“A tiny island off the coast of mainland Europe effectively ruled one third of the world for more than four centuries, 50 nations and one quarter of the worlds population came under its jursdiction. It was not found necessary to inflict a common currency on member countries or to translate every piece of information in multi languages. It did not require a seperate and gigantic administration to control this vast group of nations – it was run by the Commonwealth Office.

This Office and this country did not presume to dictate to it’s charges what they could eat, where they could fish or how long they could work, nor did they insist on changing their laws and traditions.

It still did not last – why or how do you think that a Federal Europe will? – by force?”

Posted by Bob wydell on June 25, 2007 3:58 PM

The Telegraph

I like it.®

Vladimir Bukovksy, the 63-year old former Soviet dissident, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. In a speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a “monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state.

[…]

In his speech Mr Bukovsky referred to confidential documents from secret Soviet files which he was allowed to read in 1992. These documents confirm the existence of a “conspiracy” to turn the European Union into a socialist organization.

[…]

Vladimir Bukovsky: I am referrring to structures, to certain ideologies being instilled, to the plans, the direction, the inevitable expansion, the obliteration of nations, which was the purpose of the Soviet Union. Most people do not understand this. They do not know it, but we do because we were raised in the Soviet Union where we had to study the Soviet ideology in school and at university. The ultimate purpose of the Soviet Union was to create a new historic entity, the Soviet people, all around the globe. The same is true in the EU today. They are trying to create a new people. They call this people “Europeans”, whatever that means.

According to Communist doctrine as well as to many forms of Socialist thinking, the state, the national state, is supposed to wither away. In Russia, however, the opposite happened. Instead of withering away the Soviet state became a very powerful state, but the nationalities were obliterated. But when the time of the Soviet collapse came these suppressed feelings of national identity came bouncing back and they nearly destroyed the country. It was so frightening.

[…]

Propaganda Matrix

Who can say that this is a lie?

The people of the independent states of Europe are against it becoming a super state, and where an election was held, the populations voted ‘no’. In spite of this, they are brining in all the elements of that evil and discredited document into force via a treaty, directly disobeying the electorate. That is PRECISELY the sort of thing that was the norm in the Soviet Union. Bukovsky is right. The EU should be dismantled, leaving only its currency intact. SHENGEN, Maastricht, everything needs to be thrown out, because the people who run the EU cannot be trusted and the EU’s very existence is a deadly poison to liberty.

And as for calling Bukovsky a Terrorist, read about it yourself.

The offences admitted to would be subject to various penalties
More than six out of 10 people regularly commit crimes against the government, their employers or businesses, research suggests.

Keele University researchers said it showed petty crime was rife among the middle classes and exposed the “law-abiding majority” to be a myth.

Their poll of 1,807 people in England and Wales found 61% had committed one of a series of offences.

They included paying “cash in hand” to avoid VAT and stealing items from work.

The study found that around one-third of those questioned (34%) paid “cash in hand” to avoid taxation and about one in five (18%) had taken something, such as stationery, from work.

Other findings included:

• One in 11 had wrongly used identification for their own gain
• 7% of those questioned had padded out an insurance claim to get more money
• One in 10 (11%) avoided paying their television licence
• A total of 8% did not disclose faulty goods in second-hand sales
• And 6% asked a friend in a bureaucratic job to bend the rules

Of those who admitted to an offence, nearly two-thirds (62%) had broken the law on up to three occasions and 10% admitted to nine or more offences.

The study’s author, Professor Suzanna Karstedt, said: “Contempt for the law is as widespread in the centre of society as it is assumed to be rampant at the margins and among specific marginal groups.

“Anti-social behaviour by the few is mirrored by anti-civil behaviour by the many.

“Neither greed nor need can explain why respectable citizens cheat on insurance claims or in second-hand sales, and do not hesitate to discuss their exploits with friends in pubs.”

The study, of people aged 25 to 65, was published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College, London.

