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The Counter-Terrorist Unit is using a new strategy to stress test the alertness of their officers and the resilience of their response. By employing some buffoon as their leader, who makes little or no effort to conceal top secret information, the North West CTU entered Jack Bauer territory in order to round up the inevitable band of Pakistanis who just happen to be enjoying the lifelong learning offered by our universities (truncated for their purposes):
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick was photographed entering Downing Street carrying a briefing note headed SECRET, on which details of an undercover operation against a suspected Al-Qaeda cell could clearly be seen.
The document set out the strategy for for the operation, an investigation into a suspected cell based in the north west of England and allegedly plotting an attack in the UK, including details of suspects and how the police intended to arrest them.
The bumbler has already been tainted by the Damien Green affair, but it takes real quality to walk around with SECRET tattooed on your forehead. Rather fitting that the fools who set up the surveillance society forget that it is a two way street. Watch and you will be watched! Since our security depends upon confidence, could we demote this tarnished officer to the role that he deserves: Sarjeant at Arms in the House of Commons, where he will be amongst those of his own kind.
Comics taken to a new level:
So Marvel has finally gone porno. In last week’s issue of the new “dark” Spider-Man Reign, it was revealed that Spidey killed his wife MJ with . . . radioactive sperm.
Have they been channelling Dr. Manhatten?
Jacqui Smith on “The Politics Show” turned in another performance in evasion and Newspeak that I was unsure what she actually said. Not as bad as Simon Sion about the Further Education Councils but a mirror of distortion nonetheless. She is being interviewed prior to the publication of the government’s updated counter-terrorist strategy. Part of this agitprop approach allows Gordon Brown to write his hyperbole in The Observer, claiming credit for the success of others.
Part of the problem on counter-terrorism strategy is assessing its context, its capabilities and its outcomes. If you read Brown’s article, his assessment of the threat from Al-Qaida is straightforward: who would disagree that they are our primary threat. Zero in on his statements and we become more sceptical of the claims and the results.
They are motivated by a violent extremist ideology based on a false reading of religion and exploit modern travel and communications to spread through loose and dangerous global networks.
They are an ideology; they are a religion: their beliefs are more widely shared than Brown states, especially amongst the British Muslim population. Jacqui Smith identified the rise of extremism as a root problem but was unwilling to define an extremist. First, know your enemy. When we read Brown state that our defence is the duty of every individual, we heartily agree. In practice, this is piety shrouding inaction:
And there is a duty on all of us – government, parliament, and civic society – to stand up to people who advocate violence and preach hate, to challenge their narrow and intolerant ideology – in public meetings, in universities, in schools and online.
But accept that our arbitrary laws on hate speech may leave you open to arrest and detention. Who arrested the Islamic extremists in Luton? This doublespeak permeates the entire article with faint aroma of Brownie beans: expenditure, exaggerated claims and comparisons, and the image of Britain as a world-beater. When was Brown ever misperceived as humble?
I believe that this updated strategy, recognised by our allies to be world-leading in its wide-ranging nature, leaves us better prepared and strengthened in our ability to ensure all peace-loving people of this country can live normally, with confidence and free from fear.
In the world of Jacquistan, the words on the page protect us; in reality, their attempt to make political capital of this duty leaves me suspecting that policy is subject to increased political meddling and control.
The more we move into the world of Jacquistan, the more I fear another attack.
The inability of the media or the political class to discuss and analyse our wonderful house of debt
The French love English so much that they have established a prize to celebrate the encroachment of a global language, tying humanity together and promoting virtues of their revolution: liberty, fraternity and equality. Some have won this prize for demonstrating solidarity with their fellow European citizens and sacrificing the chance to speak in their most honourable and ancient tongue in order to facilitate communication:
But topping the poll for grave disservices to the mother tongue is France’s higher education minister, Valerie Pecresse.
Her crime: proclaiming to the press that she had no intention of speaking French when attending European meetings in Brussels, because, she said, it was quite obvious that English was now the easiest mode of communication.
