Vietnam 40 years on from the Tet offensive - not something the US celebrates

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has a population of over 85 million, a Communist Government and GDP growth was estimated to hit a ten-year high record at 8.44% in 2007.

Although still a poor country, it is the third-largest oil producer in Southeast Asia with output of 400,000 barrels per day. Vietnam is one of Asia's most open economies: two-way trade is around 160% of GDP, more than twice the ratio for China and over four times India's

Vietnam was accepted into the WTO on November 7, 2006.

US Navy's BIG, very, very expensive toy, for big boys

U.S. Navy Breaks Electromagnetic Railgun Power Record


The Office of Naval Research test fired an electromagnetic railgun (EMRG) at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Va. on Jan. 31, 2008, between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. EST. The gun was fired at over 10 megajoules of energy – a power level never before achieved by an EMRG. The previous test firing was at the same site on October 2nd 2006.

The EMRG is one of the Navy's newest toys (just one more one in a family of the Office of Naval Research’s Innovative Naval Prototypes (INPs)) (see more Navy pics)It uses electricity, rather than chemical propellants, to launch projectiles at long-range targets

The launcher or barrel contains a pair of metal, electrically conductive rails . These are contained in a composite structure. Very strong opposing magnetic fields are generated within the launcher by a high current pulse that flows through the rails and a bridging armature positioned behind the projectile when the rail gun is fired. Propulsive force is created which accelerates at an astonishing speed propelling botht the armnature and its projectile.

After release from the armature, the projectile , travelling at a muzzle velocity of 2500metres per second (compared with 800 m/s of a standard 5" 54 or 62 gun )and is guided by a GPS system as it leaves the earth's atmosphere, beyond reach of electronic jamming. (Well thaty's the theory driving a 10-15 year research project)

Alternatively, fired directly (1 - 40 Km. range - current gunnery has limit of 20 miles) a 15 KG projectile woud arrive on target at Mach 5 (1500m/s) with 17 Megajoules of energy., twice a conventioal warhead at half the weight.

It is anticipated that with an available 80 megawatts of installed electrical power, a ship like the DDG-1000 could have the power to sustain a firing rate of 6-12 rounds per minuete.

An exotic weapon if it can be made to work reliably. There are big questions yet . Barrels wera out at present after 4 rounds, building suitable pulse networks are available to maintain direct fire weapons, but indirect fire guns with 200 mile range are still a distant possibility.

The test on January 31 st was successful .. er .. The test firing recorded at 10.64 MJ, shot an aluminum projectile 72 feet in 10 milliseconds.It takes a power of 1 joule to send an apple 1 meter up into the air. ( it was watched by Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Gary Roughead, brother to Ronald , visitor to one of Mrs Palfreys working girls)

Dr. Elizabeth D´Andrea, ONR´s Electromagnetic Railgun Program Manager (see pic) emphasises the safety aspect of the rail gun - On Board safetey is improved as explosives and explosive rounds need not be stored.

So far the Navy have spent 237 Mn. taxpayers dollars.



Work so far has involved engineers from Boeing, Charles Stark Draper Lab, Inc., General Atomics, Department of Energy (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), U.S. Naval Academy, Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Sea Systems Command (PMS 500), Naval Surface Warfare Center – Carderock and Dahlgren Divisions, the U.S. Army and United Kingdom.

The program´s goal is to demonstrate a full capability, integrated railgun prototype by 2016-2018. ...don't hold your breath. Stratfor Status report on the project after the test... and Popular Science

Wudja bleeve that ? Fox reported WTC 's collapse on 9/11 before it did , followed by live footage of it collapsing

The Fox and BBC reports were about approx 1657hrs - WTC hit the deck approx 1720 both EST.

Put up on You Tube today - get your copy before, Like Larry Silverstein did with WTC 7 they "pull it".

You can see the BBC version / You Tube of this outstanding event here .

Also read Richard Porter head of news, BBC World attempt to explain it all away on the BBC Blog here."We're not part of a conspiracy. Nobody told us what to say or do on September 11th. We didn't get told in advance that buildings were going to fall down. We didn't receive press releases or scripts in advance of events happening." Ho.Ho.Ho.

We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy). yeah, yeah it's like the since the war and we lose the fillum ?

Judge for yourself. You certainly cannot rely on the 911 Commission.

Bombing Hearts and Minds - again and gain and again ... the rain of terror

Feb. 6 airpower summary: F-15s hit enemy combatants

Afghanistan

An F-15E Strike Eagle dropped a guided bomb unit-38(1 tonne HE) onto a position where enemy combatants were located. JTAC = successful.

An RAF GR-7 Harrier conducted shows of force in the vicinity of Kajaki Dam (which NATO forces took in February 2007) in order to deter enemy activities in the area. JTAC = successful.

In total, 33 close-air-support missions were flown as part of the ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.

In Iraq, F-16 Fighting Falcons used a GBU-12 (500lbs HE) and GBU-38s (1 tonne HE) to successfully destroy a house-borne improvised explosive device, an enemy combatant command and control building and an enemy weapons bunker. The strikes took place in the vicinity of Baqubah.

A Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet dropped GBU-38s(1 tonne HE) onto a car that had been destroyed and was filled with ordnance. JTAC = successful.

In Basrah, a RAF GR-4 Tornado successfully destroyed enemy mortar rocket rails using cannon rounds. Additionally, the GR-4 Tornado conducted a show of force to deter enemy activities in the area.

In Mosul, F-16s dropped a GBU-12 and GBU-38s onto an enemy building that coalition forces had been taking fire from. JTAC = successful.

In total, coalition aircraft flew 65 close-air-support missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom



Benjamin Lowy, USA, VII Network.
Kabul market, Afghanistan (cropped)
Daily Life Singles prize World Press Awards this week (More award winning pics here)

How to kill your kids - buy an SUV

18-month-old boy killed in car accident at family home - The Guradian today.

"An 18-month-old boy has died after he was accidentally run over by a 4x4 car believed to be driven by his father. Jake Younger became trapped under the wheels of the Land Rover Freelander on Thursday afternoon as it reversed towards the driveway at the family home in Kibblesworth, Gateshead.

Neighbours say they heard the child scream and moments later saw his father, Neil Lawson, 28, running down the street with the toddler in his arms and shouting for help. "

See Post Paturday, June 10, 2006 SUV's are a hazard to children

University of Utah Study Shows Minivans, Trucks Pose Greatest Risk of Backing Over Children in Driveways

See Post Friday, October 07, 2005 SUV 's... kill kids and slays the old.

"Small children are over represented in driveway accidents with SUV’s, probably a result of the increased height of the vehicle and the driver's reduced ability to see things immediately around the vehicle. An Australian study in New South Wales (2004) showed that typically, the injury involved a parent or relative reversing a motor vehicle in the home driveway over a toddler or preschool-age child in the late afternoon or early evening. Four-wheel-drive or light commercial vehicles were involved in 42% of all injuries, such vehicles were associated with a 2.5-times increased risk of fatality. In 13 of the 14 deaths, the cause was a severe head injury not amenable to medical intervention."

Accidents happen .... yeah... totally unforeseen. Act of that cruel God maybe.

UPDATE : Toddler killed as her father reverses car down the family drive - the second child to die that way in a week Daily Mail 10/2/08

An inquest into Greta's death was opened and adjourned by the Herefordshire Coroner on Thursday.

Mosul's last stand and the Baathistas - Apocalypse real soon...maybe

Well informed Bernhard at Moon over Alabama says - "A new phase of the war over Iraq has started. "

It has been telegraphed for some time as Local news reports have been full of plans for Mosul and the numbers of troops heading there for battle for at least the last two / three weeks.

"The coming fight over Mosul will get bloody. As the Arab media will now be censored, it might take a while until we get a somewhat true picture of it.

Mosul is for some time now a hotbed of resistance activities in Iraq.

It is the capital of the Ninawa Governorate near to the Kurdish area in north Iraq. It lies on both sides of the Tigris with five bridges connection these parts. At least two of these bridges have earlier been under attack. Mosul has nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants.

Maliki has ordered a huge offensive against Mosul involving a three brigade size (10,000-15,000 troops) force of Iraqi government troops and U.S. support (likely one brigade - 3,500 troops).

The attack will start in the next few days."... More ..

The unlikely bulk of ex marine and child molester Scott Ritter looms - " Iraq's Tragic failure" at Truth dig .....

"If the president is free to pursue his policies, it could lead to direct military intervention in Iran by the United States prior to President Bush’s departure from office or, failing that, place his successor on the path toward military confrontation. " ... lay off it Scott you've been forecasting the Iranian invasion since June 2006.

However with his ear well close to CIA sources he does provide a timely reminder that the fag end of Saddam's Baathists have survived Bremer's brave boys and reports that in October 2007 the Iraqi Baath Party held its 13th conference, in which it formally certified one of Saddam’s vice presidents, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, as the supreme leader of the Sunni resistance in Iraq.... and then proceeds to punt this guy as the head honcho for Al Quaeda in Iraq (AQIQ).

He sees the coming strife in the North as a reflection of the Tet offensive.... watch this space.

"Saddam may be dead," says Scott, speaking for his paymasters, the CIA " but not so his plans for resistance. The massive security organizations which held sway over Iraq during his rule were never defeated, and never formally disbanded."

Are we to see the resurgence of the (rumoured dead) Nizar al Khazraji and his grisly pals (so popular with the CIA pre illegal invasion) ex Saddam's Information Minister Mohammed Sahaf, (not so Comical Ali) Health Minister Umid Mubarak and Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Al-Hadithi, 59 ... or even the arrival from retirement of Mr Aziz ?

PS : BBC World News briefing at 5.30 GMT says the Taliban have been re-branded for the Spring (Tet ?) offensive as the "Mujahadeen" and are gathering strength in Qetta on the Pak borders - they talk of 1.5 million madrassa studentswilling to fight for the legendary Muja.

USA Today 11/2/08 - Al-Qaeda tries to salvage image
ISN 10/2/08 - Questioning the Mosul offensive -"The military buildup in Mosul is part of a large-scale offensive involving 24,000 US soldiers and 130,000 Iraqi troops, designed to root out purported al-Qaida-linked militants in several provinces."
This Fucking War - No Local Allies in Wings for Mosul Fight - " Iraqi and American commanders are preparing for a prolonged - and possibly pivotal - fight against al-Qaida in Iraq in this vital northern hub. They are missing an essential tool used to uproot insurgents elsewhere: groups of local Sunni fighters - the so called Awakening Councils. "

"...creating ties with Sunni militia allies is a dangerous option. "It's just politically very delicate and the U.S. military would be in danger of breaking with its Kurdish allies if it went in that direction"
Captains Journal - Looming Battle for Mosul 10/2/08 see also Last Stand in Mosul 29/11/07

Mortgage fraud, "A Northern Wreck / Halifax mortgage your "Flexible" friend

The Financial Times headline today (9/2/08) spotlights mortgage fraud. Which may be related to what Lord Patel discovered in a conversation with a long standing Asian Financial Wizard and friend at the gym.

In Jan - June 2007, 60% of his business was arranging mortgages with (mainly) Asian self employed businesmen mortgaging property with Northern Rock.

It worked like this. Mr Q is a prosperous self employed businessman and seeks capital to expand. Northern Rock intoduced a new principal and wizard wheeze for their mortgages to help such cash strapped souls, build business and pay handy fees to sales staff and agents and fund the bonuses of main board Directors whose salary and bonus was based on sales growth.

It also explains why sales increased in the first 6 months of 2007 and profits only rose 1%. (That they could fund and pay a rise in the divvy of 33% is another story) Note that the first starred feature of their Interim results on July 26th said ...

Record H1 gross lending of £19.3 billion - an increase of 30.5%, with record H1 net lending of £10.7 billion - an increase of 47.3%

and somewhat lower down and hidden away..

Statutory profit attributable to equity shareholders of £188.2 million, up by 0.2%

Hmmmmm. ?????? net lending up 47% and only a 0.2% increase in profits how so ?????

Mr Q has a house let us say with a valuation £800,000. He takes out a mortgage of say 75% , say £600,000, ( loans were not really considered below the magic £1/2 Mn.) A loan was arranged for £600K, based on self declared earnings.

As soon as the mortgage is provided it is immediately paid back less £1. This leaves Mr. Q with a facility of £600K which he can call down and a mortgage with a balance of £1 to pay. Mr Q has £599,999 available in total or part at any time by making a phone call and receiving funds in 3 working days.

My friend gets 0.85% for arranging what he describes, is, for his extensive clientele a "no brainer". Luvvly jubbly, trebles all round.

