It is now evident that the brouhaha over the hyperbaric weapons, bunker busters and other immensely destructive weapons of the State terrists arsenal was constructed to show how resolute Blair is to support the Israeli destruction of Lebanon.
It is a signal sent out to confirm how aligned and allied he is to ethnic cleansing from Israel's borders - to produce a cordon sanitaire for this apartheid virus, determined to eliminate any who stand in their way.
Claiming in a BBC interview that a cease fire "could" be "days away" because - and this demonstrates the measure of the man - THAT IS WHAT I WANT
This man has betrayed a nation, he imagines he can, without debate, without discussion, commit our forces, our people to this squalid business of mass civilian slaughter and economic destruction for the Zionist dreamers , most dead, but whose heirs carry their perverted ideals forward.
Meanwhile he rants endlessly about the perverted ideology of Islam. Nobody raises an eyebrow, a voice or a vote.
What is going on in this madman's head ?
Saturday, July 29, 2006
It is now evident that the brouhaha over the hyperbaric weapons, bunker busters and other immensely destructive weapons of the State terrists arsenal was constructed to show how resolute Blair is to support the Israeli destruction of Lebanon.
Is 19 year old Gilad Shalit a kidnapped prisoner held by Hamas in Gaza ?
Lord Patel has been combing the cyberworld, printed press and TV for news of this operation, typically reports hit the press in a very detailed fashion from Israel sources hours after the event e.g
During yesterday's attack, eight Palestinian terrorists used a half-mile tunnel they dug to infiltrate behind Israel's Kerem Shalom military station, which is on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border."
Soldiers at the border usually monitor the Gaza Strip and not the Israeli side, where the tunnel exit was located.
Upon exiting the tunnel, the Palestinian terrorists split into three cells, one lobbing more than 20 anti-tank missiles at an army tank; another attacking the tank with grenades, killing the two Israeli soldiers and kidnapping one. The third cell attacked an army lookout post.
Two terrorists were killed during the raid, while the others escaped into Gaza with the kidnapped soldier. he army was not aware one of its troops had been kidnapped until several minutes after the operation.
The Kerem Shalom station had been on high alert the past few days after the army received specific warnings of a terror attack. One of the warning alerts, obtained by WND, outlined the possibility of a Palestinian attack using a tunnel.
So this French / Israeli youth is not 24 hours in the hands of the terrist scum Hamas and the IDF are listing a whole slew of mistakes including having had prior warnings of attacks, tunnels etc.,
On top of this the same day we get from a variety of Israeli sources (obviously) ...
"a senior military intelligence official told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee the abducted IDF soldier, 19-year-old Gilad Shalit, is being held in the Gaza Strip by senior members of Hamas' so called "resistance wing." .... "The officer told the Knesset Israel does not know exactly where Shilat is, but "we understand that the soldier is alive and lightly wounded." ... remarkable.
Then we got the claims through a flyer on the streets of Gaza ..
This from CNN " The flier, distributed to news organizations and passed out on the streets of Gaza City, came from Izzedine al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas; the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group that includes militants from Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas; and a previously unknown group calling itself the Army of Islam."
Another Western press report .."An earlier statement by the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees terror group claimed the Committees was holding Shilat and that he was being treated for a stomach wound. A Committees spokesman later denied the report. The group often works closely with Hamas."
What we do know
What we do now is that after this "kidnap" all hell let loose and now more than a reported 120 Gaza citizens, many, women and children are dead and Gaza is a free fire zone for the IDF.
So Lord Patel asks again ...
"Is 19 year old Gilad Shalit a kidnapped prisoner held by Hamas in Gaza ?"
Of course I may be wrong and will be happy to accede, but after a long and detailed search I can find no clear evidence that Gilad Shilat is a prisoner of Hams in Gaza.
Belgians, Ali Abdul-Sater and his wife Farkad El Husseini, were on holiday,with their three children earlier this month when their Beirut apartment was destroyed and they fled Lebanon via Syria.
Abdul-Sater is vice-president of an association for a secular Lebanon whose members are moderate Lebanese citizens of diverse religions concerned by the future of the country.
The Belgian paper Le Soir described the couple as having been “shocked and traumatized” by the attacks.
The couple have commenced an action for war crimes using the phrase "war crimes" as used in the Belgian criminal code with the aid of world famous Belgian Human Rights Lawyer Mr. Georges-Henri Beauthier.
The code refers to "purposeful murder, severe violations of the physical integrity of health, deportation of civilians and the destruction and misappropriation of goods."
The Belgian courts have introduced a "principle of the universal jurisdiction" of Belgian courts — adopted in 1993, originally this allowed complaints about war crimes from other countries to be brought before Belgian courts.
In 2003, however, after several complaints, notably against former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George Bush, the law was amended so that any complaint would be required to be linked to Belgium.
The complaint Ali and his wife intend to bring, organised by their lawyer Georges-Henri Beauthier cites Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ( as Head of State he would ordinarily be immune from prosecution).
Also named in the proposed action are Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz and the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Dan Halutz.
Lawyer Beauthier said that other complainants are considering to introduce joint complaint.
When approached by European Jewish Press the Israeli embassy in Belgium did not comment on the newspaper report. “We don’t know about it, only what is written in the newspaper,” Carmela Shamir, the embassy’s press officer told EJP, adding that "a complaint should rather be lodged against Hezbollah."
Lord Patel thinks that that remark expresses what Jews call "Chutzpah".
The Belgian law of universal jurisdiction was successfully used last year when a Belgian jury found two Rwandan half-brothers guilty of helping Hutu militias slaughter some 50,000 people during their country's 1994 genocide ( a case handled by Mr. Georges-Henri Beauthier) Curiously the legal principles behind such actions raise great lawerly (and therefore expensive) concern - however pirates have been legally recognized as hosti humanis generis ("enemies of the human race"), for centuries and treated as such, with little or no concern.
Mr. Georges-Henri Beauthier is a well known and highly regarded Human Rights lawyer in Belgium and for example in 2003 brought an action charging former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin and two of his senior aides with genocide, torture and crimes against humanity on behalf of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa). He also brought charges against former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet.
This is a nice story - the cops were , for once on the side of the good guys.
Two Oakland police officers working undercover at an anti-war protest in May 2003 got themselves elected to leadership positions in an effort to influence the demonstration, documents released on Thursday show.Undercover Officers Nobuko Biechler and Mark Turpin had been elected to be leaders in the May 12 demonstration an hour after meeting protesters that day.SFGate.com story here
The extent of the officers' involvement in the subsequent march May 12, 2003, led by Direct Action to Stop the War and others, is still unclear.
Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said activists had elected the undercover officers to "plan the route of the march and decide I guess where it would end up and some of the places that it would go."
Asked who had ordered the officers to infiltrate the group, Jordan said, "I don't know if there is one particular person, but I think together we probably all decided it would be a good idea to have some undercover officers there."
Several months after the rally, Jordan told a city police review board examining the April 2003 port clash that "our ability to gather intelligence on these groups and this type of operation needs to be improved,"
New York Times reveal FBI infiltration tactics in November 2003
The NYT had a story in November 2003 about how the FBI were encouraging law enforcement to report suspicious activity at protests to its counter terroism squads etc., It is evident from a confidential bureau memorandum that this was all part of a nationwide program which included for example - "the New York Police Department this year questioned many of those arrested at demonstrations about their political affiliations, before halting the practice and expunging the data in the face of public criticism."
The memorandum, circulated on Oct. 15 — 10 days before major protests in Washington and San Francisco about the US occupation of Iraq — noted that the bureau "possesses no information indicating that violent or terrorist activities are being planned as part of these protests" and that "most protests are peaceful events."
Friday, July 28, 2006
"Travelling in a car fuelled by biodiesel seems like a great, environmentally-friendly thing to do. However, if the biodiesel has come from soya planted in the Brazilian Amazon or palm oil from Indonesia, the green consumer is likely to be unwittingly driving another nail into the coffin of the world's great ecosystems."—Ariel Brunner, BirdLife
Malaysia The World's Biggest Oil Palm Producer
Malaysia currently accounts for 51 % of world palm oil production and 62% of world exports, and therefore also for 8% and 22% of the world's total production and exports of oils and fats. As the biggest producer and exporter of palm oil and palm oil products, Malaysia has an important role to play in fulfilling the growing global need for oils and fats in general and now for bio-diesel fuels.
The oil palm is a highly efficient producer , requiring only 0.25 hectares to produce one tonne of oil while soybean, sunflower and rapeseed need 2.15, 1.50 and 0.75 hectares respectively.
The oil palm tree Elaeis guineensis ( elaia = olive) is endemic to West Africa and has long been developed as an agricultural crop. First introduced to Malaya in early 1870’s as an ornamental plant by Europeans more interested in developing rubber, it wasn't until 1917 the first first commercial planting took place in Tennamaran Estate in Selangor, laying the foundations for today's vast oil palm plantations (3.88 million hectares of land in Malaysia is under oil palm cultivation producing 14 million tonnes of palm oil in 2004) and the world's premier palm oil industry.
The Malaysian government in the 60's sought to diversify the economy from oil and tin and palm oil was developed under a very effective agricultural diversification programme.
Later land settlement schemes for planting oil palm, were used as a means to eradicate poverty for landless farmers and smallholders. The oil palm plantations in Malaysia are largely based on the estate management system and small holders scheme.
Palm oil squeezed from the fruits, is used for manufacture of soaps and candles, and more recently, in manufacture of margarine and cooking fats.
Palm kernel oil is extracted from the kernel of endosperm, and contains about 50% oil. Similar to coconut oil, with high content of saturated acids, mainly lauric, it is solid at normal temperatures in temperate areas, and is nearly colorless, varying from white to slightly yellow. This non-drying oil is used in edible fats, in making ice cream and mayonnaise, in baked goods and confectioneries.
Malaya and China get together to develop Palm Oil products
For the last 2 days the Malayan Palm Oil Council (MPOC) have held a seminar in Shanghai to promote sales to China. As a result of these efforts there have been 2 significant developments worth noting.
1. China's third largest oil company, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) has made a formal agreement with KL based Bio Sweet Sdn Bhd which specialises in biotech and palm diesel research and development,to develop palm oil-based biodiesel in a shift towards renewable energy sources.
Under this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) , CNOOC will build a plant in Hainan Island in 12 months with a capacity of 120,000 tonnes. It will also set up a joint venture called CNOOC (Malaysia) Biofuel Sdn Bhd with a view for a listing in Malaysia eventually. As an indication of the importance of the deal CNOOC President Fu Chengyu was present.
2. Golden Hope Plantations are a major player in the market and plan to have 6 biodiesel plants including 3 outside Malaysia to tap the demand for cheaper and renewable sources.
They have now announced 3 projects in Malaysia and a fourth in Holland (Malaya's biggest export market for palm oil products) which are expected to be up and running by end 2007
Plans are also advanced to set up a plant in South Korea with a capacity of 100,000 tonnes and another in mainland China.
The China project will probably be located in Guangzhou. China requires 70 million tonnes of diesel annually (now) and Government plans are to have, 20 % from sustainable sources within 5 years.
Golden Hope’s three current Malayan plants are ;
1. Banting with a capacity of 35,000 tonnes
2. A Joint venture with Malaysian Palm Oil Board in Port Klang with output of 60,000 tonnes
3. Bintulu with a capacity of 100,000 tonnes.
The planned Dutch facility will produce biodiesel using 50 percent palm oil and 50 percent soya oil for the European market.
Dennis Maxfield, publisher of Trade News Service for the oils and fats industry gave atalk this afternoon and explained that , except in the European Union, biodiesel is very much an infant industry.
“It takes time to construct new plants and an infrastructure to market the product. Renewable fuels are here, prices have become more competitive and the demand will continue to increase. It is happening not only in Europe and the U.S but in China as well,” Lord Patel has posted here about the launch of China Biodiesel on the LSE AIM market recently.
Dennis Maxfield estimated that Malaysia would produce 1.5 million tonnes of biodiesel next year.
The Malaysian government has made two major decisions to boost the [roduction of Palm Oil diesels;
1. It has set aside 6 million tonnes of its existing 15 million tonnes annual output for the biodiesel industry.
2. Envo Diesel, a newly developed biofuel of 5% processed palm oil and 95 % petroleum diesel is to be introduced next year for government vehicles.
But not everyone is happy - with this environmentall friendly program
George Monbiot, (the mna changing his mind about nuclear power) recently wrote an article "Worse Than Fossil Fuel" (6/12/05) highlighting how the import of palm oil as a biofuel component will probably worsen greenhouse gas discharges, alongside rainforest destruction.
The UK government has refused to disqualify palm oil from EU-driven government targets for biofuels as a proportion of motor fuels, or indeed bioethanol from Brazilian sugar cane, fearing (they say) legal challenges. See Guradian
The future for some seems to consist of living in caves, wearing grass skirts and eating your children.
Stop deforestation for biofuels - of course the forest are already de-forested.
