Weird. A local Orlando, Florida, newspaper writes about troops being deployed for “federal active duty” in Washington DC like they are heading into the IED-laced streets of Iraq :
The troops will be deployed for a year.
“It’s going to be all right It’s OK if he helps people and everything, and it’s his job. He’s got to do it. He just got to do it,” Jessica Ward said, whose father is being deployed.
Jessica speaks for many when she talks about her father’s deployment.
Michael Ward and company are leaving for a year, and that weighs heavy on families.
They are ordered by the president to the nation’s capital, where they will operate high-tech weapons systems against any potential air threat.
Yolanda McCormack is relieved husband Charles isn’t headed to Iraq, but there is always a risk.
Speaking at her 100th birthday party Winnie said: “I have smoked ever since infants school and I have never thought about quitting.”
Infants school? Yes, infants school. Winnie started smoking at seven years old.
Why?
“It was the done thing”.
But Winnie has a secret to her long life of smoking. She only puts away five a day and never inhales.
Six Years Later, And Important Questions About 9/11 Remain Unanswered
Former NIST Science Chief Encourages Fire Investigators To Become 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists, “But In A Proper Way”
Unlike most other journalists, Robert Fisk manages to get beyond the ‘ravers’, as he calls them in an interesting piece on 9/11 ‘truth’ published today. He also quickly dismisses the standard argument blunter about a 9/11 conspiracy - BushCo. can’t run a war, how could they have pulled off 9/11? - so as to get to the real red meat of the debate.
That meat being questions relating to the core mysteries of the collapse of three New York City skyscrapers on 9/11 that so very few journalists are even interested in daring to raise.
Why is that?
What are they afraid of? The reaction from NeoCons? From their own governments? From the public? From their colleagues? From the ranting ranks of propaganda-spouting right-wing blogs that believe everything President Bush tells them?
As one of the rescue workers told me in New York City, a few weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, “this (will be) one of the biggest stories of the century, and the media won’t even bother reporting it.”
The rescue worker was referring to numerous eyewitness reports, some from his friends and colleagues, about explosions coming from inside the Twin Towers before they fell, and a number cars and trucks around the base of the towers that some claimed had ‘blown up’ before the buildings came down.
He was right. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Sydney Morning Herald, the International Herald Tribune, CNN, the London Times, the BBC, have all refused point blank to launch even the most basic of investigations into the eyewitness reports of unexplained explosions and vehicle detonations, let alone the raft of other unanswered questions about what happened on 9/11.
Curiously, many of these media outlets reported the mysterious explosions around the base of WTC 1 and 2 on September 11 & 12, and then never mentioned them again, not even to correct earlier reports.
Journalists are supposed to question what governments propose to be the truth. It is their job to challenge the propaganda and myth-making of spin doctors and government-approved investigations. They are supposed to hold our governments and authorities to account.
Six years on, and many of the questions Robert Fisk raises in his column remain mostly unanswered. At least, the answers provided by a handful of investigations, some less credible than others, have not achieved a scientific consensus, or even broad peer reviewed agreement.
Why aren’t more journalists prepared to investigate these questions, and the gaping inconsistencies of the 9/11 Commission Report, and the endlessly cited, allegedly thorough debunking of 9/11 conspiracies by Popular Mechanics?
As Fisk notes in this story, six years on and there is still no peer-reviewed scientific explanation for why the WTC 7 building collapsed on the afternoon of 9/11.
You don’t have to believe that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were controlling the planes of 9/11 via remote control, or some other such absurd conspiracy theory, to have doubts about the official story of what happened that morning, when 2300 Americans and international workers lost their lives in the worst non-state terrorist attack in history.
I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7.
…what about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose “Islamic” advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comrades-in-murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the “Fajr” prayer to be included in Atta’s letter.
…like everyone else, I would like to know the full story of 9/11, not least because it was the trigger for the whole lunatic, meretricious “war on terror” which has led us to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and in much of the Middle East. Bush’s happily departed adviser Karl Rove once said that “we’re an empire now – we create our own reality”. True?
The questions about Atta’s prayer are new, at least we haven’t seen them raised before. You may remember that the 9/11 hijackers left their parked cars stuffed full of Korans and prayer sheets and other paraphernalia that could leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that those who hijacked the planes that morning were Al Qaeda-inspired, suicide-minded Islamists.
That full “our own reality” quote Fisk mentions, supposedly muttered by Karl Rove to journalist Ron Suskind follows (Suskind is doing the quoting) :
“The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ …”That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality.”
We liked the reality-warping of that mindset so much, we used it to come up with a name for this blog.
Nothing sums up the Bush administration, their version of the Iraq War, or the so-called ‘official story’ of what happened on 9/11 more than that line : “we create our own reality.”
On the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) investigation mentioned by Fisk, and referred to heavily in the supposedly credible Popular Mechanics investigation into 9/11 conspiracies, the former Chief of the Fire Science Division of NIST, Dr James Quintiere is unhappy with conclusions reached in the NIST investigations about what caused the collapsed of three skyscrapers on 9/11, and now wants the NIST reports to be peer reviewed.
Dr Quintiere voiced his concerns during a speech at the 2007 World Fire Safety Conference.
“I would really like to see someone else take a look at what they’ve done; both structurally and from a fire point of view.”
“I think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable,” explained Dr. Quintiere. “Let’s look at real alternatives that might have been the cause of the collapse of the World Trade Towers and how that relates to the official cause and what’s the significance of one cause versus another.”
Dr Quintiere said he had trouble getting clear answers to his own questions from the NIST panel of investigators, and remains unhappy with the conclusions reached, and the six year delay in their finalisation of a report on what caused the collapse of WTC 7.
Debunkers of even the most basic questions, or supposed conspiracy theories, of 9/11 love to claim that only nutters, ravers and people with no scientific credibility believe anything but the ‘official story.
But now even the former chief of the Fire Science Division of the NIST is raising serious questions about the numerous, very valid points of contention regarding the scientific causes of the WTC collapses that remain mostly unanswered. Six years later.
