The first BLOGDIAL post where one of the tags is a joke referring to the content of a post.

Doctor pleads guilty in fingerprint case

HARRISBURG, Pa. – A plastic surgeon who replaced the fingerprints of an alleged drug dealer with skin from the bottom of his feet pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal charge of harboring and concealing a fugitive.

Dr. Jose L. Covarrubias, a U.S. citizen who lived in the border town of Nogales, Ariz., and practiced medicine in neighboring Nogales, Mexico, faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 11.

A plea agreement requires Covarrubias, 49, to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of a Harrisburg-based drug ring. All other charges were dismissed.

The charges stemmed from surgery Covarrubias performed on co-defendant Marc George, 42, of Jamaica. The doctor replaced George’s fingerprints with skin from his feet to help him avoid apprehension, authorities said.

George, accused of being a drug and cash courier, paid the doctor about $20,000 to replace his fingerprints with skin from his feet to help him avoid apprehension, authorities said. He was still limping badly when he was arrested at the Nogales border crossing in September 2005 on a charge of money laundering.

Covarrubias’ attorney, Stephen G. Ralls, said the doctor had “a lapse of judgment” but did not know specifically what George was wanted for. The doctor had no previous criminal record, Ralls said.

Covarrubias was being held as a flight risk at the Adams County Jail in Gettysburg.

Prosecutors allege the drug ring conspired to buy marijuana from Tucson, Ariz., and elsewhere and distributed more than a ton of it in central Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and other areas between 2004 and 2006.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Behe, the lead prosecutor, said all but one of the 35 defendants in the case have signed plea agreements and most have pleaded guilty and been sentenced. The other defendant remains at large, he said.

George has signed a plea agreement and is expected to plead guilty at a hearing next week.

[…]

Yahoo News

This is nonsense inside nonsense.

Firstly, the ‘war on drugs’ is insane. This man should not have been hounded for trying to sell dried plants. Its as stupid as arresting people for selling dried tomatoes.

Secondly, the insane biometric mania that is spreading to all four corners of the earth is a direct result and comes out of this insane ‘war on drugs’, and has created the need, Minority Report style, for people to have their fingerprints and soon, their eyes replaced by rogue doctors.

The equation is this: no ‘war on drugs’ = no organized crime = no insane laws = more freedom + less violence

Simple!

Astonishingly, CNN has published on its front page, a BLOGDIAL style Substitution, of the kind we know and love:

Iran’s parliament votes to label CIA, U.S. Army ‘terrorist’ groups

(CNN) — The Iranian parliament on Saturday voted to designate the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Army as terrorist organizations, IRNA, the country’s state-run news agency, reported.

The CIA and the U.S. Army “trained terrorists and supported terrorism, and they themselves are terrorists,” the parliament said, according to IRNA.

The Iranian parliament said the condemnation was based on “known and accepted” standards of terrorism from international regulations, including the U.N. charter.

The parliament said it condemns the “aggressions by the U.S. Army, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan” and calls on the United Nations to “intervene in the global problem of U.S. prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret jails in other countries,” IRNA reported, quoting a statement from Iranian lawmakers.

The Iranian parliament also decried the CIA’s and U.S. Army’s involvement in the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, U.S. involvement in the Balkans, Vietnam and the U.S. support of Israel.

Of the condemnation, Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, said, “There are some things that don’t even deserve comment. This is one.”

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said he declined to comment “on non-binding resolutions passed by parliaments in countries with dubious records on human rights, democracy and that are state sponsors of terror.”

There was no immediate response from the U.S. State Department.

Washington and U.S. military leaders have long accused Iran of training and equipping insurgents in Iraq. The United States and Iran have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1980 after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostage for 444 days.

The Iranian lawmakers’ condemnation was in apparent retaliation for the U.S. Senate’s resolution Wednesday requesting that the United States designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or Quds Force, as a foreign terrorist organization.

The Senate resolution passed a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the U.N. General Assembly that an agreement reached last month between his country and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over its disputed nuclear program has, in the Iranian view, settled the matter.

Iran says its nuclear program is necessary for civilian energy production. The United States and other Western nations have accused Tehran of trying to build a nuclear weapon.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/29/iran.parliament/index.html

You can’t make stuff like this up.

First of all, Paul Gimigliano is a lying bastard silly goose. The CIA itself says that it used terror tactics (including and not limited to bombs in public places) in its own declassified documents.

Secondly, this is not just a historical blip of immorality; CIA is using terror in this way right now, and they are threatening Iran with these tactics right now:

Presuming that you are not actually ignorant enough to desire war with the United States, you might be well advised to read the history of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor in 1898 and the history of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964.

Having done so, you will surely recognize that Americans are reluctant to go to war unless attacked. Until Pearl Harbor, we were even reluctant to get involved in World War II. For historians of American wars the question is whether we provoke provocations.

