Nanny Knows Best
Nanny Knows Best
Dedicated to exposing, and resisting, the all pervasive nanny state that is corroding the way of life and the freedom of the people of Britain.
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Friday, May 27, 2016
The Joy of Floppies
The media and dog whistle American politicians have become somewhat hysterical over the last 24 hours or so as it has transpired that some of the US nuclear weapons programs are stored/run on floppies.
Cue the demand for very expensive upgrades (thus ensuring that some people in the military, industrial, political complex make mega bucks out of the upgrades).
However, consider this floppies (unlike the net) cannot be hacked nor are they prone to Cylon invasions!
Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.
Visit The Joy of Lard and indulge your lard fantasies.
Show your contempt for Nanny by buying a T shirt or thong from Nanny's Store.
www.nannyknowsbest.com is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"
Visit Oh So Swedish Swedish arts and handicrafts
Why not really indulge yourself, by doing all the things that Nanny really hates? Click on the relevant link to indulge yourselves; Food, Bonking, Gifts and Flowers, Groceries
Labels:
floppy dics,
hacking,
military,
nanny knows best,
nuclear weapons,
usa
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Nanny's Middle Eastern Adventure
I hate to throw a damper on Nanny's enthusiasm for regime change in Libya. However, if she succeeds in throwing Gaddafi out, who exactly is lined up to replace him and how long will our troops be expected to be stationed there whilst "democracy" and a political infrastruture is installed?
Has Nanny learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan?
Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.
Has Nanny learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan?
Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.
Visit The Joy of Lard and indulge your lard fantasies.
Show your contempt for Nanny by buying a T shirt or thong from Nanny's Store.
www.nannyknowsbest.com is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"
Celebrate the joy of living with booze. Click and drink!
Visit Oh So Swedish Swedish arts and handicrafts
Why not really indulge yourself, by doing all the things that Nanny really hates? Click on the relevant link to indulge yourselves; Food, Bonking, Gifts and Flowers, Groceries
Labels:
cameron,
iraq,
military,
nanny knows best
Friday, June 29, 2007
No More Heroes
Poor old Prince Charles, not only does Sainsbury's ban his carrots, but Nanny bans his choice of road names for Poundbury.
Poundbury is the Prince's "model village" in Dorset. All Charles wanted to do was to give some recognition to local war heroes, by naming the streets after them. The Prince also hoped to commemorate battles in which the local regiment, known as the Dorsets, took part.
Unfortunately, this being Nanny Britain, nothing is ever as simple as that. Nanny's chums on Dorchester Town Council's planning committee (ah yes, another local council making a thorough nuisance of itself!) rejected the suggestions. Instead they want to have the streets named after farms owned by the Duchy of Cornwall estate.
All very well, but Poundbury is not a "farming village", therefore naming the streets after farms has no special relevance.
Fiona Kent-Ledger, the chairman of the planning committee, said:
"We just suggested to the Duchy that we didn't think
they were suitable names for Poundbury.
The Duchy came to us when the development first started,
asking us about what we thought of street names.
They came up with the idea of using Duchy estates
and farms as names and we thought that was very fitting.
Because of this we didn't think it was suitable
to now put up names associated with the
Devonshire and Dorset Regiment in Poundbury.
It is not for political reasons.
It is just trying to be practical about where
names are used because once they are there,
they are there forever."
She said that no vote had been taken, because it was obvious that everyone was in agreement.
Really?
I don't know about anyone else reading the above "explanation" from the council, but I am none the wiser as to why they have rejected the suggested names. It seems to me that the decision was based on a political motive.
The snub has infuriated local veterans, who say that it is an insult to brave men and women who were prepared to give their lives for their country.
Derek Julian, a former Dorset regiment soldier, who fought in Korea and proposed the names to the Duchy, said:
"This decision has brought shame on Dorchester.
The council has insulted the regiment
and veterans are appalled".
The list of names included Victoria Cross winners and a trooper who survived the Charge of the Light Brigade.
If Dorset won't honour their names, we can at least do so on this site.
The names included Trooper Thomas Warr, who rode with the 600 members of the Light Brigade into the "Valley of Death" at the Battle of Balaclava; Private Samuel Vickery, of the Dorsetshire Regiment, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for the daring rescue of a comrade under fire during an action in India in 1897; and Captain Lionel Queripel, who was seriously wounded at Arnhem in 1944 but stayed behind to help to cover the retreat of his men.
Private Samuel Vickery, of the 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment was awarded the Victoria Cross for the rescue of a comrade under enemy fire in India in 1897
Trooper Thomas Warr, who died in Dorchester in 1916 aged 87, was one of the last survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade when the British cavalry was cut to pieces by Russian guns during the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. Old Tom died penniless in Dorchester in 1916 and was soon forgotten but his grave was refurbished before a special ceremony by his old regiment last year
Seaman Joseph Kellaway, a Dorset-born Royal Navy boatswain, won the Victoria Cross in the Crimea in 1855 after taking on 50 Russians almost single-handed. He landed in a small boat on the shores of the Sea of Azov with orders to burn some haystacks and a farm building. Within minutes Kellaway and four seamen from HMS Wrangler were surrounded by soldiers. Despite a furious onslaught of musket fire Kellaway, 29, went to the aid of two wounded comrades and held off the Russians until his powder ran dry. Kellaway, was presented with the newly instituted Victoria Cross by Queen Victoria at a ceremony in Hyde Park.
Captain Lionel Queripel, of the 10th Parachute Battalion, was wounded in the face and arms by withering German fire during nine hours of fierce fighting at Arnhem in 1944. He was awarded a posthumous VC for fighting on with hand grenades and a revolver to cover the retreat of his men. He was not seen alive again.
