Tuesday, May 14. 2013
Prince Charles' Royal Dosh For Bahraini Royal Gloss
This story should come, sadly, as no surprise. In a nutshell: our very own Prince Charles of our unelected regime is helping out another (highly repressive) unelected regime with a spot of 'good publicity' for some cash (£700,000) for one of his hobby groups of chums. So when Charles is not talking to plants, baking biscuits or helping his dear old open parliament, he's now filling his time with activities usually left to other sniveling toadies like Prince Andrew or Mark Thatcher.
'Prince Charles has been accused of “giving legitimacy to one of the world’s most repressive regimes” after sealing a deal on behalf of his architecture group who will advise the Bahraini government on housing and planning.
'According to the Bahrain News Agency, the £700,000 deal was signed by Hank Dittmar, CEO of the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community, and Bahrain’s housing minister Basim Alhamer earlier this month. It followed a meeting between Mr Alhamer and Prince Charles at Clarence House on April 26.
'The agreement will see advisers from the group “supervise and review” plans for a new 4,000-unit housing project in the south of the kingdom, which will take inspiration from Poundbury, the model village in Dorset created by Prince Charles 20 years ago. A team from the Foundation will visit Bahrain later this month to begin work.' (Republic article).
Saturday, May 11. 2013
GSK Launches African PR Campaign
Big bad pharma megalith GSK is banging the PR drum in Africa about a partnership with the charity 'Save The Children'. Call me cynical, but are GSK's motives really about saving sick kids in Africa when the very same company has fought tooth and nail to deprive this continent of affordable life-saving drugs for decades? Or is it more likely to be a response to more recent bad publicity over GSK buying-off competition to its extortionately priced anti-depressant 'Seroxat'? Also, reading between the lines, 'Save The Children' is definitely edgy about whoring it with GSK, so it looks like this story may not have a happy ending...
'Britain's biggest drug manufacturer has launched a new partnership with Save The Children to develop medicines to tackle child mortality in Africa. GlaxoSmithKline and the charity said together they could save a million children's lives.
'Save The Children chief executive Justin Forsyth said there was the potential for "huge gains". But critics are wary about the close involvement of a pharmaceutical company in charitable work.
'Save The Children admitted that its alliance with GlaxoSmithKline would be controversial - but said the project would save children's lives. For example, a formula for mouthwash will be turned into a gel that can be applied to the umbilical cords of babies to stop infection.
The new medicines will be sold at cost price. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said the partnership would set a new standard for how companies and charities could work together.
'Initially, two flagship programmes will operate in DR Congo and Kenya. These will be followed by other initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America.' (BBC News article).
Friday, May 10. 2013
Declassified: CIA Shaped Zero Dark Thirty's Narrative
'Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden revenge-porn flick Zero Dark Thirty was the biggest publicity coup for the CIA this century outside of the actual killing of Osama bin Laden. But the extent to which the CIA shaped the film has remained unclear. Now, a memo obtained by Gawker shows that the CIA actively, and apparently successfully, pressured Mark Boal to remove scenes that made them look bad from the Zero Dark Thirty script.
'The CIA's whitewashing effort is revealed in a cache of documents newly released under a Freedom of Information Act request about the CIA's cooperation with Bigelow and Boal. The documents include a 2012 memo - initially classified "SECRET" - summarizing five conference calls between Boal and the CIA's Office of Public Affairs in late 2011. "The purpose for these discussions was for OPA officers to help promote an appropriate portrayal of the Agency and the Bin Ladin operation," according to the memo (hundreds of pages of CIA documents about the film were released last year - the memo obtained by Gawker was approved for release late last month).
'During these calls, Boal "verbally shared the screenplay" for Zero Dark Thirty in order to get the CIA's feedback, and the CIA's public affairs department verbally asked Boal to take out parts that they objected to. According to the memo, he did.' (Gawker article).
Thursday, May 9. 2013
Stephen Hawking Joins Academic Boycott Of Israel
As if there was ever any doubt about this man's advanced intelligence, superbrain Stephen Hawking flips the bird to Israeli president Shimon Peres over Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Way to go Stephen!
As seems to be customary amongst the me-me-me generation, Hawking's intelligent and individual decision has been met with abusive Facebook responses that focus primarily on his physical condition. Personally I would've thought that Mr. Hawking was way too smart to be using the likes of Pusbook, but then I guess he's got to find someway of promoting his ideas to the intellectually challenged plebs of the 21st century...
'Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
'Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president's conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres's 90th birthday.
'Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking's approval described it as "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there."' (Guardian article).