There is about as much of an international consensus amongst scientists and experts on why three of the WTC towers collapsed from fire damage on 9/11 as there is a scientific consensus on the causes of global warming and climate change.
What an interesting day so far. There is a lot of news on the floods in the mid-West, Michael Vick’s admission of holding dogfighting at his property (though he won’t admit he gambled on the outcome or gruesomely killed dogs that lost), the 82 minutes that Nicole Ritchie spent in jail (real punishment there), and the minor charges placed against Lindsey Lohan (6 felony drug charges were dropped – you can bet neither you or I would get off that easy in the same position). A lot of news indeed, yet a rather large miscarriage of justice has gone unspoken.
Have you heard anything about James Ford Seale? No idea who he is? No idea what I’m alluding to? Perhaps you heard about a murder of 2 Black teenagers in Mississippi in 1964. The case went ‘unsolved’ for over 40 years, and I say ‘unsolved’ because local authorities knew exactly who did it as I understand.
Today, 43 years later, Seale has been convicted and sentenced to 3 life prison terms. Big deal. Wait for it. I say big deal because Seale is 72 years old, has cancer, bone spurs and other health issues. Basically this killer is about to kick the bucket and take his place in Hell next to Hitler and other self-glorified murdering scum, in my opinion. The few years or months that Seale will spend in prison will hardly impact him harshly enough to begin to account for what he did.
Seale kidnapped 2 men, in the prime of their lives, and drowned them in the Mississippi River. Because they were Black and wanted to be treated with the respect the Constitution and life provides. Such a crime and its motivation turns my stomach.
Even worse is the fact Seale will be receiving treatment for his ailments, and imprisoned, on my tax dollars. Were it up to me, Seale would receive a quick and public hanging. Nothing more, Seale would be lucky to get bread and water until that time.
James Seale has lived for 43 years, working, laughing, playing with every freedom we all hold dear without a thought for the lives he took. Seale earned a living, dated (I assume though I would hope that any woman would reject a person I can only think of as refuse), basically lived and now, at the end of his life he is expected to reflect on what he did. Had he been convicted and still in jail 40 years later, I would say he could reflect, but not now.
To say this is a miscarriage of justice is to say that Lindsey Lohan has a problem. It’s obvious and leaves a taste of bile in the mouth.
But, I have yet to see a single news brief on Fox News or CNN. Since 10 am, nothing has been said. There hasn’t been a whisper. Somehow I cannot see the justification that says this is not news. I think the 5 minutes used to discuss whether or not Camilla (the wife of Prince Charles) will show up at some event for Princess Diana, could have been used to discuss this case. This is far more relevant to most Americans. It makes a statement about where we were and where we may go. It highlights how screwed up the legal (not justice) system was, and continues to be. It shows how far irrational and illogical hate can go. It reminds us that as a nation we must always be aware that fear and fanatical beliefs are not just the property of terrorists and lunatics halfway around the world.
After 43 years of shadows, lies and looks the other way a semblance of justice has been enacted. This is not something that we as a nation need to avert our eyes from, but look towards. Like slavery (and reparations) we must address the fact that horrible crimes against humanity and these 2 men, Charles Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, went unaddressed for decades with no reason better than law officers, the public, and the government in general did not want to think about it. How much further have we really come when justice finally is enacted and the major news media are too timid to shine a light on the dark corner of the recent past that is this nation’s history.
5 minutes. About as long as it takes to read this post. Yet even that is too much to honor the 2 lives lost one night 43 years ago. Perhaps the news isn’t that James Seale will die in prison, finally, but that the cowardice that allowed him to commit these crimes and remain free still pervades this nation.
Protesters are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations at the North American leaders’ summit in Montebello, Que.
Such accusations have been made before after similar demonstrations but this time the alleged “agents provocateurs” have been caught on camera.
A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand.
The three are confronted by protest organizer Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Coles makes it clear the masked men are not welcome among his group of protesters, whom he describes as mainly grandparents. He urges them to leave and find their own protest location.
Coles also demands that they put down their rocks. Other protesters begin to chime in that the three are really police agents. Several try to snatch the bandanas from their faces.
Rather than leave, the three actually start edging closer to the police line, where they appear to engage in discussions. They eventually push their way past an officer, whereupon other police shove them to the ground and handcuff them.
Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot.
Kevin Skerrett, a protester with the group Nowar-Paix, said the photos and video together present powerful evidence that the men were actually undercover police officers.
“I think the circumstantial evidence is very powerful,” he said.
The three do not appear to have been arrested or charged with any offence.
Police confirm that only four protesters were arrested during the summit – two men and two women. All have been charged with obstruction and resisting arrest.
Veteran protester Jaggi Singh, who is helping to circulate the video as widely as possible, said all four of those arrested are known to organizers and are genuine protesters.
“But we see very clearly in that video three (other) men being arrested . . . How do (police) account for these three people being taken in, being arrested? Where did they go?” Singh said.
“I have no hesitation in saying they were police agents . . . and they were caught red-handed.”
Singh, a member of the Montreal-based No One is Illegal, believes the agents were meant to provoke a confrontation and give the police an excuse to use some of their “toys,” such as tear gas and rubber bullets.
“To a certain extent it’s self-fulfilling logic. You provide police with this kind of equipment and they end up using it and one way to justify it is to plant some people that toss a rock or two.”
Neither the RCMP nor the Surete du Quebec would comment on the video or even discuss generally whether they ever use the tactic of employing agents provocateurs.
“I cannot answer your question because I don’t have the information,” said Const. Kane Kramer, a spokesman for the RCMP at the summit.
Of course not. Why would a cop even think of admitting to such a thing?
He wouldn’t.
You can understand that police would want to place undercover officers in large crowds of protesters, particularly when they fear there might be outbreaks of violence or looting.
But sticking undercovers into a crowd with the intention of causing a riot, or giving riot squads a reason to wade into the crowd with pepper spray, or batons or worse?
That’s beyond disgusting.