Development of palm oil plantations is growing rapidly in the Far East, and the ravaged timber forests are being replaced with square miles of palm oil planations (see pic) - this also leads to other environmental problems.
Peat fires in Indonesia, linked to palm oil expansion, are reported to be contributing massively to climate change, see these sories here in the Guradian and BBC Online.
Several NGOs, including WWF, Greenpeace, and BirdLife International (but not yet FoE, as far as Lord Patel has been told) have in fact spoken out against the use of palm oil in biofuels. See Bird Life here and quote at top.
Whatever the critics may say, the development of bio-diesel fuels from agricultural sources is going to be a major development. It would be nice to think that Africa the home of the plant could seize the opportunities that Malaya are making and taking.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
BBC Online had an astonishing story on Monday, 15 May 2006. Children under the age of five are being fingerprinted at asylum centres amid fears that some families are trying to claim extra benefits.
The Home Office says trials are underway at asylum centres in Croydon and Liverpool because it is beleieved that some children are being registered by several families.
Trials began in February using the old fashioned wet ink system (see pic) not the newer digital maps and will be, if successful, rolled out nationwide.
A Home Office spokesman is quoted in Computer Weekly : "We have set a lower limit of five for the fingerprinting of asylum seekers because of the practical difficulties of taking and matching fingerprints from under-fives. That is to do with how small the prints are".
Statewatch has reprts that any EU state will soon be be free to fingerprint children from birth as soon as it is technologically possible. The issue will not be decided by parliaments - national or European - but by a "comitology" committee meeting in secret: this "Article 6" committee is composed of representatives of the 25 governments and is chaired by the European Commission.
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:
All the discussions by EU governments in the Council about the age at which children should be subject to compulsory fingerprinting are based on the technological possibilities - not on the moral and political questions of whether it is right or desirable.England & Wales ( Not Scotland ) DNA Database
There will be special cases for fingerprinting where a child is "at risk" in order to ensure their safety. This does not in any way justify submitting all young children to this intrusive process.
The decisions are being made in secret meetings based on secret documents - people and parliaments are to have no say in the decision.
Under this proposal EU states will be free to fingerprint children from day one of their life as soon as it is technologically possible"
Genewatch explains that in England and Wales, people's DNA is now taken routinely on arrest for any recordable offence (including begging, being drunk and disorderly or taking part in an illegal demonstration) and kept permanently. The law allowing permanent retention of all DNA taken on arrest was adopted after a the Government introduced a late amendment to the Criminal Justice Act during the first week of the Iraq war. It came into force in England and Wales in April 2004. Similar proposals to change the law in Scotland were rejected by the Scottish Parliament in May 2006, when members of all parties raised civil liberties concwrns. Despite the National Database (NDNAD) increasing rapidly in size from 2 million to 3 million people between April 2003 and April 2005, there has not been an increase in the number of crimes detected using DNA.
Curiously in a Parliamentary answer to Stephen Crabb last Thursday Joan Ryan from the Home Office said that in 2000, 66,149 records were removed from the Database, in the first six months of this year only 8,868 were.
This gives the NDNAD the most extensive list of people in the world. The database now contains DNA samples from 3.1 million individuals (5.2% of the UK population). No other police force has greater freedom to obtain, use and store genetic information from its citizens.
Note also that the commercial company LGC, http://www.lgc.co.uk/
which analyses some DNA samples for the police, has retained its own "mini-database" of DNA records. That is of course the company where Lord Stevens , the predecessor to Lying Sir Ian Blair at Scotland Yard is eking out his retirement pension by the fees from a Board Directorship.
Of these (@ 1/12/05) there were 24,168 persons under 18 on the National DNA Database (NDNAD) who had not been charged or cautioned for any offence. A further 27,000 persons on the NDNAD who have not been charged or cautioned for any offence were under 18 years of age at the time they were arrested and had a DNA sample taken but had reached 18 by 1st December 2005- Written answer to a Parliamentary question by Hazel Blears 2nd May 2006.
519 search requests have been dealt with by the Database Custodian since 2004 from countries outside the UK, and responses provided back to the Nationa Central Bureau for Interpol.
OH!, by an order in Council - ie at the Queen's pleasure, no debate, no discussion, the cost of a passport with your encoded digital image will be going up 33% to pay for this.
FREEDOM OF YOUR INFORMATION
If you have your eyes photographed to check for retinal adenopathy and macular degeneration, undertaken using digital imaging, you can easily have a look at them ... if you make a Freedom of Information request.
In 1956, a young, glamorous Fabian intellectual, Anthony (Tony) Crosland published "The Future of Socialism" which was to become the Bible for the Labour Party post war revisionists.
A central argument was not that the State owned - had legal title - but what mattered he argued was that it had Control.
In an age of Privatised industry, global markets, where major sections of the economy are owned and operated from foreign boardrooms for purposes, that do not agree or are at odds with national political objectives ... there is a strong belief by the politicians and their Financial Puppet Meisters in the City, that this control is still possible.
The Kyoto Self delusion Bandwagon
The Kyoto Protocols, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme is the most insane example of how the politicians vainly believe that by State or Supra State (EU) regulation this socialist nirvana is still acheivable.
Nowhere has this been more in evidence than in the UK where guided by the preposterous notion that, the entire cause of global warming is anthropogenic, and therefore reversible - by act of human will - these dreamers, aided by the simpleton academics who cannot reliably forecast next weeks weather, have set about destroying the UK industrial base.
It leads to the the sort of nonsense spouted recently by Chris Rowland ( who left Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in a huff - see picture above) and has re-appeared at Ecofin a "Utilities investment company". He spoke at Environmental Finance Publications EU Emissions Trading conference in Brussels on 10th July.
This self important money pimp, said ,"The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) (against the backdrop of the recent shambles in the market) will only succeed if there is increased competition on Europe's natural gas market."
"If we don't get gas competition, we are in trouble" he said portentously as he had just noticed that the EU gas market relied on three sources of natural gas Norway, Algeria and Russia and was in the hands of very few companies (which will reduce dramatically within the next 2 years). Plan A failed ... quick let's find Plan B ...C.... D
In a hail of ersatz forecasts and models with insupportable assumptions he projects that if competition is not encouraged electricity prices are set to rise to Euros 70 Megawatt Hour (Implying an allocation cost of Euros(EUA) 50 per ton )- with increased competition it could be Euros 45/50 MWh and EUA at Euros 15/20 ton.
Within ten years.
But don't worry says this star crossed forecaster, having consulted his chicken entrails, he says the 2003 Gas Directive will encourage more gas competition. Yeah Yeah Right. The Dohar round will fatten up the Africans ... Yeah Yeah Right.
