This week: • North Korea • Libby • EcoNazi •
• Saddam • RAF • Beef • Yahuda • Printers • Stuff •

 

Our man in Pyongyang

Sending an email from North Korea costs 3.5 euros per 25 kilobytes and the internet… well, let’s just say it makes China’s look infinitely open. This then forms the basis of our excuse for the lack of your weekly little red email for the past couple of weeks — blame Kim Jong Il. The US is particularly adept at blaming the Dear Leader for all manner of misdeeds. Make no mistake about it, the little red email has not returned from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as an apologist for the evil, twisted Kim regime but in that Canned Revolution kind of way we have detected such a huge imbalance in the full picture of this curious ‘Axis of Evil’ state that we felt it best to show you the real US intentions on Korea.

The Korean word for contradiction combines two Chinese characters, representing the shield and the sword — a picture that sums up American goals on the peninsula well, with its hubris against the Kim regime masking the fact that it actually needs such a dynasty in place for geopolitical reasons and reunification is not something on the White House agenda.

Kim Jong Il is the necessary bogeyman in east Asia to justify US troops on the peninsula to help circle the real enemy — China, as well as justify gigantic Pentagon spending plans including a missile defence shield in Asia. A climate of fear is paramount to this end.

The little red email has had the good fortune to visit both sides of the Demilitarized Zone on the 38th parallel in the same year and we can report that the south side is way more scary, with far greater propaganda and humourless troops than the friendly atmosphere just 100 metres north.

Fear is aided by ‘leaked’ reports from the Pentagon such as the one from 1993 which suggested one million people would die if conflict broke out on the Korean peninsula… within the first hour. What the Pentagon fails to leak are actual details on military spending.

The DPRK economy is at least 26 times smaller than the Republic of Korea to the south. The South Korean army spends $163,000 per soldier for food, clothes, and armaments. North Korea spends only one tenth that amount or even, according to one analyst using black-market exchange rates, as low as $20 a year per soldier. North Korea’s entire government budget is several billion dollars smaller than South Korea’s military budget. Without fuel or spare parts, pilots from the bankrupt North are limited to 13 hours of training missions a year.

The whole nuclear standoff situation is also something of the US’ own creation, having failed to stick to its side of the 1994 Agreed Framework, delivering heavy fuel oil in return for the DPRK ceasing nuclear developments. 

So how is it that these facts about the US’ longest running adversary are not in the open? It strikes us as rather similar to the actual reality of the decrepit health of the USSR at the time of its collapse in 1991 as opposed to the Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome of huge Soviet strength portrayed by both sides throughout the Cold War. Like then the myth of strength and danger is important to uphold for the Pentagon to advance its ambitions. The North Korean threat is about as plausible as the threat of Iraq, another sanctions-hit state, was three years ago.

Finally, we defer to the excellent North Korea, South Korea — US Politics & the Korean Peninsula by John Feffer who suggests George W Bush’s personal animosity towards Kim Jong Il (having referred to the Dear Leader in the past as a “pygmy” and a “spoiled child”) might best be explained by Dubya’s realisation at some level of their similarities. “Both weathered considerable political storms to attain power. Both have playboy pasts. And both have been unfavourably compared to their statesman-like fathers. As the Korean expression goes, ‘Tiger father, dog son.’” To this list we would add, both have run roughshod over civil liberties, imprisoning hundreds without trial, and set back nuclear non-proliferation by developing new nuclear weapons.

The little red email thoroughly approves of nkzone as a good source of material for all things North Korean.

For a previous little red article on the DPRK involving a chat with author Paul French click here.

 

 

Scooter’s exit: the beginning of the end?

If the White House thinks that culling the head of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is going to be enough to halt the descent of this administration they are seriously mistaken. The departure of Dick Cheney’s right hand man — over the CIA leak scandal that outed a US spy, Valerie Plame, in the field — could finally disable this poisonous ruling clique once and for all. That is unless Bush pulls a fast one and tries to fire Patrick Fitzgerald, the wily prosecutor leading the investigation.

The way the hearing is heading it is likely to turn into a full on examination of the road to war in Iraq and could uncover all the follies and deceptions perpetrated by Cheney and Rumsfeld in the run up to bombing time.

Acting at the behest of the vice president, Libby was a key figure behind inserting dubious and unverified intelligence data alleging the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction into the public arena.

