Good reads

'Mainstream' media:

Gordon Brown 'pushed aide out of the way' on stairs of No 10 - The Guardian -

And again, but better ...

Brown, the bully: Key No10 figure tells how he was pushed and shouted at by the PM - Mail on Sunday

Depressed Tony Blair told Gordon Brown he would quit over Iraq war - The Guardian (My heart bleeds. Not)


Terrorists 'could hijack new meters to cause blackouts' - The Mail (Smart meters: another totalitarian control measure included in the Tory manifesto.)

Father stopped from taking this picture of his son, 4, on children's train ride 'in case he was a paedophile' - The Mail (FFS!)

Bald Mr Byrne was like a golf ball in a vice - The Mail  (The smeary, smarmy little fish paste manufacturer)

Islamic radicals 'infiltrate' the Labour Party - The Telegraph (As if we hadn't guessed)

A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC - Christopher Booker, The Telegraph

Blogs:

Stock up! - Leg-Iron

The Politics of Obedience - Mises Daily

The limits of the state - Raedwald

Storm in a Bowl of Waterzooi - Brussels Journal

Vote for Change - Dr Richard North, EU Referendum

Taking your son's picture? Really? Are you a paedophile? - Big Brother Watch

Harriet Harman: Arsehole - Blaney's Blarney

The Devil's Eye - Captain Ranty

Jailed on a Government Whim - Dick Puddlecote

Electoral Calculus: General Election Prediction

Why Cameron will lose - Banned (A very satisfying rant)

Climategate - a glimpse into the minds of the enemy - Samizdata

Pet "competence tests": Dog licensing &, chipping you'll pay for

Every dog owner will have to take a costly ‘competence test’ to prove they can handle their pets, under new Government proposals designed to curb dangerous dogs, according to The Mail.

The measures are provided in the goverment's Consultation On Dangerous Dogs document.

Notice that dogs would have to be chipped and licensed, providing juicy fees for the Treasury and tantalising data for Home Office snoopers - not to mention tax-bearing insurance premiums (with kickbacks for government ministers) and the potential for home inspections without warrant.

Where your dog is, you are. So if they can keep track of your dog via RFID, they'll know where to find you.

Welcome to the socialist wet dream.

Buy, buy, American Pie

The crud we consume because we don't make our own any more:

Geert Wilders socks it to the socialist Islam appeasers

Speech by Geert Wilders at the PVV evening in Almere

Dear People,

First, a general notice. If people from the PvdA (Socialists) are present tonight: here is a message for you. At the end of the speech, I will hand out the speech in Arabic so that you can understand what I have said.^[1]

For a long time the PvdA has not spoken the language of the common man or woman. The party of Wouter Bos speaks Arabic. By now you will certainly have read about the PvdA election pamphlet being distributed in Arabic. But do you also know what it says? Have you been able to read it? Probably not. Well, I have tried to translate it for you, and is says something like: “Me Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven, you get nice benefits, you like-um, we Hollandie pay everything nice.”

In other words: bring over your whole family, because money grows on trees here. The PvdA takes good care of its voting-cattle.

Ladies and gentlemen, how great it is to be here in Almere [map], how great it is to be in the new land [land reclaimed (map) in the 1950s-60s]. This evening, of course, it is about the elections next Wednesday in the city of Almere. I will say a few things about that later on — also about the superb work of our party leader Raymond de Roon and his fantastic team in this beautiful city. But I also want to share a few other things with you. Maybe you have heard that the Cabinet fell recently.

There was a Cabinet of monseigneur Balkenende [CDA, Christian Democrat] and monseigneur Bos [PvdA, Socialist]. Its motto was “live together, work together”. But even that did not work, for they could not work very well together. Thus it became “fighting together”. And after three years, the motto became “calling a new election together”. It appeared that this was not a government of co-operation, but a cabinet of runaways. Just when the economic problems in our country were at their worst, they took to their heels.

I do not know how you see it, but a government that indeed does not govern may leave right away. Balkenende-Bos has achieved nothing good past three years. Even their own primary task — making sure you must continue working until you are 67 — is still uncompleted. I was not sorry about the fall of the Cabinet. Even better: it was the best news of the year. My first reaction was: hoist tfhe flags! This was the cabinet of higher taxes and higher bankers’ bonuses, a higher age for state pensions and higher crime in the Netherlands. What this government especially excelled in was the increase of mass immigration, supporting the Islamization of our country and eroding the Dutch character of the Netherlands. In short, everything we already did not lack.

This government was not going to rest until on every street corner in the Netherlands there was a minaret and across the road a distribution office for social services. And I must admit they did their best. Balkenende-Bos has kept its promises. Never before has the influx of immigrants been so large, and never before have so many immigrants been admitted. This government was breaking record after record. If mass immigration had been an Olympic sport, Balkenende would have been more successful than Sven Kramer, Mark Tuitert, and Ireen Wust put together.