Any such loans of course fly right under the radar when audited - loans which exceed asset backing, or payment arrears. (e.g Northern Wreck Interim results - Credit quality remains robust. 0.47% of mortgage accounts 3 months or more in arrears (31 December 2006 - 0.42%) - around half of industry average )

Of course the first tricky bit is how all this (and my friend was handling £1 -2 Mn mortgages / loans a week) you deal with this on the balance sheet at Northern Rock.

The second tricky bit is how you find the funds, when ,let us say, every mortgagee decides to take up his "loan". This is why Old Adam Applegarth went to see the Bank of England on August 7/8/9 th ( less than 3 weeks after the half year results and issueing a 33% increased divvy!) asking for £30 Bn. as Lord King explained in his BBC4 Radio interview. The queues formed in the street when the , what we bankers call an , "empty till situation" arose and the word spread very, very, very quickly in the Geordie homeland of NR.

The third tricky bit is when someone discovers that these properties might possibly be slightly overvalued (or might not even exist) and the self declared income is probably somewhat lower than the mortgagee had anticipated.

The fourth tricky bit is when Mr Q disappears - or quelle horreur, doesn't seem to exist.

All this might explain why Mr Curran at Northern Wreck had such a bad headache it kept him off work until he decided (with some encouragement) to leave the company. It might also explain why there is so little enthusiasm by major players in resurrecting NR and why Mr O and his plas have politely withdrawn there declarations of interest.

However the gravy train rolls on, not quite at the same speed, with the same intensity (NR was writing 20% of all UK mortgages in the first 6 months of 2007) at the Halifax Bank with their Flexible Mortgage tailored to meet your "special" needs. Halifax are part of HBOS whose year end results are awaited. Shareholders are advised to bail out without delay. NOW..Pronto

Incidentally NR produced accounts in 26 days at the Interims .. it's February 9th and no sign of them .. the wel established rule that it takes a very, very long time to produce bad, very bad results.

Perhaps there is a clue in that the National Statistical Office maintains that the whole NR debacle should appear as a £100Bn. (ouch!!!) item on the Current borrowing requirement... somehwat slightly in excess of all the other magical figures previously published.

Curiously this note is added to their decision... just what does this mean ?

This decision also required ONS to examine the structures and arrangements used in Northern Rock plc’s borrowing programme, which involves securitisation of mortgage assets. The ONS judgement here is to also classify to the public sector the UK-resident special purpose vehicles used in the securitisation programme.

The ONS said its reclassification of Northern Rock was backdated to October 9 last year, when the Bank of England's support arrangements for the bank were amended to accept all of its assets as collaterol, including unsecured loans.

Wheat trading goes crazy on low USDA stocks - Synthetics take over

Wheat price surge raises inflation fears By Chris Flood Financial Times London
A fall in US inventories of wheat - February’s USDA ending stocks were 272 million bushels vs. estimates of 274 million and January estimates of 292 million; low end estimates 237 million and high end is 292 million. which represents a 60-year low drove prices of grain sharply higher on Friday to a fresh record, intensifying fears of rising global food price inflation.

US wheat futures jumped by their daily trading limit every day this week. Prices for benchmark flour making Minneapolis , (MGEX) rose 10.7 % on the week, extending its price surge since the beginning of 2008 to 50%.

The markets opened lock limit up and stayed there the entire session.Synthetically ( ie informal contracts) the market traded up to US$21 in the March (actual close US$15.53 and US$17.50 (close US$14.24) in the May....Synthetics are the name of the game for
now.

To cope with the raised prices MGEX Contracts Committee (CFTC) approved raising wheat contract daily price limits from 30 cents to 40 cents effective with the Feb. 12 trading session. This weekend the CFTC are being asked to raise that to 60 cents.

Kansas City and Chicago followed Minneapolis.

This is serious. record low inventories, poor crops .. see Australia and soaring demand.

Floods wreak havoc in Queensland coalfields - global coal prices shift up a gear

The flooded Ensham mine in Queensland.

The coal industry is worth more than Aus$18 billion a year to Queensland's economy and employs about 23,000 people in the state. Floods in January have caused major and massive problems - Coal giant Xstrata lost production at its Collinsville and Newlands mines, BHP Billiton has been forced to cut back production at different sites. Rio Tinto said production at its Kestrel mine had been hit.

Ensham Resources Pty Limited, is one of Queensland's largest and fastest growing thermal coal producers, they built the world's second largest dragline at their Emerald mine in the coal-rich Bowen Basin in central Queensland. It is a major source of coking coal for the steel industry.

Industry sources say that prices at the end of 2007 of US$ 95-US$100 pe tonne can be expected to rise to US$150 a tonne, as supplies are hit not only by flloding of mines but disruption to rail services to the coast.

On top of this, it is apparent that China's severe winter will impact on demand and consequently on already record global prices.

The bucket attached to the new Ensham dragline is of 143 cubic yard capacity - it can scoop out enough material to fill two backyard swimming pools in one go.

Now the dragline is in it's own swimming pool.

"It's really a scene of utter devastation", says Peter Westerhuis general manager of the mine, "the Ensham mine has got the Nogoa river running almost through the middle of it. It's burst it's banks and engulfed the entire centre of operations. The pits are up to a hundred metres deep, and the ones that have been completely inundated are about three kilometres long each, and full of water. We estimate a hundred thousand megalitres has gone into those pits.

"We had some indication of rising flood levels in the Theresa creek, which feeds into the Nogoa river. Literally, twenty four hours later we were faced with this devastation.

The Queensland Resources Council says it could be weeks before the mining industry returns to normal production after the widespread flooding through the central highlands at a cost to the industrysaid to be over Aus$200 Mn.

"The mine is constructed with levees in appropriate places. They are classified as levees suitable for a one in a hundred year flood, in excess of anything that's happened here before. But the flood levels have gone completely over the top of the levee, it's really an unprecedented, and unexpected event that no one could predict." (Just compare the size of this mutha with the pic at the top)

Might be an idea to send details of this to the boffins at the bank of England ... perhaps if they had read about the storms in Newcastle in June they might have been ready to forecast the rise in world coal / energy prices. Saturday, June 09, 2007 Chinese Coal carriers grounded off newcastle,NSW, Australia

and ...

Newcastle Coal Trades Near a Record as Demand Rises (Update1)

Dec. 31 2007 (Bloomberg) -- Coal prices at Australia's Newcastle port, a benchmark for Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, traded near a record on concern that demand is outpacing supply.
Power station coal, excluding shipping cost, for delivery within three months posted its second weekly gain, settling at $89.69 a metric ton in the week ended Dec. 28, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index, an Asian benchmark calculated each Friday. Prices are up 85 cents from the previous week and near the US$89.76 record set earlier this month (nbspNEWC Index up from US$67.72 in September).

``It's going to be a situation of restricted supply throughout 2008, so that will keep spot prices near record levels,'' said Gavin Wendt, a senior resources analyst at Fat Prophets Funds Management in Sydney. ``The miners just can't get the stuff out and onto a ship.''

The queue of ships waiting outside Newcastle port to load coal reached a record 79 in June after storms disrupted operations. There were 34 vessels waiting to load as of midnight, Dec. 30.

Chinese coal imports rose 39 % to 46.68 million tons in the first 11 months of 2007.

Must be very difficult to calculate global energy price trends faced with that sort of information. Evidently judged by the performance of the wankers at the Bank of England.

UPDATE Midnight : The FT has just hit the streets ....

Wheat price surge raises inflation fears By Chris Flood in London
A fall in US inventories of wheat to a 60-year low drove prices of the grain sharply higher on Friday to a fresh record, intensifying fears of rising global food price inflation.

US wheat futures jumped by their daily trading limit every day this week. Prices for benchmark flour making Minneapolis , (MGEX) rose 10.7 % on the week, extending its price surge since the beginning of 2008 to 50%.

To cope with the raised prices MGEX Contracts Committee approved raising wheat contract daily price limits from 30 cents to 40 cents effective with the Feb. 12 trading session.

Onward Christian Soldiers

The Annual Prayer Breakfast is (not as commonly imagined an event planned by the White House) organized by the shadowy and powerful tax free Fellowship Foundation, an organization that was founded by a demented Norwegian and Nietzchist, born in 1886 a year before Vidkun Quisling, called Abraham Vereide in 1935.He was also associate with the barmy but highly influential inter war years Moral Rearmament Movement and its leader Frank Buchman.

The Fellowship (with at least 33 members of Congress ) maintains a three-story townhouse at 133 C Street in Washington, D.C., near the United States Capitol.The Fellowship operates a retreat center as an "unofficial headquarters," at the end of 24th Street North in Arlington, Va. Called "The Cedars," it was purchased in 1978 through donations from, among others, Tom Phillips, CEO of arms manufacturer Raytheon; and Ken Olsen of Digital Equipment Corporation.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a member of the Fellowship and her husband in his autobiography, My Life, brags that he never missed a National Prayer Breakfast as President.

The Fellowship have Renaissance Weekends, strange events by all acoounts - it was at one such eent Bill Clinton’s and Tony Blair’s idea of a “Third Way” between capitalism and socialism was developed. A Weekend in Charleston, South Carolina was attended by Newsnight's favourite crooked pollster Frank Luntz.(see Who the Fuck is Frank Luntz?)

See ; Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats by Jeffrey Sharlet Harper's March 2003.

EXPOSÉ: THE “CHRISTIAN” MAFIA Where Those Who Now Run the U.S. Government Came From and Where They Are Taking Us By Wayne Madsen Insider magazine

At the same time that Dubya was telling us all how each one of us was precious his mouthpiece Tony Fratto was talking to the Press in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House and was asked this Question ..

Q . Tony, waterboarding is, as you know, explicitly forbidden in the new Army Field Manual. One of the rationales that military officers tell me is the reason for that is that what we do to people in other countries, they will eventually do to Americans. Doesn't allowing waterboarding and not forbidding it in all circumstances essentially say that it's appropriate for U.S. troops to be waterboarded by other countries under similar circumstances?

... and started digging a hole....

MR. FRATTO: No, it doesn't. But in terms of the operational use of any enhanced interrogation technique, I'll let the agency comment on that -- the Central Intelligence Agency runs the program and I'll allow them to comment on it. I think it's important to note, as General Hayden did and I believe Attorney General Mukasey, that that technique is not part of the current program, it hasn't been for a long time. If there would be any change in authorized techniques within the program, it would go through a process that includes a legal review that would be conducted by the Attorney General. And then a decision would be made by the President based on the circumstances and the advice of his senior advisors.

Then things got a bit tough for Tony whose Boss was just down the street telling us all about our preciousness... and he ignored the law of holes... when in one, stop digging.

Q Does the President think he's above the law in breaking the law on torture?
MR. FRATTO: No, the President believes he should always seek counsel of those who speak for the law, which would be the Department of Justice and the Attorney General. And that is what he has always done.
Q He's read enough about waterboarding now. Does he think it is torture?
MR. FRATTO: I'm not going to speculate on --
Q He knows about it, though. He knows how it's been applied.
MR. FRATTO: No, I don't think I can give a good answer to that question.
Matt.
Q Tony, if al Qaeda were to use waterboarding on an American prisoner, would the Bush administration consider that to be torture? ... More here nice to see the Press giving the White House apologists a hard time

Very entertaining of course but the fuckers will do what they want ... shit they trashed habeus corpus in 2001.

Tony Fratto by the way was Communications Director for young (46) Senator Rick Santorum (a Roman Catholic and now Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference Committee - with Presidential ambitions) attack dog of the moral Right who hates gyas and abortion, named by TIME this week as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America and wudja bleeve it .... member of the Fellowship Foundation and good buddy of the head honcho of FF, Douglas Coe, 76 .

Lord Patel's favourite buttress of FF are the husband and wife tag team of Rev. Tim and Beverly LaHaye, 78 and 75, wihout whom Jerry Falwell would be washing dishes. Rev Tim wrote Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days (and its 11 sequels have sold more than 42 million copies), setting an image about how the world will end.

Beverley is not slouching towards Jerusalem either , she founded Concerned Women for America, (CWA left) one of Washington's most influential anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage organizations.

Lord Patel gets a response to letter to Lord King - eventually

Readers with a long memory will recall that Lord Patel wrote to Lord King at the Bank of England on Friday January 4th 2008.

Lord King Chairman of the Bank of England. Speech at the Mansion House 16th June 2007...

"Our central view remains that inflation will fall back this year as the rises in domestic gas and electricity prices last year drop out of the annual comparison, and the recent cuts in prices feed through to household bills."

… that your staff are inadequate readers of the energy market, in relation to the npower announcements today. (They anounced massive rise of 17.2 % in domestic energy prices - which have been followed by others, E.ON followed suit yesterday)

Can someone explain how the consistent and constant rise in global and especially EU energy costs had been ignored / overlooked when Lord King made his speech ?

Regards Lord Patel

PS An early response would be welcome.

Well, mindful of the final request, an answer has plonked into our e-mail in tray this afternoon.