Saturday, May 4. 2013
Prince Charles Funds Hobbies With Dead People's Money
It is common knowledge that Prince Charles, our hereditary heir to the throne, is well known to be on a nice little earner selling biscuits from Cornwall that 'earns' him about UKP 18 million a year. What is much less well known is that when someone dies down in darkest Cornwall without a will, this blood-sucker gets their assets too. However, keen to be altruistic he then generously shovels some of this unearned dosh to worthy causes like private schools and his other hobby 'charities'.
It's funny, however, that you never read about this shit in the Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail or the Murdoch rags when they are banging on about 'scroungers'. The same mouthpieces then attack anyone who criticizes the royals - upon uncovering such breathtaking greed - as 'waging a class war'.
Fucking right, bring it on!
'Prince Charles has used money from people who die without wills or family in Cornwall to fund his own charities and to support bursaries at his old private school in Scotland.
'As Duke of Cornwall, a title that already provides him with an £18m private annual income, a quirk of history means Charles becomes the owner of the assets of anyone living in the county who dies "intestate".
'Last year that provided him with more than £450,000 and he is sitting on £3.3m in cash from many years of collecting Cornish legacies, latest accounts show.
'In 2012, the benevolent fund he set up to use the money made one of its largest grants of £5,000 to the elite public school of Gordonstoun in Scotland where a place now costs £30,000 a year.' (Guardian article).
Tuesday, April 30. 2013
UK Government Helping Pesticide Companies?
George Monbiot analyses the role of the new UK Government Chief Scientist Mark Walport regarding the proposed EC ban on neonicotinoids because of the rapidly declining bee population that is essential for crop pollination.
'What happens to people when they become government science advisers? Are their children taken hostage? Is a dossier of compromising photographs kept, ready to send to the Sun if they step out of line?
'I ask because, in too many cases, they soon begin to sound less like scientists than industrial lobbyists. The mad cow crisis 20 years ago was exacerbated by the failure of government scientists to present the evidence accurately. The chief medical officer wrongly claimed that there was "no risk associated with eating British beef". The chief veterinary officer wrongly dismissed the research suggesting that BSE could jump from one species to another.
'The current chief scientist at the UK's environment department, Ian Boyd, is so desperate to justify the impending badger cull – which defies the recommendations of the £49m study the department funded – that he now claims that eliminating badgers "may actually be positive to biodiversity", on the grounds that badgers sometimes eat baby birds. That badgers are a component of our biodiversity, and play an important role in regulating the populations of other species, appears to have eluded him.
'But the worst example in the past 10 years was the concatenation of gibberish published by the British government's new chief scientist on Friday. In the Financial Times, Sir Mark Walport denounced the proposal for a temporary European ban on the pesticides blamed for killing bees and other pollinators. He claimed that "the consequences of such a moratorium could be harmful to the continent's crop production, farming communities and consumers". This also happens to be the position of the UK government, to which he is supposed to provide disinterested advice.' (Guardian article).
Sunday, April 28. 2013
Applications Now Open For One-Way Ticket To Mars
'It's time, if you're so inclined, to plunk down a reservation for a one-way ticket to Mars. The privately funded Mars One foundation recently opened up applications for astronauts to take a journey to the Red Planet in 2022/23. Return trips, the organisers said, just aren't feasible with the technology we have.
'From a wide field of applicants, organisers said two women and two men will be selected to make the journey. The technology that takes them there has been tested before, and the potential for a worldwide audience will be there given four billion people will have the internet by then, said Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp.
'However, a cost breakdown of the £3.93 billion budget - as well as a concrete plan for how reality television deals and other sponsorship money will be secured - was not provided to the public at the press conference, prompting some scepticism among journalists as to whether the plan could be achieved.
'Lansdorp remained optimistic in the face of questions concerning the project's viability, pointing out the London Olympics in 2012 generated nearly £2.62 billion in revenues for a three-week spectacle. This makes Mars One a bargain deal for investors, he said.' (Wired article & Mars One website).
Thursday, April 18. 2013
Superdrone Taranis To Be Tested At Woomera
The machines are coming for us and we are all doomed...
'The most secretive piece of airspace in Australia - the RAAF-run Woomera flight test range in South Australia - will make history later this year when the world's first unmanned supersonic stealth combat aircraft makes its maiden test flight above the desert. Extreme secrecy surrounds the joint British-French project and the drone called Taranis, named after the Celtic god of thunder and built by a British/French consortium led by aerospace giant BAE Systems.
'Resembling an insect and using the delta-shaped "flying wing'' technology favoured by modern-day stealth aircraft such as America's B-2 stealth bomber, Taranis is designed to fly above the speed of sound over long distances undetected by enemy radars to attack targets with an array of precision missiles and bombs.