Now we will have elections. The other parties are all warming up. You might think: to take on the problems of the Netherlands. But, well, no: all they want to take on is the Party for Freedom. State Secretary Timmermans of the PvdA has blatantly called for all parties to agree on the exclusion of the PVV. So a common front against us. A cordon sanitaire.

And see here, that is how we recognize the PvdA once again. The PvdA still thinks it is a large party that runs the Netherlands. An arrogant club, all full of themselves. They enter the elections with the slogan: “everyone counts”. But they are happy to make an exception for the electorate of the PVV. Those people do not count. You are irrelevant. I think there is only one remedy for Mr. Timmermans. And that is a resounding election result for the PVV. First on March 3 [municipal elections] and then on June 9 for Parliament. Together we will take the PvdA down a peg or two.

This would teach Wouter Bos a good lesson. He constantly keeps proclaiming that “Islam belongs in the Netherlands”. When we do well in the elections, when we win the elections, he might well one day be proclaiming “the PVV belongs in the Netherlands”.

The Socialist Party [SP] is also in a big mess. Poor Agnes [Agnes Kant, fraction leader SP]. She wants so much, but is allowed so little by her chairman Jan [Marijnissen, co-founder and former fraction leader]. Every day they have a meal together, and then Agnes writes down in her notebook what Jan instructs her to do this time. And then that is what she does.

But last Tuesday it went all wrong. Little Agnes said something without Daddy Jan putting a spin on it. Agnes Kant said: “No, not excluding the PVV”, and a little later Jan on the radio said just the opposite. He would “never” get along with us. And once again that makes clear how it works in the SP. Jan Marijnissen is the boss, and Agnes Kant may only do the dishes.

The Party for Freedom has a breakpoint for negotiations for a Cabinet. We say: it is good to talk with us. We are here for the Netherlands, we are here for the people, therefore we will be pleased to take on our responsibility as a coalition party. The PVV is ready for that. But to form a coalition with the PVV, you can be assured of one thing: the threshold age for the AOW will remain at 65 years. The legacy of Willem Drees [PM who in the 1950s installed the AOW (then tax-neutral) and canceled his PvdA membership early in the 1970s due to irresponsible left-wing policies] is in good hands with the Party for Freedom!

People, you know the PVV to be a caring party^[2]. We see that the backbone of the Netherlands is formed by the teacher, the nurse, and the policeman. All people who ensure that the Netherlands will be able to keep going. People who are entitled to a decent old age. People who are entitled to an AOW when they are 65.

Then to Almere, to this beautiful city. Dear people, there is something in the air. Take a deep breath. You can smell it. It is the smell of victory!

Here in Almere, the Freedom Party puts forward one of its heaviest guns. Our justice spokesman in Parliament: Raymond de Roon.

Raymond is one of the gifts we received in 2006. One day someone from high at the top of the Public Ministry knocked at the door. Someone who every day could see around him what was happening on the street. Someone who held office in the heart of Amsterdam and knew like no one else how the city suffered from crime. After the elections, Raymond emerged to become the crime fighter in Parliament. He pleaded for longer sentences, for minimum sentences, for a tough approach to offenders, and less coziness and comfort in the prisons.

Raymond de Roon and his team have set the stakes high. They say: Almere must become the safest city in the Netherlands. The choices the PVV makes here in Almere are therefore crystal-clear. More police on the streets and additional security through new urban commandos, lower subsidies and fewer civil servants in the town hall, and the use of those salaries for more security, a tougher approach to criminal scum, mostly Moroccan and Antillean street terrorists; force the pig-headed nuisance to move to container houses outside the fringe of the city, outside the residential areas; more CCTV and more police out on the street. The police must get away from their the desks and computers and hop out onto the street.

This is a very different story from the PvdA. Look here [in Almere] at what this PvdA-VVD municipal government wants to spend your money on. All weird multicultural subsidies. Turkish needle-work, Moroccan hopscotch, Anatolian netball, Arabian finger-painting — out of sheer silliness they don’t know what to spend your money on. Almere, for instance has its own “Day of Dialogue”, I did not know what I heard here. For thousands of years, people, if willing to, just started a conversation. For example while having a cup of coffee together. But in the city of Annemarie Jorritsma [Mayor of Almere] that is done in an entirely different way. There the subsidy tap is opened, and people are going to have a talk together under supervision of the municipality.

For the PvdA, that is the essence of their policies. As long as they can serve their voting-cattle. As long as they can give away gifts to people who still vote left-wing.

