Obsolete

Labels: 7/7 inquiry, MI5, Mohammad Siddique Khan, Omar Khyam, Operation Crevice

Labels: Express-watch, Muslim bashing, Richard Desmond

Labels: Scum-watch, Sun-watch, urban myths

Labels: Baha Mousa, Iraqi prisoner abuse

ANGELA fights back a torrent of tears as she places two photographs of her precious daughter side by side.

The first, taken in 2005, is a cameo of childhood innocence — sparkling blue eyes looking out from a beautiful, beaming face.

The second, taken a year later, is a terrible testament to the horrific ordeal suffered by the youngster — referred to here as “J” to protect her identity.

Her smile has been replaced by a haunted grimace and dark circles sit under her eyes.

Angela says: “I wish the world could see these pictures so people could understand how this monster devastated our little girl’s life.

“People have said her experience was not dissimilar to that of Sarah Payne, Holly Wells or Jessica Chapman — but because J survived she seems to be forgotten.”

Angela, 35, is referring to J’s abduction by convicted paedophile Craig Sweeney.

He snatched the tot, then aged three, from her home on January 2 last year and drove her 12 miles to his bail hostel in Newport. He then sexually assaulted her before driving east down the M4 and attacking her again in a lay-by near Swindon then again in the town.

He eventually lost control of the car on the A4 nearly 90 miles from J’s home during a high-speed chase with police. She was thrown from the vehicle just before it overturned and plunged down an embankment.

Angela recalls the fateful winter evening which ended normal family life.

She says: “I’d known Sweeney since he was a lad. He used to do odd jobs for us and I hadn’t seen him for years, but this night he knocked on the door and said he was calling on old friends.

“We now know he had been in prison for child sex offences — but then I had no idea what sort of person he really was.

Angela and her partner James, 36, a self-employed businessman, dialled 999, giving police Sweeney’s name and car details.

A simple touch of a computer key should have flagged up his serious sex offender status.

But the couple later learned a detective misspelled “Sweeney”, rendering the checks useless.

Failings in the police investigation were admitted last week after a long battle by J’s parents.

A superintendent and an inspector from South Wales Police were formally reprimanded.

James says: “Critics say it would send paedophiles underground but probation services aren’t monitoring them properly at the moment anyway.

“Because Sweeney was loosely known to us we would undoubtedly have been made aware of his previous convictions for child abuse long before he got to J.

“If nothing else, Sarah’s Law would make offenders think twice about what they are about to do.”

If that evil piece of **** ever gets out of prison, I hope you raise a fund to pay for a mercinary/bounty hunter/anyone to kill him, But do it slowly so that he dies slowly and in the worst pain Imaginable, Sweeney is a danger who cant be corrected and there is no point keeping him in jail for ever, so the best option is to put him to death, But inflict pain doing it so that he has some Idea of the pain he has caused to his victims, An innocent child and her family.

Castration using 2 house bricks then a lobotomy before locking this ******* up for life is still too lenient.

NO TRIAL, NO LAWYERS, SEND THEM SOMEWHERE TO BE SHOT.

Microchip them and put mc readers on sale (10+ meters reach). That way every parent who wants to know will be able to find out where the danger is.

this man should be locked away in a cell all to himself and the government should let each one the little girls family members take it in turn to show him PAIN

Robberies are UP. Vandalism is UP. Drug offences are UP.

But if you believe police records, the crime rate is DOWN.

Reported offences have fallen over the last three months, with 4,000 fewer acts of violence.

The figures have been welcomed by ministers.

Interestingly, they usually prefer the British Crime Survey of householders which gives a softer impression of criminal activity.

But the latest poll shows levels of violence unchanged — while vandalism is up by 11 per cent.

The survey also reveals the chances of becoming a victim of crime have risen.

So who do you believe?

The answer is neither.

The British Crime Survey is flawed because it excludes murder, sex attacks and crimes against shops.

As for police records, thousands of punters no longer bother to report muggings or assaults.

They rarely result in a charge, still less a courtroom conviction.

So if your impression is that crime is rising, you are probably right.

Labels: Britsh Crime Survey, Craig Sweeney, crime figures, moral panics, paedophilia hysteria, Sarah's law, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

Labels: al-Jazeera memo trial, freedom of information, lives are at risk, Peter Clarke

That case taught us many things, not least about our ability to operate across borders, both within the UK and overseas. It showed us the difficulties that international terrorist conspiracies pose for our domestic judicial system. For the police, it also marked the beginning of our understanding of the impact that the emerging distrust of intelligence in early 2003 would have on our relationship with the media and therefore the public. This was the first time, in my experience, that the police service had been accused of exaggerating the threat posed by terrorists in order, it was alleged, to help the government justify its foreign policy.

