The Lunatic's Cookbook : a Blog of Revelations

Back on duty - Conflict Resolution for the Danish cartoonists

2006-02-03T01:00:00.000Z

Well… THAT was a long, unannounced break, wasn’t it, dears?

I know we mental nurses are supposed to be on unstinting duty 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, but as you know you can’t always squeeze it all in. It’s not that I haven’t needed desperately to blow off more than a little medicated steam, it’s more a case of finding enough quality time (and the motivation) to prize my tremulous fingers off the Nebuchadnezzar of Bombay Sapphire Gin that I received way back in December, courtesy of the staff Christmas party “Secret Santa” fiasco…

In a fit of unconscionable avarice Nurse Kravitz had put her own name into the hat eight times, not realizing that she’d have to buy presents for eight people if she ever hoped to get out of the room alive.

By the time Kravitz had been handed her fifth gift the sack was almost empty, and the penny had dropped. In the drunken riot that followed Maureen and Doctor Strangelove managed to sneak the terrified Kravitz into the kitchens, crammed into the heated compartment of a Hostess Trolley.

As the baying mob crashed through the doors in hot pursuit, Maureen and the Doctor just had time to shove the trolley containing the now-smouldering Kravitz out of the Service Entrance into the loading-bay, where it hurtled down the concrete ramp and shot straight into the electrified compound fence, causing the Asylum’s antiquated power station to blow several circuits, plunging us (and every town for a radius of fifty miles) into total darkness and mayhem.

The next day an emergency meeting of the Asylum Governing Board was called to discuss the urgent business of rebuilding our inadequate power supply. Should we go Coal, Gas, or Oil and recklessly perpetuate our catastrophically selfish polluting habits, or should we look at Hydro, Wind, Wave or what? Here was a perfect chance to get it right, and invest in a pollution-free, genuinely sustainable energy future. All it needed was Vision and courage. All it needed was intelligence. All it needed was decision-making made by someone without Shit-For-Brains.

Instead, what we’re getting is the reckless insanity of more Nuclear Power. Apparently that's what happens when you put Lunatics in charge.

Much more on this out-and-out lunacy over the weekend.

...But before I go, I must tell you that Professor Pizzo over in the American Annexe has put those controversial Danish cartoons up on the staff notice board so everyone can see for themselves what all the current hysteria is about. Maureen and I went for a peek this lunchtime, and I’ve gotta tell you, we couldn't even raise a titter.

Maureen thinks the Danes should be lynched for not being funny!

Though I prefer Calvin and Hobbes myself, here’s my solution to the prickly problem, based on over 30 years of dedicated Mental Nursing and Guinness-drenched Conflict Resolution…

(hat-tip to Simon Le Vans)

Pat Robertson : Ariel Sharon only has himself to blame...

2006-01-06T08:59:00.000Z

I’m so vexed with Beijing Catering Services Inc. over in the American Annexe, I really am! After all that fuss and hoo-hah just before Christmas, I thought I’d had to have a quiet word with Dr. Strangelove at the staff Christmas Party and ask him to arrange for Mrs. Kowalski and her strangely shy Mexican kitchen staff to liberally lace Pat Robertson’s food with Clozapine at every possible opportunity.

Little did I suspect that all the time I was talking to the good Doctor he was actually listening to Napalm Death on his iPod, and subsequently hadn’t heard a single bloody word I’d said. Fool that I am I just thought that all the insanely violent head-nodding was because he agreed with me very, very strongly…

I realized the next day that my message hadn’t got through to Mrs. Kowalski when Pat Robertson was caught in the Visitor’s Centre with those vile little bastards Jerry Falwell and James Dobson. They had somehow managed to corner Mr. Camponelli - who runs the hairdressing concession next to the florists stall - and were trying to demonstrate their Christian Love and Tolerance for his provocative (and therefore homosexual) soul by beating the living crap out of him, using several antique King James Bibles wrapped up in pillow cases.

Laverne pushed the panic button, and two minutes later Karl and the boys from Security rushed in with their Tasers set to ‘Stun’, and after a gratifyingly long bout of genital beating accompanied by the acrid odour of singed pubic hair, peace was finally restored.

As soon as I got back to the Nurse’s Station I sent an urgent email to Mrs. Kowalski about the Clozapine, but she wrote back to say that there were insufficient funds to meet my request as her pharma-food budget had been slashed to pay for the War Effort. The best she could suggest for the Pat Robertson problem was Fudge Brownies made with Ex-Lax. At least that would ensure that most of his shit came out of the correct opening.

The upshot of all this is that Pat’s been quietly slipping back down the slippery slope of manic psychosis, and has been having supernatural intercourse with that rather nasty Imaginary Friend of his again:

Pat Robertson - Sharon punished for dividing Israel

The Rev. Pat Robertson said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is being punished by God for dividing the Land of Israel. Robertson, speaking on the “700 Club” on Thursday, suggested Sharon, who is currently in an induced coma, and former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995, were being treated with enmity by God for dividing Israel. “He was dividing God’s land,” Robertson said. “And I would say, Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the E.U., the United Nations or the United States of America. God says, This land belongs to me. You better leave it alone.”

See Pat in action HERE (Windows Media) or HERE (Quicktime)

Even though (as you all know by now) your dedicated Care Provider Nurse Riches is a 101% unadulterated atheist, I couldn’t help thinking that if their WERE a god (which of course there isn’t), maybe She’d be more likely to want to treat Ariel Sharon with enmity for being… ooh… let’s say… a mass murdering war criminal…

Ariel Sharon - Profile of an Unrepentant War Criminal

(May 17, 2002)

Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, is currently facing possible war crime prosecutions for two massacres that occurred 20 years apart: the September 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, and the April 2002 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) mass killings in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

Sharon is, without doubt, guilty of these crimes against humanity, and others. He is also unrepentant. For him, these mass killings are merely necessary steps on the path toward his objective of a "Final Solution" to the "Palestinian problem," through the mass expulsion and/or extermination of the more than 3 million Palestinians and Arabs now living in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. Under various labels, Sharon and a rogues gallery of collaborators inside Israel, Britain, and the United States, are now moving toward the final phase of their "mass transfer" plans for the Palestinians and Arabs.

[…]

In 1953, Sharon founded "Unit 101," a secret death squad within the IDF that committed several mass murders of civilians. In October 1953, Sharon's "Unit 101" massacred 66 innocent civilians during a cross-border raid into the Jordanian West Bank village of Qibya. Under intense machine-gun fire, local residents were driven into their homes, which were then blown up around them, killing the occupants by burying them alive in piles of rubble. The April 2002 IDF massacre at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin was, in fact, modeled on Sharon's "Unit 101" operations at Qibya.

On Oct. 18, 1953, the U.S. State Department issued a bulletin denouncing the Qibya massacre, demanding that those responsible be "brought to account." Instead, Sharon was rewarded for his war crimes by having his "Unit 101" absorbed into the Israeli paratroop corps. By 1956, Sharon had been appointed paratroop brigade commander.

Between Feb. 28, 1955 and Oct. 10, 1956, a Sharon-led paratrooper brigade conducted similar cross-border invasions into Gaza, Egypt, and the West Bank in Jordan. At the West Bank village of Qalqilya, Sharon's death squad killed 83 people.

…and a general, all-round sadistic racist…

Ariel Sharon's Vision - Maximal Killing

And “maximal killing” is what Sharon and his commando unit brought to Qibya on the night of October 14, 1953. Their attack left 70 dead.

The Arab Legion investigated and determined that the Israelis had moved from house to house "systematically killing" the residents before blowing up their homes. This account, Morris says, is corroborated by Israel Defense Forces post-operational reports, which describe breaking into most of the houses and "clearing them" with fire and grenades.

A United Nations report suggests an even more grisly sequence: "Bullet-riddled bodies near the doorways and multiple bullet hits on the doors of the demolished houses," the document says, "indicated that the inhabitants had been forced to remain inside until their homes were blown up over them."

Commander E.H. Hutchison, a U.S. naval officer serving on the U.N. armistice monitoring commission, investigated the slaughter. "Here and there from between the rocks," he wrote, "you could see a tiny hand or foot protruding."

[…]

And Qibya was no aberration for Ariel Sharon. A 1985 Israeli biography, Sharon: An Israeli Caesar by Uzi Benziman, describes two earlier incidents in which Sharon honed his murderous instincts.

He killed two women from the Arab village of Katama in order to induce a Jordanian military response. Later, in a raid on the el-Burj refugee camp, his plan called for trapping the Palestinians in a lethal crossfire between two groups of soldiers.

The plan worked: 15 refugees were killed.

Benziman, the biographer, describes Sharon's consistently sadistic behavior toward Arabs: His men "witnessed him laughing as a junior officer tormented an old Arab and then shot him at close range; they noted his composure as he planned operations designed to kill as many civilians as possible; they carried out his intricate plan to trap a peaceful Bedouin boy shepherding his flock."

…who was just about to get well and truly nailed for accepting a $3,000,000 bribe from Austrian millionaire and Jericho casino owner Martin Schlaf in 2003…

Israeli Police Say There´s Evidence Linking Sharon to $3 Million Bribe

(Jan. 4th 2006)

The police say they know of evidence linking PM Ariel Sharon to the receipt of a $3 million bribe. So reported Channel Ten tonight, causing a storm of reaction and calls for Sharon to resign.

The investigation of the money trail to Sharon has been underway for over three years, and in fact was first publicized before the last national election, in 2003. The case is known as the Cyril Kern affair, named for the South African friend of Sharon who served as a conduit for the money. The source of the cash, however, has long been suspected to be Austrian millionaire and Jericho casino owner Martin Schlaf. The police say the money was used partially to help Sharon pay back campaign contributions that he had received illegally in 1999, and partly for the Sharon family's private use.

[…]

A live Sharon will have to face prosecution for the Kern-Schlaff bribes, even in Israel's thoroughly corrupt legal system. A dead Sharon will not have to face prosecution. And that would be just fine for the creme de la creme of the country's political leadership.

…and at the very least $690,000 in bribes from corrupt real-estate developer David Appel in January 2004…

Sharon May Face Indictment in Bribe Case

(Jan 21 2004)

David Appel was indicted in the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court for allegedly giving Sharon hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote a tourism project in Greece and also to help rezone urban land near Tel Aviv before and during Sharon's term as prime minister.

[…]

The indictment over the scandal - widely known as the "Greek Island Affair" - centers on allegations that Sharon's son Gilad received large sums in his father's behalf from Appel, an activist in Sharon's Likud Party who was trying to promote the project in Greece during 1999. Sharon was then foreign minister and allegedly was asked to use his influence to push forward both projects, although neither came to pass.

Specifically, the indictment said that during 1998-99 Appel "gave Ariel Sharon a bribe in recognition of activities connected to the fulfillment of his public positions."

The indictment said Gilad Sharon, while ostensibly a consultant in the Greek project, served as a middleman in accepting the bribes. "(Appel) and Gilad agreed to this arrangement despite the fact that the defendant knew that Gilad had no relevant professional qualifications," it said.

It said Appel sent a total of $690,000 to Sharon's family ranch in the Negev desert. Appel also promised to support Sharon in party primary elections, the indictment said.

[…]

Opposition lawmaker Yossi Sarid said that if cornered, Sharon might use diversionary tactics, with dangerous implications.

"He could complicate the country in military or political adventures," Sarid said. "He could get us caught up in a little war." (Nurses Notes: Such as launching a missile attack on Iran around March 28^th, perhaps?)

…which would no doubt have helped that adorable, tubby mass-murderer to pay back all the illegal election campaign contributions and bribes he received back in 1999.

If Ariel Sharon's not already dead by the time I post this, it surely can't be long. I'm sorry for his family that they're going to lose someone they presumably love very much, but that's as far as my sympathy goes. I really can't think of Ariel Sharon without thinking of all the largely defenceless men, women and children his troops have butchered in Palestine during my lifetime. I think of the Peace Activists who have been killed by out-of-control Israeli soldiers, simply because they were there to witness Israeli brutality and report it to the outside world.

The unctuous, mealy-mouthed public statements and pious platitudes gushing from the mouths of the various world leaders last night was quite sickening to witness. I thought Blair and Jack Straw were oily enough, but when I heard George Bush describe Sharon as "A good man", I started to get black spots before my eyes and found it hard to breathe. Hey! We all know the man was a brutal, racist killer. We all know the man was ruthless and callous. Warrior my arse! Ariel Sharon revelled in all the expressions of his own violence. That's not a warrior, that's a mental abberation.

I bet the last wish on his conscious mind will be that he live just long enough to press that big red button to rain death on the Iranians.

By the way: Don't think for one second that anything I've said here excuses for one second the monstrous, murderous atrocities committed by Hamas and the Al A'Qsa Brigades and all the rest of those totally out-of-control criminal gangs who have nothing on their tumescent minds other than revenge and hatred. The Palestinian gangs are at least 40% of the problem as long as they refuse point blank to eschew the bomb for the ballot box and more civilised behaviour.

But... as long as there are all those unresolved questions about possible Israeli involvement in 9/11 to stop the World from being sympathetic to the brutalised, dispossessed Palestinians in their torment, the AIPAC spying scandal in Washington, Sharon's deep, deep corruption and the general stinking, corrupt and parasitic state of Israeli politics (and other countries' dirty complicity), I think we should forget about Ariel Sharon as quickly as everyone forgot that other corrupt ideologue Arrafat, and hope that whoever follows next is less of a sociopath, and who actually has a plan for the future that doesn't continue the brutal suppression and captivity of the Palestinians.

Maybe I'll pop back upstairs and ask Pat Robertson what his "Special" Friend, Bejeebers, would do in this situation... I like to think that Bejeebers would insist on all those United Nations Security Council Resolutions being carried under the real threat of sanctions, embargoes and occupation by UN Peace-Keeping forces. Maybe, just maybe, Bejeebers would want the USA to stop vetoing every single UN Reolution against Israeli brutality just because the US wants to keep a massive military presence in the Middle East because they have it in mind to help themselves to all that precious oil. My Prrrrrrreciousssss...

But Hey! That's just me... and who am I to try and second guess the possible intentions of a non-existent mythological being, anyway?

A personal message from Nurse Riches

2005-12-23T00:29:00.000Z

Pat Robertson - Stark, Staring, Mad.

2005-12-21T07:54:00.000Z

There are times when even we hard-bitten Mental Nurses have to hang our heads in sheer disbelief at the utter insanity of some of our inmates here at Asylum Earth. No… We’re not talking about King George this time. We’re not even talking about Princes Cheney or Rumsfeld. It’s His Holiness Pat Robertson again, I’m afraid.

Clearly he’s been slyly tucking his Thorazine under his tongue and spitting it out when no-one’s looking, and consequently the messianic delusions are overwhelming him again. Maureen, bless her, finds it hard to tell the difference between Pat out of his brain on psycho-actives and Pat in his usual psychotic state.

Last Thursday on his Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club” Robertson (aided and abetted by his vain, sycophantic co-host Terry Meeuwsen) was venting his venomous multi-millionaire’s spleen, reacting to a ruling by a federal judge that it was unconstitutional for Cobb County, Georgia, to require the attaching of stickers onto school biology textbooks stating:

“This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”

Clearly unable to cope with the inconvenient reminder that the Founders of the American Constitution had out-of-control arseholes just like Pat Robertson very firmly in mind when they penned the First Amendment to establish a sturdy constitutional wall between Church and State for the protection of the People, Robertson blew several fuses deep inside his tiny mind, and in a feat of diseased mental contortion the likes of which I have never before witnessed, he began to rave:

ROBERTSON: You know, what we have got to recognize just there in this case is that the Evolutionists worship Atheism. I mean, that's their religion. And evolution becomes their religion. It is a matter of religion. So this is an establishment of religion contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. And the fact that somebody comes along and says, "We are not sure that it's accurate, it's a theory and not a fact" -- how can you say it's a fact? You are talking about 10 to 15 billion years ago. Who was there?

MEEUWSEN: Scientifically, you would think that the scientific community would rise to the occasion and say, "Absolutely, let's keep an open mind. Let's continue to discover and search."

ROBERTSON: Yeah, well, a lot of scientists are. More and more are. They are saying there are just too many things that can't be explained by evolution. But, I mean, these fanatics, I mean, it is a religion, it is a cult. It is cultish religion, and whenever you start talking about the origins of life, you now get into religious matter, and theirs is just as much religion. The only difference is that even questioning, questioning that -- the ACLU says even if you question our religion, you are guilty of violating the First Amendment. I mean, give me a break.

If you don’t believe me, watch for yourself HERE. Or download the file to keep forever and ever HERE (Quicktime) or HERE (Windows Media)

As you all know, things had just died down nicely since Robertson’s last excruciating outburst on November 11th following the ousting of the entire School Board in Dover, Pennsylvania, which event immediately followed the closing arguments and summing-up in the notorious Intelligent Design court case.

Totally fed up with being made to look like a bunch of village idiots in the eyes of the World by the unhinged evangelical Christian fundamentalists in their midst, the townsfolk of Dover had their revenge by sacking the entire school board and replacing them with more Intelligent, Evolved Humans.

By way of a quick reminder: As you probably understand, American Supremacist Creationism (in ALL it’s miserable disguises) contends that because many things in the biological world are very complicated and, since they can’t yet be fully explained or reproduced in the laboratory by Satan’s Scientists, Life can’t possibly have evolved into such wonderful, adaptive complexity from something so stupid as a very lucky protozoan bacterium hooking up with a primordial virus in a marriage of convenience in some far-gone sulphur pool, eventually progressing into the full awesome glory of the animal kingdom, past, present, and future. Oh, no!

