Recently I discovered Catholic Online - a one-stop shop for the paranoid Catholic. After wading through all the Catholic tat for sale and other incredible guff, I spotted an article that basically said that "Catholicism in the UK is on its last legs" and that secularists, atheists, etc. are to blame. This was an opportunity too good to miss.
My brief, incendiary, opening post soon had a few takers which was not really surprising. However, after about two weeks now the cyberspace battle of 'The Matron v. The Catholics' rages on incessantly and entertainingly (I obviously have far too much time on my hands). In fact, I would go as far to say that I have a new hobby! Some of the responses really do reveal how the religious mind 'thinks'. Why not check 'the debate' out and make your own mind up, or maybe even pile in? (Catholic Online article).
The UN has finally put a serious boot into the Catholic Church/Vatican/Holy See - or whatever bullshit name that the other Italian mafia is using these days - about their appalling response to their child-abuse scandal. UN-speak usually consists of a turn of phrase that is oblique and inquisitive and often not in good old plain English. So, it was refreshing to read this latest report using some no-nonsense language - into the vile crimes committed by this rotten institutionalized religion - that basically says: "Oi Holy See, NO!"
Of course the 'Cover-up Cardinals' have already got to work with their stock-in-trade obfuscation, duplicity and blatant smoke screen...
'The Vatican has failed to acknowledge the huge scale of clerical sex abuse and has implemented policies that have led to "the continuation of the abuse and the impunity of the perpetrators", a UN panel said on Wednesday in a scathing rebuke of the Holy See's handling of the global scandal.
'In grimly worded findings released by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the watchdog urged the Holy See to "immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers" from their posts in the church and hand over the cases to law enforcement authorities in the countries concerned.
'It also asked the Vatican to ensure that an expert commission set up by Pope Francis last year will "investigate independently" all cases of child sex abuse and the way in which they are handled by the Catholic hierarchy. Records concerning past cases should be opened up so that they can be used to hold the abusers - and those who may have sought to protect them - accountable, the panel added.
'The Holy See must establish "clear rules, mechanisms and procedures" for the mandatory reporting of all suspected cases of abuse to civil law enforcement authorities, it said.
'The committee said it was "particularly concerned" that in dealing with allegations of child sex abuse, "the Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the church and the protection of the perpetrators above children's best interests, as observed by several national commissions of inquiry."' (Guardian article and UN report).
Last September The New York Times ran a ridiculous article entitled 'Overpopulation Is Not The Problem' by one Erle C. Ellis. At the foot of this article it states that 'Erle C. Ellis is an associate professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a visiting associate professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design'.
Despite all these impressive credentials, however, it is clear that Erle C. Ellis is no wizard when it comes to basic arithmetic as he dismisses the notion that humans are behaving like bacteria exploding out of a petri dish, despite the world population having more than doubled in less than half a century. Fortunately, Robert Walker of The Huffington Post responded with a much more sensible and scientifically based article.
But who gives a shit about any of that? Right? Hell, just keep breeding, producing and consuming whilst at the same time hoping that it'll all work out fine and that boffins will figure out a solution whilst the rest of us go back to sleep.
Come on you selfish smug bastards, breed like there's no tomorrow. After all, if we keep acting like this there probably won't be...
'While acknowledging that we live on a finite planet with finite resources, Ellis insists that there "is no such thing as a human carrying capacity." Other species on this planet suffer massive die-offs when their numbers exceed what nature can sustainably provide, but modern humans, according to Ellis, are an exception to that rule. Humans, in his words, do not have to "live within the natural environmental limits of our planet."
'In support of that bold proposition, he notes that at numerous times in the past 200,000 years humans have altered the natural environment so as to increase the carrying capacity for our species. When we hunted large animals to near extinction, we found ways to hunt and consume smaller species. When our hunter-gather lifestyles did not produce enough food, we domesticated animals and began growing crops. When traditional farming was not producing enough, we manufactured fertilizer and began irrigating our crops. And because we expanded our carrying capacity in the past, we can do so again in the future.