This is the sort of BS these merchant bankers spew to maintain the belief that they may not own, but they can control by some ever increasingly complicated regulatory system, ( a little twek here , another tweak there) which the hard headed Russian/ Algerian / Norwegians will ignore and which an energy hungry world will learn to love.
The same guys who saw the EUA price collapse 60% overnight (literally) in May , didn't know why then and still can't agree why now.
It is extraordinary that this whole EU ETS is based on this hot air and receives no criticism from any direction, yet your bank, pension provider, hedge fund, managed Fund, ISA scheme, is betting your future, and your hard earned cash on this house of cards.
Open the Financial pages of your paper, look who pays for the advertising, funds the paper ... are the Press going to blow the whistle ? Can TV news, catering for those with an attention span of 35 seconds explain this whole charade, simply or easily?
Who foisted this nonsense on the UK ? - Tony Blair and his henchwoman Margaret Beckett who has moved upward and onward to not understand Foreign Policy either.
The answer. Simple. A straight energy tax on consumption - OK it's regressive, nothing is perfect, but it will rapidly force cuts in consumption, impact on energy saving - and it doesn't cream off money to the City in consultancy , fees, lawyers, accountants, dividends, commissions.
Meanwhile Centrica have followed E.ON with another whopping consumer energy price rise today - and the others will follow - result - the consumer gets screwed and the decisions about the future energy policy get shelved again - as the politicians discover ...that they have no control over the market whatsoever.
This is one a a sequence of CCTV pictures in today's Daily Mail and available online. It show sIT worker 26 yr old Greg Kirby attacking a 17 year old youth who verbally abused him, tripped him up and generally made a nuisance of himself.
These stunning colour CCTV pictures of the incident on a train to Portsmouth at 11.30pm on January 21st 2006 show .
1. Greg is NOT one of the "Suicide Bombers"
2. The CPS can get cases through the courts in 6 months.
3. How remarkable that 4 guys on 1 main line train, 3 tube trains one bus and several stations on the Rail and tube after examination of 6,000 hours of tape, (and squillions of hours of overtime Sarge) records etc., yields 2 still very grainy Black and White images.
4. Greg got 200 hours and has to pay £1,000 compensation to the scrote - which is less than convicted fraudster Levitt ****got (180 hrs of community service).
CCTV is obviously very good both at deterring crime and detecting it, especially when offences occur on public transport. Sleep easy , this won't happen to you ... unless you are the author of one of the blogs in the column on the left entitled 7/7 Survivors.
Hansard Written Questions
The Solicitor-General: The estimated prosecution costs associated with the (Roger Levitt) trial were £993,815, including £449,649.32 (including VAT) paid to counsel for the prosecution. In addition, the estimated prosecution costs of investigation amounted to £819,552. The defence costs from legal aid were £2,649,495 and defence costs from central funds were £10,699. I shall write to my hon. Friend shortly with a more detailed breakdown of the defence costs.
Roger Levitt went on trial in 1993, charged with fraud and theft. It was alleged that the Levitt Group was an 'empty shell' that had been kept going by 'cooking the books' concealing losses of £16Mn. as profits of 13Mn. before the ultimate collapse at Christmas 1990 with debts of at least £35Mn.
One of the vehicles used for
fleecing the punters obtaining funds, was a mortgage outfit called Levitt Olympic Gold - and one of the very active people introducing people was a smart young chap called Sebastian Coe (Now Lord Coe of Ranmore - who presumably lives at DunRunnin) who spends a lot of time with Mrs Mills, nee Jowell and lots and lots of people who want to concrete over the Thames flood plain with publicly funded palaces of Sport and Kulchur and square miles of cheap tacky flood prone housing estates urban luxury.
A Matter of minor, but intriguing interest, Sarah Lawson FRSA of Red Lion Chambers, was instructed in the Levitt case by a gent calling himself Silvio Berlusconi. Now why on Earth ....?
The stupidity of scientists never ceases to surprise or alarm. New Scientist reports the insane activities of a Dr. Tom Ings at Queen Mary, University of London.(Journal of Applied Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2006.01199.x).(See also Daily Telegraph report July 13th 2006.
In a standard experiment in bucket chemistry i.e what will happen if we do x and we stand and watch. He released commercial bumblebees into the wild (Bombus terrestris dalmatinus) which are used in large volume , usually from Dutch sources for pollinating tomatoes in closed cycle greenhouse systems - i.e the bees cannot escape.
"We wanted to determine whether or not escaped commercial bees could survive in the UK countryside," says the intrepid lunatic Tom, aware (one hopes as any cursory review of the literature will show), that non-endemic species of plants and animals can be invasive and more specifically that non endemic commercial bumblebees have established themselves in the wild in Japan and Chile.
Well this bone headed guy installed 7 colonies of the native B. terrestris audax and seven of the imported B. terrestris dalmatinus near Egham, Surrey.
They installed devices to narrow the entrance to colonies to prevent imported queens escaping ( 100% effective I am sure) and collected males before they were able to leave. He found the answer ...""Unfortunately, we found that they could". Presumably after having obtained a licence for the release from DEFRA.(?) See Legal Footnote.
Commercial colonies were unsurprisingly better at foraging for nectar than native bees, and the bees were consistently larger. They also produced more queens capable of flying off and founding new hives, than did native colonies living in the same environment.
Alarmingly, the commercial subspecies not only created the largest colonies but also set them up the most readily. This could lead to the aliens outcompeting native bumblebees, warns the percipient Ings.
Japan understood the threat some time ago and imposed strict restrictions on bee importation. But many others, including the UK, US and Mexico,Austyralia * (Footnote) have yet to take action.
The Regulation and Control of the Release of Non-native Animals and Plants into the Wild in Great Britain
2. The control of releases of non-native animals and plants under section 14 of the Act
2.1. With respect to the release of animal species, Section 14(1) of the Act states that:
"Subject to the provisions of this Part, if any person releases or allows to escape into the wild any animal which -
(a) is of a kind which is not ordinarily resident in and is not a regular visitor to Great Britain in a wild state:
he shall be guilty of an offence."
In section 14, a non-native animal is one that is "not ordinarily resident in and is not a regular visitor to Great Britain in a wild state".
It is of interest to Note that the States of Jersey introduced in February 2005 control of " BUMBLEBEES Bombus terrestris terrestris (L) or Bombus terrestris audax (Harris)."
A good introduction to imported invasive species is here
Invasive species and Biological control
A very recent paper on the problems of imported bumble bees in Australia / Tasmania.