Unable to accept that creatures so marvelous as White Christian Men and their Bitches could ever have been related to something so dirty and as haphazard as a lump of hot pond snot, the vain-glorious Fundamentalists insist that such complexity can only be created directly by God. Not only that, but all life was created as-is in one go, with nothing intermediary between Fuck-All and Adam. It says so, (apparently) in their book of mythologies and barbaric old-wives’ tales.

Lesson over. Back to November 11th:

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of Dover, that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.

All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" — the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power — as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

Robertson issued a statement saying he was simply trying to point out that "our spiritual actions have consequences."

"God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever," Robertson said. "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."

Robertson made headlines this summer when he called on his daily show for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Original article HERE

In a nutshell (for those of you who have just got back from spending the last year wandering around Antarctica looking for a penguin to kick), the Dover School Board had been hijacked by recidivist fundamentalists who became obsessed with the compulsion to parade badly disguised Creationism as so-called “Intelligent Design” – claiming it to have some kind of scientific basis – and, with the self-righteous pompousness that only Evangelical American Christians can muster, began moves to give Creationism an intellectual parity with Evolution in school biology lessons, initially by having statements read out in biology classes explaining that ID was a viable alternative to Knowledge.

The statement referred Dover’s lucky, lucky students to a notorious book called “Of Pandas and People” (originally titled “Biology and Origins"), many copies of which had been placed in the school library by one of the Board Members and paid for by a local Religious organisation.

In court the guilty Board Member openly lied about who had paid for the books. (Tsk! Tsk! These Observant Christians, eh? Have you ever wondered why “Thou Shall Not Lie” never made it back down the mountain with Moses?)

This book is the entry-level handbook of the Intelligent Design cultists, which had been re-drafted several times in recent years and had all the original references to Creationism and God replaced with the phrase Intelligent Design. As was proved in court, it’s a very dishonest book - but then again most religious material seems to me to be based on nothing more than distortions, fantasy, propaganda and self-serving half-truths. (Offended? Boo Hoo for You!)

Here’s a brief extract from the fascinating court transcript to illustrate the point:

Attorney Eric Rothschild presented evidence to the court that the Foundation for Thought and Ethics had been lying to the IRS, the general public and, was attempting to lie to the court in Harrisburg. Rothschild cross-examines FTE president, Jon Buell:

OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
BUELL - CROSS - ROTHSCHILD[Page] 97

[Rothschild is confronting Buell with two versions of "Of Pandas and People" - the earlier version was called, "Biology and Origins".]

A [BUELL]... it would be difficult for me to imagine, having achieved something like that that receives accolades from the highest levels of science, and turn around and talk about creation science, and try and publish a track or a book or, you know, some kind of a subterfuge promoting creation science.

Q Actually in this version of the book it describes who creationists are, doesn't it, if you look at pages 23 and 23 and 24. It says there's different types ofcreationist's literature. There are older creationists,younger creationists, agnostic creationists, right?

A Yes. We were trying to give some articulation to the breadth of what that term means.

Q And then if you could turn back to page 22, you explain that "Creation is the theory that various forms oflife began abruptly, with their distinctive features alreadyintact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers andwings, mammals with fur and mammary glands."That's how you defined creation, correct?

A Yes.

Q All right. And I would like to take -- you to take a look at an excerpt from Pandas and People. Turn to page 99 in the excerpt I gave you.

A All right.

Q Says, "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, etcetera."
Do you see that?

A I see it.

Q So that's pretty much the exact same sentence substituting creation for intelligent design, isn't that right?

That fateful decision by the School Board caused science teachers to walk out of their classrooms, because they refused to be a party to what they (and the court) believed to be an unconstitutional act. Eight concerned families had sued the school district over the matter, and today the federal judge gave his ruling:

In his ruling, Judge Jones demolished assertions by members of Dover's former school board, or administrators, that the theory of intelligent design (ID) was based around scientific rather than religious belief.

He accused them of "breathtaking inanity", of lying under oath and of trying to introduce religion into schools through the back door.

The judge said he had determined that ID was not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents".

In a 139-page written ruling regularly studded with criticism of the defendants' arguments, the judge said: "Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."

The result was sweeping.

After "countless hours of detailed expert witness presentations," Jones wrote, "the court is confident that no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than are we to traipse into this controversial area." He said he wanted to avoid "the obvious waste" of other judges' time if he left the issue open.

Jones marshaled detailed evidence on everything from the pain and division in Dover to the unusual history of ID. Witnesses testified they were called atheists and un-Christian for opposing the ID policy. One was told she would go to hell. One said people were afraid to talk to him "because I'm on the wrong side of the fence."

The judge also noted that 150 references to creationism and creationists in Of Pandas and People, a book the board policy recommended to Dover students, were replaced by references to ID after a 1987 Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional to teach creationism, which holds that God created life. That's "compelling evidence," Jones said, that ID is "creationism re-labeled."

John West, an official at the Discovery Institute, a leading proponent of intelligent design, called the opinion "a real overreach by an activist judge who thinks he can stop the spread of a scientific idea through government-imposed censorship." He said the ID movement will progress despite the judge's "delusions of grandeur."

Jones anticipated the attack. In his opinion, he denied being an activist and blamed the outcome on "the activism of an ill-informed faction of the school board." He labeled the board's actions "breathtaking inanity."

Former school board member William Buckingham defended the ID policy. "I'm still waiting for a judge or anyone to show me anywhere in the Constitution where there's a separation of church and state," he told the Associated Press.

Lawyers for the Dover parents said they had struck blows for public schools and religious freedom. With ID activity in more than half the states, they urged school officials to look at what happened in Dover before risking similar consequences.

"The real heroes of this story are the plaintiffs," said Witold Walzcak of the Pennsylvania ACLU. "They stood up against the school board policy. They are very, very courageous."

EXTRACT OF RULING:

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the (school board) amount to a pretext for the (school board's) real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause."

"Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. This is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board. The breathtaking inanity of the (school board's) decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the (school board) who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory."

"The evidence presented in this case demonstrates that ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications."

…not satisfied with this ruling, the whining Fundamentalists clearly will have no qualms about wasting everyone’s time (and probably millions of tax-exempted dollars which should be spent on helping to rehouse black people keft homeless by Hurrican Katrina, or on other acts of Christian Charity) in traipsing their obsessive compulsive disorder all the way to the Supreme Court. Watch this space…

Harold Pinter attacks Bush & Blair.

2005-12-08T00:14:00.000Z

I know, I know... It's been far too long, and I still don't have time to sit and collect my thoughts, what with every wild-eyed Christian Lunatic in the Asylum running 'round the wards leaving over-excited piss-trails everywhere at the prospect of the planned mini-bus outing to the local Roxy Cinema to see "The Lion, The Witch and The Penguins - The Chronicles of Bananas" (or whatever it's called... I lose track of their desperate, infantile obssessions).

Anyhow... I've just got time to throw you all a tasty titbit from the British Annexe of Asylum Earth which might put a warm smile on all those tired, shopping-abused faces of yours...

Here’s a must-see story run by the BBC today:

British Nobel Prize winning playright, Harold Pinter gave a lecture on Wednesday on the subject of Art, Truth and Politics. Pinter used the lecture explore the fact that whilst artists spend an enormous amount of time and energy imbuing their works with (usually) self-evident Truths – which is essential to Art - the same could not be said for Politicians, who spend all THEIR time and effort keeping the public in ignorance.

Pinter then launched a corruscating attack on Bush, Blair and their mutual War Crimes.

Rather than me pull focus from Harold Pinter by paraphrasing him badly, listen to what he said yourselves.

See the BBC News article HERE

See Information Clearing House’s superior streaming video of Pinter’s Lecture HERE

Truthout's full transcript can be read HERE

All I can say is that Harold Pinter speaks for a lot of us.

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.
We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. 'We don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy Franks.

By way of a small diversion...

2005-11-28T23:15:00.000Z

Aah! It's nice to be back at work in Asylum Earth. I had to make a mercy dash to the wind-swept East Yorkshire coast to minister to the needy of the parish, and spent a few very relaxing days in the good company of Nurse Riches Snr. (Yes, Nurse Riches DOES have a father!), and had several exhillerating walks along the wild, fossil-strewn paleo-beach. It sure as hell blows the cobwebs away!

I thought I'd share some of my snaps with you whilst I do some catching up in Patient's Records, as I had no time for TV or newspapers whilst up there, and the Internet connection at Riches Towers is a scandalously primitive 56k dial-up, which drives me into a state of impotent fury.

Simply checking my emails made me feel like I was having one of those horrible dreams where you're trying to run from a hurtling monster, but seem to be stuck in slow motion... or maybe being buried alive. You get the picture, I'm sure.

I have promised a Broadband revolution next trip up. Viva Routers!

In the words of the Maharishi

2005-11-15T19:44:00.000Z

Whilst you're all waiting for me to put down those catheters and get down to posting my next blog, I'd like to share with you some words of wisdom imparted to me by my personal mentor, a Zen master with Chakras the size of George Bush's budget deficit:

Maharishi Phucknuckel’s Guide to Zen

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just fuck off and leave me alone.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a flat tyre.

The darkest hours come just before the dawn, so if you're going to steal your neighbour's milk and newspapers, that's the time to do it.

Sex is like air. It only becomes important when you aren't getting any.

Don't aspire to become irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

Remember: No-one is listening to you until you fart.

Never forget that you are unique, just like everybody else.

Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

If you think nobody cares whether you're dead or alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.

Never judge somebody until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, by the time you judge them you'll be a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving.

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

Have you ever lent someone £20 and never seen that person again? It was propbably worth it.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Some days we are the flies; some days we are the windscreen.

Don't worry - it only seems kinky the first time.

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

There are two theories about how to win an argument with a woman. Neither one works.

Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.

Never miss a chance to shut up.

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

The most wasted day of all is one in which we have not laughed.

May the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch you all with His Noodly Appendage.

Mr. Galloway in the Lion's Den

2005-11-04T00:16:00.000Z

Mr. Galloway in the Lion's Den

So there I was in the Sluice Room the other day minding my own business and rinsing out the bed-pans when Maureen came crashing through the double doors, her turkey-neck flapping wildly, and waving a copy of our local free newspaper, “Harrowing Times”, like she was beating off a swarm of Africanized Bees.

“Look! Look at THIS!” she squawked, jabbing her finger at the front page, “Can you believe this?”

Fully expecting to be shown an editorial on the exciting events a couple of days ago in the US Senate when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid forced the Senate to shut down into a ‘closed session’ and demanded that the Senate Investigation Committee complete the report promised one and a half years ago into the information and intelligence used by the Smirking Chimp to hoodwink America into the illegal, now-intractable Iraqi war, I read the headline – but instead was surprised to see “Galloway Accused of Oil-For-Food Scandal”

As everybody knows (unless you’ve been hiding in a small cave in Tora-Bora) the Americans tried stitching up our Gorgeous George – Independent Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green – by accusing him earlier this year of benefiting from the shambolic Oil-for-food scheme set up by the UN during the Iraqi sanctions following George Bush Senior’s Gulf War.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations - led by the vain, ambitious, homophobic, opportunistic Junior Senator for Minnesota, Norm Coleman - had made a series of allegations against Galloway and, in the true spirit of Arrogant American Republican Party dirty tricks, had omitted to have any prior dialogue with Mr. Galloway before sending press releases all over the world smearing George’s reputation.

These accusations were identical to those originally made immediately post-invasion in 2003, when as if by magic out of the still-smouldering remains of an Iraqi ministry there appeared some documents (since proved to be blatant forgeries placed there by enemies of Galloway) which named George Galloway as benefiting from oil-for-food. The allegations initially appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, to be instantly repeated in Britain by the right-wing Telegraph, whose reporter had fed the story to the Monitor. Galloway sued for libel in the High Court and won. The Christian Science Monitor publicly groveled and retracted without reservation, as did the Telegraph - their dirty tricks exposed.

What the smug, self-assured Senator Coleman HADN’T expected was George Galloway famously hopping on the next Jumbo jet to Washington DC, whereupon he merrily proceeded to absolutely wipe the floor with a stunned Coleman, in front of the world’s media.

Galloway not only vociferously denied all the allegations, he challenged the Committee to show the slightest shred of evidence, and then went on to attack the “lickspittle” Coleman and the Bush Administration for their war crimes and complicity in mass murder.

Coleman never knew what hit him. The fearless Galloway’s total lack of sniveling servility was unprecedented, and his eloquent barrage of facts and figures relating to the American Crime of the Century, whilst reminding all and sundry present that in every respect he had been right in everything he had said pre-invasion about the true nature of the situation in Iraq. Coleman was speechless, and crawled off with his tail between his legs, his pompous, self-aggrandising image in tatters.

Coleman, his colleagues, and therefore the Bush Administration were absolutely furious that Galloway had stood up to them, and obviously they have spent the last six months desperately trying to cobble together something which might look like documentary proof of their allegations.

“Maureen, you silly old cow, that newspaper must be six months old”, I snorted. “This is old news”

“No, Nurse Riches, look at the date, look at the date!” Maureen cried, shoving the paper in my face.

I looked again, and sure enough the paper was dated October 25^th. What was going on here? I sat Maureen down on a mound of used Beijing Industries Surgical Gowns, poured her a stiff dose of wallop from her hip-flask and studied the paper.

Sure enough, Senator Norm Coleman was repeating the April allegations again, but this time was waving around a sheaf of low-quality photocopies of faxes purporting to be the “smoking gun”, allegedly proving that oil money from the old Iraqi regime had gone into George’s bank accounts, or those of his charity, “The Mariam Appeal”. This, they claimed, was the proof.

Galloway immediately responded in characteristic fashion, absolutely denying the accusations, and pointing out that Coleman’s primary witness – Iraqi ex-prime minister Tariq Aziz – had been locked up in a prison cell in a secret location since his capture in 2003, and was facing the death penalty himself. How, Galloway demanded to know, could you seriously say that on the one hand Aziz was accused of being a genocidal maniac, yet in regards to Galloway, his statements were suddenly to be completely credible?

George Galloway immediately demanded that the Senate Investigations Committee charge him with perjury, as this was what they were telling the world was what he had done. He challenged Coleman to repeat the allegations away from the protected privilege of the Senate building, which Coleman has refused to do. Galloway wants to be charged by Coleman’s committee so that he can demand that Tariq Aziz be produced in a court of law to be questioned by Galloway’s legal team.

The very next weekend, by the way, Tariq Aziz’s lawyer stated in Paris that Aziz has never said that George Galloway was ever involved in oil-for-food allocations.

Coleman has also claimed that 100-150,000 dollars of oil-for-food money appeared in a bank account belonging to George Galloway’s estranged wife, the Jordanian scientist Dr. Amineh Abu-Zayyad, who has herself incurred the wrath of the Americans for her long-term research into the devastating incidence of childhood cancers appearing in areas saturated with depleted uranium from US Army munitions. Dr. Abu-Zayyad herself now has cancer.

A very brief bit of background for the uneducated amongst you:

George Galloway has been one of the loudest, most provocative opponents of the illegal American/British invasion of Iraq on trumped-up intelligence, and has made himself a great number of very dangerous enemies in the process.

His interest in Middle Eastern affairs was prompted originally by the plight of the Palestinian peoples at the brutal hands of the Israeli government. Almost alone in British politics, Galloway campaigned tirelessly for recognition of the rights of the Palestinians, and called for the United Nations to enforce a single one of the sixty-five Resolutions made against Israel between 1955 and 1992, or the twenty Resolutions passed against Israel between 1993 and 1995 for their brutality towards the Pal;estinians, their allies in the region, and for flagrant breaches of the Geneva Conventions. All of the Resolutions were vetoed by the US, who also put behind-the-scenes pressure on the Security Council to also veto Resolutions against Israel.

Galloway’s relentless campaigning made him many enemies in Israel, the USA and Britain, but undaunted he continued, despite facing a stream of attacks from the British political establishment.

Later on Galloway turned his attention to the Iraqi people, and, on seeing the devastating effects on the population caused by the US-sponsored sanctions, deeply involved himself in humanitarian work during the Sanctions. He went on to found the Mariam Appeal, a charity set up to raise money to finance treatment for a little Iraqi girl with leukemia, who, because of the effects of the sanctions, couldn’t get medical treatment, and was likely to die as a result. The Mariam Appeal highlighted the fact that untold thousands of innocent Iraqis died during the oppressive sanctions. Again Galloway was making powerful enemies by exposing the cruelty and injustice done to the Iraqis.

Galloway was eventually expelled from the Labour Party for his loud, outspoken opposition to the invasion of Iraq and Tony Blair's involvement in it.

The Oil-for-food scheme was set up by the United Nations as a way of allowing the Iraqi government to maintain an income revenue from limited oil sales which was supposed to be spent on medicines and food, as opposed to bombs and guns. As we all know, Iraq was run by Saddam Hussein, a crazed despot who had spent the last twenty years stealing Iraq’s oil wealth for himself and his psychopathic family and ruthlessly crushing any dissent from the general population, with the full support of the US State Department, who helped Hussein buy chemical weapons etc. etc. etc.

In no time flat Saddam Hussein was manipulating Oil-for-food, and had found a way to completely subvert the planned intention of the scheme by tapping into the inherent corruption and greed of almost everyone who wanted to carry on doing business with Iraq (including American companies). Funds were diverted left, right and centre, and false paper trails created so no-one could readily see where all the money was vanishing to.