Libby told the grand jury he had learned the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame from journalists. It turned out, according to Friday’s indictment, that he had been told about her in June 2003 by a vindictive, pissed off Dick Cheney, who had discovered that her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, had been telling journalists the administration had “twisted” the WMD evidence to sell the war to America and the rest of the world.

Libby’s trial should be fascinating and could see an incredible array of witnesses called to the stand — both from the administration and many from intelligence services with grievances against how they have been blamed for everything by the White House.

“We’re likely to move to a trial of the war in Iraq and how we got into that war,” David Gergen, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, told CNN. “The trial would inevitably bring a lot of witnesses who would have to explain what the administration was doing from one day to next. If you’re in the White House you profoundly do not want that to be occurring when you are trying to keep a focus on the war itself, on how to win the war.”

Libby though was merely the messenger taking orders from on high. With 90% of Americans believing Bush has acted unethically in the Valerie Plame affair the time has come for Congress and the media to reach into the closet and attach their backbone again, not seen since September 10, 2001 — it’s time to question how the hell these nutters hoodwinked everyone to go to war.

“There must be a wider investigation into the totality of the criminal conspiracy undertaken by the Bush administration to defraud Congress and the American people about the issue of war with Iraq, and in particular the case used to justify the invasion of that country,” writes Scott Ritter, the former chief UN weapons inspector who participated in 52 missions in Iraq.

The incredible unchecked powerbase Bush and Co built up in his first term, founded on peddling fear to the public, looks to be all over — Dubya’s looking at three years of a lame chimp tail end to his presidency now with Iraq getting ever worse (more than 2,000 soldiers dead), supreme court choices being rejected and his two top allies in Congress — Bill Frist, the senate majority leader, and Tom DeLay, the House of Representatives majority leader — are both in legal trouble. Most satisfying though is the likely downfall of the president’s adviser, Karl Rove, the mastermind who has crafted Bush from dumb alcoholic to dumb two term president. Rove is hanging on by the skin of his teeth, but if the investigation progresses, there’s every likelihood he too will have to fall on his sword, leaving the chimp headless.

“Mr Bush had been hoping to use his last three years to build a lasting legacy. He may need that long just to climb out of a hole he dug when he ordered the invasion of Iraq,” noted the Guardian.

 

 

Eco-fascists offer final solution

“In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”
— Eco-fascist Prince Philip, August, 1988

When one thinks of colours associated with fascism green does not necessarily spring to mind. Likewise, when one thinks of the World Wildlife Fund with its panda logo one does not think of genocide. Throw Prince Philip into the mix and you have the basis for one of the better and certainly wackier conspiracy theories we’ve come across in a long, long time.

The World Wildlife Fund is not really a charity to save the animals but actually a front for a New World Order society… headed by Prince Philip. Apparently the missile which brought down the plane which started the Rwanda genocide was fired deliberately from a WWF animal sanctuary. These WWF centres aren’t really for animals, but are “strategic destabilisation centres. The WWF was founded as a front by Prince Philip who is also involved in the shadowy Fourth Reich-esque Club of Isles, a ‘green fascist’ organization that aims to “cull the human herd” to less than a billion people within three generations chiefly through the hyperbolically self-accelerating impact of famine and epidemic diseases of persons, animals, and plants. Want to know where bird flu came from? Try knocking on the door of the House of Windsor — a German family with deep Nazi backgrounds. 

In 1961, Prince Philip was approached by his close friend, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, to take charge of the British chapter of the newly formed World Wildlife Fund. Prince Philip’s “strength through joy” upbringing and his family ties to the Nazis were no match for Bernhard, who as a young college student in Berlin had been recruited to the Nazi Party in 1934, and later been assigned as a junior Nazi intelligence officer to the IG Farben chemical cartel.

Prince Philip himself had been trained in the Hitler Youth curriculum, and his German brothers-in-law, with whom he lived, all became high-ranking figures in the Nazi Party

Prince Philip’s principal collaborators in launching the WWF were Sir Julian Huxley and Max Nicholson, both ardent advocates of eugenics and racial purification. In fact, Huxley was president of the Eugenics Society when he co-founded the WWF. First, as head of the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (Unesco), and later as a WWF founder, Huxley preached the need to revive race science and the urgent mission of “culling the human herd” — particularly of the darker-skinned races of Africa and South America. In the founding document of Unesco, Huxley had frankly acknowledged the difficulties he would encounter in reviving eugenics, in light of the Nazi genocide. “Even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible,” he wrote, “it will be important for Unesco to see that the … public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.”

