S.Yorks Police Farce - at it again - negiligent, abusive cowards

Right. I've had it with South Yorkshire Police Farce. I've now witnessed dozens of cases, and know of many others anecdotally, where they have behaved in a completely negligent, bullying, cowardly, abusive - and quite possibly criminal - fashion. I've never seen a Police Farce like it. Its time to start making a record of their actions and this blog is as good a place to do it.

A bit of personal background just to clarify matters - I've worked as a nightclub doorman on and off for over a decade. Truth be told I haven't needed to do the job for years, what with jobs during the day ranging from IT consultant to researcher. I've kept my hand in though because I don't want to go soft and I see tough times ahead. It also confers a lot of social benefits, including having a much better intelligence network in the City than the police have. They could share it if we trusted eachother, but since the introduction of the complete farce and sinkhole of money that is the SIA (Security Industry Authority), relationships between doorstaff and the police in the city have moved rapidly from neutrality to complete distrust. The Police - apparently driven by targets madness - find doorstaff a particularly easy group to score points off and there's no better way to do this than use the threat of the idiot SIA. But that's another story.

This week they took the piss beyond belief. I don't like to litter too many of my blog posts with swearing, in this case however I have to use the expletives to express the rage and frustration at what is occurring - and is largely invisible to the general public.

Wednesday 16th Dec 2009 - Incident 1
Wednesday night they arrive at the club for one of their regular 'harassment rounds'. They said they have come to find drunk people in the club (!!). In they go, search through roughly 1100 people and manage to find one person who, they think, is "too drunk". They drag him out into the freezing weather. He's just wearing a shirt. He seems to sober up pretty rapidly and is compos mentis. He asks if he can go back in to find his friends and get his jacket and wallet (apparently in the care of his friends). On account of his distinctly non-paralytic state the club staff are more than happy to let him back in. The police refuse however. They send him on his way, in the freezing cold, without his friends, jacket or wallet. Presumably because they couldn't stand the possibility that he was actually in a relatively fit state and it was more important to save face than consider his well being.

But wait, there's more.....

There are six police officers stood intimidatingly outside the club. A call comes in over the emergency radio (given to all venues in the City) from another venue. Its kicking off and they need police assistance urgently. The CCTV centre tells them that "there are no units available". Oddly enough our lying eyes can see six "units" doing fuck all stood outside our venue. The member of staff in the box office who looks after the radio comes out to the front and demands that the police go to assist immediately. After a bit of grumbling they piss off.

Ten minutes later they are back, "looking for drunk people", Oh and holding the club responsible for what people half a mile a way are doing through being "too drunk". Meanwhile, calls are coming in again over the emergency radio from the same venue, more desperate this time, saying that the situation is escalating and they really really need the police there. The "units" outside our place stay put, busy "looking for drunk people".

Friday 18th Dec 2009 - Incident 2

The police turn up mob-handed again. Go in for another one of their tours looking for "drunk people". They come out of the club and announce to the staff that the club is "serving alcohol to drunk people". What the fucking fuck? Its a nightclub you stupid cunts. And those who know our venue know that its one of the safest places to be in town drunk or sober. (Meanwhile we have the Gangster's paradise around the corner that attracts gangs from all over the country who regularly attack eachother with champagne bottles, bring knives, guns, set fire to cars outside etc. But they get a clean bill of health from South Yorks Plod...).

Anyway, the "units" announce that they will return in half an hour and if we are still "serving alcohol to drunk people", they will close the venue down.

There aren't words to describe the seething anger at this point.

They turned up again later and planted themselves in a line a few meters away, directly opposite the main entrance to the club. Anyone would think that we had just had a riot at the club. The club's customers come out, as they always do, generally chilled out and happily drunk to be presented with intimidation from our local "units".

I spoke to the club management about it. Apparently the club is coming in for "special treatment". Why? Well the council has decided that the era of cheap alcohol must come to an end in all venues. Our venue doesn't agree and is still providing cheap vodka deals. So, in the absence of any vaguely fucking relevant laws, they decide to engage in harassment.

South Yorkshire Police Farce has form.

I wish these kinds of incidents were the exception rather than the norm with South Yorkshire Police. To my great disappointment they are not. Here's a small selection of other similar incidents recently:

- After talking to staff from other venues it appears that, often on the same nights, there are mysteriously "no units available" when an emergency call goes in. The emergency radio isn't used lightly - calling the police out on it can cause problems when the venue's license is up for review. A particularly low example was when one venue's doorstaff pulled all the customers back in and barred the doors because there was a gang outside brandishing a shotgun. An emergency call went out - apparently the police would not come unless the staff "were sure that it was a real firearm".

- Brett Blake was stabbed to death last year in a city venue. Here's what the news reports didn't mention: The police were already outside the venue in force when it was kicking off inside. They refused to go in. Multiple people were hurt with knife wounds, including staff. The venue in question only had two exits, easily covered. The police could have easily nabbed the people responsible literally red handed. One of the doorstaff who had been fighting to protect customers inside from at least one knife-wielding assailant came out, covered in blood. He demanded that the police go in. They refused. He called them "a bunch of useless bastards". They arrested him.

- About a year back I gave evidence in legal proceedings that directly contradicted the "evidence" provided by one of our wonderful local officers who was trying to climb the greasy pole by getting a club closed down "for not operating a membership scheme for its under 18s night" (n.b. this was an occasional night that was kept completely separately from the adult nights, ending at 8pm....). What, it transpired, the police had been doing is engaging in what I can only describe as "evidence construction". Aside from my testimony as a witness, I also pointed out that if the police are to construct evidence then they might want to use a calendar. The night on which several officers apparently claimed to have seen several youths under 18, (n.b. they didn't actually age check these alleged youths), clearly under the influence of alcohol,(they saw from being sat in their car) and clearly having had attended the under-18s night (there was no under-18s night on the night specified - in fact, the date they gave was for a night renowned throughout the city for having an average age of 35+).

- We had a massive ruck outside the club with a gang of 20-something hoolies. They were throwing bricks, sticks and whatever else they could find at us. A police car had been sat about 200m away watching the whole thing. After the gang had gone, they cruised down and demanded to know what we had done to start it. (This was one of many incidents where police were actually there, witnessing something from beginning to end and letting the assailants walk away scot free).

- We threw three lads out who had been causing trouble inside. When outside the club they threatened two separate groups of people with a knife, then ran up the road, beat up some kids (including one girl) and came back to stand outside the club again. One of the groups called the police. Two officers turned up. Despite multiple witnesses we had to harass them - harass them!! To go and have a word with the lads in question. They didn't even search them, despite allegations from multiple witnesses that they had been threatened with a knife.

- One of our staff was on their own working the early doors for a band. A group of kids came running down the street being chased by another gang Of No Specific Appearance. Our member of staff let the kids hide inside the club and told the following scrotes to fuck off. They did and came back later with two dogs and knives. An emergency call went out. Apparently the police were too busy (at 7pm) to come deal with knife wielding Youths of No Specific Appearance with dogs, threatening to kill a member of staff and do god knows what to a bunch of kids.

I could go on.....these stories go on and on and I'm sick to fucking death of it. And those are just some of my stories - there are plenty of other people in South Yorkshire who could tell you more. So I've resolved to start making a record of every one of these incidents. I've got to the point where I really don't care about my badge any more. Frankly, if you're interested in keeping people in a nightclub safe from predatory criminals and just garden variety dickheads, you're better off being a member of the public than a badged member of door staff. And forget phoning the police for help. I don't understand what we pay the South Yorkshire Police to do except make "normal" people's lives a complete and abject misery.

If it keeps on this way there is going to be some kind of ugly reckoning.

The Green snake in the grass

What would you think if I told you that the furore over climategate was not the most critical topic where the AGW lobby was concerned? How would you feel if I said that the EU and our almost silent drift into a federal super-state should not be at the top of your list for ways to raise your blood pressure? What would you think if I pointed out, at the centre of all of this - where Climategate has been the signal symptom pulling back the curtain - there was, at base a sustained assault on reason itself?

Hyperbole? Paranoia? Read on....

Buried deep within the furore over Climategate is a deeper and far more insidious issue, so far only mentioned in passing by a few in the odd comment on Climategate, and only one politically focused blogger recently (at least in direct relation to AGW "science"), along with a handful of lone voices scattered around from some time before climategate - for example here. Despite its critical seriousness, this issue didn't reach critical mass in the blogosphere, being commented on by a few disparate observers.

What is this hidden monster to which I refer?

It is the fact that many of those involved in what I will call the 'AGW confluence' (the historically unprecedented coming together of (many previously disparate) interests around the AGW issue), are followers of the philosophy of "post-normal science".