In recent months, Raymond de Roon has been meeting with quite a lot of people in this city. And those citizens over and over told our candidates: provide lower taxes for us; bring down those burdens! What they earn themselves, they also want to keep themselves. And thus the PVV is also setting to work on that right here in Almere: lowering the property tax, cutting the parking fees in half, and throwing out the sewage and waste disposal tax.

The Party for Freedom has been pursuing a marvelous campaign in recent weeks. Raymond and his team, for instance, paid a visit last week to the C1000 supermarket in Almere Harbor, which was recently raided, and some staff even had a gun put to their heads. No wonder some of the victims still are deeply impressed long afterwards. A great idea to pay them a visit. It is good that representatives inform themselves of what lack of safety means to ordinary people. Look, that is true PVV policy. Not counting policy reports, but helping citizens.

I have been told that Mayor Jorritsma here goes by the nickname “Mrs. Incident”. Any violent crime, every raid, she waves away as being an “incident”. But it is time we again look to the victims of violence and nuisance and focus on them. Raymond and his team do that, and therefore the PVV in this beautiful city will look forward to a wonderful future.

And I still have other good news for you. I heard from our party leaders in Almere and the Hague [the other city where the PVV joins the municipal elections], Raymond de Roon and Sietse Fritsma, what the main effort will be for the [coalition] negotiations in Almere and the Hague after March 3 [the municipal elections]: That will be a ban on headscarves in municipal bodies and all other institutions, foundations, or associations, if they receive even one penny of subsidy from the municipality. Thus an immediate ban on headscarves, get rid of that woman-humiliating Islamic symbol. And for all clarity: this is not however meant for crosses or yarmulkes, because those are symbols of religions that belong to our own culture and are not — as is the case with headscarves — a sign of an oppressive totalitarian ideology.

Dear people, we here in Almere will go against the flow for a great result on Wednesday. I am convinced that not only in the Netherlands, but also in Europe, many will be watching the PVV. You can make the difference. You can let this be known to the entire Netherlands on Wednesday: Almere chooses the PVV. Almere chooses for the future.

And you then will also do something else. With a resounding victory, you will lay the basis for the success of the PVV in the general election — when on June 9 hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of people throughout the Netherlands will vote for the Party for Freedom.

Together we will make sure that a new voice will be heard in the Hague and Almere and in the rest of the country: Out with the political elite: it is time for the PVV!

Thank you very much!

Notes:

[1] The speech for Socialists in Arabic.
[2] A caring party: In Dutch it says “sociaal”, but has the meaning of “caring”, not “Socialist”.

Hat tip: Gates of Vienna

Terrorism has miraculously morphed into "domestic extremism"

Australia is to use face-scanning and fingerprinting to track all citizens – to combat terrorism, of course. Oh, yes, the 'threat' has been classified as "permanent" and the word terrorism is being replaced by "extremism."

The same is happening in America and the UK. Nationalists and patriots, it seems are extremists to the globalists, whose aim is to destroy national sovereignty.

Domestic "extremists" are you and I - anyone who opposes the government.

Clever, aren't they? Who'd've thought it?

Nigel Farage on Alex Jones Feb 26 2010

UKIP MEP, Nigel Farage, tells Alex Jones that he has been summoned to the "headmaster's study" and fully expects to be suspended for his attack on Van Rompuy in the European Parliament.

He calls the EU arrogant in its blatant calls for a world government, believing that the waking masses will rise against the coming tyranny.

Farage rails against EU 'democracy', where the bureaucrats make the laws and the politicians just rubber-stamp them. He refers to a "distinctly unhealthy" alliance between big business and government.

"This empire isn't going to last very long", he says.

Other issues discussed:

• The global warming carbon credit scam;
• The swine flu scam - a cosy relationship between Big Pharma and the EU;
• Whatever happens to Greece, there's going to be a revolution;
• Tyranny can last for years, but in the end, it fails;
• The EU appears to have all the cards at the moment, but we're winning in the realm of public opinion and it is terrified of public debate;
• Van Rompuy wants a full economic government of Europe - via carbon tax, etc.;
• Nigel has a book coming out next week;

Wikileaks substitute taken down by Microsoft

The powers that be are keen to prevent the masses from learning their secrets, to the extent that they've been shutting down sites - Wikileaks being the most prominent, of late.

This week, Cryptome was shut down by Microsoft, which cited "copyright infringement" as the reason*.

Cryptome's crime? Why, publishing Microsoft's Global Criminal Compliance Handbook. Its manual for spying on the public.

Cryptome, a library of information, published the document precisely because it was in the public's interest to do so.

Cryptome is akin to Wikileaks and it is run by people who know their way around the legal system and are not shy of taking on big hitters like Microsoft in the courts.

As Cryptome proved this week, the very last thing large corporations want is to have light shed on their totalitarian tactics which curtail civil liberties, so they don't want cases of infringement ending up in the courts.