Hingston, Andrew B, Herrmann, Walter & Jordan, Gregory J (2006)
Reproductive success of a colony of the introduced bumblebee Bombus terrestris (L.) (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in a Tasmanian National Park.
Australian Journal of Entomology 45 (2), 137-141.
"These results strongly suggest that B. terrestris is able to reproduce successfully in parts of Australia that still support almost exclusively native vegetation. "
There was secepticism that this species, being European could not sustain itself in Australia - it turned out they had a decent appetite for Eucalyptus pollen.
From issue 2560 of New Scientist magazine, 13 July 2006, page 4
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
With these wonderful balmy summer evenings we have become used to the hum and jiggling, bumbling flight of the bumble bee. There are six principal fairly easily identified species in the UK that are common.
If you want more information about their life history this is a good site to start. Not only are they fascinating creatures they also pollinate your plants for you.
The British Natural History Museum as you might expect has an excellent site on the Genus Bombuswhich has an Idiot's guide to identification , plus notes on distribution.
Naturally the manin threat to them is the gardener and their armoury of insecticides. The rule is simple - DO NOT USE CHEMICAL INSECTICIDES.
The picture, is one Lord Patel took yesterday of Bombus lapidarius which, unsurprisingly ,is called the Red Tailed Bumble Bee, on Black Knapweed, Centaurea nigra a good plant to find many bees, moths and butterflies.
The BBC have a story today about examining the foraging habits of Bumblebees which shows they can forage upto 13 Kms.
Also a story in May about the formation of a Bumblebee Conservation Trust at Stirling University, whose website is well worth visiting, with a good Bibliography of in print books,plus an ID poster and the chance to send money and get a cute badge ... good fun for the kids in the summer holidays.
My old friend Vagit Alekperov was quite excited to meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on his 4th Presidential visit to Russia this week helping to improve relations and oil the wheels of the world energy trades, especially in South America.
On his second visit to Volgograd (he was made an honorary Cossack last time) Hugo laid a wreath at Mamayev Kurgan, the landmark monument to the battle of Stalingrad.Mamayev Kurgan literally means Hill of Mamai, named after a medieval commander of the Tatar Golden Horde. The 52 metre statue "Mother Motherland Calls" is the centrepiece of a memorial complex commemorating the 1942/3 Battle of Stalingrad.
Flying in from Belarus where he had forged a "new friendship" with Alexander Lukashenko, the hardline president, and fellow Anti American crusader, he was met by Volgograd Governor Nikolai Maksyuta, met Chavez at the airport, and fellow Cossacks greeted him with bread, salt and vodka- which he gulped off a glass held on a sabre to the sound of Accordians.
It was on an earlier visit in 2001, that the Volgograd region and Venezuela's Bolivar State signed a joint agreement and hoped to do deals for food and tractors and student exchanges. The tractor plant which Hugo visited also makes tanks and other military hardware.
LUKoil and Gazprom have footholds in Venezuela, (see previous paosts) having struck deals with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela to prospect for oil and gas in the country.He also met Dmitry Pumyansky, chairman of major supplier of pipelines TMK.
He has a special visit today in Izhevsk, to meet , AK-47 designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, and watch a demonstration of manufacturer Izhmash's latest assault rifles. Rumours claim he has placed an order for 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, and a licence to build a Kalashnikov factory in Venezuela, He should also be meeting Udmurtia President Alexander Volkov.
From there the Chavez Roadshow will move on to Moscow for the highlight of the trip (apart from trying to get support for Venezuala to get on the Un Security Council) Chavez will meet President Putin ( Mi amigo Putin)today to ink off the US $1 billion defense deal for 30 Su-30 fighter jets and 30 helicopters.The head of the Venezuelan Air Force, Brigadier General Victor Sanches Croez is in the party and has conducted all the deals with state arms trader Rosoboronexport, calling it a "locomotive of sorts that will lead to cooperation in energy, tourism and other sectors, which have never figured in our relations before."
The Financial Times points out, that of course arms deals work both ways and points to the American US$3.8bn deal to sell 48 F-16 fighters powered by Pratt & Whitney's F100-PW-229 engine, to Poland in June (there are 1,000 in use by NATO forces).So far Fort Worth based, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co's largest contract ever let in Eastern Europe and won in fierce competition with Europe's Dassault Mirage and the SAAB/BAESystems Grippen.
Not forgetting of course in light of curent events that Israel, has the world's largest F-16 fleet outside the USAF, and ordered 110 F-16I aircraft, the first was delivered in December 2003. These aircraft have Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 engines, Elbit avionics, Elisra electronic warfare systems and Rafael weapons and sensors, including Litening II laser target designator pods.It is these which will be dropping the Boeing Bunker Busters being hastily shipped to Jerulasem.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Monday October 4th 2005
What a Bomber !
This is what Lord Patel (no relation) said about the Mazheer Mahmoud exclusive about Imran Patel who "claimed" to be the 5th Bomber on 7/7.
"Mazher Mahmood the sleazy reporter for Rupe’s rag, News of the World, is famous notorious as the “Fake Sheikh” who outed Prince Edward’s wife as a royalty tout, and “exposed” the plot to kidnap the Beckam sprogs (the court case collapsed when MM’s agent provacateur antics were exposed) and got bit part actor John Alford from “London’s Burning” banged up for small time drug dealing.
He’s at it again.
This week he lines up “fanatic” Imran Patel (no relation) who he has fingered to the Police and who was picked up by 20 anti-terrorist officers at 8.45pm on Saturday on his way to his mosque and taken to Leeds police station (NOT Paddington Green where they tale the real suspects) for questioning. (“You are going to be doing some overtime this weekend my boy!” "..Yes Sarge”)
I am confident that this deluded, weak minded lad will be released without charge – unless it is for wasting police time – which the intrepid sleuth MM most certainly is."
And so it proved to be ... "5th Bomber gets 4 months"
Unbelievably the PC Plods of the Met’s crack SO13 anti-terrorist squad were “diverted” from the London bombings inquiry for 6 days, "effectively working round the clock" to investigate his claims. Leeds Magistrates were told that this waste of time and effort cost the taxpayer 4,070 hours of police time costing £60,000.
As we said at the time …
Of course the Police … still scratching through tons of trains, bus debris, and squillions of CCTV images … have to take note of any information the public provide. Here’s some for them … Sir Ian Blair tells lies in public about the progress of their investigations. Arrest him for wasting the Public’s time … and money.
Anway poor old Imran got 4 months chokey.