During a 1960 tour of Africa, on the eve of the launching of the WWF, Huxley openly boasted that the ecology movement would be the principal weapon used by the British oligarchy to impose a Malthusian world order over the dead body of the nation-state system, and, most importantly, the United States.

It is no coincidence, in the context of Huxley’s remarks, that the man who helped found the Canadian branch of Prince Philip’s WWF, Maj. Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, would be implicated by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Bloomfield, the wartime liaison of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, ran the Montreal-based Permindex Corporation, the entity identified in the Garrison investigation as the hands-on controller of the Kennedy assassination plot.

The ‘funding vehicle’ for the WWF is the 1001: A Nature Trust, known among its members as the “1001 Club,” 1,001 close personal associates of Prince Bernhard and Prince Philip. The bulk of the members were drawn from the boards of directors of the leading Club of the Isles raw materials cartels, banks, insurance companies, and family trusts — a de facto eco-fascist Carlyle Group.

• Think this is all a load of tosh? Might we advise you to head to here, here and here before you dismiss this far out theory totally.

 

 

Saddam: show trial of the century

Well he’s made it this far. We had Saddam being snuffed out by now for fear of him spilling too much info on close US collaboration back in the 1980s. Still, there he was in the Kangaroo court last Wednesday looking as if he was well up for a fight. Not that he’ll be able to put up much of a defence — the verdict has been decided by the White House, the media and the Western-trained judges ages ago.

CNN did its duty as the State Department’s sister channel running wall to wall coverage of the trial — which rather suspiciously was on a half hour transmission delay — reminding its viewers time and again, “This is why we went to war” as well as getting alleged vox populi from the Baghdad streets saying how it was great to see the evil dictator stand trial. Yet the $75 million being spent on this trial might well have been better spent elsewhere in a nation that since Saddam was deposed lacks security, electricity, water and jobs.

Saddam’s fate was sealed 14 years ago, when he went into Kuwait. He needed only to have looked at other US dodgy allies turned overstaying guests — Panama’s Noriega and Serbia’s Milosevic.

The five “secret” Iraqi judges — Shi’ites and Kurds, no Sunnis — are paid by the Americans, live inside the Green Zone and are protected by the Americans from being kidnapped or killed. There’s no jury.

The judges have received special training from US, British and Australian legal experts and have even staged a mock trial in London.

Human Rights Watch has warned on the record that the trial may be “violating international standards for fair trials”.

And then there is the very brief scope of the crimes under investigation. The initial charges against Saddam will focus on the killing of 143 Shi’ites in the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, in 1982, after an assassination attempt against him. In the same year, the US, it should be recalled, removed Iraq from the list of states sponsoring terrorism. And within two years of the massacre the US restored diplomatic relations with Iraq.

The prosecution had two years to review the case, the defence has been given only two weeks and will argue that the 143 people who were executed had been found guilty under Iraq’s laws and Saddam’s only role was to sign their death warrants — just as George W Bush, as governor of Texas, sent 152 people to death.

The West wants a speedy closure on Saddam’s past — to whitewash history of the West’s double play, its contribution to the deaths of thousands of Iraqis, Kurds and Iranians.

“The reason given for the second invasion of Iraq was that Saddam had in his possession Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and this charge later turned out to be false. And the show trial appears to be the fig leaf with which the US-led allies are trying to cover their nudity,” notes one Indian commentator. 

Saddam used chemical weapons on both Iraqis and Iranians. The US and its allies could have nipped those attacks in the bud. Sadly, their hypocrisy wouldn’t allow them to do so. The US was the only country that voted against a UN Security Council statement in 1986 condemning the mustard gas attacks by Iraq on the Iranian forces. The US also allowed its companies to export chemicals to Iraq, which used them on humans. All chemical attacks by Saddam on the Kurds under the Anfal campaign, which left over 150,000 Kurds dead, over 1,000 Kurdish villages destroyed and about 300,000 Kurds displaced had the blessings of the West. The crop spraying helicopters used in these attacks came from the US. These massacres had no impact on the trade that Iraq had with the West. Instead, it increased. Today, we hear the West condemning those crimes against the Kurds. The United States had during the Iran-Iraq war, provided Saddam with samples of all the strains of germs used for making biological weapons, something you won’t hear during the countless hours of CNN coverage on the trial now postponed until November 28.

Marc Henzelin, professor of international law at Geneva University told Swiss Sonntags Zeitung newspaper why he declined to defend Saddam Hussein, despite being asked to by Saddam’s daughter. 

