Gormless Gordon

See also Sunday, May 04, 2008 Gordon Brown found dead on lonely Scottish foreshore

Going West - railways and young men... first US transcontinental railroad opened 149 years ago

On May 10, 1869, two railroad companies, Union Pacific and Central Pacific, joined 1,776 miles of transcontinental railway at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, in the Golden Spike Ceremony in what was extravagantly called "the wedding of the rails".

Not only was this the summit of railway engineering achievement at the time it was also the first major Press / Public relations event designed with much hoopla to drum up both business but also shareholders and investors in what was a massive financial gamble.

It was the result of far seeing men and the plans outlined in Mr. J. J. Warner's Report on Railroads to the Senate of California in early 1851 in which he stated:

"that a Railroad, from some point on the Mississippi, or its tributaries, to some point on the bay of San Francisco, is the best route that can be adopted for the purpose of securing the Commerce of China and India; ... to open a great national highway from California to the Atlantic coast, [and] would be a greater defence and protection than all other military works. It would also be the means of great daily intercourse between the East and West coast of this Republic, ... to prevent those sectional feelings which have ever been the destruction of wide-extended governments. ...[I]t is the duty of this Legislature to encourage the speedy building of a Railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific, across the territory of the United States."

Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act on July 1, 1862, hoping to bind the Union's East and West. The Pacific Railway Act gave each company loans from the Treasury of $16,000 for each mile of track laid in the flat plains, $32,000 for each mile of track laid in the Great Basin, and $48,000 for each mile of track laid in the mountains. It also provided for each company to receive 10 sections (6,400 acres) of public land grants, mineral rights excluded, on each side of the track for each mile of track built. - which is what excited the investors.

It united a nation (although a favoured more Southern route was ignored)and laid the foundations of east West trade which had previously been dominated by North / South ruiver trading.

Jupiter and the Central Pacific

In September 1868, Schenectady Locomotive Works of New York built Central Pacific locomotives Storm, Whirlwind, Leviathan and Jupiter. All Central Pacific locomotives built until 1870, were dismantled from their frames, loaded onto a ship, and taken around South America’s Cape Horn to San Francisco, California.

There the engines were loaded onto a barge and towed upriver to Central Pacific HQ in Sacramento. Then they were reassembled and commissioned into service on March 20, 1869. Less than two months later, Jupiter (fuelled by wood alone) pulled Central Pacific’s President, Leland Stanford’s,special train to Promontory Summit, for the Golden Spike Ceremony.

Locomotive 119 and the Union Pacific

In November 1868, Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works of Paterson, New Jersey, built Union Pacific locomotives No. 116, through 120. However the journey of Union Pacific Vice-President Thomas Durant and his contingent of dignitaries to Promontory Summit., was not simple or swift.

En route to Promontory for the ceremony, (originally scheduled for May 8th) , the Durant Special was forced onto a siding and stopped at the little town of Piedmont, Wyoming, not far from the Utah border.

Here there were 400 tie cutters to greet Durant, not concerned with historical events but their pay for the last 3 months. They chained his coach to the siding for 2 days until their pay arrived.

During this delay the Weber River continued to rise through continuing rains and at the appropriately named Devil’s Gate Bridge, the locomotive’s engineer saw that the swollen waters had damaged and removed some bridge supports, leaving the bridge usafe to carry the engine.

The engineer (evidently a brave man ) assured Durant's party that the This left the bridge would support the lighter passenger coaches. The engineer gave each
coach a push with his locomotive. The cars laden with nervous dignitaries then coasted safely across the unstable structure to be stranded without an engine.

Sitting in Ogden were the five Union Pacific locomotives and No 119 was cosen to complete the historic but delayed journey.

Both 119 and Jupiter ended up at the scrappers and two reproducion engines were made to re-enact the event for the 110th Anniversary May 10, 1979 which can both be seen at the Golden Spike National Historic Site - and there will again be much hoopla next year on the 150th .

Within the site is a 20-foot limestone arch , which has now been renamed Chinese Arch in honor of the immigrant 19th century Chinese railroad workers who actually did the hard work for 5 gruelling years....and 7 years ahead of schedule... At the height of construction, over 10,000 Chinese were employed by the Central Pacific. The Central Pacific Railroad first broke ground 4 years earlier on January 8, 1863 at Front and "K" Streets in Sacramento, California .

Finally , the CPRR was 742 miles long, extending from Sacramento to Ogden, and the UPRR was 1,032 miles long, extending from Ogden to Omaha. The total length of the first transcontinental railroad was 1,774 miles. The CPPR had 6,213 feet of tunnels compared to only 1,792 feet of tunnels in the UPRR. On April 28, 1869, the men of the CPRR broke all records, before or since, by laying ten miles of track in twelve hours.

Theodore Dehone Judah was the chief engineer, lobbyist, railroader, and surveyor for the Central Pacific Railroad. He was born in 1826 in Bridgeport, Connecticut and lived until 1863, dying in New York from yellow fever contracted during a visit to Panama, without seeing the completion of his dream, the first transcontinental railroad. Today is National Train Day in the US - Across the country, people are riding trains in record numbers. Amtrak reports 25.8 million passengers during fiscal year 2007, the most since the train system began operating in 1971

Click on pictures to enlarge

UPDATE : Useful introduction to the expansion of the railroads , the money made, the corruption and the characters who forged the basis of American capitalism are covered in Jack Beatty's recently published Age of Betrayal- The Triumph of Money in America 1865 - 1900. Knopf . ISBN 97814000402855 Amazon

"Politicians in cahoots with railway executives made it simple. "Of the seventy-three men who held cabinet posts between 1868 and 1896," Beatty calculates, "forty-eight either served railroad clients, lobbied for railroads, sat on railroad boards, or had railroad-connected relatives." Plus ca change

Tools for urban terrorism ™ # 5 Swiss Army Knife

"Neil Flewitt QC, prosecuting, told the jury that Waheed Ali and Mohammed Shakil were making plans to travel to Pakistan, including buying equipment from camping or outdoor shops. Items included a Swiss Army knife ".... BBC ONline report 8th May 2008 of trial of 3 brown men with beards who knew some other brown men with beards.

There is NO inoccent explanation for having one of these lethal and carefully designed tools, innocently disguised as an easily concealed and easily pocketable device for opening beer cans, wine bottles ... why would a brown man with a beard who doesn't drink alcohol have such a thing ?

TOP ADVICE : If you see anyone with one of these, portable lethal weapons of mass destruction, immediately inform the Police. Do not delay, women and children could die a horrible lingering death.

HANDY HINT : Do NOT confuse with the Swiss Army which is something completely different and could not easily be carried.

US corn plantings down, futures prices at record levels

The USDA reported a cutback in corn plantings as farmers switched to soya beans after March record high pricesThe 2008/09 corn crop is projected at 12.1billion bushels, down 7 % from the record 2007/08 crop. . They also anticipate (World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates) that next year's corn stocks will drop 45% to to 763 million bushels, the lowest since 1996.

Corn futures closed at a record high on Thursday at $6.3025 a bushel, and fell back to close 1 cent down at $6.2925 a bushel , having gained nearly 40% this year.

Ethanol plant usage of corn in the US is projected at 4 billion bushels next year, up more than 30% from this year and accounting for nearly 40% of domestic corn consumption. Rising ethanol demand is expected to push corn prices higher in the future, especially as crude oil has just closed at record highs of $126 per barrel on Friday. However ...however ... One bushel of corn produces 2.8 gallons (ish) of ethanol. With corn at $6.30 and ethanol selling at $2.60 - all those ethanol plants that Mitch Daniels helped throw up in Indiana start looking very reliant on selling the 1/3rd resultant grain for feed corn for any profit. (feed grain sells at approx price of corn currently)

On top of this USDA said only 40% of the corn crop is planted, compared with an expected 80% planted by now. Wet, cool weather is delaying the planting so much that even if corn gets planted in the next week or two. Yields will fall for two reasons :

1. Low soil temperatures slowing growth
2. Pollination will be delayed until the weather is too hot in the Mid west corn belt states.

For soyabeans, stocks are likely to increase 28% to 185 million bushels. The corn and soybean crop season both end on Aug. 31.

US growers have reversed last years crop planting . Corn prices hit record highs last spring, while soybeans prices were trading at relatively low levels. This encouraged farmers to grow fewer soybeans last spring.

This spring, with soybeans prices soaring due to lower production, corn prices moved lower. Picking up on the price signal, farmers cut corn plantings and increased their soybean acreages which is expected to surge nearly 20%, boosting next year's production by 520 million bushels to a total of 3.1 billion.

In Friday's futures trading, soybeans for July delivery soared 28.5 cents, or 2.2%, to $13.385 a bushel.

The impact of higher corn prices affects diverse retail markets ;

1. Popcorn prices to rise
2. Corn syrup cost will rise which affect almost every retail food brand from ice cream to soft drinks and confectionary.
3. Red meat sales are already down as higher oprices of feed corns drive dem and down.
4. Ethanol sales hit and compwetition from sugar cane sourced product affects prices.

New Zealand farmers face huge rise in fertiliser costs

Fertiliser supplier Ballance Agri-Nutrients head of business development Peter Mourits said farmers could expect the price of superphosphate to rise from about $270 a tonne to more than $400 this year. A year ago superphosphate cost about $190 a tonne, although local price rises had not reflected the global increase.