Captain Gerald O'Sullivan won the VC for leading an attack on a Turkish trench during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. He was killed two months later.
Sarah Sands was a troop ship which caught fire in the Indian Ocean in 1857. Queen Victoria honoured the Dorsets who helped to fight the blaze.
Funny though, that despite Nanny's distaste for honouring battles and soldiers, she still sends our young men out to die in foreign fields.
Dorchester Council should hang their heads in shame.
Labels:
councils,
dorsetshire,
firemen,
graves,
guns,
hero,
military,
rescue,
sainsburys,
sea,
street lighting
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Nanny Targets Booze
Despite the fact that this nation was built on booze, the Romans wrote missives home complaining about the tendency of the local Brits to booze and fight every night, Nanny has now decided to try to alter our "mindset" towards drinking.
As we all know, Nanny hates the working classes and has for sometime been going on at them about their smoking, drinking and eating habits. She would do well to remember that it is these same people who have laid down their lives for this country, and kicked the shit out of our enemies.
As Wellington once said, with pride, of his army:
"They are the scum of the earth...
But they are our scum!"
Anyhoo, I digress.
Nanny is now widening her target, she recently told all pregnant women that they must not drink a single drop during their term. This is all well and good except for the following flies in Nanny's oinkment:
1 It is bollocks advice
2 People will ignore it
3 Many women can be pregnant for a wee while before discovering that they are. How are they meant to feel if, during the period of "grace", they downed a few?
4 There is no scientific basis for Nanny's advice
Not content with that, Nanny has now moved up a gear to target "middle class" drinkers...whoever they are?
Seemingly, Nanny is concerned that aside from those of us who down 25 pints in the pub, there are those who drink wine (both in the pub and worse still at home).
Why is Nanny so concerned about this?
Well, she says that it's because they may not know how many units they are drinking.
Bollocks!
The real reason is that Nanny can't stand the fact that people are doing things in private, over which she has no control.
In Nanny's world, if she can't see it or control it...then it is wrong.
Therefore she intends to bore the entire country to death with a series of messages "targeted" at those who drink wine etc at home (even Newsnight fell into that trap last night and started to spread Nanny's poison), telling them that they must take care and that the limit (in Nanny's sad little world) for safe consumption is 21 unit for men and 14 for women per week.
Pah!
I spit upon those units!
The average Brit can down that in one night for fark's sake!
Here is why this advice is bollocks:
1 The target "middle classes" will already be well aware as to the unit content of their booze.
2 We are all adults, so let us determine our own intake.
3 The average "middle class" dinner party these days, if you are to believe the reports, tends to be rather more focused on snorting "a recreational Cameron" rather than drinking yourself under the table.
4 The unit recommendations are aimed at those with the weakest systems, and have no bearing on the average healthy strong individual.
5 The damage that booze does to the system is related to genetics. Hence the fact that the Brits can take the booze, we are bred for it!
6 People will ignore the advice.
Nanny should use her little brain a bit more. She claims that the reason that she hates boozing and smoking so much, is the cost to the NHS of treating the damage that these pleasures take upon us.
The solution to this is simple, raise taxes on these products and stop wasting resources on pointless campaigns and enforcement measures.
1 The taxes will reduce consumption
2 The increase in tax revenue can be used to fund the NHS costs of treating people.
Problem solved!
However, Nanny will not do this because she actually likes to interfere in people's lives. Her lectures and enforcement measures keep the population docile and under control, as well as giving her an army of snooping busybodies (eg council smoke spies) who will snoop on us in the guise of "merely doing their job".
By the way, what sort of sad person will volunteer to become a smoke spy?
What kind of individual will enjoy spending their day wandering around pubs and other public places looking for people having a crafty fag, and taking a photo of them doing so?
That's how Nazi Germany started.
Mark my words, Nanny will one day try to ban drinking as well!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Nanny's Special Little Friend
So it will soon be for Bliary Poppins, as she shuffles off into the sunset; leaving "Smiler" Brown in charge of the country.
Bliary insists though that she leaves a strong legacy, she cites her "achievements" re; anti social behaviour, the "respect" agenda, educashun and the health service.
Errrmmmmmm...run those by me again????
Poor old Bliary, it happens to all leaders past their sell by date, her memory seems to have failed her; surely the above issues haven't quite been "addressed" to everyone's satisfaction?
Oh, and by the way, aren't there a few other things that she will be associated with (she's far too modest in not mentioning those items)...what were they now???
Oooh ooh, I remember; cash for honours and the Iraq war.
How could she forget those two "legacies"?
Whilst we are on the subject of legacies, I would be remiss not to mention Bliary's special friend across the pond.
W is leaving office next year, and part of his legacy seems to be tad intertwined with out own "beloved" Prime Minister. Now W is working hard to try to fix one part of his legacy, namely Iraq.
The troop surge has, so he says, improved the security situation there; despite the fact that around 200 people were blown to bits in a Baghdad market the other day, and despite the fact that the "surge" will not reach its "climax" (can I say climax on this site?) until June/July (surely "surge" is a misnomer?).
Anyhoo, one teeny piece of information that W and Bliary haven't quite told the world relates to troop numbers.
Now, we know that British troops are being pulled out as fast as Smiler Brown can get them out (so that he doesn't have to face the issue when he is PM), and we know that the Iraqi leadership has said that security will be handed over within the year etc etc.
We also know how many US and British troops are in Iraq, don't we?
Post "surge" there will be 170,000 US troops and several thousand UK troops, right?
Right?
Wrong!
For you see dear reader, there are other US troops there as well; these troops are not included in the official reporting or body count figures when they are killed.
Why is that?
Easy, they are working for Balckwater and other private US companies (including one run by Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old company).
So how many private mercenaries are in Iraq then, on top of the 170,000 official US troops?
100,000!