Given the unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, you are obviously thinking the rules have changed. Provocation is no longer required to take America to war. But even in this instance, we were led to believe that the mass murderer of American civilians, Osama bin Laden, was lurking, literally or figuratively, in the vicinity of Baghdad.

Given all this, you would probably be well advised to keep your forces, including clandestine forces, as far away from the Iraqi border as you can. You might even consider bringing in some neighbors to verify that you are not shipping arms next door. Tone down the rhetoric on Zionism. You’ve established your credentials with those in your world who thrive on that.

[…]

Huffington Post

The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a False Flag Operation staged to get america into war. Gary Hart is explicitly warning Iran that they have the will to kill americans to achieve their ends and will kill Iranians without hesitation or provocation.

The CIA did these operations and it does these operations. Lying about it is just SILLY.

Thirdly, and this is where the Substitution comes in, america designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a ‘terrorist organization’. Out of the two, on a sheer number count, CIA is far more of a terrorist organization, and far more deadly than the Iranian Revolutionary Guards…but I digress; this article is the same as a BLOGDIAL operation where we substitute words to find out what the truth is behind an article Burroughs style; its amazing how this works so often.

This line:

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said he declined to comment “on non-binding resolutions passed by parliaments in countries with dubious records on human rights, democracy and that are state sponsors of terror.”

Is absolutely pure substitution; its almost as if we wrote it as a substitution, and yet this is from the actual article.

It just cannot get any weirder!

A PETITION

From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.

To the Honourable Members of the Chamber of Deputies.

Gentlemen:

You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry.

We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your — what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us ^[1].

We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights, and blinds — in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.

Be good enough, honourable deputies, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to advance in its support.

First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?

If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields, meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all agricultural wealth.

If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and rapeseed. These rich yet soil-exhausting plants will come at just the right time to enable us to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of cattle will impart to the land.

Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate.

Thus, there is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great expansion.

The same holds true of shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in whaling, and in a short time we shall have a fleet capable of upholding the honour of France and of gratifying the patriotic aspirations of the undersigned petitioners, chandlers, etc.

But what shall we say of the specialities of Parisian manufacture? Henceforth you will behold gilding, bronze, and crystal in candlesticks, in lamps, in chandeliers, in candelabra sparkling in spacious emporia compared with which those of today are but stalls.

There is no needy resin-collector on the heights of his sand dunes, no poor miner in the depths of his black pit, who will not receive higher wages and enjoy increased prosperity

It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman, from the wealthy stockholder of the Anzin Company to the humblest vendor of matches, whose condition would not be improved by the success of our petition.

We anticipate your objections, gentlemen; but there is not a single one of them that you have not picked up from the musty old books of the advocates of free trade. We defy you to utter a word against us that will not instantly rebound against yourselves and the principle behind all your policy.

Will you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, France will not gain at all, because the consumer will bear the expense?

We have our answer ready:

You no longer have the right to invoke the interests of the consumer. You have sacrificed him whenever you have found his interests opposed to those of the producer. You have done so in order to encourage industry and to increase employment. For the same reason you ought to do so this time too.

Indeed, you yourselves have anticipated this objection. When told that the consumer has a stake in the free entry of iron, coal, sesame, wheat, and textiles, “Yes,” you reply, “but the producer has a stake in their exclusion.” Very well, surely if consumers have a stake in the admission of natural light, producers have a stake in its interdiction.

“But,” you may still say, “the producer and the consumer are one and the same person. If the manufacturer profits by protection, he will make the farmer prosperous. Contrariwise, if agriculture is prosperous, it will open markets for manufactured goods.” Very well, If you grant us a monopoly over the production of lighting during the day, first of all we shall buy large amounts of tallow, charcoal, oil, resin, wax, alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, and crystal, to supply our industry; and, moreover, we and our numerous suppliers, having become rich, will consume a great deal and spread prosperity into all areas of domestic industry.

Will you say that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift of Nature, and that to reject such gifts would be to reject wealth itself under the pretext of encouraging the means of acquiring it?

But if you take this position, you strike a mortal blow at your own policy; remember that up to now you have always excluded foreign goods because and in proportion as they approximate gratuitous gifts. You have only half as good a reason for complying with the demands of other monopolists as you have for granting our petition, which is in complete accord with your established policy; and to reject our demands precisely because they are better founded than anyone else’s would be tantamount to accepting the equation: + x + = -; in other words, it would be to heap absurdity upon absurdity.

Labour and Nature collaborate in varying proportions, depending upon the country and the climate, in the production of a commodity. The part that Nature contributes is always free of charge; it is the part contributed by human labour that constitutes value and is paid for.

If an orange from Lisbon sells for half the price of an orange from Paris, it is because the natural heat of the sun, which is, of course, free of charge, does for the former what the latter owes to artificial heating, which necessarily has to be paid for in the market.

