GWPF report on climate catastrophist "education" in schools is a MUST READ

Press release HERE.
Direct link to report HERE. [PDF]

When I first started reading this I was just going to put it up as a recommendation. Having finished it earlier and thought on it I'm now going to argue that it is a must read. A spokesman for Michael Gove has apparently already responded to it. If you have kids, or teach kids (or even young adults) you really should read this.

We're on the verge of a lost generation here, where education has not only become a completely and utterly politicised tool but it is actively impairing these kids' prospects through a saturation of fear (“I worry about [global warming] because I don’t want to die.” one child is reported as saying) and destroying any hope of critical reasoning as propaganda and science become indistinguishable.

No subject, not even Religious Education, is free from the influence. In many cases, it seems, the kids are being taught complete activist bollocks that doesn't even fit in with what is said by the IPCC. Never mind "children won't know what snow is" (courtesy of Dr. David Viner, still gainfully employed as a climate scientologist), they won't know what science is. And they'll be leaving the education system with no hope for their future.

A couple of apropos citations from the report:

"In a survey of 500 American pre-teens, it was found that one in three children aged between 6 and 11 feared that the Earth would not exist when they reached adulthood because of global warming and other environmental threats."

And

"It is easy to engage the sympathies of children with stories of damage to the natural world and images of suffering animals they will identify with. But children have very little power. Of all the sections of society who might make an impact on climate change, they have the least in-fluence. There is a real risk of raising levels of anxiety amongst children that will not only cause distress in the immediate term but will in the long term lead to those children turning against the environmental causes we hoped they might espouse."

Read it. Read it now. Read the whole damn thing.

If you want the short version, basically this is what our friends in the climate catastrophism community are attempting to do every day:

Through a PRISM darkly: the worthlessness of political "science"

“Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.”
- Spinoza

The ongoing scandal surrounding the extent of our "intelligence" "services" domestic spying  proclivities continues to rumble on and yet going by the general news coverage and discussion on social media, including amongst the libertarian blogosphere one could be forgiven for thinking this issue had barely registered and no one really gives a shit.

The fact is that this is the biggest scandal of our age and with each day new revelations come to light and more claims by our worthless political class and senior civil "service" are revealed to be outright lies. Yet barely a whimper.  It seems Huxley was closer to the truth than Orwell. We really are numbed with distractions.

The extent of this spying capability combined with the promise of Big Data means our dear spooks have an unprecedented insight into our souls and concerns. They have probably already realised the D notice was redundant - not because of technology and media plurality making it redundant - but because even a modest analysis of social media interactions will demonstrate that they can rely on lethargy and apathy to do the job for them.  Hague has been running notably silent given that most of what he said at the beginning of the month and in particular on June 10th has been shown to be a pack of lies. 

This not only affects all of us, it is not only cross partisan and it not only shows up the British establishment to be the enemies of the people. No. It also highlights the pointlessness of many of our political and philosophical differences. There is no real debate to be had when there is a secret state at work beneath the surface of the puppet show that we all like to talk about. Degrees in "political science" (and I say this as the unproud owner of one) are worthless when faced with the spook joker in the pack, especially an game changing (and ending) oversized card like ours that clearly eclipses all other institutions. Control of accurate information is like the control of the Spice in Dune. All of the supposed "insights" gained by "intelligence studies" scholars such as Richard Aldrich are little more than crumbs from the table delivered by a handmaiden, not a critic, of our unaccountable secret state. He and his peers have no choice to be anything other than handmaidens - they are after all funded by our Dear Leaders.

Dark times indeed. 

 

 

D NOTICE ISSUED REGARDING PRISM PLEASE RESHARE

Via Guido

Private and Confidential: Not for publication, broadcast or use on social media.
Defence Advisory Notice
There have been a number of articles recently in connection with some of the ways in which the UK Intelligence Services obtain information from foreign sources.
Although none of these recent articles has contravened any of the guidelines contained within the Defence Advisory Notice System, the intelligence services are concerned that further developments of this same theme may begin to jeopardize both national security and possibly UK personnel…

Semi official confirmation of the secret surveillance state

It doesn't matter whether you identify as "left", or "right" or whatever political-philosophical conjugation suits you, we should all be outraged and concerned by this.

The Telegraph reports that the Guardian and Washington Times have obtained a secret slide show detailing nine companies who are willing participants in a programme called PRISM - which is, literally, the ever feared 'back door' into the databases of these companies. They are: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.

It's only semi-official confirmation of what many of us have suspected, however it is nevertheless galling to see it in black and white.

Such swathes of data really can provide roadmaps - and predictive ones at that - to our lives and inner workings; the capabilities of Big Data in this respect has already been well proven in the last few years. The nature of privacy has also fundamentally changed in a way that neither the law or popular conceptions (and hence, popular narratives) have caught up with.

These applications will not be particularly useful for "fighting terrorism". It is abundantly clear that our "intelligence" services already know who the terrorists are. And the terrorists certainly aren't shy about hiding it. Some of them even get invited for regular tea and biscuits on Newsnight. No, these applications are on the contrary extremely useful for monitoring, corralling, anticipating and controlling the general population. The only major ray of hope in this regard is that our respective governments are so fucking stupid and incompetent that they will continually fuck this up and there will always be ways to run rings around them with enough determination. There's still capacity for great harm however if you fall into one of the currently designated 'social-other' groups (smokers, climate sceptics, EDL, "offensive" tweeters etc etc) - and anyone congratulating themselves on not being on that illustrative list of examples, go bang your head off the wall until you remember that it could - and probably will -  be you next.

Several of the named companies are claiming ignorance, for example:

"Google said in a statement: "From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a ‘back door’ for the government to access private user data.”

I don't buy it. The problem is that no one's official statements can be trusted in this area, least of all with anything touched by the rancid dogcock finger of the "intelligence" agencies, metastasizing great brown clouds of bullshit wherever they go. And of course our respective governments can compel such companies to remain entirely silent or otherwise coerce them into making misleading statements such as the above, especially given the official rationale of the U.S. invasion of privacy is because "most electronic data passing through the US at some point and therefore accessible to PRISM's net.".
Meanwhile, in reaction to the other recent revelation that the NSA is routinely collecting phone data en masse, it appears to have rattled someone in the "intelligence" community enough to break cover. -
'it could cause "long-lasting and irreversible harm" to counter-terrorism efforts.' Oh do, just fuck off already. It's just the usual weasel worded bollocks.

