Renewable energy and the hate mail attacks

A quick flick through this week's Mail on Sunday was enough to almost push you over the edge.

The Daily Mail has for the last decade or so waged a one paper campaign against the green energy brigade. This week (and the umpteenth time this year) they have run stories on the great green con and ran a top 10 myths on the green energy fiasco as they are calling it. At one point they even had the audacity to raise concern at a government minister who received £250,000 from a green energy company, that went on subsequently to write a report for the government to promote renewable energy. Strange then they have not much to say about Tory think tank lobbyists getting work in downing St and advising our darling David Cameron on carving up the public services.

The global warming and climate debate had been moving backwards and forwards since the 1990's and the Kyoto agreement, the Guardian last year started to counter the Daily Mail claims and the Mail are claiming that humans are not responsible for global warming and climate change.

A documentary by rock star physicist Brian Cox on BBC's Horizon, 'Can we build a star?' discussed at great lengths the energy crises we face in the not so distant future and the problem we have with trying to accommodate a growing demand as the planets population continues to grow, using the current fossil fuel based mode of thinking. The Mail on Sunday this week despite using a double page spread to try and debunk the renewable energy supporters had a page dedicated in the business and finance section stating that oil consumption will double by 2020. It was a very confused edition of the hate rag.

The key to their arguments are claims that the world has not warmed up for 16 years, they do not mention so much the fact we have passed 400 ppm of carbon but then hardly anyone noticed and like I tell my work colleagues, climate and weather are like form and class in the sporting arena. One is temporary and the other is permanent. 

The Mail along with the majority of other mainstream media outlets are pushing support for shale gas and fracking. They are claiming it is cost neutral compared to fossil fuel mining and that the cost to the environment is negligible. They always claim this when they embark on a risky new venture and this is no exception. There are legitimate concerns on the process of hydraulic fracturing and we should be mindful of the reasons for why the government and the media machine are so keen to push for this ahead of clean renewable energy.

EU lift arms embargo on Syria but we operate within International law

This week William Hague lit the touch paper for the war in Syria by supporting lifting the arms embargo and ensuring the conflict will now escalate.

The situation in Syria has been raging on for over two years with clear battle lines seemingly being drawn between those in support of Assad and those who are backing the unknown entity that is the rebel force aligned against him. Russia are supplying surface to air missiles in an attempt to presumably dissuade intervention from the west and Iran are supplying experts and money. The west has a history of arming the opposition of a force they want disposed of and the lifting of the arms embargo by the EU this week will give them the green light to do so 'legitimately', despite having been doing so in any event. William Hague said on BBC R4 this week when pressed about arming the rebels that we "Always operate within International law." That is of course if you fail to take into context the illegal wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan courtesy of war criminal Tony Blair. The UK's role in this is to perhaps soften the way in for an American intervention in the future as lap dogs in the special relationship.

The battle for Syria is a strategic one with Iran being the long term goal. Our governments do not care about the lives and deaths of brown people in the Middle East, this is a precursor to a war with Iran that we are being set up for. The coming weeks and months will see the media framing the agenda to manufacture our consent for these wars.

How we can afford to arm Syrian rebels at a time when our own government puppets are outlining cuts worth billions of pounds to health and welfare to fund our own military and police, is beyond comprehension. Then I remembered the saying that war is good for business and if this lot have their way then business will soon be booming.

Newell News-round up, week 9 *the not special Bank Holiday Special*

Bank Holiday special...there is nothing about this bank holiday that makes it special. This week has turned me inside out following the horrendous murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich and a little closer to home, another young life was snuffed out in the on going gang war in Luton.

I have already had my say about the Woolwich murder much to the disgust of some. The fact remains our foreign policy does contribute to the radicalisation of young men and women, as Theresa May explains it, whether she likes it or not. Clamping down on our freedoms and liberties with the 'snoopers chart' Communications Data Bill will not solve that I am sure. Theresa May and Co will however slither and connive to convince us that if you have nothing to hide or are doing nothing wrong then you have no reason to worry or oppose it. That is how the Nazi's gained power.

Whatever people think of the events in Woolwich this week, murder is murder and is abhorrent whatever the underlying cause.

Luton has this year witnessed upwards of 18 incidents involving firearms and blades resulting in serious and fatal injuries. Just last night the news reported of the fatal stabbing of a 'man aged 20 years old'.
At 20 he was not a man, he was only just starting out on his journey in life and will leave behind heart broken family who's lives will be forever changed.
A few weeks ago as the shooting incidents in Luton were soaring, I wrote to newly elected Police Crime Commissioner Olly Martins asking what he was doing to assist in dealing with the root causes of crime in society, namely the socio-economic environment in which we live in, but as yet have had no response. In the interim he has said of the escalation in gun crime and murders within Luton that it was "a blip", going to prove once again that we are lead by the least amongst us.

