Reclaim The World

Direct Investments by EU Countries in Georgia (ml. USD)

2008-08-14T22:47:00.000Z

Countries	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Total	340,0	499,1	449,8	1190	1682
EU	95,8	195,6	243,7	407.1	876.6
Austria	18,1	23,1	14,7	10.7	5.2
Czech Rep.	0,2	0,3	1,2	15.0	222.2
Denmark	0	0	0,3	42.5	92.6
UK	37,7	87,9	132,9	186.8	104.0
Spain	0	0	0	0	3.6
Estonia	0	0	0	0	0.2
Germany	4,1	5,1	5,0	20.4	19.4
Ireland	0,037	0,041	0,592	1.2	-1.5
Italy	15,8	32,4	22,8	47.2	15.2
Cyprus	0,7	21,3	47,5	40.1	136.0
Luxembourg	0,2	0,3	0,5	0.3	0
Netherlands	0	0	0,5	18.5	218.9
Poland	0	0	0,3	0.5	0
Greece	1,9	2,2	2,2	2.5	1.6
France	16,7	22,9	14,4	17.2	36.9
Sweden	0,081	0	0,1	0.2	6.8
Hungary	0,034	0	0,3	0.3	1.0
Latvia	0	0	0	0	1.8
Lithuania	0	0	0	3.4	1.9
Bulgaria	0	0	0.07	0.3	0.1
Belgium	0	0	0	0	3.2
Iceland	0	0	0	0	0.1
Liechtenstein	0	0	0	0	7.4
EU share (%)	28	39	54	33.9	52.1

http://www.mfa.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=57

Development and Reforms Foundation

2008-08-14T22:40:00.003Z

The highlight and front page of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia is asking for help. They're not too shy in asking for it either.

Development and Reforms Foundation launches new urgent Program – "Unite as we stand"

Due to the fact that Georgia is under the war conditions with the initiative of the President of Georgia and Government of Georgia the Development and Reforms Foundation launches new urgent Program – "Unite as we stand”. The main aim of the program is to facilitate any kind of activities concerning the social – economical rehabilitation of Georgia after the war.

"DRF” is welcomes all donations and support from abroad and from local donators on its special accounts.

Bank Accounts

FOR TRANSACTIONS IN GEL

BENEFICIARY’S BANK : "Basis Bank”

Bank Code : *********

BENEFICIARY : "DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM FOUNDATION” UNDER PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA

ACCOUNT # : ******

FOR TRANSACTIONS IN USD

INTERMEDIARY BANK : DEUTCHE BANK TRUST CO. AMERICAS

NEW YORK, USA, SWIFT : BKTRUS33

ABA : *********

BENEFICIARY’S BANK : BASIS BANK

TBILISI, GEORGIA

SWIFT : CBASGE22

BENEFICIARY : OBJECTIVE ACCOUNT FOUNDATION

" DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM FOUNDATION”

ACC. No : ******

FOR TRANSACTIONS IN EURO AND OTHER CONVERTIBLE CURRENCY

INTERMEDIARY BANK : DEUTCHE BANK

FRANKFURT/ESCHBORN, DEUTSCHLAND,

SWIFT : DEUT DE FF

BENEFICIARY’S BANK : BASIS BANK

TBILISI, GEORGIA

SWIFT : CBASGE22

BENEFICIARY : OBJECTIVE ACCOUNT FOUNDATION

"DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM FOUNDATION”

ACC. No : ******

The sheer hypocrisy of Bush and Rice

2008-08-14T22:28:00.004Z

Were it not for the unadulterated arrogance of George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice, their sheer hypocrisy would be laughable, yet due to their brazen instrusiveness and insolence, their very presence rankles, their words grate in the ears. Their messages cannot go unanswered.

BREAKING NEWS

Georgia declares war on South Ossetia

Explosions continue to terrorize Russia's Black Sea coast

Prons and cons of vegetarianism

Stunning photos of tigers under the water

Here we have a George W. Bush and a Conzoleeza Rice, with expressions of total preoccupation on their faces (are they worried about the implication of US military advisors in the act of butchery perpetrated by Georgian forces against ethnic Russians and Ossetians, when in one night 2.000 civilians were slaughtered?), speaking about the need to adhere to international law at the beginning of the 21^st century.

Here we have a President and his Secretary of State condemning Russia and supporting Georgia without one single word of mention of the Georgian war crimes which started this whole sorry affair. Not one single word of mention about the obligation Georgia had to hold a referendum in Abkhazia and South Ossetia under the terms of the Soviet Constitution, namely as regards its provisions for the voluntary dissolution of the Union or secession of Member States.

Here we have two senior members of a regime which entered Iraq based upon a tissue of lies, which then declared that the goal was regime change and which proceeded to mastermind a kangaroo court which changed the judges numerous times until who they purport as being His Excellency President Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti was hanged by the neck. Then they complain about Russia wanting to remove that criminal murderer, Saakashvili?

They have the audacity to complain about Russia violating Georgia’s frontiers, when the US armed forces invaded Iraq and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians? They have the cheek to complain about Russian military operations when cluster bombs were dropped into civilian areas in Iraq, when prisoners were tortured in Abu Ghraib, when innocent people were rounded up and sent to the illegal concentration camp at Guantanamo, where they did not even have access to a due legal process?

They have the sheer, pig-headed arrogance to speak about the territorial integrity of Georgia, when Iraq was invaded outside any norm of international law, its civilian structures were targeted with military hardware and reconstruction contracts were doled out without tender to White House cronies?

Suppose Russia claimed that it wanted regime change in Georgia, invaded the country, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of its citizens, deployed WMD in civilian areas, raped and tortured prisoners, caught Saakashvili and hanged him? Morally, Bush, Rice and their entire odious and satanic regime would not be able to say a single word without the label “hypocrisy” choking them in their throats.

How can these two, the Riddler and the Joker of international politics, the Himmler and Torquemada of modern diplomatic history, be expected to be taken seriously? Do they really think that there is a single human being on this planet who does not sneer in derision and stick up his middle finger every time they appear on a TV screen?

Hypocrites! Don’t cast stones if you have roofs made of glass. What the USA did in Iraq was a thousand times more than what Russia is doing in Georgia, namely launching a punitive raid after the slaughter of 2.000 of its citizens by the forces George Bush and Condoleeza Rice’s armed forces train. And these two do not even have the decency to refer to Georgia’s war crimes. How low can you get?

How about sending more military advisors to Georgia, since the hundreds they had there did such a wonderful job? Like their politicians, the US armed forces are a joke, no more than a bunch of murdering callous torturers belonging more in a medieval torture chamber than in the 21^st century.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/14-08-2008/106098-hypocrisybush-0

Gordon' Brown and the new gaf

2008-08-12T07:01:00.002Z

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown says there is "no justification" for Russia's military
action in Georgia.
He also was quoted as saying:"Continued aggression against Georgia - and especially an
escalation of the conflict beyond South Ossetia - will only serve to damage Russia's
international reputation"

Oh the irony! If only he stopped to look at himself for just a moment. Let's reflect for a few moments what exactly this guy and his party have done while on their watch.

Iraq, Afganistan, possibly Iran, (which looks likely at this time).

Even David Cameron has got involved and should be embarrassed. Not even worth quoting him to be honest, it's just what you would expect from an opposition party. Full backing and similar views of the main party.

Now the facts. Georgia attacked South Ossetia. South Ossetians are now refugees in shelters in RUSSIA! Not Georgia, so who was the aggressor? The Russians are simply helping their own people. Russia has every moral and legal right to support S.Ossetian and Abhazian independence.So what is US, EU and NATO's stance? Have they forgotten about Kosovo or choosen to forget at this time? Why is the press over here spewing out lies by deliberately standing by Saakashvili who on Thursday night claimed he would NOT attack, but did so only 3 hours later during a so called cease fire! Saakashvili attacked South Ossetia and killed 1400+ people including the elderly, young and vulnerable. Genocide! No covering up that then surely, and yet it is! It was pre planned prior to the Olympics to diffuse or play down the reality. Reuters, BBC, Fox News, CNN....Go on boys, show us what your all about. Keep spinning the BS! It's this cover blown wide open and so blatant, by the news that i have been waiting for.