As BuyTheTruth explains in their blog on this topic. This isn't just a case of science being politicised and brought, or even a case of moving from modern to "post-modern" science (where post-modernism at least provides a useful contribution of highlighting the subjective element in everything). It is an altogether more fundamental shift. And in using the term "post normal science", they hoped we wouldn't notice. They were right.

BTT's blog really deserves very wide readership - wider than that of Climategate itself. The stakes here couldn't be higher. I've tried getting a few of the high-traffic Libertarian bloggers interested, but no joy so I decided to go into some detail on this issue myself and hope it will be picked up by my fellow bloggers:

The idea behind "post normal science" (PNS) is to make science instrumental and democratic (even "moral"). I hope you balked at reading that idea, just like I did. We libertarian minded folk naturally seek a political settlement that maximises the liberty of the individual. The idea of applying such a principle to Science however is pure anathema, yet that is exactly what has happened. And it has not simply morphed into a scientific tyranny of the majority (despite the oft cited "thousands" of scientists supposedly supporting the IPCC conclusions unequivocally) - it is the brought and paid for appearance of (tyranny of the) majority that counts. PNS scientists and philosphers don't care for truth you see - only 'values'.

The originator of this philosophy is one Jerome Ravetz. If the following quote from Ravetz doesn't make your head explode, you probably need to read it twice:

"…climate change models are a form of “seduction”…advocates of the models…recruit possible supporters, and then keep them on board when the inadequacy of the models becomes apparent. This is what is understood as “seduction”; but it should be observed that the process may well be directed even more to the modelers themselves, to maintain their own sense of worth in the face of disillusioning experience.

…but if they are not predictors, then what on earth are they? The models can be rescued only by being explained as having a metaphorical function, designed to teach us about ourselves and our perspectives under the guise of describing or predicting the future states of the planet…A general recognition of models as metaphors will not come easily. As metaphors, computer models are too subtle…for easy detection. And those who created them may well have been prevented…from being aware of their essential character."

This is as nasty and insidious as nasty and insidious gets.

And the glove fits more perfectly than you could imagine:

"The theory of Post-Normal Science…needs to be renewed and enriched…The time is not ripe for a modification of PNS, and so the best move forward is to raise the issue of Sustainability. For that I sketch a theory of complex systems, with special attention to pathologies and failures. That provides the foundation for a use of ‘contradiction’ as a problem incapable of resolution in its own terms, and also of ‘characteristic contradiction’ that drives a system to a crisis. With those materials it is possible to state the characteristic contradiction of our modern industrial civilisation, and provide a diagram with heuristic power."

[emphasis mine]

I'll repeat BuyTheTruth's commentary here as there is no point paraphrasing what is probably expressed more succinctly than I would have done:

"Heuristic power is the power to explain ‘factual novelties’. ‘Contradiction’ and ‘characteristic contradiction’ are Marxist speak. Heard about ’sustainability’ recently? You bet! Ravetz gives the Greens the tools they need to do their dirty work. He gives them the philosophical blueprint to attack modern industrial civilization. Now, let’s be clear: post-normal science is one of the manipulative arts that Machiavelli would have been proud of."
[My emphasis]

Instead of "truth", what we should have instead is "quality" (c.f. the idea of "value added data" coming out of Climategate.....)

Another doozy is quoted by BuyTheTruth, from Eva Kunseler, Towards a new paradigm of Science in scientific policy advising:

"The exercise of scholarly activities is defined by the dominance of goal orientation where scientific goals are controlled by political or societal actors…Scientists’ integrity lies not in disinterestedness but in their behaviour as stakeholders.

....he guiding principle of normal science – the goal of achievement of factual knowledge - must be modified to fit the post-normal principle…For this purpose, post-normal scientists should be capable of establishing extended peer communities and allow for ‘extended facts’ from non-scientific experts

....Involved social actors must agree on the definition of perceptions, narratives, interpretation of models, data and indicators."

Is *any* of this making you feel sick yet? For me its positively vomit inducing. Are you getting this? Scientists should no longer pursue the goal of being "disinterested", they should be considered, instead "stakeholders". This is a paradigm shift onwards from the post-modernist observation that no science, or scientist is value free. That's one of the whole points of the scientific enterprise - that different scientists correct one another's bias.

Another quote provided by BuyTheTruth from a critic of "post normal science", Richard Fernandez really hits the spot:

"All in all, the notion of “post-normal science” seems like a complete contradiction in terms or a perversion of the standard definition of science as commonly understood. It appears to be an elaborate and dishonest attempt to pass off the preferences of a single group as some kind of pseudo-science. There’s a much simpler term for this dishonest phrase: politics. Post-normal science is nothing but a cheap and lying term for a political diktat; for the rule of the self-appointed over everyone else. Whatever truth “Global Warming” may contain it has surely been damaged by its association with this disreputable and vile concept which brazenly casts aside the need for any factual basis and declares in the most unambiguous terms that whatever values it chooses to promote constitutes a truth unimpeachable by reality and a set of values that none dare challenge."

I'm at risk of repeating BuyTheTruth's entire blog, so I must recommend in the strongest possible terms that you read the original in full. As far as I'm concerned, the collated quotations from Mike Hulme are more damning than if he was caught anally raping goats (without lube) in sacrificial rituals to gaia and the almighty Al Ogre (and this list of quotes alone is worth reading BTT for). And claiming "out of context quotes" won't cut it. He hides these conclusions in amongst lots of reasonable sounding points. I've read enough of his quotes in context now to see that he does indeed mean it.

Look at the way Hulme, in the Guardian, dismisses sceptics Singer and Avery: "So this book from Singer and Avery can be understood in a different way: as a challenge to the process of climate change science, or to the values they believe to be implicit in the science, rather than as a direct challenge to scientific knowledge."

At points in Hulme's piece in the Guardian it seems that his main intention is to ask scientists to be very open about the values that inform their inquiry. Obviously this is something I applaud. However, his conclusion - here and elsewhere - appears to be that because scientists do bring values to the table, we should give up on rational truth-seeking traditional scientific behaviour and focus instead on transmitting these values, using science as a vehicle, as he reveals here: "What matters about climate change is not whether we can predict the future with some desired level of certainty and accuracy; it is whether we have sufficient foresight, supported by wisdom, to allow our perspective about the future, and our responsibility for it, to be altered."



Shockingly, the highest profile treatment this has received has been from Melanie Phillips, who draws equally sinister conclusions to myself, BTT and the few others who have encountered these carrion ridden philosophers.

The reason they escaped notice is because - in 2007 when Phillips was writing - no one even realised what the CRU was, or how critical it was to the IPCC conclusions, never mind the individual names of its members. What climategate has done for us is more valuable than reveal the dodgy science behind a key pillar of the "consensus" - it has revealed the work of this insidious bunch and their underlying philosophy. Instead of just asking "is this junk science", we are now obliged to ask - did they ever, at any point, even care that it was junk science if they believed in PNS?

One scientific blogger writes:

"Hulme has collected some of the most disgraceful, immoral, anti-scientific, and anti-civilization principles how science should interact with the society that I can imagine. He has brought the methods of the Inquisition right to the 21st century and combined them with the most modern methods to brainwash, corrupt, and intimidate people.

He is completely open that he wants to return us to the Middle Ages when a church ideology dictated what scientists could think and what they couldn't think, what they could learn and what they couldn't learn if they didn't want to lose influence or life, for that matter. It just sounds extremely worrisome."

And later he says... "Why should anyone sensible ever take Hulme's criticism of Fred Singer and Dennis Avery seriously if Hulme's approach to science is a self-described fraud?"

Why indeed. And this was precisely the question I was asking myself whilst originally reading Hulme's proclamations on Singer and Avery.

A problem we have is Hulme can make himself appear as one slippery customer. He makes a lot of valid points about the philosophy of science and subjectivity (I can fully appreciate this as I'm a philosophy graduate myself). Yet the fact he makes a few reasonable and insightful points should not, by any stretch of the imagination, distract one from witnessing the conclusions he draws. One trap that it is easy to fall into is to assess his writing using rationalist, scientific values yourself. To do that is to not understand Hulme et al. You see - he himself is already beyond those values, engaging in "Post Normal Science".

To be fair to Ravetz, it appears that Hulme and others have taken and twisted his orginal philosphy somewhat, at least if one of the commentators on BTT's blog is to be believed (see the entries from 'tallbloke'). I've yet to spend much time on Ravetz's original work, though I intend to go through everything produced by these folks, from Ravetz onward, with a very fine tooth comb. Reading Hulme in the original is pretty clear though. He really does believe this philosophy, even if it is a distorted version of Ravetz's original vision. I'm having trouble believing Ravetz's innocence however, given that he has been appearing, with Hulme, to comment on Climategate. And if you read the comments from 'tallbloke' over at BTT, you realise he might have made the same mistake I almost made - forgetting that these guys are not writing from the same rationalist perspective as you, already having 'gone beyond' as it were.