That is the figure according to Jeremy Scahill in his book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Scahill says that private contract companies take up to 40% of all of US money spent in occupying Iraq. These armies are expensive partly because the mercenaries who work for them earn around $100K, far more than the ordinary GI Joe.
Despite the costs, there are several advantages to using these private armies:
- The body count figures, reported by the media and Pentagon, exclude the 770 mercenary deaths.
- The mercenaries are unaccountable to public oversight by Congress, re their actions and their costs.
- When W announces in the future with great flourish that the US is pulling out of Iraq, the mercenaries will be left there continuing the war.
"Blackwater has secured a position of remarkable power
and protection within the US military apparatus.
This company's success represents the realisation
of the life's work of the conservative officials,
including Rumsfeld, who formed the core of the Bush
Administration's war team. While initial inquiries
have focused on the complex labyrinth of secretive
subcontracts under which it operates in Iraq,
a thorough investigation into the company reveals
a frightening picture of a politically connected
private army that has become the Bush Administration's
praetorian guard.
Blackwater was founded in 1996 by conservative
Christian multimillionaire and ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince,
the scion of a wealthy Michigan family whose generous
political donations helped fuel the rise of the religious
right and the Republican revolution of 1994..."
As the old saying goes:
"Judge a man by the company he keeps"
Bliary's legacy will be judged on his choice of friends, most notably his special little friend across the pond.
What a legacy to be proud of!
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Big Brother
George Orwell's vision of a future, outlined in his book "1984", where the state monitors everything you do and say has become a reality.
Ironically this reality is happening within yards of where he used to live.
Britain now has 4.2 million CCTV cameras, that's one for every 14 people in the country and 20% of cameras globally.
Outside of Orwell's flat 27B overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London, there are 32 CCTV cameras within a 200 yard radius.
The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) recently produced a report highlighting the growing army of CCTV cameras, and warning that these "security systems" were:
"vulnerable to abuse, including bribery of staff
and computer hackers gaining access to it".
Professor Nigel Gilbert, one of the authors, believes that further installations should be stopped until the need for them is proven.
Even Nanny's own Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, has warned that use of CCTV and other information-gathering was
"creating a climate of suspicion".
It may be a solution to apply the same strict planning laws, applicable to buildings, to the installation of CCTV cameras.
However, there is some good news, those morons who are so desperate to get themselves on the retarded Big Brother show no longer need to try; they are on TV 24 hours a day anyway, wherever they go.
Labels:
1984,
army,
big brother,
cctv,
islington,
London,
military,
nanny knows best
Friday, February 16, 2007
Nanny's Special Gestapo
Councils, in your cynical view, are staffed by inefficient jobsworths whose only goal is to stifle individual creativity and freedom by imposing layer upon layer of bureaucratic rules upon us.
Folks, that simply isn't true!
Nanny is ensuring that our beloved and respected local councils will serve us even better in the future, by spending around £30M on special training for council operatives.
What will these operatives do Ken, I hear you ask?
Will they be trained to provide us with better services?
Err...no.
Will they be trained in customer care?
Er...no.
Will better quality people be hired?
Er ...no.
Nanny will in fact use this money to train a whole new branch of her anti smoking Gestapo.
Smoking, aside from fat people and...errr..thin people, is one of Nanny's pet hates.
Therefore she is training a specially selected group of local council Gestapo, to spy on those of us who indulge in a quiet fag (cigarette for my American readers) in forbidden areas.
Thousands of "respected" council staff are being trained, as I write, to police the smoking ban in bars, restaurants and shops in England.
Nanny is paying £30M to train her Gestapo to give on-the-spot £50 fines to individuals, and take court action against premises.
Nanny's Gestapo will have the power to enter premises undercover, allowing them to sit among drinkers, and will even be able to photograph and film people.
Nanny's Gestapo will become fully active on 1 July. They will patrol virtually all enclosed public places including offices, factories, pubs and bars.
Business owners will be liable for £200 fines if proper signs are not displayed and, potentially, fines of £2,500 if they refuse to enforce the ban.
Our beloved and respected local authorities have been given the power to enforce the ban, so it does not consume police time. As we know, the police have their hands full arresting people for building snow penises.
Nanny's Gestapo will initially consist of an army of 1200 jobsworth busybodies, with nothing better to do than to stick their noses into other people's business.
Ian Gray, policy officer for the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and chief trainer for the government course, said:
"..there will be some occasions where action has to be taken
and I am sure the compliance officers will not shy away from that."
The battle lines between the state and the people are being drawn, time to man the barricades!
Gray added, chillingly (drop him an email info@cieh.org):
"These officers do not have to identify themselves
when they go into premises and
they can even film and photograph people
to gather evidence although this may not be appropriate in many cases.
There will be two ways of doing this,
either staff can go in and identify themselves to the landlord,
but they don't have to."
Those of you who don't believe that we are living in a police state should wake up bloody fast. Once these Gestapo are on the streets, they will be used for more than just anti smoking spying.
"In Germany they came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
The they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
Martin Niemoeller
Let us try to create the ideal job description for a member of Nanny's new Gestapo. I will start the ball rolling:
-Busybody
-Jobsworth
-Loner
-Sexually inadequate
-Uniform fetish
Please add to the list.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
VOO Halloo II
Yesterday I wrote about Nanny's great new "initiative", VOO's.Violent Offender Orders (VOO's) are designed to stop criminality and violence, before the criminal has even thought of committing the crime. All the police have to do is identify someone with a dodgy background, or extremist views, then the court slaps a VOO on them; hey presto problem solved!
Ho hum, all a bit of a fantasy really in my view.
