Al-Qa'eda threats over Rushdie Honour

Ayman al-Zawahiri, reputed to be Osama Bin Laden's, second in command, is threatening that al-Qa'eda intends to ‘punish’ the UK for Salman Rushdie's Knighthood.

For all practical intents and purposes Al-Zawahiri, is the leader of al-Qa'eda, given that Osama bin Laden is probably out of the picture now, having not been heard of for several years.

He issued the threat of "a very precise response" directly to Gordon Brown via a video, with the fruit loop title of "Malicious Britain and it's Indian Slaves" (obviously an aficionado of 50’s ‘B’ movie titles), posted on jihadi websites, claiming it insulted Islam to reward the author of The Satanic Verses.

He went on to helpfully explain "I say to Blair's successor that the policy of your predecessor drew catastrophes in Afghanistan and Iraq and even in the centre of London,". He ranted on. "And if you did not understand, listen, we are ready to repeat it for you, God willing, until we are sure you have fully understood."

Hopefully like the rest of humanity ‘im up there’ is a little fed up with al-Zawahiri and his ilk and not willing at all.

Given the performance of al-Qa'eda's recent mass murder attempts in London and Glasgow, supposedly also inspired by the Knighthood according to jihadi websites, one might even interpret the results as a negative vote from on high. The Petrol bomber was almost literally hoist by his own petard when the Molotov cocktail he threw bounced back and immolated - only him. Now that's what you'd call precisely targeted. Consumed by his own evil so to speak.

Security experts indicate the Glasgow and London attempted atrocities could not actually have been inspired by the Knighthood, as it takes months to put something like that together - possibly involving a year in Pakistan training for the perpetrators. That of course doesn’t stop al-Qa'eda attempting to use the Honour to thinly justify attacks they may have had in the pipeline though.

The Government should not let the ‘reasonableness challenged’, no matter where they are found, how long their beards, or how interesting their head gear, influence decisions on who gets what award.

Maybe factors like merit and talent ought to come into it - but not the International Association of Ranters and Carpet Chewers.

Having made the decision the Government must stick with it. If they don’t they might as well check with Al-Qa'eda on everything down to if it’s even ok to use soft toilet paper in the Palace of Westminster’s WCs - and we all know that’s probably already mandated by some EC regulation that never saw democratic light of day ;-)

Gordon Brown should have this video cut to a large format VHS cassette and returned to Mr al-Zawahiri, together with detailed instructions as to exactly what to do with it...

Hazel Blears: Green Belt no longer assured

Hazel Blears, the UK Communities Secretary, she refused to rule out redrawing green belt boundaries. And warned environmentalists to prepare for a showdown over house building in the green belt. Green Belts are land surrounding UK cities zoned to protect the countryside and contain urban sprawl.

Addressing the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, Ms Blears said the Government would move fast to ease the housing shortage freeing up greater swathes of land for development.

She said: "I think we are going to have a tussle, if you like, because some people are concerned about environmental issues," and added "But I think the priority has to be to build these homes."

When pressed if this mean drastically downsizing green belt land she said she was in no position to offer "categoric assurances". this is in contrast to pronouncements of the previous incumbent in the post, Ruth Kelly.

These comments should be taken in context with Gordon Brown signalling that housing would be a key part of his coming strategy.

Neil Sinden, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, warned that a move away from protecting the green belts would set Gordon Brown's new cabinet "on a collision course with local communities and environmental campaigners across the country."

"Green belt policy has been vital in securing sustainable urban communities, and attractive and accessible countryside close to where most of us live.

"The green belt is hugely valued by the public, 84 per cent of whom believe that it should remain open and undeveloped. The Communities Secretary's belittling of these views shows a disturbing disregard for public opinion."

“Disturbing disregard for public opinion”? Nothing new there then - but at lest he noticed commented. Clearly Broon does what Broon (and Nu-Lab) wants - and tradition, promises or public opinion appear to mean very little to him.

As things are many people seem to have no idea where bacon comes from, remove people's ready access to the countryside and it can only help increase their ignorance about such things - and reduce their quality of life.

Poisoned Olympic Chalice

Why would the UK be insane enough to bid for the 2012 Olympics? Oh yes! The greater Glory of Cool-Britannia, Nu-Lab and Red Ken.

