Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Dying For A Visa?

This post is more than a little late, but I wanted a few more facts before writing it. The man police shot eight times because they thought he was a suicide raghead was apparently guilty of nothing more than a expired visa and a baggy jacket. However he did run when challenged by police and quite frankly if I was in the same position as the officers that day I would probably have made the same fateful decision as them. The failure as ever appears to be in intelligence, if they had followed the man from his house and on a bus why did they only challenge him at the underground? The forthcoming inquiry has many questions to answer.

Bert Buys Out Google

Friday, July 22, 2005

Save Us From This PC Madness

I have just watched pictures on Newsnight of police carrying out random stop and search operations. Libertarian argument aside guess who the police where searching? Yup you guessed it not men of obvious Asian or African origin but a white woman having her handbag searched. If I was in London now and Police man explained to me he wanted to stop and search me due to the recent terrorist activities there, I would have to ask him If he was looking for an IRA bomber would he stop a woman in a burqa?

Correction

It was Lenin not Stalin who first referred to his useful idiots.

Gunnin For A Fatwa

Just read an excellent article in the Guardian by Poly T. In it she describes the Qu'ran as "a primitive book", that ought to get the ragheads in a lather. Apart from her view on Sir Iqbal Sacranie the piece is excellent on the need for a fully secular society.

Terminated

Al Guardian is reporting British police have bagged their first ragheadus extremis after a slow start to the season. However the description of the man being shot five times on the ground sounds more like the actions of a member of the security services or SAS. It certainly seems more likely than a member of the "we aren't looking for Muslims honest" crowd at the Met. With any luck it's now open season on species ragheadus extremis. They certainly aren't human after all.

Idiotic And A Lie

From BBC news:
Sir Ian told a news conference on Friday that Scotland Yard was facing "the greatest operational challenge" in its history.
Followed by:
"This operation is targeted against criminals - not any community or section of a community," Sir Ian added.
So the British people are to believe that the police are not looking for four Muslim men?

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Echo & Freedom For Kid W

I was going to write about how great it was that some 15 year old kid took the government to court today and won. But first this from old Mel P:
If the Prime Minister seriously wants to root out the causes of terror, he should expel Livingstone once more from the Labour party – and the Attorney-General should consider whether there is a case against him for incitement.
Right so ocassionally ranting like a Daily Mail columnist is probably not the best idea, it's time to return to libertarian principles. Now back to the kid. The 15 year old decided that being 15 and out at 5 past 9 wasn't much of a reason for being arrested and trailed home by the scruff. The kid had in fact never been arrested but decided to challenge the local curfew with the help of Liberty and a nice wolly High Court judge. Curfews for children are now back in the hands of parents were they belong, not in the hands of statists in the Home Office. Nice one kid W.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Red Ken Strikes Again

I have just watched Ken Livingstone on C4 news justify Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel. You know the ones who blow up people on buses. He justified this by saying that since the Palestinians have no jet fighters or tanks they have to use their bodies! This from a man who a few days ago was going on about the innocent working class people blow up in the London bombs. Disgusting, perhaps next time the terrorists will be gracious enough to blow up some nasty middle class Tories? Just like Ken's friends in the Ra used to. The home office has just received cross party support for a new offence of "indirect incitement to terrorism". Sounds like a perfect chance for the attorney general to take a new law for a test drive.

Now they have some Brit Muslim pj wearing beardy on making excuses for the London bombs. He refuses to answer simple questions and instead declares he has a right to ask a question of another guest. He has also declared that Muslims have a right to defend their honor, property blah blah etc. Presumably he believes the way to keep his rights is by inciting his fellow ragheads to blow up other British people, but this won't concern him since his loyalty is only to other Muslims. If that is the case he should be shipped back to what ever country he or his family spawned from. I'm sure he will be assured of his rights in a nice Muslim country. Maybe when some Egyptian torturer has the electrodes on his bollocks he'll wish for the rights he was assured in Britain.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Googled

Google now finds the blog with keyword dwainsibly. Btw this is the hundredth post on Bert's Blog.

Chillin Out In Squires Room


These fotos are at least six years old. I know who the person between Rab and Chris is, anyone else want to hazard a guess? BTW the photos are from different dates. I think the second foto may be a decade old.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Allah Ackbar Not As Ackbar As Kevlar

Watch this short vid. Not showing on the Beeb any time soon. Quote from Jackson's Junction:
During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away. The incident was filmed by the insurgents.

Tschiderer, with E Troop, 101st “Saber” Cavalry Division, attached to 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, 256th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, was knocked to the ground from the impact, but he popped right back up, took cover and located the enemy’s position.

After tracking down the now-wounded sniper with a team from B Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Iraqi Army Brigade, Tschiderer secured the terrorist with a pair of handcuffs and gave medical aid to the terrorist who’d tried to kill him just minutes before.