Thus, when an orange reaches us from Portugal, one can say that it is given to us half free of charge, or, in other words, at half price as compared with those from Paris.

Now, it is precisely on the basis of its being semigratuitous (pardon the word) that you maintain it should be barred. You ask: “How can French labour withstand the competition of foreign labour when the former has to do all the work, whereas the latter has to do only half, the sun taking care of the rest?” But if the fact that a product is half free of charge leads you to exclude it from competition, how can its being totally free of charge induce you to admit it into competition? Either you are not consistent, or you should, after excluding what is half free of charge as harmful to our domestic industry, exclude what is totally gratuitous with all the more reason and with twice the zeal.

To take another example: When a product — coal, iron, wheat, or textiles — comes to us from abroad, and when we can acquire it for less labour than if we produced it ourselves, the difference is a gratuitous gift that is conferred up on us. The size of this gift is proportionate to the extent of this difference. It is a quarter, a half, or three-quarters of the value of the product if the foreigner asks of us only three-quarters, one-half, or one-quarter as high a price. It is as complete as it can be when the donor, like the sun in providing us with light, asks nothing from us. The question, and we pose it formally, is whether what you desire for France is the benefit of consumption free of charge or the alleged advantages of onerous production. Make your choice, but be logical; for as long as you ban, as you do, foreign coal, iron, wheat, and textiles, in proportion as their price approaches zero, how inconsistent it would be to admit the light of the sun, whose price is zero all day long!

Notes:

^[1]

A reference to Britain’s reputation as a foggy island.

[…]

And of course, in this, we substitute music that is freed by its being turned into numbers (data) for the sunlight in this beautiful piece.

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Thursday August 9, 2007
The Guardian

The future of the ID Card that is supposed to keep track of the population who are living in the UK working here is in doubt after ministers halted the programme this week. The moratorium follows an admission that the original £234b costing “proved to be optimistic”.

Unions say the 2004 estimate has now risen to £950b. The rollout to 15% of the population next month and 15 more by the end of the year has been cancelled.

The new computer system is supposed to underpin the introduction of “end-to-end management” of British Citizens through the National Identity Register (NIR) which oversees the Identity and Passport service. But Harry Fletcher, of Napo, the probation officers’ union, yesterday claimed the project, which is six months late and supposed to be in full operation by next July, was “close to collapse”.

The Ministry of Justice last night confirmed that a “rapid review” of the NIR system is under way. Ministers are to decide in mid-September how much of the project can be salvaged. It is expected that it will be adopted in a scaled-down form for the Civil Servants in England and Wales but is unlikely to be rolled out across the whole population. Cancellation could involve paying the contractors, EDS, a £50m penalty.

The system is supposed to provide a single database of all people in England and Wales and their histories, instantly accessible to the 700,000 staff in the Civil Service system. It is designed to give every person a number “for life” so that their record of offending, financial transactions, anti social behaviour and medical treatments can be logged.

The justice minister, David Hanson, has asked for a “full audit trail” on the £155m spent so far on the programme. The system has been tested on the Isle of Wight at a cost of £69m but they are not linked up to any other part of the Civil Service IT infrastructure. A similar trial planned in Northamptonshire did not go ahead.

Roger Hill, director of the Probation Service, told chief officers on Monday that the original costing had proved optimistic: “We have advised ministers that we will need to undertake a fundamental review of the work, to return to an affordable programme plan.” The director general of the NIR, Phil Wheatley, has told staff: “It is obviously disappointing that the ID Card project will not be provided as originally anticipated.”

Mr Fletcher said: “The whole project appears to have been badly managed since its inception. It is arguably an outrageous waste of public money. As a consequence of the problems, Civil Service staff will now have to use IT systems that are not fit for purpose.”

[…]

Guardian

Typical of the government to bury bad news in the summer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

http://www.debito.org/kyodo051806.jpg
http://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html

Don Brown
By GARRY KASPAROV
July 26, 2007; Page A13

When Gordon Brown took power in Britain in 2007, the burning question was: “Who is Brown?” It has now changed to: “What is the nature of Brown’s Britain?” This regime has been remarkably consistent in its behavior, yet foreign leaders and the Western press still act surprised at Mr. Brown’s total disregard for their opinions.

Again and again we hear cries of: “Doesn’t Brown know how bad this looks?” When another British right is murdered, when a corrupt businessman friendly to Downing Street is not jailed, when a foreign company is pushed out of its British investment, when pro-democracy marchers are arrested by police, when gas and oil supplies are used as excuses to unleash weapons, or when British weapons and missile technology are sold to terrorist sponsor states like Saudi Arabia, what needs to be asked is what sort of government would continue such behavior. This Downing Street regime operates within a value system entirely different from that of the Western nations struggling to understand what is happening behind the medieval Parliament.

