Second election debate: Cameron says "I completely agree with Gordon"

creepy tory

Second election debate: Cameron will say "I agree with Gordon"

In fact Cameron has just said "I completely agree with Gordon"

bbc down confirmed

The whole BBC website has gone off the internet and has been for several hours now. But almost nobody is mentioning it. Here at the safehouse data center deep beneath central London we immediately activated code red when the first episode of the new Spooks series suddenly evaporated. A massive internet glitch seems to have occurred for a few minutes during which a number of UK websites became unavailable, including the BBC which remains down. If they do not fix this by the morning the whole world will see a big internet crater where the BBC once was.

This is how the world would be if Murdock and his vile friends in the Tory Party had their way: Tories threaten to tear up Lord Reith's BBC legacy.

• Update (AM 5th Nov): BBC back, there are suggestions that the BBC's problems may be with one of their internet service providers Akamai while a brief statement from the BBC blames "network problems".

royal mail thrown out with rubbish

Royal Mail Postal Strike Tragedy: Why? A postman tries to explain (letter in Guardian):

"Consider the fact that delivery office managers (DOMs) will get £8,000 each for making improvements in their offices. Section managers, however, only receive £2,000 each. The postmen who have been "encouraged" to help make things work will receive £0. As an added thank-you we will not be receiving a pay rise – a kind of "stick and stick approach", as they can't afford carrots. In addition the chairman is to have £145,000 paid to top up his pension fund at a time when there is insufficient money available from the huge recently announced profits to alleviate the Royal Mail pension fund that is allegedly a little short. Obviously the £2m bonus he got in the past was insufficient.

• Scottish Government delivers blow to Royal Mail

• John Lewis sidelines Royal Mail

• Royal Mail loses Amazon contract as postal strikes loom

• Delivered into intensive care

• Windows 7 ships early to avoid postal strike

• Royal Mail Under Attack

iraq war eco tragedy is killing babies everyday

Petition to the United Nations:

In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed. This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported.

Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects but premature births have also considerably increased after 2003. But what is more alarming is that doctors in Fallujah have said, "a significant number of babies that do survive begin to develop severe disabilities at a later stage".

As one of a number of doctors, scientists and those with deep concern for Iraq, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, a British hospital physician, wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon. Clare Short, M.P. asking about this situation. She wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon.Douglas Alexander, M.P. the Secretary of State of the Department for International Development (a post she had held before she resigned on a matter of principle in May 2003 ) asking for clarification of the position of deformed children in Fallujah.

She received a reply dated 3rd September 2009 (two days after the Sky TV broadcast of 1st September 2009 ) from a junior minister, deputy to The Secretary of State, Mr. Gareth Thomas MP, Duty Minister, Department for International Development. In his reply he denies that there are more than two or three deformed babies in Fallujah in a year and asserts that there is, therefore, no problem. This is at wild variance with reports coming out of Fallujah. One grave digger of a single cemetery is burying four to five babies a day, most of which he says are deformed.

Clare Short passed us a copy of this letter. It bears a remarkable similarity to three other written answers we have received over a four year period, in regard to child health and the use of depleted uranium. All these letters are based on lies and an aim to confuse the recipients. In her autobiography "Honorable Deception?" Clare Short says "The first instinct of Number 10 (Downing Street) is to lie."We regard the mendacity of Mr. Thomas's letter, and of the other letters we have received, as extremely serious. These letters do not deal with minor matters of corruption, or taxes, but do deal with the use of armed forces and deadly weapons.

The use of certain weapons has tremendous repercussions. Iraq will become a country, if it has not already done so, where it is advisable not to have children. Other countries will watch what has happened in Iraq, and imitate the Coalition Allies' total disregard of the United Nations Charter, The Geneva, and Hague Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Some countries, such as Afghanistan, will also come to experience the very long term damage to the environment, measured in billions of years, and the devastating effect of depleted uranium and white phosphorous munitions.

