The Highway to Hell was a short poem published by me to oppose the USUK-Iraq War 2003.
THE HIGHWAY TO HELL
I respect all religions
And belief-systems worldwide
But
I have no time
for those b******s
That claim to be Christians
That claim Divine guidance
On the Highway to Hell
dt
Royal Air Force vehicles and supplies have sailed from Southampton to mark the start of a new RAF deployment to Estonia.
The RAF mission, announced last year by the Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson MP, will see four RAF Coningsby based Typhoon jets deploy to the Amari Air Base in Estonia. On arrival, they will conduct NATO Air Policing activities over the summer alongside other NATO Allies.
In Estonia, the RAF will complement the already deployed British Army Battlegroup that formed part of the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence mission. Both operations are a part of the British contribution to the NATO Assurance Measures agreed by the Alliance at the NATO summit held in Warsaw during 2014.
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The US has deployed its full range of strategic bombers to Britain for the first time in history amid growing tensions with Russia.
Two bat-winged B-2 stealth bombers, three B-52H Stratofortress aircraft and three B-1B Lancers are now lined up in Cold War pose at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.
They are capable of delivering a nuclear strike, although none of those sent to Britain is armed with a nuclear weapon.
The Pentagon considered it necessary to remind Moscow of America’s capability at a time when Russia is adopting an increasingly aggressive military stance, including persistently sending strategic bomber patrols close to US, British and other Nato airspace.
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As it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Charlie Hebdo attack on cartoonists in Paris was fake, manufactured terrorism I need to point some things out. I apologise this is basically in note form at the moment.
Repeated false-flag events. 9/11 was clearly not the first, [?Madrid? NB days after 911], London, Paris [most likely Mumbai too]
The joke they play – killing their own people. Warning given.
Surprised at the French people being taken in – are they or just some?
Police, politicians, journalists permit this to happen. For example, police, politicians and journalists conspired in the murder of an unsuspecting foreign national by a foreign national gang (on the tube).
A Fascist state – not democracy. A small, organised criminal cabal in charge with state institutions subservient to it. Similar to P2 in Italy. Neo-Con scum. Deception as per teachings of Levi Strauss. That Muslims are being demonised as Jews were.
Political parties beholden to them – relate to TTIP i.e. totally contrary to public interest, democracy but for the benefit of the small wealthy elite.
Labour Party just as bad as the Conservatives / Conservative Lib-Dems. Ed Balls & Mandy Mandelson (although New Labour, current LP no discernible difference to Tories) at Bilderberg. Did Blair attend? Blair did attend and lied to parliament about attending. Tiny filthy rich minority getting filthy richer.
Conveniently-timed deaths and suicidings. For Blair John Smith, David Kelly, Robin Cook (who was a challenge, on tour).
Relate to paedophilia – that paedophilia is a way to control politicians, Blair’s cabinet [There may be an assumption that the Blair minister involved in exerting influence so that a convicted paedo child care home supervisor in South London could adopt children is mandy. I don’t assume that and my working hypothesis is that there were many paedos in Blair’s cabinet – as is the case in previous cabinets.], Kitty, Blair’s entertainment in Washington.
People have to stand up to them & they should be held accountable under the law. They are organised criminals.
We’ve had two or three weeks of terrorism propaganda in UK corporate media just recently – and it’s been total BS.
It started with the Metropolitan Police warning UK citizens that they would be terrrists if they watched the supposed beheading of James Foley. If you’re following the news then you’re a terrrist? Actually, it’s probably more like if you’re able to use the internet, then you’re a terrrist.
Well come on then, I’ve watched it and am still sharing it on bittorrent. I’m not promoting it, it’s set to default upload of 1.25 and it hasn’t reached there in weeks. As soon as I post this I will not be doing my share back (because it’s been reached). I am aware that bittorrent users can be tracked – I appreciate that authorities (spooks) can clearly see my bittorrent activity. It’s very amateur and there’s not an actual beheading in the video.
That was a ramping-up of terrrorism BS (propoganda).
Much more recently – Friday – we’ve had the terrrosim BS alert has increased to be very scared because a terrorist attack is going to happen. It’s such BS because if you analyse the statements of David Cameron and Theresa May there is no intelligence to back it up – It is a political move.
There is no heightened threat of terrrism. People from UK have always gone to engage in wars abroad. You think that they’re going to have the same BS effect in UK – that the people of Croydon have been forced out of their homes and into the mountains of Surrey, are dying from exposure and are relying on humanitarian aid? Get real please.
