Threats to Democracy

Nice to read an article which is has a positive outlook for a change. It's all too easy these days to get depressed when you turn on the news or open a newspaper and get bombarded about the seemingly constant wars, scaremongering about terrorism and corrupt business leaders and politicians.

No doubt the Internet has had huge impact on spreading truth. Never before has it been so easy to get a message across without it being filtered by the corporate media giants. Although the Internet is now under attack in the US with a new communications bill which if it is passed could be the first step towards strangling independent voices. Pray it does not happen!

From Zmag:

In researching a new film, I have been watching documentary archive from the 1980s, the era of Ronald Reagan and his "secret war" against Central America. What is striking is the relentless lying. A department of lying was set up under Reagan with the coy name, "office of public diplomacy". Its purpose was to dispense "white" and "black" propaganda - lies - and to smear journalists who told the truth. Almost everything Reagan himself said on the subject was false. Time and again, he warned Americans of an "imminent threat" from the tiny impoverished nations that occupy the isthmus between the two continents of the western hemisphere. "Central America is too close and its strategic stakes are too high for us to ignore the danger of governments seizing power with military ties to the Soviet Union," he said. Nicaragua was "a Soviet base" and "communism is about to take over the Caribbean". The United States, said the president, "is engaged in a war on terrorism, a war for freedom".

How familiar it all sounds. Merely replace Soviet Union and communism with al-Qaeda, and you are up to date. And it was all a fantasy. The Soviet Union had no bases in or designs on Central America; on the contrary, the Soviets were adamant in turning down appeals for their aid. The comic strips of "missile storage depots" that American officials presented to the United Nations were precursors to the lies told by Colin Powell in his infamous promotion of Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction at the Security Council in 2003.

Whereas Powell's lies paved the way for the invasion of Iraq and the violent death of at least 100,000 people, Reagan's lies disguised his onslaught on Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. By the end of his two terms, 300,000 people were dead. In Guatemala, his proxies - armed and tutored in torture by the CIA - were described by the UN as perpetrators of genocide.

There is one major difference today. That is the level of awareness among people everywhere of the true purpose of Bush and Blair's "war on terror" and the scale and diversity of the popular resistance to it. In Reagan's day, the notion that presidents and prime ministers lied as deliberate, calculated acts was considered exotic; Nixon's Watergate lies were said to be shocking because presidents did not lie outright.

Drugs are bad, m'kay?

2006-08-31T10:05:00.000+01:00

Given the recent media coverage of the legalisation issue due to the Merchants Quay drug centre hosting Jerry Cameron, an FBI trained former US chief of police and current head of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), I think it's only fair to comment on how both for and against legalisiation camps are both in someway missing the mark.

Now me shock some by saying I believe there is no such thing as a 'drugs problem' in society, the issue really is why do people have to turn to drugs? Therefore drug abuse should be dealt with as a health and welfare issue and not a criminal issue. Funneling the money wasted on fighting the war against drugs towards building better community care for the disaffected would go a lot further than throwing it on some fight that can never be won.

Now before those against legalisation fall off their chairs let me point out that just legalising every drug and using the tax money to fund better rehab programs etc is not enough. It would be very near sighted to do that without due care.

Currently if a person wants to drive a car, which is a very dangerous piece of machinery as can be seen by the many road deaths every week, they need to procure a licence after getting many lessons and passing an eye test. Therefore should a person wish to purchase a substance which can seriously harm them and others around them they should be required to have a 'drugs licence'. Obviously the granting of which would be dependant upon psychological and physical screening, even for more mundane drugs like cannabis. This would also be a very effective way of limiting and monitoring usage.

As for heroin the current system of methadone treatment solves nothing. Methadone, which many users report, is actually more addictive than heroin and is far more potent.
So for heroin,cocaine and other seriously addictive drugs should people wish to purchase with a licence then they must also attend a drug rehabilitation program until they are no longer addicted. Failure to attend means licence is revoked. There is also the option of using an inhibitor like GABA-transaminase which will negate any effects of the narcotics permanently rendering the ingestion of an opiate by an addict pointless.

The argument for a 'drugs licence' is one I have never heard before but I think it goes someway to addressing the concerns of both the pro and against camps.

And one other thing, we should never tolerate people like MEP Eoin Ryan and Grainne Kenny (the international president of anti-drugs organisation EURAD) for playing politics with peoples health. No doubt Eoin Ryan has to look to be tough on certain issues to his constituents and his party (that state being sued by cancer patients line is just plain ridiculous!) but both of them should be big enough to listen to the pro legalisation argument from experts such as Jerry Cameron and the Merchant Quay.

Corporate Globalization and Middle East Terrorism

2006-08-30T14:58:00.000+01:00

From Information Clearing House

The Israeli and American governments have little regard for life, or human freedoms. Both thoroughly propagandize their own people and call themselves democracies. They are known to kidnap, imprison, torture, and assassinate their foes without due process. Both possess nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the world many times over. The world surely remembers that America is the only nation to hold human life in such low regard as to actually deploy the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even with Japan’s eminent surrender at hand.

These governments are guilty of the same war crimes that the Nazi leadership was executed for after World War Two. They have histories of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The blood of innocent people runs warm on their hands, and they continually thirst for more.

Blums Anti Empire Report for Aug

2006-08-23T15:13:00.000+01:00

From Dissident Voice:

So now we've (choke) just been (gasp) saved from the simultaneous blowing up of ten airplanes headed toward the United States from the UK. Wow, thank you Brits, thank you Homeland Security. Well done, lads. And thanks for preventing the destruction of the Sears Tower in Chicago, saving lower Manhattan from a terrorist-unleashed flood, smashing the frightful Canadian "terror plot" with 17 arrested, ditto the three Toledo terrorists, and squashing the Los Angeles al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airliner into a skyscraper.

The Los Angeles plot of 2002 was proudly announced by George W. early this year. It has since been totally discredited. Declared one senior counterterrorism official: "There was no definitive plot. It never materialized or got past the thought stage."

And the scare about ricin in the UK, which our own Mr. Cheney used as part of the buildup for the invasion of Iraq, telling an audience on January 10, 2003: "The gravity of the threat we face was underscored in recent days when British police arrested ... suspected terrorists in London and discovered a small quantity of ricin, one of the world's deadliest poisons."

It turned out there was not only no plot, there was no ricin. The Brits discovered almost immediately that the substance wasn't ricin but kept that secret for more than two years.

From what is typical in terrorist scares, it is likely that the individuals arrested in the UK August 10 are guilty of what George Orwell, in 1984, called "thoughtcrimes." That is to say, they haven't actually DONE anything. At most, they've THOUGHT about doing something the government would label "terrorism." Perhaps not even very serious thoughts, perhaps just venting their anger at the exceptionally violent role played by the UK and the US in the Mideast and thinking out loud how nice it would be to throw some of that violence back in the face of Blair and Bush. And then, the fatal moment for them that ruins their lives forever ... their angry words are heard by the wrong person, who reports them to the authorities. (In the Manhattan flood case the formidable, dangerous "terrorists" made mention on an Internet chat room about blowing something up.)

Now we're all terrorists!

2006-08-23T15:10:00.000+01:00

From Media Monitors Network:

Meanwhile, reports of material evidence in the UK have been unnervingly threadbare. Only eleven out of the 24 suspects arrested over the alleged airliner bomb plot have been charged, largely it seems on the basis of police findings of “bomb-making equipment and martyrdom videos”. Out of the other thirteen, two have been released without charge. But the “bomb-making equipment” discovery of “chemicals” and “electrical components” is ambiguous at best, especially given that police descriptions of the alleged bomb construction plan is to mix a sports drink with a peroxide-based household gel (the chemicals), and detonate the mixture with an MP3 player or mobile phone (electrical components). If possession of such items makes you a terror suspect in possession of potential bomb-making equipment, then we are all terror suspects. As Craig Murray observes:

“Let me fess up here. I have just checked, and our flat contains nail polish remover, sports drinks, and a variety of household cleaning products. Also MP3 players and mobile phones. So the authorities could announce -- as they have whispered to the media in this case -- that potential ingredients of a liquid bomb, and potential timing devices, have been discovered. It rather lowers the bar doesn’t it?”