'However, as anyone on Wall Street will tell you, past performance does not guarantee future results. The fact that a value of a stock has doubled or tripled in the past does not mean that it can go on doubling or tripling on into the future. In nature, as in the financial world, there are limits to exponential growth on a finite planet. Sooner or later, what goes up ultimately comes down. And many times it comes down with a crash or a bang. Bubbles burst.' (Huffington Post article).
Then all you need to do is log onto Deacon Nick Donelly’s superb site Protect The Pope. This is a gem of a site that has truly made my day. In fact, to find this site in the same week that the Pope’s accountant has been charged with money laundering means that it has quite possibly made my week!
For ‘oppressed’ Catholics, Nick the ‘Screamin' Deacon’ does a great job in helping them get all lathered up about, er, worldwide valid and robust criticism. Funny that there are no tales of nasty child-abusing priests here. Hell no, just guff about how ‘set-upon’ the poor filthy-rich old Catholic church is, spiced up with plenty of anti-abortion rhetoric and bile against gay people. I'm off to set up a sister site - ‘Protect The Bankers’ - that should garner about as much sympathy.
...since the fucking courts are not going to. The Supreme Court of the UK has now promoted Scientology from being a McReligion to a 'real' religion, thus potentially qualifying it for a tranche of misguided god-subsidies that 'real' religions are entitled to. This fact however - bad enough though that it is - is not the source of my main beef here. What I really object to is that ANY religion gets ANY form of preferential treatment in our society. Christ on a bike, we are actually giving tax breaks to loads of religious fruitcakes whilst people are eating out of food-banks.
'The Supreme Court has said that Scientology is a legitimate religion. This ruling undermines the automatic presumption that all religious groups are for the "public benefit", argues Terry Sanderson.
'It's not very often that you'll find me agreeing with Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, but he was right when he said that the taxpayer would not be happy to be funding Scientology.' (National Secular Society article).
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has put a list of detailed questions concerning documented child sexual abuse to the Vatican. Of course the Vatican has, depressingly though predictably, failed to answer. Hiding behind 'canon law' and the bullshit 'fact' the the Holy See is not the Catholic Church, the Vatican has declined to answer the UN questions. Whatever happened to 'real law' where child abusing scum receives justice and punishment?' Looks like the cuddly new guy in the frock is just a better PR man than Ratzinger was...
'The Vatican has failed to answer detailed questions by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers or nuns or brought to the attention of the Holy See. These formal questions were raised as part of the review of the reports the UN Committee require states that have ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Child to provide every five years.
'In a formal response to the UN Committee's 'list of issues' or questions, the Holy See based its failure to answer them on the legal technicality that it is "related but separate and distinct from the Catholic Church". It added: "it is not the practice of the Holy See to disclose information on the religious discipline of members of the clergy or religious according to canon law, unless there is a related matter concerning international judicial cooperation with a State and the request by the State is made, generally, through specific procedures."' (National Secular Society article).
RT America's Abby Martin hits the nail on the head (see video stream below) concerning the sickness of needless Black Friday consumerism - a sickness that also appears to have spread to the UK, which is unusual given that we don't even celebrate Thanksgiving in this country.
Who should be held accountable?
Well, other than the brain dead general public who revel in this consumerist obscenity, Walmart of course, whose UK subsidiary Asda decided to have a cut-price Black Friday sale of worthless junk...
'The chaos that usually surrounds the US shopping day Black Friday has made its way to the UK, with fights and arrests breaking out in Asda stores. The superstore has adopted the US tradition of offering goods at discount prices the day after Thanksgiving, with televisions being sold for £99 and computer tablets as low as £49.
'Up and down the UK, shoppers queued outside Asda stores from the early hours of the morning to get their hands on the deals. However, as soon as the doors opened at the special earlier time of 8am, desperate shoppers fought their way through the crowds, with some getting engulfed in "stampedes" and even arrested.
