How Did the Alleged Abductor Snatch Madeleine McCann?

This is a re-up for this 2010 article by Barbara Nottage, and probably the best place, rather than being directed to the case files, for any newbie to get an understanding of the physics of the thing.

Because let's face it, you don't actually need the case files, it's all here, for it covers the the most fundamental premiss of the case, the "jemmied shutters." Because no jemmied shutters means no abduction; period.

And as well we know, jemmied shutters were there not. Something Leicester Police and Scotland Yard seem unable to grasp.

Or choose to ignore.

Originally posted under the title: Madeleine McCann Was Not Abducted: The Shutters Revisited at Good Quality Wristbands. A place where making use of the search bar, particularly using the same keywords, jemmied shutters, will bring a host of results.

How did the alleged abductor snatch Madeleine in a time slot of no more than 3-4 minutes?
by Barbara Nottage

One of the curious aspects of the alleged abduction of Madeleine McCann is the extraordinarily tight timetable in which the abduction is supposed to have taken place. Dr Gerald McCann says he went to check on the children at about 9.05pm on 3 May 2007. He also said elsewhere that he had been an unusually long time in the apartment toilet, and that he had been inside all four rooms of the apartment. In addition, he told the world that he had had time during his visit to gaze down on Madeleine, whom he was to describe as ‘lying in the recovery position’, and think how lucky he was to have such a beautiful daughter. By this reckoning, He could not have left the apartment until around 9.10pm or several minutes later.

Meanwhile Jane Tanner, a close friend of the McCanns, has given statements saying that she saw what she thought was a male abductor carrying Madeleine away in his arms from the apartment at around 9.15pm - although we might note here that in August 2009 at a press conference, the McCanns’ chief private investigator, former Detective Inspector Dave Edgar, said that Jane Tanner might have seen a woman, not a man.


The abduction scenario

So let’s examine this situation more closely.

The scenario put forward by the McCanns and their friends runs as follows:


· The abductor must have been watching the apartment for several days before snatching Madeleine on 3 May.

· The McCanns went down to the ‘Tapas bar’ at the Ocean Club at around 8.30pm that evening, with other members of the group arriving during the next half-an-hour or so.

· Dr Matthew Oldfield ‘checked the apartment from the outside’ at around 9.00pm to 9.03pm.

· Dr Gerry McCann returned to his apartment (5A) from the Tapas bar to check on his children at around 9.05pm. The walk to the apartment would have taken one to two minutes. So on his own timing, he would have arrived there around 9.07pm.

· Dr Gerry McCann was briefly in all four rooms of their holiday apartment, during which time he checked his children. He also says he spent an unusually long time in the toilet - maybe up to 5 minutes, though we have never been told why. He tells us that he paused briefly over Madeleine’s bed and thought to himself how very lucky he was to have such a beautiful child.

· Dr Gerry McCann says he noticed that the door to the children’s room was ‘wider open than before’. He says that at 8.30pm it had been open at an angle of about 45 degrees (half open). He remembers (he says) that when he went to check the children at 9.05pm, the door was now open at an angle of 60 degrees (two thirds open).

· The fact that the door - according to Dr Gerald McCann - was now (at 9.05pm) more open more than it was before (at 8.30pm), has been used by him to suggest the possibility that the abductor may have been already in the apartment when he checked on the children, although he says he only realised this possibility some months after the events of the day. Dr Gerry McCann has said that the abductor might have been hiding behind a door or in a wardrobe while he spent several minutes doing his ‘check’ on the children.

· Dr Gerry McCann must have left the room, on his own account, at between 9.10pm and 9.15pm. He then says he encountered a TV cameraman, Jeremy (‘Jes’) Wilkins, on the road back to the Tapas bar at the Ocean Club, and was talking to him for several minutes between 9.10pm and 9.25pm (Jeremy Wilkins confirms the meeting, but says it only lasted three minutes).

· Ms Jane Tanner (partner of Dr Russell O’Brien) says she left the Tapas bar at around 9.15pm and saw a man walking ‘purposefully’, with a child in his arms, along the top of the road running alongside the McCanns’ apartment. She has maintained throughout that she saw this man at almost exactly 9.15pm.

· The McCanns maintain that they left their apartment unlocked. This contrasts however with what they said during the might of 3 May/4 May. In telephone calls to relatives, Dr Gerald McCann told them that an abductor had forced entry into the apartment by jemmying open the shutters. They appear to have changed this story after both the Manager of Mark Warners, Mr john Hill, and the police, found no evidence whatsoever of the shutters having been forced open.

· The McCanns now say, therefore, that the abductor must have entered their apartment through the unlocked patio door. But they maintain that the windows and shutters that they say they found open on Dr Kate McCann checking the children at 10.00pm were because the abductor must have made his escape via that route. They say the abductor must have opened the window and the shutters (which the McCanns say they had had left closed) from the inside, climbed through the window, and taken Madeleine through that window.

· Dr Kate McCann says she returned to the apartment to check on the children at 10.00pm. She says she ‘knew instantly’ that Madeleine had been abducted - and then so did Dr Gerald McCann, minutes later, when he says he arrived at the apartment. Dr Kate McCann later told a TV interviewer that because of the requirement for secrecy about the police investigation, she could not explain why she ‘knew instantly’ that Madeleine had been abducted. She has never explained this, even 2½ years later.



The photographs of the apartment taken by the Portuguese police on the day after Madeleine was reported missing do not show anything which would clearly point to an abduction, certainly not damaged shutters. No forensic evidence whatsoever of the alleged abductor has been found. There were no forensic traces in the room, and no fingerprints on the window, window frame or shutters except for one of Dr Kate McCann’s fingerprints. The lichen on the windowsill was undisturbed.


Going by the above scenario, which the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends have maintained, the abductor (if there was one) must have either entered the apartment before Dr Matthew Oldfield’s check at around 9.03pm and Dr Gerry McCann’s check which began at 9.05pm/9.07pm – a version put forward by the McCanns months after Madeleine was reported missing - McCanns now want us to believe - or after Dr Gerry McCann left at 9.10pm to 9.15pm and before he was (allegedly) seen by Jane Tanner at 9.15pm.

The problems with this abduction scenario

There are many problems associated with this specific abduction scenario above that the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends have generated.

As we have seen just now, there is no forensic evidence that the alleged abductor was even in the McCanns’ apartment, still less that an abductor climbed in or out of the window.

Further, the window is high enough in the children’s room to make it physically very difficult for an abductor to climb through it. It was reported to be 91cm. above the floor - exactly three feet. The window itself is only around 60cm x 60cm (2ft x 2ft). The abductor would therefore have had to climb some three feet, with Madeleine with him, in his arms or over his shoulder. In addition, he would have to have managed this feat without leaving any forensic traces on the window-sill.

Madeleine must have weighed at least two stone (12kg). A task such as this would have meant balancing against the window frame itself, in which case traces of clothing fibres would surely have been found. Even then, it would have been almost impossible to climb through this window even if Madeleine had been asleep. It is surely even more unlikely that the abductor could have laid Madeleine down on the floor or a bed in the children’s bedroom, then climbed out of the window, and then reached back inside the bedroom to pick Madeleine out of the room - all of this without Madeleine or either of the twins waking up.

This whole abduction operation would clearly have been still more difficult either if Madeleine had woken up whilst being abducted, or one or both twins had done so. To maintain the abduction scenario, therefore, it is necessary to believe that Madeleine slept through the entire abduction operation. The description given by Jane Tanner of an alleged abductor carrying a child also describes the child as quiet and presumably asleep.

Moreover, to escape via the window, as the McCanns claim, the abductor would have had to open the shutters. Mark Warners, however, explained that it was only possible to open the shutters from the inside. They are operated by pulling a cord, or strap, on the inside. It is a highly relevant fact (again confirmed by Mark Warners) that when these heavy metal shutters were opened, the whole process is extremely noisy.

But no-one heard the shutters being opened. Moreover, the children’s room was directly overlooked by a tall block of apartments on the other side of the street. Had the abductor really climbed out of that window, he would have been in the view of dozens of windows overlooking Apartment 5A. We now know that the shutters to Apartment 5A were actually closed when the police and Mark Warners’ staff arrived to check them. The McCanns’ initial explanation for this fact were that the shutters ‘must have been closed by the abductor as well as opened by him’. We have seen that the shutters could not be opened from the outside. This claim by the McCanns that the abductor ‘must have tried to close the shutters behind him’ prompts two related and very obvious questions:





1) having gained entry through an open patio door, what would possess an abductor to leave via a three-foot high, two-foot square closed window, with the shutters also closed? The McCanns’ abduction scenario would require him to have opened the windows and shutters, then tried to close the shutters behind him, when he could have simply walked through the already-open patio doors.


