WebSeth

John, Come on Out! The Water's Fine

Billyga — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:35:59 GMT

It's looking more and more like Travolta can't continue denying allegations that he's groped and fondled male masseurs. Here's another story of John and his desire for men, not that there's anything wrong with desiring men.

Travolta tried to 'grope' sleeping 'Grease' co-star Jeff Conaway: report

Hallelujah, President Obama is Gay!

Billyga — Mon, 14 May 2012 19:13:19 GMT

Was Obama's personal endorsement of gay marriage a preview of future revelations? As with his endorsement of gay marriage, revelations regarding his sexual persuasion may not be divulged until after the election so his political standing is not damaged. Did Newsweek inadvertently leave off the quotes around GAY or was this a confirmation that he is truly gay?

May 14-15, 2012 -- Newsweek: Obama, the "First Gay President:"

This week's Newsweek cover featuring a rainbow-haloed President Obama highlighting an article by openly-gay conservative writer Andrew Sullivan titled "The First Gay President," has Washington astir with rumors that Obama is preparing the country for an official announcement that he is gay or bi-sexual. Defenders of Obama have stated that the article's title is merely a metaphor. They point out that African-American author Toni Morrison once referred to President Bill Clinton as America's "first black president" in an October 1998 article in the New Yorker magazine. Morrison suggested Clinton acted black because of several factors: "single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas." The dogged pursuit of Clinton by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr over the Monica Lewinsky affair led Morrison and others to conclude that Clinton was the victim of the type of double standard persecution and prosecution that had been used by the white political establishment to target many black politicians in the past.

Morrison's description of Clinton was, indeed, a metaphor because there was never a suggestion that Clinton had any African-American racial lineage. In 2008, Clinton's southern "whiteness" was driven home during the South Carolina primary between his wife, Hillary Clinton, and Obama. Clinton played the stereotypical "race card" by suggesting Obama's primary victory in South Carolina in 2008 was no different than Jesse Jackson's 1988 victory in the same state because blacks automatically vote for black candidates merely because of the race factor.

Clinton's statement was the end of the myth that Clinton was the "first black president." Many African-Americans realized that Clinton was a more nuanced type of southern white politician who deep-down held the same prejudices as openly racist Arkansas politicans like Orville Faubus and John McClellan.

But with Obama, the appellation that he is America's "first gay president" is no mere metaphor. If there were no reports of Obama's past homosexual activity, Newsweek's editors would have surely put the word "gay" in quotes to drive home the point that the title was a metaphor. But Newsweek did not and the magazine's cover has fueled speculation that sometime after the election in November, the White House may make an official announcement about Obama's sexual orientation.

Last month, former Obama White House adviser Van Jones, in an interview on MS-NBC, appeared to be setting the stage for a "self-outing" by Obama. Anchor Alex Witt asked Jones whether Obama "would lose some of the black vote if he did come out in support of gay marriage."

Jones's response was startling. He replied, "I think if he [Obama] came out as gay, he wouldn't lose the black vote. [laughter] President Obama is not going to lose the black vote no matter what he does."

In May 2010, after conducting an extensive investigation in Chicago, WMR reported on Obama's past homosexual activities, particularly with regard to his membership in Trinity United Church of Christ and a gay bath house in north Chicago called "Man's Country." WMR was attacked by a number of "progressive" Democratic websites having an activist gay agenda, including Daily Kos and Democratic Underground.

WMR's report was followed by one in The Kansas Citian that Obama was accused of sexual harassment by two male junior editors of the Harvard Law Review while Obama was editor of the journal from late 1988 to mid-1989. A third man said he was subjected to similar homosexual harassment by Obama while working at the University of Chicago when Obama was a law school lecturer.

WMR independently corroborated from former classmates that Obama engaged in off-campus homosexual activities while he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1980.