"This was a hugely serious plot because what it had the potential to do was to cause real panic, fear, disruption and possibly even death," said Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch. "This was no more, no less than a plot to poison the public."

In terms of the broad development of the threat, it is frustrating that I cannot describe in more detail much of what we have discovered during the course of investigations, but suffice it to say that the alleged plot to bring down airliners last year was yet another step in what seems an inexorable trend towards more ambitious and more destructive attack planning.

Sometimes this inevitably means that there will not be enough evidence to prosecute, and then we face the criticism that we are being indiscriminate in our activities. The operation in Forest Gate in June 2006 is often held up as an example of this. If anyone seriously believes that we, and here I mean the police, would embark on an operation such as that lightly, or not genuinely believing it to be necessary, they are quite simply wrong. Sadly, I can't go into the full background of the case, but if anyone is interested I would refer them to the Independent Police Complaint's Commission Report. The Commission came to the clear conclusion, having seen the intelligence, that the operation was necessary and proportionate.

When asked by how much the period of detention should be increased, we suggested a maximum of 90 days, subject to judicial oversight. We were asking not for a police power, but for a power to be vested in the courts on application from the police or the Crown Prosecution Service.

As we all know, the ensuing debate, both in Parliament and elsewhere was a little lively. I know there have been concerns expressed about the role of the police service in that debate, and whether we overstepped the mark in terms of political neutrality - but I find this slightly puzzling. If we are asked for our professional opinion, and we express it, and the Government brings forward legislation, are we supposed to be silent the moment a draft Bill is published? We were accused of being politically partial, but I reject that.

I am not referring to the normal day to day discourse that occurs between journalists and their contacts. What I am talking about is the deliberate leaking of highly sensitive operational intelligence, often classified, and the unauthorised release of which can be a criminal offence. I make no allegations about the source of leaks or about individual cases. What is clear is that there are a number, a small number I am sure, of misguided individuals who betray confidences. Perhaps they look to curry favour with certain journalists, or to squeeze out some short term presentational advantage - I do not know what motivates them. The people who do this either do not know or do not care what damage they do. If they do know, then they are beneath contempt. If they do not know, then let me tell them. They compromise investigations. They reveal sources of life saving intelligence. In the worst cases they put lives at risk. I wonder if they simply do not care.

The recent investigation in Birmingham into an allegation that a British serviceman had been targeted by a terrorist network is but one example of this. On the morning of the arrests, almost before the detainees had arrived at the police stations to which they were being taken for questioning, it was clear that key details of the investigation and the evidence had been leaked. This damaged the interview strategy of the investigators, and undoubtedly raised community tensions. I have no idea where the leaks came from, but whoever was responsible should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Labels: Birmingham terror raids, John Reid, leaks, Peter Clarke, scaremongering, terror

Labels: local elections 2007

AL-QAEDA leaders in Iraq are planning the first “large-scale” terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets with the help of supporters in Iran, according to a leaked intelligence report.

Spy chiefs warn that one operative had said he was planning an attack on “a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki” in an attempt to “shake the Roman throne”, a reference to the West.

Another plot could be timed to coincide with Tony Blair stepping down as prime minister, an event described by Al-Qaeda planners as a “change in the head of the company”.

The report, produced earlier this month and seen by The Sunday Times, appears to provide evidence that Al-Qaeda is active in Iran and has ambitions far beyond the improvised attacks it has been waging against British and American soldiers in Iraq.

The intelligence report also makes it clear that senior Al-Qaeda figures in the region have been in recent contact with operatives in Britain.

It follows revelations last year that up to 150 Britons had travelled to Iraq to fight as part of Al-Qaeda’s “foreign legion”. A number are thought to have returned to the UK, after receiving terrorist training, to form sleeper cells.

“A member of this network is reportedly involved in an operation which he believes requires AQ Core authorisation. He claims the operation will be on ‘a par with Hiroshima and Naga-saki’ and will ‘shake the Roman throne’. We assess that this operation is most likely to be a large-scale, mass casualty attack against the West.”

The report says there is “no indication” this attack would specifically target Britain, “although we are aware that AQI . . . networks are active in the UK”.

Together the testimonies suggest that Shia and Sunni paramilitary forces, traditionally sworn enemies, have joined forces to try to capture Harry, a deeply disquieting development for British senior officers.