2) why and how, having allegedly scooped up Madeleine in his arms and opened the window and the shutters, would he have had the time and the physical ability to then close the shutters, all without making any sound or leaving any trace, without being seen by anyone, and without waking either Madeleine or the twins?



Moreover, all this would have had to have been accomplished in the dark - unless the alleged abductor switched the lights on when he entered the apartment and then remembered to switch them off again as he was making his exit. No-one saw any lights on in the apartment. The McCanns have admitted that they left the children in the darkness, with the shutters and curtains closed, when they went out for their evening’s entertainment.





Therefore, to sum up - according to the McCanns’ scenario, the abductor would have to have:


* First - either picked an opportunity to enter the apartment after the McCanns had left for the Tapas bar at between 8.30pm and 9.00pm - or entered the apartment immediately after he had seen first Dr Matthew Oldfield and then Gerry McCann enter and leave the apartment at around 9.05pm to 9.15pm;


[NOTE: if the former of these two alternatives, then the abductor must have been in the apartment with Dr Gerry McCann during the five to ten minutes or so he was checking on the children - as Dr McCann indeed claimed last year]


* Second - walked through the open patio door without being seen;


* Third - found Madeleine in the dark;


* Fourth - picked her up, without waking her or the twins, and without leaving any forensic trace on the bed;


* Fifth - opened the window - without leaving any fingerprints;


* Sixth - opened the shutters from the inside (with nobody hearing him doing so, and once again without leaving any fingerprints);


* Seventh - climbed through the window, somehow carrying Madeleine with him - again without being seen by anyone, and again without leaving any fingerprints;


* Eighth - he would then have had to close the very noisy shutters, using controls operated from the inside - while still having Madeleine in his arms, or having laid her down on the patio, and


* Ninth - he made his escape without being seen by anyone except for afew fleeting seconds by Jane Tanner at around 9.15pm.





The operation of climbing through the window would have been physically very difficult, if not impossible, to do without (a) even brushing away even a tiny piece of the years-old lichen growing on the window-sill or (b) leaving any clothing fibres or other forensic evidence.


He must in addition have accomplished this whole operation in near total darkness and without being seen or heard by anyone except Jane Tanner. At the very moment that Jane Tanner says she saw the alleged abductor, Dr Gerald McCann was chatting away to holiday friend Jeremy (‘Jez’) Wilkins. Neither man saw or heard the alleged abductor despite being so close.

If the abductor had Madeleine in his arms as he climbed out of the window, and bearing in mind he was in near darkness, he would have been unable to see anything below her or much to either side as he fumbled through the window and shutters and tried to escape from the apartment precincts. Why he would do this when there was an open patio door to walk back through is incomprehensible. The McCanns only came up with the scenario of the abductor entering the unlocked patio door and then escaping via the window after learning that there was no evidence that the shutters had been tampered with, as they had told their relatives the night Madeleine disappeared.


Finally let us look for a moment at another aspect of the McCanns’ scenario. They have claimed on many occasions that an abductor must have been ‘casing the joint’ for several days beforehand - and then pounced and abducted Madeleine when he had the chance. The McCanns claim that he would have been closely watching them, including observing what the McCanns claim as their routine of half-hourly checking.


The McCanns have gone further and have suggested - in a lengthy TV interview for the BBC’s Panorama programme - that the abductor must have been making notes on their movements, allegedly carefully observing the times of their departures from the apartment. But this does not seem plausible given that neither the McCanns, nor their ‘Tapas 9’ friends, have given any details of how often (if at all) they were checking on their children whilst out wining and dining – apart from on the night Madeleine was reported missing.

Another problem about the McCanns’ abduction scenario is that there is nowhere that the abductor could have been observing the McCanns’ apartment without being seen - unless, that is, he was living or operating from one of the flats opposite the McCanns’ apartment, some of which overlooked it. It is understood that the occupants of these flats have all been investigated and their statements corroborated. None of them had anyone in their flat who was watching the McCanns’ apartment, nor was anyone seen acting suspiciously or hanging around in that area during the week the McCanns and their friends were there, except for one man who has been identified and eliminated from police enquiries.


The other obvious problem about the claim of an abductor ‘casing the joint’ is this:- Suppose an abductor had been watching the McCanns’ apartment day in and day out. On the McCanns’ own timeline, he would have seen the McCanns leave for the Tapas bar at 8.30pm. If, therefore, as claimed, an abductor had been watching the premises, he would presumably have chosen a moment as soon as possible after 8.30pm to abduct Madeleine - i.e., immediately after Drs Gerry and Kate McCann had left for the Tapas bar (on their own account) at around 8.30pm.


Yet, if he had entered the flat just after the McCanns left at 8.30pm, how come he was not long gone 35-40 minutes later when Dr Gerald McCann did his check? After all, Dr McCann now believes that the abductor may have even been present for the entire five to ten minutes or so that he was doing his check i.e. between 9.05pm and 9.10pm/9.15pm.





Yet a further difficulty for this improbable scenario is that Dr Matthew Oldfield claims that he did two checks - one at around 9.00pm, (various times have been given for this alleged check) and the other around 9.30pm. Dr Oldfield claims that during his 9.00pm visit he ‘checked’ from the outside but saw and heard nothing. He also said that the shutters were ‘tight shut’. If indeed the abductor really had entered before both Dr Matthew Oldfield’s alleged check (around 9.00pm) and Dr McCann’s check (around 9.05pm), then he was exceptionally lucky, to put it mildly, not to have been detected by either man.


There are equal if not even greater problems with the suggestion that the abductor entered the apartment and removed Madeleine only after Drs Oldfield and McCann had done their checks. Would any abductor really have dashed into the apartment after first seeing Dr Oldfield checking the outside of the apartment at around 9.00pm - and then seen Gerry spending five to ten minutes checking between 9.05pm and 9.15pm? It would surely have been far too risky.


And if he entered the apartment after Dr Gerry McCann left at say 9.10pm at the earliest, he would scarcely have had time to enter the flat, remove Madeleine, open the window and shutters, close them behind him etc. and then be seen by Jane Tanner at 9.15pm.





Sadly, no British newspaper or magazine has offered an analysis, like the one above, of the unlikelihood of the abduction having occurred in the way the McCanns and their ‘Tapas 9’ friends claim it ‘must have’ happened.


I conclude by saying that I am not saying the abduction of Madeleine never happened. But I confess I do find it very difficult to understand, given all that has been said about it, how it could have happened."

Critical Thought I know Thee Not: Srinagar Kashmir

Srinagar, Kashmir
Feb. 1, 2013

Kashmiri Muslims react as an unseen priest shows a relic believed to be a hair from the beard of Prophet Mohammed.

I Love The Echo of Jackboots in the Morning It Sounds Like America

I do like stories like this, it gives me something to point to when I get fuckwit visitors, leaving their fuckwit comments, extolling the Home of The Brave, Land of the Free, Greatest Nation on Earth nonsense.

Not to mention, One Nation Under Jackboots God.

Arkansas town enacts martial law

Officers with AR-15s will patrol Paragould, stopping everyone out walking for their IDs
By Natasha Lennard
Jan 29, 2013

Following a rise in violent crime in Paragould, an Arkansas town of around 26,000 residents, the mayor and police chief announced that starting this month police in SWAT gear carrying AR-15s would patrol the streets.

“If you’re out walking, we’re going to stop you, ask why you’re out walking, and check for your ID,” police chief Todd Stovall told a December town hall meeting. As if to render the implementation of a visible police state more palatable, Stovall assured residents that police stops would not be based on any profiling: “We’re going to do it to everybody,” he said.

Stovall also told residents he had not consulted an attorney before instituting the plan. HuffPo’s Radley Balko noted that Paragould is not the first town to bring in such measures:

Using SWAT teams for routine patrols isn’t uncommon. Fresno did this for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The city sent its Violent Crimes Suppression Unit into poorer neighborhoods and stopped, confronted, questioned, and searched nearly everyone they encountered. “It’s a war,” one SWAT officer told Christian Parenti in a a report for The Naiton (not available online). Another said, “If you’re 21, male, living in one of these neighborhoods, and you’re not in our computer, then there’s something definitely wrong.”