Do you really accept that tihs that you’re fed?
My best guess is that USUK are going to go heavy into Syria pretending to go after so-called Isis but actually having that as a secondary purpose.
Two or three weeks ago so-called Isis were USUK allies because they were – together with al the ones using chemical weapons – fighting Syria.
While there’s a heightened terror alert that’s just political BS. Hey be really afraid – you have to cross the road tomorrow.
Why did Jack Straw try to make it illegal for children at childrens’ homes to speak out about abuse? Was Jack Straw influenced by the fact that some of his friends and fellow politicians were paedophiles? Was this a desperate attempt to stop the truth coming out not only that Labour politiicans are paedophiles but highest level politicians of ALL parties?
Fifty new nuclear plants could be goal in official energy plans
Up to 50 nuclear power stations could be built under plans being looked at by the government. The remarkable figure – 10 times the number the government is openly discussing – is revealed in documents submitted to the Department of Energy and Climate Change by one of its own advisory bodies.
The documents are likely to raise questions as to what extent the government’s energy policy is weighted in favour of nuclear and away from renewables such as wind turbines. It comes as Brussels begins an investigation into whether Britain is providing up to £17bn of potentially illegal public guarantees for the first nuclear power plant in a generation, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which aims to provide 7% of the country’s electricity.
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NSA leaks: UK and US spying targets revealed
More details of people and institutions targeted by UK and US surveillance have been published by The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel.
The papers say that the list of around 1,000 targets includes a European Union commissioner, humanitarian organisations and an Israeli PM.
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The Guardian writes that GCHQ targeted the UN development programme, Unicef, German government buildings and the EU Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia.
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Latest Snowden revelations expose Obama’s lies on NSA spy programs
Just hours after receiving a report from his hand-picked advisory panel on National Security Agency surveillance operations, President Barack Obama used his end of the year press conference Friday to deliver an Orwellian defense of unrestrained US spying both at home and abroad.
“I have confidence that the NSA is not engaging in domestic surveillance and snooping around,” Obama said, despite the cascade of revelations proving just the opposite. These revelations, including the latest from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have established that the agency is collecting and storing billions of files recording the phone calls, text messages, emails, Internet searches and even the daily movements of virtually ever US citizen, not to mention those of hundreds of millions of people abroad.
“The United States is a country that abides by rule of law[!], that cares deeply about privacy[!], that cares deeply about civil liberties[!],” he added. Who, at this late juncture, does the American president think he’s fooling? One only has to read the ruling by a Washington, DC Federal District Court judge—which was then stayed in the interest of “national security”—finding the surveillance methods of the NSA to be “almost Orwellian,” and its activities unconstitutional, i.e., criminal.
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UK reneges on promised independent inquiry on rendition, torture
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has abandoned its promise to carry out an independent inquiry into Britain’s involvement in “extraordinary rendition”, detention”and torture carried out by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Instead, the inquiry will be undertaken by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), whose record is one of covering up the activities of the intelligence services.
Only last month, the ISC questioned the head of the internal security service MI5, Andrew Parker; the director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Sir Iain Lobban; and Sir John Sawers, head of the foreign intelligence department MI6. The hearing was meant to demonstrate unprecedented openness and accountability to Parliament of the secret state apparatus, after revelations by US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden that the UK agencies worked with the US to monitor the Internet and phone activity of most of the world’s citizens.
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Clare Algar, executive director of the human rights organisation Reprieve, criticised the decision to hand the investigation to the ISC: “If the government takes this course, it will be breaking its promise to hold a genuine, independent inquiry into the UK’s involvement in torture.
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The father of one of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing has asked mourners to pray for the “innocent family” of the only person convicted of the worst mass murder in British history, as the nation marked its 25th anniversary.
In his address to a memorial service at Westminster Abbey yesterday evening attended by relatives of the victims, Dr Jim Swire also accused the British government of failing to tell “all the truth they know about this terrible tragedy”.
Before the service, the UK, US and Libyan governments in a joint statement promised to work together to “reveal the full facts of the case”, saying that they wanted “all those responsible for this most brutal act of terrorism brought to justice, and to understand why it was committed”. [BS: positive identification]
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Employment tribunal claims fell by more than half after introduction of fees
Theresa May strips citizenship from 20 Britons fighting in Syria
Abandoned: Theresa May turns back on American-held terror suspect
Labour should “do god” BS …
Two main political news stories from yesterday dominate today’s news: the Gibson report and the completion of the trial of the murderers of soldier Lee Rigby. There was also a ceiling collapse at the packed Apollo theatre in the Soho area of London.