Yes -- clearly, it lowers the bar to potentially include millions of perfectly normal British citizens. The police story is also, simply, scientifically absurd, as Murray further notes: “The idea that high explosive can be made quickly in a plane toilet by mixing at room temperature some nail polish remover, bleach, and Red Bull and giving it a quick stir, is nonsense.” Citing US chemistry experts, Washington-based information security journalist Thomas C. Greene similarly concludes that "... the fabled binary liquid explosive -- that is, the sudden mixing of hydrogen peroxide and acetone with sulfuric acid to create a plane-killing explosion, is out of the question... But the Hollywood myth of binary liquid explosives now moves governments and drives public policy. We have reacted to a movie plot."

Pilger: The Real Threat We Face in Britain is Blair

2006-08-22T11:47:00.000+01:00

From Dissident Voice:

If the alleged plot to attack airliners flying from London is true -- remember the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, and to the raid on a "terrorist cell" in east London -- then one person ultimately is to blame, as he was on 7 July last year. They were Blair's bombs then; who doesn't believe that 52 Londoners would be alive today had the Prime Minister refused to join Bush in his piratical attack on Iraq? A parliamentary committee has said as much, as have MI5, the Foreign Office, Chatham House and the polls.

A senior Metropolitan Police officer, Paul Stephenson, claims the Heathrow plot "was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale." The most reliable independent surveys put civilian deaths in Iraq, as a result of the invasion by Bush and Blair, above 100,000. The difference between the Heathrow scare and Iraq is that mass murder on an unimaginable scale has actually happened in Iraq.

Is this the Steorn device?

2006-08-19T14:38:00.000+01:00

Steorn CEO Sean McCarthy pictured with what could very well be the over unity energy device.

Is this the Steorn device that will challenge the worlds scientic community? Many are sceptical and believe that the laws of thermodynamics are immutable so therefore this must be a con. But what if it is taping a hitherto unknown source of energy or even taping into the earths magnetic field?

If so then the laws of thermodynamics are not being broken so the device could very well be a source of clean unlimited energy. The patent is online and can be viewed here

As perpetual motion machines cannot, under US law, be patented what they are patenting is a process of steps that leads to perpetual motion. A clever work around.

The company have hired one of the most expensive PR firms in the world and spent over 100k on an ad in the Economist challenging the most qualified and most cynical scientists in the world to prove them wrong. A bold move indeed, definitely one to keep an eye on as this could turn the world in its head!

End of the oil industry??

2006-08-17T23:30:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow see's an Irish company launch in their own words:

"a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy.

This means never having to recharge your phone, never having to refuel your car. A world with an infinite supply of clean energy for all."

Who are they and what is it all about? Well watch this video and register at this site

Because of the difficulties they have come across getting the technology publicly validated the gauntlet has been thrown down to the academic community. There is a full page add in tomorrow's Economist requesting anyone from the scientific community to test the technology.

It works with magnets and is an incredibly clever piece of technology that will finally allow us to throw off the burden of oil and all the associated bs that goes with it. Bye bye energy politics, hello freedom.

More info:
Our Technology and the Laws of Physics

Steorn’s technology produces free, clean and constant energy. This provides a significant range of benefits, from the convenience of never having to refuel your car or recharge your mobile phone, to a genuine solution to the need for zero emission energy production. It also provides a secure supply of energy, since the components of the technology are readily available.

The technology is in a constant state of development. The company has focused for the past three years on increasing power output and the development of test systems that allow detailed analysis to be performed.

Steorn’s technology appears to violate the ‘Principle of the Conservation of Energy’, considered by many to be the most fundamental principle in our current understanding of the universe. This principle is stated simply as ‘energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form’.

Steorn is making three claims for its technology:

1. The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
2. The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
3. There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

The sum of these claims is that our technology creates free energy.

This represents a significant challenge to our current understanding of the universe and clearly such claims require independent validation from credible third parties. During 2005 Steorn embarked on a process of independent validation and approached a wide selection of academic institutions. The vast majority of these institutions refused to even look at the technology, however several did. Those who were prepared to complete testing have all confirmed our claims; however none will publicly go on record.

In early 2006 Steorn decided to seek validation from the scientific community in a more public forum, and as a result have published the challenge in The Economist. The company is seeking a jury of twelve qualified experimental physicists to define the tests required, the test centres to be used, monitor the analysis and then publish the results.

Steorn has decided to publish its challenge in The Economist because of the breadth of its readership. "We chose it over a purely scientific magazine simply because we want to make the general public aware that this process is about to commence and to generate public support, awareness, interest etc for what we are doing."

Cook: How I Found Myself with the Islamic Fascists

2006-08-15T15:47:00.000+01:00

From Dissident Voice:

What if the war on “Islamic fascism” is less about fighting terrorism and more about silencing those who dissent from the West’s endless wars against the Middle East?

How the Irish Could Save the Middle East

2006-08-14T15:27:00.000+01:00

From Counterpunch

For just under 837 years, the English and the Irish have warred against one another. Terrible things have been done in those long centuries, and the Irish tell endless stories about them. They know when it began: On Aug. 23, 1170, Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke-"Strongbow" to the Irish-waded ashore with 200 Norman knights and 1,000 men-at-arms near Waterford on Ireland's southeast coast. He took the town in five days, then marched north and smashed an Irish army near Dublin.

Thus began the longest war in European history. For more than 40 generations the Irish seethed at the occupation, rising up time and again to fling themselves in bloody rage at armies they could not hope to defeat.

The Lies Israel Tells Itself (and We Tell on Its Behalf)

2006-07-31T17:00:00.000+01:00

By Jonathan Cook

When journalists use the word “apparently,” or another favorite “reportedly,” they are usually distancing themselves from an event or an interpretation in the supposed interests of balance. But I think we should read the “apparently” contained in a statement from the head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, relating to the killing this week of four unarmed UN monitors by the Israeli army in its other sense.

When Annan says that those four deaths were “apparently deliberate,” I take him to mean that the evidence shows that the killings were deliberate. And who can disagree with him? At least 10 phone calls were made to Israeli commanders over a period of six hours warning that artillery and aerial bombardments were either dangerously close to or hitting the monitors’ building.

The UN post, in Khaim just inside south Lebanon, was clearly marked and well-known to the army, but nonetheless it was hit directly four times in the last hour before an Israeli helicopter fired a precision-guided missile that tore through the roof of an underground shelter, killing the monitors inside. A UN convoy that arrived too late to rescue the peacekeepers was also fired on. From the evidence, it does not get much more deliberate than that.

Fisk: 'How can we stand by and allow this to go on?'

2006-07-31T16:58:00.000+01:00

07/31/06 "The Independent" -- -- They wrote the names of the dead children on their plastic shrouds. "Mehdi Hashem, aged seven - Qana," was written in felt pen on the bag in which the little boy's body lay. "Hussein al-Mohamed, aged 12 - Qana',' "Abbas al-Shalhoub, aged one - Qana.'' And when the Lebanese soldier went to pick up Abbas's little body, it bounced on his shoulder as the boy might have done on his father's shoulder on Saturday. In all, there were 56 corpses brought to the Tyre government hospital and other surgeries, and 34 of them were children. When they ran out of plastic bags, they wrapped the small corpses in carpets. Their hair was matted with dust, most had blood running from their noses.

You must have a heart of stone not to feel the outrage that those of us watching this experienced yesterday. This slaughter was an obscenity, an atrocity - yes, if the Israeli air force truly bombs with the "pinpoint accuracy'' it claims, this was also a war crime. Israel claimed that missiles had been fired by Hizbollah gunmen from the south Lebanese town of Qana - as if that justified this massacre. Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, talked about "Muslim terror" threatening "western civilisation" - as if the Hizbollah had killed all these poor people.