Balko picked up on interesting detail in Stovall’s comments. The police chief said, “This fear is what’s given us the reason to do this. Once I have stats and people saying they’re scared, we can do this.” As Balko pointed out, although there was an uptick in violent crime in Paragould, “fear” of crime was used as the pretext to implement martial law — based on such troubling reasoning, there is never not fear in U.S. towns today and so there is never not a pretext to introduce patrolling SWAT teams. Salon

Just in. (and I must go and look for another pearl)

Police state gone wild: Couple facing 60 days in jail for rescuing injured baby deer
by Mike Adams
January 29, 2013

(NaturalNews) An Indiana couple saved a wounded baby deer and nursed it back to life, saving its life and giving it a home. They named it "Little Orphan Dani." When Indiana state officials got word of this courageous act of compassion, they ordered the deer euthanized. (Because government wants to kill everything you love.)

When the deer "escaped" right before it was schedule to be killed -- and yes, I think the couple probably set it free rather than have it killed -- the man and woman were charged with unlawful possession of a deer.

They now face $2,000 in fines and 60 days in jail.

This is yet another example of the government police state gone wild, and it's on top of seemingly countless other stories of similar police state insanity such as armed government raids on raw milk distributors.

Previous: Indiana Official Police State Just one of dozens under the Police tag.

The World Fiddles While The Planet Burns: Fukushima

Update: Depleted Uranium, Diabetes, Cancer And You


A short video delivering an even shorter sharper shock. Do I think it's doom-mongering, not a bit?

A couple of short podcasts below that report on what, due to the criminal conspiracy between TEPCO and the Japanese Government, was inevitable, the massive rise in Thyroid cysts, particularly in the most vulnerable segment of the population, the young girls of Fukushima Prefecture.

And it is this collusion between TEPCO and the Japanese Government in playing down the dangers faced by that same vulnerable group, the children, that has from day one, stuck in my craw.

There is much in the sidebar under the Japan tag, but if only to exercise the point, I'm sure, criminal japanese government in the search bar will render a few results. 




With thanks to the compiler, but on a first search I could find little, other than the Youtube account of, Rosy Heart

Terribly alarming what’s happening in Japan — Signs of radiation sickness reported in children after 3/11 — Lies are being fed to the people

Dr. Helen Caldicott: It’s terribly alarming what’s happening, and the ignorance of the population, and the lies that are being fed to the people.

I’ve just been in Japan for 10 days doing a speaking tour and I had audiences of 400 people and I’d give them the medical data and statistics about radiation and then it’d turn into a medical consultation. […]

Indeed many children were reported to have had nose bleeds which means their platelets are low which is a sign of radiation sickness.

And there have been a lot of viral illnesses as well. Of course your immune system is depleted by radiation.

There’s little being done to collect the medical data. short podcast

“Continually, radioactive elements are being flushed into the Pacific” — “The Fukushima accident will never end, they have no idea how to clean it up”

Dr. Helen Caldicott: The Fukushima accident will never end. They have no idea how to clean it up because there’s never been three nuclear meltdowns in history.

Continually, radioactive elements are being flushed into the Pacific Ocean.

. . . the accident never ends because the food will continue to be radioactive as the plants suck up the radioactive elements from the soil, concentrate it, and then people will eat it — and that will go on for generations and generations. So nuclear accidents never end. short podcast

There's not much that surprises me about TEPCO, but even for them, the last sentence in this grim bit of reading, really takes the biscuit.

Tepco plans to dump ‘cleaned’ Fukushima No. 1 water

Kyodo
Jan 25, 2013

Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to dump contaminated water from its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean after removing radioactive substances to reduce contamination to legally permissible levels.

Tepco said Thursday the measure is necessary because the utility fears it will eventually run out of capacity to store radioactive water that continues to accumulate at the plant due to water being injected to help cool the three reactors that experienced core meltdowns in March 2011.

Despite the plan, the utility acknowledged it needs the approval of local governments and other parties before it actually discharges the water into the ocean. “Nothing specific has been decided at this moment,” one Tepco official said.

Water that has been used to cool the damaged reactors is recycled and used as coolant after radioactive levels in it have been lowered in a water-processing facility. But the total amount of contaminated water is increasing because the existing water flow allows an influx of about 400 tons of groundwater a day.

Tepco is increasing the number of storage tanks to deal with the situation, but warns they will eventually reach full capacity.

As a key step in the water release, Tepco will operate a new facility that can remove about different 60 types of radioactive substances, more than the existing water processing facility that has mainly worked to reduce the concentration of cesium. But as the new facility is not capable of removing radioactive tritium, an official said Tepco will consider diluting the processed water before releasing it to the sea. The Japan Times

Probably the most informative site around for all things nuclear is that of Maggie and Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education. http://www.fairewinds.com/video

I normally, on post like this, recommend another site, that of Alexander Higgins. Tragically however, it appears that the fellow has lost everything. Alexander Higgins House, Blog Destroyed by Sandy Flooding.

Much sympathy, I couldn't begin to imagine a disaster of such scale.

"Kill Anything That Moves" American War Crimes in Vietnan - Democracy Now

I was my original intention to carry this post on in the same vein as this recent Democracy Now offering, specifically, the circumstances surrounding the rise of the Kmher Rouge in Cambodia. The principal cause being, as I'm sure many of you are aware, the illegal bombing (back to the Stone Age) of Cambodia by Nixon and Kissinger.

But having watched two documentaries on the subject, sourced from the only place you can if you want the truth of the matter, John Pilger.com, I do have to say, I found it all so terribly dismal and not a subject that I felt I could readily offer up to a reader.

But what I have done as an alternate over this last couple of days, is to watch a series of 1983 Pilger interviews all under the generic title of The Outsiders. Of the nine interviews on offer, I watched eight, the subject matter of one of them not appealing to me by any means, and of the eight I offer up four, and present them in no particular viewing order.

I hope you enjoy.

But firstly.

"Kill Anything That Moves": New Book Exposes Hidden Crimes of the War Kerry, Hagel Fought in Vietnam

Two of the leading figures nominated to head President Obama’s second-term foreign policy establishment have their political roots in the Vietnam War. If confirmed, Chuck Hagel will become the first Vietnam War veteran to head the Pentagon, while John Kerry will helm the State Department after becoming one of the most prominent veterans to oppose the Vietnam War upon his return from duty. Although Vietnam is far behind them, Kerry and Hagel will now have to contend with the longest-running war in U.S. history: Afghanistan. We’re joined by Nick Turse, managing editor of TomDispatch.com and author of the new book, "Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam." The title is taken from an order given to the U.S. forces who slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese civilians in the notorious My Lai massacre of 1968. Drawing on interviews in Vietnam and a trove of previously unknown U.S. government documents — including internal military investigations of alleged war crimes in Vietnam — Turse argues that U.S. atrocities in Vietnam were not just isolated incidents, but "the inevitable outcome of deliberate policies, dictated at the highest levels of the military." transcript

The Outsiders: Jessica Mitford 26 minutes, as all

983. John Pilger interviews author, journalist and political campaigner Jessica Mitford

The Outsiders: Wilfred Burchett

1983. John Pilger interviews Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett

The Outsiders: Martha Gellhorn

The Outsiders: Martha Gellhorn from John Pilger on Vimeo.

1983. John Pilger interviews Martha Gellhorn, the American novelist, travel writer and journalist considered to be one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century

The Outsiders: Costa-Gavras

1983. John Pilger interviews political film-maker Costa-Gavras

http://johnpilger.com/videos

Welcome To The Shammies - Quintessential John Pilger

Drive straight on.

Welcome To The Shammies, The Media Awards That Recognize Truly Unsung Talent

By John Pilger
January 16, 2013

There are awards for everyone. There are the Logies, the Commies, the Tonys, the Theas, the Millies (“They cried with pride”) and now the Shammies.

The Shammies celebrate the finest sham media. “Competition for the 2013 Gold Shammy,” said the panel of judges, “has been cutthroat.” The Shammies are not for the tabloid lower orders. Rupert Murdoch has been honoured enough. Shammies distinguish respectable journalism that guards the limits of what the best and brightest like to call the “national conversation”.

The Shammy judges were especially impressed by a spirited campaign to rehabilitate Tony Blair. The winner will receive the coveted Jeremy Paxman Hoodwink Prize, in honour of the famous BBC broadcaster who says he was “hoodwinked” over Iraq – regardless of the multiple opportunities he had to challenge Blair and expose the truth and carnage of the illegal invasion.

Short-listed for Hoodwink is Michael White, the Guardian’s political editor, whose lament for Blair’s “wasted talent” is distinguished by his defence of Blair as the victim of a “very unholy alliance between a familiar chorus of America-bashers and Blair bait[ers]”. (I am included).