Labels: al-Qaida, Iran, Iraq, Prince Harry, Sunday Times, terror

It’s a fair bet that you have never heard of a guy called Dave Gaubatz. It’s also a fair bet that you think the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found absolutely nothing, nada, zilch; and that therefore there never were any WMD programmes in Saddam’s Iraq to justify the war ostensibly waged to protect the world from Saddam’s use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Between March and July 2003, he says, he was taken to four sites in southern Iraq— two within Nasariyah, one 20 miles south and one near Basra — which, he was told by numerous Iraqi sources, contained biological and chemical weapons, material for a nuclear programme and UN-proscribed missiles. He was, he says, in no doubt whatever that this was true.

This was in the first place because of the massive size of these sites and the extreme lengths to which the Iraqis had gone to conceal them. Three of them were bunkers buried 20-30 feet beneath the Euphrates. They had been constructed through building dams which were removed after the huge subterranean vaults had been excavated so that these were concealed beneath the river bed. The bunker walls were made of reinforced concrete five feet thick.

Mr Gaubatz verbally told the ISG of his findings, and asked them to come with heavy equipment to breach the concrete of the bunkers and uncover their sealed contents. But to his consternation, the ISG told him they didn’t have the manpower or equipment to do it and that it would be ‘unsafe’ to try.

‘The problem was that the ISG were concentrating their efforts in looking for WMD in northern Iraq and this was in the south’, says Mr Gaubatz. ‘They were just swept up by reports of WMD in so many different locations. But we told them if they didn’t excavate these sites, others would’.

That, he says, is precisely what happened. He subsequently learned from Iraqi, CIA and British intelligence that the WMD buried in the four sites were excavated by Iraqis and Syrians, with help from the Russians, and moved to Syria. The location in Syria of this material, he says, is also known to these intelligence agencies. The worst-case scenario has now come about. Saddam’s nuclear, biological and chemical material is in the hands of a rogue terrorist state — and one with close links to Iran.

Saddam’s nuclear research, scientists and equipment, he says, have all been relocated to Syria, where US satellite intelligence confirms that uranium centrifuges are now operating — in a country which is not supposed to have any nuclear programme. There is now a nuclear axis, he says, between Iran, Syria and North Korea — with Russia and China helping to build an Islamic bomb against the West. And of course, with assistance from American negligence.

‘Apparently Saddam had the last laugh and donated his secret stockpile to benefit Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. With a little technical advice from Beijing, Syria is now enriching the uranium, Iran is making the missiles, North Korea is testing the warheads, and the White House is hiding its head in the sand.’

On her blog today, Phillips expounds on her article by printing a lengthy Memorandum which claims that: (a) John Negroponte is persecuting various groups which are trying to bring the WMD conspiracy to light because (b) Negroponte is part of what they call the "Red Team" in the U.S. government, which is exceedingly loyal to China, which is crucial given that (c) the stolen-WMD-plot involved the subsequent transfer of "Saddam's WMD technology to Syria and Iran" and that all happened (d) "because the Chinese Army created an international consortium of rogue states to develop the Islamic Bomb" (and Negroponte, it implies, is concealing that by persecuting these groups because he is an agent of China).

You may be tempted to dismiss this as yet another dodgy claim from a warmongering lackey of the world Zionist neocon conspiracy giving credence to yet another crank pushing US propaganda. If so, perhaps you might pause before throwing this article at the cat. Mr Gaubatz is not some marginal figure. He’s pretty well as near to the horse’s mouth as you can get.

Labels: Iraq WMD, Melanie Philips, wingnuttery

Labels: Express-watch, immigration, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

The blood has been washed off, the funerals are beginning, classes recommence on Monday, so it's time to move on from the pictures of the bullet-ridden pretty girls and on to finding something to blame. With Columbine, instead of wondering where the parents had been and how the teenagers had been able to get their hands on their arsenal, they quickly found out that Marilyn Manson was most definitely the one who was really responsible, despite the boys' both disliking his music, as well as the first-person-shooter Doom, which the boys had at least played.


The Daily Mail then has started the ball rolling by noting the striking similarities between some of the poses struck by Cho and by two of the characters in the Korean film Oldboy, directed by Chan-wook Park. Notice that? It's a Korean film, and Cho was Korean. QED, right? QED! The whole article is a sensationalist, over-the-top joke:

He wouldn't have drawn much attention as he strolled across the campus.

Cho Seung-Hui was just another anonymous face that morning among the scores of people criss-crossing the sweeping lawns and wide, sunlit streets of Virginia Tech university.

It was approaching 9am and everyone was preparing for the start of the college week.

But the 23-year-old Korean was on a mission. He had just killed the teenage brunette with whom he is thought to have been infatuated, and blasted to death the college prefect who appears to have come to her aid.