Statistics New Zealand said the amount of superphosphate used in New Zealand increased from 541,557 tonnes in 1986 to 1.26 million tonnes in 2006.

Sulphur and phosphate rock - the two main ingredients of super phosphate - had risen from about US$45 ($58) and US$50 a tonne respectively at the start of last year to spot market prices of US$600 and US$300 a tonne or more, Mourits said.

Al- Nakba - 60 years of Zionism remembered

Click to enlarge and make sure you go...

See also Sunday, March 11, 2007 Margaret Kroch Frischmann 1897 - 1972 and the Nakba - Iqrit and it's destruction Christmas Eve 1951

UPDATE : Alan Dershowitz , lawyer , on the Harvard Law faculty for more than 40 years, sometime member of O.J. Simpson's "Dream Team" was scheduled to deliver the key note address for the 60th anniversary of Israel at Rutgers University on Thursday. He came up against placard waving protestors from the Rutgers Against the War/ Campus Antiwar Network.
“Jews Against the Occupation”, “Settlements = Ethnic Cleansing”, and “End Israeli Apartheid” were received in polite hostility by most but some spat at protestors and had racial insults hurled at them.

Dershowitz eventually came out to speak to the protesters. He approached with the police watching and said “Its good you are bringing up the Nakbah because I am going to mention it in my speech. The Nakbah is self inflicted!” a reprise of what he had told students at Harvard earlier in the week. He was asked about his statements supporting torture , “I don't support torture. I believe the government should get a warrant first.” He then started to walk away. One of the protesters replied, “Should they get a permit before they bomb Palestinian villages?”

As a strident apologist for the Israeli state, Dershowitz regards ethnic cleansing as a trifling matter logistical problem of civil administration ...... "Political solutions often require the movement of people, and such movement is not always voluntary ... It is a fifth-rate issue analogous in many respects to some massive urban renewal."

Evidently few in the crowd had forgotten Dershowitz's advocacy of the inevitability of torture "which should remain an option " on CBS 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace in September 2002

“If anybody has any doubt that our CIA, over time, has taught people to torture, has encouraged torture, has probably itself tortured in extreme cases, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.”

The ends , says the learned professor, justify the means. A simpleton's view of civilised society used to support genocide and torture by such shining examples as Stalin and Henry Kissinger.

Rabid killer bat found - expect the headlines.

Daubenton's bat (Myotis daubentonii ) is rarely found far from rivers or lakes and is characterised by a steady steady flight, often within a few centimetres of the water surface and is frequently said to look like a smallhovercraft. Daubenton’s bats take aquatic insects, their larvae and pupae from on or close to the water surface.

They have even been seen taking prey directly from the water surface, using their distinctive large furry feet as a gaff or the tail membrane as a scoop. They are sometimes called the water bat.

They hibernate in small colonies and emerge in the spring and can range up to 7 kilometres from their roosts. They are not a threatened species in the UK, but they are endangered in West Germany and Austria. You can hear recordings of their ultrasonic signals at this website.

DeFRA have announced today that a Daubenton's bat that was submitted to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) in Weybridge, Surrey which was killed after been seen behaving oddly has tested postive for the presence of European Bat Lyssavirus type 2 (EBLV-2), a strain of bat rabies. This presents no risk to the public.

The bat had been found injured in August last year in Bushy Park, Surrey, by a member of the public and was passsed into the care of a number of experienced bat handlers.

European Bat Lyssavirus (EBLV) is a strain of the rabies virus. The strain identified in this case is EBLV-2. EBLV has previously been isolated from six UK bats since 1996, in Sussex, Lancashire, Surrey, Oxfordshire, and Shropshire. The last case occurred in August 2007. It is known that there is a low prevalence of EBLV-2 in Daubenton's bats in England. This does not affect the UK's rabies-free animal health status under international guidelines.

Advice from the Health Protection Agency is that if anyone is bitten by a bat the wound should be cleaned with soap and water and they should seek medical advice immediately. The risk of humans being infected by EBVL-2 is negligible if they receive appropriate and timely medical treatment after exposure.

All UK Bats are protected by law (Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981) and must not be killed or their roost damaged. EBLVs may only be transmitted by the bite of an infected bat. There is therefore no risk to humans if bats are not approached or handled by them.

Anyone finding a sick or ailing bat should not approach or handle it but seek advice from the Bat Conservation Trust Helpline on 0845 1300 228. Further information can be found at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/notifiable/rabies/q&a.htm

Possession of extreme pornographic images - now illegal in the UK . Public hysteria hard at work

Yesterday Lord Patel was able, after my Lord Bishop of Norwich Rt Revd Graham James so beautifully intoned the customary Prayers before business, to hear Baroness Hayman, the Lord Speaker announce

"My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act."

This curious Bill has been carried over from the last session and contains a veritable rag-bag of measures from creating new powers to tackle "anti-social and violent behaviour" , changing and (it is claimed) ,"making sentencing decisions clearer" and a much needed attempt to bringcompensation for victims of crime and wrong conviction in line.

All these have been subject a to lengthy, detailed and somewhat squalid series of bargains about legal process between both Houses which the interested observer and legal historian can consider here.

Perhaps the oddest feature of the Bill, both in terms of long term social impact and evident lack of public interest and almost total absence of public debate are sections 64 to 70 which cover the "Possession of extreme pornographic images".

The origins of this lie some years ago when Home Secretary John Reid (and others before and since) was swayed by the public indignation that arose from the violent death of 25 year old Jane Longhurst to introduce legislation to make downloading violent internet pornography an offence punishabl by imprisonment.

Jane was a special needs teacher in Brighton, who disappeared on March 14th 2004 and it was 5 weeks before her naked body was found on a fire at Wiggonholt Common, a beauty spot in Pulborough in West Sussex. A post mortem examination revealed she had been strangled by her tights.

Jane had a partner and they both had known David Coutts (then 35) and his partner for several years - at his trial for murder Coutts confessed to a "neck fetish" and police had discovered on his personal computer over 800 images of strangulation and necrophilia, many of which had been downloaded just prior to and after the murder.

Coutts had been compulsively accessing websites such as Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of women being abused, asphyxiated ,violated and murdered.

The prosecution was also able to piece together Coutts' activities after the murder which involved storing her body in an empty flat for 11 days before moving it to a box in a storage facility on the A270 near Brighton. CCTV evidence from the storgae facility showed that Coutts, visited the corpse 9 times in the next three weeks. When police raided the facility they found Jane's mobile phone, a pair of her knickers and a condom bearing traces of both his DNA and hers.

Graham Coutts was jailed for life - although he unsuccessfully appealed , based on the failure of the jury not being allowed to consider a case of manslaughter - Coutts had claimed Jane died accidentally during consensual sex.

Jane Longhurst's mother, Liz, began a 2 year campaign to ban the possession of the sort of images that featured in the case. She collected over 50,000 signatures and successfully lobbied Ministers.

In September 2006 the Home Office announced , in response to Longhurst's campaign, to make it an offence meriting three years in prison to download violent internet pornography.






















Lord Patel discussed this at some length in June last year UK Minister of Justice to look at extreme pornography. Devlin Redux - Amazing Pictures and attempted to discuss it's introduction in the light of the (then) seismic effects of Lord Woolfenden's Report on
Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in 1957 and the ensuing and lengthy public debate led by Patrick Devlin and A L Hart .

Briefly Patrick Devlin (Later Lord ) in " The Enforcement of Morals" published in 1965 argued forcibly and with much public support that popular morality should be allowed to influence lawmaking, and that even private acts should be subject to legal sanction if they were held to be morally unacceptable by the "reasonable man", in order to preserve the moral fabric of society (Devlin's "reasonable man" , rather confusingly was one who held commonly accepted views, not necessarily derived from reason as such).

H.L.A. Hart the celebrated Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford ( and also wartime MI5 star - his wife was also widely spoken of as the mistress of Isiah Berlin) ) supported the report's opposing view in his books "Law, Liberty and Morality" published in 1963 "The Morality of the Criminal Law" (1965) and in speeches, articles etc., which he laid out a defense of the limits of law in regulating moral behavior and which drew on the concepts of legal positivism , drawn from Jeremy Bentham and Mill - and used by Woolfenden who took the view derived from J S Mill that the law had no business interfering with private acts that harmed nobody.

At the time Lord Patel took the view, reinforced by events (or lack of them) that probably no one would bother to oppose the Bill. he was correct.

This Bill has silently made considerable changes about the way the law can intrude upon the citizen's private life which to even the most assiduous readers of the press and TV have gone virtually unnoticed and unremarked. (The Register is a notable exception)

1. A new offence of "Possession" of pornography - there is of course plenty of prohibitions on the production and publication of obscene material. In explanation in the debate in the House of Lords, Lord Hunt said the intention was to, " criminalise the gratification of the individual in watching pornography in the privacy of his own home. "

2. Initially the Home Office in September 2006 said they would introduce legislation over "violent" material. The Bill as it now litters the shelves of Parliament now also includes

A) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
B) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.

Naturally there are few members of the metropolitan muttering classes who wish to make a public stand for necrophiliacs, pig fuckers and dog's dick suckers - certainly not on the benches warmed by the seats of Her Majesty's opposition.

It was thefore left almost entirely in the legislative process to the brave , Baroness Sue Miller of Chilthorne Domer , Home Affairs spokesperson for the Lib Dems, who has tried on two recent occasions to raise objections and suggest amendtments to these secions of the Bill.