'Unlike current generation attack drones such as Predator and Reaper, that are used extensively to attack insurgent targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, Taranis will carry the latest in remote defensive technology so it can also evade missiles and hostile manned aircraft.' (news.com.au article).
Monday, April 8. 2013
The Witch Is Dead!
Woo hoo! Good riddance to bad rubbish! Thatcher has finally died from a stroke (a stroke of good luck). And not before time. Great news like this demands a celebration. Now stock up on coal and get ready to lob it at her hearse during the forthcoming state funeral!
Thursday, April 4. 2013
One Is Not All In This Together
On the very day that our disgusting coalition government gives a huge tax cut to millionaires and hammers the poor, one little old lady billionaire has had a tidy little top-up. Yes, our unelected head of state has just trousered a UKP 5 million pay rise, raising the bundle of public money that our royal parasite gets from UKP30 million to UKP 36 million per annum.
However, the keen-eyed among us have noticed that as Buckingham Palace is owned by the state, then Liz effectively lives in 'social housing' - and this old house has rather a lot of spare bedrooms. Curiously though, the sniveling coalition toadies don't seem to have applied there disgracefully regressive 'bedroom tax' to this old dear. Funny that.
'The Queen has received a £5m boost in the funds she receives from the taxpayer to carry out her official duties.
'The sovereign grant, which covers the running costs of the Queen's household, has been set at £36.1m for the 2013-14 financial year.
'The figure has increased from the £31m allocated during the previous 12 months which included £1m to cover the extra costs of the diamond jubilee.
'The sovereign grant replaces the old funding system of the civil list and grants-in-aid and came into full effect at the start of the new financial year, which began on Monday. It also covers the maintenance of the royal palaces in England and the cost of royal travel for official engagements in the UK and overseas tours.
'Under the new grant the Queen receives 15% of the profits from the Crown Estate, but from funds two years in arrears.' (Guardian article).
Wednesday, March 20. 2013
The Internet Is A Surveillance State
What the fuck? Is CNN looking for street cred? Or maybe the surveillance state wants everyone to know we're being watched...
'I’m going to start with three data points.
'One: Some of the Chinese military hackers who were implicated in a broad set of attacks against the U.S. government and corporations were identified because they accessed Facebook from the same network infrastructure they used to carry out their attacks.
'Two: Hector Monsegur, one of the leaders of the LulzSac hacker movement, was identified and arrested last year by the FBI. Although he practiced good computer security and used an anonymous relay service to protect his identity, he slipped up.
'And three: Paula Broadwell, who had an affair with CIA director David Petraeus, similarly took extensive precautions to hide her identity. She never logged in to her anonymous e-mail service from her home network. Instead, she used hotel and other public networks when she e-mailed him. The FBI correlated hotel registration data from several different hotels - and hers was the common name.
'The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period.' (CNN Opinion article).
Tuesday, March 5. 2013
Inspiration Mars: Human Flyby Scheduled For 2018
This is the kind of bat-shit crazy pioneering spirit that is sorely needed in the 21st century if humanity is ever to become a multi-planetary species. Sceptics said that man would never walk on the moon before 1970, but the same bat-shit crazy pioneering spirit that took hold during the space race of the 60s proved them all wrong. More power to the Inspiration Mars Foundation. I want to see this and more before my time on this backward little planet has expired. Go Fever!
'A unique window of opportunity for humankind will open in January 2018, and the Inspiration Mars Foundation intends to seize it, announcing plans to pursue a challenging manned mission to Mars and back. This historic 501-day journey around the Red Planet is made possible by a rare planetary alignment that occurs five years from now.
'Two professional crew members - one man, one woman - flying as private citizens will embark on what is known as a "fast, free-return" mission, passing within 100 miles of Mars before swinging back and safely returning to Earth. Target launch date is Jan. 5, 2018.
'Last week, officials with the Inspiration Mars Foundation, a new nonprofit organization founded by private space traveler Dennis Tito, announced their plans to pursue the audacious to provide a platform for unprecedented science, engineering and education opportunities, while reaching out to American youth to expand their visions of their own futures in space exploration.' (Mars Daily article).
Monday, February 25. 2013
Ratzinger Running From Vatican Gays?
It's pretty obvious that Mr. Ratzinger did not quit because he's old and infirm. There's definitely bigger things brewing; money laundering and child sex-abuse scandals, threat of arrest if he leaves the Vatican, etc. But the latest theory revealed in the Italian press about a 'gay network' in the Vatican, if true, could really see the wheels come off of the Catholic Church. Fingers crossed.