Both of them have written an article for the BBC on this issue. I find this equally disturbing and hilarious and wonder what the hell the BBC editor was smoking when he agreed to publish it. Apparently "Doing science in 2010 demands something rather different from scientists than did science in 1960, or even in 1985." - it does? Other than perhaps now requiring a desktop computer and internet connection? Read their proposals for "extended peer review" - to include "individuals from industry, environmental organisations and government officials as peer reviewers of early drafts of their assessments".

In the article they also subtly (re)introduce the idea of the "democritisation" of science. Something that sounds so reasonable on the surface because so many unthinking dolts have been trained to think that "democracy" automatically equals "good"; worse they do this under the cover of demanding more openness. More openness and "democratised science" are most certainly NOT synonymous.

The calls for publicly owned scientific knowledge and increased openness are so seductive. Yet these are things that should affect the end-result of investigations, not redirect the flow of the scientific method itself. "'Show your working' is the imperative given to scientists when preparing for publication to peers.

There, it refers to techniques.

Now, with the public as partner in the creation and implementation of scientific knowledge in the policy domain, the injunction has a new and enhanced meaning."

Amen to the first sentence. Of course we want to see how scientists have worked out their data. As to the second part though - no, no and thrice NO! The 'public as a partner in the creation of scientific knowledge'? When it enters the realm of politics, there is certainly a case to be made for public involvement in the "implementation" stage (assuming this doesn't have a special "post normal" meaning). But creation? What is this supposed to be? Interactive myth making?

This is terrifying, even in the lamed-down version for the BBC (which, I suspect was much more subtle owning to Ravetz's influence...).

And its funny how so many of these confluences come together. Again - from BTT: Not just a radical Marxist past for Hulme. Also apparently a major player previously in CND. This is particularly apropos to note given the recent questions raised by UKIP's Nigel Farage regarding the most powerful woman in the world, Cathy Ashton, and her past. And then there's the revelations about just how much influence the Soviets had, via espionage, over (now) prominent Labour figures back in the 80s.....

The more I have looked into this, the more the metaphor of a snake is very appropriate, given the mythological links to notions of original sin and - of course - snake oil salesmen.....only in this case it isn't a snake in a tree offering us a bite of the apple of knowledge. Its one hidden in the grass at our feet, about to bite us and sap our strength before we even dare reach for the goddamned tree....

And some people appear to be making the dangerous mistake of thinking that Hulme is giving us description of what has occurred. No folks - he's selling us a prescription!!


From inside the science bunker

A quick bit of background - I'm a philosophy and politics graduate. Twice in philosophy (BA, MA) and once in Politics (MA). I've also spent the last three years working at a scientific lab in a university. So I thought I'd seek out some reactions on climategate - and boy, have they been depressing.

A lot of the scientists appear to have taken the official damage control line at face value. They simply would not believe the most damaging accusations. One of them, someone I actually hold in high regard, even patronisingly accused me of not being critical enough and of 'believing everything I read in the papers'. If only it had been in the damn papers! I asked him if he'd looked at the emails, or files himself? No. Interestingly I also argue with him frequently on the EU too. And no, he hasn't read the consolidated treaties as amended by Lisbon. Who the hell isn't sufficiently critical?

Another scientist said he was completely unsurprised and said he thought it was completely normal that they'd seek to protect their funding first and foremost. All well and good but this is research that will fundamentally change the world. Literally. He opined that research funding is fundamentally too politicised. Which was amusing to hear from a scientist. I've been pilloried by a number of my (now ex) friends who were committed AGWers for constantly asking the political questions. Climategate has completely vindicated me on that score (hasn't changed anything for them though, I got back in touch with one who's reaction was that 'even if it turned out CRU was an al-quaeda front, it wouldn't change anything because the rest of the science is settled and CRU were such a small part of it'). Right.

I also had a bad experience with senior staff from the EU commission who attended a conference I was supposed to be presenting research at last week. They seem to think the Commission's priorities and choice of research funding is value free. The discussion was on the future direction of technology and what the EU will fund. It seems decisions on this will be made on the basis of 'European values'. When pressed they said that "of course" principles like "solidarity" will trump those of "subsidarity". That 'value free' research funding again, from the body that is the buyer, seller *and* regulator of the research. I think I scotched a few career opportunities here by asking too many pointed questions and regularly trying to draw people back to the politics of the science. I guess maybe I'm behind the times and with regard to the EU, we're in the realm of "post normal" politics.

One minor victory I did have however was speaking to one of the lead scientists behind what one could consider the university's environmental unit. He didn't believe it at first, but went away and had a look himself at the climategate material, only to return quite shaken. Good. As much as I like the man, and didn't want to upset him it at least caused him to reassess.

The problem is, there seems to be an institutional bias to take things on trust from other scientists. I used to feel like that until I started investigating the politics, realising that - just like with journalists - I would finally have to check everything myself.

Hulme is - to repeat the point - a slippery one because he appears to occasionally attack the "consensus", including colleagues such as Jones. The problem is, he's not criticising them for having engaged in a travesty of science, not to mention academic integrity, he's criticising them from the position that they aren't engaging properly in Post Normal Science.

Also - see this bizaare op-ed from Hulme in the WSJ. A common thread in Hulme's work is to point out how unbelievably complex climate science is, whilst at the same time proclaiming that the AGW is certain. Apparently the old model of science, and how science should be used, "places much too great a burden on science, certainly on climate science with all of its struggles with complexity, contingency and uncertainty.". He goes on to identify the fact that climate science had been so politicised as a fundamental flaw in the traditional model of science itself. Never mind the fact that it was the AGW shills themselves who polarised it themselves. Lots of readers have already expressed disgust (and cancelled subscriptions) at publications such as Nature and Scientific American for shamelessly promoting the "denier" meme. That wasn't a failure in the scientific method, it was a consciously made and personal failure of the scientists themselves.

Another disturbing angle is the fact that we've heard this kind of thing before...


Back to the future - Neocons reloaded

The editor of Antiwar.com, Justin Raimondo, tirelessly documented many of the hidden links and shenanigans of that cabal we came to know as the 'Neocons'. One of the most striking aspects of his research was to spell out the philosophy underlying that collection of warmongering corrupt liars. The similarities with the philosophy of 'post-normal' science are striking.

The neocons were inspired by philosopher, Leo Strauss. For Strauss, society should be 'guided' by an appropriate self-appointed elite.He also praised the art of political lying - lying for the 'social good'.

Raimondo also details that other common thread - the radical left wing past of the main actors. Its a shame he doesn't go into more detail on that other pernicious strand - the fact that as soon as bad things are done with state power a concerted effort is made to associate this with the 'right'.

On that issue, Burt Blumert from lewrockwell.com is worth quoting: "Neocons, as ex-Trotskyites, are bad enough, but those who follow the pro-pagan Leo Strauss are deadly. He advocated the Big Lie. Forgive me for all the gory details, but these people – with their other leaders like Bill Buckley and Irving Kristol and the help of the CIA – perverted the American right into loving the welfare-warfare state."

These were also the chaps who famously derided the anti-war movement as part of "the reality based community". The neocon vision was to 're-shape' and determine reality (for social good, of course!).

Sound familiar?

It's one of those things that ensure partisan divisions keep the elements of the 'left' and 'right', who actually substantively agree on certain issues, fighting uselessly with one another. Meanwhile the powermongers at the helm continue directing the ship of state to despicable ends and they don't care whether we call them 'left' or 'right'. Worth noting perhaps how the current crop of neocons have lauded their new War President. The confusions in names, allegiances etc, almost seem sometimes to be consciously chosen to maximise confusion, doubt and conflict - acting like a chinese finger trap for your mind.

The similarity of vitriolic counter-attack is also striking: People attacking the neo-cons were labelled 'anti-semitic'. Critics of AGW - as we all well know now - are 'deniers'. Curious, no?




So what next?

Apologies to those who have been waiting for the next part of the Lisbon treaty analysis - it is coming. This current issue however, in my view, is so serious it trumps everything else I've been concerned about for the last few years. What these "post normal scientists" are discussing is the murder of reason. And for very particular political goals, supposedly for our own good. Climategate has given the opportunity to see how one particular cell has been influence directly by this kind of arrogant misanthropic anti-scientific thinking. What needs to happen now is not just a weeding out of everyone who was part of the Climategate team, and mapping the extent to which their flawed research has infiltrated and corrupted the body of research making up the IPCC. I, for one, intend to go far beyond that and seek out all of these 'post normal scientists'. They don't just threaten the end of our economies, or freedom, or even the end of science. They promise the end of reason itself.