Minimum pricing: the most lethal mistake yet...

....by the Coagulation government.

Of all of the idiotic policies (including and especially the government's newfound authoritarianism showing that it is just continuity Labour and not even giving us two years before pulling the curtain back...), given all the other factors involved I'd struggle to think of a more lethally stupid policy for this government. And one that it is set on forcing upon the rest of us. Yes - force - there is no mandate for this policy (there is however yet another meaningless "consultation" (i.e. give us a fig leaf of validation for what we were going to do anyway) - and one, I note that has not been reported by the media despite the press interest in this story. But then the media never do let us know about these "consultations", do they?).

And ah - yes - "policy based evidence making" as a Very British Dude put it. With computer models.

Ah - good old computer models.

I must have fallen asleep during the period when the scientific method was inverted and hollowed out to the point that computer models became acceptable as primary evidence instead of just useful tools for modelling and refining hypotheses. They're supposed to test your assumptions, not provide evidence for them. Though I'm not surprised that the government, or even a Russell Group institution like the University of Sheffield, has deemed it acceptable. It is after all good enough for climastrology catastrophism, and it seems part of the fashion is to exaggerate as much as possible in order to support policy goals (c.f. for example the absolutely appalling activist "research" detailed here).

In any case, the UoS "research" is taken fully to task here. Continuing this postnormal kind of madness is the fact that a frightening number of people seem to just fall over like surprised goats at the sight of an argument from authority. I'm sure doctors know a great deal about alcohol. How does that authority extend to being able to define policies that are based on economics? Answers on a postcard please...

....Anyway back to the title of the post. This is a policy not only without a mandate, it is without credible evidence of its efficacy and even lacks support within the cabinet itself. Worse, in a time of deep and seemingly endless recession where the cuts all keep coming (including many in the blatantly wrong places - under 25s housing benefit rather than international aid or the EU for example), the one primary tonic of the nation - affordable alcohol - is under attack. And by a deeply unpopular government that only survived the election in coalition. Not to mention the fact that only a year ago it had a severe criminal wave to deal with across the nation. And then there's the fact that it is likely to be ruled illegal under EU law (and despite this, the Prone Minister has promised to "fight" the EU on such a ruling!) In spite of all this the Boy Cameron is going to force extra costs on people, on something that is one of the few pleasures most of our countrymen and women can afford to indulge in. Costs that are completely unnecessary and driven by an authoritarian nannying agenda; restricting one of the few things that keeps many of us from suddenly rampaging through parliament (and its subsidised bars...). What could possibly go wrong?

So I do hope you join Anonymong, myself and others for Drinkuary (facebook event HERE) to stick two fingers up at the neo-puritans and their authoritarian handmaidens in government. Please do join in and spread the word. Also if you have any spare change, 1000 beermats linking to the Drinkuary site have already been ordered - we'd like to order more to spread the word at pubs across the land. There's a huge amount of anger riding on this one and its an issue that's good to get people talking about politics and their relationship with the horror that is our state again. Remember the great and the good don't like us gathering together in relaxed environments to talk serendipitously with one another. We might get ideas....

 ADDENDUM: Simply the best rant I've seen yet on this topic at 'The Thing Is'. Do read the whole thing. It's worth it.

It's that time of year again....

I posted this up last time for the election in the UK. It is just as apropos for tonight's shenanigans for the competition over who will be the next debt-racking, civil liberties killing, warmongering corporatist in the Oval Office. All the bloviating and posturing aside, it really does just come down to something like this....

Dear Maj

Dear Maj,

So it has been sixty years. It is time for us to have a chat. I usually steer clear of collectivist language but today it seems appropriate. For today it is clear that any beneficent collective identity has been ripped away from us under your stewardship and what I have come to claim as positive and peculiarly ‘British’ in the demeanour I yet share with so many of my countrymen and women is now looked upon as an evil anachronism, whilst you somehow are not.

Seven times they were asked to sign. And seven times they signed. Each time the Sovereign looked on whilst the sovereignty of which she was supposed to be protector unto death was packaged up and sold off to a foreign and unaccountable power.

And yet you did nothing.

Even as you looked on, your son the Clown Prince Chuckles, stood in the Traitor’s Parliament and wittered on about how wonderful it was and that more power should be transferred as was humanly possible. He who hateth his subjects so: The Son of the Sovereign boasted how he would like to siphon off the thimble full of sovereignty still remaining to the mendacious mandarins of the continent and all their satanic little helpers in our own parliament of whores.

And yet you did nothing.

The country was made morally bankrupt in the world’s eyes as it pursued two horrific invasions and occupations, slaughtering thousands, maiming tens of thousands, forever destroying the lives of millions and leaving our descendants with foreign policy consequences for generations to come. All based on the lies and ambitions of a few men whom I can scarcely believe are human never mind that such worms are permitted to prosper. Even those who claimed realpolitik advantage with our once great daughter civilisation in the Americas were shown to be fools as even now when our own citizens are genuinely in need in the Falklands, even supposed allies turn against us. All that blood and treasure expended – for what?

And yet you did nothing.

In complete inversion of the self-sufficient British spirit for which our countrypeople became renowned we became dependants and weaklings. This phlegmatic race who would always fight to a finish has transformed into a debased shadow with its hand out constantly. The politics of division and sectarianism have become rooted in the nation which is now in terminal decline. This island of whom Napoleon said was made of a ‘nation of shopkeepers’ is now a set of divided ambulance chasing collectives. The paradox of democracy reached its nadir when the lazy and stupid outnumbered the rest of us and were able to vote themselves largesse from the state. Dispensation that they still demand even though reality will not be forthcoming as they have been taught otherwise by the ghostly whores that pass as statesmen and stateswomen in the parliament that is now little more than a regional office of the greater EUSSR.

And yet you did nothing.