If, as we say in our letter to the Duty Minister of the Department for International Development, the UK Government clearly does not know the effects of the weapons it uses, nor, as a matter of policy, does "it do body counts", how can the UK Government judge whether it is conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan according to International Law, especially in terms of "proportionality" and long term damage to the natural environment? How can the UK know about the illegality of the weapons systems it sells on the international market, such as the "Storm Shadow" missile, if the very Department of the Government that is supposed to assess the deaths and medical needs of children and adults in Iraq is not telling the truth.

We request from the United Nations General Assembly the following:

1. To acknowledge that there is a serious problem regarding the unprecedented number of birth defects and cancer cases in Iraq specifically in Fallujah, Basra, Baghdad and Al - Najaf.

2. To set up an independent committee to conduct a full investigation into the problem of the increased number of birth defects and cancers in Iraq.

3. To implement the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces including Depleted Uranium, and White Phosphorus.

4. To prevent children and adults entering contaminated areas to minimize exposure to these hazards.

5. To investigate whether war crimes, or crimes against humanity, have been committed, and thereby uphold the United Nations Charter, The Geneva and Hague Conventions, and The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court.

Sincerely, The Undersigned

• This petition (sign here) is being organised by Iraq Solidarity UK.

great climate change swoop forces advance

Photo + more photos: indymedia

12.15pm: Eco warrior forces of the Great Climate Change Swoop, who have been filtering into front line positions over night, are now advancing in a three pronged attack on the EDF power station Ratcliffe-on-Soar near Nottingham, one of the biggest in Britain.

However they are meeting with heavy resistance from government forces loyal to EDF.

Meanwhile mopping up operations are still going on at the highly fortified EDF YouTube PR base which came under heavy attack by swoop videos earlier in the week, causing EDF PR Forces to retreat under intense comment fire. EDF PR have since mounted several counter attacks against the militants with some success, but sporadic comment exchanges continue.

Latest (1pm): Swoop forces at Ratcliffe power station (one of the cleanest in the world) have broken though government lines at several locations and have breached the perimeter fence.

2.37 pm: Swoop forces are now near cooling towers, while others have blocked the strategically important train track.

5.22 pm: Government forces say they have captured 21 Swoopers who are being held as POW's.



















• safehouse security status: red alert, total security lock down, activating emergency generators now.

cameron speech: are we doomed to years of this sustained unadulterated rubbish?

"Don't lecture us", said David Camercon.

Would you buy a used but 'born again' Tory party (with a copy of the Sun) from this mad looking preacher man who says he wants to lead a Tory mob to "tear down the state"? David Cameron's sales pitch (speech) in full.

• Analysis: If it was an intelligence test, Cameron dived; either the Tories are doomed, or we are.

• schmoo's credit crunch package to restart britain

• tory arrested over £150 bottle of champagne

gold up, humanity down

Should be glad, gold went over $1000 and I have got some (in the safehouse's deepest vault), but not glad at all. It does not mean the gold miners get paid anything like what they are worth (even if they go on strike), nor will there be any less cyanide pollution.

hip hop columbia

the story of stuff

Above: Intro to The Story of Stuff by Annie Lenoard. Watch the whole film here.

i went to the supermarket and i saw some ufos

Ministry of Defence files, documenting around 800 UFO sightings between 1981 and 1996 have just been released.

To celebrate this event, 'schmmo experience productions' have produced a new music video: I Went to the Supermarket and I Saw Some UFOs, but judging by some of the comments on Youtube this has annoyed a few UFO lovers. Current safehouse security level has been raised to: unknown.

The Daily Telegraph suggests a secret US spy plane could be behind many UFO sightings, but publishes a list of the top ten unexplained UFO 'close encounters'.

Meanwhile the ever cynical Guardian publishes a UFO study that supposedly shows a marked increase in UFO sightings whenever a UFO related film or TV series is released; for example a surge to 158 sightings in 2005 when Doctor Who is relaunched on the BBC. Needless to say, the study is utterly flawed.

david cameron: twitter tory "twat"

David Cameron is worried that twittering might make him a "Twat", but he should not worry, because he already is one. Camercon is always twittering with his shallow sound bites. This serial spammer will do anything to get followers.

big green gathering "festival banned" conspiracy story is a lie

Above: traffic jams at the Big Green Gathering 2007. It was chaos.

