About the death of Mr Ian Tomlinson and Britain's 21st century Big-Brother-Bully-Boy-Bobbies

The unfortunate London newspaper seller shown above is Ian Tomlinson

Shortly after this picture was taken, Ian Tomlinson was dead ... thanks entirely to a big brave British bobby's cowardly assault/attack.

(The term 'big brave' is obviously sarcasm, of course.)

The innocent victim's family are urgently appealing for witnesses.

Well, anyone who sees, has seen or will see the film footage that can be found at our link below below can witness first hand exactly what happened.

Including seeing the sadistic, helmeted and uniformed little shit who shoved and battoned this poor man ~ from behind. That's right, from behind. And so self evidently without any just cause.

See for yourself then you be the judge.

We say (along with many, many more) that any outcome other than a manslaughter charge being brought against the police officer concerned, will be a crime in itself.

NO perpetrator is above the law of this land simply because they wear a f*cking uniform ~ ANY uniform.

Justice must be done. Moreover, justice must be seen to be done.

If, in present day Britain, innocent working men & women simply going about their peaceful business and living their everyday perfectly legal lives, are not safe from those who are supposed to be duty bound to protect them, then God help us all.

What a crying sodding shame that this once great country should ever have come to this.

We wonder whether there will be a 'whitewash'. We fear that there may be. We hope that there wont be.

There's much more on this right here.

And before anyone else says it, yeah, we know that all police officers are not the same. However, as we see it, an increasing number of them are certainly, to say the least, "not fit for purpose".

Canada, Jason Kenney and George Galloway : the ongoing 'banning' saga...

Seen and/or heard much about brave British MP, George Galloway being "banned" by Canada?

Courtesy a sweaty, stinking lying, self serving, duplicitous, piece of political slime, christened Jason Kenney?



Interested at all in telling the truth? The type of truth that so often hurts certain so-called 'elected representatives' of 'we the people'?

Interested in integrity? Democracy? Honesty? Free speech? Freedom of movement? Freedom from harassment and/or hindrance?

If so, you absolutely MUST go to Gert's place ...

... then, to see the unarguably unmissable, second 'installment' of this sad & sorry saga, slip straight across here.

Incidentally, if you're a British Passport holder yourself, we strongly suggest seeing precisely what it says inside its front cover.

On second thoughts, being the big hearted old Brits that we are, we'll save you some of your precious time.

Her Britannic Majesty's
Secretary of State
Requests and requires in the
Name of Her Majesty
all those whom it may concern to allow
the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance,
and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.

Incidentally, don't just take our word for it ; check it out yourself when you next get the chance to.

Britain's 'Big Brother' grows bigger and uglier, by the bloody day

Question:

What's the difference between Brown, Blair, Obama, Bush and Orwell's Big (1984) Brother?

Answer:

Not a lot.

(snip)

Phone companies are already required to store details of all calls, such as the time and date, location and who made them, for 12 months for possible use in criminal investigations or court cases.

An EU directive ordering data on internet traffic to be stored in a similar way is due to come into effect in the UK on Monday, 6 April.

The government is also considering proposals to store all communications data on a single database, which may be run by a private company.

(snip)

So what else is new?

The fascist face of US policing : Kings County Seattle-style

*

Watch this and weep.

Then ruddy rage!



The young girl is 15 years old.

The 'so called' policeman is a 'so called' sheriff's deputy.

So, now you've seen the film, read this whole sorry story ~ and much more of the same sort of shocking shit.

Home of the brave? Land of the free?

Oh, yeah. Sure

And we're a pair of Protestant Popes.

*(Cross posted across at 'appletree')

America's Phony War on Terror : Ex Irish President Mary Robinson states the obvious

While we readily admit that today we're taking a sarcastic sort of swipe at the pretty dumb practice of stating the sodding obvious, we ourselves wish to make it perfectly obvious that we are in no way "having a go" at Ireland's excellent ex President, Mary Robinson.

Since the sad truth is that there are still millions of westerners convinced that bums like George Bush and Tony Blair, to mention just a pair, always told us all the truth.

Just take a look at this.

GENEVA (Reuters)

Washington's "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday.

Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded.

"Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and repeal abusive laws and policies," the former Irish president said, warning that harsh U.S. detentions and interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba gave a dangerous signal to other countries that could easily follow suit.