[…]

So says BBQ

The truth of the matter is that people in the UK understand that they are being screwed. If everything was fair, no one would bother paying cash just to save VAT, but they do so, wherever and whenever they can because they feel in the marrow of their bones that they are being cheated at every turn.

Those that can, escape. Those that cannot, take every opportunity to get back at the system that treats them like property.

And if you think it’s bad now, just you wait.

The straightjacket that is the Quantized Human Pleb Grid will so incense and outrage the souls of the British that the stored rage pent up for decades will eventually explode into rioting and mass destruction, of a type never before seen in this fair land.

The British are not stupid. They know what is being done to them. They also know that patience is a virtue, and that they ultimately have the power to change everything should they see fit to do so.

This report explicitly states what everyone has known privately for ages; the law is totally discredited, and it is ignored where and when the public sees fit to ignore it, and the majority of people only obey the laws that they think are reasonable. Everything else is simply shrugged off or actively broken, like the hunters, who have carried on doing what they have done for generations.

The question is, will this country reach a tipping point, where everything bad is ignored. Will everyone simply stop responding to traffic camera bills for example? What could anyone possibly do if everyone just stopped paying attention to that grossly unfair money making scam of a system? The answer is that the only thing they could do is dismantle it. This would not be a reaction caused by any submission to the will of the electorate (as they would no doubt spin it) but it would be instead, an act of staving off, of preventing a rapid spread of general disorder.

I had a chat with a seventy seven year old Englishman, who during our talk rattled off every single righteous complaint about Bliar and Murder inc., incandescent with rage as he spelled it out perfectly. This man was not in any way radicalized, or ‘up on his internets’ or in any way one of the usual suspects. He is pensioner, and a gentle soul, and he represents the sort of mild mannered, tolerant, reasonable Englishman who has had enough. When he spontaneously started to lay into Bliar and the Murder Cabal, and I felt is seething rage, I immediately had the impression that it was possible for everything to change.

This conversation was triggered by the EU Constitution and its shoehorning by the venal anti-democratic and brazen leaders, who, not having gained the consent of the population, are simply going to do it anyway, via a treaty.

That they believe they can get away with this, and that they have done this at all shows that they are not fit people, and that they and their experiment really has no legitimacy. The Italians have much to teach us about how to live in a stifling bureaucracy, and it seems the British are moving into that framework. It is much better however to live without having to lie and hate all the time. It degrades your spirit, and makes people less human.

A Big Party in Amsterdam:

The London Underground Jubilee Line:

The theatre of noise is proof of our potential:

And, in the history of now:

Changeable. Alterable. Mutable. Variable. Versatile. Moldable. Movable. Fluctuate. Undulate. Flicker. Flutter. Pulsate. Vibrate. Alternate. Plastic.

James Meikle
Friday June 22, 2007
The Guardian

Misuse of an electronic database holding sensitive information on 11 million children in England could lead to millions of breaches of security each year, it is claimed today. Privacy campaigners and independent schools have warned of the “enormous” potential for abuse of the huge IT system to be launched next year.

In a letter to the Guardian, they appeal to the government to reconsider “this hugely expensive and intrusive scheme”. The Guardian revealed on Monday how the system would be open to at least 330,000 people as part of an effort to prevent deaths such as that of Victoria Climbié by helping children’s services work together.

Critics fear it will breach the right to privacy and are concerned about security. It will be accessible through the internet with a two-part authentication.

But today’s letter, signed by representatives of the Independent Schools Council, Action on Rights for Children, the Foundation for Information Policy Research, the Open Rights Group and Privacy International, says that the problems of “a potentially leaky and inadequate system” must be solved before the plan goes further. It claims that evidence from Leeds NHS trust last year suggested that in one month staff logged 70,000 incidents of inappropriate access. “On the basis of these figures, misuse of the ContactPoint system could run to 1,650,000 incidents a month.”