On 19 December, another contender, White’s colleague, Jane Martinson, was granted a “rare” interview with Cherie Blair in her “stately private office” with its “gorgeous views over Hyde Park” and “imposing mahogany furniture”. In such splendour does Mrs. Blair (she prefers her married name for its “profile”) run her “foundation for women” in Africa, India and the Middle East. Her political collusion in her husband’s career and support for adventures that destroyed the lives of countless women was not mentioned. A PR triumph and odds-on for a Shammy.

Also nominated: the brains behind the Guardian’s front page of 8 November: “The best is yet to come”, dominated by a half-page picture of the happy-huggy-droney Obama family. And who could fail to appreciate the assurance from the BBC’s Mark Mardell that, in personally selecting people to murder with his drones, “the care taken by the president is significant”?

Matt Frei, formerly of the BBC now of Channel 4 News, drew commendation for his reporting of Obama as a “warrior president” and Hugo Chavez as a “chubby-faced strongman”. A study by the University of the West of England found that, of the 304 BBC reports on Venezuela published in a decade, only three mentioned the Chavez government’s extraordinary record in promoting human rights and reducing poverty.

In the Gold Shammy category, the judges were struck by the outstanding work of the Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead. “Everywhere we went, before my eyes people fell in love with him … no one seemed to be immune.” This was her memorable encounter with Peter Mandelson in 2009. She described his “effortless allure … the intensity of his theatre is electrifying to behold … His skin is dewey, as if fresh from a spa facial, and his grooming so flawless he looks almost hyper-real, the cuff links and tie delicately co-ordinated, with their detail inversely echoed in his socks … His whole body seems weirdly untroubled by the passage of time …”

Aitkenhead had previously “profiled” Alistair Darling, the Chancellor who presided over the worst financial collapse in memory. Greeted as “old friends” by Darling and his “gregarious” wife Maggie “who cooks and makes tea and supper while Darling lights the fire”, Aitkenhead effused over “a highly effective minister …he seems almost too straightforward, even high-minded, for the low cunning of political warfare.”

The judges were asked to compare and contrast such moments of journalistic ecstasy with the same writer’s profile of Julian Assange on 7 December. Assange answered her questions methodically, providing her with a lot of information about the state’s abuse of technology and mass surveillance. “There is no debate that Assange knows more about this subject than almost anyone alive,” she wrote. No matter. Rather than someone who had exposed more state criminality than any journalist, he was described as “someone convalescing after a breakdown”: a mentally ill figure she likened to “Miss Havisham”. Unlike the alluring, electrifying, twice disgraced Mandelson, and the high-minded, disastrous Chancellor, Assange had a “messianic grandiosity”. No evidence was offered. The Gold Shammy was within her grasp.

Then, on Christmas Eve, the BBC News magazine published an article marking the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi. The bombing, wrote Rebecca Kesby,“was President Richard Nixon’s attempt to hasten the end of the Vietnam war, as the growing strength of the Viet Cong caused heavy casualties among US ground troops”.

In fact, Nixon promised “an honourable end to the war” four years earlier. His 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi in the north was as much concerned with peace as Hitler’s bombing of Poland: a cynical, vengeful act of barbarism that changed nothing in the stalled Paris talks. Kesby cites Henry Kissinger’s absurd claim that the North Vietnamese “were on their knees”. Far from hastening “the end of the Vietnam war”, America’s savagery ensured the war went on for another two a half years, during which more Vietnamese were killed than during the previous decade.

Kesby claimed that previous US targets had been “fuel depots and munitions stores”. On my wall is a photograph I took of a hamlet in the north obliterated by F-105 and Phantom fighters flying at 200 feet in order to pick off “soft targets” – human beings. In the town of Hongai, I stood in the debris of churches, hospitals, schools. A new type of “dart bomb” was used; the darts were made from a plastic that did not show in X-rays, and the victims, mostly children, suffered until they died. Filmed by Malcolm Aird and James Cameron, a news report on this type of terror bombing was suppressed by the BBC.

Today our memory of all of this is sanitised. America and its allies, using even more diabolical weapons, continue to “hasten to the end of war”. Such has been the BBC’s unerring theme since Vietnam. The Gold Shammy is richly deserved. www.johnpilger.com

Ray Wyre Exposed

Firstly, let me apologise to the author for pasting the whole article here. It's not something I advocate or support, but there are odd occasions when I feel an article should be kept whole and presented as such.

Let me also admit, the primary reason for posting this rather bizarre history of Ray Wyre, is to draw attention to the even more bizarre and unequivocal support of the Doctors McCann by Ray Wyre. Not that he is alone in this by any means, there are far more than he alone, but of those I shall furnish links at the bottom of the page.

Germane to this post is this 2007 article by Ray Wyre immediately below. Whether you chose to read it in its entirety prior to reading the main body of this post, or afterwards, is entirely your choice, but no matter, it should be read.

 "McCanns are totally innocent" Not the first time I have come across those very words, I heard them previously from Mirror hack and McCann sycophant, Rod Chaytor. Quit a statement to make you must admit, well it is for two fellows who weren't within a thousand miles of Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine McCann met her demise whilst in the care of her parents, Doctors Kate and Gerry McCann.

Perhaps that should read three fellows, because we mustn't ignore another fellow of their ilk, another "child protection expert" who from the same thousand  mile distance, could swear categorically to the innocence of the parents, ex Detective Constable, Mark Williams-Thomas.

Of course there are more I could add to the list, the odious Clarence Mitchell would probably be the first on anybody's list. But I think Mitchell's performance over these five years past, speaks volumes enough without me having to reiterate here once more.

But no article that makes mention of unprecedented support for the transparent Doctors McCann, would be in the least complete, without naming that other big gun, Jim Gamble, formerly of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection. (CEOP)

Surpassing anything that could be said about our previously mentioned four fellows, Gamble really pushed the boat out in the display of unprecedented, if not actually illegal support of the McCanns.  Not only did Gamble, with all the power of the CEOP behind him, initiate a campaign of propaganda, it can't be called anything less, he did so a month after the McCanns were declared 'Arguido' persons of interest in the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.

But of Gamble I have already written reams, so of him I will say no more, other than to leave the relative links below.

So a little taster of "Top UK Crime Cracker" Ray Wyre.

EXCLUSIVE: MCCANNS ARE 'TOTALLY INNOCENT'
By Marcello Mega And Daniel Jones
 Jan 27 2008

EXCLUSIVE TRUTH ABOUT THE McCANNS: BY TOP UK CRIME CRACKER

Kate and Gerry played NO part in the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine, one of the world's top crime experts declared last night.

Ray Wyre - who has given Cracker-style testimony to courts since the 1970s - said: "It is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for them to have been involved."

He insisted the grief-stricken parents were incapable of doing anything to harm their children. more

Ray Wyre exposed, the article in question. Author's emphasis.

A Live Wyre
Penny Campbell
15 February 2006

"False Allegations Action Scotland" re: Ray Wyre, the "Expert"

Ray Wyre credited as a child protection expert and a sex crime consultant. He began his current career as a probation officer trained in social work in UK prisons, in his past he trained to become a Baptist Minister. It is during his time at HMS Albany, that Wyre began to branch away from accepted methods for handling those convicted of sex offences.

It was normal for a convicted person to meet on a one to one basis with the Probation Officer, Wyre chose instead to give 3 or 4 the same appointment, though he denied that he considered this to be a group. At the time, the Prison Officer's Association were unhappy with this, as they felt it introduced unnecessary risks to the meetings.

The value of group therapy in these situations is also disputed by research. It has been found in at least one study (Romero and Williams, 1983) that "the addition of group psychotherapy to conventional probation supervision did not significantly reduce sex offender recidivism".

Wyre continued to pursue his own methods and in the 1980's began to influence social work child protection practices more heavily. In 1988 he introduced the satanic ritual abuse (SRA) element to the large scale Nottingham case. Having been contacted by Tim Tate, journalist, Wyre passed on lists of 'satanic indicators' (lists of symptoms which are claimed to indicate the child has been a victim of SRA) to the children's foster parents. He also briefed them on what to look for, encouraging the foster parents to keep journals on the children's behaviour and anything the children discussed.

In the subsequent enquiry into the case, Wyre was heavily criticised for his actions and influence on the case. As the bizarre allegations became more and more fantastic, a rift formed between police investigating the case, who could find no evidence supporting the allegations, and the social workers, who were adamant that this abuse had occurred. Police refused to accept any further allegations, and refused to accept as evidence the journals that Wyre had urged the foster parents to keep.

