statism watch

As you can see, intelligence operations aren’t always perfect – but the public can always be counted on to provide them psychological cover by dismissing any notion that their government isn’t a big, caring daddy that loves them. Take the case of Dr. David Kelly. Even after having blown the whistle on WMDs, even after eyewitnesses attested to seeing men clad in black hunched over his body flee the scene, even after the Daily Mail reported MI5 removed Kelly’s computer from his house half an hour before his body was reported found, our ability to prevaricate and dismiss the disturbing means the story of David Kelly’s death, for much of the voting public, will be buried with David Kelly. And Tony Blair will take the stand at the Chilcott Inquiry in five day’s time and lie some more.

Flashback: UK: Did MI5 kill Dr David Kelly?

Daniel Martin, The Daily Mail
January 24, 2010

Medical records which would shed light on the death of government scientist David Kelly will be kept secret for 70 years, it emerged yesterday.

The unprecedented move has been ordered by Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry which controversially concluded that the mysterious death was suicide.

It means vital evidence, including the results of Dr Kelly’s post-mortem examination – which have never been made public – will remain under wraps until 2073, by which time anyone involved in the case will almost certainly be dead.

The body of 59-year- old UN weapons inspector Dr Kelly was found in July 2003 in woods near his Oxfordshire home. Days earlier he had been revealed as the source of a BBC story claiming evidence against Iraq had been ‘sexed up’ to justify invasion.

No coroner’s inquest has been held into the death.

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Flashback: Airport scanner companies queue for business after ‘underpants bomber’ | German ‘Fleshmob’ Protests Airport Scanners | Body scanners capable of storing, sending images, group says | Dutch police develop mobile body scans | Whole-body airport scanners are basically safe–or are they? | Airport security starts in the parking lot | Body scanners coming to Canadian airports | UK: New scanners break child porn laws | US implements travel profiling: Tougher air screening for ’security-risk’ countries | UK: Full-body scanners being ordered for airports, says Gordon Brown | Group slams Chertoff on conflict of interest in scanner promotion | The ‘Israelification’ of airports: High security, little bother | Underwear Bomber Renews Calls for ‘Naked Scanners’ | Federal Privacy Commissioner raises alarm over terror security measures | Privacy watchdog OKs ‘naked’ airport scanners | Security may soon test ‘virtual strip search’ at large Canadian aiports | US Border Guards to Expand Use of X-Ray Body Scanners | Homeland Security seeks Bladerunner-style lie detector | Greyhound introduces security screening of passengers, bans fruit, carry-ons | Germany rejects full-body scans at airports | Interpol wants facial recognition database to catch suspects | ‘Pre-crime’ detector shows promise | Eye scans, fingerprints to control NZ borders | Air passengers to undergo ‘virtual strip search’ | US Homeland Security Keen on ‘Novel’ Israeli Airport Security Technology | Israel startup uses behavioral science to identify terrorists | Airport scanner a ‘virtual strip search’

Rik Myslewski, TheRegister.co.uk
January 24, 2010

Todger, yes. Combustibles, no

Most of the uproar over full-body scanners has focused on privacy concerns. There’s one larger question, however, that hasn’t received much scrutiny by the chattering classes: do the damnable things work?

One German TV station says “Nein.”

By way of Americablog comes a video of a man easily concealing the makings of high-temperature combustibles in a manner that evaded a full-body scanner. As the blogger writes: “Even if you don’t understand German, it’s easy enough to follow how this physicist beat the system.”

First the World’s Ugliest Man forced us all to remove our shoes when going through airport security. Now the Nigerian crotchbomber has upped the ante, forcing us to leave our dignity at home.

And for what? So that few hundred million taxpayer dollars can be spent slowing our boarding even longer while producing images that some of the more-squeamish members of the public have likened to child porn and which can’t detect bomb ingredients?

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Flashback: UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters | The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism – Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism – Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | Al Gore Set To Become First “Carbon Billionaire” | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | What happened to global warming? | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | More defects, exclusions in key climate warming data are uncovered | Climate change complacency `global suicide pact,’ UN told | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | Washington Post Meteorologist: A Skeptical Take on Global Warming | Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites | Warming oceans mean less cloud cover | Global Warming or Global Cooling? A New Trend in Climate Alarmism | Counterpoint: Climate skepticism for beginners | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Global warming alarmists out in cold | Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking | Scientists warn global warming accelerating | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

David Rose, Daily Mail
January 24, 2010

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’

Dr Lal’s admission will only add to the mounting furore over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation.

According to the IPCC’s statement of principles, its role is ‘to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis, scientific, technical and socio-economic information — IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy’.