[…]

The computer illiterate Guardian

My emphasis.

Firstly, these moronic journalists have no idea about how to tell these stories because they are computer illiterates. Only a computer illiterate would use a phrase like ‘two-part authentication’ in this context. The correct phrase is:

‘only a user name and password’

When you use the correct phrase, it is then easy to paint a picture of people sharing usernames and passwords to gain entry into this system, which will be live over the internets.

This means that anyone with the url, a leaked username and password and the intent, can get onto the system, and then start to copy the entries one by one.

In fact, a smart person could write a simple PHP script to scrape the entries one by one over a long period of time, prompting the user for an alternative username and password should the one he is supplied with cease to be useful.

Everyone knows about Bugmenot, the service that supplies you with usernames and passwords to many sites on the internets. I’m sure that the Bugmenot Admins would NEVER allow usernames and passwords to ContactPoint on their system, but what Bugmenot demonstrates is that it is easy to not only share usernames and passwords, but it is possible to automate the sharing of these usernames and passwords.

Of course, none of this is in this article. It is not vivid in even the most simple area, that of using the correct terminology, which everyone is familiar with since most people in the UK have some contact with internet accounts and logging into them with a user name and a password.

Even that journalist must have experience of logging into his email account; how is it that these people cannot make the insight jump to the next logical point in the argument against this?

Because they are THICK AS SHIT.

We have been tapped for the Thinking Blogger Award by Dare to Know.

Special thanks must go to Alun, Meau², and all our regular contributors past and present. You really are and have been the best.

Other blogs that make us think:

Jultra. Jultra says everything that we know is true, and is says it plainly and beautifully at once. He is a master of the english language, as British caricaturist James Gillray was a master of his art. People like Jultra are what made Great Britain the best country in the world to live in for many decades. Unmissable, brilliant and without equal.

Consent of the Governed Consent of the Governed is a blog written by someone who embodies the true spirit of that once great country The United States of America. Writing common sense in fine English, with self restraint, backed by the facts, this blog really is a joy to read, because it gives us hope that in the USA, there are still people who cherish that country’s true values.

Kurt Nimmo. Kurt Nimmo is a great writer who tells the truth eloquently. For this sin, he is now in big trouble. That is a great badge of honor to wear Kurt.

Papers Please! As the veneer of democracy starts to fade, and fascism rises faster and stronger, blogs like Papers Please! are essential reading. This blog is a perfect example of the phenomenon and utility of blogging and personal world wide publishing that has changed everything, and tipped the balance back in our favor.

Shortwave Music This blog carries clips of sound that break my heart. There is beauty to be found in every sound, every corner of the world, and shortwave radio, with its technical quirks infinitely changing and profoundly beautiful sculpting of sound is a never ending source of pure ecstasy for the open minded (and eared) listener. Listening to the examples here set your mind alight; a priceless blog.

330,000 users to have access to database on England’s children

• Family campaigners raise concerns over security
• Index is intended to avoid another Climbié case

Lucy Ward, social affairs correspondent
Monday June 18, 2007
The Guardian

A giant electronic database containing sensitive information on all 11 million children in England will be open to at least 330,000 users when it launches next year, according to government guidance.

A final consultation on the plan reveals that the index, intended to help children’s services work together more effectively following the death of Victoria Climbié, will be accessible through any computer linked to the internet, whether at work or at home, providing users have the correct two-part security authentication.

Guidance on the £224m project warns those authorised to use the system not to access it in internet cafes or on computers in public reception areas, and instructs them never to leave the database logged on in case of unauthorised use.

Though it stresses the sophistication of the electronic security surrounding the databank, it acknowledges: “No system can be 100% guaranteed against misuse.” The government was warned by family campaigners that parents would be concerned about the number of people able to search the database, and about the potential security risk.

Mary MacLeod, chief executive of the Family and Parenting Institute, said: “Our research with parents suggests they will have great anxiety about the proposals.”