But when you look around YouTube, at rallies and marches that turn violent, all over the world, again and again you see the hooded people, the ski-masked ‘protesters’, kicking in shop windows, throwing chairs and rocks, provoking police and ripping down barricades.
Are all of them undercover cops as well?
Probably not.
But it certainly makes you wonder how many of them are there because they’re paid to be there, and they’re paid to cause trouble, or spark violence.
Republican “Rally Squads” Used To Shout Down And ‘Corral’ Protesters, And Squash Dissenters
A strategy manual put together by the White House reveals a detailed set of guidelines on how to marginalise, discredit and isolate Americans exercising their democratic rights to dissent against President Bush, during his public appearances and fund-raising rallies.
The same White House manual also details how local organizers of Bush’s public appearances should carefully screen each and every ticket holder, so not one person opposed to the president’s policies, on anything, gets within eyesight of the president.
That the White House would formulate such strategies, to essentially keep anti-Bush protesters out of his eyesight and away from the media, during his public appearances, should come as no surprise to the 70% of Americans who are now opposed to their own president, and the millions who want to make him aware of their displeasure.
But what is surprising, and downright disgusting, about the revelations from the White House manual, is that it also explains how local pro-Bush organisers can create fake support for the president, and organize rally squads to round up, “drown out”, any and all protesters.
In short, Bush’s own White House has a systematic, and years old, program to create a fake reality : that is shows of support for President Bush, through crowds of chanters, sign wavers and cheerers, where little or none genuine non-Republican lackey support actually exists, and to keep away Americans wanting to express real, passionate opinions to their elected leader.
How often does the White House help state Republican and conservative groups to organise shows of support for the president where little local support actually exists?
How many of those “USA! USA! USA!” crowds that show up at anti-war protests, waving American flags and demanding that protesters shut the fuck up and support the troops are nothing more than hired actors, or ring-ins?
How long has the mainstream media been aware that the White House creates fake public shows and rallies of support for the president, and his War On Iraq policies, and why do they so often fill stories with images of supposedly patriotic Americans who may be nothing more than fakes?
This article from the Washington Post also reveals White House strategies on carefully screening audience members at Bush public appearances to make sure absolutely no protesters, or even silent dissenters, get within a mile of the president :
…any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by “rally squads” stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out.
….the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police “to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route.”
The manual demonstrates “that the White House has a policy of excluding and/or attempting to squelch dissenting viewpoints from presidential events,” said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Miller. “Individuals should have the right to express their opinion to the president, even if it’s not a favorable one.”
The manual offers advance staffers and volunteers who help set up presidential events guidelines for assembling crowds. Those invited into a VIP section on or near the stage, for instance, must be ” extremely supportive of the Administration,” it says. While the Secret Service screens audiences only for possible threats, the manual says, volunteers should examine people before they reach security checkpoints and look out for signs. Make sure to look for “folded cloth signs,” it advises.
To counter any demonstrators who do get in, advance teams are told to create “rally squads” of volunteers with large hand-held signs, placards or banners with “favorable messages.” Squads should be placed in strategic locations and “at least one squad should be ‘roaming’ throughout the perimeter of the event to look for potential problems,” the manual says.
“These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators,” it says. “The rally squad’s task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site.”
“If it is determined that the media will not see or hear (protesters) and that they pose no potential disruption to the event, they can be ignored. On the other hand, if the group is carrying signs, trying to shout down the President, or has the potential to cause some greater disruption to the event, action needs to be taken immediately to minimize the demonstrator’s effect.”
The manual adds in bold type: “Remember — avoid physical contact with demonstrators! Most often, the demonstrators want a physical confrontation. Do not fall into their trap!”
Some trap.
Could Bush’s public appearances be any more stage-managed? Crowds screened for dissenters, fake rallies of support, “shout down” roaming squads of anti-dissenters on the hunt for fellow Americans angry at the Iraq War, and police corrals for protesters.
The White House, and Republicans, spend an awful amount of time and money creating a fake reality for President Bush.
No wonder he believes that many Americans still support his policies. If he looks around at huge crowds at public events and fundraisers and sees nothing but cheering support, then it would have been very easy for the likes of Karl Rove to convince him that public dissent was of no great consequence and merely the opinions of a rare few, instead of the reality that is the hundreds of millions of Americans (70%) now vastly opposed to his administration.
In 1961, Harper Lee published her first and only novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. Since then, she has started and abandoned a number of books, picked up a Nobel Prize, given a few private speeches, wrote a letter to Oprah Winfrey’s magazine, O, on why she prefers books to the internet, and generally kept a low profile. In the 45 years since To Kill A Mockingbird was published, it has sold an astounding 30 million copies.
Harper Lee has been invited to literally thousands of book festivals and ceremonial gatherings, but she has never given a public speech at any such event.
But finally Harper Lee has broken her silence.
On Monday, Lee appeared at a ceremony to honour great Alabamians (she still lives in Monroeville, Alabama) and was invited to address the crowd.
Leave it to Mr. Stephen Colbert to bring attention to a serious issue by promoting himself. As many readers have noted, I am a fan of the Colbert Report (the T in Colbert is silent). It is a satirical spin on political news that is refreshing and often more informative than regular news reports.
One of the more recent items has been the injury to Mr. Colbert’s wrist. This has lead to his promotion of the WristStrong bracelet. Similar to the various ribbon campaigns, his red wrist band,
“made of the best plastic, red.â€
Is a promotion of the wrist injuries in the nation. In a further step of shameless self-promotion, Mr. Colbert has made his wriststrong bracelet available for sale on his website (www.colbertnation.com).
But the reason I’m mentioning it is the serious part of this. For every band bought, the entire proceeds are going to the Yellow Ribbon Fund. That is for real and an issue that needs more attention.
…assist our injured service members and their families while they recuperate at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center.
While this only affects 2 military medical centers, serving some 940 of the roughly 24,000 injured American Armed Services members that have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is something. I am always happy to support any cause and organization that betters the lives of those that VOLUNTEERED to server this nation.