It seems costs have now risen from £2.4 billion to £9.3 billion, MPs have warned. One suspects it will be astronomically unlikely they will remain anywhere near as low as even £9.3.

The Olympics are heavily politicised, plagued with athletic doping, they present a massive security problem and at the end will we end up with anything in the way of a ‘legacy’ (don’t you just hate that word now) actually worth having?

We would probably be much better off cancelling them, or if Nu_Lab can’t bear the thought of that, get some credit for bogus ‘European togetherness’ by offering at least half of them to France, as a joint enterprise.

With the Channel Tunnel Rail Link a special ‘Olympic Service’ could be run, the publicity might even do them some good. At least sharing the Games would be sharing the headache - That way we might stand some chance of keeping our share of it to something under £10 billion…

Why were bombers free to practice murder?

Yesterday four of the failed London Tube Islamist suicide bombers were found guilty. The jury is still out on two other ‘alleged’ plotters Manfo Asiedu, the 5th bomber, and Adel Yahya.

We have only their incompetence, by the Grace of God, to thank for the fact that they did not actually slaughter hundreds. But they meant it and we were apparently saved by the fact that Muktar Ibrahim could not even manage to attain the debased levels of competence required to pass the modern Maths GCSE. Still he will now have the necessary time in prison to rectify that.

What is of concern is the fact that these men came to the UK begging asylum, claiming their own countries were ‘too dangerous’ for them. The UK of course welcomed them, ensuring they had the opportunity to make the UK too dangerous for everyone else

After claiming asylum the mathematically challenged and terrorist trained Muktar Ibrahim had apparently been arrested for breach of the peace while handing out extremist literature in Oxford Street, London and subsequently skipped bail. Why was he bailed? Why on earth was he not in jail (Oh yes - no room) awaiting trial and deportation (No, not deportation - judges always assume everywhere is too dangerous to send asylum seekers back to, even the Isle of Wight) ?

It seems literally insane that, despite this, he was actually granted British Citizenship. One must conclude the authorities in charge of granting citizenship, or the rules they slavishly follow, are even more useless than Ibrahim.

Do they ever bother to check with the Police to see if they may be wanted for instance?.

Why should anyone with any criminal offences ever be granted citizenship, except under rare and extreme circumstances?

Why such a lackadaisical attitude to asylum seekers? Why, for instance, ever grant asylum for someone who has been waiting in a camp in France to get over here? Is France too dangerous for them too?

Why such pathetically useless tracking?

Tory policy group wants to slap yet more tax on alcohol

One could be forgiven for wondering, what on earth the party ‘formerly known as the Conservatives’ that Dave the Chameleon leads should be called these days? ‘Symbol’ might do – something involving a white sickle and a hammer maybe - blue background of course. That tree thing looks like something a loan company would come up with…

The much heralded report by the ‘Social Justice Policy Group’, chaired by Iain Duncan Smith, former party leader, is recommending extra duty on drinks. An overall rise of 10% (3p on a pint of beer, 15 p on a bottle of wine and 25p on a bottle of whisky)

Their plan is to use it to double the amount spent on the treatment of drug and alcohol problems. Sounds sort of ok-ish on the face of it…

No doubt IDS has been listening to the Sturmtruppen of the BMA and their tales of out of control bloodshot eyed, wild haired, binge drinkers rampaging across the country, knuckles dragging with a broken bottle in one hand.

Exactly how are they defining an alcohol problem these days?

According to the Institute of Alcohol studies in 2003, the definition of binge drinking used as a benchmark in official national surveys is: Consuming double the daily guidelines in a session.

That would be 6 units (about 2/3 of a bottle of wine) for women, or 8 units (about 4 pints) for men.

So Guys, officially if you have ever had 4 pints over the course of one evening, or drunk the equivalent of a whole bottle of wine in a sitting that would make you a binge drinker by that definition. Ladies – ever had 2/3 of a bottle of wine with a meal out? You too then, binge drinker. So that would be mostly all of us, at one time, or another, then…

Doctors may well see detrimental results of drinking. These are self selected especially for them, along with the questionably ‘disabled’ and those who are apparently suffering from ‘stress’ and need to retire early on medical grounds. Even the genuinely disabled and stressed are obliged to jump through the pathetic hoop to some extent.