I've found the enemy's heart and I intend to stab it.

Registering the Climategate Dissent

I have in the offing a longer piece on Climategate, dealing with an underlying issue that I've not seen taken up in detail yet. Whilst there is a lot of good work already done on analysing the confluence of political, financial and media interests behind Climategate, there is a snake in the grass yet to be properly aired.....more on that in the next few days.

In the meantime I felt compelled to write a brief blog post though because of today's headlines. Whilst a lot of deserved focus has gone to the Express printing a Climategate story on its front page, the lesser known breakthrough appears to have been in the Environmental-Shill extraordinaire - the "Independent".

For as front page news, the "Independent" has reported on the climate sceptics within the Tories. As soon as I saw it I wondered how many people, up until that point, were even aware that there *were* climate sceptics in the party. What is especially surprising is that the coverage of this dissent actually seems fairly even handed. They still couldn't bring themselves to mention Climategate however, though it was great to see David Davis's contribution, referring to proposed Green measures as "hair-shirt policies".

Then, of course, one gets to the rest of the paper.

On the front page, above the 'Cameron hit by Tory backlash on environment' is a big 'RED ALERT' banner highlighting the "FREE 20-page climate change supplement" inside. Looking through it after having read the coverage of the Tory sceptics, it is difficult to believe that the paper does not have an editor who not only has multiple-personality disorder, but also co-exists in two different parallel universes.

All the usual platitudes are there in the supplement:

- The front page of the supplement has the obligatory picture of cooling towers belching evil -uh - water vapour into the air.

- Turn the page and not only are we told that we have "Twelve days to save the world", but "We face a threat as terrible as that posed by Hitler". Godwin's law invoked even before we hit the first sentence? For fucks sake.

- Next its "Time to confront the invisible enemy that threatens us all". This section goes on to detail how "No government in the world now thinks that global warming is hugely exaggerated".

- Loads of terrifying statistics on the next page, including the Independent surpassing itself yet again, and after its recent screaming frontpage warning of rises of 6 degrees, now ups the stakes to 7 degrees. No source is given of course.

- And then, (after a full page advert for Soya) - surprise! The recent floods in the UK are signs of AGW! Full colour, two page spreads of high waterlines.

- It gets even worse on the next double page - almost nothing but dramatic pictures of the recent bushfire in Australia.

- And more! Another two page spread showing the devastation from Hurricanes. All courtesy of course of our invisible enemy!

- The final doublespread - showing a large body of ice - quotes "a selection of public figures who ought to know what they are talking about". I found that particularly funny as I thought I'd zero in randomly on one and landed on James Lovelock. He says "...the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now unprecedented". This is a blatant falsehood. If he'd appended "human- contributed" carbon dioxide it would have been true. Who cares about precision on this issue though, eh?

- We're almost done at this point - with a full page table outlining different scenarios given various rises in temperature, from 2 degrees through to six degrees. All of which, as the article states at the top, based upon the figure that "the world grew 0.74 degrees hotter in the 20th century". What seems to have passed the writer by is that it is this very figure that is now in serious doubt as a result of Climategate. Doesn't stop a good bit of scaremongering though, because the page is finished off, after detailing successively more terrifying scenarios with - guess what!? That's right, the obligatory picture of a stranded polar bear. FFS.

Hidden bonus!

If you're still conscious at this point, a big bonus buried within pages 26-27 of the paper is a hit piece on Ron Paul who is - according to the "Independent" a promoter of a "radical brand of extreme libertarianism" (I thought it was just plain old 'Libertarianism' myself...) He apparently appeals to "libertarian-minded college kids" (not us, sensible, adults obviously) and is "the token nutjob". Of particular note is what the paper has to say on his economic policy; apparently wanting to end the monopoly position of the Fed is wanting to "take the US back to a Nineteenth-centure version of every-man-for-himself capitalism".



It's been a long while since I've read anything in the Independent beyond its latest hysterical front page. Its simply difficult to imagine a more sickeningly obvious propaganda rag with a very loose grasp on accuracy. I can only hope - like the New Statesman - that it continues hemorrhaging readers. Its demise is long overdue and well deserved.

**EXCLUSIVE** - Nick Clegg says "we are not a sect" (and willing to drop liberal values to get votes....)

Several hours ago I attended 'An Evening with the Liberal Democrats' at Sheffield University. Representing the Liberal Democrats were Nick Clegg, Paddy Ashdown and Paul Scriven (LD councillor and leader of Sheffield City Council). After a sickening propaganda video with various LD voters praising Clegg and the LDs (without identifying a single policy), the representatives got down to business. All three gave a brief polemical stint mostly involving slating Labour and the Tories and asking, rhetorically, "who do you trust".

After this the floor was opened for questions.

I managed to get in first and went straight for a salvo aimed at Clegg. I identified myself as a member of the Libertarian Party and said that there were many reasons I was a member of LPUK and not the LDs. This was because, I explained, they did not deserve the name 'Liberal' and should instead, as others have remarked, more accurately call themselves "social democrats". I pointed out numerous examples where they seemed willing to eject their liberal principles in the interests of (what they thought were) populist sentiments. I specified in particular their attitude to the EU and the fact that they no longer supported a referendum and ended by saying that the closer they got to power, the more they were willing to eject principles, pander to populism and therefore were just more of the same - the same political class as the 'big two'.

Clegg got very shirty with me. He got on a full head of steam, gesticulating boldy as he told me (and everyone else) that he passionately disagreed with everything I said. What was particularly amusing is that just prior to the questions starting he said that he was really pleased to see everyone attending, whatever their political background and said he welcomed disagreement and discussion.

According to Clegg, the Liberal Democrats are "not a sect" and "are intending to win an election" and therefore "need to make our [their] policies understandable." and "not preaching on matters of principle" I heckled back "so what are your principles?" he ignored me and continued his tirade, claiming that being in Europe was best for the country.

Now I don't know about you dear reader, however I interpreted that as a direct vindication of what I said: Clegg was admitting that he and his party were perfectly happy to jettison their principles in order to gain votes. I had to hold back the urge to respond with expletives.

Paddy also responded to me shortly after, though only on the issue of the Lisbon Treaty. According to Mr. Pantsdown - and see if you can get your head around this cognitive dissonance - "Lisbon is not a big shifting in power. It's a pooling of sovereignty." Unless we both have diametrically opposed understandings of the meaning of 'sovereignty', the compromising of it is - to me - about the largest shift of power I can imagine between states. He went on to claim "if it was a big shift in power, and not just tinkering around the edges, the Liberal Democrats would not be supporting it."

So there you have it folks - no answer to the question of a referendum, they know better than we do. And the pooling of sovereignty is "not a big shifting in power". Go back to sleep silly little people asking questions.

But there's more.....some of their answers to other questions were equally hilarious and/or disturbing:

"My home is on loan from the British taxpayer"
In response to a question about being caught out on expenses, Cleggs' response was hilarious. Apparently the reason he thought it was fine to land the taxpayer with the bill for his gardening was because he considered his home "on loan" from the British taxpayer and he wanted to make sure it was nice. He also said that as a result when he sold his home, any profit made would go straight back to the taxpayer.

Of course Nick, of course. (Incidentally, he also got very shirty with this questioner as he did with me).

All three representatives continually referenced the idea of handing power back down to local levels. I couldn't help thinking that what they actually mean by this is handing over to Brussels' plans for regionalisation.

Green Issues

This was fun. Clegg made some astonishing and worrying commitments here. Not only should 1st world taxpayers apparently pay for third world nations to "leapfrog" industrialization and use "sustainable" technologies instead, but - wait for it - Clegg wants to give legal force to the AWG consensus. Amusingly, after all this preaching, someone asked him if he would be in Copenhagen. His excuse? Apparently he's not going because his place is here in the UK harassing the government on these issues. Right.

As an extra, hilarious addendum, councillor Paul Scriven boasted how Sheffield City Council was now giving away green waste sacks for garden refuse. Apparently this is a "green" measure. No it isn't you twat. You're just giving away bags to people who a) have gardens to tend and b) have the time to tend them usefully. How does it reduce anyone's carbon footprint. He also claimed they were "free". The fact that political officials can still say this kind of thing with a straight face highlights the woeful financial literacy of the nation. Of course it isn't free. It's paid for by the Council, funded by Council Tax which is paid for by.....



Sheffield's finest

I've had quite a few interactions with Sheffield's LD councillors. I've watched them debate issues I've had an interest in also in the council chambers. They make lots of grand promises, then break them. The clearest thing to any observer is that what they care about most is giving the Labour Councillors a kicking and looking good to the electorate.