Recently, the chief accuser against Obama, Larry Sinclair, who, in 2008, spoke openly about two gay encounters with Obama in 1998, single handedly and without legal representation, was successful in winning a libel case brought against him by an individual represented by the politically-powerful Patton Boggs law firm. Sinclair saw federal judge Richard Leon dismiss the case against him, his publisher, and book sellers and distributors. An appeal of the decision was withdrawn by the plaintiff against all parties except for Amazon.com.

With the Newsweek article, WMR and Sinclair stand vindicated, along with a number of our sources in Chicago, including those who were close to the imprisoned ex-Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich.

Blagojevich's knowledge of Obama's past activities was enough for U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois to subject the governor to a bitter White House- and Justice Department-directed "witch hunt." If Obama does eventually "come out," Blagojevich should immediately come out of federal prison in Colorado. There would no longer be a reason to keep the former governor locked up to ensure his silence about Obama and to keep him from explaining why, in the 500 hours of FBI wiretaps of his phone calls, there were a number of references to Obama as a "cocksucker."

When President Richard Nixon was informed in the Oval Office that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had died, Nixon's reference to Hoover as a "cocksucker" was no metaphor. Nixon knew that Hoover was gay and was, for all practical purposes, "married" to his FBI deputy director, Clyde Tolson. Just as Nixon and others in Washington knew for a fact that Hoover was gay, politicians in Chicago and Washington also know, for a fact, that Obama is either gay or bi-sexual.

WMR stands by our 2010 report on Obama and his past homosexual activities in Chicago and Washington, DC. This week's Newsweek story is just another "exhibit" in the story of Obama's actual past.

RIP Carol Shelby

Billyga — Sat, 12 May 2012 01:39:28 GMT

May 11, 2012
Auto legend Carroll Shelby, father of Cobra, dies

Creator of the Cobra and the Shelby Mustangs

LOL-gate

kyaume — Sat, 12 May 2012 01:34:06 GMT

Loving out loud or Lots of laughs
Whatever the three-letter word meant according to the British PM, his expletive use of it in his private communications to Ruperta Brooks -- sorry Rebekah Brooks-- it will cause one hell of a LOL-gate:
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/murdoch...-texts-4883742
I wonder what he would have made of LMAO.

Anyway, if there is any more of this, the affair will be upgraded to a SOS-gate.

My presence is requested

kyaume — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:55:54 GMT

This I got in the mail today:

"
The President and Council of the Royal Society
requests the honour of the company of

[ your humble blogger ] & Guest

at a Soiree on the occasion of the Summer Science Exhibition
at 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG
on ...

Dress code: dinner jacket and decorations
carriages: 10 pm

This card must be produced on the evening and is not transferable "

What do you think, guys, should I go? With my partner equally donned in dinner jacket (I got one, I am afraid, but he doesn't, maybe we can share the one?). :rolleyes:

For those who wonder what "decorations" means: I have been once in such an occasion in London's Savoy hotel a couple of years ago, I now know what it means: sashes, medals and other regalia.

Mother's Day song

TomNerdy — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:00:39 GMT

Friday the Thirteenth comes on a Sunday this month and it is called Mother's Day. This is a video I made a few years ago which I feature on my channel each year at this time. Most of the pictures are from the Library of Congress which is the only place where a member of Congress can be shushed.

Marriage Equality

LeeInChicago — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:29:50 GMT

President Obama has made his position clear today. I hoped and expected this policy change before the election.

Your thoughts?

So who again didn't do torture?

kyaume — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:22:15 GMT

Screaming and vomiting. A nice basis to put someone on "fair trial" by.
And they really still believe they got the truth in this way? Like in the good old middle ages?

And of course the destruction of the evidence once again is a clear signal that they had really nothing to hide. Nothing at all.