The universal database, forecast to cost £41m a year to run, has prompted controversy since the government set out its legal underpinning in the 2004 Children Act. Ministers argue the system will help prevent the lack of communication between children’s services revealed in the Laming inquiry into the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbié, and will boost early intervention where children need it.

However, critics argue it breaches a child’s right to privacy, while others have raised concerns about security.

The database, named ContactPoint, will store basic identifying information including date of birth, address, name of parent and an identifying number for each child up to the age of 18. It will also hold contact details for services involved with the child, including school and GP practice but also others, though consent is required for details of sensitive services such as sexual and mental health.

No one will be allowed to opt out of the database, but children or their parents will have the right to ask to see information about them and challenge it if it is wrong. Children’s details can also be electronically “shielded” if they are considered to be at increased risk – an exemption which, controversially, could extend to the offspring of high-profile figures.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2105187,00.html

Every Child Matters, but it seems, some children matter more than others.

The right to CHALLENGE information if it is wrong is completely different to being able to CHANGE information if it is wrong, and if this insanity goes ahead, you can imagine the horrible process that would be involved in any such ‘challenge’.

And of course, they will use these unique numbers and roll them over into the NIR, creating a system that automatically populates it from birth from now (2008, if they manage to create this database) on.

This is pure evil, and the fact that they are going to ‘shield’ the identities of the children of the rich and famous proves that this database is dangerous to every child.

From the policy document:

Objectives of ContactPoint

4. The objectives of ContactPoint are to:
• help practitioners identify quickly a child with whom they have contact, and whether that child is getting the universal services (education, primary health care) to which he or she is entitled;

and then:

Which children and young people will be covered?

9. ContactPoint also supports the policy objective of identifying early those children with additional needs which should be addressed if they are to achieve the Every Child Matters outcomes, and then addressing those needs swiftly and effectively. It is estimated that at any one time 3-4 million children have such needs.

10. ContactPoint will cover all children and young people in England.
This is because:
• it is not possible to predict in advance which children will have needs for additional services;
• any child or young person could require the support of those services at any time in their childhood; and
• all children have the right to the universal services (education, primary health care), and the basic data will show whether or not they are receiving, and will then, as necessary, support local action to ensure they do receive them.

What this says is very clear; every child has the right to education, and this system will make sure that they will be forced to receive these ‘rights’.

If it is shown that a child is not receiving the ‘right’ to go to school, then the system will flag them, and the ‘right’ to attend school will be enforced.

Note how they justify putting EVERY CHILD in the system because, “it is not possible to predict in advance which children will have needs for additional services”, in other words, every parent is a potential criminal, and every child is a potential victim, and so we must put everyone under surveillance.

They understand that people do not like to be surveilled:

In order to ensure universal coverage, and also to ensure that the most vulnerable children have a record, inclusion of a child or young person on ContactPoint will not be subject to consent. However, where a practitioner is delivering a sensitive service to a child or young person, inclusion of that practitioner’s contact details on the child’s record will be subject to the informed and explicit consent of the young person, or, in the case of a child, the parent. Access to this information, once placed on the child’s record, will also be tightly restricted. Sensitive services are specific services in the fields of sexual health, mental health, and substance abuse. The purpose of this approach is to prevent children and young people being deterred from accessing these services.

Once everyone with a sensitive medical problem understands that touching this system in any way marks you forever, they WILL stay away from it, becauase they will understand that anyone can find out everything about them. And this will be carried over into adulthood:

ContactPoint will cover children and young people up to their 18th birthday. To help ensure that the transition from youth to adult services is managed smoothly, it may also be desirable to make provision to retain some basic information for young adults with multiple needs, (for example care leavers and young people with disabilities), beyond their 18th birthday, with their consent.