Imagine Mr. Scriven's response then, when a man suddenly stood up at the front and identified himself as a teacher and LD member who was having serious second thoughts about the party since they had taken control of Sheffield City Council. Apparently the council were closing his school down and he thought this was completely unjustified. I don't know the details of this one, but Scriven's response was very telling, especially after the teacher alleged that another councillor, one Andrew Sangar claimed that "whatever Clegg says doesn't matter, Sheffield City Council will still do what it wants."

Scriven went on to state how badly the school was failing, that most pupils came out with five GCSEs or less. A woman in the audience suddenly said "my daughter got thirteen GCSEs from that school". Scriven dismissed her, saying "well done", and continued his rant. He said that the LDs were not closing the school, but in "consultation", at which point I let out a loud belly laugh and everyone stopped to look at me, even Scriven. He went on to give a rousing case for making sure every kid had a fair chance blah blah blah. Unfortunately his delivery was good enough that he got a big round of applause.

So - in summary - the Lib Dems, from this performance, were far worse than I thought they were already. Top grade snake oil salesmen from Lord to MP to councillor. And they proved me right - all they offer is just more of the same.

Sibel reveals all! Time to take action

Sibel Edmonds has finally revealed everything she knows, risking imprisonment or worse. The MSM will of course try to bury this story - I'd like to ask everyone to please circulate this story, especially as it has so many important British links (vis a vis The Griffins, Libya, BCCI and more). Remember, she is “the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.” - for years now she has been silenced by the draconian state secrets privilege.

Despite the substantial british connections in the international web identified by Sibel, our own MSM has been missing in action (again). For anyone wondering why I have stuck with this story so doggedly, aside from wishing to support a woman of such integrity as Sibel, it is also because this is one of the fault lines of the British corporate-government-criminal nexus exposed for us to see - and one that we can attack with vigour. It packages together neatly all of the hypocrisy, lies and corruption at the heart of Her Majesty's Government and its organs.

Comment from Invictus on Sibel's blog: "We are forever in the debt of those of you endowed with morality, conscience and good soul, whom volunteer to work for civil services, only to have your native goodness used against you, by those entrenched in gvt, whose sole purpose is to maintain and retain power, and NOT serve us, the American Citizenry, their employers."

Description from Brad Friedman: "The exclusive interview lays out the details of what can be described as nothing short of a national security cancer that has metastasized throughout the U.S. government, to the covert monetary, military, and strategic intelligence benefit of our allies and enemies alike."

And Obama's stomping ground, where he's best connected? Chicago.

Turks break Obama's security bubble - http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/23/turkish-diplomats-cause-scuffle-around-obama/

Joe Lauria - interview - A.Q. Khan network is still active.
Freign minister of India & Ambassador - interviewed by Joe.

Our Guardians and Keepers - the Robot Revolution continues

With a view to increasing the number of more positive posts on this blog, I wanted to share some recent developments in rescue robotics, including work I am directly involved with myself.

It is unfortunate that we in the West (and the Anglosophere in particular) have a perpetually negative relationship with technology generally and robots in particular. Whilst the narrative of a robot/AI takeover has taken deep roots in our culture and thinking, in places such as Japan and South Korea, robots are regarded primarily as friends (and this is despite producing and deploying some frightening capable fighting robots such as the Samsung sentry).

The field of robotics/AI has been advancing at an incredible pace recently - many practicioners in the field are now pointing out that their work is racing ahead of that produced by many science fiction authors. Whilst there is a substantial amount of controversy over how soon we might create a true AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), or whether it is even possible to do so, the other areas of robotics are racing ahead. And, despite the doom-mongers' views on robotic dictatorship, all of the important ethical questions still come down to politics - as in what uses technologies are put, who controls them and for what ends.

Unlike some technologies, such as genetically engineered food or nanoparticles, the important issues in robotics / AI don't particularly require the precautionary principle. Its an area we can forge ahead in with abandon and what will fuck people up isn't the technology itself, but the prevailing systems of power. The latest generation of fighting robots are frighteningly capable. Should we ever again see a massed land battle between two clearly demarcated opposing forces, those with the robots will wipe out any infantry force on the planet (and no, they won't take over, if the operators lose control, they'll just fall over - probably within days, if not hours without servicing). The decisions to kill will still rest with the humans - and this applies even to autonomous and semi-autonomous robots - if they are deployed and given a 'kill zone'; its still the humans giving the orders and occupies the same suspect moral space as dropping napalm or a nuke - a robot will kill just as indiscriminately.

CD & RI

Firemote
http://www.securobot.co.uk/Firemote%20Version%202%20Brochure.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRmWW_nDew8
For people terrified by Daleks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwqGdd2i8dw&feature=related

Or check out the Anna Konda (http://www.sintef.no/Home/Information-and-Communication-Technology-ICT/Applied-Cybernetics/Projects/Our-snake-robots/Anna-Konda--The-fire-fighting-snake-robot/) prototype:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kFpG_xfymg&feature=related

This will be able to work its way into collapsed areas and also - with the right sensors (currently a matter of debate what the most effective means of detecting human casualties is), find survivors.



Ole 'Pill bug' robot
Just a concept at the moment unfortunately - unfortunate because its a really good idea:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=881
- However, see our work on swarm robotics below:

The American Firerob (http://www.americancrane.com/Telerob/Firerob.htm)
(Look away again if you don't like Daleks...)

FFR-1
(http://www.inrobtech.com/ProductsSolutions_Cat1_Prd4.asp)
Particularly impressive is its heat resistance - 400 degrees C, up to 1000 C in short exposures.

Video:
http://inrobtech.com/UserFiles/FFR-1.wmv


Brazil's SACI
http://www.armtecbrasil.com.br/ingles/index.php?pagina=area&area=Defsecu&produto=saci


LUF60

Guardians

In fact - looking at the similarities between some of the fire-fighting robots and Daleks, the daleks do actually look like a good design for fire-fighting (on flat terrain). Who knew?

What happened to David Shayler?

In 1997, David Shayler, a former member of MI5 (the UK's internal "intelligence" "service"), became a whistleblower, claiming to the Mail on Sunday that British "intelligence" "services" had, in 1996, paid money to assassinate Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi.

Thanks to our government's fantastic media-gagging powers, us lowly British proles had to hear about this from other countries' media. The British media was not even able to report that it had been gagged.

Because of the gagging of the British press, Shayler was not able to make a public interest argument, nor have his case heard in full publicly. Interestingly, it was our old authoritarian pals, David Blunkett and Jack Straw who signed the 'Public Interest Immunity certificates'. This is interesting because Straw, and other now senior Labour figures, had almost certainly been on the receiving end of domestic intelligence attention during their supposedly radical past. This kind of targetting of left wing individuals and groups has been comprehensively documented by Robin Ramsay over the years in his excellent journal, 'Lobster'. Straw was also the person to whom Shayler originally sent his dossier of evidence behind the allegations.

Because of cases like that of Katherine Gunn, many people seem to suppose that our "intelligence" agents have whistleblowing rights. They don't.

And if the following piece of reporting from the Australian paper, 'The Age' doesn't send a shudder up your spine, I don't know what will:

The British media widely reported on Monday that lawyers acting for Mr Shayler had accused the government of trying to "intimidate" Justice Moses. But on Tuesday the newspapers - many of which had mounted their own legal case against the application of the certificates - reported simply that the court had heard legal arguments relating to Mr Shayler's trial. "The judge ruled that they (the legal arguments) cannot be reported," The Guardian reported.
....
After the judge's ruling on Monday, several articles detailing Mr Shayler's anticipated evidence - and the government's efforts to keep it secret - were withdrawn from newspaper websites across the country.

Right from Shayler's original breaking of the story, through his flight to France, the attempted extradition and through to 2000 with his trial and conviction, one had the distinct impression that he was seen as a credible whistleblower. Even by the BBC (though, admittedly this was at the time the Tories were just passing the baton to ZanuLab, before it became such an obvious state propaganda machine).

Then something odd occurred.

Shayler got involved in the 9/11 Truth Movement. Now this covers a great many people, many of whom hold divergent and varying views, with equally varying scholarly or investigatory credentials. He didn't join the 'moderate' end of the group however, perhaps investigating the money trail, or supposed intelligence failures. Instead he dived straight into the 'No Plane' and 'Hologram' theories. He not only became an instant write off for whistleblower-watchers; he was also accused by others in the 9/11 Truth Movement of being a state agitator, who's modus operandi was to discredit the moderate 9/11 Truth elements. Given his background it doesn't seem an unreasonable accusation.

Yet the entire episode seems completely bizaare.

In early interviews Shayler came across as calm, articulate and critical. The treatment he received by the government and level of access he was given by the media meant he could have remained a staunch and credible critic of the government even once he begun moving beyond his particular areas of knowledge or expertise. This is the path other whistleblowers such as Craig Murray have taken.

