Riddle of the day

OK, it's a rebus not a riddle. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind

Answer here

.

I bet you're a big E Nesbit fan aren't ya?

Good news for fans of E. Nesbit's childrens stories




It emerged yesterday

According to the Guardian

British intelligence officials believe that al-Qaida is determined to attack the UK with a nuclear weapon, it emerged yesterday. The announcement, from an officially organised Foreign Office counter-terrorism briefing for the media, was the latest in a series of bleak assessments by senior officials and ministers about the terrorist threat facing Britain.

It has been a very busy sand-fairy lately and has been emerging all over the place.

As well as emerging, It has also been reported on numerous occasions

I used to write about It in business reports all the time. Usually as a cop out when I didn't want to name the person reponsible for a fuck up because I was afraid of them. So, I blamed It instead - or, rather, It was blamed

Poor, poor, much-maligned It. It is far too passive for It's own good and everyone, especially journalists and politicians, takes advantage of It

Sorry, my mistake, I should have said It is taken advantage of.

Eco Nazis - don't you love 'em

Sometimes, when I’m not being outraged by the bogus War on Terror, I like to take a little time out and get really fucked off with other stuff

The New Environmentalism for example

It’s not that I hate trees, or butterflies, or bunnies, or fluffy little lambkins, or any other natural things.

Far from it. Many natural things are absolutely delicious and pictures of them, cooked or uncooked, can make for great screensavers.

It's beautiful!!! Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!

What I do dislike is the whiff of the same kind of forces and agendas rolling off contemporary environmentalism that I can smell emanating from the War on Poverty, the War on Terror and all the other BS that’s being rammed down gullible throats.

The, dare I say it, ‘Final Solutions’ being advocated for all of these problems share very similar characteristics.

And I wouldn’t be the first person to point out that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian animal lover who believed in complementary medicine and the virtues of a pastoral life. A strong leader who took a firm line on domestic and international terrorism. A man who sought to unite nations and a patron of science who adopted a rationalist, Darwinian approach to social issues such as population control and genetic fitness.

He was also responsible for the death and enslavement of fucking millions of people.

And he was not, is not, the only person to advocate that particular view of how things should be. Far from it.

\ big subject

If only Adolf had spent a little less money on tanks and a little more money on buying newspapers, politicians, NGOs and scientific 'research' at an international instead of just at a national level he would have been laughing.

Anyway, I was reading up on the Dark Side of Environmentalism over the last few days when I came across this article in Wikipedia

The Georgia Guidestones

How come I’d never heard of these before? For a man with an interest in esoteric belief systems and who has also devoted much of his holiday time over the last 10 years to motoring around America in search of the world’s largest this and world’s largest that...

e.g. World’s largest Ten Commandments (old version)




...discovering that I’d missed something quite as special as these…




...came as a heavy blow

The aesthetic appeal of a New Stone Henge combined with Ten New Commandments for the Age of Reason plus a mysterious, shady origin and a possible connection with the Illuminati.

Fantastic

And what a fine set of commandments they are

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

They sound great don’t they

After all, who in their right mind would have a problem with massive depopulation and One World Government.

The scary thing is that there is a growing number of idiots out there who’d buy into this insanity.

Old Adolf would feel right at home.

Dialogue with Islam and other Urban myths

I just received this in my inbox

Hi,

i read your blog on Mark urban - you may interested on the following event

Is Islam a Threat to The West?

In a YouGov survey in August 2006 53% of those questioned felt that Islam and Muslims posed a threat to Western liberal democracy.

Why do such a large number feel this is so?

Has the frequently negative media attention upon Islam and Muslims been a cause of creating this fear and mistrust in society?

Or have sensitivities raised about reporting controversial issues meant the free criticism and debate has been curtailed?

Does talking about these issues in the emotive press headlines, generated by such a poll increase alienation or help understand it?

To discuss this and other issues Dialogue with Islam have invited the following distinguished panel

Charles Moore, former Editor of Daily Telegraph
James O’ Brien, LBC Radio Presenter
Humera Khan, An Nisa Society,
Abdul-Raheem Green, Regents Park Mosque

Chair: Mark Urban, Diplomatic Editor of BBC Newsnight

Wednesday 15th November 2006
Time: 6.15pm

Venue: Conway Hall,
25 Red Lion Square,
London WC1

Tube: Holborn

Tickets £3 reservation (by email or phone) or £5 at the door.

Phone: 07983749252
Email: dialogue_with_islam@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.dialoguewithislam.org





My original post about Mark Urban (not linked or quoted because I've just reread it and it's boring) was prompted by old Mark acting like a spooky wee bastard immediately after the 7/7 bombings - popping onto Newsnight most nights, quoting his unidentified contacts in the security forces and doing his bit to gently ease media coverage of the 7/7 story away from any suggestion that the four alleged bombers may have been patsies.

