Bert's Blog

Quote Of The Day

2007-01-16T23:36:00.000Z

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. - Ayn Rand.

Quote Of Day

2007-01-05T18:25:00.000Z

" Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me. " George Orwell

Happy New Year

2006-12-31T23:28:00.000Z

Hopefully once my new years resolutions kick in there should be a big increase in the amount of posts on Bert's Blog. Have a happy and prosperous 2007.

As Predicted And As Expected.

2006-11-11T17:10:00.000Z

That is as Bert predicted in my post about political policing, Nick Griffon and BNP party activist Mark Collett have been cleared of the remaining charges against them. This should be welcomed not for the propaganda victory it hands to the thinly veiled racism of the BNP but for the fact that an English jury gave a two fingers to a politically motivated prosecution. As expected from the most legislative government in British history nuLabour immediately announced plans to do the only thing they are good at. Change the law, again even though parliament amended the laws only last week. Nick and his chums could very well see themselves caught out by the new laws which come into force next year.

Political correctness stems in part from a view that people, groups or races should have a right not to be offended. From the BBC's report:

Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said Muslims were offended and must be sure that the law would protect them.

Poor, poor Muslims offended again why they must be the new Jews! Or not. There is no right not to be offended . Taking and giving offense is part of life and religious groups need to get over themselves. If you are offended then you are simply:

A. Wrong
B. Wrong and have a crap argument, position or view.
C. Right
D. Right but you haven't made a very good argument.
etc.

That is anyone can be offended by something said. Giving people, groups or religions protection from offense is a doomed attempt at thought control by removing certain ideas from debate. This is idiotic especially for religions. By their nature religious ideas are incompatible they can't all be right. Religious extremist may think they have gained by getting laws against free speech. For example the primitive texts on which the Islamic faith is based (made up primarily from the Qu'ran) contain texts which quite simply incite religious hatred against Hindus. They have simply cut off their own tongues. More form the Beeb report:

A Home Office spokesman said Mr Reid would "think carefully and take time to study and reflect on this [court] judgment and its implications, including taking soundings from his ministerial colleagues".

But the minister believed the "poisonous politics of race" could be defeated only by argument, politics and community engagement, the spokesman added.

Take note Mr Reid we don't need any more moronic laws curtailing free speech.

Quote Of The Day

2006-11-06T20:59:00.000Z

Dear Mr Blair, 1984 is a satirical novel of a nightmare future. It is not the instruction manual on how to do it.

Posted by a Mr Michael Ney in the comments after Anthony bLiar's article arguing for ID cards in today's Telegraph. The fact that barely any of the comments were in favour of the new internal passport was a least heartening. The fact that Toni dismisses the civil liberties argument as not carrying much weight is profoundly scary.

Official, Beeb Read Bert

2006-08-25T15:49:00.000+01:00

While checking my hit statistics I noticed the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation had a referral to my site. It seems some Beeb journalist saw fit to link to my rather dry and boring post about a Panorama program's last year in an article called So what's the point of blogging? Bert won't be getting a Pulitzer any time soon though, I'm only getting one hit a day.

Reiterating A Point, Visually

2006-08-20T19:41:00.000+01:00

With the current Hizbullah/Israeli ceasefire looking looking rather shaky this evening. It seems worthwhile reminding ourselves who we should be supporting once things kick off again. Hence:

Jewish Princess Anyone? Reporting for ahem, Duty. Or if your a raghead you probably fancy Fat Fatima(see below). Maybe Burka's for Muslim women ain't such a bad idea after all.
Did the nasty Israelis flatten you home? Well that's what you get for being a bunch of terrorist supporting medievalists. F[l]at Fatima has become a bit of a internet star. Here & here.

Guardian Garbage

2006-07-29T14:18:00.000+01:00

Remember last year when the Guardian leader stated the Sun was 4.5 light years from earth? It took them about three days to issue a correction. It seems the quality of their science pieces is still just as bad as the rest of their Lefty twaddle. In today's Guardian in the space of one article Andrew Smith makes two fundamental errors. First up Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard respectively the first man and the first American in Space. Smith writes:

an up-and-down, sub-orbital lob such as Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard first rode back in 1961.

Balls. Alan Shepard did make a rather impotent sub-orbital lob but Gagarin made a full orbit of the earth before landing. Secondly after throwing in some obligatory guff about global warming, Smith makes his second clanger:

Other rockets run on hydrogen and oxygen, or (as in the case of the Saturn V moon rockets) liquid nitrogen

Liquid nitrogen? Does anyone remember Squire's phrase "some product of a university humanities department" well never has there been a more appropriate one. Why can the Guardian not employ journalists who can a least check basic historical facts(try their own website ) and if they are going to write about rocket fuels know some basic chemistry. From the wiki on Saturn V rockets:

Fuel Liquid hydrogen and
liquid oxygen

Duh!

P.S. to be correct the first stage burnt a form of kerosene.

Taking Sides

2006-07-28T17:33:00.000+01:00

Just in case anyone wondered which side Squire is taking in the ongoing Israel/Hezbollah war. I urge you to follow this link and give generously. Hat tip Guido Fawkes. Squire found comment number two on Guido's post darkly hilarious:

Do they deliver to UN observers too?

Yes but they don't do addresses only GPS coordinates! He-he snigger, snigger. Bert IS EVIL.

More on this soon.

Dave For PM, Maybe

2006-04-08T16:40:00.000+01:00

For one very simple reason:

Under my leadership, we'll always strive to do the right thing.

That means saving our energy to oppose the government when it's wrong.

Like on ID cards.

Labour can't decide what it's for.

They can't control what it costs.

They can't explain why they're making it compulsory.

Labour's plastic poll tax has no place in modern Britain.

It's an ugly monument to the waste, chaos and vanity of intrusive, over-mighty government.

I promise you this... .in office, we will pull it down.

They may try in vain, I think it is unlikely the Tories will win the next election. Labour will probably sneak in with a small majority in the commons, unless the economy starts to go tits up in the next couple of years. The current government promise to make the possessionn of the cards compulsory at a latter date could conceivably be defeated by a Tory/Libdem coalition. Of course as the head of our state security apparatus Charles Clarke has made clear ZaNulabour has engineered the scheme to make it very difficult to pull it down. Anyone with a brain in their head realizess that the problem is a lot more to do with the NIR than the cards themselves. And registration on the NIR is already compulsory for the 80% of UK subjects who wish to hold a UK passport. The government recently rammed the relevant act through parliament by allowing people to refuse issue of an ID card when getting a new passport. "See it's not compulsory just like we said in our manifesto" they tittered with glee. Or not, as you will still be photographed, bioscanned and fingerprinted whether you want the silly plastic license to exist or not. So the question for Boy Dave should not be about the cards themselves but instead should be: "Dave will you abolish the NIR as a priority on taking office no matter how much has been spent by ZaNulabour on the wretched scheme". I fear the answer may not be an unequivocal no and the argument would be that they can't possibly make passports less secure by scrapping the NIR, due to EU and other international obligations. Other future arguments for not deleting the whole thing include:

1. Contractual obligations with the private sector, which include financial penalties for the state if the scheme is scrapped.