So, your consent to be kept on this database can be asked if you are 18; does this mean that the records pertaining to each child as it reaches its 18th year will be deleted?. Also, why is it that parents cannot opt out of this system on behalf of their children, but children themselves can do so when they reach 18? If it is good for you when you are less than 18, surely it is good for you after you are 18; why should you be given the choice to opt out then, and not before?

Parents have the absolute right to care for their children in the way that they see fit. By saying that the parent does not have the right to opt their children out, the state is taking on the role of the parent in saying what is and is not of benefit to the child which is totally unacceptable to any decent person. They are making the children of the UK into property.

Parents have an obligation to protect their children from harm. This database constitutes real harm, and so, all parents who object to it, should opt out of it by any means necessary.

People with money (people with means) will now have to find private doctors who use only paper to keep records, and who are true to their Hippocratic Oath. This database violates the privacy of children, puts them in harms way, damages them and their families and so therefore, all doctors should refuse to engage with it in any way.

And the people without money? I guess they will just have to vote Tory next time round.

How are they going to populate this database?

To avoid double-inputting of data and to ensure high standards of accuracy, information will be drawn from and updated through, a range of existing national and local systems, using proven technology.

This means that it is going to be a total mess. Which is a good thing, because if it does not work, eventually it will be shut down as non cost effective.

And what if people abuse the system? (other than the hackers who will be able to own this system within 15 minutes of it going live)

A range of sanctions are available to manage inappropriate use, and can include disciplinary action, fines and custodial sentences.

Of course, none of these sanctions will put the data back in the database. Once it is out there, it is out there forever, and no amount of prison time, fines, disciplinary action or any thing else will change that.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of data, and it also shows a lack of understanding of the risk such a system poses.

By assembling this system, they are putting ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE UK AT RISK because a statistically small number of children are being mistreated. By creating this system, they are abusing ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE UK, where they were not before being abused and violated.

This government has, through this project, become the single biggest abuser of children in the history of Great Britain.

And finally:

18.

During the implementation phase, each Local Authority will be funded to provide a small team to support data migration, matching and cleansing during roll-out. There will also be a role for authorities to communicate and consult widely in their areas and to locally promote ContactPoint. Each Authority will maintain a small team to support ongoing data migration, matching and cleansing, and technical support for authorised users. This team would be responsible for service management, systems administration, data management, professional support and administration of local access. Local authorities will be supported by the central project team through this process, and will receive training, guidance and support to carry out this important role.

So there will be hoards of people given access to this database as it is being created, who will sift and sort through everyone, looking through everyones personal details as they ‘match and cleanse’. This is a total nightmare.

LEts think about some security breach scenarios, many of which we have discussed on BLOGDIAL before:

Casually shared login details:
We all know about the sharing of logins and passwords that is rampant throughout many systems world wide. All it will take is one person to allow their account to be used for the entire system to be compromised, and of course, once the data is out there, it is out there FOREVER.

Hackers Owning the DB:
I guarantee you that some hackers will own this database within minutes or days of it going online. They will then do an SQL dump of the whole database, and then all of it, records of every child in the UK will be out there, FOREVER. This is a scenario that WILL take place.

Duplication by increments:
This database and its entire contents will be duplicated over time, as every small breach and copying of a record means that particular record is out there forever. Over 10 years (if this nightmare goes ahead) we will see near complete copies of this database in private hands.

This database is not only extremely valuable to sex monsters, but it is literally millions of times more valuable to toy, clothes and book manufacturers who would pay anything (even fines and jail time) for access to the clean database of names ages, genders and addresses of all the children in the UK, so that they can market to them directly and individually. This database represents a business opportunity without precedent. And you can guarantee that the selling of it will be proposed as a way to offset the cost of running it.

Bad insiders:
Bad insiders; we have talked about them on BLOGDIAL before, and there is nothing that you can do about them. No amount of ‘enhanced criminal records checks’ will be able to predict which of these 330,000 people will crack under pressure. Criminal records checks only tell you the people who have not yet committed a crime, they cannot predict the future.

This government is totally insane to be doing this. No doubt about it.