The name of the prize is the Prix de la Carpette Anglaise, a mouthful that appears to indicate talking English is equivalent to lying back and receiving the droit de seigneur. If you are rewarded with this honour, it means that you have displayed fawning servility towards the Anglosphere. So if you politely speak English in a meeting when everyone else does, this is enslavement by an imperialistic tongue, rather than politely accepting the majority language of your colleagues.
However, as the rest of the article continues, English is a second language and stripped down to the bare essentials for aiding communication: a development that is called Globish. A rather clumsy term as I would not wish to call the speakers of this stripped down argot, Globs. There then arises the doubtful anecdote that the native speaker cannot follow anyone else, since he is used to nuances, humour, wordplay and so on. And a chap wrote a whol ebook about this, setting out grammar and rules such as avoid jokes, metaphor and anything else that may serve to confuse (or add life to the proceedings).
In a meeting with colleagues from around the world, including an Englishman, a Korean and a Brazilian, he noticed that he and the other non-native English speakers were communicating in a form of English that was completely comprehensible to them, but which left the Englishman nonplussed.
He, Jean-Paul Nerriere, could talk to the Korean and the Brazilian in this neo-language, and they could understand each other perfectly.
But the Englishman was left out because his language was too subtle, too full of meaning that could not be grasped by the others….
Globish has only 1,500 words and users must avoid humour, metaphor, abbreviation and anything else that can cause cross-cultural confusion.
They must speak slowly and in short sentences. Funnily enough, he holds up the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as an excellent exponent.
If this story is true, which I doubt, then all of the group were sitting with Tim nice but dim. But when sees the object of the book: set rules, curb growth, plant boundaries, one begins to wonder. Is this just another dastardly French plot to curb the spread of English by attempting to create a simple, unfunny version? Rather similar to the new brain that the mice would have given to Arthur Dent with useful phrases and the ability to enjoy a nice cup of tea. .
With the raised anxieties over national bankruptcy and the failure of the government to produce a strategy over the medium term for the control of public expenditure and the reduction of the national debt, the potential for a crisis in gilts funding has risen.This comes in the form of a disruptive change, propelled by external financial events, that undermines and destroys the government’s economic strategy. If such a crisis were to take place, it is worth considering the transformative effect upon national politics and the government. The decisions taken by Gordon Brown and the Labour party would form the framework of change and we can surmise that they have already examined possible scenarios at some length.
The most likely tactic employed by Brown is to go long, calling an election in 2010, whilst using the same methods to deny responsibility for the crisis and blaming the necessary cuts in public expensiture upon others. The government is mugged by the markets and forced to conform to the footsteps of Healey in 1976. This is the headless socialists mugged by reality model.
Less likely are radical and unpredictable political changes: Labour forming a national government with the Liberal Democrats and/or the Tories; the government toppling in a welter of incumbent incompetence with an election to follow; or Brown knifed by his own Malvolio and a novitiate attempting to rescue their reputation under a caretaker Prme Minister. Whatever political changes do follow, this will not prevent the years of national humiliation and deleveraging: if they buck the trend and halve the state, the recovery won’t come so late.
The most unlikely and frightening scenario is the one that depends upon Brown’s psychology: that the ‘man with a plan’ is convinced he can steer the country through the national crisis and that transferring power to the Tories would be an act of personal and national treason. If so, Brown could invoke the enabling act, prorogue Parliament and declare a national emergency for the duration of the financial crisis. This is the least likely outcome as the stakes are very high and Brown could not be sure that he would enjoy the support of the Civil Service, the police or the armed forces. The support of his own party is a given, spineless apparatchiks that they would become. On his past record of dithering and reluctance it is a long shot that he would only undertake this action in the most desperate of circumstances, but New Labour’s authoritarian bent and antipathy to democratic accountability are clear.
The moral of the story is that any successor to this Parliament should abolish the Civil Contingencies Act and ensure that temptation is placed out of harm’s way for any other self-righteous prophets who happen to pass through the doors of Number Ten.