Asked if Saddam’s trial was similar to the Nuremberg tribunals after the Second World War, he said, “In both cases it is the victors holding court over the losers. But the difference is that the trials of Nuremberg had a historic goal. They wanted to get as close as possible to the truth about the Nazi crimes.” But in this case, “It is the exact opposite. The trial focuses on a small part of the criminal record of the Iraqi regime, and the Iraqi population feels highly emotional about it.”

 ”I think it is all about justifying the United States’ invasion of Iraq and to string Saddam Hussein up sooner rather than later without asking too many questions.”

The special tribunals set up are against international law. According to the Geneva and the Hague Conventions [on international law for humanitarian concern and the protection of cultural property in armed conflicts] this court is clearly illegal. Occupying powers have no right to change the legal system of a country. This is precisely what the US has done.

“What’s more, the judges were not elected but appointed by the occupying powers. They flew in a nephew of Mr Chalabi [Salem Chalabi’s uncle Ahmed led the foremost Iraqi opposition movement, the US-backed Iraqi National Congress]. He was a lawyer in London specialising in commercial law. Later he was appointed president of the Iraqi special tribunal.” (Ahmed Chalabi is a convicted embezzler in Jordan.)

“Compared to this at the Nuremberg trial the four victorious powers at least assigned their best judges to the task,” said Henzelin. Will Saddam succumb to the cyanide pills like Goering? Or will they be forced down his throat?

 

 

RAF man zeroes in on illegitimate target

It is exceedingly rare for the little red email to heap praise on someone involved in the military. The existence of such folk generally is one where individualism is knocked out of them on the parade ground, and the power of the collective installed so as to take orders blindly. Yet, we have found a hero whose cause could completely destroy any remaining legitimacy for war in Iraq. Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, a doctor of Aussie/NZ descent with the Royal Air Force, twice decorated for tours to Afghanistan and Iraq, is to be court-martialled for refusing to return to Iraq on the grounds that the US-led invasion of Iraq was illegal. In many ways his court case could prove far more illuminating than the Kangaroo one going on in Baghdad against Saddam and his henchmen. 

On 5 October 2005 Kendall-Smith was charged with refusing to obey orders. He’s the first British officer to face criminal charges for challenging the legality of the war. Both court cases are clearly seeking that most dangerous of results — victors’ justice — something that creates nothing bar long term resentment and further problems down the line — see the 1919 Versailles Treaty and the subsequent rise of the Nazis for further details.

Kendall-Smith’s solicitor, Justin Hugheston-Roberts, told the Sunday Times “He is not arguing that he is a conscientious objector. He is arguing that the war is manifestly unlawful.”

According to a colleague, “He takes the view this is something which is worth going to prison for.”

Kendall-Smith’s lawyer believes the court case could be wildly significant: “It is possibly one of the most important cases that have come before the courts in a lifetime. This has an enormous potential for a very profound effect on international law. We could here be looking at rulings that could affect so many people, so many countries.”

To establish the illegality of the war against Iraq, will the Flight-Lieutenant’s lawyers be able to call as witnesses the people who took the decision to go to war?

Will the Attorney-General be called as a witness to explain his somewhat confusing and contradictory statements on the legality, or otherwise, of the UK’s involvement?

Will Kofi Annan be called to re-affirm his statement that the war was illegal, because it was waged without the prior consent of the UN? Will George W Bush, Colin Powell or Donald Rumsfeld be called as witnesses to justify America’s decision to invade, knowing what we definitely know now about imaginary WMDs? Probably not but given the right media channels the illegality of this war can be shown unflinchingly. 

Retired law lord, Lord Steyn, who stepped down last month from Britain’s highest court, said the war was unlawful, and that the government had been “driven to scrape the bottom of the legal barrel” to find a justification for it.

The former judge, who has just taken over as chairman of the human rights group Justice, said Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the UK or the US before the war. There were then no links between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaeda, he added.

The court martial comes at a time when the British Army faces its sternest recruitment test ever, tainted by its association with the war in Iraq.

“We are beginning to see the warning signs,” one officer who asked not to be named told the Guardian. “Once you start tipping off over the cliff, it is difficult to stop.”

The shortfall in the total number of soldiers has risen by more than 300% this year to more than 2,000, according to the latest Ministry of Defence figures.

Brigadier Andrew Jackson, commander of the Army Recruiting Group, told the Guardian: “We cannot pretend Iraq isn’t a factor. It is reasonable to assume that the officer community might have thought more deeply about the wider implications of the army’s role in Iraq.”