And in Qana, of all places. For only 10 years ago, this was the scene of another Israeli massacre, the slaughter of 106 Lebanese refugees by an Israeli artillery battery as they sheltered in a UN base in the town. More than half of those 106 were children. Israel later said it had no live-time pilotless photo-reconnaissance aircraft over the scene of that killing - a statement that turned out to be untrue when The Independent discovered videotape showing just such an aircraft over the burning camp. It is as if Qana - whose inhabitants claim that this was the village in which Jesus turned water into wine - has been damned by the world, doomed forever to receive tragedy.

Congratulations to the Pit Stop Ploughshares

2006-07-25T13:24:00.000+01:00

In what is a great signal that US use of Shannon Airport as a pitstop for logistical support in the occupation of Iraq should not be tolerated, today a jury acquitted the Pit stop Ploughshares of criminally damaging a US war plane at Shannon Airport in 2003.

In 2003 they entered Shannon Airport and and non-violently disarmed a U.S. navy war plane.

Statement:

The jury is the conscience of the community chosen randomly from Irish society. The conscience of the community has spoken. The government has no popular mandate in providing the civilian Shannon airport to service the US war machine in it's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

In 1996 in Liverpool the Jury acquittal of the four 'ploughshares' women contributed to the end of arms exports to the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia and the independence of East Timor.

The decision of this jury should be a message to London, Washington DC and the Dail that Ireland wants no part in waging war on the people of Iraq. Refuelling of US warplanes at Shannon Airport should cease immediately.

Ciaron, Damien, Karen, Deirdre, Nuin

Kidnapped by Israel:The British Media and The Invasion Of Gaza

2006-07-24T12:26:00.000+01:00

It seems that as usual there is a lot more to the story than what the main stream media would like us to know. Looks like Israel kick started the whole thing by kidnapping two Palestinians.

Jonathan Cook does a very interesting piece (snippet and link below) dissecting the media response. I am currently trying to dig out a link to the article he mentions in the Observer but if anyone is aware of it or comes across it please email it to me.

Few readers of a British newspaper would have noticed the story. In the Observer of 25 June, it merited a mere paragraph hidden in the “World in brief” section, revealing that the previous day a team of Israeli commandos had entered the Gaza Strip to “detain” two Palestinians Israel claims are members of Hamas.

The significance of the mission was alluded to in a final phrase describing this as “the first arrest raid in the territory since Israel pulled out of the area a year ago”. More precisely, it was the first time the Israeli army had re-entered the Gaza Strip, directly violating Palestinian control of the territory, since it supposedly left in August last year.

As the Observer landed on doorsteps around the UK, however, another daring mission was being launched in Gaza that would attract far more attention from the British media – and prompt far more concern.

Shortly before dawn, armed Palestinians slipped past Israeli military defences to launch an attack on an army post close by Gaza called Kerem Shalom. They sneaked through a half-mile underground tunnel dug under an Israeli-built electronic fence that surrounds the Strip and threw grenades at a tank, killing two soldiers inside. Seizing another, wounded soldier the gunmen then disappeared back into Gaza.

Whereas the Israeli “arrest raid” had passed with barely a murmur, the Palestinian attack a day later received very different coverage. The BBC’s correspondent in Gaza, Alan Johnstone, started the ball rolling later the same day in broadcasts in which he referred to the Palestinian attack as “a major escalation in cross-border tensions”. (BBC World news, 10am GMT, 25 June 2006)

Do you think the Lebanese children got the message from the Israeli children?

2006-07-20T14:22:00.000+01:00

(see posts below)

More sickening pictures from Israel

2006-07-19T13:41:00.000+01:00

AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner

Israeli girls write messages on a shell at a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, Monday, July 17, 2006.

And people wonder why the world is so messed up!

2006-07-18T16:36:00.000+01:00

AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner

Israeli children writing messages to Lebanese children.

And they will grow up with hatred in their hearts. As will the Lebanese children.

Neither have any chance of reconciliation as long as their parents continue to fill them with hate.

Surely the meaning of life is to make your child a better person than you are? But what we see here is parents teaching their children to hate more and more, that is exactly why the world is so messed up and is not getting any better!

The Genovese Syndrom

2006-07-07T10:31:00.000+01:00

What is occurring in Gaza today is nothing short of a crime against humanity—unless, that is, you believe that the suffering of one Israeli soldier outweighs the suffering being imposed on 1.5 million innocent Palestinian men , women and children.

Blum: Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's

2006-06-22T14:14:00.000+01:00

National Public Radio foreign correspondent Loren Jenkins, serving in NPR's Baghdad bureau, met earlier this month with a senior Shiite cleric, a man who was described in the NPR report as "a moderate" and as a person trying to lead his Shiite followers into practicing peace and reconciliation. He had been jailed by Saddam Hussein and forced into exile. Jenkins asked him: "What would you think if you had to go back to Saddam Hussein?" The cleric replied that he'd "rather see Iraq under Saddam Hussein than the way it is now."

Ireland Challenged To Build On Success

2006-06-21T17:02:00.000+01:00

Interesting article in todays Washington Post about Irelands economic success. One very interesting point it raised which I was unaware of is the fact that owners of two of the largest real estate firms decided to sell out in the last two weeks.

Surely an indicator that the bubble,whilst not quite at bursting point, is not so bubbly anymore.

The irony of the Irish economic miracle is surely not lost on the countries of Western Europe that poured billions of dollars into their poor, struggling neighbor to help integrate it into the much wealthier European Union.

In one respect it was a tremendous success, creating the continent's fastest-growing and most productive economy.

But in another, Ireland's success represents a profound embarrassment for the European establishment. In terms of the markets for its products and the source of its investment capital, Ireland is much more heavily oriented toward the United States -- and euro holdout England -- than it is to the countries of Western Europe. With its low tax rates and flexible labor markets, its economic model and business culture are "more Boston than Berlin," as the saying goes here. And although Ireland's booming economy now attracts tens of thousands of ambitious young immigrants each year, the vast majority come from the fast-growing states of Eastern Europe rather than high-unemployment states of Western Europe.

US caught transporting prisoners through Irish airspace

2006-06-13T15:51:00.000+01:00

And it took a civilian airport cleaner in Shannon airport to reveal that they are not telling the truth!

So they do move prisoners through Irish airspace without seeking permission! This only makes it more likely that they have used Shannon as a stop over during rendition flights. Add this to that the fact that they move depleted uranium ammo through Shannon, again in contravention of their agreement with the Irish government, this makes Bertie and co look all the more complicit in war crimes.

And the upshot of it all: Our brave Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, who has time and time again said we must trust the assurances from the US summoned the US ambassador to Iveagh house for a spanking.

Chances of our guys putting their foot down and insisting on boarding each flight?? Nada,zip,zilch...
let the whitewash begin...

If the late Charlie Haughey was Taoiseach now I'd say he would have the balls to insist on checking the flights. As corrupt as he was he did seem to have a back bone, something Bertie may like to dig up once he's buried!

Bush’s cornpone sophistry

2006-06-08T17:15:00.000+01:00

If, like myself, you have been wondering lately how Bush manages to keep a 30% support base, even with all the scandals, then this article breaks it down nicely. Well worth a read:

James Moore and Wayne Slater introduce the first chapter of their book about Karl Rove, Bush’s Brain, with the following quotation from the ancient Athenian philosopher Plato [1]: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

It’s a powerful way to start a book about possibly the most effective and infamous political deceiver that has ever lived. For Plato understood well the problems such deceivers cause democracies.

Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave?

2006-06-07T16:43:00.000+01:00

Do bears shit in the wood? Is the Pope Catholic? Are Fianna Fail and the PD's going to get their come-uppance at the next election?