2. The fact that financial institutions may have started to accept biometric ID as a gold standard to speed up transactions currently requiring more than one form of ID, Tories don't like pissing off banks after all.

3. The sheer momentum that the scheme is building up. Let's be clear this is a massive IT project and government departments and local government our going to have to spend massive amount of your money implementing it.

ZaNulabour as I said before has engineered non-scrapability from the beginning. All the time aided and abetted by empire building Home Office mandarins and politically appointed special advisors. After all, this massive scheme means more jobs for loyal Labour voting civil servants, but that is another story. This comment on NO2ID's front page about the new Identity and Passport Service is particulary scary/funny

"Charles Clarke started by sneering at the public, saying anyone who opts out of the scheme is "foolish". Now the Home Office shows its utter contempt for the Parliamentary process by having a 'new agency' ready to open, and choosing April Fools Day - a Saturday - to do it.

This joke agency is going to nationalise you and rent your identity back to you with your passport. What a hoot for Mr Clarke! What fools we are to resent it!"

Mr Clarke is probably right, you will have to spend £93 pounds on being treated like a criminal whether you accept the card or not. The state is not your friend.

What A Brilliant Idea!

2006-03-10T16:55:00.000Z

I spotted this gem over at Peter Hitchens' blog

And if we brought back the old pre-1914 rule, that nobody who received a public salary or welfare payment could vote, then governments would have to stop trying to bribe people to vote for them by giving them jobs or handouts. Instead they'd have a real reason to keep taxes low and to cut the public payroll. So that won't happen.

If I could have just one wish...

Britain Today

2006-02-25T13:40:00.000Z

Every time NuLabour supplies the Police with more power to harass, search, arrest, detain or otherwise deprive us of our hard won liberties. The British people are told that such powers will only be used against extremists, yobs, drunken louts and anti social people. Well rather shockingly (or not) the police have been using their new powers against the aforementioned groups (except of course these extremists because they are scarred shitless by The Religion of Peace®). The problem is they are now also using them against nice law abiding people. At least they would be law abiding if it weren't for the fact Nulab keeps making things illegal.

Since 1997 Nulab has placed over 700 new criminal offenses on the statute books. In their frenzy of legislating the gov has introduced numerous badly drafted not to mention pointless laws. Most will gather dust, rarely if ever used. Other laws like the recent incitement to religious hatred bill will also rarely be used. Simply passing the law has done what the gov intended, chilled freespeech of non Muslims and bought votes in marginal NuLab constituencies with big blocks of traditionally Labour voting Muslims. This is of course electioneering by legislating rather than legislating in the interest of the British public as a whole. A concept presumably alien to any contemporary socialist only interested in victim groups and minorities.

Seemingly desperate to be seen doing something the Gov spews out new initiatives, consultations and unnecessary laws, all the time centralizing power in the office of Prime Minister and his unelected cronies. bLiar ever the political genius is creating a sort democratic dictatorship in which the Sun and the Daily Mail say jump and Mr bLiar seems to say "how high?" The fact is real freedom seems to be a somewhat abstract notion to a people kept in fear by a gov becoming addicted to power. We should of course be afraid of the threat that Islam poses to European freedoms. However we must not let the fear agenda be used by Nulab in its hopefully doomed attempt to create a system in which it can crush all but the most benign forms of dissent from how Nulab and its apparachniks want Britain to resemble. They want total control of the populace and the detail of peoples lives. Perry De Havilland on the "Radical Centre":

The Radical Centre seem to have the same obsession with control that the fascists and communists had but unlike them, it is control for control's sake rather than in the service of some clear ideology: there is no Blairite or Clintonite (or even 'Bushite') 'The Communist Manifesto' or 'Mein Kampf'. They do not seek the triumph of Volk or the dictatorship of the proletariat, they just seek to replace all social interactions with politically mediated interactions. They seek to regulate everything via a total state that does not organise mass rallies or collectivise farms, it just wants a world in which nothing whatsoever is private, everything is political. Their symbol is not the Hammer and Sickle or the Swastika, it is the CCTV camera.

And:

The Radical Centre has also been called 'Authoritarian Populism' because it seeks to impose the popular will by force and it does not much care what that will is. Just as liberty for liberty's own sake is the objective of the Classical Liberal/Libertarian rather than some 'overarching narrative' as was the case with the radical statist left and statist right in the corpse filled 20th century, the Radical Centre seek control for control's own sake with no particular grand reason in mind other than to perpetuate a political class whose reason for existence is to make decisions about other people's lives.

Wake up from you slumber Britain.

1 Year Old

2006-02-21T20:29:00.000Z

Dwainsibly aka Bert's Blog is one year old, er yesterday. YAH!

As Of This Week Illegal In The UK

2006-02-18T13:38:00.000Z

This funny flash animation sticks two fingers to Islam in a somewhat bigoted fashion. If it were posted on the BNP's website they would surely be prosecuted for incitement to religious hatred. Thanks to the internet and the fact that the good-ole-US-of-A still has free speech enshrined in it's constitution you can watch it too (it is hosted on an Floridian server).

The cartoon is of course juvenile in the way that it groups Muslims together, but it is done for comic effect. The BBC's very own comedy The Vicar Of Dibley does exactly the same with Anglicans. Which rather makes the point of the cartoon very well. That nobody gives a shit about offending other faiths because no other world religion can muster the kind of mass outbursts of hate and violence that Muslims and the Islamic world can muster.

While the rest of Europe stood up for free speech over the last few weeks. Our leaders cravenly continued in reducing our civil rights. Simply because some Labour seats are in Muslim areas (think Straw Man himself) so Islamic sensibilities are put before traditional British rights like free speech. The cartoon is available in larger format here.

Winston Pedicts Britain Under Socialism

2006-02-14T19:07:00.000Z

This text is from Winston Churchill's first party election broadcast in 1945. It is simply excellent (italics my emphasis) :

My friends, I must tell you that a Socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Although it is now put forward in the main by people who have a good grounding in the Liberalism and Radicalism of the early part of this century, there can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism.

Look how even to-day they hunger for controls of every kind, as if these were delectable foods instead of war-time inflictions and monstrosities. There is to be one State to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State is to be the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler, and the archcaucus boss.

How is an ordinary citizen or subject of the King to stand up against this formidable machine, which, once it is in power, will prescribe for every one of them where they are to work; what they are to work at; where they may go and what they may say; what views they are to hold and within what limits they may express them; where their wives are to go to queue-up for the State ration; and what education their children are to receive to mould their views of human liberty and conduct in the future?