Firstly, the Gibson report into UK involvement in torture and rendition was published. The report was paused while police investigations into torture and rendition were in progress so that the report should be considered incomplete and unfinished.
Unfortunately for previous and current governments and particularly Jack Straw evidence of renditions by the UK and UK complicity with torture come to light while the report was being conducted. While Blair’s government repeatedly denied being involved in torture and rendition the wording was always very carefully crafted and it was obvious that the Fascist bstards were at it.
A further unfortunate consequence for Blair’s former cabinet and government is that cabinet ministers are jointly responsible according to UK law. The current UK Conservative-Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government is keen deal with this problem. It is likely that they would ideally like to postpone it indefinitely so that by the time it’s addressed Blair and his associated Fascist scum will be dead of old age. Accordingly they have broken commitments to appoint a judge-led inquiry and instead have referred it to the intelligence and security committee of selected MPs and peers, a body renowned for ignoring official crimes.
Secondly, the trial of the brutal murderers of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, East London finished yesterday. Soldier Lee Rigby was first run over by a car before a meat cleaver was used to hack at his neck. Early news reports were wrong claiming that he had been decapitated.
An emergency meeting of Cobra was held because of the political nature of the murder. The murderers asked bystanders to film them explaining their purpose. It was both a brutal murder and a political protest. It was not terrorism because ordinary people were not the target.
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Adebolajo actively sought out a witness with a camera phone to deliver what he saw as a 21st-century press conference. It was supposed to be his martyrdom video. But there were no satellite trucks or television crews, only a handful of bystanders armed with a smartphone.
“The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers,” said Adebolajo into the lens of a BlackBerry, his bloodied hands still holding the meat cleaver and butcher’s knife used to slaughter his victim. “By Allah, we swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone.”
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The murderers were driven by Western invasions of Muslim countries claiming that they were soldiers attacking another soldier. I disagree with a psychiatrist’s decision that one of the defendants was not insane. The barbarity of the act shows that he was insane.
I am willing to discuss these issues in the comments.
Philip Hammond ignores the truth about drone atrocities
Lord Janner’s home searched in child abuse probe
theneedleblog: Lord Janner: Home Searched.
theneedleblog: Threatening Letter To Teresa Cooper From ‘Eric’
The big story today is the current UK coalition government’s attempts to hide the UK’s part in torture and rendition under the Tony Blair government. Despite repeated denials by liar Jack Straw at the time, evidence has surfaced that Tony Bliar’s government conducted illegal renditions. It is widely accepted that Blair’s government had little regard for the law, truth or justice.
UK inquiry on rendition and torture to be handed to ISC
The stalled official inquiry into the UK’s involvement in rendition and torture in the years after 9/11 is to be handed to the controversial intelligence and security committee (ISC), the government will announce on Thursday.
The decision follows years of assurances by ministers that the inquiry would be headed by a senior judge.
It is a move that will dismay human rights groups. The ISC is the oversight body that failed to report publicly on the bulk surveillance operations being conducted by the UK’s signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, and it has already conducted one inquiry into rendition, after which it cleared MI5 and MI6 of blame.
The extent to which the agencies were involved in the abuse of terrorism suspects may be outlined on Thursday with the publication of a redacted version of an interim report of the stalled inquiry that was led by Sir Peter Gibson, a retired appeal court judge.
Gibson is said to be calling for further investigation into the UK’s involvement in the rendition of two Libyan opposition leaders and their families to Tripoli in 2004, and the role played by Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time. Straw was not available for comment but has previously denied any wrongdoing. MI6 is reported to have confronted him with documentary evidence that he personally authorised the agency’s involvement in the rendition operations.
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Poorest areas to get extra NHS money to tackle ill health
The poorest parts of England are to receive extra money to tackle ill health after NHS bosses rejected plans to divert resources from there to wealthy areas.
NHS England’s decision means that scores of GP-led clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in deprived areas will no longer see their budgets cut from April. Its board has defied the Department of Health by throwing out its plans to make the age of the local population, not the level of deprivation, a key factor in the allocation of NHS funding.
Labour MPs had claimed that such a move would lead to almost £1bn being shifted from poor areas which have low life expectancy to wealthier places where residents live longer.
Instead NHS England has opted to give all 211 CCGs rises of at least the rate of inflation both next year and in 2015-16, and give those serving the most deprived places extra money to help cope with the demand caused by ingrained health problems. It was obliged to do that to help meet its legal duty to reduce health inequalities and differences in life expectancy between rich and poor areas, said chief financial officer Paul Baumann….