Not all of Europe is anti Russian, far from it. I hope that that is understood. The UK, Europe, other parts of the world and even some free thinkers in the USA have read between the lines on this one. I personally want the international press reportaing bias to fall flat on it's twisted and greedy arse. Time for change, and it looks like were going to get it.

Just to see how deep this goes, look at the official Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia's Government website. http://www.mfa.gov.ge/
This site only came back up yesterday after being down all weekend. I assume they were most concerned with how they were going to set out their homepage following the deaths of 1400+ innocent civilians, that THEY killed in SO, but they don't mention anything negative or anything close to the truth. Saakashvili for trial! And all those involved.

Media lies lies lies

2008-08-08T22:46:00.007Z

Will the US help the Georgian government bring home troops from Iraq?

Just to highlight the sensitive nature of our media's complete and utter bull shit that it spews out on a daily basis it is worth considering what the true meaning behind this bloody battle is about:

U.S. tells Russia to pull forces out of Georgia
Fri Aug 8, 2008 5:36pm EDT

By Susan Cornwell and Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States told Russia on Friday to withdraw its forces from U.S. ally Georgia and stop its air attacks on the tiny Caucasus state following fighting in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

"We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia's territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.

Rice issued her statement as Georgia, a former Soviet state that now wants to join NATO, said it would declare martial law as it battled to get control of the rebel enclave, which was backed by Russian forces.

Both Rice and the White House urged an immediate cease-fire in South Ossetia, and U.S. officials said they would send an envoy to the region to help mediate.

As fighting raged in and around the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russia and Georgia were at war.

Rice said the United States was working actively with its European partners to launch international mediation, and "we urgently seek Russia's support of these efforts."

Diplomatic sources said the U.S. envoy would be Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Matthew Bryza, who is expected to join a mission that includes the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Georgia is at the center of a battle for influence between the United States and Russia in the Caucasus."

This is here : http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0850115420080808

Some responces to this from real people, some of which live closer and know more than we do about it:

"Monstrous lie! It's Artificial an information war against Russia. The war began with the invasion of Georgian military!"
alex, London

"Western news makers have taken Georgian Side(by Georgian Army have been killed almost 2 000 civilians in Tskhinvali and numbers will increase) which have broken peace just before the Olympic Game.

What you see on TV is Georgian troops which a policy maker stated as Russian because is easy to blame, because you the don’t see any difference between and you are easy to manipulate.
Don’t believe what you see, read between lines
Evil has to land to knell you"
Alan, Tskhinvali

There is a lot more of this here: http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=5212&edition=1&ttl=20080808234304

But here are a few more anyway as it becomes impossible to find these articles later:

"Might is Right!"

Isn't that the way humans have behaved for eons? The West or anyone else for that matter have NO right to judge & state whether Russia is right or wrong! After the recognition of Kosovo the precedent HAS been set. If South Ossetia becomes independent then that will be the way it is because that's the way the world (unfortunately) works.

At the cost of being repetitive NO COUNTRY can claim a 'Holier Than Thou' attitude. Many countries had imperialist pasts!

Who is pure?

[MaxMaxmilianMaximusI], Indian Caesar in, Singapore

Recommended by 73 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 11:12 GMT 12:12 UK

The Georgians start war when
- they have pulled in troops though agreed to truce
- Beijing Olimpics start
- Ms.Rice has visited them.
Mr.Saakashvili is clearly an immoral agressor now.
Abkhazians and S.Ossetians have won wars at 1980/90s verge mainly by their own efforts.
They wanted independence from Georgians the way Georgians wanted it from Russians.
Now they face army trained and supported by the West and need Russian help.
Russia is either to help them or loose its face.

Anatoly Kondra, Moscow, Russia

Recommended by 70 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 12:18 GMT 13:18 UK

"So Russia totally opposes the creation of an indepedent Kosova as being illegal, but backs the creation of an independent South Ossetia"

[Peter_Sym], Nottingham

So the US, UK, and certain EU countries totally oppose the creation of an independent South Ossetia but recognise the creation of an independent Kosovo.

Oh and theres no need to debate whether US, UK planes bombed Serbian civilian areas, there is more than enough footage and plane parts for all to see.

JL, London

Recommended by 67 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 12:48 GMT 13:48 UK

Kosovo tries to secede from Serbia - Serbia tries to stop it - NATO rolls in with blazing tomahawks and planes to stop it.

South Ossetia tries to secede from Georgia - Georgia tries to stop it - Russia rolls in with tanks to stop it.

What is the problem here other than double standards?

Marko, Belgrade

Recommended by 65 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 11:43 GMT 12:43 UK

Russia has every moral and legal right to support S.Ossetian an Abhazian independence. The precendent was set few months earlier by the US and EU.We just do the same you did with Kosovo

sanek, moscow, russia

Recommended by 61 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 17:41 GMT 18:41 UK

If the US, EU and NATO were so quick to recognise Kosovo's independence they should as well recognise South Ossetia's independence. Something tells me they will not! Is is because Russia is involved? Hypocrits!

Constantinos, Nicosia

Recommended by 48 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 17:33 GMT 18:33 UK

The Russian peacemakers in South Ossetia have the mandate of the United Nations. They were shot with the Georgian armies. Why nobody speaks about it?

Elena Solovey, Tbilisi, Georgia

Recommended by 48 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 17:35 GMT 18:35 UK

How can you justify the fact that Georgia used heavy artillery to bombard South Ossetia, killing more than a thousand civilians [1] and destroying the buildings? Do you really expect Russia to not do a thing when the civilians that were killed were actually citizens of the Russian Federation (not to mention the russian peacekeepers)?

[1]. ********

Serge M., Lithuania

Recommended by 46 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 12:47 GMT 13:47 UK

Calm down, my russian friends.
Not everyone in the EU is as anti-russian as crazy Mart from Estonia.
He hates Russia so much that he doesn't seem to realize that Ossetians are pro-russian.
Russian troops are entering South-Ossetia, planes have bombarded a military base near Tbilisi...
This Georgian attack is very well prepared and timed.
Since the Georgians are better prepared, they will have some success in the first fights against the Russians.
In the end, the russian army will prevail.

nicolas, brussels

Recommended by 46 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 12:50 GMT 13:50 UK

"When the first Russian peace keeper will be hurt, Moscow will retaliate and Georgia will realize that Ossetia and Abkhazia are loss forever."
[Yampat], Ittre, Belgium

Already several peace keepers were killed when their barracks were bombed by Georgian artellery. Now Russian tanks are reportedly entering the sieged city... about time too. SO and Abkhasia were lost by Georgia 20 years ago and frankly Georgia is on no position to force them to come back.

IF, Moscow

Recommended by 45 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 11:16 GMT 12:16 UK

The recent history of Georgia is full of violence. Since the break up of the Soviet Union they fought endless wars: first the civil war, war in Abkhazia, war in South Osetia, don't forget the Pankisi Gorge and then the new revolution. Quite a lot for a small country! The 'beacon of democracy' is not shining attractive enough for prople to come and join it. I am afraid that the country is doomed to be an unhappy banana republic of the same level as Honduras, Guatemala, Kosovo and many others...

Vodkin, Moscow

Recommended by 45 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 11:06 GMT 12:06 UK

South Ossetia has just been attacked. Georgia has delaclared war and shelled the SO capital. In the city there are civilians who are being killed by the shells. What kind of question is "Can South Osetia find peace"? Its not like they have lost the peace "oops where did I drop it?". There is a war now and peace will come after the war, unless international community does something to stop Georgia from attacking its neighbour. Hopefull Russia will put money where its mouth is and sends troops.

IF, Russia

Recommended by 45 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 17:45 GMT 18:45 UK

I am increasingly concerned at the attitude of the EU.

This is non of Europes business - & certainly no business of the UK.

Russia has been humiliated enough by the EU, & I doubt their patience will last much longer.

As Europe & UK rely on Russian gas (great forward planning there dear leaders) I suggest we keep our noses out - just for once.

Tony Curtis, Nottingham

Recommended by 44 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 11:38 GMT 12:38 UK

I lived in Georgia for 4 years and I think I understand the conflict better than most

The poor Georgians and Ossetians are caught between the desires of two superpowers: Russia and the US. Russia wants to maintain its influence in the area, the US wants to "wipe it off". Why in the world does NATO need to expand that far? When the Soviet Union collapsed the world appeared to be heading towards more peaceful times. Then, among other things, the US has sought to be the "boss" of the world.