A Socialist State once thoroughly completed in all its details and its aspects - and that is what I am speaking of - could not afford to suffer opposition. Here in old England, in Great Britain, of which old England forms no inconspicuous part, in this glorious Island, the cradle and citadel of free democracy throughout the world, we do not like to be regimented and ordered about and have every action of our lives prescribed for us. In fact we punish criminals by sending them to Wormwood Scrubs and Dartmoor, where they get full employment, and whatever board and lodging is appointed by the Home Secretary.

Socialism is, in its essence, an attack not only upon British enterprise, but upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy, tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils. A Free Parliament - look at that - a Free Parliament is odious to the Socialist doctrinaire. Have we not heard Mr. Herbert Morrison descant upon his plans to curtail Parliamentary procedure and pass laws simply by resolutions of broad principle in the House of Commons, afterwards to be left by Parliament to the executive and to the bureaucrats to elaborate and enforce by departmental regulations? As for Sir Stafford Cripps on "Parliament in the Socialist State," I have not time to read you what he said, but perhaps it will meet the public eye during the election campaign.

But I will go farther. I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart, that no Socialist system can be established without a political police. Many of those who are advocating Socialism or voting Socialist to-day will be horrified at this idea. That is because they are short-sighted, that is because they do not see where their theories are leading them.

No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk - the common people, as they like to call them in America - where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?

I stand for the sovereign freedom of the individual within the laws which freely elected Parliaments have freely passed. I stand for the rights of the ordinary man to say what he thinks of the Government of the day, however powerful, and to turn them out, neck and crop, if he thinks he can better his temper or his home thereby, and if he can persuade enough others to vote with him.

But, you will say, look at what has been done in the war. Have not many of those evils which you have depicted been the constant companions of our daily life? It is quite true that the horrors of war do not end with the fighting-line. They spread far away to the base and the homeland, and everywhere people give up their rights and liberties for the common cause. But this is because the life of their country is in mortal peril, or for the sake of the cause of freedom in some other land. They give them freely as a sacrifice. It is quite true that the conditions of Socialism play a great part in war-time. We all submit to being ordered about to save our country. But when the war is over and the imminent danger to our existence is removed, we cast off these shackles and burdens which we imposed upon ourselves in times of dire and mortal peril, and quit the gloomy caverns of war and march out into the breezy fields, where the sun is shining and where all may walk joyfully in its warm and golden rays.

Shamelessly copyed from Blognor Regis.

What was I saying about political policing? Blair (the other one) is Britain's most senior policeman and guess which part of the lefty establishment doesn't want him to resign. Which he clearly should after the de Menezes murder and the implemetation of selective, plainly political policing of recent months. bLair and Sir Blair are two parts of the socialist elite now ruling Britain.

BTW parliament just banned smoking in pulic places.

British Liberty's Slow Death

2006-02-14T18:13:00.000Z

Last night NuLabour removed another chunk of British Liberty by voting the ID register bill through the Commons for the second time. They rejected even the minimal amendments the Lords had made to the bill. Such as removing the voluntary registering of private biometrics when applying for a passport. Since 80% of British subjects hold a passport the gov has very effectively made the scheme compulsory by the backdoor. It seems to me that there is very little chance of stopping the wretched scheme by any means now. By the time any future parliament comes to vote to make the scheme "properly" compulsory, a large section of the population will already be entered on the citizen/criminal register. This fact will then be used by the gov of the day to show the scheme is a success and compulsion should therefore follow. Even if the Tories win the next election they are not likely to suddenly pull the plug on the register. The scheme would have too much momentum by then. They would be portrayed as weak on crime and immigration. Besides when in power the idealism of opposition soon evaporates as Mr. bLair clearly demonstrates:

"Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities"

That was Toni to the NuLabour party conference in 1995. The only hope is perhaps a major recession in which the scheme becomes the new poll tax. Gordon do your worst.

More Cartoons

2006-02-09T18:33:00.000Z

Wankers.

Mickey Mouse As Crime

2006-02-08T23:41:00.000Z

Some Memehacks And Cartoons For You

2006-02-05T18:03:00.000Z

More here.

The Internet Is For Porn

2006-02-04T22:06:00.000Z

As a blogger posting 2 month old limks is pretty lame however this is simply brilliant. Turn the volume up.

Straw As Quisling

2006-02-04T19:48:00.000Z

From the Times:

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, condemned the decision by some media outlets in Europe to republish the cartoons, calling it “insensitive, disrespectful and wrong”.

He said that freedom of speech did not mean an “open season” on religious taboos, and he praised the British media for what he called their “considerable responsibility and sensitivity” for not publishing them.

Discraceful words from a minister of the Crown. At least his French opposite number is showing some backbone, from the Lebanese Daily Star:

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the protests in a television interview.

"I am totally shocked and find it unacceptable that - because there have been caricatures in the West - extremists can burn flags or take fundamentalist or extremist positions which would prove the cartoonists right," he said.

Perhaps Mr Straw should take a look at some truly repulsive cartoons.

Political Policing

2006-02-04T15:09:00.000Z

Check out these pictures of yesterday's protests in London by raghead extremists. This one from Samizdata is particularly telling. Now think about some of the events which have taken place over the last few days. On Thursday Nick Griffin and one of his cohort's in the BNP were acquitted on 2 and 4 charges respectively for using words likely to incite racial hatred. The case then collapsed as the jury failed to reach a verdict on the remaining charges. I am pretty much an absolutist on freedom of speech so I am glad that the BNP men are as of now free men. However the crown prosecution service has decided to retry the men on the remaining charges. Juries don't seem to believe in thought police however NuLabour most certainly does. We must therefore ask ourselves one simple question will the raghead extremists be prosecuted with the same venom?

This in the Guardian is not very reassuring:

(A)Passersby stopped police officers to ask why the marchers were being allowed to carry banners threatening further suicide attacks in the city. One police officer replied: "Don't worry. We are photographing them."

Taking pics eh? Very reassuring, why those crafty Muslims have wrapped their multi purpose towels over their faces, I hear you cry. Not very sporting of old Johnny foreigner that. Coming from the same NuLabour boys in blue who baton charged countryside protestors outside parliament it's hardly surprising. You see it's all about being a "victim group" and understanding victim group syndrome is key to understanding Britain today. To join the club you need to be either:

Gay

Lesbian

Can't make up your mind.

Transexual

Any colour other than white unless you have any other "afflictions" mentioned on this list.

Any religion other than Christianity or for that mater Judaism.

Disabled

A Woman

It appears that there is some kind of points system going on here so that a female ethnic Chinese lesbo would be more of a victim than say gay white man. Anyhow back to my original question will these people be prosecuted? As the photo appears to show the extremists being escorted by the police it seems unlikely. For a start the Police seem to have made themselves accessories to a crime under current English law, that is incitement to violence. A point which would surely be raised by a competent defense team. Again I am a free speech asolutist but the point I am making is about equality under the law. No matter how much the BNP tries to make its supporters into a victim group they will fail. Can anyone imagine what would happen if The BNP marched in London with Kill All Muslim placards? Baton Charge, plastic bullets perhaps?