Quote:

Vomiting and screaming' in destroyed waterboarding tapes

By Peter Taylor BBC Newsnight
Jose Rodriguez told Newsnight he was right to destroy the tapes

Continue reading the main story Related Stories

Secret CIA video tapes of the waterboarding of Osama Bin Laden's suspected jihadist travel arranger Abu Zubaydah show him vomiting and screaming, the BBC has learned.
The tapes were destroyed by the head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Jose Rodriguez.
In an exclusive interview for Newsnight, Rodriguez has defended the destruction of the tapes and denied waterboarding and other interrogation techniques amount to torture.
The CIA tapes are likely to become central to the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, at Guantanamo Bay.
When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appeared before a special military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay last Saturday, he refused to put on the headphones that would enable him to hear the translator.
His civilian attorney, David Nevin, said he could not wear them because of the torture he had suffered during his interrogation.
Waterboarding, which simulates drowning, was used in the interrogation of three al-Qaeda suspects
His "torture" at the hands of his CIA interrogators at a secret "black site" to which he had been rendered, included being deprived of sleep for over a week, standing naked, wearing only a nappy, and being waterboarded 183 times.
The CIA and the US Department of Justice that authorised the secret interrogation programme in the wake of 9/11, euphemistically referred to its content as "enhanced interrogation techniques".
Most people would probably call them "torture", but Jose Rodriguez disputes this term.
He has written a book, "Hard Measures" in which he defends the use of such techniques, and he told me there is no doubt they were effective.
"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was probably the toughest detainee that we ever had and he was going to resist to the end of his strengths," he told me.
Waterboarding is simulated drowning. The detainee is stripped naked and strapped onto a board in a horizontal position with feet higher than his head.
Water is then dripped onto a cloth covering the nose and mouth which makes the detainee choke and temporarily stop breathing.
"It's not a pretty sight when you are waterboarding anybody or using any of these techniques, let's be perfectly honest," Rodriguez admitted.
Only three of the CIA's "high value targets" were waterboarded.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is currently on trial at a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged architect of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in which 17 sailors died, was waterboarded twice, and Abu Zubaydah, Osama Bin Laden's suspected travel agent for jihadis, 83 times.
And it is the waterboarding of Zubaydah that has now become the centre of fresh controversy triggered by Newsnight's investigation.
The CIA recorded Zubaydah's detention and interrogation - and that of other detainees - on 92 video tapes.
Twelve of them covered the application of the "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding.
On one or more of them, I understand Zubaydah is shown vomiting and screaming.
John Rizzo, the CIA's top legal counsel who oversaw the legalisation of the techniques in an exchange of memoranda with the Department of Justice, wanted to be certain that what was happening at the black site was in accordance with what had been legally agreed.
He had not anticipated that waterboarding would be used as often as it was. And he sent one of his most experienced colleagues to the black site, believed to be in Thailand, to find out.
Rizzo's colleague viewed all the 92 hours of video and concluded that the techniques were being legally applied, but he was uncomfortable about what he saw.
"He did say that portions of the tapes, particularly those of Zubaydah being waterboarded, were extraordinarily hard to watch," Rizzo told me.
"He [Zubaydah] was reacting visibly in a very disturbing way."
Continue reading the main story �Start Quote

It's not a pretty sight when you are waterboarding anybody or using any of these techniques, let's be perfectly honest�

Jose Rodriguez Former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center
So was he being sick?
"He was experiencing some physical difficulties, I'll just leave it at that... 'tough to watch in places' was his term."
I asked Jose Rodriguez if he had seen the tapes. He said he had not. Was he aware that they showed Abu Zubaydah vomiting and screaming? He said he was not. He checked with his interrogators at the black site who said there was no vomiting or screaming.
"I don't know where you got that from", he said. "I don't know about screaming and vomiting but it's not a pretty sight."
Rodriguez knew the tapes were potentially a ticking time bomb and wanted to destroy them. He waited for three years with increasing exasperation at the apparent unwillingness of anybody on high to take responsibility for authorising their destruction.
Then when news of the CIA's secret black sites leaked, Rodriguez's patience ran out.
Believing he had the authority to do so, he ordered the 92 tapes to be minced in an industrial shredder.
"Our lawyers said it was legal," he said.
But Rizzo was not happy.
"I was stunned and angry and honestly a bit hurt. I made it clear to him, as did two CIA directors, that he did not have the authority to make a decision to destroy those tapes."
So I asked, "He disobeyed orders?"
"He did."
But Rodriguez is adamant that he acted legally and says his motive in ordering their destruction was to protect the identities of his CIA interrogators lest they suffer reprisals.
But there was more to it than that. Three days after the tapes had been shredded, a CIA memorandum, since released under America's Freedom of Information Act, reported comments by Jose Rodriguez:
"As Jose said, the heat from destroying [the tapes] is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes got into the public domain - he said that out of context they would make us look terrible - it would be devastating to us. All in the room agreed."