The ultimate question for all parents is, what are you going to do to protect your children and to keep them out of this database? How far are you willing to go to do it?

Freedom, not climate, is at risk

Vaclav Klaus
Friday June 15, 2007

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.

Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).

Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.

I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.

The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

• As a witness to today’s worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:
• Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
• Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
• Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
• Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
• Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
• Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction
• Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

Financial Times

Thank heaven, Jultra is back, with his usual, beautiful and inspiring English:

[…]
Let’s just quickly look at this: Blair’s recent attack effectively on blogs like this. I guess that means we have won the arguments then.

The speech contains the usual obvious soundbytes to set the tone like ‘changing context’ and ’21st century’ (see this) and so on.

Although Blair starts with the mainstream media, naturally, none of this is aimed at the BBC, or the Daily Mail, or the ‘Independent’ (who Blair duplicitously pretends to complain about) all of whom by far on balance, carry out the will of the same consituency Blair represents pretty much most of the time.

The mainstream media is either so utterly impotent or so totally complicit that it poses no threat at all and can usually be relied upon to comformatably blindly report spin from the government as news or fudge the issues of the day into crap like ‘Germans put bugs in our wheelie bins’. It can be relied upon to be pro ID-cards (BBC), pro CCTV (BBC), pro European world government (BBC) and so on, pro ‘War on Terror’ (Telegraph, BBC) etc. It can’t quite be too overtly pro- Iraq war these days, although privately, with the exception of ITN and perhaps one or 2 other outlets, the integrity of the MSM’s ‘anti-warness’ has to be questioned.

So this whole stream of waffle by Blair is aimed squarely at the alternative media, and what Blair is trying to do is blame everyone else for the correctly appalled response to his vile crimes, the crimes of his party and supporters and backers.
Blair says:

“The damage saps the country’s confidence and self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future.”

Sure, so you can get a nice compliant green light to drop bombs on Iran ? So you can get guillable British citizens to line up to join the quantized human pleb grid. So no one questions what happens when a ‘terrorist event’ occurs and all dotingly rally behind the government and start worshipping it again ?

But it is the country, not some nebulous desirable ‘relationship between media and public life’ that is wholly damaged, and it is Blair and his vile supporters that have willfully and with enormous and giddy glee caused that damage to the country and to its institutions. None of that is an accident, or some misunderstanding, on the contrary it’s all quite deliberate.

[…]

And the only remedy for this terrible damage is in the alternative media, not in the ghoulish grotesque ambition of the stained Gordon Brown ever sweatily fumbling for power and trying to distance himself from the attrocities in Iraq when it is politically expedient to do so, or the outgoing speeches of a vile disgraced sociopath like Blair, or the hopeless projection of worthless ideas from various pro-regime Guardian columnists onto the rotting goverment.

The country is badly badly damaged as I’ve said here for a long time now, there’s no point arguing about it, or denying it. It’s just the reality, and a dangerously reality where it is becoming altogether undesirable to live here at all or even be associated with this country.

It is a really serious situation. The rule of law is badly damaged, the meaning of the state is enormously damaged, and the governement is irrepairrably damaged because of its own horrendous actions and it is so seriously compromised as an entity now, that quite honestly it is difficult to see what point there is in contributing to this mess anymore.

It should come as no surprise that such a rotting demonic monster, this conduit of global evil Mr Blair (with the approval of Mr Murdoch and buddies) instead still has the sheer audacity to try to spin it all around and blame everyone else for his own sickening behaviour and crimes against the world and this country. And again this should serve as an another reminder of why Blair is either so corrupted personally by forces acting on him, or who’s own judgement is so monstrously flawed and distorted that he is basically incapable of making a judgement at all.

[…]

Jultra

Without people like Jultra writing, linking and thus informing, all is lost.

This very article demonstrates how important people like Jultra are, and how much of a real threat Bloggers are.