NuLabour and the Met lead by Sir Ian Blair are scared of what might happen if they treated Islamic extremist marchers the way they treated Countryside Alliance marchers or would surely love to do to the BNP. In the mainstream media there is also fear. No British newspaper has dared print any of the offending cartoons. It has only been hinted in the press that there is some discrepancy in the way that the two branches of the far right have been treated by the British establishment.

I hope that the Islamic extremists are prosecuted and are in turn acquitted. The BNP are unlikely to be convicted by a British jury. These two outcomes and the legal precedents set might show the Islamic world that British people take their freedoms more seriously than the NuLabour thought police.

Tell Muslims Were To Get Off Part III

2006-02-02T18:49:00.000Z

So go get some Danish produce or products today. Quite by accident I had the pleasure of purchasing £2000 pounds of Danish technology today in work. While you may not be in a position to spend quite that much (unles you want a shiny new Bang & Olufsen) you could always start with some Lurpack Butter or some tasty Danish Bacon.

Other Danish Stuff:

Danish Havarti cheese

Carlsberg and Tuborg Beers

Lego the best toy ever!

Danish Food Shop - Worldwide delivery of Danish Food.

Danish Deli Food

SupportDenmark.com

Vote Shami

2006-01-31T20:02:00.000Z

Those of you who take your personal liberty seriously should take the small amount of effort required to vote for Shami Chakrabarti as C4's Most Inspiring Political Figure Award. Do it here now. That is an order. Bert out.

Paying For Your Government Propaganda

2005-12-03T16:08:00.000Z

Over at the UK's super state security agency other wise known as the Home Office. The civil servants responsile for insuring the introdution of a system that would have been a Stasi officers wet dream (aka the national ID Register), are at it again. The cretinous fuckers have decided to waste £71,892.96 of your money on a DVD to promote their wretched scheme. You can view a clip here. Those of you in the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear camp" should take note of the credits of the film, they really give the game away:

The Identity Cards Programme would like to thank the following organisations for their help in producing this video:

-UK Passport Service
-Home Office Immigration and Nationality Directorate
-Department for Work and Pensions
-Criminal Records Bureau
-Kent Probation Service
-The Post Office

That's right folks from the day you are born you are simply citizen-criminal number xyz987654321 and you're on permanent probation.

Any of Dwainsibly's readers who find my posts are written "emotive language" can find a dry select committee report which considers that the ID card scheme may contravene the ECHR. A small clipping:

13. The systematic collection and storage of information on the Register therefore engages Article 8, even without any further use or disclosure of the material.[19] The information which the Bill envisages will be held on the Register allows for significant intrusion into private life. This is particularly the case since a person's record on the Register will include a record of the occasions on which his or her entry on the Register has been accessed by others (clause 1(5)(h)), for example, in the use of public services, or by prospective employers, or as part of criminal investigations (regardless of whether these result in prosecutions or convictions). Thus the information held on the Register may amount to a detailed account of their private life.

14. Information may be held on the Register for as long as consistent with the statutory purpose of verifying the registrable facts about an individual. This implies that information will be held at least for a person's lifetime, or at least where they remain resident in the UK. The interference with Article 8 rights is likely to increase as information on an individual is held for lengthy periods. This is particularly the case since, as noted above, the Register will hold a record of the occasions on which a person's records have been accessed by others, potentially providing, over time, a detailed picture of private life. The ECtHR has emphasised that holding information concerning someone's distant past raises particular Article 8 issues.[20] As regards each of the registrable facts entered in respect of an individual, it must be shown first that the consequent interference with private life pursues a legitimate aim listed under Article 8.2; and can be justified as necessary in a democratic society, proportionate to the aim it pursues, and in pursuit of a pressing social need. This requires that privacy rights should be interfered with to the minimum degree necessary.

15. We are concerned at the range of the information which may be held on an individual's record on the Register, and at its apparent lack of relation to the statutory aims, and to the aims listed as legitimate for the purposes of Article 8 ECHR. In particular, we do not see why the statutory purposes necessitate a record of a person's previous residential status, where, for example, someone has previously held a temporary residence permit, but later acquired UK citizenship. Neither do we see why it is necessary for the statutory purposes to record not only a person's main residence, but also any second homes they may have. Thirdly, it is not clear why it is necessary for the statutory purposes to retain records of each occasion on which a person's entry in the Register has been accessed by others, a provision which is potentially highly intrusive of privacy, if the information is disclosed to third parties. We have written to the Home Secretary asking why the gathering and storage of this information is considered to serve a legitimate aim, and to be a necessary and proportionate interference with Article 8 rights

I am still hoping this turns into Labour's Poll Tax.

The Philosophy of Liberty

2005-11-19T17:27:00.000Z

Interesting flash animation here.

Blair Abolishes Silly Elections

2005-11-07T23:13:00.000Z

Here.

Tell The Muslims Where To Get Off Part II

2005-10-25T21:38:00.000+01:00

Instapundit the American uber blogger echoes my last post with another example of self imposed British dimmitude. I just don't know what to do other than have a nice bacon sarnie for breakfast.

Tell The Muslims Where To Get Off

2005-10-04T19:00:00.000+01:00

This is getting ridiculous. So what if I am a feminist, and find a woman in a headscarf offensive? Are the misguided fools of Dudley council going to ban them because of my sensibilities? Of course not. Has anyone ever heard of something to do with pigs being banned to express tolerance for Jews? Of course not. Do Jews plant bombs in London? Of course not.

Nerd Gets His Spicy Puntang

2005-09-26T22:10:00.000+01:00

A case of "me Tarzan you not Jane". Eh Nerd? Click here for sound.

Pravda At It's Worst

2005-09-24T17:03:00.001+01:00

This is a disgrace. Scroll down to the paragraph headed "Silver Lining" quote:

Whatever Hurricane Katrina's long-term effect on the way America thinks about global warming and oil dependency, it is probably going to make GM animal feed more expensive in Europe. Almost all US maize and soya goes through New Orleans and the port of Destrehan, and nothing is expected out for some time because of silting in the Mississippi. This should cheer up anti-GM activists in Britain who have been trying to persuade supermarkets to stick with non-GM supplies and not to accept produce that has been given GM feed.

Nothing like gloating about you fellow human beings suffering to perfectly sum up the America hating enviro-lefties at Al Guardian. Not to mention the increase in price of a cheap protien source for poor Europeans who can't afford to shop at the local organic co-op, like all good Guardian journalists surely do. The global warming paragraph is pretty shody stuff too, quote:

If anyone can talk authoritatively about climate change in Britain, it should be farmers, and a National Farmers' Union survey of its members' experience of climate change has found some welcome unanimity. The average length of time those surveyed had been farming was 25 years, and all agreed that winters are now warmer and wetter and summers are hotter and drier. Among the comments were: "the balance of nature has changed"; "the way we used to make hay is impossible now" and "some areas are permanently waterlogged"

Oh it must be true the noble land workers say so. Piffle.