Galloway has repeatedly accused George Bush Jnr. and Tony Blair of war crimes and state-sponsored terrorism, and, as the Truth Of The Matter finally seems to be about to begin to be uncovered thanks to the Fitzgerald enquiry, Senator Harry Reid’s tactical victory, the Downing Street Memo pressure groups, the burgeoning Anti-War groups, the corruption indictments leveled against several senior Republican figures, and the first signs that the previously subservient mainstream media might finally be breaking ranks and turning against the fascistic Orwellian Administration.

The cornered war criminals are going to have to do everything they can to create diversions and distractions to buy themselves enough time to try and bury the evidence of their crimes against humanity. We live in interesting times, and may yet see Justice being done.

Finally, today, we hear that Norm Coleman has just issued a press release saying that they have passed their so-called findings on “To the relevant Legal Authorities”, which is supposed to imply yet again that they have something on George Galloway. Coleman reckons that he can pressure the UK government to tie Galloway up in the English courts on trumped-up charges. Galloway wouldn’t be able to call Tariq Aziz as a witness in the UK to prove that Coleman is a liar, because, of course, the Americans have Aziz in their custody.

What convenient timing this all is, bearing in mind the furore and rumpus of the last couple of weeks, with special investigators beginning to force the lid off the filthy dealings of the most murderous, criminal governments the US has ever had. You Americans can expect lots and lots of Galloway over the next couple of days… anything to take the attention away from Plame-gate, the Niger forgeries, the Republican-dominated Senate’s complicity to hide information from the American public, the Downing Street Memo, and all the rest of it.

I’m going to remind you all that George Galloway, a man of amazing courage and principle, is a massive thorn in the side of the establishments who have the most to hide – The Bush government, the Blair Government, Israel, and the Iraqi dissidents like Ahmed Chalabi who have fed the false information to Bush’s Cabal and in so doing gained control of Iraq for themselves, all of whom have colluded over the years to do everything in their power to avoid their share of responsibility for many, many crimes carried out against the arab people. George Bush took the USA to war in 2003 on the back of spurious, fixed “intelligence”, and forged documents seem to be a favourite device of these corrupt warmongers, who will stop to nothing to get their way.

When all this comes out in the wash in an open court of law, I fully expect George Galloway to be vindicated, and the “smoking gun” touted by Senator Coleman to be yet more bad forgeries… unless the Americans find a way to try him in the USA, in which case I fully expect George Galloway to be denied Justice.

NotifyList thingy isn't working

2005-10-28T23:25:00.000Z

So much for labour-saving devices - I installed a NotifyList panel so people could subscribe from the main page and... it doesn't seem to work.

Harumph! Double Cod-Liver Oil AND an enema for THEM tonight!

Until I get this sorted out any new subscribers should send Nurse Riches an email by clicking here and putting "Subscribe" in the subject line.

Powerlineblog and Joseph Wilson - will they apologise?

2005-10-27T00:04:00.000Z

Having nothing better to do today now that Maureen's back at work since her suspected Bird Flu turned out to be just a bad reaction to a rather fiery Chilli chicken kebab, and having a spare half hour, I was idly clicking through some of the nastier Republican blog sites in the Internet Kiosk just next to the Visitor's Cafe, and dipped into the notorious Powerlineblog.com - an experience not to be recommended for the faint of heart or the squeamish.

Don't ask me why - must have been the two bottles of Barley Wine I had knocked back in my tea-break - but I was trawling through their archives, and came across a posting from July 2004 in which they triumphantly called former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson a serial liar for his report on the complete lack of evidence that Iraq was buying enriched Uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.

As we all now know beyond a shadow of a doubt, Wilson was right, the supporting documents were all blatant forgeries.

see the forgeries here.

The fallout from the Bush Administration's attempts to intimidate and discredit Wilson by illegally outing his wife as a covert CIA agent (and thereby endangering not only her life but the lives of all her carefully nurtured Middle Eastern contacts) is just about to explode very publicly across our newspapers and televisions as senior Whitehouse officials are dragged in front of the Federal Courts for their criminal actions, including perjury, obstruction of justice and, if there's enough provable evidence, treason.

Bearing all this in mind, and knowing how influential the rancid Powerlineblog is in Republican circles (and therefore the mainstream US Media), I couldn't resist the overwhelming urge to send them a little love letter from the British Annexe of Asylum Earth, which you'll find below. I'm expecting a fairly abusive reply, which I'll have great pleasure in posting here for your collective glee. I hope Powerlineblog don't disappoint me... I love a good bitch-fight!

Hello, Powerlineblog;

I was just browsing through your bitter blog, and found this from July 2004:
................

Kerry Clings to Yellowcake Myth

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, now exposed as one of the most bald-faced liars in American history, has been a campaign adviser to John Kerry. Wilson's website, risibly titled Restore Honesty, is paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc. So we've been wondering whether Kerry will distance himself from Wilson, now that the Senate Intelligence Committee report has exposed Wilson as a serial liar.

It appears, however, that Kerry still hasn't gotten the word on Wilson and the Niger uranium story. Just four days ago, in a press release titled "What Did He Know And When Did He Know It?", Kerry's campaign excoriated President Bush for his State of the Union reference to the "debunked...Niger/yellowcake claim," which Kerry also called the "false Niger claim."

.................

In the interests of honesty and decency (two virtues which you claim sole possession of, but which doesn't seem to be at all apparent from your aggressive, bigoted writings), and since your heroes are just about to be exposed as liars and criminal warmongers, and the lies that were used to start this illegal war for the personal enrichment of several fascist billionaires are all about to be uncovered, I wondered if you might be men enough to post an apology to ex-Ambassador Wilson, for calling him a serial liar? Does the Truth even MATTER to you? I wonder...

As Wilson said at the time, the yellowcake claim was unsubstantiated, and this has proved to be the absolute truth. Niger never had the capacity to maufacture Yellowcake uranium in the quantity or purity necessary for weapons production. The documents that your pin-up boys waved around at the UN were blatant forgeries fed to them by cohorts of Chalabi via the Italian Secret Service, which I suspect the CIA and the WhiteHouse Iraq Group knew perfectly well to be the case, and they were hell-bent on trying to shut Wilson up in the most intimidating way (short of having him bumped off) before anyone else got near the Real Truth of the matter.

Had the Bush/Cheney Administration not been so corrupt, two thousand American servicemen and women would still be alive, America would not be divided, and you, your children and your grandchildren would not be in astonishing, massive National Debt to the Chinese, who I'm sure will be calling in that debt with interest when it suits them… make no mistake about it.

Had the Bush/Cheney Administration not been harbouring incompetent, fascist dreams of world-domination through murderous force against a completely defenceless third-world tin-pot country, and had instead concentrated on capturing Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora when they had the chance, you wouldn't be in the godawful mess you're in right now.

By the way... why do YOU think President Bush allowed every single member of the Bin Laden family free passage to escape from the USA the day after 9/11? What do you think personally of the deep, dirty financial involvement the Bush family has had with the Bin Ladens? Wouldn't you think that they should have been rounded up by the FBI and questioned, at the very least? Wouldn't you think that the President of the United States of America would want them captured and grilled for any information, seeing as their son was apparently behind the attacks? What do YOU think?

It's just a matter of time now before the Truth comes tumbling out about the lies and deception which people like you have championed because it suited your bitter, selfish, jaundiced view of the World, and your over-inflated opinions of your place in it. All you have succeeded in doing is to make your country a Pariah in the eyes of the World, and it will take many, many years for America to repair the disastrous damage done by the criminal gang which you hold so dear to your hearts.

Nobody believes a single word that spews from the President's mouth. The World knows he is a liar and a puppet. Your so-called Foreign Policy is incompetent and antagonistic. Frankly, America under the Republicans is a corrupt, vicious disgrace.

Tragically the Democrats are as incompetent and as morally dishonest as the Republicans, mired as they are in corporate influence and the old-boys network. The Republicans and their fanatical so-called Christian cheerleaders have divided your country in a shocking, profound way, and I can't begin to think who you have amongst you who is capable of building all those bridges necessary to make America a country worthy of respect again.

I wish you all the luck in the world, and hope you are men enough to accept the Truth when it is uncovered and have the moral integrity to deal with it, accept your part as mob supporters of a regime which has been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of completely innocent Iraqi women, children and men, and to play your part through your influential blog in repairing the damage you’ve helped cause, instead of entrenching yourselves even deeper in your mutual Imperialistic, racist fantasies.

Some democratic Republic YOU turned out to be.

Here's a pertinent quotation for you to think about:

"It's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

Hermann Goering,

Kindest regards,

PETE RICHES

So... what do you reckon are the chances of getting an answer from Powerlineblog? Don't hold your breath!

Getting ready for H5N1... or NOT, as the case may be!

2005-10-16T20:24:00.000Z

Hello, Visitors. I've got to cover Maureen's shifts at the Asylum for the next few days. I'll have time to fill you all in with the week's scandals mid-week.

She's come down with a touch of the Bird Flu, we think - her Turkey Neck was definitely looking a bit sweaty and wobbly on Friday night when we all went to the karaoke night at the 'Anaesthetist and Parrot'.

Come to think of it, the Parrot was looking a bit miserable!

Dr. Strangelove was telling me at lunchtime that the Asylum Board of Trustees have, as usual, left it far too late to stock up on enough vaccines for the patients and staff, because there's no profit in keeping miserable old age pensioners, snotty teenagers and unproductive babies alive.

Even though the Asylum Laboratory has been warning them for almost two years that this Bird Flu could potentially kill millions of people worldwide like in 1918, the Trustees took the position that since the Flu always begins in the Far East, and they've always secretly wanted something really bad to happen to those Godless Commie Bastards, and China-land is a long way away, they didn't need to do anything.

H5N1 virus (gold)

Now the penny has dropped, and they've realised that the virus is carried not by disposable humans who can be stopped from getting onto trains, planes and automobiles, but by hoardes of migratory birdies with wingies, and the deadliest strain is now 3/4 of the way across Europe, they'd better pull their bloody fingers out.

The Trustees have also discovered that Beijing Pharmaceuticals is already working flat out to supply all the other countries who had the intelligence to get their orders in early to beat the Christmas rush, and they have no extra manufacturing capacity because there are only five plants in the world capable of making the vaccine. The Trustees have just got enough vaccine in for themselves, so we're all screwed!

The good news, apparently, is that the funeral pyres will be administered by Halliburton...

Needless to say, when the H5N1 strain finally gets here, your ever-faithful Nurse Riches will be at your bedside to hold your hand and mop your fevered brow...

George Bush - Dictating Under The Influence?

2005-10-07T22:10:00.000Z

Well! There was I, spending a nice quiet afternoon in the Supplies Cupboard with Maureen sorting out the surgical support stockings and matching up all the loose upper and lower dentures and just remarking on how peaceful it was when Laverne, the receptionist from the Visitor’s Centre, burst through the door gibbering like a lunatic, her eyes rolling wildly, and waving her Beijing Industries transistor radio around like a woman possessed.

Maureen had to tip out all her Sherbet Lemons and use the empty paper bag to clamp over Laverne’s mouth to stop her hyperventilating, and when she finally calmed down we were able to find out what had pushed her over the edge…

It’s Inmate Bush again, needless to say.

It seems that his psychosis is breaking out left, right and centre. Last month the National Enquirer (noted for taking great care to check sources legally before printing anything, believe it or not) reported on the whisperings that Junior is back on the booze, and that wifey Laura has announced she’s going to have to keep a closer eye on him:

BUSH’S BOOZE CRISIS

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the
bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.Bush, who said he quit drinking
the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina
catastrophe.Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by
First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford,
Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.His worried wife yelled at him:
"Stop, George."Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first
time, Laura privately warned her husband against "falling off the wagon" and
vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the
sources add.

…rest of article here

A couple of days after this emerged, there was another tell-tale tidbit, but I haven’t found any photos to back the story up, so if anyone’s got a photo I’d be only too happy to Xerox it and pin it to the Notice Board in the Visitor’s Lounge:

PRETZEL ADDICTION? (Sept. 22nd)

Jeebus. It looks like Bush has another scrape on his face today. Left temple.
This is ridiculous. How often does this have to happen before people finally
ask some serious questions? Falling on your face all the time is simply not
normal. And if he's out falling off his bike again while the country is
going to hell in a handbasket then people need to know that too.Update:
Maybe not. It could be something else. My bad. On the other hand, he's
flexing his jaw like crazy in a strange repetitive way. Too much coffee this
morning, perhaps?

…original posting here

As I read this, Laverne started gesticulating wildly, and was waving today’s “Asylum Times” under my nose. She’d highlighted an article on page three…

BUSH’S TWITCH

Okay, the last time I called attention to the new-found twitch in President
Bush's delivery, it was after the speech introducing now-Chief Justice John
Roberts, and many commenters protested that the President was just suppressing
laughter at the antics of Roberts' rambunctious son, present at the festivities.
That, even though most people's attempts to avoid laughter don't involve a
repetitive twitch.

Fine. In the intervening weeks, I've watched Bush speeches regularly,
and the twitch has remained a constant, although not in extemporaneous
appearances. Now, this week, in his press conference announcing the nomination
of Harriet Miers, the President has broken through that barrier, and here is the video evidence. As far as we know, the unmarried Ms. Miers didn't bring her
non-existent rambunctious son to tempt the President into laughter. Other
explanations, of course, are welcome.

…original article here

Below the article was a wide range of reader’s suggestions as to the cause of this very noticeable, repetitive twitching, ranging from:

GUILT

…I believe he is losing what little mind he has left after 25 years of boozing,
drugging and lying, cheating and stealing. It will get to even the worst
sociopaths, I imagine…

… Well, tomorrow (Thursday 10/6) is the big nationwide "major speech" lie on how well the war in Iraq is going. I think Bush will finally reveal himself. It won't be pretty…

to ONGOING COKE ABUSE

…It looks like Shrub may have relapsed into cocaine use (or maybe even ecstasy).
If someone at a club moves his jaw around like that, you know they are high on
something, and it ain't Jesus or America…

… I would have to agree
that it is connected to the use of cocaine or some kind of stimulant. When we
used to do those kinds of things, and the jaw-clenching started, we called it
"Cat-fishing." It was not pretty but it couldn't be helped. That's just what
Bush has been doing--he's been catfishing his way through a slew of public
appearances. Assuming that it would be far too risky for the president of the
United States to be doing cocaine (is that a valid assumption? I don't know), it
must be some other kind of narcotic stimulant but what could it possibly be?...

to BOOZE

…The man has been drinking since 2003, they've tried to limit it to Crawford,
and they try to keep his equilibrium with Xanax... and nothing is working. We're
looking at an alcoholic in the full THROES of his disease. The man is
permanently hungover in public and, I am CERTAIN, permanently drunk in private.
And I say this as a recovered alcoholic…

…I'm surprised nobody
noticed what was to me obvious; He's been drinking. I've seen semi drunk people
do the same exact thing.They space out and do weird things with their faces. Go
back and watch that clip again and look at how he's slower and mellower then
usual, he looks and sounds like he's put a few back, probably tequila…

to MAGIC MUSHROOM TEA

I think his face twitches every time he tells a lie while high on Laura's
Turdblossom Tea. That's Psilcybin Mushroom tea, kids. Why else buy an old cattle
ranch without cattle on it in a remote area of Texas with psychoactive mushrooms
that flourish in the soil generated by old cow patties in the fields? Why else
spend so much time clearing brush for cattle that aren't there? Didn't anyone in
the press corps ever wonder, "Why does this man feel he has to do this, of all
things, for himself?" Why else name your chief of staff after your favorite
'flora'?

to TARDIVE DYSKENESIA

…A chronic disorder of the nervous system characterized by involuntary jerky
movements of the face, tongue, jaws, trunk, and limbs, usually developing as a
late side effect of prolonged treatment with antipsychotic drugs.Maybe he
finally got some "help" for those substance abuse problems...but how terrifying
if this is what the man is like AFTER medication…

To STRESS & TEMPORO MANDIBULAR JOINT

My serious guess is that he has a bit of TMJ, which is a jaw clenching thing
people get when they're stressed to all hell. The movement he shows is pretty
consistent with what I've seen TMJ sufferers do from time to time to keep their
jaw loose, lest it clinch up quite painfully. I'm sure for press conferences he
doesn't want to be drowsy (or drowsier than normal) from painkillers and skips
them, hence more jaw wagging. If the guy ever manages to get two or three weeks
of good news it'll recede noticeably.

To ANTIPSYCHOTIC MEDICATIONS

… that is ALMOST the weirdest thing I ever saw. The last time I saw anything
like it was in 1968 when I was doing a rotation in an asylum when I was a
nursing student. Several of the patients were overmedicated with Thorazine and
they had similar (but more dramatic) tics. You are astute to notice this, and I
will be looking out for it in future. Another possibility since he doesn't do
this extemporaneously, is that he is like "Chatty Cathy" the doll whose string
gets pulled to get her to say things like, "I LOVE you!" Wow!...

You get the picture? What a helpful (If not necessarily sympathetic) heap of ideas. Whatever it is though, something’s definitely up, and it seems as if the strain of all that WHATEVER IT IS is busting out of Little Nutcase like a rash, and surely it’s only a matter of time before he makes a major gaffe in public which even the most myopic media sycophants can’t ignore.