A potentially explosive report has linked the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the discovery of a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, some of whom - the report said - were being blackmailed by outsiders.
'The pope's spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report, which was carried by the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica.
'The paper said the pope had taken the decision on 17 December that he was going to resign - the day he received a dossier compiled by three cardinals delegated to look into the so-called "Vatileaks" affair.
'Last May Pope Benedict's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and charged with having stolen and leaked papal correspondence that depicted the Vatican as a seething hotbed of intrigue and infighting.
'According to La Repubblica, the dossier comprising "two volumes of almost 300 pages - bound in red" had been consigned to a safe in the papal apartments and would be delivered to the pope's successor upon his election.' (Guardian article).
Tuesday, February 19. 2013
Ratzinger To Stay Holed-Up In The Vatican
It looks like Mr. Ratzinger is so rattled by the prospect of being held to account for his cover-up of the child sex-crimes of Catholic priests on his watch, that he is going to stay holed-up in the Vatican after he stops being God's representative on Earth. Of course someone, someday, might put a stop to the nonsense about the Vatican being a 'state', and then he's toast but I'm not holding my breath. Contrast the international kid-glove treatment of this vile individual to the hounding of Julian Assange, and one gets a good insight into the priorities of powerful western nations...
'Pope Benedict's decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.
'The Vatican has consistently said that a pope cannot be held accountable for cases of abuse committed by others because priests are employees of individual dioceses around the world and not direct employees of the Vatican. It says the head of the church cannot be compared to the CEO of a company.
'Victims groups have said Benedict, particularly in his previous job at the head of the Vatican's doctrinal department, turned a blind eye to the overall policies of local Churches, which moved abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them and handing them over to authorities.
'The Vatican has denied this. The pope has apologized for abuse in the Church, has met with abuse victims on many of his trips, and ordered a major investigation into abuse in Ireland.
'But groups representing some of the victims say the Pope will leave office with a stain on his legacy because he was in positions of power in the Vatican for more than three decades, first as a cardinal and then as pope, and should have done more.
'The scandals began years before the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005 but the issue has overshadowed his papacy from the beginning, as more and more cases came to light in dioceses across the world. (Reuters article).
Friday, February 15. 2013
Robbing The Dead To Pay For Paedophile Priests?
Christ on a bike! What with his own complicity in the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal cover-up, we now have the Archdiocese of L.A. robbing a 'grave maintenance fund' to help pay a $600 million child-abuse settlement. It's no wonder Mr. Ratzinger threw in the towel...
'Pressed to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony turned to one group of Catholics whose faith could not be shaken: the dead.
'Under his leadership in 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles quietly appropriated $115 million from a cemetery maintenance fund and used it to help pay a landmark settlement with molestation victims.
'The church did not inform relatives of the deceased that it had taken the money, which amounted to 88% of the fund. Families of those buried in church-owned cemeteries and interred in its mausoleums have contributed to a dedicated account for the perpetual care of graves, crypts and grounds since the 1890s.
'Mahony and other church officials also did not mention the cemetery fund in numerous public statements about how the archdiocese planned to cover the $660-million abuse settlement. In detailed presentations to parish groups, the cardinal and his aides said they had cashed in substantial investments to pay the settlement, but they did not disclose that the main asset liquidated was cemetery money.' (Los Angeles Times article).
Ratzinger May Run, But He Can't Hide
The surprise resignation of the PPPP (Paedophile Priest Protecting Pope) could open up new avenues for this odious little man to be sued. US court cases have already featured letters from 'Cardinal Ratzinger' linking him directly to the Catholic Church's cover up of their child sex abuse scandal. Bring it on!
'Yesterday’s resignation by Pope Benedict was merely expedient - he has become too old to cope. It would have been both astonishing and courageous, a few years ago, had it been offered in atonement for the atrocity to which he had for 30 years turned a blind eye - the rape, buggery and molestation of tens of thousands of small boys in priestly care.
'His “command responsibility” for this crime against humanity goes back to 1981, when he was appointed Prefect (i.e. Head) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican body that disciplines errant priests. Although the CDF files are a closely guarded secret, letters from Cardinal Ratzinger have emerged in several US court cases, always protective of rapist priests. As father Hans Kung, the eminent Theologian, put it in his open letter to Catholic Bishops in 2010, “There is no denying the fact that the world-wide system of covering up cases of sexual crimes committed by clerics was engineered by the CDF under Cardinal Ratzinger”'. (Independent article).