Via the excellent EnviroSpin Watch.

Stan The Man Interviewed In Al Guardian

2005-09-21T17:59:00.000+01:00

Here.

Priceless

2005-09-09T21:28:00.000+01:00

Go to Google, type failure and press the I'm feeling lucky button.

Job On Mars Anyone?

2005-09-07T22:44:00.000+01:00

Apply Here.

Update: from slasdot

I myself am a bit wary of investing in a company whose business plan consists of collecting lots of cash and taking off to Mars with it.

Bert's Guinea Pig Concentration Camp

2005-08-24T22:49:00.000+01:00

Since there is now a gap in the market for guinea pigs bred for medical research the workshop at Newmills is to be converted into a giant guinea pig breding pen. Any protests by animal rights terrorists will result in the summary execution by beheading(seems fashionable) at dawn of one guinea pig per day until the protests cease.
Remember hippies you protest and Gareth the Guinea Pig gets it.

Serious Journalism Shock From Beeb

2005-08-22T00:31:00.000+01:00

Tonight's edition of Panorama outlined in stark terms the serious problem of Muslim extremism in Britain today. From the programme transcript:

John Ware: Britain has around 2 million Muslims.

Muslim leaders have condemned utterly the bombings.

And yet this murderous rage grew from within their communities.

Some influential Muslims believe the time for a full and frank debate about where Islam is going here is long over due.

Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Muslim Institute: I think the British people may give us benefit of doubt once this time, but if this were to be repeated, then I think the Muslim position ¿ future is very bleak. And knowing our community, the amount of fundamentalism and extremism that exists, I'm not quite sure that this will not happen again. "

John Ware: Dr Siddiqui is not alone in believing that sectarian attitudes extend beyond the small number of extremists.

Others doubt the Muslim Council of Britain has grasped the scale of this problem.

Mehboob Kantharia, Founding Member, Muslim Council of Britain: A lot of them still live in a state of denial. It is my personal belief that because they are in this state of denial, they cannot become real, you know, sort of like, forthright, really forthright about wanting to do something about the kind of extremism that prevails.

John Ware: Mehboob Kantharia was a founding member of the Muslim Council of Britain; generally regarded as the moderate face of Islam speaking for the Muslim community.

On its website the MCB emphasises it's working for better community relations and for the good of society as a whole.

It's an umbrella for around 400 mosques, and other Islamic groups.

But Mr Kantharia says that within the MCB a distaste for western secular culture still exists.

Mehboob Kantharia: One of the most powerful strands, and many will tear me up and say, 'sorry, you've got it completely wrong', has been an anti-British, anti-Western stand. We are now British, therefore this is our home, this is our country, this country is not our enemy.

John Ware: Several MCB affiliates do have links to anti western ideologies from abroad.

The program also illustrated how some of the views expressed by Imans such as Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais, Imam, Ka'ba, Mecca, Saudi Arabia are sweetness and love while in the UK but he shows his true colours at home. From the transcript:

Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais, Imam, Ka'ba, Mecca, Saudi Arabia: The history of Islam is the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony. Muslims must exemplify the true image of Islam in their interaction with other communities.

John Ware: Sheikh Sudais is a leading Imam from the great mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest city.

He had one voice for his Western audience - another for his followers in Saudi. Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais: The worst ... of the enemies of Islam are those... whom he... made monkeys and pigs, the aggressive Jews and oppressive Zionists and those that follow them: the callers of the trinity and the cross worshippers¿ those influenced by the rottenness of their ideas, and the poison of their cultures the followers of secularism... How can we talk sweetly when the Hindus and the idol worshippers indulge in their overwhelming hatred against our brothers... in Muslim Kashmir...

There are of course real moderates in the Muslim comunity but the Secretary General of the MCB, Sir Iqbal Sacranie is not one of them in my opinion. Relative to Osamn Bin Lid he may be moderate and tolerant but his justification on the program for his own intolerance while pleading for tolerence for extremist colegues of himself was pathetic. From the transcript:

John Ware: While the MCB tolerates an affiliate that denounces other faiths, Iqbal Sacranie was famously intolerant when his own faith was insulted.

In 1989 Muslims burned copies of Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses which ridiculed the Prophet Mohammed.

But while Muslims exercised their right to protest, they did not believe Rushdie had a right to free expression.

They demanded the government ban the book

Iqbal Sacranie was one of the joint protest leaders.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Attempting to insult the blessed prophet, peace be upon him, is the most serious crime in the eyes of Islamic law. The crime is considered as transgressing the limits and is worse than treason and is a capital offence.

John Ware: The Iranians had already passed the death sentence on Salman Rushdie whom they regarded as a Muslim.

Their Fatwa said every Muslim had a duty to execute it.

Mindful perhaps of British law, Iqbal Sacranie was reported as saying:

"Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him?" but he still expected Rushdie to be mentally tormented for the rest of his life.

The program seems to have rightly pissed off a few people over at the comment section of Panorama's website, There isn't a single positive comment yet. Al Guardian has already started the fightback.

Gorgeous George Vs The Hitch

2005-08-22T00:15:00.000+01:00

This ought to be good. Hitchens should make mincemeat out of the Stalinist rabblerouser. Pity it is being moderated by journalist Amy Goodman who's a topnotch American America hater.

From The Horse's Mouth

2005-08-12T19:42:00.000+01:00

Hands up those who think the UUP is done for, at least as far as Westminster elections are concerned. Not according to a certain ex UUP MP who told me on Wednesday night that the UUP will recover from it's recent setbacks. I asked him did he really believe that or was he still playing the politician(possibly not one of Bertie's brighter questions). He reckoned that now the DUP are carrying the burden of dealing with Sinn Fein they will suffer similar problems to those faced by the UUP when it was the largest Unionist party. That's a fair point but it would take the DUP to make a hell of a lot of concessions to the Shinners before they see any to damage at the ballot box. Also voters are hardly likely to vote for the UUP because they see the DUP as soft. A more likely prospect in my opinion is a split in the DUP some time in the future between hardliners and those prepared to deal with Sinn Fein in return for power at Stormont. Even that prospect wouldn't necessarily help the UUP much.

On another point, not to many bloggers get the politicians to come to them eh? Or get asked to run for ***** council. Anyone know how to spell narcissist?

Blog Intermission

2005-08-06T02:56:00.000+01:00

Due to the recent high work load the blog has been on hold for a few days, hopefully with myself back from Newmills blogging will resume as normal.

BTW Paul had a party tonight so there should be some good stuff tomorrow.

Dying For A Visa?

2005-07-26T23:22:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-26T23:18:00.000+01:00

I wish.