I could not resist…
EIGHTEEN illegal immigrants attempted to smuggle themselves into the UK hidden in a lorry-load of lettuce heading for Merseyside.
UK Border Agency officers stopped the Spanish-registered lorry in the French port of Calais at 5.50am last Sunday.
A search revealed the eighteen men – fifteen Iraqis, two Afghanis and one Iranian – hidden in the load of lettuces.
First financial, then economic, finally political. The smaller countries will be followed by the larger. In one of his op-eds, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes an overview of Europe in which he opines that the outer rim: the post-communist states and Club Med are entering a 30s style depression due to the unwillingness of the European Commission or Central Bank to alleviate their woes.
Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic States are now facing a ‘spring of discontent’ as austerity measures result in rioting and instability. Evans-Pritchard has noted that the European institutions are compunding the problem:
Leaked documents reveal – despite a blizzard of lies by EU and Latvian officials – that the International Monetary Fund called for devaluation as part of a €7.5bn joint rescue for Latvia. Such adjustments are crucial in IMF deals. They allow countries to claw their way back to health without suffering perma-slump.
This was blocked by Brussels – purportedly because mortgage debt in euros and Swiss francs precluded that option. IMF documents dispute this. A society is being sacrificed on the altar of the EMU project.
The political consequences of the credit crunch are coming to the fore in the fragile periphery of the European Union: how long before we begin to see the political expression of this discontent respond to the monopoly of the European class, a challenge that will arise outside the mainstream from the extremes.
Excellent, a new skycar prototype will be travelling from London to Timbuctoo, via ground and air. There is a nostalgic coolness about skycars as they reflect a legacy future where 1940s starlets are rescued by a world of modern skyscrapers and heroes in jetpacks. In reality, the car will be driven by the SAS and the Foreign Office provides its doleful advice that adventures are ‘dangerous’. Couldn’t they go to Cleethorpes instead and why can’t we force them to, thinks the man from the FO?
As well as natural barriers, the team has been warned about the threat of kidnap in volatile parts of Africa and the car will have to negotiate a minefield in Mauretania – “I might fly that one,” said 45-year-old expedition leader Neil Laughton.
When the need for flight arises – estimated to be for 40% of the journey – a ParaWing, a parachute of the type used by paragliders, will be dragged behind the modified off-road buggy and the propeller on the back of the vehicle will boost the Skycar down whatever happens to be serving as an improvised runway. When it reaches 45mph, enough lift should be generated to get the car airborne, its weight supported only by “a silk handkerchief, a large one at that”, said Laughton.
The adventure is referred to as an element of “mad Brits“, another phrase redolent of passing qualities. More details on the car can be found here, though one must accept that not all prototypes will be stylish Italian jobs. This one looks more like a souped up Dune buggy.
Another milestone is reached as channels of distribution change:
2008 will be seen as a landmark year in global communications in the textbooks of 2100 – it was the year that the internet finally surpassed what was once considered an unassailable bastion of main media, newspapers, as the leading source of national and international news in America. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues. This year, for the first time in a Pew survey, more people said they relied mostly on the internet for news than those that cited newspapers (35%). Television retained top spot with 70% but it’s now clear that it’s when, rather than if, the internet will become the key news communications medium.
This is not as radical as headlined, given that newspaper and television websites are important sources for online information. Yet the march online will intensify as the credit crunch accelerates change. Curiously, this could result in less news, as the institutions of mainstream reporting wither away.
Watch for the state to support and protect the coterie of reporters, newspapers and channels on the grounds that politicians are far too important not to be heard. After all, this is already done in the UK with the licence fee, public sector advertisements for the Guardian and various subsidies. As the market retreats, subsidies will become more overt, expensive and extensive.
Darwin gave us hope, not God. We have an inbuilt Pandora’s box that enables us to deceive not only others but ourselves. Deception is clearly linked to neural complexity and a positive perception of our environs is a deep-rooted drive. Without this, we cannot accomplish what we set out to do. Moreover, we have a tendency to deceive ourselves and deny the truth, since the alternative is depression and despair.