US Navy trainer: 'Waterboarding is drowning in a slow, controlled manner'

I put this to Rodriguez and he was typically upfront about it.
"I said that, yes. If you're waterboarding somebody and they're naked, of course that was a concern of mine."
Despite all the controversies around the CIA's black sites and its interrogation programme, Jose Rodriguez stands by all that he did.
"I was honoured to serve my country after the 9/11 attacks. I am proud of the decisions that I took including the destruction of the tapes to protect the people who worked for me. I have no regrets."
No doubt defence lawyers at Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial will try and get access to the written records that exist of what was on the tapes and seek to question the CIA lawyer who viewed them.
But under the rules of the military tribunal that restrict any discussion of torture, they are unlikely to succeed.
Watch Peter Taylor's full interview with Jose Rodriguez on Newsnight on Wednesday 9 April 2012 at 22:30 BST on BBC Two.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17990955

J'accuse

kyaume — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:36:21 GMT

This is the ultimate Billy experience. The subject of the consiracy is this:

Voltaire in Bondage

GayPanther — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:27:24 GMT

I hope we stop making Bobby Jack right - that if he spends enough on misinformation and lies, he'll get every dumbass in America to believe him.

Want a legitimate conspiracy theory to rub your balls against? Try getting informed, try looking into the fuck buddy behavior between Wall Street, Big Corporations, the super rich and every republican President since Reagan. Look into why we are in a black hole economy.

In less than three years Obama has done among other things...

1. Passed Health Care Reform: After five presidents over a century failed to create universal health insurance, signed the Affordable Care Act (2010). It will cover 32 million uninsured Americans beginning in 2014.

2. Passed the Stimulus: Signed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid greatest recession since the Great Depression. Twelve months later, the private sector began producing more jobs than it was losing, and it has continued to do so for twenty-three straight months, creating a total of nearly 3.7 million new private-sector jobs.

3. Passed Wall Street Reform: Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession.

4. Ended the War in Iraq: Ordered all U.S. military forces out of the country. Last troops left on December 18, 2011.

5. Began Drawdown of War in Afghanistan: From a peak of 101,000 troops in June 2011, U.S. forces are now down to 91,000, with 23,000 slated to leave by the end of summer 2012. According to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the combat mission there will be over by next year.

6. Eliminated Osama bin laden: In 2011, ordered special forces raid of secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which the terrorist leader was killed and a trove of al-Qaeda documents was discovered.

7. Turned Around U.S. Auto Industry: In 2009, injected $62 billion in federal money (on top of $13.4 billion in loans from the Bush administration) into ailing GM and Chrysler in return for equity stakes and agreements for massive restructuring. The Big Three automakers all gained market share for the first time in two decades.

8. Recapitalized Banks: In the midst of financial crisis, approved controversial Treasury Department plan to lure private capital into the country�s largest banks via �stress tests� of their balance sheets and a public-private fund to buy their �toxic� assets. Got banks back on their feet at essentially zero cost to the government.

9. Repealed �Don�t Ask, Don�t Tell�: Ended 1990s-era restriction and formalized new policy allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

10. Toppled Moammar Gaddafi: In March 2011, joined a coalition of European and Arab governments in military action, including air power and naval blockade, against Gaddafi regime to defend Libyan civilians and support rebel troops. No American lives were lost.

