"“We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.”
"
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao 12th March 2009
""We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we'd like to do our best to preserve that
system."
Timothy GeithnerUS Secretary of the Treasury, previously President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.1/3/2009
It all started here - Sally Clark Part 1 21/07/04 Stolen Innocence: The Story of Sally Clark Reviewed. Stolen Innocence: The Story of Sally Clark by John Batt, Ebury Press 2004 ISBN 0091900700 336 pps.
Much had (and has) been made of the faulty statistical evidence provided at the trial by Professor Meadows, a professional medical witness, pediatrician and originator of the diagnosis in mothers of "Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy".
Mothers do kill their children to attract attention he said. An unremarkable conclusion but one that met fiery antagonism by the raging feminist wing of of the burgeoning "New Women" who, like Sally Clark , a high powered solicitor at a blue chip lawyers, want both babies and careers.
As long ago as 1951 a doctor, Richard Asher described in The Lancet, the self-harming, wannabe patients who fabricated histories, signs, and symptoms of illness to gain hospital access and treatment after the fabulous Baron Munchausen who told wild traveller's tales.
Many years later in 1977 Professor Meadows of Leeds University borrowed the term to describe how mothers harmed children, indeed sometimes killed them. and called the condition "Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy" (MSbP). The Royal College Of Paediatrics and Child Health have since 2002 preferred the more anodyne and less theatrical term Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII).
Meadows claimed at the Sally Clark trial that the chances of two children dying of natural causes was ; 1 At the committal hearings 1: 1 million. 2 At the trial he said it was 1: 73 million.
A massive difference , that went unchallenged by the defence and it appears slid easily past the Rolls Royce mind of Sally Clark's brief, Julian Bevan QC renowned as a prosecutor, and his Junior John Kelsey Fry. Statistical claims the Royal Society subsquently described as invalid. (Meadows was struck off for presenting this evidence by the GMC then re-instated).
Recalled by the jury to explain what had happened to the blood samples from the children the Pediatric pathologist Dr Williams explained “…the chemistry of blood is so unreliable after death as to be of no diagnostic value…”. Of the post mortem blood sample “…it was submitted for toxicological examination and would have been sent for viral studies”.
Cross examined by the defence, Williams claims that the appropriate microbiology reports had been provided to the prosecution (and therefore available under disclosure to the defence). This was a lie.
At Sally Clark's second Appeal January 28th 2003 (after 2 1/2 years in prison) Dr Williams was called to give evidence about these blood samples (which had been found and many leading docters said could suggest the first child died of a staphylococcal infection). He did not turn up. Sally Clark was immediately released. Desite popular belief Meadows nonsensical claims had nothing to do with the success of the appeal orchestrated by the fragrant, high powered and immensely well paid Claire Montgomery (who also acts for Mr Bernard Berzovsky when he applies for citizenship), although they were mentioned in the judgement.
By this time a most bizarre and unexpected intrusion had been made into the case of the death of the 2 Clark Boys. Channel 4 had made a film and broadcast it, prior to the appeal. Amongst the audience was Dr David Southall, a pediatrician with wide experience of FII.
He complained to the Police on the basis of seeing the programme, that Steven Clark, the husband and father (who had appeared on the original charge sheet but removed), had been involved in the death of his 2 children.
Dr Southall prepared a dossier but no action was taken. The Clark family complained to the GMC and eventually, after he refused the opportunity to recant, he repeated the accusation, so the GMC placed certain restrictions on his activities with children and parents.
Whilst Mr Steven Claark has had his fill of courts and family deaths, he has not yet taken steps to sue Dr Southall for libel, for publicly calling him a murderer.
Lord Patel has many hobby horses and the activities of pediatricians is way down the list , his interest in the Sally Clark case was the incompetent lawyers and the scandalous way the Defence and Prosecution , with the connivance of the judge withheld evidence in the trial.
During their searches of the Clark household Plod discovered evidence of payment for treatment of Mrs Clark for alcohol related problems, witnesses also spoke of her daytime drinking.
In a curious (presumably legal but nonetheless dodgy) deal it was agreed no evidence would be called about Mrs Clark's treatment and the need for it and as a quid pro quo as we lawyers say, she would not be able to bring character witnesses - denying, family, friends, work colleagues , nursing staff, doctors, domestic staff, employers, the opportunity to attest to her good character.
As this deal was unknown to the jury we can only speculate what they thought about a senior lawyer who could not produce a single character witness in her defence.
Anyway the saga has a long and wriggling tale which acheived some finality this week.
The Solicitor General Vera Baird, made a written statement to the House of Commons.
In February 2007 the then Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, announced a review of criminal cases in which Dr. David Southall had been a prosecution witness. It was said (not least by David Hemming MP) that in cases where he was a witness a hoard of 500"secret files", these Special cases (SC) files had been secreted and denied the defence.
"Dr. Southall provided all the SC files he held—a total of 4,344 files—in accordance with his undertaking to the GMC. " The review team (at what cost ?) found, "On reviewing these files in depth, the team found no grounds to suggest that there had been a failure to comply with the prosecution’s obligations of disclosure to the defence. "
A redacted copy (to preserve patient's anonymity) was placed in the House of Commons Library. So is effectively inacessible to the general public without considerable trouble.
In looking deeper, it is apparent that there is (and has been for many years) a small and dedicated group of anti-medical, anti Dr Southall activists with extraordinary Press access who have poisoned the public well of trust in doctors and social workers by relentlesly (and pointlessly) hounding Dr Southall.
The whole sick and sad story is detailed at NHS Expose
Impervious to debate, convinced you are right, you have traduced, complained about and harried dedicated professional people working in this difficult area.I do not punish you for that, let me make it clear, however tiresome and eccentric your views are, the toleration afforded to you who expressed them, by those who hear them, is part of the price we gladly pay for living in a liberal democracy.
To this must be added complaints to the RCPCH, the Central Council for Nursing, Social Services, the Police, the NHS Executive, the Chief Medical Officer, the Health Minister and the Prime Minister. She has also made, or assisted other members of the pressure group to make, complaints against at least 22 doctors and other professionals, all of whom had spoken up for or otherwise supported the beleaguered Professor- or, at least, had challenged Ms Mellor’s view of him.
The GMC is not a civil court , it is a professional regulatory body. Had Ms Mellor brought so many failed complaints before the civil courts, Professor Southall would have long ago been entitled to ask the Attorney General’s office to consider making an application to have her declared a vexatious litigant.
The GMC cannot do this at present.
As a creature of statute, it is bound to follow the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998, which enacts into English law the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 6 of the Convention sets out the Right to a Fair Trial, and R v GMC, ex parte Toth [2000] 1 WLR 2209 (QBD) clearly shows that the GMC is obliged to follow this requirement with respect to medical practitioners, at least.
Ms Mellor is, a skilled and expert press feed, and has been hugely successful in her anti-Southall crusade . In this she has been assisted by her long-time associate, Mr Brian Morgan. Mr Morgan, is described as a journalist and vice-chairman of the Cardiff and SE Wales NUJ. he appears always ready to leap to Ms Mellor’s aid when awkward questions loom, and is frequently to be found posting messages in support of Ms Mellor on internet discussion forums.
This is a list of known complaints in the last 10 years by Mrs Mellor and associates. Click to enlarge.
The same goroup have made endless complainst to the same group of individuals to: Research ethics committees who have passed research projects Universities who have supported research Editors of journals in which papers have been published Conference organisers Various police authorities Civil servants Ministers in HM Government Media organisations Politicians
Of the last group, one unpleasant person sticks out. John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD) is ever in the Vanguard and managed a spectacular (and of course privileged outburst ) in the House of Commons November 16th 2006.
Roy Meadow, who followed in the tradition of Matthew Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) , and David Southall, who shared that ancestry and that of Joseph Mengele combined, should have to account for the misery that they caused
John Hemming is a fascinating man. A family man , he has a wife and 3 children. He also fathered after a 6 year affair a child by his researcher Emily Cox in 2005, a fact he managed conceal when he was elected . MP shags researcher is hardly a story but Mrs Hemming's reaction was. She told the Birmingham Post "He started having affairs about four to five years into our marriage." Her children aged 5,12,14 at the time would have been able to read that she also said that their father had as many as 26 affairs in 23 years.
On the subject of the pregnant Emily Cox, Mrs Hemming said: "She came round to the house about six months ago and I made it clear she was one of many and was unlikely to get him to herself."
This loathsome Lothario is so full of chutzpah .In October, a few weeks before the child was born, the MP voted for himself in the News of the World's Love Rat of the Yearcompetition.
The above quote from Hansard is only one of many misquotes or unpleasantnesses about David Southall he makes under the cloak of privilege... he also calls social workers "child snatchers" a phrase wisely adopted by the Daily Mail.
His record of veracity is well document in a superb website, John Hemming MP The Truth behind the Facade , for example Lord Justice Nicholas Wall in June 2008 in a case in which Hemming was a witness for a woman whoswe child had been taken into care said:
"As to Mr Hemming, my judgment is that his self-imposed role as a critic of the family justice system is gravely damaged. "Speaking for myself I will not be persuaded to take seriously any criticism made by him in the future unless it is corroborated by reliable, independent evidence." "Mr Hemming has been willing to scatter unfounded allegations of professional impropriety and malpractice without any evidence to support them," he said.
Lord Justice Wall also referred to criticism Hemming levelled against a clinical psychologist identified by the initials HJ - He said the allegations represented in his judgment "a wholesale and entirely unwarranted attack on the professional integrity of HJ for which, once again, there is no evidence what so ever."
Soon after the birth of his love child, Hemming was back in the headlines, this time telling the Mail on Sunday that "Gestapo" social workers had "harassed" Ms Cox as she went into labour, because she had told her doctor she had failed to register a stillbirth when she was a teenager.
Birmingham City council then discovered it was to be sued by one of its own councillors.
In December, Hemming MP issued a writ alleging Ms Cox had been "defamed, tortured and assaulted" by social services, who had, he claimed, breached her human rights. He was seeking £300,000 compensation, part of which he wanted to be paid personally by the individual social workers concerned.
It is almost impossible to believe this lunatic was elected or remains a member of the Liberal Democrat Party. The Cost to the public purse of this Neanderthal , his Justice for Parent and the self styled children's advocate Penny Mellor is incalculable.
But the incurious mainstream press fall for it - the Daily Mail ("Councils making millions in incentives after snatching record numbers of babies for adoption") or the Daily Telegraph ("System taking hundreds of babies for adoption") lapping up what Hemming has had to say on the subject, which has ranged from allegations of "social engineering on a grand a scale" to claims that "A thousand kids a year are being taken off their birth parents just to satisfy targets". Mother-to-be flees as social workers warn her they will take her baby away at birth Daily Mail 21 November 2007 - an article that quotes Hemming ,"Mr Hemming is chairman of the Justice for Families organisation and believes councils are now taking more babies to meet Government adoption targets."