While new U.S. President Barack Obama has announced he will close Guantanamo to break from the practices of his predecessor George W. Bush, Robinson said sweeping changes needed to take place to ensure Washington abandons its "war paradigm."

"There has been severe damage and it needs to be addressed," she told a news conference in Geneva. "We are not more secure. We are more divided, and people are more cynical about the operation of laws."

Arthur Chaskalson, former chief justice of South Africa, said that the United States should launch an inquiry into its counter-terrorism practices, including acts of torture by individual security and intelligence agents.

Although counter-terrorism issues have faded from the front pages since the change of government in Washington, Chaskalson said such practices have shifted around the world and could keep restricting liberties if they are not confronted head-on.

"We all have less rights today than we had five or 10 years ago, and if nothing happens, we will have even less,"

So here's to you, Mrs Robinson, we have to say that we like your style. Like it a lot, in fact. Truth be told, maybe we even love it.

Now read the rest of this Reuters'report.

Minneapolis, St Paul, Minnesota : Resistance Seems Futile ...

This is ruddy outrageous!

And no, we don't mean the damned poxy picture.

*

Gordon Brown's Government's Great British Gestapo Plot ...

Apparently, lots of us are learning a lot lately about a supposed terrorist type plot against Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

However, how many, we wonder, have as yet even begun to get to grips with the insidious implications of this mean spirited, mendacious miscreant of a man's government's shockingly sinister plot of it's own?

You know, the good old Great British Gestapo Plot.


What a woeful way to goddamn go, eh?

We began by giving Blair, Bush and their respective bunches of bad-ass bandits an inch, and the bastards took a million bloody miles. And when we say "bloody" we do mean "bloody".

Then, Blair buggered off before he was effed off, and we gave the supposed good-guy Gordo a go.

Now, super-snide as he so obviously is, this Brown bum gives us this shit.

Psst. Listen. Hear we now. We kid ye not.

We don't even dare to imagine what this mangy, manic mob of mega-Machiavellian madmen may have headed our way next.

Do you?

(Cross posted at 'appletree')

Did You Hear the One About Bush in Bangkok?

And now for something completely different.



Let's all lighten up a little, eh?



Remember - laugh and the world laughs at with you.



So here's some of the jokes, folks.

Is Britain Becoming "a fortress"? Being Built (by proxy) by Foreigners?

An over the top illustration? We know there are plenty of people who'll say precisely that. That's as may be. Every one's entitled to a personal opinion. Though we do have to wonder for how long.



Thanks to one of our regular readers, 'sweet old lady', we were pointed in the direction of this amazing/alarming article.

We believe that everyone should read it.

We don't doubt for a moment that readers will see this piece from entirely opposite perspectives, and indeed, isn't that exactly the kind of thing we mentioned at the outset? Every one's entitlement to personal opinions? And the freedom to voice said opinions?

Anyway, here's tasty teaser or two to tempt you into reading this article in it's entirety.

"Sensing opportunity as the war on terror grinds on, its neoconservative architects have swooped in from across the Atlantic to establish their presence in Britain. With ties to the arms industry and the neoconservative wing of the Israel lobby, the Henry Jackson Society seems to be assuming the role that the Committee on Present Danger played in the United States. Its Israel-centric worldview, as exhibited by its roster of speakers, predisposes it towards perpetual conflict. The support for a militarized ethnocracy is not the natural inclination of a liberal-democratic Britain; it can only be sustained in a context where Israel can be seen aligned with Britain in an overarching conflict against a common enemy."

(snip)

"Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue... Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum."

In Britain each of the New Labour government's political missteps has been accompanied by similar fear-mongering. While a terrorist threat does exist, its magnitude is wildly exaggerated. The European Police Office (Europol) released its first report on terrorism last year which listed 498 terrorist attacks for Europe in 2006; only one was attributed to Muslims. The majority - 136 - were carried out by the Basque separatist group ETA; only one of them deadly. When it came to the arrests on terrorism related charges, however, a good half were Muslims.

(snip)

From Beirut, an outraged Robert Fisk wrote:

"Stephenson's job is to frighten the British people, not to stop the crimes that are the real reason for the British to be frightened ...I'm all for arresting criminals...But I don't think Paul Stephenson is. I think he huffs and he puffs but I do not think he stands for law and order. He works for the Ministry of Fear which, by its very nature, is not interested in motives or injustice."