My reasons have been mentioned several times in this blog and at Vass, but I will say it again. My father, my sister, and I have all volunteered for military service. My father was a former Marine, who fought in Viet Nam. He suffered from Agent Orange, Post Traumatic Distress, and various wounds in the war. He returned from the war to protests, insults, and a VA medical treatment that I feel was piss poor at best. I would never wish this experience on anyone who has made the commitment to sacrifice everything for this nation and our freedom to do things like write this blog from the comfort of my office.
The Yellow Ribbon Fund may not be the largest organization, it may not reach every injured serviceman, but it is helping to improve the condition and lives of those that have served this nation and their families. I don’t need a better reason than that.
If you do, the WristStong bracelets are merely $5.
Hundreds of naked people posed on a melting glacier in Switzerland, to highlight the fact that it’s melting, and that other glaciers are melting, some of them faster than historical records would dictate to be a natural, or seasonal, occurrence. They’re melting faster because of global warming claim the hundreds of naked people.
That Swiss glacier they’re posing on has melted just that little bit more thanks to the body heat of the hundreds of naked people who lay down on the ice and snow for a series of photographs as part of their protest.
Switzerland has 1800 glaciers, and most of them are retreating, or melting. But some locals see an expansion of tourism opportunities in the big melt. The idea is to do boat tours to get tourists right up close to some of the more rapidly melting glaciers. Lakes beneath glaciers in Switzerland are expanding fast. Tours to watch global warming in action, right there before your eyes in the small rivers of fresh water cascading down a glacier, are expected to be very popular with foreigners.
Perhaps a world tour could be organised around this idea. Travel the globe, in boats and jets, and watch the melting glaciers, the growing deserts, the drowning polar bears, the starving penguins, the shriveling grain crops. The more popular the tours are, the more tours will need to be held, with lots more jet and boat trips, thus causing more warming all round.
The success of the Warming World Tours create even more sights to see on the next tours.
The sky is blue, earth is the third planet in the solar system, fire burns, and Don Imus is getting sued. Do you notice that in each and every one of those statements the facts are as obvious as they are true?
Finally what everyone should have expected is starting to happen Don Imus is getting sued for his actions in Aprill which I wrote about several times [Imus, Rutgers basketball, and Rev. Al Sharpton, Don Imus is a symptom]. I’m not amazed nor should anyone else be. I don’t think it needs to be said that Imus was wrong for his comments against the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team. Anyone with a basic brain should understand that (should does not mean everyone does).
So far there is only one player that is suing Imus, Ms. Kim Vaughn, but I don’t expect that she will be the only one to sue him. Shortly I expect to see several of the members of the Women’s basketball team to file similar suits. They will likely be combined into one class action suit. While some may want to defend Imus I have no doubt that Imus will lose on the basis of defamation of character and slander. So the only real question is what they win and how much the major media will defend Imus.
Already we are hearing various pundits step up and say that Imus has been punished too much or was punished too excessively for his comments. Already there is a rally cry going out to lessen the impact that this lawsuit is making. Likely because this lawsuit comes at a time right after Imus has won 20 million dollars in a contract dispute with CBS and his on going negotiations with ABC for a new radio job.
I don’t care that Imus is getting a new job, by that I mean that I stand by my initial calls for him to be fired. He needed to be punished and made an example of for what he said. That was done in part with his being fired. That does not mean that he can never work again. I would not deny anyone the ability to make a living in their career after they have paid a price for that offense. That said Don Imus has not finished paying for his actions. Let’s not forget these were actions that he made with out cause for the mere desire to inflict pain on innocent citizens.
So what would I like to see as the final part of his punishment for his wrong doing? I think that Imus should come out publicly and offer ALL the women of the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team their tuition paid until they have finished their bachelor degrees and half, at least, of their masters degree tuitions and a one thousand dollar per month stipend during that same period.
Now let me tell you why. There is no question that what he said inflicted pain. There is no question that what he said was an insult. There is no question that he has no defense against his own actions. So he’s wrong and therefore liable to these women. The women did not go to Rutgers to be defamed or denigrated. They went to Rutgers not to become basketball stars (I hope not, especially with the salaries of the WNBA), but to become educated successful women in what ever field of endeavor they chose. That should be acknowledged supported and publicly praised. In my view there is no better vindication of their ability, talent, and future than to stand up and provide them a head start in their life choices.
Some might say the team deserves the 20 million dollars that Imus just won. Some might say that Imus is a multi-millionaire and won’t miss the money. They would be right that he is rich, but they would be wrong in presuming that his contractually obligated pay is due these women. The pain and suffering they are currently undergoing will not follow them for the rest of their lives. The embarrassment while severe is not going to prevent them from becoming a successful lawyer or doctor or scientist or President of the United States. It will make life in college during the near term harder to get dates, or study or not be the butt of a joke by a drunken frat kid. So I do believe they deserve monetary reimbursement but not excessive amounts.
In America today money determines almost everything. It determines where you live, what job you get, the friends you can have or do keep and so much more. In this case money in the form of Imus’ job was the reason for an unprovoked attack. It should be money that sends the same message to Imus, CBS, and the media industry across the nation. Impacting the bottom line will stick in the memory of all those individuals far longer than comments from Reverend Al Sharpton, newspaper articles, and a huge number of angry bloggers. Take profits away from the shareholders and changes happen over night. Its one of the great things about the American economy and business environment.
I think that it would be a great slap in the face to Don Imus and his former employers that these women take their money and achieve certificates representing their attainment of prominence in various intellectual fields. CBS told Imus to insult people for a living, create controversy, and be mean. Imus decided to be mean and pushed the envelope many times in his career; finally creating enough of an uproar with this last act. Perhaps the best way to prove this corporation, this man, and those listeners and supporters wrong is the realization of success these women can do. But to just throw money at them and take away one of the motivations why they went to college serves them no good nor their communities nor America as a whole.
There is an Ancient saying:
“You can feed a man a fish and he will eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish he will feed himself for a life time.”
These women should have every opportunity to be taught how to fish and not be given a boat full of fish.