Now we find that the lying, sleazy scumbag Mahmoud has done it agian - ably helped by the dumb twats at the Met led by Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke,
Abdurahman Kanyare, 53, Roque Fernandes, 44, and Dominic Martins, 45, had been on trial for almost three months accused of trying to buy hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of the substance that doesn't exist - from a cunt called Mazheer Mahmoud - who is the one who should be seeing the inside of a prison cell. Today they were found NOT GUILTY and discharged.
Why ? Well read "Chemical Delusions" a letter written to Peter Clarke, CVO QP LL on 16th March 2004.On the Investigating New Imperialism site. (This was about that other bollocks the threat of "Osmium teroxide" which nobody had ever heard of....
Especially take note of this section ...
Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
2001 Chapter 24
Copy from Crown Copyright
Hoaxes involving noxious substances or things
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he-
(a) places any substance or other thing in any place; or
(b) sends any substance or other thing from one place to another (by post, rail or any other means whatever);
with the intention of inducing in a person anywhere in the world a belief that it is likely to be (or contain) a noxious substance or other noxious thing and thereby endanger human life or create a serious risk to human health.
(2) A person is guilty of an offence if he communicates any information which he knows or believes to be false with the intention of inducing in a person anywhere in the world a belief that a noxious substance or other noxious thing is likely to be present (whether at the time the information is communicated or later) in any place and thereby endanger human life or create a serious risk to human health.
(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable-
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both); and
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years or a fine (or both).
Sections 113 and 114: supplementary
(1) For the purposes of sections 113 and 114 "substance" includes any biological agent and any other natural or artificial substance (whatever its form, origin or method of production).
(2) For a person to be guilty of an offence under section 113(3) or 114 it is not necessary for him to have any particular person in mind as the person in whom he intends to induce the belief in question.
Now if that cunt Mazheer Mahmoud is not guilty of an offence under this Act I am a tooth fairy.
"A person is guilty of an offence if he communicates any information which he knows or believes to be false with the intention of inducing in a person anywhere in the world a belief that a noxious substance or other noxious thing is likely to be present (whether at the time the information is communicated or later) in any place and thereby endanger human life or create a serious risk to human health."
Will the Met (Prop Sir Ian (Lying Bastard) Blair) arrest MM, charge him, bang him up ?
But everybody involved in this scam should be - including all the dumb bastards that haunt the Terrorism section at Scotland Yard... starting with Peter Clarke. As John Reid, ultimately his boss may say, they ARE NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.
Mind you they may be guilty under the HSE regulations for not having undertaken a proper Risk Assessment.
The truly magnificent Lesser Emperor dragonfly Anax parthenope ( 4/5 " wingspan) has been recorded in Carlisle recently and at a reclaimed nature site in Naseby . The BBC 4 News at 5.55 today had a Natural History reporter saying it had been seen in several places in the UK.
Here is a photo Lord Patel was lucky to get when it was observed in Syke, Rochdale, last week. It has also been observed elsewhere in Rochdale in recent days. By far the largest dragonfly you will see in the UK, it hovers fairly high and hunts over a wide area. Like an Israeli UAV drone.
The Dragonfly society record it "Rare but currently annual migrant. First recorded 1996, Gloucestershire; has bred in Cornwall."
A fascinating snippet can be found at Global Security which has received zero coverage in the published discussions of the armoury of Hezbollah. Initial reports of the attack on an Israeli ship suggested a modified drone. However ...
"Hizballah seriously damaged a Saar 5-class missile ship named the "Spear" that was helping to enforce Israel's blockade of Lebanon on 14 July 2006. One Israeli sailor was killed and three were initially missing after the attack. Israel initially believed that an aerial drone armed with explosives hit the warship, but it became clear that Hizballah had used an Iranian-made C-802 cruise missile to strike the vessel. Another Hizballah radar-guided anti-ship missile hit and sank a nearby Cambodian merchant ship around the time the Spear was struck. Twelve Egyptian sailors were pulled from the water by passing ships."
The history of the Chinese designed and manufactured C-802 is a fascinating story and the effctiveness of it's use as a land based missile on nearby craft at sea holds a message of those interested in the security of the Straits of Hormuz where 30% of the world's energy passes every day.
Reports of the inventory held by Iran vary enormously, but they certainly have at least 15 naval patrol vessels equipped with the missiles and several shore batteries - notably Queshm Island.
It is little surprise therefore that the US / Israeli forces have put a block on releasing any information about the attack on "Spear".
“The INS Spear is one of 3 Saar-5 Class warships, larger than a corvette and is one the most advanced warships in Israel's naval arsenal. They were built in Pascagoula, Mississippi, by Northrop-Grumman shipyards, using U.S. military aid funds. (i.e they were given to Israel) The INS Spear entered operational service in 1995. The defense suite of the Saar-5 destroyers is made in its entirety by Israel defense industries. Each vessel displaces approximately 1,300 tons, has a crew of 64, and is capable of independent operations for about 20 days without re-supply. The ships are capable of carrying up to two helicopters, in addition to intelligence and air force personnel.”No doubt Hezbollah have a few more surprises in their locker. Certainly when the Iranians put on a show for the US in April, they had to sit up and take notice.
It is not only cheap T shirts in Wal Mart that bear the label "Made in China" that threaten the well being of the US.
Cypriot Diplomatic water coolers (where Condi flew by on her way to give the Lebanese PM a drive by kiss or two) are surrounded by the latest buzz, that AIPAC's call girl's job is to lever in Ms. Livni into the hot seat. Smaller WAR CABINET on the way.
Israeli Minister without Portfolio Eitan Cabel said last week : "I admit I had hoped for better from the army." This was, as they say in Diplomatic circles, the last
Monday, July 24, 2006
In a July 28th 2005 television interview with Jim Lehrer, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ....(US Sec of State website record)
“When are we going to stop making excuses for the terrorists and saying that somebody is making them do it? No, these are simply evil people who want to kill. And they want to kill in the name of a perverted ideology that really is not
Jewish, Judaic or even ZionistIslam, but they somehow want to claim that mantle to say that this is about some kind of grievance. This isn't about some kind of grievance. This is an effort to destroy, rather than to build. And until everybody in the world calls it by name — the evil that it is — stops making excuses for them, then I think we're going to have a problem.
They're doing it because they want to create chaos and to undermine our way to life.“
This lying, fucking hypocritical bitch, is on a whistle stop tour of the world's favourite terrist sites - catch her whilst you can...the Drive by Diplomat. Anyway she meets the rest of the gangsters in Rome on Wednesday - time to fill up on the Ferragamo pumps at Duty Free.