Now he was about to play the leading role in a sickening finale to what would become America's most devastating gun massacre.

In his twisted mind he carried images of a violent Korean movie that appears to have scripted his thoughts.

As he turned the gun on himself, it is difficult to imagine that he didn't allow himself a rare smile.

For while police scrambled hopelessly to bring his killing spree to an end, he still held the power to control the finale from beyond the grave, which is precisely what he wanted.

Seldom have 28 poor-quality video clips and the monotone rantings of a deluded maniac been given so much air time.

Labels: blame game, Cho Seung-hui, Daily Mail-watch, moral panics, Virginia Tech massacre

One Sunday last month I went for my afternoon swim at my local David Lloyd's fitness club wearing the Islamic-style swimsuit I have been wearing for years. The swimsuit has recently been celebrated by media outlets from Newsweek to National Geographic as an innovative way for Muslim women to become more active. As an American-Muslim woman, I have always been determined to be active without compromising my faith. I have been swimming in capital cities across the world from Rio de Janeiro to Washington DC to Kuala Lumpur, and now London. Although I get curious stares, I have never had any awkward moments when I head out for a swim.

That is, until I came to Oxford.

As I was getting ready to head home from my Sunday swim, I heard a loud voice from a man stating that he needed to speak to the manager about dress code. I picked up on it, but didn't really give it too much thought, until I heard him yelling about "that woman over there" who was wearing the "burkini", the gist of what he was saying seemingly being that it was inappropriate. What the hell is that? The burkini? I could feel a rising indignation at the man's audacity in singling me out in this way. Who had died and declared him the pool police? There were several lifeguards on duty who had seen me swimming there over the previous six months, and none had objected to the swimsuit. It's been nearly a year since I moved to Oxford, and frankly, I had had enough of the anti-Muslim rhetoric in British political life. Now that I was in the middle of it, I refused to stand on the sidelines.

I walked up to the burly, middle-aged man who had been pointing at me a minute before and asked, "Are you guys talking about me?"

He turned towards me, and waved a dismissive hand: "This has nothing to do with you."

"Are you talking about me? Because if you are, this has everything to do with me."

He then confirmed he was indeed talking about me, but not talking to me. He was talking to the manager.

By this time I was irate, and the fact that he was using his dirty shoes as a pointer while he was yelling at me didn't help the situation. "But you have just singled me out in front of everyone, and in a voice loud enough for me to hear. How can this have nothing to do with me?"

At this point he referred to me as a "silly little girl", which I found amusing, considering that I am a 32-year-old, 5ft 10in, professional senior manager for an international NGO. This man was clearly a closed-minded bigot and a sexist to boot, and there wasn't much I could do to change that.

...

Now, I realise that my swimsuit stands out a bit. And I know it's quite unusual: the week before last I lost my swimsuit and I did feel a bit awkward answering the receptionist's question - one piece or two pieces? "Well, actually, it's a five-piece," I said. The woman across the desk stared back at me in disbelief. I described it as a long wetsuit with a very short mini-dress on top. (It turned up a few days later.)

I admit, it's different. Some people might think it's overkill. But it's my choice. I choose to wear the hijab in my daily life, and it has never stopped me from being active, and this Muslim swimsuit was the perfect solution. I was so excited when I saw it for sale online.

Yet that's not how the journalist at the local newspaper in Oxford, the Oxford Mail, decided to approach the issue. Her article was titled "Row over fully dressed woman in sauna". The main interview in the article was with Ian Caldwell, the man who verbally attacked me in the lobby. There was no attempt to find out the full story. A so-called "Muslim community leader" called Taj Hargey called it "political correctness gone crazy".

At no point had the journalist contacted me. She seemed to have decided to take a similar approach to the man in the swimming pool - talking about me, not to me. As did David Lloyd's, which had backed up his story without consulting me. At no point did they bother to inform me, a paying member, that such an article was being written. I contacted the Oxford Mail, offering them my side of the story. I never heard back.

Of course, that would have destroyed the theme of the article. Nobody in Oxford would be interested in new swimming suits with hi-tech material, but a crazy Muslim woman jumping into a pool fully clothed and potentially suffocating in the sauna was much more interesting. Since when have facts been important to journalists covering stories involving Muslims?

It turns out that rather than wearing a jilbab or a chador, Manal Omar was in fact wearing a specially designed "modest" swimsuit, looking much like this one:


It's also obvious why Caldwell didn't bother providing us with what Omar said to him when he questioned her wearing the outfit in the sauna: he was too busy humiliating her and treating her like a child to listen.