Somehow we have become a society that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, especially the value of a human life.


NEWS - Health and Welfare

The week started off quite badly with BBC R4 holding a phone in to discuss peoples experiences of A&E and ambulances, what disappointed most was the insistence on people across the NHS pointing the finger of blame at each other, rather than at the government and their banking friends, for the issues they are having. So long as we keep in fighting the power brokers will keep playing their game of monopoly and leave us with nothing but the scraps off of the table.

A woman who suffered a DOUBLE heart and lung transplant died 9 days after her benefits were stopped after ATOS found her fit to work. She was notified of her requirement to return to work as she lay on her hospital bed dying.
This lot are disgusting. People who are quite clearly in need of help and assistance are being thrown over board by this government under the ideology of austerity.

The constructive dismantling of the NHS seems to know no bounds and yet the resistance being offered by the public seems to be few and far between. It is the greatest thing we have ever conceived and yet we are allowing it go out without a fight.

There has been a staggering increase in volunteers for medical research and testing in recent times, which is all the more surprising considering the fact that virtually the entire medicine profession is one big medical trial and we are the guinea pigs.

You will not have seen much of it in the news and we were unable to make it to London on Saturday May 25th but there was a global march against Monsanto. A number of citizen journalists have covered it from across the planet, with the closest to a mainstream input being from Russia Today.

World

Barack Obama laid out the law on drones this week when he addressed the planet about the program but got heckled by someone from project Codepink. During his speech he highlighted the importance of ensuring that partner nations could not deal with the individuals they wanted to target before resorting to drones. What most news agencies failed to capture or show, including the BBC morning news, was his statement that civilian casualties were "hard facts". His words were not comforting. His words have damned him and his administration.

Human Rights/Politics

The Woolwich murder has seen the Communications and Data Bill rise its ugly head again with news reports that the Tory and Labour Ministers will form a pact to get the act passed as the Lib Dems seem to be opposing it, which is perhaps the only decent thing they have done since they took joint office. The evidence is inconclusive as to whether any such act being in force today would have made any difference to the incident last week in Woolwich, but then they will probably say that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear. This statement is fine of course until it is something that you do care about, that you want to stand up for, and the establishment then labels you an extremist and you are starting down that slippery slope.
It was not helped by Theresa May banging the drums of fear quoting estimates of the number of people who are potential targets for radicalisation in the thousands and then claiming she wants tighter reigns on extremist websites, social media channels and the like.
What the definition of extremism will be is anyones guess.

Rupert Murdoch does not seem best pleased with darling David Cameron as the front page of the sun shows us today. Does this mean he no longer supports Cameron and would rather throw his eggs in Theresa May's basket? We shall wait and see but Tory Minister's are saying today that darling David has 12 months to sort the ship out.

Two sides of the terror crises and not one Iraqi or Afghan in sight.

Technology

Germany are to use drones to combat graffiti. Having been to Berlin I can say first hand that it is home to some of the most amazing urban art. This move to combat it is a surprise to me as it actually would be one reason I would advocate going to Berlin to see some of the art there. More worryingly it is the move by local enforcement agencies to engage in the use of drones increasingly, proving that a drone is not just for the Middle East, but for you and I.


There is no sport.

Entertainment? There is an exhibition at the British Library on Propaganda, check it out here.

We must not let seeds of hate divide us

This week a soldier was run over and attacked with machetes in a savage attack in Woolwich, London. The man, 25 year old, Lee Rigby leaves behind a son aged 2.

We have seen much of the events as they unfolded yesterday, images of a man holding blades covered in blood telling us that our "governments do not care about us" and that scenes like this occur everyday in their countries. BBC Political correspondent Nick Robinson described the assailants as "Muslim in appearance" causing outrage amongst sections of the community and also explained how his initial thoughts were of a terrorist act being carried out.

What we have witnessed since this senseless murder is the framing of events by the media and the establishment. Time and again over the past 24hrs the media have stated intelligence agencies have been concerned for some time that this was the type of attack they feared most, but were unable or unprepared to deal with and so prompting the push for a further curtailing of our liberties with renewed vigour for the Data and Communications Bill.

This attack has led to further framing of agenda by the media.

What makes this attack one of terrorism and the ones of say the woman who was beheaded in Spain, or the Muslim grandfather Mohammed Saleem who was stabbed to death on his door step not terrorism? Why is it that one is of terrorism and the others are either plain murder or racially motivated? The dictionary definition describes terrorism as the pursuit of political gain through the unauthorised use of violence and intimidation. In London since 2005 there have apparently been over 100 teenagers killed at the hands of a blade, going to prove that there is a culture of fear and terror on the streets but it is not necessarily the one the media is fixing for you now.

The narrative being used to reinforce and remind us that Muslim's are terrorists is strong and has been since 9/11, but this was not always the case.

