Butto, a student at Harvard and Oxford for six years in the 1970s, has been a vocal critic of "avaricious politicians." In a Harvard commencement speech in 1989, she said that such people had looted developing countries and left them without the means to tackle their social problems. Since she was ousted as prime minister during her second term, on Nov. 5, 1996, on charges that included gross corruption, she has been the leader of Pakistan's main opposition group, the Pakistan People's Party.
[...]
Officials leading the inquiry in Pakistan say that the $100 million they have identified so far is only a small part of a much larger windfall from corrupt activities. They maintain that an inquiry begun in Islamabad immediately after Bhutto's dismissal in 1996 found evidence that her family and associates generated more than $1.5 billion in illicit profits through kickbacks in virtually every sphere of government activity -- from rice deals, to the sell-off of government land, even rake-offs from government welfare schemes. more
3.11.07
9.10.07
10.9.07
7.9.07
31.7.07
Iraq Resistance latest
Another great write up from Lenin's Tomb
Sata from a report to the US Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq
Meanwhile the Humanitarian/Health/Hunger situation is looking grim... look at this Oxfam report
Sata from a report to the US Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq
Meanwhile the Humanitarian/Health/Hunger situation is looking grim... look at this Oxfam report
23.7.07
3.7.07
27.6.07
26.6.07
Gordon Brown
the hardest working man in show business aka the godfather of Soul
gordon brown, taxed you for fun
lay me down with my nan she lies -
outside the door, of ward thirty four
never a frown - with gordon brown
every lie just like the last
chains of gold tied to the past
two distant lands blood on your hands
whos going down with gordon brown?
gordon brown, who's in charge now?
hands on the oar or stands at the bow?
whos going to pay? when you sail away?
never a frown with gordon brown
never, never a frown, with gordon brown
never, never a frown with gordon brown
Gordon and SOCPA
13.6.07
You tube
The machine is Us/ing Us a video essay about text and Web 2.0
What we are (do not watch if you are involved in religio-idiotic activity)
What we are (do not watch if you are involved in religio-idiotic activity)
7.6.07
corruption, so what?
Prince Bandar, challenged as to whether there is corruption in deals with the Saudi royal family, replies: "Yes. So what?"
5.6.07
i saw this and thought of tone
The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.
31.5.07
sociopath has learnt nothing
He said the current violence in Iraq was not caused by the 2003 invasion, but by Al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed efforts to destabilize the country."Remove Al-Qaeda, remove the malign Iranian activity, and the situation would be changed, even transformed," he said.
And he added: "There is no alternative to fighting this menace wherever it rears its head... There are no demands that are remotely negotiable. It has to be beaten. Period."
21.5.07
Top 20 Most Hotly Revised Wikipedia Articles
- Jesus
- Adolf Hitler
- October 2003
- Nintendo revolution
- Hurricane Katrina
- India
- RuneScape
- Anarchism
- Britney Spears
- PlayStation 3
- Saddam Hussein
- Japan
- Albert Einstein
- 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake
- New York City
- Germany
- Muhammid
- Pope Benedict XVI
- Ronald Regan
- Hinduism
20.5.07
drunk off our God-fearing asses
Falwell: My first time was in an outhouse outside Lynchburg, Virginia.
Interviewer: Wasn’t it a little cramped?
Falwell: Not after I kicked the goat out.
Interviewer: I see. You must tell me all about it.
Falwell: I never really expected to make it with Mom, but then after she showed all the other guys in town such a good time, I figured, "What the hell!"
Interviewer: But your Mom? Isn’t that a little odd?
Falwell: I don’t think so. Looks don’t mean that much to me in a woman.
Interviewer: Go on.
Falwell: Well, we were drunk off our God-fearing asses on Campari, ginger ale and soda—that’s called a Fire and Brimstone—at the time. And Mom looked better than a Baptist whore with a $100 donation.
Interviewer: Campari in the crapper with Mom. How interesting. Well, how was it?
Falwell: The Campari was great but Mom passed out before I could come.
Interviewer: Did you ever try it again?