Brian McFarlane, New York City

Recommended by 42 people

Added: Friday, 8 August, 2008, 11:08 GMT 12:08 UK

Can a peaceful solution be found?
------------------
I dont think so. Diplomacy proved to be useless, now army should act! Saakashvili acted like Hitler, first stating that Georgia wants peace and 3 hours later attacking sleeping civilians at the eve of Olympic Games. In my opinion, Russia should do something to protect its citizens (most of them have russian passports), but it does absolutely nothing!! In 1999 we betrayed Serbs and now we do the same with Ossetians.

sanek, moscow, russia

Recommended by 40 people

Thank you soo so much Reuters and many other media companies for finally being so bold as to show your true colours !! :D

What a guy

2008-07-22T15:41:00.001Z

Gordon Brown will be in charge of the government this summer even while he is away on holiday, his spokesman says.

Says it all really.

Gordon Is right in it

2008-07-22T09:38:00.000Z

Gordon Brown further selling us more tripe

20th July 2008 Brown in Palestine offers £30,000,000 in aid

2008-07-22T09:24:00.002Z

Don't worry about the recession back home Gordon... Or your incompetent Chancellor.
No you stlye it out making yourself look good, spending our money you havn't even accounted for yet. And because there was such a huge audience you start giving out hand signals showing your intent.

New World Order

2008-07-22T09:19:00.000Z

Gordon Brown sells us the New World Order

2008-07-22T09:07:00.000Z

9 of the 911 Hijackers are still alive

2008-07-22T09:06:00.000Z

Building engulfed in flames.

2008-07-22T08:53:00.000Z

Gordon Brown and the theft of pensions

2007-04-02T06:55:00.001Z

About time this was published. More truths on the man who recently would only be interviewed on t.v. by ten year olds about their points of view and who shouldn't be P.M...Ever!

"Like a two-bob mugger at a sink-estate bus-stop, Gordon Brown has been caught with his hand in the pensioner's purse.

But, unlike the hoodie whose wildest dream might be a few quid to buy crack, the Chancellor doesn't deal in petty cash.

No, sir. When Mr Brown goes on the rampage, he does it for proper money. The Clunking Fist lifts out billions. His victims have their retirement savings raided again and again and again.

Mr Brown is the Mr Big of Britain's pensions disaster. That doesn't mean, however, that the Chancellor hasn't learnt a trick or two from low-life criminals. He has.

When nabbed, his first reaction was to deny everything. Inconvenient truths were robustly rejected. "What me? Stealing pensions? Don't be ridiculous. I wasn't there."

Unfortunately for him, official papers released late on Friday, under what he must have hoped would be the cover of darkness, reveal Mr Brown's full complicity in the Great Pensions Robbery.

Caught by the administrative equivalent of a CCTV camera, Mr Brown's desperate attempt at self-exculpation led him to blame everyone but himself. "Not me, guv".

The Chancellor didn't say he was bullied at school and unloved by his family, but had that been a plausible option to mitigate guilt, I'm sure he would have grabbed it.

With Mr Brown overseas, his department's minions were sent out to defend the indefensible. Their efforts at getting the boss off the hook were as risible as they were duplicitous.

First, the near collapse of our final-salary occupational pension system (once the envy of the world) was all to do with "the dotcom crash". Later, Ed Balls, Mr Brown's arch gofer at the Treasury, blamed Norman Lamont. Remember him? If this is what passes for serious analysis of a pensions crisis that has destroyed long-term savings and jeopardised the future of millions of hard-working people, Mr Balls is not fit to run a Commons coffee bar, much less the nation's coffers.

Back in 1997, while Mr Brown was scheming to plunder private pensions for about £5 billion a year, he was warned in the clearest possible terms by the Inland Revenue that the proposed raid would "make a big hole in pension scheme finances", creating a shortfall of up to £75 billion.

He was further alerted to the fact that many of the hardest hit would be those who could least afford a blighted pension. Either the Chancellor was too stupid to see this or he didn't care. Not even Mr Brown's worst enemies (the queue is getting longer) believe he is thick. We must infer, therefore, that the arriviste at No 11, an old-fashioned socialist in New Labour wrapping, was interested only in sucking up as much revenue as he could.

He wasn't worried about private pensions, because he hates private. Private means that those who save and look after themselves need show no obeisance to the state.

They do not have to crawl to the Chancellor for his means-tested hand-outs. They are free from his obsessive meddling in other people's lives. Therefore, they must be battered into submission by the Clunking Fist. Stalin would have approved.

Before our occupational pension funds were cashed by Mr Brown, about 90 per cent of them offered defined benefits. In other words, they were a promise to pay a fixed percentage of final salary.

Once the full force of Brown's brutalisation kicked in - it took about three years before the pain started to become very obvious - a system of which we were rightly proud began to fall apart.

Today, only about one in 10 corporate pensions is final salary. Pensioners have been switched into defined contributions schemes, which are generally much less generous.

It's true that the Chancellor is not solely to blame for the unravelling of our retirement schemes. In the 1980s and 1990s, many companies were so complacent about funds being in surplus that they took "pensions holidays": they simply stopped paying in. That action now looks almost criminally negligent.

A sharp rise in life expectancy has also played a part. The longer that pensioners hang around, drawing from the pot, the harder it is for funds to be confident about meeting future obligations.

But all that pales alongside the Chancellor's decision to pay for his profligate spending spree on unreformed public services in part with the money of millions of pensioners.

No wonder Mr Brown refused to appear on my recent documentary for ITV, Where's My Pension Gone? No wonder he fought for two years to keep secret the warnings he had received about pilfering our pensions. No wonder when there are tricky questions to be answered about the annihilation of privately-funded retirement schemes, he's never there.

Mr Brown, of course, has bigger things on his mind. His personal sat-nav is fixed on No 10.

But when he gets there, as seems likely, he will discover that in the end, once all the spin and bluster have lost their potency, a man's reputation reflects the absolute reality of what he is.

For all his intellectual pretensions, Mr Brown is a flim-flam man - and the voters now know that."

Thanks to Jeff Randall @ The Telegraph for this article. Link: Pensions mugger Brown has been rumbled.

Debt... Who is to blame?

2007-01-06T02:11:00.000Z

Interesting proposal by the ifs School of Finance. A competition offering a vast amount of money in the region of £250 to play their pawn game and come up with fresh ideas that they either can't or just to find out how aware youths are today by writting an article in no more than 1500 words answering; "Who is responsible for the UK consumer debt mountain?"

Only for those between 14 and 19 who think they can write a business article and win the £250 jackpot! (See yts scheme, immigration and cheap slave labour for further reference)

The article must be written in a business magazine style and entries will be judged by Robert Cole, deputy business editor for..."The Times", who will award marks for good reporting style, demonstrating research, evaluation, analysis and written argument skills.

Gary Millner, corporate relations and communications director at the ifs School of Finance, said: "This competition is not only great for young people with an interest in business, it's suitable for any young person to enter. It's a thought provoking question and I'm sure we will receive many different views from young people across the UK."

I'm sure they will... Leaving the most promising ideas out to play with themselves over the course of the next year.

Age discrimination aside , i doubt the real reason will be publicly aired or issues even raised by 14 to 19 year olds, but i wouldn't rule it out completely. The culprits would be the unknown elite who are behind the private companies, who own the Federal Reserve Board and teh Governments who appoint the faces they publicaly expose as the head of them, in the public eye. Banks also. Then there's those who force products on us from the helm of capitalist conglomerates who are as much to blame as the people who are led like lambs to the slaughter to buy everything that is advertised as things we all 'suposedly' need., and were back at banks again! See www.fearorlove.com for more on this and why it will continue until the masses wake up. Further reading at Wikipedia here: Fiat currency

There are in fact numerous articles about this on the internet. If ye seek ye shall find, just do a little digging.

R

Bloggers' truth making my job harder!

2006-11-19T15:01:00.000Z

"Tony Blair's outgoing chief strategy adviser fears the internet could be fuelling a "crisis" in the relationship between politicians and voters.