For twenty five years or more the Irish were the symbol for terrorism and terrorists in the UK, a fact that winds up many a passenger at transport hubs such as airports when they complain during random stop and searches. A favourite quip would be "Do I look like a terrorist?" 

Yesterday's events took a terrible toll on all involved and the consequences of the actions of those two individuals could have far reaching affects for this country as a whole if we let it. Those who witnessed it first hand will have had their worlds turned upside down for what could be years. A comment from one of the attackers was that violence such as that occurs on their streets every day. In Afghanistan and Iraq that is true and it is hard time for us all to sit and take stock of what acts of terrorism we have been complicit in as a country.

In December 2011 a British soldier was jailed for stabbing a 10 year old Afghanistan child with a bayonet. Wikileaks and the Guardian published news of further atrocities conducted by the British armed forces whilst serving in the wars and just this evening Barack Obama concluded that sometimes civilians get killed in the drone wars and called it a "hard fact." In fact at a Senate hearing a Senator stated that there had been several thousand people killed during these unmanned bombing raids that are coming to be known as The Drone Wars. The blog Scriptonite Daily has some startling statistics on the drone wars and the number of civilians killed by the Nobel Peace Prize winning President Barack Obama.

The people in these countries have no voice. They have no media run states framing the agenda to play out their heartache for us to see or hear. There has been a river of tears shed in the Afghanistan and Iraq over the lies fed to us by Tony Blair and George W. Bush.
Martin Luther King Jnr once said that the greatest purveyors of violence were his own government (of the Vietnam war) and so the sins of the past return to haunt us, as the same is true of our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. To think we are innocent of the bloodshed is to be naive and live in denial. Bush, Blair, Cameron and Obama have as much blood on their hands as the man who addressed the stunned onlookers in Woolwich this week.

So long as our governments keep exporting fear and terror through the barrel of a gun or a drone we will not be able to claim peace. Has anything they have done in the 'war against terror' done anything to make the world feel like a safer place? If anything it has become a war of terror.

This terror is fed on fear and we have plenty of that going around at the moment. The EDL descended on Woolwich intent on having a riot and claiming that this attack was an example of the reason they existed. They fought with police, the leader, Stephen Lennon has a record for it too and they have a lot to say about Muslim grooming gangs, but nothing of the celebrity sex scandal engulfing television with Rolf Harris, Jimmy Saville and Co being outed every week. They prey on people and this time is the turn of the already traumatised people of Woolwich with a brand of patriotism that has previously been discredited by Sandra Oh from Grey's Anatomy, reading Emma Goldman's speech.

The fear being induced by the media, security services and our governments insistence in exporting war, is compounded by a lack of understanding. Facebook and Twitter have been awash with people Muslim bashing, black bashing and calling for a wide range of barbaric tortures themselves to punish those responsible for the soldiers death. Is this really the world they want for their children? Violence begets violence and Martin Luther King said that darkness cannot drive out darkness and that only light can do that. Even on my own social media feeds I have had to field some of the worst, fascist rhetoric regarding what has happened as people's emotions have run high.

Things doing the rounds on the social media sites include some of the following;

Questions have been posed as to the human rights of those that took part in the attack. Fortunately for us all human rights are there for the needs of the many and the actions of a few should not lead to the acts that serve and protect us being torn up for something lesser.

On the question of 7/7 and the lack of compensation for the victims going about their day job that are flying around the social media sites, who's fault is that? The governments, not Muslims.

The solider was apparently wearing a Help for Heroes T-Shirt and now every one is being encouraged to buy and support them. Why do we have a Help for Heroes Charity in the first place? Because the government does not provide for the men and women it sends out there to get blown up fighting illegal wars. Who's fault? The government.



Before condemning an entire religion we must look to take everything that happens in some kind of context and for all those labelling all Muslim's as extremists, attacking Mosques and calling for action remember this, just as not every Muslim is an extremist, neither were all Catholics, nor did all Christians want to gas Jews or wear white hoods and drag black people along the tarmac behind their trucks but some people from all of these religions have done just these very things. It does not make the religions evil, if there is such a thing, it means that a minority of individuals should not be responsible for the condemnation of an entire group. For anyone calling for those hangings, beheadings and mob justice should take a moment to look in the mirror and ask yourself if what you are asking for will do anything to make the world a better, safer place for you and your children?

No problems but human problems - one species

The only way for us to break free of these cycles of hatred is to first stop participating in them.

We must start to view ourselves as one species, the human species with common problems and not separate races. We must learn to understand the truth behind the language we use and realise we are masters of it and not slaves to it and begin to create our own reality, one that is crafted from love and not fear and hate, free from all forms of terror.