ONE thing is for sure, we have not got the full story on the reasons why the Big Green Gathering has been cancelled, especially from the greens.

At the moment they are pushing the "festival banned" conspiracy theory; namely that this is all an evil plot by the government to screw up the Climate Camp activists and Plane Stupid.

Avon & Somerset police and Mendip District Council have a very different story of course.

Medip District Council issued a statement today:

The failure of the organisers to address a number of serious public safety issues meant that they had no other option but to cancel it themselves. The fact is that organisers chose to surrender the licence before an application was made to the High Court. The final decision to prepare legal papers for a High Court hearing was made on Friday evening (July 24), but a court application was not expected to be made until yesterday (Monday, July 27). In addition to the several months of help and advice they had been given by both us and emergency services, the weekend provided even more opportunity for the organisers to fulfil their licence obligations. However, they handed their licence back to us on Sunday morning (July 26). Many hours of council time have been committed to help make this event happen, but the lack of assurances from the organisers about the safety of their event were continually causing concern for the council and emergency services. There has been an apparent lack of coordination in managing and meeting the obligations of the licence, and now the cancellation of this event creates many more issues and a heavier workload for the council and emergency services than if it had gone ahead safely. Mendip is a council which is recognised nationally with its partners for licensing large events. The bottom line is we know about licensing festivals, and therefore would not have taken a decision to consider legal action lightly. Preparing for legal action is a last resort.

"We won’t ever let something like this happen to us again." said an early statement on the Big Green Gathering website which has since been deleted. Seems like they were admitting the cancellation was ultimately their own fault, at least for a bit.

Like most paranoid conspiracy theories the "festival banned" story is utter tosh. Why would the government need to go to such lengths against the Climate Change Camp and their hysterical hangers on? This very small group of people have totally succeeded in marginalising themselves and losing public support by their sanctimonious and plain stupid antics. They are not a threat to the government, although in their self important dream world they would love to be.

The plain truth is probably something like this. While there are some good people involved, the Big Green Gathering management is sadly infested with the worst type of 'radical' green types; people who have very little connection to reality, and are utterly incompetent when it comes to anything to do with organisation and keeping financial affairs in order.

These are the people who have held back the green movement and the Green Party for years, keeping it marginalised and putting off mass support where ever they go. Thankfully the Green Party seems to have finally brought these 'idiots within' under control, but the Big Green Gathering obviously has not.

Dozens of other festivals have managed to deal with difficult and expensive security and health and safety issues, but not these "activists". Their incompetence is the main reason the festival has been stopped.

I have had dealings with some of these green liars in the past. That is why I suspect the other reason the Green Gathering was stopped is that they are rude, irresponsible and have a major problem with dealing with authority.

They say they are 'anti-capitalist', but in their midst are the meanest and most exploitative, dishonest bunch of hypocrites and fools I have ever come across.

Hopefully the Big Green Gathering will survive. For a start they need to throw out both the dodgy 'radical green activists', and the dodgy right wing American billionaire. With people like that involved it is no wonder the event had to be cancelled; it was obviously dangerous.

• Seems like a lot of Big Green Gathering refugees might be going to the Isle of White to support the Vegas Wind turbine factory occupation which is trying to save 600 eco jobs. That sounds like a Green Gathering worth supporting. Full 'Vfestival' details here.

• There is a new conspiracy story being spread that Facebook has shut down the Big Green Gathering group. I do not trust Facebook an inch, but this is another lie.