When the one eyed son of the manse, the kirkcaldy clown, our very own modern day Caligula bullied his way to the position of Prime Monster and dealt the country its final death blow, you looked on still. In contravention to all sense, to appease the helpless class he and his fellow shitstains had so lovingly created here as a perpetual lobbying population for sloth and mediocrity, he took the nation to the very edge of bankruptcy. Globalisation has done its work and began rebalancing the economies and the equality of all humans across the Globe. For some reason the British post baby-boomers did not seem to think they needed to lift a finger to maintain their advantage. They were British you see and appear to have been led to believe that this meant simply expecting the world to fall at one’s feet, not – instead – as I understand it, to fight for it. And to have to fight for it with every generation. No Maj. They saw you and your ghastly family still riding high regardless of all other circumstances and so thought that they would be carried on one’s opulent coattails. They were not, as you well knew. This you have seen.

And yet you did nothing.

Postnormalism has now taken root within our educational institutions, our media, our science, our politics. No civilisation can survive such. The lies that increasingly became part of the ship of state are now, like woodworm, infested into the very foundations of the ship of society. Yet you knew. You knew. Now those blessed few of us who bother to look know, after it had been kept secret for three decades, that the Heath government knew what the endgame plan was for the EC. Millions voted in good conscience believing that their Dear Leaders would not lead them astray thinking that we were being bound to something as beneficial as a free market with our continental cousins. It was all a lie and known from the very beginning. My heart is gripped in a vice of pain and fear anticipating how many more revelations from the secret state, to which you were of course always party, will come to light in the coming decades. If I even make it to old age, I suspect I will die a sad weeping old man upon discovery of the poisons you have injected into the veins of this country. You will be long dead by then of course but your legacy will have lived on and the consciously managed decline of this realm will be complete even as you rot.

And yet you did nothing.

Those cultural gas chambers that we laughingly call institutes of learning are now producing en masse generations who cannot read, write or even use computers whilst being pumped full of a sense of entitlement that few of them deserve, to go out into a world where potential investors in their future are being taught to flee as fast as they can as the country becomes a becon and world leader in the most mind numbing levels of interference, taxation and petty expectation. Were it the case that these policies had produced a majority in upcoming generations of critical and incisive thinkers, but no. Under this factory system we now have surfeit of useless, talentless, wasters.

And yet you did nothing.

A single man was primarily responsible for preventing our joining the madness that is the Euro: Jimmy Goldsmith, who used his own personal fortune (in contrast to you) to defend the interests of the realm. Somehow you have outlived him. And none of the shit-sucking convention of genetic defectives of which you are part in the ruling class stood alongside him. It is clear the people are your enemy for you have not defended or protected them, you have instead been the nursemaid to many evil men, and now increasingly women too, who would sap the goodness of this nation for their own engorgement. And the marrow of the British is all but spent and about to crumble.

And you did nothing.

The nation’s legacy will be to have its landscape dotted with rusting Eco-crucifixes and hollow ivory towers of entitlement that future tourists will come to visit and laugh at whilst historians will look back in astonishment at this decades long act of collective suicide, all under your stewardship. We all fought eachother in our blocs and our bunkers – bunkers more like ruts that are just graves with the ends knocked out – that we failed to see the root, never mind strike it.

And for those of us who dared to say ‘no’, or to ask ‘why’ whether categorised in the ‘left’ or ‘right’ sheep pens (all the better to ensure we continue fighting eachother rather than you fifth columnists at the very heart of our institutions), we are directed to expend our energy arguing over the clowns and muppets in the parliament of whores over who has the differentest same policies whilst you and the rest of the shit eating ruling class untwine the last threads of the rug from beneath us with so few – so very few – noticing what you are doing. And those of us in the latter group to us you left the ultimate betrayal, for to us you turned our friends, family and loved ones into abscesses and whores and made them cry out that we had hurt them most.

I am not your subject. I owe you no allegiance or loyalty. No queen or monarch are you to me. No god, no master, but maybe a monster who has piled up secrets, lies and hypocrisy so high they will soon touch heaven.

 To you I bequeath this wreath and this curse.

Yours,
Katabasis

Minority of One - episode 1 - 'Signs & Portents' - released!

Here it is, the first episode of this long-form series, using a re-edited Babylon 5, with occasional subtitles to tell the story of the loss of, and battle to regain, freedom. In a mythical place in a galaxy far, far away called 'Albion 5'.

For further info and the original trailer, see here.

Ammo: Minority of One trailer

For an explanation of the 'Ammo' prefix, please see here.

If there's one thing missing from the libertarian armoury it is narratives. And with it - tugging of the emotional heartstrings. It has been one of the main advantages statists and propagandists more generally have held over us for a long time. I've discussed making moves to change that with fellow libertarians in the last year or so and this represents a modest effort in that direction.

This project tells the story - in a long, episodic format, of the loss of freedom in a mythical place called 'Albion 5', and the subsequent fight to claim it back against impossible odds. The video attached is the final trailer for the series.

It uses clips from Babylon 5 to tell the tale. There are already elements that fit perfectly from Babylon 5 so it was chosen as the vehicle for the story. Most of the characters represent principles and when references are made to actual historical figures (living or dead) they usually take the form of ships or weapons.

It is part literal, part metaphor and part allegory. I hope you enjoy it in those senses. Much of it is also tongue in cheek whilst also attempting to make serious points and tell an urgent story that is directly relevant to where we find ourselves now in the West more generally and Britain in particular.

Because so many elements of Babylon 5 fit the narrative I am attempting to tell (which is from an anti-war individualist/right libertarian point of view), much of it speaks for itself. However subtitles are used regularly to alter the meaning of what is being said, or highlight the role or name of particular characters, events or objects. It is also used sometimes to literally repeat what the character in question is saying to emphasise its importance. I'm hoping you are able to get into the spirit of it and enjoy the ride along with me.

First episode - provisionally named 'Signs and Portents', will be out at the end of next week.

Please spread the word!

Once upon a time in Bexley.....

Fellow blogger and member of the awkward squad, Olly C, has as I'm sure many of you already know, been slapped with a custodial sentence as a result of calling a Bexley councillor a "cunt" on twitter. There's a lot of history here and I've already seen some lightweights casually dismissing it because they believe the council's line that he was "harrassing" them.  For a short readable version, pop by Max's place. For a lengthier treatment, go to Spiderplant - which gives a fairly detailed and dispassionate breakdown. If you're unfamiliar with this case, Olly or Bexley council, then you really owe it to yourself to dig deep into this and as such just have a quick browse through Bexley is Bonkers for examples of mendacity from the council that are legion. The blogs just for April will give you enough of a taste. Rather than add my own summary of the situation, I'd rather highlight some particularly striking points from the 'Bexley is Bonkers' site.