Also visit Cot death, infanticide & child protection a site run by Jonathan Gornall which has an extensive library and is described as a " site [that] serves as a repository for those articles and as a source of information relating to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, infanticide and the campaign against UK professionals working in child-protection services.
Justice for Families have a website and also here this happily reproduces speeches of David Hemming in the House of Commons 19th december 2006 where he says "The problem is that over decades he (David Southall) was allowed to continue to do research just as damaging as that of Josef Mengele, without proper action by the authorities. "
Those who have the patience can go the John Hemmings blog where for some curious reason he fails to post anything about the statement by Vera Baird about the investigation into the activities of Dr David Southall as a prosecution witness. ..."On reviewing these files in depth, the team found no grounds to suggest that there had been a failure to comply with the prosecution’s obligations of disclosure to the defence. " was a result which lying, devious, dishonest people like John Hemming cannot deal with.
Meanwhile we wait for Mr Steven Clark to sue Dr David Southall for libel for calling him a murderer. All it needs is a phone call to Schillings or Carter Fuck.
STOP PRESS Saturday 26th July Transport for London apologyTransys Links provided by Watching Them Watching Us of problems caused again for users of the Oyster card (initial cost £1.2 Billion) on Friday 25th, this was blamed on " incorrect data tables being sent out by our contractor" , whatever that means.
Report of problems on Friday in Guradian who say the problem started at 5.30 am , with the pay-as-you-go system. It meant that barriers had to be kept open throughout the busiest period in the morning at a cost of many tens of thousands of pounds in lost fares to Transport for London (TfL).
The BBC Online report talked of losses of over £100,000 to TfL which would be claimed from Transys. The Daily Telegraph has a headline , "Oyster card failure gives London commuters free travel" - a spokemans for TFl said, ""We believe that this problem, like the last one resulted from incorrect data tables being sent out by our contractor, Transys."
The Register says ,"TfL has denied this (the hacking of the RFID chip) has anything to do with the two recent failures but it has been suggested that security updates to try and protect the system against cloned cards caused the problems."
There has been remarkably little informed comment about the hacking and publication of the NXP/Philips' MIFARE chip used by Trnsys - and other transport systems, access control etc.,
Two principal ideas emerge ;
1. Some people / users are trying hacks and just screwing the systems.
2. Patches and updates to defend from attacks are screwing the systems.
The fact that this last manifestation resulted in free use for many users would lend suport to the idea that someone wants to make some political / social point.
Of course all this gladdens the heart of any No2ID member. Lord Patel confidently predicts more problems and a certainty that CCTV cameras watching transaction points / barriers are working and being watched very, very carefully.
It's frightening that West Side Story is 50 years old. Lord Patel was a spotty teenager who had regular access to the Opera House in Manchester in September 1958 and saw the premiere. Note this first showing was in Manchester NOT London .. we also got to see the memorable first night of TWANG !! at the Palace Theatre. A disastrous Lionel Bart musical with Anthony Newley, said to have been based on the story of Robin Hood. It lasted a seemingly interminable 3 hours.
Brought up on wholesome diet of Oklahoma! and Gilbert & Sullivan light operas, the effect of this bastardized story of the Montagus and Capulets was stunning., especially the transformation scene when the female chorus sing America!
Gee Officer Krupke!, was a revelation.
Lord Patel at the time had a Saturday job re-arranging sheet music at White & Swales . This was a tiny music shop in Grafton Street, Altrincham. The partners were pianist Noel White ex chairman and director of Altrincham FC, Liverpool FC one of the architects of the the Premier League and now Chairman of the powerful FA International Committee. Peter Swales was very fond of the odd drink or two and was, at his peak Chairman of Manchester City he died in 1996 aged 64.
This was the THE place to be on Saturday afternoons to riffle through the boxes of 78's and listen in to the booths, ogle the girls and act cool. They expanded into white goods and TV's with multiple shops throughout the NW and sold out to Curry's for millions.
Lord Patel seized the opportunity to write down the words from the sheet music and learn them, principally to shock teachers ...
Gee, Officer Krupke, We're down on our knees, 'Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease. Gee, Officer Krupke, What are we to do? Gee, Officer Krupke, Krup you!
The last line of which became our secret oath which mystified our guardians. We were also singing Rock around the Clock , Hound Dog and Good Golly Miss Molly !! .. as no doubt Sir Mick Jagger did at Dartford Grammar School. He is 65 today.
Commenting on plans for a new Israeli settlement the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband said:
"I was dismayed to learn of plans for new settlement construction in the Jordan Valley. These are clearly outside Israel's Roadmap and Annapolis commitments. At this important moment in the peace process all sides need to take steps to build confidence and ensure practical progress. As the Prime Minister spelt out clearly during his recent visit to the region, settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories represents a real obstacle to peace. I urge Israel not to approve these plans. We have made our views clear directly to the Israeli government."
Quite evidently the words of our craven prime Minister last week to the Knesset have had no effect ..
And to deliver this historic hard won and lasting peace, it is vital also that both sides now create the conditions for a final agreement:
#the Palestinians acting with persistence and perseverance against the terrorists who attack your country; #Israel freezing, and withdrawing from, settlements ------ and like many of your friends, I urge you to make these decisions.
"We are currently in the process of constructing 20 housing units in the Jordan Valley settlement of Maskiot," a senior defence ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokeswoman Michele Montas said " Ban had repeatedly stressed that "settlement construction or expansion is contrary to international law and Israel's commitments under the roadmap and the Annapolis process."
"The Secretary General urges Israel to heed the call of the (Middle East peace) Quartet to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth, and to dismantle outposts erected since March 2001," she added. This Christian Science Monitor article from January 2007 shows how this was being done then - Israel eyes West Bank growth
There has been no let up in the land grabs, evictions and construction of settlements since Annapolis - ther are now over 470,000 Israelis living in West Bank setllements, 200,000 of them in East Jerusalem. This "Jordan Valley" site is the English version for settlers about living in the Jordan valley. They have an uncompromising view -
"The region is considered crucial to Israel’s security because it serves as the eastern defensive shield against attack.
The Jordan Valley Development Fund provides for the welfare of the people who live in the various communities in the Jordan Valley and N. Dead Sea area by supporting programs and activities in the fields of education, social welfare, development, security, health, cultural, environmental and Jewish identity for the different communities, strengthening them and the eastern border of Israel.
Nothing new here - Al Jazeera report from 20th February in Maskiot on the 20 hectares of land being used that has been illegally taken.
"Actions, however, speak louder than words. The new settlement of Maskiot tells us that that Olmert's governments may not be the government a lot of Israelis thought they had voted for, and Olmert's policies may not be precisely what he sold to the Americans. Maskiot is probably the first new settlement to be created outside Jerusalem, with full government approval, since the Oslo peace process began. Its establishment violates two undertakings to the United States:
1. Not to establish new settlements 2. Not to settle settle evacuees from Gaza in them.
True, the settlement existed as an army base, and Israel may claim it is only "firming up" an existing settlement. However, that is clearly not the case. "
Tony Hatfield casts his expert forensic gaze on the judgement of Justice Eady in the case of Mosley v News of the World which the BBC have kindly provided on line here.
Tony ask the question ..."Did the News of the World really try blackmail to get evidence against Mosley?"
If , as he suggests , you search on the word "blackmail" in the judgement, you will find two sections , paras 82 - 87 when Editor Colin Myler (who BBC4 gave a handsome "Profile" repeated 3 times last week) and chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck were cross examined, that Justice Eady isolates to demonstrate that that is indeed what they did.
In this case the soon to be ex Editor and reporter were blackmailing the highly paid ladies who indulged Max Mosley in his strange fantasies... and who went on to print spurious , misleading and dishonest statements , the ladies were alleged to have made.
Perhaps more intriguing ,is the reason for the activities of the News of the World in the light of what was said (at para 225) ..
In this particular case, the evidence is that the Claimant had received a warning from Lord Stevens that he was being watched by some unidentified group of people hostile to him. This was at the end of February. He had also received a similar tip from Mr Bernie Ecclestone in January. He had taken the matter sufficiently seriously to arrange instruction for himself in spotting or avoiding surveillance.
It is worth noting the ante-penultimate paragraph of the judgement No 234..
It is perhaps worth adding that there is nothing “landmark” about this decision. It is simply the application to rather unusual facts of recently developed but established principles. Nor can it seriously be suggested that the case is likely to inhibit serious investigative journalism into crime or wrongdoing, where the public interest is more genuinely engaged.
The judge must have chuckled as he assembled his statement ... it is not without some droll observations ..
30. It is fair to point out that any parts of the photographs revealing anybody’s private parts are discreetly blocked out – including in one instance by a chequered flag.
65. It was put to the Editor and Mr Thurlbeck that the reason why Woman E was only paid £12,000 after she delivered the video material, despite having been offered £25,000 previously, was that they had been disappointed by the lack of Nazi content – a pertinent question. This was denied and the editor gave the reason that they like to renegotiate downwards, when in a strong bargaining position. They were affected by the credit crunch like everyone else.
One is left wondering what sort of depraved people do like to strut about in Nazi uniforms .... When they do, there is always, it seems, one of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers ready to print the pictures.
Hypocrisy and lies about the UK nuclear arsenal is stock in trade. This time the perpetrators of the lies have been caught with their trousers down, thanks to CND.
David Gould, ****then (since 2004) chief operating officer at the Defence Equipment and Support Organisation (previously CEO of the hopelessly incompetent Defence Procurement Agency which preceded DESO) made a speech to what the MOD describe as , "200 very senior representatives of industry" on 27th June 2007 at a conference, chillingly entuitled "Future Deterrence industry Day."
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament have finally obtained under a Freedom of Information request notes of his speech that day the the cream of the global military industrial complex. Originally redacted they have now been revealed to show that ""The intention is to replace the entire Vanguard Class submarine system. Including the warhead and missile."
This may not be a surprise to many people but it shows the Government have quite deliberately misled Parliament.
Whilst the Commons voted last year to replace the submarines that carry the UK's nuclear warheads on Trident missiles, the White Paper and repeated ministerial statements since then have claimed that no decision would be taken on replacing the explosive warheads themselves until the next Parliament, expected to be 2010 at the earliest.
Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: "This document destroys any remaining credibility in the Government's claim that it has not yet made a decision on new nuclear warheads. Staffing at the Atomic Weapons Establishment has grown by a third in the last five years, with billions spent on new facilities, yet throughout this the Government has been telling MPs and the public that it would be years before any decision was needed. It is a disgrace that the MoD is secretly telling the defence industry one thing, whilst Ministers are saying quite the opposite to Parliament."
She continued, "The explosive warheads are the destructive core of the UK's nuclear weapons system. But they are also at the political core of the issue. Building newer, potentially more advanced warheads will breach our commitment to disarm under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and will send out a destabilising and hypocritical message to other states, both with and currently without such weapons. A decision to go ahead with new warheads will have a much greater impact than the plan for new submarines, which merely provide the launch platform for these terrible weapons."
The Atomic Weapons Establishment has seen huge investment over recent years, with staffing growing by a third and capital costs going from £24m in 2000/1 to £420 in 2007/8. In the next three years £1750m is budgeted for investment there, the vast majority coming from the MoD main budget. There careers section on the website boasts .."With over 4,500 employees and more than 2,000 contractors based at two neighbouring sites"
AWE also have fascinating ways of introducing children to their deadly business .. a recent Press Release ."13/06/08 AWE’s SCIENCE COMPETITION IS A BIG HIT WITH CHALK RIDGE PRIMARY SCHOOL Basingstoke Ever wondered what life is like on another planet? This was the ethos behind an AWE competition for 10 and 11-year-olds to come up with a blueprint for an extraordinary planet, encouraging youngsters to explore the fun, adventurous side of science and technology...
Curiously nothing about designing, making, building, new superior targetting nuclear wardheads.
With the current state of the art,a single submarine on patrol will be prepared to launch an attack with all its 14 missiles and 48 nuclear warheads - targetted on Moscow this will kill 3 million people.(see here) Please don't tell the kids at Chalk Ridge Primary that.***
So, whilst the craven Prime Minister can speak to the Israeli parliament , boasting on our behalf ..." the UK will continue to lead - with the US and our EU partners - in our determination to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons programme," he , a well known enthusiast for Trident, has already decided to press on with the UK arming with even more lethal nuclear warheads ... and lying to Parliament about it.
**** David Gould speaks fluent French and Italian, has homes in Bath and Puglia, is a keen member of the Avon and tributaries Angling Association, the Morgan Sports Car Club, and is a passionate supporter of Bath Rugby.
David Gould Consultants Limitedhave a website on which you can view a video of David talking about How Defence Industrial Strategy will be delivered. Fascinating.
*** Mrs Shave , Headteacher has a school poem...This poem by Dorothy Lawe Holte reflects the school’s philosophy and underpins everything that our school strives towards.
'A LIFE IN YOUR HANDS' If a child lives with criticism, He learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility, He learns to fight. If a child lives with ridicule, He learns to be shy. If a child lives with shame, He learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with tolerance, He learns to be patient. If a child lives with encouragement, He learns confidence. If a child lives with praise, He learns to appreciate. If a child lives with fairness, He learns justice If a child lives with security, He learns to have faith. If a child lives with approval, He learns to like himself. If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, He learns to find love in the world.
2 Hoosiers 16 year old Samantha Peszek who has been at DeVeau’s School of Gymnastics in Fishers Indianapolis for the last 13 years, and Bridget Sloan, 16, Pittsboro who trains at Sharp’s Gymnastics on the Northwestside are off to Peking
That's the good news.
The community is chipping in as we speak to help the parents of Samantha go to Peking to see her in action after her dad lost his job today.
US men's national team coordinator Ron Brant said he expected no problems with Morgan Hamm's participation on the U.S. team. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee reaffirmed his membership on the team last week, in the wake of a public warning by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency after he tested positive for a prohibited substance at nationals.
The International Gymnastics Federation has the right to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The Victory Column in Berlin commemorates the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian war, the defeat of Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870/1871), in what came to be called the Unification Wars. Hilter had it moved (and thereby saved it from Allied bombing) as part of his grand plan for Berlin.
As an Ambassador for Erutz USA , Obama must have felt at home with this as his podium and a backdrop ... however his admonition reported by AP was best kept for Berliners, more used to tearing walls down, rather than building them ...."The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christians and Muslims and Jews cannot stand." he said. Brave words. Braver than those of his tawdry, craven warm up act in Jerusalem , by Zionist lickspittle Gordon Brown. see - Stop the WallLatest News
For those who think Obama wants to shrink the US military footprint, read Renewing American Leadership by Barack Obama -From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007 ournal of Foreign relations , especially the section "Revitalising the Military" ...
"We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor, incentives, and training -- including in foreign languages and other critical skills. Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness."
No doubt when he appeared in front of 100,000 Berliners , after having bent Angela Merkel's ear about sending some more NATO troops off to a certain death in Afghanistan he must have felt his trip worthwhile.
Unfortunately the citizens of Europe don't vote and the most concern US TV viewers have had this last week, has been the fate of Greg Norman in the British Open.
Meanwhile McCain called into a German restaurant , waiting for his moment.
UPDATE Friday : 'Siegessäule', victory column, where Obama appeared is also the name of the premier gay magazine in Berlin. The mayor of Berlin, Wowereit, is openly gay.
If we do a whois on www.dragandabic.com .... http://www.robtex.com/dns/dragandabic.com/whois.html
Domain Name: DRAGANDABIC.COM Registrar: ENOM, INC. Whois Server: whois.enom.com Referral URL: http://www.enom.com Name Server: NS1.DREAMHOST.COM Name Server: NS2.DREAMHOST.COM Name Server: NS3.DREAMHOST.COM Status: clientTransferProhibited Updated Date: 22-jul-2008 Creation Date: 22-jul-2008 Expiration Date: 22-jul-2009
>>> Last update of whois database: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:03:33 EDT <<< We seek him here ..
UPDATE : Let's just hope that he doesn't try and run away and get shot in the process...like a bulldozer driver.
UPDATE : 2.00pm BST Mark Easton from the BBC blogs about the above hoax- exposed strangely enough by the blogistes and not the MSM. He then launches into an immoderate tirade against hoaxers (AKA blogistes) and how the BBC never get hoaxed (They have been on a training course) . David Davis anyone ? Osmium tetroxide anyone ?, Ricin poisoning anyone ? WTC 7 anyone ? No. No. No the BBC never get hoaxed - well only by Government, SIS , MI5, MI6 etc., .
"Karadzic was no fool; he spoke the diplomats' language, and, in return, Britain, France and the UN led the prevalent international policy of calculated refusal to stop him, thereby advancing his aims. The governments of Britain and France especially - as well as the United Nations leadership - saw in Karadzic not the war criminal they call him today, but a fellow politician with whom to do business. Karadzic dealt - directly or indirectly - with Lord Peter Carrington, Malcolm Rifkind, Lord David Owen, Cyrus Vance, Douglas Hurd and Dame Pauline Neville-Jones as an equal, deserving full diplomatic protocol."
Ed Vulliamy The Guradian, Wednesday July 23, 2008 "The Edge of Madness"
"Politicians in the West then stood by during the Foča massacre and the Prijedor massacre before UN troops were committed: to defend the international airport. The rest of the story is essentially the story of Western politicians' utter inactivity: a refusal to name what was happening as genocide in order to avoid the legal and moral responsibility to act, and literally standing by while massacre after massacre occurred." Bob from Brockley
These were the result of trials and the Convictions handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: for the events at Foča Dragoljub Kunarac (28 years in prison) Radomir Kovač (20 years in prison) - While four girls, were kept in his apartment, the convicted Radomir Kovač abused them and raped three of them many times, thereby perpetuating the attack upon the Bosnian Muslim civilian population. Kovač would also invite his friends to his apartment, and he sometimes allowed them to rape one of the girls. Kovač also sold three of the girls. Prior to their being sold, Kovač had given two of these girls, to other Serb soldiers who abused them for more than three weeks before taking them back to Kovač, who proceeded to sell one and give the other away to acquaintances of his. Zoran Vuković (12 years in prison) - served his sentence in Bodø, Norway and was released in May 2008, after serving half of the sentence. Milorad Krnojelac (12 years in prison) Dragan Zelenović (pleaded guilty, 15 years in prison)
The head of Foča police forces, Dragan Gagović, was personally identified as one of the men who went into detention centres to take women out and rape them. He was charged but found not guilty.
This is but one small element of those covered by the ICTY of atrocities See Para 570 "The Trial Chamber is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there was an extensive attack by the Serb forces targeting the Muslim civilian population in the area and for the period covered by Indictments IT-96-23 and IT-96-23/1. The attack encompassed the municipalities of Foca, Gacko and Kalinovik. " The UN, everyone sat and watched. ITV filmed. Everyone gasped.
Curiously as the news broke on Monday night of the capture of Karadic, the BBC newsnight was able to assemble telephone interviews with General Rose, David Owen , Paddy Pantsdown and of course Lady Dame Jane Barones Pauline Neville Jones.
In the endless game of securing the assets of the Caspian region the break up of Yugoslavia was (and is) critical. A statelet of the US run by Albanian gangsters now runs a small lump of territiry which now houses one of the most important strategic US overseas bases at Camp Bondsteel.
A puppet government supported by the West now presides in Belgrade which we had to bomb into submission - they can now join the Common Market.
Meanwhile the ITCY Hague Tribunal trial of three former Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina, Ivan Čermak and Mladen Markač, indicted for war crimes committed against ethnic Serbs during and after Croatian Army's 1995 US organised Operation Storm carries on.
Croatian veterans meanwhile are forming a Zbor Udruga or Assemble of Croat Associations which they want General Ante Gotovina to lead when he is found inoccent and released. For the time being they are left to listen to controversial singer Marko Perković Thompson, criticized for his pro-Nazi lyrics and iconography - he's going easy on the Ustashe songs currently - too much trouble results. See here how the US backed the Croatian ethnic cleansing of the Serbs in the devastating Operation Storm. Tuesday, December 26, 2006 Perfidious Clinton / Hollingrooke /Galbraith / CIA New Year 1994 - Lest we forget
As ever the US backed both ends aganist the middle - and allowed Ante Govina a long leash until they hauled him in, just as they have done with Karadic, who they could have nabbed anytime they wanted. see Thursday, September 14, 2006 Where are they Now ? Pt 322(b) General Ante Gotovina
On Thursday, July 17th 2005 some time between 3 and 3:30pm, Dr. David Kelly started out on his usual afternoon walk. About 18 hours later, searchers found his body, left wrist slit, in a secluded lane on Harrowdown Hill, near his home.
Page 722 The Blair Years A Campbell Diary entry July 18th
"Then Tom told me the body had been found. This was getting more and more grim...then TB came on the plane. I said I'd really had enough. He said we should have a judicial enquiry now. I said I really wanted to go and I felt I should do it now.I had been determined to clear my name .... I was clear it had all gone too far ..."
History is littered with shattered dreams, vanished illusions, mirages of hope, simply, there are times when the orthodoxy of the masses was just plain wrong -- that the the Sun revolved around the Earth, disease was caused by an imbalance of the humours, when we thought reality TV was a passing fad, global climate change was anthropogenic. Microsoft is painfully aware of, if not a consensus, a widely held impression of Windows Vista as bloated, slow, annoying and not good at playing with other items such as scanners, printers ..... and it's about to spend some $300 million to convince us otherwise.
Yes Folks .
Microsoft's naive VP of Vista marketing, (there must have been the shortest queue in the world for that job) Brad Brooks, told the freeloaders and liggers at a Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference on Tuesday that the next few months will see a major advertising push that promises to "free the people" through what Vista has to offer.
"You thought the sleeping giant was still sleeping, well we woke it up and it's time to take our message forward,"
Yeah. Well take this message Brad. Vista is a crock of shit. 37 processes must run before you can login, the hard disk chatters away all day and night when there is no-one there. It freezes..... and well here is our favourite Vista experience ever.
Can't get Trainz2006 running (odd Error mesages)
i recently upgraded to vista and trainz2006 was a nightmare to run. but now it works perfectly including download manager what i first done was uninstall the old version of trainz 2006. then updated drivers for my videocard (radeon 1300) i then installed a newer version of trainz 2006 (its called trainz railway simulator it is actually trainz 2006 and is released by focus) i found a copy on amazon.co.uk for £8 and it is vista compatible, install it and at the end of the install it will ask you if you want to intall directx 9 click no, it will then intall netframework 2. after install go onto microsoft website and download netframework 2 service pack 1 (40mb) install update, go back to desktop and on the trainz 2006 icon right click and select run as administrator. when trainz menu comes up put in your details (username etc) then run content manger.
hope this helps anyone having problems with trainz 2006 and vista
East Peasy.
PS : Trainz Railroad Simulator 2006 (TRS2006) sets new standards of realism and immersion in operating a virtual railroad. (see website)As Gemma Garrett says, click to enlarge.
"And to those who believe that threatening statements fall upon indifferent ears we say in one voice: that it is totally abhorrent for the President of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world." The Prime Minister, in a sickening and sycophantic speech at the Knesset repeated, re-inforced and gave legitimacy to the often misquoted remarks of Mr Ahmadinejad when quoting Khomeini .
The Government's voice, BBC Online provide a snippet of video , again repeating this solecism, provided, as Craig Murray points out, by busy revisionist speech writers in the FCO. For good measure the BBC not only mis-quote Mr Ahmadinejad when quoting Khomeini they mis-quote the Prime Minister ... as saying " to be wiped off the map".
The cloying phrases of the Prime Minister reflect how his childhood was steeped in a romanticised view of Israel advocated by his father, blinded by the socialist ideals, and the prodigious energy and toil of the early settlers - which you can read about in Gold Meir's autobiography My Life"We cannot afford any more victories".
Lord Patel was fortunate enough to be simultaneously toning his buff physique at the gym and watched the complete speeach , the first given by a British Prime Minister to the Knesset, on Sky TV. It was watched in a relaxed silence , with much anxious wrist watch glancing, sly reading of notes and nervous tics manifesting themselves in a variety of scratching, nose poking, ear tugging ways.
Surprisingly his explanation of his youthful admiration for their land and it's people and Parliament raised neither a cheer nor an eyebrow...."My father was a Minister of the Church who learned Hebrew and had a deep and life long affection for Israel. For three decades he was a member of - and again and again Chairman of - the Church of Scotland's Israel Committee. And he travelled back and forth to Israel twice every year, often more.
After each trip, he would roll out the old film projector ....I will never forget those early images of your home in my home and the stories my father would tell.
So as I learned to listen and to read, I followed the fortunes of an age-old people in your new country. And there was never a time as I was growing up that I did not hear about, read about or was not surrounded by stories of the struggles, sacrifices, tribulation and triumphs as the Israeli people built their new state. And I am proud to say that for the whole of my life, I have counted myself a friend of Israel. "(speech at No 10 website)
As he learnt to listen and read , he evidently also never learnt that you do not start sentences with a conjunction... "I have counted myself a friend of Israel. " a phrase that would have lifted the roof at AIPAC , had Tzipi Livni , the daughter of one of the original gangsters, whom David Ben Gurion sent to Europe to assassinate political leaders, carefully straightening her stockings.
As he learnt to listen and read he must have also missed out on the tales of ethnic cleansing, the land grabs, the terrorism, the Nabka, the occupation, the refugee camps.
Gulping in the curious way a beached fish does, our anxious to please, semi-autistic Prime Minister was certain and sure to idolise, Father of the Nation , David Ben Gurion ("We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”) who he reminded them had said .."in 1948 said it was not enough for the Jewish state simply to be Jewish, it had to be fully democratic offering equal citizenship to all residents: a democracy not just of one people but of all your peoples..." and founded an apartheid state separated not only by an obscene and divisive wall but also by the coralling of 1 million refugees. As in some mediaeval siege they are systematically starved, shelled, refused food, medicines, electricity, access inwards or out at the lazy will of their military overlords , shot like fish in a barrel. ( see Free Gaza)
It was therefore unsurprising that this nod towards the state's illustrious founder was immediately followed by a paen of praise for the chief gangster , the capo di capo "I think of Menachem Begin - who reached out to Anwar Sadat" .. after a lifetime of terrorist savagery, proprietor of the Irgun gang of heartless butchers and bombers , that murdered British citizens and statesmen alike, and whose state thugs extended their operations beyond the shores of Israel... and who also dandled the child of his fellow thug, Tzipi Livni on his knee. He also said after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.."Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever." He also said after winning the election in 1977 and becoming Israel's 6th Prime Minister ; "the Jewish people have unchallengeable, eternal, historic right to the Land of Israel the inheritance of their forefathers", he came from what is now Byelorussia and also ordered the bombing of the Iraq nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981.
This received a warm round of applause and polite banging of desks.
The peroration was sickening..."Then 'Next year in Jerusalem' will mean not only home at last but free from war at last..." "Next year in Jerusalem" the heartfelt cry of the diaspora at the end of every Passover seder. "Next year in Jeruslaem" carries a resonance - Psalm 137 is the well-known lament of the Babylonian Jews who wept "by the rivers of Babylon" and declared, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither."
The speech was long, too long. As the pound of flesh demanded, by the superb bargainers they are, it will have secured adequate funding for the Nu Labour Party for the next Election.
There are repeated demands in the US , in Senate, in Congress and the myriad Jewish / Zionist lobbies for the US to move their Embassy to Jerusalem. If the FCO were happy to endorse this stocmach churning, arse licking, fantastical view of the dystopic Zionist state then perhaps the Ambassador will follow ..." Next Year in Jerusalem"... now that would get them dancing in the aisles.
As Craig Murray pointed out .."For Gordon Brown to stand craving approval from the assembly that controls the World's largest illegal arsenal of nuclear weapons, without mentioning that fact, is craven." In popular political parlance, this is the "gorilla in the room", the inconvenient truth, the skeleton in the cupboard, it is also a fact that the BBC will never utter or accept. (Although they reported Jimmy Carter saying Israel had 150 nukes)..they also reported "He also described Israeli treatment of Palestinians as "one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth".
It is also precisely why Iran wants to arm themselves.
The Jewish state is the cuckoo in the Arab nest. The cuckoo chick is primed genetically , and built physically, and it's hatching timed, so that it can eject it's competing fledglings in the nest.
Hegemony in the Middle East is their ultimate goal, supported by gross financial aid from the US , which exceeds all the other overseas aid that the US provides, they want military dominance and control of trade routes and resources.
Iran thinks they should be stopped.
Mr Gordon Brown, has made it clear that he and his colleagues are firmly behind the anti-democratic, apartheid state of Israel and it's gang of Zionist thugs, they are , with their sanitised , blinkered and romantic views, with the settlers.
PS : Just to be on the safe side, Gordon also popped round the back and had a word with that nice Mr Netanyahu (First of all, Arafat is wrong. Jerusalem is Israel's capital, will never be divided, and will remain the capital of the State of Israel, the capital of the Jewish people, for ever and ever) - well it makes sense seeing that a recent poll showed that of those who voted whom they would choose for the next Prime Minister voted 37% - Netanyahu 20% - Barak 10% - Olmert
UPDATE :We have been asked to list the outstanding Creditors of the Nu Labour Party ;
Richard Caring, close friend of Philip Green: £2m. The loan is under review on 180 days' rolling notice.
Rod Aldridge, chairman The Aldridge Foundation, was Chairman of Capita and resigned when loan became public knowledge: two loans, each for £500,000.
Nigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One: £1m loan. Was due for review in June 2008.
Derek Tullett, stockbroker: £400,000. Was for review in March 2008 then rolling six months' notice.
Chai Patel, chief executive Priory Healthcare: £1.5m loan. Due for review in August.
Andrew Rosenfield, director of the Minerva property group: £1m loan. For review February 2009.
Sir Gulam Noon, founder Noon Products. £250,000 loan. Due for review in October 2008.
Gordon Crawford, founder London Bridge Software: £500,000 loan. Indefinite.
Barry Townsley, businessman: £1m loan. Due for review in October 2008.
Lord Sainsbury, businessman, Labour peer: £2m loan. Due for review in September 2008.
Cousin Alex Pereira said "At the inquest we will be able to ask questions and find out the truth," he said. "(The police) have to explain why they lied and everyone will see that a crime was committed here. Whoever did this should be punished for it. We feel we have to come back and fight but sometimes it's difficult for us." Witnesses appearing before the Inquest, so far scheduled for September , have already been assured of their anonymity.
Nick Hardwick has been re-appointed as Chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission it was announced by the Home Secretary on 27th March 2008.
Subsequent to the recent interesting activities exposed of UBS bank this interesting article about interesting things is published in its entirity for those interested people interested in such interesting matters. Some emphasis has been (mis?) placed.
NEW YORK: A U.S. investigation of Deutsche Bank's role in questionable tax shelters has widened to include a broader array of shelters than previously known, according to people briefed on the inquiry.
The largest German bank has been under investigation as an outgrowth of the criminal inquiry into the accounting firm KPMG, but the investigation has recently widened to include the bank's links with other firms, and to include shelters not covered in the KPMG case, specifically shelters known as digital options. Digital options involve complex offsetting trades in foreign currency options to produce losses.
Deutsche Bank has been in talks with U.S. prosecutors in New York over its tax shelter work. In August, KPMG reached a $456 million deferred-prosecution agreement with prosecutors and admitted criminal wrongdoing over four types of shelters, some of them ones that Deutsche Bank worked on. A smaller German bank, HVB, has also settled with prosecutors. But Deutsche Bank's extensive role in the creation and sale of questionable tax shelters may complicate its negotiations.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment. The bank has said in the past that the transactions it arranged for tax shelters were regular and ordinary.
Prosecutors are examining how Deutsche Bank helped to make and sell a digital option shelter called Cobra to more than 1,100 wealthy investors around 1999 and 2000, according to the people who have been briefed on the inquiry. The prosecutors are also looking at the bank's similar role in making and selling a shelter similar to Cobra known as Homer, which was sold through Bank One, and at a related shelter called MLD, for market-linked deposit.
J.P. Morgan Chase, ( who snaffled up Bear Stearns) which acquired Bank One in 2004, declined to comment.
Many aggressive tax shelters look alike, and from the late 1990s through recent years different promoters had various names for their own shelters, although they were typically updated versions of existing shelters.
Cobra (currency options bring reward alternatives Ho.Ho.Ho.), Homer (hedge option monetization of economic remainder Ditto ) and MLD are all regarded by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as variations of a widely used abusive tax-avoidance strategy known as Son of Boss. The IRS has never considered any Son of Boss shelter valid for deductions and had banned them by September 2000. Deutsche Bank has been accused in lawsuits of continuing to promote shelters that were variations of Son of Boss after that date.
Details about these shelters are outlined in internal documents that have emerged in civil litigation against Deutsche Bank brought by wealthy investors who bought the tax shelters.
David Deary, a lawyer in Dallas who has filed lawsuits against Deutsche Bank in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and in a Texas State court, among others, on behalf of wealthy investors who bought digital options shelters, said: "Deutsche Bank was the driving force behind every tax strategy that involved digital options. And without Deutsche Bank, none of these tax shelters could have been sold and implemented."
One internal document that has emerged is a PowerPoint presentation of Homer from October 2001 that outlines the steps Deutsche Bank and the law firms White & Case and Jenkens & Gilchrist took to put the shelter together for individual clients. The document, eight pages long, breaks down the shelter into nine stages, each containing multiple steps like "pretrade" document creation, "options to trust" and "partnership liquidation."
The document indicates that the core workings of Homer revolved around Deutsche Bank's arranging trades and loans that were intended to lose money. The tax agency considers such transactions to be a hallmark of an abusive tax shelter. The document also describes how Deutsche Bank transferred the losses between trusts and partnerships, to generate artificial losses. Over all, the document depicts, through a maze of boxes and arrows, how Deutsche Bank worked side by side with the law firms to carry out the shelter.
Amazing fire hits Deutsche Bank and their office records : No Amazing pictures
Reading this alongside another intersting news story is helpful to those intersted inthese interestingmatters go to link for rest ...
Just short of the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center, a seven-alarm fire raged through the half-demolished Deutsche Bank building at ground zero, killing two firefighters on August 18.
The building at 130 Liberty Street had been irreparably damaged when the south tower of the Trade Center collapsed into it on September 11, 2001. (but strangely enough for airplane resistant Manhattan Towers did not fall down like WTC 7) However, the building had stood shrouded in black netting for the past six years, oddly untouched by the cleanup and demolition efforts that had immediately gotten under way on the rest of ground zero.
On June 14th 2007 Mayor Bloomberg and then Governor Eliot Spitzer announced that JPMorgan Chase had won the bid to buy and build the new tower at 130 Liberty Street to replace the Deutsche Bank Building
Readers are also directed to learning more about the LMDC (Lower Manhattan development Corporation) set up to revive the city centre after 9/11 and their Directors. Intersting people such as John C Whitehead former Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Director of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Harvard Board of Overseers, Haverford College, . He is presently Chairman of the Goldman Sachs Foundation .
Michael Balboni is Deputy Secretary for Public Safety and has day-to-day responsibility for managing homeland security affairs, emergency preparedness and response, and law enforcement. Prior to this appointment he was the Chair of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs. He was the author of the state's Anti-Terrorism Law of 2001 that mandates severe penalties for those who commit terror acts, make terror threats, or render assistance to terrorists. He also authored a 2002 law that helps protect the state's water supply from terror attacks. In 2005, he authored the Chemical Plant Security Act, the first of its kind in the nation. In 2004, Mr. Balboni was appointed to serve on a national task force reviewing allocation of federal money for homeland security measures. In 2005, he was named Senior Fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University.
Interesting people.
Also interesting is a news release from LMDC 30th April 2008 MILESTONE REACHED ON 130 LIBERTY STREET
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) announced today that another milestone has been reached at 130 Liberty Street (see above) and that the final stages of work on the abatement and decontamination have commenced. Since the tragic fire of August 18, 2007, the LMDC has worked closely with federal, state and city agencies to enhance safety conditions for first responders, workers and residents and to make modifications to the plan for abating the building.
Facsinating and must read blog post from the time of the fire here Samskara-Mandala’s Weblog "The recent fire of the Detusche Bank at the former site of The World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York, might be cause for some re-examination of a myth that just won’t die. That is of the real reason for the destruction of the twin towers at what is now called Ground Zero. " etc ... etc ...
A new alcohol strategy, “Changing our Drinking Culture” will be unveiled today by the thinking man's bit of crumpet, the glamorous, chatty, cheerful Dawn Primarolo, the public health minister. This will fail to catalogue the dismal response by the populace to develop Nu-Lbour's cafe style culture - and to develop a legless, drunken, violent, city centre ,night time, culture instead.
Apparently 6% of all NHS admissions are now related to drinking alcohol, and the number rises 10% per annum.Office for National Statistics say in 2005/6, hospitals admitted 208,000 people with diseases caused by drink. That was double the figure 10 years before.
Officials estimate that the true figure for alcohol-induced admissions last year was 811,000.
Alcohol is thought to cause about 17,000 cases of cancer a year and £2billion of NHS money is spent every year treating patients with alcohol-related diseases.
A Department of Health source said: “It is important that we get the real figures so no one is in doubt about how widespread and potentially damaging alcohol-related illnesses are. The action can only be taken when the full scale of the problem is known.”
Supermarkets now sell water that is higher priced than beer and cider. Unimagineably Ministers think cigarette-style health warnings on bottles and cans, a ban on “happy hours” where bars sell cut-price drinks and rules outlawing supermarket discounts will remove this pervasive alcohol fuelled social life.
As if " Smoking kills" on cigarette packest stops smokers, smoking them at huge cost to their pocket and their health.
There will be no change in young people's drinking unless, as in the US drinking is forbidden in public under 21. The culture is such that family barbecues, will not have alcohol if children are present.
What will happen ? Nothing .. but we will get lots of late night TV ads telling us drinking is bad for you - if you are sober enough to follow them.
Mark Hoban MP on Wednesday 19th March 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.
They provided this information via Vernon Croaker Minister at the Home Office in a Written Parliamentary answer ;
The following table provides information on 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 Licesing Act 2003. The data has been broken down by police force area.
Data is provided for 2004 to 2006 only as prior to the Licensing Act 2003 coming into force, data for the offence was not held to the level of detail required.
In addition to court proceedings, the offence was added to the penalty notice for disorder (PND) scheme on 4 April 2005.Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts found guilty at all courts and the number of penalty notices for disorder issued for the sale of alcohol to a person who is drunk under the licensing act 2003 section 141, by police force area, England and Wales 2004 to 2006( 1, 2)
Proceeded against at magistrates court
Found guilty at all courts
Penalty notices for disorder issued
Police forceData has been provided for the number issued by police force area in 2005 and 2006.
STOP PRESS Saturday 26th July Transport for London apologyTransys Links provided by Watching them watching us of problems agains caused for users on Friday 25th, this was blamed on " incorrect data tables being sent out by our contractor" , whatever that means.
The Epson HX-20 (called the HC-20 in Japan),was the world's first hand held computer. Weighing in at 1.6 KG , th size of an A4 sheet , it provided a small LCD sc reen of 4 lines of 20 characters,a full qwerty keyboard and nNiCad batteries. It had twin Hitachi 6301 @ 0.614MHz with RAM expandable to 32k and Microsoft Basic in ROM, running CPM. It was introduced in mid 1982 they sold over 1/4 million and cost then about £900 Sterling.
Lord Patel, in his days as a software developer used handy ground breaking machine for remote data collection, collecting shop floor data for batch processing.
2 years later Psion, introduced the The Psion Organiser I model, launched in 1984, it was, like the Epson based on an 8-bit Hitachi 6301-family processor, with 4K of ROM and 2K of battery-backed RAM, and had a single-row monochrome LCD screen - this was expanded into the Organiser II in 1986 which had a rudimentary operating system, POPL (the Psion Organiser Programming Language). They cost about £250 sterling but according to sales literature at above link sold for US$199 say £150 then.
These were lighter , truly hand held devices but due to the inability to develop an RS 232 interface Lord Patel gave up developing systems using them - despite Marks & Spencer using them for price Look Ups (PLU's) in stores held on EPROM. Psion later got their act together and produced a good range of machines bit they were never intended for rugged use. In 1984 a new company (preceded by GR Electronics which then became Oyster Terminals and then Oyster Termiflex ) Oyster introduced the RT80 hand held computer.This was a bright yellow, ruggedised to MILspec, with a 64 line x 30 charcater display, a DIN45 D15pin male serial connector which was crap qiality for attaching a bar code reader. It had an 8086 chipset ran a modified Microsoft DOS with a limited Microsoft CBASIC.
A cradle provided both a serial link to the PC network and charged the batteries - which proved to be a major failing because they suffered an "image" problem and should be run down untl re-charged, so fater downloading data they should have been removed from the cradle , nobody did and the batteries could not be fully re-charged.
Other than that they were fabulous bits of kit. The problem was that Mr Gates produced Windows with a Graphic User Interface and Oyster didn't bother upgrading, so further developments had to wait for palm devices, from Compaq and Hewlett Packard.
All this to show how remorseless and rapidly changing technology makes items obsolete.
Oyster have gone the way of all flesh and have nothing to do with swipe cards for London Transport.
1. Tuesday 15th July 2008 "Thousands of London commuters found their prepaid Oyster didn't work, after a computer system crash disabled card readers across London.
The computer system went down for at least five hours on Saturday morning until around 9.30am. Card readers across the buses, London Underground and trains such as Docklands Light Railway were not accepting Oyster cards for parts of the day." See also BBC report
2. The Oyster card was first issued to the public in July 2003. By March 2007 over 10 million Oyster cards had been issued,and more than 80% of all journeys on services run by Transport for London used the Oyster card. Plans have been afoot to extend their use for small payments by users at shops for low price items, confectionary, drinks, newspapers etc.,
TranSys is a consortium of Cubic, EDS, Fujitsu and WS Atkins who developed the Oyster ( a name obtained at great expense by Saatchi & Saatchi) which was introduced in July 2003. It is based on NXP/Philips' MIFARE standard 1k chips provided by G&D and SchlumbergerSema and the card is a contactless radio transmitter / receiver."Our MIFARE contactless smart card ICs provide the most advanced combination of security and convenience for contactless interfacing in accordance with the ISO 14443A interface standard. "
About ten million Mifare smartcards , used for a vraiety of purposes from payment to controlled access to buildings are sold in Britain each year,
Police regularly use information on the adult Oyster card system to get details about passenger movements. BBC London has learned that in the past year they made at least 3,000 requests for information. A young person with criminal convictions, warnings, reprimands and other sanctions committed on the public transport network could have the right to free travel withdrawn, the spokesman said.
"In order to enforce these specific cases, personal information is requested by the Metropolitan Police Service, City of London Police Service and British Transport Police," .
The Information Commissioner's Office has criticised Transport for London for "collecting data without a clear purpose" for the children's photocard. From June Transport for London (TfL) made it mandatory for children aged between 11 and 18 to carry an Oyster photocard in order to gain free travel.
The current balance and ticket data held electronically on the card rather than in the central database and the value held is "loaded" at a preselected barrier or validator.
It is possible to set up automatic direct debit transactions so that when the balance falls below (say) £5 another £20 is written to the card.
The daily transaction data is held and updates the main system overnight - it would be impossible to provide (with current technology and costs) a real time validation in use as it would lead to huge delays.
3. March 10th, 2008 - NXP Semiconductors, the independent company founded by Philips, today announced MIFARE Plus, a revolutionary contactless smart card IC that offers breakthrough security and performance for the cost-sensitive automated fare collection (AFC) and access control markets.
Security is at the heart of MIFARE Plus, which is the only smart card IC of its class to offer strong AES encryption for authentication, integrity and confidentiality, based on a 128-bit key length. MIFARE Plus chips comprise a number of additional security features which, when used optimally in the infrastructure, provide for a system that prevents individuals from being identified and tracked by others. This is entirely related to this bit of prior news...
4. Chip manufacturer NXP, formerly the semiconductor division of Philips and well-known for its Mifare RFID chips, has filed suit against a group of researchers at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Holland. According to information provided by the company, the suit is intended to prevent the scientists from their planned October publication of the results of their research on the poor security of the Mifare Classic chip, a security product that has been sold billions of times over around the world....
"The ball was set rolling when a group of researchers in the Chaos Computer Club scene presented the results of their hardware analysis of the Mifare Classic chip at the 24C3 hacker conference last December(2007). That made public for the first time the functional principle of the secret Crypto1 encryption key, as well as various attacks against glaring vulnerabilities in the encryption and the random number generator. The access key for a card can be cracked within minutes on a PC and, with the help of special hardware, within seconds."
German geek magazine C't published an article by Karsten Nohl , Jan Krissler, Henryk Plötz entitled rather nciely, "Chiptease" Verschlüsselung eines führenden Bezahlkartensystems geknackt - Report,RFID-Hack,RFID, Funkchip, Mobilfunk, NXP, Philips, Mifare, Mifare Classic, Pseudozufallszahlengenerator, PRNG, Crypto1, Stromchiffre, Funkchip, Rainbow-Tabelle, Rainbow Table,c't 8/08, Seite 80 which was in April . They remove the coating and reverse-engineered the cryptographic algorithm.
The security of Mifare cards relies on secret keys with a key length of 48 bits. Knowing the details of the cipher would permit anyone to try all possible keys in a matter of days.
In mid April, researchers of the University College London and the University of Virginia reported that they were also able to recover the algorithm. The researchers recovered the full 48-bit key in 200 seconds on a single PC.
5. Radboud University researcher Wouter Teepe presented evidence on the crack to the Dutch parliament, which has already delayed installation of a €1bn automated payment transport system based on the same core technology. Known as the OV-chipkaart, it is to replace paper tickets on all trams, buses, and trains and is already undergoing trials in Rotterdam. The development of the card, , has been beset with problems. It has also halted use of the Mifare chip for access control of Government buildings.
Designed in the 1990s before processors of that size could handle strong encryption, Mifare has suffered at least three published cracks, according to security experts who have urged Transport for London (TfL) to upgrade the system.
When NXP raised an injunction in June to prevent publication of the architecture of the chip which could lead informed people to hack the RFID cards such as the Oyster "Killing the messenger does not solve the problem," Jacobs said. "This paper serves the interest of our society. The problems are real and should be addressed on the basis of sound and well-informed judgment."
6. A Dutch judge has ruled today that researchers Professor Bart Jacobs and colleagues from Radboud University in Nijmegen can publish details of how to crack the Oyster card (and others in use or under development) used on London’s public transport system. The Judge overturned the injunction sought by NXP , citing freedom of expression laws. "(The) damage to NXP is not the result of the publication of the article, but of the production and sale of a chip that appears to have shortcomings," the court said.
Transport for London says it'll be able to ban hacked cards within 24 hours. Ho.Ho.Ho.
In case anyone thinks this is unusual see PIN Entry Device (PED) vulnerabilities by Saar Drimer, Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson Cambridge University , Computer LaboratorySecurity Group.
"In Chip & PIN card transactions, customers insert their card and enter their PIN into a PIN Entry Device (PED). We have demonstrated that two popular PEDs, the Ingenico i3300 and Dione Xtreme, fail to adequately protect card details and PINs. Fraudsters, with basic technical skills, can record this information and create fake cards which may be used to withdraw cash from ATMs abroad, and even some in the UK. These failures are despite the terminals being certified secure under the Visa approval scheme, and in the case of the Ingenico, the Common Criteria system. Our results expose significant failings in the entire evaluation and certification process. "
The weaknesses were shown on Newsnight BBC2, 26 February 2008. A video of the segment is also available (alternate version: part 1 and part 2). The full report is online here 37 pagesThinking inside the box: system-level failures of tamper proofing .
In this paper we examine the definition and application of security boundaries in tamper-proof systems. Our working example is the UK card payment system,‘Chip and PIN’, which is an implementation of EMV (the EuroPay, MasterCard and Visa protocol suite) [23]. We show how two models of PEDs fail to protect against tampering and demonstrate real, practical, low-cost attacks. The attacks highlight problems throughout the entire process of specification, design, certification and deployment.
So Boris is left with a serious problem. Well TRANsys has a problem.Well NPX / Philips have a problem. Whilst no reason has ever been given for the breakdown last Tuesday 15th July of the Oyster system it looks highly likely that someone has decided to screw the system.
As we all know the CCTV on the Underground doesn't work if you are intent on murdering Brazilian electricians, it is unlikely that anyone will track the crackers or what the Dutch call 'Zwart Rijden' "Black Riders".
An editorial published in the BMJ on Friday ,claims (the editorial is by Jane J Kim, assistant professor of health decision science Program in Health Decision Science, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA) that the UK government may save 18.6 million pounds ($37 million) annually as a result of its decision to select GlaxoSmithKline's ( a UK based pharma company) cervical cancer vaccine Cervarixfor its human papillomavirus immunisation programme rather than Merck & Co.'s (a US basd pharma company) and Sanofi-Aventis' ( a Paris, France based company) Gardasil.(Search this site on "Gardasil" for post on the subject)
The model involves 34 variables (Table 1) about which assumptions are made as rationally as possible on the available evidence (We then generated parameter values for cost and utility weights by Monte Carlo sampling (using the Latin hypercube method) from the joint distribution of plausible ranges of values for each parameter - which sounds impresive but is in reality a sort of re-inforced guess, as so litle actual evidence of use is currently available). To make a detailed evaluation of the methodolgy and the evidence supporting the assumptions is skilled and complicated task. Such modelling can easily be "tweaked" ... "We constructed a total of 2700 possible scenarios " . A stricture used is that users of such Monte Carlo simulations rely entirely on the initial subjective estimates and almost never follow up with empirical observation.i.e they place over reliance on the model.. which they have to because no more empirical evidence is available currently.
Faced with a need to make a decsion within a timeframe these limitations must be accepted - however we have the luxury of time, a delay in decsion making makes the position no worse and affords time to refine procedures, undertake critical analysis and consult other viewpoints.
"Only the 72% of model structures that best fit prevalence data for human papillomavirus were used in the analysis, but care should be taken when interpreting model results not to assume that each of the remaining model structures is equally plausible. etc., etc., caveat, caveat ...."
"Although we have included the estimated impact of screening in the model and tried to account for the accuracy of screening in our results, some of the details of the programme (such as rescreening women more often after a suspect result) are difficult to properly implement in the current model structure."
The conclusion arrived at was that Vaccinating 12 year old schoolgirls with a quadrivalent (protection against 4 known HPV virus' 2 of which cause genital warts) vaccine at 80% coverage is likely to be cost effective at a willingness to pay threshold of £30 000 ( Euros 37 700; $59 163) per QALY gained (quality adjusted life years (QALYs), discounted costs and benefits at 3.5% per year in the base case, and adopted a healthcare provider perspective on costs, as required by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), if the average duration of protection from the vaccine is more than 10 years.
Implementing a catch-up campaign of girls up to age 18 is likely to be cost effective.
Vaccination of boys is unlikely to be cost effective.
A bivalent vaccine (affording protection against HPV virus' that cause cervical cancer NOT genital warts) with the same efficacy against human papillomavirus types 16 and 18 costing £13-£21 less per dose (this is max. 10% of vaccine costs) (depending on the duration of vaccine protection) may be as cost effective as the quadrivalent vaccine although less effective as it does not prevent anogenital warts
Jane Kim in the editorial said that "the decision to select the bivalent vaccine implies the Department of Health is willing to accept foregone health benefits (and additional cost savings) from averting cases of genital warts for the reduced financial outlay."
Jane Kim added: "Assuming 80-percent coverage of current 12-year-old girls (each year cohort has some 350,000 girls) in the UK with the full three-dose vaccine series, this price differential translates to savings of 11.5 million pounds ($23 million) to 18.6 million pounds ($37 million) from the vaccine price alone in the first year of the programme.”
In response, a spokesperson for the Department of Health noted that "the contract has been awarded for the vaccine that scored best overall against a number of pre-agreed criteria and offers best value overall to the NHS."
This policy of limited protection at a reduced costs is not without its critics. Colm O'Mahony, a consultant in sexual health at Chester Foundation Trust, commented that “all the clinical evidence pointed to Gardasil and instead [the government has] chosen a vaccine suitable for the Third World.”
Natika Halil, director of information at the Family Planning Association, remarked that "genital warts has its own financial cost to the NHS which spends 22 million pounds ($44 million) a year treating it, so it will be interesting to see how this has been factored into the cost analysis.”
As part of the cost analysis it was intersting to note that the NHS accept that the basic pap smear at Pap smear (£21.70, 2002 prices) is less than the recently introduced liquid based cytology (£25.40, 2003 prices). Also Costs for screening at sexual health clinics and outpatient clinics are higher (£37 and £68 respectively, 2003 prices). These costs will not diappear because screening will still be required because the vaccine only affords protection against 70% of potential HPV strains.
GlaxoSmithKline stated that data on Cervarix have demonstrated the prevention of pre-cancerous lesions and a strong immune response for 6.4 years, noting that “this is the longest duration of protection reported for any vaccine against HPV 16 and 18.”
The government's vaccination programme in 12-year-old girls is expected to start in September.
The Department of Health has released Press release today "300,000 more girls to be offered vaccine against Cervical cancer - extension of the HPV vaccination progamme ". This trumpets the decision to choose Cervarix at a lower cost - for a routine vaccination of girls 12-13 years old starting in September which it is claimed will eventually save up to 400 lives for each year of girls receiving the vaccine. As a consequence The national vaccination programme against HPV is being extended to offer protection to an additional 300,000 girls aged 17-18, starting in September.
A 2 year ‘catch-up programme’ will start in the school year 2009/10 to vaccinate girls aged between 15 to 18. Today’s announcement means that girls, who would not otherwise have been included in this catch-up programme, will now be vaccinated this school year. Boys will not be vaccinated at any age.
Dawn Primarolo says the cost of the vaccine is commercially confidential. Cervarix® will be purchased by the Department of Health who will supply it free of charge to the NHS.
The financial consequences will be that The Department of Health will provide additional support to PCTs in guidance and funding to ensure that the roll out of the older cohort is a success.
There will be an additional £10 million for PCTs in the 2008/09 financial year to implement this extra programme.
It is not accidental or incidental that programme on Channel 4 Dispatches (in the UK only), "The Jab that can stop Cancer" presented by Jane Moore (who has paid privately for the vaccine for one of her daughters and will eventually for the younger daughter to have Gardasil) will discuss this subject at 8.pm this evening.
Professor David Salisbury , Director of Immunisation,Dept. of Health made great claims for the precision of the modelling and calculation for costs and benefits - making asinine remarks about the amount of computer time spent in running the models - all weekend, when nobody else was using it - as if that was proof of veracity or accuracy.
A lady epidemiologist pointed out that cervical cancer rates and mortality had fallen dramatically since pap screening was introduced and that 40 wome died per million. She queried whether the costs justified he claimed benefits say against the people who will suffer heat diseases or more common life threatening cancers.
A snapshot was also provided how the UK market was softened u by intensive (and dubious) marketing programs, and thiny veiled surveys paid for by the pharma companies were presented to the press as "evidence".
GP's , now used a better educated and better informed patient were asking for protection for their children- simply assuming the benefits it provided on the wave of "astro-turfing" or the unquestioning and incurious wall to wall press coverage.
No mention was made of the details of the modelling, nor was it made clear that Cervarix provides no protection against other HPV strains ( are over 100 known strains) that cause genital warts - nor was the case examined for protecting boys.
In the world of private medicine, Jane Moore has made her decision , US and French (and those in 100 countries where it is currently approved) citizens will make theirs (although different insurers have different policies)
As the NHS / Government have made a decision to supply at no extra cost the parent has to first consider ; 1. Any vaccine carries risks when used, what are those risks ?
2. Having accepted that risk , what risk is there of my daughter eventually coming in contact with a strain of HPV ?
It is not 100% but near it. The more promiscuous (ie the greater number of sexual partners - of either sex, it can be transmitted between women) she is, the greater the chance. There is no clear evidence that sexually transmitted infections (STI) have any effect on increasing / reducing the impact. Please note that the cervical smear test, whilst it will may discover evidence of STI's , that information in the UK will not be passed on to the patient. It is not a genito urinary test. (As an aside it would be a service to women to re-jig the test to incorportate a genito - urinary test)
The "pap" smear testing will continue (remember that results vary regionally, and are reported differently, the NI method of identification is different to the rest of the UK. The report also identiffies that fact that over time it will be necessary ..." to take account of possible changes to the cervical screening programme, such as the introduction of DNA testing for human papillomavirus, .....It is clear that significant further work on the design of optimal screening and vaccination programmes is required, particularly if the introduction of vaccination accelerates the recent trend for the declining uptake of screening.
i.e it is possible (many would say highly likely) that vaccination will lead to lack of detection in the population as women will think or assure themselves that the unpleasant cervical smear routine can be avoided.
The FDA says the human papillomavirus is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 6.2 million Americans become infected with genital HPV each year and that more than half of all sexually active men and women become infected at some time in their lives.
3. If she contracts an HPV will it be oncogenic (cause cervical cancer) ?
Currently it is felt that the 2 strains afforded protection by both current vaccines accounts for 75-80% of HPV's discovered in pap tests.
Of women conracting oncogenic lesions, the eventual death rate some 40 per 1 Mn a year die, many of course suffer an unpleasant and debilitating illnes for varying periods like all cancers.
4. Will better vaccines become available affording more protection ... ?
No doubt other manufacturers are working , and GSK and Merck will be improving their product - it must be assumed newer products will afford better protection and less risk at lower cost. The timescale is unknown.
To be effective protection must be given prior to any sexual contact - it is not necessary for intercourse to take place for transmission.
This site does not give medical advice, it gives plenty of information and directs the user to sources of further information. Anyone considering having their children vaccinated for HPV must consult their GP.
Joe Moore chose it for her children.
Lord Patel is ;
1. Very sceptical of the need to make a decision - there is no urgency.
2. Not at all impressed by Dr David Sainsbury Salisbury and his fancy modelling - truly it is as good as modern techniques and the data available can provide. The assumptions / guesses used are not based on sufficiently strong evidence .. yet, more will become available as others users / providers take part in a very large experiment on their children. Lord Patel can see no reason why anyone should enter their children in this great experiment. Giving you children a healthy diet, exercise and making sure they never smoke are far greater benefits you can pass on to your kids.
3. Feels that the NHS has higher priorities than providing at zero cost a protection which in essence will stimulate promiscuity rather than restrict it - with the attendant risks of STI's.
4. Is certain that undue pressure (without any proof, but based on wide experience of big pharma) has been put on the decision makers to support a "British" product.
5. It also represents another example of the state usurping personal choices and decisions using a decision making process which is opaque to many people - inlcuding most of the medical profession. (next time you see your GP ask him about the Monte Carlo method usng tjhe latin hypercube method)
It is evident from the BT AGM this week that BT see they have a major source of revenue in allowing PHORM to use their networks to make money by spying on users.
They are also intent on ignoring any criticism.
They also have on board Patricia Hewitt the charmless gauleiter who introduced the world of private medecine to the NHS after 4 years at DTI - who is now cashing in her chips to spend more time with her money after her time as a Government Minister.
Shriti Vadera , Gordon's friend, the shrieking mastermind behind Rail Privatisation , and collapsed tube privatisation , is now a Baroness (she would be unelectable even if she copied Lady Godiva - well especially if she did imitate her) who is the Minister for Business and Competitiveness. She has met BT and there is no doubt given them the dusky thumbs up. see Sunday, July 08, 2007 Where are they Now ? Shriti Vadera, shy unassuming Brown adviser gets the chop Title and sidelined new job
See the detailed report here at dephormation.com and also Spy Blog , ZdNet ,The Register
More pics plus Register on EU response to BT use of Phorm FT report BT to begin further trials of ad technology 17th July 2008 ..."Gavin Patterson, head of BT Retail, told the group’s annual general meeting that customers would again have to opt-in for the service. Critics have alleged that BT conducted trials without customers’ consent in 2006-07.
Mr Patterson said the group had conducted technical trials in that period but had taken legal advice to rule whether it was both ethical and legal. He added that the Information Commissioner had also cleared the technology of breaching data laws." AKA they couldn't give a fuck for the user.
Computer Weekly reported BT presses ahead with behaviour-based ad-serving trials.."BT Retail chief Gavin Patterson said he was thinking of publishing the results of market research that he said showed 96% of consumers were happy with the service.
Patterson said the advertisement serving service, BT Webwise, would deliver only targeted adverts and protect customers against trips to fraudulent websites. He said only customers who opted in to the service would be affected.
Protesters said BT had conducted at least two secret trials, in 2006 and 2007, that involved up to 350,000 customers, a figure BT did not deny at the AGM.
Apart from the FT there is not a traceable news item ***about the use of this invasive, instrusive project which will identity users and their search profile to sell to advertisers, which both Phorm, Carphone Warehouse (talk talk) , Virgin, and BT will profit from.
Faced with a federal investigation into its private banking practices, the Swiss banking giant UBS said on Thursday that it would stop offering offshore banking services to clients in the United States.
Mark Branson, CFO of the UBS global wealth management group, told a US Senate subcommittee that the company apologised (doesn't everyone these days ?) would provide banking or securities services to United States residents only through companies licensed in the UK. he said they would help the Federal Government identify American citizens engaging in tax fraud.
The Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations released a report on Wednesday saying that UBS’s offshore practices helped American citizens hide an estimated $18 billion in 19,000 accounts from the Internal Revenue Service.
Clients in the United States will still be able to access UBS’s services through wealth management units that are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Swiss based advisers will not be allowed to come to the United States to meet with American clients - they probably will be jailed if they do!
The committee also heard anonymised taped testimony from Heinrich Kieber blowing the whistle who is on a witness protection program - see pic.
The subcommittee’s report said that both LGT and UBS helped Americans avoid taxes by setting up convoluted foreign-owned offshore accounts whose assets did not have to be reported to the I.R.S. That practice by LGT, UBS and other offshore companies costs the Treasury Department US$100 billion annually in lost taxes. Which is a lot of unpaid tax.
The report (which is truly eye opening and reads like a novel) commences ...
"Each year, the United States loses an estimated $100 billion in tax revenues due tooffshore tax abuses. Offshore tax havens today hold trillions of dollars in assets provided by citizens of other countries, including the United States. The extent to which those assets represent funds hidden from tax authorities by taxpayers from the United States and other countries outside of the tax havens is of critical importance"
Both LGT and UBS have what are known as qualified intermediary agreements with the I.R.S., which were established in 2001 to allow the revenue service to collect taxes with the help of foreign banks.
Such agreements have never mandated reporting accounts held by non-American citizens or companies, a loophole that Senator Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota and the ranking subcommittee member, said that LGT and UBS had expertly exploited.
But Mr. Levin and Mr. Coleman indicated that they would most likely seek legislative solutions.
The first major tax investigations have focused on Bradley C. Birkenfeld, an American and a former top UBS executive, who pleaded guilty in June to a single fraud charge of helping an American citizen conceal $200 million in assets from the I.R.S. he resigned from Union Chartyer and faces 5 years jail. He has now (June 20th) agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of UBS practices, which may reveal the names of scores of wealthy American clients.
In a seven-page statement to the court, Mr. Birkenfeld, a 43-year-old American, said UBS bankers used a variety of ruses to court American clients and help them dodge taxes.
The document reads like a how-to of high-end tax evasion.UBS advised bankers traveling to the United States to tell airport customs officials that the visit was for pleasure, not business, Mr. Birkenfeld said. The bank urged clients to destroy banking records to conceal their offshore accounts.Some American clients were told to stash watches, jewelry and artwork that they had bought with money hidden offshore in safe deposit boxes in Switzerland.
UBS also encouraged them to use Swiss credit cards so the Internal Revenue Service could not track their purchases, Mr. Birkenfeld said.The list went on.
Mr. Birkenfeld said that at times he served as a personal courier for his clients, spiriting checks out of the United States and depositing them in accounts in Denmark, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, away from the prying eyes of the I.R.S. At one point, he wrote, he even smuggled diamonds for a customer in a tube of toothpaste.Mr. Birkenfeld was a Geneva-based director of wealthy American clients with undeclared offshore accounts with UBS from 2002 to 2006.
Over all, that business oversaw $20 billion in assets and brought in revenue of $200 million a year, according to court papers.
He told Judge William J. Zloch that he knew he was breaking the law but did so because of the “incentives” UBS offered him, meaning large bonuses. Judge Zloch asked if he had not been troubled by his actions.“It did concern me, your honor,” Mr. Birkenfeld said.
.“Our position is that Mr. Birkenfeld was working at UBS where people knew exactly what was going on,” Mr Birkenfelds's lawyer Mr. Onorato said after the hearing. “He’s going to tell the government everything he knows. He is going to cooperate with the government fully,” he said, adding that Mr. Birkenfeld “had numerous U.S. clients.”Mr. Birkenfeld’s statement said he had provided evidence that “managers and bankers at the firm, including Birkenfeld,” assisted American clients in concealing their ownership of assets held offshore. His boss was Martin Liechti.
Agence France Press report that the US Department of Justice said Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to conspiring with co-defendant Mario Staggl to hide about $US200m (₤101m), attracting US$US7.2m in US taxes, through an elaborate system of fraud.
In May, Federal authorities detained Martin Liechti, a Swiss citizen and senior UBS official, in Miami in connection with the investigation. Mr. Liechti appeared before the subcommittee Thursday, but declined to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.
LGT have not testified before the subcommittee. A senior official from the company did meet with subcommittee staff members last Friday.
This week, the company sent a letter to the subcommittee refusing to testify, saying it had complied with its qualified intermediary agreement. The letter also said that company representatives would be severely limited in what they could say because of the principality’s strict disclosure laws.
Mr. Kieber, now in a witness protection program, is accused of breaking those laws.
Anonymised with a pixelated video deposition , Mr. Kieber told the subcommittee that LGT had used sophisticated methods to avoid detection by American tax authorities. LGT customers were advised to use only public phones to contact the bank, and the company mailed correspondence from nearby Austria or Switzerland, he said.
Michael Robinson, a spokesman for LGT, said in an e-mail statement to a reporter that the documents Mr. Kieber supplied dated “back to a time when the regulatory environment was completely different.”
Shannon Marsh of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., (the subcommittee report, states that Mr. Marsh hid millions of dollars in 4 foundations in Liechtenstein, )and William Wu of Forest Hills in Queens - who orchestrated a fake sale of his house to his own offshore company.
Steven Greenfield of New York refused to appear after being subpoenaed. Peter S. Lowy of Beverly Hills, Calif., will testify before the committee next Friday.
Lawyers advising clients who are afraid their off-shore accounts will be discovered can't offer much comfort. Their clients have only a few alternatives: • Make a voluntary disclosure to the IRS, pay the tax, interest and penalties and plead for mercy (note that this approach is not viable for people with "illegal source" income, such as money from securities fraud, drugs, robbery, money laundering ; • Quietly file amended tax returns, pay the tax, interest and penalties and hope overworked government prosecutors won't follow up; Ho.Ho.Ho. • Do nothing and hope their names won't turn up — a very poor strategy as the odds of being discovered are high and they could be hit with stiff penalties and criminal sanctions. • Leave the US for good. If you have an offshore account with unreported income, you should definitely be worried.
Pack your Louis Vuitton, jump on the jet and vamoos....
There is a fascinating exhibition at MoMA "Home Delivery - Fabricating the Modern Dwelling" , which few can visit, but a brilliant and absorbing website that everyone can. This was covered in a post Monday, June 16, 2008 Compact, pre-fabricated factory built housing - design that should be easy, but isn't and included this crew rest cabin.
Unsurprisingly the fertile and inventive minds of the military and their suppliers have been at this for years.
The Air Force have to carry around the top brass, in a war zone they cannot expect Emirates First Class, so a Senior Leader Intransit Pallet” (SLIP) was developed , thuis somehwo morpehed into two "Silver Bullets" which were a sort of modifed Airsteram trailer. Then followed twin "Steel Eagles". .... Dontcha just love this military terminolgy ?
Anyway in November 2006 a specification was drawn up for a Senior Leader In Transit Comfort Conference Capsule (SLICC) (Note the sly elision from the impressions of gilded luxury to the rigours of military command'n'Control.) This was to provide senior leaders with an airborne state of the art environment in which to hold private conversations, accomplish work of a sensitive nature, conduct meetings and rest whilst the aircraft was on route ...SLICC wil be certified for occupancy during take off and landing in KC-10,C-17 and C-130 aircraft. (Appendix A 12 pages)
While General Duncan McNabb was head of the Air Mobility Command, he presided over a decision to extend the Steel Eagle-style privileges to a far-wider range of military and senior civilian leaders and intended to purchase up to ten SLICCs – a substantial expansion of high-end transport accommodations.
The Military have a piggy bank called the Global War On Terror (GWOT) supplemental which is meant to be directly used to fund troops involved in the current conflicts abroad. The Air Force requested $16 million in the recently passed GWOT supplemental to fund the additional SLICCs, according to a June 2008 Air Force briefing on the program. (Appendix B 10 pages).
Gen. McNabb was a picky customer , the SLICC has to have a the SLICC will be ‘World class’ interior. (Appendix D) He wanted Blue seat belts, not brown, blue leather not brown, (This the Air force goddamit!) and he wasn't happy with the carpet - the costs were queried ."How'd we get US$113 K for 4 Pallets ? " says some one in an e-mail ", "I could carpet and re-upholster a couple of house for US$113K !"
Before re-design , the capabilities document for the SLICC (known also as the “Senior Official Work and Rest Capsule” and the “DV Capsule”) contains a detailed list of amenities required such as: (Appendix E 15 pages) “The wall mounted flat screen/flat panel monitor must have a diagonal measurement of at least 37 inches”; “A full length mirror”; “Aesthetically pleasing wall-to-wall carpeting”; “Aesthetically pleasing wall treatments/coverings”; “Aesthetically pleasing ceiling treatments/coverings”; “Internal illumination level will automatically adjust to ambient lighting levels”; “A single remote control unit which controls operation and all functions of the video playback devices as well as the wall mounted flat screen/flat panel monitor" Things got to a pretty high level and involved the top brass ...According to another email this was all known at the highest levels of the Air Force: “the SLICC was briefed again this weekend to CSAF [Chief of Staff of the Air Force]who was then T. Michael Buzz Moseley.
The estimated cost of the first prototype SLICC is currently US$2.735 million – and it is based on the already existing Steel Eagle design. Originally the SLICC was estimated to cost US$1.743 million in November of 2006. There has been about 64% cost growth in less than two years.
As of March this year, the total cost increase for retrofit and further customization –which goes beyond wood and leather – for the SLIPs, directed by Air Mobility Command headquarters, is $493,000. (Appendix F)
POGO point out to Secretary Gates that .."The SLICC and SLIP programs are a gross misuse of millions of taxpayer dollars that could otherwise be used to train and equip soldiers. This case is just the latest in a long string of examples which illustrate a disconnect between the senior leadership of the Air Force from the increasingly pressing needs of servicemen and women (including those inside the Air Force) in the current and likely near term conflicts our country faces."
Chief of Staff of the Air Force T. Michael Buzz Moseley is sacked
PS : On 5 June 2008 Chief of Staff of the Air Force T. Michael Buzz Moseley was given an option by the Department of Defense of either resigning or being fired. This was directly related it was publicly stated to Six AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles, each loaded with a W80-1 variable yield nuclear warhead, were mistakenly loaded on a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52H heavy bomber at Minot and transported to Barksdale. The nuclear warheads in the missiles were supposed to have been removed before taking the missiles from their storage bunker.
Thundershow and retired generals sharing the graft
It may also be possible that it was also related to The Air Force Thunderbirds aerial display team which tours airshows as an aid to recruitment - it was intended as part of an extravagant outdoor huge video installation to present a "Thundershow" .A $50 million contract for audio-visual presentation services to Strategic Message Solutions ,of Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. This appears to have involved former Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. (ret.) John Jumper, and Chief of Staff of the Air Force T. Michael Moseley. It is suggested that the contract price was inflated, Air Force General (ret.) Hal Hornburg, a pal of these two patriots was associated with Strategic Message Solutions.
The Arizona Republic newspaper reported extensively on the controversy in March, saying it had documents that showed Moseley steered the contract to Shipley. Strategic Message Solution's bid was nearly twice that of a competing proposal, the newspaper said.
Mosley's Knighthood
Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. T. Michael Moseley was knighted during a ceremony at the British Embassy in Washington on May 30 2006. The honorary knighthood, (KBE) at the suggestion of Queen Elizabeth II, stemmed from the general's contributions to United States-United Kingdom relations while he served as commander of the air war over Afghanistan and Iraq at the onset of the war on terrorism.
Who is for petitioning the Queen for him to be de-frocked or whatever it is you do to these sort of people ?
It all started here - Sally Clark Part 1 21/07/04 Stolen Innocence: The Story of Sally Clark Reviewed. Stolen Innocence: The Story of Sally Clark by John Batt, Ebury Press 2004 ISBN 0091900700 336 pps.