However, if Nanny really is serious about identifying people who have yet to commit a violent crime but are nonetheless at risk of doing so; may I suggest that she directs her gimlet eye to the people identified in yesterday's Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "Undercover in The Mosque"
(Note Channel 4 have some sort of gizmo that you can download to enable you to watch their stuff, so in theory you can watch it on line)
The documentary identified a veritable hotbed of extremism and unpleasantness being pumped into people's minds in some mosques in Britain, by certain highly unpleasant individuals.
In brief, if you are:
-A woman
-A Christian
-A moderate Muslim
-A Muslim who helps non Muslims
-A Jew
-An atheist
-A homosexual
-A believer in democracy etc etc
Then tough luck, these guys think that you will go to hell and have every intention of speeding you on your way.
Quote:
"'An army of Muslims will arise' announces one preacher.
Another preacher said British Muslims must 'dismantle' British democracy
- they must 'live like a state within a state'
until they are 'strong enough to take over.'"
I would say that these characters are well deserving of a VOO or two. The trouble is that I doubt very much that Nanny will be handing out many VOO's to them.
Why is that then Ken? I hear you ejaculate...please stop this constant ejaculation at the keyboard, semen is such a persistent stain and clogs up the keys.
I digress...the reasons that Nanny won't impose VOO's on these people are two fold:
- Labour politicians are desperate to ingratiate themselves into the Muslim community. They need their votes, and can't be bothered to differentiate between mainstream Muslims and extremists (in fact they don't even take time to understand the difference). A such, any hint of a VOO which might upset their voters won't be popular with Labour.
- The extremists are followers of Wahabism, an extreme version of Islam practiced by Saudi Arabia. Much of the finance and support for the extremist preachers is in fact coming from Saudi Arabia. BTW, you may recall that the perpetrators of 9/11 had Saudi connections.
Saudi is our ally in the forthcoming attack on Iran, and as such we trust them implicitly.
Bliary Poppins in fact recently blocked an investigation into bribery charges relating to Saudi Arabia and BAE, on the grounds of "national security".
Why was this?
1 There is a multi billion pound defence contract with Saudi Arabia in the offing.
2 Bliary Poppins recently spoke of an "alliance of moderation" to take on Iran as part of battle against extremism.
Guess who forms part of this alliance of moderation?
Yes, that's right, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (a country riddled with extremist madrass's exporting extremist preachers to Britain, also not a democracy).
Why do we need an "alliance of moderation"?
Ah, simple, because we are going to attack Iran this year.
Don't believe me?
- The US is deploying another strike group in the Gulf
- Israel is practicing (and of course has denied this) attacking nuclear facilities with low yield nuclear weapons
- The US detained six Iranians inside Iraq last week. The Iraqis claim that they are diplomats, the US says they are not
- The US has appointed an experienced admiral to be head of Central Command (this you see will be mainly a sea borne air assault, rather thand a land assault)
Taking the above into account, there is no way on earth that VOO's will be used on the extremists identified in the documentary (as they are supported and financed by our "allies of moderation").
Haras Rafiq of the Sufi Muslim Council summed it up well:
"We are losing our children to extremists".
Note and understand very clearly, that mainstream Islam is a religion of tolerance and understanding. The rise of the extremists, if not checked, poses as much of a threat to the average Muslim living in Britain as it does to the non Muslims living here.
Something in this country really stinks.
Monday, November 06, 2006
A Record for Life
There's nothing like getting on the wrong side of Nanny for giving you a black mark for life in her "naughty book".That is at least what Michael Reeves, of Swansea, discovered to his cost the other week, when he was given a criminal record for life.
His crime?
He put a scrap of paper in a bin bag meant for bottles and cans!
Mr Reeves holds the dubious distinction of being Britain's first recycling martyr, after Nanny's criminal justice system fined him £200 for disobeying rules about sorting his rubbish.
As if to add insult to injury, Mr Reeves had actually volunteered to take part in the recycling scheme launched by Nanny's chums on Swansea Council.
Clearly Mr Reeves does not know the old army motto:
"Never volunteer for anything!"
Seemingly one scrap of junk mail found its way into a bag designated for other rubbish. Nanny's council workers, being the ever efficient spies that Nanny has employed them to be, found his name and address on it and prosecuted him.
Mr Reeves said:
"I now have a criminal record
and it will weigh me down like a millstone.
I will have to explain myself every time I apply for a new job.
And if I want to go to the United States
I will have to apply for a special entry visa."
Aside from the absurd over reaction by Nanny, in giving Mr Reeves a criminal record, it seems that the case took an unprecedented amount of time and resources to bring Mr Reeves to book.
No less than five, yes five, court hearings!
Mr Reeves spoke bitterly of his "interaction" with Nanny:
"Not satisfied with a false accusation of mixing up my rubbish,
they tried to throw in an additional charge
of leaving the bags out on the wrong day.
Looked at in one way it is a hilarious tale of barmy bureaucracy
but I found it no laughing matter."
Nanny is a vindictive old crone.
The Taxpayers' Alliance accused Nanny's local authorities of using the environment as an excuse to collect extra revenue.
Director James Frayne said:
"This is a joke.
The Green movement in Britain is in danger of being hijacked by tax-hungry politicians.
People will soon start to associate going green with going broke."
Mr Reeves actually denied ever putting the letter in the bag. There were no witnesses nor camera footage of him doing so, but magistrates still found him guilty.
Clearly a case of guilty until proven innocent!
Quote:
"I am not a violent man or a drunkard.
I have not held up a bank.
I have not committed fraud.
But when I allowed a single piece of junk mail to appear in the wrong sort of recycling bag
I found myself committing a crime.
It was not me who put the letter in the recycling bag.
It was not even my bag.
Yet the presence of my address amid the cans and bottles
was enough for the court to find me guilty.
I have always been happy to do my bit for the environment
but I couldn't care less now."