In the first instance, she attempted to remove this provision altogether, as being too unclear. In the second and latest instance, she attempted to give an objective test to the definition of extreme porn by linking it to (quite reasonably) the Obscene Publications Act 1959.

Lord Hunt, the Minister for rooting out Zoophilia raised the extraordinary suggestion that such linkage might have the effect of widening the scope of the offense.

It is worth quoting at length here what Lord McIntosh of Haringeysaid in the debate :
This is fundamentally about an intrusion in the harmless private lives of ordinary citizens in this country. On Report, I spoke about the Video Recordings Act 1984. I did not repeat one of the juiciest pieces about it. Until that time, we had a British Board of Film Censors, which was not a censorship board. It classified films, and if it refused to classify them, they could still be shown with the permission of local authorities. The Video Recordings Act 1984 changed the
board from being a classification board to being a censorship board because if a video recording was not approved by the board, it could not be shown at all. From being a classification board, it became a censorship board, but its name changed from being a censorship board to a classification board. George Orwell would have been proud.

To highlight the slipshod drafting of the Bill, and the haste to get the damn thing out of the way, , the government decided to amend its own legislation. The first cut defined the offfending images caught by the legilsation that was "pornographic" and depicted "explicit realistic extreme acts". To this was added a virtually meaningless afterthought which will line many a lawyers pockets in future ... that it must also be "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character".

From having a workable and now generally accepted understanding of what obcene means we now have not a definition but a characterisation which will fit anyone's prejudices.

Well, now it is written law , but it is worth noting the (almost) parting words of Lord Hunt on April 30th.....

"On the issue of policing, I hope that I can reassure noble Lords. The police have welcomed this offence. They see it as a further means to take illegal material out of circulation and an additional tool to deal with individuals whose behaviour may be causing concern. This is not, I suggest, a case of policing the bedroom."

To which Baroness Miller sensibly responded ..."How are they causing concern if they have committed no crime yet? They might be causing concern in all sorts of ways; they might be individuals whom the police do not much like, for a number of reasons, but then they get raided."
It was 5.25 pm
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 13) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 91; Not-Contents, 134.

You can now safely go back to the detailed forensic descriptions, pictures, videos, thoughts, images of the activities of a crazed madman in Austria. Forests have been felled for the news print to print it, journalists have toiled to describe, and many hours of TV time have been allocated to inform the prurient public worldwide - and for which many are now settling down to their lap tops to prepare the first books and film scripts of his depravity.

There is a website backlash whch campaigned against the Bill.

....and here are a few more images that could put you in chokey if they are on your hard disk ...


To enlarge - click on the images

Cindy McCain. Rich bitch

The New York Times on Sunday queried John McCain's finances ..."The portrait of Mr. McCain's finances is particularly skimpy because his wife, Cindy McCain, has chosen not to make her separate tax returns available. Mrs. McCain, the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser-Busch distributor, is not the candidate, but the need to gain public trust and to air potential conflicts of interest is vital. Four years ago, we urged Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wealthy wife of the 2004 Democratic nominee, to release her tax returns.

There is no question that Mr. McCain benefits from his wife's money, including his low-cost use during the campaign of a corporate jet owned by a company headed by Mrs. McCain. "

On the NBC Today Show Thursday she gave a very good impression of a hard faced bitch and Cindy declared that she will never release her tax returns -- not during the presidential campaign, and not even if she becomes first lady. "I'm not the candidate," she said."You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate,"

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has got in on the act and has released a statement :

"What is John McCain trying to hide? Throughout this campaign, he has acted like his own calls for openness and accountability apply to everyone but himself. Now he thinks he can bring that same double standard to the White House. Whether he is skirting the FEC, withholding his tax returns, or stocking his campaign with the same Washington lobbyists he attacks on the campaign trail, John McCain is showing that he doesn't respect the voters enough to be honest with them. "

Details of candidates tax returns at USA Today

Revolymer - non-stick chewing gum (well almost)

Revolymer is an interesting company with an interesting new product under development. Based at Mostyn in North Wales and founded in 2005 to develop polymer technology developed and licensed from the University of Bristol to make an environmentally friendly chewing gum.

Sticky streetside deposits are unsightly and all current methods of removal , freezing, steam cleaning, scraping enzymatic destruction are not only expensive (Westminster Council say they spend nearly £100K per annum) but can cause damage to the sidewalk surfaces or result in toxic wastes.

The Revolymer website has a handy video by chemist Tim Cosgrove , "Why things stick " which provides a quick'n' easy history of their design philosophy.This doesn't involve changing the basic chewing gum - which is basically a synthetic rubber (isoprene) with flavouring and sweeteners added. It is not unusual to find up to 100 different chemical constituents in chewing gum.

Their approach is to use a further additive (naturally they are rather coy about it's exact formulation) which is aplymer that is both lipophilic and hydrophilic which results in the expelled product being far less sticky (not non - stick) and more easily removed with either water or simple surfactants.

Using the same technology they are also investigating ways of drug delivery using gums for such drugs as anti-migraine drugs, anti-emetics and analgesics (such as ibuprofen, aspirin, naproxen ) using simple buccal absorption (direct through the mouth mucosae) rather than the lengthier and delayed gastruic absorption route.

Major investors are IP Group Plc, an intellectual property (IP) commercialisation company that specialises in commercialising university technology. Founded in 2001, IP Group listed on AiM in October 2003 and moved to the Official List in June 2006. With their help Revolymer have just announced the successful completion of a £10 million financing round.

Previous posts on chewing gum here see also Saturday, June 03, 2006 Cadbury Scweppes increases world share of chewing gum market. and for a history of how everyone wants to prosecute users On the Spit Fines and the history of the nasty fucking stuff Sticky deposits . Spit or swallow?

They also make bubble gum ...


..but prolly not in North Wales

Obama wears jeans ! Makes a call on a mobile phone ! Amazing pictures

CNN are giggling like a bunch of 13 year olds because Barack Obama the dragoness slayer, boarded his plane from Downtown Palookaville wearing jeans. O My God !

The bright eyed and bushy tailed readesr may well have noticed in this grab from the world shattering clip that he is also making a mobile telephone call from an aeroplane.

This is a service which has just become available on flights within the USA. No surprises there then.

Those readers with a good memory might remember that there were a slew of people on 9th September 2001 who made mobile phone calls from their "hi-jacked" planes.

It may seem remarkable that it has taken 7 years of technical development to provide this aerial service .... unless of course the story behind every one of those alleged calls on 9/11 was totally fraudulent.

Eco-friendly electric tandem wheeled city commuting bike - The Tango

An 18 year old Candian bright spark, Ben Gulak has designed and built a remarkably innovative new electric motorbike - The Tango.

An extension of the ideas behind the Segway it is a tandem wheeled bike. The rider leans forward to accelerate -- a feature used by the Segway, and can hit a top speed of 25 mph in its current configuration. The Uno also makes use of a set of gyros to enhance ease of balance, and the wheels are independently operated making turning much more precise.

“It has a range of about 2.5 hours and it is designed for the commute to work through busy towns” says Gulak whose inspiritional moment came on a trip to China and his experience of the motocycle induced choking city smogs.

Ben found help initially from Veltronics Ltd., an electrical engineering company in Brampton, Ontario, who designed the necessary circuitry to boost the horsepower of the motors by 40 percent—more than enough to get the Uno zipping along at speeds (60Km p hr) suitable for city driving. With additional support from Motorcycle Enhancements in Oakville, Ontario, which fabricated a fiberglass body for the bike.

Ben and Jason Morrow who has helped with the project , also 18, are two of Canada’s 16 brightest high-school scientists that were selected by Youth Science Foundation Canada to represent Canada at the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (IISEF) held in New Mexico in May last year.

He's looking for investors.

Truth - the first casualty of war. More lies about the Reichstag on fire

Click to enlarge

On the morning of May 2, 1945 a 28 year old Russian photojournalist Yevgeny Khaldei had gone to the Reichstag, the German parliament building in the center of Berlin. Three hours earlier the last German commander left in the capital had capitulated, but there was still sporadic fighting going on. Khaldei had his Leica camera with him, a full roll of film - and a Soviet flag.

That night he flew to Moscow with a ful roll of 36 exposures - the above iconic image appeared in the magazine Ogonjok on May 13, 1945.

But like many such war images, Capas's dying soldier (Capa one of the founders of the MAGNUM agency was in fact a Hungarian Jew, Endre Friedmann), the raising of the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima, it concealed a lie.

In reality the soldier who is supporting his comrade with the flag had a watch on each wrist. The Soviet soldiers had looted their way through Berlin when they arrived. Khaldei admitted later that he had scratched out the watch on the man's right arm in one of the negatives using a needle.

Using the post war methods of photoshopping later versions had dark clouds of smoke added and for a final version there was a new flag, billowing dramatically in the wind.

This story is revealed in a Khaldei retrospective opening on May 8, the anniversary of the end of World War II, at Berlin's Martin Gropius Bau museum. The exhibition will show photographs from the "Great Patriotic War" -- the Red Army's conquest of Sofia, Bucharest, Budapest and Vienna, the Potsdam conference and the Nuremberg trials. It will also feature photographs of everyday life in the Soviet Union, from before and after the war.

"Yevgeny Khaldei -- The Decisive Moment. A Retrospective" will show at the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin from May 9 to July 28.