'In Liverpool, one woman was left hospitalised after being punched in the face in the queue at the Asda store. In Bristol, one man was arrested following an altercation with staff after they told him he was only allowed to purchase one TV at a time.' (International Business Times article).
First of all, my sincere apologies for the long hiatus here at media underground. All my free time recently has been spent putting the finishing touches to my new book, Bothy Culture, which is now complete and will be released soon.
It's been a long haul and a shit-load of work (in fact I'm now convinced I have OCD), but it's finally complete and I'm currently awaiting a proof copy as I write. It's not a huge book, coming in at 132 pages, but I'm extremely happy with the end result and hope it provokes, entertains and inspires - as well as creating a few laughs along the way.
Do not be put off by first impressions that this is a book about 'the outdoors'. It has been designed deliberately to look like that - to be a trojan horse, if you like - in order to dupe the average 'Outdoor Knobber' into buying it. If one takes the time to examine the back cover, you will see from the image and blurb that there's much more to it.
Basically the book comprises of fact, fiction, history and scathing social commentary about the current state of our society. In fact I foresee there appearing a significant amount of negative reviews on Amazon over the forthcoming months (concerning the book's content and occasional bad language), which is okay, as this would be a good indication that I've done my job properly.
So, regular updates to media underground will now resume and be sure to stay tuned for the book's official release date. In the meantime here's the front and back cover art as well as some other promotional material (click on the images to expand)...
John Harris of The Guardian seems to understand the benefits of Scottish Independence - notably that a vote next year in favour of Scotland leaving the Union is the only opportunity that this country is likely to have of escaping the tyranny of the Tories, forever...
'To borrow a phrase from a politician he loathes, Alex Salmond feels the hand of history on his shoulder. On Tuesday [Nov 26 2013], his SNP government will launch its white paper on Scottish independence - to hear some people talk, the most significant political document in his country's history since 1320's Declaration of Arbroath. A day in 2016 has been set for formal secession from the UK: 24 March, the anniversary of both 1603's Union of the Crowns and the Act of Union of 1707. In its own way, news from the "no" campaign only underlines the sense of momentous times: on Saturday, like Banquo's ghost come to alert Salmond to his hubris, Gordon Brown materialised in the Daily Record, warning that an independent Scotland would be "worse placed, more vulnerable and less, not more, in control of key economic decisions".
'In England, the intensifying debate north of the border is still met with a great sigh of indifference. Perhaps our news discourse has become so trite that it can't cope with something of such importance. Or maybe this is more proof that London so dominates the supposed national agenda that anything that happens this far away will be overlooked – and that in any case, 14 years of devolution has left English and Scottish politics hopelessly estranged. In addition, large parts of the establishment seem to think that with polls showing less than a third of Scots supporting independence, the referendum can be thought of as a momentary tantrum on the Celtic fringe, and ignored. As evidenced by recent warnings from the new Scottish secretary, Alistair Carmichael (who last week tried to "put the fear of god" into the cabinet), such thinking is misplaced, but more of that in a moment.' (Guardian article & Scottish White Paper pdf download).
'In recent years, Facebook has become an unexpectedly crucial tool for activism. The social media platform allows activists to efficiently connect and communicate with one another in order to arrange meetings, protests and boycotts. Unfortunately, activists who once found that Facebook helped make organizing easier are now encountering obstacles – and the resistance is coming from Facebook itself.
'With little explanation, Facebook has been disabling pages related to activism. In some cases, administrators who set up the pages are no longer able to add updates. In others, the pages are being deleted entirely. Understandably, activists are frustrated when a network of 10,000 like-minded individuals is suddenly erased, leaving no way to reconnect with the group.
'Realistically, that’s the downside of relying on a hundred billion dollar company. Facebook is a pro-business enterprise with countless partnerships that undoubtedly pressure the site to limit the types of socializing progressives may engage in, particularly activities that might harm advertisers’ profits.' (Films For Action article).