Thursday, February 14. 2013
I Predict A RIOT
War company Raytheon has developed some software called RIOT (Rapid Information Overlay Technology) that is designed to deal with vast amounts of personal data on social networking sites etc, with the aim of giving anyone who wants to pay for it the ability to spy on and/or track people. Good! Now will all those Twitter and Facebook numbskulls out there, happily sloshing their personal information all over the internet, pay attention? Probably not, the me-me-me generation I fear is here to stay...
'If you have attracted the “wrong kind” of attention by the government, then the intrusive data-mining analytic software developed by defense contractor Raytheon may be able to figure out your next move before you make it.
'Wikipedia explained the “extreme-scale analytics” systems that Raytheon calls Rapid Information Overlay Technology (RIOT). It “allows the user to track people's movements and even predict their behavior by mining data from social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Gowalla, and Foursquare. Raytheon claims that it has not sold this software to any clients, but has shared it with US government and industry.”
'The software is not “new,” but the video obtained by the Guardian is new to us, the public. In it, Raytheon's 'principal investigator' Brian Urch explained how RIOT software works. He used a Raytheon employee dubbed “Nick” before showing how to use the software to find pictures of Nick as well as where he checks in or has otherwise given away his location. Some of the most disturbing quotes include, “Now we know where Nick’s going; we know what he looks like and now we’re going to try to predict where he may be in the future.” The results showed the top ten places where he has checked in.' (Computer World article).
Thursday, February 7. 2013
Andy Andrist: Groomed For Destruction
'A judge's ruling Friday paves the way for two comedians to show their videotaped confrontation with a Port St. Lucie man one of the comics claims sexually molested him nearly 40 years ago.
'Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn dissolved a temporary injunction he had previously granted to Stephen P. Spleen of Port St. Lucie to keep Andrew J. "Andy" Andrist of Eugene, Oregon, and Doug S. Stanhope of Bisbee, Arizona, both standup comedians, from playing a tape of the pair's November 4th interview with Spleen at a Port St. Lucie hotel.
'According to a motion filed by Fort Pierce attorney Jonathan Jay Kirschner, Spleen admitted on the tape that he had abused Andrist. A compliant filed by Spleen's attorney, J. Garry Rooney of Vero Beach, claims Andrist and Stanhope tried to obtain "money, possessions and/or notoriety to enhance their stand-up comedy careers by falsely accusing (Spleen) of committing disgraceful, deplorable and heinous acts."
'Kirschner countered that Andrist wanted closure and to publicize Spleen's activities for the sake of any other past and potential victims. Andrist claims he was molested by Spleen several times from June 1976 and 1981 when Andrist was between 11 and 13 years old. He said Spleen massaged him several times, and each time Spleen touched Andrist's penis. Andrist also claims Spleen served him alcohol and showed him pornographic movies.' (TC Palm article).
Saturday, February 2. 2013
GSK: The Baddest Of Bad Pharma Is Back
GSK, the iconic Bad Pharma giant, has had it's arse well and truly kicked in the US for witholding clinical trails data for the dodgy diabetes drug 'Avandia'. GSK was fined $3 billion+ in the US and has since settled out of court in the US with numerous victims who have suffered heart attacks/problems caused by Avandia.
So, what about Avandia victims in the UK? GSK has decided to make UK citizens fight in court for similar complaints that have been settled out of court in the US. Double standards or what? Why has GSK decided to play tough in the UK when it rolled over in the US? This is partly to be explained by the fact that our Tory Governement has changed the rules on legal aid so that 'medical negligence' cases no longer qualify. Therefore it's down to 'no win no fee' lawyers to take the cases. Perhaps someone should call the Police about these fuckers?
'Thousands of families in the UK could be deprived of compensation for the death or harm of a relative caused by the diabetes drug Avandia, even though the British maker has agreed to 'pay billions of dollars to settle similar claims in the US.
'The licence for Avandia was revoked in Europe, in September 2010, because of evidence that it could cause heart failure and heart attacks. The drug can still be prescribed in the US, but not to patients at risk of heart problems.
A scientist with the Food and Drug Administration estimated that Avandia could have been responsible for 100,000 heart attacks in the US.
'The manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, has admitted concealing data about the damaging side-effects of the drug, and there is evidence of the drug's harmful effects. But, despite this, GSK is not prepared to settle claims in the UK without a court fight.' (Guardian article).
Thursday, January 17. 2013
Democracy In The UK?
The tired myth of the 'non-meddling monarchy' is in tatters tonight, as even a snivelling, complicit No. 10 has failed to stop secret papers showing the level of influence our un-elected head of state and her idiot son has over the running of our country. When we have to put up with an un-elected monarchy being protected by a semi-elected government what chance has democracy in the UK got? We send people to die in Afganistan in the name of 'democracy' and we have to put up with this shit. Enough, Republic, NOW!