Click to enlarge

Also UPDATE story in Independent Thursday Missing suitcase of Capa war photos is found after 70 years - By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid - Wednesday, 7 May 2008

"A suitcase containing thousands of undeveloped photographs of the Spanish Civil War shot by the great war photographer Robert Capa has reappeared after being lost for 70 years." ...The cut shots in the envelopes already scrutinised have revealed previously unknown images of the brutal closing stages of Spain's civil war in 1939.

They date from 1937, and do not therefore include any that might form part of the sequence containing the famous "falling soldier" picture taken in Cordoba in 1936. A negative of the controversial shot has never been found (it has long been reproduced from a vintage print), and the discovery of one, especially in the original sequence showing all the images taken before and after the shot, could end the debate.

Apparently Capa's friend and assistant Imre "Chiki" Weisz entrusted the suitcase (including 3,500 pictures – 120 rolls of film and sheaves of envelopes of cut negatives – taken by Capa, his companion Gerda Taro (real name Gerta Pohorylle, he died in Spain in 1937 in a tank accident while taking pictures.)and fellow photographer David "Chim" Seymour ) in 1940 to a Mexican diplomat in Paris, General Francisco Aguilar Gonzalez.

The general took it home to Mexico, where it reappeared among his possessions decades after his death in 1967. The New York based International Centre of Photography recently acquired the "Mexican suitcase" after protracted negotiations with the General's descendants.

This story was covered in more detail in the Lost negatives of Robert Capa finally end up in New York International Herald Tribune January 29th 2008. It appears General Francisco Aguilar Gonzalez had been stationed as a diplomat in the late 1930s in Marseille, where the Mexican government, a supporter of the Republican cause, had begun helping anti-fascist refugees from Spain emigrate to Mexico. Finally curator curator and scholar, Trisha Ziff, who has lived in Mexico City managed to ensure the suitcase was handed by the family to the ICP.

Stunning slideshow here

Click to enlarge

One caption ...

Capa practically invented the image of the globe-trotting war photographer, with a cigarette appended to the corner of his mouth and cameras slung over his fatigues. His fearlessness awed even his soldier subjects, and between battles he hung out with Hemingway and Steinbeck and usually drank too much, seeming to pull everything off with panache. William Saroyan wrote that he thought of Capa as “a poker player whose sideline was picture-taking.”

See also New York Times 27th January 2008 The Capa Cache by Randy Kennedy

TRisha Ziff was English now naturalised Mexicam stunning V&A show on Che here

A Loving couple - an extraordinary story of ordinary people

Mildred Jeter Loving, 68, a modest homemaker died of pneumonia Friday at her home in Milford, Va. She would have celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary in July, which seemd a dim and unlikely prospect when as a 17 year old bride she drove 90 miles north to the District of Washington to marry 23 year old construction worker Richard Loving.

Pretty, young and already pregnant with the first of her 3 children she was also black, her loving husband was white.

At 2 am July 1958, alerted by outraged citizens of Central Point. Va. Caroline County Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks rousted them from their bed ... In the Internatuional Herald Tribune in June last year he remembered the event ..."Now 84, Garnett Brooks vividly recalls bursting into the Lovings' home at 2 a.m., rousing the couple out of their sleep and hauling them off to face the law. Word of their marriage — nobody's sure who complained — had reached the commonwealth's attorney.

"He told me to go and check on them and if they are (married) arrest them," said Brooks, who insists the case wasn't about race, but about illegal cohabitation.

"I told him I'd be glad to do it."

AS a rsult he had them arraigned before Caroline County Circuit Court Judge Leon M. Bazile charged with unlawful cohabitation. Justice was swift, certain and sure Judge Bazile sentenced them to a year's imprisonment, to be suspended if they left the state for the next 25 years.

For good measure he added a few words of god fearing biblical bigotry and a dodgy sense of geography ,

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he
placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his
arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he
separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix,"

Technically the Lovings were convicted of violating § 20-58 of the Virginia Code:

"Leaving State to evade law. -- If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in § 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage."

Section 20-59, which defines the penalty for miscegenation, provides:

"Punishment for marriage. -- If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years."

Other central provisions in the Virginia statutory scheme were § 20-57, which automatically voided all marriages between "a white person and a colored person" without any judicial proceeding, and §§ 20-54 and 1-14 which, respectively, define "white persons" and "colored persons and Indians" for purposes of the statutory prohibitions.

The Lovings moved to Washington in 1959 and lived with one of Mildred's cousins on Neale Street NE.

Later in 1964 whilst visiting their mother, they were arrested again for travelling together.

This was too much for Mildred and she wrote to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to find out if the 1964 Civil Rights legislation would allow the couple to travel freely. The result was that Bernard S. Cohen, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) with fellow attorney Philip J. Hirschkop, took the case to the high court that their civil rights under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment had been violarted. Which they did under the wonderfully titled case case Loving v. Virginia.

Eventually after much legal toil on June 12, 1967, (celebrated by some as "Loving Day") the unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court was declared by Chief Justice Warren (who later fucked up big style over the Attornet generl's brother's assassination) : "There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. . . . There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause."

Virginia was at that time one of 16 States which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications and it was 13 years after Brown v. Board of Education ended segregated schools.

Mildred and Richard returned to Caroline County, where they both were born. He built their house, and the couple settled there. Richard Loving was killed in 1975 when a drunk driver struck their car. Mildred Loving, who was also in the car, lost her right eye in the collision.

On their return the Loving's church, St. Stephens Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Va., gave her a certificate recognizing the trailblazing lawsuit.

"The preacher at my church classified me with Rosa Parks," she told The Washington Post in 1992. "I don't feel like that. Not at all. What happened, we really didn't intend for it to happen. What we wanted, we wanted to come home."

A 1996 Showtime movie about the case, "Mr. and Mrs. Loving," told their story. "None of it was very true," she said in 2007. "The only part of it right was I had three children."

Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont lawyer, saw the movie and then wrote the book, "Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers," which was published in 2004.

On the 40th Anniversary of the case Mildred released a statement which can be read here.

It seems remarkable that lawyers for the State of Virginia argued in 1964 on the basis of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia 1955 (2 years after the structure of DNA was elucidated by Watson and Crick and Queen Elizabeth II was crowned) decision in Naim v. Naim as stating the reasons supporting the validity of these laws. In Naim, the state court concluded that the State's legitimate purposes were "to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens," and to prevent "the corruption of blood," "a mongrel breed of citizens," and "the obliteration of racial pride," obviously an endorsement of the doctrine of White Supremacy. The court also reasoned that marriage has traditionally been subject to state regulation without federal intervention, and, consequently, the regulation of marriage should be left to exclusive state control by the Tenth Amendment.

There is a website that is dedicated to Loving Day

Arundel Tomb

..... The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Philip Larkin

GLA crackdown on supermarket suppliers of daffodils

Gangmaster Mr Jonathan Beckson, Director of Timberland Homes Ltd, trading as Timberland Homes Recruitment had their licence revoked with immediate effect by the Gangmaster Licensing Authority yesterday. Timberland is based in Brandon in Suffolk and had supplied workers to Winchester Growers in Cornwall and a flower picking consortium, Grampian Growers near Montrose in Scotland.

The GLA is passing the information on this case to the UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC).

GLA inspectors uncovered a lengthy series of offences ;
• A threatening letter to workers stating that they were not free to leave before the end of the contract without paying £700, and if they did not have the money this would be recovered from the workers or their families in their home country.

• Timberland were subcontracting workers from an unlicensed Polish gangmaster

• Some workers stated that they received £24 for a nine hour day

• Workers received 4p per bunch of flowers picked

• No timesheets were used, so pay could not be accurately recorded

• Scottish Agricultural Minimum Wage was not being paid

• VOSA had issued prohibition notices on six Timberland minibuses in Cornwall and Timberland flouted the law by transporting the workers to Scotland in these vehicles and continued to use these minibuses for transportation of workers there on a daily basis

• Grampian and Tayside Police Forces took combined action regarding the use of the minibuses, forcing the operator to reduce seating capacity due to their ‘unlicensed’ status. Reports regarding the vehicles’ use have been submitted to Scottish Procurators’ Fiscal regarding consideration of prosecution of the firm

• Workers did not give their consent for transport and accommodation deductions

• Workers were charged for the protective clothing needed to carry out the job

• Six to eight workers shared rooms in converted farm buildings that were not licensed as houses of multiple occupation

• There were not enough beds for the 43 workers and only 4 toilets between them.

• The Kitchen facilities were poor and used bedding and laundry was kept in the cooking area thus creating a serious hygiene and fire hazard

• Tayside Fire and Rescue inspected the accommodation at the request of the GLA and found the premises to be unsatisfactory and issued a report stating that it should be rectified without delay.

Winchester Growers are part of a Group of Companies known as Bulbs and Flowers International which is itself part of the Belgian based Univeg group (bought out May 1995) . Winchester growers website claims they are the UK’s leading grower/packers of daffodil bulbs, principally bulb based flowers, bouquets and potted products supplying the major UK high street multiples and horticultural wholesalers as well as exporting some of their products to Europe and the USA. Turnpver in 2005 exceeded £35 Mn.

They have a site in Penzance, Cornwall. The principle operations there relate to the growing, packing and distribution of daffodil bulbs and flowers, they also own maintain the National Collection of Dahlias at this site.