For the Sake of Humanity Society Must Unleash War on the Tories
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The campaign of hate being waged by this government of rich, privileged, and privately educated sociopaths against the poor, the unemployed, and those who dare try to claim the benefits to which they are entitled is unparalleled in modern history. Even Thatcher in her pomp was not as malicious in her treatment of the aforementioned demographic. This was not because she didn’t wish to be more malicious than she was, it was because when she came to power we still had trade unions capable and willing to resist such an onslaught, meaning that the cost involved in even attempting to rip up the foundations of the welfare state and the collective ethos which lies at its heart would have been too damaging to her government and party to make worthwhile.
Three decades on and the fruits of Thatcherism – with the corresponding neutering of the unions and other forms of working class solidarity – have culminated in a new normal of demonisation and the near criminalisation of poverty in Britain. Austerity has been sold to the country as a policy of necessity in response to years of Labour profligacy and a bloated public sector. It is a lie so bold and barefaced that even Joseph Goebbels would blush while repeating it.
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Prisoners serving less than a year should be allowed to vote, says Parliamentary committee
Prisoners serving sentences of 12 months or less should be given the vote, the Government is today told by an all-party parliamentary committee.
It also called for all inmates who are within six months of release to be entitled to take part in elections.
The recommendations will not be welcome in Downing Street as David Cameron has said he would feel “physically sick” if prisoners were allowed to vote.
Britain is locked in an eight-year battle with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which has ruled that the blanket ban on prisoner voting is incompatible with European law.
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Government to make 40 per cent of Britain available for fracking
The vast disruption that could be caused across the country by fracking has been laid bare, with the Government announcing it would make 40 per cent of Britain available to companies to explore for oil and gas next year.
Local communities could be subjected to thousands of wells being dug every year in the search for fossil fuels – requiring billions of litres of water, with dozens of lorries passing by every day – after the Coalition said it would put oil and gas licences covering 100,000 square kilometres up for auction next summer.
The auction, which would give the licence-winners exclusive rights to explore an area for oil and gas, but would require additional permits for fracking, would add to the 19,000 square kilometres of licences that have already been sold to hydrocarbon producers.
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Ian Watkins abuse: police forces to be investigated by IPCC
Investigations are under way to find out if three police forces should have done more to pursue allegations of sex abuse, dating back to 2008, against Ian Watkins.
Watkins, the 36-year-old former Lostprophets lead singer, is to be sentenced on Wednesday for a string of offences including the attempted rape of a baby.
Before his sentencing, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it was investigating police forces in South Wales, where Watkins lived, but also South Yorkshire and Bedfordshire. One line of inquiry is whether officers failed to look properly into Watkins’s activities because of his celebrity status.
The IPCC’s commissioner Jan Williams said: “No one can fail to be shocked by the vile details of Ian Watkins’s offending that emerged in court last month.
“Questions are now rightly being asked as to whether Ian Watkins could have been brought to justice sooner, what steps were taken by police in response to allegations made against him as far back as 2008 and whether his celebrity status had any impact on the investigation.” He added, however, that the investigation was complex and would take time.
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Commentary and analysis on recent UK politics news.
The Conservative-Liberal-‘Democrat’-Conservative coalition intends to persecute benefits claimants and (poor) young people.
Jobless young people without basic skills told to learn or lose benefits
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The principles of “earn or learn” have been hotly debated within the coalition, after David Cameron used his conference speech in October to float the idea of taking away housing benefit and jobseeker’s allowance from under-25s who were not in work or training.
The Liberal Democrats have not agreed to all those ideas but appear to have relented on some elements of “earn or learn”, as Osborne announced that 18 to 21-year-olds without basic skills would only get their benefit if they undergo 16 hours of training a week.
On top of this, all 18 to 21-year-olds who are unemployed for more than six months will have to undertake compulsory work experience, a traineeship or a full-time community work placement.
The measures appear to be an extension of the government’s controversial “workfare” schemes – or mandatory work activity – where jobseekers are forced to go on a month of work experience in order to qualify for their benefits.
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Autumn statement: how are families and individuals affected?
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Missing from the autumn statement were figures on welfare benefits, tax credits and child benefit. Under the Welfare Benefits Uprating Act passed earlier this year, rises in most benefits no longer go up by the rate of inflation but are capped at an increase of 1% until 2016. So Jobseekers Allowance, currently £71.70 for the over 25s who have a record of paying National Insurance, should on that basis rise to £72.42 – an increase of 72p, or enough to buy a tin of Heinz baked beans at Tesco and still have 4p left over.