The Brits have not covered themselves in glory in their time around Basra and have clearly had their own Abu Ghraib moments yet these are being covered up better than their American counterparts. 10 days ago, Captain Ken Masters, a military police officer investigating serious allegations involving British soldiers, was found dead — allegedly having hanged himself — something that was mentioned only in passing by the mainstream media yet another event a la Dr Kelly which clearly has more murky truth than has been reported.  Masters was involved in investigating why the SAS were caught trying to pull off a bombing spree in Basra. What are the odds the SAS took matters into their own hands to protect their own?

 

 

The beef with beef

How do you like your beef — bloody or bloody as hell? The incredible rise in Brazilian beef exports, fuelled by you and I not checking the label to see where the meat comes from, is leading to the death of mankind, and in the process enslaving thousands and the murdering hundreds of innocent people.

Suppliers source foodstuffs from the cheapest destination — when it comes to cow meat Brazil wins on every count though at huge cost to the environment, not just on food miles clocked up. Indeed, barring cannibalism there can be no more unethical food on Earth. In the first half of this year beef imports from Brazil to the UK rose by 70%, to 34,000 tonnes. A fortnight ago an outbreak of mad cow disease was confirmed in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul — a hardly surprising event given that for the right price any health and safety document can be bought in Brazil. The last foot and mouth episode in the UK, in April 2001, can be traced back to Brazil too.

As George Monbiot notes, writing in the Guardian last week, “We shouldn’t be eating beef at all. Because the conversion efficiency of feed to meat is so low in cattle, there is no more wasteful kind of food production.”

Until 1990 Brazil produced only enough beef to feed itself. Since then its cattle herd has grown by some 50 million, and the country has become, according to some estimates, the world’s biggest exporter: it now sells 1.9m tonnes a year.

The past three years have been the most destructive in the Brazilian Amazon’s history. In 2004 26,000 sq km of rainforest were burned: the second- highest rate on record. This year could be worse. And most of it is driven by cattle ranching.

According to the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), cattle pasture accounts for six times more cleared land in the Amazon than crop land: even the notorious soya farmers, who have ploughed some 5m hectares of former rainforest, cover just one-tenth of the ground taken by the beef producers.

The four Amazon states in which the most beef is produced are the four with the highest deforestation rates.

Cattle ranching, if it keeps expanding in the Amazon, threatens two-fifths of the world’s remaining rainforest, something not lost on David Kaimowitz, director general of CIFOR who remarked last year: “In a nutshell, cattle ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil’s Amazon rainforests.”

And for those landowners who dare stand in the way of the cattle ranchers — they are likely to be killed. At least, 1,200 people have perished this way, including an American nun, Dorothy Stang, this February.

As well as killing the ranchers are enslaving. They are now employing some 25,000 slaves on their estates. These are people who are transported thousands of miles from their home states, then forced to buy their provisions from the ranch shop at inflated prices — kept in permanent debt. Because of the expansion of beef production in the Amazon, slavery in Brazil has quintupled in 10 years. Check out this excellent BBC investigation into the practice here.

• For more on the damage soya plantations are causing to the Amazon head back to this little red email from May this year.

 

 

HK humour failure for Bangs II

Part Two: A Brief Account of Hong Kong’s Shortest Lived Colonial Administration

When we left off, our correspondent had just met Kwok Sum Lik, Hong Kong’s Minister of Comedy, who began his astounding story.

…After the laughter from the burst of faux-flatulence had died down, Minister Kwok Sum Lik began to speak:

In the waning days of colonial rule, the British were very concerned with the lack of comedy in the territory. They were baffled, really. We don’t understand it; many in the ruling body would say all of our other colonies developed splendid, though different, senses of humour. And they were right.  Canada had already taken the world by storm with its Second City Television troupe.  Oh that John Candy! Such a fat, funny man! And Australia and New Zealand were both known as mirth-filled places. India had its laughing clubs, and of course, Bollywood…those chaps couldn’t be serious even when they tried! But Hong Kong! I dare say, not only had we never developed even the most basic comedy troupe, but one could ride the metro for weeks without hearing so much as a snicker or chuckle, let alone a guffaw. We were a dour lot.

Though a decade away, the impending handover was still a topic of conversation.  In London, it was assumed that there would be a flood of immigrants from Hong Kong to England. This was terribly worrying, as it was felt that without a proper sense of humour, immigrants from Hong Kong would be unable to assimilate into British society. It was then that the Ministry of Comedy…my ministry…was established.