• Posted on the UKhippy Forum:

Yes, over the years there has been opposition from Mendip, oiled by their Pilton millions. And there has been opposition from certain high ranking police officers, no doubt fuelled by orders from on high who are anti environmentalist events. But this is not new, it has been in place a number of years. The BGG went into the planning for 2009 with a deficit of six figures, accumulated over the years by an unwillingness amongst certain directors to face financial reality. They arranged a buy out with Stuart Galbraith and Kilimanjaro to the tune of 150K, but at the end of the day he only came up with 50. He then saw what a bunch of idealistic amateurs he was dealing with (from his perspective), stayed in until he could get his 50K back, and then did a runner, thus leaving the BGG in the cack. The police and Mendip looked at the sorry state of affairs and used the excuse of permits not being applied for within the proper time frame to close it down. Ths whole debacle is the primarily the result of a few directors being out of touch with the real world and still pretending that they were at Greenham or on Cruisewatch. If the BGG had gone into this year on a more organised financial footing, be sure that Mendip and the police would not have taken this step. How do I know this? Well, I was a director until this time last year, and I maintain regular contact with a number of company insiders. It was clear to me at the end of July last year that the writing was on the wall, but only myself and one other director (incidentally, the only two directors who were self employed and running successful businesses with good financial management, but ignored by the 'elder states people' on the board) stood up and said this. I was pooh poohed and ignored, so I walked. So yes, it was the police and Mendip, with the help of Stewarts security, but only because the whole thing was turning into a shambolic farce - IMHO.

gordon brown unplugged

Even if you don't agree with Gordon Brown on anything, I think this talk by him on TED gives a rare glimpse of the real Gordon and what makes him tick. What really stands out is Gordon Brown 'unplugged' from the constraints of the usual media sound bites he is not very good at. He covers a lot of ground, bringing in everything from the power of blogging and how to avoid being tracked by the authorities, to the desperate need to solve poverty, protect the environment and defend human rights .... and even Amy Winehouse. Relaxed and cracking a reasonable joke or two, Gordon Brown comes across as a passionate, intelligent and caring man; in fact exactly the sort of person we need as prime minister. People need to see more of this side of Gordon Brown, and he needs to stop hiding his true self. I am just worried we are going to be stuck with a shallow minded Tory snake-oil salesman for the next five years. David Cameron could never give a talk as straight from the heart as this obviously is.

gary mckinnon: dear barack

With last ditch attempts in Parliament to save Gary McKinnon sickeningly foiled by the government, a last last ditch attempt is being made to appeal for mercy by contacting Barack Obama directly. A letter is being written by the National Autistic Society, a leading charity, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Autism, a cross-party alliance of MPs and peers that lobbies for better support for sufferers.

Barack Obama has listened to schmoo advice in the past, hopefully he will now. Might as well try, just sent this to the main man:

Dear Barack, the Gary McKinnon case could be a lot more important to American interests than you may have been advised which is why I am contacting you direct. I know you are busy but this is important. Here is why, and it is all about the interests of the United States.

The guy is sick, it's true, he is honest, straight as a die, but the letter from the Autistic Society goes into all that. You may not realise how bad this is playing for US interests here in London. It just does not look good dragging off a sick guy for hacking, when most of the time the sites he accessed did not even have passwords, that's how slack their security was. This is not like those banker guys, they stole money right? Gary is not a criminal like them. If you drag him off it is going to play super bad. Every one is going to hate America that much more than they did already, which is often a fair bit, even with Bush gone. It will be an open sore for as long as you keep him. This could set you back, for what? To make an example? Why not catch some real hacker criminals? Then you would get most people's support, not most of a country up in arms. You do realise you will be personally blamed if the extradition goes ahead? You got a lot of personal support here right now, why blow even a bit on this?

If you listen to my advice and support Gary staying in the UK to face trial according to UK law, you will be glowing with Brit Love a bit like Nelson Mandela does. Mercy and forgiveness is political gold dust used right, you know that.

Hey! We are losing a hero a day in Afghanistan, plus many more serious casualties, and support is still strong, but it is not easy. You need to help keep that support if you can, and what does this cost you? I know you can't do everything and have to conserve your political capital and all that, but to save Gary you don't have to spend a cent; everyone will be winners except for a few lawyers. Any remaining doubts about you being one special dude will evaporate. This is an emotional thing, just press the buttons on your Blackberry for Gary, and all the glow goes your way. Yes You Can. I'll bet approval ratings of you and the United States in general go up 10% and continue upwards the moment you act. That has to be in the interests of the United States. Ok, it's your call, the buck stops with you, stay cool, schmoo in london x

pagan police could leave crooks spell bound

Usually the news about the police is bad; they are always being blamed in the press for murder, assault, fraud, drug dealing, torture and so on.