(snip)

On November 18, 1822, the Observer reported that nearly "a million
bushels of human and inhuman bones" had been imported in the previous year from Europe into the port of Hull. Battlefields swept alike of the "bones of the hero and the horse which he rode" delivered their haul to Yorkshire bone grinders who reduced them to granulary state. "In this condition they are sold to the farmers to manure their lands."[8] Two centuries on, the gap between the 'support our troops' rhetoric and reality has yet to be bridged.

An internal report into the state of the British Military obtained by The Independent on May 11 reveals that soldiers are living in such poverty that they can't even afford food, with many living on emergency food voucher schemes set up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). "Commanders are attempting to tackle the problem through 'Hungry Soldier' schemes, under which destitute soldiers are given loans to enable them to eat" the paper reported

Read the rest of these remarkable writings right here.

Now, opine away. For the floor is all yours.

(Cross posted at 'appletree')

American Attorney General Asks for Permanent State of War

Welcome to Bush's America

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has asked congress to declare war. Not against a sovereign state, but against an organization made up of loosely-affiliated cells. And his purpose in asking for this declaration is to allow the government to detain "enemy combatants", without evidence and without charge, for the duration of the "war". In other words, forever. This is particularly disturbing given the administration's position that the government should be allowed to confer "enemy combatant" status on American citizens.

What Mukasey proposed is nothing less than an indefinite suspension of one of our most important rights: the right to habeas corpus. The right to demand that the government present evidence before detaining a suspect. Specifically, Mukasey is asking Congress to reverse a recent Supreme Court decision that overturned part of the 2006 Military Commissions Act. The act stripped detainees of the right to appeal decisions made by special military tribunals.

And let's not kid ourselves: Mukasey is not only asking that Bush's kangaroo courts be allowed to operate without review, he's asking that they be allowed to do so for the foreseeable future. If the United States had gone to war against the Nazi Party instead of Germany in World War II, we would still be at war. If we had declared war against the Communist Party back in the 1950s, we would still be at war. If we had declared war against the Ku Klux Klan back in 1865, the South would still be under martial law. Not only is Mukasey asking for an American version of the Reichstag Fire Decree, he's asking that it be put into effect permanently.

To be blunt, Attorney General Mukasey is asking for the United States to be transformed from a nation in which the government serves only as long as it pleases the people, to a nation in which citizens are allowed to remain free only as long as it pleases the government.

***

Only seven Democrats (counting Joe Lieberman) voted to confirm Mukasey. Every Republican either voted to confirm, or expressed support for Mukasey's nomination. That shows you which party supports limited government.

The primary issue that cost Mukasey the support of the Democrats was his refusal to say whether or not waterboarding constitutes torture. Given the fact that waterboarding had long been in the news, Mukasey's alleged inability to determine whether or not it is torture should have disqualified him from serving as Attorney General. Of course, he was lying about that, and had planned all along to endorse the practice, and that lie should have disqualified him. And while I expected some of our more cowardly senators (Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Tom Carper) to betray their constituents on the Mukasey nomination, I would have hoped that Democrats who didn't have to worry too much about re-election would have had the political courage to stand up to Bush, especially after the Republicans' catastrophic defeat in 2006.

So I'd like to extend a hearty "screw you" Diane Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York, who voted to confirm as Attorney General a man who clearly has no regard for either the Constitution or for the rule of law.

(cross posted at Liberal Avenger and appletree)

Now Big Brother Really Is Watching "YOU" ...

Who here hasn't, at one time or another, watched something on "YouTube"?

Can you believe this? Can you? Can you comprehend it? Can you?

Google must divulge YouTube log.

Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever
watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.

The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.

Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the ruling a "set-back to privacy rights".

The viewing log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details.

Read the rest at the Beeb's site ... but remember ... beware of BIG BROTHER.

(Cross posted at 'appletree')

A Bit About L.B.J. On This Day 44 Years Ago ...

Wednesday, 2nd July ...

Hands up who knew?

It's forty four years ago to the very day, that the then American President, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed one of the most important pieces of legislation in the whole history of America.



Now, in case you've still not cottoned on, here's another clue.

The particular piece of legislation had caused enormous controversy right across the ever since it was introduced, the previous year, by President Johnson's predecessor, President John F Kennedy.

You can read lots more right here.

And we all lived happily ever after.

Right?

Ya think?

(Cross posted at 'appletree')