Save Us From This PC Madness

2005-07-22T22:37:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-22T22:10:00.000+01:00

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

Gunnin For A Fatwa

2005-07-22T18:32:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-22T17:53:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-22T17:34:00.000+01:00

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?

Echo & Freedom For Kid W

2005-07-21T00:22:00.000+01:00

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.

Red Ken Strikes Again

2005-07-19T19:15:00.000+01:00

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.

Googled

2005-07-17T20:43:00.000+01:00

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

Chillin Out In Squires Room

2005-07-17T20:21:00.000+01:00

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.

Allah Ackbar Not As Ackbar As Kevlar

2005-07-16T19:21:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-16T13:59:00.000+01:00

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!

Catch-22

2005-07-15T21:12:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-15T02:40:00.000+01:00

More from the vaults at Newmills coming soon!

Teenage Kicks

2005-07-15T02:35:00.000+01:00

Dumb & Dumber

2005-07-15T02:25:00.000+01:00

Mr. Potato Head And His ID Card Fiasco

2005-07-15T01:35:00.000+01:00

Here.

Putting The Blame Where It Belongs

2005-07-11T23:38:00.000+01:00

Nick Cohen, Here.

Death To The Jihadis

2005-07-11T22:19:00.000+01:00

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?

Grow Your Own Chicken Nuggets

2005-07-09T22:32:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-09T16:21:00.000+01:00

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.

Bloggers For Freedom

2005-07-08T22:41:00.000+01:00

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?

2005-07-08T19:26:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-08T15:43:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-08T00:17:00.000+01:00

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.

Traitor George

2005-07-07T15:24:00.000+01:00

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.

Snoop Dogg Unleashed At Live8

2005-07-02T18:47:00.000+01:00

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.

Blogging Takes Effort

2005-06-28T22:41:00.000+01:00

This post was going to be "Labour's Plastic Poll Tax", but this new work caper kind of reduces the time available even for a little blog like mine. Anyway your are all probably bored with ID cards and the subject is bad for my my stress levels too. So I'm going to read a crap Star Wars novel in the bath. Bert out.

D'oh, Looks Like Another Beagle 2 Moment

2005-06-22T03:15:00.000+01:00

A few hours ago a probe was launched from a sub in the Barrents Sea. The probe was the Planetary Society's Cosmos 1. This was to be the first test of a controlable solar sail space craft. Unfortunately no telemetry has been received from the craft and at this time the craft seems to be lost. So spare a thought for some very depressed scientists and engineers as you go about your business today.

Bert's Illustrated 101 Uses For An ID Card Part 1

2005-06-18T23:57:00.000+01:00

Take one National ID Card.

Apply a liberal coating of KY.

Find a smirking cunt or...

...a bearded smirking cunt.

Insert

It's all very well making jokes about the constant erosion of civil liberties in Britain today but the fact is the subject simply makes me furious. I normally read the first editions of the papers online before I go to bed, but the if there is an article about civil liberties I try to put of reading it to the next day. The reason is simple, after reading about two paragraphs I'll get a knot in my stomach due to pure anger and frustration. So if I go to bed I won't sleep because I'm thinking somebody should go do a Guy Fawkes on all the cunts in parliament(note to ECHELON operators up yours you nosy cunts). Reading articles like this really get right on my wick, it's worth reading the whole thing but a couple of good quotes are:

My aged mother was still alive in 2002. Approaching 80, after a robust and healthy life, she was suddenly needing to "access" district nurses and care assistants on a regular basis. I airily told her that Mr Blunkett might be wanting a biometric photograph of her left iris any time soon for his entitlement-card scheme, and she was thunderstruck. "Whatever for?" Um, so you can prove you're entitled to use NHS services. "Tell him I bloody paid for them," she shouted, "when I got bombed out of Coventry!"

That's right stop Bin Laden in his tracks get your granny down to a "citizen enrollment booth" and get her bioscanned lest anyone mistakes her for a suicide raghead. The real problem of course is that while some people think the ID scheme is "sinister" or "Germanic" as Maggie memorably put it. It is only tech heads who really understand the true implications of what lies beneath the ID cards and that is the National Identity Register. Another quote:

You can say, "If you've got nothing to hide, you'd got nothing to fear." But there is a bunch of people who fear the National Identity Register Database mightily, and for good reason. They're bloggers. Bloggers understand what databases are, they understand information technology and if they're not tech-head geeks themselves, they know people who are. British bloggers are going crazy about the database.

The question we should be asking ourselves is how do we stop the slide towards ever greater state power? Will votes, demonstrations, civil disobedience and boycotts be enough? At what point do Libertarians of Left and Right say enough is enough and turn to violence?

Database State

2005-06-14T18:51:00.000+01:00

Tell Toni to stick his ID card up his ass, here.

Melanie, Polly And The Thought Police

2005-06-13T18:22:00.000+01:00

One way of knowing when the government is making another one of its monumental blunders is when a Guardian columnist makes the same arguments as a Daily mail columnist. You sure don't see Polly Toynbee and Melanie Philips making virtually identical arguments in their respective columns very often. The government's incitement to religious hatred bill is of course a cynical ploy to by back Muslim votes, as I said before. There are already plenty of laws stopping people inciting violence against others on the statute book, we don't need a new law. Why is a crime worse if it is racist or sectarian? If I was to say "go and stab that rag head Muslim" as opposed to "go and stab that person" and assuming that my oratory was sufficiently good in either case as to have caused someone to be assaulted. I would have committed a more serious crime because it was "religiously aggravated". The person would still be stabbed in either case, the difference is apparently the added insult. Even though Parliament has already rejected this nonsense by the government twice they are now threatening to use the battering ram of the Parliament act to force the issue through. Can't the government see that the only people who want this law are in fact the real bigots? People whose beliefs are so cherished that only the strong arm of the law is sufficient to protect said beliefs.

They say the law will only result in a few convictions a year as any use will require the Attorney-General's consent. Never mind the question of separation of powers, why waste all this parliamentary time when people can already be convicted of inciting violence? It is worth noting that very similar laws already exist here in N. Ireland, to my knowledge they have hardly ever been used. It's is not hard to see why. These laws will probably be counter productive in terms of religious harmony with groups of fundamentalists vetting every word said by other groups as happened in Australia. The government however blunders on regardless.

Vegetabletarins Are Pompous Twats

2005-06-13T03:04:00.000+01:00

And I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Perfect For Larry The Lamb

2005-06-07T20:26:00.001+01:00

Click Pic To Enlarge

This add from 1959 recommends Thorazine for the more irritating members of the family.