What cannot be taken away from what has happened this week and what overrides the entirety of the wider debate is the future of the young boy left behind without a father and the prospect of growing up in a world escalating ever more in hatred, mistrust and fear, a world that we have a duty to change for the better for us all.

Where's daddy's pig art special, the second leg

Yesterday the Artist Taxi Driver crawled from 10 Downing St to the Bank of England pushing a toy pig in a an art show to raise awareness of NHS privatisation. There may be better things that could be done on a Wednesday day in London but I doubt there was anything more important.

He was joined by up to 100 people at times and a man with a toy fire engine, who pushed it with him every step of the 4 miles. At times the effort was palpable as we crawled side by side, unified by a common theme of justice for the people in the face of these private profiteers.

At one point the cry went up "there's no justice, there's just us."

The Artist Taxi Driver had an interview with a banker at 1530 on the corruption taking part on the watch of successive governments with a banker on the steps of the Royal Exchange. The pair were spurred on by the crowd as they took the issue to the streets with what the Artist Taxi Driver calls "the pigs at the trough" of public sector money. Our government are allowing friends in faceless corporations steal away money from the private sector with the sole gain to make profit for themselves. 

What we are left with as a public are worse services and we are at the mercy of their greed as they drive up prices. Rail fares and energy price hikes are great examples of this.

The NHS is being attacked by by vociferous and rapacious vultures in private industry. These corporations are having the NHS Trusts fed to them on a plate by our government and the media are aiding in their demise. HSBC who are guilty of laundering money for Mexican drug cartels now own three NHS Trusts in Middlesex, Barnet and West Middlesex and the Private Finance Investment scam is draining the life blood of our NHS as it means our government are borrowing money from the private sector at a rate twice that they could create themselves. With the exception of the Artist Taxi Driver there seems to be a distinct lack of advocates for the NHS and on a recent radio phone in on BBC R4, people from across the NHS called in to point the finger of blame at each other for their problems, rather than at the banking terrorists that created these problems in the first place with their wild and obscene gambling at the casino.

Recent FBU national ampaign

The Fire Service are facing the most dangerous cuts in recent memory. The government squeeze on the budget is forcing brigades across the country to modify their delivery and cut back on staffing and crewing arrangements which put firefighter and public lives at risk. This is being brought to a head by two things, a letter from the current Fire Minister and the recent release of the Ken Knight Review.

In 2001 AssetCo won a contract worth £20m with the London Fire Brigade, taking command of their operational fleet. This was sold off last year to a private equity firm for £2. The toy fire engine being pushed cost more than the entire London fleet!

The privatisation of the Fire Service is being done via the boiling frog theory, similarly to how the NHS has over the years, bits and pieces are auctioned off in the slaughter house and before you know it a once perfectly functioning service is owned and run by private profiteers. The emergency services are there to provide a service, not to make a profit and this small fact seems to be lost on the government and their friends.

A lot of the main focus has been on London Fire Brigade who are facing the closure of 12 stations and the loss of 500 jobs as a direct result of the governments ideological austerity plans, but these stories are replicated across the UK. Already the media have begun to shape the agenda by focusing strongly on the Ken Knight review who said that "fire calls had reduced by 40% in the last decade but the resource to demand had not been reviewed as a consequence." This statement, when taken without any context whatsoever, might lead you to believe what is being said. Everything a firefighter responds to is called a 'fire call', it does not necessarily mean that they are responding to a fire, it could be any one of a hundred different things that they can (and do) respond to. The statement when taken in to relation of incidents of fire may be true but it does not account for everything else.

For instance, it does not reflect that up until 2004 there was no statutory duty for the Fire Service to attend a Road Traffic Collision, it was just inferred that they would. Road Traffic Collision incident figures will vary greatly depending on where you live and the resources for which those brigades have to respond to them. It also makes no reference to flooding incidents, which you may have noticed, have been on the increase over the lat few years and in a recent report was highlighted as the single biggest national resilience issue to face the emergency services in the next decade. You will not be surprised to learn then that the government have NOT made it a statutory duty for the Fire Service to respond to flooding incidents, instead letting each individual brigade foot the bill for equipment and training to respond to these incidents so that they do not have to dip into their war chests. this further puts strains on the other day to day tasks that Fire Services have to deal with.

The Ken Knight report did not talk about the health and safety and welfare of the firefighters and the public, it mentioned nothing of an increase in firefighter deaths, with the only comprehensive report being conducted by the Fire Brigades Union back in 2008. It is with much sadness I must say that since that report there have been further firefighter fatalities and lessons still have not been learned.

The cuts are about agendas. These billionaires play with peoples futures and peoples lives and they are stealing the dreams away of this and the next generation of firefighters, police and NHS staff. They all beautiful people that devote a life time of service to the communities they live and work in. The betrayal of their devotion by our government is shameful. Support your local NHS, Police and Fire Service, talk to them directly and do not be mislead by the mainstream media. They are there for us, whenever we call.

