.

“I have yet to confirm (that UFOs exist),” Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters later in the day.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota and George Nishiyama, Editing by Michael Watson)

[…]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKT37017220071218

In a country where ‘face’ is central to the identity of the individual, being publicly laughed at by brain dead robot journalists must have hurt.

Nobutaka Machimura however, will be vindicated. He will stand with the other great men of history and reason who made statements like, “The Earth is round”, and, “The Earth orbits around the Sun, not the Sun around the Earth”.

As for the journalists who laughed out loud at this intelligent man, well, they are on the wrong side of history.

UFOs are a matter of National Defense interest. Ex members of the French government say so, and so does everyone else with even the slightest bit of knowledge about this subject, which sadly, (or maybe not sadly) most people haven’t got even the first clue.

Bring on the ridicule in the form of Santa Claus jokes. No matter what anyone says, UFO’s are REAL and there are no two ways about it.

UPDATE!

Note how BBQ propagandists spin this story:

[…]

Earlier, in response to a question from an opposition lawmaker, the Japanese government issued a statement saying it could not confirm any cases of UFOs.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura later told reporters he believed they were “definitely” real.

It is the sort of question politicians dread but, under Japanese rules, are unable to ignore.

A member of the opposition asked the government what its policy was to deal with UFOs.

He said work should begin urgently to try to confirm whether or not they exist because of what he called “incessant” reports of sightings.

[…]

Seems ok doesn’t it? it is true that the reports of UFOs are constant; incessant is a good way to describe the frequency, and we are not talking about reports of sundogs, as this lame ass pathetic moron does by inference in this absurd article.

[…]
Most alerts turned out to be birds or other objects.
[…]

This is lie speak.

If there were one million bad reports and only one genuine report of a UFO that could be explained in no other terms other than an alien space craft, then the case is proven. It is completely irrelevant that there are many misidentifications; what IS relevant are the many extraordinarily high quality cases that are on the record. Any good journalist with a working brain would know this.

One of the best documented cases was a JAL (Japan Air Lines) pilots report which is a very high quality report. That line is just a propaganda style lie.

[…]
Perhaps with his tongue a little in his cheek he insisted that he believed UFOs did “definitely” exist.
[…]

Or perhaps not? We can never be sure with any report that comes from BBQ!

and here comes the prejudicial final punch:

[…]
Questioned about the existence of alien spaceships, Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda thought about it and then answered carefully.

He said he had “not yet confirmed” whether they existed.

The conspiracy theorists will note that the answer was not a “no”.

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7150156.stm

Whenever BBQ or any mainstream media outlet wants to demonize and discredit a person, they pull out the phrase ‘conspiracy theorist’ and when they want to discredit or trash an idea, they use the phrase ‘conspiracy theory’.

Neither of these applies to the subject of UFOs. Only a fool believes in UFOs; rational people come to the understanding that some UFOs can only be explained as the space craft of alien beings visiting Earth.

These ideas however, are far too subtle for the likes of ‘Chris Hogg’ who it appears, cannot even use the Googles.

What amazes me is that someone somewhere in BBQ thinks it necessary to derail and control information and the thinking about UFOs. But then again, it isn’t too surprising is it?

Or is that a conspiracy theory?!

I said before that any call for a White Paper or Public Inquiry is totally insane, and anyone who calls for one is delusional. As we have now seen, there has been a report that does nothing to stop the ID / centralized database juggernaut:

The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) believes that the Government’s response to the interim Poynter report shows that they just don’t understand what has gone wrong. Their refusal to abandon the headlong rush towards Transformational Government — the enormous centralised databases being built to regulate every walk of life — is not just pig-headed but profoundly mistaken.

Both Alasdair Darling, commenting on the HMRC fiasco, and Ruth Kelly, telling the House about the loss of 3 million people’s personal information, told us that once `lessons have been learned’ and `procedures tightened’ the march to ever-larger database systems will continue.

Before Transformational Government came along, only small amounts of data were lost — but as the new databases cover the whole population, everyone’s affected now, not just a few unlucky people.