Matthew Taylor - who stressed he was speaking as a "citizen" not a government spokesman - said the web could be "fantastic" for democracy. "

Link to article here at the BBC

"We have a citizenry which can be caricatured as being increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet capable of self-government," Mr Taylor told the audience.

Like "teenagers", people were demanding, but "conflicted" about what they actually wanted, he argued.

"They wanted sustainability, for example, but not higher fuel prices, affordable homes for their children but not new housing developments in their town or village.

'Impoverished relationship'

But rather than work out these dilemmas in partnership with their elected leaders, they were encouraged to regard all politicians as corrupt or "mendacious" by the media, which he described as "a conspiracy to maintain the population in a perpetual state of self-righteous rage".

Maybe if we were all deviod of our own thoughts

"Whether media was left wing or right wing, the message was always that "leaders are out there to shaft you".

Right on the money there Matt

"At a time at which we need a richer relationship between politicians and citizens than we have ever had, to confront the shared challenges we face, arguably we have a more impoverished relationship between politicians and citizens than we have ever had.

"It seems to me this is something which is worth calling a crisis....

The internet is part of that crisis".

"The internet has immense potential but we face a real problem if the main way in which that potential expresses itself is through allowing citizens to participate in a shrill discourse of demands."

Yes exposing truth is way off the mark on our part.

"If you look at the way in which citizens are using technology and the way that is growing up, there are worrying signs that that is the case.

What is the big breakthrough, in terms of politics, on the web in the last few years? It's basically blogs which are, generally speaking, hostile and, generally speaking, basically see their job as every day exposing how venal, stupid, mendacious politicians are."

Incredible isn't it. Instead of taking notes on points of view from unbiased sources it is spun out in the form of an attack on individual expression. Now the political circus act fears there's a breakdown between the electorate and themselves because unaccountable blogging that isn't bought or regulated by them can't be controlled.

There always was but thick skin and obnoxious attitudes ignored it. If Matthew Taylor, Blair's chief strategy adviser wants positive points lets see positive acts.
It's impossible to go back. You can't undo what is done and the mistakes made should be made more public and scrutinized. Our problem is not knowing where to start. There's ream of this stuff to pick at and that's exactly what we'll do.

"The internet is being used as a tool of mobilisation, which is fantastic, but it only adds to the growing, incommensurate nature of the demands being made on government."

Demands for politicians to listen and do a job without all the bullshit, spin, corruption and propaganda?

He challenged the online community to provide more opportunities for "people to try to understand the real trade-offs that politicians face and the real dilemmas that citizens face".
Get of your pedestals and realise your supposed to be doing a job for us, the people not citizens in a grade or tier system similar to something resembling George Orwel's Animal Farm against a hierarchy, and face up to the fact we can now have an honest debate on how if you, and you have screwed it up we can take that away.

We won't ignore the problems created, side step around it and pretend it never happened no matter what force is applied to brush it under the carpet. Blogs are here to stay and the more greedy politicians get, their mistakes and wrongdoings become evermore transparent feeding us, the bloggers with more than we could ever write about.

R

WTC7 controlled demolition

2006-10-22T10:14:00.000Z

Darwin online

2006-10-19T23:03:00.000Z

Comprehensive guide to Darwin to be available online here:

The complete works of Darwin online

Persistence

2006-10-19T21:22:00.000Z

Why oh why is this debate still going on?
Aishah Azmi, 23, a musim classroom was suspended from a school because pupils couldn't understand her properly.

Children as a whole learn how to communicate with sound and expression which is impossible to do if all but your eyes are visible to see. Maybe if Mrs Azmi is any good at her job she could teach blind and visually impaired kids as it would hardly matter, just so long as when she speaks, she does it showing a tad more character, personalty and emotion than her 15 minutes of fame on the television. Doesn't seem to me like the kind of woman i would like to be teaching my kids anyway... Is that discriminating? Nope, just my opinion and many others it would seem (seeing as official figures claim islam to only make up only 3% of Britain. This figure is way off the mark so how many are here illegally or failed to speak up for whatever reason).
Here's an individual so hell bent on personal beliefs it would be hard to deny that this wouldn't keep bobbing up on the surface of her 'teachings'.
I'm sorry, but i'm a little confused here. The Koran has been interpreted as saying the primary reason for women to wear a veil and conceal themselves is to prevent evil and sexual advances from men thousands of years ago. What kind of thought's are these children supposed to be having seeing this individuals' face? Lewd and of a sexual nature? Thought's of rape and pilage?

Mrs Azmi also believes politician's are making a rod for their own back too.
"Muslim women who wear the veils are not aliens, and politicians need to recognise that what they say can have a very dangerous impact on the lives of the minorities they treat as outcasts."
And minorities playing the race card over an issue that has no place in our society isn't? Would you open the door if i came knocking with a balaclava on?

She continues...
"I will continue to uphold my religious beliefs and urge Muslims to engage in dialogue with the wider community, despite the attacks that are being made upon them."
Not a bad idea providing this statement is meant with good intentions and you can understand them. Or even want to. Not sure what she means by the attacks made upon them, but biting the hand that feeds comes to mind.

Mrs Azmi lost her claim of religious discrimination at a tribunal. Her claims of religious discrimination and harassment on religious grounds were overuled, but Kirklees Council in Dewsbury, West Yorks, was ordered to pay her £1,100 for victimising her. And she wants more! She intends to appeal against the decision to dismiss her religious discrimination claims. I'd like to know her thoughts on Israel and how muslims dismiss that. So where is the compensation Nadia Eweida, 55, (who has been suspended from British Airways for wearing a cross) should now be reiceiving?

She goes on to say
"fearful of the consequences for Muslim women in this country who want to work".
I think she can leave the concerns and fears for the taxpayers to once again pick up the tab.

R

The limits of liberty: We're all suspects now

2006-10-19T20:50:00.000Z

Identity cards. Number-plate surveillance. CCTV. Control orders. The list of ways in which the Government has sought to manipulate and define the limits of our liberty grows ever longer. Ten years ago, the novelist and polemicist Henry Porter would have felt silly speaking out about human rights in Britain. But that was before the most fundamental assault on personal freedom ever undertaken. Now, he argues, it's time we woke up to reality

On new year's day 1990, three days after becoming president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel looked his people in the eye and spoke to them as no one had done before. It is difficult to read his words without feeling the vibration of history of both the liberation and the horrors of the regime that had just expired, leaving the Czech people blinking in the cold sunlight of that extraordinary winter.

This is what he said. "The previous regime, armed with its arrogance and intolerant ideology, reduced man to a force of production. It reduced gifted and autonomous people to nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy, stinking machine whose real meaning was not clear to anyone. It could do no more but slowly and inexorably wear itself out, and all the nuts and bolts too."

That perfectly defines the true tyranny, where the state takes all liberty and bends each individual will to its own purpose. And here is the interesting thing that Havel put his finger on: no matter how brutal or ruthless the regime, the act of depriving people of their freedom starts the stopwatch on that regime's inevitable demise. What he was saying was that in modern times a state can only thrive in the fullest sense when individuals are accorded maximum freedom.

I agree. Individual liberty is not just the precondition for civilisation, not just morally right, not just the only way people can reach their full potential, live responsibly and have fun; it is also a necessity for the health of government. Ten years ago I would have felt silly speaking about liberty and rights in Britain with the very real concern that I have today. But I am worried. And it's not just me. Last month Le Monde asked "Is Democracy Dying in the West?". In the spring of this year Lord Steyn, the distinguished former law lord, made a speech despairing at this Government's neglect for the Rule of Law, which was followed by Baroness (Helena) Kennedy's alarm call in the James Cameron Lecture.

The inescapable fact is that we have a Prime Minister who repeatedly makes the point that civil liberties arguments are not so much wrong as made for another age [my italics]. We have a Government that has ignored the Rule of Law, reduced rights and has steadily moved to increase the centralised power of the state at the expense of the individual.

So I don't feel quite as silly or as alarmist as I might.

The relationship between the state and individual is really at the heart of any discussion about democracy and rights. In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union it was the state's mission not just to prevent people from expressing themselves, from moving about freely and unobserved, from pursuing their chosen careers and acting upon their religious and political convictions, but to stop them from thinking freely. It needed to occupy people's thoughts - to take up a kind of permanent residency in the mind of the average citizen. And as the many psychological studies published in the Nineties make clear, this led to psychic disrepair on a massive scale - paranoia, clinical depression, chronic internalised anger and learned helplessness.