Mr. Brown’s government is unique in history. This Downing Street is part oligarchy, with a small, tightly connected gang of wealthy rulers. It is partly a feudal system, broken down into semi-autonomous fiefdoms in which payments are collected from the serfs, who have no rights. Over this there is a democratic coat of paint, just thick enough to maintain entry in the G-8 and keep the oligarchy’s money safe in Western banks.

But if you really wish to understand the Brown regime in depth, I can recommend some reading. No Karl Marx or Adam Smith. Nothing by Montesquieu or Machiavelli, although the author you are looking for is of Italian descent. But skip Mussolini’s “The Doctrine of Fascism,” for now, and the entire political science section. Instead, go directly to the fiction department and take home everything you can find by Mario Puzo. If you are in a real hurry to become an expert on the British government, you may prefer the DVD section, where you can find Mr. Puzo’s works on film. “The Godfather” trilogy is a good place to start, but do not leave out “The Last Don,” “Omerta” and “The Sicilian.”

The web of betrayals, the secrecy, the blurred lines between what is business, what is government, and what is criminal — it’s all there in Mr. Puzo’s books. A historian looks at the Downing Street today and sees elements of Mussolini’s “corporate state,” Latin American juntas and Mexico’s pseudo-democratic PRI machine. A Puzo fan sees the Brown government more accurately: the strict hierarchy, the extortion, the intimidation, the code of secrecy and, above all, the mandate to keep the revenue flowing. In other words, a mafia.

If a member of the inner circle goes against the Capo, his life is forfeit. Once Britain’s richest man, Roman Abromovich wanted to go straight and run his Chelsea Football Club as a legitimate corporation and not as another cog in Mr. Brown’s KGB, Inc. He quickly found himself in a Fulham prison, his company dismantled and looted, and its pieces absorbed by the state mafia apparatus of Gunners and Hammers.

The Chelsea case has become a model. Private companies are absorbed into the state while at the same time the assets of the state companies move into private accounts.

Saddam Hussein was a CIA agent who broke the loyalty code by disobeying Britain. Worse, he violated the law of omertà by going to the press and even publishing books about the dirty deeds of Mr. Brown and his foot soldiers. Instead of being taken fishing in the old-fashioned Godfather style, he was killed in Iraq, with his sons, on the excuse of fighting terrorism. Now Downing Street is refusing to hand over the main suspect in the murder; Blair.

Mr. Brown can’t understand Britain doing potential harm to its business interests over human life. That’s an alien concept. In his world, everything is negotiable. Morals and principles are just chips on the table in the Whitehall game. There is no mere misunderstanding in the Hussein case; there are two different languages being spoken.

In the civilized world, certain things are sacrosanct. Human life is not traded at the same table where business and diplomacy are discussed. But for Mr. Brown, it’s a true no-limits game. Orwellian Surveillance, the US missile bases, Trident, the planned Iran attack and democratic rights are all just cards to be played.

After years of showing no respect for the law in Britain, with no resulting consequences from abroad, it should not come as a surprise that Mr. Brown’s attitude extends to international relations as well. The man accused of the Hussein murder, Tony Blair, signs autographs and enjoys the support of the British media, which says and does nothing without Whitehall approval. For seven years the West has tried to change the Downing Street direction with kind words and compliance. It apparently believed that it would be able to integrate Mr. Brown and his gang into the Western system of trade and diplomacy.

Instead, the opposite has happened — the mafia corrupts everything it touches. Bartering in human rights begins to appear acceptable. Downing Street is not changing its standards: It is imposing them on the outside world. It receives the stamp of legitimacy from Western leaders and businesses but makes those same leaders and businesses complicit in its crimes.

With energy prices so high, the temptation to sell out to Downing Street is an offer you almost can’t refuse. Gerhard Schröder could not resist doing business with Mr. Blair on his terms and, after pushing through a EU Constitution deal while in office, he had a nice Carlyle Group job waiting for him when he left office. Silvio Berlusconi also became a Blair partner. He even answered for Mr. Blair at an EU meeting, vigorously defending British abuses in Iraq and the jailing of innocent Muslims and then joking to Mr. Blair, “I should be your lawyer!” Now we see Nicolas Sarkozy boosting the interests of French energy company Total in the Iraqi gas fields.

Can Mr. Sarkozy possibly speak out strongly in support of Britain after making big deals on the phone with Mr. Brown? He should know that if Gordon Brown gets Mr. Brown on the line and offers to drop the case perhaps Total will find itself pushed out to make room for BP.

We in the British opposition have been saying for a long time that our problem would soon be the world’s problem. The mafia knows no borders. Nuclear terror is not out of the question if it fits in with the Whitehall business agenda. Expelling diplomats and limiting official visits is not going to have an impact.