Mr Reeves said that his first mistake was to put his rubbish out a day early, but only because he was going on holiday the next day. He was given a warning by Nanny that he could face legal action.
I guess that the crime rate in Swansea, eg muggings, assaults, drunkenness etc is at an all time low. That is surely the only reason as to why Nanny would waste so much time and resources on pursuing one man, for such an absurd alleged crime, in this vindictive fashion?
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Nanny Bans Peaceful Protest
As such Nanny would like the event to go smoothly, and not be interrupted or upstaged by the annoying realities of day to day life. Therefore Nanny is enforcing a "cordon sanitaire" around the conference, in order to ensure that the media see only what Nanny wants them to see.
This is bad news for Military Families Against The War, who had been planning to camp near the conference in Manchester. Unfortunately for them Manchester City Council is Labour, and as such looks after Nanny's interests rather than the interests of the general public.
Needless to say Nanny's chums in the council have banned the camp, on health and safety grounds.
How useful these spurious health and safety issues can be, when you are trying to manipulate the media!
Seemingly, if you are to believe the council, providing facilities for the campers would not be logistically possible.
As an aside, the police operation covering the event will be the "biggest the city has ever seen".
Up to 1,000 officers every day will provide "robust" policing to cover anyone entering the "island" zone around the G-Mex.
I wonder what "robust" actually means?
I don't know about you but I am old enough to recall the glory days of Thatcherism, when some people were a tad anti Tory, and do not recall that Tory conferences were ever this "threatened" by the forces of evil.
Ironic that the Labour Party, allegedly the party of the "people" (how I loath that word), feel so threatened by the very people that they are allegedly in office to serve.
Anyhoo, around 20 activists have been denied permission to pitch tents in Albert Square in front of the Town Hall from the 21st of September on health and safety grounds.
Rose Gentle, whose son died in Iraq in 2004, said the council were "doing the government's bidding".
Quote:
"We think it's because it's the Labour conference
and they don't want us going and voicing our opinions
because Mr Blair is going to be there.
They say it's health and safety.
They said they don't want drunks thinking it's somewhere they can sleep.
But we've got our own security."
By the way, the cost of the police operation is around £4.2m.
Money well spent!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Tunes of Glory
I spent four happy years as a student at Edinburgh University, and as such have a certain fondness for the sound of the bagpipes.That being said I know that some people find the "skirl" of the pipes to be a tad "grating" on the ears. However, I find Nanny's recent attack on the bagpipes to be an overreaction to say the least.
Nanny's Army Medical Directorate environmental health team have issued a dictat to soldiers learning to play the bagpipes, telling them to limit their practice sessions to only 24 minutes a day, or 15 minutes when indoors.
Pipers will also have to wear ear plugs under the new dictat.
What do they say, I wonder, about soldiers fighting in Iraq and other places where guns, bombs and shells are banging and whizzing around?
Do they ask the combatants to limit their activities to 20 minutes a day?
Bagpipes have played a crucial role in Scottish regiments, which have traditionally been led into battle by kilted pipers for centuries.
Davy Garrett, who played the pipes in the Army for 12 years and now runs a piping school, said:
"This is just another example of the Nanny state
and one that I am very concerned could ruin the future of piping in Scotland."
Bill Lark, 85, a Black Watch piper who led his comrades into action against the Japanese in 1944, also thinks that the rules are bollocks:
"The pipes should be played loudly.
That's how they inspire soldiers and scare the enemy."
I feel suitably inspired to watch my copy of "Tunes of Glory" (starring Alec Guinness, John Mills and Gordon Jackson), I recommend you all do the same.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Bombers R Us

Nanny takes educahsun seriously, aside from ensuring that all pupils achieve a 100% pass rate so that they can all go to "university" (ie so that they don't go on the unemployment register), Nanny is also teaching children about citizenship.
Her new citizenship classes are aiming to help children to get into the mind of the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks.
Teaching packs entitled 9/11: The Main Chance, which invite pupils to imagine organising a terrorist attack, have been distributed to schools running Nanny's much vaunted citizenship classes.
One worksheet in Nanny's pack asks the pupils to imagine what terrorist targets there are in their neighbourhoods. They have then to suggest what weapons and methods should be used to ensure the most effective results.
The worksheets also contain a number of links to other terrorism-related articles, including one on food terrorism and how fast-food chains could be attacked.
Not content with attacking fast food chains?
Then why not attack our water supply? Another article is headlined "How safe is our water?"
Many of the links in the packs expound totally daft conspiracy theories, eg that the suggestion that the American military shot down flight United 93.
Nanny's chum, Tim Window a creator of 9/11: The Main Chance, said that the packs had been used with great success at a pupil referral unit he works at in East London before they were introduced across the borough of Waltham Forest.
Window claims that packs are culturally sensitive, and said that they were about teaching pupils to bring "impartial and unbiased information" to a subject.
What utter bollocks!
Nanny claims that teaching all children about British culture and traditions would allow Muslim children to integrate better into society.
It seems to me that this is will just encourage pupils to reject the society that they live in, and teach them methods of disrupting it.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Nanny Bans Tartan Army
In the last couple of days I have written about Nanny banning all things English, and attributed this in part to her hatred of the English.How wrong I was, evidently she is just as anti Scots as she is anti English.
Nanny's chums in the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the body that ensures that we all live in harmony with each other (just like the old Coke advert of the 1960's), have started to fret about the effects that the World Cup (I believe it starts tomorrow) will have on the Scottish persona.
Seemingly Nanny is worried that the Scots will offend their neighbours in the South, during this forthcoming "bung fest", by being a tad anti English.