Labels: David Lloyd Leisure Centre, Manal Omar, Muslim bashing, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

Labels: Iraq, massacres, terror

It's good prose. The sentences flow well into one another, the paragraphs are coherent. The Unabomber even knows how to punctuate, and that's a very rare gift.

I didn't have to do this. I could have left. I could have fled. But no, I will no longer run. It's not for me. For my children, for my brothers and sisters that you fucked. I did it for them.

Labels: Cho Seung-hui, mental ill-health, school shootings, Virginia Tech massacre

I missed the original article in this case, and for once it seems to have been removed from the archive (unlike the fantasy Muslim yobs story, which is still freely available and uncorrected) but here's today's suitably buried correction and apology for another completely untrue report:

We have been asked to make clear that Councillor Pruw Boswell, Mayor of Totnes, Devon, did not order a ban on prayers at the town’s council meetings for fear of offending other religions, as we reported on January 11.

Prayers continue to take place at the start of each meeting, although in a different format, after a decision taken by the entire council.

The Sun regrets any confusion and apologises for the distress caused.

Labels: political correctness gone mad bullshit, Pruw Boswell, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

Would you trust this woman?

Lord Woolf said that there were two solutions to the prison overcrowding crisis: to build more prisons or to reduce the prison population.

But putting more resources into new prisons, he added, would not solve the problme (sic) long-term: it was expensive, and unconstructive.

“What we should be doing is to make greater progress to make more effective non-custodial sentences.”

Meanwhile prison places should be reserved only for “those who really deserve it and need it”.

He said overcrowding was a major barrier to rehabilitation, and the country could not afford to keep building new prisons.

“We have not got over the message just how expensive incarceration is. The cost of sentences should be set out in clear and realistic terms.”

He added: “The primary use of prisons must be for violent offences.”

Lord Woolf said prison places were so expensive that they needed to be reserved only for those who "really deserve and need it". He suggested that the Sentencing Guidelines Council should be told by the government how much money was available for prisons for the next five years and asked to draw up guidelines that keep the prison population within those resources.He said: "The judge should know how much the sentence he is imposing will cost the public, and if there is a suitable cheaper option then he should choose that. We have not got over the message just how expensive incarceration is. The cost of sentences should be set out in clear and realistic terms." Lord Woolf, who sat as a judge in the criminal courts for 25 years, acknowledged that the confidence of judges and magistrates in community punishments had deteriorated, partly because of an overstretched probation service. He accepted that violent crime had to be dealt with severely, and denied that he was as "out of touch" as some tabloid newspaper editors had claimed.

A cap should be placed on the prison population to reduce overcrowding, the former Lord Chief Justice said yesterday.

Lord Woolf, who retired last year, said jail should be reserved only for "those who really deserve it and need it".

He said overcrowding was a major barrier to rehabilitation, and the country could not afford to keep building new prisons.

UK prisons are at bursting point with a population over 80,000. The Sun has called for more jails to be built and for judges to hand down tougher sentences to criminals.

Home Secretary John Reid has failed to deliver on a promise to turn old Army camps into jails.

LORD Woolf has learned nothing since retiring as Britain’s top judge.

In office, he constantly pleaded for softer sentences and cushier jails.

Now, in his dotage, he wants criminals set loose and plans for new jails scrapped.

Labels: hypocrisy, Lord Woolf, prison overcrowding, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

Labels: bloggocks, Greg Dyke, Iain Dale, schadenfreude

Labels: al-Qaida, Hilary Benn, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, terror, war against bullshit

"Walking into a school hall and shooting people is clearly against the law"

"Can I first say how appalled everyone is by the terrible news from Virginia.

"Our deepest sympathy and our condolences of course go to that community and to all of those whose families are directly affected."

"People are pretty upset," Johnson said. "He's a monster; he can't be normal. I can't believe I said 'hi' to him in the hall and then he killed all those people."

"Today America is stunned and heartbroken at so many lost young lives. We share their grief."

"Cho Seung-Hui Was Inspired By Islam. His Suicide Note Signed Ismail-X

Just heard it on Fox News. Cho Seung-Hui left a suicide note and signed it as Ismael-AX (or Ismail-AX as the media published just now). Ismael is the Arabic for Ishmael the father of the Arabs, the son of Abraham and the one that Muhammad the founder of Islam favored above Isaac the father of the Jews. This terror seems to have indeed been motivated by Islam."