What's particularly funny to me is the fact that I just Googled 'Mark Urban' and my original blog post came up as number three in the results

Hi Mark!

I still think you're a spooky wee bastard

And as for the answer to the question...

Why do such a large number of people feel that Islam is a threat to the West?

... it isn't particularly tricky and is the same as the answer to these other, not entirely unrelated, questions -

• Why did such large numbers of people feel that the Soviet Union was a threat to the West?
• Why did such large numbers of people feel that Vietnam was a threat to the West?
• Why will such large numbers of people feel that China is a threat to the West?

i.e. Because they were/ are/ will be told to

A more interesting question would be -

Why are such large numbers of people being told to feel that Islam is a threat to the West?

... lots of very interesting answers to that particular poser. I reckon Mark could come up with one or two.

The Stain of Original ASBO

City-wide ASBO - Birmingham 2006

A frequent criticism of orthodox, traditional religions is that many of the requirements of their faith are either bizarre or old-fashioned.

I’m not talking about belief in a bearded man in the sky or an afterlife here, I’m referring to the dress, dietary and other ‘lifestyle’ specifications

Stuff like…

• The use of the veil in Islam
• The ban on alcohol in Islam
• Separation of meat and dairy in Judaism
• The pork thing in both

These laws were, of course, written for people living a particular lifestyle, in a particular place, at a particular time and probably made a lot of sense when they were written.

And they probably went a long way in preventing Mustafa or Benjamin falling prey to listeria, or a tapeworm, or dying from heat stroke after one beer too many, or developing lustful thoughts about his best mate’s wife whilst his best mate was away on a trade caravan for three months.

As times move on reformers within faiths could argue that what with advances like air conditioning and low alcohol lagers you probably could bend some of the old laws a little whilst still being faithful to the original spirit of your religion.

Others believers would argue that if you start bending one rule where do you stop? And besides, some of the old laws retain a moral as well as a practical element and should be retained.

Whatever, it’s all very complicated.

Anyway, what’s always tickled me about this business is the thought that one day, by some bizarre quirk of circumstances, a new religion could spring up that incorporates contemporary legislation as an integral part of its belief system. What if, for instance, Tony Blair was correct all along and he really does turn out to be the new Messiah? Would that mean in 2,000 years time that the New New Testament would include a book devoted to the Acts of His Disciples? Acts such as Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.

The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and The Food Standards Act 1999 are particular personal favourites and guaranteed page-turners.

I only mention all this because someone just forwarded me an email that fits right in with my line of thinking…




I have been thinking about ASBOs. They have been introduced by a rather strange government in strange times, when everyone and everything is being demonised. However this is now back-firing as the 'evil youth' are now taking them as badges of honour, according to the press.

To get around the idea of an ASBO as a label as Badge of Honour, we just need to think in a 'different' way, bear with me:

If everyone was allocated an ASBO at birth along with the birth certificate, lets say born with 'Original ASBO', then we all would be redeemable.

Then we introduce a points system whereby meritorious behaviour would deduct ASBO points, and bad behaviour would re-credit us with ASBO points. This would mean that everyone in society would be somewhere on the ASBO scale, publishable on the internet on ASBO League Tables.

We then need a way for us all to be judged by the overseers of the ASBO scales. This role could be carried out by an agency of the government, probably in some PFI arrangement. To make sure that the system is not open to abuse, behaviour could only be 'judged' if it was verifiable by CCTV coverage.

A system of judging good and bad behaviour could be monitored by focus groups, so that it was a constantly moveable target depending on the social fashions of the day, they could then feedback to the judging panel. This would mean that the social order was always adapting itself to the latest agenda set by the media.

Naturally we would all need to carry a chip and PIN ID card that would contain our ASBO balance on it, that could be scanned when attending any public forum such as classical concerts and football matches, and allocate us seating in the arena accordingly.
All of this would be need to be overseen by a Head of Government who felt that he/she had the ability to make difficult decisions on all of our behalf, based on firm personal convictions.

Is this idea good or what?

Yes, a good idea, but I still think my combined National ID / Citizen-Shopper Loyalty card is better

Everyone in New Zealand has been very, very naughty

And thank you Noel for sending me that article from The Press about last weekend's Bonfire Night holocaust in New Zealand, including the memorable line...

The Government had warned that people should be on their best behaviour this year if they did not want to have their access to fireworks restricted




And there was me thinking that once I finally manage migrate over there I wouldn't have anything to moan about ever again

\not

Eeeek! Has anyone seen my camel!?