Stop cuts, just say no.

Today the Artist Taxi Driver is pushing a toy pig on his hands and knees in his second leg from number 10 Downing St to the Bank of England.

This piece of art is aimed at the government intentions to privatise the NHS. At 3 miles it is slightly shorter than the first leg from Kings College Hospital to Downing St but the effort required is the same.

This time we have a double act art piece with the issue surrounding government plans to privatise another frontline public service, the fire service. A a toy fire engine is being pushed with corporations emblazoned down the side of it.

The message to the people is simple, defend your services, ask more questions and just say no.

Newell News-round up, week 8

This week is a public sector special. Having been in a cocoon the past week the main focus is the public sector agenda from the fascist Tory led regime.

Public Sector cuts

The very core of the public sector is being attacked via the ideology of privatisation that is being led by this Tory regime. Max Keiser is calling it a 'controlled demolition' and the ideology is driven and supported by the media.

The NHS is under a constant attack; nurses, beautiful people that work wonders for us, are being singled out for blame by the BBC and other media outlets, A&E is being told it faces change or collapse, the ambulance service are under pressure on attendance times but everyone sits back and watch as they get slashed to bits. Jeremy Hunt is on the news and all they can talk to him about is the EU. He is a criminal who is selling off the NHS for spare parts to the private profiteers, but no one in the media wants to challenge him about it! They would rather talk about the EU and a referendum and continue to frame the battle ground for the next general election. It is criminal and the media are doing the public a disservice.

Schools. Michael Gove was taken to bits by head teachers as he said he was trying to improve school standards. Why then are the government promoting private academies, supported by Gove, places that are driven by results not because it serves to benefit and better our children but because it serves to benefit their pockets and subsidies. They no longer teach our children how to think, they are teaching them what to think and spoon feeding them to ensure that they make the grade in their exams and with the debate barely even begun with a balanced argument, the news has called it a closed case.
Another

The Fire service has just been kicked in the balls by Sir Ken Knight who released his Fire Service Efficiencies Review, facing the future, this week which can be found here. He outlined savings of £130m if the fire service increased 'on call' or retained firefighter establishment by just 10%. He said that fire calls were down but resources had remained the same over the past decade. He said the service had contributed to the reduction in calls but had not adapted to this change in demand versus risk. He said fire deaths were down.

He told us a lot but then there was also a lot he did not tell us.

Ken Knight did not say that despite the the reduction in fire calls and unwanted alarms due to the work of the current operational workforce on the ground, that the fire service nationally was saving, on average, 19 people a day and even as this was being written, the fire service in Nottinghamshire were conducting a search and rescue for people involved in a potential gas explosion.

There was no mention of the fact that despite the reduction in fire calls if you were unfortunate enough to have one today you are more likely to die. He did not say that they have changed the way fire deaths are recorded over the years. If you died as a result of an infection in the hospital following a house fire it would not be recorded as a fire death and so these subtle differences in data gathering are having an affect on the true story.

There was no mention in his report about the unacceptable and uncharacteristic upward trend of firefighter fatalities over the past ten years. Several very high profile cases have left families devastated with the loss of loved ones. Rule 43 letters, a provision for coroners to make reports on the circumstances surrounding fatalities and actions that could be taken to prevent further occurrences, have been issued and seemingly not being dealt with by services across the country. Some of these recommendations occurred several years before the most recent events but even to this day, some of the recommendations are still slow in being implemented.

There was no mention of the more recent risk of flooding, something that firefighters are expected to respond to but without the statutory duty to do so. There is no statutory duty to do so because that would mean someone would have to pay for it and the government would rather dip there hand in their pocket for a drone army than provide first class equipment to their front line domestic services.

Ken Knight worked in some big metropolitan brigades that is true, but the amount of hands on experience he has ever had with running a brigade predominately made up of retained is limited. He claimed it was good value for money but did not explain any of the issues surrounding the recruitment and retention of retained staff, he did not mention anything about the issue of attendance times increasing and he certainly did not say anything about the training issues surrounding retained with the lack of time available for training.

The report covered some areas around senior management restructures, such as sharing the top roles between brigades but I hazard a guess they shall not be fighting each other for the scraps just yet and would be instead concentrating on slashing the firefighters delivering the service on the ground before they turn on each other. Take a look at London Fire Brigade, facing cuts of epic proportions, some 500 jobs and a number of stations to boot. This coming not much more than 12 months after darling David Cameron shook the hands of firefighters who fought bravely to control the fires set during the London riots of 2011. He then announced that they would be stealing their pensions.

These are troubling times for the public sector indeed, perpetually demonised by the agenda setting media as being the drain on the country and part of the reason why we are suffering the depression but these are just lies used to frame the debate. It is about the corrupt lining the pockets of their corrupt mates in faceless corporations and it is time that the advocates against this agenda spoke up and named and shamed them. What of the rest of us? At the very least the rest of us have to offer a resistance.