Battlestar Galactica

Series 2 of the uber good scifi Battlestar Galactica started last night. Unfortunately it won't be showing in on UK tv for quite some time. Of course not.

Update: SG1 and Atlantis premiered last night too, it's a geek overload!

Friday, July 15, 2005

Catch-22

Should the London bombers be treated as a bunch of sad no-hopers or as foot solders of a global jihad? If they are treated in a similar way to the Oaklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, that is as common criminals who have no hope of affecting politics in Britain. Then there is little chance of further mindless act of terrorism being carried out by other disaffected young British Muslims. Who wants to be remembered as a sad loner after all. On the other hand such a strategy to play down the threat of radical Islam would be seized upon by the quisling left as evidence the threat had been made up just as their current favorite piece of propaganda The Power Of Nightmares supposes.

Many on the left believe we should negotiate with Al Qaeda in a similar fashion to the British government's negotiations with the IRA. I won't go into the rights and wrongs of that debacle but at least the Ra's bottom line wasn't the destruction of western civilization and the establishment of a world Islamic caliphate, as the ragheads demand. Negotiations also give terrorists a legitimacy they don't deserve. Silly delusions of knocking on old Bin Lid's cave door and sitting down for tea and scones aside, how do we make the London bombers look like the easily led little boys they were without downplaying the wider risk to western civilization? People may think I am exaggerating the threat to the west but if we capitulate to the Islamists, say by withdrawing from Iraq then we will only spur on the assault. The Spanish may have bought a tempoary reprieve from the more politically savvy elements of Al Qaeda by withdrawing from Iraq. However other Islamist elements have continued to plot attacks in Spain. Those who claim we should withdraw from Iraq to make our streets safe from further attacks should remember that they will simply be temporarily moving the problem elsewhere. Today the suicide ragheads killed four in turkey, how do the reactionaries on the left suppose the Turks should deal with their homegrown terrorists? This little animation nicely illustrates the treat we face for those that still don't get it.

Update: The date is wrong on this post because I started writing it last night.

Reg Unimpressed By Bert's RC Penguin

More from the vaults at Newmills coming soon!

Teenage Kicks

Dumb & Dumber

Mr. Potato Head And His ID Card Fiasco

Monday, July 11, 2005

Putting The Blame Where It Belongs

Nick Cohen, Here.

Death To The Jihadis

Melanie Phillips is on fine form in the Mail today. A couple of quotes:
Poverty is not the issue. Many Islamic terrorists are wealthy; most poor peoples do not resort to terror. The root cause of this threat is a religion whose dominant traditions have, over the past twelve centuries, preached or practised at various times of intensity holy war against the infidel.

Also
But to say that the fight against religious fascism should not be fought because it turns those who are fighting it into a target is a bit like complaining that the only reason London endured the Blitz was because Britain had declared war on Germany.

Sounds familiar doesn't it?

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Grow Your Own Chicken Nuggets

Scientists now reckon meat could soon be grown in vitro. Rumors of the brand name "Soylent Green" are believed to be unfounded.

No Time For Mushy Brained Thinking

On the 10th of February 1996 I was traveling in a taxi in London with my father when the taxi driver informed us that the IRA had just detonated a huge bomb at Canary Wharf. They killed 2 people. Instantly I felt like I had a huge sign on my head saying terrorist suspect, which was fair enough really with me being Irish.

On Thursday of this week Islamic terrorists killed 50 in the same city. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick of the Metropolitan Police appeared on television where he stated:"As far as I am concerned, Islam and terrorists are two words that do not go together" Balls. Apparently some members of the security services are so fed up with this kind of politically correct nonsense from the police that they still keep information from them. If you want to find an IRA bomb squad you arrest Irish suspects. Likewise if you want to find Islamic terrorist you are going to have to rustle a few feathers in the mainly law abiding Muslim community. A recent poll for the Guardian showed that 13% of British Muslims would support more 911 style attacks on the US. These people aren't just Bin Ladenist sympathizers they are a threat to secular democracy itself.

Charles Moore does a much better job than me on similar topics here.

Friday, July 08, 2005

Bloggers For Freedom


Keep on Blogging!


The EFF are about to celebrate their 15th anniversary and have posted a legal guide for bloggers to the site. It's worth remembering that American bloggers have a lot more rights to freedom of speech than UK bloggers. You may think legal rulings in the US are irrelevant in Europe but as the Grokster vs. MGM ruling regarding P2P technology shows, US supreme court rulings effect the whole world.

On a tangent but related subject you may be surprised to know that some US supremes will even cite European court rulings in their own decisions. When the supreme court overturned Texas's anti sodomy laws they cited the case of a Northern Ireland man who had taken the UK to the European court over his treatment in(by police) the early eighties. They also cited a case in the Republic of Eire in the nineties. These cases led to the overturning of anti homosexual laws in N. Ireland and Eire respectively. So can Texas gays thank a Rev. Dr. Paisley's campaign to "save Ulster from sodomy" for their bum hole freedoms?

