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
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