11. Told Mubarak to Go: On February 1, 2011, publicly called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to accept reform or step down, thus weakening the dictator�s position and putting America on the right side of the Arab Spring. Mubarak ended thirty-year rule when overthrown on February 11.

12. Reversed Bush Torture Policies: Two days after taking office, nullified Bush-era rulings that had allowed detainees in U.S. custody to undergo certain �enhanced� interrogation techniques considered inhumane under the Geneva Conventions.

13. Improved America�s Image Abroad: With new policies, diplomacy, and rhetoric, reversed a sharp decline in world opinion toward the U.S. (and the corresponding loss of �soft power�). From 2008 to 2011, favorable opinion toward the United States rose in ten of fifteen countries surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, with an average increase of 26 percent.

14. Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program, Expanded Pell Grant Spending: As part of the 2010 health care reform bill, signed measure ending the wasteful decades-old practice of subsidizing banks to provide college loans.

15. Boosted Fuel Efficiency Standards: Released new fuel efficiency standards in 2011 that will nearly double the fuel economy for cars and trucks by 2025.

16. Coordinated International Response to Financial Crisis: To keep world economy out of recession in 2009 and 2010, helped secure from G-20 nations more than $500 billion for the IMF to provide lines of credit and other support to emerging market countries, which kept them liquid and avoided crises with their currencies.

17. Passed Mini Stimuli: To help families hurt by the recession and spur the economy as stimulus spending declined, signed series of measures (July 22, 2010; December 17, 2010; December 23, 2011) to extend unemployment insurance and cut payroll taxes.

18. Began Asia �Pivot�: In 2011, reoriented American military and diplomatic priorities and focus from the Middle East and Europe to the Asian-Pacific region. Executed multipronged strategy of positively engaging China while reasserting U.S. leadership in the region.

19. Increased Support for Veterans: With so many soldiers coming home from Iraq and Iran with serious physical and mental health problems, yet facing long waits for services, increased 2010 Department of Veterans Affairs budget by 16 percent and 2011 budget by 10 percent. Also signed new GI bill offering $78 billion in tuition assistance over a decade, and provided multiple tax credits to encourage businesses to hire veterans.

20. Tightened Sanctions on Iran: In effort to deter Iran�s nuclear program, signed Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (2010) to punish firms and individuals who aid Iran�s petroleum sector. In late 2011 and early 2012, coordinated with other major Western powers to impose sanctions aimed at Iran�s banks and with Japan, South Korea, and China to shift their oil purchases away from Iran.

21. Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants: New EPA restrictions on mercury and toxic pollution, issued in December 2011, likely to lead to the closing of between sixty-eight and 231 of the nation�s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants.

22. Passed Credit Card Reforms: Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (2009), which prohibits credit card companies from raising rates without advance notification, mandates a grace period on interest rate increases, and strictly limits overdraft and other fees.

23. Eliminated Catch-22 in Pay Equality Laws: Signed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, giving women who are paid less than men for the same work the right to sue their employers after they find out about the discrimination, even if that discrimination happened years ago.

24. Protected Two Liberal Seats on the U.S. Supreme Court: Nominated and obtained confirmation for Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman to serve, in 2009; and Elena Kagan, the fourth woman to serve, in 2010. They replaced David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively.

25. Improved Food Safety System: In 2011, signed FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which boosts the Food and Drug Administration�s budget by $1.4 billion and expands its regulatory responsibilities to include increasing number of food inspections, issuing direct food recalls, and reviewing the current food safety practices of countries importing products into America.

26. Achieved New START Treaty: Signed with Russia (2010) and won ratification in Congress (2011) of treaty that limits each country to 1,550 strategic warheads (down from 2,200) and 700 launchers (down from more than 1,400), and reestablished and strengthened a monitoring and transparency program that had lapsed in 2009, through which each country can monitor the other.

27. Expanded National Service: Signed Serve America Act in 2009, which authorized a tripling of the size of AmeriCorps. Program grew 13 percent to 85,000 members across the country by 2012, when new House GOP majority refused to appropriate more funds for further expansion.

