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

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

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

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

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

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

Council takes overweight child into care

Sarah Knapton
Monday September 10, 2007
The Guardian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now.

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

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

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

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

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

They can take your child because you refuse to:

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

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

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

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

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

Europe to rule on whether police can keep DNA of innocent people
By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor
Published: 08 September 2007

Police could lose the power to keep DNA samples taken from suspects who have been cleared of any wrongdoing, in a landmark case which is to be decided by the highest court in Europe.

A ruling against the British Government could lead to the destruction of tens of thousands of DNA and fingerprint materials as well as deal a severe blow to any plans to create a universal genetic database.

The challenge at the European Court of Human Rights is being brought by a teenager, known as S, who was arrested and charged with attempted robbery aged 11 in 2001, and Michael Marper, from Sheffield, who was arrested on harassment charges, aged 38, in the same year. Both were cleared and have no criminal records.

But the Court of Appeal ruled in 2002 that they cannot ask for their DNA and fingerprint evidence to be destroyed. One of the judges hearing the appeal was Sir Stephen Sedley, who this week called for a national database to include DNA samples taken from every British citizen and any foreign visitors to this country. His comments provoked outrage from the human rights group Liberty, which called his proposal “chilling”.

European judges in Strasbourg believe the issue is so important that they have decided to fast-track the case to go before the grand chamber, where all the Strasbourg justices will sit to determine the matter.

The decision has been taken because the court decided that the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights or because its resolution might have a result inconsistent with a previous judgment of the court.

In both cases, the clients asked that their fingerprints and DNA samples be destroyed – but the requests were refused by South Yorkshire Police.

Mr Marper and the juvenile argued that keeping fingerprints and especially DNA samples was an unjustified breach of their right to respect for private life protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. They are especially concerned about the future uses to which the DNA samples might be put, and the lack of independent oversight in the national DNA database.

They are represented by Peter Mahy, a civil liberties specialist at Sheffield-based Howells, and one the country’s most respected human rights barristers, Richard Gordon QC. Mr Mahy said:”This decision by the European Court of Human Rights gives us significant hope that these cases will finally result in a massive change in the law – providing protection for those acquitted of crimes against their fingerprints and DNA samples being kept, putting them on a level footing with those not previously accused of any crimes.”

He added: “We think this will be one of the most important human rights challenges the court has grappled with in recent years.”

This is all well and good, but there are problems with this.

Why should Britain be obeying this court, and why should people in the UK not be able to get justice from their own courts? Why is it that people in the UK are being criminally mistreated and abused in this way in the first place?

And should the court side with the keeping with DNA samples from the innocent, what then? Does this suddenly make it ‘all right’?

I don’t think so.

Britain should be the most just place, the most fair place, and the second you have to go to another court, in another country, something very important is lost; confidence in British Justice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

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

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

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

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

For a bunch of academics they are not very bright.

I sympathize with these people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that is why all is lost.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

Political Considerations

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raw Story

My emphasis.

Just read some of the comments on this story:

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

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

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

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

and so on…

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

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

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

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

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

You know that.

A list of the names of the gangs of London,  updated August 4th 2010, with new ‘Thugs of Stone Bridge’ video!.

1. Brent
Church Road Thugs
Cricklewood (SLK)
Thugs of Stone Bridge
Acorn Man Dem
Walthamstow/DMX
NW Untouchable
SK-Hood
Church Road Man Dem
St Ralph’s Soldiers
Greenhill Yout Dem
Out to Terrorise (OTT)
Harsh-Don Man Dem
9 Mill Kids (9MK)
Shakespeare Youts
Westside/Red Crew
Stonebridge Man Dem
Ministry of Darkness
Willesden Green Boys
Araly Yardies (elders)
Lock City
The Copeland Boys
Mus Luv
GP Crew (Grahame Park)

