This week: • oSASma? • Tesco • Roberts •
• Orangs • Cats • Dogs • Stuff •

 

“What our police found in their car was very disturbing — weapons, explosives, and a remote control detonator. These are the weapons of terrorists. We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets.”
— Sheik Hassan al-Zarqani, spokesman for the Mehdi Army discussing the arrested two British SAS soldiers in Basra on September 20

Operation Phoenix: a CIA assassination spree on North Vietnam, during the 1960s and 1970s that took out as many as 40,000 people. Something similar yet far more sinister is underway in Iraq — those foreigners Bush and Blair keep blaming for causing insurrection in Iraq may well be Black Ops Yanks and Brits. The arrest of two Special Air Service soldiers who seemed to be armed to the teeth with all sorts of explosive materials in their Ford Cressida suggests that the terrorism across the country is at least derived from the occupiers themselves. The myth about the strength of al-Zarqawi also comes into question. The link between Vietnam and Iraq might well be intentional — the White House wants infighting to ensure there is a long term need for American troops, allowing oil to flow west to the US’ eastern seaboard. A new Pew survey finds that nearly 4 in 10 Americans now think Iraq will turn into another Vietnam; oil executives are rubbing their hands at the deception.

The Washington Post’s Ellen Knickmeyer stated, “The Iraqi security officials on Monday variously accused two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives.”

The War On Terror™ (TWOT™) might be better described as a War Of Terror. Justification for the huge attack on civil liberties is no longer relevant if it is our boys perpetrating the terror.

As is often the case with this war full of lies it was the Chinese state media organization Xinhua which provided the juiciest details of the soldiers’ arrest. “A police patrol followed the attackers and captured them to discover that they were two British soldiers. The soldiers were using a civilian car packed with explosives,” the wire service stated.

And then there was this from Syrian correspondent in Baghdad Ziyad al-Munajjid:

“Many analysts and observers here had suspicions that the occupation was involved in some armed operations against civilians and places of worship and in the killing of scientists. But those were only suspicions that lacked proof. The proof came today through the arrest of the two British soldiers while they were planting explosives in one of the Basra streets. This proves, according to observers, that the occupation is not far from many operations that seek to sow sedition and maintain disorder, as this would give the occupation the justification to stay in Iraq for a longer period.” Abdel al-Daraji, Muslim cleric in Baghdad told the UK Telegraph that “Britain was plotting to start an ethnic war by carrying out mass-casualty bombings targeting Shia civilians and then blaming the attacks on Sunni groups.”

“Everyone knows the occupiers agenda,” said al-Daraji. “Their intention is to keep Iraq an unstable battlefield so they can exploit their interests in Iraq.”

And what of justice in a sovereign nation — the SAS soldiers killed an Iraqi policeman, wounded another, were carrying unlicensed weapons and false identification, dressed in Arab gear and were quite rightly arrested yet the Brits saw fit to bombard the jail and get them out. It starkly reveals the reality behind Iraq’s so called sovereignty.

As the SAS were being rescued 150 prisoners escaped from the jail. Was this intentional or just a result of another botched black op?

Iran’s top military commander, Brigadier General Mohammad-Baqer Zolqadr pointed the finger at the occupational government the week before last by publicly stating: “The Americans blame weak and feeble groups in Iraq for insecurity in this country. We do not believe this and we have information that the insecurity has its roots in the activities of American and Israeli spies,” Zolqadr said.

“Insecurity in Iraq is a deeply-rooted phenomenon. The root of insecurity in Iraq lies in the occupation of this country by foreigners.”

“If Iraq is to become secure, there will be no room for the occupiers.”

Throughout history we see the tactic of divide and conquer being used to enslave populations and swallow formerly sovereign countries by piecemeal. Iraq, home to the second largest oil reserves in the world, is a colony, not a sovereign nation, and will remain that way for as long as the occupiers continue to plant explosions round the country.

 

 

In her superb book Shopped, Joanna Blythman offers a variety of measures we should all adopt to slow the incredible, damaging rise of supermarkets which have had a “neutron-bomb-type effect … on traditional shopping streets.” One suggestion is to destroy your loyalty card. “Why carry around in your wallet a permanent plastic advert for grocery giants?” she questions. “Do you want the big retailers to know all about you and your buying habits so that they can target you more effectively?”

Sadly since the book was published last year technology has moved ahead fast and now Tesco, Britain’s largest retailer (Britons spend one in eight pounds at Tesco stores) has got you, the British shopper, mapped out. Even if you don’t shop at their stores using their infamous Clubcard loyalty card, they know all about you — Big Brother has gone corporate.

A subsidiary of the supermarket chain has set up a database, called Crucible, which is collating detailed information on every household in the UK. Tesco is selling this prized information onto other corporate leviathans such as Sky, Orange and Gillette.

“It contains details of every consumer in the UK at their home address across a range of demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle characteristics,” says the marketing blurb of Dunnhumby, the Tesco subsidiary in question. It has “added intelligent profiling and targeting” to its data through a software system called Zodiac.