First, however I would like to speculate on something. And I'd ask people to please share this speculation far and wide. Remember though, given how easily speech - especially online - is criminalised in this country, it is only a speculation.It goes as follows: Olly is due to be sentenced at Bromley magistrates court on May 9th. WOULDN'T IT BE AWFUL if Bexley council, and certain councillors in particular, were on the receiving end of a "mass cunting" on that day. That is to say - that they were inundated with emails, tweets and phone calls indicating that many of the general public considered them - well - "cunts". Spread the word about this speculation......I'd be interested to see if it comes true.

Secondly I wanted to highlight that the story is now being picked up by as diverse sources as Reddit, Stephen Fry and Sunny Hundal. That's good. These censorious attacks - especially in online media - have got to the point where they are simply beyond belief. I certainly wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me 10 years ago that this would happen. So a cross-partisan left-right shitstorm in response is exactly what we need, as we've had on (too few) occasions in the past such as when left and right blogs joined forces to support Craig Murray against Schillings.

Now - those two points I wanted to highlight, lifted verbatim from the 'Bexley is Bonkers' April 2012 blogs:

"When Eric Pickles’ department wrote to all councils in February 2011 telling them “citizen journalists” should be allowed to Tweet and film in council meetings even the most hard line of secretive Conservative councils like Barnet and Westminster caved in. Bexley however changed its Constitution to exclude all forms of recording at meetings. All their Agendas repeat the prohibition and when questioned they say it is to protect members of the public from appearing on tape. They sheepishly offer the excuse that permission may be granted on request but not a single request has been approved, not even for an audio only recording at a meeting where the public is not allowed to speak."

And as to why / how the judge on friday effectively threw the book at Olly:

"the charges were those prepared from the original false allegations that included flaming torches, pitchforks, petrol bombs and Olly writing on Bonkers. All of that was untrue; made up and distorted stories by Bexley council aimed at getting both Olly and me in trouble. The prosecution could find no evidence for any of those allegations which is what you might expect since they were all false and Olly was found not guilty last December. All the nonsense invented by Bexley council was put before the new Judge as fact. Worrying."

Did I mention that the judgement against Olly was made at a court in Bexley?

Time to consider this a war footing I think.

And my personal message to Bexley council is:

The Orwellian breakdown of civil society in the UK

It had to happen eventually.

Myself or one of my friends would have to end up on the receiving end of one of these vendettas carried out by a nightmare family that most people only think could possibly exist in fiction like Eden Lake. Only it's not fiction is it. This happens to people daily across the UK who live in terror of their fellow "citizens" and are often left to suffer right up until the point someone is permanently injured or even killed.

He's a nice, well liked lad - an ex-soldier who always tries to do the right thing. Those of you who know me from Sheffield likely know him too. He was a Corp regular. He lives with his girlfriend and together their means are quite modest, so they live in "social" housing on one of Sheffield's less desirable estates. The cheaper rent enables them a few creature comforts - a few pets and a room for him to indulge in one of his favourite hobbies - making and painting airfix models.

Yet he has suffered a continual tirade of abuse, threats, assaults and damage to his property for over two years now from a family of neighbors who are - apparently -  above the law. He's done nothing to provoke it. He's just a big, distinctive looking lad trying to get by and mind his own business. As is usual in these kind of affairs, the council and police take less interest than they would in cleaning dogshit off the street. And - as always - this intimidation just continues to escalate.

He's gone out of his way to do the right thing over the last year - recording as many of these incidents as possible, whether with audio devices, videos, photos or keeping a diary of events. He has submitted this regularly to Sheffield City Council and the police, to be met with indifference at best and - unbelievably - outright hostility at worst. He's shown more patience and restraint than anything I think I could have endured without snapping.

About a week ago it started to come to a head. His girlfriend was badly beaten when on the way back from the local shop. She didn't even see her attackers and they didn't steal anything.

Then the night before last they put through the windows of their house and camper van.

Due to the escalating threats and violence, he installed a CCTV system and filmed them in the act. He has shared the images with a few of us and I post a sample up here with his permission:

They did this while they were in the house. The bricks apparently just missed the cats and dogs.

The only time they have received any direct assistance from the police is when they happened to be outside the house on one of the occasions when he was being abused by one of the neighbors. They gave her an £80 on the spot fine and she said - with police present - that she would "do something about it" and "didn't care about the cameras".

In some parts of the U.S. he could have rightfully shot these people. After the windows were smashed they of course phoned the police only to be told there was no one available to look for the perpetrators as they only had one car in the area. He has recorded evidence of them stating "we're going to firebomb you both".

Yet only now has the council moved, after she has been beaten and their windows have been put through and even then all they are offering to do is find them emergency housing with a month's wait. And apparently the cats and dogs can't come. PCSOs visited them last week and told them (also recorded) that they would not arrest the neighbors as "It would only make things worse". His girlfriend got a phone call from the police last night telling them to remove any gas bottles from the van or fuel cans, "they have had info its going to be firebombed". No police came to their assistance of course. As regular readers will know, South Yorkshire Police Farce will apparently only work fast when doormen are involved (an easy target, being licensed by the state), or a university technician who provides free anonymous web hosting. Everyone else can just go rot apparently.

And on that note, I wanted to briefly highlight two other recent occurences by contrast. Richard O'Dwyer is to be extradited to the U.S. to probably face 10 years in prison for "copyright infringement", only the basis of that accusation is extremely tenuous anyway. As many have noted previously, he set up a site that provided links to such content but did not host it itself. It's a dangerous precedent to have been set. And the extradition link is even more tenuous - the U.S. has laid claim to him because the domain name he used was registered with a U.S. based registrar. Meanwhile, a pub which has been trading under the name of 'The Hobbit' for two decades is now facing legal trouble because of - you guessed it - a copyright infringement claim.

Why do I mention these? It's to give consequence to the 'Orwellian' part of the blog title above. Our society has reached an unbearably kafkaesque stage where minor infractions of vagaries such as "copyright infringement" are vigorously pursued whilst people on the receiving end of threats, violence and outright property destruction are left to fend for themselves. That's when they're not being victimised under the guise of the European Arrest Warrant that is.