As the colony’s first Minister of Comedy, I wanted to think big, to implement bold new initiatives! But the people…well, lets just say that they lacked my enthusiasm for the projects. Wacky Tie Tuesdays were a flop. And Silly Hat Saturdays…ai-ya! A complete failure! I knew that stronger medicine was necessary. A new governor had to be chosen, one who would inspire the people of Hong Kong to really let their hair down. 

The unexpected passing of governor Sir Edward Youde in Beijing in 1985 threw London into a tizzy. The crown, its hands tied with weightier matters, was totally unprepared to deal with Sir Edward’s replacement.  I decided that, as Minister of Comedy, I should strike while the iron was hot!  Wasting no time, I telephoned Prime Minister Thatcher, the Iron Lady, herself. “Madame Prime Minister,” I said “This is Kwok Sum Lik, Minister of Comedy for the Crown Territory of Hong Kong. It is with deepest humility and reverence that I suggest that the next Governor appointed be…”

Minister Kwok paused mid-sentence.

“Who, Minister Kwok?’ I asked ‘Who did you nominate?’

“Madame Prime Minister!’ Minister Kwok exclaimed, seemingly emerging from a trance, ‘I suggest that the next governor of the Crown Territory of Hong Kong be… Benny Hill!”

For the first time since entering the office of Hong Kong’s first, only, and very likely its last Minister of Comedy, I laughed.  So hard, in fact, that Wulong tea squirted out of one nostril.

“You… you suggested… to Margaret Thatcher… that Benny Hill be made Governor of Hong Kong? The Benny Hill?”

“I had no choice! You think Hong Kongers are serious now? Well back then they were even worse… drastic measures were called for.”

“Look, Minister Kwok… you’ve convinced me that you’re a funny man. But Benny Hill as governor…” I had another swallow of tea. ‘Come on.”

“You think I’m joking, eh? Pulling your leg? Well here’s the punch line, my friend: London agreed!”

This time tea came out both nostrils. “You can’t expect me to believe this. I mean, I’ve read a bit on the history of Hong Kong, and no mention is made of this Governor Hill.”

Kwok Sum Lik looked downcast.

“Well… his administration… it was short lived.”

“Even so, it would show up in the history books. What do you mean short lived? Like only a few months?”

“More like 43 minutes.”

Minister Kwok took another sip of tea, then told me the story of the disastrous reign of Governor Benny Hill.

“Out of respect for the previous Governor, it was decided that the coronation was to be a low-key affair. No fanfare, no parades, no gala balls. Instead, Mr. Hill was flown to HK in secret, and brought to the Governor’s mansion, where he would be sworn-in before a small audience. I was the one who suggested that, rather than being made up of businesspeople, this audience should be made up of students from local universities. My reasoning was that the younger generation would be better able to accept a governor drawn from a different stratum of British society from which previous governors had come. How wrong I was. How very wrong…”

Minister Kwok again fell silent.

“What went wrong?” I asked, but the minister seemed disoriented.  After a moment, he composed himself and continued his tale.

“Oh, it was such a beautiful day, the day that Benny Hill arrived to assume the governorship. The sun was shining as Mr. Hill emerged from a stretch limousine, followed by his entourage — his half dozen beautiful, buxom women and that little old bald chap who was Mr. Hill’s loyal sidekick for all those years. As they stepped out of the limo, the HK royal orchestra struck up the theme music from his program, and Mr. Hill went immediately into his enchanting old lecher persona, chasing his entourage around the car as the ladies screamed in delight. When the music stopped, they paused, and governor Hill looked ready to bask in applause.  But there was only silence.

“Governor Hill looked perplexed, and approached the podium, where he began making his first — and last — speech to the people of Hong Kong.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Citizens of Hong Kong, it is indeed an honour and privilege…’ But he was cut off.

‘Why do you always go into the women’s W.C. when it is clearly marked Men?’ one unctuous student shouted, and Mister Hill began laughing.

‘Oh, well that’s the gag, innit? I mean, the bald chap is standing in front of the W and the…’

“He was cut off again by an angry female student: ‘Why do you always fondle the same woman’s breasts while melon shopping? Can you not discern between a breast and a melon?’

“The students, apparently, had already seen his television program, and they were not amused.  Governor Hill hadn’t expected a reception like this, and frankly, neither had I. I stepped to the podium and spoke to the students sternly, in Cantonese.