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The rocker panels have already rusted out and now it seems the wheels have completely fallen off the IPCC.

Flashback: The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism – Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism – Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | Al Gore Set To Become First “Carbon Billionaire” | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | What happened to global warming? | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | More defects, exclusions in key climate warming data are uncovered | Climate change complacency `global suicide pact,’ UN told | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | Washington Post Meteorologist: A Skeptical Take on Global Warming | Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites | Warming oceans mean less cloud cover | Global Warming or Global Cooling? A New Trend in Climate Alarmism | Counterpoint: Climate skepticism for beginners | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Global warming alarmists out in cold | Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking | Scientists warn global warming accelerating | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Jonathon Leake, The Sunday Times
January 24, 2010

THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny – and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report’s own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month’s Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions.

Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change minister, has suggested British and overseas floods – such as those in Bangladesh in 2007 – could be linked to global warming. Barack Obama, the US president, said last autumn: “More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent.”

Last month Gordon Brown, the prime minister, told the Commons that the financial agreement at Copenhagen “must address the great injustice that . . . those hit first and hardest by climate change are those that have done least harm”.

The latest criticism of the IPCC comes a week after reports in The Sunday Times forced it to retract claims in its benchmark 2007 report that the Himalayan glaciers would be largely melted by 2035. It turned out that the bogus claim had been lifted from a news report published in 1999 by New Scientist magazine.

The new controversy also goes back to the IPCC’s 2007 report in which a separate section warned that the world had “suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s”.

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More beatings, courtesy of the secret police. Feel real powerful now, thugs?

Flashback: Vancouver police apologize after wrong man beaten by plainclothes officers | Regina police probe RCMP torture claims | Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border | U.S. police taser 10-year-old | US Cop Tasers and Arrests a 10-Year Old Girl For Throwing a Fit | RCMP defend Taser use on girl, 16 | Video shows violent B.C. police takedown | G20 Police & Military Savagely Attack Peaceful Protesters In Pittsburgh Park | Border guards resorting to force more often | Pregnant mother tasered at baptism party | US Lawsuit: Cops tasered 3 kids in shelter, threatened one with sodomy | etc, etc…

David Edwards, Gavin Dahl, RawStory.com
January 24, 2010

Pittsburgh police have reassigned three plainclothes officers to uniformed duty pending an investigation into the beating of an 18-year-old student.

A police report indicates that officers became interested in Jordan Miles when they suspected he had a gun in his coat. After beating Miles in the head with a closed fist, the officers discovered the object was a Mountain Dew bottle.

Miles, a violinist and honor student who attends the prestigious Creative and Performing Arts High School, says he resisted arrest because he thought the men were trying to abduct him and didn’t identify themselves as police.

The student is black, and the three officers are white. Police and the family’s attorney aren’t commenting on whether race was a factor, according to the Associated Press.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports, “Miles suffered a swollen face, hair ripped from his scalp and a twig jabbed through his gum during the incident.”

Elizabeth Pittinger of the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board told KDKA, “So we have a very real dispute, a very real controversy involving suspicion of misconduct on the part of the police officers so the test of that is to search for the truth.”

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Just the most recent in a long line of faked messages from the bogeyman. In this case, so utterly implausible that not even the US intelligence complex wants to chance the direct association of having ‘confirmed’ its authenticity. Hey, voiceprinting technology didn’t suddenly go away, you know. They could readily disprove its authenticity, but note that hasn’t happened. Like the existence of Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984, the by now largely mythical figure of Obama Bin Laden has become an article of faith for the supporters of these wars. The last time it’s reported anyone actually saw him, he was on dialysis in the American hospital in Dubai and was visited by the CIA in the months leading up to 9/11. The last time it’s reported anyone got close to him (Tora Bora, Afghanistan) the attack was called off by unnamed officials in the upper echelons of the military.

Flashback: Bin Laden not in Pakistan, says prime minister | U.S. ‘missed chance’ to capture bin Laden in 2001 | Another dubious Bin Laden tape: Obama ‘powerless’ in Afghanistan | Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years — and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror? | A Sibel Edmonds Bombshell — Bin Laden Worked for U.S. Until 9/11 | CIA: Bin Laden still in Pakistan | Al-Qaeda Chief In Iraq: Captured, Killed, Never Actually Existed, Now Captured Again | IntelCenter Releases Video of Former CIA Employee Zawahiri Threatening America | Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden | Purported bin Laden tape decries Israel’s anniversary | Benazir Bhutto: Bin Laden Murdered | New Bin Laden Video: 100% Forgery | U.S. Government Caught Red-Handed Releasing Staged Al-Qaeda Videos | Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake

The Associated Press
January 24, 2010

A new audio message purportedly made by Osama bin Laden has the al-Qaeda leader claiming responsibility for the plot to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner last month on Christmas Day.