The situation I've outlined above simply cannot end well. It should never have reached this stage anyway, though there is almost certainly more to come. He has a few handy mates. Something will snap at some point and this will be dealt with the old fashioned way. At which point the victims and whoever comes to their defence will be blamed as per usual in this fucked up society that I no longer recognise.

Much of this scenario leaves me too speechless to comment further except to say one thing with certainty:

I do not want to grow old in this country.

OPERATION BLACKOUT - STOP SOPA / PIPA

This post is in support of the anti-SOPA / PIPA actions that are about to start in the U.S.  Details of the "internet strike" are here. This blog, and the handful of sites I administer will also be joining the strike, which now includes big hitters such as Google, Wikipedia and Reddit.

Whilst SOPA has (for now) been put on ice, its sister bill, PIPA is still alive in the Senate. SOPA could quite easily return as it is on hold. Both need to be chopped up and burned, never to see the light of day again. Just like the Digital Economy Act here in the UK before it, though a much more far reaching version, it hands far too much power to copyright holders and will likely be used to censor huge swathes of the net. I say this as someone who supports IP / copyright in some form, though one who is still undecided on what the solutions might be - many aspects of the issue are intractable. What I do know is that concentrating power in the hands of copyright holders, who - in the case of SOPA / PIPA supporters - represent the old school mass media interests who really should realise that their time to die is long past and are desperately clinging on, is a terrifying and deeply wrong turn of events.

This video explains the mortal danger SOPA / PIPA poses to all of us, not just citizens of the U.S.

And if you think it doesn't directly affect Britons, just consider the fate of Richard O'Dwyer - if SOPA or PIPA pass, expect to see dozens if not hundreds more cases like his, and for a much milder "crime". It will surely include many of us in the blogosphere.

In solidarity with the sites that will be going into "blackout", all of my other posts will revert to 'draft' and be inaccessible for the duration of the draft - disappearing suddenly into the ether in exactly the same way that many sites will if SOPA / PIPA pass.

Join the strike! If you have no sites to 'black out' then help to raise awareness if you can.

And one last thing that has been lost in the drama of SOPA / PIPA is that the DEA has now officially been ruled compatible with EU law. Expect a fight on our hands very shortly on our own shores as it is enforced.....

Sometimes humour is the only weapon left....

....and the most appropriate to get the point across:

(click picture to see full size version)

Story here.

One Ring to rule them all...

Today a debate took place in parliament regarding an absolutely crucial issue for the future of the UK and the financial well-being of its citizens: Mark Reckless MP proposed an anti-bailout motion that would have been the first strong anti-Euro (and with it - anti EU) sentiment expressed by the house in decades.

Many a strong word was spoken in the chamber earlier against the EU by many of the handful (circa 50) present - and by MPs from both sides of the aisle. For once I actually felt proud of the MPs participating, and I recommend you watch the debate on iplayer, or read the proceedings in Hansard tomorrow. It was such a sharp contrast to the puppet show that passes for the Prime Minister's Question time and I had to fancy what Parliament would be like if these individuals occupied the front benches instead of the back.

Yet how many of those words will be carried by our ever useless peon media to the the ears and eyes of the masses? Instead the media will be perhaps focused on some prat who sought injunctions against revealing a relationship with a woman trying to extort him (and try finding *that* latter fact reported in the media....they would have known had they actually read the linked document....).

However this pleasant fantasy of a functioning representative democracy was soon blown to pieces as I remembered how Daniel Hannan had detailed the "wrecking amendment" put forward.

It didn't matter what the attendees actually said. The whips ensured another 250 MPs turned up to guarantee it was the amended version that went through and not the original motion, turning what was a strongly worded motion into a wet-through general statement of discontent that the government can safely ignore.

I sometimes find it difficult containing my anger over such shenanigans in parliament - regarding how easily results can be 'fixed' in this fashion. I don't remember sleeping in and missing the vote for which whips I wanted. Do you? And I find it intolerable that the people who both proposed the wrecking amendment and voted are not obliged to participate in the debate.

The People's Pledge valiantly attempted to encourage people to write to their MPs beforehand to ask them to vote against the amendment. Would that doing so have had any effect in any case where the majority of MPs are concerned. Aside from the whipped MPs I note, with utter disgust, that ALL of the MPs from Sheffield (which has been my home for far too long now...) failed to even turn up to either the debate or the vote. So much for the salt-of-the-earth Labour MPs standing up for the working man and woman, eh? My current MP, Mr. Paul "I ran Sheffield University Student's Union" Blomfeld, ignored my letter on the topic - as indeed he has done with the last few letters sent to him.

(UPDATE: One of my friends has just informed me that however that "Blomfield did manage to find the time to attend a drinks reception for Sheffield Union officers")

The final vote was 267 to 46. Had it been just those present for the debate voting I am confident the original motion, not the amended version, would have been carried. Such is our utterly dysfunctional democracy and its attendant handmaiden Fourth Estate that not only did this happen, but it won't even be reported.

It doesn't matter what we think. It doesn't matter what we want. It doesn't even matter what most of our MPs do either.

The One Ring has called and the Nazgul are answering their master's call.

Gaddafi Duck

I make no apologies for the language. It had to be done:

Why did Assange make his stand in the UK and not Sweden?

Lots of people have been openly wondering about this, including me.

If this video is to be believed then there is a list of reasons as long as your arm that would make any rational person in Assange's situation stay well out of Sweden's reach.

Just as one example, you could just stop at the fact that Karl Rove is advising the Swedish government - yes that Karl Rove, who's attitude to an underling who wouldn't follow the party line was to say "We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!". The same Karl Rove who appeared to be instrumental in punishing Senator Jo Wilson in nakedly political revenge, for him casting doubt on the case for Iraq's possession of WMDs, by outing his wife, Valerie Plame. Valerie Plame who was at the centre of a CIA operation monitoring Iran's WMD programmes; with part of the fall out being that the CIA estimated it had set them back 10 years in their monitoring of Iran's putative ambitions.