Which is why they withdrew their takedown notice, pretty damned quickly.

* The secret ACTA treaty expands on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is infinitely more draconian.

Monckton unveils UKIP's environment policy

Lords Monckton and Pearson unveil UKIP's refreshingly sceptical, wonderfully non-PC environment policy.

UKIP has the blurb. Now working  Uploading replacement videos now. Hopefully done by 4pm.

Bill requires US presidential candidates to show birth certificate

Arizona passed a bill that requires presidential candidates (new or incumbent) to show their birth certificates to state officials, before their names can appear on the ballot.

Evidently, not many believe that Obama is eligible to be president and there's even doubt about McCain's eligibility.

You'd think that states wouldn't have to pass such laws, since the requirement is enshrined in the Constitution. But then, politicos have ignored the constitution when it has suited them.

What good is a constitution if politicos can ignore it?  What's the solution to this problem - which also affects the UK?

Update:

Attorney and former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate Philip Berg, who filed a lawsuit claiming Obama is constitutionally ineligible to be president, talks to Alex Jones about his law suit against Obama.

MorOn Brown

... but the government should be.

On factionalism and Trotskyism.  Has Brown issued a denial yet?   Will we see him on Newsnight this evening or will he save it for a cosy chat with Titchmarsh?  (Note to Cameron: Do.  Not.  Do.  It.)

2004
2005
2006
2007

"I've always said to Tony - and I think this should be clear, and it  was made clear on many occasions when I've talked to Tony - the decision  is for him, it should be for him. I will support him in the decision he  makes, I know he will make it in the interests of the party but also,  most importantly in the interests of the country."

Mr Brown also  insisted he would "welcome" other MPs standing against him in the Labour  leadership election after Mr Blair stands down, saying: "They should be  free to put both their views forward and to stand if that is what they  want to do ...I think it's good for the party if there's an  election. I've got no difficulty and certainly there's no personal  issues about other people standing."

Do they want us to riot?

Clampdowns on people for going about their daily business are so iniquitous, they seem designed to incite rioting.

Is that what the 'authorities' want, in order to impose martial law?

Related:

Home Office statistics on arrests under the Terrorism Act 2009 (PDF)

Dan Hannan kicks off British Tea Party movement - Join!

Taxed Enough Already! Join Daniel Hannan at the Brighton Tea Party.

Join DANIEL HANNAN MEP at the Brighton Tea Party at 5.30 p.m. this Saturday 27 February at the Best Western Hotel, 143-145 King's Road, Brighton BN1 2PQ

The event will take place on the Conservative Party Spring Forum fringe, but is outside the secure zone, so all members of the public are very welcome to attend.  Admission is free.  Tea and other refreshments will be available at a small charge.  Cash bar.

The Tea Party Movement in the USA has demonstrated the huge scale of public opposition to excessive taxation.  In the UK, tax is much higher and, in addition, British membership of the democratically unaccountable EU raises the issue of "no taxation without representation".  From the Boston Tea Party to the Brighton Tea Party, it's time to demonstrate our opposition to excessive taxation.

See you there!

I intend to vote UKIP but I would like the opportunity to change the status quo of British politics.  So, whether or not you intend to vote Conservative, this should be an interesting event which has the potential to reform politics.

Follow this event on Facebook

Brown could remain PM if Labour loses the election

In his evidence to the Justice Committee, Sir Gus [O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary] said that Mr Brown would be banned from making any policy announcements if he tried to cling on as Prime Minister in the event of a hung parliament.

Under constitutional convention, the Prime Minister can stay in Number 10 if his rivals do not win a majority, even if Labour loses the election.

But the Cabinet Secretary said special rules would be invoked to stop Mr Brown from taking any action until a stable government could be formed.

Read more

How depressing is that? This is one part of the constituion which needs reform. It cannot be right that an unpopular party/PM gets to retain power.

What do you intend to do about this, iDave?

Internet Freedom: Mandy's bill watered down

Mandleson's Digital Economy Bill, which curtails the freedoms of web users, which does not comply with EU law, has been watered down.

The Register reports:

A revised section on the appeals process for ISP subscribers accused of infringement restores the presumption of innocence, introduces fines for copyright holders who make accusations that are later shown to be false - or who otherwise cockup - and gives the administrator the right to delay and substitute penalties.

There are many other minor tweaks, to the effect that the ultimate sanction of suspension may be delayed for months.

In order to comply with EU law, the presumption of innocence has been restored. It emphatically points out the copyright holder must show an infringement occurred, and that the subscriber's IP address was infringing at the time it occurred.

Similarly appeals must focus on whether the rights holder actually holds the rights mentioned in the infringement notice, and whether the endpoint was engaged in infringing. False accusations or other cockups, such as incorrect paperwork, make the copyright holder liable for costs.