We fell morally ill, Havel said in that speech, because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimensions, and for many of us represented only psychological peculiarities.

Why am I harping on about communism? It died and was buried 17 years ago, at least in Europe and Russia. We're into another century. We've got Google and speed-dating and globalisation and melting ice caps and reality TV and al-Qa'ida and al-Jazeera and Al Gore. We've moved on.

As a character in Alan Bennett's The History Boys says, there is no period more remote in history than the recent past. Indeed, but we need to remember that recent past a little more than we do. For one thing, our knowledge of what existed on the other side of the Iron Curtain meant we valued and looked after our own freedoms much more than we do today.

It is perhaps the absence of an obvious confrontation between freedom and tyranny that allows Tony Blair to say that civil liberties arguments are made for another age. I profoundly disagree with this. It is dangerous arrogance to say that the past has nothing to teach us and that all the problems we face now are unique to our time.

During his speech to the Labour Party conference, Tony Blair said: "I don't want to live in a police state, or a Big Brother society or put any of our essential freedoms in jeopardy. But because our idea of liberty is not keeping pace with change in reality, those freedoms are in jeopardy."

What in heaven's name did he mean by that? Liberty is liberty. You can't update it. You can't divide it. You are either free, or you're not. A society is either just, or it isn't. People have rights or they don't. The rule of law is upheld, or it isn't.

But Blair believes there is nothing that can't be modernised, updated, pared down or streamlined to keep pace with change. And liberty is no exception to the modernising fury which serves as New Labour's only ideological foundation. What the Prime Minister is saying in this cute little Orwellian paradox is that in the particular circumstances of the war on terror and the rash of crime and anti-social behaviour, we must give up freedom to be free.

What an odd idea! Who is to decide which freedoms are essential and which can be sacrificed to make us secure? Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Lord Falconer or the former Stalinist and now Home Secretary John Reid?

"Those who would give up essential liberty," observed Benjamin Franklin, "to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither freedom or safety." That's exactly right because you can't barter one for the other even though that has been the tempting deal on offer from the British and American governments since 9/11. The truth of the matter is that relinquishing our rights in exchange for illusory security harms each one of us, and our children and grandchildren. Because once gone, these rights hardly ever return.

But let's just return to the first part of that statement by Tony Blair - the bit about him not wanting to live in a police state, or a Big Brother society. Don't get me wrong, we do not live in either a police state or a Big Brother society - yet. But there is no Englishman alive or dead who has done more to bring them about.

The trouble is that it's happening so very quietly, so very discreetly that few really see it. You have to concentrate very hard to understand what's going on and put the whole picture together because so much has been buried in obscure corners of legislation.

We used to believe in innocence until guilt was proved by a court. Not any longer. That distinction disappeared when the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act came into force and police started taking innocent people's DNA and fingerprints and treating them as a convicted criminals.

We used to believe in Habeas Corpus. Not any longer. Under terrorism laws, suspects may be held for 28 days without being charged. Now the Home Secretary wants to make that 90 days, and Gordon Brown seems to share that view.

We used to believe that there should be no punishment without a court deciding the law had been broken, and that every defendant had the right to know the evidence against him. Not any longer. Control orders effectively remove both those rights and John Reid said recently that he wanted stronger powers to detain and control, and stronger powers to deport, which would clearly require the UK to derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights.

We used to believe that an Englishman's home was his castle. Not any longer. A pincer movement by the Courts Act 2003 and the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 put paid to the 400-year-old principle that entry into your home could not be forced in civil cases.

We used to believe in the right to be tried by jury. Not any longer. The Government plans to remove trial by jury in complicated fraud cases and where there is a likelihood of jury tampering. It would like to go further.

We used to believe there was a good reason not to allow hearsay evidence in court. Not any longer. The anti-social behaviour order legislation introduced hearsay evidence. The maximum penalty for breaking an Asbo can be up to five years in jail. Hearsay can send someone to jail.

We used to believe in free speech, but not any longer. People have been detained under terrorism laws for wearing anti-Blair T-shirts. Walter Wolfgang was removed from the Labour Conference for heckling Jack Straw about the Iraq war. A woman was charged under the Harassment Act for sending two e-mails to a company politely asking them not to conduct animal experiments. Her offence was to send two e-mails, for in that lies the repeated action that is now illegal. A man named Stephen Jago was arrested for displaying a placard quoting Orwell near Downing Street. It read: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." And a mime artist named Neil Goodwin appeared in court recently charged under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act for what? Well, doing an impersonation of Charlie Chaplin outside Parliament. His hearing was a grim comedy. Mr Goodwin's statement to the court concluded: "In truth, one of the first things to go under a dictatorship is a good sense of humour."

We used to believe that our private communications were sacrosanct. Not any longer. The Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and its subsequent amendments provide such wide terms for the legitimate tapping of phones, the interception of e-mails and monitoring of internet connections that they amount to general warrants, last used in the 18th century under George III.

I could go on because there is much more, but I worry about boring you and I know I am beginning to seem obsessed. There will be many reasonable people among you who will argue that the fight against terrorism or some other compelling problem makes the removal of a fragment of liberty the best option available to us. A little bit here, a little bit there doesn't really matter, particularly when it involves somebody else's rights. Without thinking very deeply, we say to ourselves "if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to fear from these new laws". Not true. There is something to fear - because someone else's liberty is also your liberty. When it's removed from them, it's taken from you even though you may not be able to conceive of the circumstances when you might need it. A system of rights must apply to bank managers, illegal immigrant cockle pickers and every type of defendant otherwise it doesn't count.

Cumulatively, these small, barely noticed reductions in our rights add up to the greatest attack on liberty in the last hundred years. No wonder the Prime Minister dismisses traditional civil liberties arguments as being made for another age. With his record he can do nothing else.

In an e-mail exchange between him and me in the spring, he suggested a kind of super Asbo for major criminals. This is what the unmediated Blair sounds like. "I would go further. I would widen the powers of police to seize cash of suspected [my italics] drug dealers, the cars they drive round in and require them to prove that they came by them lawfully. I would impose restrictions on those suspected of being involved in organised crime. In fact I would harry, hassle and hound them until they give up or leave the country."

I'm sure that echoes many people's desire just to be rid of these awful people. But think about it for a moment: Tony Blair is a lawyer, yet nowhere is there any mention of due process or the courts. Apparently it will be enough for the authorities merely to suspect someone of wrongdoing for them to act. And the police won't be troubled by the tiresome business of courts, defence lawyers or defendants' rights. I wonder what Vaclav Havel would think of such a suggestion. Certainly, he would be all too familiar with the system of arbitrary arrest and state persecution that Blair seems to be suggesting.

Blair dresses up his views in a vocabulary of modernisation and inclusivity. Yet when he talks about rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the victim, it takes just a few moments to see that this will be achieved by doing away with the priority in our legal system of protecting the accused from miscarriages of justice. He simply wants to reduce defendants' rights in order to satisfy public demand for more prosecutions.

It is now plain that he intends nothing less than to open the ancient charters of British rights in order to tip acid into them.

The way cabinet ministers think of themselves today and what they do are at odds. They think of themselves as reasonable, tolerant, humane and liberal people, but their actions tell an altogether different story. This brings me to the Big Brother state that Tony Blair says he doesn't want to live in, but which has nevertheless rapidly come into being during his premiership.

Most people have very little understanding of what the ID card scheme will actually mean for them. They think that it just involves a little plastic identifier. But it is much more than that. Every adult will be required to provide 49 pieces of information about themselves which will include biometric measurements - probably an iris scan and fingerprinting. If you refuse to submit to what is called, without irony, enrolment, you will face repeated fines of up £2,500. The Government is deadly serious about this thing because of a simple truth. They want to know pretty much everything there is to know about you.

Personally, I find the idea of having a card repugnant and I cannot believe it will be long before policemen are stopping us on the street and asking for our papers. But this is by no means the most sinister aspect. Every time your card is swiped when you identify yourself, the National Identity Register will silently make a record of the time and date, your location and the purpose of the ID check. Gradually, a unique picture of your life will be built, to which nearly half-a-million civil servants are apparently going to have access.