Falwell: Sure. Lots of times. But not in the outhouse. Between Mom and the shit, the flies were too much to bear.
Interviewer: We meant the Campari.
Falwell: Oh, yeah, I always get sloshed before I go to the pulpit. You don’t think I could lay down all that bullshit sober do you?
Campari, like all liquor, was made to mix you up. It's a light, 48-proof, refreshing spirit, just mild enough to make you drink too much before you know you're schnockered. For your first time, mix it with orange juice. Or maybe some white wine. Then you won't remember anything the next morning. Campari. The mixable that smarts.
14.5.07
11.5.07
10.5.07
cycling and the mann
"After three years spent languishing in a Zimbabwean prison, the British mercenary Simon Mann was hoping to win his freedom this week, his sentence cut short for good behaviour. Yesterday, however, the Old Etonian's predicament took a substantial turn for the worse.
A magistrate in Harare ruled that he should be extradited to Equatorial Guinea, the west African nation that was the focus of the alleged coup plotted by Mann and his team of armed conspirators.
The court's decision, which came despite protests from his lawyer that he could face torture and a rigged trial, was viewed by observers as an "oil for Mann" deal. President Robert Mugabe announced in March that Zimbabwe was receiving shipments of oil from the Equatorial Guinea president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Since the failed coup the two tyrants have become best friends."
guardian report
Highway code...
"The old Highway Code text suggested simply that cyclists "use cycle routes when practicable". No problem there. The new code advises us to "use cycle routes when practicable and cycle facilities ... where they are provided".
Suppose, then, that Mr 4x4 Driver makes a hash of passing me and causes a collision. The new Highway Code could allow his lawyer to claim that I had failed to use the "cycle facility provided" and was therefore liable. You would think courts would not be so daft as to accept this argument, but never underestimate the asininity of the law: last year, cyclist Daniel Cadden had to appeal against a judgment of "inconsiderate cycling" in a case brought by police who had decided he should have been using an inconvenient bike path rather than the road. In January, with the backing of the cyclists' defence fund he won a retrial and was acquitted.
The Cyclists' Touring Club is ever alert to the issue and, with its encouragement, 11,000 cyclists have written to their MPs over the past year. There is also a Downing Street website petition you can sign."
Guardian story
25.4.07
Water sports...with kids and animals!
'piss on my face mr cow!'
A head master in Maharastra, India has reinvented the concept of water sports, this time involving the kids!
The caring man took over at the school recently, however his predecssor was from a low caste so he sprayed the lower caste kids with cows urine to 'purify' them.
He denies singling out the lower caste kids saying that in a class of 62 it was hard to aim just at the 'inpure' ones, even if they are made to sit by caste.
Click here for more on this funky new festish!
The caring man took over at the school recently, however his predecssor was from a low caste so he sprayed the lower caste kids with cows urine to 'purify' them.
He denies singling out the lower caste kids saying that in a class of 62 it was hard to aim just at the 'inpure' ones, even if they are made to sit by caste.
Click here for more on this funky new festish!
10.4.07
a very milit pede.....
No journalism here I'm afraid....just reiterating the most 'brass eye' story I have ever read in the press..... check it!
5.4.07
What happened when the Guardian editor met Piers Morgan
As the Editor of 'The Guardian', Alan Rusbridger presides over an institution that prides itself on occupying the ethical high ground. But how would he stand up to scrutiny when 'GQ' magazine sent Piers Morgan along to grill him?
I've always thought that editing The Guardian must be a right old moral maze. Journalists at the paper love to see themselves as ethically, morally and intellectually superior to tabloid hacks. Yet there's nothing that those liberal sandal-wearers like more than to lift all the juicy details of a sex scandal broken in the "gutter press" - while pretending to be outraged at the same time, obviously.
And Guardian hacks would think nothing of exposing some errant politician's personal peccadilloes - and then going home and doing exactly the same thing themselves. The paper's editor, Alan Rusbridger, is the prime exponent of this art form. He spent a decade filling his boots with salacious material from papers I edited while pronouncing regularly about how disgusting it all was.