Will web users have to take copyright holders to court to recover costs? If so, many are unlikely to do so due to costly legal fees. It would make copyright holders, with their deep pockets, more equal under the law.

It seems, though, that arbitration is to be handled by yet another new judicial body, a Tribunal of Ofcom. A kind of trial by QUANGO. Wonderful. Not.

The Digital Economy Bill gives Ofcom the power to order ISPs to introduce technical measures. But Ofcom has the power to do the administration itself, or hand it over to a third party. The Tribunal will be a new judicial body to process appeals. It's up to Ofcom to decide who or what carries out this function, and how.

The Register believes that this bill could leave the copyright holders worse off than they are now.

Perhaps.  But the bill so complicates procedures on issues which should be straightforward.  How many everyday users will understand the bill sufficiently to be able to fight the big boys?

Why do we need this bill at all?

Dutch government has collapsed

The BBC reports that due to a row over Afghanistan, the Netherland's Labour Party is "withdrawing". The government communications service stated:

"The queen has asked the outgoing cabinet to facilitate the dissolution of the lower house [of parliament] in the short term so that elections can be held on 9 June".

Radio Netherlands believes that the collapse will have consequences far beyond the borders of the Netherlands - affecting immigration, bankers’ bonuses and the negotiations with Iceland over the Icesave repayments: all issues that require more than just a caretaker government to handle them.



Might it help Geert Wilders' case? His blog speculates that he could be the next PM!

Geert Wilders, the anti-immigration Dutch politician banned from the UK last year for being a threat to race relations, could soon be prime minister of the Netherlands following the collapse of the Dutch coalition government at the weekend.

The government's fall, following a disagreement between the dominant Christian Democrat party and its coalition partner, Labour, over extending the country's Nato commitments in Afghanistan, means that a general election will have to take place within the next three months.

The most recent opinion polls suggest Wilders, leader of the populist, anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV), will claim up to 25 seats in the new parliament, making it the second largest party after the Christian Democrats. Labour would get around 21 seats.

Of course, a lot can happen in three months, and Labour, which has benefited from its opposition to keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan, could see its new-found popularity melt away in the heat of a general election campaign. The controversial Wilders, meanwhile, has reason to believe two high-profile brushes with authority over the next three months could increase his popularity among voters.

More to follow ...

CIA is running the wars, says Ron Paul

Congressman Ron Paul, notional head of the Tea Party grassroots movement, asks what good the CIA has ever done.

They've been implicated in the drugs trade, they've trained and encouraged other countries to engage in torture, they've engaged in illegal coups and assassinations, they put Nazis on their payroll after WW II.

And now they're randomly lobbing missiles at Pakistan via their drones and leaving servicemen on the ground to take the fire for their recklessness.

Guess who founded the CIA as we know it?

A Wall Street lawyer.

And it's been run by the Ivy League kids of rich families (ex George Bush Sr) ever since.

They work for our best interests, right?  Sure they do.  

At the recent Campaign for Liberty conference, Ron Paul didn't mince words ...





And here, Ron Paul talks about America's dangerous assassination policy. It won't be long before we find that a Brit has been taken out. Trouble is, we'll have no way of knowing whether or not s/he was guilty of anything.

America, once an upstanding country, has gone rogue. I hope the Tea Partiers succeed in removing the incumbents.

Hollow electioneering

Here we go again. McDoom apologises for something for which he was not responsible, while failing to admit to things for which he is responsible.

The apology is particularly hollow in view of the sheer number of children which have been stolen from their parents on the flimsiest of pretexts. And even from grandparents.

Fortunately, these parents can vote. I hope they use their votes wisely.

Have you wondered why euthanasia has been on the agenda, seemingly relentlessly? Isn't it odd, now, that McDoom says that the legalisation of "assisted suicide" is undesirable?

It's coincidental that assisted suicide has been promoted under his premiership. Obviously.

Quote of the day

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - 

it is the illusion of knowledge.

Daniel Boorstin, Librarian of Congress and Rhodes Scholar

PROOF! Whistleblower fingers Goldman Sachs fraud & MSM collusion

Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker, Paul Verge, brings us a revealing interview with Richard Andrew Grove, which exposes the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of the recent financial crisis, how it was legislated into existence, defended by corporate media and political "watch-dogs" and allowed to drain America of nearly $200 trillion Dollars, via ponzi-Schemes.

The 'mainstream' media could have and should have been exposed the fraud years earlier ... but chose not to.

The whistleblower provides ample documentation to support his accusations, against Goldman Sachs and other corporations, which the reader can check online.



Update: I had embedded the wrong video. Now fixed.

Another fascinating interview of Richard Grove:

Breach of confidentiality?