But of course you will never be told who is looking at your file, or why. And nor will you be able to find out.

MPs must take responsibility for passing this invasive law but they cannot be blamed for the other half of the Big Brother society that is upon us. I refer to the total surveillance of our roads in a linked-up system of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras. These cameras cover every motorway, major dual carriageway, town and city centre and will feed information from billions of journeys into one computer, where the data will remain for two years.

The decision to put British motorists under blanket, round- the-clock surveillance was never taken by Parliament. It just happened. As the cost of processing enormous quantities of data came down, the police and Home Office just simply decided to go ahead. Traffic cameras became surveillance cameras. This, I gather, is known as function creep, and, as always, half the pressure comes from technological innovation.

We are about to become the most observed population in the world outside North Korea, and absolutely no work has been done on how this will affect each one of us and what it will do to our society and political institutions.

I worry that we are not alert to the possibilities of social control. No matter how discreet this surveillance, it increases the spectral presence of the state in the everyday consciousness of each individual. I grant that it is a slow process and that it is nothing like the leaden omnipresence of the Stasi in the GDR. But I think we're heading for a place from which we will not be able to return: the surveillance society where the state will crowd in on the individual human experience and threaten the unguarded freedoms of privacy, solitude, seclusion and anonymity. We may continue to attest to the feeling of freedom but in reality we will suffer more and more restrictions. Inexorably we are becoming subjects not citizens, units on a database that may be observed and classified by a Government which is taking control in areas where it has never dared in democratic times to trespass before.

Where this will all lead I cannot say, but I do know that it is neither good for us nor for the state. Humans work best when they have the maximum freedom, and so does government. As our Government gains more power in relation to us, confusing itself on the way with the entity and interests of the state, it will become less responsive to our needs and opinions, less transparent and less accountable.

Havel said of the Communist tyranny in that glorious but sombre new year's day speech: "None of us is just its victim. We are its co-creators." That is true of any society. And I believe we all need now to acknowledge what has happened to British rights and do something about it.

Firstly, there needs to be some kind of formal audit made of the rights which have been already compromised. An exact account. Linked to this should be a commission looking into the effects of mass surveillance. Second, we need a constitution which enshrines a bill of rights and places our rights beyond the reach of an ambitious Executive and Parliament. Third, we should be writing to our constituency MPs or clogging up their surgeries - asking what they are doing about the attack on liberty. And fourth, all schoolchildren should be taught about British rights and freedoms, what they mean and how they were won. History, as the National Trust is fond of saying, matters. Rights and liberties are as much a part of our heritage as St Paul's Cathedral and Shakespeare's plays.

This may all sound rather prescriptive but I have become certain over the last two years that we need to do something to save us from our Government and the Government from itself.

This was taken from the Summerfield Lecture given at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, on 12 October as part of the annual literary festival. Research by Emily Butselaar

Source from the Independant

'Video Bloggers' under threat from EU broadcast rules

2006-10-17T21:01:00.000Z

Well the un-elected peeps down in Brussels have mustered up another obtrusive act to justify their over inflated wages...

THE Government is seeking to prevent an EU directive that could
extend broadcasting regulations to the internet, hitting popular
video-sharing websites such as YouTube.

The European Commission proposal would require websites and mobile
phone services that feature video images to conform to standards
laid down in Brussels.

Ministers fear that the directive would hit not only successful
sites such as YouTube but also amateur “video bloggers” who post
material on their own sites. Personal websites would have to be
licensed as a “television-like service”.

Viviane Reding, the Media Commissioner, argues that the purpose
is simply to set minimum standards on areas such as advertising,
hate speech and the protection of children.

But Shaun Woodward, the Broadcasting Minister, described the draft
proposal as catastrophic. He said: “Supposing you set up a website
for your amateur rugby club, uploaded some images and added a link
advertising your local sports shop. You would then be a supplier
of moving images and need to be licensed and comply with the
regulations.”

The draft rules, known as the Television Without Frontiers
directive, extend the definition of broadcasting to cover services
such as video-on-demand or mobile phone clips.

Ministers argue that while television programmes should be subject
to minimum standards, the content of websites should not be subject
to EU regulation.

Mr Woodward is proposing a compromise that requires EU states to
agree a new definition of what constitutes “television”. He said:
“It’s common sense. If it looks like a TV programme and sounds like
one then it probably is. A programme transmitted by a broadcaster
over the net could be covered by extending existing legislation.
But video clips uploaded by someone is not television. YouTube and
MySpace should not be regulated.”

British criminal law already covers material that might incite hate
or cause harm to children, Mr Woodward added. The Government’s
definition of online broadcasting covers feature films, sports events,
situation comedy, documentary, children’s programmes and original
drama. It excludes personal websites and sites where people upload
and exchange video images.

“The real risk is we drive out the next MySpace because of the cost
of complying with unnecessary regulations,” Mr Woodward said. “These
businesses can easily operate outside the EU.”

Ofcom, the media regulator, is also opposing the proposed directive,
which it believes could discourage new multimedia business in Europe.

Mr Woodward is seeking EU member state support for the British
compromise. So far only Slovakia has pledged support, but Mr Woodward
believes that other nations will come onboard before a key EU Council
meeting on November 13.

The influence of “user-generated” websites was demonstrated last week
when Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion (£883 million). Launched
in February 2005, it has grown into one of the most popular websites.
YouTube has 100 million videos viewed every day.

The House of Lords European Union Committee began an inquiry yesterday
into the directive, which could also introduce paid-for product
placement on UK television for the first time.

Lord Woolmer, the committee chairman, said: “The proposals bring
within the regulatory framework areas of the media previously
untouched by broadcasting legislation.

“Britain is at the cutting edge of new media and alternative
broadcasters in Europe, and we are keen to ensure that the proposals
will not damage this growing industry in seeking to incorporate them
into EU regulation.”

Article here TimesOnline

US Government Target American Bloggers As Enemy Propagandists

2006-10-17T20:18:00.000Z

I have kept this article as is because it's wording and structure speak volumes and it wouldn't do it any credit to change the text.

Government Targets American Bloggers As Enemy Propagandists Military, Homeland Security, Bush White House strategy sharpen knives against anyone critical of the "war on terror"

Recent scientific polls that show around 84% don't believe the
government's explanation behind 9/11 and others confirming the
fact that support for the war in Iraq is at an all time low
have led the Bush administration to sharpen their knives
against the new breed of perceived "enemy propagandists,"
bloggers, journalists and online activists who dissent against
the "war on terror."

As Raw Story reports, CENTCOM announced earlier this year
that a team of employees would be "[engaging] bloggers who
are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as
bloggers who are posting incomplete information."

So when you're wasting your time arguing the finer points
of the collapse of Building 7 or the quagmire in Iraq with
someone who seems unable to grasp basic principles, your foe
could well be sat behind a plush U.S. government desk in a
uniform.

CENTCOM is infiltrating blogs and message boards to ensure
people, "have the opportunity to read positive stories,"presumably
about how Iraq is a wonderful liberated democracy and the war on
terror really is about protecting Americans.

The CENTCOM website features a useful section, "What Extremists
Are Saying," which provides a full catalogue and showcases the
diatribes of US government agents Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi,
Ayman al-Zawahiri and their sympathizers - rhetoric that CENTCOM
hopes surfers will seek out in order for them to grasp a true
understanding for the necessity of bombing the shit out of another
broken backed defenseless country in the name of "freedom."

The jaw-dropping hypocrisy of a regime and its military attack
arm that has engaged in the most gargantuan of deceit and
propaganda purges against the American people then pointing
the finger at inquisitive bloggers for "aiding the enemy," is
alarming to behold.

President George W. Bush looks up as he signs the Military
Commissions Act of 2006 in the East Room of the White House
in Washington. The bill effectively nullifies nine of the first
ten amendments to the U.S. constitution and ends the
"great experiment" known as The United States of America.

__________________________________________

The White House has made it perfectly clear that it will target
American citizens for propagating information harmful to the
interests of the U.S. government and classify them as enemy
combatants. This is codified in sub-section 27 of section 950v.
of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Bush's own strategy document for "winning the war on terror"
identifies "conspiracy theorists," meaning anyone who exposes
government corruption and lies about major domestic and world
events, as "terrorists recruiters," and vows to eliminate their
influence in society.