Of course, all this stuff runs right the way through Bush’s family, and it hasn’t always been possible to make a few discrete phone-calls to the Governor or Chief of Police and make the incidents vanish…

JOHN ELLIS BUSH – DRUNK, RESISTED ARREST

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The youngest son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was arrested
early Friday and charged with public intoxication and resisting arrest, law
enforcement officials said.

…full article here

NOELLE BUSH ARRESTED

One of the women here was caught buying crack cocaine tonight. And a lot of the
women are upset because she's been caught about five times. And we want
something done because our children are here, and they just keep letting it slip
under the counter and carpet... She does this all the time and she gets out of
it because she's the governor's daughter. But we're sick of it here 'cause we
have to do what's right, but she gets treated like some kind of princess. And
everybody's tired of it, you know. We're just trying to get our lives together,
and this girl's bringing drugs on property." Transcript, Orlando Police
Department, receiving an anonymous call from within the Center for Drug-Free
Living, where Noelle Bush is currently in rehab.

…full article here

And not forgetting their inspiration, of course…

GEORGE BUSH ARRESTED, LIES TO COVER UP

On September 4, 1976, a state trooper saw Bush's car swerve onto the
shoulder, then back onto the road. [The Bush camp spin that he was driving too
slowly is simply a lie.] Bush failed a road sobriety test and blew a .10 blood
alcohol, plead guilty, and was fined and had his driver's license suspended. His
spokesman says that he had drunk "several beers" at a local bar before the
arrest. Bush was 30 at the time. He now says that he stopped drinking when he
turned 40 because it was a problem.

More troubling, Bush lied in denying such an arrest, and still won't
take responsibility for his actions. His first reaction was to blame Democrats
and Fox News -- the only openly conservative TV network -- for reporting the
story. "Why [was this reported] now, four days before the election? I've got my
suspicions." He refused to say what his suspicions are, though. Bush admits
covering up the story, but seems to think he has no responsibility for the
failure of his cover up.

1. Bush Lied at his Press Conference, 11/3/2000

Bush said he paid a fine on the spot and never went to court. That is clearly a lie, as you can see on this court document showing his court hearing a month later.

In fact, it was a man also in court for DUI the same day who revealed Bush' arrest. Here is exactly what Bush said in his press conference:Bush: "I told the guy I had been drinking and what do I need to do? And he said, "Here's the fine." I paid the fine and did my duty...."Reporter: "Governor, was there any legal proceeding of any kind? Or did you just -- "Bush: "No. I pled -- you know, I said I was wrong and I ..." Reporter: "In court? "Bush: "No, there was no court. I went to the police station. I said, "I'm wrong."

2. Bush Lied in Court, 1978

Bush got a court hearing to get his driving suspension lifted early, even though he had not completed a required driver rehabilitation course. He told the hearings officer that he drank only once a month, and just had "an occasional beer." The officer granted his request. But Bush continued drinking for 8 years after that date and has said publicly that he drank too much and had a drinking problem during that time. Presumably Bush was under oath during the hearing, though we haven't been able to pin down that detail. The Bush campaign refuses to comment on this contradiction.

3. Bush Lied To "The Dallas Morning News", 1998

"Just after the governor's reelection in 1998, [Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater pressed Bush about whether he had ever been arrested. 'He said, 'After 1968? No.'" Dallas Morning News, 11/03/2000 [Before 1968, Bush was arrested for theft and vandalism in college.]

4. Bush Lied On 'Meet The Press', 11/21/99

Tim Russert: "If someone came to you and said, 'Governor, I'm sorry, I'm going to go public with some information.' What do you do?" Bush: "If someone was willing to go public with information that was damaging, you'd have heard about it by now. You've had heard about it now. My background has been scrutinized by all kinds of reporters. Tim, we can talk about this all morning."

5. Bush Lied to CBS, 1999.

"Bush has often acknowledged past mistakes, but CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports that in a 1999 interview with CBS station WBZ in Boston, he denied there was any so-called smoking gun." CBS TV news

Bush also evaded countless questions and gave Clintonesque half-truths. For example, while struggling with how to answer charges of drug abuse, he said that he would have been able to pass FBI background checks during his father's administration. But those checks include the question "Have you ever been arrested for any crime?" So either he was directly lying, or he has some Slick explanation like "I could have explained the circumstances of the arrest and still passed the FBI check."

…full article here

…so is it any wonder, then that George’s daughter’s are following in Daddy’s teetering footsteps?

GENNA BUSH ARRESTED

According to reports, Jenna and Barbara Bush, the 19-year-old twin daughters of
President Bush, were caught trying to order drinks at a Mexican restaurant in
Austin. It is the second time in less than a month that University of Texas
freshman Jenna has been caught drinking underage. She pleaded no contest to a
charge of being a minor in possession of alcohol after getting ticketed by
police at a popular Austin nightclub. A judge ordered her to pay $51.25 in court
fees and serve eight hours of community service, plus six hours of alcohol
awareness training.

…full article here

Oops! Time to go! Feeding time, I'm afraid.

Walter Wolfgang and the man of Straw.

2005-09-29T22:22:00.000Z

Tsk! Tsk! It seems I can’t leave the Asylum for ten minutes without the place going to Hell in a Handcart…

I had to take a little compassionate leave this to look after my euphemistic dog, Spike, who has been laid low with a painful middle-ear infection, poor thing. Temporarily deafened and with diminishing balance, he’d been staggering around the Nurse’s Quarters, bumping into the furniture, snarling at the occasional visitor, yelping frequently and making those pitiful Puppy-dog eyes at me. He also re-damaged the knee he dislocated earlier this year (Yes, I KNOW dogs don’t have knees… he’s a euphemism, remember?). The correct medical term for this condition is “Poorly”.

Anyhoo, I finally got him to the Vet who hoovered several pounds of vile gunk from his ears, and he’s now on the mend, thankyouverymuchforasking.

But what a godawful mess greeted me on my return! I had left Nurse Kravitz in charge of the British Annexe – especially Inmates “Phoney” Blair, Gordon “Prudence” Brown and Jack “The Knife” Straw. All she had to do was keep the buggers heavily sedated, but you know what she’s like… memory of a goldfish, poor dear.

Inmate Brown distracted Nurse Kravitz from her Jumbo Book of Sudoko with the vague promise of something sparkly (that wasn’t), and next thing she knew Blair had rounded up all the other patients, herded them all into Brighton Ward, and was holding a rally so everyone could agree how absolutely marvelous he is, how he loves us all so much that he’s NEVER going to leave, and how HIS shit doesn’t smell at all!

Suffering as they do from the grave misunderstanding that a Labour Party Conference nowadays has the slightest resemblance whatsoever to a proper democratic process involving debate and dissent, some of the braver Inmates naively tried to ask questions about the murderous occupation of the Ottoman Wing, only to be criticized and silenced by the Party Aparatchicks who were lurking in the shadows at the fringes of the Ward waiting to pounce at the first signs of Democracy, on the orders of the Leadership.

Things started getting a little nasty when Foreign Secretary Jack “The Knife” Straw was on centre stage, spouting his usual mealy-mouthed propaganda about how jolly decent it was of us to have joined in the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children, how happy the Iraqis are that the British were in occupation again - just like the last time - and how he has no intention of leaving Iraq until George Bush and Ariel Sharon are satisfied that the entire region is engulfed in internecine conflict and is totally destabilized by civil war, abject fear and grinding oppression, making it easier to justify the absolutely outrageous theft of all their oil.

Getting into the full swing of his Fantasy Foreign Policy, Straw began to claim that in regards Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain had “worked hard to avoid war”.

This was all too much for one of our older residents, 82 year old Walter Wolfgang, who had fled from one set of fascists in Nazi Germany in 1937, and who, on recognizing a liar when he saw one, dared to shout two words - “Liar” and “Nonsense” - from the very back of the hall whilst Straw was in full conceited spurt.

Within seconds Walter was literally pounced upon by three goons who literally dragged him out of his seat by his jacket lapels, despite his urgent protestations that he had heart disease. They proceeded to throw him and a friend (who had dared to complain at the disgusting treatment of an old man) out of the Ward and onto the street. When Walter tried to get back in he was arrested under Section 44 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Yes, that’s right… the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

By tea-time yesterday, when the entire National Media was getting ready to show the entire country what a disgraceful sham the Labour Party Conference has become, the Labour Party issued a statement claiming falsely that Mr. Wolfgang had been warned three times about heckling.

The ensuing blistering criticism of this event temporarily humbled the mighty Party, and today saw a succession of slimy photo-op apologies being made in the general direction of Walter, even by Saint Tony himself.

Pie-loving Party Chairman, Ian McCartney insisted on being filmed shaking Walter’s hand today as a gesture of goodwill, and Blair made comments about how the event Stewards were all volunteers, and sometimes maybe got over-zealous. He didn’t mention that a sizeable proportion aren’t Volunteers at all… they’re professional Bouncers. Bouncers aren't noted for giving a shit.

In interviews today Walter – a keen member of the Stop The War Coalition and Vice-Chair of Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - made some very pertinent points about the over-management of Labour Party Conferences under the Blair regime, and the fact that the leadership had completely side-lined any discussion of Iraq.

Incidentally, serving MP Austin Mitchell had his camera confiscated and the memory wiped by the Police outside the venue, for the heinous crime of photographing a queue.

Another 80 year old was thrown out of a fringe meeting for sporting an anti-Blair badge on his jacket.

Elsewhere in Brighton the Police were seen detaining a man wearing an anti-war T-Shirt, and bundling him into a Police van.

Watching all this on the battered TV in the Nurse’s Lounge, those of us who are older than the average Boy Band were given good cause to remember very lucidly how Labour Party Conferences from the 1950’s to the 1980’s used to be very lively, exciting events.

Loud, impassioned debate on the floor was the order of the day. Ethics were King, and Control Freakery by a leadership (who should be standing in the dock at the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague instead of maintaining the criminal occupation of a Sovereign State whilst sucking on the Chimp’s teats) was unheard of.

Previous Labour Prime Minister were often given a very hard time by the Party Delegates at these Conferences, and that’s how it should be if we want to have a living, breathing Democracy… which we obviously don’t have.

As a surreal footnote, the musical theme played over the PA system at the Conference when Blair took the podium was (very bizarrely) Sham 69’s punk anthem “If the kids are united”, taken by pundits to be a dig at Gordon Brown’s aspirations to step into Blair’s shoes when he steps down.

Later that night BBC’s Newsnight programme invited the now-matured Sham 69 to perform an unplugged version of their classic. Taking the opportunity, Sham’s bemused front-man Jimmy Pursey had tweaked the lyrics appropriately for the benefit of our glorious Prime Minister:

For once in my life I've got something to say,
I want to say it now, but
now it's today.
Life has been given, to grab and enjoy,
So come on Tony,
let's all enjoy.

Oh Mister Brown, don't feel rejected,
'Cause it
was Tony who was elected.
And Mister Blair will take us there,
Just bring
'em Home, don't leave them there.

Just take a look around you Tony,
what do you see?
People with feelings, like you and me.
Understand him,
he'll understand you,
For you are him, Tony, and he is you.

Oh
Mister Brown, don't feel rejected,
'Cause it was Tony who was elected.
And
Mister Blair, we know you care,
So bring 'em home, don't leave 'em
there.

Freedom is given, to speak how you feel,
I have no
freedon, Tony, how do YOU feel?
You can lie to my face, but not to my
heart,
And if we stand together, Tony, this'll be the start.

So
Mister Brown, don't feel rejected,
'Cause your Nation was elected.
And
Mister Blair, we know you care,
So bring 'em home, don't leave 'em
there.

Yes, If the kids were united, they would never be
divided.
Yes, If the kids were united, they would never be divided.

...that's for Walter Wolfgang

I just thought I'd tell you all this so our American visitors can appreciate that they're not the only ones suffering from the creeping cancer of supression, and that we want the same end result from this as YOU do...

That's all for now, dear Visitors. I've got to go back to the Nurse's Accomodation Block and take Spike for his walkies!

I never voted for YOU, Murdoch!

2005-09-21T04:45:00.000Z

It's outrageous, don't you think, that the elected Prime Minister of this country kow-tows at the rancorous feet of the Tax-avoiding, Anti-democracy, Arch-Fascist Rupert Murdoch?

It transpires that Tony Bliar, in his rush to jam his head so far up Rupert's wrinkly, withered Fundament that his Personal Private Secretary has to hold on to his ankles, has been slagging off the BBC's outstanding coverage of the aftermath of Katrina.

Murdoch, addressing a conference of influential media figures in New York last Thursday, told the assembled guests that our sycophantic Prime Minister had confided to him that he had been shocked at the way the BBC had covered the disaster in Louisiana.

Murdoch told them "Tony Blair told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week and he turned on the BBC World Service to see what was happening in New Orleans, and he said it was just full of hate at America and gloating about our troubles."

Hmm... maybe the reception in Delhi isn't very good, or maybe Delhi sits on the other side of a tear in the Space-Time Continuum and what Bliar heard was broadcast from an Alternative Reality, but I can't think of a single thing that was reported by the BBC in all these weeks that could be construed as Anti-American or untrue.

To smear the BBC like this is totally dishonest, but it's all we can expect from our very own War Criminal Prime Minister, who has hated the BBC with a vengeance ever since the BBC first reported that Bliar and his henchmen had "Sexed-Up" the Intelligence on Iraq, and used the phoney intel to mislead Parliament to justify the absolutely disastrous, criminal War in Iraq.

The BBC also covered the now-infamous Downing Street Memo which proved that the Intelligence was "fixed" to fit the intentions of Bush and Bliar. As many of you will be aware, the Downing Street Memo is crucial to current attempts by the brow-beaten, American Left to bring about Impeachment proceedings against George Bush Jnr.

The BBC coverage of Hurricane Katrina was absolutely first-class and accurate. They were there on the ground documenting the plight of the dispossessed poor, the disparity between what was happening on the ground and how it was being initially reported by the right-wing Spin Machine, and the fatal incompetence of FEMA, as it happened, day by day.

At no point did the language used in the BBC's reportage come anywhere near the vitriol and indignation expressed by the hitherto fawning American Mainstream Media when the veil was FINALLY ripped from their collective eyes, and the Bush Administration's incompetence and complicity was laid bare for the entire World to witness.

If Tony Bliar seriously expected the BBC to spin the tidal wave of death and misery to spare the political blushes of the arse-scratching baboons whose corrupt policies contributed so massively to the final outcome, he was rightly disappointed.

If he expected the BBC to toady up to George Bush by praising his inept FEMA pal "Brownie", who was instantly savaged by the domestic media and finally fell on his own sword, he was understandably let down.

If he expected the BBC to lie to the World and support George Bush's lie that "No-one could have predicted the damage caused", or "No-one could have predicted the Levees would fail", when it is a matter of documentary proof that both were predicted, then it is right that Bliar felt let-down.

If he expected the BBC to lie to the World and say that the authorities had handled the aftermath with even the slightest hint of competence, I'm glad he felt betrayed.

If by "gloating" he meant the bits where the BBC reported that A) the budgets for Levee repairs were decimated by Bush to pay for his Imperialist Adventurism in the Middle East, despite expert predictions that the Levees couldn't withstand a category 4 Hurricane, and B) the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA operations in Louisiana was fired from his previous job overseeing horse shows because he was incompetent at even THAT, then I think Tony Bliar and Rupert Murdoch can't tell the difference between "Gloating" and "Anaphylactic Shock".

And if by "Hate" he means that people watching the BBC in the UK might be given the impression that the USA is a deeply divided country shocked at the unprecedented delay and inaction of it's government to bring help to the poverty-stricken poor population who paid for that with their lives, then Murdoch and Bliar can't tell the difference between "Hate" and "Compassion for the suffering of the victims of Katrina".

I should explain at this juncture that it is not only the American Annexe which has a very, very serious problem with the toxic pollution that spews from the Murdoch Empire. Here in the British sector the once-Australian Machiavelli, Rupert Murdoch, has his fingers jammed very tightly up our Dear Leader, who has been deeply in Debtor's Love with Murdoch since Murdoch agreed to support him in every election since 1997, through his rabid, low-brow daily newspaper The Sun, and the once-respected broadsheet heavyweight, The Times.

But what was the cost of this gigantic volte-face from the previous champion of Margaret Thatcher? What on earth did Tony promise Rupy to guarantee that Fabulous Dowry?

It's always been difficult to pinpoint to what extent Murdoch has poisoned British Politics, but in the past week there have been a couple of revelations which are causing understandable outrage in the UK:

A non-Murdoch owned newspaper, the Mail on Sunday has published extracts from the memoirs of Lance Prince, the Prime Minister's former Deputy Media Adviser, who, whilst he was serving Bliar between 1998 to 2000, was also keeping a revealing, candid diary.

Though he was ordered to amend his Diary prior to publication by the Cabinet Office, The Mail on Sunday has obtained the original entries, and we discover that not only did Bliar "Relish" the power-trip of sending the RAF on their almost daily bombing missions over the Iraqi no-fly zone in 1998, we learn that despite publically stating that he was taking action "with a heavy heart", he nevertheless felt it part of his "Coming of Age" as a Leader.

More significantly, Lance Prince also reveals that Tony Bliar promised Rupert Murdoch that he would be consulted on any change to Britain's policy towards Europe... in fact one entry described the atmosphere at No. 10 Downing Street as "very edgy" after Pro-Europe comments by the then Secratary of State for Trade, Peter Mandelson "because we have promised News International we won't make any changes to our Europe Policy without talking to them."