Labels: faux concern, quotes, Virginia Tech massacre, wading knee-deep through the internet sewer

It was Susan Sontag who said that being a dandy was a way of being an individual in an age of mass culture. The problem today is how to be an individual in an age of mass individualism, when the usual means of status - clothes, cars, consumer goods - are within the grasp of a majority of the population, at least in the west. The answer is: celebrity. You want celebrity culture to die? Kill capitalism first and then we'll talk.

Labels: celebrity culture, Cosmo Landesman, cunts, fisks

YET another paedophile slips through the net to land a job driving a school bus.

But the latest case — the third The Sun has exposed this year — is particularly shocking.

Labels: paedophilia hysteria, Rebekah Wade, Sarah's law, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

Labels: Baha Mousa, British army abuse, injustice

Labels: Boris Berzovsky, freedom of speech, Russia, terror, Vladimir Putin

Labels: cunts, someone fucking kill me

And what am I bid for this historic, traumatised headscarf?

WASN'T MCNABBS BOOK BRAVO2ZERO LAUGHED AT ,BECAUSE IT WAS MORE FICTION THAN FACT?

'But as Wellington said, to live in disgrace is the worst thing of all. To die glorious is something to be envied.'

Labels: Andy McNab, chequebook whores, Faye Turney, Mail-watch, Polly Toynbee, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, tabloid feuds

Today's Grauniad cartoon by Martin Rowson couldn't have got the clamour surrounding Des Browne more right. It seems utterly grotesque that he might have to resign over a decision which was essentially made by the navy, which I can't see the Tories or anyone else would have disagreed with had they been in power, while the bodies of soldiers who died because of the unforgivable stupidity of staying in Iraq are returned home. This is, and always has been the real scandal. We joined in an illegal war, justified by deception and lies which has killed possibly 655,000 Iraqis as a result, and for some reason the government is currently being damned by the same media that not only snaffled up the stories of the two sailors, but also believed and propagated the distorted and wrong intelligence in the first place.

Here then is a story which is unlikely to be featured in the Sun tomorrow. The Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi, who was released shortly before the sailors were, possibly as part of some sort of deal, has gone public with the wounds he suffered during his own captivity. Unlike our own brave servicemen and woman, who had to endure the indignity of not washing for days, having to sleep on dirty blankets and being called names, Sharafi instead allegedly had the soles of his feet beaten with cables, as well as having his ankles drilled, wounds which have partially healed as they were inflicted at the beginning of his captivity. His back was also slashed, and he claims that his nose was broken. An official from the Red Cross confirmed that his injuries had been inflicted during his detention.




The United States has denied that it had anything to do with the apparent mistreatment, despite Sharafi's claims that an official connected with the US embassy was present during some of his interrogations, hilariously welcoming his release and return to Iran. One thing's for certain though: he sure won't be getting £100,000 in return for telling everyone "the story from his side, to see what he went through."

Labels: chequebook whores, Des Browne, Iran captures sailors, Jalal Sharafi, torture

Labels: fucking liars, paedophilia hysteria, Sarah's law, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

More photoshopped stereotypes.

1. If a convicted paedophile was living next door to you, should you have the right to know?

2. If a convicted paedophile was living near your child's school, should you have a right to know?

5. Would you feel your family was safer if Sarah's Law was introduced in Britain now?

As it stands, the proposed new law is unlikely to prevent avoidable attacks on young victims.

When it comes to choosing between the human rights of a child and those of a sexual predator, there IS no choice.

Let us decide once and for all whose rights matter the most.

Labels: paedophilia hysteria, Sarah's law, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

It's hard to judge just who is the most nauseating in the continuing battle over the selling by some of the 15 hostages of their stories to the tabloids. The Grauniad leader gets it mostly right by saying that nobody comes out of it well. It was always to be expected that a few days' long civil war would break out between the newspapers that were successful in getting the "exclusives" and those that weren't; it happens every time a big story like this comes along - remember how Paul Burrell was attacked after selling his story to the Mirror? Even by the usual low standards of our press though this is an abysmal trough.

If the hostages had told us anything, absolutely anything slightly interesting or insightful about their brief imprisonment, then maybe the obscene payouts would have been at least somewhat justified. As it happens, they've told us even less than was revealed at the staged MoD press conference last Friday. The closest Turney has come to telling us something new was that she supposedly had a more charged conversation with Ahmadinejad than that which appeared on the news. The treatment which they received, while not pleasant, was certainly not anything which they shouldn't have perhaps expected if they were to have been captured. The staged photographs on the front page of the Sun this morning, mother and daughter kissing, happy to be reunited, meant to make you feel pleased at the outcome of this whole sorry affair, instead leave a sour taste in the mouth. Some of the details just make you wince - that Turney will be keeping a doll given to her in the "goody bags" they received from the Iranians, but only after it was checked for explosives, as you can never be too sure about those extremist suicide bombing plastic Islamic warriors.