Here at Media Underground Headquarters we don't generally use The New York Times as a stepping off point to steer you to an interesting documentary but in this case I couldn't find any other good reviews of this film. And that doesn't mean this documentary sucks it just means most of the reviewers were too stupid, corporate lackeys or had no idea how frightening this film is.
Anyway, read the review, check out their clever website, download and watch. I highly recommend it...
'The title of Terms And Conditions May Apply is unlikely to excite, but the content of this quietly blistering documentary should rile even the most passive viewer. Investigating our casual surrender of privacy rights every time we click the “Agree” button on those dense (and typically unread) online user contracts, the director Cullen Hoback outlines the real-life dangers of digital heedlessness. As the film illustrates, a random tweet or innocent Google search could summon a SWAT team to your door or transform you into a suspected terrorist.
'Actual horror stories aside, this concise and lively summary of the many ways corporations, law enforcement and government agencies gather, share and use our information - assisted by digital giants like AT&T and Google - is creepily unnerving.
'“Anonymity isn’t profitable,” one of the film’s more than 30 interviewees points out, and whether it’s cameras on Main Street or preinstalled software on your smartphone recording every keystroke, there has been an alarming rise in surveillance programs. While legal rulings on the programs remain shrouded in secrecy, they continue to serve multiple purposes, from attracting profits to deterring whistle-blowers and identifying protesters. If you’re planning a revolution - or just a political discussion group - better not tweet the location.' (N.Y. Times review & The Pirate Bay magnet link).
To use journo-speak the 'land reform question' in Scotland is 'gaining traction', and it can't come soon enough. For too long has public money been shoveled to super-rich landowners simply for having land or for at best a bit of environmental tinkering. Just as the Scottish Parliament is discussing land reform, a 28,000 acre estate is on the market for a cool £11.4 million. So what you might ask? Well, a major selling point, as advertised in the sales particulars, is the fact that this estate is guaranteed £12,000 a week in agricultural subsidies and forestry grants. In other words we are giving someone who can afford an £11.4 million estate £624,000 income.
With stuff like this going on and the fact that 432 people/organisations own half of Scotland this shit is long overdue for sorting out.
'According to sales particulars issued by selling agents Knight Frank, the new owner of the 28,000-acre Auch and Invermearan Estate in Argyll can look forward to getting a guaranteed £12,000 a week from the taxpayer by way of agricultural subsidies and recurrent forestry grants. Long unquestioned, such hand-outs to Scotland’s super-rich lairds (and you have to be super-rich to afford Auch and Invermearan at an asking price of £11.4 million) are starting to attract both media and political attention. Reacting to the Auch and Invermearan figure (incautiously revealed by Knight Frank at a point when social security payments are being capped and jobless young folk forced to live on £56.80 a week), the Daily Record commented: "Something is rotten in the landed estates of Scotland." Glasgow Labour MP Ian Davidson was equally forceful, labelling landowners, as the Record headlined, Scotland’s "greediest benefit claimants."' (Andy Wightman article).
Whilst I'm not someone who instantly recoils at any new technology, the controversy around Hydraulic Fracturing of 'Fracking' has all the makings of a get-richer-quick scheme for Tory-boys. Of course Cameron and Osbourne keep spinning the yarn about how domestic fuel bills will tumble as cheap gas (as has happened in the US) will allegedly flood onto the market. The economics in the UK are very different to the US, and there is no evidence that energy prices will fall. Besides, where have we heard this before? Remember the 'electricity too cheap to meter' clap-trap for nuclear power?
So, at the same time this 'greenest Government ever' is slashing support for renewable energy it is offering massive subsidies for fracking. Why? The real reason is that fracking will shovel money into Tory investors pockets whilst Joe Public picks up the tab in their energy bills. Lord Howell (George Osbourne's father-in-law) of 'the desolate north' gaff, is already ensuring that the dash for shale gas will happen.
In a lovely irony we have a Tory minister saying that he wants to get a fossil fuel out of the ground in areas of the 'desolate north' after his pals made swathes of the north 'desolate' by destroying an industry dedicated to extracting a fossil fuel (i.e. coal out of the ground). Go figure.