From: Enquiries [mailto:Enquiries@bankofengland.co.uk]
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 9:56 AM
Dear Lord Patel
Thank you for your e-mail of 4 January concerning the Governor’s comments about energy prices and inflation. Your e-mail has been passed to me to reply on the Governor’s behalf.
Before turning to address your particular points, I thought that it was worth explaining the remit of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). The MPC’s task is to set interest rates to meet the Government’s inflation target of 2% (as measured by the 12-month increase in the Consumer Prices Index). Only by keeping inflation low can we avoid the cycles of high inflation, high interest rates and recession which characterised previous decades. In setting the official Bank Rate, the MPC has to judge the outlook for the economy and inflation, and to decide what level of interest rates will ensure inflation remains low and in line with the target of 2%. MPC decisions involve difficult judgements about the direction of the economy, the state of overall demand and the pressure on prices. There is inevitable uncertainty about the future. (You don't say !)At any time, there will be some factors that may in themselves point to higher interest rates, while others suggest lower rates, or no change. ( Without enumerating or identifying these factors present in mid-2007)

In reaching decisions, each of the 9 members of the MPC votes independently on Bank Rate, having considered all of the available evidence. You should note it takes around two years for changes in interest rates to work through fully to inflation, and so MPC decisions are based on the Committee’s expectations of inflation, and not on the current rate of CPI inflation. (So, if true, evidently they did not expect any inflationary pressures)

As the Governor indicated the energy price rises seen in 2006 did indeed drop out of the annual inflation comparison in the second half of 2007. In fact, in the first half of 2007 CPI inflation averaged 2.7%, whereas in the second half of the year CPI inflation averaged 2.0%. (Taking no account it appears of rapidly rising costs of gas, oil and electricity in the EU - and the fact that it was only months since the last energy price rises)

There have of course been further energy price rises since the speech to which you refer and the Governor has already addressed these matters in a speech he gave on 22 January this year. In particular he said “2008 is likely to see higher energy prices, higher food prices and, with a lower exchange rate, higher import prices, pushing inflation above the 2% target. It is possible that inflation could rise to the level at which I would need to write an open letter of explanation, possibly more than one, to the Chancellor. Although there is little we can do now to avoid some rise in inflation this year, the task of the Monetary Policy Committee is to ensure that it is short-lived. If inflation expectations were to pick up in the wake of a rise in inflation this year, then only a more prolonged slowdown would allow inflation to return to target. But if the rise in inflation does not affect longer-term expectations, then inflation could start to fall back towards the end of the year. We are determined to keep inflation on track to meet the 2% target in the medium term.”

Thank you once again for writing to the Bank. You might like to know that the Governor is made aware of all correspondence addressed to him along with the points that correspondents make.
Kind regards, Roger Beaton, Public Information & Enquiries Group, Bank of England, Treadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8AH T: 44 (0)20 7601 4878 F: 44 (0)20 7601 5460 E: enquiries@bankofengland.co.uk

Which seems to somehow not address the point about the BOE and it's double first encrusted staff of economists, econometricians, statisticians, modellers etc., managed to deal with the question how the, " consistent and constant rise in global and especially EU energy costs had been ignored / overlooked ".

Naturally Lord Patel has not only asked for an elaboration on this point, more specifically as to the need to forecast events rather than react to them retro-actively. He has, naturally ( and with all the modesty his rank alloes) offered not only to provide a forecasting service and also explained that he would be happy to accept an invitation to sit on the Monetary Policy Committee.

Anyone who thinks that would be a good idea, might wish to suggest the same to Mr Roger Beaton, who will no doubt deal with your correspondence with his customary promptness, courtesy and care.

The picture is of Lord Mervyn King speaking at the Mansion House on June 21st 2006 ( a year earlier) which was memorable for him pledging his support for the Trident missile program upgrade whith an estimated capital cost of £15 to £20 Bn.£65 Bn - less than the amount he , the PM and Chnacellor pissed up against the wall in one weekend in September throwing money at the Northern Wreck black hole - now we learn to be writtten into the National Accounts at a mind blowing, jaw sagging, eye watering capital cost of £100 Bn. That is (only one of the many) the reason why we call him a cunt. He is now a fixture for the next 5 years.

If you work at the Bank of England this handy graph of UK energy costs may act as a handy aide memoire or cut out 'n' keep crib sheet how prices have been moving.....

When Lord Patel attends his first meeting of the MPC he will hand out shiny waterproof encapsulated copies to the remaining members.

To see how food prices had been soaring the BOE might usefully read Lord Patel's post Wednesday, November 01, 2006 World wheat shortages loom - prices soar and the point made 8 months before Lord King's speech to the City in June 2007, that ... Wheat prices ricochet through the food supply chain -

1. Higher prices for cereal and breads eaten directly by humans
2. Higher prices for milk and meat produced from livestock fed a grain-based diet
3. Changes to the economics of using grain as feedstock to ethanol

Now you don't need a double first in PPE to understand that.

Iranian bloggers are apparently operating without remarking about any comms problems

Merdax and Nakopix (Nader Kohansal - above ) and Eddy are sites posting pics from Iran on a US hosted website without problems. Some stunning hi res pics.

Thompson have an Ulster solution for Boosting airline capacity and customer satisfaction - DELTA lead the way

Survivability in an aircraft crash is affected by the orientation of the passenger - it is for this reason that cabin staff are seated facing the rear when landing and taking off - unlike their passengers.

In military transports the the seats are often (but not always) configured for passengers to face the rear.

Apart from this there has been no major changes in aircraft seating in the post war, modern pressurised passneger jets and seats have always been placed in strictly straight transverse rows . This configuration places strict limits on passenger numbers and available space. in all passenger classes.

Ulster Brains and Ulster Engineering

Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809-1884) of sound Ulster stock patented his horse drawn reaper in 1834. In the mid west where land was plentiful and cheap labour was short.In 1847 a move to Chicago was decisive and his (then) much improved machinery conquered not only the west had won acclaim at London's Crystal Palace exhibition in 1851 and was by 1856 famous worldwide.

In a simple, straightforward but very clever way a small Ulster Engineering company, Thompson Solutions of Kilkeel, Co.Down have designed a way of providing more passenger room, and greater comfort without reducing passenger count - which should and possibly will, have similiar world wide success.

The competition for airline passengers is intense .

There is a dichotomy in approach by airlines to gain (and keep) passengers revenue and profits.

One route is to generate volume and revenue by low prices and and frequent flights with "no frills" barebone service, especially on short (up to 3 hours) flights.

The other route is to improve the passenger experience , especially on longer flights and for the commercial passengers prepared to pay to allow well paid staff to hit the ground running when they arrive at their business destination.

At one level there is the relentless advance of hi tech services , of on board video and music on demand, provision of power for lap tops, and shortly, for in flight mobile e-mails, texts and internet surfing, to which mobile phone connectivity has just ben added on one Air France plane.

At another level the twin requirements are the more basic human requirments for food and rest. Special foods, in flight chefs, fine wines and every cuisine imagineable are provided ... followed by some peaceful shut eye on a comfortable FLAT bed.

On the largest and most expensive services, such as the new Airbus 38o curently in service with Singapore Airlines there has been a revival of private cabins not unlike those of the old colonial airboat services.

Such luxuries are space hungry, so Thompson Solutions have produced a simple re-jigging of spaces both laterally and horizontally come up with a world beating formula for business class users, which is now being installed as part of a multi million dollar contract with Delta Airlines.

This clever and ergonomically sound solution provides, embodying clever and sound engineering results in seating modules incorporating a fully flat adjustable Horizontal bed/seat up to 80" long, with no lost seating capacity compared with 60" angled bed/seats, and full aisle access to all seats, a third of which are single seats.

This is done by staggering the seats so that the extended bed fits into the seatside large footwall of the preceding seat (3d Quicktime view)

For example their B767-300 plans, a favourite plane for the business only class airlines (hitting a nasty patch at present however) shows a neat way to offer'all business class cabin' with 108 seats with 75" x 26" bed seats each with 17" monitors, 2 seats each side of the central aisle which with a removal of the overhead bin elevates the cabin to a superior first class zone.

This also improves staff working conditions with better aisle access, to seats with more individual space, more storage / leg room room for larger TV monitors all with no loss of seating capacity - or revenue with the big plus of happier customers.

Happier families

This same principal applied to economy seating, by staggering the seats and overlapping the armrests will provide for 15% more capacity 132 instead of 120 seats or it can be translated ionto a 2" wider seat - which can be improved further by installing triangular toilet rooms on new build aircraft.

Thompson have 40 staff and with orders in hand will need to take on at least 100 more staff and look for more manufacturing capacity.

Just as Cyrus McCormack took a basic requirement and used simple mechanical skills to meet a clear human need Thompson have provided a small but quiet revolution to the way airlines can improve service, retain and build customer returns and sell Ulster engineering expertise worldwide.

It's no surprise Thompson Solutions are talking to many other major airlines and their passenger load configuration plans for the Airbus and Boeing fleets must be causing many airlines to re-consider the best way to use internal space.

DELTA Airlines
Delta have had a torrid time since 9/11 and emerged from bankruptcy and were re-launched only last May. Since then the shares have swung around the offer price but have seen a strong run this last month against a plunging market.



Associated Press said yesterday that Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Northwest Airlines (NWA) are getting closer to the much heralded merger agreement. Delta's board of directors is expected to meet during the next several days, according to their source, and a deal could be announced as early as next week. A Delta-Northwest merger would create the nation's largest carrier, with Delta boasting strength in the Atlantic region and Northwest holding sway over the Pacific. Delta has already stated, though, that its CEO and chairman would have to remain at the helm if it were to accept any merger deal, which might leave NWA chief Doug Steenland looking for a job.

MP's Office Managers Declaration of Interests.

Reading of the generosity of spirit of Mr Conway MP toward his family, it occurred to me, that if MP's employ staff paid with Public Funds without the normal tireseome procedures of advertising the position , receiving CV's, inetrviewing, ensuring fairness in selection on the gronds of age, sex, disability, vetting stated qualifications, medical history where appropriate, and interviewing. (Pic of recently bugged MP with his Office Manager - actually if you look carefully it is Toni Fabuloso working undercover as Lolla Palooza)

An MP could easily ( and quelle horreur) employ a spouse, mistress, relative, gigolo who (because of the exiguous funds available to the MP to pay his industrious and apparently overworked spouses, mistresses, relatives , gigolos) seek and obtain employment by extra employment. Moonlighting maybe, say, for the Welsh Whiskey Distillers and Barfitters Guild and Trade Association who might employ said spouse, mistress, relative, gigolo to travel to far flung exotic and expensive hotels to advise on , say, bar fittings, bed comfortableness or the correct ambience for sloshing out Welsh Whisky.

Perhaps even, the employees employer, Viz: The Rt.Hon or Hon Member might join them as bag carrier, note taker, bath runner, cocktail shaker ...

Just a thought.

Difficult to believe of course .... and of course embarassing, if say, the MP's flat or London pied a terre regularly received cases of , say, Welsh Whiskey or Bar Fittings to generously distribute amongst their friends, acquaintances, and maybe even their close family.

Must remember to ask Toni Fabuloso - she seems to know a few MP's Office Manageress's

E.ON announce their latest energy price rise - effective 12 hours notice

E.ON energise Sheffield children with powerful experience

Is the exciting news from their Press Office in a 100% authentic E.ON Press release today ... it goes on in the breathless, upbeat prose of the PR professional... "Children from Tinsley Junior School were given a chance to find out more this week about how renewable energy might be produced in the heart of Sheffield - at an exhibition at Tinsley Community Centre hosted by E.ON, one of the country's leading green generators." etc., etc., Makes you feel warm and fluffy hey?

Any Press Release 100% Official from E.ON about today's exciting new mesage about hummungous price rises for all their Mums, Dads, Grannies and Grad Dads ? Well...er... NO/

HOWEVER if you go to the website and go Home > Retail > click on Price Change in the rather confusing Right Hand bar you will find FAQ's and details of their price changes announced this morning - effective midnight. Yes, that's right. in 12 hours time...no we don't need to stick a gun to your head, this is open your wallet time sucker !

E.ON (they say with false modesty) is one of the last major energy suppliers to raise prices this year (brownie points all round there then). Prices rise 9.7% for electricity and 15% for gas because ...Wholesale gas prices have increased – by 60% for gas and 88% for electricity.

Prepayment meter customers price rises ( who pay a whopping premium) will be delayed until Spring (1 April 2008) to protect them during the winter months.... making virtue out of necessity as they have to visit to make the changes. - Hey ! it sounds as though we care.

They do have a range of very good FREE packages for energy saving ;

Free cavity wall and loft insulation
A PowerDown energy saving plug for use with desktop computers
A low energy table lamp
Two free low energy light bulbs
Two low voltage low energy halogen bulbs
We also offer a range of measures through our CaringEnergy

BUT you have to be over 70, make sure anybody you know hears about it, you don't have top be an E.ON customer..