Transformational Government means putting all of the eggs into one basket and it is creating:

• The multi-billion pound identity card scheme, to hold data on the whole population
• The National Health spine, which will make everyone’s health records available for browsing by a million NHS workers
• ContactPoint which will record details on every child in England, with details of their parents, carers and indicators of whether they have any contact with social services. Three hundred thousand people can look that information up.
• A universal pensioner’s bus pass scheme which will hold the data on 17 million people, and in principle will let any bus driver learn your age and address — when all that it should record is an entitlement to free travel.

Ross Anderson, Chair of FIPR and Professor of Security Engineering at the University of Cambridge said, “the Government believes that you can build secure databases and let hundreds of thousands of people access them. This is nonsense — we just don’t know how to build such systems and perhaps we never will. The correct way to design such systems is to localise the data, in a school, in your local GP practice. That way when there is a compromise because of a technical failure or a dishonest user then the damage is limited.

“You can have security, or functionality, or scale — you can even have any two of these. But you can’t have all three, and the Government will eventually be forced to admit this. In the meantime, billions of pounds are being wasted on gigantic systems projects that usually don’t work, and that place citizens’ privacy and safety at risk when they do.”

Richard Clayton, FIPR Treasuer said, “Personal data ought to be handled as if it were little pellets of plutonium — kept in secure containers, handled as seldom as possible, and escorted whenever it has to travel. Should it get out into the environment it will be a danger for years to come. Putting it into one huge pile is really asking for trouble. The Government needs to completely rethink its approach and abandon its Transformational Government disaster.”

[…]

http://www.fipr.org/

The reason why no White Paper or report is going to stop any of this is that BILLIONS of pounds in contracts have been handed out to the friends and family of ministers and none of them are willing to stab their friends and family in the back.

It doesn’t matter what any report or paper says, they will push this until either the people revolt or the people give in. That is why anyone calling for reason is a fool. That is why anyone depending on the processes of democracy is delusional. The only thing that is going to stop all of this is an explosion of the type we saw with the poll tax, or some other similar mass revolt that cannot be ignored.

We all know what sort of shape they can take and marching is not one of them.

But you know this!

How to Secure Your Computer, Disks, and Portable Drives

Computer security is hard. Software, computer and network security are all ongoing battles between attacker and defender. And in many cases the attacker has an inherent advantage: He only has to find one network flaw, while the defender has to find and fix every flaw.

Cryptography is an exception. As long as you don’t write your own algorithm, secure encryption is easy. And the defender has an inherent mathematical advantage: Longer keys increase the amount of work the defender has to do linearly, while geometrically increasing the amount of work the attacker has to do.

Unfortunately, cryptography can’t solve most computer-security problems. The one problem cryptography *can* solve is the security of data when it’s not in use. Encrypting files, archives — even entire disks — is easy.

All of this makes it even more amazing that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs in the United Kingdom lost two disks with personal data on 25 million British citizens, including dates of birth, addresses, bank-account information and national insurance numbers. On the one hand, this is no bigger a deal than any of the thousands of other exposures of personal data we’ve read about in recent years — the U.S. Veteran’s Administration loss of personal data of 26 million American veterans is an obvious similar event. But this has turned into Britain’s privacy Chernobyl.

Perhaps encryption isn’t so easy after all, and some people could use a little primer. This is how I protect my laptop.

There are several whole-disk encryption products on the market. I use PGP Disk’s Whole Disk Encryption tool for two reasons. It’s easy, and I trust both the company and the developers to write it securely. (Disclosure: I’m also on PGP Corp.’s Technical Advisory Board.)

Setup only takes a few minutes. After that, the program runs in the background. Everything works like before, and the performance degradation is negligible. Just make sure you choose a secure password — PGP’s encouragement of passphrases makes this much easier — and you’re secure against leaving your laptop in the airport or having it stolen out of your hotel room.

The reason you encrypt your entire disk, and not just key files, is so you don’t have to worry about swap files, temp files, hibernation files, erased files, browser cookies or whatever. You don’t need to enforce a complex policy about which files are important enough to be encrypted. And you have an easy answer to your boss or to the press if the computer is stolen: no problem; the laptop is encrypted.