When will they stop chasing us? When we stop running

The Queen's speech, you could not make it up

The pomp, the arrogance of it all, the golden throne and the billion pound hat. Then she told us all about how her government would create work for the aspiration nation. The Queen's speech.

You could not make this shit up.

The news may or may not tell you what to think but it does tell you what to think about. The battle ground has been set for the next general election to be fought on immigration, welfare and Europe. The big loser in all this? The people who are at the bottom of the rung.

The Queen's speech at a glance on the BBC website fails to mention any of the things regarding welfare but it does have some interesting items such as the Water Bill, the Defence Reform Bill
and the Anti-Social Behaviour Bill.

The Water Bill will enable companies to trade water amongst themselves during period of high water stress. What that means for us is the potential for dangerous precedents being set on the one of the most precious things of all, something these people would like to view as a commodity and not a natural right.

The Defence Reform Bill will seek to change the way in which arms are procured and allow for a change in the way that arms are currently bought. The fact that global defence export spending is set to go from $180bn a year up to $400bn a year by 2014 whilst we live in a recession and grandmothers are being forced to commit suicide, they continue to find ever more innovating ways to get their weapons of mass destruction.

The Anti Social Behaviour Bill is more about dealing with symptoms rather than dealing with the root causes of crime, namely the socio-economic issues we have in the world.

Time after time the Fuhrer referred to her government and how they would set out the path for growth in the economy, set up new chances for the youth with apprenticeships and do away with red tape by deregulating services. She said she and her government were committed to supporting people who have saved for their retirement, whilst at the same time they are raiding the savings of others by pricing them out of their pension schemes or making them unobtainable and spending that money on waging illegal wars, blowing off the the arms and legs of children in the middle east and of our children being sent out there to do it for them.

Between the government, the Queen and the mainstream media they have framed the agenda for the next general election to be based around the ideology of hatred and mistrust. The topics will be immigration, the EU and welfare. How we rise to this battle will determine how or if future generations
prosper.

Newell News-round up, week 7

Week 7 of the Newell News weekly wipe, dominated by the retirement of Alex Ferguson after 26 years in charge of... No there is no sport, the Queen sat on her throne and enshrined the fascist agenda of the political parties, why would I talk sport?

Politics

The Queen entered parliament this week (with her billion pound hat) and bludgeoned the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us with a 10 inch rubber fish, telling us how "her" government, not yours, "her" government would fist us for the next two years and beyond in the lead up to the next general election. The battle ground has been drawn for the next election to be fought on the grounds of race, colour and welfare.
This has been backed up every opportunity by a Tory trying to get their nose on the screen, or in a paper, as the media supports the agenda by framing our reference peddling the referendum on the EU and repeatedly informing us that every man and his dog thinks it is a good idea to leave the EU with the main agenda being to withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights, possibly.
The Queens speech can be found here and particular attention should be paid to things such as the Water Bill, paving the way for the private corporations that own them to trade water amongst themselves during periods of water stress and set the precedent for full commodity rights over it.


Yewtree

As in operation Yewtree. It is a new entry as a topic on the weekly wipe but it was felt that it was necessary due to what seems like a daily occurrence of celebrities being outed as potential child molesters. This week it was Jimmy Tarbuck. Who next?
What was more disgusting this week were the comments from a barrister who, suggested that the age of consent was LOWERED to 13, so that we could "stop the persecution of old men." What is that about? That is like saying we should change the dictionary definition of the word 'No' so as we might not persecute men who rape women.


Economics

The economy still looks like a Kevin Bacon flatline. Do not hold your breath for a recovery any time soon and George Osborne got his Plan A dealt to him on a plate by the IMF this week, banking terrorists that they are too.


Human Rights

An artist who tried to enter the UK was refused because they could not give finger prints. The fact the artist paints with their mouth and feet because he has no arms was lost on the customs team.

Abu Qatada has said he would be willing to return to Jordan if a new treaty is ratified with the UK government. Theresa May is still intent on removing within the 'rule of law' and continues work to deport him. In the mean time she is still banging on about our human rights.

Health/Welfare/NHS

The NHS continues to take a kicking as the media are now hitting the A&E departments claiming people are misusing them. Having been to a doctor once or twice in my life I am sure many of you will agree that when you see a GP today they google your symptom and generally do not seem to know what they are thinking about. When compounded by the fact that they are pedalling drugs for big pharma is it any wonder people head to a hospital?

A mother and grandmother has been found dead, apparently committing suicide unable to cope with the fines imposed on her by the UK government during the welfare reform bills they have pushed through. IS that blood on your hands Cameron? Is that blood on your hands Osborne? We are truly led by the least amongst us.