Christine Pratt of the National Bullying Helpline, incensed by Mandlebum's assertion that McDoom's bullying is mere "passion", felt compelled to reveal that the helpline has received a number of calls from Brown's offices.

In response, McDoom's bruisers have accused her of breaching confidentiality and being "politically motivated.

The claim that Pratt was politically motivated is sheer speculation and an attempt to turn the story into one about Pratt, instead of Brown's bullying and temper tantrums. Does he believe that nobody should say anything truthful before a general election?

And besides, by definition, breach of confidence is a disclosure that is of detriment of the confider. Since we don't know the identity of the complainants, it's not much of a breach, is it?

Brown's office wants the charity to prove that the charity received these calls.  No doubt, in order to identify those who complained, so that they can be further bullied. The fact that proof would certainly be a breach of confidentiality seems to be lost on these unscrupulous people.

Dizzy lists a number of Hansard entries from which it is evident that Brown's bullying is fully on the record:

May 2007:

David Simpson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many complaints of bullying have been investigated in his Department in the last 12 months; and how many complaints have been upheld;

(2) how many grievance procedures have been initiated in his Department in the last 12 months;

(3) how many complaints of sexual harassment have been investigated in his Department in the last 12 months; and how many complaints have been upheld.

John Healey: In the last 12 months fewer than five grievances have been raised and investigated. No complaints of bullying or of sexual harassment have been upheld. As the number of complaints of bullying and of sexual harassment was fewer than five, the exact number cannot be disclosed on grounds of confidentiality.

February 2008:

Mr. Hoban: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) how many cases of bullying have been reported in his Department in each of the last 12 months;

(2) whether any cases of bullying have been reported in the Prime Minister's Office in the last 12 months.

Mr. Watson: The Prime Minister's Office forms an integral part of the Cabinet Office. In order to protect the confidentiality and privacy of individuals, it is standard Government practice not to publish records relating to five or less individuals.

March 2009:

Grant Shapps: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many staff in (a) the Prime Minister's Office and (b) the Leader of the House's Office were disciplined for (i) bullying and (ii) harassment of colleagues in each of the last three years.

Mr. Watson: It is not the policy of the Cabinet Office to release personal data relating to individual staff. I can confirm that in the period specified, there were fewer than five cases in the Department where staff were disciplined for bullying and harassment of colleagues. It would not be appropriate to provide a further breakdown.

Get out of that, McDoom.

9/11: An alternative view

Fermented Foods: Natural probiotics

Lately, I've become fascinated by the medicinal properties of fermented foods and the process of fermentation.

Most fermented foods aid digestion and provide a goodly number of vitamins, saving you a fortune in supplements. These foods typically comprise yeasts and 'good' bacteria, which your system uses to keep the lurgies at bay.

Generally, they cure any intestinal disorder - from the squits to constipation, by creating a perfect balance which medicines just cannot do, without harmful side-effects.

Milk fermentation is one of my current fascinations. Kefir, for instance, a complex combination of yeasts and bacteria, produce a yoghurt-like fizzy beverage in as little as 24 hours. This is my morning treat.

Delicious!

In the Caucases, Koumiss is a lurgie slayer. Koumiss is traditionally made from mare's milk and lactobacillus but can just as easily be made from yeast and cow's milk - within 24 hours.  Koumiss is documented in the British Medical Journal as helping to nourish patients who are unable to keep down food.

Good reads

Our record - By Labour - Old Holborn
Disillusioned Jack Straw plotted against Gordon Brown in bid to take over No 10 - The Guardian
Civil service chief warned Gordon Brown over abusive treatment of staff - The Guardian
Voters should know the full truth about the character of Gordon Brown - Andrew Rawnsley, The Guardian
Traceability in a Sustainable World - The Devil is in the Details
'Influenza vaccine has no effect': study - The Local
Aspartame has been renamed and is now being marketed as a natural sweetener - Natural News
Attorney facing penalties wants [Obama's] birth docs for defense - World Net Daily
Feds mooove against farmer - for having cows - World Net Daily
Lindsey Graham: White House mulling indefinite detention [without trial] - Politico
David Cameron's Obama Army - Archbishop Cranmer
£60m bill for the CO2 of our political class - Christopher Booker
Rubbish Collections - The Angry Exile

Update 22 Feb 2010: Another superb article by Archbishop Cranmer:


Gordon Brown - a bully or just a strong but imperfect leader?

Related:

• RFID
• McMental
• Obama
• Surveillance 
• Swine flu - vaccines
• Injustice
• Aspartame
• David Cameron - Conservatives
• Global Warming Con 

Snake oil in exchange for your vote.

The Times  reports that Osborne is offering banking shares at a discount in exchange for your vote.