There’s an old Jasper Carrott comedy routine called ‘The Nutter on the Bus’ that starts something like…

When the nutter gets on the bus

(pauses for audience laughter)

When the nutter gets on the bus

Why does the nutter always sit next to me?

I was on the bus the other day and I could hear this nutter getting on behind me. I can tell he's a nutter because he's calling out...

'Eeek! Has anyone seen my camel!!?'

And everyone on the bus is praying quietly ‘Please God don’t let the nutter sit next to me. I’ll do anything you want but please don’t let the nutter sit next to me’

And then he sits down next to me and says

'Listen, I've got an atom bomb in 'ere!!!!'

And he shows me a corned beef tin …

'I have a tin of corned beef and
I'm not afraid to use it'

This routine was considered hysterical back in 1978, possibly because there were 28 years less comedy to choose from than today.

Now, in 2006, I can only conclude that popular comedic taste has either changed significantly since then or that the sketch really wasn’t that funny in the first place

The basis for my conclusion is the fact that there are no reports of anyone breaking down into hysterical laughter at Woolwich Crown Court during the trial of Dhiren Barot over the last couple of months

As I type, a presenter on Channel 4 News is teetering on the brink of anoxia as he tries to list all of Barot’s fiendish plans in one breath

Barot

not Barot

Barot was going to

• Set off a dirty radioactive bomb in London or New York
• He was going to pack limousines with gas canisters
• He was going to destroy eight London hotels
• He was going to attack the IMF, the World Bank, the New York Stock Exchange, the Prudential Building and the Citigroup’s headquarters
• He was going to destroy a train in a tunnel underneath the Thames

His planning is being described as daring, meticulous and extensive. The word ‘mastermind’ is being bandied around a fair bit

The best quote of the trial came from the prosecution lawyer who, apparently quoting Barot, said

Imagine the chaos that would be caused if a powerful explosion were to rip through here [London] and actually rupture the river itself

Fuck it, if you’re going to start imagining the hypothetical impact of imaginary weapons of mass death that you haven’t the faintest possibility of getting your hands on, why limit yourself to diverting the course of the Thames? How about whistling up a fucking Death Star instead? You can destroy entire planets with one of those




The only thing holding Barot back from unleashing a full scale, synchronised ground war on the United States and Great Britain (combined population 360 million people) was that he had absolutely no means to carry any of this out and that he’s a nutter

To my knowledge, he couldn't afford even a tin of corned beef.

He might have had a camel though


(See also - Lyman Faris, still my favourite spook-controlled, media-hyped, post 9/11 nutter. The bloke who was going to demolish the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch but bailed because 'The weather is too hot'... priceless)

Lone gunmen are so passe

I was having a moderately heated debate with a family member a little while ago. He’s been a London paramedic for donkeys’ years and he still retains a faith in the leadership of our security forces and their motivations that I lost long ago.

He’s not stupid

And he simply cannot understand why I harbour doubts about the whos, whys and hows of the bombings in London last year.

We argue about this stuff a lot

And, very reasonably in his worldview, no matter what inconsistencies in the official accounts of that day I point to he simply discounts them as being the result of human error, bureaucracy or some other human failings.

Nothing malign.

And, must frustratingly of all, the task of trying to critically discuss 7/7 with him, or anyone else, is terminally hobbled by the fact that the single biggest cause to have doubts about 7/7 is the absence of evidence from that day.

You can have a fair stab at debating the significance of a piece of evidence everyone has seen but simply citing a long list of evidence you haven’t seen isn’t very productive or interesting; particularly if the person you are debating with has faith in the System.

As far as they are concerned, everything will all come out in the end, once the inherently slow, but essentially benevolent, machinery of state has done its thing.

That’s why it has taken almost five years for 9/11 scepticism to start breaking into the mainstream in the US and that is why it will probably take a similar amount of time for doubts about 7/7, if they haven’t been resolved, to gain widespread currency.

A 7/7 related trial would help speed the process up a fair bit; relying as it would on quaint concepts such as evidence, witnesses, a defence, a jury.

Bizarre I know but I’m old fashioned like that…

However, it seems pretty clear that there’s absolutely no way on Christ’s Earth our government is going to permit anything like that to happen

To my knowledge, nobody has been charged with anything to do with the 7/7 bombings. The supposed bombers are dead and no accomplices have been arrested.