Ok, this is too much. I’ve heard wild stories and the like over my nearly 40 years but this has gone too far.
It started after Michael Vick was arrested for running a dog fighting ring. A big deal and many were quite upset. Some though were upset because they somehow concluded that this was just an attack on a rich African American. While I will submit that Mr. Vick is rich, and Black, neither takes away from the crime he is alleged to have committed. Dogfighting is a vile crime, and ANYONE who is involved should face the legal penalties that are available. As much as some may wish, Mr. Vick is culpable on some level at the least and probably guilty as charged based on the facts known.
But the story does not end there. The latest news is not about his ongoing legal dilemma. It’s not about the fact that sponsor have fled from him like rats on a sinking ship. It isn’t even the debate on whether or not he should play football this season (come on, of course he won’t and should not). No, the latest news is that Mr. Vick has been accused of being an agent of Al Quida.
Yes, court papers have been filed stating that Mr. Vick swore an oath to Al Quaeda, ran the dog fighting ring as a means to generate income and used those proceeds to buy missiles off of eBay to be used against America. This has all come out of a lawsuit seeking $63 billion billion dollars in damages.
I’m not making this stuff up. It’s real. Notice I didn’t say credible or serious. All of this was found in the legal documents filed by Jonathan Lee Riches. Riches is a “guest” of South Carolina penal facilities. He accuses Mr. Vick of violating multiple laws including:
Copyright infringement (what possible copyright does Riches own that Mr. Vick infringed on I really want to know)
Violating the 14th Amendment “which determines national citizenship and equal protection under the law to all persons” (how can Mr. Vick affect Riches 14th Amendment rights?)
Violating the 8th Amendment “cruel and unusual punishment” (I’ve not heard of that being applied to animals before but I’ll almost give him that)
The 6th “speedy and public trials” (when did Mr. Vick become a judge?)
Not to forget the 5th, 4th, 2nd and 1st Amendments as well - I just don’t need to go on do I?
It gets better. Mr. Vick is accused of stealing this convicts pit bulls, and after having them fight, sold them on eBay. The proceeds from these dogs were used to buy the missiles mentioned above from Iran. But Mr. Vick was not done with inmate Riches, the then stole his ID to buy dogfood and supplies under the assumed name. But this has been a long term fued with Mr. Vick as inmate Riches alleges that some of the crimes were from 2001.
Now I have to say the best one is that Mr. Vick is alleged to have used microwave testing on imate Riches. That is just the icing on the cake.
By the way, inmate Riches plead guilty to credit card fraud.[As best as I’ve been able to confirm his identity.]
Mr. Michael Vick has enough real problems to keep him quite busy. This fluff will obviously go nowhere. But perhaps it will give Mr. Vick, and you my readers, a moment of levity in your day. Beware the jailhouse lawyers, they are almost as bad as the real ones.[Had to pick on lawyers, it was just too easy.]
By the time President Bush empties the drawers of the Oval Office desk in late January, 2009, the only senior member of his original White House 2001 team left will be Vice President Dick Cheney. If he’s still alive. Rumours persist in Washington that Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice will be gone by mid-2008, to save what she can of her own reputation and to secure a solid diplomatic post before the Bush White House completely disintegrates, or the president is finally impeached.
Karl Rove, one of Bush’s few close friends, and his most influential adviser and toxic political strategist announced yesterday he was quitting the White House. Like a true coward, Rove has run for sanctuary in Texas, and a big fat book deal, before the full karma debt due to him was paid out.
The vast majority of media coverage today is brutal on Rove, and what he has done to American politics over the past two decades. And for good reason.
The man’s legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa. For this, he got two terms of power - which the GOP used mainly to enrich themselves, their clients and to expand government’s reach and and drain on the productive sector. In the re-election, the president with a relatively strong economy, and a war in progress, managed to eke out 51 percent. Why? Because Rove preferred to divide the country and get his 51 percent, than unite it and get America’s 60. In a time of grave danger and war, Rove picked party over country. Such a choice was and remains despicable.
Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president’s eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul.
Rove claims he is leaving now to “spend more time with my family.” Nobody believes that. His son just started college. Some media already speculates that Rove is fleeing in the face of a big news story about to break.
Perhaps something to do with the release of the transcripts of his five appearances before the Fitzgerald grand jury for his treasonous involvement in revealing the name of a CIA agent fighting to the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Or something far more personal : a tabloidish expose of Rove’s bisexuality.
After a cascade of piffle recently about the evils of the internet, and how it is destroying lives and laying waste to culture and creativity, it’s refreshing to hear an author like William Gibson, who infamously popularised the term ‘cyberspace’ back in the early 1980s, give the greatest invention for the growth and sharing of human knowledge since the printing press some due respect :
(Gibson has) argued that the creation of the internet is a human event comparable to the invention of cities. Even make-believe is, as a result, no longer quite the simple act it used to be.
‘I’m really conscious, when I’m writing now, how Google-able the world is. You can no longer make up what some street in Moscow looks like because all your readers can have a look at it if they want to. That is an odd feeling. It is a genuine way that cyberspace is, to use a word from Spook Country, everting the world. It is turning itself - and us - inside out. It’s where we transact so much of who we are these days.’
‘You could say, in some ways technology and entertainment culture does not look that good from outside. I mean, if you looked at the internet objectively, sometimes you would think it was just a tsunami of filth, something you would not want anywhere near your children.’
It is though, he believes, an intimately human form of culture. ‘I think that one of the things that sets us most thoroughly apart is the ability to preserve our individual memory. The information of the cave paintings becomes Borges’s library, Borges’s library becomes a laptop computer.’ The internet is the shared memory of the species.
I wonder if Gibson, an inveterate blogger, thinks it possible to have human relationships in cyberspace that are as close as in the real world?
‘If they are text-based, I would say yes. I have some friendships conducted almost entirely through email that are very intimate. I think we are getting to the point that a strange kind of relationship would be one where there was no virtual element. We are at that tipping point: how can you be friends with someone who is not online? In a couple of years, we will be no more disturbed by our relationship with virtual worlds than we are by our relationship with broadcast television.’