I just registered a complaint to the BBC about their biased coverage of the royal baby...
The BBC's bias concerning the birth of this royal baby is utterly despicable and appalling. The snivelling sycophantic tastelessness of the reporting and of the "reporters" renders BBC impartiality completely obsolete. How utterly shameful. Surely there is other news to cover other than the arrival of a child from a privileged, unelected background? How about covering the amount of money the royal family steal from the tax payer each year in land subsidies? How about reprimanding that grovelling little toad Nicholas Witchell, who clearly would happily use his mouth as a human toilet for any member of royal family? Personally, I wish he would so that we no longer have to listen to his royal-biased bile.
Be sure to register your own complaint with the BBC here.
It's not often that I am surprised by how low the Metropolitan Police will go, but today I am totally flabbergasted. Those of you who have followed the harrowing story of the horrific racist-murder of a black lad waiting for a bus in Eltham by some racist scum in 1993, will know of the appalling response by the Met, which ultimately led to the damning Macpherson Report that labelled the Met as "Institutionally Racist". It now looks like the Met not only botched their investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence because of their inherent racism, but, they actually spied on his friends and relatives in a despicable smear campaign. It also looks like they deliberately withheld details of this appalling operation from the original Macpherson report.
In response, our partially elected PM has today prattled on about some pathetic police-led inquiry (then I suppose the Eton posh-boy would probably suggest extinguishing a fire with a gallon of petrol) rather than a full, judge-led, public inquiry that should toast once and for all the racist filth that was in, and remains in the Met. If no-one ends up behind bars because of this, any free-thinker left in this country might as well fuck off to Ecuador.
'Dozens of officers could be put on trial for stealing the identities of dead children and sleeping with female activists whom they were spying on, according to the police chief conducting a wide-ranging inquiry into undercover policing conducted by the Met against protest groups.
'Mick Creedon, the chief constable of Derbyshire, also said his team would investigate claims from a police whistleblower, Peter Francis, that senior officers wanted him to spy on and even undermine the Stephen Lawrence campaign.
'In an interview, parts of which are being broadcast on Channel 4's Dispatches on Monday night, Creedon offered a "100%" assurance the matter would be properly investigated. He added that prosecutors were already being asked to consider whether criminal offences had been committed by generations of undercover operatives who had been planted in protest groups over the past 45 years.' (Guardian article).
This might seem like small beer in the greater scheme of things, but this story illustrates very well how the UK has a long way to go before it becomes a true secular democracy.
The good folks at the National Secular Society have spotted a nasty little piece of religious privilege and are launching a legal challenge against Woking Borough Council. Why? Well, the misguided fools at Woking BC have got a 'Pray & Display' scheme going on that currently only allows free parking to people attending a church on Sunday mornings. The Council has decided that everyone else does not warrant a supernatural-deity-subsidy so they have to Pay & Display in the normal manner. Good luck to the NSS with their important legal case.
'Whilst a number of local authorities have introduced charges for evening and Sunday parking in recent years, some of these authorities are allowing worshippers to park at subsidised rates or without charge whilst concurrently charging others for using the same car park at the same time.
We believe this constitutes unequal treatment; one that arbitrarily favours those wishing to attend a service of worship, whilst costing all taxpayers – regardless of whether they attend religious services or not – money. We argue that allowing free parking for worshippers and not other people amounts to direct discrimination on the grounds of religious belief.' (National Secular Society article).
I say "may have been wrong" as the jury is still out on this for me, but ever since Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield started using Twitter to promote the activities onboard the International Space Station, I now realise that certain social media services don't just have to be about idiots informing their friends about when they are watching TV, eating a kebab, or taking a dump.
Now sure, "noise" such as this does occur; in abundance - and unfortunately it is inevitable - but I'm beginning to think that if used intelligently (and with discrimination) social media such as this might have some value. Especially since a limit of 140 characters doesn't provide enough space to post anything other than a brief comment and a weblink to something outside the site that might be worth investing some time exploring.