This is not representative of the population as a whole, anecdotal evidence suggests many people actively avoid the Dr if at all possible. Face it you need to have plenty of spare time between 9 and 5, weekdays only, to even get to see a Dr these days.

When a significant proportion of everyone they meet fall into the pathetic ‘can’t manage their own lives’ camp it is hardly surprising that Drs begin to believe it applies to the whole population, ditto the Social Services - But no excuse for health fascism.

Dave the Chameleon will reject this idea, if he has any shred of self preservation, to avoid further completely unnecessary internal rows. Still the mere fact that this group is promoting Nu-Lab’s technique of using increased taxation to attempt social engineering is a damning indictment on his party.

Why does every politician reflexively reach to increase taxation?
Many of us enjoy a drink and have no problem with alcohol, apart from the fact that it is taxed so very much more heavily in the UK than anywhere else in Europe.

Why should the sensible majority be expected to subsidise the relative few who have no self control, and/or a violent nature and use the fact that they have been drinking alcohol as an excuse?

If someone has a sufficiently bad problem surely they are likely to come to that attention of the police. Given some appearances before the beak for drunk and disorderly, ABH or GBH surely it would be more effective if a court fined them and used that to send them for treatment.

If someone sought some sort of treatment for themselves why not supply an interest free loan and arrange the treatment for them.

New UK PM renagues on election manifesto promise

Following a meeting on Monday the 9th with Jose Socrates, the Portuguese Prime Minister, whose country holds the EU presidency, Gordon Brown, the new UK premier ruled out calling a referendum on the new EU Constitutional treaty.

He said that providing the deal struck by Mr Blair was honoured in the final text of the treaty, there was no need for a referendum.

Clearly Gordon Brown only feels bound to honour those of Tony Blair’s pledges that suit him and not the promise to grant a referendum on any EU Constitution before the last general election - there is certainly no sign of ‘Open Honest’ Gordon honouring that particular pledge.

The Portuguese Premier, who wants a final treaty text to be ready for an informal EU summit in Brussels in October, confidently predicted:

"We will have no problems with Great Britain in this treaty,"

Do the political elite not realise just how obvious their utter contempt for the democratic process is? Surely they must do and it just makes no difference to them.

Will they actually be surprised if the UK's disenchanted disenfranchised electorate don't willingly buy in to this so-called treaty? More like a shotgun wedding…

Lawyer says: Stealth Bomber morally equivalent to Suicide Bomber

According to Aamer Anwar, a leading human UK rights lawyer, "A Stealth bomber in Iraq is the moral equivalent of a suicide bomber in Scotland".

He said this during a BBC Scotland program "Scotland After the Bomb".

His remark provoked sharp intakes of breath from the less logically challenged members of the audience, as well as applause from the performing seals, or ‘useful idiots’, as the soviets once called them?

He disingenuously claimed: "We should not differentiate between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. The effects are exactly the same. They kill innocent people."

Why should we not? As anyone with a modicum of common sense can tell there is in fact a staggeringly enormous difference between them.

A stealth bomber is a war machine, designed to be difficult spot on radar, or to shoot down - and to be able to bomb designated military targets in a war situation.

In the case of a stealth bomber, if civilians get killed, or injured, it is because they are being used as shields, or are part of the enemy support structure, or by accident. If the insurgents were actually concerned, for even a moment, for the well being of these civilians they could easily ensure they were not caught up in the combat - rather than, as appears more likely, deliberately ensuring they are caught up to benefit from the propaganda.

The Terrorist Suicide bomber (in this case also someone who swore an oath to do no harm) insinuates themselves into a society (the UK in this case), plots and deliberately commits murderous atrocities specifically designed to kill and maim non combatant members of that society - men, women and children indiscriminately and in large numbers. Moreover their targets have no military connection. All apparently to further the prospect of a world caliphate in some way.

The latter are effectively worse than spies and saboteurs who if they had plied their trade during WWII would have been executed.

The former are military equipment, marked accordingly, being flown by uniformed military personnel, on orders. Their targets are enemy military combatants.

If Aamer Anwar claims he can’t tell the moral difference between the two it says all you need to know about him.

He also asked: “Why is the Government so desperate to deny a link between Iraq and Afghanistan and what happened in London and Glasgow?”

Whilst not particularly wishing to offer succour to the Government, were they desperate?