He also unleashed his reporting hounds to harass me from time to time, while insisting that he was not a public figure and therefore should be spared the investigative rod of scrutiny himself at all times. And yet we became good friends, dining occasionally at champagne-socialist bastions such as the Ivy, where he would crack open the Montrachet and lobster, and bemoan the excess of modern public life.
Despite his perpetual rank hypocrisy, I am very fond of Rusbridger and his paper. The Guardian plays an important role in our society, and acts as an effective foil to right-wing papers such as the Daily Mail.
But I've yearned to sit down one day with him and confront him about his contradictory demons. I finally got the chance when I was invited to the great man's office in Farringdon Road, London, ostensibly to discuss his new children's book, The Smelliest Day at the Zoo.
Unfortunately, we never got around to that in the one-and-a-half hours that we locked horns. What we did discuss was sex, drugs, scandal and morality; which, I hope you will agree, is a damned sight more interesting.
It was a lively, edgy, confrontational and deliciously enjoyable encounter. And I was right. Editing The Guardian is indeed a right old moral maze.
Found on medialens a transcript of the interview is also available there and is worth reading...
Published: 02 April 2007 Independent
28.3.07
Time Trumpet.....
Two hundread years from now we'll have a diffrent anniversary to not say sorry for and to pat our selves on the back about.....the question is will we rember the pivotal role Tony played as perpetrator and cheif denier of killing well over 655,000 innocent civilians in Iraq? As government scientists have now corroborated with the Lancet in terms of figures and method more egg is strewn on Tony's lying phizog.......
or perhaps tony's ancestors will still be lapping up the cream that oil revenues bought the first family of fear.......
or perhaps tony's ancestors will still be lapping up the cream that oil revenues bought the first family of fear.......
Roy of the Ravers
'I'd say the biggest indictment of all this is that we are still a country, a culture, a society which continues to nurture and practice the notion of untouchability. While our economists number crunch and boast about the growth rate, a million people-human scavengers-earn their living carrying several kilos of other peoples shit on their heads every day. And if they didn't carry other people's shit on their heads they'd starve to death. Some fucking super power this is.'
-Arundhati Roy
26.3.07
the war's already started
whilst british soldiers enjoy a little holiday in tehran, tony insists they weren't in iranian waters, were minding there own business etc its worth considering that whilst iran is apparently single handedly responsible for iraqi insurgency the freedom lovers themselves are busy fighting their own covert war.
and this is no new phenomenon either. so the next generation of fanatics who can be relied upon to bomb the george bush memorial library or whatever to justify phase ten of twat are already getting training from their us us masters.
"They think in Iran you can just go in and hit the facilities and destabilise the government. They believe they can get rid of a few crazy mullahs and bring in the young guys who like Gap jeans, all the world’s problems are solved. I think it’s delusional,” the former CIA officer said."
and this is no new phenomenon either. so the next generation of fanatics who can be relied upon to bomb the george bush memorial library or whatever to justify phase ten of twat are already getting training from their us us masters.
"They think in Iran you can just go in and hit the facilities and destabilise the government. They believe they can get rid of a few crazy mullahs and bring in the young guys who like Gap jeans, all the world’s problems are solved. I think it’s delusional,” the former CIA officer said."
23.3.07
Apostasy in Bengal
two hundread and twenty three years to the day that the great man bade farewell to this mess; the 14th of March and the CPI(M) communist party of India, marxist sent a combined force of police and party goons into the Nandigram area of West Bengal.
the area had been chosen by head of state elect Mr. Bhattacharya to become an SEZ (special economic zone) incidentally an american invention allowing a big corporation to operate free of taxes etc. the company aiming to take up this prime agricultural land was the salim group of indonesia, funnily enough the former plaything of the 'freindly' mr suharto
local residents had vigourously opposed the idea and had protested on a massive scale, like most people would when threatend with the dimise of their livelihoods. The problem with compensation deals being that many if not most residents were technically landless and rented or were wage labourers and would thus not be compensated at all......
on the fateful date the afore mentioned forces entered the protest area and attacked without compromise......women and children had been at the vanguard of the demonstration that morning. Estimates from eye witnesses suggest that 100-150 people were killed, many more were injured and women were raped......most were killed by bullets to the upper body, mainly in the back as they turned to flee......
the bodies of many of the dead were piled into trucks to cover up the scale of the carnage. party 'goons' prevented entry to the area for at least two days while a cover up began which began by the police claiming that 11 people had been killed as a result of the police being attacked......