The Revealed Mystery of the Mystic Met Office

I have just received the Met Office's "secret report" and email correspondence with the Cabinet Office from a FOI request I made three weeks ago. The information they contain is quite significant and I hope others who have been working hard highlighting this issue such as Autonomous Mind and James Delingpole will find the following addition useful. God knows this is an extremely serious issue and the only people who appear to have been digging into it have been the bloggers (AM's investigation and analysis can be found here, here and here).

At the turn of the year we heard the revelation that, following an absolutely brutal start to the UK winter, the Met Office had allegedly warned the government in a "secret report" to expect such.

The Met Office also claimed that, in part because of the ridicule it had suffered for completely out of sync seasonal forecasts previously, it did not share this information with the public. It attempted to throw the government under the bus by claiming that the Cabinet Office had been informed, implying that it was central government's fault that the country was so unprepared and nothing to do with the Mystic Met Office's computer models with built in warmist bias that is perpetually out of touch with reality as a result.

It was Roger Harrabin, one of the BBC's chief climate alarmists, who originally claimed that the Met Office had issued this "secret warning". He said: "The truth is it [The Met Office] did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October. But we weren’t let in on the secret. The reason? The Met Office no longer publishes its seasonal forecasts because of the ridicule it suffered for predicting a barbecue summer in 2009 – the summer that campers floated around in their tents.”

I find it utterly pathetic that such an allegedly august institution can hide behind the excuse of fear of ridicule. It would be funny, self-satirising material were it not for the fact that, as a result of their influence, many people have died and suffered. That's not to mention the hole made in our economy and damage to tourism and international standing. Visitors, and those observing from abroad, perceived the lack of preparedness, especially at the airports, as akin to third world levels of disorganisation. They were right.

This is an extremely serious issue and so far no one appears to have been held culpable, not least in part to the (as per usual) relative silence of the mass media.

I immediately sent Freedom of Information requests to both the Cabinet Office and the Met Office, asking for copies of this "secret report" and any related correspondence after initially reading the story.

The essence of the Met's "secret report" has already been revealed by Bishop Hill who was able to obtain a copy before me; revealing it in all its simplistic glory (and showing clearly that the Met Office has been completely dishonest on this issue). It was reported over at Watts Up With That, and was quickly neatly eviscerated by the commentators.

They have also been claiming that paying customers receive more extensive information than the public. The "public" information mostly consisted in this probability map, which claimed, to quote AM, an "80% probability of warmer than average temperatures for November, December and January for Scotland and a 60-80% probability of the same for Northern Ireland, Wales and most of England."

As you will see from the link below, the special information released to paying customers, which apparently constituted their "secret warning" of a harsh winter is a complete joke and comes across like something written by a child.

You can see for yourself that the Met Office actually predicts a slighty higher chance of a "cold" winter, rather than a "near average" or "mild" winter. This is based on a series of probabities out of 10. It boggles the mind that aside from the tiny amount of actual prediction in the report that this is the output of their energy-guzzling, multi-million pound supercomputer.

On the next page they quantify what these terms might mean, but even here they are completely out of sync with what we actually experienced - for "cold" it meant "typical lower and upper limits" of temperature ranging from -1.5 to 0.4 degrees Celsius.

Further, the email correspondence is enlightening between the Met Office and the government:

Someone at the Cabinet Office wrote to the Met Office to tell them what the official position would be: "The Met Office seasonal outlook for the period November to January is showing no clear signals for the winter". The Met Office writes back - "That is fine." - also note the first mail sent my the Met Office, these are their "initial thoughts" (!)

So, as if the "secret" prediction wasn't awful enough, any claim that the Met Office actually warned the government of an impending harsh winter, and by implication that the government therefore did not act responsibly is a 100% complete and utter lie.

However there is more to this story that really needs to be aired. Not only have local councils been complaining of the complete failure of the Met Office to warn them, but even more seriously, the National Grid of all organisations, was flying completely blind too. See the National Grid's Winter Outlook document. Skip to page 7. The Grid obviously never received the "secret report" (not that it would have been much use anyway). They had to get their information from - the website! The same website that promised the 60-80% likelihood of a warm winter and which the Met Office has told us plebs we should ignore.

Largely as a result of this, the predictions for maximum demand were out by nearly 1 GW on the closest match to a horrifying 4.7 Gigawatts on the worst (information from NETA):



Had we not been able to buy approximately 2GW of power from France across the channel interconnector and ramp up the domestic production there could have been a serious outage. In a few years, thanks to complete government intransigience on our future power supply, we won't be able to repeat the feat and of course there are no guarantees that the French will always be able to sell us that much energy when we need it. When the total demand goes up to close to 60GW, in still winter conditions, the 3000+ wind turbines installed provide an incredible 0.1% of our power needs. That lunatic Huhne seems to think our power issues will be solved by the costly build of another 10,000 turbines. So in similar conditions that "capacity" will provide approximately 0.4% of the power supply, just when we need it most. Outstanding, no?

By the way, Browned Off's comment to me is well worth a read. He corrected me on the relative positions of the government, EU and energy industry on this. It certainly seems plausible - the government is happy for the EU to take most of the blame for something that - at root - is its own fault. It fits perfectly into the singular principle that defines modern British politics - expediency.

Unfortunately the combination of this political expediency - at the expense of our national power supply - and the religious convictions of the warmist-infested Mystic Met office are going to result in many more deaths and suffering. There have already been needless deaths and suffering thanks to both.

These people have gone from being an annoyance to an active menace, and no one appears to be holding them to account.

Anyway, here are the files, including the email correspondence and the "report".

The first world infowar has started

"The word was spread that bold Assange and his 300 Anonymous, so far from their websites, laid down their rigs and lives; not just for Wikileaks, but for all of the Internet and the promise it holds."

"Now here on this ragged patch of internet called 4chan, let the DDOS hordes face obliteration! Just there the corrupt government barbarians huddle, sheer terror gripping tight their hearts with icy fingers - knowing full well what merciless horrors they suffered at the LOICs and botnets of 300 Anonymous. Yet they stare now across the gateways at 10,000 commanding 30,000"

Wikileaks / Cablegate - the end of Turkish EU ambitions as we know it.

As longer term readers may remember I have written a number of pieces on intelligence matters, particularly those that involve the work of our so called "intelligence" agencies regarding nuclear proliferation and immigration issues. See also this piece I wrote, which pulls a number of these diverse strands together.