PGP Disk can also encrypt external disks, which means you can also secure that USB memory device you’ve been using to transfer data from computer to computer. When I travel, I use a portable USB drive for backup. Those devices are getting physically smaller — but larger in capacity — every year, and by encrypting I don’t have to worry about losing them.

I recommend one more complication. Whole-disk encryption means that anyone at your computer has access to everything: someone at your unattended computer, a Trojan that infected your computer and so on. To deal with these and similar threats I recommend a two-tier encryption strategy. Encrypt anything you don’t need access to regularly — archived documents, old e-mail, whatever — separately, with a different password. I like to use PGP Disk’s encrypted zip files, because it also makes secure backup easier (and lets you secure those files before you burn them on a DVD and mail them across the country), but you can also use the program’s virtual-encrypted-disk feature to create a separately encrypted volume. Both options are easy to set up and use.

There are still two scenarios you aren’t secure against, though. You’re not secure against someone snatching your laptop out of your hands as you’re typing away at the local coffee shop. And you’re not secure against the authorities telling you to decrypt your data for them.

The latter threat is becoming more real. I have long been worried that someday, at a border crossing, a customs official will open my laptop and ask me to type in my password. Of course I could refuse, but the consequences might be severe — and permanent. And some countries — the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia — have passed laws giving police the authority to demand that you divulge your passwords and encryption keys.

To defend against both of these threats, minimize the amount of data on your laptop. Do you really need 10 years of old e-mails? Does everyone in the company really need to carry around the entire customer database? One of the most incredible things about the Revenue & Customs story is that a low-level government employee mailed a copy of the entire national child database to the National Audit Office in London. Did he have to? Doubtful. The best defense against data loss is to not have the data in the first place.

Failing that, you can try to convince the authorities that you don’t have the encryption key. This works better if it’s a zipped archive than the whole disk. You can argue that you’re transporting the files for your boss, or that you forgot the key long ago. Make sure the time stamp on the files matches your claim, though.

There are other encryption programs out there. If you’re a Windows Vista user, you might consider BitLocker. This program, embedded in the operating system, also encrypts the computer’s entire drive. But it only works on the C: drive, so it won’t help with external disks or USB tokens. And it can’t be used to make encrypted zip files. But it’s easy to use, and it’s free. And many people like the open-source and free program, TrueCrypt. I know nothing about it.

This essay previously appeared on Wired.com.

Why was the UK event such a big deal? Certainly the scope: 40% of the British population. Also the data: bank account details; plus information about children. There’s already a larger debate on the issue of a database on kids that this feeds into. And it’s a demonstration of government incompetence (think Hurricane Katrina). In any case, this issue isn’t going away anytime soon. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologized. The head of the Revenue and Customs office has resigned. More fallout is probably coming.

[…]

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0712.html

UK’s privacy Chernobyl:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2910705.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7104945.stm
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,,2214566,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2910635.ece
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/21/response_data_breach/

U.S. VA privacy breach:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/05/70961

PGP Disk:
http://www.pgp.com/products/wholediskencryption/

Choosing a secure password:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/choosing_secure.html
http://www.iusmentis.com/security/passphrasefaq/

Risks of losing small memory devices:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/07/risks_of_losing.html

Laptop snatching:
http://tinyurl.com/fszeh

TrueCrypt:
http://www.truecrypt.org/

Of course, we now know that authorities cannot tell you to decrypt your data for them in the USA. If you insist on working for and in fascist countries or countries with fascist legislation like the United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia, then you must expect that your rights disappear the moment the tires of the airplane touch the landing strip in these places, and that you may be subject to a decryption order. Much better to carry a blank laptop with you and then log into your system over an encrypted link rather than carry fully loaded email clients with you.

You can fully expect all of these bad laws to be dropped once businessmen from the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries get their laptops copied wholesale, or when people stop doing business with them out of principle…ummmm probably not going to happen, right?

Avid readers of BLOGDIAL will remember the utter nonsense of the Sudanese government stealing laptops:

The government of Sudan started seizing and quarantining laptop computers for inspection last week, ostensibly to stem the import of pornography and seditious material.

remember now?