Evidently the CRE (Scotland branch-isn't that racist in itself?) has received complaints about perceived anti-English sentiment in the last fortnight or so. Nanny won't stand for that, and issued a proclamation through the CRE:
"Scotland's public figures need to ensure [the World Cup] remains a force for integration, rather than a cause of division."
That's all very well, but in case Nanny hasn't realised it yet, the "bung fest" is in fact entirely based on stoking up nationalism and patriotism; that's why teams are divided into countries!
Whilst dick headed comments from so called "leaders" of the Scots, such as Jack McConnell (First Minister) who said that he would not be supporting England, can hardly be called bright; it is hardly a matter for the CRE, let Neanderthals such as McConnell dig their own political graves by allowing them to expose their childlike immaturity and bigotry to a wider audience.
The CRE, by making an issue out of it, will merely ensure that the "piss" is well and truly taken out of the English now. After all, why on earth should we give a toss about what a "bung fest" supporter shouts when he is drunk?
Ali Jarvis, a CRE director, said:
"Racism occurs when any person is stereotyped, harassed or discriminated against on the basis of their colour,
race,
ethnic or national identity.
Using the World Cup as a pretext for hostility against any nation or race,
including the English, is racism."
Herein lies Nanny's problem, she doesn't understand football. It's purpose is not to unite people, but to divide them along tribal lines; in effect, it is war by another means. Were Nanny to really understand the nature of the game, she would ban it.
Notwithstanding the sheer brilliance of the logic of my argument, Nanny will of course ignore me. The CRE is already getting into a bit of a funk over two complaints that it received, one from an Englishman living in Scotland over the sale of "anyone but England" T-shirts.
The other was from a Scot who objected to a newspaper article in which a shopkeeper spoke of selling out of Trinidad strips from Scots, "out of pure hatred for the English team". Trinidad and Tobago play England on 15 June.
Ms Jarvis added:
"We've been monitoring exchanges in the media (Ken says-good grief has it come to this!)
and noticed an anti-English tone to some of the views expressed,
for example in the letters pages.
In one newspaper, someone wrote on Monday that they were not supporting England.
By the middle of the week,
someone else wrote in to say all English should leave
and they were a scourge on Scotland."
Grow up, get a life, and let the children play at war. Sensible adults with well balanced lives should simply ignore this, so what if people wear these shirts?
I lived in Edinburgh for four years, as a student, and had a great time. There were occasions when I encountered anti English sentiment, but so what?
People can be jerks, it is as simple as that; no amount of interference from Nanny will change that.
Incidentally, my favourite anti English joke (note: I am English) from those days goes as follows (best enjoyed when read in a Scottish accent, preferably West coast):
When God created Britain, he took all the perverts, child molesters, deviants and other bastards sent them down South and called them the English!
Meanwhile one Englishwoman has claimed that she was unable to buy an England football top in an Inverness store, because staff told her that stocking such an item would have "offended the public".
David MacDougall, Tartan Army spokesman, summed it up rather well:
"I think in this day and age we might be a bit too sensitive.
People should take this in the spirit in which it's intended
just light-hearted banter and a bit of craic."
Nanny, get a life!
Friday, December 02, 2005
Cliff Richard Decreed To Be A Health And Safety Risk
Those of you who have been entertained by Cliff Richard, bus driver turned singer, over the past few centuries should be warned.Nanny has decreed that he poses a health and safety risk!
That at least is the conclusion of the people who run Birmingham's National Indoor Arena (BNIA).
You see, for the fans of Cliff, nothing adds more pleasure to their experience of a live concert than camping out in car parks; in order to build up the pre concert mood.
Cliff recently performed at the BNIA, 16th and 17th of November, and his fans were expecting to do what they always do pre concert; namely camp out in the multi storey car park.
Not this year chums.
BNIA venue bosses decided that such an activity was a health and safety risk, as the BNIA was also be packed with families watching Disney on Ice.
An NEC Group spokeswoman said at the time:
"Historically, we are used to Cliff's army of fans camping in the car park during the spring as they wait for his tennis tournament tickets to go on sale.
But at that time of year we're normally very quiet, so having tents instead of cars in the multi-storey isn't really an issue.
Disney on Ice is traditionally staged at the NIA during half-term, so there are health and safety issues to consider, and we couldn't guarantee their safety at that time.
We are expecting a lot of people to turn up very early on October 30 to get their place in the queue."
Only in Britain!
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Softly Softly Task Force
Nanny has issued an 18 point guide to officers to use when they raid Muslim homes suspected of drugs or terrorist offences.
It states:
"The Muslim community feels victimised and suspicious of counter terrorist police operations and in the current climate a search at a British Muslim household has the potential to become a critical incident and come under intense scrutiny".
It then lists 18 points that police officers should note.
These include:
- Rapid entry needs to be the last resort and raids into Muslim houses are discouraged for a number of religious dignity reasons.
- Police should seek to avoid looking at unclad Muslim women and allow them an opportunity to dress and cover their heads.
- For reasons of dignity officers should seek to avoid entering occupied bedrooms and bathrooms even before dawn.
- Use of police dogs will be considered serious desecration of the premises and may necessitate extensive cleaning of the house and disposal of household items.
- Advice should be sought before considering the use of cameras and camcorders due to the risk of capturing individuals, especially women, in inappropriate dress.
- Muslim prisoners should be allowed to take additional clothing to the station.
- If people are praying at home officers should stand aside and not disrupt the prayer. They should be allowed the opportunity to finish.
- Officers should not take shoes into the houses, especially in areas that might be kept pure for prayer purposes.
- In the current climate the justification for pre-dawn raids on Muslim houses needs to be clear and transparent.
- Non-Muslims are not allowed to touch holy books, Qurans or religious artefacts without permission. Where possible, Muslim officers in a state of 'Wudhu' (preparation before prayer) should be used for this purpose.