Big Head Attack

2005-06-07T19:04:00.000+01:00

It seems uber blogger Andrew Sullivan agrees with me about comparing the Gulag to Guantamo. Quote

The moral idiocy of Amnesty International comparing the serious issues in Guantanamo with Stalin's monstrous crimes didn't come out of thin air. To the best of my knowledge, the first use of this metaphor was by ... Sid Blumenthal. Here's the piece. The whole thing is infuriating because it allows the Bushies and their boosters to avoid the real subject. The truth is: you can have a real grasp of Stalin's Gulag and still be appalled by what this administration has been doing in its secret jails and torture chambers. Exhibit A in this moral universe is Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer-prize author of "Gulag," who has not mercifully given in to moral complacency.

Has he been reading Squire's humble blog?

Time For Revolution

2005-06-06T18:46:00.000+01:00

Shoot Mugabe.

Getting Some Perspective

2005-06-05T02:58:00.000+01:00

Something very scary is happening in the West at the momnet especially in Europe. People especially on the left have failed to see the threat to liberal democracies posed to them by Islamic fundamentalism. You see protesters on the streets with posters of Guantanamo or Belmarsh prisoners and burning effigies of Bush dressed as Hitler. I have no problem with protesters campaigning for human rights in any country but why no posters of Ken Bigly, Margaret Hasan or some of the thousands of political prisoners held in the theocracies of the Middle East? Why don't a load of the protesters fly to Iran or Saudi and protest for women's rights or something? Some of the protesters would claim that they have more chance of making a difference by protesting in a democracy like the UK or US. Fair enough, basically they're up for freedom except when it might cost them. Since they brought Hitler into the argument we may as well use a Hitler analogy. The analogy would be people campaigning against Mosley in Britain while leaving Hitler to overrun Europe. Dare I say it but Orwell must be rolling in his grave at most of the Left's reaction to Islamo-fascism. We must of course remain vigilant to the erosion of our own liberties by statists like Blair and Bush, but we aren't in Saudi Arabia. Recently we have seen Belmarsh jail called "Britain's Gulag" or the treatment of the Palestinians compared to the Holocaust. This is hugely insulting to the millions of people who died in the Gulag or the Holocaust. Some people now see this as the West turning in on its self in a sort of moral sickness that cannot tell the difference between the bad, as in Belmarsh and the absolutely fucking horrendous as in the Holocaust or the Gulag.

Recently I finished reading Gulag A History by Anne Applebaum, the book won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. I'm not going to do a book review here but words like moving, terrifying, heartrending, painful and devastating would be a good place to start. People who make equivalences between Hitler and Bush or the Gulag and Guantanamo should read a few books on 20th century history.

At It Already

2005-05-29T22:33:00.000+01:00

The French have rejected the EU "constitution" by a definitive 55% voting against and surprise, surprise the EU commission says that it will go on ratifying parts of the "constitution". The fact that one of the main reasons the French have rejected the wretched document is that they are fed up with arrogant Eurocrats in Brussels making policy and laws with little regard for democratic principles seems lost on the Euroshits.

Meanwhile back in Blighty Toni and Co. must be wondering if France's non and the pending Dutch nee will get him of the hook of the referendum he promised the UK. Of course Toni only offered the referendum to get it out of the way as an election issue. That forced Mr Chirac into giving France a referendum on the issue too and really pissed off Chirac for good measure(nice one there Toni). A cynic(moi non) might think that Toni had this planned right from the start. I was rather hoping the French would narrowly pass the "constitution" so that British Eurorealists could throw a proper spanner in the workings of the corrupt bureaucracy of Brussels. However the size of the defeat in France may mean that the French have done just that, yet for very different reasons than us Brits might. Reaction in the coming days and weeks will show us where Europe's future leads.

Up Yours Sue

2005-05-26T23:17:00.000+01:00

Today the Association of University Teachers voted 3:1 to overturn a boycott of 2 Israeli universities. Sue Blackwell of the AUT had campaigned for the boycott of the universities because of "insert lefty, idiotorian, anti American and anti Israel rant." It seems the priciple of academic freedom only applies to people who think that Israel does not have the right to exist.

The Left has traditionally championed the cause of the oppressed and no doubt they see support for the Palestinian cause as in keeping with this tradition, but what about all the other causes they could be boycotting things for? Why no boycott of Chinese universities over Tibet and Human rights? Why no boycott of Russian academics over the Chechen situation or Russia's slide away from democracy? I could go on and on but you get the point. Euro-lefties are obsessed by "the plight of the Palestinian people" Yet again why? The answer as usual boils down to anti Americanism. America the powerful(lefties read bad) supports Israel therefore making Israel powerful(lefties read bad). On top of that the Israelis have kicked the Arabs asses from Sinai to Baghdad on three occasions since 1948, so it only stands to (lefty) reason that they must be the oppressing force in the region. Yes that's right, Israel the only thing resembling a democracy in the middle east for the last 58 years is in fact the problem and should be dissolved or something, though I don't know what Sue and co. have in mind. Perhaps a nice shinny new Muslem theocracy where Jews and Christians can live as Dhimmis as the Qua'ran proscribes?

Anyone with two braincells to rub together can see that section - majority section - of the lefty world view is bollocks. The AUT by overwhelmingly voting against Ms. Blackwell and her fellow travelers, have at least put Academic freedom ahead of silly student politics. Once again up yours Sue.

At Last

2005-05-26T21:30:00.000+01:00

Nearly seven years after the Omagh bombing police have finally charged someone with the massacre. Sean Hoey from South Armagh has been charged with 29 counts of murder and 60 other charges. If convicted he deserves life without parole, just like every other terrorist in Ireland. Fat chance.

Quality Blog

2005-05-22T19:30:00.000+01:00

I found a new blog that some people may find good, this post and this one are especially good.

Weapon

2005-05-13T19:33:00.000+01:00

Last night Microsoft unveiled it's new Xbox 360 console, it's a total weapon. Gamespot reckons that the powerful multicore CPU won't be matched on PC's for a couple of years! AMD and Intel have just launched dual core chips which can run two threads, the IBM designed chip powering the 360 has three cores and can run six threads. The 360's GPU is impressive, but will be outclassed by PC technology rather sooner than it's CPU. Sony and Nintendo are also powering their new consoles with multi core chips, Sony is calling them cell processors. It looks like the next round in the console wars is going to be very interesting indeed.

Miss Portman Gets Shaved

2005-05-11T13:22:00.000+01:00

Yuck!

Truly Twisted

2005-05-06T22:58:00.000+01:00

Trust Rab to find a sick site like this.

Local Landslide

2005-05-06T17:25:00.000+01:00

Sammy Wilson has turned the once safe UUP seat of Roy Beggs into a safe DUP one with 15766 votes to Beggs' 8462. The UUP appear to be in full electoral meltdown, nobody in N. Ireland will be shocked except for the scale of the UUP defeat. It looks like they will only keep Sylvia Hermons' North Down seat. Really they only have themselves(and bLiar) to blame. Sinn Fein is like a Black Widow. Those who associate with it as the SDLP and UUP did, are first used to give Sinn Fein a legitimacy it doesn't deserve and then their corpses are discarded to the political wilderness.