It also demonstrates how important it is to keep up regular posting, and to not become disheartened, fatigued or disillusioned. It is hard work. It takes up your time. It puts you at risk because these words will last forever. Despite all of this, it needs to be done, if only to be able to say, “I didn’t sit there quietly and take it”.

The new film ‘Taking Liberties‘ is all about everything anyone with a brain-cell has understood for years. What is interesting is that on its weblog, when you want to publish a comment it is set to:

“This blog does not allow anonymous comments.”

Nice one. Anonymity and the ability to publish anonymously is an important right:

In the legal tradition, the right to anonymity is integrally related to an individual’s freedom of expression guarantees. Historically, many authors publish anonymously because their message is too controversial and they risk persecution or social ostracization for the content of their speech. Fundamental principles upon which the US Constitution is grounded were first espoused in The Federalist Papers , by “Publius”, the famous moniker used by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton when they wished to publish anonymously. Ironically, George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm , concealed his name and identity, Eric Blair, out of fear of political backlash for his views. The historical and political use of anonymous speech demonstrates that it is a vital part of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

Like the right to distribute thoughts and ideas, the right to anonymous publishing is an essential component to freedom of expression guarantees. It protects the most valuable speech in a free society: the views that challenge the status quo, the majority, or government.

The US Supreme Court has historically recognized that the constitution’s freedom of expression guarantees protects a publisher’s right to anonymity. According to the US Supreme Court, the right to speak anonymously, “exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and the First Amendment in particular.” ( McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm ., 514 U.S. 334 (1995). According to Justice Stevens, anonymity is a prerequisite for speech in some cases. He pointed out that the motivation for anonymous publication may be to avoid social ostracism, to prevent retaliation, or to protect privacy. It is anonymous speech that shields individuals “from the tyranny of the majority … [It] protects unpopular individuals from retaliation – and their ideas from suppression – a the hand of an intolerant society.” Id.

In Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc. v. Village of Stratton , 122 S. Ct. 2080, 2090 (2002), the US Supreme Court ruled that a municipal ordinance requiring pamphleteers to disclose names implicates “anonymity interests” rooted in the First Amendment’s freedom of expression guarantees. The US Supreme Court also struck down a law requiring citizens to wear identification badges because it violated citizens’ First Amendment right to anonymity. ( Buckley v. Am. Constitutional Law Foun., Inc. , 525 U.S. 182 (1992).

Lower federal courts have specifically extended the right to publish anonymously to the Internet, ruling that “the constitutional rights of Internet users, including the right to speak anonymously, must be carefully safeguarded,” ( Doe v. 2TheMart.com, Inc ., 140 F. Supp.2d at 1097). The First Amendment right communicate anonymously over the Internet was also upheld in ACLU v. Johnson , 4 F. Supp.2d 1029, 1033 (D.N.M. 1998), aff’d, 194 F.3d 1149 (10 th Cir. 1999) and in ACLU of Georgia v. Miller , 977 F. Supp. 1228, 1230 (N.D. Ga 1997), which additionally recognized the constitutional right to communicate pseudonymously on the Internet.

Canadian courts have likewise extended the right to speak anonymously to the Internet:

“Some degree of privacy or confidentiality with respect to the identity of the Internet protocol address of the originator of message has significant safety value and is in keeping with what should be perceived as being good public policy.” Wilkins J. in Irwin Toy v. Doe (2000), 12 C.P.C. (5 th ) 103 (Ont. S.C.J.) […]

But there is much worse about these people….

What is most galling about them is their ‘what you can do‘ page.

As you know being an avid reader of BLOGDIAL, we understand that demonstrations are totally ineffective, and anyone who asks you to demonstrate is actually a part of the problem.

The only way we can permanently stop war is to think obliquely use common sense and do not do anything that will not permanently fix what is wrong.

We had this debate on BLOGDIAL before the historic march organized by StopWar. Demonstrations are pointless because they do not achieve their ends, and the people who go on them are nothing more than stupid monkeys; the people who organize them are actually working for the enemy. Time and time again we have said this, (and other stuff) and had it proved, sadly.

Now the directors of this film, after everything we have said and witnessed are asking everyone to:

Join Amnesty
Visit and sign up online:
web.amnesty.org/pages/join-eng

Join Liberty
Visit and sign up online:
www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/join

Email Your MP
Demand to know what they are doing about the issues raised in the film:
www.writetothem.com

Join the Mass Lone Demos
Demonstrations take place 5pm to 7:30pm on the third Wednesday of every month, forms [MS WORD] [PDF] must be handed in or sent by recorded delivery 1 week beforehand.

[…]

Joining Amnesty will not cause one law to be repealed, nor will it stop new bad legislation from being enacted.

Similarly, Joining Liberty will achieve absolutely nothing at all.

Emailing the very people who pass the laws that enslave you is just STUPID.

And joining demonstrations we know about, don’t we?

Telling the truth is not enough. Acting is not enough. Correct Action is the only thing that will change what you want changed.

But you know this!

Ther love songs start at dusk, at first drifting across from the other side of the river. The bamboo groves on the mountain opposite are bathed in the gold of the lingering rays of the sun while this side of the river is already cloaked in night. Young women in groups of five or six come to the river bank, some standing in a circle and others calling their lovers. Melodious singing rapidly fills the vast night. Young women are everywhere, still with their parasols up and holding a handkercheif or a fan. There are also some thirteen- or fourteen year old girls who are just becoming aware of boys.
In each group one girl leads the singing and the other girls harmonize. I observe that the lead singer is invariably the prettiest of the group, I suppose choice by beauty is a fairly natural principle.
The voice of the lead singer rises in the air and I can’t help noticing her utter sincerity. The correct word is perhaps not “sing”, for the clear shrill sounds come from deep within so that body and heart respond. The sounds seem to travel from the soles of the feet then shoot up between the eyes and the forehead before they are produced – no wonder they’re called “flying songs”. It is totally instinctive, uncontrived, unrestrained and unembellished, and certainly devoid of what might be called embarrasment. Each woman exerts herself, body and heart, to draw her man to her.

[…]

So-called civilisation in later ages separated sexual impulse from love and created the concepts of status, wealth, religion, ethics and cultural responsibility. Such is the stupidity of human beings.

Gao Xingjian on Miao courting.

————–

Our singer is called Josephine. Anyone who has not heard her does not know the power of song. There is no one but is carried away by her singing, a tribute all the greater as we are not in general a music-loving race. Tranquil peace is the music we love best; our life is hard, we are no longer able, even on occasions when we have tried to shake off the cares of daily life, to rise to anything so high and remote from our usual routine as music. But we do not much lament that; we do not get even so far; a certain practical cunning, which admittedly we stand greatly in need of, we hold to be our greatest distinction, and with a smile born of such cunning we are wont to console ourselves for all shortcomings, even supposing—only it does not happen that we were to yearn once in a way for the kind of bliss which music may provide. Josephine is the sole exception; she has a love for music and knows too how to transmit it; she is the only one; when she dies, music—who knows for how long—will vanish from our lives.

I have often thought about what this music of hers really means. For we are quite unmusical; how is it that we understand Josephine’s singing or, since Josephine denies that, at least think we can understand it. The simplest answer would be that the beauty of her singing is so great that even the most insensitive cannot be deaf to it, but this answer is not satisfactory. If it were really so, her singing would have to give one an immediate and lasting feeling of being something out of the ordinary, a feeling that from her throat something is sounding which we have never heard before and which we are not even capable of hearing, something that Josephine alone and no one else can enable us to hear. But in my opinion that is just what does not happen, I do not feel this and have never observed that others feel anything of the kind. Among intimates we admit freely to one another that Josephine’s singing, as singing, is nothing out of the ordinary.

[continues]