28. Expanded Wilderness and Watershed Protection: Signed Omnibus Public Lands Management Act (2009), which designated more than 2 million acres as wilderness, created thousands of miles of recreational and historic trails, and protected more than 1,000 miles of rivers.

30. Gave the FDA Power to Regulate Tobacco: Signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (2009). Nine years in the making and long resisted by the tobacco industry, the law mandates that tobacco manufacturers disclose all ingredients, and obtain FDA approval for new tobacco products.

31. Pushed Federal Agencies to Be Green Leaders: Issued executive order in 2009 requiring all federal agencies to make plans to soften their environmental impacts by 2020. Goals include 30 percent reduction in fleet gasoline use, 26 percent boost in water efficiency, and sustainability requirements for 95 percent of all federal contracts. Because federal government is the country�s single biggest purchaser of goods and services, likely to have ripple effects throughout the economy for years to come.

32. Passed Fair Sentencing Act: Signed 2010 legislation that reduces sentencing disparity between crack versus powder cocaine possessionfrom100 to1 to 18 to1.

33. Trimmed and Reoriented Missile Defense: Cut the Reagan-era �Star Wars� missile defense budget, saving $1.4 billion in 2010, and canceled plans to station antiballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic in favor of sea-based defense plan focused on Iran and North Korea

This is all public record easily available.

"I found the national debt, more than doubled since Clinton, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office."
-Barack Obama

Premium: Three new videos added

Seth — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:16:02 GMT

I've added three new videos to the premium Videos section

For details and instructions on how to access these videos, please Click Here and scroll to the bottom

Attached Thumbnails

The world's greatest conductor

kyaume — Sun, 06 May 2012 12:05:14 GMT

Mariss Jansons

current chief conductor of the world's greatest orchestra, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

The world government is coming to town

kyaume — Sat, 05 May 2012 09:47:16 GMT

It is called the IOC (International Olympic Committee).
London is bracing itself for its quadriannual board members' party. All the red carpets are being rolled out, and defence systems (like HMS Ocean being pulled yesterday up the Thames) to welcome them are being put in place. Austerity or not, no expenses are spared for this event.

Quote:

2012 Olympics: Kabul. Baghdad. London. Three to avoid this summer

The missile batteries, fighter jets and VIP lanes are what happens when a world agency blackmails a city aching for prestige

- Simon Jenkins
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 May 2012 20.15 BST

In preparation for the 2012 London Olympic Games, the Metropolitan police marine unit and Royal Marines perform a joint exercise on the river Thames. Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters

There seems to be no limit to the efforts of Lord Coe and his friends at the International Olympic Committee to bring this summer's London Games into ridicule and contempt. A week-long "military exercise" is currently under way in the capital. RAF Typhoon jets are to scream back and forth over the Thames. Starstreak surface-to-air missile batteries are being set up in East End parks and on flats in Bow, with 10 soldiers manning each one. Army and navy helicopters will clatter back and forth, with snipers hanging from their doors "to shoot down pilots of terrorist planes".
Machine-guns will for the first time be toted by guards on the London tube. Police special forces, "trained to kill", will wear balaclavas to avoid identification. There are to be naval landing craft roaming the coast off Weymouth and submarines at the ready. The Olympics have become a festival of the global security industry, with a running and jumping contest as a sideshow. No one in government dares call a halt. Nero in his prime could not have squandered so much money on circuses.
The Olympics have become an Orwellian parody of what happens when a world agency blackmails a government aching for prestige into spending without limit. Not one defence spokesman has come up with a plausible scenario for the jets and missiles. The latter have a range of just three miles and are said to be usable "only at the express instruction of the prime minister". What will they shoot down, and on whose head will it crash?
These boys-with-toys are costing taxpayers �1bn yet they cannot add an iota to national security. They have nothing to do with deterring terrorism, even supposing there to be any such threat. The modern terrorist uses suicide tactics, by definition immune to deterrence. All the government has done is raise the politico-military profile of the Games and tempted some crackpot to have a go. Even at the street level, Occupy London and the cycling militants must regard Lord Coe's VIP lanes as a golden opportunity. The Olympic organisers are planning to close the Mall, Horse Guards Parade and most of St James's Park from June onwards, for fear someone might plant a bomb near the volleyball contest, crazily located behind Downing Street as a sop to Tony Blair. This is despite the prime minister and the mayor's office specifically countermanding the decision. Computer firms eager for contracts place regular stories about the "threat to the games from cyber-attack". One firm has been hired to deploy 450 "IT wizards" to guard the Games from hackers.
This means that, for the rest of the summer, London will effectively be "ruled" by the IOC. Enthusiasts for world government should take note. An unaccountable, self-validating body expects five-star hotels, chauffeur-driven BMWs, Soviet-style Zil lanes and all-green light phases for its thousands of "officials" and corporate hangers-on. It not only expects them, it gets them. It demanded and got its own legislative powers, under the 2006 London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act. Lord Coe does what the IOC tells him and passes the bill to George Osborne, who pays it. When the opening ceremony alone was �30m short (on a staggering budget of �60m), the cheque was promptly sent round.
The IOC is ever vigilant for its sponsors. Inspectors are to fan out across the capital, arresting anyone who uses the words "2012 Olympics" or any other associative phrase, for not paying Coe and the IOC a fortune in sponsorship fees. Jamie Oliver cannot hold an Olympics party in Victoria Park as he is a non-sponsor. Blogs, pictures or videos on YouTube or Facebook are banned. Anyone who so much as carries an unapproved bag, hat or shoe in a venue is banned. The Chinese politburo is Liberty Hall compared with this authoritarianism.
Transport for London has been reduced to a gibbering wreck. It has warned Londoners to get out of the city for the duration – at what cost to the economy? Citizens have been warned that central London roads will be closed, tube drivers may go on strike, and hospital casualty departments will be short of blood. How this will make money for London, as promised by Coe and others, is a mystery. As a tourist destination the place is being put on a par with Baghdad or Kabul.
There is no civic dividend from this sum and never has been. August in London is always a light month and, as the empty rows at Athens and Beijing showed, Olympic sports are not people draws. The irony is that the chief success of the London Olympics organisers has been the chief source of criticism. They have undoubtedly generated domestic enthusiasm. By making ticket sales a national lottery they achieved what appears to be the first sold-out Olympics of modern times.
However, roughly 85% of these buyers are Britons, few of whom will stay in London hotels. The crowds will be concentrated at the venues. It is the government, through its hospitality for the IOC "family", that will sustain the luxury hotel market this August. For the non-games districts of the capital, I would be surprised if shops, buses and tubes are not half deserted, taxis unused, theatres, cinemas and concert halls empty and any royal park not fenced off for a commercial sponsor pleasantly uncrowded.
The London Games began in a spirit of economy and popular enthusiasm. At the considerable cost of �2.4bn, they were to answer the state gigantism of the Beijing Games and fuse modern sport into the urban fabric. London would prove that cities did not have to be rich to host the games. It would be "the people's games".
The IOC put a stop to that. It drove a pliant British government to the present paranoia, budgetary incontinence and corporate greed. If the image of the London Games is to be rescued this summer, it must rely on diverting attention to the sincerity of young athletes and spectators, on somehow restoring the dignity of the sporting spirit. For now, a noble movement has been hijacked by a monster that is plainly out of control.

This is how the war on terror will be won?

kyaume — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:54:56 GMT

pulling in the big guns.

Or do they think they can secure some gold medals in this way?
(Like grandpa pulling his old shotgun from the attic to impress the dinner guests).

To me it looks a tad like overkill.

In any event, welcome to Britain, Oympians.

I would like to play your flute

kyaume — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:45:40 GMT

but I would be content just listening to this one