Of course Haditha is just the tip of the iceberg. These things go on, I'd say, every day in Iraq.

The shocking truth about the American occupation of Iraq

Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave? The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of many? Does the handiwork of America's army of the slums go further?

By Robert Fisk

I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials, an old friend, told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body." And here the man handed me a U.S. military document showing with the hand-drawn outline of a man's body and the words "trauma wounds."

John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Charlie Glass, and Seymour Hersh on the failure of the world’s press

2006-06-07T16:40:00.000+01:00

The late journalist Edward R. Murrow might well have been rolling in his grave on April 21. That’s because Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a lecture that day in Washington, DC to journalists at the Department of State’s official Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists.

For the Bush administration to use the memory of a person who stood up to government propaganda is ironic to say the least. Secretary Rice told the assembled journalists that “without a free press to report on the activities of government, to ask questions of officials, to be a place where citizens can express themselves, democracy simply couldn’t work.”

If we knew more about Ireland, we might never have invaded Iraq

2006-06-07T16:35:00.000+01:00

Monbiot telling it like it is again:

That they have not seen his film is no impediment. That it has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes only quickens their desire for reprisals. Ken Loach has been placed in preventive detention and is having his fingernails pulled out.

In the Times, Tim Luckhurst compares him - unfavourably - to Leni Riefenstahl. His new film is a "poisonously anti-British corruption of the history of the war of Irish independence ... The Wind That Shakes the Barley is not just wrong. It infantilises its subject matter and reawakens ancient feuds." I checked with the production company. The film has not yet been released. They can find no record that Luckhurst has attended a screening - and last night he refused to discuss the matter.

Fisk on the Easter Rising

2006-04-18T14:03:00.000+01:00

More than 15 years ago, I travelled to the Belgian city of Ypres with an Irish friend. She was from a good Fine Gael family which nursed a healthy disrespect for the amount of romantic green blossom draped around Padraig Pearse's neck for the militarily hopeless but politically explosive Dublin Easter Rising of 1916. But she displayed an equally admirable suspicion of British - or "English" as she would have put it - intentions towards Ireland, north and south. Her mother once recalled for me a British military raid on their home in County Carlow. "I was a little girl and one of the soldiers patted me on the head and I told him: 'You keep your hands off me.'"

But at Ypres one evening, beneath the great Menin Gate - upon which are carved the names of 54,896 First World War British soldiers whose bodies were never found - my Irish friend faced a real political challenge. She had noted, among those thousands, the names of hundreds of young Irishmen who had died in British uniform while their countrymen at home were fighting and dying in battle against the same British Army. She looked at one of the names. "Why in God's name," she asked, "was a boy from the Station House, Tralee, dying here in the mud of Flanders?" And it was at this point that an elderly man approached us and asked my Irish friend to sign the visitors' book.

So much to absorb!

2006-03-28T16:32:00.000+01:00

Been away for a while but now I'm back it time to try and get back on top of things.

I see our Justice Minister has been making the headlines for the wrong reasons, yet again! I think I'll skip the nazi jibes and his pathetic apology for now as I'm utterly sick of writing about him. I think the best thing we could all do is ignore the man and lets watch his sense of self importance deflate as we turn the other cheek :)
However it is good to see that the suspicous parcel sent to his office today turned out to be a hoax and not actually a bomb or some anthrax.
But these kind of pranks only give McD the upper hand in being able to rise above these actions and no doubt we won't be hearing the end of how it was a republican plot against him....yada yada....or maybe it was the green party members who wanted to finish what they started during the riot etc etc. It's going to be painful to hear the wee feck make use of this stupid prank!

In other parts of the world its great to see the ETA finally call a permanent truce with many news outlets hailing the work of Fr Reid,Sinn Fein and certain IRA members in making it happen.

I'm very much looking fwd to reading the latest from Blum, Pilger and Ritter. I'll link to their latest pieces after I get a chance to read them. But for now back to work :(

Salon.com release all the photos and videos of abuse at Abu Ghraib

2006-03-15T16:50:00.000Z

Warning: contains disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.

Slobo's death

2006-03-15T16:27:00.000Z

Bill Clinton must be sighing with relief once again...

A war criminal's untimely demise lets the U.S. off the hook

Slobodan Milosevic is characterized in the obituaries as the “Butcher of the Balkans.” If that is the story you want to read about, please go to almost any other media outlet and read it again and again. Some are now suggesting that death is Milosevic’s final revenge, that he “ended up cheating history” by dying before judgment was passed. But the world has already passed judgment on Milosevic and what is being cheated by his death is history itself.

The Parasites of God

2006-03-15T16:14:00.000Z

Charles Sullivan asks the question how can someone call themself a Christian and support the war on terror?

Have we become so indoctrinated by the language of empire that we can no longer see the disconnect between these acts of terror and the non-violent teachings of Christ? Why are so many who call themselves Christians worshiping the parasites of god and empire, while shunning and betraying the genuine article?

George Bush, Pat Robertson, Falwell and the rest, have not so cleverly donned the garments of Christianity in order to deliberately mislead their helpless flocks, to press them into the service of Satan, while convincing them they are doing the will of God. Bush, just as he did when he appeared on the deck of that air craft carrier years ago wearing a leather flight jacket, betrays his ignorance about what the wearing of such garments entails. Donning an air force flight jacket does not make one a warrior, although it may make them look like one. Neither does donning the robes of Christianity make a man Christian, a servant of god.

Fisk: The erosion of free speech

2006-03-13T16:09:00.000Z

Another article from Robert Fisk which is well worth a read. In this one he interestingly mentions a recent withdrawal of one of his papers from the Irish Military History Society under pressure from a lawyer of the Irish Academic Press.

But what do you do when a publisher - or an "artistic director" - caves in? I found out for myself not long ago when the Military History Society of Ireland asked permission to reprint a paper I had published some years ago on a battle between the Irish Army's UN battalion in southern Lebanon and Israel's proxy - and brutal - Lebanese militia, the so-called "South Lebanon Army", whose psychotic commander was a cashiered Lebanese army major called Saad Haddad.

Speaking of George Orwell

2006-03-08T12:37:00.000Z

As per my post below, it seems that Ireland's very own big brother, Justice Minister McDowell, has gone out of his way to use language to pull the wool over our eyes yet again.

Speaking in the Dail last week he presented the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assurance) Bill in Irish! Quite a cynical move to ensure the people who are most concerned about intrusions on privacy, eg Digital Rights Ireland and the average citizen, have as much trouble as possible in understanding its impact. The grammar of Irish he used was commented on by TD Michael D Higgins as of very poor quality and quite hard to understand. MDH himself being a life long Irish speaker is well qualified to comment.

The Bill itself allows any European police/security force to spy on citizens of any other EU country without notifying the Government in which they are carrying out the activity. There is a clause to seek "retrospective permission" but by then it is too late as they privacy rights of the citizen have already been violated.

And further highlighting how undemocratic the EU is: The Human Rights Commission, for example, has expressed concern that these measures are negotiated in Brussels with no advance input from the commission or from anyone else. By the time a framework decision is agreed and comes before the Oireachtas, it is too late to do much more than tinker with it.

You would think that something like this would cause a bit of a storm in the media, but alas once again the media are largely silent. With the only press coverage being so far from the Sunday Tribune and the Irish Times,both commenting on the privacy issues of the Bill and its unusual presentation by McDowell.

Sunday Tribune link to article
Irish Times link to article from Monday, reproduced here without need to log in
Irish Times link to article from Tuesday, reproduced here without need to log in

The Value of George Orwell

2006-03-08T10:14:00.000Z

George Orwell remains a valuable writer, though he died in 1950. He was a man who was an active participant in his times, and since the new century appears to be going down the same road as the last one, we can still learn from him.

His essay "Politics and the English Language" ought to be read by every journalist and by everyone who reads journalists or listens to the babble on television.