R.I.P. Marx....the perversion that people bring to your name!
19.3.07
'there's no point looking sullen, why don't you go out there with a nice big grin on your face?'
"I'm not a pessimist, a pessimist is someone waiting for the rain. I'm already soaking wet. The future is already here."
17.3.07
following a few years of intense interrogations, particularly hairy arab remembers having committed majority of crimes of past decade(s)
responsible for everything.. including the shoe bomber! [rolling on floor laughing] give me a fucking break! is anyone still taking official line seriously or is it all tongue-in-cheek now?
~~~
unrelated: some facts on the us & latin america
15.3.07
13.3.07
all that you can't leave behind
Re-branding Bono - Charity doesn't always begin at home [lifted from popbitch]
Vanity Fair have invited "pop-humanitarian"
Bono to be guest editor of the July issue, to
try and "rebrand Africa". Some magazines
have been sharing some other facts about Bono:
* In the year since it was founded, his Red
campaign (licensed to Gap, Motorola, Apple etc)
has raised $18 million - but companies have
spent $100 million to market it.
* Bono doesn't invest his own money in Red.
* Apple sells a Special Edition U2 iPod. Its
profits are not donated to Red.
* U2 made $389m from the recent Vertigo tour.
Its revenue was then funnelled through
companies mostly registered in Ireland and
structured to minimize taxes.
* U2 moved its music publishing company to
the Netherlands from Ireland in June 2006, six
months before Ireland ended a tax exemption
on musicians' royalty income.
* Richard Murphy, adviser to lobbying group the
Tax Justice Network, says "This is somebody
who's exceptionally rich taking the opportunity
to shift his tax burden to somebody else, but
then asking governments around the world to
spend that tax take in the way that he would like."
More on this:
http://tinyurl.com/2ssocz
http://adage.com/article?article_id=115287
______________________________________________________________
"All learning, all teaching is for destructive purposes. You learn about the laws of nature to control and dominate your neighbor. It's a game of one-upmanship. I'm not saying anything against it. I'm just saying that's the way it is. All learning, all teachings are 'war games'. Winning all the time is all that you are interested in. Charity is the filthiest invention of the human mind: first you steal what belongs to everyone; then you use the policeman and the atom bomb to protect it. You give charity to prevent the have-nots from rebelling against you. It also makes you feel less guilty. All do-gooders feel 'high' when they do good." u.g.krishnamurti
Vanity Fair have invited "pop-humanitarian"
Bono to be guest editor of the July issue, to
try and "rebrand Africa". Some magazines
have been sharing some other facts about Bono:
* In the year since it was founded, his Red
campaign (licensed to Gap, Motorola, Apple etc)
has raised $18 million - but companies have
spent $100 million to market it.
* Bono doesn't invest his own money in Red.
* Apple sells a Special Edition U2 iPod. Its
profits are not donated to Red.
* U2 made $389m from the recent Vertigo tour.
Its revenue was then funnelled through
companies mostly registered in Ireland and
structured to minimize taxes.
* U2 moved its music publishing company to
the Netherlands from Ireland in June 2006, six
months before Ireland ended a tax exemption
on musicians' royalty income.