The Sun has then set about attempting to defend itself. Turney makes clear that the money is not going to be spent on her - it's instead going into a trust fund for her daughter, with some going to the HMS Cornwall benevolent fund, although she predictably doesn't reveal how much. It also launches an attack on two ex-army figures who went public with their concerns whom apparently received fees themselves for doing so, enlisting Andy McNab, who obviously won't be getting any money for his own appearance to denounce them. That the fees given to them will have been next to negligible, while Turney will be receiving a quoted £100,000 through her deal with the Sun and Tonight with Trevor McDonald, doesn't affect the Sun's righteous outrage.

All this said, it's hard to not feel somewhat sorry for Turney when you read the disgusting bilious reaction of everyone's favourite blowhard, Richard Littlejohn. Almost half the front page of the Daily Hate is given over to advertising his attack on Turney and the others, liberally sprinkling in insults about Blair and Labour in general, as if the Tories would have handled things differently if they'd been in power. I mean, does Turney really deserve this revolting passage from Littlejohn?

How long before the ludicrous Faye Turney pops up on Celebrity Fat Club? I bet they didn't let her get in the dinghy first. This is a woman who is capable of capsizing the Ark Royal if she shifts her weight to the wrong cheek.

Take that, you dumb overweight bitch! In fact, the whole of Littlejohn's piece sets out to belittle the whole incident. He doesn't criticise them for the contents of their interviews, except to make fun of Batchelor for being a "wimp", as if Littlejohn himself would dare to go out to Iraq in the first place, but for the whole selling of the story and their conduct while in captivity. If Turney had sold her story to the Daily Mail, then the boot would be on the other foot. As it is, Littlejohn is more than happy to oblige in attacking Turney for making the wrong choice. That the Mail was at the forefront of the why-oh-whying about Turney even being out in the disputed waters in the first place doesn't seem to have made them reflect on why she rejected them.

Littlejohn does have a point about emotion and drama being used and abused more than ever. This isn't the fault of the sailors, but the sensationalist media which Littlejohn himself works for which has created that very culture. He often makes mocking references to the cult which surrounded the death of Princess Diana, but the Mail was one of the chief culprits in elevating her from a flawed, ordinary woman who married a member of the royal family into a modern day saint purely because of her untimely death.

As a result, every news story has to be ever more hard-hitting, every death is always an avoidable tragedy, every mourning mother needs to have her anguish documented, otherwise no one will care. Turney's time in an Iranian jail is therefore an ordeal, her 13 days mental agony, or even torture. Words, as we know, are weapons. Simon Jenkins wonders, quite legitimately, how all this hate being directed towards Tehran is going to affect the chances of the only solution to their alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, a diplomatic one.

Does Turney then deserve a medal, as the Sun's discussion board rather optimistically asks? Does she deserve to be called a fat ass by a man known disparagingly for the alleged shortness of his own appendage? It's hard not to reflect that this whole outbreak of mass idiocy wouldn't have occurred if we hadn't already dealt with the equal stupidity of staying in southern Iraq for no particular reason. Until then, I think I'm going to go sit in the corner with a sick bag over my head, just in case.

Labels: chequebook whores, Daily Mail-watch, Faye Turney, Iran captures sailors, Richard Littlejohn, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, tabloid feuds

• Stripped to knickers (Wade decided not to ask her to relive this experience for page 3)
• Might have been measured mockingly for coffin
• Says fuck (or rather f***) a lot
• Didn't mean what she was forced to write
• Read Andy McNab as a teenager
• Err...
• That's it.
• Do I get £100,000 now?
  

• Iranians called him Mr Bean
• Flicked the back of his neck
  
• Appears to fancy Faye
• Err.... etc
  

Labels: Arthur Batchelor, chequebook whores, Faye Turney, Iran captures sailors

Political blogging has come of age. At least, that was the idea behind the BBC's Newsnight screening of a report by a high-profile blogger who writes under the pseudonym Guido Fawkes. His film argued that blogs provided more acute and independent political analysis than traditional journalism, owing to the absence of an editor, proprietor or regulator. Theatrically insisting on being filmed in darkness to maintain his supposed anonymity, "Fawkes" debated his thesis with Michael White of this newspaper.

It was a catastrophic performance, mainly because the blogger required continual correction on points of fact. He thereby illustrated blogging's central characteristic danger. It is a democratic medium, allowing anyone to participate in political debate without an intermediary, at little or no cost. But it is a direct and not deliberative form of democracy. You need no competence to join in.