'The extent of the Queen and Prince Charles's secretive power of veto over new laws has been exposed after Downing Street lost its battle to keep information about its application secret.
'Whitehall papers prepared by Cabinet Office lawyers show that overall at least 39 bills have been subject to the most senior royals' little-known power to consent to or block new laws. They also reveal the power has been used to torpedo proposed legislation relating to decisions about the country going to war.
'The internal Whitehall pamphlet was only released following a court order and shows ministers and civil servants are obliged to consult the Queen and Prince Charles in greater detail and over more areas of legislation than was previously understood.
'New laws required to receive the seal of approval from the Queen or Prince Charles cover issues from higher education and paternity pay to identity cards and child maintenance.
'In one instance the Queen completely vetoed the Military Actions Against Iraq Bill in 1999, a private member's bill that sought to transfer the power to authorise military strikes against Iraq from the monarch to parliament.
'She was even asked to consent to the Civil Partnership Act 2004 because it contained a declaration about the validity of a civil partnership that would bind her.' (Guardian article).
Tuesday, December 18. 2012
Amazon, Google, Starbucks & The Duchy Of Cornwall
Prince Charles of the 'black-spider letters' is not shy in spewing his opinions on a range of issues. Funny that one of his little lobbying campaigns to ministers seems to be remarkably silent on the hot topic of large companies avoiding tax. Not so funny when you see his main cash-cow the Duchy of Cornwall does not pay corporation tax. Why is this the case, when quite obviously the Duchy is a "company" that, at the very least, makes overpriced biscuits? Well, the Duchy of Cornwall claims it is not a "separate entity for tax purposes". So let me see, Prince Charles and the Duchy of Cornwall are one in the same thing, and he just sells all the biscuits that he can't eat or throw to his servants as a a spin-off. I wonder if Cameron and the rest of the Eton posh boys will go after Charles with the same gusto that they've shown for the likes of Starbucks, Google and Amazon?
'HM Revenue & Customs has been asked to investigate alleged tax avoidance by Prince Charles's £700m hereditary estate.
'The duchy of Cornwall last year provided Charles with an income of £18m and HMRC's anti-avoidance group is now being asked to examine its non-payment of corporation tax following a potentially significant court ruling on its legal status.
'The issue has been raised by an accountant investigating the tax affairs of the duchy - an agricultural, commercial and residential landowner.
'He has analysed the impact of a judicial ruling handed down last year. Anti-monarchy campaigners claim it shows the duchy is running "a well-entrenched tax avoidance scheme".
'The duchy insists it "is not subject to corporation tax as it is not a separate legal entity for tax purposes". But John Angel, principal judge at the information rights tribunal, ruled last December it was a separate legal body to the prince.
'Accountants now believe the ruling could leave the duchy exposed to the 24% levy on profits other organisations must pay. Any change to its tax status could result in a cut to the prince's income.
'Republic, the campaign for an elected head of state, has asked HMRC's anti-avoidance team to investigate whether the ruling means the duchy is now "using a highly questionable interpretation of its legal status as a means of avoiding corporation tax obligations"'. (Guardian article & Republic commentary).
Wednesday, December 12. 2012
Sense In The Census
I love hard facts that stick it to the god-squad, and they don't get much harder that the census for England & Wales. People who claim to be Xtian have nose-dived, whilst people who say that they have no religion has risen to 1 in 4 and it also appears that the Jedi have had a really successful recruitment drive. I wonder when Xtians will ditch the rosary for light-sabres.
'Findings from the 2011 census for England and Wales have revealed the number of people who say they are Christian has dropped dramatically from 72% to 59%. The figures published today by the Office for National Statistics also show the number of people who say they have no religion has risen from 15% to 25%.
'The number of people defining themselves as Jedi Knights was 176,632; atheists 29,267, agnostic 32,382; humanist 15,067; Freethinker 513.' (National Secular Society article).
Friday, December 7. 2012
Private Company 'Golden Spike' To Go To The Moon
A bunch of ex-NASA executives have formed a company with the objective of landing on the moon. Money well spent...
'A team of former NASA executives has launched a private venture to send two people to the Moon for $1.4bn (£871m). Golden Spike Company says it will use existing rocket and capsule technology, and will aim for a first launch before the end of the decade. The firm is one of many new private firms hoping to follow the success of Space X, which has ferried cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).
'The US became the first and only country to reach the Moon in the 1960s. But costs and waning interest have prevented any other lunar mission. US President Barack Obama cancelled a planned NASA return to the moon, saying the US had already been there.