* Richard Murphy, adviser to lobbying group the
Tax Justice Network, says "This is somebody
who's exceptionally rich taking the opportunity
to shift his tax burden to somebody else, but
then asking governments around the world to
spend that tax take in the way that he would like."
http://tinyurl.com/2ssocz
http://adage.com/article?article_id=115287
______________________________________________________________
"All learning, all teaching is for destructive purposes. You learn about the laws of nature to control and dominate your neighbor. It's a game of one-upmanship. I'm not saying anything against it. I'm just saying that's the way it is. All learning, all teachings are 'war games'. Winning all the time is all that you are interested in. Charity is the filthiest invention of the human mind: first you steal what belongs to everyone; then you use the policeman and the atom bomb to protect it. You give charity to prevent the have-nots from rebelling against you. It also makes you feel less guilty. All do-gooders feel 'high' when they do good." u.g.krishnamurti
10.3.07
6.3.07
terminal phase of human existence?
"The United States has announced that it has selected the design for a new generation of nuclear warheads.The bombs will be built for the country's sea-based nuclear arsenal and will replace ageing Cold War-era stock, US officials said.
The decision comes as the administration of George Bush, the US president, is seeking to curb attempts by Iran and North Korea to develop their nuclear programmes."
bigmac going out of fashion
In January, the BBC World Service revealed polling results that suggested most people think the US has a mainly negative influence in the world - and that the numbers had increased significantly in the last couple of years.
This latest GlobeScan survey, mostly of the same people, confirms those findings.
But it also suggests that two countries are viewed even more negatively - first Israel, and then Iran.
North Korea is just behind the US.
Israel, of course, has long provoked sharp international reactions, and last year was involved in a controversial war in Lebanon.
26.2.07
still not loving police
some moron: Klar, in a 2001 interview, said he didn't understand how concepts like "remorse" or "guilt" applied to him, given the thousands of victims capitalism was still claiming. word
everybodys still whining on about the nazis the raf saw off.. add some tenuous muslim terrorist bla bla.. does anyone still believe in this nonsense? power = capacity for terror, look no further
"Von hier aus rollt weiter dieses imperiale Bündnis, das sich ermächtigt, jedes Land der Erde, das sich seiner Zurichtung für die aktuelle Neuverteilung der Profite widersetzt,aus dem Himmel herab zu züchtigen und seine ganze gesellschaftliche Daseinsform in einen Trümmerhaufen zu verwandeln. [...]
Es muß immer wieder betont werden: Schließlich ist die Welt geschichtlich reif dafür, daß die zukünftigen Neugeborenen in ein Leben treten können, das die volle Förderung aller ihrer menschlichen Potentiale bereithalten kann und das die Gespenster der Entfremdung von des Menschen gesellschaftlicher Bestimmung vertreiben wird."
admire the tasty young birgit m on times online of all places
everybodys still whining on about the nazis the raf saw off.. add some tenuous muslim terrorist bla bla.. does anyone still believe in this nonsense? power = capacity for terror, look no further
"Von hier aus rollt weiter dieses imperiale Bündnis, das sich ermächtigt, jedes Land der Erde, das sich seiner Zurichtung für die aktuelle Neuverteilung der Profite widersetzt,aus dem Himmel herab zu züchtigen und seine ganze gesellschaftliche Daseinsform in einen Trümmerhaufen zu verwandeln. [...]
Es muß immer wieder betont werden: Schließlich ist die Welt geschichtlich reif dafür, daß die zukünftigen Neugeborenen in ein Leben treten können, das die volle Förderung aller ihrer menschlichen Potentiale bereithalten kann und das die Gespenster der Entfremdung von des Menschen gesellschaftlicher Bestimmung vertreiben wird."
admire the tasty young birgit m on times online of all places
13.2.07
die revolution sagt: ich war, ich bin, ich werde sein
Who were se Baader-Meinhof gang?
Meinhof gang killer to be freed
more info on this killer:
Many condemned their tactics but understood their disgust with the new order, particularly one where former Nazis enjoyed prominent roles.
..Hanns Martin Schleyer, a former officer of the SS and NSDAP member who was then President of the German Employers' Association (and thus one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany)..
dead.. boo-hoo!
raf activities
"Green member Antje Vollmer stated that they "have been longer in prison than any Nazi criminal."
[...]