The man speaking on the tape, broadcast Sunday, also vows further attacks on the United States.

A White House adviser said he could not confirm whether the voice was actually that of bin Laden. David Axelrod told CNN’s State of the Union that whatever the source, the message “contains the same hollow justification for the mass slaughter of innocents.”

The message suggests that bin Laden wants to show he remains in direct command of al-Qaeda’s many branches around the world.

In the minute-long recording carried by Al-Jazeera, the man the Arabic news channel identifies as bin Laden addresses U.S. President Barack Obama, saying the attack was a message similar to that of Sept. 11 and more attacks against the U.S. would be forthcoming.

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Good show, Canada! There were actually over 5000 people at Dundas Square alone, according to the police estimate broadcast on CBC’s ‘The National’ on Saturday evening. This is a good start, but for those who want real change, get involved in the political process, start your own party, do what it takes to wrest the system from the Ottawa political establishment. Don’t be afraid to break out of the box and look at third parties. Campaign for electoral reform. Otherwise we’ll simply see the next party to take power carry the same agenda further down the field. In the meantime, while everyone’s digesting the meaning of mass rallies the likes of which the country hasn’t seen for a long time, here’s a little quote from Stephen Harper on the subject of accountability, circa 2006.

“Restoring accountability will be one of the major priorities of our new government. Accountability is what ordinary Canadians, working Canadians, those people who pay their bills, pay their taxes, expect from their political leaders.”

Flashback: Anti-prorogation protest dogs PM | Harper says Parliament brings ‘games’ and ‘instability’ | PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | PM suspends Parliament | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Ottawa won’t budge on secrecy laws | Information commissioner quits, Ottawa chided for lacking ‘guts’ | Watchdog alarmed by Harper’s information clampdown | Decision to prorogue parliament sets ‘very dangerous’ precedent: constitutional expert | Harper halts parliament amid row | Comedian begins asking Harper question, cuffed by RCMP | Tentacles of Secrecy Grip Tightly | PM’s tactic `authoritarian’ | Parliament losing power, author says | Information lockdown: How Harper Controls the Spin | Elected Parliamentarians Neutered by PM-Appointed ‘Courtiers’ | ‘What is it they’re trying to hide?’ NDP asks for military export data | The Mulroney Affair: Why politicians seek out the rich | Harper to create government-run media centre: report | Steven Harper and the Bilderbergers Secret Meeting

Lousie Brown, Susan Delacourt, The Toronto Star
January 24, 2010

Demonstrators gather across the country against PM’s decision to delay Parliament

It isn’t easy to turn “Parliament prorogued” into a chant for a crowd, but thousands of people across Canada turned out anyway on Saturday to protest Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s shutdown of the federal legislature.

In Toronto, the estimated 3,000-strong turnout briefly forced the closing of Yonge St. The rally was one of 50 planned Saturday across the country by the grassroots group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, which sprang from a Facebook group that eventually numbered more than 200,000 members. They want Harper to change his Dec. 30 decision to suspend Parliament until March 3, when the Vancouver Olympics are over. MPs were supposed to be back in the Commons on Monday after their scheduled holiday break.

Critics have pummeled Harper for a move they say was designed to let him dodge the inquiry into how much the government knew about torture of prisoners in Afghanistan.

Liberal and New Democrat MPs will be on Parliament Hill Monday for a week of hearings, discussions and news conferences on unemployment, aiding Haiti, the pension crisis and Afghanistan, among other issues.

“I think it’s just disgusting that Harper shut down Parliament. It was clearly a political move to avoid the inquiry into torture in Afghanistan,” said librarian Syd Jones, who attended the rally at Yonge-Dundas Square with wife Renee.

“To use the Olympics as an excuse is a crock — and I’m equally disgusted with the Governor General for agreeing to prorogue the House for the second time in a year for no valid reason.”

Toronto Centre Liberal MP Bob Rae, who, along with other politicians, attended the Toronto rally, said he came “because it’s a chance for me to join others who agree that Mr. Harper made a terrible decision.” The crowd included church groups, families, individuals, unions and members of the Liberal and NDP parties. “Harper didn’t really give a good excuse for shutting down Parliament, so we thought we should get off the couch and do something,” said Nick de Pencier, who attended in Toronto with his 6-year-old daughter.

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