This is the company website Jobs page captured today. Grampian Growers is a hugely successful and profitable Agricultural Cooperative, established in 1968 by six leading farmers based in Logie, Montrose, 35 miles south of Aberdeen. The cooperative was designed to produce and market, quality, unsubsidised produce, which continues today, with the production and marketing of daffodil cut flowers, daffodil bulbs, and seed potatoes.

A current membership of 18 bulb growers and a further 13 potato growers produce annually -

5-7 million bunches of daffodil flowers
4 – 5,000 tonnes of daffodil bulbs
17- 18,000 tonnes of seed potatoes.

The company website says ..."The production year commences in early March, with the cropping of daffodil flowers by the grower members, for around 6 weeks. The flowers are centrally packed at Logie, to customer specifications and transported in refrigerated trailers to both supermarket outlets in Europe, by air to the USA / Canada, and to wholesale outlets within the UK, " 5-7 million bunches of flowers cropped, packed and marketed primarily to mainland Europe, as well as the USA and Canada.

Tesco Enjoy the Taste of Scotland was Scotland's largest food and drink festival held at George Square, Glasgow in the last weekend of April reported Farming UK last week 1/5//06
The event had a giving side as well with Tesco Charity of the Year Marie Curie, Yorkhill Sick Kids Hospital and St John's Hospice all receiving funds or items from the event.

The fundraising came from Tesco, the generosity of the Scottish public as well as individual suppliers, including Whyte and Mackay and Allied Bakeries.

Thousands of pounds was raised and Yorkhill Hospital received two large fresh-baked cakes from Tunnocks and more than 200 daffodills from Grampian Growers.

RAF Nimrod MR2 XV230 crash Inquest opens today.

The inquest into the deaths of 14 servicemen, who were killed when their RAF Nimrod MR2 XV230 crashed in Afghanistan on 2nd September 2006 is being presided over by Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker. These notes may be helpful to the interested observer...

This graph can be found in the online reports of the Board of Inquiry Into The Accident Involving Nimrod MR2 XV230 here )Click to enlarge)

Elswhere it is worth noting ..

64 Observations - the Board observed that :

b. Changes to RAF Kinloss management structure as a result of Project trenchard removed the SO1 engineer (OC Engineering Wing) from the station structure. Engineering personnel are now distributed betwen the station's 2 remaining wings under non - specialist leadership : QR 649 responsibility is delegated to a squadron leader. Both operational and engineering witnesses ( Witnesses32,33,34 ) believed this change had a negative effect on availability.

c. Service training course were perceived by a number of witnesses( Witnesses32,33,34 again ) no longer to impart the skill of hand and depth of knowledge necessary to maintain an aircraft built around a design pilosophy now some 40 years old. This combined with a taultly manned engoneering establishment and recent outflow of skilled personnnel has led to an effective dilution of engineering skills ....

Witnesses 32/33/34 are identified elsewhere (unnamed) as Operation Wing , Kinloss. Nimrod Line Squadron, RAF Kinloss and Logistics Support Wing and Depth Support manager , Nimrod IPT , RAF Kinloss

In a letter from Group Captain J B Kessell, Station Commander (date not known) commenting on the Board of Inquryies findings it is worth noting ....

6.a RAF Kinloss Management Structure. The Kinloss managment structure has now been revised to include an SOI engineer. This individual now commands the Station's Forward Support Wing and holds QR 640 responsibilties.

A BBC Online Report in December 2007 ..."A worker at RAF Kinloss has revealed that technical faults still happen regularly on the Nimrod fleet, BBC Scotland has learned. " is also worth reading. Westminster SNP group leader Angus Robertson MP whose Moray constituency is home to the Nimrod fleet at RAF Kinloss is quoted ..."There are, however, a host of unanswered questions about the safety of the ageing Nimrod fleet as a whole which the Ministry of Defence must answer..... "I have sent Secretary of State Des Browne 15 key questions about Nimrod safety which must be answered if confidence is to be restored."

It is worth noting he raised a Parliamanetary Question of the Secretary of State for Defence how many Nimrod Line personnel at RAF Kinloss (a) requested premature voluntary redundancy and (b) took redundancy in 2006; and how many have done so in 2007. He received a written answer on Monday, 10 December 2007 that Nimrod Line personnel who left the RAF under redundancy terms was 5 in 2006 and 10 in 2007. he has also persistently raised question about Nimrods at Kinloss which can be reviewed here.

He also participated in the recent debate about Afghanistan (28th April 2008) rasing the report from Quinetiq produced in March 2006 about the Nimrod fleet (ie before the Afghan accident). This was reported on by the Times on April 13th 2008 after Jimmy Jones, the Nimrod trials engineer obtained the report under Freedom of Information legislation, and is headed " Des Browne misled MPs on Nimrod"

Amongst many other matters the Times stated that The QinetiQ report found that during air-to-air refuelling fuel was flowing at twice the speed deemed safe for vital parts of the fuel system. It also showed that a light on the flight engineer's panel that would flash if there was too much pressure in the fuel system had been deliberately disconnected.

BBC Online report at (10/11/07) stated ..."Qinetiq's findings, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, make it clear that the team had grave misgivings about the equipment and methods used to identify and repair fuel leaks on an aircraft under huge operational pressure.
The highly detailed Qinetiq report speaks of the sealant used to maintain joints on wing panels "peeling like masking tape". It describes repair teams having to use out-of-date manuals and equipment, and the "considerable loss of expertise and experience as trade specialists have left the team".

The QinetiQ report highlighted a shortage of skilled RAF engineers at Kinloss, caused in part by an increased use of civilian contractors and in part by defence cuts.

"There no longer exists an in-depth knowledge of working on the Nimrod aircraft," the QinetiQ report said.

It was just then when Defence Secretary Des Browne announced that Charles Haddon-Cave QC will lead the independent review to examine the findings of the Board of Inquiry into the crash of Nimrod XV230 in Afghanistan, September 2006.

Should be a fascinating inquest .. but don't hold your breath.

Morgan Sparks, the man who made the first junction transistor dies aged 91

Morgan Sparks, who invented the junction transistor, the first practical transistor device died on Saturday at his daughter's home in Fullerton, Calif., at the age of 91.

He said of Bell Laboratories approach to introducing the device...."It was quite different from other laboratories. I think AT&T recognized that, as compensation perhaps for their role as a monopoly, they had some obligations. And so the labs were really very open. And, you know, the transistor, it took a few months to get patents filed and things of that nature, and there was a bit of a battle with the military, who wanted to keep it secret. And the lab's attitude prevailed, and it was essentially thrown open. Licensing agreements were offered to anybody in the world."

William Shockley’s theories about p-n junctions had been validated by tests by Richard Haynes in 1948 . Haynes put electrodes on both sides of a thin germanium crystal and took very sensitive measurements of the size and speed of the current. Electricity definitely flowed straight through the crystal. That meant Shockley's vision of a new kind of transistor was theoretically possible..... but fabricating a working junction transistor presented formidable challenges.

Few listened to Bell Labs chemist Gordon Teal who argued that large, single crystals of germanium and silicon would be required as opposed to cutting a sliver from a larger ingot of many crystals

Using a technique developed in 1917 by the Polish chemist Jan Czochralski, Teal , working with engineer John Little suspended a small “seed” crystal of germanium in a crucible of molten germanium and slowly withdrew it, forming a long, narrow, single crystal.

Shockley was later to call this achievement “the most important scientific development in the semiconductor field in the early days.”

But beautiful single crystals are fine but a sandwich transistor (as distinct from point type) needed a sandwich crystal. The outer layers had to be a semiconductor with either too many electrons (known as N-type) or too few (known as P-type), while the inner layer was the opposite.

Morgan Sparks developed Teals crystal growing techniques and fabricated p-n junctions by seeding tiny pellets of impurities into the molten germanium during the crystal-growing process. In April 1950, he and Teal began adding two successive pellets into the melt, the first with a p-type impurity (gallium) and the second n-type (antinomy) , forming n-p-n structures with a thin inner, or base, layer.

Sparks and Teal etched away the surface of the outside layers, leaving a tiny bit of P-type crystal protruding. They attached a fine electrode-creating a circuit the way Shockley had suggested. 58 years ago on April 12, 1950, they tested what they had built. Without a doubt, more current came out of the sandwich than went in. They had a tiny working amplifier.

A year later, after refining the crystal growing proces such “grown-junction transistors” surpassed the best point-contact transistors in performance. Bell Labs announced this advance on July 4th, 1951 in a press conference featuring Shockley. (Sparks, Morgan and Teal, Gordon K. “Method of Making P-N Junctions in Semiconductor Materials,” U. S. Patent 2,631,356 (Filed June 15, 1950. Issued March 17, 1953)

In 1954, Bell Labs and Texas Instruments fabricated the first successful silicon transistors. The following year Bell Labs chemist Morris Tanenbaum developed the first silicon junction transistor using diffusion of trace impurities to grow ultra-thin base layers less than one micrometer thick.

The rest, as they say ... is history.

Langley stripped bare ...or how they get it so wrong so often

"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some dead economist."John Maynard Keynes


Just published by the CIA the 1999 edition of ...


"How many times have we encountered situations in which completely plausible premises, based on solid expertise, have been used to construct a logically valid forecast--with virtually unanimous agreement--that turned out to be dead wrong?" is what it says in the preface.

Elsewhere it says ...