Whilst the above advice may be highly appropriate for an army of occupation, conducting a mass house to house search in a foreign country, it is not good practice for a domestic police force conducting a targeted raid on a house or property that the police have good reason and evidence to raid.
The "softly softly" approach puts the lives of the officers at risk, and significantly diminishes the chances of the success of the operation.
I would also venture to suggest that instead of "calming tensions" between the various communities, it will heighten them; as non Muslims, rightly or wrongly, perceive that Muslims are being given "special treatment".
I would note that I am not alone in feeling this way; the Chairman of Luton Council of Faiths, Zafar Khan, welcomed the guidelines but said the police should deal with all faiths sensitively.
He said:
"Guidelines on how to deal and interact with the community in all faiths should be welcomed.
It's a question of being sensitive and informed and if that makes the policing more effective and more sensitive that has to be a good thing."
Abdul Malik, chairman of Luton Race Advisory Forum, said:
"The police need to be sensitive when they are going into the homes of everybody - not just Muslims."
In other words, don't treat certain areas of the community as a "special case". In the eyes of the law, we should all be treated equally.
By the way, my family has had some experience of police raids themselves.
My grandmother came to London in the 1930's, from Ireland. At that time there was a bombing campaign and threat from the IRA, as such some elements of the Irish population were regarded with suspicion by their neighbours.
One day Grandmother heard a knock at the door and, on opening it, found herself facing a group of officers from Special Branch.
Seemingly a neighbour had decided that since Grandmother was Irish she was a potential terrorist, and therefore had tipped off Special Branch.
Anyhoo, the officers duly searched her home and of course found nothing. My Grandmother was totally unfazed by this and, once they had finished their search, offered the officers a cup of tea and a slice of cake.
She wasn't upset or angry about this, and was not bothered again by searches; she happily continued to live in London until the mid eighties, when she died.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
True Grit - Update
Following on from my earlier article today, entitled "True Grit", I am pleased to see that the US military have been reading this site; and have taken heed of what I said.
In the last hour it has been announced that the order forbidding US troops to enter the M25 Cordon Sanitaire around London has been rescinded.
Well done!
Now that I have the attention of the US, please could the Administration in Washington fix this other loose end?
It seems that for the last 18 months the US have not had an ambassador stationed in London.
This seems to be a tad odd, given the fact the US and the UK are meant to be "standing shoulder to shoulder" in the so called "war against terror".
Maybe it would be a good time to fix this absurd omission?
In the last hour it has been announced that the order forbidding US troops to enter the M25 Cordon Sanitaire around London has been rescinded.
Well done!
Now that I have the attention of the US, please could the Administration in Washington fix this other loose end?
It seems that for the last 18 months the US have not had an ambassador stationed in London.
This seems to be a tad odd, given the fact the US and the UK are meant to be "standing shoulder to shoulder" in the so called "war against terror".
Maybe it would be a good time to fix this absurd omission?
Labels:
military
True Grit
In the wake of last Thursday's attack on London we have seen the expected messages of resolve and determination from our politicians to carry on as normal, and not to allow the terrorists to win.Quite rightly so, in my view.
However, despite this, one of Blairy's close chums in the so called "war against terror" seems to have let the side down; and has had an attack of the "health safeties".
It seems that the thousands of US military personnel, based in the UK, have been banned by commanders from travelling to London and the inner ring of the M25.
The reason?
Seemingly London is just too dangerous.
That's odd, some 8 million people live within the M25, myself included; what are we meant to do in this "cauldron of terror"?
Personnel, most of them from US Air Force units at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, and family members who are from the US are being urged to stay away.
Defence Secretary John "20 a day" Reid said the US Embassy had told him the advice was being urgently reviewed. He said that he was "trying to get to the bottom of this".
It seems that the US air force said that the order had been made in the interests of the safety of its troops.
RAF Mildenhall spokesman Matt Tulis said:
"We are concerned about the safety of our folks and are trying to do what we can to protect them...This is the best course of action right now."
Rather incongruously he then said:
"Obviously it's in the interests of the air force to ensure its personnel are as vigilant and as safe as possible...
While it's important for some to carry on business as usual, the interests in keeping the air force out of harm's way until we have a bit more knowledge about what has happened is greater than the need to send them back into the city."
He added:
"In this difficult hour, the people of Great Britain can know the American people stand with you".
This ludicrous ban sends totally the wrong message to both the terrorists, and to the citizens of Britain (the allies of the US).
It highlights a lack of harmony in the methodology of Nanny and Uncle Sam as to how they intend to pursue the "war on terror".
Rather alarmingly it also contradicts the message sent by President Bush who yesterday, at the FBI Academy in Quantico, said that the US would "not retreat in the face of terrorists" .
Adding:
"In this difficult hour, the people of Great Britain can know the American people stand with you.....We continue to take the fight to the enemy and will fight till this enemy is defeated," he told the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
He finished by saying:
"The only way that terrorists can win is if we lose our nerve...These kind of people who blow up subways and buses are not the kind of people you can negotiate with or reason with or appease. In the face of such adversaries, there is only one course of action: We will continue to take the fight to the enemy, and we will fight until this enemy is defeated".
The chain of command must not be seen to contradict itself.
Regrettably the orders issued to the US service personnel in the UK transform the image of the US military from that of "gung ho" John Wayne to "risk averse" Sgt Bilko.I am not in the US military therefore I will be ignoring these orders, and risking life and limb by going into Central London (Canary Wharf) later today for a large steak.
Labels:
bottom,
health and safety,
military,
risk
Friday, April 29, 2005
Nanny Censors Grauniad
Nanny knows that a compliant, and fearful, public will nod through her legislation covering id cards and trial without jury; indeed it will probably even re-elect her.