In other words, the Tories would use taxpayers' cash to purchase shares in the ailing banks, to prop them up. This is a clever means of delivering another bank bailout - with a pretty face. 

The flaw in this scheme is that nobody in his right mind would purchase shares in an ailing bank, with the second dip of the double-dip approaching.

Should you be in doubt, take a look at the trajectory of Lloyds' share price since September last year:

The hefty bailout we're still paying for hasn't helped, has it? Would you purchase these shares, even at a discount? Look at the trend, and imagine what the double dip will do to it.

This is snake oil and should be treated as such.

Infantilised Politics: we need a better class of politician

Matthew Parris, analysing James Purnell's exit from politics, describes the infantilised politics now practiced in Britain.

We have entered a looking-glass world in which at Bhs on Oxford Street little girls crave padded bras, while down the road at Westminster big boys parrot choruses in children’s games.

Here are the sneak previews that a waiting world has been given to understand will form Labour’s four campaign slogans:

• Standing up for the many
• Ensuring the recovery
• Protecting frontline services
• Protecting jobs and new industries

You’ll find a more substantial set of imperatives in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Any attempt at real debate on real issues, such as immigration, leads to infantile shreiks of racism or other ism, to shut it down. These freaks cannot stand the light of day falling upon matters for which they must find answers.

They treat us like fools. In truth, we need a better class of politician.

Totalitariansim-creep

Totalitarianism does not arise spontaneously. It arrives instead by a series of steps, each one small enough; and, like the journey of a thousand miles that begins with a single step, many small steps can take us a long way from home; until one day we arrive in a strange world where the pigs walk on two legs, all are equal, but some more so that others, and the clocks strike thirteen.

One of the tenets of totalitarianism is the central importance of the State, and it is but a short step from that central importance to move towards notions of enemies of the State, and so to traitors in our midst. And so it is that the machinery of totalitarianism seeks to know the each and every detail about the lives of each and every one of us, lest we be the traitor in the midst. We move from a liberal default position of trust, to one of mistrust, and then distrust. No one can be trusted at face value; only the State can collect the data and decide who is trustworthy and, who is not.

Each step, the State tells us, is necessary, to protect us from our enemies in our midst. In each case, the area of control is discrete. It is only when we step back, and look at the overall picture, at the large number of State surveillance and control schemes, that we can see the all pervasive nature and extent of the Government control that has been forced, and is being forced, upon us. If we were to take each scheme, and count it a step, and place them end to end, we would find ourselves far further down that road to totalitarian hell than we had imagined.

We already have, or are about to have:

• the retention of the DNA of innocent people (they’ll probably turn out to be criminals anyway).
• the Vetting and Barring Scheme (anyone in contact with other people’s children is a paedophile until proved otherwise)
• revalidation for doctors (all doctors are dangerous quacks until approved by the State).

There are many more that Dr No is aware of; no doubt there are others that he does not know of.

Each one, of itself, might seem reasonable to some; but taken together we see the pervasiveness in nature and extent; the assumptions of distrust, the collection of personal data to be held by the State; and in time the culture of distrust becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We are all traitors now – unless, that is, we can demonstrate our unswerving allegiance to the State.

And so we come see the formation of the secret police, and the assembly of armies of informers. Snitching is our State duty and ‘soft’ intelligence – intelligence so soft you can poke a finger through it – becomes the currency of control. And the informer is given status and reward by the State for doing his duty.

Of course, we Brits couldn’t go that far, could we? Oh yes we could. It is being considered right here, right now. Only last week it emerged that the Government is considering manifesto proposals to reward benefit fraud sneaks with cash-backs.

It seems the clocks are already striking thirteen in Downing Street.

Lifted from Dr No at BadMed

Sieg Heil! General Medical Council: medics under seige

Sieg Heil!

Photo courtesy of Dr No.

Thumbelina told me that someone has a hearing coming up. And that someone is getting fed up with the wait.

Several high profile cases have pushed the case to the bottom of the pile. It was meant to be heard in the Autumn of 2009 but the vagaries of the GMC have made it so that it will now take place in early Summer 2010.

During the run-up to general election.

Update 21 Feb 2010:  The GMC acknowledges

Purnell: The Real Heir To Blair?

James Purnell, whose resignation this morning apparently 'stunned' the Labour Party, has written a short article and posted a video for The Times - here.

I can't help but feel he's rallying Blairites to the cause - there's little doubt that, presentationally, he has all the right skills to be the leader of a new political faction.  One thing PR does is vastly increase the number of Parties putting themselves up for election; I've always wondered about those countries that have more choice than our Lib/Lab/Con but the downside is the weak & unstable coalition governments which are necessarily formed as a result.