"A central focus of this book is to illuminate the role of the observer in determining what is observed and how it is interpreted. People construct their own version of "reality" on the basis of information provided by the senses, but this sensory input is mediated by complex mental processes that determine which information is attended to, how it is organized, and the meaning attributed to it. What people perceive, how readily they perceive it, and how they process this information after receiving it are all strongly influenced by past experience, education, cultural values, role requirements, and organizational norms, as well as by the specifics of the information received. "

If you seek understanding look elsewhere .... based on their recent record .....

Strong possibility John Prescott was involved in writing it.

Obama takes North Carolina

Ron Paul takes 6% in Indiana


Kokomo voters out early and looks like a close call for Obama in Indy

... and Obama loses in Indiana.

Everyday story of Chief Constable being hounded from Office by tabloid press : Amazing pictures !!!!

Here we go again...

An everyday story of a 57 year old married Chief Constable, Terry Grange of Dyfed and Powys now happily retired aftr struggling by on a salary of only £117,468,with his beautiful and loving wife and now the sordid, sleazy Press have to dish the dirt, in a tale thick with sleazy innuendo and established facts by the IPCC.

Anonymous hysterical woman feels she is wronged and runs to the IPCC and tells a frankly believable tale of office nooky, 103 "torrid" and "sexualy explicit" e-mails, posh nosh at cosy restaurants climaxing on the shag pile after in his office. Misuse of force credit cards ...who is going to believe this nonsense?

How many times do we have to have this every day story about Chief Constables screamed from the headlines ? Especially now when they are in the front line of the War on Terror saving us all from waves of suicidal jihadist Lucozade bombers.

Why, Oh Why oh Why ?

OK, So he likes shagging the staff ,. OK , which Chief Constable doesn't ?

OK, So he misused his position to make staff remove firewalls to receive his naughty emails ? So What ? OK , which Chief Constable doesn't ?

OK, So he makes the odd mistake on his expenses fiddles ,. OK , which Chief Constable doesn't ?

OK, So he skips meetings for a quick afternoon tea and crumpets followed by a quick shag with his bit on the side . Tell me, which Chief Constable doesn't ?

If say he had been the ACPO lead officer in charge of child protections and had been been reported in the Sunday Times saying ..."I don't actually personally adhere to the 15-year-old being with a 20-year-old boyfriend being paedophilia, or even if the boyfriend is 30."

Which is of course absolutely contrary to the law that states that In England, Wales and Scotland, anyone who has sex with a boy or girl under the age of 16 has committed an offence. (17 in Northern Ireland) Sun " A TOP cop has caused outrage by saying perverts who have sex with kids over 13 should NOT be called paedophiles." Rap for 'perv law' cop Sun

That would be a good reason to sack him ...but this ...?

Fortunately Terry has now retired and has even ponied up some "mistakes" he made on his expenses (again , which Chief Constable doesn't make THAT mistake?) so the public busybodies and the prying prurient peeping Toms of the Press can't chase him into court.

We should all be thankful that Crown Prosecution Service after their own through and painstaking insopection has decided there is insufficent evidence to prosecute him.

And the woman in the case ? (Who hides behind the shameful moniker of "Mrs A") .. getting more than her collar felt, with her tales of 'inappropriate comments and sexual innuendo' ... accompanying him to official police functions, staying at a hotel in London and shared evening meals ... and shared ...... ? 68 times between November 2006 and August 2007....and the most amazing nipples according to the lads in the canteen at Camarthen.

Shame on her.... and 3 cheers for champion performer Terry "Once a week at least " Grange

We say FREE TERRY - keep your hands off our Chief Constables and this constant muck raking ... who knows it could be ...er ... Ian Blair next ?

.. and remember this you Press wolves ... the IPCC investigation ruled there was no extra cost involved in booking hotel rooms in London together because “the hotel charges relate to the room costs and not the number of guests sharing.” ... all this extra naughty nooky didn't cost the tax payer a penny!! . How's that for care in the community ?

We say FREE TERRY - keep your hands off our Chief Constables and this constant muck raking ... who knows it could be ...er ... Ian Blair next ?

FREE TERRY - remember what he told the Soaraway Currant Bun 14th February 2003 (ST Valentine's Day - a good day for Massacres Terry ) said .. "he’d like to line drugs barons up against a wall and shoot them." ... Chief Constable Terry Grange talked tough while speaking about Britain’s drug problem. Top Cop - Top policies.

FREE TERRY - the sort of cop we need out on the streets, re-define paedophilia, shoot first, ask the questions later .... now, will you be free next Wednesday, it's an ACPO meeting on Terror but I can skip that ...

Stasi spy Heike Drechsler represents Germany on IAAF - expect great results for Germany in IAAF World Championships in Berlin 2009

Heike Drechsler was nominated for a seat on the IAAF's women's committee by the German athletics federation, the Deutscher Leichtathletik-Verband and in August last year in Osaka was elected as the German representative. A very significant role, as the 2009 IAAF World Championships will be held in Berlin. At the same meeting Lord Coe (AKA Sebastian Coe) was elected a vice chairman of the IAAF.

44 year old Heike Gabriela Drechsler was born in Gera, then in East Germany. One of a clutch of world famous record shattering athletes she is the only woman who has won two Olympic gold medals in the long jump (1992 and 2000 both when representing the unified Germany). She also won two World Championships in the long jump (1983 and 1993), as well as gold medals in the long jump and the 200 m sprint in the World Indoor Championships 1987.

In 1986, Drechsler twice equalled Marita Koch's 200 metres sprint world record and set two long jump world records and equalled one in 1985 and 1986.

She still holds the world Championship record for Juniors of 7.14 m. at Bratslava on 4th June 1983 the the World Youth record of 6.91 m at jena in 1981. Current best women's l;ong jump in 2008 is Britney reese of the USA with 6.93 m at Baton Rouge on 16th April.

The sorry tale of East German doping of athletes was exposed in "Doping - Dokumente" a book published by Professor Franke, a prominent biochemist and his wife in 1992. She is Brigitte Berendonk who was an East German Pentathlete and fled to West germany and competed as a discus thrower for West germany in the Olympic Games of 1968 and 1972.

They had access to Stasi files that unearthed many unsavoury features of the state controlled athletics industry. They claimed that the 18 year old Heike Drechsler participating in the Helsinki World Championships in 1983 was an informer for the Staatssicherheitsdienst - the Stasi, and that her code name was , "Springen" - Jump.

It is also known that as teenager she was active in the Free German Youth (FDJ) and in 1984 she was elected to the Volkskammer of East Germany.

The book also documented the elaborate medically supervised steroid regimes that East german male and female athletes were obliged to undertake, principally the anabolic steroid oral turinabol and the hormone testosterone. The book reported that Drechsler had been given drugs between 1982 and 1984 and when she described the claim as "a lie" , on publication the authors sued her and she was ordered to pay £7,500 costs and to issue a formal apology.

At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, the country of 17 million collected nine gold medals. Four years later the total was 20 and in 1976 it doubled again to 40.

Of course many East German athletes have not enjoyed much subsequent success and 160 of them have joined in suing Jenapharm, (now a subsidiary of Schering) for US$4.2 Mn , the firm which manufactured the pharmaceuticals they unwittingly consumed. "We are not just talking about complaints which can be fixed by an operation. We are talking about heart disease, liver failure, cancer," said former shot putter Birgit Boese, who was pumped full of drugs from the age of 11 and told that they were vitamins.

Former swimmer Catherine Menschner, now 43, has had seven miscarriages, found after research in Stasi files that she formed part of a secret guinea-pig class for steroid trials. Menschner told Germany's ARD television she needed to take pain killers constantly.

Heidi Krieger is one of them - winner of the women's shot put at the 1986 European Championships in Stuttgart, where Drechsler struck gold in both the 200m and the long jump, she was fed such such massive doses of hormones she underwent a sex-change operation and is now living as a man, Herr Andreas Krieger. (Read the full story here NYTJan 26th 2004)

Rainer Hartwich, whose Stasi codename was "Klinner," worked as a clinical research doctor for Jenapharm, and has revealed on German television he alerted the Stasi in 1988 to the dangers of steroids.

"I believe there is a moral responsibility here, and that the victims must be supported. This is Jenapharm's responsibility and they should fulfill their duty," he said.

Jenapharm says as Oral-Turinabol was legal in the German Democratic Republic and it did nothing wrong. In a statement Jenapharm have said "This substance was legally approved in the GDR and available on the market, but was misused by sports physicians and trainers," Jenapharm had the State monopoly of oral contraceptives in East Germany.

Just before Christmas 2006 Jenapharm in an out of court setllement agreed to pay 184 athletes of US$11,200 apiece for damage caused by the state's doping program. Germany's Olympic Sports Organization agreed to pay the same amount to 170 athletes.

Check. Where did Frau Merkel come from ?

UK Police ignore section 141 of the Licensing Act 2003 as public drunkeness soars.

On 19th March this year Mark Hoban MP asked the Home Office how many prosecutions for sale of alcohol to a drunk person have been pursued in each criminal justice area in each of the last 10 years; and how many resulted in conviction.

Vernon Croaker Minister at the Home Office in a Written Parliamentary stated that the number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty at all courts for sale of alcohol to a drunken person, under section 141 of the Licensing Act 2003. In 2005 was 32 and in 2007 was 47 for greater manchester alone in 2005 it was zero and in 2006 it was 3.

Greater Manchester Police have recently disclosed that the number of fines imposed on Greater Manchester motorists using a mobile phone rose from 12,904 in 2005 to 16,386 in 2006.