A committed believer in the SRA movement, Ray Wyre continued to spread his beliefs, as did other workers swept up in the tide of hysteria. An associate of Wyre's, Pamela Klein, also lectured at joint training conferences for police and social workers on the subject of SRA. Originally from Illinois, and a rape crisis worker, Klein's activities had previously been criticised by an Illinois judge, who stated that she "was not a legitimate therapist" and that she was not licensed to practice.

Wyre and Klein both were instrumental in spreading the SRA movement through Australia and New Zealand. Klein's list of indicators included bedwetting, a fear of ghosts and nightmares. Four of those involved in the infamous McMartin pre-school scandal in the US, also targeted Australia and New Zealand. Almost immediately cases with strikingly similar allegations to those already seen in the US and UK sprang up.

Despite being criticised for his influence on the Nottingham case, and warnings that training workers to look for these indicators, and the methods used to elicit the desired responses from the interviewees were dangerous and should be stopped, Wyre continued.

In June 1994, another satanic ritual abuse case broke in Pembroke, Wales. It was revealed that workers in the case had attended a 3-day conference held by Wyre.

It was in 1988 that Wyre set up the Gracewell Clinic in Birmingham, the first clinic designed to treat men convicted of sex offences.

Men were referred to the Clinic for treatment following an assessment, it also required - as with all SOTPs (Sex Offender Treatment Program) - that the men voluntarily agree to receiving treatment, and that in doing so they admit guilt and responsibility for the offences of which they have been accused. In the case of a man who has been sentenced, a refusal to admit guilt and to participate in a treatment programme can see him returned to court and re-sentenced. A claim of innocence is never accepted as such, and instead is always considered as a denial by the accuser to accept what he did.

In 'Men and Crime', Issue 13, summer 1992, Wyre admitted that a form of treatment used at the Gracewell Clinic, was that of 'masturbation satiation'. A technique originally devised by W.L. Marshall, which makes us of deviant or illegal material as part of the therapy, and claimed by some to be effective in reducing re-offending. It is a form of therapy which any innocent man would likely find upsetting and disturbing.

Though alternative therapies such as electro-shock aversion and foul odour are reported to be successful, researchers want to see verbal or masturbatory satiation become a standard treatment. Wyre further recommends that treatment is mandatory.

Opinions on Wyre's methods include the following; "cognitive therapies have become confrontational and frankly coercive." "(T)here is something of a culture shock for those with a foundation in traditional psychotherapy when confronted with Wyre's methods." It is pointed out that there is no doctor-patient relationship, and none of the confidentiality that medical ethics normally require.

Wyre claimed that at that time, no one who had been treated at Gracewell had re-offended. This is not the achievement that it appears to be. Wyre excludes from the outset, via the assessment, anyone who he feels he cannot work with. If he chooses to refuse to treat someone who's behaviour is so far detached from what would be expected from an average member of society, that there is little or no hope of rehabilitation, and instead chooses to treat men who have little or no criminal evidence against them, it is no surprise that he can claim that none have gone on to re-offend.

Incredibly, he has also admitted that the questionnaire which was used in the assessment pack he provided the men with, received similar responses from the accused and from ordinary men in the community. Exactly what value and purpose this questionnaire had if the answers were the same from all men is unclear. You could assume from this that all men have the potential to act on deviant fantasies, or the accused he is treating are innocent.

Further indication that Wyre seems to have difficulty in differentiating between those who are innocent and those who are guilty is shown in his list of 'characteristics of child sexual abusers', on an information leaflet published for child care organisations in Australia.

pro-offending attitudes
insensitivity to child issues
desires to work with vulnerable children
excessive attention given to a particular child or group of children
gift giving
taking children on trips
isolates children from other adults
photographs children
use of contact therapies, massages, etc.
regular trips to known "child sex tourism" countries
appears to have no adult social life
heavily involved in work but has poor relationships with colleagues
gaps in references
uses questionable language or phrases

Some of these indicators would clearly apply to genuine offenders, however, most of these characteristics can also be applied to any normal, innocent person. How many parents take their children on holiday, photograph them and buy them gifts? Some now use baby massage as a way of soothing fretful infants. Social workers and child protection experts (of which Wyre is considered to be one) have desires to work with vulnerable children. How many adults now have two or more jobs? With financial demands increasing, this is more common, these adults, whether single, in a relationship or parents could be considered to have no social life or heavily involved in work.

This list of indicators is at best unhelpful, at worst, dangerous.

Another controversial aspect of Wyre's treatment regards the conversion of some alleged abusers, into men with homosexual relationships. He considers that it is better for men who are believed to have abused boys, and who appear to be unable to conduct a relationship with a woman, to enter into homosexual relationships.

Gracewell continued to treat men until it's closure in 1993, however Ray Wyre was not the only person working at Gracewell whose methods have been considered controversial.

In August 2003, a woman (whose name was changed to prevent her being identified) who had volunteered at Gracewell in the 1980's and continued to work there until it's closure, revealed what most people would consider an unhealthy obsession with convicted men.

It was claimed that she was in love with the men, some of whom where convicted child killers, with which she regularly corresponded and sometimes visited. She claimed to provide them with emotional and financial support and that this benefited the men. Amongst those whom she considered to be her friends, were Sidney Cooke and Robert Maudsley, who ate part of his victims brain with a spoon.

She also admitted to writing to Ian Huntley, charged with murdering the two Soham schoolgirls.

This woman, who was a psychology student at the time of the report, also claimed to have been abused as a child, and who had fallen in love with her abuser. The desire to befriend men such as Robert Maudsely came following her abusers rejection of her. "I love men because of - not in spite of - what they have done." she said.

The fact that Wyre allowed a person with what appear to be extremely bizarre, unresolved personal issues volunteer at Gracewell, is in stark contrast to the opinion he voiced during a Care Standards Tribunal hearing last year.

A social worker who had worked in social care with children for 30 years, brought an appeal against the decision made by Charles Clarke to place his name on the Protection of Children Act List.

Though this social worker did not have any allegations made against him, and had no convictions for any offences involving children, he had admitted to a colleague that he considered himself to be a paedophile, stressing that he meant this in the literal sense of the word.

He had on one occasion considered seducing a young boy who had been cleaning the social worker's car. It was also claimed that the social worker would have liked to access child pornography, but never had done so.

Ray Wyre was called to give evidence as an expert witness. His evidence was described as both "illuminating and unhelpful". Wyre's continual reference and comparison to other men he was working with was considered a hindrance to understanding the case before the tribunal. It was pointed out that Wyre's agency had not been involved in assisting the social worker, and the focus had to be on his case alone.

Wyre considered that the possibility that the social worker had abused in the past was small and even less so with regard to the chance of his abusing in the future. At the same time, Wyre did accept that the element of sexual attraction towards boys was "quite high".

His evidence then was favourable towards the social worker. Despite this, Wyre admitted that he could not employ this person in his agency. He considered that he employs people to do a job and does not expect them to bring "additional baggage". He would expect someone with personal problems to get professional help.

This did not prevent him continuing to allow the female volunteer referred to above, to assist at the Clinic, with whom he had 'agreed to disagree' over their respective therapy techniques.

Though the appeal was won by majority, the Chair took the unusual step of recording his dissenting views.

Wyre's opinions were further questioned regarding snuff videos. He is quoted as having viewed snuff films first hand in America. Apparently however, when contacted, he denied having seen one, and claimed that what he saw was instead a sophisticated simulation. Though he insists that the FBI did have such films in their possession and claimed that they were available in England, both the FBI and Scotland Yard dispute this.

The cult expert at the FBI's training academy at Quantico, Virginia, Ken Lanning, has stated that in 20 years of searching, he has never found a documented case of a snuff film anywhere in the world.

Scotland Yard also denied their existence in England, a detective in the Obscene Publications Division is quoted as saying "I'd be the first to know if there were any in Britain. There just aren't."

His current organisation, Ray Wyre (UK) Ltd., is based in Milton Keynes and claims to provide services to the accused and their families. He and his associates are regularly called to provide expert evidence in criminal cases in the UK and beyond. They claim to recognise the importance for independent assessment and that this also leaves "the possibility that the alleged offender is innocent of the allegations." The requirement for the accused to admit his guilt, together with Wyre's all-encompassing indicators make this meaningless.

One former associate, Charles Fortt, was also a probation officer and had been the principal therapist and clinic manager at Gracewell, is now an independent consultant on sex crime and domestic violence.