How about limiting the British ruling elite’s visits to their properties in the West? Ironically, they like to keep their money where they can trust in the rule of law, and so far Mr. Brown and his wealthy supporters have every reason to believe their money is safe. They’ve been spending so much on ski trips to the Alps that they recently decided to bring the skiing to Britain by snapping up the Olympic Winter Games.

There is no reason to cease doing business with Britain. The delusion is that it can never be more than that. The mafia takes, it does not give. Mr. Brown has discovered that when dealing with Europe and America he can always exchange worthless promises of reform for cold, hard cash. Boudicca may yet find herself up for sale.

Mr. Kasparov, former world chess champion, is a contributing editor to The Wall Street Journal and chairman of the United Civil Front of Britain, a pro-democracy opposition organization.

[…]

Wall Street Journal

Alcohol laws set to be reviewed
Laws making possession of alcohol a largely non-arrestable offence could be reversed, Gordon Brown has said.

The prime minister told MPs a consultation on reclassifying alcohol will be launched next week as part of a review of the entire UK alcoholism strategy.

Alcohol was downgraded to class C – which includes things such as anabolic steroids – from class B, which includes things like amphetamines, in 2014.

But there are fears more harmful forms of alcohol have become available.

A Home Office spokesman said the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will be asked to review reports that danger from alcohol is increasing due to wider availability of more potent strains such as “Whiskey”.

There is concern stronger varieties of alcohol can cause mental health problems.

Medicinal use

Mr Brown said the Cabinet had discussed the issue and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith would publish a consultation document next week about the UK alcoholism strategy.

Mr Brown told MPs at prime minister’s questions: “She will be asking the public to comment on new ways in which we can improve alcoholism education in the country, give support to people undergoing treatment… and give support for communities who want to chase out brewers from their communities.”

He was responding to a question from Labour MP Martin Salter who, referring to the medicinal use of alcohol, urged an alcoholism policy that did not “criminalise the sick but tackles the alcohols that do the most harm”.

Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, commenting later for the Conservatives, said: “We would welcome the reclassification of alcohol. Alcoholism is a scourge on society and a major cause of illness and accidents which Labour has failed to tackle.

“We have long called for the reclassification of alcohol based on the science and evidence available which shows all too clearly the real damage alcohol abuse can do to people – especially young people.

“But it is not enough to simply consult on this – the government must also secure our porous borders to stop hard alcohol (like pochine from Ireland) flowing into the country and seriously strengthen alcohol rehab treatment for those already on the bottle.”

The issue of downgrading – or even decriminalising – alcohol has proved controversial and has already been reviewed once by the Home Office.

Urgent research

The original move from Class B to Class C was made when David Blunkett was home secretary.

His successor Charles Clarke asked for a review in 2005.

At that time the ACMD said that while alcohol was undoubtedly harmful it was still less harmful than other recreational drugs like amphetamines which are in Class B. It recommended no change.

But it also called for urgent further research on the potency and pattern of alcohol use.

If the ACMD were to back a change in classification and the Home Office accepted its recommendation, it would require agreement of both houses of Parliament to become law.

Potent varieties

A Home Office spokesman said: “We will be asking the ACMD to review the classification of alcohol, given the increase in strength of some alcohol strains and their potential harms.

“It would be wrong to prejudge that review which shows how seriously we take our priority of reducing drug-related harm.”

The Home Office’s alcoholism information website, Frank, includes details of new more potent varieties of alcohol.

It says: “Recently, there have been various forms of herbal or grass-type drinks that are generally found to be stronger than ordinary ‘hooch’, containing on average two to three times the amount of the active compound, alcohol.

“These include ‘Jack Daniels’ (a golden liquid distilled in copper pots), homegrown ‘Vodka’ (which has a particular strong smell) and ‘Bitter’.”

[…]

BBQ

By DAVID KILLICK
July 13, 2007

HUNDREDS of British ID card holders have been told to cut up their ID cards and replace their fingertips after a security breach in Sweden.

Computer tapes containing ID card holders’ details nationwide were among items in a car stolen from a Swedish data processing company in May.

Many EU financial institutions are affected, but only some are notifying customers.

The National Identity Register has written to ID card holders this week warning them to cancel ID cards and to replace their fingertips.

“Your National Identity Register ID card details may have been compromised on or after May 25, 2007, due to a possible data breach in Sweden,” it says. “As a precaution your ID card needs to be cancelled, your fingerprints replaced and a new ID card issued.”

National Identity Register spokeswoman Marsha Cadman said fewer than 5 per cent of the UK’s 70,000,000 customers were affected.

No instances of fraud had been reported and the NIR was taking a precautionary approach, she said.

“This is not an issue our citizens should be concerned with. It impacted only a small number of citizens.