Yet he chose to align himself with an incredibly derided group, derided even by other people who are furiously anti-government and critical of state and media. When you see the early Shayler, you don't see someone who in a few years, is likely to be promulgating the idea that no planes hit the WTC, only holograms.

Yet it gets worse. Much more recently, he has taken an even more bizaare turn. A few years after joining the Truthers, he then announces, in a very Ickean fashion, that he is the Son of God.

Sidenote on Icke: I met Icke a few years back, shortly after he returned from his U.S. adventures. He began promulgating the lizards idea shortly after this trip, seemingly having picked the idea up from some odd Americans. This, it turns out, is Icke's perpetual pattern. I happen to know three people he has received information and evidence from over the years (all three also have very different perspectives and backgrounds). What was striking is that he repeated almost verbatim, in his books and talks, whatever the person, or people he was spending time with at that moment were telling him. This explains the various phases he has had - flip flopping for example between anti-semitism and repudiation of anti-semitism; it was a reflection of the people who surrounded him at the time.

He came across as someone who was dangerously gullible, who also was able to present these ideas with a tremendous air of authority because of his feeling that he had 'inside connections'.

Here's the problem: Some of the things Icke has said and published are true. (N.B. I'm NOT talking about the lizards here....). I can vouch for three of his sources, though their contributions only cover quite a modest part of his various claims and theories. Yet its easy to discredit the lot in one go and even be wary of being associated with his more plausible claims - I was wary myself of writing the last three paragraphs because of this automatic association.

So it's here I find the comparisons with Shayler quite disturbing. Whilst Icke has been like a kite, bouncing around in whatever direction the prevailing winds took him, Shayler was more like a tree, rooted solidly at first, then suddenly caught by a hurricane, roots ripped out, and tossed into a stinking swamp. I can't help but ask what happened to either, or both men. The messianic turn in particular makes my head hurt. It was like Shayler had his bolt of truth right at the start, shot his load, then came up empty. Icke, not being a whistleblower, was like an empty vessel just waiting to be filled.

Whistleblowers like Murray and Edmonds have certainly been through some seriously tough times. Edmonds was more or less ignored by the MSM whilst her government engaged in an unprecedented level of censorship whilst Murray was purposefully driven out of his job and painted as mentally ill by his previous employers and colleagues. Both have been 'through the wars', and yet managed to come out the other side as prominent, and critically minded thorns in their respective governments' sides. What went wrong with Shayler? What prompted Icke to have a funny turn and suddenly become some kind of "conspiracy prophet"? There's no doubt that life is very difficult for whistleblowers or high profile dissidents after taking their stand, especially in employment terms. Yet as the likes of Murray and Edmonds have shown, its still entirely possible to get one's life together again.

And let's not forget the Panorama episode that almost wasn't from way back in 1998.

The British government has since expanded its powers of censorship - one can only wonder what else has escaped attention in the last, trying, decade. And that's only counting actual cases of 'hard stops' by the government - how much more of a chilling effect has this had more generally? I know I regularly excoriate the media for being useless self-censoring clowns, but when dangerous criminals such as Peter and Paul Griffin can win libel cases against the Guardian and the BBC, despite British Customs holding damning, smoking gun, evidence and the U.S. slapping sanctions on them, I can at least see mitigating factors (that's not an excuse by the way if any of you yellow bellies are reading - do your f**king job already instead of leaving it to us bloggers FFS....)

Libya - the hidden hand of the Griffin family

After returning from a two week holiday where I kept myself in a blissfully news free vacuum, I was delighted to read the Sunday Telegraph's report on Mandelson vis-a-vis Libya. Whilst it was great to see Mandy's mendacity once again cast into the public light, there was a missing piece to the Libyan puzzle not mentioned by the Telegraph:

Whilst I'll leave others to debate the other backroom interests (and there are plenty in Anglo-Libyan relations) behind the decision to release Megrahi (and the reasons for Mandy, Brown et al for lying regarding any behind the scenes negotiations), there is one particular cluster of reasons to wonder at Libya's hidden hand over the British government - that is the tail end of the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network.

In previous posts, and a published article, I have highlighted the British end of the Khan network, a story that forms part of a web of interconnected conspiracies and scandals linking together elements in the governments of the U.S., U.K., Israel, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, North Korea and even Iran. These 'elements' have been involved at a very deep level with international conspiracies involving nuclear technologies, drugs and money laundering. It is regarding these networks of interests that Sibel Edmonds has recently been able to testify - where they linked to a certain Congresswoman, Jean Schmidt.


Nowhere was the British part of the Khan network more closely connected than with its interests in Libya. And it was Libya's apparent betrayal of the network that led to it being welcomed back to the Western fold. This is an extremely important point that is NOT being discussed in the MSM on the current Libyan/Lockerbie issue. It was the father and son team, Peter and Paul Griffin, through various front companies such as Weargate Ltd, who provided the business end of the UK part of the network to Libya. British Custom's own investigation into the Griffins revealed not only the extent to which Peter Griffin was directly involved in the Khan network, but also specifics, right down to the plans for component workshops, being traded with Libya.

Back in 2003 when Libya 'came in from the cold', it was announced across the MSM that the Anglo-American intelligence effort supposedly monitoring the network had carried out a crippling strike when it raided the BBC China, with components for nuclear weapons manufacture intended for Libya. This was a lie. It was in fact the Libyans who 'blew up' the network, forcing the hand of the Anglo-American services to act; the instigator of the raid was the Libyan regime, not the Anglo-American operation that had supposedly been working against the network (in fact, just monitoring it without interference right back to the 70s (!!!)). Part of the deal was that this would be played to give the West a much needed, and overdue, "victory" in "The War Against Terror" (TWAT) and a reprieve for their apparently underperforming intelligence agencies.


Out of the various links and beneficiaries in the Khan network, Libya had the closest relations with the British side. As such, given that most of the evidence linking parts of the British establishment to the Khan network (Customs, MI5, MI6), was in Libya, this issue had to be dealt with very carefully. With new British businesses, investment and travellers pouring into Libya, there was a substantial liklihood that someone could stumble on evidence regarding one of the Griffin's front companies. Any third party going public with this evidence would lead to a lot of British Officials with a lot of explaining to do. It will be no surprise to readers then to learn that British Intelligence services had already been in negotiations with Libya prior to their "renouncement" of pursuing WMD programmes.

The long and the short of this is that the Libyan regime still has the British government over the barrel of the Khan network. At an instant, the Libyans could reveal the role that British front companies (with the knowledge of Customs and "Intelligence") played in providing Libya with components and know-how for building nuclear weapons. They no doubt seek to maximise this advantage for as long as possible.

Custom's own confidential 2005 report stated:

‘From material available, Peter Griffin appears to be a member of the A. Q. Khan network working closely with B. S. A. Tahir and others. He has a long history of personal and business dealings with Dr. A. Q. Khan and there is evidence to show that for many years, Peter Griffin has been engaged in the proliferation of technology and equipment to Pakistan’s WMD programme...[Griffin] played a hugely significant role in assisting the Libyans in their quest to develop a nuclear weapon.’

Whilst this may not have played a direct role regarding the decision to release Megrahi you can bet that it was very prominently in the minds of the British officials who are in the know about the Khan network and Britain's position within it. Indeed, one of the things I hope to help discover over the coming months and years is exactly who knew (knows) what. I suspect Mandelsnake, with high profile connections that also place him squarely within the drugs and laundering triangle along with the nuclear network (and I suspect, if I can research back far enough, with BCCI), knows a great deal indeed.

It should also be noted, in the context of Anglo-American relations, that the Griffins are now on the U.S. wanted list. They are still at large, and unharrassed in the U.K. (Paul) and France (Peter), and continuing to operate their businesses.

Why?

Background reading: 'Britain Spinning in the Sibel Edmonds Web'

Sibel Edmonds breaks her gag order - and you WON'T hear about this on the BBC

UPDATE (25/08/09): Sibel Edmonds' deposition now available online - get it while you can.

Well the silence from the MSM on both sides of the Atlantic is deafening. You WILL NOT see this on the BBC or any other mainstream outlet, and this is despite the media being explicitly invited.

Sibel Edmonds, the ex-FBI translator, turned whistleblower, is currently giving evidence in a case for the Ohio elections commission, where incubent Congresswoman Jean Schmidt is involved in a libel case against her challenger, David Krikorian. Krikorian alleged that Schmidt had been corrupted by 'Blood money' from Turkish interests.

Edmonds own case has been ongoing throughout the last few years. And despite a few notable exceptions, the MSM has had its head in the sand on her case. She alleged that parts of the U.S. government had been compromised by Turkish, Pakistani and Israeli interests which had also assisted directly in the A.Q.Khan nuclear proliferation network, which provided parts and know-how to North Korea, Iran, Libya and Pakistan.