Together, Crucible and Zodiac, through tapping up a variety of other databases — including state ones such as the electoral roll, the Land registry and the Office for National Statistics — as well as Clubcard information, can generate a map of how an individual thinks, works and, more importantly, shops. The map classifies consumers across 10 categories: wealth, promotions, travel, charities, green, time poor, credit, living style, creature of habit and adventurous.

“As the supermarket unveils yet another set of sparkling half-year figures,” noted the Guardian, “one thing is clear: while past success may have been built on the company knowing its customers, Tesco plans to secure its future by knowing everyone else’s customers as well.”

Back to Ms Blythman who, towards the end of her book, paints a picture of the supermarket of the future where shoppers browse via a personal digital assistant “programmed to personalize their shopping experience” which she describes as “A sort of ‘If you like this then you’ll like that’ device… It will know what sort of products you like because it can communicate with your loyalty card, which in turn can communicate with radio frequency identification tags. Using [the wonderfully Orwellian sounding] ‘latent semantic indexing — that is a picture, collated over time, of an individual’s habits — this technology can be used to target shoppers with customized information.”

The upshot of which is that one buys even more stuff that you don’t actually need. How is that you go to the supermarket for a pint of milk and walk out having spent thirty quid? This habit will get worse with this new technology: chop up your loyalty card now and head to a local independent supplier otherwise, as Ms Blythman wryly notes, soon you’ll be in Tesco or Safeway with your electronic helper blurting out: “You bought Luxury Beef Stroganoff last time you shopped. But you haven’t tried it yet with our own-label ‘Better Than The Rest’ luscious fruity Australian Shiraz currently on ‘Buy Six Bottles Get One Free’ promotion … Along with our own-label Tarte Citron you’ve got a meal that tastes as good as if you had made it yourself — so why bother cooking? Be good to yourself. You’re worth it …”

For more on Britain’s most powerful retailer click here.

• And across the Pond, check out this Alternet interview with John Dicker on his new book, The United States of Wal-Mart. Did you know if Wal-Mart were a nation, it would be one of the world’s top 20 economies, there are now nearly 5,000 stores worldwide, over 3,500 in the US, a new Wal-Mart SuperCenter opens every 38 hours, with yearly sales of $288 billion, Wal-Mart employs one of every 115 workers in America. For more on Tesco’s American big brother click here.

 

 

Aside from the huge damage to the environment, and the destruction in Iraq perhaps of all George W. Bush’s decisions his nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States might be the one that leaves the longest and most tangible legacy, tilting the third and final part of the US legislative system firmly in the favour of the ultra-Conservative right following the appointments of Judges Thomas and Scalia. Roberts is comparatively young for such a lifelong position — only turning 50 this year. He could be around a hell of a long time. In his Senate confirmation hearing the man, whose formative years were in the Reagan administration and whose previous legal writings shows huge contempt for basic human rights, dodged all manner of questions. Hilary Clinton was adamant last week in the Senate that Roberts’ appointment “is a matter of tremendous consequence for future generations of Americans.”

She, herself, voted against the man noting: “I do not believe that the Judge has presented his views with enough clarity and specificity for me to in good conscience cast a vote on his behalf.”

She continued: “I have an obligation to my constituents to make sure that I cast my vote for Chief Justice of the United States for someone I am convinced will be steadfast in protecting fundamental women’s rights, civil rights, privacy rights, and who will respect the appropriate separation of powers among the three branches. After the Judiciary Hearings, I believe the record on these matters has been left unclear…

“It is hard to believe he has no opinion on so many critical issues after years as a Justice Department and White House lawyer, appellate advocate and judge.”

In true Bush fashion, access to key evidence of his character was denied, as Mrs Clinton noted, saying: “Adding to testimony that clouded more than clarified is that we in the Senate have been denied the full record of Judge Roberts’s writings despite our repeated requests. Combined, these two events have left a question mark on what Judge Roberts’s views are and how he might rule on critical questions of the day. It is telling that President Bush has said the Justices he most admires are the two most conservative justices, Justices Thomas and Scalia. It is not unreasonable to believe that the President has picked someone in Judge Roberts whom he believes holds a similarly conservative philosophy, and that voting as a bloc they could further limit the power of the Congress, expand the purview of the Executive, and overturn key rulings like Roe v. Wade.”

She concluded: “My desire to maintain the already fragile Supreme Court majority for civil rights, voting rights and women’s rights outweigh the respect I have for Judge Roberts’s intellect, character, and legal skills.”

Another Democrat on the hearing, Edward Kennedy, added his two cents worth: “Based on the record available, there is clear and convincing evidence that Judge Roberts’ view of the rule of law would narrow the protection of basic voting rights. The values and perspectives displayed over and over again in his record cast large doubts on his view of the validity of laws that remove barriers to equal opportunity for women, minorities, and the disabled. His record raises serious questions about the power of Congress to pass laws to protect citizens in matters they care about.”

Kennedy and Clinton’s objections will not be enough to turn away Roberts giving Bush hegemony in all three strands of power in the US. The land of the free has been hoodwinked: dictatorship by stealth is complete — it started with the faked Florida election in 2000, was bolstered by the Reichstag burning-esque moment of 9/11 and Roberts’ elevation completes the putsch.