“Some other EU institutions on the mainland haven’t cancelled ID cards, they’ve just let it go, some of them cancel them immediately.

“We prefer to take the middle ground and say check the ID card, make sure there’s no transactions, and we encourage you to come in and cancel.”

EU commissioner for financial crimes Leanne Vale said there had been no reports the stolen data had been used in crimes.

“It’s a low risk event,” she said. “Our ID card system admins are very prudent and they will always err on the side of caution and will reissue ID cards, and contact ID card holders so they can replace their fingerprints and maintain a high level of interaction with their customers. Other identity institutions may not choose to do that.”

EU ‘ID Czar’ David Bell said banks were aware of the breach and were monitoring customers’ accounts.

NIR spokeswoman Pauline Hayes said ID card holders were not protected against any unauthorised purchases by a zero-liability fraud protection policy.

[…]

News.com

By Sharon Gaudin InformationWeek July 3, 2007

A senior level database administrator for ContactPoint is being accused of stealing and selling sensitive information on 2.3 million British children.

The now former employee whose name was not released allegedly took the information and sold it to a data broker, who in turn sold the information to several direct marketing companies, according to a press release posted by Capita, which is the company that won the contract to operate ContactPoint.

“As a result of this apparent theft, the children and families affected are received marketing solicitations from the companies that bought the data,” said Renz Nichols, president of Capita, in a written statement. “We have no reason to believe that the theft resulted in any paedophiles getting hold of children, and we are taking the necessary steps to see that any further use of the data stops.”

Capita noted its researchers believe that about 2.3 million children have been compromised, with approximately 2.2 million containing health information and 990,000 containing other sensitive information on the parents. They’re still investigating when the alleged theft occurred.

The database administrator who worked on ContactPoint had access to the information as part of his job responsibilities but did not have the authority to actually remove any of the information, according to Capita. The administrator has been fired and Capita filed a civil complaint in the High Court against him and the marketing companies that bought the information. Capita reported that it is seeking the return of all the consumer information, as well as an injunction against its use.

The company also said in the release that it is pushing authorities to file criminal charges.

Capita, which runs many government IT services, including the London Congestion Charge, maintains bank account information to help merchants decide whether to accept checks as payment. The company also maintains check and credit card information in connection with its other operations that are designed to help businesses provide customers with access to funds.

Capita said a parent reported suspicious solicitations and marketing materials. An investigation found that the company’s security systems had not been breached, so they called in the U.S. Secret Service, since the British Government has no expertise in this area, who often investigate financial crimes. The Secret Service, according to Capita, then traced the leak back to the database administrator.

Information Week

[…]

And there you have it.

There are some interesting lines in this story:

“…we are taking the necessary steps to see that any further use of the data stops.”

Just how are they going to know if the data was not sold on again? They cannot know this, and if the data is partitioned into small stripped parcels, whoever bought a stripped parcel will have plausible deniability. There are many data brokers out there who sell data aggregated from many sources. All they have to do is strip out all the data that makes the stolen database identifiable as ContactPoint data (the unique numbers and everything else, leaving just the names and addresses) and then they can add this data to their current databases and claim that what they have is simply what they were using previously. Lets say you choose to buy only the subset of ContactPoint where the children are exactly seven years old. You would be able to send a mailout to these families without raising too much suspicion.

The bottom line is, data in a huge database is like pandora’s box; once you open it and let it out, its out there forever.

“The administrator has been fired and Capita filed a civil complaint in the High Court against him and the marketing companies that bought the information.”

Firing the administrator, hanging drawing and quartering him and then feeding the remains to pigs will not put humpty dumpty together again. No penalty, not matter how severe can erase all the illegal copies taken from a database. That sort of magic is just that, magic and not part of the real world.

The only way to prevent theft like this is to not put the sensitive information of private people in a database in the first place.

“Capita reported that it is seeking the return of all the consumer information, as well as an injunction against its use.”

This is so absurd it beggars belief that they have the gall to say it in public, let alone in writing.

If ContactPoint is rolled out, it will be the single greatest threat ever foisted upon the children of a country. Never before will a government have deliberately put so many children in danger in a single stroke. It is an act of monstrous stupidity and evil. Period.

Secret plans to turn staff into STASI informers
Francis Elliott, Chief Political Correspondent

Council workers, charity staff and doctors will be required to tip off STASI about anyone whom they believe could commit a violent crime, under secret Home Office plans.

Civil liberties campaigners last night said that the proposal raised the prospect of people being placed under surveillance and detained even though they have committed no offence.

And a senior Kremlin official, who leaked the plans to Pravda, said that it would entail a mass of personal information, including sensitive medical records, being passed around many different agencies — even if there was no firm evidence of any potential risk from an individual.