‘As Hong Kong’s Minister of Comedy I insist that you show our new governor proper respect!’ I said.

‘No! shouted a number of students in unison. ‘He is a buffoon! We do not accept his leadership!’

“Not knowing what else to do, Governor Hill went into his heart-warming ‘old tramp’ pantomime. Oh, such a show he put on, prancing about the stage, making silly faces. Yet with each passing moment, the mood of the crowd grew angrier.  Mr. Hill’s long-time foil, the delightful old bald gentleman whispered in my ear: ‘Oi. Well at least they’re not shoutin’ anymore guv, that’s somethin’ innit?’

“I was about to reply ‘I believe the Governor is merely fuelling their silent rage’ when all bloody hell broke loose. The crowd surged towards the podium, throwing bottles and shouting Kill the buffoon who mocks Hong Kong!  One bottle struck Governor hill’s skull with a resounding thunk. The police could barely keep the crowd from tearing him apart as they hustled him and his entourage back into the limousine and whisked him to the heliport.   I was left behind to explain to the crowd that a terrible mistake had been made, and that Mister Hill’s performance had actually been part of a marketing exercise, which seemed to calm them slightly. That evening, the very dry Lord Wilson of Tillyorn was flown in to assume the mantle of Hong Kong governor, and peace was restored.  I was moved to this office, and have stayed here ever since…” Minister Kwok’s voice trailed off.

“I’ll… just let myself out,” I said, getting up from the couch.

“Wait… before you go… won’t you please take a handful of peanuts?”

Minister Kwok handed me the joke can, and out of pity for a man whose dream of bringing humour to Hong Kong had failed so miserably, I opened it, getting a face full of cloth covered spring loaded snakes. Minister Kwok began laughing.

“That one never gets old!” he said.

“No Minister,” I replied as I walked towards the door. “It never does.”

 

 

Is your printer working for the man?

Tech firms are joining the dots with government spooks to track everything you print — yet another invasion of privacy on the sly. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has cracked the code that printer manufacturers slap on documents coming out of your machine which the likes of the FBI can use to track what you are reading.

Last year, an article in PC World magazine pointed out that printouts from many colour laser printers contained yellow dots scattered across the page, viewable only with a special kind of light. The article quoted a senior researcher at Xerox Corp as saying the dots contain information useful to law-enforcement authorities, a secret digital “license tag” for tracking down criminals.

The content of the coded information was supposed to be a secret, available only to agencies looking for counterfeiters who use colour printers.

Now, the secret is out thanks to the EFF, whose aim is to defend freedom in the digital age. Printer manufacturers and the government both claim the device is there to foil counterfeiters but we don’t believe that for a minute.

“The ACLU recently issued a report revealing that the FBI has amassed more than 1,100 pages of documents on the organization since 2001, as well as documents concerning other non-violent groups, including Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice,” the EFF writes. “In the current political climate, it’s not hard to imagine the government using the ability to determine who may have printed what document for purposes other than identifying counterfeiters.”

• Learn how to decode those miniscule yellow dots on your printout here.

• You can decode your own Xerox DocuColor prints using EFF’s automated program.

• They’re tracking you if you have one of these listed printers.

 

 

Stuff we like

A hotchpotch of stuff we’ve found and enjoyed recently on the Weird Wide Web.

Get your lovely T-shirts while they’re hot!
Everybody loves a winner. Nobody likes a loser. Nobody likes to be a loser. So with this in mind, Canned Revolution have set it up so that you can now buy your own Canned Revolution T-Shirt, and pretend that you won it in our competition. We’ll back up any claims to being a lucky winner by anyone who purchases a freshly tinned t-shirt to help the cause.

Owning your own Canned Revolution shirt could be a great way of life for you — imagine the friends, the opportunities, the fame, the copious offers of gratuitous sex.

Don’t delay! Buy your way into coolness today by clicking here.

 

Yahoo mail Vs the little red email: the red’s revenge
Our Yahoo! readers should be shocked and astounded at being able to see all of the little red email again, and our Excite readers will thrill at the idea of being able to use their buttons again. Yes, our time off hasn’t been idle: we have redesigned the innards of the little red email to be more compatible with all that a web browser client may throw at it. Of course, this will probably mean someone else can’t see it now, but such is the internet. Anyone having trouble seeing the little red should drop us a line at info@cannedrevolution.com, stating the problem and what email client you use.