This story also supplies a solid, and fascinating ‘genesis’ tale of the inspirations that led to Gibson writing his first, and most famous, novel Neuromancer back in 1982 :
One day, waiting for a bus, he saw a poster for the Apple 2c, a relatively small personal computer with a handle on it, like a briefcase. ‘I stood there and remember thinking: Wow, computers can be small.’
It was also about the time of the first video arcades and Gibson would look in and see kids playing. ‘I was always struck by the idea that the kids pushing the buttons wanted more than anything to be on the other side of the screen. The look on their faces suggested that.’
He started to invent a world where subcultures, particularly urban youth subcultures, might meet digital technology in a way that had not happened yet. He evolved the language for this place in part from overhearing conversations at science-fiction readings. He’d go to Seattle and ‘just eavesdrop guys in a bar or whatever, guys who were maybe in working at the early days of Microsoft’.
Once he overheard two women who worked as keypunch operators at an army facility have a brief conversation about viruses on the machinery. ‘I didn’t ask, I just took it home and thought: this sounds good. The idea of computer viruses was generally unknown at that time, but I could see how it might work in Neuromancer.’
Antonioni made us aware of something quite strange and uncomfortable, something that had never been seen in movies. His characters floated through life, from impulse to impulse, and everything was eventually revealed as a pretext: the search was a pretext for being together, and being together was another kind of pretext, something that shaped their lives and gave them a kind of meaning.
…it was his images that I knew, much better than the man himself. Images that continue to haunt me, inspire me. To expand my sense of what it is to be alive in the world.
Bergman’s allegiance was to theatricality, and he was also a great stage director, but his movie work wasn’t just informed by theater; it drew on painting, music, literature and philosophy. His work probed the deepest concerns of humanity, often rendering these celluloid poems profound. Mortality, love, art, the silence of God, the difficulty of human relationships, the agony of religious doubt, failed marriage, the inability for people to communicate with one another.
Like all great film stylists, such as Fellini, Antonioni and Buñuel, for example, Bergman has had his critics. But allowing for occasional lapses all these artists’ movies have resonated deeply with millions all over the world. Indeed, the people who know film best, the ones who make them — directors, writers, actors, cinematographers, editors — hold Berman’s work in perhaps the greatest awe.
I’ve seen only a few of Bergman’s films, but I’ve seen most of Antonioni’s.
Watching Jack Nicholson stumble towards the end of his life, or someone else’s, in a forgotten desert town in Antonioni’s The Passenger is still one of cinema’s greatest couple of hours. It’s not slow, it takes its time to tell its story, and to let you find the story for yourself. In DVD stores crowded with movies that hand-feed you plot and backstory until you feel bloated, The Passenger remains a wondrous journey into the soul of a troubled man, looking for the end.
Nicholson was so proud of his work in The Passenger, and such a fan of Antonioni’s, he brought the rights to the film so he could preserve it, and keep it away from those who wanted to cut it short, or clip its more dangerous moments for vanilla mainstream television audiences. It’s rarely shown on television, and it can still be hard to find a copy of The Passenger, but it’s well worth it. As are nearly all Antonioni’s films.
If you love Woody Allen, then you will probably find plenty to like in Bergman’s films.
But if you love Martin Scorsese, the director of Goodfellas, Taxi Driver and The Departed, you should feel a frantic compulsion to track down each and every Antonioni film you can find, starting with The Passenger, or Zabriske Point, or L’Avventura.
Scorsese has seen more films than you’ve taken deep breaths, but the magic of Antonioni’s cinematic power can be clearly in seen in nearly every Scorsese film, including The Aviator and The Departed.
I find it interesting how much time was spent today on the various news media discussing the local vote to repeal a 40 year old ban on tattoo shops in Key West, Florida. Picking on Fox News, this story was on every hour today from roughly 11 til the writing of this post. Each time the story included a piece by a reporter on the scene, making it a total length of approximately 3 minutes. That may not sound like a lot, but for a 24/7 news channel it is substantial for such a fluff piece. Let just think of what might have been able to fill that time slot today.
There is the news that the Black Family Channel has been forced to leave cable television and will only be found online. Though the channel reached 16 million households, many cable and satellite providers refused to carry the channel. It seems they thought BET, and sometimes TV One as well, was more than enough African American programming. So much for the 500 channels of diversity that HD television was proclaimed to provide.
Looking at the Presidential race, a question posed to Senator Clinton that I would believe could catch anyone’s attention was
Well maybe those 2 stories are too serious. Maybe something less important to the nation. How about being able to have virtual sex on Second Life? For those unfamiliar Second Life is a MMO similar to the popular and famous The Sims.
Actually several of these stories could have each been presented in the time allotted to talking about the tattoo ban. Seriously. There are too many things that deserve more time. I particularly believe the first 2 deserve the national attention, but I have to believe even the bit about 50 cent (I really hate that name) is more of interest to the nation.
21 minutes is barely a lunch break in most lives, but in television it’s a hit prime time show, breaking news, a peace treaty or a war starting. It’s the time a family may gather; it’s where some gather their grasp of the world.
Maybe it’s me, but I’d still love to see Senator Clinton’s face as she tried to answer the above question. (oh, her response didn’t answer the question but rather deflected it to a totally different direction.)
One of the more interesting blogs, Freakonomics, has found a new online home at the New York Times, and set off a comment-packed firestorm with this post musing on what would be the best, most efficient, and the highest-impact ways that terrorists could strike inside the United States.
More than 500 comments followed the question, and there is plenty of interesting, scary, fascinating and aggravating thoughts to be absorbed, if you’ve got the time to soak through them all.
We know you don’t have that sort of time, so we went digging for the gold.
One commenter described how she began thinking like a terrorist on a recent flight. She had visited duty free and walked on board an airliner with a sealed bag, the contents of which were not checked. Inside the bag she had a bottle of booze, a scarf or piece of material and a cigarette lighter. How easy then, she asked herself, would it be for me to create a Molotov cocktail right there on the plane? While she clearly had no intention of doing so, just coming up with this scenario reinforced in her mind how completely vulnerable she was to terrorism at almost every turn in her daily life.