One of the primary figures in these narratives was FBI whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, who clearly identified numerous corrupt interests at the heart of the U.S. government who were tied deeply into Turkey's thoroughly corrupt "deep state" (a concept so well entrenched in popular Turk consciousness that it has a specific term in Turkish - derin devlet).

Having spent a lot of time working through Sibel Edmonds various pieces of testimony, and following up as many of the links as I could, I was naturally horrified to hear of David Cameron's insistence that he would "fight" for Turkey to join the EU, saying that without Turkey at its heart, the EU was "not stronger but weaker... not more secure but less... not richer but poorer" and "I'm here to make the case for Turkey's membership of the EU. And to fight for it." (it would be lovely if you expressed "fighting" for Britain in the same strong terms Dave).

I often used to joke with an Italian friend that both our countries were competing to see who could produce the most corrupt and mendacious political officials. We both agreed however that British and Italian corruption would pale into insignificance when compared to Turkey's. Accession to the EU, giving complete open borders to what is effectively Europe's drug funded, weapons (including nuclear) proliferating gangster state would be an immense disaster for all Europeans, for it would give these same corrupt interests unfettered access to Europe.

This background is important to lay out the significance of the contents of the diplomatic cable, marked with 'secret' classification from the U.S. Ankara embassy in 2004 (the target recipient isn't clear): Cable #04ANKARA7211

Turkey's corruption alone is reason enough to strenuously oppose EU entry - this diplomatic cable however sets out in stark terms the powerful Islamist influence at work within the Turkish government - a government we are repeatedly told is secular. EU nations such as Austria and Greece (among others) have extremely bitter - and in the latter's case, historically very recent, ancestral memories and histories tied up in the aggression of the Ottoman empire, in a way that I don't think most Britons can fathom. Once this cable does the rounds there I can't see any MEPs from either nation not attempting to block Turkish progress into the EU.

The U.S. assessment of the Islamist influence begins from paragraph 10:

We have also run into the rarely openly-spoken, but widespread belief among adherents of the Turk-Islam synthesis that Turkey's role is to spread Islam in Europe, "to take back Andalusia and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683" as one participant in a recent meeting at AKP's main think tank put it. This thinking parallels the logic behind the approach of FonMin Gul ally and chief foreign policy advisor in the Prime Ministry Ahmet Davutoglu, whose muddy opinion piece in the Dec. 13 International Herald Tribune is in essence a call for one-way multi-cultural tolerance, i.e., on the part of the EU.

I'm sure there will be Spanish and Austrian heads exploding, even amongst so called political "moderates", at the references to Andalusia and Vienna, respectively. British people besieged by the de facto serial monoculturism of "multicultism" in the UK will be deeply familar with the utter hypocrisy expressed in the last sentence, especially those who have objected to it and erroneously been written off as racists, or supporters of the BNP.

In fairness, the cable does detail some distinctly secularist efforts that are more pro-Western, including some that aim explicitly to bring forth the more humanist - Sufi-influenced - side of Islam (see for example Paragraph 24). However the bulk details the impact of the Islamist element in stark terms. There are for example, allegations that the West is fomenting a clash of civilisations and can effectively be "saved" by the spread of Turkish values, along with "concern that harmonization and membership will water down Islam and associated traditions in Turkey". Paragraph 13 goes on to point out the Turkish government's civil service hiring policy: 'to hire on the basis of "one of us", i.e., from the Sunni brotherhood and lodge milieu'. The cable frankly expresses the opinion that previous hires were incompetent and a change to hiring 'on the basis of competence' (!) would still mean that new recruits would be frustrated because of their predecessors incompetence.

The Turkish leader, Erdogan, who Cameron so praises, is described as having "hunger for absolute power and for the material benefits of power" . He has "a sharp authoritarian style and deep distrust of others" and he surrounds himself "with an iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors". As a result, he has a "susceptibility to Islamist theories". And this is supposed to be the Secular leader who Call me Dave assures us will lead Turkey - and the EU - to a better age!

On this particular topic, the remainder of paragraph 17 is worth quoting in full:

With regard to Islamist influences on Erdogan, DefMin Gonul, who is a conservative but worldly Muslim, recently described Gul associate Davutoglu to us as "exceptionally dangerous." Erdogan's other foreign policy advisors (Cuneyd Zapsu, Egemen Bagis, Omer Celik, along with Mucahit Arslan and chef de cabinet Hikmet Bulduk) are despised as inadequate, out of touch and corrupt by all our AKP contacts from ministers to MPs and party intellectuals.

Paragraph 19 also gives us specific numbers regarding the number of Islamists within the government itself:

Judging by comments to us of insiders in the influential Islamist lodge of Fethullah Gulen such as publicist Abdurrahman Celik, the lodge, which has made some inroads into AKP (Minister of Justice Cicek, Minister of Culture and Tourism Mumcu; perhaps 60-80 of 368 MPs; some appointments to the bureaucracy), has resumed the ambivalent attitude it initially had toward Erdogan and AKP.

Further down, in paragraph 23, the cable identifies a prominent Islamist appointment: "Omer Dincer, an Islamist academic whom Erdogan appointed Undersecretary of the Prime Ministry, THE key position in the government/state bureaucracy."

Can you imagine the popular media reaction to the idea that the BNP had a quarter of the seats in parliament and several ministerial appointments? The above is certainly no different.

The additional information the cable provides us on Turkish corruption is also enlightening:

in increasing numbers AKPers from ministers on down, and people close to the party, are telling us of conflicts of interest or serious corruption in the party at the national, provincial and local level and among close family members of ministers. We have heard from two contacts that Erdogan has eight accounts in Swiss banks; his explanations that his wealth comes from the wedding presents guests gave his son and that a Turkish businessman is paying the educational expenses of all four Erdogan
children in the U.S. purely altruistically are lame.

Specific Ministers identified as corrupt were: "Minister of Interior Aksu, Minister of Foreign Trade Tuzmen, and AKP Istanbul provincial chairman Muezzinoglu". The cable even goes on to point out that Turkish police are investigating "Muezzinoglu's extortion racket and other activities has already produced evidence incriminating Erdogan." - a minister openly identifed as running an extortion racket!