It should be noted that the statement is incorrect: Rudolf Hess served over 40 years in prison."
perhaps it should also be noted that the fascists had a lot more blood on their hands
many didnt go to prison at all, and never will
innit tony
11.2.07
Cameron 'smoked drugs at school'
Bourgeois degenerate, let the poor guy smoke some grass
-----
gung-ho bigmac anglo-yanks may turn out to be a threat
-----
gung-ho bigmac anglo-yanks may turn out to be a threat
8.2.07
6.2.07
Loose change goes a long way
Shock horror George there's a 9-11 conspiracy theory film!
George Monbiot and the Guardian have covered this debate in a way which is predictable, consistent with other commentators such as Medialens and less critical outlets, and probably right... however most of us were having this discussion six months ago.
Another theme that is constantly revisited by political commentators of the left and right, those blessed with a brain and those not, is of course, Islam and 'multiculturalism', subjects with which I seem to spend an inordinate ammount of my time.
Anyway a centre right think tank released this report a few days ago, detailing the radicalisation of British muslim ideas and generally critiquing the goverment's confused post-modern, liberal, 'multicultural' policies.
Today, prominent scholars on multiculturalism and racism in britain savaged the report in a letter to the Guardian...
I think i can diplomatically intervene here to inform you that the government's 'multicultural' policies do seem to be contradictory and creating segregated communities (to agree with the authour's of the report and Nick Cohen) but that the report does seem to be making some heavy assertations and wading into a debate where telephone interviews and quantitative research techniques on these tricky issues perhaps don't hold enough weight to add more than an annoyance to the debate...
George Monbiot and the Guardian have covered this debate in a way which is predictable, consistent with other commentators such as Medialens and less critical outlets, and probably right... however most of us were having this discussion six months ago.
Another theme that is constantly revisited by political commentators of the left and right, those blessed with a brain and those not, is of course, Islam and 'multiculturalism', subjects with which I seem to spend an inordinate ammount of my time.
Anyway a centre right think tank released this report a few days ago, detailing the radicalisation of British muslim ideas and generally critiquing the goverment's confused post-modern, liberal, 'multicultural' policies.
Today, prominent scholars on multiculturalism and racism in britain savaged the report in a letter to the Guardian...
I think i can diplomatically intervene here to inform you that the government's 'multicultural' policies do seem to be contradictory and creating segregated communities (to agree with the authour's of the report and Nick Cohen) but that the report does seem to be making some heavy assertations and wading into a debate where telephone interviews and quantitative research techniques on these tricky issues perhaps don't hold enough weight to add more than an annoyance to the debate...
2.2.07
one bag of mcscience with freedom fries
Scientists and economists have been offered $10 000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published on Friday.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
bullshit is cheap
dazzling profits
fuckem
1.2.07
26.1.07
23.1.07
democracy now
"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may ( if ye will ) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty."
20.1.07
behind bars
Rap legend Slick Rick spent his 41st birthday,January 14th, incarcerated in a Florida
immigration detention centre. Back in the
80s Rick was in the charts with Doug E Fresh
with The Show but now Rick's fighting deportation
to Britain, his birthplace, from where his
family emigrated in 1975.
Rick aka Richard Walters's career collapsed
in the 1990s when he shot his pregnant cousin
and her boyfriend in an argument where Walters
alleged they were trying to extort money. He
served five years and 12 days in jail then
saw his comeback album, featuring a who's
who of hip-hop inc Nas, Snoop Dogg, Outkast
and Wu-Tang Clan, bomb.
In June 2002, after performing on a Caribbean
cruise ship, Rick was arrested in Florida for
"deporting himself" and "illegally re-entering
the country". A new 9/11 inspired-law allowed
all felons with five years jail time not
born in USA to be deported. Walters spent 17
months in jail before being released then was
re-incarcerated last year, when the Department
of Homeland Security took up the case again.
Two months ago a US district court judge
ruled that he should not be deported but
Rick remains in the detention centre with
no official release date.
The US government must think terrorism
issues are now so minor that it wants to
spend so much time and energy on the security
threat posed by an aging black rapper.
also - believe it or don't
19.1.07
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