2. West London
Westbourne Park Man Dem
South Acton Boys
Queen Caroline Estate
Ladbroke Grove Man Dem
Latimer Road Man Dem
Kensal Town Man Dem
Queens Park Man Dem
Edwardes Wood Boys
Bush Man Dem
Becklow Man Dem
West Kensington Estate
Cromer Street Boys
Bhatts
Kanaks
Holy Smokes
Tooti Nungs
MDP (Murder Dem Pussies)
DGD (Deadly Gash Dem)

3. Camden
Born Sick Gang
Centric Gang
Cromer Street Massive
Denton Boys
Drumond Street Posse
NW1 Boyz (Combo Gang)
Peckwater Gang
WC1 Gang

4. Enfield
N9 Chopstiks Gang
Red Brick Gang
Shanksville (aka Tanners End Lane Gang)
Little Devils
NorthSide Chuggy Chix
Chosen Soldiers
South Man Syndicate
Boydems Most Wanted
EMD Enfield Boys
TFA Tottanham Boys
Tiverton Boys

5. Newham
Beckton Man Dem
JC Boys
Blackwater Man Dem
Forest Gate Man Dem
Paki Panthers
Tamil Tigers
African Devilz
Plaistow Man Dem
Ama Tugz
Stratford Man Dem
Jeeperz
East Ham Boys

6. Waltham Forest
Beaumont Crew
Chingford Hall Man Dem
Boundary Boys
Hatch Man Dem
Chingford Hall Boys
Beaumont Man Dem
Piff City Bangers (Bang Bang Smash)
Leytonstone Man Dem
Oliver Close Crew
Priory Court Boys
Get Money Daily
Barrier Youts
Cathall Boys
Walnut Road Crew
Senyahs Walthamstow
Tamils
Walthamstow Boys

7. Hackney
E9 Bang Bang (They have lots of Google)
Haggerston Fields Combined
Holly Street Boys
Hoxton Boys
London Fields
Pembury Estate
Love of Money Crew
Hackney Posse
Springfield Crew
Manor House Crew
August Town Crew
Bombacilar
Legends of Stokie (LOS)
Sea & Mother Square Boys
Tap Dem Crew
Well Street Boys
Yardie Bunch Crew
DNA Boys
L.or.D
Grim Beats Crew
Brick Lane Massive
Cannon Street Rd Posse
Shadwell Massive
Stepney Posse
Bengal Tigers
Bethnal Green Somalians
Devon Road Kruisers
E3 Massive
Elton Man Dem
Bartlett Park
Limehouse Massive
Wilehouse Man Dem
Remand Crew

8. Westminster
Queens Crescent
Abbey Road Man Dem (SLK)
Lisson Man Dem

9. Haringey
Tugs from Around
Tottenham Man Dem (map)
G-Money
N dot22
Wood Green Mob

10. Lewisham
Brockley Man Dem
Young Brockley Manz
Catford Wildcat
D-Block
Ghetto Boyz
SYD
Blues (Bromley)
Greens (Lewisham)

11. Merton/Wandsworth
Prime Time Soliders
Battersea Marsh Boys
All Over Everywhere
Surrey Lane Man Dem
Terror Zone
Winstanrey Boys
Digging Deep Graves
B-Town
South Man Syndicate (SMS)
Pink Ladies/Chicks
Wandsworth Man Dem
Menacing Kids
Wandsworth terror Zone
Gypset
Raynes Park Crew
ENS/YNS
Spray Can Army
No Remorse Shown
Stick em Up Kidz
Young Stick em Up Kidz
Tooting Gang
UGS (United Griffin Squad)
Y-UGS (Young United Griffin Squad)
Muslim Boys
Croydon/Jaffna Boys