Pardon me if I pause a moment to puke... thank you…

I remember a time almost twenty years ago, when the British Labour Party in opposition still had integrity, when Murdoch's journalists were banned from all Labour Party press conferences, in solidarity with the printers and other employees summarily sacked by Murdoch when he moved his whole operation from Fleet Street to Wapping in East London.

photo: Nic Oatridge, 1986

The party policy at that time was that once in power, a Labour government would break Murdoch's stranglehold on the British print media by forcing him to sell at least one of his national daily papers.

Because of this threat to his corrupt ambitions for world-wide domination and influence, Murdoch set about doing everything he could to cripple any chance Labour had of getting re-elected, until one day, in 1994, two of Bliar's closest advisers, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, went to a secret meeting with the editor of The Sun.

Alastair Campbell & Peter Mandelson

Later that year Bliar flew half way around the planet to speak at Murdoch’s annual conference for his senior executives in the Australian luxury resort of Hayman Island, and to comfort and assure Murdoch that “New Labour” were no threat to his undeniable power, and in return Murdoch 'introduced' his most trusted emissary - Sunday Times columnist Irwin Stelzer - to keep a close, advisory eye on Bliar, and to report back to Murdoch.

Soon afterwards Tony Bliar shocked everyone by announcing that, despite everything he had promised previously, he would not sign Britain up to the proposed EU Constitution without a referendum.

This satisfied the agressively anti-European Murdoch, because he knew that with that much advanced warning he had plenty of time to flood his press with anti-European sentiments, and to stir up prejudice and resentment. Murdoch had won, and on that basis he was instrumental in sweeping Tony Bliar into power.

I could go on to discuss Bliar's alleged failed attempt to influence the sale of an Italian TV station to Murdoch, or the fact that The Sun published the date of the 2001 Election before the Deputy Prime Minister knew it, or the fact that when she discovered she was pregnant, Cherie Bliar rushed off to tell The Sun about it before the rival Daily Mirror could scoop the story, but I won't…

Sorry... got to puke again... it's all the betrayal that does it, you know...

American readers may get some cold comfort to discover that Murdoch is as corruptly insinuated and is as dangerously manipulative in the UK as over there, and for us there's some comfort knowing that we'll never have to suffer the mentally-ill rantings of a Bill O'Reilly on UK Television because we have laws to stop people like that, but nevertheless Murdoch is all over the Media like a cloud of mustard gas, and I'm sure you must agree that makes him a very, very dangerous man because he makes a absolute mockery of any semblance of democratic process.

When I voted for Tony Bliar in 1997 I was voting for policies which we were promised, but which it seems out didn't suit Rupert Murdoch's personal bigotry/greed, so now we can't have them!

If Rupert Murdoch wants the right to dominate the lives of millions of people and influence political policy making, then he should stand as a political candidate, which at least implies a degree of accountability. Instead what we have is a devious, greedy, manipulative monster lurking in the shadows, pushing his personal agenda all over an enormous amount of International Territories, and reveling in the fact that wherever he goes he'll never ever need to wipe his own withered anus again, because there'll always be a long queue of politicians with their tongues drooling, at the ready to do the job.

And that just makes me sick.

A Psychologist's first-hand account of Katrina victims

2005-09-13T18:10:00.000Z

I was sent this first-hand account by friends in the US today, and have been asked to help make it public:

First-hand reaction to Katrina refugees

Anne Gervasi is a licensed psychologist. She donated her time and her talent working with Katrina refugees, at first in the Reunion Arena and then the Civic Center in Dallas. This is her first hand account and reaction to what she had to deal with.

There are so many words that come to mind. As a scholar I am thinking Diaspora, social displacement, systemic disruption, mass trauma, pandemic and unbelievable chaos. As a clinician, I am looking at something that we have never been trained to handle in this country - a level of victimization and its resultant psycho-social ripples that mandate a whole new field of clinical practice-mass victimology.

Katrina kicked the top off of a racist and social termite's nest that has been growing beneath the ground since Reconstruction. These were deeply religious people who have lost God and for that matter, faith and hope. Hope has been replaced by magical thinking that augurs a second and more terrible level of social disruption and anger not far down the road.

Over and over, I kept hearing a framing of self that puzzled me until I realized that this is how it must have been for blacks after Reconstruction. Over and over, people said, "everyone has been so wonderful, thank you, thank you." When I said, "there is no need to thank us, you are our fellow citizens and we want to help you - American to American," there would be a long pause as if the idea of being the same never struck them before.

They are angry and it is growing. The system failed them. For that matter, there is no system because all the safeguards and preparations that we thought were in place aren't there. I have been begging anyone who would listen over the past two years for a program in mass victimology to prepare for the next tragedy after 9/11. Now it is here and the lack of organization, science, and preparation are going to result in terrible consequences for us as a nation.

Imagine sending people who have been assimilated into the most stable demographic population in America into cities an d towns all over the US who are as unprepared as the victims to understand their sense of dislocation and their support needs. The lower Gulf States have a language, a history, a social dynamic, a faith, a societal structure, and a ritual system unlike any other in America. These people have lived in and been acculturated to this system for generations. When the dust settles and the mud dries, we are going to see all over America, a nation that will lose patience with the needs of a foreign refugee population. Abandoned once again, the fury and the trauma that have been momentarily quieted by the outpouring of empathy and support post-crisis, will arise larger and more terrible than we have been equipped as a nation to handle. I hear it now, over and over, in the survivor stories, in the loss of self, and the need to reclaim dignity and power.

Right now, numbness is being replaced by magical thinking. "People want me here - here is better. I think I'll stay here." What is going to happen when reality sets in? The bulk of people who are planning to stay don't understand the system here. Even though we abut borders, we are a vastly different nation. At least we are southerners. What is going to happen to the thousands being sent to Connecticut or Illinois or New Jersey? They are being offered free apartments, furniture etc, by generous and well - meaning people who haven't thought the long term consequences through very well. A lot of the apartments are in areas where they won't have transportation or jobs. What is going to happen six months down the road when the magic wears off and the help slowly fades? How about the holidays for a people who thrive on ritual, tradition, and celebration?

The trauma they are experiencing is so profound that we have no cultural term or machinery set up for it. The dead and nameless bodies by the thousands rotting in the water, arriving dead on the buses with them, or dying next to them in the shelters are a huge festering wound that no one dares mention. This is a true Diaspora the likes of which we haven't seen since Reconstruction. The immediate needs that are being addressed ignore the greater traumas yet to be spoken. No governmental system can survive the number of wounded and disillusioned people that we are going to see sprouting up all over America. Something far greater and more organized has to be done.

Then to the helpers and what is happening there. Turf wars have already sprung up. In the name of "I know better than you do," chaos and wasted energy are multiplying. The Red Cross was initially in charge of certifying the credentials of the helping therapists. After Oklahoma City and the pretenders who arrived there, this seemed like a wonderful clearing house. Everyone who wanted to help had to go through a brief orientation and a thorough checking of credentials.

Only licensed professionals were allowed. Driver's licenses were checked for criminal records. This seemed to be a common sense excellent approach to the question of rapists, pedophiles, and other thugs being denied access to a vulnerable population. Actually, things ran better than I expected at the beginning. Then in came the physicians who I guess felt that their non-existent coursework in this area qualified them to better run things. Immediate chaos, disorganization, and all sorts of ersatz "helpers" began running around. They grabbed our current Red Cross badges and then stopped us from going back on the floor to finish seeing our patients without the new badges, which they just happened to be out of.

We had an optometrist with prescriptive lenses but no glasses or readers and no idea when he'd ever see any. We had a deaf booth but no deaf helpers. In the midst of all this chaos, thousands and thousands of the walking wounded mixing with the powerless well-intentioned came the whispered word, pandemic.

Lots of people are suddenly getting sick, and we have to have precautions. Don't eat or drink or touch the patients. We only have one bottle of disinfectant in the mental health section, so come back here--the length of the Convention Center--after each patient. "What of the people who are being cycled out of here?" "What are we sending into the population?" If people are sick and contagious, where are the precautions to separate the vulnerable? What of precautions such as masks and gloves to keep the medical professionals and first responders safe? All the here and now is suspended in the hope that maybe tomorrow will take care of itself and the worst won't happen. Those are the questions we asked on the first day.

NO ONE IS IN CHARGE

Therefore, there is no consistent answer or approach or forethought. I am no infection guru but as soon as I heard on day one that people with no water were forced to drink water with bloated bodies, feces, and rats in it, the thought of cholera, typhoid, and delayed disease immediately occurred to me. What if the fears of disease are correct? People are fanning out throughout America. Where is the CDC? (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

In the age of computers, we are doing worse than the pencil squibs and the rolls of paper to log in the displaced after World War II. Literacy and computer access seems to be considered as a given for people who have lost it all. Accessing FEMA is through a website. People are in shelters waiting for FEMA to come "in a few days." "Be patient." The Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana pumped my hand and replied to my desperate queries about how to help people find their parents and babies, "Be patient--give us a few days."

The mothers who have lost their children, and there are many, and the children who have lost their parents, have had it with the "be patient" response. The shelters are surprisingly silent. It is hard to find the traumatized mothers because they cry silently. One mother asked how patient I would be if my five-month-old was somewhere unknown for over a week. Over and over, others would ask," Do you think my baby has milk and diapers?" "Do you think they are being kind to my baby?" And then, so softly that I would have to ask them to repeat, "Do you think my baby is okay?" My response--the convenient lie. Every time I said, "of course"; I prayed to God that it was true.

I am sure that there is a special ring of hell for the media: The survivor stories end-on-end for the titillation of the public. I heard Soledad O'Brien say something about the still unrecognized need to address the psychological trauma. I sent a response to the CNN tip-line that there were hordes of every manner of mental health professional working 24/7. CNN's response? "Dr. Phil and the stories of the survivors" on Larry King. They went to the guy who lost his clinical license for serious professional infractions to tell the stories? I could see the "entertainer" down there gathering tales of the already exploited so that he and Larry could both pimp their ratings.

The real unsung mental-health heroes, the counselors, psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists dealing with un-medicated psychosis and severe traumatic responses were represented by Dr. "Keep-It-Real"? We don't need tabloid help from the media. Scream about accountability and point fingers for those who can't. Where is the real help from the media? Help us find those babies and parents and missing family. We have a man in one of the shelters who is caring for four kids. They call him uncle. He is actually the cousin of the fiance of the mother who is probably dead.

The children are silent. They sit and play and weep with open mouths that can't scream. Where is the media to scream for them?

Finally, to hell with this "no blame game." The stories that I know to be true are enough to make me boil. The compassionate foreign doctors who can't find anyone to validate their credentials, the expensive mobile hospital still sitting parked waiting for federal paperwork to move into Louisiana, the five C130s sitting on the Tarmac in San Diego since the night of Katrina, still waiting for orders to move. Where the hell are the beds? We have some old people sleeping on hot plastic pool floats with no sheets. They are still no showers for people who have walked for hours through fetid waters. Their skin is breaking out in rashes. Still no showers. Where the hell are the DeCon showers bought with Homeland Security money that can shower 30 people at a time. The convention centers have no bathing facilities so the filth and skin reactions are getting worse. What of lice? There are no clothes for the really heavy and large. I was reduced to writing the women I knew who went to Weight Watchers to comb their attics for "before" outfits. When I arrived with the sack of my gatherings, I had to engage in a full scale battle and puff myself up to all my red-headed doctor fury to get them distributed to the women still sitting there in their stinking clothes.

The survivors are like the Mayor of New Orleans who apologized to George Bush for his anger. "If we tell the way we feel, maybe help will stop." All the apologists on the air distancing George and his co-vacationers and idiot appointees should be impeached. I liked Nagin when he called it all bullshit. He was right. How about Haley Barbour complaining about the lack of support for his state? Did he so soon forget his past life and what he did to set up this government of spin artists? If they had acted like a government the body count would be less. The aid would be better managed. The days of filth, and faeces, and death would have been ended sooner. God help all of the poseurs in charge when these folks finally get in touch with their justifiable rage. Did you see the White House's logo for the hurricane? George and some asshole in a ball cap against a background of Katrina waving the flag. They had the energy and time for a nice logo but no time to get the elements of help in gear?

The tragedy is leavened by some moments of farce, the guy who arrived with a case of Gucci shoes in various sizes that he "saved" from his closet. The man wearing twelve expensive watches up his arm. I guess he is a punctual sort. There are the too-poignant-for-words vignettes. I saw a lady sitting on a blanket holding a photo of two children that she had pulled from the water. She kept crying and looking at it. I thought they were her children. She didn't know whose they were. They were just losses and she mourned them.

Of course there were the criminals, thugs, and mobsters. One of the greatest indictments of the "spin machine" that is going to come from this situation will be the repeated characterizations of the victims as lawless and criminal. Over and over I heard people tell me about how ashamed they were to be portrayed that way. Ninety-nine percent of these people never were characterized as anything but lawful and good citizens. In their most desperate hours to be reduced to taking food and water to survive and then to be lumped with the television thieves and the shooters is too shameful for most of them to bear. I heard from hospital employees that survived on a cup of watered grits so that the patients could make it. And then I heard how they had to hide the ones that didn't in closets to keep up the morale of the others.

The people that survived this tragedy and the people who help them all know one truth. The help and the love and the care that has been extended to them have been on a citizen-to-citizen basis. The churches, doctors, therapists, and ordinary citizens who are giving all they can in time and resources are managing to band-aid at the most elementary level-neighbor to neighbor. The government has failed We are more vulnerable now than before 9/11 because faith in the system is gone. No system can sustain itself as a viable entity when the citizenry are the walking wounded. Victims implode a system from within and expose its decay. This is the beginning of the end unless we can get a drastic change of philosophy and restore the government to a system "by the people for the people." Right now nobody down here believes we have that.

Anne Gervasi

New Orleans - Who stands to benefit?

2005-09-11T01:18:00.000Z

There’s been quite a debate going on these past few days in the Nurse’s Lounge about all the hidden agendas which will be perfectly served by the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, and the surreal behaviour of the Federal authorities who didn’t lift a finger for two and a half days after the hurricane passed, thereby ensuring maximum havoc, disruption and disorientation for the victims who were too dirt-poor to get out.

We’ll never know how many people would still be alive if the U.S. Administration hadn’t purposefully condemned those people to inevitable death, and had instead done the job they were elected to do, which is to care for the people of the United States… ALL of them, not just the fat, corrupt, greedy, racist elite who paid to have that blithering, psychopathic chimp installed in the Whitehouse to do their criminal bidding.

Despite all the lies and spin gushing out of the Whitehouse Lying Machine to the contrary, the Administration was told in graphic terms before the hurricane hit exactly how much damage was going to be done.

It’s a matter of documentary fact:

Warnings were loud and clear - but still the city drowned

“If there is a smoking gun in the Gulf Coast wreckage, it is the hurricane warning issued by the New Orleans office of the US National Weather Service soon after 10am on August 28, the eve of Katrina’s arrival.

“Devastating damage expected,” the warning stated. “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks . . . All gabled roofs will fail . . . All wood-framed low rising apartment buildings will be destroyed . . . Power outages will last for weeks . . . Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards . . . Trees will be snapped or uprooted. Only the heartiest will remain standing.” Another forecast, issued six hours later by the National Hurricane Centre in Florida, said that the levees in New Orleans could be “overtopped”, and predicted the precise depth of flooding that would result.

A day later the city drowned. Hundreds, if not thousands, have died in the chaos. Some casualties were inevitable but many were not, and this much is clear about those in authority who might have minimised the losses: they had been warned.

With hindsight, it is clear that the seeds of what one Republican senator called yesterday the “woeful” government response were sown with shoddy planning. Despite decades of lobbying by local politicians and media for stronger levees, those that ruptured on the night of August 29 had been built by the Army Corps of Engineers to withstand only a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina was a Category 4.

Despite calls since the September 11 attacks for a comprehensive new evacuation plan for New Orleans, the one in place last week had last been updated in 2000, according to the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. The vaguely worded plan stated that “the primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles” even though an estimated 100,000 residents did not own their own cars.

It was also implemented by Ray Nagin, the Mayor, too late for buses to reach those without cars, or to prepare the Superdome to receive them. By the time he did, on August 28, it was clear from the National Hurricane Centre’s flood warnings that federal assistance would be needed swiftly and on a huge scale. Yet it took four days to materialise, largely because of the inertia of the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

…Read full article HERE

Quite what Inmate Bush and his lick-spittle flunkies think they’re going to achieve by making statements like “No-one could possibly have guessed this was going to happen” and “No-one could have predicted the levees would break” is beyond me. They’re lying through their back teeth, and everyone knows it.

Then there’s the rather strange matter of Upsidedownland.

“…I thought I'd find out for myself exactly which Louisiana parishes were and were not included in George W. Bush's declaration of emergency effective August 26th, which you can also reach by clicking the map itself.

I checked the parish map against the White House's own press release, posted on their own site. I have tried to figure out how this is my own mistake, but I can't find it. And the results are frankly so bizarre I had to make the graphic in order to properly show you.

Welcome to upside-down-land: the areas at risk for Katrina were quite remarkably the areas not included in Bush's declaration of emergency.

What the hell?

Compare and contrast with the full and specific statewide list of parishes and the services they will receive issued after the storm hit.Is this really what Bush authorized before the storm hit? Are they really that incompetent?