As Mr Anwar no doubt well knew this comment is also disingenuous. The idea of such a link was thoroughly debunked by Hassan Butt, who should know if anyone should, having renounced extremist Islamism:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.”

“By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.”

So there you have it, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

Do ‘leading civil rights lawyers’ read the Guardian? Possibly not…

DNA evidence indicates Global cooling killed Greenland’s forests

Global cooling strikes again! Parts of Greenland were lushly forested with spruce and pine, moths and butterflies flitted in those forests of 450,000 years ago, according to an article in science Magazine.

The boreal forests coved southern Greenland during an interglacial period of increased global temperatures, when it was warmer that it is today.

Temperatures in Greenland at the time were probably between 10C in summer and -17C in winter. When the global temperatures dropped again around 450,000 years ago, the forests and their inhabitants were covered and preserved by the advancing ice.

One of the authors Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark said "We have shown for the first time that southern Greenland, which is currently hidden under more than 2km of ice, was once very different to the Greenland we see today,"

Co-orther, Professor Martin Sharp of the University of Alberta, Canada, said: "What we've learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought,"

The research also suggests the ice sheet is less subject to warming than previously thought.

Even during the last interglacial (116,000-130,000 years ago), when temperatures were thought to be on average 5C warmer than today, the ice did not melt, preserving trapped DNA.

At the time the ice is estimated to have been between 1,000 and 1,500m thick.

Professor Willerslev noted: "If our data is correct, then this means that the southern Greenland ice cap is more stable than previously thought," "This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming."

Current data suggests that while some regions of Greenland ice are getting thinner, others are simultaneously getting thicker.

Also two of Greenland's largest glaciers, which were thought to be shrinking, have recently stabilized, possibly even increasing in mass. Previous estimate of rapid melting were based on only a few observations over a short period. Additional more thorough found the melting period actually appeared to be an anomaly.

Previous research by Australian scientists had led them to believe that a rise of only 3C would be sufficient cause the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

Stoneridge case could damage US trade

The US isn’t big on welfare, but then who needs welfare (state sanctioned theft) when you have dubious class-action compensation (court sanctioned theft)?

The Supreme Court is now considering whether third-party suppliers, legal firms, accountants, or banks that have dealt with the offending companies could be sucked in through that connection and end up facing claims, with the offenders, from defrauded investors and shareholders.

Scientific-Atlanta is being sued for supplying cable TV boxes to Stoneridge, a company that is alleged to have filed false financial statements.

Stoneridge's shareholders were unwise, or unlucky, in that they invested in Stoneridge and then failed, or were unable, to keep a sufficient eye on what was going on.

Now either the securities fraud was sufficiently obvious for the shareholders to be irresponsible not to have seen it, or sufficiently well hidden to be more likely to fool a third party supplier to a company, than it’s own shareholders. In either case it is dubious practice to try to extract ‘compensation’ from third party suppliers in these circumstances.

It's wrong if Shareholders have been ripped off. But it is also wrong if they should seek to make up that loss from some innocent third party.

This lot though? They need ‘compensation’ so they sued, not only their company bosses and accountants - They also went after the unfortunate suppliers of the cable boxes, claiming that they effectively took part.

If the Supreme Court rules in favour of the plaintiffs in the case, it will be an invitation to "abusive litigation" and given that possible payouts are up there with national lottery wins companies have to settle out of court, adding a massive financial burden to business costs.

John Engler, President of the National Association of Manufacturers, pointed out that a victory for the plaintiffs would give "unscrupulous lawyers a hunting licence to stalk any company that did any business with any publicly traded firm".

A recent study showed the excessive risk of litigation was already the main reason foreign companies declined to join the New York stock exchange.

Peter Wallison, of the American Enterprise Institute, said: "For the New York Stock Exchange, this is like going bullfighting with your cape behind your back. It will drive up the cost of doing business here.". He explained, if suppliers and advisers can be dragged into class actions, it would then no longer even be necessary to issue shares in the US to incur securities liability.

Any firm, anywhere, doing business with American companies would be taking the risk that the transaction could later be portrayed as fraudulent, or deceptive.

If this case goes the way the plaintiffs want you could end up with a UK company being sued by shareholders of a US company simply because they may have supplied a chip to the US company. An enormous disincentive for the rest of the world to avoid dealing with US firms.