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity," he wrote. "When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

"In our age, there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia," Orwell wrote. Earlier in the essay he had said, "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

Former Soviet Dissident Warns of EU Dictatorship

2006-03-06T17:05:00.000Z

Some very ominous comparisons were made of the EU to the USSR in this interview by Vladimir Bukovksy, a former dissident who was imprisoned in Soviet gulags for a total of twelve years has warned that he personally saw secret documents in 1992 which outlined a conspiracy to turn the European Union into a Socialist dictatorship.

Excerpts from the interview:

"The European Parliament is elected on the basis of proportional representation, which is not true representation. And what does it vote on? The percentage of fat in yoghurt, that kind of thing. It is ridiculous. It is given the task of the Supreme Soviet. The average MP can speak for six minutes per year in the Chamber. That is not a real parliament."

Calling it "blackmail," Bukovksy pointed out that citizens in countries like Ireland, Denmark and Switzerland were being forced to join the EU via means of endless referendums despite the fact that they consistently vote against it.

"It is a trick for idiots," he says. "The people have to vote in referendums until the people vote the way that is wanted. Then they have to stop voting. Why stop? Let us continue voting. The European Union is what Americans would call a shotgun marriage."

Chomsky: "Under the current U.S. policies, a nuclear exchange is inevitable"

2006-03-06T11:26:00.000Z

There are dire consequences to the current direction of the U.S. foreign policy, said Noam Chomsky in a speech Saturday at Binghamton University. Among those consequences, he said, is a nuclear Armageddon.

"Under the current U.S. policies, a nuclear exchange is inevitable," the 77-year-old MIT professor said in his presentation, "Imminent Crises: Paths Toward Solutions." He spoke to an over-capacity crowd in BU's Osterhout Concert Theater.

Chomsky cited nuclear proliferation and environmental collapse as the two greatest crises that "literally threaten survival."

Nifty flash animation 'War Corporatism: The New Fascism'

2006-03-06T10:00:00.000Z

A video by Simon Robson aka. Knife Party and friend, Barry McNamara. It's an animated look at the dogs of War Corporatism unleashed upon the world by Bush and the PNAC as stated in the September 2000 document Rebuilding America's Defenses .

Bird Flu has reached Ireland

2006-02-23T17:18:00.000Z

Sorry,just couldnt help myself and had to post it!

Europe's Free Speech Paradox

2006-02-21T15:18:00.000Z

“What about freedom of expression when anti-Semitism is involved? Then it is not freedom of expression. Then it is a crime. Yet when Islam is insulted, certain powers raise the issue of freedom of expression.”

-- Amr Mousa, Arab League Secretary General

Woke up this morning to learn of yet two more assaults on democracy in Ireland today.

2006-02-17T11:06:00.000Z

The first one relating to the egregious refueling of CIA and US military flights in Shannon and Baldonnel. Some spineless FF senators have blocked the Seanad from inquiring any further into what exactly is going on.

Tim Dooley (FF): 'setting up a select committee would insult a friendly nation'

Paschal Mooney (FF): 'in view of the assurance by the US secretary of state that nothing illegal was going on in the US use of Shannon, it would be extremely dangerous to the relationship between this country and America to turn around and indicate that somehow they were telling lies. Was Mr Norris prepared to sacrifice jobs and the interests of those in the Shannon area?'

If the US is not telling lies then why would FF senators feel obliged to shut the inquiry down? If there is nothing to reveal then let the investigation vindicate the words of Rice. The silencing of the commitee speaks volumes in that FF care more about US interests than the interests of the Irish people whom I belive the vast majority want a straight answer on what is passing through Shannon and Baldonnel.

Yet another reason not to vote for FF.

(Interesting point to note on the above issue: The only broadsheet to report it today is the Irish Times.)

The second assault on democracy is the introduction of the Strategic Infrastructure Bill

The Bill is being introduced by Envionment Minister Dick Roche to speed up the planning process, which is fair enough as the delay in some of the large scale public projects can be frustrating. However the bill does not distinguish between infrastructure projects genuinely in the public interest and profit driven private sector projects ,as rightly pointed out by the Irish Planning Institute.

Labour environment spokesman Eamon Gilmore:
“It will, however greatly limit the right of the public and of local communities to voice their concerns over major developments, he said accusing the Government of perpetrating an urban myth that planning objections by the public were responsible for most delays,”

Green Party environment spokesman Ciaran Cuffe: “This bill is an attack on local democracy, and will do little or nothing to speed up the planning process. The main planning delays to major projects are due to High Court challenges and poor quality applications in the first instance. The bill does nothing to remedy these failings.”

Groups like the Chambers of Commerce Ireland and IBEC on the other hand said the bill didnt go far enough with IBEC commenting that measures to speed up the process of dealing with objections should be added!

Frank McDonald of the Irish Times correctly highlighted the erosion of democracy since this Government was reelected in 2002, 'it has filleted the Freedom of Information Act, abolished Dúchas (the State Heritage Service) when it was seen to be getting in the way of "progress", and amended the National Monuments Act to give the Minister total discretion.'

Whatever next?

The Germans, 1933-45:They Thought They Were Free

2006-02-17T09:33:00.000Z

The comparison to the US of today is eerie to say the least. Given that students are being offered $100 for providing notes on left wing lectures and the many erosions of civilian rights (the suspension of Habeas Corpus care of the Patriot Act and the domestic spying are just 2 of many examples) it does look like history is repeating itself. The main stream media however, as usual, are complicit in this slow march to fascism.

They Thought They Were Free

The Germans, 1933-45

Excerpt from pages 166-73 of "They Thought They Were Free" First published in 1955

By Milton Mayer

But Then It Was Too Late

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

Irish media silence on neutrality

2006-02-16T13:52:00.000Z

You would think that the erosion of Irish neutrality would be something that the Irish media would love to gets it teeth into. Its a big story and one I believe that everyone in Ireland would have a strong opinion on. However the broadsheet print media have largely ignored the story with a meagre 8 mentions in the press since Thursday the 9th when RTE first broke the news on its website that Wille O'Dea is to introduce legislation to allow Irish forces to participate in EU battle groups. (I'm sure there were articles in the tabloids but I don't consider them newspapers or even worthy of the title newspapers,perhaps gossipsoccertitspaper would be more appropriate)

Lets balance that against the number of mentions of the Six Nations got since the 9th - over 150 articles! Fair enough it was a match weekend but ffs why is rugby more imortant than our neutrality?
The count was done using Electric Search media monitoring software which is usually spot on although it only brings back mentions from online media but it still is a good guide as to where the priorities of the Irish media lie.

The articles I came across discussing Irish neutrality are as follows:
9th Feb
RTE: O'Dea says Irish troops can serve in EU force
Breakingnews.ie: Soldiers to be readied to join EU battle groups
SBpost.ie: Soldiers to be readied to join EU battle groups
10th
Irish Times: Irish soldiers will help to enforce peace
Irish Times: Latest step on march to EU battlegroups
Examier: Legislation imminent for EU battle group role
13th
Irish Indo: Why a global army is the answer to a corrupt UN

I also noticed a front page article in the Metro freebie on the 10th of Feb as well but they have no prescence online so there's no link. The article ran with the headline 'Irish troops face mission to Iraq'! Make what you will of that!

But how neutral has Ireland been anyway? Surely aiding and abetting the US by providing refueling in Shannon for CIA torture flights means that our neutrality is a thing of the past? Well lets see what the Hague convention says about that:

-A neutral Government is bound to employ the means at its disposal to prevent the fitting out or arming of any vessel within its jurisdiction which it has reason to believe is intended to cruise, or engage in hostile operations, against a Power with which that Government is at peace. It is also bound to display the same vigilance to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise, or engage in hostile operations, which had been adapted entirely or partly within the said jurisdiction for use in war.

So there it is, Irish neutrality is no more and the media don't give two hoots.