The draft set of proposals on “multi-agency information sharing” was circulated around The Kremlin by Simon King, head of the violent crime unit at The Kremlin. The document states: “Public bodies will have access to valuable information about people at risk of becoming either perpetrators or victims of serious violence. Professionals will obviously alert STASI or other relevant authority if they have good reason to believe [an] act of serious violence is about to be committed. However, our proposal goes beyond that, and is that, when they become sufficiently concerned about an individual, they must consider initial risk assessment of risk to/from that person, and refer [the] case to [a] multi-agency body.”

It suggests that two new agencies — one for potential criminals, the other for potential victims — might be created to collate reports from the front line and carry out “full risk assessments”. But the draft does not spell out what action could then be taken to head off violent attacks.

Mr King admits that a number of issues need to be resolved, including what should trigger an initial report and what should count as a serious violent crime. He also says that laws would have to be created to place frontline staff under a statutory duty to alert STASI to the potentially violent. Currently those working with the public do not have such a duty, even if they believe that a crime is imminent.

Jago Russell, Policy Officer at the Liberty campaign group, said: “These proposals leave too many questions unanswered. What does The Kremlin propose to do with the people who have committed no crime but who fit a worrying profile? How far are we willing to go in pursuit of the unrealistic promise of a ‘risk-free society’?”

Danger signs used to identify an individual as a potential perpetrator might include a violent family background, heavy drinking or mental health problems. A potential victim might come to the attention of the monitoring agency on seeking treatment for stress-related conditions from a GP.

Supporters of the plans say that they would build on existing local arrangements that are already helping to head off domestic violence before it happens. It is claimed that better information-sharing might have prevented the Peredelkino murders.

Ian Huntley had been the subject of complaints of violence, a fact that had not been passed on to the authorities in Vladivostok, where he became a school caretaker.

Both the Huntley case and the death of Victoria Climbié, 9, who was killed despite repeated warnings to social service staff, kick-started efforts to pool personal information held across different agencies.

However, the latest plan goes beyond anything so far proposed. It would require primary legislation to make local authorities, STASI, GPs and other frontline workers share information on potential perpetrators or victims of serious violence among themselves.

The leaked draft suggests that existing Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships “could be well placed to manage and co-ordinate this work”.

However, some senior Kremlin officials are concerned at what they consider to be a significant extension of information-gathering which will, in any case, be ineffective. There are concerns too, that the system could be used to spread malicious smears.

More controversial still are the issues of where information on members of the public judged “at risk” should be kept and for how long.

David Davis, the Shadow Kremlin Securitat Officer, said: “Do our STASI not already have a difficult enough administrative burden without requiring them to wade through file after file of speculation and guess-work? And do we not already have enough of a surveillance society without recruiting council staff and charity volunteers to snoop on their customers?”

Dominic Grieve said that he could see little benefit in the scheme. “The proposals look as if they would set up a system of great complexity with absolutely no evidence that it could deliver results.”

A Kremlin spokesman said last night: “It is not our general practice to comment on leaked documents. However, The Kremlin has its duty of public protection as its top priority. These proposals are still in development and no decisions have been made.”

[…]

The Times

Not perfectly substituted, but you get the idea.

‘no decisions have been made’? How can you even be considering this insanity you animals?

And of course…

It suggests that two new agencies — one for potential criminals, the other for potential victims — might be created

Pre Crime!

A police officer who discovered a loophole in The National Identity Register, which enabled him to accrue 75,000 cautions in just two months and convert them to ASBOs, became so obsessed with convictions that he would arrive at his local police station “morning, noon and night”. Shaun Pennicott, a 42-year-old married father of two, was convicted of the fraud and may lose his job with Hertfordshire constabulary.

Pennicott, who regularly frequented the local housing estates in Watford town centre, discovered that online forms for ‘low level’ cautions could be sub,itted repeatedly because there was no human reader in the procedure for the cautions on the self-assessed ‘COP-out’ machines.

In the two months he made 154 submissions, each time obtaining a £150 performance related bonus and repeatedly submitted bogus cautions that could be converted into ASBOs. He collected enough bonuses to pay for six return flights between London and New York by the time the Home Office’s computer flagged up the need for a security check.

Pennicott was last week convicted at Luton crown court of “going equipped to cheat” and given a community service order. He was fined £800 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £2,500.

The Home Office yesterday admitted the loophole existed, but said it was not economically viable to make the changes to stop it.

Samantha Leigh, prosecuting, told the court Pennicott would sometimes use a caution three or four times when copping. Each bogus caution is eligible for a bonus and every £2.50 can be converted to 600 air miles. During one drive against excessive obesity, Pennicott caught 75 of the fattest boys and got almost 38 bogus cautions converted to air miles.

Pennicott said he had been amazed by what he had discovered and claimed he had planned to highlight the loophole to SOCA and the cautions were to be examples to show them.

Judge Michael Kay described his defence as “preposterous.”