In a speech given Monday, Homeland Security director Michael
Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through
which "disaffected people living in the United States" are
developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills."

Chertoff has pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to
local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension
of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.

How long before influential online writers, bloggers and
journalists like Greg Palast, who was charged with aiding
the terrorists when filming "critical U.S. infrastructure,"
are arbitrarily gunned down on the street like in Russia or
the newly "free" Iraq?

The Bush administration's media mouthpieces have also been
mobilized to stereotype any kind of critical thinking as "giving
aid and comfort to the enemy," a recent case in point being
Fox News' Bill O'Reilly calling for the FBI to investigate
the 9/11 Scholars organization for possible ties to terrorist
organizations.

Will we witness a "night of the long knives" to silence any
and all dissent as the official dictatorship is announced or
does the chilling effect of simply threatening to treat bloggers
and journalists as terrorists go far enough to intimidate enough
people to keep their mouths shut?

A combination of this chilling effect and moves to license
websites, impose "hate speech" restrictions and kill off the
old internet in favor of a government regulated, China-style
"Internet 2" are the tools in the arsenal of the neo-fascists
who wish to continue their domestic and imperial bloodletting
under the mandated consensus of total obedience.

Thanks to Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com for this article
Link to page on www.prisonplanet.com

Biometric Identity Cards

2006-09-27T11:24:00.000Z

Now that Tony Blair has "reformed " the House of Lords i.e. got them eating out of his pocket , they have waved through the I.D. card scam. Another great blow for traditional English values of freedom of movement and association and individual autonomy, and another reason why every deluded politically correct right-on fool who voted for him at the previous elections should now hold down their heads in shame.

It's too late now. It will never be repealed . Revolution is now the only remedy, and revolution it will be. So long Albion and thanks, Messrs. Brown, Blunkett, Blair, Prescott, Mandelson, Blair again (our betrayed, outmanoeuvred police commissioner) Cook, Straw , and all the other traitors, and thank you to everyone who colluded at the ballot in turning this country into another state-run, corrupt, unprincipled, unpatriotic, hypocritical , sacrilegious, piece of scrap. It took 50 years.

You had issues with "Thatcherism"? Would she have supported this? You really have a doubt?

And when exactly was our vote on this critical issue ? Remember, all those who voted this government in : You brought this country "into the 21st century", and you will live to see the consequences. I know ...we're all cynics now. So now what do YOU believe in ?

Now you can laugh at Churchill, reviled yet respected. You can laugh at Shakespeare, respected yet spurned. You can laugh at the Queen, spurned yet loyal. Now you can laugh at the Privy Seal, and the Media, and the Church. You can laugh at the political process. You can laugh, too, at England . Because today it died, apparently for a handful of Muslim terrorists.

I hope you're all proud of yourselves and remember this day when you wear your little badge of Blairite allegiance.

Do not take this personally. Take it seriously. There is only one option left now. I look forward to seeing you at the barricades. Only which side will you be on?

R.B.

Crash Gordon to be Prime Minister

2006-09-24T13:08:00.000Z

This is something that has been on the minds of many Brits and really needs to be addressed. However much you dislike Tony Blair many people think less of Gordon Brown. The guy will probably get into power by the back door, so he may as well make the most of it because not a living soul that i talk to from day to day actually wants him there. Bizarre? Well quite. He knows it. Labour knows it too, and Labour are also aware that they may not return to power again for some time due to the innability to listen to public opinion and sheer selfishness of their own self indulgent importance, so why is there no other real competition or fight taking place. Could it be that nobody else want's the responsibility of a party in decline. No other politician within the Labour ranks is as obnoxious as Gordon is? (excluding Prescott of course, but he has ruined his political career by becoming the laughing stock of a nation including people who have not a clue about politics... Primarily because they can't be bothered) Names that have been thrust forward to make it sound slightly democratic are John Ried, Alan Johnson, David Miliband, John McDonnell, Peter Hain, Charles Clarke Jack Straw, Hilary Benn and even Harriet Harman, but this is not concrete as yet. The reality of this debate is hidden within these names here. None of them are worthy!

Click on the picture for more on why Gordon shouldn't be PM

R

Protesters gatherered last night on the eve of Labour Party conference in Manchester

2006-09-23T17:09:00.000Z

Around 30,000 people are expected to make their views known about the Government's foreign, judicial, and environmental policies that are never properly
addressed or dealt with. Good luck to them breaking the thick skinned PM who clearly
doesn't care at this stage anyway. With most of the British industry sold out to Europe by way's of cleverly disguised spin to deter away from it, legislation was ushered through the back door to feather his own and his backslapping pals' nests, probably ensuring a himself seat for the future.

R

Is France ungovernable?

2006-09-23T16:28:00.000Z

Its economy is sick, its people refuse to accept much-needed reforms, there are riots on the streets, government ministers are at each others’ throats and Chirac sits brooding in the Elysée Palace like a lame-duck president...

"Within 20 years, one person out of four in France will be Muslim, and almost certainly poor and angry. So the French disease progresses. It is chronic becoming terminal. On the way toward collapse, there will be no civil war, just moments of harsh violence. The population will change. People with a high level of productivity will choose exile. People with a low level of productivity will immigrate. Jews and Christians will leave. Muslims will arrive."

More information on this article:

The Fall of France and the Multicultural World War
Read here: www.brusselsjournal.com

Read more here: www.thebusinessonline.com

R

Bin Laden Dead?

2006-09-23T16:11:00.000Z

Allegedly Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, is dead according to a secret service report. The cause ...Typhoid. Well who knows for sure, but what i can't understand is the French defence ministry have publicaly stated that they would launch an enquiry to find out how it got out.

"The defence minister has asked that an inquiry be carried out to determine the origin of the leak that can be punished by criminal charges."

How about scrapping that idea of wasting public money and open up to the fact that it's in everyone's right and, or best interests to know. Interference from governments is at an all time high right now. Plug this, hold back that, they are all a joke. Give the people the information your scared about releasing.
Do something right for a change.

R

9-11 Documentary...

2006-09-22T19:56:00.000Z

that is causing a split in opinion about the whole affair.

Make no mistake this video is a factual documentary of events regarding 9-11 and the incompetence of a Government hell bent on twisting the truth, although facts you cannot argue, some views are misrepresented. You have to appreciate that some believe that the airplanes over the Pentagon and Pennsyvania were shot down and rightly so given the correct intelligence, but the U.S. Government or any for that matter wouldn't publicly want to admit to certain acts of National Security because it's not exactly good publicity is it. Anyway i'm not going to critisize some good work. Worth watching....for your consideration.
Link to 911 Loose Change video

Or watch it here:

A report i have found from the U.S government to argue this is found here, but it's very weak and you can pull it apart at the seams . In fact it's so poor there is no knowledge of who it was that wrote this for the USINFO.STATE.ORG

By breaking down specifics about the allegations, who would be satisfied with the responce. Here are a few examples:

"The Attack on the Pentagon"
"Allegation: 9/11 Revealed suggests that American Airlines flight 77 was not hijacked and flown into the Pentagon but that, instead, “a drone Boeing 757 is used or a smaller, more manageable plane painted in American Airlines colors.”

US info's explanation: "This theory ignores the fact that the passenger and crew remains from American Airlines flight 77 were recovered at the Pentagon crash site."

Where is this proof? Sure there will be dead inside the Pentagon. None of the information has been made public. In fact here is what was released by officials,
and consider there were three cameras that could wrap this up. How about releasing that!

wikimedia.org:Pentagon_security_video.jpg

After watching this you start to understand that they have for one reason or another removed the most important parts of the footage.

Continued:

"A team of more than 100 forensic specialists and others identified 184 of the 189 people who died in the Pentagon attack (125 from the Pentagon and 64 onboard American Airlines flight 77)."

Only 64 people on board that morning.

"All but one of the passengers onboard American Airlines flight 77 was positively identified as a match with DNA samples provided by the families of the crash victims, as reported in the Washington Post on November 21, 2001. This provides irrefutable proof that American Airlines flight 77, not a drone or other aircraft, crashed into the Pentagon on September 11."

One passenger from the plane wasn't identified. Surely they mean was withheld...As quoted from the Washington Post

"The fifth unidentified victim was a passenger on the hijacked plane. A spokesman for the FBI declined to disclose the name of the victim."