Apparently it occurred to government officials that they didn’t understand what was in the devices and that the devices might be the conveyance for objectionable material.

A beautifully understated assessment :)

The immediate effect of the quarantines and data inspections is sure to be a dampening of business interest in an already risk-fraught environment. Over the long term, however, silly rules regarding technology tend to be corrected by individuals’ use of even more advanced technology. Governments rarely win this sort of oneupsmanship.

And so on:

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=453

I have been encouraging the adoption of PGP/GPG for ages. The tools to use it are now as easy as switching a light on and off, even if the underlying concepts remain impenetrable to all but people with A-Level maths. If you have the time and the need for it, you can use it with ease. It is possible to do everything you need to do without it, but do not complain that people are reading your email; those complaints are what is unacceptable today.

There has never been a time in man’s history where you could communicate in complete, guaranteed privacy over any distance. No surveillance system can break into properly deployed PGP/GPG communications. All those who complain about the government monitoring their email but who do not use PGP/GPG do not get and cannot expect any sympathy.

You have an umbrella, yet you prefer to get soaked to the skin when it rains.

You have fire, but you choose not to light it and to stay damp and wet.

That is called STUPIDITY and there are no two ways about it.

Text of article: http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html

A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can’t force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination.

Niedermeier tossed out a grand jury’s subpoena that directed Sebastien Boucher to provide “any passwords” used with the Alienware laptop. “Compelling Boucher to enter the password forces him to produce evidence that could be used to incriminate him,” the judge wrote in an order dated November 29 that went unnoticed until this week. “Producing the password, as if it were a key to a locked container, forces Boucher to produce the contents of his laptop.”

Link to court opinion: http://www.volokh.com/files/Boucher.pdf

Orin Kerr’s this-ruling-is-wrong post: http://volokh.com/posts/1197670606.shtml

Link to Michael Froomkin’s old law review article touching on this: http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/seminar/papers/anon/intlaw_paper.html

The most basic principles of a free country make RIPA bad law.

This is another example of why america was such a great country and why its Founding Fathers are so rightly revered; its constitution was so perfectly written that its provisions work on technologies and scenarios two hundred and thirty years after it was devised.

I can imagine a scenario where an american with a laptop containing a PGP encrypted volume ‘invokes The 5th’ somewhere in the world and the out of jurisdiction court accepting this – they accept american jurisdiction for everything else, like carting people off to torture prisons, so why not the Fifth Amendment?

December 4, 2007
If you’re a fugitive from the law — or even if you’re just super paranoid about your privacy — you might want to steer clear of a new biometric payment system which has been implemented at about ten Shell gas stations in the Chicago area. The biometric payment system, developed by San Francisco-based Pay By Touch, works by linking a user’s fingerprint to his or her credit card or checking account. For now, customers must scan their fingertips at a kiosk inside the gas station – however, Shell is reportedly considering the idea of having the scanners installed on the pumps to facilitate even faster payment.

But what if the scan taken could be linked to other databases – even be cross-checked against the NCIS database? We’ve heard about how this technology can be used to create “theft proof” smart cars which can only be used by the driver registered to that vehicle. And now it appears the technology can be used to verify a credit card user’s identity as well. But where is the fingerprint information stored and who has access it? Is it possible that, one day in the future, even people wanted for minor offenses, such as failure to appear in court or failure to pay child support, could be “nabbed” by police at the local gas station or some other store, should they attempt to pay using this new system?

Of course, I’m intentionally being absurd … obviously, Shell is using the technology to see if it will provide a new level of convenience for its customers … it probably has no intention of using it proactively as a crime fighting tool. Furthermore, if you’re on the run, you’ll probably be smart enough not to use such a system.

Still, as adoption of this technology grows — and if one day it becomes ubiquitous — one can’t help but wonder what role it might play in identifying and tracking people as they move about and make purchases. By the same token, one can also speculate whether it might be possible for the bad guys to use this technology against consumers: For example, maybe someone will come up with a way of “faking” people’s fingerprints, as part of an impressive effort to steal their identities.

Shell is reportedly the first gas station company in the U.S. to install biometric payment devices. The company is also reportedly testing hand-held wireless devices that allow full-service customers to pay electronically without getting out of their cars. For more information, check out this article.