Which is the conclusion most people would reach once they chewed through even half of the 500 comments on the Freakonomics blog.
You can be hit anywhere, anytime, in a hundred different ways. So why live in fear of what may never happen anyway?
Author Tom Clancy, who wrote about terrorists crashing a hijacked airliner into the White House in Debt Of Honour, a pre-9/11 novel, would be impressed by the creativity on show in the comments in response to the Freakonomics question.
Security agencies, meanwhile, are probably shuddering in horror, or quickly scribbling down the scenarios that they had never before considered.
- Releasing bags full of extremely deadly poisons or toxins on a number of crowded underground train systems across the country, on the same day, at the same time. Have gunmen waiting on the stairs of the subway platforms to cut down the screaming, running hordes.
- 20 terrorists load up on shot guns and machine guns and hit 20 different malls, same day, same time, and commence blowing people away.
- Another commenter ups the ante by suggesting the ‘Mass Mall Attack’ scenario could be adopted to schools, or even day care centres, to maximise the horror and terror.
- Deploy a few dozen terrorists to take low-paying, easy-to-get jobs on American farms, and then poison vegetables, cattle, fruit trucks as they leave the farms.
- Dump gallons of cyanide into the 300 mile long channel that carries fresh water into Los Angeles, resulting in, at the minimum, a closure of the channel and millions left without access to clean water.
- Spread terrorists around the country to attack to simultaneously attack rail cars carrying toxic chemicals and gases, blowing them up as they pass through towns and villages. Dittos for chemical trucks.
- Select a certain make or model of a widely sold American car, send terrorists out onto two lane highways (with no road dividers) in cars laden with gasoline. Terrorists would then plunge their fuel bomb car into the chosen cars, presumably killing dozens, but throwing every owner of the targeted car models into panic, and fearful of driving their vehicles.
- Detonate car bombs on all the major bridges and tunnels of New York City, shutting down the roads and causing economic chaos.
- ferment civil unrest via blackouts, water shortages, widespread food poisonings, dambreaks, disinformation campaigns aimed at the stock market.
- Walk through the Californian hills with flares and create dozens, or hundreds, of wildfires.
- Send terrorists into cinemas at the start of the big summer movie season with duffel bags full of explosives. Detonate. People avoid cinemas, Hollywood loses billions.
- Hide explosives inside bottles of cranberry sauce and put them on the shelves of grocery stores the afternoon before Thanksgiving.
- Bomb randomly chosen food courts in mall across America with explosives on ten minute timers. Repeat every day for a week.
- Wait for events like the New York City steam pipeline explosion, or the Minneapolis bridge collapse, and then release videos claiming responsibility while chanting “Allah Akbar”.
- Fly private jets into key dams.
- Set fire to crowded seaside boardwalks at the height of summer’s tourist season.
- Set off smoke bombs at major sporting events, counting on the mass panic to produce trampling deaths and injuries and give people The Fear about attending major sporting events in the future.
They should drive everywhere in SUV’s (one per vehicle and even better with little American flags flapping in the wind to destroy fuel efficiency) and leave doors open when the AC (or heat) is full blast. The CO2 produced will fill the atmosphere and cause the Earth to retain heat to the point that the polar ice caps and most of the major glaciers melt and flood the oceans. The result will have global impact with disastrous effects on the coasts and disrupt the natural ecosystems that provide our food.
Or perhaps this one :
I’d send out millions of IRS audit letters.
This site started collecting ideas from readers about how terrorists might next attack America in late 2004. The mind-boggling list now runs into hundreds of quick summaries. From the economically disruptive :
Terrorists might kill the head of every fortune 500 company when he went out to get his morning paper.
Terrorists might pack a life-like robot panda with explosives, kill other pandas
Despite the fury and outrage provoked by the Freakonomics invitation to get terroristically creative, it’s astounding how many times such lists have been compiled before online by American websites in the years since 9/11. They’re everywhere.
Not surprisingly, the Freakonomics question caused dozens of commenters to vent their outrage at possibly giving terrorists new ideas on how to cause terror in the US, and some demanded the FBI launch investigations on the post.
As we said, holding such a forum is hardly a new idea online, and if someone coming up with an attack scenario online needs to be investigated, then why not investigate Tom Clancy, ten thousand other terror-novel writers and the creators of ‘24′?
But the Freakonomics forum also yielded the below comment, which sums up a lot of the turgid atmosphere you find on American news forums, and in letters to the editor of small town American newspapers. That’s not to say the atmosphere is only online. Americans can sense what is coming, and seem, generally, remarkably well informed on the numerous ways Bush Co. has terrorised its own people by using the threat of terror to expand its control of the nation and its people, while shredding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights :
The reason attacks like this haven’t happened isn’t because the terrorists haven’t thought of them, or because our intelligence agencies have prevented them… it’s because the threat has been been falsely inflated.
Your government wants you to be afraid so it can strip you of your freedoms and control you. The news media wants you to be afraid because it will keep you glued to your TV, boosting ratings with “Breaking News†plastered across the screen every time Homeland Security announces that it has foiled a contrived “terrorist plot.â€
I’m sure there must be some hip-hop and rap fans that are dancing today. The good news for them is that the life story of Mr. Christopher Wallace is moving closer to the silver screen. If the name is not familiar, you may recognize his stage name, Notorious B.I.G. That’s right, a biopic film is about to be under way, once the titular lead character is found.
No, Mr. Whitaker is not going to be in the film, and he will definitely not be the title character. The “honor” of portraying Mr. Wallace is going to be open to the public. Anyone can audition for the role, with or without acting experience. If this is of interest you can submit audition videos beginning 3 a.m. EDT Sunday to http://www.foxsearchlight.com/notorious or http://www.biggiecasting.com.
Those are the facts, and as I said, fans should be thrilled. Now for my opinion.
Why in the world is this being made? I’m not saying it can’t be, or that it shouldn’t. I just don’t think that Mr. Wallace was big enough to deserve a film of his life. The tragic end he came to was not deserved, as no murder is, but that does not warrant the adoration and almost cult status I have seen so many provide him since his death.
Perhaps it’s just me, but Mr. Wallace was a convicted crack dealer, had been arrested for drug and weapon charges after attaining fame (though I’m hard pressed to think of a gangsta rapper who hasn’t had the same sadly), and was convicted of at least beating (it was alleged he threatened to kill) 2 people looking for autographs. There is a hero.
He was deeply involved in tuning the gangster image that is now rampant in hip-hop and rap music. He was debatably deeply involved in the feud between east coast and west coast rappers, which I always found to be possibly one of the least intelligent squabbles among successful entertainers in music history. I may not have known the man, but his lifestyle and public persona indicate I would never want to, nor that he should be so revered.
What is it about dealing crack that is so much more interesting than New Jack City, or worthy of glamorizing? And a film about his exploits does glamorize what he did, in my eyes. I will give up the point that some found his lyric to be near gospel like in their quality. I don’t agree but that is one opinion. But so have dozens of other rappers, several far better than Mr. Wallace.
There may be something redemptive about his life, but I have not read a single word about that. The movie Ray was redemptive. Mr. Ray Charles had a life that was filled with real challenges that he had to overcome. Mr. Charles was not perfect, and he had flaws we all share, but he did strive to overcome them. His drug use was not a means of income, nor a tool to create his decades of musical entertainment. He did not glorify nor promote violence. His talent was universally understood and has lasted the test of time. What part of these things can honestly be said of Mr. Wallace.
I just don’t see the value or worthiness of a film for someone of the limited stature that is the actual Notorious B.I.G.
Pelted by rocks and chunks of metal, hundreds of Israeli riot police officers on Tuesday forcibly removed Jewish settlers from houses they had been occupying illegally for months in the West Bank city of Hebron.
If they had been thirteen year old Palestinian kids, throwing “rocks and chunks of metal”, they would have been shot.
All Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 boundaries are considered illegal by much of the world; Israel disputes that. But there are more than 20 settler outposts created since March 2001, illegal under Israeli law, that the government has promised Washington to dismantle but has not.
Why does the United Nations, and the world, continue to tolerate the stealing of other peoples’ lands and homes in this way?
Well here is something that sounds like television programming of worth. Viacom and all its properties should take note of what a program aimed at a target group can be like. Mr. Sumner Redstone, Mr. Philippe Dauman, and Mr. Reginald Hudlin should all be paying close attention.
In commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, TV One will be presenting a 3 part symposium that deals with the state of African Americans then and now, what America would be like without us, and a recap with memorable moments (in time since the Jamestown landing I presume). The program is called State of the Black Union. That is an interesting subject. It delves into the past and the present day. It evaluates what is good and bad in this nation. It provides food for thought. That is what I consider Black entertainment.
This program, which will start on August 12th, and be repeated on the 15th, will involve Mr. Tavis Smiley as moderator of each segment. I notice that they are avoiding the comedic angle on social commentary another cable television network has taken. Perhaps because a serious subject is normally best handled by a serious credible host.
Beyond the participation of Mr. Smiley, speakers include:
“Rev. Al Sharpton, actor/producer Tim Reid, former ABC news correspondent and current NPR host Michel Martin, radio personality Tom Joyner, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Judge Glenda Hatchett, Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Former Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder, Radio One founder and chairperson Catherine Hughes, Chuck D of the rap group Public Enemy, astronaut Dr. Mae Jamison, Dr. Cornel West of Princeton University, along with former Ebony editor Lerone Bennett Jr., Children’s Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman, and Rep. Bobby Scott”
Take a moment and review that list. It’s important. For all the images of poor Black people on the news every day, all the gangs, the rappers and music videos glorifying drugs, fatherless families, and degraded women, this list says something the media just does not.
The list includes entertainers that have lasted decades in an industry where most last a season. There are politicians of on the federal and state levels, national media makers and owners, religious leaders, a jurist, a teacher of the highest level of education in one of the most prestigious Universities, and an astronaut. And they even fit in a rapper, though unlike the current gansta sub-culture his entertainment was based in politics and self-improvement.
The list is diverse, covering so many careers and formats that are rarely acknowledged to have any African American influences. That alone should be a reason to check out the program.
Thousands Of Young, Skilled Workers Exit The UK In An Unprecedented Exodus
You may have heard that tens of thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the horrors of war and deprivation in their homeland. But did you know that some 4000 people are leaving the UK each and every week?
The biggest foreign visa consultancy firm in the UK claims that applications from Brits to get out of the country have soared some 80% in 2007 alone. In the mid-1990s, the numbers were about 300 a week. The exodus is reaching 4000 people per week. Per week.
But, tragically for Britain’s future, the majority of the exodus is not comprised of retirees. According to this story in the UK Express, the vast majority are “young professionals and skilled workers aged 20-40″.
That means, of course, if the exodus continues and there are signs it will only increase, not decrease, that Britain will lose more than 200,000 members of its highly educated workforce in the next twelve months alone.
…many cite their reason for wanting to quit as immigration to these shores – and the burden it is placing on their communities and local authorities. The dearth of good schools, spiralling house prices, rising crime and tax increases are also driving people away.
Obtaining a visa to live abroad can cost as little as £1,500 for the right candidates. Plumbers, electricians, construction workers and doctors are famously in demand.
Liam Clifford, a former immigration control officer, set up globalvisas.com as a one-man band 12 years ago. He now employs 60 people and is in the process of opening new offices in both South Africa and Australia. Mr Clifford said: “It’s absolutely phenomenal. People are trying to get away to wherever they can…”
According to the most recent Office of National Statistics figures, in 2005 the official number of people leaving UK shores was 352,000 – up from 249,000 in 1995.
Not surprisingly, many young Brits are heading to Australia, where there is a massive shortage of skilled workers, vastly warmer winters and shorter, more comfortable commutes, if you they don’t move to the inner city suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne that is.