I will, however, continue to steer well clear of Facebook. The fact that it is an egocentric closed loop system created for the purpose of aiding governments/corporations to data mine, predict trends, and influence the things we buy and the way we vote, is reason enough for me to leave it well alone.
In the meantime, for anyone interested, you can follow media underground on Twitter by clicking on the image below (I almost feel ashamed of myself for having succumbed to this after bitching about it for years):
If the time invested in it outweights the intellectual return, then the account will be shut down without notice. I am hoping to be proven wrong on this however, and will happily admit so if I am.
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).
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).
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).
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).
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!
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).
Having been interested in the old-time American hobo lifestyle for some time, it has come as a great surprise and pleasure to find a thriving subculture of modern hobos still riding freight trains across the US. PBS has a superbly evocative film about hobos here.
Indeed, some old-timers are still out there migrating by freight-train to find work but there is a new wave of hobo riding simultaneously. It would appear that the new younger generation of 'bos' brings a decidedly 'punk-attitude' that simply rides the rails just for the sake of riding the rails - wonderful stuff. This creates an amazing mixture of young punks and old hobos doing the same thing, just for different reasons.
Riding the rails is also referred to as 'freight-hopping' or 'train-hopping' and there is quite a bit of stuff out there. Railroad Semantics is the website of Aaron Dactyl who publishes his own 'freight zine' about his adventures and is well worth a read. Northbank Fred has a very comprehensive website that has loads of hobo stories and links.
There is also a ton of stuff on YouTube and I particularly liked the videos from Wizehop.
Sarah George's documentary Catching Out is also a good all round study of the modern hobo. (Isohunt torrent download).
A new investigative documentary by The Guardian and BBC tells a story of one Colonel James Steele, a veteran of the Latin American Dirty War and the Vietnam War and his involvement in the Iraq War. Apparently, Colonel Steele was involved in helping organize and finance Shia death squads, torture, helping to instigate, perhaps, the civil war in Iraq. His reports went directly to the desks of Rumsfeld and Cheney.
Cyberpunk and media theorist Douglas Rushkoff talks perfect sense, yet again, on the dangers of using Facebook. As he aptly points out: "The true end users of Facebook are the marketers who want to reach and influence us. They are Facebook's paying customers; we are the product. And we are its workers"...
'I used to be able to justify using Facebook as a cost of doing business. As a writer and sometime activist who needs to promote my books and articles and occasionally rally people to one cause or another, I found Facebook fast and convenient. Though I never really used it to socialize, I figured it was okay to let other people do that, and I benefited from their behavior.
'I can no longer justify this arrangement. Today I am surrendering my Facebook account, because my participation on the site is simply too inconsistent with the values I espouse in my work. In my upcoming book Present Shock, I chronicle some of what happens when we can no longer manage our many online presences. I argue - as I always have - for engaging with technology as conscious human beings, and dispensing with technologies that take that agency away.
'Facebook is just such a technology. It does things on our behalf when we're not even there. It actively misrepresents us to our friends, and - worse - misrepresents those who have befriended us to still others. To enable this dysfunctional situation - I call it “digiphrenia” - would be at the very least hypocritical. But to participate on Facebook as an author, in a way specifically intended to draw out the "likes" and resulting vulnerability of others, is untenable.
'Facebook has never been merely a social platform. Rather, it exploits our social interactions the way a Tupperware party does. Facebook does not exist to help us make friends, but to turn our network of connections, brand preferences, and activities over time - our "social graphs" - into a commodity for others to exploit.' (Rushkoff article).
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).
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).
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).
Well, okay, I maybe extrapolating things a bit here, but hell, the God Squad does it all the time. So, am I the first to link the resignation of Mr. Ratzinger with the hillarious story of a 'gay' dog called Elton and a Catholic gob-shite called 'Bill Donohue'? I think dear old Ratzinger read this story and said: "Right, fuck it, I've had enough of this Catholic shit, I'm off!" Enjoy. (Daily Kos article).