…full article HERE

You’ve got to admit that to the untrained eye it might look like someone powerful and maliciously has been quietly setting up the whole "what-if" scenario - knowing beyond doubt that "The Big One" would hit New Orleans one day soon - to ensure maximum chaos, destruction, loss of human life and massive national dispersal of the poor black population, who have long been an irritating thorn in the porcelain-white foot of the Ruling Elite.

You see… Rich White People loathe Poor Black People, because Poor Black People tend to get stroppy about the fact that they’re still massively discriminated against, and they get treated like shit ALL the time. Nothing really changes. The rich elite have put on a facade of caring ever since Kennedy upset the racist applecart in the 60's, and now here's a chance for a bit of pay-back.

Rich White People, who cower in their obscene Gated Communities, are frightened of contact with Poor Black People, because they know that the Poor Black People probably hate their guts, and they know they’re guilty of disgraceful racism and bigotry towards them.

Because of its notorious place in American history, the region has a very high proportion of poverty-struck African Americans, and this has become a matter of distaste to the White Elite who have OTHER plans for the area, now that “God” has created the scenario which justifies imposing Martial Law, evacuating all the remaining Poor, and bulldozing all their Public Housing Neighbourhoods. The Black Problem for them is about to turn into a very profitable land-grab, and believe me when I say that Delroy and Letisha won't be let back in…

White Rich elude Orleans chaos, don't want poor blacks back

"The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By yesterday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline."

How do they want the city rebuilt?

"The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

"The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
Not every white business leader agrees, Cooper notes.

"Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, says, "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.

…full article HERE

So we see here quite clearly that the wealthy whites are threatening to up sticks and bugger off to Maryland if there’s so much as a whiff of all those nasty black people being allowed to come back home, where they and their ancestors have lived ever since they were brought over the ocean as slaves. No conscience. No shame. No morals. White Capitalist Pigs.

But what keeps these White Masters in the area, anyway? Yep! You should have known, silly. Oil, Refineries and Shipping, with barely a whiff of cotton!

Rebuilding New Orleans for Big Oil

It sounds callous to even suggest it, but what if they were actually using the disaster to get rid of thousands of inconvenient poor, black people and to demolish an entire city? What would be accomplished to benefit Bush/Cheney and their friends?

The port where New Orleans sits is one of the most important on the Gulf Coast, if not the most important. A huge amount of oil, gas, and other commerce moves through this port. On top of this, for years now, the Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) industry has been trying to get past strict environmental regulations to try to establish a LNG terminal somewhere along this coast, but has run into nothing but roadblocks. It's just too damn dangerous to have such a facility located anywhere near so many people. It has its own inherent dangers, being that there would be such a huge amount of explosive gas moving through the area, but it would also be certain to attract terrorists.But what if they could get rid of one of the biggest roadblocks, the people?

Enter Hurricane Katrina, and you have the perfect opportunity.

We haven't heard from Dick Cheney through this entire ordeal. Suddenly he emerges from his Wyoming hideaway, and he is being dispatched to New Orleans to oversee the reconstruction. How telling. How convenient. Just the man for the job, that is, if it involves furthering the interests of Big Oil/Gas rather than rebuilding for the little people, and poor black ones at that.

President Bush's own mother recently toured the Houston Astrodome and remarked that all those poor people housed there are "so much better off" now than what they're used to, and that many want to stay in Texas!

From the beginning of the evacuations, many of us were skeptical that these hurricane victims would ever be allowed to return home. Barbara Bush's comment should be a big signal to us of the intentions of our government to prevent these people from returning. I expect we'll hear one excuse after another as to why it's not "safe" or "expedient" for these evacuees to return to New Orleans.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise as we watch New Orleans transformed into the biggest oil/LNG port on the Gulf of Mexico.Perhaps they'll throw in a few big convention centers and rebuild a portion of the French Quarter so the rich, like our president in his youth, can continue to have their playground and meeting place.

…see original article HERE

Still… it must have been so comforting for all those poor bastards that the Bushes finally deigned to be photographed with the more 'presentable' victims. Hell, even Poppy and Barb stooped to get their lily-white hands momentarily soiled for the noble cause of Photo Opportunism.

How lucky you Americans are to enjoy such super-duper Patronage from ALL the Bush family in times of National Crisis. Who needs Vague Kings and Cruel Emperors, eh?

American Enterprise Institute : "Poor in America doing pretty darn well"

2005-09-10T01:20:00.000Z

This smug, self-satisfied weasel by the name of Kevin Hassett, from the American Enterprise Institute was being interviewed by satellite link this evening for the BBC's Newsnight programme, during a feature regarding the levels of poverty in the United States following some shocking statistics released today.

The following words crawled out of Hassett's mouth:

“I don’t think there is an unusually high level of gnashing of teeth over poverty at this moment.

The poor in America are doing pretty darn well compared to most people in the rest of the world, and to assert otherwise would be, again, to mislead… in fact people below the poverty line in the United States, by many measures, live much better than the average person in France.

They’re more likely to have a car, they’re more likely to have appliances like a washer/dryer and a television, they’ve got a bigger home…”

The full programme streaming video can be seen HERE for the next 24 hrs only.

I don’t have software to grab the stream and reduce it to the relevant clip, which starts at 7min 35secs, but I've sent it to Crooks and Liars and the wonderful Tom at Information Clearing House, so maybe they'll pick it up.

Oh! We're all going on a... Summer Holiday

2005-09-08T04:19:00.000Z

I must begin with apologies to all the Visitors and Relatives for my absence – I’m afraid we’ve all been stuck like limpets to the Tannoy Speaker in the Nurse’s Lounge every spare minute we can, waiting for the latest news on the disaster in the American Annexe as it filters through to our hospital radio station Asylum 700 FM - “You’re here ‘cause we say so”.

…And unless you’ve been living under a rock, or have been in Isolation with Pat Roberts, you’ll have seen and heard hours and hours of media commentary and opinion on what’s been happening; the sheer human misery, the heart-rending bravery, the criminal incompetence of Federal Authorities, the clamour of sleazy Whitehouse dis-information specialists lining up the Scapegoats, and the ever-growing roar of the political Tectonic Aftershock which, if there’s any justice in this Flying Spaghetti Monster Universe we live in, could be the beginning of the end for Inmate Bush and his fellow Mafia Parasites - Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheyne and Donald Rumsfeld- who between them, in the midst of the Carnage of Katrina :

Played golf,
Gave a speech in San Diego comparing the War (that he started) with World War II
Strummed a guitar onstage, with Country Creep Mark Wills
Shot off in the opposite direction to a Republican Party fund-raiser,
Snuck off back to Texas to finish his holiday

Or…

Caught that absolutely HILARIOUS Monty Python musical ‘Spamalot’ on Broadway - after the hurricane.
Shopped for $1,000 ‘Fuck-Me’ Shoes from Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue, (...and had some Uppity, lower-class Bitch kicked out by Security) after the hurricane.
Knocked about a few tennis balls with Monica Seles, after the hurricane.

Or…

Squeezed in a spot of Fishin’, Shootin’ and Plottin’ on keeping his hideous arse dry.

Did a bit of House-Hunting in St. Michael’s, Maryland, to be nearer his pal Rumsfeld…
Whilst planning a jaunt up to Fort McMurray oilsands complex
and whilst he’s there he’ll putting in a bit of arcane ‘Us’ Time with his pals at the shady… sorry… Independent Fraser Institute.

Or…

Popped up to San Diego to see a Baseball game!

Yes, you heard me right. It’s all true. Latoya and Cherenise from Halli-Mart Cleaning Services (Beijing) had been digging through the Inmate’s waste bins looking for scraps of food, and, with the help of thirty rolls of Scotch Tape and quite a bit of falling over, were able to show me and Maureen the irrefutable proof of this sordid business.

Now… whilst I fully appreciate that this is a Lunatic Asylum, there’s got to be a limit to the amount of abuse and disregard that can be dished out by the Category A Inmates, before we can haul them down to the Electro Shock Unit. They're not even sorry for their arrogance and incompetence. This is just beyond the pale!

I just have this to say: If the Visitors wanted to form an angry, howling, torch-waving Lynch Mob, and storm Frankenbush's Castle and burn it to the ground, I think I would have to... *cough*... look the other way until the sounds of slapping and squealing died down!

Well! You've all been very good today, so as a little reward, and to celebrate the (relative) brevity of today’s Blog, we’re going to have a little Mental Health Quiz:

Q1) Who is being quoted here?

(New Orleans Astrodome - Monday) …and along the way she opined that many of the refugees from New Orleans were so poor to begin with that they ought to be pretty happy with their temporary digs in Houston. "What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," B*** B*** said in comments first aired on the public radio program "Marketplace" and reprinted by Editor & Publisher. "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
In the midst of that last line, you can hear the former **** **** chuckling.

CLICK HERE FOR CLUE

Q2) And who said this on “Good Morning America” on March 18^th, 2003, just 36 hours before Bush declared his criminal war on Iraq?
“But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."

NO IDEA? CLICK HERE

Q3) Who said THIS on CNN’s Larry King Show, Sept. 6^th, 2005?
"I think any time there's a crisis people want to blame someone. I've never been much for the Monday morning quarterbacking and to be very candid, Larry, I think some of the criticism had been grossly unfair, particularly when they suggest the president doesn't care and all of that.

"You have to understand that people that are hurting are going to criticize. I thought President Clinton put it pretty well today when he said 'Let's get on with it and then there will be plenty of time to assign blame.'

"But you know the media has a fascination, Larry, and you know this, I'm not saying you but the media has a fascination with the blame game and instead of looking for what can we do to help now there's a lot of why didn't we do something different?"

Click HERE for ANSWER

Q4) Who was THIS describing?

“The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time, so be patient”, the drowning are told...

R*** took a break to tell the hurricane victims dying hourly in their homes that their prolonged suffering is God's will, not the government's fault, and to
lecture them on the virtue of patience:

Asked to say a few words from the pulpit, R***, a preacher's daughter, said: "The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time." She added: "If we just wait."

Earlier at the same church service "R*** nodded in agreement as the Rev. Malone
Smith Jr. advised the congregation, "Wait for the Lord." Rev. Smith and
Secretary R*** were playing on the words of a beloved gospel hymn that says, "He may not be there when you want him but he's right on time." They should both be ashamed of themselves.

The blame is not God's, or nature's, or fate's, or that of statistical happenstance. Whatever your conception of a Higher Power may or may not be, the United
States was given everything it needed to cope with this disaster better than it has. God was on time: it is Rice and her colleagues that were too late. And when human beings are dying, it's a sin to suggest that we - or anyone - "wait."

Somewhere, as I write, there is an American drowning while R*** and her boss suggest that he or she "wait." That's not God's will, it's this Administration's. They should not hide behind God's skirts. And they should be ashamed of themselves for trying.

No? Can’t believe your eyes? CLICK HERE

How’re you all doing so far?

Q5) Who is THIS article talking about?
B*** had raised eyebrows on his first trip by, among other things, picking Sen. Trent Lott, (Repub., Mississipi) instead of the thousands of mostly poor and black storm victims - as an example of loss. "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house - he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch," B*** said with a laugh from an airplane hangar in Mobile, Alabama.

NEED A CLUE?

SCORING: 5 Correct - Top marks! You'll be excused latrine duties all week
3-4 Correct - Not Bad! You get to wear the Ward's underpants all day!
1-2 Correct - Pathetic! No pudding for you today.
0 Correct - Miserable! It's your turn in the Barrel of Love!

Join Nurse Riches' Asylum First XI today!

2005-09-01T21:01:00.000Z

Click the link below if you want to be added to 'The Lunatic's Cookbook' mailing list. You'll get an extra scoop of ice-cream at tea-time if you do...

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Oops! Apocalypse! (or Why Did The Levee Break, George?)

2005-09-01T17:15:00.000Z

I'm going to start off by adding my heartfelt sympathy to the devastated and ruined populations of New Orleans, Biloxi and everywhere in between. I can only try and imagine what it must feel like.

I'm curious to know, though, why Yahoo News, when showing a photo of a black guy dragging a refuse bag full of provisions through the water labels the photo :
" A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday"

...yet when showing two white people doing exactly the same thing labels the picture "Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans".

This kind of blatant racism is completely unacceptable, especially in the midst of such a horror story. Whoever captioned those photos should be sacked.

Considering the fact that tens and tens of thousands of the poorest people of the region (mainly coloured, who could never afford to buy a Humvee and a U-Haul to flee the county in good time along with the other Rich White Folk from the Country Club), and who have lost absolutely EVERYTHING - Husbands, Wives, Children, Friends, Homes, Clothes, Food, Water... I mean EVERYTHING, why are the Police being diverted from rescuing those still stranded, and instead being sent out by the Governor to stop people helping themselves to food and clothing?

Compared to the tide of human misery in New Orleans, who in their right minds gives a toss about people helping themselves to food and bottled water and clothes when the entire area has been wiped out? This is utter peanuts. It's petty. It's nasty. It's Capitalism at it's most ugly.

Explain to me again how it's more important to protect a store full of perishable goods when the relief effort hasn't even started properly, and no-one's got any food or clean clothes? That food's going to rot anyway. People need food TODAY. The contents of those stores are insured.

This is all part of the REAL cost of Little Nero diverting money earmarked for reparing and maintaining the Levees to pay for his Circus of Death in Iraq.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.

The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane seasion starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

...rest of article here

These people are in deep, deep trouble. Federal help, when it eventually trickles down to the very bottom of the food-chain, will be too little too late. The need for housing is enormous. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to be searching for loved ones. It'll take weeks to gather up all the dead bodies, including those poor bastards who are dying as I speak, whilst the Police and National Guard do the All American thing and rush around threatening to kill people with shotguns because they're stealing food.

As long as there is a higher value placed on possessions than on the Right to Life, there will never be justice in this World.

Note to Pat : Thou Shalt Not Kill. Geddit?

2005-08-31T01:45:00.000Z

Phew! What a week that was! The Karaoke evening at the Anaesthetist & Parrot (which I said Maureen and I were going to last week) was an absolute fiasco. It all started going tits-up after one of the inmates, Pat Robertson, escaped from the Weasel’s Unit over in the American Annexe.

He’d been bought to the Weasel’s Unit by Carl and Viktor from Security for his own safety, after he had barricaded himself in the control room of our hospital Radio Station, “ASYLUM 700 FM”, and proceeded to scream over the PA that “if anyone wanted to murder Mr. Chavez,” (one of our Visitor’s Café Volunteers) “that’s just fine by me and God, because Jesus wants us to kill all the little brown people who say “No”… and send $50 NOW before Satan kills ya!”.

The Cannon of Christianity: Pat Robertson Calls for the Assassination of Hugo Chavez

Christian televangelist Pat Robertson set off an international firestorm this week when he called for the assassination of Venezuela's democratically elected president Hugo Chavez. Robertson made the comment on his TV program "The 700 Club."
PAT ROBERTSON:
“He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he’s going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent. You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any
oil shipments will stop, but this man is a terrific danger, and the United States -- this is in our sphere of influence. We can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine. We have other doctrines that we have announced, and without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”

…watch video clip here

…read complete article here

Obviously, we couldn’t allow this kind of thing to happen! The other American Inmates started rioting, screaming “Yo, Death! USA!”, and as usual, they rushed into the toilet block and set fire to all the condom machines, and within minutes most of the furniture was thrown out of the windows. Inmate Bush went totally bat-shit, and was jumping up and down and on his “Barbie’s First Bicycle”, screaming “Georgie wanna kill the Commie Muslim Venezuelan Cuban Homosexual Bastard”. Inmate Cheney started drooling, fingering his pocket calculator, and was caught masturbating over his current Bank Statement, and Inmate “Creepy” Rumsfeld set fire to all the paperwork in the Nurse’s Station, claiming afterward that he knew nothing about anything at all… honest.

What a mess!

The magnificent Nurse Kravitz held the baying mob at bay for a good half hour, armed only with a rolled-up copy of “Democracy Now” until Dr. Strangelove eventually turned up with Carl and some of the burly Kitchen Porters, who shouldered the Radio Station door down and dragged the kicking, screaming Robertson into the corridor.

Just as Carl was fumbling about trying to get the Tranquilizer Gun out of the holster, Robertson sunk his teeth into Carl’s overly-pronounced gonads, and, in the ensuing pandemonium the gun went off, shooting Dr. Strangelove, as Robertson wriggled free and gleefully legged it out of the fire exit!

Unfortunately for us his escape route included the Anaesthetist & Parrot, and, as Maureen was onstage and just about to launch into the first chorus of “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off”, Robertson, hotly pursued by an enraged, howling Carl and four Kitchen Porters, burst in through the front door, leapt onto the stage, grabbed the mike from Maureen’s startled grasp, and started to shriek wildly that “the city of Orlando will face divine retribution, in the form of terrorist attacks, hurricanes, earthquakes… or even possibly a Meteor, because a Gay Group has been allowed to fly Rainbow Flags off light poles during an event at Disney World” whereupon Chaos reigned until the big boys from Isolation arrived with their Tasers.

The rest, as we know, is history.

As you know, I’m usually the very soul of discretion, and I would never normally discuss an Inmate’s personal history, but I’ve got to say that this Pat Robertson is a particularly nasty and dangerous individual. I think it’s in the Public Interest that our visitors be armed with the facts before making a judgement on this devious self-appointed Prophet of the God of Pain, who has the President’s permanent Ear, so here are some extracts from his Patients Records:

Pat Robertson - Stormtrooper of the New World Order

Born the patrician son of a Democratic senator, Marion Gordon Robertson wasn't always interested in religion. As an undergraduate at Washington & Lee University, he had quite a reputation for indulging in drinking, gambling and chasing women - a reputation which continued while he studied law at Yale.