The final assessments in the cable are absolutely damning:

the broad, rubber-meets-the-road reality is that Islam in Turkey is caught in a vise of (1) 100 years of "secular" pressure to hide itself from public view, (2) pressure and competition from brotherhoods and lodges to follow their narrow, occult "true way", and (3) the faction- and positivism- ridden aridity of the Religious Affairs
Directorate (Diyanet). As a result, Islam as it is lived in Turkey is stultified, riddled with hypocrisy, ignorant and intolerant of other religions' presence in Turkey, and unable to eject those who would politicize it in a radical, anti-Western way. Imams are for the most part poorly educated and all too ready to insinuate anti-Western, anti-Christian or anti-Jewish sentiments into their sermons. Exceptionally few Muslims in Turkey have the courage to challenge conventional Sunni thinking about jihad or, e.g., verses in the Repentance shura of the Koran which have for so long been used to justify violence against "infidels".

Yep - that sounds just like the fundamentally secular state we've been sold all these years. It is also very important to take note of the U.S. take on the Turkish relationship with history:

A second question is the relation of Turkey and its citizens to history -- the history of this land and citizens' individual history. Subject to rigid taboos, denial, fears, and mandatory gross distortions, the study of history and practice of historiography in the Republic of Turkey remind one of an old Soviet academic joke: the faculty party chief assembles his party cadres and, warning against various
ideological threats, proclaims, "The future is certain. It's only that damned past that keeps changing."

Having been on the receiving end of multiple hacks and defacements on my own websites by Turkish hackers for daring to mention the Armenian Genocide, the above paragraph certainly rings true for me.



Simply either the pervasive - and deep - corruption, or the extensive influence of Islamists within government would be enough to give anyone in the EU pause regarding the wisdom of welcoming Turkey as possibly the 28th member state. But both?

It is reasonable to assume that given the general convergence of views on other matters, the UK FCO assessment of Turkey would not have differed greatly from that of the U.S. Although, as Peter Oborne has repeatedly warned us in his excellent excoriations of the political class - the British FCO and the government parted ways many years before, and in fact the British government under Blair and Campbell has made best efforts to make it irrelevant, despite its long history of expert local knowledge. This is all the more significant in the light of Cameron and LibConfused giving the European External Action Service a free pass to replace the FCO and gives credence to Godfrey Bloom's accusation of "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer" - a vision that, if Davy Boy is anything to go by, surely involved having the Turkish nightmare foisted upon us without a single one of us having a say.

The release of this cable could well change all of that however. Spread it far. Spread it wide.

What to remember on the 14th of November

Remembrance Sunday.

Every year on both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday my thoughts turn to my grandparents and great grandparents and the generations they represented.

I am as sad for them as I am for what we have become in their absence. In the last few years of his life I started to have the odd conversation with my surviving grandfather about this. He seemed to be of a similar opinion - that most of what had been fought for back then had not just been lost, but actively given away by both a venal political class and an apathetic population. The baby-boomers had everything relative to the generations before them and they happily sold off the farm.

I get a sick feeling that goes to the root of my stomach trying to imagine myself in the shoes of these solid people, of whom many of our generations are paltry shadows in comparison. Whether it was war in the trenches, the possibility of everything being destroyed in an instant by a German bomb or never knowing if you were going to see so many loved ones and friends again; in the face of this their courage must have been inestimable; especially as the odds would have seemed so overwhelming at the time.

In the 1930s, a single man would sign up to fight and his entire family - and street! - would sign up to go with him. Could any of us imagine that happening now?

It is in this spirit that I feel so aggravated by others seemingly giving up so easily. There has been a mass exodus from the libertarian-leaning blogosphere recently. Something some commentators have taken unjustified delight in, claiming 'I told you so! They were just Tories in denial' or some other similar nonsense.

I think blogging fatigue is a big part of it, and I'm certainly sympathetic, even though I'm an irregular blogger myself. I also think the departure of ZaNuLabour is a small factor, however it is a long way off of the whole story. There is a much much deeper weariness seeping in and I think the Devil has identified it in his (hopefully temporary) signing off post: it is the fact that the new LibConfused overlords represent almost zero change from what went before. The state is increasing in size, in power, the climate hysteria continues in spite of the counter evidence and the EU is still receiving massive handovers of power (not to mention handouts). Many people, including the Devil, are asking - what is the point?

Well here's the damn point: Until our sacrifices and suffering match or exceed those of our grand parents and great-grand parents' generations, I don't want to hear any such defeatist talk. And to make the point that talk is cheap, it is very easy to utter platitudes about what "they" were making sacrifices for back in that pit of despair that must have been their lives.It is quite another to grit our teeth and dig in for the long haul. They did it and we owe nothing less than to do the same.

No one said it would be easy, that the going would not be long and arduous. What will you tell your children or grandchildren, or those children of others (if, like me, you plan not to have any yourself). What will you tell them, especially when you relate the tales of your own grandparents' heroic struggles?

Is a comfortable life worth a fucking damn when it is purchased so cheaply - at the expense of other people's liberty, even their lives?

For me it isn't. And it is crucial for the coming generations - sold already into penury and quite possibly a third world status by the most recent generations - that they know that while there were many who collaborated, there were some who fought back.

Hope may be a distant thing right now. Our opponents are many, and mighty. I fully understand the despair, even the surrealism it seems to engender as our political establishment and its enabling classes (the media, the apathetic) appear to exist in a parallel universe to anything that could be remotely regarded as "reality" (explaining the multi-trillion debt to someone who believes in "free" everything will give you this mind-bending trip of an experience).

It is why we must nurture the tiny, flickering flame of hope in our hearts, breathe on it regularly with our irreplaceable life energy, just like those who gave of their irreplacable lives with honour before us. On this day, we should not only remember the fallen but not forget the future - a future which we have a direct hand in forging.

As regular readers will know, I'm quite a fan of science-fiction and am fond of using poignant scenes from it to make my point. Below is a video that I think is entirely fitting for Remembrance Sunday. It utilises a fictional alien character in a fictional future scenario where humans fought a war against impossible odds. The ode he gives to the humans is fully deserved of our immediate ancestors. Is it, or will it ever be deserved of us? That's for you and me to decide, starting today: