Mr Brown - " I am shocked, shocked !"

"I am sorry about what happened."

"I have said all along that when I saw this first I was horrified, I was shocked, I was very angry indeed."

"I think the most important thing is to reassure people that everything is being done to clean up politics in this country."

"I wrote to those people who were affected by it. I expressed very deep regret for what happened."

"The person who was responsible went immediately and has lost his job. And I have ensured that there are new rules so that this cannot happen again."

There are those cynics amongst us - yes indeed, cynicism survives even yet dear reader. There are some who reading the above might feel that the Prime Minister was merely sorry Mr McBryde was caught in flagrante delicto.

Anybody remember that pussy cat Bernard Ingham ? John Biffen was unnatributably described as a "semi-detached" member of the Government. Sure enough, Biffen was dropped at the next reshuffle.

Then, bluff Yorkshire "fowk" have a monopoly on unctuous humbuggary.

Superman Gordon Brown uses Monbiot's Calculus to justify lying about UK terrorist threat and its association with Pakistan

If you consult the No 10 website today you will find the story - Gordon Brown has announced a new anti-terror pact with Pakistan aimed at combatting the growing problem of terrorist groups using the country as a base to coordinate their attacks.

They go on to say that at a press conference with Pakistan President Asif Zardari in Islamabad this morning, the PM said the new £6 million agreement would constitute “the most comprehensive anti-terrorist programme Britain has signed with any country”.

If you go to the BBC news website - there are further and better particulars you won't find on the No 10 website " Three quarters of the most serious terror plots being investigated by UK authorities have links to Pakistan, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said. "

If you go to the Times Online website - “Three quarters of the most serious plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al-Qaeda in Pakistan ,” said Mr Brown in a press conference alongside Mr Zardari in the Presidential palace in Islamabad.

To which Sam Coates in Islamabad adds ..."Officials believe there are currently around 30 major terrorist plots and 2000 suspects being watched by police and the intelligence services. "

So just how many terror plots are there ?

Let's recap on proceedings on Tuesday 22 April 2008 when the Counter Terrorism Bill was being considered by the Public Bill Committee (Hansard)

Q 9 Martin Salter: I have three quick questions for Sir Ian Blair and Mr. Quick. I know that you put some of this evidence in front of the Select Committee on Home Affairs a few months ago, but, for the benefit of the Committee, could you indicate how many serious terrorist plots the police and the security services have disrupted since the London bombings of 7/7?

Sir Ian Blair: I will stretch to something like 12, but where would you get to, Bob?

Bob Quick: I am still being briefed on the very complex history to fighting terrorism, but my understanding is in the order of about 15 occasions. On some very recent occasions we have been able to disrupt terrorism by some sophisticated and unusual methods. That is what we do. We are constantly seeking opportunities to disrupt. That is part of a multi-pronged attack on terrorist activity.

How curious then that David Leppard May 4, 2008 in a Times article reported that - Ian Blair admits he misled MPs over terror threat"Blair gave evidence to MPs in support of 42-day detention, stating to a Commons committee that police had disrupted “something like 12” serious terrorist plots since the 2005 London bombings. However, Scotland Yard now accepts that the true number is six. "

So Mr Prime Minister is 3/4 of "the most serious terror plots " , 3/4 of

30 - as secretly passed to Sam Coates in Islamabad by unidentified "officials".

6 - as finally agreed by Scotland yard after both Ian Blair and Bob Quick lied to the Select Committee on Home Affairs in April this year caiming variously it was , 12 (Blair) 15 (Quick) ?

Of cpurse Mr Sam Coates and all his smart, well paid journalist colleagues could perhaps raise questions about the validity of the fgure of ," 30 major terrorist plots".

..but don't bet on it.

PS : Monbiot's calculus. Think of a number - then make it bigger. For more Saturday, February 24, 2007
George Monbiot and The Case of the Excluded Muddle ... Monbiot's Calculus

UPDATE : Tuesday : "Gordon Brown yesterday hailed a new £6m anti-terror pact as the most comprehensive programme of its kind Britain has ever signed with any country, as it emerged that more than 20 potential extremist plots being investigated by British intelligence forces have a link to Pakistan."
The Herald December 15th 2008

Bank of England warns "There's NOTHING we can do ...er .... right ....." Part 2

As a public service on the monthly anniversary, we are happy to re-post this post which first appeared just a month ago. Happily coinciding with the announcement that Consumer prices rose 4.4 percent from a year earlier, breaching the government's 3% upper limit for a third month and the most since comparable records began in 1997(The 0.6 % increase is the largest jump since the series began in 1997. Based on a constructed index using retail-price data, it was the largest gain since 1991, the ONS said), the Office for National Statistics said today. That exceeds the 4.2 % median forecast of 38 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

This means of course that miserable Mervyn will have to pop his 3rd third letter of explanation to the government in the Post Office (assuming he can find one still open) - that is unless inflation slows to 3 % in August - which about as unlikely as Northern Wreck turning a profit this side of Armageddon.

Anway here is last month's cheery tale of rank incompetence, woe, grief and downright misery.



This is what Lord King Chairman of the Bank of England said in his annual speech to the great and the good of the City of London at the Mansion House just over one year ago on the 16th June 2007...

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

PS : Mervyn has a pension pot of £4.8million, which should be worth nearly £180,000 a year on retirement...which cannot come too soon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The best source of information on terrorist attacks is the terrorists themselves " - Bush justifies torture

President Bush gives a weekly radio broadcast. This week he took the opportunity to explain why he was vetoing the Intelligence Funding Bill (HR 2082) which has written into it restrictions on CIA interrogators to use only methods and techniques auhtorized in the 2006 US Army Field Manual. Senate approved the Bill on February 13th but not witha 2/3 rds majority which could prevent a Presidential veto. The 2006 manual specifies that the Geneva Conventions apply to all detainees and eliminates separate standards for the questioning of prisoners of war and enemy combatants.

The President gave as evidence the success of interrogation the plot by Al Quaeda to bomb the Library Tower in Los Angeles...and thereby hangs a flimsy tale.

The first the world knew about this alleged and dastardly plot, and the way it was foiled was when The President was in Los Angeles on February 9th 2006 talking to the National Guard Association of the United States.

Under pressure and facing down Congressional attacks on domestic wiretapping and the detention of terrorist suspects, he needed to demonstrate how effective its methods of battling threats from jihadists had been.

He didn't start well ,as he explained how 4 Al Quaeda suspects would set off shoe bombs, blowing off a cockpit door of a hi-jacked plane and fly it into the Liberty Tower in Los Angeles...well he meant the Library Tower and had everyone puzzled for a bit even though it is tallest building on the West Coast. ...but not the schedulers at Fox who were showing shots from the Independence Day ( A 20th C Fox Film) movie of aliens taking over the tower minutes later.

In a sense this wasn't even news as in October Bush had revealed that the US and it's allies had thwarted 10 serious al-Qaida attacks since Sept. 11. A White House list released at the time referred to a plot to fly a hijacked plane into an unspecified West Coast city in 2002. Citing unidentified sources, news organizations reported that the target was the Library Tower and that the plot's author was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003.

Anyway in this later manifestation of the alleged plot Mohammed deputized Hambali, head of the affiliated Southeast Asian group, Jemaah Islamiya, to set up a West Coast attack, and they put together a four-man cell. Asians were chosen, Bush said, on the theory that they would draw less suspicion. (Also perhaps on the basis that having blown their feet off, and possibly the front of the plane they would then guide it precisely into the tower)

If this was news to the US nation it was also news to Los Angeles Mayor , Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa who said he knew nothing about the plot ... nobody had told him and he learnt about it , "like everyone else" by watching the TV News.

At the White House a sceptical Press pack hounded fragrant, lissome and beautiful Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend.

Who were the 4 cell members the President mentioned ? Fran Townsend revealed that 2 were South Asian, 2 were Southeast Asian, no she wouldn't give names or say where they were .

The slim nubile young lady did tell the eager press that four plotters met with Bin Laden in Afghanistan where they pledged an oath of allegiance to the Sheikh before returning to Southeast Asia. She was further pressed - when did this meeting take place ?. Ms. Townsend said it was in October 2001 - a good time to meet Bin Laden one imagines, just after the US invasion.

So far there is no public evidence that the plot was operational at any time and there is no public evidence that the plot was thwarted because of NSA wiretaps that the administration seeks to justify.

It's highly likely if any of the alleged plotters were in fact detained and interrogated ... that they were given a hard time. As we don't know who they are, or where they are, we will never know ... but then they may never have existed... like the plot. (Speech Mp3 here)

Anyway if the CIA are torturing people, they can carry on doing it...with the President's blessing.

CDC lied about formaldehyde toxicity in FEMA trailers in which 35,000 families still live 3 years after the floods

We wrote about Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) providing trailers for Katrina refugees which were discovered to have unsafe levels of formaldehyde, a component of the glue used to make the wood ply used in their manufacture which was perfusing some of the 120,000 they had purchased.

Revelations of high formaldehyde levels early on , caused the government to offer to buy back or replace trailers sold to evacuees at a discount under a federal program. As of May,2007 FEMA had received 140 complaints and replaced 47 trailers. It also said it would not continue to put storm victims into the trailers.

Well 60 of them them were sold to copper company, Phelps Dodge ( from March 19th 2007 a Freeport-McMoRan Company - "the world's largest publicly traded copper company" who took them over) ,to house their copper mine workers in Morenci and Safford, Arizona. Employees live rent free and the company pay the utilities.

See the post - Wednesday, August 22, 2007 Phelps Dodge / Freeport-McMoRan Company - why they hate the smell of formaldehyde 24/7 in Morenci, Arizona. Cost of copper and capitalism

Now it seems that was only a fraction of the story..

Nearly three years after the hurricanes swept the Gulf Coast, more than 35,000 families remain in tiny trailers as the emergency management agency struggles to find alternative housing.

A Feb. 14 report by the Centers for Disease Control has some bad news for those families: The air inside many FEMA trailers contains up to 40 times the normal level of formaldehyde gas.

Now CBS News report that a string of internal documents they have obtained reveal that Dr. Christopher De Rosa, director of the CDC's Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine, told his superiors "there is no safe level of exposure" to formaldehyde in trailers. That warning never made its way into any public report about the trailers.

As if this was not enough deception Dr. De Rosa wrote in an email that two of his staff members had been directed by FEMA officials to not "address longer term health effects" of formaldehyde in this February 2007 report.

In fact it took until October 2007 - after eight months and pressure from congressional investigators that the CDC revised its February 2007 report and finally issued warnings about cancer and other long-term health risks of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde has been classified as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

It contained this extrordinary explanation at the head of the report ...

The previous health consultation dated February 1, 2007,contained insufficient discussion of the health implications of formaldehyde exposure, and some language may have been unclear,potentially leading readers to draw incorrect or inappropriate conclusions. Additionally, analyses of formaldehyde levels by trailer type and by daily temperature were not conducted."

The primary conclusion makes un comfortable reading for those 35,000 still living inthese trailers.....

" ....formaldehyde levels in closed trailers averaged 1.04 parts per million (ppm), with some measurements exceeding 3.5 ppm. Exposure in this range is
sufficient to cause acute symptoms in some people. Allergic sensitization to formaldehyde may also occur. Risk of cancer will increase with increasedformaldehyde concentration and duration of exposure."

What did Dubya say at thePrayer Breakfast last week ?

"When we lift our hearts to God, we're all equal in His sight.We're all equally precious"

Except if you live in a trailer supplied by FEMA when your home was swept away when the levees maintained ineffectively by the Army Corps of Engineers over many years, gave way.

Anyway FEMA might now get it's arse in gear if a report in the Tampa Bay Press is to be believed ..

"After downplaying the risks for years, FEMA said Thursday it will rush to move Gulf Coast hurricane victims out of about 35,000 government-issued trailers because tests found dangerous levels of formaldehyde fumes.

FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison said the agency hopes to get everyone out and into hotels, motels, apartments and other temporary housing by the summer, when the heat and stuffy air could worsen the problem inside the trailers."

As recently as last spring, however, a FEMA spokesman said the agency said no reason to question the safety of its trailers.

Now FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison says "The real issue is not what it will cost, but how fast we can move people out,"

Louisiana has 25,162 occupied FEMA trailers and mobile homes, while Mississippi has 10,362, according to FEMA. Other states also have hundreds of trailers. At one point, FEMA had placed victims of the 2005 hurricanes in more than 144,000 trailers and mobile homes - no rent is charged for any of them - which makes their occupants, grateful, ..and very, very obedient .(Time)

Of course this means that all such trailers carry such a health risk. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding (see pic) "Healthy People in a Healthy World-Through Prevention." said ,"I think we're going to learn a lot more in the next year or two," she said after a news conference at FEMA offices in New Orleans. Bit late in the fucking day sweetheart.

Northern Rock - a Turd by any other name

FT Alphaville have posted the "confidential details " of the BOE memorandum about the sale of Northern Wreck (Codename "Blackbird" AKA Turdus merulus of the Family Turdidae - someone at the BOE with a keen sense of ornithological humour ?)) for prospective buyers.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2007/11/13/8870/project-wing-the-northern-rock-briefing-memorandum/

The document is curious - it says the Wreck expects to have a credit line of £24bn from the taxpayer (AKA BOE) as at 1/1/08 - although by most people's reckoning it stands at £30Bn. today.

The loan rate and other terms, length, termination triggers etc., are not available but ..."any potential purchaser/investor... will need to have discussions with the Bank of England and its advisers before concluding any proposal."


The business is unsaleable without this loan and this is tacitly accepted - in 2010 the Rock will require at least £6bn from ..er..." a Replacement Facility"

3 outlines scenarios are given ... all demanding BOE support and evidence that they just want this mess off the doorstep of Threadneedle Street.

• sale of the whole company; (In two words Im Possible, you could not GIVE the company away)

• sale of the basic physical infrastructure of the business, viz. the branches, IT and call centre, - the loans from the remaining stupid, short siighted retail lenders who haven't even now moved their funds to higher and safer ground.

• sale of above plus those securitised mortgages, and a "run off" of the rest - in which case the Credit Rating agencies are left withj a problem to rate and this could leave to a "trigger" by which the holders can demand their money back. (The Credit Agencies are remaining remarkably silent re the value of "Granite" etc.,

Anyone who still holds shares is a mug.

Northern Rock - sanderson contin ues the stream of lies about the company's funding

Matt Ridley,then chairman Northern Rock told a Parliamentary committee on Oct. 16 it had borrowed about 13 billion pounds.

His replacement as chairman Bryan Sanderson, told The Newcastle Journal newspaper, in an article posted on their website on Thursday November 1st in an interview with Sanderson in which he was quoted as saying: "The debt is not quite 20 billion pounds just yet but it's getting there and it could be as much as 25 billion pounds by February".

On Thursday afternoon November 1st , figures from the Bank of England showed Northern Rock has now borrowed up to 22.8 billion pounds since being offered emergency funds on Sept. 14.

"If a few little things had been different this might never have happened," Sanderson told the Newcastle Journal.

Such as the Board being involved in a criminal conspiracy, preparing and issueing accounts knowing them to be fraudulent, trading whilst insolvent and continuing to lie and provide misleading information to the Stock Market, the Press, the Public, borrowers and lenders.

A week ago we exposed the soraing debt at the BOE, the controversial history of Sanderson at the Alliance and Leicester and called for administrators to be called in.A week later it is evident that sandersonn hasn't a clue what is gouing on and continuing to make misleading and dishionmest statements.

Trade in the shares is a false market and should be stopped without delay.

When Tony Blair lied to the House of Commons - 24th September 2002 - well.... one of the times he did.

Tony Blair (Prime Minister at the time) to Parliament on 24 September 2002:



"I am aware, of course, that people will have to take elements of this on the good faith of our intelligence services, but this is what they are telling me, the British prime minister, and my senior colleagues. The intelligence picture that they paint is one accumulated over the last four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative. It concludes that Iraq has chemicaland biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability."





The truth is that the government started a war on a cooked-up pretext, misled Parliament and a host of inquiries to cover this up and is still covering it up. The war remains a matter of life and death, but the cover-up has grave implications for our democracy... says Chris Ames , the indefatigable author of the http://www.iraqdossier.com/


Find out where his battle for the Truth about the sexed up dossier is up to at the Index of Censorship..."Unfinished business"



The FCO and No 10 ? The Stasi were more open.

Northern Rock Directors are crooks - guilty of preparing false accounts and trading whilst insolvent

Northern Rock shares closed today at 257 p. per share. In the last Financial year they earned 94.6 pence per share - that is a yield of 37%. and a Price / earnings ration of 2.72.

This a company whose CEO claims on the company website that it "remain(s) a well-managed company and continue(s) to be a safe place for your savings, loans and mortgages."

"I want" he says,"to make it emphatically clear to all Northern Rock customers that we are open for business as usual."

This is self evident bollocks. It is a lie.The company is not only insolvent, but it is evident that the last year's accounts are mis-stated and the profits overstated proably by at least £500 MN which is represent the cupboard full of dodgy valueless Financial instruments....

"As announced on 20 August 2007, Northern Rock only has a £75 million direct exposure to the US sub-prime market which is all rated AAA, and a £200 million
exposure to the US CDO market, within which there is indirect exposure to US sub-prime.

We also have £325 million of investments in a number of Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs)of which £305 million is bank sponsored. Included in the £200 million of CDOs referred to above is a modest exposure of £22 million of SIV Lites."

It is highly likely also, that the mortgage portfolio has a nightmare clutch of overvalued properties, many the product of this spring's manic sales drive to conceal their threadbare balance sheet. Many lent on the most dubious security. It is a fair guess that the total book is wholly unprofitable now and in the near future, however many of our golden duckets King throws at them.

Even now with the somersaulting Governor's pledge of pissing even more money up the walls of the City Bankers Parlours no-one wants even a piece , a sliver, a chip of Northern Rock.

The first impression was, that Adam J. Applegarth, Chief Executive was simply an over promoted, overpaid wanker. He isn't , he is a crook and so are the rest of the Board of Directors who are collectively guilty of preparing and issuing false accounts and trading whilst insolvent.

Far from declaring the company solvent ,the FSA should be getting the bastards disquakified and locked up.

There is undoubtedly a strong case for prosecuting the Bank of England, The FSA and the Treasury as well as the Chancellor of the Exchequer personally for acting as Shadow Directors and making false assurance to shareholders and depositors concerning the affairs of the company - resulting in massive financial losses.


UPDATE 0048 20th Sept

This note by Robert Peston on his BBC Blog has appeared - timed at early 2000hrs BST

IMPORTANT UPDATE: 19:59 The Bank of England has now told me that individual banks can only apply for £1.5bn each under the £10bn facility. It says that Northern Rock would have needed far greater funds - and that if this finance had been provided three weeks ago or so, the liquidity would not have eliminated the Rock's funding difficulties.

It is slightly odd that the Bank should divulge this to me now, because it failed to provide this detail (or any answer at all) when I asked this afternoon whether what it announced today could have provided succour to Northern Rock. So although the Bank of England has changed course in respect of the way it is prepared to tackle the crisis in the money markets, it is sticking to the position that it has no regrets about the way that it provided its initial support to Northern Rock.


If the above statement is correct (and there is no reason to doubt it) It is evident that the situation is a great deal worse than was at first understood. It is also evident that the Bank / FSA / Treasury are not providing information which can affect the share price in the appropriate and legal way.
It is further evidence that the company was insolvent prior to the first announcments made about BOE funding for the company.

The shares must be immediately suspended.The Directors must make a statement on insolvency and Administrators brought in to run the company.

Sao Paulo crash, plane and 170+ bodies ...but not at Pentagon , Shanksville on 9/11 - Laws of Physics suspended that day ? Amazing pictures

Bystanders watch as workers lift onto a truck a section of a TAM airlines Airbus A320 that slid off the runway of Congonhas airport at Sao Paulo and slammed into a gas station and cargo terminal July 18, 2007.

Reuters report - Scores of bodies pulled from Brazil plane wreck Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:55 AM. Rescue workers in Brazil pulled burned bodies from smoking wreckage and collapsed buildings on Wednesday after about 200 people were killed in the country's worst air disaster - rescuers wearing masks put bodies in refrigerated trucks bound for the morgue. Dental records and jewelry were being used to identify victims.

By late afternoon, firefighters had found 170 bodies. Three severely injured victims had been rushed to hospital but then died, raising the official toll to 173 - Rescue teams found the cockpit recorder in the wreckage.

Now an Airbus 320 is approximately the size of a Boeing 757 - 200 it smashed into a gas station and there was a blazing petrol driven inferno for a long time, Compare this result with Flight AA77 that smashed (?) into the Pentagon on 9/11.

No bodies, no plane even... compare and contrast the Shanksville crash ... no bodies, no plane even.Go here for comparison pics and detailed analysis

Also fascinating "multiple finds" of the "Black boxes" of Flight 77 at the Pentagon here e.g

At around 3:40 a.m., investigators at the Pentagon recover the two "black boxes" from Flight 77. [Washington Times, 9/14/2001] These boxes are the plane’s flight data recorder and its cockpit voice recorder. [BBC, 9/15/2001] According to Arlington County spokesman Dick Bridges, members of the FBI’s evidence response team found them. [PBS, 9/14/2001; Washington Post, 9/14/2001] But some news reports claim they were found by two Fairfax County firefighters, Carlton Burkhammer and Brian Moravitz, as they combed through debris near the impact site. [Washington Post, 9/19/2001 HYPERLINK "http://www.911digitalarchive.org/crr/documents/1010.pdf"; Newsweek, 9/28/2001] And Allyn Kilsheimer, a structural engineer who helps coordinate the emergency response at the Pentagon, later claims he’d "found the black box," which, he says, he’d "stepped on… by accident." [GW Magazine, 3/2002; Popular Mechanics, 3/2005] According to Dick Bridges, the two recorders are discovered "right where the plane came into the building." [Associated Press, 9/14/2001] But the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Pentagon Building Performance Report, released in 2003, will claim that the flight data recorder was found "nearly 300 ft into the structure." [Mlakar et al., 1/2003, pp. 40 HYPERLINK "http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03017.pdf"] Washington FBI agent Christopher Combs says, "Somebody almost threw [the black boxes] away because they didn’t know what they looked like." [Disaster News Network, 10/30/2002] The boxes are taken to the National Transportation Safety Board’s office in Washington, but are reclaimed by the FBI later on in the morning.

See the FBI pic of the sadly damaged Voice recorder - truly amazing picture!

Carbon Offsetting - how everyone in the media is discovering what a fucking fraud it is

Channel 4 have a Dispatches program tonight exposing the fraudulent "carbon offset" bizniz which Lord Patel has been doing for a long time -see all these posts.

It is called The Great Green Smoke Screen Channel 4 News science correspondent Tom Clarke dissects the many 'solutions' to global warming being marketed to onsumers, from tree-planting and carbon offsetting to green energy tariffs, and reveals how attempts to buy our way out of climate crisis may (good weasel word here - don't commit yourself Tom) be making things worse.

He is not the only one.. this is a good place to start ...

"Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power" a product of the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation.Which they call their Development Dialogue 2006:September, no.48 You can download (PDF alert) the whole 350 odd pages or (recommended) 6 seperate chapters.

OR

Better still obtain a free copy by e-mailing Kajsajsa.overgaard@dhf.uu.se or (in Britain only) larrylohmann@gn.apc.org or secretariat@dhf.uu.se or Fax: +46-18-12 20 72

This is how they outline the plot in an arch and quaint fashion but does give you an idea of the content - read and judge for yourself.

Chapter 1 A new fossil fuel crisis/ In which the growing climate crisis is traced mainly to the mining of coal, oil and gas; the dangers to survival and livelihood are outlined; the political nature and implications of the problem explored; and reasonable and unreasonable solutions sketched.

Chapter 2 ‘Made in the USA’ / A short history of carbon trading In which the surprising story is told of how corporations, academics, governments, United Nations agencies and environmentalists united around a neoliberal or ‘market’ approach to climate change emanating from North America.

Chapter 3 Lessons unlearned / In which carbon trading, contrary to slogans about the universal eff ectiveness of markets in dealing with environmental and social problems, is shown to be ill-suited to addressing climate change. The experience of the US in pollution trading is demonstrated to be an argument not for, but rather against, making carbon markets the centrepiece of action on global warming.

Chapter 4 Off sets / The fossil economy’s new arena of conflict In which it is shown how projects designed to compensate’ for continued fossil fuel use are helping to dispossess ordinary people of their land, water, air – and futures.

Chapter 5 Ways forward / In which the claim that ‘there is no alternative’ to carbon trading is dissected and set aside, and emerging alliances for a more democratic and effective climate politics are explored.

Pollution trading the authors have belatedly recognised is a completely new idea, foisted on the world by a small circle of neoliberal institutions in the US. Surprise - Surprise !! Pollution trading’s main appeal is that it promises to save make money for the rich over the short term.

As a pollution control policy, it is sure to fail..... ahem .. in Europe where it HAS been tried ...it has FAILED ... the ETS market closed on Friday at just 12 cents, the lowest ever....having made a lot of traders, lawyers, accountants, banks very rich on the way and many credulous investors much poorer.All credit to media lens for finally realising what twats they have been all these years as the wool has been ever so gently pulled over their eyes... quite how difficult is it to deprive children of their candy ?

Pssssst.... want to stop somebody doing something? - tax and regulate, admittedly it has limited itility eg. European fuel taxes cf USA ... but of course it depends what you do with the taxes you raise.. the European Gubments just piss them up against the wall.

Anyway read the report - 350 pages but it's big type on artfully landscaped pages and the text boxes a la US textbooks makes reading easier ... the Bibliography is excellent. See also ....See also "Obscenity' of carbon trading" by Kevin Smith in the BBC Green Room , he is a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch, a project of the Transnational Institute which studies the impacts of carbon trading on society and the environment.Also by him "Stern Words While in Europe They are trading Hot air" also at (http://www.thepolitician.org/)

"Labour MP Gerry Steinberg described the scheme as a ‘mockery’ and an ‘outrageous waste of public money’.""A massively generous allocation resulted in windfall profits for some of the UK’s most polluting companies, to the collective value of £940 million according to Franck Schuttelar, an analyst at the energy-trading firm Gaselys

.""Waiting yet more years to learn further lessons from the next round of
ineffective emissions trading is a luxury we don’t have."

See also his "Carbon Cop outs" - He is also co-author of The Carbon Neutral Myth: offset indulgences for your climate sins, forthcoming in January 2007.See also Climate Fraud and Carbon Colonialism: The New Trade in Greenhouse Gases (pdf alert)by Heidi Bachram CAPITALISM NATURE SOCIALISM VOLUME 15 NUMBER4 (DECEMBER 2004)
"The changes necessary to avert climate catastrophe are simple enough, namely, a switch away from fossil fuels and to renewable energy like solar and wind, along with a reduction in energy use generally."

You can watch Channel 4 Live on the net anywhere by going here and logging in.

An infuriating program with a few nuggets of information and a lot of footage of the telegenic reporter sitting at a laptop loking puzzled.

It has been said before ... carbon offsets are the equivalent of the mediaeval church selling indulgencies - if you don't know what they are Google it.

There is one effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions - and New Zealand have recently introduced it. An energy tax. Not the complete answer, not the only answer but a good start. Carbon trading just fills the wallets of financiers and their lawyers, advisors, consultants, and PR boosters. They found their top shill in the hapless, hopeless, chinless Margaret Beckett who thankfully appears to have gone to that great Caravan in the sky.

DNA on trial - R v Castree after the fuckups and lies of R v Kiszko

It is interesting to see that in R v Castree (2007)Defence Counsel for man charged with the 1975 murder of Lesley Moleseed will be same person who published , “Innocents” – The definitive account of the case of Stefan Ivan Kiszko, which was published in 1997 by Fourth Estate Ltd - 40 year old Jonathon Rose who was called to the Bar in 1981, and may be found beavering away @ St Pauls Chambers. 23 Park Square, Leeds.

The trial, expected to last 9 weeks, is scheduled to start on October 22nd in Bradford where we trust we do not have another " shocking story of a catastrophic multiple failure of British justice." as Rose's book was described.

(link)For more information about the case and how in 1994 DCI Richard (Dick) Holland, CS Dibb and forensic scientist Doctor Ronald Outteridge were formally charged with suppressing evidence in 1994. It was alleged they had destroyed the forensic evidence which could have proved the innocence of Stefan Kiszko and the guilt of the real murderer.They also withheld statements from the defence, which proved the whereabouts of Stefan on the day of the murder.

Lies, Damned Lies and Medical Statistics

In 1995, the Department of Health issued guidance that gave NHS Trust chief executives overall responsibility for ensuring the provision of effective infection control arrangements.

The Hospital Infection Working Group believed in 1995 that it might have been possible to achieve a 30 per cent reduction in hospital acquired infection.

Nothing very much happened until the National Audt Office reported in February 2000 , (when they were searching to control costs and not disease) - The Management and Control of Hospital Acquired Infection in NHS Acute Trusts in England (HC 230 Session 1999-00). Under the eagle eye and discerning analysis of Sir John Bourn it was noted that at any one time, 9 per cent of patients had an infection that had been acquired during their hospital stay. (Note these were called Hospital Acquired Infections HAI's)

The effects varied from extended length of stay and discomfort to prolonged or permanent disability and death. Based on American experience they calculated that in the England at least 5,000 patients a year, death. These infections were costing the NHS as much as £1 billion a year and around 15 per cent could be prevented by better application of good practice, releasing resources of £150 million for alternative NHS use.

In a a comprehensive study commissioned by the Department of Health and undertaken by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Central Public Health Laboratory January 2000 and referred to by the NAO it was concluded (see Page 24 of the report) ;
Over the course of a 13 month period, 7.8% of patients acquired an infection during their stay in the study hospital which presented during the in-patient period.

A further 19.1% of patients who did not present with an infection during the in-patient phase, reported symptoms of, and in some cases received treatment for, an infection manifesting post discharge which may be associated with their hospital admission.


Patients with one or more infections incurred costs that were on average 2.8 times greater than uninfected patients, an average additional cost of £2,917 per case (ranging from £1,122 for urinary tract infections to £6,209 for bloodstream infections).


Patients who acquired an infection remained in hospital on average 2.5 times longer than uninfected patients, an average equivalent to 11 extra days.


Patients with a hospital acquired infection were 7.1 times more likely to die in the hospital than uninfected patients (after controlling for patient characteristics such as age, sex, diagnosis, admission speciality and type and pre-exiting illness). The death rate also varied with patient characteristics (for example 38% of elderly care patients who acquired a hospital infection died compared with 8% of elderly patients without a hospital acquired infection who died).


Extrapolating the results of this study to NHS Trusts throughout England, the overall cost to the NHS of hospital acquired infection was £986.36 million comprising £930.62 million hospital costs plus a further £55.74 million costs due to infections which occurred post discharge.

It is therefore both insteresting and instructive that The Health Protection Agency FAQ's on MRSA has this helpful advice ..

Where does the figure of 5000 deaths due to MRSA each year come from?

This figure is incorrect. It comes from a very rough estimate of the number of deaths which may be attributed to all hospital acquired infections (HAI), not just MRSA. The estimate was made in 1995 by a working group of the Public Health Laboratory Health Service. It used an estimate of the percentage of deaths associated with all HAIs made in the USA in the 1980s (1% of all deaths in the USA). This percentage was applied to the total number of deaths occurring in the UK, yielding a crude estimate of 5,000 deaths from HAI.

Fast Forward to today

The National Statistical Office has today published figures for England and Wales for mention of MRSA and Clostridium difficile on death certificates. (See graph at top of post from ONS website)

The 3rd report into the number of death certificates in England and Wales that mentioned
Staphylococcus aureus infection increased each year from 2001 to 2005, from 1,211 to 2,083. The percentage of these deaths where Staphylococcus aureus was specified as meticillin resistant (MRSA) rose from 61 % in 2001 to 78 % in 2005.

The age standardised rates for deaths involving MRSA doubled for both males and females between 2001 and 2005. For men the rate increased from 12.5 to 25.0 per million population, while for women it rose from 6.7 to 14.5 per million population.

The 2nd annual report into the number of death certificates in England and Wales that mentioned Clostridium difficile increased from 1,214 in 2001 to 3,807 in 2005. Between 2004 and 2005 the number of deaths involving C. difficile increased by 69 %.

Age-standardised rates for deaths involving C. difficile among males in England and Wales almost tripled between 2001 and 2005, from 13.1 to 37.6 per million population. Among females, rates more than tripled, from 12.8 per million to 38.9 per million.

The complete statistics can be found in in Health Statistics Quarterly 33 (Spring
2007), published today.

They also point out that "Most of the deaths involving S. aureus or MRSA were in the older age groups. Mortality rates in 2005 for deaths involving MRSA in the 85 and over age group were 702 and 387 deaths per million population for males and females respectively. In the under 45 age group there were 1.1 and 0.8 deaths per million population for males and females respectively."

However the Health Protection Agency's MRSA surveillance units figures for England (Note NOT the UK) , up to November 27th 2006 show

1. There were 51,690 reports of Clostridium difficile disease in people aged 65 years and over in 2005, a 17.2% increase on 2004.

2. A total of 3,517 MRSA bacteraemia episodes was reported during the period October 2005 to March 2006. This marks a small decrease in the number of reports compared to the
beginning of the mandatory surveillance scheme and a 1.5% decrease on the previous six
months.
Pert, pretty , glamorous and gorgeous Dr Georgia Duckworth, of the Health Protection Agency, says "We're on a plateau (?)but there is some evidence that individual hospitals and departments – principally those with the worst rates – are getting better." One might reasonably ask Dr Georgina quite what a plateu is and how it applies to the graph at the head of this article. Perhaps she could be familiarised with the expression "Straws, grasping at?"

So since 1995, when the Department of Health issued guidance that gave NHS Trust chief executives overall responsibility for ensuring the provision of effective infection control arrangements.

Hospital Acquired Infections have increased

Deaths from Hospital Acquired Infections MRSA / CD have increased over all hospital admissions and especially in the elderly - plus 65 age group. (Note no-one has mentioned Multiple Drug Resitant TB (MDRTB) .... Yet)

Commenting on the figures Health Minister Lord Hunt said "... we are now starting to see significant reductions in rates of MRSA infections." ! and ..."We have also provided £50 million funding which will give a cash injection to trusts to boost infection control measures."

One might reasonably ask My Lord Hunt what he means by "significant reductions in rates of MRSA infections" Perhaps he could be familiarised with the expression "Straws, grasping at?" It should be pointed out that My Lord Hunt's NHS career began in 1972 when he joined Oxford Regional Hospital Board as a works study officer. See pic below.


A Useful history of MRSA / HAI and the threat of Multiple Drug resistant TB can be found here

Also a Daily Torygraph article 21st Jan 2007 How have we fallen so far behind in battle to beat MRSA? makes comparisons with other European countries experience and the failure to use a 2 phase policy of testing people admitted to hospital (preventing so called Community Acquired Infections) and isolation until cured used in successfully for many years in Holland.

Perhaps these two routes mught produce faster solution at lower costs than an obession with hand wringing washing and blaming the cleaners .. Lord Patel has for long and often said that of there was a Royal College of Hospital Cleaners you would never have heard of HAI's, MRSA, Clostridium.

Nose swabs and rapid MRSA testing - see New Scientist 6th February 2007 won't solve the problem but they (with 100% isolation facilities) will help.

IED's EFP's - the Alphabet soup of low cost and dirty weapons - Iranian ?

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) was formed in October 1997. has a budget this year of US$1.2 BN is based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) and has the goal of discovering, integrating and delivering affordable technologies for improved warfighting by leading a partnership of government, industry, and academia.

Dr. James N. Wilson, Dr. David E. Lambert, and Mr. Joel B. Stewart, of the AFRL are available to give you a guide to the basic physics and operation of these devices. You can find a very handy guide here.

Scientists use design models and shock physics codes to predict terminal shape of projectiles.

Explosively formed projectiles (EFP) are a form of what in the Middle Ages were called Petards. A heavy metal balst proof cylinder is charged with explosive,and stopped up with a metal ball. Through a lit fuse the explosive force drive forward, hopefull knocking a few men over, walls down.

Sometimes the whole damn thing exploded and killed the operator - Hoist on their own petard!

The modern EFP ( or what the militaru and the Press like to call an Improvised Explosive Device) uses these simple principles but adds a sophistication, which is inexpensive, easily constructed and lethal, especially to lightly armoured vehicles.

The leap forward was when quite independently during World War two scientists Misznay, a Hungarian, and Schardin, a German discovered what is now called the Misznay-Schardin effect . Simply, when a sheet of explosive detonates in contact with a heavy backing surface (for example, a metal plate), the resulting blast is primarily directed away from the surface in a single direction. Schardin spent some time developing the device as a side-attack anti-tank weapon, but development was incomplete at the end of the war.

Development was taken up after the war in the USA which led to the Claymore mine which used steel balls as projectiles - this ultimately became the Claymore M18A1 Anti-personnel mine

A simple Misznay-Schardin device consists of a strong metal circular cylinder of explosive, with a shallow cavity in one end that is fitted with a thin metallic liner. Upon detonation, the liner (copper or an alloy ) dynamically transforms into an aerodynamic projectile traveling at high velocity (typically 1500-2000 m/s).

Pic shows the dynamic deformation.

With a mass of 500 g or more, a velocity of 2000 m/s, and kinetic energy on the order of 1 MJ, these projectiles are capable of penetrating more than 10 cm of armor.

The design of the liner is critical and ultimately computerised analysis has shown various trade offs in design - the Geometry of the top surface of the liner relative to the bottom surface changes the mass distribution and strength of the liner across its radius. These effects determine the shape of the liner late in the EFP formation process. While the explosive charge accelerates the liner, the center begins to move with a greater velocity than the outer edge resulting in the deformed, molten hot slug , too thick or thin and edge leads to break up . A correctly designed liner balances the competing effects and forms the perfect and most lethal projectile.

The IED is basically a steel tube, maybe the bottom of a gas cylinder, packed with explosive - of which the Iraqi's seem to have plentiful supplies - with a concave face, the prepared copper liner fitted. (see pic ***) Detonation after selecting a sutiable site is bu electrical firing and may be manually remote or triggered by something as simple as a trip wire, or a passive infra red detector and by wireless - although signals can readily be suppressed.

Something that can and is knocked up in any modest workshop. Cheap, highly effective and frighteningly effective - especially if used in multiples like a Stalin organ.

No need to trouble the munitions manufacturers of Iran.

*** The 3 anonymous guys who introduced these fmailiar pictures if Iranian weapons found in Iraq forbid any pictures, filming,mobils were consfiscated for the Press conference, no devices were shown, just the pictures.

Surprise surprise ..... CNN - "Top general casts doubt on Tehran's link to Iraq militias" Video available.

IPCC slams Met over Forest Gate Raid in shock report

Deborah Glass of the IPCC said of 153 complaints, 2 were upheld.

The TV News and Radio especially the BBC have been reporting that "several" or a "handful" of complaints were upheld.

SPOT THE 'FRIDGE - Win a Million Pounds - Lord Patel's challenge to Metropolitan Police

8 January 2007 Daily Mirror
THE BEDSIT BOMBERS
EXCLUSIVE - INSIDE THE 7/7 TERROR HOUSE What cops found in explosives factory Toxic chemicals strewn across floor NYPD use replica for terrorist training -

"It looked like an ordinary suburban flat on the outside, but the chilling scene within the walls of the terror den used by the 7/7 suicide bombers to bring death to London is described below."

The rooms are a replica of the flat at 18 Alexandra Grove, Leeds, where the bombs were made for murderers Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Jermaine Lindsay, 19, and 18-year-old Hasib Hussain to bring their destruction and carnage to the streets of London in July 2005.

The Mirror was given exclusive access to the mocked-up flat inside a trailer at a secret location in Brooklyn - built with the help of photos and detailed information on the home provided by British authorities.




..and today

15 January 2007 Daily Mirror
JULY 21 'BOMB PLOT' SIX ON TRIAL

THE trial of the six men accused of plotting to bomb public transport in the capital on July 21 2005 began today.

Woolwich Crown Court was told the “extremist Muslim plot” would have taken place just 14 days after the July 7 tragedy.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 28, from Stoke Newington, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, from north Kensington, west London, Yassin Omar, 26, from New Southgate, north London, Hussain Osmain, 28, of no fixed abode, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33 of no fixed abode and Adel Yahya, 24, of High Road, Tottenham are charged with conspiracy to murder and cause explosions likely to endanger life.

2 points -

1. No-one would of course not wish to influence a jury empanelled to try the above case commenced today - least of all the NYPD who treated us to pictures of nail bombs from a car in Luton Railway Station car park (helpfully unexploded).

2. Remember the "industrial refrigerator" that was used in the flat (whatever an industrial refrigerator" is) This is the Times report August 04, 2005 headed July 7th bombs used hair dye, say NYPD

"The only unusual piece of equipment the bomb-maker needed to produce large quantities of HMDT was a commercial refrigerator, because the explosive degrades if it is left at room temperature."

"Yesterday, NYPD officials said that an expensive fridge was found in the otherwise rundown flat in Dewsbury, on the outskirts of Leeds, where investigators believe the bombs used on July 7 were built, and that the devices were brought to Luton in cooler boxes in the boots of two cars.In the flophouse where this was built in Leeds, they had commercial grade refrigerators to keep the materials cool," said Michael Sheehan, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Counter Terrorism. Mr Sheehan told the conference that the presence of sophisticated cooling equipment in an unlikely place could be "an indicator of a problem"."

Lord Patel is offering a

MILLION POUND REWARD

to the person(s) who points out the refrigerator in the Daily Mirror photo of the replica of the alleged Alexander Road, Leeds, bomb factory in a secret location in New York (?) - there is some cooling equipment , a fan,and a bath (we are told was full of ice where did the ice come from ?).

Of course this story is a total fabrication , allegedly originating outside the legal jurisdiction of the UK courts, and therefore "plausibly deniable" - it is a lie, bollocks, dis-information and has been circulated with the full knowledge of the Secret Services, the Metropolitan Police, the home Office, The Foreign Office and their eqivalent offices in the USA.

The intention is to affect and influence both public perception of the defendents and to affect the jury.

PS (What flats in Alexander Grove have air conditioning vents (see upper right hand wall on top picture)

There are of course no photographs of the interior of this bomb factory in public circulation - perhaps Plod might like to clarify the situtation with some snaps from the SOCO's ?

with the

Fucking big Industrial Refrigerator

included.

Methamphetamine improves gay sex - apparently

Rev. Ted Haggard, Leader of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals resigned on Thursday . He also stepped down from the 14,000-member New Life Church, based in Colorado Springs which he founded in 1985, seven years after graduating from the massive Christian Oral Roberts University in Tulsa OK. founded eponymously by the TV evangelist Oral Roberts in 1963.

A highly vocal opponent of gay marriage, married with five children, he resigned after being accused by Mike Jones of Denver on KHOW-AM radio, who claimed that Haggard paid him for sex about once a month for three years. Jones also said Haggard snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters - to heighten his experience.

Jane Little of the BBC in the US says Haggard - also known as Pastor Ted - is one of America's most influential and politically well-connected religious leaders, with strong White House links.

NOTE

Ned Flanders the irritating Christian in the Simpsons also went to Oral Roberts U. Said to be named after Northeast Flanders St. in Portland, Oregon, the hometown of Simpsons creator Matt Groening. The street sign, NE Flanders St., is often defaced to read NED Flanders St. Apparently.

Ned owns the Leftorium a shop stocking items solely for left handed people. A sincere BIble believing Christian , jogger who wears flip flops but won't run in them ... there is no evidence that he snorts anything prior to any form of sexual congress - if homosexual he has, so far, (like Pastor Ted) managed to conceal it.... although looking at this pic .......

UPDATE Midnight UK.

This story is hitting the headlines on every BBC Radio news headlines.

Washington Post reports ..."Rev. Ted Haggard, said today he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a self-described male escort. But Haggard denied allegations by the man that he ever used the drug or had sex with him." Yeah whatever.

Local Radio in Florida is said to be reporting Charlie Crist, flag wrapped, anti gay marriage Christian Floridan Re Pub up for re-election is getting out of the closet. Bruce Carlton Jordan tells Dee Dee Hall (Broward - Palm Beach New Times) in video testimony about his alleged sexual relationship with Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist.See also Proud of who we are and letter to Crist from founder of Florida chapter de Vries

Commander in Chief gets ready for Martial Law

When Kellog Brown Root, (KBR), the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co. (HAL : NYSE) announced the award of a 5 year $385 million contract (an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) ) from the US Department of Homeland Security to supports its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the "event of an emergency" a lot of heads got scratched.

This unique and novel contract placed on 24th January 2006 with immediate effect , is to provide temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an "emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S"... or as KBR mysteriously said .." to support the rapid development of new programs" (?).

Now Signs of the Times has a facsinating piece "Bush Moves Toward Martial Law" by
Frank Morales which may have identified another piece in crazy jigsaw of Dubya's assualt on the Constitution.

According to to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the President has signed off legislation which will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law .

Historically The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), has placed strict prohibitions on federal military involvement in domestic law enforcement.

Now in a private signing ceremony in the Oval Office on October 17th, 2006 the President wiped his ass on the Constitution one more time and stuck his John Hancock on Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

On the same day ,but more publicly he signed off the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which allows , amongst many other crimes, the ability of the US to hold people anywhere in the world, and torture them.

Senator Leahy first struck out on September 19th, about this Constitution wrecking and bricklaying the wall around the supporters of freedom and democracy, noting that 2007's Defense Authorization Act contained a "widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the nation's governors."

Ten days later , Senator Leahy entered into the Congressional Record that he had "grave reservations about certain provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report," the language of which, he said, "subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law." This had been "slipped in," Leahy said, "as a rider with little study," while "other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."

In a telling bit of understatement, the Senator from Vermont noted that "the implications of changing the (Posse Comitatus) Act are enormous". "There is good reason," he said, "for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty."

..But it's been done. The elected Guardians of democracy have been sleepwalkin'.

Liquid bombers "Storm in a teacup ..or serious danger" asks non-racist Ex CPS Chief Judge Calvert-Smith

No-one can or will forget the press furore amd extravagant claims of global catastrophe when Police arrested a total of 25 people in raids across Britain on Aug. 9-10 after a massive clampdown at UK airports as a result of a much hyped "liquid bomb plot" - or what the CIA fronts at the time called the "Lucozade bomb plot". IN daring countrwide swoops police arrested 25 people and charged 17 of them after uncovering an alleged plot to assemble and detonate improvised explosives on board up to 10 U.S.-bound planes. Paul Stephenson, Deputy Commissioner, media darling of the Metropolitan Police told a n exciteable pres scrum, "this was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

Eleven were charged on Aug. 21 with conspiracy to murder and preparing acts of terrorism.

They are: Umar Islam, 28; Waheed Zaman, 22; Abdullah Ali, 25; Tanvir Hussain, 25; Arafat Khan, 25; Ibrahim Savant, 25; Assad Sarwar, 26; Adam Khatib, 19; Nabeel Hussain, 22 (now bailed); Mohammed Gulzar, 25, and Mohammed Uddin, 35.

Two others were charged with preparing terrorism: Usman Mohammed Saddique, 24, and Donald Stewart Whyte, 21, who is also charged with three firearms offences.

Ahmed Ali, 24, was charged with failing to disclose information, and a 17-year-old boy, (he cannot be named ), was charged with possessing material that could be used to prepare a terrorist act.

In a pre-trial hearing on Friday 28th October before Judge David Calvert-Smith at London's Central Criminal Court he refused bail to the only woman in the case 24-year-old Cossor Ali. He bailed Nabeel Hussain, 22 and the unnamed 17 year old boy. So far a trial date has been set for early 2008 - but don't hold your breath.

In astonishingly un-judge like language Judge David Calvert-Smith told the prosecution "We must get this trial on."

"Large sections of the population would want to know if this was a storm in a teacup or a serious danger to hundreds of thousands of people."

His words have extra weight as Sir David was Director of Public Prosecutions at the Crown Prosecution Service between 1998 and 2003 and previously Senior Treasury Counsel and Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association . Very famously he is reported as saying In The Sunday Times (23 June 2002), “it is my firm belief that British society is institutionally racist....."

Hugh Mullan a lawyer representing one of the defendents on a conspiracy charge said, little evidence had been received by defence lawyers. "Already things are slipping out of control," he said and claimed that the prosecution has been forced to push back dates agreed at a prior hearing for evidence to be passed to defence lawyers.

For the prosecution Colin Gibbs, acknowledged that the "size, scale and nature" of the case made some delays inevitable, and that the trial date could be pushed back but that Gibbs Ahmed Ali and the unnamed boy could come to trial in May, which would be discussed at a further pre-trial hearing on Dec. 8th 2006.

Gibbs also told the court that more than 500 witness statements had been collected from surveillance operatives, while scientists detailed with analyzing materials seized or found near defendants' homes had yet to provide any firm time frame about when they would be finished.

This post, like the few press reports so far, is based on Associated Press reports - the major media didn't bother to turn up at the appearance in court in Central London of people who planned ..."mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

Meanwhile we all wait with excitement the trial promised in October of the Flour Power bombers of 21/07. See comment from Numeral that this case (R - v - Osman & others)has been adjourned until 11 January 2007 (from scheduled date of Monday 9 October 2006) for the failed 21 July bombings, at the hopelessly overcrowded Woolwich Crown Court, Thamesmead, London.