Technology

Late night surfing led me to stumble across Remee, a specially designed sleeping mask that enables lucid dreaming to take place during the REM phase of sleep. The Daily Mail sexed it up with the usual Hollywood guff, comparing it to the great Leonardo DiCaprio movie Inception.

A children's charity in Spain have designed an advertising board that focuses specifically on kids. The board works by showing people of different heights different messages around child abuse. Whether this is a wise step in creating things that advertise specifically to children remains to be seen.

It comes under technology but could easily come under a variety of headings but China are upsetting the apple cart again with the solar panel industry with the BBC of all people daring to use the phrase "trade war" in its report, as China continues to subsidise its solar panel manufacturers at a disadvantage to those in Europe. Never mind.

If it was not bad enough that the police were beating us to death in custody, if it was not bad enough they are shooting us on the under ground, if it was not bad enough they are Tasering us to death on the street, then someone thought it was a good idea to give them a chemical gun. When the first person is killed by over zealous actors using these weapons of mass destruction, let it be known it was objected to here first.

The largest proprietor of arms sales in the world, America, has ordered the company who designed the first 3D printed gun to remove the schematics from the Internet. With over 100,000 downloads so far it may be that they are concerned it will eat in their profits.

Science 
The creation story took a caning this week as DNA coding pointed to the father of all men being 340,000 years old.

Several energy advisors jumped ship from Downing Street this week and left darling David to it with his ministers who favour shale gas and despise wind farming. They claimed that treasury were holding the purse strings tightly favouring the oil barons vision on the future, which is now very bleak indeed.

World

Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X, was killed this week in an apparent robbery. Malcolm X once famously said "democracy is hypocrisy." He was right and now we have lost another advocate in a time when they are sorely missing.

Kofi Annan has said that Africa is being plundered by secret mining deals. Really? No shit. Africa has been raped by the French, the British and the Americans for centuries and now more recently China is getting in on the act too, trading infrastructure for gold and other minerals. Why the deep concern now? It may be the oil on the east coast that has something to do with it.

A whistle blower on Russia Today lifted the lid on the actions taken by MI6 and the CIA in Afghanistan, amongst other places, being used to prop up drug lords and other unsavoury types.

Lunatic state Israel has been reigning down fire on Syria this week with an escalated bombing campaign. I wonder if Iran launched an attack on a neighbouring state if the world would accept it as passively?


There is no sport, there is some entertainment, David Bowie has had his new video removed from YouTube apparently after some dodgy religious references. You have got to be shitting me. Madonna danced with a black Jesus in 1980 something and some Jewish bloke made a video about the Prophet Muhammed and neither of these were banned or taken off line. Christianity is by no means free from criticism and should remember the proverb about people living in glass houses and throwing stones.

30 thoughts on being 30

I have been thinking for the last few weeks about ageing and time as I have been 30, for 50 days.

What I have noticed most of all is the obsession of others with 'turning 30', as though all of a sudden you have become sour, like milk. I have been referred to as bitter in the past but never sour.

My birthday was one I neither dreaded or relished, it was just another day for me, but others were intent in making a thing of it.

1) Time; if one never takes time how can one ever have time? It seems to be moving faster than at any time I can remember, yet there is no more or less of it than in previous years. Observation affects the way in which we perceive our reality and can only say that I live a full and varied life, leaving me little time to clock watch.  Then I remember how it is important not to overlap your actions, in this world of multi-media and multi-tasking, it is easy to lose focus. I could be sat here at my desk with a coffee, my music playing and my phone, tweeting away the latest news updates, but I would not be truly focusing on any one task, so would I be able to appreciate the coffee or the music, or make this make sense?
The only moments I need concern myself with are the ones happening now.

2) When I talk about anything remotely resembling popular culture I tend to get raised eyebrows, followed by "who?"or "what?" Abstaining from the social conditioning box and the radio does not help.
Recent discussions with my nephews led to them asking me what a video or cassette tape was and another discussion during a coaching session I took at rugby left the guys asking me who Zinzan Brooke was. I was flabbergasted. The Skunk Anansie gig I went to in April was full of 30-40 somethings that were at high school their first time around and I also once thought dub-step was a band, getting confused with N-dubz.

3) Memory is a fickle thing. I remember my first try, my latest try, the birth of my nephews and where I was when the world was turned upside down on September 11th 2001 but, for all these memories, I am not the same person I was then, literally. You see, matter flows from place to place and our cells are in a state of continual growth, with the life span of an adults bones typically lasting 7 years. As I sit today I was not in fact there in the park, but the memory of it remains, for now. In another 30 years I may not be able to recollect the finer points of these collections or moments.