[…]

TCMNet

‘What if’. That is the question. TODAY they are not linked to any other databases, but it would be trivial to do so, and government would have no problem in compelling gas stations or anywhere else from providing real time access.

Like we and other people have been saying for ages, they will use this to cut off your life, making you a ‘non person’ at the press of a button, so that you cannot eat, travel or, as in this case, buy gasoline. They could even use it to ration gasoline and food in an ’emergency’.

IF you think that they will not try to do this, you are delusional; and we don’t have to take breath to talk about the ‘accidents’ that can happen where your identity is stolen or corrupted. We have had some very good examples of how that works.

This article is cautious, but the writer has the main points nailed; this is something to be VERY cautious about; do you REALLY need to save three minutes at the pump? Are those three minutes worth your irreplaceable fingerprints? You can already pay at the pump by swiping your card without even entering the station proper – there is no advantage in using your fingerprint to facilitate transactions; this is a completely faddish and pointless exercise. Period.

The telegraph has a good news poll; most people are now against the ID card. Of course, these polls are bogus because the questions they ask are misleading, but that is irrelevant now.

The most important part of this story is a comment attached to it written by an acting police man, who says:

I’ve been a police officer for many years and the police aren’t exactly known for being strong proponents of civil liberties. However, most of my colleagues seem to be coming to the conclusion that this identity database is a step too far. We are moving towards a Big Brother state in which everyone is treated like a criminal by compulsory interrogation, fingerprinting, photograph, numbering and then being subjected to state monitoring of your movements and activities. Personally speaking, I’d rather leave the force – and the country – than submit to this and I have made plans accordingly.
Posted by Bison on December 3, 2007 9:30 AM

Without the cooperation of the police, how can you run a police state?

I guarantee you that many civil servants are equally opposed to this insanity, and it is them who run the backroom operations of a police state. Doctors are already committed to rejecting the database state as it applies to them:

Family doctors to shun national database of patients’ records

· More than half would seek specific consent
· Security fears dominate concerns, poll shows

John Carvel, social affairs editor
The Guardian Tuesday November 20 2007

Nearly two-thirds of family doctors are poised to boycott the government’s scheme to put the medical records of 50 million NHS patients on a national electronic database, a Guardian poll reveals today.

With suspicion rife across the profession that sensitive personal data could be stolen by hackers and blackmailers, the poll found 59% of GPs in England are unwilling to upload any record without the patient’s specific consent…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/nov/20/nhs.health

The whole thing is falling apart.

The only part they managed to roll out is the completely evil biometric passport; this will be rolled back as soon as people start to see their personal details stolen from their passports turning up where they should not.

We may yet get Great Britain back!

Human garbage like Jacqui (who has the must utterly appalling dress sense) Smith are however, determined to go down with the ship:

[…]
However, at the weekend Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, continued to defend the scheme and said the inclusion of fingerprints would ensure the data’s security.

“I will be able to be confident that my identity… will be linked to my fingerprint so just knowing who I am, where I live and what my bank details are will not be enough to be able to take my identity,” she said in a television interview.

“It is an increased protection even against times when people’s biographical details are stolen or lost.” […]

Biometrics cannot “ensure the data’s security” this is fairy dust talk from a computer illiterate incompetent.

Your identity is not “linked to your fingerprint”. Your fingerprint is linked to a record in a database that has information about you. That is NOT your identity, that is a database record. If someone changes your database entry either deliberately or accidently, say, changing your address, then your ‘identity’ is damaged and since nincompoops like you believe that the computer cannot be wrong, all your financial transactions will be stopped because your paper documents and your database records are out of sync. Of course there is the more serious matter of having a crime you did not commit attributed to you, but we have discussed this ad nauseam.

It is not the government’s responsibility to guarantee the identity of citizens, and it is totally immoral for them to try and compel everyone to submit to this violation.

Jacqui Smith, the adulterer Blunkett, vile porcine lie-machine Charles Clarke and Jack ‘Straw Man’ Straw are all guilty of trying to foist this abomination on the free British people, and now that the public are waking up to this, their shame will be eternal.