The DUP may be a bunch of bigots but at least they didn't go to bed with the unreformed terrorist organisation that is Sinn Fein/IRA.

Britain Needs Electoral Reform

2005-05-06T14:30:00.000+01:00

Thank fuck for the punch in the face that Labour received from the British electorate last night, but will it be enough? At the moment Labour's majority of 63 shows some hope for an end to government arrogance. For most people that arrogance was manifested in the Iraq war but for me it was Labour's disregard for the British constitution and personal freedom.

Many on the Left have long called for electoral reform in the form of some sort of proportional representation. However once Labour was swept to power in 1997 with a landslide it saw little point in helping the Lib Dems or fringe parties like the Greens. While electoral reform in the form of PR is seen by the Left as a way to enshrine Euro-lefty politics it would also help smaller right wing and populist parties such as UKIP, Veritas an the BNP. Most Tories are against PR because it returns week, even paralyzed government. The prospect of a PR parliament ever launching a major military operation to save Kosovo or liberate Afghanistan would be remote never mind going to war in Iraq. That's the bad side of PR(for me) but the up side would be that civil liberties would be protected by libertarians on the left and right. At the moment the British electoral landscape is severely tilted against the Tories where they have to beat labor by about ten percentage points to get a majority in parliament.

A system of first past the post coupled with the current electoral boundaries leads to a situation in which Labour gets 36% of the popular vote and receives 354 seats while the Tories with 32% receive 197. Something has got to change.

The beginning Of The End?

2005-05-06T01:29:00.000+01:00

At last the Tories are showing their first faltering steps towards their place as a party worthy of governing Britain. More latter.

Ken Clarke?

2005-05-05T08:30:00.000+01:00

Possibly, or perhaps Malcolm Rifkind.

Why I Want Lib Dems To Do Well

2005-05-03T13:37:00.000+01:00

I'm not a great fan of the Lib Dems but I do hope they do well in the election at the cost of Labour. This may seem strange for a supporter of the war like myself but the reasons are pretty simple. The Tories have run an American style negative campaign which hasn't gone down well with swing voters and they seem to be scared to make the moral argument for lower taxes. Despite Labour's protestations everyone knows that Labour will win its historic third term. The Tories seem to have no hope of a repeat of 1970 when Ted Heath "sneaked in the back door" to number 10. So to reduce the power of the authoritarians in Labour tactical voting by libertarians is crucial. If Labour loses say 70-80 seats, then combined Tory, Lib Dem and some Labour rebels could put an end to Labour's arrogance with civil liberties and reduce nanny statism in general. I hear howls of laughter from my deeply cynical inner self upon writing that last sentence, but here's hoping eh?

The leader in today's Telegraph takes a very different view about voting for the cuddly Lib Dems saying that the Lib Dems like all socialists are just as illiberal(they are in coalition government in Scotland) as Labour has proven to be in office. Since the Lib Dems have no hope of wining a Westminster election any time soon I'll take the opposing view that their stance on matters such as ID cards and due process is more important at the moment than their overall
socialism or anti war crap.

Intergalactic Idiots Update

2005-04-29T13:34:00.000+01:00

Well it only took them two days to notice the mistake, but the offending article is still on the website.

Intergalactic Idiots

2005-04-27T18:43:00.000+01:00

It looks like some product of a university humanities department has written one of today's leaders in the Guardian. It seems the Sun is now about 4.5 light years from Earth! The Sun - as any 12 year old astronomer could tell you - is 1 AU away from earth or 149597871 kilometers that's an awful lot closer than 42750000000000 kilometers.

Update the readers editor has acknowledged the mistake.

Toni Wishes

2005-04-23T16:39:00.000+01:00

France's Ethical Foreign Policy

2005-04-21T23:47:00.000+01:00

What the fuck are the Froggies playing at? They have supported China's anti succession law which allows China to attack democratic Taiwan which poses no threat to mainland China. On top of that France wants to sell advanced military hardware to China. The EU currently bans arms sales to China due to the Tiananmen Square massacre. China has never apologized for, nor recognized that what it did in 1989 was in any way wrong. China also has an appalling record on human rights not to mention the fact that it has since 1948 fought wars with India, Russia, Vietnam, Korea, Mongolia and invaded Tibet. So of course it makes perfect sense for France to support the warmongering dictatorship instead of the one part of China which is a democracy. Do the Froggies now feel so impotent in the world that they will do anything to promote Chirac's view of a "multi polar world"? Sucking up to an increasingly powerful China may bring increased trade for France's faltering economy, but what about the medium to long term?

Are they so bone headed -read Gaulist- that they would risk Exocets or other European weapons being used against American forces? Imagine the consequences of an American aircraft carrier being hit with a French made Exocet in some future war in the Taiwan Straight(I can see Euro Lefties almost drooling at the prospect).

The French Constitution includes The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen which is supposed to apply to all men without exception not just French citizens. Perhaps the French should amend their constitution to say except Chinese serfs.

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite...

Phoning The Puntang Phone

2005-04-19T21:12:00.000+01:00

Here

Millions Will Die

2005-04-19T18:33:00.000+01:00

Former Pope John Paul II seems to have secured his death promoting legacy with the election today of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as his successor, to be called Benedict XVI. Ratzinger is a promoter of the pro death policy of denying condom use whatever the circumstances. Hopefully he will be replaced rather sooner than his predecessor.

Finally Duck Puts Rod To Use

2005-04-17T14:52:00.000+01:00

It's a fish!

What's The Point Of John Prescott?

2005-04-14T22:27:00.000+01:00

Answers on a postcard to the usual address please.

German Left Has Totaly Lost The Plot

2005-04-14T22:13:00.000+01:00

You couldn't make this shit up. Also in Der Spiegel magazine this, at least some people in Germany have a memory.

The Trade Justice Movement Is Morally Bankrupt

2005-04-13T15:44:00.000+01:00

This report blows so called "fair trade" out of the water as anything but fair.

Labour's Message To Britain: Your Suspects Not Subjects

2005-04-13T01:13:00.000+01:00

All new passport applications are to require applicants to report to one of seventy new passport service offices to have their fingerprints recorded in the national fingerprint database. Police and the security services are to have full access to the database. It used to be only convicted criminals had their fingerprints taken and kept by the state. Now the state keeps a record of DNA and fingerprints of anyone arrested even if they are not convicted never mind charged with a criminal offense. The fact that 80% of people in the UK have a passport means that the government will get it's ID card white elephant in the back door without consulting parliament. No doubt state authoritarians and IT companies are salivating at the thought of another juicy database to sink their fangs into. The whole thing stinks of the twin bastions of Labour's project to create legions of Labour voting civil servants to run their schemes, while reducing civil liberties in the process. It makes me want to punch the next snivelling government minister I see on the telly going on about protecting civil liberties from terrorist attack. More here.