 

 

That packet of crisps you buy every now and then, as well as expanding your waistline, is also leading to the extinction of one of the world’s coolest animals, the orang-utan. Far fetched, you cry? Not at all: crisps, as well as products such as bread, margarine, cereals and lip stick contain palm oil — the massive demand for which has seen 90% of the orang-utan’s natural habitat — the rainforest — in southeast Asia disappear in favour of oil-palm plantations. One in ten products found on British supermarket shelves contain palm oil. These findings are contained in new report — The Oil for Ape Scandal — published by Friends of the Earth and the world’s top orang-utan conservation groups. The sombre conclusion reached suggests these cute apes could be extinct in 12 years time unless there is urgent intervention in the palm oil trade — the only good upshot of such a scenario as far as we can see is that it would once and for all ensure there would be no dire sequel to the dreadful 1978 Clint Eastwood movie Every Which Way But Loose.

Forest fires in Indonesia are often started by palm oil firms looking to clear areas. The orang-utan is the only ape species outside of Africa and there are now less than 47,000 in the wild.

The Indonesian government is now planning to convert a significant area of Tanjung Puting National Park, the world’s most famous protected area for orang-utan, into an oil-palm plantation.

Research by Friends of the Earth found that at least 84 per cent of UK companies are failing to take effective action to ensure they do not buy palm oil from destructive sources and that not one single UK supermarket knows where the palm oil originates in the products it sells.

Friends of the Earth Palm Oil Campaigner Ed Matthew said: “While the UK Government is prepared to fund international ape conservation it is failing to clean up its own back yard. Over 100 UK companies and every single British supermarket is helping fuel the obliteration of orang-utan habitat.”

Meanwhile, Ian Redmond, Chairman of the Ape Alliance, said: “Governments in countries like the UK that provide a market for palm oil must legislate to make their corporations responsible and accountable for their impacts.  If not, it is we who will have to explain to our children that the orang-utan became extinct, not because of a lack of knowledge, but because of corporate greed and a lack of political will.”

Something to think about when you’re next snarfing down a packet of salt and vinegar, we would suggest.

For the full report plus a movie on the endangered species click here.

 

 

Here at the little red email we are all in favour of renewable energy initiatives, acknowledging that fossil fuels are dying out and are polluting the world to extinction. Nevertheless, there are certain ones that raise our hackles a tad. None more so than the news earlier this month, reported by Bild newspaper, that German inventor Dr Christian Kock has patented a biomass method that can even make energy from dead cats!

The website of Koch’s firm, “Alphakat GmbH”, says his patented “KDV 500” machine can produce what he calls the “bio-diesel” fuel at about 23 euro cents a litre, which is about one-fifth the price at petrol stations now.

“I drive my normal diesel-powered car with this mixture,” Koch is quoted saying in Bild, next to a large picture of a kitten. “I have gone 170,000 km (106,000 miles) without a problem.” That’s a lot of cats! Allegedly, it takes 20 cats to fill a 50 litre tank.

Christian Koch claims he can concoct economical diesel out of old tyres, weeds and animal cadavers and his machine can be used at home. Fun for all the family: putting cats into the proverbial meat grinder.

The mixture is heated up to 300 Celsius to filter out hydrocarbon, which is then turned into diesel by a catalytic converter.

However, as German animal rights campaigners denounced the project angrily, Kock, 55, denied the Bild report: “I use paper, plastics, textiles and rubbish,” Koch told Reuters.

“It’s an alternative fuel that is friendly for the environment. But it’s complete nonsense to suggest dead cats. I’ve never used cats and would never think of that. At most the odd toad may have jumped in.”

 

 

Some stories in this email we spend ages researching and mulling interesting, amusing angles. Others just fall on our plate, hot and good to go such as the following piece of hilarity from Romania. What do George W. Bush, Adolf Hitler, and Nicolae Ceausescu have in common, bar being murdering dictators? Answer: they all love dogs. Believe it or not the terrible trio are being used to persuade people to adopt stray dogs in Romania.

Posters featuring them with the slogan: “A dog loves you just the way you are” are appearing on billboards across the country.

Ioana Casetti, the president of the Romanian National Committee for the Protection of Animals, said: “Our idea is to make people sensitive to what an animal can offer in terms of affection by showing them that even the most hated dictators on this planet received love from their dogs.

“I expect criticism but also some appreciation for our work and idea. But more than that, I expect that people will get the message that anyone who loves dogs can save them from a shelter.”

We fear some might read this campaign differently — along the lines of, own a dog and become an evil, twisted person which will hardly help Bucharest’s estimated 300,000 stray dogs. Still, respect for putting Bush so publicly on the same pedestal as Hitler and Ceausescu.

If you thought this tale was wacky, head on over to the Weekly Universe to read about Ceausescu’s plot to breed a race of socialist super-dogs with amazing powers of fertility and camouflaged fur!

Romania’s problem with stray dogs is an enormous one — probably more per person than anywhere else on earth as this 2001 Salon article explains.