However, once in a blue moon a journalist will write an article that warns us that all is not what Nanny would have us believe.
One such article was written by Duncan Campbell, an investigative writer and a scientific expert witness on computers and telecommunications, for our old friends in The Grauniad.
His article covered the recent "Ricin Trial".
Here is a link to the story:
Grauniad
A link Ken?
That's not like you?
Well, click the link and see what happens.
Yes, that's right, The Grauniad have pulled the story.
Why?
It seems, that Nanny has a served a Public Interest Immunity Certificate banning publication.
Wonder why?
Don't worry though, it is still around on the net; and to save you the time and trouble of finding it, here it is in full.
Enjoy the feeling of freedom; and being able to read what you want, not what Nanny tells you.
Fake Terror - Ricin Ring That Never Was
Yesterday's trial collapse has exposed the deception behind attempts to link al-Qaida to a 'poison attack' on London By Duncan Campbell The Guardian - UK 4-15-5
Colin Powell does not need more humiliation over the manifold errors in his February 2003 presentation to the UN. But yesterday a London jury brought down another section of the case he made for war - that Iraq and Osama bin Laden were supporting and directing terrorist poison cells throughout Europe, including a London ricin ring.
Yesterday's verdicts on five defendants and the dropping of charges against four others make clear there was no ricin ring. Nor did the "ricin ring" make or have ricin. Not that the government shared that news with us. Until today, the public record for the past three fear-inducing years has been that ricin was found in the Wood Green flat occupied by some of yesterday's acquitted defendants. It wasn't.
The third plank of the al-Qaida-Iraq poison theory was the link between what Powell labelled the "UK poison cell" and training camps in Afghanistan. The evidence the government wanted to use to connect the defendants to Afghanistan and al-Qaida was never put to the jury. That was because last autumn a trial within a trial was secretly taking place. This was a private contest between a group of scientists from the Porton Down military research centre and myself. The issue was: where had the information on poisons and chemicals come from?
The information - five pages in Arabic, containing amateur instructions for making ricin, cyanide and botulinum, and a list of chemicals used in explosives - was at the heart of the case. The notes had been made by Kamel Bourgass, the sole convicted defendant. His co-defendants believed that he had copied the information from the internet. The prosecution claimed it had come from Afghanistan.
I was asked to look for the original source on the internet. This meant exploring Islamist websites that publish Bin Laden and his sympathisers, and plumbing the most prolific source of information on how to do harm: the writings of the American survivalist right and the gun lobby.
The experience of being an expert witness on these issues has made me feel a great deal safer on the streets of London. These were the internal documents of the supposed al-Qaida cell planning the "big one" in Britain. But the recipes were untested and unoriginal, borrowed from US sources. Moreover, ricin is not a weapon of mass destruction. It is a poison which has only ever been used for one-on-one killings and attempted killings.
If this was the measure of the destructive wrath that Bin Laden's followers were about to wreak on London, it was impotent. Yet it was the discovery of a copy of Bourgass's notes in Thetford in 2002 that inspired the wave of horror stories and government announcements and preparations for poison gas attacks.
It is true that when the team from Porton Down entered the Wood Green flat in January 2003, their field equipment registered the presence of ricin. But these were high sensitivity field detectors, for use where a false negative result could be fatal. A few days later in the lab, Dr Martin Pearce, head of the Biological Weapons Identification Group, found that there was no ricin. But when this result was passed to London, the message reportedly said the opposite.
The planned government case on links to Afghanistan was based only on papers that a freelance journalist working for the Times had scooped up after the US invasion of Kabul. Some were in Arabic, some in Russian. They were far more detailed than Bourgass's notes. Nevertheless, claimed Porton Down chemistry chief Dr Chris Timperley, they showed a "common origin and progression" in the methods, thus linking the London group of north Africans to Afghanistan and Bin Laden.
The weakness of Timperley's case was that neither he nor the intelligence services had examined any other documents that could have been the source. We were told Porton Down and its intelligence advisers had never previously heard of the "Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, containing recipes for ricin and much more". The document, written by veterans of the 1980s Afghan war, has been on the net since 1998.
All the information roads led west, not to Kabul but to California and the US midwest. The recipes for ricin now seen on the internet were invented 20 years ago by survivalist Kurt Saxon. He advertises videos and books on the internet. Before the ricin ring trial started, I phoned him in Arizona. For $110, he sent me a fistful of CDs and videos on how to make bombs, missiles, booby traps - and ricin. We handed a copy of the ricin video to the police.
When, in October, I showed that the chemical lists found in London were an exact copy of pages on an internet site in Palo Alto, California, the prosecution gave up on the Kabul and al-Qaida link claims. But it seems this information was not shared with the then home secretary, David Blunkett, who was still whipping up fear two weeks later. "Al-Qaida and the international network is seen to be, and will be demonstrated through the courts over months to come, actually on our doorstep and threatening our lives," he said on November 14.
The most ironic twist was an attempt to introduce an "al-Qaida manual" into the case. The manual - called the Manual of the Afghan Jihad - had been found on a raid in Manchester in 2000. It was given to the FBI to produce in the 2001 New York trial for the first attack on the World Trade Centre. But it wasn't an al-Qaida manual. The name was invented by the US department of justice in 2001, and the contents were rushed on to the net to aid a presentation to the Senate by the then attorney general, John Ashcroft, supporting the US Patriot Act.
To show that the Jihad manual was written in the 1980s and the period of the US-supported war against the Soviet occupation was easy. The ricin recipe it contained was a direct translation from a 1988 US book called the Poisoner's Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson.
We have all been victims of this mass deception. I do not doubt that Bourgass would have contemplated causing harm if he was competent to do so. But he was an Islamist yobbo on his own, not an Al Qaida-trained superterrorist. An Asbo might be appropriate.
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