Evolutionary Psychiatrist Randolph Nesse of the University of Michigan is a great believer in hope as a evolutionary strategy.
According to Nesse, all emotions have an evolutionary basis, and for every negative emotion, there is a balancing positive one. Hope arrives on the coattails of despair, and without hope, we’d all be lost. Since everyone experiences bad stuff, and feels it deeply, our brains have adapted by also delivering hope. And without our inborn measure of hope, we fall into depression, where someone like psychiatrist Nesse has to remind us to be hopeful.
The rhetoric of hope adopted by Barack Obama and other politicians becomes more understandable as a strategy that draws upon deep seated biases within human societies. It is noteworthy that hope has formed a strong component of many religious messages: thus rendering the satirical embodiment of the Messiah in the President-elect more accurate in Darwinian terms.
Darwinian explanations add to the complex mix of our understanding of human action. They do not replace or simplify this complex cultural mosaic.
This small point does give us an insight into power: for those who truly love terror would deny hope to all. The true totalitarian states of the twentieth century tried to deny hope to all of their victims and even then, failed in their torture. Yet, the same horizons are also eroded and extinguished over the longer term by other systems, such as welfare. There is no comparison between the terror of the prison camps and the grey anomie of incapacity benefits. But both, I suspect, through different means, overturn this need for self-deception, acknowledging the primacy of politics and society over the weak orientation of our evolved psychology.
The events surrounding the arrest of Damien Green have caused a political storm amongst parliamentarians. From the Labour government we have heard that Ministers had “no prior knowledge” of the arrests, though the permanent secretary of the Home Office instituted the leak investigation, and that the “operational independence” of the police should not be questioned or circumscribed. These lines were agreed quickly by the government’s news management team have held for now.
The police raid was undertaken by twenty counter-terrorist officers on the specious common law grounds that would seem to give them carte blanche to target anyone and everyone. From this base, and with the Speaker’s permission, they seized Damien Green’s constituency material and disenfranchised his electorate. The timing of the raid, at a time when parliamentary privileges are at their weakest and coincidental with the resignation of Sir Ian Blair, speaks volumes.
Whoever know about the raid does not detract from a number of points.
There is no longer a clear distinction between the state and the Labour party after thirteen years in power. The government has extended its powers through legislation and no longer recognises distinct checks and balances, using bureaucracy to institutionalise an illiberal, authoritarian, secretive and arbitrary state. This is an aim of their civil service counterparts, and even if Jacqui Smith did not know, it is clear that she has no capability of combating the authoritarian objectives of the Home Office.
The police have obtained more powers over the last twelve years then in the previous twenty and can use them to harass individuals and political parties, though this depends upon the whims of the local Chief Constable. Traffic Taliban, anyone? Uncontrolled state institutions with wide and undefined powers can run riot as their own agendas spin out and away from their political masters. From the current events, the Metropolitan police requires close scrutiny, as a coterie of Blairite officers (in possible cahoots with the Labour party), may be gunning for the opposition. The anti-terror legislation needs to be repealed.
If the Sunday papers provides fresh evidence that the Labour government had prior knowledge of the arrest or that the police were politically motivated in undertaking this arrest, then the constitutional wreckage of Thursday will be recast in a more sinister light. Then the probability that Gordon Brown will be willing to use the powers of the state on a wider scale to hobble and undermine the opposition is increased, up to using the enabling act. But we can ask if Britain is now an illiberal democracy.
On a positive note, the abuse of power widens the constituency opposed to the arbitrary and frightening tools of surveillance that have been pooled together by this government. What a shame that it takes the Daily Mail rather than the Guardian or the Independent to champion our liberties. Our politics are now so embittered and twisted that left-wing pundits prefer to piss on our liberties rather than forsake their party. They need to be cast out in the cold for more than a generation till they learn that it is not my party: right or wrong.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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