Planes

Nobody can have escaped the news this morning about the 'disrupted terror plot'. Apparently 21 people have been arrested over a plot to destroy 10 planes bound for the US with explosives hidden in drinks containers. The immediate result is that lots of flights have been cancelled, and security on those that have flown as been tightened (no hand luggage, etc).

Of course nobody has actually been charged yet, so please forgive me if I'm slightly cynical of todays events. It's a good thing they've put our brand-new 'alert level' up to 'critical' isn't it? That's the highest it can go of course - I'm not sure what they'd do during an actual attack. Also, I don't know about you, but I'm so glad that those alert levels are there. I mean, I was thinking of going to the shops later, but at 'critical' alert level I think I'll just cower in my bed under the duvet. What a load of nonsense! These alert levels are simply a tool for scaring the public and keeping them under control.

Is it a massive coincidence that John Reid talked about 'imminent' attacks yesterday, and how we may be 'forced to give up our freedoms? This seems like a good way to make people accept it doesn't it? Of course, Reid knew what would happen today when he gave that interview, which is handy. It's good that these things crop up when public disquiet over real events and our governments complicitness in them, such as Lebanon and Iraq, start getting tricky for the government to ignore. It's almost like it's deliberate isn't it?

Galloway on SkyNews

I have mixed feelings about George Galloway. He doesn't spend enough time in parliament (last time I checked, only one MP had a worse voting record - Tony Blair) so I would feel slightly robbed if he was my MP. His Big Brother appearance was also ill-advised. However, his position as an MP does get him a platform, and his views really do need to be heard in these days when public figures shy away from having opinions, especially if they are the truth.

Have a look at this interview he did on Sky News. All credit to Sky for letting it play out I suppose, but nearly every point he makes is excellent. The last few seconds are especially good and are an excellent point.

Turning up the heat

Things in the Middle East are still insane. Our government have yet again made me ashamed to be British. Even though I didn't vote for them we'll all still be considered collectively responsible for their actions. Anyone who thinks that supporting Israel isn't going to make us more likely to suffer from terrorist attacks is a fool. Israel are currently generating plenty of future terrorists all over the world by their actions, and while we could have avoided a lot of ill-will by trying to stop their war, we're now part of it. To rub salt into the wound, the Americans are even using our airbases as stop-off points for the weapons their are providing the Israelis with. If that doesn't make us complicit, I don't know what does...

Israel

Israel is still intent on starting wars with all of its neighbours. It's a sketchy situation there, so I'm not massively surprised to see us doing nothing about it. Of all the polarising issues, Israel seems to be the one that is the most clear cut. When anything to do with the middle east and Israel crops up, people here roll their eyes, make a tutting noise and complain about how Israel should get back to its borders and stop causing trouble. Speak to most Americans though and they say that of course Israel should 'defend itself' by attacking pretty much anyone and blaming everyone else. If it was fair to attack countries that 'funded terrorism' then surely the US funding of the IRA for God knows how long makes them a legitimate target? Of course, funding terrorists is ok when we like them, much as we did the Taliban in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. I'm not sure why quite so many people on the right have a problem spotting hypocrisy. I tend to think that a combination of gullibility and Rupert Murdoch are probably to blame...

Pandering to idiots

At the risk of sounding like someone much older... what is the world coming to? Anyone in the UK can't have escaped this story about a vicar who kissed a schoolgirl on the cheek when giving her an award and found himself in the centre of a criminal investigation. He was found not to have committed any crime of course, but he still ended-up having to give-up his post as a school governor.

So the school loses one of the few people who are willing to give up their time to help out purely to satisfy some insane mother who seems hell bent on someone hanging for innocently kissing her daughter. The quote from her at the end of the article about sums it all up really:

But the girl's mother said she was not satisfied with the investigationor the findings and continued to allege that Mr Barrett's kiss was an assault. "I am so disappointed with the way it has been handled and Iwould like him to be removed from his position," she said.

There are too many idiots in the world and we need to do something about it. To this end I think I will start to 'name and shame' them, so this woman (who sadly remains nameless for now) will be the first person on the list when I get it onto my web site this evening. It might be a very small and probably completely ineffective thing, but I'd get some small satisfaction if these people or their friends Googled their names in future and found themselves on a list of idiots.

Labours plan to turn Britain into something like Nazi Germany are picking up pace quite quickly now. In my post earlier today I mentioned their intention to avoid having to use parliament to pass any laws, just like Hitler's Enabling Act. Now the Defence Secretary John Reid is calling for international law to be rewritten so that we can lock people up indefinitely, Guantanamo-style. His proposals would also allow us to invade other countries pretty much on a whim.

Changing the law to make it 'alright' to lock people up for any reason we feel like and torturing them is one way around the pesky Guantanamo issue of course. These proposals would also make it easy to do pretty much whatever we liked to anyone. And this 'protects' us from terrorism how? Every day we slide into fascism and the population sit there and take it like blind sheep. It's easy to conclude that they don't deserve their liberty and the people who do should just up sticks and go and live somewhere that doesn't have a government that seems to have the goal of creating Orwell's 1984 in real life?

Help to save Parliament

Further to my last post, there *is* something we can do to try to save democracy in this country. Go to www.saveparliament.org.uk and read about the problem, then follow their handy hints for actions you can take. I would argue that we all have a moral duty to do this - I think most rational people would agree.