'Golden Spike, run by former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern, says it is looking into offering voyages to the governments of other countries - such as South Africa, South Korea and Japan - expecting interest for scientific research or national prestige.' (BBC News article & Golden Spike website).
Saturday, November 24. 2012
Ever Heard Of 'Rubik Agreements'?
The Tories have said in public that they will clamp down on tax avoidance, and to this end their slime-ball-in-chief George Osbourne has stated that tax avoidance is 'morally repugnant'. However, it looks like our duplicitous Tory Government is ensuring that the wealthy can happily evade tax all they want by signing dodgy deals, or 'Rubik Agreements', with the tax-haven of Switzerland, therby undermining serious European attempts to get the rich to pay their fair share in tax. Does anyone seriously believe that the Tories, who after all exist to keep the rich rich, will ever effectively clamp down on the tax avoidance of the wealthy?
'In August last year, Switzerland threw a huge spanner into the works. It signed bilateral tax deals - "Rubik Agreements" - with Germany and Britain, based on a very different principle: wealthy people with Swiss accounts can preserve their secrecy and, instead, merely pay a one-off, withholding tax on assets, and a bit of future income. "Trust us," say Swiss bankers - who have centuries of form helping the world's wealthy get around the rules of civilised society.
'The British tax authorities promised it would yield a tantalising bounty: a one-off £4-£7bn for cash-parched, austerity Britain. But the deals are riddled with catastrophic loopholes, some so egregious as to amount to signs planted in the text saying: "Evade me here". You can skip around them with discretionary trusts, foundations, insurance wrappers, offshore companies and more - or just shift your wealth to Singapore.' (Guardian article).
Thursday, October 18. 2012
Mysterious Dome Rises On The Outskirts Of Sealy
'It could be the plot of a sci-fi paperback: Over the course of a single workday, a giant bubble is inflated on the outskirts of a small Texas town. Crews working from the inside reinforce the structure with iron and concrete until it's a fortress that not even the U.S. Air Force could destroy. A security fence around the perimeter keeps the curious at bay. A townsperson jokes, "This is Area 52".
'But the story of the 33,000-square-foot dome that's risen like a blister on the prairie off Interstate 10 in Sealy is no work of fiction. It's the Texas home of ABC Domes, a company that specializes in helping banks get back to business in the wake of terrestrial disasters.
'Inside will be stored generators, trucks, communications equipment and an array of repair supplies waiting to be dispatched as soon as the next hurricane or tornado (or wildfire, earthquake, etc) has passed. When there's notice, as with a looming storm, workers will be housed there as well, ready to roll as soon as the wind dies down.' (Houston Chronicle article).
Tuesday, October 16. 2012
Petrodollar Warfare
I've been hearing this phrase "Petrodollar Warfare" floating around recently on the intertubes and did a little searching. It seems it's a phrase coined by William Clark from his book Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq And The Future Of The Dollar. I wasn't able to find the eBook anywhere on BitTorrent so I may have to buy it, but I did find an interesting essay he wrote in 2005. I know this may seem like old news but reading it now the guy seems like he pretty much nailed why we're hearing all this crap about Iran today. I also found a neat little video from Etopia News Now (you won't find it on YouTube) if you want to hear him speak. To me he doesn't seem like he's got an axe to grind, he's just a little nerdy and pointing out in simple terms why we have been at war for the past 100 years. It's always good to have everything summed up if you can't get it from the mainstream news networks who control 90% of all information in the U.S...
'Contemporary warfare has traditionally involved underlying conflicts regarding economics and resources. Today these intertwined conflicts also involve international currencies, and thus increased complexity. Current geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran extend beyond the publicly stated concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear intentions, and likely include a proposed Iranian “petroeuro” system for oil trade.
'Similar to the Iraq war, military operations against Iran relate to the macroeconomics of ‘petrodollar recycling’ and the unpublicized but real challenge to U.S. dollar supremacy from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency.
'It is now obvious the invasion of Iraq had less to do with any threat from Saddam’s long-gone WMD program and certainly less to do to do with fighting International terrorism than it has to do with gaining strategic control over Iraq’s hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so maintain the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market.' (Energy Bulletin article).
Guantanamo Prisoners' 9/11 Case Could Get Security Gag
This story makes more sense if you remember the disclosure back in 2009 that most of the so-called information we have from the 9-11 Commission Report was obtained from CIA "interrogations", which we all know is just a euphemism for torture. NBC News says "441 of the more than 1,700 footnotes in the Commission’s Final Report refer to the CIA interrogations" which sounds like it's about one quarter of the info, right? However if you examine the actual facts of the case in Chapters 4 to 6 - i.e. the evidence of "who did it?" and "how did they do it?", you'll see that the "facts" come from those 441 little footnotes. How is this considered real evidence if they got it from torture? You could probably get a hardened terrorist to say Barney the Dinosaur committed this act if you "interrogated" him long enough.
