"fear"..., "believe", "could manage"...

And what a great week for news this has been so far.

My favourite story of the week to date is this one from The Times

Al Qaeda threat to Traflagar Fleet

Yes, highly trained Al-Qaeda operatives are planning, sorry, might be planning to attack the Royal Navy at sea either with waves of suicide speedboats or small armies of frogmen.

‘A number of Royal Navy vessels now have machineguns mounted on their decks to defend ships against possible “swarm attacks” by terrorists in boats.’

‘The suggestion that Al-Qaeda might attempt swarm attacks using men trained in diving skills is not new. For the past three years, the FBI has been investigating reports of Middle Eastern suspects approaching scuba diving clubs in America and inquiring about training.’

Presumably, our security forces are also investigating the possibility that Al-Qaeda is planning to destabilise the World economy by planting a nuclear weapon in Fort Knox, capturing nuclear submarines in modified oil tankers and nudging the San Andreas Fault into action. And what about baddies on skis and missile equipped hang gliders? Why don’t they get a look in?

What else was there? Oh yes, the CIA has reported that there really were absolutely, definitely no WMDs in Iraq, none were shipped to Syria or anywhere else and that all the people locked up for supposedly managing the Iraqi WMD program should be released.

And there's the news that Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to stand trial in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack actually denies having anything to do with that attack, even though most news reports seem to have him pleading guilty to his involvement.

And then there was retiring Labour MP Brian Sedgemore’s excellent anti–Blair, anti New Labour speech the other day (Very Highly Recommended).

Or the news that Italian investigators were denied access to the car in which Nicola Calipari and Giulia Sgrena were shot by US soldiers last month. Apparently there was no need.

And then there’s the story that the Guardian was forced to pull an article critical of the supposed Wood Green Ricin Conspiracy by the Government. Or the story that, maker of the most excellent Power of Nightmares, Adam Curtis’ acceptance speech at the Bafta’s was cut from the BBC coverage because he was critical of the Government's handling of the supposed War on Terror.

And so on and so on.

Unfortunately most of these stories did not get much coverage in the newspapers and virtually none on television. That’s a shame but I guess you need to save the space to report on Posh and Beck’s domestics, important stuff like that.