William Blum: My 15 minutes of fame

2006-02-16T13:41:00.000Z

Osama's favourite author (if you are to believe the tapes!) has released Feb's anti-empire repor t in which he details the experiences he has had in the US since being highlighted in the latest Bin-Laden tapes. Quite comical to say the least,esp the comment from one yank who exclaimed on a phone in show 'what has Israel ever done to the Palestinians?' !!! You couldn't make this stuff up!

McDowell at it again...

2006-02-10T11:40:00.000Z

That despicable creep is mouthing off again,this time he's criticising the 'agenda setting' role of the media. Of course the first thing anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence will do is realise how hypocritical a statement that is since he himself has been more than happy to use the media to his own ends.

I don't think I need to go into detail about how he and his buddy Sam Smith in the Irish Indo carried out what can only be called a devious and disgusting act of (I've said it before and I'll say it again) political assassination on the Centre for Public Inquiry not too long ago.

Speaking at the 10th annual lecture on "Broadcasting, Society and the Law", presented jointly by RTÉ and UCD's School of Law he outlined the duties of the media as to educate public opinion, and to uphold the rights of citizens, including the right to privacy and a good name.(of course that is as long as your name is not Frank Connolly ;)

Which leads me nicely to the next installment of Stars in his Eyes, since McD is so fond of setting the agenda of the media guess who he is this week:

Tonight Matthew I am going to be........

Click on pic to find out!

Beware the Ides of March..

2006-02-08T16:02:00.000Z

Looks like March is the month for operation Shock and Awe part II. Although how the US can sustain another war in Iran I don't know.
Various scenarios have been thrown about lately with the likelihood that Israel will take the lead strike with Iran then responding in kind.
Given that Bush recently committed the US to the defense of Israel that will give him the excuse he needs to go into Iran. And may also give him a nice reason to exit Iraq, since the troops will be needed in Iran he can close up shop in Iraq saying that Iran posses a bigger threat and sure the job is done anyway!

And of course the fact that Iran is very close to opening their own Oil Bourse which greatly threatens the petro-dollar dominance and therefore the US economy is a complete coincidence!

A senior Russian parliamentary official and leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Vladimir Zhirinovsky believes that a U.S. attack on Iran is inevitable, he has told Ekho Moskvy radio station.

“The war is inevitable because the Americans want this war,” he said. “Any country claiming a leading position in the world will need to wage wars. Otherwise it will simply not be able to retain its leading position. The date for the strike is already known — it is the election day in Israel (March 28 ). It is also known how much that war will cost,” Zhirinovsky said

And Scott Ritter is banging the same drum:
He predicted the matter will wind up before the U.N. Security Council, which will determine there is no evidence of a weapons program. Then, he said, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "will deliver a speech that has already been written. It says America cannot allow Iran to threaten the United States and we must unilaterally defend ourselves."

"How do I know this? I've talked to Bolton's speechwriter," Ritter said.

Rove Threatens Republican Senators... Support The President On Wiretapping Or Else...

2006-02-07T19:30:00.000Z

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

Europe's Defamation of the Prophet

2006-02-07T14:58:00.000Z

Indeed the only freedom of speech left in the west is bashing Islam otherwise it does have its limits. In Europe you can be prosecuted for questioning the extant of the Holocaust or criticizing Israel’s policy given western indoctrination that such “freedom” is Anti-Semitic.” Israel and its bloody history is now the “Holy Grail” for the civilized west, the champions of human rights.

Being civilized begins with education and manifests in rational behavior. The rampant ignorance of Islam in Europe leads to an irrational fear and thus prejudice. Descartes would turn in his grave if he knows that his motto has been transformed into “I don’t think, therefore I’m civilized.”

Prophetically the famed Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) described the misuse of freedom of speech as:

“People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.”

Sums it up nicely I think

2006-02-07T14:54:00.000Z

Talk about hypocrisy!

2006-02-07T14:48:00.000Z

Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons

Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today.

The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny.

In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten.

Fisk:Don't be fooled, this isn't an issue of Islam versus secularism

2006-02-07T14:18:00.000Z

For those out there who do not have a log into the UK Independent site, ICH have reprinted it here:
For many Muslims, the "Islamic" reaction to this affair is an embarrassment. There is good reason to believe that Muslims would like to see some element of reform introduced to their religion. If this cartoon had advanced the cause of those who want to debate this issue, no-one would have minded. But it was clearly intended to be provocative. It was so outrageous that it only caused reaction.

Free speech is only free when Muslims are the target

2006-02-06T15:40:00.000Z

A month ago, when I first became aware of the provocative anti-Muslim cartoons published in JP, I immediately contacted the editors and asked why they had allowed their newspaper to be dragged into such a ridiculous and provocative situation.

With Europe already involved in two Middle Eastern wars and with the political tension with Iran increasing daily, I asked the editors, "Do you truly wish to antagonize Muslims?"

"I support freedom of speech and am against self-censorship," Rose, who commissioned the cartoons, wrote in response. It was, however, clearly not simply to exercise Denmark's non-existent freedom of speech that Rose commissioned the anti-Muslim cartoons. The more sinister motive of advancing the "clash of civilizations" among Europeans was evidently behind the offensive images.

Irish Indo ignoring reality as usual

2006-02-03T15:32:00.000Z

There's a sickening article about Paul Wolfowitz in todays Irish Indo that made my toes curl!
'Wolf' puts on fluffy sheep's clothing
Seems that whatever hack threw the piece together obviously didnt do their research. One only has to pick up any Financial Times over the last few weeks to find many articles detailing that the 'head of the World Bank with a passion for helping millions stuck in poverty' is facing a near mutiny in the World Bank due to his questionable management style. He has been stacking the upper echelons of the WB with prominent Neocons(no surprise there really) and has been severely criticised for his abrasive management style.

Those FT links are here although registration is required so I have included other links of relevance below.
FT:
World Bank receives complaint on Wolfowitz aides
Wolfowitz aides spark World Bank dispute
Staff urge Wolfowitz to follow procedures
Wolfowitz urged to use normal job procedures
World Bank staff told to treat 'integrity' unit as ally
World Bank turmoil over Wolfowitz crusade
Questions raised about Wolfowitz management style

Others:

Wolfowitz Watch
Wolfowitz Triggers Graft Storm at World Bank
Far from Abu Ghraib, some answers about the Bush regime's conduct are buried at the World Bank

Fisk: The problem with democracy

2006-01-30T14:21:00.000Z

And now, horror of horrors, the Palestinians have elected the wrong party to power. They were supposed to have given their support to the friendly, pro-Western, corrupt, absolutely pro-American Fatah, which had promised to "control" them, rather than to Hamas, which said they would represent them. And, bingo, they have chosen the wrong party again.

Potato-loving Ireland mulls test of GMO spud

2006-01-30T14:20:00.000Z

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland, Europe's biggest per capita consumer of potatoes, is weighing a proposal by German chemicals group BASF to grow varieties that have been genetically modified to resist disease.

Irish "Peace" Process at Recriminations Stage

2006-01-30T14:19:00.000Z

Village Magazine's Harry Browne does an excellent job of summarising the Irish Peace process:

Among the shocked pundits reflecting on the Palestinian election victory of Hamas, there are already a few predictable straw-clutchers. Look, they say, at the Irish 'peace process': it worked only when the IRA was brought in from the 'terrorist' cold to the warm hearth of democracy. Hamas, like the IRA, must be a party to any workable solution anyway; the electoral mandate will help its leaders to face their responsibilities.

Political bias affects brain activity, study finds

2006-01-26T14:44:00.000Z

Proof positive that US voters are suffering from cognitive dissonance! ;)

Democrats and Republicans both adept at ignoring facts, brain scans show

Stars in his eyes

2006-01-26T12:29:00.000Z

Tonight Matthew I am going to be........
Click on pic to find out!