Have OfGEM said anything ? Have they fuck. Hey it's a competitive market, so that's alright then.

Will OfGEM say anything ? Will they fuck, the supine useless bastards.

Bomb,Bomb,Bomb,Bomb, Afghanistan

February 4th USAF Airpower summary

An Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped guided bomb unit-38s on positions in Kandahar where improvised explosive devices were located.

In the areas of Gereshk and Sangin, a Royal Air Force GR-7 Harrier performed shows of force in order to deter enemy activities.

Unsurprisingly on both these missions ..."The JTAC reported the mission as a success."

Sixteen close-air-support (shoot 'em up) missions were flown as part of the ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.

Ten Air Force and RAF intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Afghanistan. Additionally, two RAF aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.

In total, coalition aircraft flew 63 close-air-support (shoot 'em up)missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom

2/4/2008 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- The 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing hosted four major media outlets, three print and one television, in an unprecedented media event here Jan. 30. The event was the first time major media outlets visited the base for one specific event.

Said Maj. Danielle "Burn" Willis, 22nd EFS F-16 pilot, to a media representative "The F-16 isn't just there to drop bombs. "

How many undersea Data Cables cut ?

Rense has sensational article suggesting up to 8 cables cut...

UPDATE : 14.30 GMT

The Galloping Beaver has a fascinating post which concentrates it appears with considerable knowledge on the unique facilites of the USS Jimmy Carter (remember the Carter Doctrine after the Iranians nabbed the Embassy staff inTehern ?) .

This is .."one hot piece of kit. It is the one submarine in the US fleet which is designated a Multi-Mission Platform and is purpose built to carry out a number of roles in special warfare, undersea surveillance and other really sneaky stuff."

This Hot wet split beaver then proposes .."If I were conducting an intercept operation requiring an undersea fiber-optic cable splice which I knew the cable operator would detect, I need a way to prevent that operator from detecting it. Create a diversion.

By disabling the cable, either by severing it underwater or creating a problem ashore, it gives me time to do my splice undetected in a location far away from the diversionary problem. When the cable operator says it will be days before a repair ship can get to it, that gives me plenty of time to get the job done and get out of the area."

Sounds plausible and well worth reading the background of the cold war ops when the US navy successfully read the the Soviet navy's Pacific Fleet headquarters comms when they tapped an undersea cable in the Sea of Okhotsk, which was discovered by the Soviets and another of the Kola Peninsula tapping into the Soviet Northern Fleet headquarters which remained undiscovered.

Commentator Boris also reflects that

It doesn't have to be in advance of any US action; it could just as easily be a relatively harmless way to test if it could be done should the need arise. Cutting those cables would empirically tell the [US] two several things: 1) the response time of the repairers; 2) the effects it has on the target region; 3) the adaptive mechanisms used to overcome it (rerouting signals through other networks = IDing new targets). The US has stated in the past they want the capability to "turn off" the internet or any global communication system.
Boris

Some folks tie this in, not with raining missiles down on the shopping Malls of Teheran but the much heralded ( 4 years in gestation)Teheran oil Bourse... which seems as much vapour ware as ever.

This has sevral interesting links which dig deeper into tinfoil territory;

http://williamolivertech.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/cable-cut-mania/
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=34493 - USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) and USS Maine (SSBN 741) (Blue and Gold) were awarded the Battle Efficiency "E" award for 2007 in ceremonies Jan. 17 and 18.
Richard Sauder @ http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/ConnectingTheDots.htm ... "By my count, we are probably dealing with as many as eight, maybe even nine, unexplained cut or damaged undersea cables within the last week, and not the mere three or four that most mainstream news media outlets in the United States are presently reporting. Given all this cable-cutting mayhem in the last several days, who knows but what there may possibly be other cut and/or damaged cables that have not made it into the news cycle, because they are lost in the general cable-cutting noise by this point. Nevertheless, let me enumerate what I can, and keep in mind, I am not pulling these out of a hat; all of the sources are referenced at the conclusion of the article; you can click through and look at all the evidence that I have. It's there if you care to read through it all.

1) one off of Marseille, France
2) two off of Alexandria, Egypt
3) one off of Dubai, in the Persian Gulf
4) one off of Bandar Abbas, Iran in the Persian Gulf
5) one between Qatar and the UAE, in the Persian Gulf
6) one in the Suez, Egypt
7) one near Penang, Malaysia
8) initially unreported cable cut on 23 January 2008 (Persian Gulf?)

He has a mass of links and appears to fully understand the technology ... and says quite reasonably ,"The hard reality is that we are now living in a world of irrational and violent policies enacted against the civilian population by multinational corporations, and military and espionage agencies the world over. We see the evidence for this on every hand. Only the most myopic among us remain oblivious to that reality." and provides this brillian tlink to "Ivy bells" the sea of Okhotsk jobby. A nust read. http://www.specialoperations.com/Operations/ivybells.html - see pic



All very interesting to those sort of people who find this sort of thing very intersting.

PS : Robert Pelton
Pelton was a low-level , red haired , communications specialist at the National Security Agency for 14 years. He left the NSA in 1980 and was arrested in 1985 and accused of selling secrets to the Soviets. He pleaded not guilty but was convicted in 1986 of two counts of espionage and one count of conspiracy. He was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences. One of the secrets Pelton passed to the Soviets was information that compromised "Operation Ivy Bells," a top-secret operation in which a listening device was attached to Soviet undersea communication lines to record Soviet communications. He collected US$35K from the Russians for his troubles.

Detroit just doesn't get the message do they ?

"A Classic Muscle Car Reborn "

Chrysler Vice Chairman and President Jim Press introduces the all-new 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 at the Chicago Auto Show, Wednesday, February 6, 2008. After a 35-year absence, the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 design stays true to Challenger heritage while delivering a host of modern amenities and technology, along with "race inspired, street legal" power and handling - The Challenger SRT8 has a suggested retail price of $37,995,

"The engine is the same 6.1-liter pushrod Hemi V8 you get in a Charger SRT-8. It's rated at 425 hp at 6,000 rpm and 420 lb-ft of torque at 4,800 rpm." ....Dodge says the combination is good for 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds, a quarter-mile run in 13 seconds flat and a top speed of 174 mph. (claimed 14 mpg per US gallon)

They made sure that the dumb fucks who buy these things know that it needs this stuff .. just don't tell them we are running out.

Data rape

Tom Griffin at Green Ribbon has further in formation about e-borders between Eire and UK.

This is frankly un fucking be-leivable. See previous post Friday, January 11, 2008 Stop 'n' search ? Why travellers in UK "may be asked to prove their identity " ... State terrists at work about the information he received on his original FOI request.

This has now been added to by an annex that was "missing " from their original response to his freedom of information request.

The volume and detail of information is huge (it must cover over 150 data fields see below) and as Spy Blog points out can be pointless and redundant..

What is the point of collecting information on, say, Requested Seat Number or Allocated Seat Number, when large numbers of passengers used cheap short haul airlines, which operate a first come, first seated policy, just like a bus?

How asks Spy Blog How is this demand for excessive data, at all compatible with the Data Protection Act 1998 Principles of Data Protection , which civilised countries have adopted ?

Essentially the answer is : Home Office bureaucrats are trying the same tricks and manipulation with United Kingdom internal travel to Northern Ireland, as they have disgracefully lobbied the European Union, to allow to complete Passenger Name Records to be handed over to the United States of America and other foreign Governments. which of course we short curcuited because her gracious Majesty by Order in Council decided we would see ;

Friday, July 27, 2007 EU-US Personal Flight Data Treaty signed - Uncle Sam needs to know what your meal preferences are If you fly to the USA from a UK airport her Majesty the Queen has passed an Order in Council that means that your Personal Flight Data will be transmitted to the US authorities. For details see Lord Patel's post on Wednesday January 31st 2007

Briefly. The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the 19th day of July 2005 with the advice of Her Privy Council had ordered.2006 No. 2316 / CIVIL AVIATIONThe Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2006 Made - - - - 5th September 2006 /Laid before Parliament 7th September 2006 / Coming into force - - 30th September 2006

At the Court at Balmoral, the 5th day of September 2006Present, The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty in CouncilHer Majesty, in exercise of the powers conferred upon Her by sections 60(1), (2)(b), (3)(h) and (4), 61(1)(a) and 102(2)(b) of, and paragraph 2 of Part 3 of Schedule 13 to, the Civil Aviation Act 1982(a), is pleased, by and with the advice of Her Privy Council, to order as follows: ... etc which means that 34 bits of data about you , name, address, sex, food preferences, credit card number, etc.,etc., will disappear of to the data vaults of uncle Sam ..... forever.

See also Spy Blog on this surrender. More from travel expert and privacy campaigner Edward Hasbrouck's Practical Nomad blog for more information.

This is just the passenger information required ..

Information which relates to passengers
2. The information is—
(a) the following information as provided on the passenger’s travel document—
(i) full name;
(ii) gender;
(iii) date of birth;
(iv) nationality;
(v) type of travel document held;
(vi) number of travel document held;
(vii) expiry date of travel document held; and
(viii) issuing State of travel document held;
(b) where a travel document is not held, the type of identification relied upon together with the number, expiry date and issuing State of that identification; and
(c) the vehicle registration number of any vehicle in which the passenger is travelling and which is being transported by ship or by aircraft or by through train or shuttle train and, if the vehicle has a trailer, the trailer registration number.

PLUS for Immigration purposes (take very deep breath..

1. The passenger and service information is the following details in respect of a passenger—
(a) name as it appears on the reservation;
(b) place of birth;
(c) issue date of travel document;
(d) address;
(e) sex;
(f) any contact telephone number;
(g) e-mail address;
(h) travel status of passenger, which indicates whether reservation is confirmed or provisional and whether the passenger has checked in;
(i) the number of pieces and description of any baggage carried;
(j) any documentation provided to the passenger in respect of his baggage;
(k) date of intended travel;
(l) ticket number;
(m) date and place of ticket issue;
(n) seat number allocated;
(o) seat number requested;
(p) check-in time, regardless of method;
(q) date on which reservation was made;
(r) identity of any person who made the reservation;
(s) any travel agent used;
(t) any other name that appears on the passenger’s reservation;
(u) number of passengers on the same reservation;
(v) complete travel itinerary for passengers on the same reservation;
(w) the fact that a reservation in respect of more than one passenger has been divided due to a change in itinerary for one or more but not all of the passengers;
(x) Code Share Details;
(y) method of payment used to purchase ticket or make a reservation;
(z) details of the method of payment used, including the number of any credit, debit or other card used;
(aa) billing address;
(bb) booking reference number, Passenger Name Record Locator and other data locator used by the carrier to locate the passenger within its information system;
(cc) the class of transport reserved;
(dd) the fact that the reservation is in respect of a one-way journey;
(ee) all historical changes to the reservation;
(ff) General Remarks;
(gg) Other Service Information (OSI);
(hh) System Service Information (SSI) and System Service Request information (SSR);
(ii) identity of the individual who checked the passenger in for the voyage or flight or international service;
(jj) Outbound Indicator, which identifies where a passenger is to travel on to from the United Kingdom;
(kk) Inbound Connection Indicator, which identifies where a passenger started his journey before he travels onto the United Kingdom;
(ll) the fact that the passenger is travelling as part of a group;
(mm) the expiry date of any entry clearance held in respect of the United Kingdom;
(nn) card number and type of any frequent flyer or similar scheme used;
(oo) Automated Ticket Fare Quote (ATFQ), which indicates the fare quoted and charged;
(pp) the fact that the passenger is under the age of eighteen and unaccompanied; and
(qq) where the passenger is a person under the age of eighteen and unaccompanied—
(i) age;
(ii) languages spoken;
(iii) any special instructions provided;
(iv) the name of any departure agent who will receive instructions regarding the care of the passenger;
(v) the name of any transit agent who will receive instructions regarding the care of the passenger;
(vi) the name of any arrival agent who will receive instructions regarding the care of the passenger;
(vii) the following details in respect of the guardian on departure—
(aa) name;
(bb) address;
(cc) any contact telephone number; and
(dd) relationship to passenger; and
(viii) the following details in respect of the guardian on arrival—
(aa) name;
(bb) address;
(cc) any contact telephone number; and
(dd) relationship to passenger.

There is something very badly wrong at OfGEM... The UK consumer is being suckered and they stand by and do nothing but bleat.

The Gas and Electricity Markets Authority (OfGEM) has powers and duties which are largely provided for in statute, principally the Gas Act 1986, the Electricity Act 1989, the Utilities Act 2000, the Competition Act 1998, the Enterprise Act 2002 and the Energy Act 2004, as well as arising from directly effective European Community legislation.