12. Lambeth
Young Thugs for life
Tulse Hill Man Dem
Peel Dem Crew
Clapham Park Dread
Dipset Muslim
Brixton Yard Manz
Brixton Hill Blood Gang (BHB)
S Unit
Cartel Crew
G Street
Murder Zone
Alligator Crew
Myatts Field Posse
Rema Crew
Stockwell Man Dem
Hanna Town
Streatham Man Dem
Muslim Boys
South Man Syndicate
Bloodset Muslims
Superstar Gang
SMN Heathset
Southmandem
Mash Force
VMD
Herne Hill Man Dem
28s
Junction Boys

13. Harrow
SHE (South Harrow Elite)
Cheez Gang
The t Side
Harrow Boys
Arylali Gang
Pinner Massive
Game Over
MOD (Ministry of Darkness)
Stm
Bad Boys
No Tolerance

14. Southwark
Peckam Boys – Camden Estate
Peckham Boys – North Peckham Estate
Mash Force
Circle Boys & Dulwich Boys
Kennel Hill
Gloucester Grove Estate
Gold Smith Estate
Bermondsey Boys
Firehouse Crew
Wolly Road Manz & OTB

15. Hillingdon
NN (Nasty Niggers)
Risky Boys (Northolt)
AK47 Gang
Bombing Unit1
DTU (Don’t Touch Us)
Section 18 Crew
DK (Destroy Kids)
WDM (West Drayton Boys)
AK (Academemic Kids)
Hillingdon Hard Core

16. Croydon
DSNCrew
Dem Twisted Soldiers
Gypsett
Terror Zone
Till Death Youths
Thornton Heath Man Dem
Pange Man Dem
Norwood Youts
Dark Side Ninjas / Younger DSN

17. Bromley
On Top of the Rest
Albaboys Fatal
Assassins
The Bloody Alboz
Greens (Lewisham)
Greazy Kamp
Blues (Bromley)
Penge Massive
Block Kids
Kidz da Hood

18 Greenwich/Bexley
Younger Woolwich Boyz
Woolwich Boys
Younger RA
Ferrier Youts
KSB (Kis Spray Bro)
Cherry Youts
PDot
Plumstead Manz
Woolwich Manz
T-Block
RA Gang

From a double page spread in The Evening Standard.

Those of you with good reading habits will remember Judge Dredd in 2000AD and the ‘Block Mania’ stories. It looks like more of Brian Bolland’s madness is leaking into reality.

There is an exhibition on populations in cities at the Tate Modern; this year, 50% of all people on the earth will be living in cities. As this trend continues and people from different places coalesce into self contained cesspools in Megacities, you are going to see more ‘Block Mania’ outbreaks as people turn to gangs for identity, protection and a way to make a living.

And in case you didn’t know, ‘Man Dem’ means:

“Man Dem is the term used for a group of friends or homies. This term originated from the carribean but found its way to the streets of the uk where it is widely used.

I’m going to link man dem.”

Urban Dictionary

So we can say, “Big up BLOGDIAL Man Dem!”

Oh, and they forgot the hideous, perfidious and insidious gang ‘The Knights of 30 St Mary Axe’.

As you can see, some of these gangs and gang members have Bebo, Myspace and YouTube spots where they boast their hardness. Some of those links are priceless.

Here is a neat video compiling footage of many gangs.

Thanks to all the reporting on handgun crime, shootings, knife crime and gangland stabbings in London, the traffic for this post has gone through the ceiling. It seems also, that people are searching for specific gang names and ending up here.

Read this ‘we are doomed to live like animals’ screed from Anti-War. It is a complete lie of course and this ‘Norman Solomon’ needs to shit or get off of the pot. War is not inevitable, and neither is the so called ‘Warfare State’. Its imagination-less people like him that create, support and bolster the ‘Warfare State’ by their negativity, self-centeredness and lack of vision.

COUPEZ!

Let’s Face It: The Warfare State Is Part of Us
by Norman Solomon

There is no ‘us’. It is YOU that accepts the ‘Warfare State’, it is YOU that is defeated and resigned to murdering other people, not US.

The USA’s military spending is now close to $2 billion a day. This fall, the country will begin its seventh year of continuous war, with no end in sight. On the horizon is the very real threat of a massive air assault on Iran. And few in Congress seem willing or able to articulate a rejection of the warfare state.

First of all, it is two billion a day of YOUR MONEY (or at least money from China that YOU will have to pay back). This fundamental misunderstanding about how war is funded and waged is a key reason why your illegitimate government is able to get away with waging it. YOU are the people who cannot see the wood for the trees; YOU are the people who fund this insanity, and you are the key to stopping it.

There can be no attack on Iran without money to do it. If you continue to pay for it, it will happen. You are personally responsible for this, and this article, by not focussing on the permanent solution to this problem is actually a call for the war that you claim that you do not want.

While the Bush-Cheney administration is the most dangerous of our lifetimes – and ousting Republicans from the White House is imperative – such truths are apt to smooth the way for progressive evasions. We hear that “the people must take back the government,” but how can “the people” take back what they never really had? And when rhetoric calls for “returning to a foreign policy based on human rights and democracy,” we’re encouraged to be nostalgic for good old days that never existed.

Actually, it is your generation that is the most dangerous in the lifetime of the republic. Your singular failure to assert yourself, protect your rights and stand up for the truth with action is the cause of all our problems, and this article is another pimple on the acne scarred face of your generation; it is the symptom of your failure, your lack of will and guts. Americans have always owned their government and to say this is not the case is just a lie. The ‘good old days’ that you talk about did exist, it is your failure to understand this that is the problem. Even if they never did exist, that time is an ideal that you should be striving for, and that actually, you have the power to achieve. It will not come to pass however, on the back of cowardice, retreat and ingrained weakness.

The warfare state didn’t suddenly arrive in 2001, and it won’t disappear when the current lunatic in the Oval Office moves on.

This is another lie. If the ‘current lunatic’, your lunatic, the one you deserve, is replaced by a sane man, then sanity will flow from the Oval office. That is a fact, wether you accept it or not.

Born 50 years before George W. Bush became president, I have always lived in a warfare state. Each man in the Oval Office has presided over an arsenal of weapons designed to destroy human life en masse. In recent decades, our self-proclaimed protectors have been able – and willing – to destroy all of humanity.

And of course, all time began when you were born, and there was nothing before that.

We’ve accommodated ourselves to this insanity. And I do mean “we” – including those of us who fret aloud that the impact of our peace-loving wisdom is circumscribed because our voices don’t carry much farther than the choir. We may carry around an inflated sense of our own resistance to a system that is poised to incinerate and irradiate the planet.

There is no ‘we’ in this instance. There are many people whose actions (or inactions) make a difference, and if people like you only followed, our problems would be over. As for an inflated sense of importance, each drop of rain in a downpour does its part in creating a landslide. Each one is as important as the next, and all of them, together can cause great devastation or crops to grow. Your imagination is broken. You have no grasp of scale. You have no concept of your place in that country and its singular importance. This is why you fail.

Maybe it’s too unpleasant to acknowledge that we’ve been living in a warfare state for so long. And maybe it’s even more unpleasant to acknowledge that the warfare state is not just “out there.” It’s also internalized; at least to the extent that we pass up countless opportunities to resist it.

It is not in any way internalized, and not everyone passes up opportunities to resist it. Two million people marched in London to resist it. They and the millions of others who are against this insanity are not defeated; they simply do not have the correct tactic to hand. Once they discover the correct, twenty-first century tactic to defeat the ‘Warfare State’ then it will all be over. You are not helping with your corrosive negativity which offers nothing but a belly ache.

Like millions of other young Americans, I grew into awakening as the Vietnam War escalated. Slogans like “make love, not war” – and, a bit later, “the personal is political” – really spoke to us. But over the decades we generally learned, or relearned, to compartmentalize: as if personal and national histories weren’t interwoven in our pasts, presents and futures.

What you should have learned and what many people today have learned is that your failure is the greatest instruction that we could receive. It means that we will not and should not repeat your mistakes and failures. It means specifically that Demonstrations are pointless and the other things that we have been talking about on BLOGDIAL for years.

One day in 1969, a biologist named George Wald, who had won a Nobel Prize, visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – the biggest military contractor in academia – and gave a speech. “Our government has become preoccupied with death,” he said, “with the business of killing and being killed.”

That preoccupation has fluctuated, but in essence it has persisted. While speaking of a far-off war and a nuclear arsenal certain to remain in place after the war’s end, Wald pointed out: “We are under repeated pressure to accept things that are presented to us as settled – decisions that have been made.”

Today, in similar ways, our government is preoccupied and we are pressurized. The grisly commerce of killing thrives on aggressive war and on the perverse realpolitik of “national security” that brandishes the Pentagon’s weaponry against the world. At least tacitly, we accept so much that threatens to destroy anything and everything.

Only you accept this, there is no ‘we’ that accepts this. Stop pulling decent people into your personal nightmare of failure and despair.

We do not accept ‘the perverse realpolitik of “national security” ‘ we understand that this world view is totally false and engineered. We understand how governments are doing it, and how they are financing it. We understand what must be done to undo it.

WE are not like YOU.

As it happened, for reasons both “personal” and “political” – more accurately, for reasons indistinguishable between the two – my own life fell apart and began to reassemble itself during the same season of 1969 when George Wald gave his speech, which he called “A Generation in Search of a Future.”

Political and personal histories are usually kept separate – in how we’re taught, how we speak and even how we think. But I’ve become very skeptical of the categories. They may not be much more than illusions we’ve been conned into going through the motions of believing.

Learn to use the backspace key.

We actually live in concentric spheres, and “politics” suffuses households as well as what Martin Luther King Jr. called “The World House.” Under that heading, he wrote in 1967: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men. When we foolishly minimize the internal of our lives and maximize the external, we sign the warrant for our own day of doom. Our hope for creative living in this world house that we have inherited lies in our ability to re-establish the moral ends of our lives in personal character and social justice. Without this spiritual and moral reawakening we shall destroy ourselves in the misuse of our own instruments.”

The facts of the matter are that on the one hand, there are an astonishingly small number of people who are responsible for our problems, an on the other, since we are responsible for allowing it all to happen, a huge number of people who are equally responsible. But I digress. The people who commission the making of weapons and who make the policy are very small in number, and they can be controlled and their power destroyed very easily. This is a fact. The first step is to define the problem and then design a solution. This article doesn’t do this. It doesn’t even give us the benefit of your precious experience from the 1960’s which would be invaluable to us so we do not end up like you.

This article doesn’t help, doesn’t educate, offers no solutions, no analysis and so it is literally pointless. At a time when we have, by your own words, an insane man in the Oval Office, this is not the time for pointless writing on AntiWar.

While trying to understand the essence of what so many Americans have witnessed over the last half century, I worked on a book (titled Made Love, Got War) that sifts through the last 50 years of the warfare state… and, in the process, through my own life. I haven’t learned as much as I would have liked, but some patterns emerged – persistent and pervasive since the middle of the 20th century.

Your logic is flawed. You are unable to put together the pieces to this puzzle because you have not defined the problem the way that weapons designers and scientists define problems. Once you do that, you can take it all to pieces with a few simple actions. None of this is going to be found in your navel.

The warfare state doesn’t come and go. It can’t be defeated on Election Day. Like it or not, it’s at the core of the United States – and it has infiltrated our very being.

Almost correct, save the nonsense about ‘our very being’. You are partially right that it cannot be defeated on Election Day, and you are completely correct that it is at the core of the USA. What you fail to offer is a way to ‘destroy the core‘.

What we’ve tolerated has become part of us.

Nonsense.

What we accept, however reluctantly, seeps inward.

Hippy talk.

In the long run, passivity can easily ratify even what we may condemn. And meanwhile, in the words of Thomas Merton, “It is the sane ones, the well-adapted ones, who can without qualms and without nausea aim the missiles and press the buttons that will initiate the great festival of destruction that they, the sane ones, have prepared.”

Meaningless, especially to people being murdered as bombs are dropping from YOUR government.

The triumph of the warfare state degrades and suppresses us all. Even before the weapons perform as guaranteed.

[…]

AntiWar

More twaddle.

What ‘The triumph of the warfare state’ ACTUALLY DOES is cause bridges to spontaneously collapse, causes your rights to be destroyed, causes you to be hated in the world, and causes MASS MURDER.

If you are not willing to address this problem, you should not be wasting electrons and time with stories on AntiWar that are nothing more than shoe gazing garbage.

AntiWar needs to tighten up its editorial policy…if it really exists to put an end to war. Its name however, might give a clue to its real function, to be anti-war it exists because this situation exists; it is not there to stop it, but thrives because of it. People are starving for the solution, the way out of this. They are desperate to be shown the light switch. AntiWar and StopWar drip feed them dead matches masquerading as light. Neither of these people really want to put a permanent end to the war machine. If they did, their actions would be completely different; they would actually be proposing and taking effective actions.

This has been another post tipping point post, typed out at an astonishing pace….

This is water-kefir fermenting at home.

About Kefir

Waterkefir is considered to be even better than milkkefir and the effect is similar. Waterkefir tastes very good and one becomes accustomed to looking forward to it every day.

The natives of the Kaukassus Mountains know the effect of Kefir. As children they drink it like water, and on average these people live to an age of 110 years. This is one of the few places in the world where most people reach an advanced old age in perfect health.

According to Dr. Menkiw, who has researched Kefir all his life, tuberculossis, cancer, stimach ailments etc. are unknown there. Dr. Drasek from Germany had already observed the good effects of Kefir before the Second World War. Persons who drink Kefir report it has helped them to recover after severe illnesses. Other people explain how drinking Kefir has helped them to overcome stomach cramps,chronic intestinal inflammations, gall bladder ailments, inflammations of the liver and bladder ailments. Mothers have given Kefir to their children as a substitute for mother’s milk. Women claim that Kefir has served them well in the treatment of eczema during pregnancy and in various chronic abdominal ailments.

Other possible applications of Kefir include nerve ailments, jaundice, diarrhea, constipation, aneamia, rashes, decomposition of blood

And it tastes good!

—

So where do you get it from and how do you make it you may ask.
We were given a small bottle of kefir powder from some French friends, but are looking around for kefir granules (this looks promising)

Our recipe is adapted from one on the web.
1 litre mineral or filtered water
2 slices unwaxed lemon
40g sultanas
6-8 dessert spoons of unrefined sugar
powdered kefir

mix ingredients in sterilised jar, leave for three days letting off the ferment gas occasionally.
Remove the lemon and sultanas with non-metal spoon, carefully pour off 5/8 of the liquid into a storage jar for serving.
Top up with correct proportions of water and sugar and on alternate occasions either replace or renew lemon/sultanas.
We also return the dregs of the serving bottle into the kefir as the powder is too fine to be filtered. If you can get granules you can filter them out at stage two for re-use with a non-metal filter.
Repeat.

“When a crow flies over Kandahar, he only flaps one wing.
With the other wing, he covers his tail”.

This is a quote from a presentation at Magnum In Motion of portraits collected in Afganistan by Thomas Dworzak, and published in a book.

Did you know that (so the internets say) one of the reasons why Mullah Omar started Taleban was to put an end to homosexual practices?

I was interested in this book as a document of a beautiful portraiture phenomenon until I saw the links at the side, one of which sends you to the CFR.

Is this book ‘just an interesting book’ or is it part of the ‘Cultural Cold War‘ as Frances Stonor Saunders describes?