In the 2010 budget, Osborne said child benefit rates would be frozen for three years, taking effect from April 2011. Since then, the rate has been £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 for the second or more. Nothing was mentioned about child benefit in the autumn statement, but assuming the provisions of the Uprating bill are applied to child benefit from April next year, expect another 20p for the first child and 15p for the second.
The basic state pension, currently £110.15 a week, will rise by 2.7% – the rate of inflation – to £113.10. George Osborne also confirmed that the state pension age will rise to 68 nearly 15 years earlier than originally planned, starting for people retiring in the mid-2030s, rather than 2046. It will then rise again to 60 by the late 2040s, and 70 in the decades after that, saving £500bn from pension expenditure over the next 50 years. “We have to guarantee that the basic state pension is affordable in the future, even as people live longer and our society grows older. The only way to do that is to ensure the pension age keeps track with life expectancy,” said Osborne.
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COMMUNISTS ON OSBORNE STATEMENT: “Good news for the rich, City and big business”
Communist Party of Britain general secretary Robert Griffiths responded as follows to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement today (December 5)
‘The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement is good news for the super-rich, City speculators and the corporate fat cats. It hands yet more lavish subsidies to big business on top of the tax cuts on high incomes and monopoly profits. There will be extra state finance for exports to China together with tax relief for City speculation in Exchange Traded Funds and for shale gas fracking, business rates and employers’ National Insurance contributions.
But there will be no windfall taxes on energy and retail monopoly profits and no moves to end tax haven status in British overseas territories. Instead, the extra state pension of £2.95 a week from April will be swallowed up in rising household fuel costs while almost one-third of men and more than one quarter of women today will not live long enough to draw their pensions in the mid-2030s at the age of 68′.
Imran Awan discusses terrorism suggesting that the ConDem coalition government is intending measures that “… will simply further stigmatise Muslim communities.” Awan raises many issues:
‘Terrorism’ is a wonderfully useful tool for governments engaged in oppression: the huge scale of the surveillance by NSA and partners is justified through the so-called threat of terrorism despite the fact that the fact that the so-called threat cannot justify such oppressive measures. Terrorism permitted the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Terrorism is so important to these oppressive regimes that they have to ensure it’s continuing existence through drone strikes, renditions, the use of torture in prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and by [later edit: the]demonizing of Islam and Muslims.
If terrorism didn’t exist these governments would have to invent it. Actually, they did invent it: Glenn Grenwald reports on research by Remi Brulin that it was invented “… by Israel in the 1960s and early 1970s as a means of universalizing its conflicts (this isn’t our fight against our enemies over land; it’s the Entire World’s Fight against The Terrorists!). The term was then picked up by the neocons in the Reagan administration to justify their covert wars in Central America (in a test run for what they did after 9/11, they continuously exclaimed: we’re fighting against The Terrorists in Central America, even as they themselves armed and funded classic Terror groups in El Salvador and Nicaragua). From the start, the central challenge was how to define the term so as to include the violence used by the enemies of the U.S. and Israel, while excluding the violence the U.S., Israel and their allies used, both historically and presently. That still has not been figured out, which is why there is no fixed, accepted definition of the term, and certainly no consistent application.”
Terrorism is bullshit ideology invented, used, nurtured and maintained by USUK and it’s allies to rule the world.
The Guardian and Channel4 – in a joint investigation – have released documents sourced by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The documents reveal that US intelligence agencies were given far greater powers to spy on UK citizens by UK intelligence agency GCHQ in 2004. It is extremely unlikely that this move would be taken without treasonous ministerial approval by Tony Blair’s government.
GCHQ and the cabinet office are not commenting.
US and UK struck secret deal to allow NSA to ‘unmask’ Britons’ personal data
Documents show Blair government let US spy on Britons
1pm update: The important issue about these revelations is that UK allowed US authorities to spy on UK subjects who are not guilty or even suspected of any crime. Further, the scale of those subjected to such spying without any legal oversight is astonishingly wide. While it is reported as contacts-of-contacts or friends-of-friends of suspects it may be more practical to just consider it as being all UK subjects. [2.20pm Most news sources are reporting contacts-of-contacts. The Guardian say that it’s ‘”three hops” from its targets — who could be people who talk to people who talk to people who talk to you.’ That does look like all UK subjects. ]
This post subject to change