The Board, whose Executive Members consist of Ofgem’s Chief Executive and Managing Directors, oversee the activities of Ofgem.

Contrary to popular belief OfGEM do NOT regulate energy prices directly. They protect consumers (their 1st priority) by promoting competition and regulating the monopoly companies which run the gas and electricity networks.

By doing this they also help to ;
1. Secure Britain’s energy supplies
2. Ensure adequate investment in the networks, contributing to the drive to curb climate change and other work aimed at sustainable development by

A. Helping gas and electricity industries to achieve efficient environmental improvements

B. Help vulnerable customers, particularly the old and poor ( er .. low incomes) and disabled.

TRANSPARENCY Ho.Ho.Ho.

Under this heading on their website they claim," Ofgem endeavours to keep its operations transparent " - for example by :

1. Publishing the minutes of its Authority meetings
2. Have an open annual meeting of the Authority
3. Have full and thorough consultation in developing decisions (including the development of its corporate strategy).(They fail to say who they consult).

...er.... that's it

Therefore it is a little surprising that when the reader consults the media section of the OfGEM website ,under "Keynote speeches" , we find a single one, by CEO Alistair Buchanan at the World Energy Congress Dinner at the French Embassy in Rome on 10th November 2007. This starts..."Let me tell you a story about Jean – a man who lived in Paris." .. a bad joke at the expense of Trappist monks , one of several ....and they don't improve, the final one about suicide is in extraordinarily bad taste.

Anyway his final totally opaque message was ...( mystifyingly he talks of twins ) • First twin: “Vision plus delivery”.• Second twin: “Ambition with reality”. One is left with the impression that much electric soup had been consumed prior to and during the event.

Turning to the Press releases they are mix of the commonplace ..."Ofgem bids farewell to director of gas distribution" .. to the procedural .."All Britain's gas distribution network owners accept Ofgem's 2008-2013 price controls".

Which is odd.

The Financial Times under the headline "Setback for UK wind farm push" on Monday quoted " Andrew Wright, managing director of markets at Ofgem, the electricity regulator, told the Financial Times: “The Renewables Obligation is a very expensive way of providing support for renewables.” .. as did many other press / magazine / blog articles about the futility of ROC's as a method of directing energy investment.

The Herald (3rd Feb) - "Watchdog calls for faster grid hook-up for renewables" quotes without naming a human source "Ofgem, the energy watchdog, wants delays cut for Scottish renewable energy projects that are waiting to be connected to the national grid network......According to Ofgem, many renewable projects waiting for connections to the transmission system often face long delays in obtaining planning consent."

The BBC (2nd Feb)- "Renewables delivery under attack " quotes Ofgem again anonymously .." (OfGEM) also told BBC Radio 4's Costing The Earth programme (Grid Lock ? Thursday January 30 2008) that it believes the government is not listening to its calls for change. "

The report then continues to make some astonishing claims ..

"The main mechanism for delivering renewable energy in Britain is the government's Renewable Obligation Certificate Scheme, or Rocs.... Ofgem, administers this scheme for the government, but it told Costing The Earth, that Rocs is no longer fit for purpose.

Currently, the scheme is costing energy customers between £280 and £500 per tonne of carbon offset, at least five times the price of carbon on the European market.

Ofgem believes that the costs could be reduced significantly, but that the government is not prepared to change the scheme.

"We made these points in the government's most recent consultation and unfortunately they fell on deaf ears," says the regulator's director of networks, Steve Smith. (BBC listen again)

These attributable and non attributable remarks reflect the total absence of any official press statement when Ofgem met chancellor Alistair Darling in the W/E Jan 18th to discuss the energy market and the stunning price rises such as British Gas's 15% hike for gas - which followed Npower, who raised their electricity prices by 12.7% and gas by 17.2%, and EDF Energy, which shoved up electricity tariffs by 7.9% and gas bills by 12.9%.

Which, as Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg pointed out will hit Britain's poorest ... those "vulnerable" custiomers that OfGEM are there to help.

The poor spend a significantly larger proportion of their income on electricity than the rich (graph from the TaxPayers' Alliance report The Case Against Further Green Taxes):

In a January 26th 2007 BBC report "Energy price rises 'unjustified' " the reporter provides an anonymous remark that "Regulator Ofgem insists that the UK energy market is competitive."

This is outrageous, OfGEM is evidently not transparent, and there is no evidence that helps the vulnerable consumer at all - beyond making the bland and anonymous remark that ,"the UK energy market is competitive." and lying back and having it's tummy tickled by the French and German owners of the bulk of UK energy supplies.

ROC's
OfGEM administers the Renewable Obligation Certificates ( full explanation of the process here) by which the energy consumer pays through their bills to provide a subsidy to "sustainable" energy suppliers , wind, marine, hydro etc.,

This is done by auctioning off the electricity supplied to distributors and other energy supliers so that they meet the Government mandated level of sustainable energy in their product mix which was 3% in 2003, rising gradually to 10.4% by 2010, and 15.4% by 2015 and guaranteed in law until 2027 to provide the financiers with a nice warm fluffy feeling. This is administered by Non-Fossil Purchase Agency Ltd which was set up by the 12 Regional Electricity companies in England in 1990.

This is the scheme that the BBC report ... Ofgem, administers this scheme for the government, but it told Costing The Earth, that Rocs is no longer fit for purpose.

So far this scheme is costing the consumer some £600Mn a year and will rise to £3 Bn by 2020.

The FT article quoted above poitns out that ;

"ROC's, combined with bottlenecks in the planning system, mean these cash injections are enriching the operators of existing wind farms well beyond their expectations.... electricity .... from renewable sources has scarcely budged in recent years – 4.2 % - 2005 4.6% 2006, (latest figures available).

New wind capacity added in 2007 was less than 75% of that built the year before."

Last years Energy White Paper described ROC's as .." the “primary mechanism” for meeting its goals of reducing fossil fuel dependency."

Andrew Wright Andrew Wright, MD of Markets at Ofgem, says to the Press verbally : “The RO is a very expensive way of providing support for renewables.” and furthermore OfGEM told the FT that "wind farm owners could make more than £100 per megawatt hour." AS a guide British Energy realised price for lectricity generated by Nuclear Power was
Realised price (£/MWh) £ 38.4 in the 1st half of 07/08 and (£/MWh) £ 35.7 in 06/07.
Source half yr accounts.

Some people are making an awful lot of money via ROC's... and the more delays there are to producing alternative energy, the more they make ..MOD objections , planning , ( it would pay wind farm owners to fund objectors) and OFGEM are doing fuck all about it.. certainly not

"Help(ing) vulnerable customers, particularly the old and poor ( er .. low incomes) and disabled"

There are 4 non Exec members of OFGEM .. one is an interesting chappie who must have a few pals in the industry....

John Wybrew

Having served as Executive Director for Corporate Affairs and Planning on the boards of the successor companies of British Gas since 1996, ending with National Grid Transco plc, John Wybrew now has a range of interests including Chairmanship of the new Sector Skills Council (Energy and Utility Skills) and Chairmanship of the British Energy Association.

Previously, John worked for the Shell Group for more than 30 years and spent seven years on the board of Shell UK, the second largest Shell operating company. During the late 1980s, he also served a three year secondment with the Prime Minister's Policy Unit, advising on energy and transport policies.

The Chairman is John Mogg, smart guy. this is what the FT reported August 23 2006

"Sir John Mogg is keen to guard against complacency when it comes to the country’s gas supplies. But, in an interview with the Financial Times, the Ofgem chairman said he was “much more confident” of the UK having enough gas to get through the coming winter and was hopeful that gas prices would come down next year."

here is a fascinating graph of global gas costs.


Plainly he, and the staff at OfGEM haven't a fucking clue of

a: What is happening in UK energy markets.
b: What to do about it.

UPDATE Thursday 7/2/08 Independent. Millions paying over the odds to energy suppliers Again , another non attributeable quote ..." Ofgem, the energy regulator, estimates that customers could save £1bn a year by switching to cheaper deals.." ... and no Press releases on the website. The Scotsman quotes OfGEM to similiar effect in Scotland.

Pic from St Edmondsbury Cathedral, Suffolk who will receive a £250,000 heritage Grant for help with refurbishing stained Glass. Just announced.

Case Notes - Important BBC 4 Documentary reporting some success in Hospital Acquired Infections.

Case Notes is a BBC4 documentary programme presented by Dr Mark Porter who delves every week into what the medical profession does and doesn't know. This week he turned his attention to Hospital Acquired Infections. Like all Case Notes programmes it was informative, authoritative and is also available online as a repeat for 7 days, as a a full Transcript or as as Podcast.

This week the programme addressed what the Press like to call "Superbugs" -

"Hospital acquired infections - like ... MRSA and Clostridium difficile - are rarely out of the headlines these days. So how worried should we be? And what can you, and your hospital do, to reduce the risk? " the programme asked and provided an excellent and encouraging reponse.

Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) were a problem first brought to a wider public attention when the Audit Commission led by the brilliant forensic mind of Sir John Bourn reported, not on the clinical problems but the costs of the lamentable record of people entering hospital for a cure and ending up with an infectious and sometimes fatal illness. In its original February 2000 report, the NAO noted that hospital-acquired infections (HAI) were (then) costing the NHS around £1 billion a year and resulting in at least 5,000 deaths - which broadly coincided with the experience in US hospitals.

A progress report issued 4 years later on Wednesday 14th July 2004 delivered the shocking news that the Department of Health’s mandatory MRSA reporting system had revealed an 8% increase in the number of Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections from 17,933 in 2001-02 to 19,311 in 2003-04. Of these, about 40% were MRSA, making the UK’s rate among the worst in Europe.

At the time Sir John Bourn said:

" .... I am concerned that, four years on from my original report, the NHS still does not have a proper grasp of the extent and cost of hospital-acquired infection in trusts.

"The war against hospital-acquired infection must be pursued on many different fronts: ranging from tackling the factors which inhibit good practice, including a more robust approach to antibiotic prescribing and hospital hygiene, though instituting a system of mandatory surveillance, to persuading all NHS staff to take responsibility for, and contribute towards, effective infection control."

It is unnerving that a well run, well funded, well staffed inner city hospitals of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust are still, 7 years on struggling manfully to control this problem.

In the programme Mark Porter talks to Dr David Jenkins ,the Director of Infection Prevention and Control, Andy Powell, Head of Facilities and Caroline Trevithick, Lead Infection Control Nurse about their plans.

Preventing entry of infected patients by swabbing for MRSA before admission, annual deep cleaning (see pic) to help keep the hospital environment clean and rigorous hand washing procedures to prevent cross contamination between health workers and patients, and visitors have all been introduced as well as isolation of infected patients. There has also been an intensive and combined programme with GP's and hospital clincians to control the use and types of antibiotics routinely used for routine treatment of infections.

University Hospitals of Leicester produce a very good well illustrated leaflet - Understanding and Preventing Infections - Answers to the most common questions patients ask about two of the most talked about ‘superbugs’, MRSA and Clostridium Difficile). Downloadable PDF (!) (1.46 MB)(also available in 6 languages in printed format)

Mark Porter asked Dr Jenkins how he saw the situation at Leicester in terms of battling C.difficile and MRSA?

JENKINS .."It's early days yet because we have had a problem with C.difficile in Leicester.... our numbers now are the lowest for many years, in fact lower than they were before this new strain (the 027 strain of C.difficile ) came along. Clearly this is something we do need to keep an eye and we're certainly not complacent about that."

".... the government set a target for halving MRSA bloodstream infections by the end of March. At the moment we're on track for 70% reduction, so over performing from that point of view."

Studies in the developed world have now clearly identified the costs and consequences, of MRSA. In the UK, the National Audit Office (NAO), an organisation with no direct health responsibilities it must be noted, are the people who have been instrumental in driving changes, essentially for economic, not clinical reasons. To the direct costs must be added the consequences of claims for damages - Lesley Ash (pic) the popular TV actres has just won a reported £5Mn. settlement for crippling MRSA infection.

Paradoxically, as a result of more rigorous definitions, improved reporting, and defined responsibilities for infection control in hospitals it is evident that the problem is larger and more pervasive in UK hospitals than initial studies had indicated.

For example it was only 3/4 years ago that the scale of the Clostridium difficile levels of infections and fatalaties became apparent , even to health workers at all levels and Infection Control staff - whose function has now become critical in managing clinical success in the way it is now calculated and reported.

The Press have been assiduous in promoting the happy story that anxious patients and relatives wringing their hands in grief have been replaced by nursing staffs educated in hand washing.

Probably if there was a Royal College of Hospital Cleaners, anxious to protect their members interests, such a simple solution identifying the prime cause of sloppy cleaning, might not be promoted with such zeal. Nor expensive and largely pointless "deep cleaning" ... whose presence and signage suggests more a desire to provide public re-assurance rather than any meaningful medical benefit.