Its a great pity that works like this cannot be delivered neutrally and separated from World Insanity™ because the photographs are very beautiful…but then, when they are put in a context, that is precisely what they need to be to make you despise Taliban, and you need to be made to despise them so that you continue to passively support troops being sent there.

James Randerson, science correspondent
Tuesday August 21, 2007

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

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

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

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

[…]

Guardian

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

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

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

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

…and this is from a SCIENCE writer.

In 1997, the time of the first pressing of The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations, we really had no idea about how it would go down or how best to get it into the public view. We took every opportunity to try and get the word out about it, including the following.

Around the corner from THESE Records (who were distributing TCP) in Lambeth Road, is the Imperial War Museum, who were running an exhibition entitled The Secret War which is, “…the UK’s only permanent exhibition devoted to UK espionage”.

Naturally, we thought that the Imperial War Museum might like to stock some ‘SOR’ copies of TCP, as it dovetails nicely with the exhibition. All we would have to do is show it to them, and they should be sold on the idea.

‘SOR’ means ‘Sale Or Return’ – this is how it works. We deliver a box of seven or fourteen copies of TCP, they put them on display in the shop. If they sell, they pay us, if they do not sell, they return them to us. There is no money up front, no security deposit, no account needed; we trust them to pay us, and there is no risk to them whatsoever.

We delivered a sample copy to them with a letter about TCP. You can imagine how we laughed when we received this reply from The Imperial War Museum Shop.

Now, the paranoid would say that someone made a phone call and nixed TCP being stocked. The cynical would say, “they just didn’t get it”, and others will say, “It is just as stated”. Either way, it struck us as rather bizarre that something as germane to a comprehensive espionage exhibition as TCP is, an exhibition featuring amongst other things, ENIGMA machines, short wave radios, spy equipment of all sorts etc would be dismissed in this very odd way. One listen to TCP should have been enough to convince them to stock it. The idea of TCP seems very dry on the surface, but the fact of it is very different. Once you listen to it, it is instantly clear that TCP is the polar opposite of a remote and inaccessible, ‘specialised’ release.

Which of the above three reasons do you think stopped them from stocking TCP?

[…]

John Mueller suspects he might have become cable news programs’ go-to foil on terrorism. The author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them (Free Press, 2006) thinks America has overreacted. The greatly exaggerated threat of terrorism, he says, has cost the country far more than terrorist attacks ever did.

Watching his Sept. 12, 2006, appearance on Fox & Friends is unintentionally hilarious. Mueller calmly and politely asks the hosts to at least consider his thesis. But filled with alarm and urgency, they appear bewildered and exasperated. They speak to Mueller as if he is from another planet and cannot be reasoned with.

That reaction is one measure of the contagion of alarmism. Mueller’s book is filled with statistics meant to put terrorism in context. For example, international terrorism annually causes the same number of deaths as drowning in bathtubs or bee stings. It would take a repeat of Sept. 11 every month of the year to make flying as dangerous as driving. Over a lifetime, the chance of being killed by a terrorist is about the same as being struck by a meteor. Mueller’s conclusions: An American’s risk of dying at the hands of a terrorist is microscopic. The likelihood of another Sept. 11-style attack is nearly nil because it would lack the element of surprise. America can easily absorb the damage from most conceivable attacks. And the suggestion that al Qaeda poses an existential threat to the United States is ridiculous. Mueller’s statistics and conclusions are jarring only because they so starkly contradict the widely disseminated and broadly accepted image of terrorism as an urgent and all-encompassing threat.

American reaction to two failed attacks in Britain in June further illustrates our national hysteria. British police found and defused two car bombs before they could be detonated, and two would-be bombers rammed their car into a terminal at Glasgow Airport. Even though no bystanders were hurt and British authorities labeled both episodes failures, the response on American cable television and Capitol Hill was frenzied, frequently emphasizing how many people could have been killed. “The discovery of a deadly car bomb in London today is another harsh reminder that we are in a war against an enemy that will target us anywhere and everywhere,” read an e-mailed statement from Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. “Terrorism is not just a threat. It is a reality, and we must confront and defeat it.” The bombs that never detonated were “deadly.” Terrorists are “anywhere and everywhere.” Even those who believe it is a threat are understating; it’s “more than a threat.”