Ray Wyre continues to be a regular speaker in conferences regarding child protection or the management of sex offenders (though he does not consider an adult abuser who was abused as a child to be a 'sex offender'), in the UK and worldwide.

This month Wyre was in the news again, calling for a new organisation to be formed to tackle self-employed persons who may be considered a risk to children. Working with him is Labour MP Dan Norris. Norris has a background in social work and child protection. His allegations against colleagues whilst working as a teacher in a care home prior to his training as a social worker, resulted in dismissals and the closure of the home.

Wyre is currently involved in a prominent residential school case in Scotland.

Penny Campbell
15 February 2006
Source FBGA

Mark Williams-Thomas on Only in America

Mark Williams-Thomas on Good Quality Wristbands

Mark Williams-Thomas on The McCann Gallery


Rod Chaytor on Good Quality Wristbands

Rod Chaytor on The McCann Gallery


Jim Gamble on Only In America Please enter name in search bar.

Jim Gamble on Good Quality Wristbands

Jim Gamble on The McCann Gallery Please enter name in search bar.

For blogs that don't carry tags, you can enter all kinds of names in the search bars, you never know who you may come across.

Hat tip reader Maren.

Steubenville Ohio - The Steubenville Files

Link below updated.

I don't think I have read anything that quite justifies my loathing for America as does this catalogue, nay, this cesspit of corruption in that worst of all places, small town America.

The Steubenville Files
localleaks.blogs.ru/
January 1, 2013

On August 27, 2012 two members of the Big Red High School football team in Steubenville, Ohio – USA were arrested and charged with the rape and kidnapping of an out of town 16 year old girl that took place on August 11th. At the time of this gang rape, the girl was intoxicated and unconscious. The victim had been intentionally drugged with a “date rape” intoxicant. She was photographed and video was taken of her in this condition, and there is evidence that she was hauled in a comatose state to multiple parties – and almost certainly raped by more members of the local high school football team than just the two players who currently stand charged. There is even evidence that she was urinated upon during this hideous assault.


Despite all this, it looked as though a town rife with corruption, cronyism, illegal gambling and fixated upon their star high school football team (a major economic revenue engine) were prepared to orchestrate a major cover-up in order to sweep the entire affair under the rug. As this disclosure will document, this cover-up was perpetrated by people in the high school administration, local government and law enforcement.

– Enter Anonymous –

On December 23, 2012 a cell within Anonymous called “Knight Sec” took up the cause of giving a voice to the victim of this horrible crime, and began unraveling this conspiracy of silence designed to protect a group of these high school football players who had become well known to their fellow students as “The Rape Crew”. Fueled by intelligence they had received from many students at Big Red High School, they launched Operation RollRedRoll by releasing this video. Take careful note of the various screen capture images of pictures taken by these monsters of this poor defenseless girl, and note their many comments made in tweets and Facebook posts regarding their crime (now since deleted). More

"The Steubenville Files" UPDATE: We've just updated the info on what happened at Coach Belerdine's house. http://localleaks.blogs.ru/

Iran What Are We Going To Do With You?

Perhaps we should, as some suggest, bomb you back to the Stone Age, because if these two stories are anything to go by, that's where you want to be.

Apart from having a nuke that is.

And they bitch in America about the mentally deficient having access guns, they wouldn't be a patch on you lads.

Women at Iranian Nuclear Plant Violate Islamic Dress Code
Myles Collier
Dec 26 2012

Reports from Iran indicate that women working at the country's only nuclear power plant are not adhering to the country's strict Islamic dress code for women, even though they are paid to do so.
Related

The Battle for Equal Rights in the Arab World

The Taliban's recent shooting of a 15-year-old Pakistani girl for speaking out ...

The Iranian Student News Agency (INSA) a quasi-official news organization revealed that a prominent Iranian lawmaker made accusations detailing that Russian women working at the nuclear power plant continually defy the country's Islamic dress code, which states that all women must cover themselves so as only to expose the eyes while in public.

The ISNA reported on Tuesday that Iranian lawyer Mahdi Mousavinejad, a representative of the southern Iranian port of Bushehr where the nuclear plant is located, said that the violation of the dress code by Russian workers had a "corrupting and negative impact" on the people of Bushehr.

Mousavinejad explained that he will take the issue to the Iranian parliament. The lawyer did not reveal how many women were involved or the exact actions that led to his decision.

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both have continually stated that they are against Iran obtaining nuclear weapons and have been in close discussions over how to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

"The two leaders underscored that they are in full agreement on the shared goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," the White House previously stated.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta also has taken a hard stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"I think we've made very clear what the policy of the United States is with regards to Iran, and the president has made it clear, I've made it clear that the United States' position is that we will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon," Panetta had previously stated during a press conference at the Pentagon.

"This is not about containment; this is about prevention … and so that has been and remains the policy of the United States," Panetta added. Source

Iran bans aircraft flying during Islamic call to prayer

Dec 26 2012

Iran has issued a ban on airplanes flying inside and out of Iran during azan, the Islamic call to prayer, spokesman of Iranian parliament's cultural commission, Seyyed Ali Taheri said, Fars reported.

Taheri noted that the directive was issued by the Civil Aviation organization of Iran.

The adhan, or azan (as pronounced in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey), is the Islamic call to prayer, recited by the muezzin at prescribed times of the day.

Adhan is called out by the muezzin in the mosque five times a day, traditionally from a minaret, summoning Muslims for mandatory prayers.

According to the directive issued on Nov. 26, the flight is to be suspended for at least half an hour, if the take-off and azan fall to the same time.

Seyyed Ali Tahiri also said that more attention would be given to the females working in the airports, regarding the proper wearing of veil.

Earlier, several lawmakers in Iran's parliament requested the flights falling on azan time to be cancelled, or postponed.

There has been no reaction yet from the Iranian airlines. Source

The video below is featured at: Ahmadinejad: Just Another End Times Religious Nutter?

Royal Babylon: Our Jaundiced Monarchy

Needless to say, I wouldn't have posted a seventy minute documentary had I thought it not worth watching.

This is an investigative poem about the criminal record of the British Monarchy. Heathcote Williams has devised a form of polemical poetry that is unique, no-holds-barred personal and political. It is a great collection of facts that most people are unaware of.

Can we go on bowing and curtsying to people who are just like ourselves? We begin to wish that the Zoo should be abolished.

That the royal family should be given the run of some wider pasturage – a royal Whipsnade. Will the British Empire survive?

Will Buckingham Palace look as solid in 2034 as it does now? Words are dangerous things remember. A Republic might be brought into being by a poem.

The Criminal Record of the British Monarchy
An investigative poem
by Heathcote Williams

“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”
Voltaire

In 1840, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon the first self-declared anarchist, defined anarchy in ‘What Is Property’, as “the absence of a master, of a sovereign”.



In the year of the Queen’s Jubilee tourists peered as usual
Through the railings of Buckingham Palace,
But her fairy-tale was fading; the fairy queen’s wings were being clipped
By the Sex Pistols putting monarchy in their sights.

“God save the queen,” they sang, “it’s a fascist regime.”
And the song’s hook-line became a new anthem;
Disturbing to clutches of flag-wavers lining the streets
And horrifying to Middle England and the Daily Mail.

The Sex Pistols proclaimed, “She ain’t no human being,”
And their subversive posters for the record
Placed the band’s salacious name right across the Queen’s lips
And they masked her eyes with two spidery swastikas.

Full poem/transcript

Horror in Newtown and the Realities of Life

Just to echo one point of many in the article, let's leave God out of the equation, because the sooner Americans face up to reality, the more chance they will have of addressing the countless ills that ail that unenviable country.

And a very good place to start is at the beginning. The country was not founded on Christian Judeo principals, it was founded on dispossession and genocide of the native population. Slavery and Robber Barons et al, can wait until another day.

God doesn't bless America, if there were a God, America would be the last country on earth that he would bless.

And another thing, the "let's take America back" (to the good old days!)  brigade. Irrespective of whatever that is supposed to mean, it's not coming back. Nothing is coming back for any of us, Google the 'Arrow of Time' that, unlike your God, is the reality of this world. Update: See videos below.   
 

Horror in Newtown

The editorial board
17 December 2012

The horrific massacre at a school in the small town of Newtown, Connecticut has sickened the entire country. Twenty-eight people lie dead, including twenty children between the ages of six and seven, who were shot multiple times. Six adults were also killed in Friday’s shooting spree before the gunman, Adam Lanza, took his own life. Earlier that morning, he shot and killed his mother.