More of the same next week ;)

Sanitised images hide truth about war, says Fisk

2006-01-25T16:59:00.000Z

He presented a powerful case for presenting in the media the full horror of war - images such as the blood that poured over the top of his shoes in a Baghdad hospital, and the bones he saw where should have been feet on the legs of a child - a horrific sight which was edited out in newspaper images of the child.
"One thing that unsettles people is the sense that there is a slightly voyeuristic element to seeing people suffering," suggested Simon Kelner, The Independent's editor-in-chief, who chaired the debate. Fisk replied that film-makers saw fit to include the full gore of war in productions such as Saving Private Ryan and there was no reason why news broadcasts should be any different. Most of the 600-strong audience at Manchester Town Hall agreed when the issue was put to the vote.

Hitler, unlike Bush,didn’t have nuclear weapons at his disposal.

2006-01-25T16:18:00.000Z

It is grossly unfair to compare Bush and Hitler since Bush didnt serve
in the military ;)
But a great article from Kurt Nimmo all the same

Cartoon of the year!

2006-01-25T11:16:00.000Z

Aryeh Neier: The Bush Repression

2006-01-24T16:39:00.000Z

How will President George W. Bush’s administration be remembered historically? After five years in office, and with another three years to go, some answers are already apparent. Others are emerging gradually. The latter category includes an increasing assault on civil liberties within the United States that now compares to that of Richard Nixon’s administration more than thirty years ago.

what goes around comes around

2006-01-24T16:19:00.000Z

This put a smile on my face
Activists angered by a US Supreme Court ruling that homes can be demolished for public developments are trying to seize the home of one of the judges involved

Do the words Pot,Kettle and Black mean anything to you?

2006-01-23T16:18:00.000Z

And the criticism comes from the one country that spends nearly half of its budget on its military!

U.S.: Venezuela Overspending on Military

Venezuela is planning a "buying spree" for military equipment that goes beyond the country's legitimate needs, the State Department said Friday.
In recent days, the United States has sought to block proposed sales of military planes and other equipment to Venezuela by Spain and Brazil.
The transactions are part of what "we would consider an outsized military buildup in Venezuela," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Sky news' wet dream come true

2006-01-23T10:06:00.000Z

Experts say there are 3 different types of communication,Substantive-where the message is shared and people learn,Pragmatic-where one side tries to convince the other side(propaganda,advertising) and Intoxicating-communication that has no message but is used to fill and distract peoples minds.
Last weekend was a victory for the intoxicating communicators. But when an over sized fish(yes I know mammal) found itself in the murky waters of the Thames it wasn't going to be any other way. Sky News' dream came true and its highly experienced staff covered each and every flap of it fins with much gravitas. Absolutely no expenses were spared to cover the poor whales plight with live coverage much of Friday and all day Saturday. But alas all the efforts to rescue the whale went in vain and he died during the rescue attempt,altogether now: 'awwwww'
The headline on the Sky news website read 'Whale death highlights world crisis' so you know its serious.
Obviously the election results,death of a British contractor,Bomb blasts, shootings and rocket-propelled grenade attacks that killed at least 13 people and the discovery of bullet-riddled bodies of 23 men come second to the fish in a wrong place, and thats just the news from Iraq!

The real reason Bush jr stole the 2000 election?

2006-01-20T15:53:00.000Z

Was it to protect his fathers dodgy dealings with the Iranians???

With the Republican defenses falling apart and with many documents from the Reagan-Bush years scheduled for release in 2001, the opportunity to finally learn the truth about the pivotal election of 1980 loomed.
But George W. Bush elbowed his way into the White House in January 2001 – and on his first day in office, his counsel Alberto Gonzales drafted an executive order for Bush that postponed release of the Reagan-Bush records.

Are the Bin Laden audio tapes authentic?

2006-01-20T15:11:00.000Z

Some very worrying points raised by Jason Kernahan here:
But we actually have no reason whatsoever to believe that these tapes are authentic. While there have been reports of scientific voice analyses performed on them, these studies have been invariably done by CIA experts. In fact, on only one occasion was an independent analysis done. And while US officials were certain of that tape’s authenticity, Swedish scientists were equally convinced that it was a fake.

Dublin's maternity hospitals are being clogged up by large numbers of women- some of whom are pregant! :)

2006-01-20T10:40:00.000Z

The Evil Gerald has the story:
ACCORDING to a damning internal report seen by The Evil Gerald, Dublin's maternity hospitals are being clogged up by large numbers of women - some of whom are pregnant.

Chomsky on Prime Time last night

2006-01-20T10:14:00.000Z

Mark Little's 'interview' ( and I use the term interview in the loosest sense of the word) was nothing but a disgrace to journalism. Little displayed ignorance that one would expect to see from a Fox or Sky News stenographer constantly interrupting and talking over Chomsky.
It was obvious he was not familiar with Chomskys work and had done f all research. He choose to centre on what critics think of Chomskys work and wasted some amount of time trying to get NC to call Bertie Ahern a war criminal!
Here's a link to the interview if you have some time to waste

Bin Laden warns US of new attacks but offers truce

2006-01-19T19:04:00.000Z

Yahoo
Reuters video

Why an Economic Boycott of Israel is Justified

2006-01-19T17:10:00.000Z

It worked for South African apartheid. Why not then for Israeli apartheid?

'War on Terror' Creates Terrorists

2006-01-19T17:09:00.000Z

The CIA’s recent botched attempt to kill al-Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman Zawahiri, in Pakistan illustrates why the Bush administration’s overly aggressive “war on terror” actually motivates terrorists to attack the United States.

William Rivers Pitt: The New Fascism

2006-01-19T17:08:00.000Z

George W. Bush has all but gelded Congress in recent months, attaching so-called "signing statements" to a variety of laws, which state that the president may act beyond the laws whenever he so chooses. The United States, fashioned as a republic, has as its voice the congressional body. This is all but finished. To cement his victory over the parliamentary system, Bush has put forth one Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court, a man who believes in the ultimate power of the one leader over the many. The gelded congress does not appear able to keep this man from the high court, thus rendering the balancing branches of government into a satellite system of the Executive.

Fire at the Centre for Public Inquiry!

2006-01-19T14:01:00.000Z

A fire broke out in a training room at the CPI this morning. Fortunately no one was injured and no serious damage was done as the fire was contained very quickly.
Reports of a bald man with glasses and a box of matches in hand running from the scene are so far unsubstantiated.

Organ retention scandal

2006-01-19T12:12:00.000Z

14,000 pituitary glands from the bodies of babies sold to pharma
companies from 1970-1985.

And what do we get?

A report that took 6 years and €20m to complete.
No compensation for the families. No doctors or individuals singled out.
The Department of Health were aware of the sale of the organs since 1976 but “no concern was raised regarding the issue of consent” at any stage!
Blamed on a 'lack of communication' between doctors and the grieving families!

But they did get an apology from the Tanaiste. How nice of her to do that as we all know how hard it is for a politician to apologise for anything. Bless her!

A Tribute to Iraqi Ingenuity

2006-01-19T11:57:00.000Z

For 42 days, Baghdad and other cities and towns were bombarded with nearly 140,000 tons of explosives, by international estimates. The bombing was relentless- schools, housing complexes, factories, bridges, electric power stations, ministries, sewage facilities, oil refineries, operators, and even bomb shelters (including the only baby formula factory in Iraq and the infamous Amirya Shelter bombing where almost 400 civilians were killed).

Iran Has an 'Inalienable Right' to Nuclear Energy

2006-01-18T15:30:00.000Z

Is Iran's plan for an oil exchange trading in Euros the real issue? Or is it Israel? And why haven't the nuclear powers fulfilled their treaty obligations?

Blair denies Britain is a police state :) satire

2006-01-18T14:22:00.000Z

Prime Minister Tony Blair today denied that Britain is now a police state, despite claims by Magistrates in Bootle that they had been 'overwhelmed by evidence' from the security services in the case of a man convicted of a parking offence.