The story from Leicester (Whose University is the leading and most progressive Department in treating patients rather than illness) is one of modest success, naturally no hospital would take part if they couldn't display such effort, energy, directed zeal and demonstrable results.

That's the Good News - but there is plenty of bad News.

There were different results from a BBC programme which focussed on just one hospital trust in early 2004.

BBC reporter Danielle Glevin went undercover in May 2004 in the Kent and Sussex Hospital to report a scandalous story .

In the resulting programme Hugh Pennington an eminent consultant microbiologist (He led a public inquiry into the 2005 E. coli outbreak in South Wales) said it was a dirty hospital.."the worst I've ever seen" . Rose Gibb the Chief Executive of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust responded "The hospital has cleaning problems".

There were subsequently two major outbreaks in their 3 hospitals of Clostridium difficile - 150 patients were affected between October and December 2005.

In a second outbreak from April to September 2006 285 patients were affected.

A report from health watchdog, the Healthcare Commission in October 2007 (3.5 years after the BBC programme) , concluded that infection by Clostridium difficile probably or definitely killed at least 90 patients and was a factor in the deaths of a further 241 in 3 Hospitals (Maidstone Hospital, Kent and Sussex Hospital, Pembury Hospital) run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Hospital Trust . Kent Police and the Health and Safety Executive are now examining the report.

CEO Ms Rose Gibb ( a qualified nurse), resigned a day ahead of the publication of the report with an award of a years salary (£150,000), half of that has been paid despite the Health Minister Johnson's attempt to stop it and she is claiming for the balance of £75,000.

There are similiar problems reported recently in Suffolk Scotland and Northern Ireland
and Stoke Mandeville.

Stoke Mandeville Hospital was investigated by the HSE after a Healthcare Commission (HC) report claimed that there were “serious failings” in the hospital’s response to Clostridium difficle infection infecting 334 and killing 33 patients between October 2003 and June 2005. The HSE decided that they were unable to bring criminal proceedings against the trust due to a lack of “admissable evidence”.

...and Finally

Preliminary Health Protection Agency figures released this week show the most remarkable reduction in Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) in England.

The latest Clostridum difficile figures, show that there was a 21% decrease to 10,734 cases in patients aged 65 years and over in England, for Q3 2007 (July – September) down from 13,699 in the previous Q2 2007(April – June) and 16% / 2,087 cases down on Q2 2006.

For patients 2 -62 , 2,496 cases were reported in the Q3 2007 (July – September) a 14% drop on the Q2 2007 (April – June).

The latest figures on MRSA bloodstream infections show that there were 1,072 cases reported in England during Q3 ( July/ September) 2007. This represents an 18% decrease on the previous quarter (April to June) when 1,304 reports were received. (HPA Press Release)

Whilst these dramatic reductions have raised a few eyebrows, indicating a massive level of success in 3 months not obtained in the previous 7 years, ther has been, at last some demonstrable success in the fight against HAI.... first raised as a problem 8 years ago by an Accountant.

England RFU - Welcome to rugby as played by the United Nations

The absurd plan of the slick, fast talking marketing men to bastardize the notion of national Rugby Union teams gathers pace.

26 year old New Zealander Shontayne Hape could soon be pulling on the jersey with the Red Rose.The Bradford Bulls star has agreed terms with Premiership club Northampton subject only to the granting of a work permit - he would apparently qualify to play for England on residency grounds.

The 26-year-old joined Bradford in 2003 from the Warriors after falling out with the New Zealand club following his rehabilitation from a horrific knee injury.

Hape formed a devastating combination at Bradford with the new England star Vainikolo who turned out on Saturday in their dire defeat at the hands of wales at Twickenham.

Dogged by injuries , another player past his sell by date, with major fitness problems, cashing in (quite sensibly) on the insane selection policies of a desperate national coach.

How soon before the TV schedulers realise that there is no market for these mongrelised teams ?

Klaus Reidel Mittelschule - Operation Paperclip and celebrating weapons scientists in Germany and the USA - even the Moon

The V2 kindergarten: British fury as Germans name school after maker of WWII terror rocket screams the headline in the Daily Mail today.

Klaus Riedel worked on the V2 rockets at Peenemunde over 50 years ago (he died in 1944 in a car crash, 2 days before his 37th birthday, before the war ended) and his name has been just been attached by the burghers of Bernstadt auf dem Eigen, Saxony (in what as E.Germany), where the Middle School was renamed the Klaus Riedel School in his honour ... er .. in September 2007. He was a pupil at the school in Bernstadt where he was brought up on his grandmother's farm after he was orphaned at the age of 14. The town erected a memorial dedicated to him in 1993 and a museum that celebrates his work as a rocket engineer and apparently in 1970 someone named a crater on the Moon in his memory - it is a lunar impact crater on the Dark Side of the Moon, NNE of Karrer crater and due S of the Leavitt crater.

The desire to rename the school after him has been the subject of a 3 year long campaign by the town and mayor of Bernstadt , Gunter Lange. It has also been the subject of crticism led by Astrid Günther-Schmidt, a member of the Saxony state parliament for the Greens . The town website is evdently very proud of their native son and also its MittelSchule which has it's own website.

Riedel developed what was initially the "Aggregat 4" -- but was subsequently better known as the "Vergeltungswaffe 2," or V-2, a title chosen by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels -- in joint experiments together with fellow rocket pioneers Hermann Oberth and Wernher von Braun. The V-2 can be regarded as the archetype of all subsequent civil space rockets -- as well as all long-range military missiles.

Reidl was apparently never in the SS unlike Werner von Braun, who was snapped up by the Americans in Operation Paperclip and masterminded the US post war development in rocketry, ICBM's and ultimately moon landing.

Ernst Steinhoff, survived the war and was like Braun virtually kidnapped by the US. He had been the guidance department chief at Hitler's V-1 and V-2 test facility at Peenemunde in northern Germany. Once brought to the U.S., the Nazi rocketeers test range moved to New Mexico and the White Sands Proving Ground. One hundred copies of Hitler's V-2 and over 100 former Nazi rocket scientists created the U.S. space program.

Sternhoff went on to work in the aerospace industry on the west coast and eventually
returned to New Mexico when he was appointed to a high position at Holloman AFB.

Sternhoff's daughter did not learn about the Nazi holocaust or of her father's wartime role, until she was 18 years old. When she approached her mother asking if it was true, her mother said it was necessary and retrieved an old Readers Digest article to explain her side of the story.

The Nazi rocket program in Germany killed tens of thousands of Jews, French Resistance fighters, Communists, homosexuals, and prisoners of war, who were all used as slave labor to build Hitler's V-1 and V-2 rocket program. (For more information about this story read Secret Agenda by Linda Hunt.) According to Germany's Federal Agency for Civic Education, around 12,000 people were killed directly by the rockets and their onton explosive payload, mainly in London and Antwerp.

Ernst Steinhoff was inducted in the New Mexico Museum of Space History, P O Box 5430, Alamogordo, New Mexico 88311-5430 ... er .... Klaus Reidel was also inducted there in 1976.

You can find some fascinating history about what Steinhoff did at Peenemunde here .

Steinhoff's brother was on German submarines in the war and eventually he joined his brother, and it it was through this connection that the first submarine launched missiles were developed in the US.

Pic is of prisoners at work in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp -- one of the cruellest in the Third Reich -- where more than 20,000 internees / prisoners had to work on the mass production of the complex V2 mechanisms.

More - Peenemünde Historical Technical Information Center, Peenemunde

MOD / FCO lose data on a stick - prime Minister lied to House of Commons about plans for military training camp for Taliban in Musa Qala

Independent today Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan

Gordon Brown The Prime Minister made a statement to the UK Parliament on 12 th December 2007 : "Our objective is to defeat the insurgency by isolating and eliminating their leaders. We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."Hansard 12 Dec 2007 : Column 303

He was tackled about this by David Cameron ..."Press headlines say clearly that the Government plan to talk to the Taliban, but the Prime Minister said in his statement that “we will not” talk to “these people ..... can the Prime Minister clear this up and tell us what he will do to investigate how this took place?"

In response the Prime Minister reiterated ..."Let me repeat what I said in my statement—that our aim is to isolate and eradicate the Taliban insurgency and to isolate the leadership. We are not negotiating with the leadership and we do not propose to do so." Hansard 12 Dec 2007 : Column 310

ooops ..... Having mislaid a memory stick - the contents of which have been revealed by The Independent - they can now publish today, evidence that the UK Gubment were actively in detailed discussions directly with the Taliban leaders , plans to build a Taliban training camp outside Musa Qala, in Helmand, for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan, as part of a top-secret deal to make them swap sides, intelligence sources in Kabul have revealed. The plans were discovered on a memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December and involved a UK plan to use bands of reconciled Taliban, called Community Defence Volunteers, to fight the remaining insurgents.

The Afghan government claims they prove British agents were talking to the Taliban without permission from the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, despite Gordon Brown's contrary claim.

The British Government (apparently) insist President Karzai's office knew what was going on. But Mr Karzai has expelled two top diplomats amid accusations they were part of a plot to buy-off the insurgents.

The Independent go on to claim that President Karzai's political mentor, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, endorsed a death sentence for blasphemy on the student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh last week, and two British contractors have been arrested in Kabul on, it is claimed, trumped up weapons charges. The developments are seen as a deliberate defiance of the British.

The (un-encrypted and therefore easily read files) computer memory stick at the centre of the row was impounded by officers from Afghanistan's KGB-trained National Directorate of Security after they moved against a party of international diplomats who were visiting Helmand.The computer stick contained a three-stage plan, called the European Union Peace Building Programme. The third stage covered military training.

The memory stick revealed that $125,000 (£64,000) had been spent on preparing the camp and a further $200,000 was earmarked to run it in 2008, an Afghan official said. The figures sparked allegations that British agents were paying the Taliban.

A ministry insider said: "When they were arrested, the British said the Ministry of the Interior and the National Security Council knew about it, but no one knew anything. That's why the President was so angry."

The Western delegates, Michael Semple and Mervyn Patterson, were given 48 hours to leave the country on Christmas Day. (See Lord Patel Dec 26th)Their Afghan colleagues, including a former army general, were jailed. The expulsions coincided with a row within the Taliban's ranks which saw a senior commander, Mansoor Dadullah, sacked for talking to British spies. One official claimed the camp was planned for Mansoor and his men.

Afghan government staff also claimed the "EU peace-builders" had handed over mobile phones, laptops and airtime credit to insurgents. They said the memory stick revealed plans to train the Taliban to use secure satellite phones, so they could communicate directly with UK officials.

It is claimed that the British Ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, cut short his Christmas holiday to meet President Karzai and "spell out the Foreign Office paper-trail" which diplomats claim proves his government had agreed. They met twice, Mr Semple and Mr Patterson left the country.

The Independent provide this timeline ;
* December 11

British and Afghan troops take Musa Qala, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand, after President Hamid Karzai reveals that a senior Taliban commander swapped sides.

* December 23-24

The acting head of the EU mission, Michael Semple, and the third-ranking UN diplomat in Afghanistan, Mervyn Patterson, hold talks with local dignitaries and Taliban sympathisers in Helmand. Afghan secret police arrest their colleague, General Stanikzai, and seize a memory stick containing plans for training camps.

* December 25

Semple and Patterson are given 48 hours in which to leave Kabul and leave 48 hours later.

Perhaps they should get back to messengers carrying messages in a forked stick.

Lengthy, detailed piece about this over at Moon over Alabama with excellent and informed comment.

This is what a bomber looks like after blowing himself up killing a woman and wounding some 40 other people

Two teenagers walk fifty miles, with explosive vests, to the heavily guarded town of Dimona isolated in the middle of the Negev desert, home for the workers of the veryecret Dimona Nuclear weapons factory and reactor. They target a bunch of Bulgarian workers. The second teen decides to wait, maybe listening to a Hana Montana CD, he sees Israeli soldiers coming, their eyes meet, Abdul's finger goes for the detonator, but Magen David Adom** unit commander Chief -Superintendant Kobi Mor is faster on the draw. ( **"Red Shield of David" -recognized since June 2006 by the International Committee of the Red Cross as the national aid society of the state of Israel under the Geneva Conventions, and a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

All of the 40 casualties were taken to Beersheba's Soroka University Medical Center, almost 30 minutes away despite superb hospital facilites in Dimona.

Go here for the detals of this simulated suicidalist and his amazing journey.

PS : In a speech to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva yesterday UK Defence Secretary (and Part Time Scottish Secretary) Des Browne today offered to host a conference of all five recognised nuclear weapon states to address the difficult technical challenges of verifying nuclear disarmament.