Ergo no trial

Ditto for 9/11 and the Madrid bombings

Which is pretty astonishing when you think about it, particularly when you consider how many people have been arrested and charged in relation to other terror 'plots' – 44 in connection with the 21/7 powder puff bombs, a couple of dozen as part of the War on Lucozade in our airports last August. Fuck it, the police even managed to collar a dozen terror suspects at what used to be my local Chinese takeway...

not that any of those guys are anywhere near their day in court either

Personally, if a decent body of critically scrutinised evidence was released to the public domain that proved the four guys accused of carrying out 7/7 did do it I’m open to accept that and move on. On the other hand, in the absence of such evidence and copious examples of our government and security forces acting like weasels well… what’s a boy supposed to think?

Hypothetically speaking, if you were in the dead patsy production business, and of course nobody is, suicide bombers offer significant improvements over more traditional lone gunmen in a couple of key ways

• suicide patsies are capable of killing loads more people and are therefore much scarier

• you don’t need to employ a Jack Ruby figure to stop your patsies making it to trial
  

Anyway, I mention all this because Bridget Dunne, one of the handful of people who has managed to coax anything that approximates to progress on ‘7/7 Truth’ (John Reid being obliged to fess up and publicly admit that the official account of 7/7 contained at least one ‘error' warmed the cockles of my heart, it did), was interviewed by Fintan (no relation) Dunne the other day and the mp3 can be found here.

That doesn’t qualify as an unqualified endorsement of Fintan's site BTW. He does come up with interesting stuff but he also seems to labour under the impression that he is more infallible than the Pope and that anybody who disagrees with him is probably under CIA Control; including, once in the past, me.

That's not to say that the Internet isn't riddled with spooks, or cooks, or weirdos, but sometimes people do just disagree with each other.

Besides, I think I would know if I were under CIA control

\checks bacofoil helmet

Nope, the signals definitely aren’t getting through

\adds another sheet of shiny protection just to be on the safe side

Baaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Peter Hitchens ...

... always good for a laugh or two

Now I’d be the first to admit that Hitchens is a bit of, OK a lot of, a wanker much of the time



But not all of the time

Peter was on Question Time last night and answered a question on global warming

I’ve stuck a clip on Putfile rather than YouTube (fascist bastards) here

The reaction of the London based audience was depressing to say the least...

The global warming agenda, as is currently being advocated, is a colossal con.

And hats off to the energy industry for convincing ordinary people that it is somehow opposed to global warming activism.

Actually, the oil companies fucking love global warming activism

Fuck me, they're funding a large slab of it.

The easiest way to rig a match, or a debate, is to have ringers on both sides.

And if a point of view is widely promoted by mainstream politicians and the mainstream media without any significant disagreement or dissent amongst them you can bet this year's Christmas Club money the fix is in.

And you don’t have to be a George Bush loving Christian Fundamentalist Despoiler of the Earth to have issues with the global warming ‘debate’

Five minutes of thought and a little common sense will do that. Put simply...

• There is no such thing as a ‘correct’, stable global climate. The Earth’s climate has always changed and always will

• Whilst it is perfectly possible that the Earth is warming there is absolutely bugger all direct evidence that we have anything to do with it

• The rational, logical response to the risk of global warming is to prepare to deal with the consequences of climate change. A course of action rarely, if ever, advocated by the enviro-arse lobby
  

Humanity is going to look pretty stupid if/ when the weather does change drastically for natural reasons, wipes out all those millions who’ve settled in coastal and marginal regions and all we’ve been doing is titting around ‘trading’ carbon emissions and insulating our lofts for the preceding 40 years.

Or maybe I'm just bitter because I toyed with, and discarded, thoughts of doing a Geology Phd on a climate change related topic 20 years ago and am pissed off because I thought I wouldn't be able to make a living out of it. All the big bucks seemed to be in dinosaurs back then.

How very wrong I was.

Anyway, what was the audience reaction to Hitchens trying to raise some criticisms of the global warming bandwagon?



Forced, mocking laughter

Ladies and Gentlemen - it's the Muppet Show!

Watching the ignorant, classicly dissonant, reaction of a large group of my fellow citizens to somebody imploring them not to be sheep and to use their critical faculties was the single most depressing thing I’ve seen, outside of a hospice, for weeks

Concrete - No Longer Time to Embrace the Horror

A few days ago I posted a link to a YouTube video that celebrated the beauty of London's concrete architecture - harking back to more idealistic times when a select band of people who knew what was best for us slapped up acres of jerry-built shit that has been crumbling gradually, and sometimes not so gradually, ever since.




Well, it's gone. According to YouTube it was removed because of copyright infringement. According to the author...

'Thanks for commenting on my film. Unfortunately it was removed by YouTube before I had a chance to see what they were! What makes it more infuriating is that the film only contained images taken by myself. Hope the comments were favourable - have sent friend request just in case they were...'




It's nice to see that the folks behind YouTube didn't get all up tight and repressive after selling out to Google like so many people were afraid they would do.