The inhumanity of the crime is deeply unsettling. Beyond the individual motivations of the killer, the shooting at Newtown lays bare a brutality that pervades American society.

Friday’s mass killing is the latest in a long series of such incidents. The United States has historically seen repeated outbursts of violence. Yet the past two decades have been unusual, even by American standards. The frequency and scale of mass killings point to an underlying cause.

Among the most significant events have been the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 (168 killed, including 19 children); the Columbine, Colorado massacre in 1999 (14 dead); and the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 (34 dead). This year alone has seen massacres at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado (12 dead and 58 injured); a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin (6 dead); a sign business in Minneapolis, Minnesota (6 dead); a spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin (3 dead); and a mall six days ago in Portland, Oregon (3 dead).

The response of the American media and the political establishment to the latest shooting traces a well-worn path. There are the banal declarations of the incomprehensibility and senselessness of “evil.” To the extent any broader response is offered, it is focused on the need for a “national conversation” on gun control and empty promises to do more to address mental health (made by politicians doing their best to slash health care programs to the bone).

The American ruling class has lost the capacity for self-examination. It knows that any serious analysis of the roots of this and other tragedies points back to itself and the society it dominates.

The speech by President Obama at a memorial service in Newtown Sunday night was typical—a combination of stock phrases, play acting and invocations of religion. It would have been better if he said nothing, as he had nothing intelligent to say.

The ceremony was an exercise in religious obscurantism, in which the parents of the murdered children were told not to grieve or lose heart, for their sons and daughters were in heaven.

“God has called them all home,” Obama declared in concluding his speech. Such statements are not only insensitive to the families of those killed, they are insulting to the intelligence of the American people. One can understand a turn to religion as a source of solace by those who experience such unspeakable tragedy. In the hands of the state, however, it is a means of obfuscation to cover up the social and political roots of such events.

If the politicians insist on invoking religion, they would do better to ask themselves how Lincoln might have responded. In describing the carnage of the revolutionary war he led, the sixteenth president said that if God willed that “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,” then “the judgments of the Lord are righteous altogether.”

The tragedies of this world (the Civil War), Lincoln insisted, are products of worldly crimes (slavery).

For what deeds are tragedies such as Newtown the reckoning? Far from being incomprehensible, the crime is all too comprehensible. The roots are not hard to trace: a society of unprecedented inequality, a thoroughly backward official political ideology without an ounce of progressive content, and, above all, an incredible level of violence perpetrated by the state, accompanied by the brutalization of society as a whole.

The character of the mass killings bears witness to this connection. Certain features appear with regularity: the use of military-style weapons, assailants (such as Lanza) dressed in combat fatigues, the frequent involvement of former soldiers.

The past two decades have been years of unending war. Born in 1992, the 20-year old Lanza spent most of his life during the “war on terror”—one neocolonial occupation after another, drone attacks, torture, rendition, a relentless assault on democratic rights. He could not have been unaffected by the constant efforts to promote fear and paranoia—the sense that the “enemy” is just around the corner.

Obama himself is the first US president to openly assert the right to assassinate anyone, anywhere, including US citizens. He devotes a significant portion of his time to selecting the targets of drone killings, with the full knowledge that civilians—including women and children—will be killed as a result. By conservative estimates, 3,365 people have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan alone, including 176 children.

The government and the media praise the killings perpetrated by the US military, and soldiers sent to invade and occupy nations are venerated as “heroes.” The Navy Seals and Special Ops forces who do the murderous dirty work of the US military are glorified.

Can one seriously believe this country can inflict violence all over the world and not suffer deadly consequences at home?

In the coming days, more information will emerge shedding light on the specific motives behind this latest mass killing. By all accounts, Lanza was a deeply troubled young man. It would be impossible to commit such a crime otherwise. Yet the individual psychosis and its particular expression is, ultimately, the product of a profound social disease. wsws.org

You may think it odd that I have added these two clips to a post of this nature, but I can think of no better way of highlighting the structure of the world and the fallibilities of man.

Until we can recognise true reality, the reality devoid of gods, superstition and self interest; self interest being equally harmful as any belief in the supernatural, we will never solve the problems that face us all as a species.

And one of those first realities is, that no person in any civilised society has the need to posses assault weapons of any description for any reason.

The Arrow of Time - Wonders of the Universe

Events always happen in the same order, they never go backwards. We are compelled to travel into the future, and that's because the arrow of time dictates that as each moment passes things change, and once these changes happen, they are never undone.

How a sandcastle reveals the end of all things - Wonders of the Universe

"The second law of Thermodynamics is able to explain why time only runs in one direction." - Brian Cox

Update: Nothing better could endorse my point, said he with a monumental groan.

'Affront to Almighty God' Right Wing Watch

Do We Have The Right to Pardon Alan Turing? by Martin Robbins

Quite simply , no. This in answer to the question posed in the header. If anything, although far too late and quite obviously futile, we should be on our knees begging the man's forgiveness for destroying his life, and not least, destroying his remarkable intellect. 

That said, given our Nation's Imperial and Colonial history, I think we owe more than just Alan Turing an abject apology.

Apart from Turing's immeasurable contribution to the war effort, his commonly accepted accolade as the father of computer science, I think I can honestly say that he could have been well on the way to cracking digital DNA coding.

Without a doubt, the establishment's treatment of Alan Turing was a most shameful episode in this country's history. 

Do we have the right to pardon Turing?

Stephen Hawking is right to say that Alan Turing deserves to be pardoned, but do we deserve to pardon Alan Turing?
by Martin Robbins
14 Dec 2012

Stephen Hawking and a number of his peers have signed a letter that appears in the Telegraph today, calling for the government to pardon the legendary mathematician and computer scientist, Alan Turing. Turing, a major force in cracking the German naval Enigma code, was charged with gross indecency in 1952 for the crime of committing homosexual acts, ejected from GCHQ and subjected to a hormone 'treatment' – chemical castration – that left him impotent. The father of computer science died two years later aged just 41. Although he received a formal apology from Gordon Brown in 2009, a petition calling for a pardon was denied earlier this year.

"…successive governments seem incapable of forgiving his conviction for the then crime of being a homosexual," the letter argues. "We urge the prime minister to exercise his authority and formally forgive the iconic British hero."

Pardoning Turing is one of those ideas that seem so obviously right it's scarcely worth giving them a second thought. He was a hero and genius whose life was ruined by the state's bigotry and prejudice, and no one in their right mind would suggest that he deserves anything less than a full pardon and a grovelling apology. And yet while I'd like to see it happen, there are at least three questions I can think of that are worth a bit of thought.

The first, and most obvious: why only Turing? Tens of thousands of people were convicted under the same law, dating back to Oscar Wilde and earlier. All of them people were victims of the same injustice, and the scale of that injustice was the same whatever their achievements, whether they happened to be Alan the mathematician or Bill the coal-miner. Addressing this only for those who happened to be public heroes is a shallow, insincere and grossly unfair act that just compounds the problem – pardon all of them, or pardon none, but don't imply through your actions that some are more 'deserving' of 'forgiveness' than others.

Second: why do it at all? It's difficult to see what pardoning Turing would really achieve, for him or for the cause of equality more generally. The man himself won't know much about it: even if heaven existed it's doubtful they would let something as vile and depressing as The News in, and of course if the Christians are right he won't be in heaven anyway. We cannot 'make it up' to him: the damage inflicted on his mind, body and career cannot ever be undone.

On the other hand his legacy is unquestioned, and his reputation as one of the great British heroes is secure. His conviction has entered history as a stain not on his character, but on Britain itself; an important reminder for future generations of what we did, and what we mustn't do again. Perhaps this is unfair on my part, but the conspicuous political act of publicly expunging that stain – as if it would somehow 'undo' the crime – feels uncomfortably like a self-serving gesture, a way of drawing a line under an embarrassing period in our history and moving on as though everything were fixed. The trouble is I'm not entirely convinced we should move on.

Bletchley Park

Which brings me to my third question: who would pardon him? David Cameron? On behalf of the British government? We live in a country that gives political power to a church riddled with bigotry, where the battle for marriage equality is still being fought, and where homophobic bullying is endemic in our schools. We have entire sections of industry – notably Premier League football – in which no gay man can reveal himself for fear of what might happen. Our dominant political party is riddled with members making homophobic statements, and in Cabinet we have both a chancellor who referred to a gay MP as a "pantomime dame" and a Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice who claimed that it's acceptable for B&Bs to turn away gay couples.