Mueller, an Ohio State University political science professor, is more analytical than shrill. Politicians are being politicians, and security businesses are being security businesses, he says. “It’s just like selling insurance – you say, ‘Your house could burn down.’ You don’t have an incentive to say, ‘Your house will never burn down.’ And you’re not lying,” he says. Social science research suggests that humans tend to glom onto the most alarmist perspective even if they are told how unlikely it is, he adds. We inflate the danger of things we don’t control and exaggerate the risk of spectacular events while downplaying the likelihood of common ones. We are more afraid of terrorism than car accidents or street crime, even though the latter are far more common. Statistical outliers like the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are viewed not as anomalies, but as harbingers of what’s to come.

Demystifying Security

Sept. 11 was so dramatic and scary that even suggesting that some of the resulting fear is unjustified seems blasphemous. Indeed, the release in July of a new National Intelligence Estimate and its reports of a resurgent al Qaeda served to renew and stoke those fears. But the point is not that terrorists don’t exist, or that terrorist attacks won’t happen. It’s that the pervasive alarm about terrorism obscures the most important question the nation must grapple with: “What level of protection is enough?” Seeking 100 percent security is quixotic. There always will be some risk, but how much can we live with?

This question remains unanswered because the political climate created by alarmists, however well-intentioned, prevents it from being raised. Those who try are quickly punished. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said in 2004 that the goal should be to reduce terrorism to the level of organized crime – a nuisance but not “the focus of our lives.” The Bush campaign immediately pounced, calling Kerry “unfit to lead,” and he never used such rhetoric again.

[…]

http://www.govexec.com/features/0807-01/0807-01s3.htm

More post tipping point stuff for you. The question after this is, “how are we going to dismantle the over-the-top systems once everyone has calmed down?” In other words, how are ID cards, and all the surveillance going to be dispensed with?

THAT is the question.

From Bruce Schneier’s Cryptgram:

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

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

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

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

And:

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

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

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

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

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

And once again, for the thousandth time.

A list of crimes from a different age, applicable to today:

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

True.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

Very familiar.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

The Greater London Council.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

VERY true.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

This is the absolute truth in Britain, and is so totally applicable it beggars belief.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

War without a declaration of war, armed soldiers scattered throughout London.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

The military industrial complex.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

The EU.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

One for the Iraqis methinks.

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

ROTFL ‘Diplomatic Immunity’!!!!

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

True.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

Bliar’s work. Sad and oh so true.

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

Extraordinary Rendition.

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

Absolutely applicable: Glass–Steagall Act for example.

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

This is coming…from the EU.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

All Britons to be numbered like prisoners; that is, by any measure, an act of war.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

So true, and applicable in so many ways.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.

The ‘War on Terror’, EU enlargement. The legions of foreigners who are invited to Britain who they then deliberately provoke unto madness, causing them to carry out the acts of madmen.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

The traitorous double agents, collaborators and quislings.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

I think you get THAT picture.

Do you know where this list of crimes came from originally?

I will leave it to you to use the Google.

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.

Tony Wilson; NME 31 May 1986 [photo credit: A.J. Barratt]

Tony Wilson died Friday August 10th. He created and ran Factory Records – one of the greatest, most inspiring record labels ever. I have every Factory Record ever released, and loved and still love the majority of them. He was also a great producer. A man of impeccable taste, true imagination, inspiration, insight and intuition. When we speak of real people, we are talking about the likes of Tony Wilson.

What a privilege it was to be at the receiving end of such greatness.

Ladies and gentlemen…that is how it was done.