"These challenges require a global solution" ... but not so challenging that itis worth inviting Israel along to participate.

See You Tube video here and here also a You Tube Fox news report which states that Dimona is the site of Israel's Nuclear reactor. Also a Jerusalem Post video here . BBC video here

Update now the bombers are said to have come from Hebron in the West Bank (corr. fromLeft bank) not from Gaza.

The Press had a gaggle at the White House (text here) with Ms. Peroxide ..

Q Your statement issued yesterday, announcing, "The U.S. strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Dimona, Israel," it mentions not a word that Dimona is the production site of Israel's nuclear weapons. And my question: Why was there no mention of this important fact?

MS. PERINO: We are focusing on the fact that an innocent person was killed by a terrorist. I think that was the more important part of that statement.

Well done that un - named journo. Evidently not Rick Gannon.

Willie Nelson - the lies of 9/11, Bush will cancel the election and stay in office, Bilderberg ... Colin Powell exposed lying to UN

Willie Nelson made some startling comments on the Alex Jones show about what really happened on 9/11.

Amongst his others comments-- an inkling that the twin towers' collapse looking like a controlled demolition and that WTC Building 7 was an unexplained collapse.

Nelson also discussed the dangers of martial law and the possibility that Bush would cancel the elections and remain in office. Willie also commented on the ruling elite, including the Bilderberg group. Nelson said he liked Jones' Endgame, a film that features the Bilderberg group's 2006 Ottawa, Canada meeting.




Just another part in the ...

Here's another section - read this excerpt of Neck Deep : The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush by Robert, Sam and Nat Parry about the catalogue of lies that Colin Powell told the UN , the catalogue of lies you saw Colin Powell tell UN .... that he knew and his Chief of Staff Col. Larry Wilkerson knew was a catalogue of lies, that the head of the CIA George Tenet knew was a cataogue of lies.

If you want to read what Powell said in detail read the White House contemporary report here.

Charles Clarke and advice to police forces on recording telephone conversations, fucking lying Sir Ian Blair and Chief Inspector of Constabulary

The BBC reported on 13 March 2006 that Sir Ian Blair had tape recorded telephone conversations with the well known war criminal Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, a journalist and the Independent Police Complaints Commission and that he had "expressed regret" for the calls and apologised.

Apparently Sir Iain had earlier said he taped Lord Goldsmith's call as he had wanted a record because they were discussing a complex issue and he did not have a note taker.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the chief inspector of constabulary is to issue guidance to police forces on the recording of telephone conversations "so there can be no ambiguity".

Sadiq Khan was allegedly bugged meeting Babar Ahmad, a constituent and friend, imprisoned in Woodhill prison Bucks. since 2003 and who who faces extradition from Britain to America on terrorism charges , during two visits in 2005 and 2006 .The exact dates do not appear to have been published but the first visit was before Khan was elected in 2005 as an MP..

It makes one wonder what happened to the guidance from the chief inspector of constabulary on the recording of telephone conversations "so there can be no ambiguity"... if it was ever issued. Throughout the period in question it was of course Sir Ronnie "Alzheimers" Flanagan who was appointed on 1 April 2002 as Her Majesty' Inspector of Constabulary.

Cannot imagine he can remember anything about it, great man for ambiguity, yer man Flanagan , especially when it comes to the very, very, very, hazy subject of bent coppers , state paid terrists, murder, lies, deceit, dishonesty and looking after yer pals in the MASONS.

UPDATE : Tuesday 7.00 am BST It appears that British police under the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), can undertake such bugging on the instruction of a Chief Constable. Mr Ahmad is of course a smart guy and was probably fully aware that walls have ears - and evidently nothing was said that would cause offence or result in prosecution for one.

PS : This Draft Code of Practice laid before Parliament in June 2007 may apply and be the result of Charly Clarke's ideas about issuing guidance."Complaints about improper acquisition and disclosure of communications data may be reported to the Interception of Communications Commissioner who may then refer the case to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal " which is what Jack "War Criminal" Straw has done - although in Mr Ahmad's case it was not strictly "communications data - i.e telephone, e-mail etc., Hence the RUPI get out of jail card free defence.

Consulting a senior advisor on security matters - Gypsy Petulengro ....nothing is going to happen.

Air France - first European airline to offer mobile texting / e-mails

Passengers on a single Air France Airbus 318 that flits about Europe willl some time in the next 6 months be able to do something since December 20th that only passengers on hi-jacked airplanes could do on 9/11/01 .

Modern technology , the miracle of, has taken six years since , to enable Air France, with the help of OnAir (Geneva based joint venture of Sirbus and SITA - see FAQ's ) to ;

• Send and receive sms and mms messages
• Send and receive emails via all phones with Internet access

In a six month trial - which will later be expanded to enable (up to 12 at a time) passengers to make and receive GSM phone calls, with the service being regulated to maintain passengers’ comfort and wellbeing.

The Mobile OnAir onboard mobile telephony system, certified by EASA (European
Aviation Safety Authority) can only be used cruising altitude above 10,000 feet once the new illuminated sign “Switch off your phone” signs are turned off.

OnAir has roaming agreements with mobile network operators, including the three
major operators in France: Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR.

The system operates by the users phone signal being collected by an on board picocell - this then transmits data and calls to a satellite that routes them to a ground station which then routes them to passenger’s usual telephone network. The passenger simply dials the required number but also uses a country code prefix and is charged in the normal way as an international call.

You can (if you are lucky and patient) access an Air France video of the trial of in-flight mobile services that were made on the inaugural commercial flight from Paris to Warsaw here.

Which is all very interesting because quiet, shy , retiring Mr O'Leary announced Ryanair announced plans for a joint venture with OnAir (a joint venture Airbus and SITA.)to install the system on its entire fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft beginning mid-2007. (Shome mishtake shirley ?) No. NO mistake.

"Ryanair's passengers will be able to call, text and email using their mobile phones, BlackBerrys and Treos at rates which will mirror international roaming charges," the airline said... er .. in August ...er....2006. Apparently you can expect an announcement real soon now but meanwhile profits are down 29%. he announces today .... the shares have dived from over 30% in the last 3 months from over €5 to €3.18 early today. (Note that tucked away in his dire financial statements today is "Tests with onboard mobile phones should start in April,".. er that's ...er. tests .. and it doesn't say which year.) Don't hold yer breath.

Probably the bumptious little twat is clenching his buttocks as the newly married President of France and his beautiful and sensitive wife , who hauled in their lawyers when Ryanair used their image without permission in some of his dodgy advertising which constantly breaches Advertising standards. Ryanair will be facing some monstrous legal costs. Ho.Ho.Ho.

Those who welcome the sight of Mr O' leary eating his words might like to access the news section of the Ryanair website ..."Ryanair Responds to Legal Action from President Sarkozy & Ms Carla Bruni"

Mr Sarkozy and his blushing bride through, no doubt extremely expensive lawyers ask for an undertaking to cease and desist and modest damages of €500,000.

Admirers of the irritating little twat will be amused to see not only that he insults the President by offering €5,000 to any charity of Ms Bruni’s choice and separately the same amount to a charity of the Presiden't choice, with a grovelling apology for any offence caused, and undertaking that it would not publish the advert (or anything similar to it) .

The cheapjack little shit, does this (through lawyer Francis Taitgen) without any offer to pay the costs of the President's lawyers and then proceeds to compound his incivility by an insulting reference to supermodel Carla, saying that Ryanair notes that Ms Bruni did not make any objection to any of the remaining thousands of photographs of her which have appeared in over 55,000 newspapers and magazines in recent weeks.

Peter Sherrard for Ryanair compounds the insult and says the company will vigorously oppose any claim for €500,000 from this lady who had engaged in one of the most open, publicised and internationally reported relationships, in the world, in recent weeks. Oblivious it appears that they have hi-jacked the fragrant and beautiful lady's image and her marriage made in heaven, for his employer's squalid and juvenile methods of boosting public interest in their budget airline ... which also makes dishonest claims about the services the offer for mobile phone using passengers.

One can only hope that Sarkozy's expensive brief takes the arsehole O'Leary to the cleaners. ... along with his juvenile website jokes (adults only).

UPDATE : Itersting article about Ryanair and their results from a European perspective in Der Spiegel They quote the diminutive Oirish turd .."O'Leary agrees: "We are still growing like gangbusters. There is an almost insatiable demand for low-fare air travel."...

"Ryanair is better positioned than its competitors. The global aviation industry is flying into the worst turbulence in the past six years, but the Irish airline has achieved enough scale to weather the storm. Indeed, its strategy is to expand its way out of recession by slashing fares, stimulating demand, and opening new routes. Ryanair, which now carries more than 50 million passengers a year, plans to double its fleet, passengers, and profits by 2012. "Ryanair has the strongest business model of any European airline," Citigroup says in a Feb. 4 report, citing the carrier's lower-cost advantage, growth prospects, and strong balance sheet."

Unpleasant bastard but a very smart businessman ....so far."So what could clip Ryanair's wings? Oil. Hedging in the energy markets locked in Ryanair's oil price at $65 a barrel this fiscal year, but the airline is largely unprotected for next year. Fuel accounts for more than one-third of the company's operating costs, and each $1 movement in oil above $65 adds $21 million in annual costs..."..."For the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2007, Ryanair's aftertax profits plummeted 27 percent, to $52 million (€35 million), less than the $65 million that most analysts predicted. " ... not much leeway there then.

Department of the Bleedin' Obvious - Amazing Pictures

11 million 60 year olds and over will benefit from off peak (9.30am - 11pm weekdays anytime weekends and Bank Holidays) free use of their new England-wide travel pass from April 1st 2008 in the new scheme to pump £212 million a year into train and bus operators.

Shagger Prescott's ex girl friend, beautiful, blonde, Blair Babe, Rosie Winterton has just been on the blower to tell us that her Department For Transport (DfT in the new lingo) commissioned Tickbox.net to ask 1,094 old gits (including disabled) from their 50,000 member panel (win £500 Argos vouchers!) on 6th - 13th December in a carefully and scientifically structured survey what they thought about this wizard scheme.

The results were startling.

91% of the sample support the move to a free England-wide bus pass !!!

That is before Rosie launches the exciting NEW £1.5 Mn publicity campaign.

Contact your local pass provider or visit http://www.direct.gov.uk/buspass

Public Enquiries: 020 7944 8300
Department for Transport Website: http://www.dft.gov.uk/

PS : the exciting NEW publicity, will feature a "Destination Anywhere" bus stop signs. Apart from being the title of Bon Jovi's second Album it is also the name of a "Luxury Independent Travel Specialist" whose website is http://www.destinationanywhere.co.uk/

Energy prices, Inflation and Denial - an ane auld song

Energy Prices, Inflation and Denial by Euan Mearns on February 3, 2008 - The Oil Drum (click to enlarge)

"Higher energy prices are feeding through to rampant consumer energy price inflation. And yet the authorities and many investment houses still see energy prices falling in the future. This naive view of global energy supplies is starving energy markets of the capital required to expand conventional and alternative energy supplies."

read on ....

..remembering what King of the Bank said at the Mansion House 16th June 2007...

"Our central view remains that inflation will fall back this year as the rises in domestic gas and electricity prices last year drop out of the annual comparison, and the recent cuts in prices feed through to household bills."

Furphy

Discovering a new word is not unusual, rarely exciting. A furphy, also commonly spelt furfie, n. slang (Aus) for a rumour, or an erroneous or improbable story has a remarkable origin but evidently is a neologism used to describe a common human activity.

The word is derived from water carts made by a company established by John Furphy: J. Furphy & Sons of Shepparton, Victoria. Many Furphy water carts were used to take water to Australian Army personnel during World War I. The carts, with "J. Furphy & Sons" written on their tanks, became popular as gathering places where soldiers could exchange gossip, rumours and fanciful tales.

Originally it was synonymous with "rumour" and "scuttlebutt", but the modern meaning (especially in Australian politics) is "an irrelevant or minor issue raised to specifically divert attention away from the real issue".

"Scuttlebutt" has a similar etymology, a scuttlebutt originally being a cask of drinking water on a ship.

Also what now we call "water cooler" stories.

Nothing new under the sun and J. Furphy & Sons established in 1864, is still a family owned metal bashing business (5th generation) and still operated from Shepparton, Victoria.

Three synonyms and all based on the human need for water, companionship and gossip.

Another Balkan tragedy in the making

The Daily Telegraph report on the Serbian Presidential elections ;

Serbs are flocking to polling stations to vote in a knife-edge presidential election that has effectively become a referendum on whether the country should choose the European Union or Russia as its closest ally.

Which is total bollocks. resident Boris Tadic, and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica have thrown in their lot with the Russians with the South Stream agreement and vice versa.

Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party, may want much closer links with Moscow. Moscow is not anxious to have such a maverick, militaristic war monger as an ally.