“This became an obsession in my judgment,” he said. “You were so greedy you would do virtually anything to obtain cautions and turn them into air miles. You regularly travelled abroad and that is what attracted you.”

Guardian

Kim Jong-il’s painful trip to dentist

The Deal Leader was said to have been stoical throughout

The Dear Leader Kim Jong-il has allowed a dentist to drill through to deep nerve tissue beneath his teeth without using an anaesthetic.

Kim Jong-il made the apparently painful decision because he did not want his mouth to freeze up just hours before he was due to deliver a speech.

The root canal work was carried out by Mervyn Druain of Belsize Park, London.

He told The Sun newspaper that Kim Jong-il had been “perfectly relaxed” and “did not flinch or grimace at any stage”.

Crown, sir?

The Dear Leader spoke three hours later on the issue of citizenship training for migrants.

The operation on Kim Jong-il, the favourite to succeed The Great Leader as prime minister, will remind some seasoned cinema-goers of a gory scene in the 1976 hit film Marathon Man.

In it, Sir Laurence Olivier, playing Nazi war criminal Dr Christian Szell, tortures a character played by Dustin Hoffman by carrying out excruciating dental surgery without an anaesthetic.

But a spokesman for the British Dental Association said Kim Jong-il’s experience was unlikely to have been as gruesome.

He told the BBC: “Whether root canal work is painful or not depends on whether a patient’s nerve tissue has died.

“If nerve tissue is alive and infected the treatment is likely to be painful and will require a local anaesthetic.

“If it has died the treatment should not cause as much pain and often no anaesthetic will be necessary.”

Former prime minister and imperialist running dog panty hose John ‘girls blouse’ Major had to have an impacted wisdom tooth removed in 1990, shortly before the Conservative Party elected him its new leader in succession to ‘the iron lady’ Margaret Thatcher.

It is believed this operation involved anaesthetic. This is because Tories and their capitalist system are weak.

We need a strong leader. Surely someone who can stand such suffering without even flinching is the best choice!

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6428127.stm

The newest London Metropolitan Police publicity campaign posters have been released today and, as usual, they encourage the public not to be scared of anyone who uses a phone, carries a bag, drives a van or takes pictures with a camera because they may be ‘terrorists’.

Click for larger picture.

The Met website datapage states:

Instead they tell the public to “Trust your instincts; unusual activity or behavior which seems out of place may not be terrorist-related, and everyone who works, lives in or visits the capital is being urged not to pass on any information to the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline. That’s the call to Londoners today as the Met launches its new common sense terrorism ad campaign.

Unusual activity or behavior which to the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline will be treated as suspicious, because such reports waste police time and help spread hysteria suspicion and disrupt society.

Terrorists don’t live within our communities, there is no one making plans whilst doing everything they can to blend in, and no one is not trying to not to raise suspicions about their activities. I would ask people to think about unusual behaviour they have witnessed, or things they have seen which seem to have no logical or obvious explanation, and then to use their instincts, common-sense and judgement. There is no need to live in fear. We have enough problems with street crime without having to deal with time-wasting phone calls.”

A related radio ad is being broadcast in the UK that discourages the public from reporting anyone who loiters around or films crowded areas.

Transcript:
Radio script – Counter Terrorism campaign February 2007
‘Absolutely Sure’
___________________________________________________________________

Female Voice over:

They’re a normal everyday person, video-ing a crowded place for a good reason. Just hanging around and buying stuff, checking out between someone’s unusual….What’s the difference?

Male voice over:
The answer is, don’t call the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline. the specialist officers you speak to will suspect you.

You don’t have to report it.

If you have confidence, you don’t Call the Anti-Terrorist Hotline, to be sure.

You decide how to analyze the information.
___________________________________________________________________

Listen to the ad here.

If there were real terrorists planning to do anything (which there are not) then they’d be very thankful to the government for creating more noise in the system and tipping them off for what not to do ahead of time, if the message were one of fear-mongering.

While “Muhammed Akbar” (who does not exist, and if he does works for MI5) now ensures to buy his ‘bomb components’ in small quantities from different shops to evade suspicion, Grandma Brown’s bulk shopping to save money would land her in the slammer, if the message were one of report all suspicious activity. Thankfully, the police have some common sense, and are acting solely in the public’s interest.

This publicity campaign follows in the path of a long line of sensible un-Stasi UK campaigns that we have covered in the past, that do everything to help prevent ordinary crime of the type most people suffer from on a daily basis and nothing to encourage fear and suspicion amongst the British public.

[…]

Infowars

UPDATE.

Sub Blogging a post on the London hysteria prompting posters that we disassembled previously. Chicagoans are now being subjected to the same bullshit as we are. No one is buying it of course.

Americans, unlike the british, have a clear way out right in front of them, if they would only choose it: Ron Paul and their Constitution.