She was hit with the draconian 'state-secrets privilege' and all of her testimony to U.S. officials was retroactively classified. She's been in a legal limbo since, desperately trying to find ways around the gag order. This is despite several people in the know confirming that she was credible, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) for example, said "Absolutely, she's credible...And the reason I feel she's very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story."

However, unexpectedly for the FBI and the Department of Justice, Edmonds has been subpoenaed to testify in the Schmidt / Krikorian case, which is ongoing as I write this, with regular updates from Brad Blog. Despite the FBI attempting to stop her testifying, and failing, it seems - according to the citizen journalists present (because no "real" journalists could be bothered) - she is delivering evidence that she has previously witheld as a result of the gag order. Unfortunately she is only able to provide answers to questions she is asked rather than a broad delivery of what she knows, but just what she has said so far has been explosive, naming many currently serving members of the U.S. government and implicating them directly in bribery and espionage on behalf of Turkey.

Sibel is - in effect - able to legally break the gag order on this one, and hopefully this could open the floodgates.

The British angle

British officials and organisations have also taken part in the A.Q. Khan network (and the - related - drugs network also linked to Turkey, but that's yet another long blog post or article....). The British side includes Customs and Excise, MI5, MI6 and from the research I've done it looks like some of the key individuals go back to our old friends, the BCCI.

I wrote an article, published in 'Lobster', no. 56 last year that detailed the British interests involved in the network that Edmonds was describing. You can download the article HERE. I was motivated to take an intense interest in the British angle to Edmonds' case after bitterly noting the complete failure of the British MSM to take the Sunday Times' lead. The Times published an article in January 2008 outlining the main aspects of Sibel's allegations. They put it on the front page and also produced three follow up articles. The remainder of the British MSM, as usual, was about as useful as a one legged man in an arse-kicking contest.

Recently, two of the British nationals named directly as collaborators in the Khan network were father and son team Peter and Paul Griffin, were classified as wanted terrorists by the U.S. They won libel cases several years ago against the BBC and the Guardian, who both alleged that they had links to the network. How they won these cases still boggles my mind as the confidential 2005 customs report into Peter Griffin's activities left no doubt at all that he was hip deep in the network (and had been since the 70s!!!!)

Its a shame the Edmonds case has exploded again right now as I'm about to depart for a holiday in Edinburgh, so apologies for the rough nature of this blog entry (I'll add more links as soon as I have time, right now I'm packing to leave tomorrow though).

As the Griffins are now on the U.S. wanted list, and nothing appears to have been done by the UK authorities, I intend to track them down myself, and logistics allowing, attempt to carry out citizens arrests on them on camera. I want to force the issue, and whilst I'm in Edinburgh I plan to catch up with Mark Thomas who is doing a show for the Fringe, asking the audience to vote on things they want him to try to change. I'm going to ask for his help in tracking down the Griffins.

I'll update this blog post sporadically with updates on Edmonds, as this story develops over the next few days in between trying to relax on holiday.

I'll also be providing all the information I have on the British side of the network and my own research online once I'm back from holiday. Stay tuned!

The Minority Report: Why I am a Climate Sceptic

I used to be a believer.

Up until about two years ago, I had taken the pronouncements of the IPCC and related bodies for granted. I trusted them. This was actually something very out of character for me; I've spent many years analysing the corrupting influences of political and media power, observing how vested interests frequently support one another. I should have known better.

The problem is, and this is a problem absolutely endemic to Western civilisation is this: I just don't have the time to analyse every pronouncement, every potential political or self-aggrandising agenda, every statement of scientific "fact". No one does. I had other things to focus on and, unfortunately, I let myself be led astray by the commonly promulgated idea that climate sceptics were just shills for vested interests. The problem is of course that we are fed an almost constant torrent of bullshit by the mass media. Every goddamn statement has to be analysed carefully if you care about the truth of it. I can quite understand sometimes why some people look at politics and decide to stick their head in the sand, or go insane and shoot loads of people. We're lied to almost non-stop and worse, we generally fund these people to do it. And even critical people can be easily brainwashed if the message is ubiquitous and repeated often enough.

About two years ago I decided to look at what the sceptics were actually saying, and it would be an understatement to say I was shocked. You don't have to be a climatologist to recognise foul play, nor to understand massive fallacies in presented arguments (especially when said arguments are presented by claiming that anyone opposing them is a loon). One area I do know plenty about is politics - and the corrupting work of a confluence of interests is very easy to spot. Where there is any such confluence, one is obliged to adopt immediate scepticism regarding any claims to truth.

I wanted to put together my particular thoughts on this as we are now reaching crunch time. The "Cap and Trade" bill in the U.S. has passed the House and is likely to get through the Senate also (once enough concessions have been made - not likely ones of principle unfortunately). This legislation will come at a truly horrifying economic cost for the Americans. And Britain will be following suit, adding costs to an energy infrastructure that is already close to breaking. And all of this on the back of an economic depression. One wonders if our leaders could possibly be any more criminally insane.

There are a lot of interrelated criticisms I have of this issue. I'll go through most of them in turn:

- The Minority Report

It's actually (not) funny how the behaviour of the "consensus" bullies plays out in a very similar way to the pre-crime in the film namesake. Some of these dirty tricks are outlined by various sceptical scientists in the report itself.

The Senate Committe Minority Report on Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims is by far the best resource I have seen yet on this topic, especially as it is updated periodically (and the number of scientists added to it increases continually). It is potentially your one-stop shop for debating with the climate consensus crew (hereafter to be referred to as "C3").

You can find the summary of the report here.

And the full report itself is here. It looks like quite a weighty document, however in practice you only really need to read to page 97 (out of 255), as the PDF file also contains the previous versions. Also, the URL takes a little while to resolve to the PDF file, so be patient with your browser.

The Minority Report is a source I'll regularly quote below. Do go and read the whole thing though - there's an incredible amount of useful information (and some experiences of the sceptics at the hands of their consensus crew pals will make your blood boil), there are a tremendous amount of links to sources too, which are also regularly updated on the website.

I defy anyone to read the report and come away with the belief that AGW is even likely, never mind a "consensus" view. The C3 probably won't take it seriously though, because they already know the truth.

- "The new Oil".

This alone should give one pause for thought. Traders in the City have begun referring to "Green" investments as "the new oil". Why might that be? Could it be because there is effectively free mana from heaven pouring from the coffers of the taxpayer? Could it be that, in the same way you could attract money to any project by citing the Cold War in the 80s, then T.W.A.T. in the noughties, now (not even out of the noughties), just give something a Greenwash and watch money fly towards you like shit towards a fucking fan. The metaphor is apt because that is exactly what is going to happen to most of this "investment". And you and me get to pick up the tab.

In fact, to call this "Green shit" would be an even more appropriate metaphor. We have diarrhea flying towards the fan, to be spread uselessly in all directions, all the while sucking vital nutrients from the body forced to produce it.

Climate sceptic, chemical engineer Bob Ashworth:

"The lesson to the world here is, when it comes to science, never blindly accept an explanation from a politician or scientists who have turned political for their own private gain. Taxing carbon will have absolutely no beneficial effect on our climate, will hurt the economies of the world, and will be harmful to the production of food because less carbon dioxide means reduced plant growth."

- The "shilling" vested interests are actually behind the consensus now.

Funny, I was recently accused of being a possible shill for big oil. Hahahaha. Oh dear. Let me quote one of the Minority Report researchers:

Chemist, Dr. Kenneth Rundt: "I am only a humble scientist with a PhD degree in physical chemistry and an interest in the history of the globe we inhabit. I have no connection with any oil or energy-related business. I have nothing to gain from being a skeptic."

Quite. And not having anything to do with the Earth sciences myself, being a humble technology researcher (by day, at night I take repeated punches to the head...), I have nothing to gain either. I just like to stick to the old fashioned dictum of my opinions changing with the facts!

The large energy companies aren't going to suffer particularly badly. It's win-win. Where they aren't subsidised by the public purse to make structural changes, they're being given free reign to pass on costs to the consumer. The C3 see this as good because horrifying energy prices are sure to force people to conserve massively. Never mind all of the people pushed into fuel poverty. Add to this the behaviour we saw in the last year, where Hedge funds were moving into Oil, and pushing the price up astronomically - which is likely to be repeated again now with the weakness of the dollar, and short to medium term at least, many conventional energy providers will be sitting pretty if they get their greenwash campaign right.

- The International Geological Congress (the "olympics" of Climatology and Geology):

Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC'

- Authoritative sources turn out to be authoritarian rather than scholarly.