What About Malaria?

How many celebrity luvvies need to die of malaria before anyone gives a shit about the millions who die from this disease every year? Unlike with AIDS you average celeb doesn't know anyone who has died from this third world disease. While people with AIDS can live for years with the right drugs, malaria in the third world would be much easier to contain and possibly eradicate. When malaria becomes endemic in an African village mosquitoes continuously infect the populace. If a mother is too sick from malaria to work, her family which may also be suffering and weakened from malaria will go hungry. People can be infected with malaria many times in a year leading to a truly miserable existence. Supplying mosquito nets and insecticides to these people would break the cycle of infection. Nets and insecticide are much cheaper than a life time supply of antiretroviral drugs for an African village. Maybe if one of Elton John or Bono's mates comes a cropper from a mosquito bite instead of high risk sexual behavior we will hear more about it.

It is not that I think the world should ignore AIDS it is just that it would be cheaper to deal with malaria first. Anticapitalists will complain that the only reason we have effective drugs to make AIDS a manageable chronic condition is because rich people get it too. Conversely there is much less money to be made in drugs to treat malaria since it is mainly a third world disease. I believe we should let market forces do their work with a helping had from common sense. Therefore virtually all resources used to combat and treat AIDS in malaria areas should be diverted to the WHO for a program to wipe out malaria. It has already been done with smallpox and success is close with polio.

It's time for luvvies to quit bumming around and get real about untrendy diseases too.

More From Osama's Useful Idiots In The Guardian

Stalin supposedly referred to his supporters of various shades of the European intellectual left as his useful idiots. They would make excuses for his latest excesses as capitalist propaganda etc, while he got on with trying to rule the world. Today useful idiots are of course Osama Bin Lid's useful idiots. Those whose modus operandi is to blame the west for the ills of the world and of the Middle East in particular in this case. Today in the that great bastion of free speech The Guardian, Tariq Ali joins esteemed columnists such as Gerry "I was never in the Ra" Adams, Martin "I'm not in the Ra anymore" McGuinness and of course feminist icon Osama Bin whateverthefuck. Tariq does exactly as Osama wants by blaming the London bombs not on the people who planted them, but us the British electorate. Quote:
Tragically, they have suffered the blow and paid the price for the re-election of Blair and a continuation of the war.
Serves us right then doesn't it. He continues with, Quote:
The real solution lies in immediately ending the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine
Apart from the fact Britain withdrew its UN mandated troops from Palestine in 1948 and has little influence over the defense of the state of Israel, he totally ignores the fact that the presence of coalition troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has been requested by their new democratically elected governments. Just some small details really.

The Stiff Upper Lip Prevails

There was no more than a quiver of the traditional British stiff upper lip yesterday in London. Sure, people were scared, but there was no mass panic. The terrorist attacks caused death and destruction but this was no 911. Of course Londoners are used to IRA terrorism as we are here in Ulster. I think as long as the terrorists can not rapidly mount another operation in the UK then the attack will be revealed for what it probably was; a slightly impotent attempt to effect UK foreign policy. Although it may not seem that way to the people and relatives of those killed and injured. At the moment it looks like the attack was carried out by a small, possibly "home grown" cell. They choose perhaps the softest most obvious targets in London. Some may see this attack as sophisticated. I believe the fact that it has taken nearly 4 years(since 911) for the ragheads to execute an attack on the UK shows that they are having a very hard operating here at all. Time as ever will tell.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Traitor George

From the Socailist Worker site. Quote:

The loss of innocent lives, whether in this country or Iraq, is precisely the result of a world that has become a less safe and peaceful place in recent years.

We have worked without rest to remove the causes of such violence from our world. We argued, as did the Security Services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings.

We urge the government to remove people in this country from harms way, as the Spanish government acted to remove its people from harm, by ending the occupation of Iraq and by turning its full attention to the development of a real solution to the wider conflicts in the Middle East.

Only then will the innocents here and abroad be able to enjoy a life free of the threat of needless violence.
Unsurprisingly the dust from the London bombs hasn't even settled before the UK's chief flag waver for totalitarian regime's gets a totally ridiculous statement out. Perhaps we shouldn't have declared war on Nazi Germany lest they might have bombed us. Fortunately British people aren't a bunch of paella eating surrender monkeys like the Spanish. We won't bend to a bunch of women hating head hackers, I'd put money on it.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Snoop Dogg Unleashed At Live8

Snoop Dogg just gave a royal two fingers to BBC censors live on BBC One, with several uses of motherfucker amongst other rather flowery language not usually herd at this time of the night on the Beeb. As Live8 organizer Bob Geldof might say "what do ya fokken expect". Nice one Snoop.