I could run through examples like this all week, but the point is this: I'm not sure that the British government have earned the right to pardon Alan Turing. Not as long as the attitudes that led to his persecution are still very much with us, and entrenched in that very same government.

The language of Hawking et al's letter is remarkably clumsy; its plea that the government should 'forgive' Turing carelessly implying that he did something to be forgiven for. In reality, it is the government who should be seeking forgiveness from Alan Turing, but that of course has been impossible for more than half a century, and no amount of symbolic gestures will change matters. A pardon for Turing and his peers would be welcome, but if politicians are serious about atoning for past sins then they should ask what they can do for homosexuals today. There's no shortage of places for them to start. Gruaniad

In keeping with Robbins' excellent argument above, I thought this comment/afterthought posted by Robbins on his own article, more than apt, more than fitting.

I'll add one other argument here, in case you're not convinced by what I've written. Close your eyes and imagine Cameron - or Osborne or Grayling or really almost any minister - giving a big flashy press conference on Sky News to take credit for pardoning Turing. Now go and wipe the vomit from your chin...

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"Reagan the Baffled" and Other Gems: Fred Reed on American Politics

I didn't set out to bring you this piece below, but rather a more hard hitting, if not a quite miserable piece by the irrepressible Fred Reed. But for impact and misery I have no taste today. So in keeping with the majority of Fred Reed articles that can be found featured on this blog, I shall stick with the previous formula, Fred Reed doing what he does best, writing with no small amount of humour.

Oh! and cynicism, did I mention the cynicism? it wouldn't be Reed without a helping of that to help any essay along.

Of the original article that I intended to run, I shall leave a taster and a link below, thus allowing me to do here, something that goes against my own blogging ethics, that of running another's article in its entirety.

But at this moment my biggest conundrum is, how I might fit  Reagan the Baffled in the header? It being just one of Reed's little gems in the text. (Easy enough)

Election Remorse

Why the Romnibus Wasn't the Omnibus
by Fred Reed
November 12, 2012

I have been a bad person. I did not vote. I confess it. I would rather be caught in a gay brothel dealing in underage boys than in a voting booth. The two are equally degrading, but voting carries the further implication of low intelligence. Ages ago a Japanese friend told me “We are not too intelested in Amelican national erection.” Me too either.

What was the point? We suffered years of blather from unqualified charlatans who regard the public as ignorant hamsters of low caste, and what do we get? The same unqualified charlatan. We could have done it without an election. Think of the peace and quiet.

This deplorable practice—holding elections, I mean—is thought to be fraught with consequences. For example, I am told that the defeat of Romney signals the end of rule by Angry Old White Men. I hope so. I enjoy living in the Third World, and soon Americans will be able to do so from the comfort of home.

To me Mr. Romney’s candidacy signaled the Republicans’ admirable capacity to do the impossible: find an aspirant even more depressing than Obama. But they managed. It was a triumph of the human spirit. Never underestimate American ingenuity.

How was this result achieved? Mr. Romney asserted that Russia is America’s most perilous adversary, wanted to deal fiercely with China, asserted the nonexistence of Palestinians, pledged his undying troth to Israel (America presumably would be a second wife), wanted to attack Iran, and thinks we need to increase the military budget.

Oh god. Oh god.

Were the Chinese paying him off? If you want to bring the United States down, keep it spending. On anything. On everything. Does nobody understand this?

It is most curious. Conservatives think that Reagan the Baffled won a great victory over the Soviet Onion by spending it into penury. Grrr. Woof. But in the great sweep of things, what he did was to increase military spending. The Russians didn’t matter: The Pentagon quickly found another financial pretext in Terrorism after the budgetary godsend in New York. Subsequent presidents continued the trend. From a Chinese point of view, it is wonderful. They build their economy while we assassinate ours. They don’t need a military. Ours is doing the job for them.

The trick is to keep America’s wars going as long and inconclusively as possible until the land of the free (free lunch, free rent, free everything) ends up selling pencils on street corners. I figure Beijing pays the White House under the table.

So much for Romney. By contrast, with Obama we will have little cause for alarm, other than abolition of the Constitution, currency controls, selective denial of passports to enemies of the administration, uncontrolled inflation, wild federal spending, and a level of surveillance that would frighten a laboratory rat. See? The Democrats are much better. I feel so liberal.

In a decade I figure we will look longingly at North Korea as a model of civil liberties.

Then we have the gender gap. I am told that women favored Obama by a margin of twelve points, while men went for Romney by eight. Here is clear evidence that women do not understand politics. It is too difficult for them. They worry their pretty little heads about trivia like schooling, health care, peace, security, paying the bills, and having a livable country in which to live. No nation can long survive such an agenda. Repeal the Nineteenth Amendment, I say. Should women ever evolve politically, which doesn’t seem likely, they will see the wisdom of killing child goat-herds in Afghanistan, like their sexual betters.

And the geography gap. I have seen Mr. Romney quoted as describing Syria as Iran’s “route to the sea.” This is fascinating. He doesn’t know where Iraq and Turkey are. And what does he think the Persian Gulf is? A ham sandwich? Oh well. There’s always Google Earth.

But the hamstervolk want a hamsterfuehrer who Looks Like America, and if a candidate were discovered to know where his wars were, he would be thought elitist.

We come to the threat of socialism. Mr. Obama, I am told more often than I really think necessary, is a socialist. He is going to make America into Europe, thought to be expiring of socialism, a sort of economic gangrene. The same people also tell me, often with curious orthography, the he is a Marxist, a communist, a Moslem, and an America-hating Christian. This notion is an example of the remarkable versatility of barely existent minds. If the man is a Marxist or communist, these being explicitly atheistic, then he cannot be a Moslem or any kind of Christian. If he is a Christian, then he cannot be a Moslem or a…

But socialism. On the outdated theory that words mean things, I had recourse to the dictionary and found that socialism is “an economic system in which the means of production and distribution belong to the government.” Thus America cannot be socialist, since the means of production belong to the Chinese. Nor can I understand why Europe is regarded as socialist. I have walked the streets of Madrid, Paris, Sevilla, Frankfurt, on and on, and seen no indication that the stores and restaurants belonged to government. Neither, I thought, did Siemens, Dassault, BP, BMW, Mercedes, Santander, Leica and, most importantly, Bass and Guinness.

Europe looks to me like a capitalist economy with good health care and long vacations. I feel deeply threatened by this nightmare, and hope that Congress will impeach Obama before he can impose such a dreadful thing.

The idea that Obama could turn the US into a socialist realm is more interesting psychologically than economically. It suggests depths of giddy retardation that could be plumbed only in a bathysphere. Corporations control the US. They own Congress. Do you really think that the CEO of Lockheed-Martin wants to see the company nationalized and himself put on a federal salary? Oh sure, any day now. In fact, I expect it by nightfall.

Yes, I know. I will get email telling me of the economic collapse of Europe, in stark contrast to America’s booming economy, full employment, staggering trade surplus, and incorruptible government.

Despite all these blessings brought to us by our laudable leadership, I suggest that instead we ought to borrow Angela Merkel, Uri Avnery, or that unpronounceable but indescribably gutsy and intelligent woman who is giving the dictators hives in Burma. Diversity would be our strength.  Fred Reed

As mentioned.

Dulce et Decorum

And May You Get the Chance
by Fred Reed
December 8, 2012

I am a soldier. I am dirt. With Joshua I put the cities of Canaan to the sword while women screamed and tried to protect their babies. I spent long days in Nanjing butchering and butchering civilians because I enjoyed it. For I am a soldier. I am dirt. I fire-bombed Hamburg till the wind-fanned flames left nowhere to hide and the people burned screaming and their fat puddled in the streets. I am a soldier. I am dirt.

On the crumbling walls of Angkor Wat, the Cold Lairs, trees now crawling over the walls, you may see me carved, marching, marching to kill forgotten peoples, it matters not whom. In the sweltering heat of Chichen Itza and the terrible winter of Stalingrad and the flaming paper cities of Japan and on the Death March of the PhilippinesI killed and killed, for I am a soldier. I am dirt. I kill.

In this I glory. I spend my declining years drinking in bars with old soldiers I knew when Breda fell to us and we raped and killed and looted, when we torpedoed the troop ships and left the soldiers in their thousands to drown slowly as their strength gave out. The fierce exultation of watching Atlanta burn, Pearl Harbor, Nagasaki, these I remember lovingly. For I am dirt.

Crush their skulls and eat their faces, we say with remembered bravado. We remember the adventures fondly. They almost had us at Plei Cuy when a 551 arrived with beehive rounds, and that put paid to them, hoo-ah. more