Labels: bloggocks, Oliver Kamm

Sensory deprivation, as practiced on US terrorism suspect Jose Padilla.

Labels: Baha Mousa, Guantanamo, Iran captures sailors, moral high ground, torture

It's a well-known fact that no one takes much notice of newspapers on bank holidays. News itself tends to be in short supply, and as we all know, no news is a perfect opportunity to make it up. "Good" Friday has turned out to be no exception.

The Scum then takes the "revelation" that the 7/7 bombers had been on a "reconnaissance" mission, supposedly staking out targets, to mean that they were, err, going to "bomb the Queen". This doesn't make sense in the slightest - the whole point of suicide attacks is to cause as many casualties as possible, not something that's going to be achieved by a single bomber blowing himself up outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. A truck or car bomb would have been different, but they clearly hadn't planned or had the resources for such an attack, although a viable device was left in the car abandoned by the bombers in the Luton train station car park, presumably as a booby trap as the police don't believe another bombing was planned. The only point of an attack by a single bomber would be to show that nowhere would be safe, and while there is a seemingly endless supply of "martyrs" willing to kill themselves in Iraq, that is certainly not the case here. The article then goes on to say that the blasts were planned 7 months in advance, which somewhat seems to contradict the idea that they hadn't decided where to bomb only nine days before the actual attacks.

The Telegraph seems to have fallen for the exact same story, except they claim that the bombers changed their plans at "the last minute". One has to wonder if the men were going through the motions, examining the possibility of bombing such landmarks but deciding not to pursue it when attacking the public transport network would both be far easier, create more casualties and strike just as much fear into the public as symbolic attacks would.

The other question has to be why it's taken close to two years for the three men now alleged to have been involved with the plot to be charged. We're told that the footage of the men on their "reconnaissance" mission was discovered shortly after the attacks in the initial investigation. Even considering the supposed lack of help forthcoming from the community in Beeston, for it to take 21 months for the men to be either formally identified or sufficiently proved to be involved for the CPS to prosecute seems extraordinary. It has to be assumed that they were not deemed to be prepared to take part in suicide attacks themselves, because otherwise the public seems to have been left at considerable risk.

The other coincidence with the timing of the arrests and the charges is that of the end of the trial of those arrested under Operation Crevice; the jury still seems to be out, considering the charges against the men. We know that once the jury has a reached a verdict there are meant to be forthcoming revelations involving the 7/7 attacks, things which currently can't be reported due to subjudice. Rachel suggests that the charges won't affect these from coming out, but that words will have to be considered carefully. Again, this seems to blow any chance of an inquiry into the bombings even further into the long-grass.

Elsewhere, the right-wing press takes its cue from Blair to blame Iran for the deaths of the four soldiers killed by a roadside bomb, regardless of any evidence whatsoever to prove it.

The Scum takes it even further, directly blaming

But this smirking creep is no reality game show host. He is a murderous tyrant who tortures and kills his own people.

While he basked in a major public relations coup, terrorists acting with his blessing were blowing up four Brits in Basra — two of them women.

Seeing as it's not even certain who was responsible for the IED, the only evidence being circumstantial in that it took place in an area where the Mahdi army are well-supported, and as Juan Cole points out, Iran and the Mahdi army aren't the greatest of friends (the Badr brigades, the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are the ones directly supported by Iran), this is an allegation too far.

The Mail and the Express are instead insulted by the Iraqis who dared to visit the place where our heroes were blown up, smiling as they hold up the detritus left behind. Why aren't these people grateful? We've given them freedom down the barrel of a gun, bombed their country for 16 years, killed thousands of men and women, enforced sanctions responsible for the deaths of 500,000 children, and still they rejoice when the British die! It's almost as if they don't want us there.

Labels: 7/7 inquiry, Express-watch, Iraq disaster, Mail-watch, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, Telegraph-watch

Labels: Iran, Iran captures sailors

Prince Harry is "dangerously becoming an embarrassment to this country", a veteran royal photographer has said.

Arthur Edwards, who works for the Sun newspaper, called Harry "a fabulous young man", but said he should be "behaving a lot better".

Labels: hypocrisy, Prince Harry, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

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Labels: 300, film review

Labels: 1984, CCTV, civil liberties, John Reid

Labels: Iran captures sailors, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

Labels: cannabis, Daily Mail-watch, Ezekiel Maxwell, Grand Theft Auto, knife crime, mental ill-health, moral panics, Telegraph-watch

Labels: Holocaust denial, teaching, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History

Labels: chatrooms, death, Kevin Whitrick, suicide, voyeurism