He failed several times to pass the bar exam after graduating, and was forced to pursue various business interests in New York City. His involvement with religious fundamentalism while running his own electronics company in New York was brought about by his intensely religious mother who got him into contact with charismatic Christians speaking in tongues and advocating faith healing.
His wife Adelia, a nurse, thought that he was sick and recognized schizoid tendencies in his behavior. This was especially true when he decided to leave her to go on a month-long religious retreat even though they were desperately poor and she was seven months pregnant.
As far as he was concerned, God would provide. Fortunately for her, she too eventually had a charismatic conversion experience. It's a shame, though, that she didn't pursue her original diagnosis and seek treatment for him. I think that this treatment of his wife is instructive of how Robertson thinks women should be treated.
He became increasingly certain that God wanted him to buy a television station to spread the gospel. He got himself ordained as a minister of the Southern Baptist Church, and set about the business of making himself famous and very, very rich at other’s expense.
As is the fashion in Faith-Based Extortion Rackets, a broadcasting empire was crucial to these plans for theocratic sedition (and the millions and millions of dollars that disingenuous Snake Oil Salesmen like Robertson knew he could con out of the gullible public). The as-yet-unsullied by the craziness of Theocracy, Robertson brought his family to Portsmouth Virginia in November 1959, with only $70 in his pocket, and a year later bought a $500,000 bankrupt UHF station in Portsmouth for a mere $37,000. In 1960 he went on the air with an evangelistic religious format.
Robertson's decision to ask for 700 supporters to contribute $10 a month led to the 1963 birth of the 700 Club, his religious talk show. In the early 1980s, Pat Robertson embraced a new doctrine within the Christian right known as Christian reconstructionism or dominionism, which calls for the creation of a Christian America.
The fanatical fervour pumping out of CBN was ramped up many notches, and the money started pouring in. The brainwashed audiences loved the wall-to-wall clarion calls for violence and retribution against anyone considered to be an enemy of the Christian cults – Liberals, Intellectuals, Immigrants, Gays, Atheists, Feminists etc. etc.

In 1986 Roberts resigned his ordination and ran against Vice President George Bush in the Presidential Nominations campaign and failed, due to press hostilities around unrelated scandals embroiling two Christian Broadcasting stations.
Not to be deterred from his craven lust for political power, he fell in behind George Bush Snr. , the Republican Party (and later Bush Jnr.) to offer his unrivaled services (and mailing list) as King-Maker, and was responsible for overseeing many relentless leafleting campaigns to illegally influence voters by way of millions and millions of “Voters Guides” distributed to Evangelical Christian Churches, which purported to give an impartial list of all candidate’s campaigning platforms, but which were slyly worded to heavily promote Republican candidates.

NOTE: Very shortly after he announced that he would be seeking the presidency in 1988, the Wall Street Journal reported that he had been lying for many years about the date of his wedding in order to hide the fact that his wife was very pregnant
during the ceremony. And he was still lying about it to the press as late as 1987. It might not have mattered much had he been honest about it earlier, but the fact that he was deliberately courting the votes of a moralistic and self-righteous crowd prevented honesty in such matters. It's his own fault, really - snake handlers get bitten from time to time, and have no one to blame but their selves.
His reaction to all of this was quite illuminating. He told reporters in Philadelphia that: "It is outrageous to pry into a man's past and try to do damage to a man's wife and children under the guise of journalism."
The obvious question raised by this is: why didn’t he come to the defense of President Clinton when he was savaged by the media for reports of sexual impropriety? Unless, of course, Pat Robertson is little more than a liar, a cheat and a hypocrite.
Robertson founded the Christian Coalition in October of 1989 in order to "give Christians a voice in their government again." As a Modest Man of God himself, Robertson has at various times in the past called for the Righteous execution of Gay’s, Lesbian’s, Liberals, Athiests, Finger-painters, Chihuahas, and Anyone who doesn’t agree with him. (The man’s a SAINT, I tell you! A LIVING SAINT!)
In 1990 the Coalition accepted a $64,000 donation from the Republican Senatorial Committee and used it to intervene in a North Carolina Senate race between Republican Jesse Helms and Democrat Harvey Gantt. At a closed-door meeting of Coalition activists in November of 1991, Ralph Reed (who runs the day-to-day of the Coalition) bragged that after Helms called Robertson for help, the Coalition blanketed the state with 750,000 "voter guides" and helped Helms win. Remarks Reed, "I had access to the internal tracking, and I knew Helms was down by 8 points. So Pat called me up and said, 'We've got to kick into action.' Bottom line is...five days later we put three quarters of a million voters' guides in churches across the state of North Carolina, and Jesse Helms was re-elected by 100,000 votes out of 2.2 million cast."
In 1989 Reed announced that "What Christians have got to do is take back this country, one precinct at a time, one neighborhood at a time and one state at a time. I honestly believe that in my lifetime, we will see a country once again governed by Christians…and Christian values.

These illegal campaigns were financed by the Republican Party through the back door, though not enough conclusive evidence was ever produced in court to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the wording of the material was unfair.

Note for British readers: US Christian organizations like Christian Coalition etc. have
special tax exempt status, on the strict understanding that they do not involve
themselves in blatantly commercial, for-profit activities (such as accepting
massive donations from the Republicans, and generating acres and acres of
propaganda on the client’s behalf). Thanks to the Bush gang’s crooked patronage,
this rule has been flaunted to an incredible degree.
By 1986 the Christian Broadcasting Network’s gift income was over $139 million a year. At present Roberts’ CBN is now a vast multi-million dollar operation, with facilities in three U.S. cities, the Ukraine, Philippines, India and Israel. Radical Christians now control six national US television networks, each reaching tens of millions of homes and virtually all of the nation's 2,000 religious radio stations.
Christian radio now outnumbers every other format, except country music and news talk.
(The latest venture, Sky Angels, is putting up direct broadcast satellite networks and broadcasts 36 channels of Christian radio and TV, and nothing else… except relentless fund-raising, and calls for their viewers to pledge a percentage of their wages to the CBN. The Christian Broadcasting Network needs around $100 million a year to operate at it’s current level.) Obviously all of this has made Pat Robertson obscenely rich – his personal wealth is estimated to be in the region of $1 billion. It’s stashed away offshore, naturally.

...

Drunk in charge of a Superpower

2005-08-22T17:44:00.000Z

Every so often one of those fairly improbable coincidences happens, which makes you chuckle and puts a smile on your face.

I was having a bit of a skive over in the Dependency Clinic Visitor's Reception with my mate Maureen, and, as Laverne (the hard-nosed little madam of a Receptionist) was out to lunch, we thought we'd have a little peek inside the "Suggestions" Box. The box was padlocked, but I could see something inside, and could just about reach through the letter-box and. I fished out two yellowing pieces of paper.

Rather spookily there were two photocopies of exactly the same article from Counter Punch, sent in by two different visitors: Holly & Joe, and Joseph Lucas. WoooOOoooh! A little frisson of statistical excitement shot up my suspenders as I read on...

Addiction, Brain Damage and the President:

"Dry Drunk" Syndrome and George W. Bush

Alan Bisbort argues that Bush possesses the characteristics of the "dry drunk" in terms of: his incoherence while speaking away from the script; his irritability with anyone (for example, Germany's Schröder) who dares disagree with him; and his dangerous obsessing about only one thing (Iraq) to the exclusion of all other things.

In short, George W. Bush seems to possess the traits characteristic of addictive persons who still have the thought patterns that accompany substance abuse. If we consult the latest scientific findings, we will discover that scientists can now observe changes that occur in the brain as a result of heavy alcohol and other drug abuse.

Some of these changes may be permanent. Except in extreme cases, however, these cognitive impairments would not be obvious to most observers. To reach any conclusions we need of course to know Bush's personal history relevant to drinking/drug use.

To this end I consulted several biographies. Yes, there was much drunkenness, years of binge drinking starting in college, at least one conviction for DUI in 1976 in Maine, and one arrest before that for a drunken episode involving theft of a Christmas wreath.

According to J.D. Hatfield's book, Fortunate Son, Bush later explained: "Alcohol began to compete with my energies....I'd lose focus." Although he once said he couldn't remember a day he hadn't had a drink, he added that he didn't believe he was "clinically alcoholic." Even his father, who had known for years that his son had a serious drinking problem, publicly proclaimed: "He was never an alcoholic. It's just he knows he can't hold his liquor."

Maureen gave a “Haruumph” and peered at me over her horn-rims. “Never an alcoholic? What planet are these people ON? Talk about abject denial! Tsk! Tsk!” She read on:

…Bush drank heavily for over 20 years until he made the decision to abstain at age 40. About this time he became a "born again Christian," going as usual from one extreme to the other. During an Oprah interview, Bush acknowledged that his wife had told him he needed to think about what he was doing. When asked in another interview about his reported drug use, he answered honestly, "I'm not going to talk about what I did 20 to 30 years ago."

That there might be a tendency toward addiction in Bush's family is indicated in the recent arrests or criticism of his daughters for underage drinking and his niece for cocaine possession. Bush, of course, deserves credit for his realization that he can't drink moderately, and his decision today to abstain. The fact that he doesn't drink moderately, may be suggestive of an inability to handle alcohol.

In any case, Bush has clearly gotten his life in order and is in good physical condition, careful to exercise and rest when he needs to do so. The fact that some residual effects from his earlier substance abuse, however slight, might cloud the U.S. President's thinking and judgment is frightening, however, in the context of the current global crisis.

...complete article here

Whipping out her Catholic Herald Commemorative Hip-Flask and knocking back a large slug of home-made Potcheen, Maureen shot me one of her 'knowing' looks. "Well... there you go, sweetie," she said "It's not just us, then."

I noticed the date on the two faded photocopies - 2002. "Bloody hell," I exclaimed "How often does Laverne empty this box? She's supposed to pass Visitor's observations onto Senior Management as soon as it arrives... this kind of stuff's too important to ignore. How can Dr. Strangelove diagnose properly if he’s only got half the facts?"

Maureen by now had the bit firmly between what remained of her own teeth - she'd produced a pair of plastic "Happy Garden" chopsticks from her capacious handbag, and was merrily probing the slot of the Suggestions Box again. After a brief tussle and much swearing, she gave a little "whoop" of victory. "Got you, you little beggar. Come to nursey..."

Gingerly teasing to document out of the slot, Maureen smoothed it out and started reading out loud:

Bush’s cognitive functioning worries observers

...It is thus hard to avoid the conclusion that Bush's cognitive functioning is not, for some reason, what it once was. I am not qualified to say why this is so. It would not be surprising if he was under enormous stress, particularly after the 9/11 atrocities in 2001, and I gather this could explain much, if not everything.

But I have heard wild speculation in Washington that he is suffering from a neurological disorder, or that the years of alcoholism might finally be taking their toll on his brain...
...It does not help that Bush now lives in a positively Nixonian cocoon. He does not read newspapers; he sees television only to watch football; he makes election speeches exclusively at ticket-only events, and his courtiers consciously avoid giving him bad news. When he met John Kerry for their first bout on the debating platform, it was almost a new experience for the President to hear the voice of dissent.

A senior Republican, experienced and wise in the ways of Washington, told me last Friday that he does not necessarily accept that Bush is unstable, but what is clear, he added, is that he is now manifestly unfit to be President. This, too, is a view that is widely felt, but seldom articulated and then only in private, within the Republican as well as Democratic establishments in Washington. Either way, the choice voters make on
Tuesday fortnight should be obvious: whether he is unstable or merely unfit to be President -- and I would argue that they amount to much the same -- he should speedily be turned out of office.

... complete article here

"Bejeesus," she exclaimed "this one's from last year, during the Presidential campaign. I can't believe that this kind of commentary has been floating around, unheeded and unreported by the mainstream media and their Masters..."

She paused mid-sentence as the penny dropped, and she realised it was a rhetorical one.

"Hmmm… I guess that's why he was the perfect choice for their miserable, corrupt agendas; the fascist Cultists, the New World Orderists, the Robber Barons and the Plain, Honest-to-Goodness Psychopaths who have stolen the American Republic.

"If you're conspiring to impose a fascist regime, destroy Democracy in your own Homeland in order to exert totalitarian control over the general population, whilst plundering the nation's coffers via Haliburton and Bechtel, you'd really need a psychotic, messianic nut-job Figurehead, without a single atom of human compassion or sense of guilt, now wouldn't you?"

By this point my Nurse’s Radar was pinging away like the last screen of Space Invaders. How many analyses and commentaries by respected mental health professionals have been out in the Public Domain, yet been completely suppressed by the Media?

This was crazy. I needed to sneak into Patient's Records and have a look at his Psychological Profile so I could properly understand just how dangerous George Bush really is. Laverne was going to be back in ten minutes, so I'd better hurry. A brief flurry of the old nail-file saw me into Patient Records. To my amazement the Bush's have their own filing cabinet. I opened the "Restricted - Junior" drawer, and pulled a file:

Noted psychologist observes Bush's behaviour

There's plenty to be worried about

by Oliver James, The Guardian [London, UK]

Sept. 2, 2003

As the alcoholic George Bush approached his 40th birthday in 1986, he had achieved nothing he could call his own. He was all too aware that none of his educational and professional accomplishments would have occurred without his father. He felt so low that he did not care if he lived or died.
Taking a friend out for a flight in a Cessna aeroplane, it only became apparent he had not flown one before when they nearly crashed on take-off. Narrowly avoiding stalling a few times, they crash-landed and the friend breathed a sigh of relief -- only for Bush to rev. up the engine and take off again.
Not long afterwards, staring at his vomit-spattered face in the mirror, this dangerously self-destructive man fell to his knees and implored God to help him and became a teetotalling, fundamentalist Christian.

"Good grief," I thought " so THAT was the horror-story - the cathartic life event that finally sent the alcoholic, tormented, knuckle-dragging George Bush Jnr. over the edge of Humanity and into the raging vacuum of Insanity. This was important-to-know stuff. I had to know more...

...He was aggressively anti-intellectual and hostile to east-coast preppy types like his father, sometimes cruelly so. On one occasion he walked up to a matronly woman at a smart cocktail party and asked, "So, what's sex like after 50, anyway?"

A direct and loutish challenge to his father's posh sensibility came aged 25, after he had drunkenly crashed a car. "I hear you're looking for me," he sneered at his father, "do you want to go mano a mano, right here?"
As he grew older, the fury towards his father was increasingly directed against himself in depressive drinking. But it was not all his father's fault. There was also his insensitive and domineering mother.

“Mmm,” I mused “I wonder if I can guess what comes next…”

Barbara Bush is described by her closest intimates as prone to "withering stares" and "sharply crystalline" retorts. She is also extremely tough. When he was seven, Bush's younger sister, Robin, died of leukaemia and several independent witnesses say he was very upset by this loss. Barbara claims its effect was exaggerated but nobody could accuse her of overreacting: the day after the funeral, she and her husband were on the golf course.

She was the main authority-figure in the home. Jeb describes it as having been, "A kind of matriarchy... when we were growing up, dad wasn't at home. Mom was the one to hand out the goodies and the discipline." A childhood friend recalls that,"She was the one who instilled fear", while Bush put it like this: "Every mother has her own style. Mine was a little like an army drill sergeant's... my mother's always been a very outspoken person who vents very well -- she'll just let rip if she's got something on her mind."

According to his uncle, the "letting rip" often included slaps and hits. Countless studies show that boys with such mothers are at much higher risk of becoming wild, alcoholic or antisocial...

I’d say that’s about as perfect an environment as you could get to turn any child into a sociopathic, bullying drunk… emotionally cold, physically abusive, fanatically domineering parents. Nice. And in Texas, too… a place not noted for it’s collective compassion. This is where the anger and loathing for anyone further down the food-chain comes from.

How did this personal epiphany manifested itself in George Bush, a failed man already filled with loathing and contempt for other people’s happiness? How does he express his desire to hurt and control the whole World, so he can maybe one day feel good about himself?

... His moralism is all-encompassing and as passionate as can be. He plans to replace state welfare provision with faith-based charitable organisations that would impose Christian family values.

The commonest targets of authoritarians have been Jews, blacks and homosexuals. Bush is anti-abortion and his fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible would mean that gay practices are evil. But perhaps the group he reserves his strongest contempt for are those who have adopted the values of the 60s. He says he loathes "people who felt guilty about their lot in life because others were suffering".

I think we’re getting the broader picture now…

He has always rejected any kind of introspection. Everyone who knows him well says how hard he is to get to know, that he lives behind what one friend calls a "facile, personable" facade.

Frum comments that, "He is relentlessly disciplined and very slow to trust. Even when his mouth seems to be smiling at you, you can feel his eyes watching you." His deepest beliefs amount to superstition. "Life takes its own turns," he says, "writes its own story and along the way we start to realise that we are not the author." God's will, not his own, explains his life.

“Here we go again.” I groaned “Back at the bloody Apocalypse! Always with the bloody Apocalypse! No matter which way you turn when inspecting the dis-ease of George Bush Jnr, you are constantly banging into these insane Religious Terrorists. When are people going to WAKE UP and DO SOMETHING about these Fanatics who are telling George Bush what they expect him to do for them and their Theocratic ambitions?”