Now she's taken to kissing people on the cheek ... the Kiss of Death ? Olmerta ?
Hardly had Lord Patel polished off his crystal balls, or the ink had dried on his forecast of increased gas prices than EDF kicked off with an announcement of higher gas and elctricity prices. Expect more of the same within days by Powergen , British Gas, Centrica and Scottish and Southern.
EDF ENERGY, one of Britain's biggest energy suppliers,(which includes London Energy, Seeboard and SWEB) and a subsidiary of the state owned EDF, with 5 million customers, has announced it's second round of price increases this year (although their website says nothing about it).
Effective from from next Monday, July 31st consumers will pay 19% more for gas and 8% more for electricity - rising to 9.1% for customers in its Northern region.
EDF introduced price rises in March this year for consumers, of 14.7% for gas and 4.7% for electricity. Cumulatively since January 2003 EDF have raised their consumer prices for gas by 92% and electricity prices by 54%.
Derek Lickorish the CEO of EDF claimed ,'We have been absorbing some of the costs of increased wholesale prices in the hope they would ease.(well if he thought that he must live on planet ZOG)
'However, prices have remained high with little prospect for reduction in the foreseeable future. (No.NO. Derek NO prospect for reduction - ever)Reluctantly we now have to pass on a proportion of the resulting costs to customers.' EDF said wholesale energy costs have risen 80% over the last year.
440,000 households signed up for EDF's fixed-price tariffs, which protects them against any price rise before 2008, will not be affected by this rise.
Energywatch The consumer watchdog said the average EDF customer would now pay £642 for gas and £357 for electricity a year, compared to £324 and £240 respectively 3 years ago.
USwitch.com have details of the history of all UK consumer gas and electricity price rises here
History of EDF energy price rises in the UK
May 2003: gas 4% electricity 1.5%
March 2004: gas 4.6% electricity 6.7%
September 2004: gas 3.5% electricity 3.8%
January 2005: gas 8.1% and electricity 5.4% (London Eastern, Seeboard, Southern, SWALEC, SWEB regions) and 9.4% (all other regions).
August 2005: gas 15.5% electricity 10.7%.
March 2006: gas 14.7% electricity 4.7%
July 2006: gas 19% electricity 8% more (London Eastern, Seeboard, Southern, SWALEC, SWEB regions) 9.1% (all other regions).
If you thought that ofgem helped police price rises of electricity and gas , think again. This industry funded body is ;"Ofgem is the regulator for Britain’s gas and electricity industries. Its role is to promote choice and value for all customers."
Determined and highly qualified, rational people have been investigating the supposed suicide of Dr David Kelly. Norman Baker MP has published an article in the Sunday Mail reproduced by the Kelly Investigation Group - the tale is curious.
One item in Baker's compelling article I found fascinating...
"'Operation Mason', as it was termed, was begun at 2.30pm on July 17, around nine hours before David Kelly was reported missing, and at least half an hour before he left his home to go on that last walk. No satisfactory explanation has ever been given for this astonishing foresight on the part of police."
What a strange name for a project, given the concerns many in the Police Force have about disclosing their membership of the Masons.
However given the concerns in spooky quarters for Dr David Kelly's press contacts, no doubt well before his apparent suicide there were watchers. Watchers who needed to report - to someone, somewhere - but it is unlikleto that it would be the Thames Valley Police. Would it ?
Lord Patel has, since the grim discovery of Kelly's body entertained the greatest doubts about his death. Evidently Kelly was a spook of some denomination and like many of the UN inspection teams in Iraq was there for more than UN purposes.
I had the oportunity to meet Scott Ritter a member of those teams ( who was in the UK during 7/7 incidentally) at a Menwith Hill demonstration, outside Harrogate.
During the course of a conversation with him I decided to ask him directly , "Do you think Dr Kelly was murdered ?" ... Ritter , a big burly guy, of evident military bearing, a man used to command, visibly changed from a genial , "here we are all pals protesting against the evil Satan of Uncle Sam" (remember he was surrounded by the flying of the Stars and Stripes upside down (see pic) - an act of sacrilege to any Marine - which he was) to a man with a steely glint in his eye and a firm stare in my direction. "I don't have sufficient information to form a judgement on that matter", he said and walked off.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
NOTE If Tim Worstall Britblog sent you here you will find a mirror at Lord Levy Kidnapped
if you do a Technorati search on "Lord Levy kidnapped by Met." (which article appears to be the trigger) which stopped Lord Patel's words of wisdom being trawled by Google Web and Blog searches. Perhaps the pint sized, bouffant bush haired, stack shoed Lord is more sinister than we had imagined, perhaps masterminding more from his office in the Foreign & Colonial Office immediately adjacent to the Foreign Secretary the hapless and gormless la Beckett.
“If, when, and how much LNG will be brought into North America remains a critical question to the future of North American natural gas prices,” said George Given, Vice President of Global Energy’s Market Advisory Services recently. “In the next 15 years our increasing reliance on LNG will transform the continental gas market into a global gas market, a new reality that cannot be underestimated for its influence on market prices, industry financial performance and investment.”
EU gas consumers take note. The North American natural gas bubble finally disappeared in the late nineties, launching the US back onto the global LNG market; this could have profound effects—on the US economy as gas prices have more than tripled, with a much greater share of power generated by gas, over half of American homes heated by natural gas, compounding inflationary effects of the oil price increase.
As the North American continent relies more and more on LNG suppliers, there will be spillover effects into the European market. The implications are profound: for example, gas to generate steam to produce the Canadian oil sands, and to produce Ammonia to grow American corn for food and fuel ethanol increasingly will come from the Middle East.
The implications for Europe are already apparent...
April 2006 Ilex Energy Consulting report to DTI pp89/90/91
"There is a potential "gap" between supply and demand, this gap appears significant over the next 2 years but then disappears as the new gas importation projects are commissioned but re-appears from 2014 onwards as we (UK) become increasingly dependent upon remote gas sources - and as demand increases.
The risk of the gap exists whatever view one takes of an outage to a source or facility due to demand variation and the underlying demand and supply.
Our analysis, using probabilities of supply problems, (Lord Patel notes no mention of supply disruption due to terrorism - see Gheislingen explosion) indicate that the UK has a potential problem in the next two years followed by a period when the size of the problem is much reduced."