So the unusual good news that there could be up to 500 pagan police people practicing witchcraft is very welcome. The Home Office has even recognised a newly formed Pagan Police Officers Association and a Pagan Police Group UK website is currently under construction.

Hopefully we will now see more police on broom sticks which would be a lot quieter than the helicopters the normal unpagen police use to hover over the safehouse at 3am. Also interrogation techniques using the power of witch craft could leave crooks spell bound, and avoid the need to use handcuffs and expensive tazor guns on violent drunkard idiots. Over crowding in police cells could be avoided by using the famous pagan miniaturisation spell as used in 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids'.

It is especially sweet that the pagan police are being given the right to take the Summer Solstice off, and even Halloween. This will greatly annoy the evil Salvation Army who campaign every year to ban Halloween because they think it encourages children to become Satanists. However it might be better to have pagan police protecting the Summer Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge rather than Christian ones. Because of their strange twisted beliefs Christians are apt to turn evil, like they did at the Battle of the Beanfield where they violently attacked the innocent pagans without mercy.

• Here at the safehouse we support the police unreservedly which is not always as easy as they make it sound in the Daily Mail, but we manage. Britain has got a great police force, there just should be more of them, especially on the streets, and they always need better equipment and should be paid more and given more medals, better pensions and more holidays.

• Our favourite police blog Sheepdogs & Wolves has closed down mostly thanks to the Times revealing the identity of NightJack another excellent police blogger whose career has been ruined. NightJack lost an important High Court test case in which it was ruled that bloggers do not have the right to remain anonymous. Damn! Ironic how it all started with NightJack winning the Orwell Prize which is meant to encourage political writing.

homeopathic swine flu vaccine

Disclaimer: schmoo on the run accepts no responsibility for telling you about the availability of a homeopathic swine flu vaccine from Ainsworths which may or may not work, though it is more likely to work if you believe in it, on the other hand you could be just kidding yourself, but it could all be true and we don't want to be responsible for undermining the power of faith healing, so all we best say is that it is probably safer than the official vaccine, but then so is a good healthy medicinal cannabis spliff and a cup of tea.

• Ainsworths website has this disclaimer: "Ainsworths homeopathic products are without approved therapeutic indications."

postal strike: royal mail under attack

The people who decided to change the 'Royal Mail' into 'Consignia' at vast expense, only to be forced by the obvious to go back to the original, should be rotting in the Tower of London along with all their relatives and close friends. Instead they are probably enjoying a nice pension.

The management of the Royal Mail has been absolutely appalling, but managing a business with a union of morons like the Communication Workers Union (CWU) must be very difficult.

While the Royal Mail, one of the foundations of our civilization, struggles to survive, hobbled by government restrictions which allow multinational corporations with horrible anti royalist names like DHL or TNT to steal all the most profitable business, the CWU union seem hell bent on making everything worse with a series of stupid and destructive strikes. The latest 24 hour strike today could delay mail for a week or more, and there is still a back log from the last strike. Is the CWU really in the pay of DHL and TNT, or what?

The obvious solution is to require an intelligence test for all postal workers including management to weed out all the fools. About 50% of them (mostly management) will have to be offered more suitable employment; for example washing dishes, although close supervision will still be required even for that.

And now it looks like terrorists have been shooting at the Post Office on Camden High St (pictured above, click to enlarge), or maybe their target was actually the Bank of Ireland 'black hole of debt' dispensing machine.

thermometer shortage hits swine flu britain

Boots and Superdrug are making a killing thanks to swine flu; they have both sold out of thermometers. Thanks to a well intended campaign to phase out mercury thermometers which silly young children love to crunch and cost as little as £1.10 now on the high street you have to spend £7.82 at Superdrug and over £8 at Boots for a digital thermometer, just to see if you might have swine flu. But the really weird twist to this story is that the proposed new vaccine against swine flu contains mercury and could be more dangerous than swine flu itself.