Imagine a Labour Party (Balls); a Blairite Labour Party (Purnell); a Blairite Conservative Party (Cameron); a Conservative Party (Osborne) with policies that accommodated UKIP and BNP voters.  The only consolation would be that the LibDems would probably defect en masse to Purnell leaving Clegg with only the comfort of his EU pension.

Imagine a people who weren't reliant on the msm for their news and opinion; whose political thoughts weren't coloured by intentional & covert pillorying of politicians in their programming  (Spitting Image is one thing but Doctor Who, quite another).

Imagine a people, educated and informed.  One of the planks of Labour's social engineering has been in the guise of helping people make an 'informed choice', ie 'empowering' them with the information they need in order to reach their own conclusions.  Absolute f/ing codswallop.  Labour's choice is no choice at all, to coin a phrase.

The only problem I can see is that the accommodation of UKIP and BNP voters is a long way off even in my scenario.  Politics and the media always need whipping-boys and ducking stools.  At what point did, "You caught me red-handed, it's a fair cop, Guv" become, "It wisnae me, a big boy did it and ran away"?   Spin, spin, spin. I hope that the British electorate, and the English in particular, will no longer be conned by political jostling for 'power'.   The word is 'Office'; you're elected to represent and serve us; we're not your whipping boys.

Here's a pic of a ducking stool extant in Dorset - I vote that the next session of Cabinet meetings is held in Christchurch.  Ayes to the right?

9/11 Trial to be held in secret

Donald Trump: Global Warming is a scam

As major companies are pulling out of a government's climate change partnership, Donald Trump says Al Gore should never have received the Nobel prize and that the Chinese are laughing at the west for putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Trump reckons that these companies' withdrawal represents the beginning of a floodgate, citing the climategate emails as the cause.

France says economic union is solution to Greek debt crisis. Quelle surprise!

It didn't take them long, did it?

The FT notes that France wants to push for an "economic government" for the eurozone in the wake of the Greek crisis. "It is too early to talk about this openly", said an official in Paris. "But let's face it, this Greek tragedy is probably the best way to get the debate moving forward. It is a wake-up call."

Ah, yes. Wait until Germany has decided on whether or not to bail out Greece, then let the media loose to hail economic union as the cure-all that we 'need', to avoid economic catastrophe!

Yeah, right. Problem, reaction, solution. Only they're not fooling many people any more.

"We are at a crossroads," Mr Balladur wrote in Le Figaro. "The time has come to move to a new stage."

"The issue of economic government is largely about Franco-German dialogue," said an official. "The president and chancellor talk about it each time they meet."

Get ready for the media onslaught and watch McDoom's reaction.

Governments ADMIT carrying out false flag operations

mentThe Washington Blog has unearthed evidence of governments admitting to , staging false flag ops - some of which were perpetrated by the British government:

Forget the claims and allegations that false flag terror - governments attacking people and then blaming others in order to create animosity towards those blamed - has been used throughout history.

This essay will solely discuss government admissions to the use of false flag terror.

For example:

• The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950's to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president

• Israel admits that an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind "evidence" implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this)

• The well-respected former Indonesian president admits that the government probably had a role in the Bali bombings

• The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: "You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security" (and see this)(Italy joined NATO in 1949, years before the bombings occurred) 

• As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings*

There are many other instances of false flag attacks used throughout history proven by the historical evidence. See this, this and this. The above are only some examples of governments admitting to using false flag terror. 

You can't call it a conspiracy theory when the government itself admits it.
And this is not just ancient history:

• Jimmy Carter's former National Security Adviser - Zbigniew Brzezinski - told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the U.S. and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation
  

• A retired 27-year CIA analyst who prepared and presented Presidential Daily Briefs and served as a high-level analyst for several presidents, would not put it past the government to "play fast and loose" with terror alerts and warnings and even events themselves in order to rally people behind the flag

* Note: While the Joint Chiefs of Staff pushed for Operation Northwoods to be carried out, cooler heads prevailed; President Kennedy or his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara apparently vetoed the plan.

It will probably be many years before they admit to staging the underpants bomber attack - amongst others. I hope those of us who recall the details will still be alive when that happens.

Climategate: Lord Monckton on Alex Jones 17 Feb 2010

Lord Monckton tells Alex Jones about his Australian tour.  Amongst the topics discussed:

• the IPCC is dead;
• the global warming scam is dead;
• Phil Jones admitted that there hadn't been significant recent global warming for 15 years;
• Aussies queued up to listen to Monckton speak;
• Monckton received over 100 mentions in mainstream Australian newspapers;
• prediction: the warmists will "go quiet for a bit", while working at local levels to promote their agenda;
• Monckton will personally sue top-level IPCC personnel, if governments refuse to prosecute;
• The IPCC underestimated the growth of Arctic sea ice by 50%! (And of course, the Northern Hemisphere snow extent is the second highest on record).