(Ilex are now Pöyry Energy) in a report for the DTI on Gas Supply Disruption in January 2006
In a previous study for the DTI (Jan 2006) Ilex considered the impact of gas disruption in UK heavy energy users - a telling remark is page 55 Para 8.1 " Several companies expressed concerns that the parent company would shift production to sites outside the UK". For example Pilkington Glass ( now part of Nippon Sheet Glass Co. Ltd (NSG Group) from June 2006 in a cash purchase for £1.8 billion ) have made changes to distribution warehousing which increase the importance of the Eastern Pennines (away from Liverpool) which is seen as a prelude to moving flat Plate glas production to Eastern European production sites.(Pilkington Polska Sp. z o. o. - Sandomierz Pilkington Automotive Poland Sp. z o. o. - Sandomierz
Pilkington - IGP Sp. z o. o. - Warsaw Pilkington AGR Polska - Warsaw ?)
Effectively this is importing "energy" by another route but at the expense of forever cutting the UK industrial base. The increasing capacity of Dubai, now with the largest concentration of aluminium smelting in the world, suggests that the smelting on Anglesey will not survive the de-commissioning of Wylfa Nuclear Power Station.
Let's not forget that the two major ‘surprises’ in the last 2 decades that have affected oil / gas markets are
1. The demand surge in China
2. The supply collapse and recovery of Russia
Largely unforeseen and not considered in planning policy—They remain sources of significant uncertainty especially now that Putin and the "silovaki" have demonstrated how they intend to use their energy supplies as wepaons in world trade.The growth of State and para state energy companies , Gazprom , Rosneft, LUKoil are a warning (or at least a concern) - especially when here is much talk of a take over of Centrica (who are expected to announce some dire profits soon - coupled with price rises).
The UK has entered a dangerous position in it's use of natural gas as a source as an industry feedstock, heat energy for industrial processes and as a a fuel for CCGT electricity generation.
One would not have to be too much of a pessimist to view the world as embracing a twin time bomb: political instability in the sources of resources on the one hand and an environmentally
unsustainable pace of consumption of those resources on the
other. Compounded by (in the UK) 3 Energy Reviews (99/03/06) by an Administration evidently totally mired in understanding
1. What has happened
2. What may / can happen
3. What they want to happen
In the UK energy supply and consumer market.
The May 2006 Bank of England Inflation report was extremely clear about the impact of rising energy costs, upon inflation - both now and in the future.
"Looking ahead, substantial increases in domestic gas and electricity prices, and the recent rise in petrol prices, are likely to boost CPI inflation in the near term."
Which will presumably , as inflation is now 2.5% (above the 2% target) result in higher interest rates.
Having fittered away opportunities to get to grips with a sane sensible, rational UK energy policy we are faced with ;
1. Great Uncertainty over Gas supplies - source, quantities and prices.
2. Lack of any clear national policy - other than a huge (80%) reliance on gas as a primary enegry source for electrical energy.
3. Reliance upon foreign owned companies to direct future plans , determine prices and investment.
One thing is evident, that the insane ETS policy whilst it has produced some small changes , has had no impact , and does not appear to be having any future impact on investment decisions which are crucial both to the domestic and industrial gas consumers.
You will be paying more for your gas next winter and you can expect the suppliers to raise prices whilst consumption is low in the summer. The Government will have no control over the price rises - the companies will claim if they cannot raise prices they cannot make the investments.
Worst case, UK Domestic Consumers will be paying 50% more for gas by Christmas Day, Best case 33%.
... and don't say you were not warned.
The US Justice Department was told to investigate the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program. An embarassment to the President who claimed he was exercising his wartime powers - what did he do ? Simple. He denied access to the information the Justice Department investigators wanted - because they did not have security clearance - Yossarian thou shouldst be living at this hour.
Bush's decision, was revealed by that legal Titan , Albert Gonzalez, in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Gonzales said that in matters involving access to classified programs, "the President of the United States makes the decision." which represents an unusually direct, unprecedented and novel White House intervention into an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal affairs office at Justice. It forced OPR to abandon its investigation of the role played by Justice Department officials in authorizing and monitoring the controversial NSA eavesdropping effort.
"Since its creation some 31 years ago, OPR has conducted many highly sensitive investigations involving Executive Branch programs and has obtained access to information classified at the highest levels," chief lawyer H. Marshall Jarrett wrote in a published memorandum . "In all those years, OPR has never been prevented from initiating or pursuing an investigation."
“President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal inquiry into the administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program.” said Alberto to the Committee.
"The president decided that protecting the secrecy and security of the program requires that a strict limit be placed on the number of persons granted access to information about the program for non-operational reasons," Gonzales wrote in a related letter sent to the committee's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. "Every additional security clearance that is granted for the (program) increases the risk that national security might be compromised."
However if you go back to the White House Record of the President
President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security
Remarks by the President in a Conversation on the USA Patriot Act
Kleinshans Music Hall April 2004 Buffalo, New York
This is how he reassured the assmebled throng at Kleinshans Music Hall in Buffalo on April 20th 2004 - when of course the AT&T access to IP traffic had been in full swing for a least 2 years - if you believe Klein's testimony in Hepting, et al., v. AT&T Corporation.
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.
The Patriot Act changed that. So with court order, law enforcement officials can now use what's called roving wiretaps, which will prevent a terrorist from switching cell phones in order to get a message out to one of his buddies."
Oh No Mr President! The Patriot Act changed nothing, surveillance just carried on regardless of the law on wiretaps, because lawyers like Albert Gonzalez could stand up and attempt to justify it and your actions.
But the President evidently believes in the Patriot Act ..
see what he said in Buffalo ...
" Those who criticize the Patriot Act must listen to those folks on the front line of defending America. The Patriot Act defends our liberty, is what it does, under the Constitution of the United States. (Applause.)"
Yo! Defends our Liberty ... under the Constitution.
However at Scotus Blog there is a handy analysis of US District Judge Walkers refusal to dismiss the
Hepting, et al., v. AT&T Corporation case (Opinion 72 pages) PDF Alert
In a trenchant and forthright way the Judge wrote..""While the court recognizes and respects the executive's constitutional duty to protect the nation from threats, the court also takes seriously its constitutional duty to adjudicate the disputes that come before it," ...
Maybe George isn't out of the trees on this one yet. But don't put the increasingly costly mortgage on it.
"Israel has opened “windows” for the foreign powers to evacuate their terrified nationals from Lebanon. Obligingly, the foreign media have turned these “windows” into an opportunity to avert their gaze further from the death and destruction in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank."
"This is the racist subtext of the foreign media’s evacuations story. That once the foreigners have been moved to safety, we in the West can leave those who understand only the language violence -- the Israeli army and, apparently, the whole population of Lebanon -- to carry on with their unfinished business."
Feel free to add this instruction to your blog.