Neither do the vast bulk of Serbians, who whatever their grievances are fed up with war and see no benefits with alliance with the West, EU, NATO who spent 79 days bombing the shit out of them from 20,000 feet.

Tadic will win. (UPDATE Monday He did by 51%) Which is what both Russia and EU / NATO / USUK want. The result will be very close and the SRS will hit the streets complaining of vote rigging. theer will be claim and counterclaim.

If after this the Western allies and the EU allow the Kosovan Albanians to declare independence and the EU / NATO / USUK send in troops to hold the ring, we will find another continuing bitter, bloody struggle which will soak up men , material and treasure in which Srpska radikalna stranka, (SRS), Српска радикална странка will foment ethnic conflict which will undoubtedly spread. We may even catch fleeting glimpses of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic again as they rally their bloodthirsty soldiery, funded from god knows where.

To send in their troops EU / NATO / USUK must obtain a UN Security Council resolution - although they didn't bother when they held Milosevic at Rambouillet and failed to force him to sign his death warrant.

Russia (and it's placemen in NY) have however played their energy cards very shrewdly and there is little chance of an early or satisfactory resolution. Ditto Iran.

UPDATE Monday : See der Spiegel article "Kostunica is in coalition with Tadic's Democratic Party (DS) yet he refused to back Tadic in the presidential election, and he has insisted that if Kosovo declares independence, and this is recognized by the EU, then Belgrade should abandon its bid for EU membership."...".some analysts predicting that a snap election will be called as soon as Kosovo declares independence."

Chiquita - A search warrant that nobody can find - obstruction of justice by DOJ ? "Torture memo" memories cloud folks memories

On Monday, January 28, 2008 we posted - Chiquita Brands have a very bad year - and have stopped paying protection to Colombian para militaries . This detailed how the company had to pay a US$25 Mn. fine when it was disclosed that Chiquita and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers had aid about US $1.7 million through a Columbian subsidiary (now sold of) , called Banadex for protection between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia--AUC) - which was designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization in September 2001.

As a consequence a little known, complicated, technical matter ,of a search warrant issued on March 24, 2004, at Chiquita's corporate headquarters in Cincinnati has become the subject of forensic attention.

The case against Chiquita was brought jointly by officials in the Justice Department's main headquarters and the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Roscoe Howard Jr. Roscoe Howard and Daniel Seikaly, head of the criminal division in Howard's office (both now partners in Troutman Sanders DC) asked for the warrant in order to search for enough evidence to charge certain executives at Chiquita.

Now 3 years later following a story in Corporate Counsel last December, attorney Robert Litt a partner at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., who represented Robert Olson, Chiquita's former general counsel, ( who retired in 2006 ) claims no search warrant was ever actually served on Chiquita.

At the time Chiquita had some blue chip defence counsel including former Attorney General (1988-91 under both Reagan and Dubya's Dad - famous for attacking white collar crime ) Richard "Dick" Thornburgh, who is now of counsel at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis - where he started his legal career. ( He has the dubious distinction that his campaign committee when he stood for the Senate in 1991 was sued (successfully) by Karl Rove who collec ted US$180,000 for his troubles).

Curiously a "highly placed Justice official " now confirms that no warrant was executed although Roscoe Howard Jr says he still believes a warrant was both obtained and executed and furthermore the DOJ is "stonewalling" for reasons he doesn't understand - nor will former colleagues at the DOJ discuss it with him or Daniel Seikaly.

Apparently issuing the warant was a sub ject of discussion and division David "Dave" Nahmias (now the U.S. Attorney for Atlanta and his surname is pronounced NAH-me-us see pic ), -- Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division to Christopher Wray, who headed Justice's criminal division at the time -- spent several days trying to talk Howard out of it. Nahmias - who was responsible for supervision of the Counterterrorism Section - argued that Chiquita had already self-disclosed its terrorist ties and was cooperating with the Justice Department. Dave is now also Chairman of two of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of United State Attorneys (AGAC) most important subcommittees: Terrorism and National Security (September 2005-October 2007) and White Collar Crime (October 2007-present).

Corporate Counsel chased up DOJ contacts to discuss Litt's objections and were directed to Dean Boyd, chief spokesman of Wainstein's national security division. Boyd declined to answer questions about the warrant, saying, "We never publicly discuss internal deliberations."

If you are still with us so far, Wainstein was chief of staff to the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at the time of the isue of the warrant which would have been responsible for serving it and so played a key role in the Chiquita probe.

Which is all very curious ;

1. Robert Litt says there was no search warrant issued or executed.
2. Howard and Seikaly think a warrant was issued and served - they did in fact ask for one.
2. The DOJ today seem unable to confirm or deny a warrant was issued and executed.

Of course if someone in the DOJ did block the warrant ( as is claimed by some ) to search Chiquita corporate headquarters in Cincinnati it would add up to obstruction of justice. Which doesn't look good when the company was fielding an ex Attorney General who has served in the Justice Department under five Presidents as counsel.

Blocking a warrant, why that would be like the DOJ / Attorney General firing U.S. Attorneys for not being loyal to President Bush - things like that just don't happen.

PS : When Dave Nahamias was being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee to serve as a U.S. Attorney in Georgia Senator Leahy made a few observation s..

" Mr. Nahmias has held senior positions at the Department of Justice and unequivocally supported broad executive power in the war on terror – positions that the Supreme Court has soundly rejected. At the Department of Justice, he has worked on the legal underpinnings of the President’s war against terror and given speeches about enemy combatants and the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, among other issues. "

" ...he has unequivocally supported the President’s authority as Commander in Chief to designate and detain suspected terrorists, including American citizens, as enemy combatants without judicial review by an Article III court. In the case of the American citizens detained as enemy combatants, he argued that there was no reason for judicial review of their detentions because they, “received the absolute ultimate executive branch process,” because the “President of the United States, operating as the Commander-in-Chief, personally reviewed their cases, and personally designated them as enemy combatants.”

Mr Leahy referred to the nomination of Jay Bybee to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals - confirmed to a lifetime position on the Ninth Circuit by the Senate on March 13, 2003 by a vote of 74-19.

"Since his confirmation, we have learned of the “torture memo” that he signed in August 2002, while his nomination was pending for consideration by the Senate. In this memo he advised the President that he could ignore laws forbidding torture, in violation of international law, and that individuals acting pursuant to the president’s commander-in-chief authority could be shielded from prosecution under U.S. torture statutes and the U.N. Convention Against Torture for torturing detainees. Mr. Bybee’s aggressive and partisan legal work for the President apparently earned him a promotion to a lifetime job on the federal bench. "

Mr Leahy went on to point out ...

"As we all now know, Mr. Bybee’s torture memo was written during Mr. Nahmias’ tenure at the Department. This memo redefined torture to allow all sorts of brutal treatment (such as mock burial alive, simulated drowning, electrocution, tearing off of fingernails, and other such barbaric treatment) so long as the pain caused is not akin to organ failure, and concluded that, as commander in chief in the war against terror, the President and federal agents are not constrained by anti-terror laws.

Before confirming Mr. Nahmias to this important appointment, Senators should know what role he played in the development of this policy."

Now why would a guy like David (call me "Dave")Nahamias want to argue against the Chiquita search warrant ? It won't have anything to do with Carl H Lindner Junior , one of the world's richest people. He bought Chiquita from Daddy Bush in 1984 (It was United Brands then and George's Zapata Corp. had a major interest***) to help him out when things went sour and they couldn't fix the elections of the President in some South American ..er..banana republic. .. and the fabulously rich family are still staunch and faithful financial supporters of the Republican party and Dubya.

Lindner (a strict Baptist who doesn't smoke, drink or swear) was one of the first 23 "Rangers" - raised at least $200,000 for Dubya for '04 , contributed $200,000 for the Bush-Cheney inauguration ($100,000 from Lindner and $100,000 from American Financial Group), During the 2002 Senate elections, Lindner and his family contributed $450,000 to Republicans. He hosted a September 2003 fundraiser at his home in the Cincinnati suburb of Indian Hill, which raised an estimated $1.7 million for Bush '04. (Common Cause) Joe Hagin took leave of absence from his job as Vice President of corporate affairs at Chiquita Brands International Inc. to be in charge of scheduling for the Texas governor george Bush in 2000 - he had previously worked with Daddy Bush's campaigns and in his Vice President's office.

When Corporate Counsel contacted David (call me "Dave") Nahmias at his office in Atlanta, the Attorney General, " declined to comment for this story". If you want to read more about the work of Attorney General Nahmias this will make you sit up."2 Atlanta Police officers have pleaded guilty to charges that will put them in jail for ten to twelve years each"

**** Lindner was no strange to the travails of dealing in banana and the republics that grew them, American Financial, one of millionaire Carl H Lindner, Jr.’s companies, first bought into a chunk of United Brands after corporate raider Eli M Black committed suicide by jumping out of his office , after bashing out the window with his briefcase on the 44th floor of the Pan Am Building in New York City on February 3rd 1975.

Join the 32,000 feet Hi-Wi-Fi club on US airlines with Aircell

Boeing Connexion, a Boeing subsidiary were the first providers of Wi-Fi on planes in May 2004 with Lufthansa where charges started at US$10 for a half hour and US30 for a full flight.

This came to an end when Boeing pulled the plug end December 2006 - the heavy phased array antenna required for satellite tracking (at US$ 1/2 Mn per plane) proved to be a fuel hog, and revenues were tiny, although the service is still available on US Government planes under a US$53 Mn. contract.

A report from the Forrester group this month shows that US airline leisure passengers who want in-flight Internet access are equally split amongst men and women, have an average age of 42, an average household of nearly UK $100,000 per year, and they’re extremely well educated, with almost 60% with college degrees and 70% are members of airline loyalty programs.

That's a prime audience which the airlines want on board.

Now several airlines are trying to make inroads into that lucrative market by using / offering / promising wi-fi over land routes using cellular technology - satellites providing a service over oceans adds 600 milliseconds time delays -- the time for the signal to travel 23,000 miles to the satellite - which presents all sorts of problems with associated costs, as Connexion found out.

On December 11, 2007, JetBlue Airways operated the first commercial US airline flight (JFK-SFO) with highspeed in-flight email access in partnership with Yahoo and Canadian based Research in Motion Ltd - a limited but free service restricted to Wi-Fi enabled smartphones (no telephony though) , BlackBerries (12 Mn. users worldwide) and laptops to connect to work, friends and family via Yahoo!(R) Mail, Yahoo!(R) Messenger and BlackBerry e-mail and BlackBerry(R) Messenger services.

Continental have also announced the same limited service and also announced that real soon now (try January 2009 !) they will have LiveTV, with 36 channels of live, inflight satellite-based television programming provided by DIRECTV(R), the nation's leading satellite television provider, at every seat on Continental's new generation aircraft on US flights only.

Now passengers on American Airlines trans continental Boeing 767's will soon be able to surf the web at 34,000 feet when Aircell installations (at US$100,000 per aircraft) get FAA approval - remember passengers still won't be able to use portable electronics until the plane reaches 10,000 feet, which is an FAA ruling / restriction.

AirCell will offering broadband access using their EV-DO cellular technology operating in the 3Hz of ATG spectrum that AirCell won at auction in 2006. Passengers can expect to payUS$9.95 for WiFi access to the service on flights > 3 hours and US$12.95 on longer trips. AirCell is also looking into day passes and monthly and annual subscriptions.

That means passengers can surf the Internet using personal Wi-Fi devices including laptops, 802.11 a/b/g -equipped devices, and mobile handheld devices, so they can surf the web, check e-mail, send attachments, and log into their office network.

BUT .... VoIP and other bandwidth-hungry applications would be blocked in order to assure an ADSL-like experience for all users say American....and to eliminate any problems of passenger rage by noisy users of crap VOIP signals.

AirCell is also working with San Francisco's hometown airline, Virgin America, (getting there is half the fun?) which has committed to implementing the service fleetwide this year ..... ? Virgin who started service in August 2007 will offer not only wireless to passenger devices but also through the Panasonic in-seat IFE system aboard its brand new Airbus A320-family of aircraft - each seat of which is already equipped with a power point for lap tops and other portable devices. Virgin were 3 years in gestation folowing a lot of problems over foreign ownership , Airline Pilots and other US domestic airlines - they lost US$35Mn. in their 1st Qtr.

We all wonder what Mr O'Leary and the other Neanderthals at Ryanair thinks of this terrific idea for making passengers happy. UPDATE : Ooooops Ryanair have in fact announced plans for a joint venture with OnAir (a joint venture Airbus and SITA.)to install the system on its entire fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft beginning mid-2007.
"Ryanair's passengers will be able to call, text and email using their mobile phones, BlackBerrys and Treos at rates which will mirror international roaming charges," the airline said... er .. in August ...er....2006.