It appears that the number of fines imposed on Greater Manchester motorists in 2006 totalled 142,782, which broken down - was , for seatbelt offences 20,099 ,for neglecting traffic directions 10,186 , and for speeding 60,282.

In the Scotsman today it is revealed that in Scotland alone (pop Max 6 Mn.) alcohol abuse is costing more than £2.25 billion a year. Deaths from liver cirrhosis in men 45-64 alone have risen (latest available figures )– from 30 per 100,000 in 1980 to 70 per 100,000 in 2000.

The case is overwhelming that the Police nationally are failing to use the laws provided by Parliament to address the exploding problem of public drunkeness. Surely if the efffort to attack the problem ranked at the same level as for stopping drivers using mobile phones the effect on late night street violence would rapidly become apparent ?

The changes in Licensing introduced in 2003 were supposed to introduce penalties for licensees who broke th law and for greater control for the Police - no one would argue that cracking down on rogue licencees will solve the problems of youth street violence ..but it will help.

Far more than the gargantuan effort on monitoring / harassing motorist now does on traffic accidents / injuries / fatalaties.

Click to enlarge

Memorial service for Gordon Brown is in advanced planning stages

A coronary inducing solitary stroll on the Fife coastal path ? Usual MO for awkward Scots pols.

Blind leading the bland .. Stevie Wonder sings for Obama in downtown Indy

Stevie Wonder took the stage , 9.30 in light rain at an outdoor rally on the American Legion Mall in Indianapolis to warm up the crowd of 25,000 for Barack Obama. (Video here)The concert kicked off hours before polls open in Indiana, and he began auspiciously by playing the hit “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.”

“We live in a time in the world where everyone in the world must understand that prejudice is a sickness,” Wonder, who is blind, told the crowd before he started with a three-song set that was cut short by rain. “I’m saying this to you as a man who has the vision of the heart because I am color free.”

Stevie Wonder made a surprise appearance for the Obama campaign in Los Angeles in February, when Michelle Obama held a rally with Oprah Winfrey, Maria Shriver, and Caroline Kennedy.

Today is Shrillary's final chance to change the momentum in the race for the Democratic candidacy. 187 delegates are at stake today (72 in Indiana) , leaving only 217 in the six primaries that remain. Obama leads with 1,743 to 1,607,. AP says 2,025 are needed to secure the Democratic nomination.

The line to enter the mall stretched several blocks and half way around the Federal Courthouse.

A couple of factoids

Obama has five of the state's superdelegates, and Clinton has four. Three are undecided, and one other will be chosen at the Democratic state convention.

Of Hoosiers who gave more than US$200, Obama raised US $883,375 and Shrillary US $664,254.

Shrillary to lose North Carolina and Indiana : soixante neuf pics are Amazing !!! plus Magnaquench Part 2 PLUS+++ Ayers Rocks Part 2

Zogby telephone surveys, conducted May 3-4, 2008 of likely Democratic Party primary voters for Tuesday's primary which will determine the share Clinton and Obama will win of the state's 72 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention show:

In North Carolina, Obama leads with 48% support, compared to 40% for Clinton and 13% either undecided or preferring someone else.

In Indiana, Obama has a tiny 2 % lead , with 44% support, compared to 42% for Clinton and 15% unsure or wanting someone else.

Breaking down the Indiana numbers show big regional differences :

For white voters (89% of electorate) Clinton leads , 46% to 39%, with 15% left unsure or supporting someone else.

For African Americans Obama leads in Indianapolis by a 54% to 33% margin, while Clinton leads by a similar margin across southern Indiana.

Across the northern tier of the state, including Gary in the west, South Bend, Elkhart, and Fort Wayne in the east, the pair are tied at 42% each.

Clinton holds a double-digit lead among Catholics, while Obama has gained a tiny two-point lead among Protestants.

Among voters age 55-64, Clinton leads by a 43% to 41% edge, which represents progress for Obama, who does much better among younger voters.

Among those voters age 35-54, Obama has a very solid 47% to 37% margin.

Among those voters age under 35-54, Obama has a similiar healthy margin.

Looks like Shrillary is an also ran.

Stevie Wonder is scheduled to join Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama for a primary eve of vote open air rally in downtown Indianapolis. which kicks off at 7.0 pm EST. Ron Paul is speaking in Fort Wayne at the same time.

However some of Obama's curious pal's pasts erupted when Chicago radio producer Guy Benson discovered video recordings of Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn speaking at a reunion of antiwar radicals in November 2007.

To live in the United States, Dohrn told the group, is to be "inside the heart of the monster" that is such a "purveyor of violence in the world." Ayers denounced America as an imperial warmonger steeped in "jingoistic patriotism, unprecedented and unapologetic military expansion, white supremacy . . . attacks on women and girls, violent attacks, growing surveillance in every sphere of our lives, on and on and on." You can listen to all the clips here

That will really wow the Hoosiers.... and a lot of other folks.

Click here to download the mp3.In this recent PBS interview, Ayers talks about overthrowing capitalism:

Also more on the Magnaquench story - which is getting a bit more complicated ... (5 mns - not to be missed - Tom Buffenberger is a star!))

Guns : Not a campaign issue

Makayla Booher was born prematurely on Feb. 17, 2004, at world famous Riley Hospital for Children, Indianapolis at 26 weeks and six days -- far short of the normal 40 weeks of gestation. She weighed 1 pound, 14 ounces and was just 14 inches long.

"Makayla beat all the odds stuck in front of her," said her mother Michelle Vensko,34. "She wasn't supposed to walk, or ever roll over. But Makayla was walking and talking. She was outdoing any 4-year-old you've met."

Makayla underwent 15 surgeries, the last one a year ago. The blue-eyed blonde remained small for her age but was otherwise developing well.

Whilst her mother was at Wal Mart yesterday morning buying her some fancy pink pyjamas her 5 year old brother had pulled a chair up to a bookcase in the downstairs living room of their east side Massachusetts Avenue apartment , Indianapolis and taken his father's semi-automatic handgun from the top of a six foot high bookshelf. There was no magazine in the pistol, but a round was in the chamber.

The gun belonged to Makayla's father Mike Booher , a 24 year old security guard, and her mother's ex partner. The 5-year-old took the gun upstairs to play, and there pointed the gun at his sister and pulled the trigger," the police said later . They were called at 10.03 am and arrived to find 4-year-old Makayla on the floor of an upstairs bedroom with a fatal gunshot wound to the head," . James Booher, and the children's 15-year old step-sister and an aunt were at home at the time, but they were in another room.

News reports described this as an "accident".

“My friends, gun owners are not extremists. You’re the core of modern America,” claimed Senator John McCain at the conference of several hundred members of the National Rifle Association in Washington on September 20th last year “The Second Amendment (“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”) is unique in the world and at the core of our constitutional freedoms.”

Don't believe that the Senator is universally admired by the NRA, because like Senator Barack Obama he supports a ban on semi automatic assault rifles ***although Obama has, as an Illinois Senator supported calls for stricter control over handgun purchases - he is said to have a perfect record of voting for every anti-gun law that came before him.

Obama shares with Shrillary the refusal to join 300 members in signing a request by Congress to the Supreme Court to overturn the D.C. gun law - that completely bans the private ownership of any handgun and requires anyone who owns a rifle or shotgun to keep it locked up and disassembled so as not to be avialable for ready use. And the ammo must be stored in a seperate area.

Shillary and Obama are on the stump today and will be in downtown Indy - maybe someone will aks them about gun ownership ?

There isn't a national politician who won't say they don't support the 2nd Amendment - it would be political death.... and the violent end to the short and tragic life of Makayla Booher serves to highlight the consequences of this insane and mediaeval law.

***The federal law banning the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons, known as the federal assault weapons ban, has expired. It was passed as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. President Clinton signed it into law on September 13, 1994. Despite his promise to renew the ban, President George W. Bush and Congress allowed the ban to "sunset" in September of 2004. Info

Including Florida (the first to do so) , 19 states have laws or legal holdings (CAP Child Access Prevention) that specifically hold gun owners accountable for leaving a firearm easily accessible to a child, Indiana isn't one of them. In addition, some cities have enacted local CAP ordinances , Indianapolis isn't one of them. Info

New soap dispenser to help in battle against Clostridium difficile infections

Shrillary : Gas taxes and "Chinagate" and Ron Brown's assassination revisited

How dumb Shrillary is cannot be better defined than her insane proposal to knock off the Federal Gas sales tax of 18.4 cents per gallon (US gallon = 3.785 litres Imperial (UK) EU gallon =
4.55 litres). A proposal that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama does not support. he says quite correctly this is merely a political “gimmick” that would at best save drivers about 30 cents a day -- and only if the oil companies don’t use the headroom to allow them to raise prices.

She appeared on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos" at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in downtown Indianapolis and was pressed by him to name a single economist who supports her plan Shrillary replied that commuters, truck drivers and other gas customers know it would make a difference.

“We have to get out of the mindset where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans,” .......“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists because I know if we did it right ... we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.”

Asked how the proposal squared with her concerns about energy independence and global warming she said that such short term relief (ie, until we've had an election) doesn't mean she isn't advocating long-term solutions to gas prices and energy independence, including making vehicles more fuel efficient and having the United States be a world leader on addressing global warming.

It should be pointed out here that the US federal fuel tax is hypothecated , that is its revenue is directed soley to the maintenance of interstate highways, roadworks , bridges etc., that is to the benefit of the peopel actually paying the tax - as the recent collapse of a major road bridge shows, any reduction in effort or expenditure in this direction would be stupid as the woman who suggests cutting income to zero.