Chomsky in Dublin

2006-01-18T10:58:00.000Z

For those of you out there who were unable to get tickets(quite a lot I would imagine given the demand) to any of the Chomsky appearances you'll be glad to hear that UCD will be shortly putting a webcast recording of his talk on "Democracy Promotion: Reflections on Intellectuals and the State"

Also he will be interviewd by Eamon Dunphy on the Newstalk 106 Breakfast show at 8am tomorrow.

ICH: Bush Has Crossed the Rubicon

2006-01-17T11:20:00.000Z

Another very good article from ICH on what the Alito nomination really means to the US

President Bush has used "signing statements" hundreds of times to vitiate the meaning of statutes passed by Congress. In effect, Bush is vetoing the bills he signs into law by asserting unilateral authority as commander-in-chief to bypass or set aside the laws he signs. For example, Bush has asserted that he has the power to ignore the McCain amendment against torture, to ignore the law that requires a warrant to spy on Americans, to ignore the prohibition against indefinite detention without charges or trial, and to ignore the Geneva Conventions to which the US is signatory.

ICH: Dusting off the Brown-shirts and Jackboots

2006-01-17T11:14:00.000Z

In just months Bush has claimed that he has the right to incarcerate citizens without charging them with a crime, torture prisoners, unilaterally declare war, and spy on Americans.

Why?

Samuel Alito Withdraws from Supreme Count Consideration, Bush to Take His Place :)

2006-01-16T13:16:00.000Z

Unconfirmed sources indicate that Samuel Alito has withdrawn his nomination to the Supreme Court so that George W. Bush can take his place.

Ralf Dahrendorf: Free Speech on Trial

2006-01-16T10:48:00.000Z

Can such demands for restricting free speech ever be legitimate? The first and principled answer must surely be no. All freedoms can be abused by liberty’s enemies, but in the case of speech, the risk posed by restricting freedom is surely greater.

Muhammad Habash:Islam’s Fanatical 1%

2006-01-16T10:46:00.000Z

Unfortunately, Iraq has become a breeding ground for radical Islam, owing to the brutality that the Iraqi people suffered under Saddam and now at the hands of the occupation forces. But this scenario is not limited to Muslims. Radicalism threatens any society where human dignity is lost and human rights mean nothing.

Chomsky: 'There Is No War On Terror'

2006-01-15T18:42:00.000Z

The fact of the matter is that there is no War on Terror. It's a minor consideration. So invading Iraq and taking control of the world's energy resources was way more important than the threat of terror. And the same with other things. Take, say, nuclear terror. The American intelligence systems estimate that the likelihood of a "dirty bomb," a dirty nuclear bomb attack in the United States in the next ten years, is about 50 percent. Well, that's pretty high. Are they doing anything about it? Yeah. They're increasing the threat, by increasing nuclear proliferation, by compelling potential adversaries to take very dangerous measures to try to counter rising American threats.

Deja Vu

2006-01-15T14:25:00.000Z

President Bush, 1/13/06: "Iran, armed with a nuclear weapon, poses a grave threat to the security of the world."

President Bush 10/7/02: "Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace... The threat comes from Iraq... It is seeking nuclear weapons."

How long before there's a Whitehouse Iran Group setup??

The swiftboating of Murtha

2006-01-15T14:05:00.000Z

So the radical right start to question the character of decorated Marine who is critical of the Whitehouse. As usual if they don't like the message they attack the messenger!
From the Huff Po:
The Huffington Post has learned the Bush administration recently asked high ranking military leaders to denounce Congressman John Murtha. Congressman Murtha has called for the Bush Administration to withdraw US troops from Iraq.

here we go....

2006-01-13T17:00:00.000Z

BERLIN Jan 12, 2006 — The British, French and German foreign ministers said Thursday that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program had reached a "dead end" and the Islamic republic should be referred to the U.N. Security Council.

Biggest spenders on lobbying in Ireland

2006-01-13T16:01:00.000Z

1998-2004

1)	Norbrook Laboratories Ltd.			$260,000
2)	University College Dublin	-	-	$60,000
3)	Derry Investment Initiatives	-	-	$20,000
4)	Liberty Mobile Holdings Co.			$20,000
5)	North of Ireland Free Trade Initiative	-	-	Less than $10,000

From http://www.publicintegrity.org/lobby/profile.aspx?act=countries&co=ie

William Blums anti-empire report

2006-01-13T14:01:00.000Z

On December 7, the All Things Considered feature of National Public Radio had a report about the "honor" killing of a young woman in Iraq who had been kidnapped. She had to be killed by her family because of the mere possibility of her having been raped by her captors; the family had to protect its honor; a much loved and admired daughter she was, but still, her cousin shot her dead. It had nothing to do with Islam, the story said, it was a "tribal custom."

This report was followed immediately by Col. Gary Anderson, US Marines retired, arguing that the United States has to stay the course in Iraq. He's concerned that bin Laden et al. will think the United States is "a quitter." He says that leaving now would "dishonor" the Iraqis and he's apparently prepared to continue killing any number of the very same Iraqi people to preserve their honor. Anthropologists report that this seems to be some kind of "tribal custom" in Anderson's country.

Presumably it doesn't bother the good colonel that a large majority of the informed people of the world think the United States is a murderous imperialist power -- he's probably proud of that -- but a "quitter"? Over his dead body. Or someone's dead body.

Bush Impeachment Defense Memo Leaked, President Expects to Use Idiot Defense :)

2006-01-13T13:31:00.000Z

With the first calls for impeachment circulating in Congress and across the country, President George W. Bush and his advisors met in Washington over the weekend to map a defense based on the so-called "idiot defense," sometimes referred to as the "I was out of the loop" method of shifting blame to others.

Spurious attempt to tie Iran, Iraq to nuclear arms plot bypassed

2006-01-12T15:01:00.000Z

Several U.S. and foreign intelligence sources, along with investigators, say an Iranian exile with ties to Iran-Contra peddled a bizarre tale of stolen uranium to governments on both sides of the Atlantic in the spring and summer of 2003.

The Impeachment of George W. Bush

2006-01-12T14:55:00.000Z

Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so.

A sad day today.

2006-01-12T11:53:00.000Z

I had the misfortune to come across some right wing Irish organisatons and blogs today. I was blissfully unaware that there were organisations such as the Freedom Institute that promote US policy in Ireland without realising that US policy itself is more or less determined by a cabal of Neo-Con's. Some of the reports on the Freedom Institute are deluded! I felt sick and had to give up reading after I came across the report on Iran (note the lack of references for his points) The report has this corker of a line: 'What should certainly be worrying is the fact that the stockpiles of nuclear weapons in Iraq were discovered only after the 1991 Gulf War' So Iraq had stockpiles of nuclear weapons? Thats certainly news to the rest of the world.. And here's a question? Why does Ireland need a 'Freedom Institute'? Someone should inform the knee-jerk conservatives there that Ireland is a democracy and we don't need anymore right wing lies.

Rumsfeld's Archipelago of Gulags

2006-01-11T16:06:00.000Z

For four years Guantánamo’s high profile obscured a far shadier world of US-sponsored interrogation chambers around the world, writes Clive Stafford Smith. Only now is the world finally asking about the archipelago of US prisons around the world, and the fleet of CIA aircraft ferrying prisoners from one torture chamber to the next.

And the war drums keep beating...

2006-01-11T14:25:00.000Z

Israel is updating plans for a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities which could be launched as soon as the end of March, according to military and intelligence sources.

Iran has every right to develop whatever it wants. Even if it wants nuclear weapons. Considering the aggressiveness coming from Israel and the fact that Israel has up to 200 nuclear warheads it is complete hypocrisy on behalf of the main stream media to denounce Iran.

Of course ideally no one should posses a weapon of mass destruction but why should Israel/US hold all the aces?