Most fundamentalist Christians have authoritarian personalities. Two core beliefs separate fundamentalists from mere evangelists ("happy-clappy" Christians) or the mainstream Presbyterians among whom Bush first learned religion every Sunday with his parents: fundamentalists take the Bible absolutely literally as the word of God and believe that human history will come to an end in the near future, preceded by a terrible, apocaplytic battle on Earth between the forces of good and evil, which only the righteous shall survive.
According to Frum when Bush talks of an "axis of evil" he is identifying his enemies as literally satanic, possessed by the devil. Whether he specifically sees the battle with Iraq and other "evil" nations as being part of the end-time, the apocalypse preceding the day of judgment, is not known. Nor is it known whether Tony Blair shares these particular religious ideas.

By the way - we’ll be getting onto Inmate Blair, aka “The Vicar” soon, I promise.

However, it is certain that however much Bush may sometimes seem like a buffoon, he is also powered by massive, suppressed anger towards anyone who challenges the extreme, fanatical beliefs shared by him and a significant slice of his citizens -- in surveys, half of them also agree with the statement "the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word".
Bush's deep hatred, as well as love, for both his parents explains how he became a reckless rebel with a death wish. He hated his father for putting his whole life in the shade and for emotionally blackmailing him. He hated his mother for physically and mentally badgering him to fulfil her wishes. But the hatred also explains his radical transformation into an authoritarian fundamentalist.
By totally identifying with an extreme version of their strict, religion-fuelled beliefs, he jailed his rebellious self. From now on, his unconscious hatred for them was channelled into a fanatical moral crusade to rid the world of evil. As Frum put it: "Id-control is the basis of Bush's presidency but Bush is a man of fierce anger." That anger now rules the world.

...full article here

I stopped reading. Tears were welling up in my eyes… I’d been so busy reading, crouched down behind the filing cabinets, that I didn’t realize I had hooked the top of my knickers on a cupboard door-handle, and was slowly giving myself a strangulated Wedgie. I heard Maureen hissing to me from the other side of the door. “Laverne’s coming back, come on, hurry up!”

I put everything back where it belonged and slid out through the door, just in time. Maureen and I were lost in our thoughts, as we walked back to the Janet Adegoke Ward. What did I think?

Now I knew: This was how the man was made: this apparently idle, drunken, hate-filled Trogolodyte Playboy Prince, the runt of the litter, the self-loathing, anti-intellectual heir-apparent of the New World Order's first Royal Family.

These cruel Anti-Kennedy's... the disastrously emotionally constipated Bush family, from whom George Bush Junior was running from when his twisted id tried to kill himself one day in a plane crash - and in the process (and by a quirk of chaos), got as close to seeing his own rectum from the inside-out... and the light at the end of the tunnel... as any man ever did, and lived to never-ever-ever-tell what it did to his already deranged mind.

I think George Bush Junior was, literally, the much-scorned Atheist in the Foxhole, the allegorical ‘Coward’ who stared his own empty Death right in the eye, suddenly grovelled to God and ‘magically’ got a second chance.

Almost dying changes you, it really does. I've been pretty close myself (especially when the Safeway Security Guard catches you red-handed, stuffing tins of Chicken Roll down your tights!). For most people it's a life-affirming experience, a chance to try again and learn from the Past, to try and become happier because it puts things into a healthier perspective. They typically become much nicer, kinder people.

But for those people who were never All That in the first place, it results in a catastophic delusional experience waaay beyond their already-dim imaginings. Junior didn't suddenly snap out of what ailed him like most people would; he went slightly mad instead.

This is a problem for all of us. Something just HAS to be done.

Maureen and I are going out to the 'Anaesthetist & Ferret' tonight for a mad Karaoke party, so don't expect to hear from me for a couple of days, unless I make bail!

I'll leave you with a famous quotation:

"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."

Adolph Hitler

Who gave him a helmet, fer chrissakes?!

2005-08-22T04:26:00.000Z

I daresay you've been wondering why Nurse Riches has been absent since Wednesday. I'm afraid I had to provide cover over at the Camp Casey Excercise Compound and Velodrome, where Nurse Cravitz accidentally left a side door unlocked, allowing Inmate Bush to escape into the Bike shed.

Well! What a to do, dears! Despite trying to lure him back inside with pretzels and comics, the little bastard would have none of it, and took off like a rat up a drainpipe. I think he could smell the rat poison in the pretzels.

We spent the whole week chasing him all over the grounds in the Land-Rover, with Carl from Security hanging out of the side window, trying to get off a decent shot with the Tranquiliser Gun.

All to no avail, I'm afraid. George was eventually brought down by a couple of burly Kitchen porters who caught him rooting around the waste bins, muttering something profane about Cindy Sheehan, and gibbering on about needing clean jim-jams in case he's invited for a sleep-over at the next Donor's Campaign Fund-Raiser.

Anyhow, I've got to wash all the dust out of my tights before my next shift starts, but I'll be back later...

I'm reaching for the straight-jacket as I speak...

2005-08-17T21:31:00.000Z

(Courtesy: Wizard of Whimsy)

Every so often, Inmates, someone actually comes up with a bit of GOOD news. After the initial suprise of the unexpected, Good News quickly gives you the kind of gratifying thrill that only the Hope of Natural Justice can give...

There was I, in the Nurse's Lounge (having spent the entire shift chasing Larry Northern 'round and 'round and 'round the High Security Excercise Yard, attempting (and failing) to give him his hourly Anti-Shithead injections), my ravaged feet soaking in a hot bowl of Epsom Salts, when I noticed a fresh memo pinned to the notice-board.

It was from Professor Pizzo, from the News For Real Research Hut over in the American Annexe, who's tirelessly dedicated the last few years to trying to find a cure for Presidential Bird-Brained Flu. He's had some VERY encouraging confirmation of his data, and it's so good I'm reproducing it in full:

Is Bush Out of Control?

Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.

They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry, obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with “get out of here!”

In fact, George W. Bush’s mood swings have become so drastic that White House emails often contain “weather reports” to warn of the President’s demeanor. “Calm seas” means Bush is calm while “tornado alert” is a warning that he is pissed at the world.

Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own party drives the President’s paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a “god-damned traitor” for opposing him on stem-cell research.

“There’s real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it,” a high-level aide told me recently.

A year ago, this web site discovered the White House physician prescribed anti-depressants for Bush. The news came after revelations that the President’s wide mood swings led some administration staffers to doubt his sanity.

Although GOP loyalists dismissed the reports an anti-Bush propaganda, the reports were later confirmed by prominent George Washington University psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Dr. Frank diagnosed the President as a “paranoid meglomaniac” and “untreated alcoholic” whose “lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions and pumping his hand gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad” showcase Bush’s instabilities.

“I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed,” Dr. Frank said. “He fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated.”

Dr. Frank’s conclusions have been praised by other prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School.

As a recovering alcoholic (sober 11 years, two months, nine days), I know all too well the symptoms that Dr. Frank describes and, after watching Bush for the past several years, I have to, unfortunately, agree with him.

Conversations over the last few weeks with longtime friends who work in the Bush White House confirm even more what Dr. Frank says and others have suggested.

The President of the United States is out of control. How long can the ship of state continue to sail with a madman at the helm?

© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue

...original article here

I don't know about YOU, but the fact that enough strssed-out mutterings have now leaked out of the woodwork of Capitol Hill to result in this kind of reporting might be the first omen that the lid is about to blow right off the White House pressure cooker, especially now it seems that Blunderer-In-Chief's relationship with the Pentagon is turning sour, just as he's about to go Nuclear Poo-Poo in Iran...

It just goes to prove that no matter how hermetically sealed your Rocket-Proof triple-glazed Oval Office windows are, and no matter how ruthlessly efficient your Pitbull-Powered, Truth-Erasing air conditioning is, the stench of a truly evil Fart will always make its way out of the building.

Bush Ignored the Truth About Iraq

Slowly but surely the hardhead who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is realizing what his military experts and others told him all along – he cannot and will not win the war in Iraq.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Bush senior advisors say the President is accepting the harsh reality that the U.S. will probably leave Iraq in worse shape than it was before we invaded the country in 2003.

Sadly, the experts in the Pentagon told Bush from the beginning that he could not achieve his goals in Iraq and, had he listened, nearly 2,000 American men and women might still be alive (not to mention the many thousands more wounded and maimed), along with more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians.

“Senior Pentagon officials are quietly urging President George W. Bush to slow down his headlong rush to war with Iraq, complaining the administration’s course of action represents too much of a shift of America’s longstanding “no first strike” policy and that the move could well result in conflicts with other Arab nations,” this web site reported on January 22, 2003.

“We have a dangerous role reversal here,” one Pentagon source told Capitol Hill Blue. “The civilians are urging war and the uniformed officers are urging caution.”

...rest of article here

There's hope for us yet, Inmates! Must dash, though... It's time to give Inmate Blair his colonscopy.

He doesn't need it, I just feel like giving him one!

Is that a Bunker-Buster in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

2005-08-15T19:57:00.000Z

OK, Inmates. Weekend’s over. Back into Therapy with you!

The twists and turns of the Iranian nuclear “crisis” seem to read more interestingly with a bit of timely analysis:

We’ve heard a lot over the last week of the efforts of several countries, namely the US, UK, France, Germany and China to negotiate a freeze on Iran’s nuclear fuel enrichment program through the United Nations. The Chimp-In-Chief, as we all know, is showboating to all and sundry that he has “information” that Iran is conducting secret tests to enrich Uranium beyond the level needed for electricity production from nuclear facilities. He asserts that, just like Saddam Hussein, the Iranians are secretly developing nuclear weapons.

Hands up who’s stupid or corrupt enough to fall for THAT crap a second time? Stand up, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac!

The Iranians flatly deny this accusation. They say that they only want to be able to generate electricity, as do many other countries:

Nuclear Power in the World Today

Seventeen countries depend on nuclear power for at least a quarter of their electricity. France and Lithuania get around three quarters of their power from nuclear energy, while Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovenia and Ukraine get one third or more. Japan, Germany and Finland get more than a quarter of their power from nuclear energy, while the USA gets one fifth.

…more information here

The Iranians say, quite rightly, that if nuclear power is so efficient, and almost everyone else who can afford it can have it, and since Iran is a co-signatory to the Non- Proliferation Treaty (unlike India and Pakistan), why shouldn’t THEY be allowed to have it?

International nuclear safeguards

Over more than 30 years the IAEA's safeguards system under the NPT has been a conspicuous international success. It has involved cooperation in developing nuclear energy for electricity generation, while ensuring that civil uranium, plutonium and associated plant did not allow weapons proliferation to occur as a result of this.

It is important to realise that international nuclear safeguards are focused on the control of fissile materials only. They have nothing to do with engineering or organisational safety aspects of reactors, waste disposal, or transport. These are covered by other international arrangements and conventions. It is also important to understand that nuclear safeguards are a prime means of reassurance whereby non-nuclear weapons states demonstrate to others that they are fulfilling their peaceful commitments. They prevent nuclear proliferation in the same way that auditing procedures build confidence in proper conduct and prevent embezzlement. . Their specific objective is to verify whether nuclear material remains within the civil nuclear fuel cycle and is being used solely for peaceful purposes or not.

…more detail here

Britain and France, I should remind you, are the only two European countries with nuclear weapons, and are in a position to join Bush in strutting, crowing and making the Ultimate Threat. Germany doesn’t have nuclear weapons, and is saying loud and clear that invading Iran would be a disaster, and the UN Security Council should be kept out of this debacle for the sake of us all. Germany wants to negotiate guarantees from Iran. We just want to demand with menaces.

India and Pakistan, who have both refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and who have both developed, tested and threatened each other with nuclear weapons, faced sanctions so mild and short-lived it was laughable. The US is now back in business trading nuclear fuel with India. Pakistan, as we now know, has been selling nuclear technology and fissile material through the back-door to anyone with a suitcase full of money for years, and has undoubtedly hastened the almost inevitable arrival of a screaming lunatic with a low-yield device making it past the security cordons and into history.

America, which signed the NPT, and is supposed to be drastically reducing its stockpile of nuclear warheads to reflect reductions made by Russia, is in fact INCREASING weapons production in the form of “Bunker Busters”, intended to penetrate underground facilities. These will be the first nuclear weapons to be deployed when they invade Iran on this flimsiest of excuses.

High Tide of the Neocons

The neocon plan as I understand it is to stand by while the EU-Iran talks collapse; hold France, Germany and Britain to an earlier promise to support UN sanctions against Iran in the wake of that collapse; push Mohamed El Baradei and the IAEA to find Iran in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (even though it's not); attempt, knowing the effort will fail, to acquire a Security Council resolution condemning Iran; have John Bolton as new U.S. ambassador to the UN declare the organization irresponsible if not useless; and then tell the American people the U.S. has tried to deal with Iran's nuclear weapons threat (and its support for international terrorism, and the prospect of nukes falling into the hands of Islamic Jihad or Hizbollah) through the international body, but failed due to China's obstructionism based on Chinese selfish demand for Iranian oil.

Soon thereafter (before a massive movement against an attack on Iran can form) they would like to conduct a horrific tactical-nuke operation against Iranian nuclear facilities as well as government offices. Scott Ritter suggests that they plan an actual invasion from Azerbaijan. They apparently plan to use Mujahadeen Khalq forces much as they used Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan. Europe might stay out this time, although Israel may have an important role, and France having generally reconciled with the U.S. and having worked with the U.S. to reconfigure Syria and Lebanon (and Haiti) may be assigned a major role in her former colonies in the Levant.

The neocons must anticipate resurgent resistance activity in Afghanistan (due both to the activities of one-time CIA favorite Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as well as to Taliban "remnants"), as well as intensified fighting in Iraq, where the Shiites and Sunnis alike will see the Iran attack as a U.S. war on Islam, on behalf of Israel. The American Empire in Southwest Asia will as it expands remain in a semi-chaotic state, with weak client regimes struggling alongside overstretched U.S. forces to contain insurgencies. But that is okay with the neocons, who delight in chaos and see glorious victory and progress in the disarray of Afghanistan and Iraq. They apparently think that their imperial goals can be achieved even in the context of ongoing low-intensity warfare, and that they can meet those goals (of controlling the flow of oil and gas and establishing permanent military bases throughout the region) without a Vietnam-like disaster, or a level of dissent in the U.S. that could actually lead to the fall of the Bush administration.

…more here

Iran sits atop some of the largest oil fields in the world, yet they have a conflict of needs; the oil provides virtually the entire Gross Domestic Product for Iran, but the oil’s not going to last forever (we may fast be approaching the ‘Hubbert Peak, AKA Peak Oil’, after which it’s downhill all the way…), and the least beneficial way of using the oil is to pump it out and use it themselves for generating electricity in inefficient oil-fired power stations. Iran is entitled to long-term energy security, whether George Bush hates their guts or not. It’s simply none of his business.

So… why is France suddenly jumping on the bandwagon? It seems that the Americans have offered the French a little sweetner in exchange for support at the UN – a hinted-at major role in her former colonies in the Levant – Syria, Lebanon and Damascus.

A little history in two links:

THE U. S. NOTE TO THE FRENCH PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT ON THE LEVANT STATES May 31, 1945

PRIME MINISTER CHURCHILL'S SPEECH IN COMMONS ON SYRIA AND LEBANON June 5, 1945

French and British 20^th century colonialisation and dominance of much of the Middle East is one of the issues which inflames Middle Eastern passions. When we were there we treated them worse than animals. Then, as now, an arab life is not even worth counting. We Brits have an inglorious past of murder and torture in other people’s countries, and if we want to ever truly understand why there is so much anger and hatred towards us, we forget that fact at our politically-correct peril. The French were every bit as brutal, make no mistake about it.

What of Blair’s position? As you probably know we’ve had a few differences with the French of late over the way the EU works. Britain currently holds the EU Presidency, and it is in Blair’s mind to trump the French card and sidle up to the Chimp-In-Chief again and romp off on another Imperialistic jaunt, thinking that maybe THIS time George will keep his word and let us get our noses in the Criminal Trough of Plunder. The problem with being Bush’s Bitch is that the primary qualification seems to be matchless stupidity.

Much as many of us loathe the idea of returning to nuclear power with all its massive problems, it’s a sad fact that at present nuclear power seems like our best medium-term hope for energy security. Renewable Energy technologies are still in their infancy, having been crippled over and over again over the past couple of decades by all those companies and governments who have colluded to make sure that Sustainable Energy Research consistently fails to get proper grant support, tax-breaks etc. Oil is King, the King has no clothes on, but he’ll destroy the Earth to make sure YOU don’t have any clothes either.

We all get the crystal clear picture, too, that the Republic of Iran isn’t a very user-friendly place to be if you’re not a friend. Several violent, extremist Jihadist organizations are based there, and it’s an almost definite that the Iranian government is financing them left, right and centre. The Iranian Military is highly-trained, pretty damn modern, massive and very, very focused. Attacking Iran wouldn’t bear any comparison to invading Iraq (recently described as “Mexico with oil”).

We know, also, what lies in the religious hearts of the Iranian Clerics, and it’s not a pleasant picture.

However: the cultural issue should be kept separate from the long-term needs of millions of Iranians. How can we ever claim to hold the moral high ground if we treat other nations with such astonishing duplicity, arrogance and murderous disdain? If we can’t accept that this is a time when we need to prove OUR intelligence and integrity by allowing the IAEA to continue its inspections, and offer the hand of trust (let alone technical assistance) to Iran, then the future looks very, very bleak.

Which is just the way George Bush seems to want it…