Who's flogging who here? And why is an official government spokesperson taking information from the paper anyway? Surely they have better resources 'on tap' than the Washington Post. And what is the statement:

"This provides irrefutable proof that American Airlines flight 77, not a drone or other aircraft, crashed into the Pentagon"

Does it? The International information programs..The United States information organisation uses information as proof from a press article! Here's more:

"The Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers Allegation: 9/11 Revealed suggests that the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers occurred because not the terrorists flew airliners filled with jet fuel into them, but because the towers were “pre-rigged with explosives.”

U.S. info's explanation:"Some 200 staff reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than one thousand people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000 photographs, analyzed 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage, performed laboratory tests and sophisticated computer simulations of the sequence of events that occurred from the moment the aircraft struck the towers until they collapsed. Its conclusion is that the twin towers collapsed because the impact of the planes severed and damaged support columns and dislodged fireproofing insulation coating the steel floor trusses and steel columns, which meant that the subsequent fire, which reached 1000 degrees Celsius, weakened the floors and columns to the point where they bowed and buckled, causing the towers to collapse."

The files that were allegedly in WTC7? 1000 degrees? The steel wouldn't be compromised with anything less than 2000. Now who is to know how much pressure the towers were under after planes flew into them, but to make assumptions that fireproofing was 'dislodged' beggars belief.

"Allegation: Other conspiracy theorists have claimed that the fact that the towers collapsed at near a "free fall" rate indicates that explosives were needed to cause this rapid a rate of collapse."

U.S. info's explanation:"Facts: This allegation ignores the fact that the enormous weight of the top portions of the towers completely overwhelmed the carrying capacity of the floors beneath them, which is what caused the towers to collapse at very close to a "free fall" rate. NIST's Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers states: The structure below the level of collapse initiation offered minimal resistance to the falling building mass .... The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that .... Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall .... As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass. The falling mass of the building compressed the air ahead of it, much like the action of a piston, forcing material, such as smoke and debris, out the windows ...."

We all know that each floor, and there were a lot of them would have some inpact on the rate at which the floors fell in a free fall state.

The Collapse of World Trade Center 7 Allegation: 9/11 Revealed suggests that the 47-story World Trade Center 7 building, which collapsed at 5:20 pm on September 11, was intentionally demolished. The primary piece of evidence for this is a comment that Mr. Larry Silverstein, who owned the World Trade Center complex, made on the September 2002 television documentary American Rebuilds. Mr. Silverstein said: I remember getting a call from the Fire Department commander, telling me they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire. I said, you know, “We've had such terrible loss of life that the smartest thing to do is just pull it.” And they made that decision to pull it and we watched the [World Trade Center 7] building collapse. 9/11 Revealed and other conspiracy theorists put forward the notion that Mr. Silverstein’s suggestion to “pull it” is slang for intentionally demolishing the WTC 7 building.

Correct but not the opinion of the USinfo.state.org...

U.S. info's explanation:"Facts: On September 9, 2005, Mr. Dara McQuillan, a spokesman for Silverstein Properties, issued the following statement on this issue:Seven World Trade Center collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on September 11, 2001, after burning for seven hours. There were no casualties, thanks to the heroism of the Fire Department and the work of Silverstein Properties employees who evacuated tenants from the building. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted a thorough investigation of the collapse of all the World Trade Center buildings. The FEMA report concluded that the collapse of Seven World Trade Center was a direct result of fires triggered by debris from the collapse of WTC Tower 1. In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building. Later in the day, the Fire Commander ordered his firefighters out of the building and at 5:20 p.m. the building collapsed. No lives were lost at Seven World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. As noted above, when Mr. Silverstein was recounting these events for a television documentary he stated, “I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it.” Mr. McQuillan has stated that by “it,” Mr. Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building."

What i find most alarming about this line:

"Mr. Dara McQuillan, a spokesman for Silverstein Properties, issued the following statement on this issue:... Mr. Silverstein was recounting these events for a television documentary he stated, “I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it.” Mr. McQuillan has stated that by “it,” Mr. Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building."

So basically were getting everyone out and are going to watch it fall down naturally which is coincedently not too long from now seeing as it only burned for 7 hours. 7 whole hours! Here's the video footage of this Silverstein's statement:

blindnation.wordpress.com-the-landlord-larry-silverstein

Here's who occupied the building: wtc7.net/background

And here's how it fell: whatreallyhappened.wtc7

More:

Insider Trading Allegation: 9/11 Revealed repeats long-standing rumors of “insider trading [based] on advance warnings of the attack.”

U.S. info's explanation:"Facts: The 9/11 Commission examined this issue in detail, stating, in The 9/11 Commission Report (p. 499): Highly publicized allegations of insider trading in advance of 9/11 generally rest on reports of unusual pre-9/11 trading activity in companies whose stock plummeted after the attacks. Some unusual trading did in fact occur, but each such trade proved to have an innocuous explanation. For example, the volume of put options – investments that pay off only when a stock drops in price – surged in the parent companies of United Airlines [UAL] on September 6 and American Airlines on September 10 – highly suspicious trading on its face. Yet, further investigation has revealed that the trading had no connection with 9/11. A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades. These examples typify the evidence examined by the investigation. The SEC [Security and Exchange Commission] and the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], aided by other agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to investigating this issue, including securing the cooperation of many foreign governments. These investigators have found that the apparently suspicious consistently proved innocuous."

And there's nothing remotely disturbing about these deals or newsletters?

"A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades."

Suspicious trading would be one way of putting it... Being the whole foundation of the U.S.A And let's not forget.
There were supposedly 64 people on American Airlines flight 77 that morning. Take away 6 crew members and 5 terrorists leaves you with 53 passengers on a plane that can handle a maximum of 200 (200 incl crew). Sound investment if this flight is anything to go by.

R

9/11 Book

2006-09-16T14:34:00.000Z

Over the past week I have been reading a book about 9/11. It is called 9/11 revealed.. it does come up with some interesting points. First of all I want to say that I am not for one minute saying 9/11 was anything other than an awful terrible act of terrorism!!!.. Indeed I know someone who lost a work colleague on the 2nd plane to hit the Towers!. But the USA handled it terribly .... and it does make me think a lot about things. Such as that the Americans have aparently threatened to JAIL vital witnesses if they give information to the public. By vital I mean people such as air traffic control, firefighters, FBI agents. And also peices of the World Trade Centre and Aircraft parts have also "gone missing!". Which is all a bit too strange for me. It makes me think WHY?.... what have the USA got to hide???. I will write more to continue this as I continue to read.

Another thing that got to me this week, was the interview on tv of the American amb to the UK. Mr Rattle, he was quizzed on the news about "how the war on terror is progressing?"... and his reply?. "Oh its going very well, apart from two small attacks on London and Madrid". EXCUSE ME??. What a load of rubbish!. He obviously has not heard about the recent attacks on Turkey, earlier attacks on Indonesia, and countless others over the past year alone!!!. Still I guess this should not surprise me from the Americans!.

V

The beginning

2006-09-09T20:59:00.000Z

The motivation for this blog is to rid the world of ignorance and remind the masses that no matter what you do or think, our destiny is written for us by a handful of elite capatilist's in a stronghold that, put gently...dangle carrots in the faces of the general public to avoid detection of their own corrupt agendas. The best way to tackle this is to confront it by giving facts for people to make up thier own minds. Media that is untouched by governing powers and dedicated to providing real, cutting issues using our freedom of speech as it should be. No Fox News or BBC News idealogy...Just hard hitting facts for your consideration....
R

Eugenics

2006-09-09T15:08:00.000Z

I would recomend everyone take a look at this link, read it and take it all in. Link to article

What is contained in it makes me feel very ill to think that the "great" USA were doing this and goodness knows to how many people!. The article is claiming that a young woman who was raped in 1968 in North Carolina and made pregnant .. however unknown to her at the time the North Carolina Eugenics board decided she was unfit to be a mother!... so they had her tubes tied so she'd never be a mum!. It was the very same Eugenics that the Nazis were practising in the 30s and 40s. It is even claimed in the article that the North Carolina officials were offering the people money off their taxes to keep quiet and allow this to happen. It is estimated that as many as 65.000 people (mostly African) were sterilized!.
V