 

Pilger savages a complacent media
One of the few dissenting voices in the cattle-like mainstream media, John Pilger pulls no punches in this scathing take on the media, a dire warning on the dangers of journalism that bows to pressure from governments.

 

Red Cross or Double Cross?
A Bait-and-Switch Charity? Counterpunch looks at the scandalous history of the American Red Cross: “the whole history of the organization is one gigantic scandal--stretching from its racist policies toward African Americans to its corporate mentality toward human beings.”

 

2000 US deaths and still no pullout
Patrick Cockburn looks at the 2,000 mark in US casualties and how Iraqi support for the resistance is much more widespread than Fox, CNN et al would have us believe.

 

Desecrating bodies in Afghanistan
An Australian Dateline reporter and a photo journalist captured US troops desecrating bodies in Afghanistan as part of a Psy-Ops thing to taunt the Taliban, so that they will attack them. The tactic seems to be working, as this Observer piece notes “a week of bloodshed that has rocked the country.”

 

The onslaught
Half of all children aged four don’t know their own name — but two thirds of three-year-olds can recognise the McDonald’s golden arches.
Today’s average British child is familiar with up to 400 brand names by the time they reach the age of 10.
Researchers report that our children are more likely to recognise Ronald McDonald and the Nike swoosh than Jesus.
Meanwhile, childhood obesity has tripled in the past 25 years. Nearly one in six British kids is overweight; 6% are obese. For the first time, children are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a disease previously thought to be confined to the over-40s.
Read the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland’s excellent research into the harmful effects of children’s advertising here and to find out why McDonald’s fries taste so good click here.

 

Hugs for Hugo
Show your support to ensure venezuela’s sovereignty, sign up today.

 

In the land of the free…
The burning of candles in commemoration of US soldiers outside the White House is apparently illegal. And once again US policies makes stuff feel lucky to live under the yoke oppressive communism.

 

The Real Thing: Coca and rebellion in Bolivia
This documentary explores the US directed “War on Drugs” and the impact it has had on the people of Bolivia, specifically on the indigenous coca farmers of el Chapare.
The coca leaf is indigenous to Bolivia and a sacred leaf revered and used by the majority of Bolivians. It is also the source ingredient for cocaine and the target of billions of dollars worth of militarized coca eradication, alternative development and narcotic interdiction efforts.
The drug war might be old news but its legacy has produced one of the most significant social movements to emerge in the last five hundred years. The indigenous coca farmers of el Chapare, building on a 500 year tradition of resistance to imperial powers, have resisted the eradication of the coca leaf, and the attack on their way of life by organizing themselves into a political party, the Movement Towards Socialism, the MAS, which in the 2002 elections won 27 deputies and 8 senators. The leader of the MAS, Evo Morales, almost won the presidency.

 

Salad Fingers
It’s been a while since the little red dared to go to www.fat-pie.com. But we had heard that Salad Fingers had a new episode out. He does. We watched. The psychiatrist bills are going to be astronomical.

 

No logo
“For two weeks, the signs for shops and businesses on Vienna’s Neubaugasse have been draped in rapeseed yellow by artists Austrian Christoph Steinbrener und Rainer Dempf”. Thus reads the caption to this shot in a Spiegel photo essay on the artists’ work to remove corporate logos.

That’s right! You too can get one of our t-shirts. Simply brush up your Photoshop skills and send your corporate subversion images to adbusting@cannedrevolution.com, such as the one above to stand a chance of being selected the weekly winner of our brand new little red adbuster of the week competition. The winner will be chosen by the revolutionary collective here on our own Fantasy Island. Alternatively, for those who don’t fancy your chances of winning but are still budding anti-establishment artists and hanker for one of our shirts, you still have hope. Simply send us five of your designs in five consecutive weeks and, so long as the images, are yours (and we have ways of checking!), a t-shirt will be winging its way to you.
Adbusting — the choice of a new generation. For more on adbusting, click here.

 

The Meteor-illogical Office report
This week’s missive to the there’s-no-global-warming- honest,-no,-really,-we-might-be-funded-by-big-energy,-but-trust-us brigade comes from the Independent who toured much of Alaska and saw a great wilderness imperilled.

 

The Little Red Email Osama bin Laden Sweepstakes Shirt Contest!
Don’t forget: if you fancy a free Canned Revolution t-shirt, you can win one by simply guessing the date of Osama’s media debut as a US prisoner. Send your expected date of bin Laden’s first television appearance as an American prisoner to osamasweepstakes@cannedrevolution.com.