Dr. James ("Hockey Stick Graph") Hansen, Gore's cheerleader in chief has shown himself to be a colossal and disingenuous fraud. Hansen - according to his ex boss Dr. John S. Theon, was an embarrassment to NASA and seems to be suffering a "bad case of megalomania".

Meanwhile, in Blighty, it appears the MET office also can't be trusted: "During a rather bad-tempered interview on Thursday evening... Read more’s Newsnight, Kirsty Wark asked Hilary Benn, the UK Environment Secretary, why local authorities were being told to use the Met Office predictions as a template for infrastructure planning when their report had not been peer reviewed and the authors had postponed publication of information about the methodology that they had used. She also told him that there was considerable concern among other climate scientists about the Met Office’s research."

That's also not to mention the fact that, suddenly, the MET office can carry out astonishing calculations that it claimed last year would require supercomputers one thousand times more powerful than we have at present. Now this is my scientific area, and despite some pretty astonishing breakthroughs in computing technology (many of which are yet to be commercially available), I can state with authority that in the space of one year, we don't have supercomputers that are 1000 times more powerful than their predecessors last year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency censors internal dissent.

And that's not to mention Gore's behaviour. (See the section, 'The big lie and the big goddamn confluence' below).

- Several recent sceptics were on the IPCC panels

Take note C3 people:
- Environmental physical chemist, Dr. Kiminori Itoh
- Meteorologist Hajo Smit
- Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer, Dr. Philip Lloyd
- Professor of the Department of Atmosphere Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, Prof. Rosa Compagnucci
- Former head of Arizona State University's Office of Climatology, Dr. Robert Balling.
- Atmospheric chemist, Dr. Steven M. Japar.

And there are many others who took part in IPCC activities who reported serious foul play.

And, as mentioned in the minority report, the officially recorded number of climate sceptics is now 700 - more than 13 times the number of UN scientists who authored the IPCC 2007 report. Contrary to popular myth, the IPCC report wasn't cobbled together through thousands, or even hundreds of scientists. It was in fact only 52.

-Co-opting of the green movement.

This is a very serious issue that often gets overlooked. Rabid AGW supporters don't realise how much damage they are doing to the rest of the Ecological movement. Do I think there are serious environmental issues for us to address? Sure. Unfortunately because so many in the Green movement are into AGW, and its horribly statist and invasive so called "solutions", there is a seed of truth in the accusation of "Envirofascist". And a lot of people, after being harried and bossed around by the C3 won't have much patience for subtleties elsewhere.

The Greens are being used and many can't seem to see it. It's a bonanza for the corrupt elites who already screw most of us most of the time. Between the bogus "war on terror" and the bogus AGW agenda and the bogus (grand theft) financial "crisis", is there anywhere left for the 'little people' to turn where their lives are not dominated by fear, guilt and increasingly intrusive government diktat and hand in our pockets?

Senator Inhofe reveals how Scientists & Activists believe Global Warming has 'Co-opted' the environmental movement

- The "complexity defence"

Simply dealing with the core of the AGW argument leads to what I call 'the complexity defence'. This alone is enough to scupper the entire argument.

If we get into the meat of the AGW position, something absolutely fascinating happens. It generally follows this pattern:

Stage 1: Your opponent looks at you like you just said you'd stuffed his pet hamster up your arse and shat it out the window. This stage often takes some time to get through as you have to deal with the disbelief that you could possibly challenge the orthodoxy.

Stage 2: Restatement of the "basic facts", leading to Argument 1:

Argument 1: Green house gases, such as CO2, cause a measurable warming effect. Humans have been adding tons of CO2 to the atmosphere for decades, and there is a measurable increase in global temperatures. There is a correlation between rising CO2 and rising temperatures. Therefore, human activity is causing the rising temperatures.

Now many sceptical scientists have already pointed out issues with the actual mechanisms that might be involved here. However, we can give the C3 the benefit of the doubt on this and still hang them by their own petard.

They assert not only correlation, but a one way causative relationship between humans producing CO2, the actual level of CO2 in the atmosphere and rising temperatures. This, for many years, has been presented as an upwards, linear relationship.

So, what about the occasions when the correlation fails? This is supposed to be the very heart of the argument, so if say, we had a cooling trend for a sizable period, say around the last 10 years, then that indicates that this correlation is bunk.

This is when we reach....

Stage 3: The complexity argument

Argument 2 to the rescue!
Apparently, because the climate is so complex, indeed it is the "mother of all nonlinear dynamical systems", then other factors come into play, determining the global temperature.

Well, I quite agree with this. Yet, somehow, C3 like to add a silent premise - that human produced CO2 is still the dominating factor to this model. What? So when we see an upwards correlation, it is because of AGW, but when we see a negative correlation (because remember humans are still adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, and in increasing amounts, during these cooling periods), it is because of "complex factors" amongst which AGW still happens to - magically - be the major factor.

So when the earth heats up, it is AGW. When the earth cools down it is AGW.
Right.

Similarly, when ice melts in the arctic it is AGW. And when ice forms in the antarctic it is AGW. Got it?

Never mind all those other factors that you might want to consider if you invoke the "complex system" - Solar impact, Earth's precession, Variations in the Magnetic field, Water Vapour, Sulphur outputs etc etc.

Earth Scientist, Dr. Javier Cuadros: "Curiously, it is a feature of man-made global warming that every fact confirms it: rising temperatures or decreasing temperatures, drought or torrential rain, tonadoes and hurricanes or changes in teh habits of migratory birds. No matter what the weather, some model of global warming offers a watertight explanation."


- The big lie and the big goddamn confluence

It is crucially important to understand that the C3 lobby represents the confluence of perhaps the most powerful set of lobbies humans have ever seen. Not only are most national governments behind the "consensus" (notably absent China, India and Russia - but they're just "evil" right?), we also have the media, and a large swathe of compromised scientists who's very livelihood depends on the massive amounts of taxpayer funds being siphoned away to fund their research. People like Al Gore, and "Hockey Stick" Hansen have built careers on this. Plus, there are huge, structural interests now coming into place as Western governments are now preparing fundamental restructures of our economy around this mythology. A lot of organisations, including numerous energy companies, have a lot of public money to lose if the "consensus" is broken.

I'm also more than happy to point out how this is like the Nazi "big lie" written even larger. Now normally I would avoid such comparisons. However, really all I have to say is "fuck you" to the C3. I can think of few things more disturbing than the emergence and promotion of the term, "Climate change denier", with its very obvious and intentional parallel with "holocaust denial". Seriously, fuck you guys - this has already resulted in witch hunts and the destruction of the careers of perfectly good scientists.

Ecological modeler, Dr David Stockwell: "..the IPCC is just another review, and an unstructured and biased one at that. Its main in-scope goal is to find a human influence on climate, and the range of reasons for climate change are out-of-scope."

Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher, Andrei Kapitsa: the UN IPCC is "the biggest ever scientific fraud" - "A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace....As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact."

Award winning physicist, Dr. Will Happer, Physics professor at Princeton University: "I had the privilege of being fired by Al Gore, since I refused to go along with his alarmism. I did not need the job that badly....I was told that science was not going to intrude on policy." [My emphasis]

Princeton University physicist, Dr. Robert H. Austin: "I was taught that any discipline with the word 'science' as part of its title is to be avoided, such as Political Science. Unfortunately, Climate Science has become Political Science."

And, directly from the Minority Report:

Skeptical scientists are gaining recognition despite what many say is a bias against them in parts of the scientific community and are facing significant funding disadvantages. Dr. William M. Briggs, a climate statistician who serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee, explained that his colleagues described “absolute horror stories of what happened to them when they tried getting papers published that explored non-‘consensus’ views.” In a March 4, 2008, report Briggs described the
behavior as “really outrageous and unethical … on the parts of some editors. I was
shocked.”(LINK) [Note: An August 2007 report detailed how proponents of man-made global warming fears enjoy a monumental funding advantage over skeptical scientists. LINK A July 2007 Senate report details how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation - LINK & LINK ]
[My emphasis]

- The Manhattan Declaration

Never heard of it? That's no surprise! The Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change is a vetted list of scientists declaring their scepticism towards the AGW consensus.

This declaration is well worth reading in full - its only a page long, however it makes quite a striking statement, especially as it has been signed by so many. And again, we have a body of scientists much larger than the IPCC disagreeing with the "consensus". I know its not all about numbers, but if you're going to have the cheek to claim "consensus"... well....

I'll finish with a quote from one of the IPCC "traitors" - Dr. Kiminori Itoh: Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history...When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists."

Quite. I hope the Righteous will be happy with their end result - fuel poverty for hundreds of thousands (if not millions) and forever tarnishing science and scientists with the same brush as politicians and investment bankers. Congratulations chaps.