'A U.S. military judge is considering broad security rules for the war crimes tribunal of five Guantanamo prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, including measures to prevent the accused from publicly revealing what happened to them in the CIA's secret network of overseas prisons.
'Prosecutors have asked the judge at a pretrial hearing starting today to approve what is known as a protective order that is intended to prevent the release of classified information during the eventual trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has portrayed himself as the mastermind of the terrorist attacks, and four co-defendants.' (St. Louis Post-Dispatch article).
Monday, October 15. 2012
The Walking Dead: Season 3 Premiere
AMC's wonderful zombie apocalyse series The Walking Dead is back, and it looks like it's going to be the bloodiest season yet. I'm not sure how long the whole episode will remain on YouTube, so watch it while you can or download the torrent.
'The Walking Dead's season three premiere suggests that the program's showrunner, Glen Mazzara, and writing team have listened to everyone's gripes about season two's frequent and labored pontificating. Bearing almost none of the heated bickering and discussions of morality that personified the previous season, "Seed" is about persistence and strategy. It picks up several months after Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the group's escape from Hershel's (Scott Wilson) farm, which was overrun with walkers. Despite any unrest among them, the group exhibits a renewed sense of unity as it trudges on in an increasingly dangerous world. In the pre-credit sequence, Rick, his wife, Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), Hershel, Daryl (Norman Reedus), and the rest of the gang raid a home in the middle of the woods and share a brief meal consisting of canned food. If for no other reason, the sequence is striking for its silence. Without a word of dialogue, the opening ostensibly sets the series forth in a new direction, thematically and otherwise.' (Slant Magazine article & Isohunt torrent download).
Saturday, October 13. 2012
Bad Pharma Supremo GSK To Share Clinical Trials Data?
Big Pharma megalith GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have announced that they are going to mend their ways when it comes to suppressing inconvenient data from their clinical trials. GSK has already had a $3 billion (just how much money do these fuckers make?) fine this year for peddling dodgy drugs in the US. Fortunately, Ben Goldacre -'The Bad Science Boot Boy' - is on the case and he will no doubt make it his business to keep an eye on the goings-on at GSK. Expect to hear more about this story...
'Briefly: today, several people have asked for my response to this story in the Guardian, celebrating GSK’s promise for more transparency on their trial data.It is always good to hear a drug company making promises, and I hope that GSK will stick by the commitments they have made today.
'But we should judge drug companies by their actions, not by their promises, especially when similar promises have been made in the past, and then broken.
'In 1998 GlaxoWellcome promised to set up a clinical trials register, amidst outcry over withheld trial results. But when the company merged with SKB to create GSK, in 2002, this register was unceremonially deleted from the internet. This tragic story is described in an excellent open access article on this history of attempts to get access to hidden data, by Iain Chalmers.' (Bad Science article).
Friday, October 12. 2012
Physicists May Prove We Exist In A Computer Simulation
This is a particularly favourite subject of mine and I've become increasingly more fascinated with the matter since reading Jim Elvidge's excellent book The Universe - Solved! It's wonderful to hear that science may finally be able to prove the concept one way or the other...
'If recent measurements of cosmic ray particles are correct, then we may have the first evidence that the universe as we know it is really a giant computer simulation.
'Humans have explored the laws of our universe for many years now, and it's not uncommon to hear people talk about how amazing it is that certain fundamental values are just right for life to exist. Some people have wondered if that's because the whole universe is actually some kind of sandbox simulation, and we're merely characters in some cosmic game of The Sims. If that's true, then there should be a point where we start to bump up against the edges of the simulator, like Jim Carrey's character escaping from The Truman Show - and now a team of physicists think that a particular measurement of some cosmic ray particles might be the first such indication of one of those edges.
'The idea that we might be living in an artificial reality constructed by something higher than ourselves has been a recurring philosophical hypothesis for centuries. Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Descartes' evil demon, Putnam's brain in a vat - these are all variants of justifications for solipsism, a philosophical idea that says it's impossible to know with any certainty whether the world as we experience it is "real" or a simulation projected by some external entity. Keanu Reeves' character Neo in The Matrix opts for a dose of reality when he chooses to take the red pill, but figuring out whether our universe is "real" or not is a touch more complicated than that.' (Wired article & TechSpot article).