A highly local issue which Shrillary has been raising in TV ads concerns a Valparaiso (North Indiana) based ex GM company called Magnequench that that makes magnets for smart bombs (amongst other things) that moved plant to China in 2003 but was sold to a Chinese consortium San Huan Group Inc. for $70 Mn. by GM in 1995 when her husband was in charge of the pig trough.

“The sale was approved with the condition that the jobs stay in Indiana,” Shrillary maintained, “The plan was that those jobs would always stay in Indiana because those magnets were part of our precision guided missile.”

This revives the stink of" Chinagate" at the time of Shrillarys (successful) senate bid in 2000 when it was revealed she had insisted that Johnny Huang be given a position at the Commerce Department under Ron Brown (the first black ever to hold the post, appointed 1993). She was also quizzed but never answered about her relationship with the Lippo Group Norhas she made any public comment regarding her relationship with the Lippo Group, a firm owned by Indonesian billionaire Moctar Riady, a buddy of President Suharto famous for his human rights record.

It was the same Johnny Huang, who pleaded guilty in 1999 to federal charges of making illegal political contributions to the Clinton/Gore campaign, who had joined the U.S. Commerce Department after leaving a much higher paying job with the Lippo Group. Johnny was also placed on a Commerce Department contract that allowed him to retain his security clearance by Charles Meissner(an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Economic Policy) after Ron Brown died. Shortly thereafter, Meissner died in the crash of a small plane.

Then there was Ted Sioeng the 51-year-old Indonesian and close friend of Mochtar and James Riady who was connected with China's largest cigarette manufacturer who gave the Democratic National Committee accepted at least $400,000 - which enabled Ted to sit next to Billy Boy and Al Gore at fund raisers.

There were others involved in "Chinagate" as well, Charlie Trie, Hara Hsia, Wang Jun , COSTIND, the Chinese Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense and the name of Ron Brown always cropped up.

Especially in the headlines , as when he flew to Croatia to broker a sweetheart deal between the neo-fascist strongman who ran Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, and the late lamented Enron Corporation and died in a mysterious crash of a USAF plane along with 34 other people on 3rd April 1996 it crashed on approaching Dubrovnik airport but initial reports said it crashed in the Adriatic. Curiously the exact same plane (The T43A plane, with a tail number of 1149, was based at the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany) that Shrillary had flown in on her trip to Tuzla days earlier (March 25th) with Chelsea when she had to dodge sniper fire.

Brown had a bullet hole in his head so it was decided an autopsy and inquest would only delay burial which was done on April 10th and Billy Boy was famously caught laughing his head off on video (here). ...and frame by frame here





remarkably ..or not.. the X rays have been ...er..."lost" Lots more

Protocol spoofing and phishing : Amazing pictures !!!

A remarkable spoof has appeared calling itself ISTAR Handbook which is an elaborate hoax from somebody called Sunshine Press about Field Intelligence which has some neat photographs..



and is full of wonderfully impenetrable ersatz jargon ...

34. Once an ISTAR planner has confirmed that his ISTAR
requirements cannot be met from within organic assets ..... and he
has drawn up a provisional collection plan, he needs to submit
ISTAR bids. Critically ...... if the requirement cannot be met from
within organic assets, an ISTAR planner should either pose an
intelligence question, or bid for an ISTAR product. He should not
bid for an asset. In so doing he allows the Collection Managers
further up the chain to determine the best platform to answer the
question, and thus maximise collection capability with the limited
assets available. There are two processes for bidding for ISTAR
products (although these may vary in different theatres):

Lord know what geeks have sat up producing this ... it is said that if you set up 10,000 monkeys with 10,000 typewriters ....although the unexpected pornographic content is a bit of a surprise.

How to re-cycle a chewing gum story when grant application time comes around again.

ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2005) — Are you sick and tired of stepping in waste chewing gum? Have you ever noticed gum litter on pavements in the High Street? When is the last time your child came home with gum in their hair or on their clothes?

Now help is at hand. The University of Manchester is working with Green Biologics, an Oxford based biotechnology company, to develop a revolutionary biological treatment that is cost effective, non-toxic and environmentally friendly. ....this new treatment uses natural enzymes to break down the chemical structure of gum.

Scientists target £150m chewing gum menace with organic salt solution
Robin McKie, science editor The Observer, Sunday May 4 2008

Scientists have created a biological brew that could help Britain clean up a £150m-a-year environmental menace: discarded chewing gum.

The researchers, based in Manchester and Belfast, have developed a special solution of enzymes which can break up and dissolve blobs of gum hardened to our streets and pavements. At present, such lumps can be removed only by using cumbersome high pressure steam hoses, expensive and noisy freezing machines or corrosive chemicals that damage the environment.

For a background on the origins of chewing gum , worldwide manufacturers and vendors (Mars have just taken over Wrigleys with help from Warren Buffet) , solutions to street cleaning, applications in medicine go here

..or even better news ..
Big tits if you chew gum

In a squalid justification of this saucy picture, Japanese confectionary company Good One Ltd. claims that their B2 UP when chewed three or four times a day, can increase breast size, improve circulation, reduce stress and fight aging. The powerful ingredient is the Pueraria mirifica root extract also known as Gwao Krua, and is indigenous to Thailand and Burma. The plant’s underground tubers contain a number of chemicals called Phytoestrogens, natural compounds which are said to mimic the effects of the female sex hormone, oestrogen.

The company said tests carried out by Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University found Pueraria mirifica therapy was able to enhance breast size up to 80%.... the report failed to say if this applied to both sexes.

Illegal drugs - the magic disapperaring trick

On Tuesday, October 10, 2006 we reported on Northern Ireland's biggest ever drugs haul today . In the absence of further report , one year ago on Sunday, May 06, 2007 we kept readers up to date with Where are they Now No 231 : 4Tons / £10Mn haul of cannabis in Northern Ireland .

Surprisingly in the 12 months since, we have heard nothing more about this astonishing success in the war on drugs, although On the 11th of October the quantity seized was reported to be 4 tonnes in weight, with street value of £10 Mn. (Euros 14.5 Mn). Local Strangford MP Iris Robinson (wife of 1st Minister Peter) congratulated those who had succeeded in keeping the huge haul off the streets. “It is not yet clear who was responsible for this criminal act or whether there was paramilitary involvement ..." she said at the time.(Pssst!!! it is highly unlikely there are any IRA paramilitaries active in or around Newtownards)

Today BBC Online report that Police have made what is believed to be one of the UK's largest seizures of cocaine, with a street value estimated at £13Mn.(17 Mn. Euros)

It appears that 2 vehicles arrived at a UK port from Europe and Cumbria Police made the seizure.

Six men were arrested, and addresses in Cumbria, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire are being searched.Detective Chief Inspector Jeff Ashton, of Cumbria CID is reported to have said, "I am absolutely delighted with the success of this operation and the fact that we have prevented such a large quantity of cocaine from reaching the streets of Britain."

....well it might have delayed from reaching the streets...

Gordon Brown found dead on lonely Scottish foreshore

The folds of wan and flaccid flesh of the neck are repeated in the creased white and flabby underarms. He carefully prods a suspicious mole on the clavicle and makes a note.

With care and caution he locates and listens to his stethoscope. Simply confirming the evidence of the ECG's , echocardiograms and lung volume tests.

He is aware of the stertorous breathing as he dresses. A slight bronchitic cough when settling to listen to the verdict.

"Well everything is OK...but .. age is taking it's toll. Lung capacity is not really what it should be, bloods OK, Cholesterol a wee bit out of kilter."

He taps the laboratory report - " Liver enzymes" ...." a wee dram more than needed?". In the still and silent room there is no response.

He rises out of deference to acknowledge the patient is leaving. " Try some good vigorous outdoor exercise - a weekly walk ?."

They shake hands and with a mumbled "Thank you", it is over.

He returns to the desk and carefully assembles the reports and places them in the boldly marked folder. On momentary reflection he re-visits the lab report.

A coronary event is coming, as sure and as certain as Christmas.

On the foreshore at Wemyss by the pier the early and anxious dog walker greets the two patrolmen from Fife Police.

"Bit of mystery here officer , no name, no pack drill"
His black Labrador sits whining at the short leash. The retired military looking type thrusts some papers at the officer.
" Two pieces of paper here "
Both handwritten in a black felt tip, smudged with damp; the first a list of ten recordings, which looked a rough run through for Desert Island Discs, the second ..

Preserve us, O Lord, while waking,
and guard us while sleeping,
that awake we may watch with Christ,
and asleep we may rest in peace.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace :
according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen :
thy salvation;

Which thou hast prepared :
before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles :
and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son :
and to the Holy Ghost;

as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.

Preserve us, O Lord, while waking,
and guard us while sleeping,
that awake we may watch with Christ,
and asleep we may rest in peace.

"Nunc dimitiss, that is ,"said the younger of the two policemen... "and look here an empty bottle ... the Macallan . Hmm expensive tastes."

In the late afternoon a hastily summoned press conference was given a brief statement.No questions were allowed.

1. The Prime Minister's body had been found this morning on the foreshore at Wemyss Bay.
2. He had previously been on a retreat to Dysart House, run by the Carmelite Nuns.
3. It appears that he had gone for a walk along the Fife coastal path and his absence not noted until this morning.