4) Brandon Lee once said that everything seems limitless and this philosophy has stuck with me since I was a teenager. He said that we believe we will always have the opportunity to witness the sun rise or set or, to sit under a full moon; but in reality how many times would any of us really sit to witness any one of these moments over the course of our lives? Maybe a handful? A lot of you may say you have stumbled out of a night club and the sun is up, which takes me to point 1; seeing daylight upon stumbling from a club or returning from a night shift at work is different to sitting and witnessing the sun rise over the horizon and the birth of a new day of endless possibilities.

5) Following point 4 I recalled the truth I told myself once before that at 30 I am not even half way through my life. At approximately 262,080 hours old (give or take a few leap years) I am some way from the 650,000 odd hours people generally live for today. Then I thought about how lucky I am to be here at all and made me wonder why people hate getting older? Each day that passes is one that should be cherished and if people concerned themselves more with living, rather than existing, then it would not be so much an issue. I have also finally come to understand the comments by sportsmen and women the world over when they say that the "mind is willing but the body is not" as countless times in the past few weeks I have experienced first hand the young bucks on the rugby field are now no longer left in my wake when I make a break, but instead swallow up the ground and put the hit on me. Hopefully the effort I put in the gym today will stand me in good stead tomorrow (30-40 years from now) and help maintain a welcome standard of mobility and living.

6) 30 years ago the mobile phone was powered by a brief case, just about made a connection and was the tool of the executive businessman or 'yuppie. Today every one and their hoodie has one and they are set to over take the global population by 2014.

7) 30 years from now the mobile phone will probably be obsolete and consigned to the science museum, replaced instead by a device installed inside the palm of your hand and powered by the biometrics of the human body.

8) The news is no longer news. They tell you what to think about and X-factor is not news. We have moved, over the years, from manufacturing consent to the outright and blatant manufacturing of news.

9) The NHS saved my life at the time of my birth, have worked wonders on me at various points in my turbulent young and physically active life and will no doubt save it before my internal clock stops. A shame then that the way things are going currently, they will be privatised and I will probably not be able to afford the treatment I will no doubt require.

10) A book written 30 odd years or more before I was born, about the year after my birth, called 1984 set the bleak tone for the society that I would grow up in. Since that year, use of CCTV has increased exponentially, with the average UK citizen being captured 300 times a day and now we have drones.

11) I have been able to vote at three previous general elections and if I had known at 18 what I know today then I would never have put an X in any box and be able to stand proud and say that I have never participated in the great democracy con.

12) I have witnessed love and loss first hand and come to realise that death is only for the living, not that this makes it any easier when it comes your way. The key is as in point 3, to make the most of the moments in your life and make them ones to remember.

13) We are all born actors and artists but this is educated out of us as we grow up.

14) The first 5-6 years of your life are some of the most important formative years of your life and you have no control over them, or your experiences.

15) Television is the greatest educator for the majority of people born from the late 1970's to today. I remember my Dad saying: "No wonder we have delinquent kids today if that is the sort of T.V they are watching." And now I find myself thinking the same thing about the T.V my nephews watch. Then I remember I turned out alright (I think) and will ensure my nephews do too. Light the spark of curiosity in children and they will learn on their own.

16) Television has really been replaced by the Internet, a wonderful tool for education and communication.

17) 30 years ago the Internet was a military concept for communication.

18) It still is. They own all the satellites and keep trying to pass legislation to censor our right to expression, speech and education.

19) The longer you live, the more you get to see how society and life works in cycles. By the time I was 19 the War on terror, or rather more accurately the war of terror, was now in it's infancy.

20) The longer you live, the less patience you have with things that previously would have just flown over your head.

21) I remember being 21 and do not remember it being especially great or any different to being 30.

22) Tastes change over time. You can apparently reprogramme your taste buds in 4-6 weeks.

23) I turned 23 in Australia on my first visit there and have been home sick ever since. Depending on how many schooners you are knocking back the thing that strikes you most is the quality of the food, mainly because they do not have to import their fruit and veg, they can grow it themselves.

24) At 24 I finally ventured into a great vocation in life and things were on the up.

25) Australia changed things and over this period of time I began to look at the world with a new set of eyes. The social conditioning box was switched off in favour of Internet documentaries not aired on Sky and the rabbit hole got deeper and deeper.

26) Is said to be the start of your physical prime years and it may be true. I completed the first of what was to be 4 marathons in New York and was a punishing and gruelling endeavour I shall never forget or be matched.

27) The 27 club is full of great artists such as Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, something we are sorely lacking in today's society. Where are the advocates and activists?

28) Turns out that great vocation was just a mirage, clutched straws so to speak, but all's well that ends well. By the time I reached 28 I was 4 weeks in to this very blog and tapped back into my youthful, artful self, aided and abetted by a great woman now in my life.

29) London Marathon 2012, I was wrong about number 26, this was the worst physical experience of my life, far exceeding anything that occurred in New York, made all the more comical by the fact I gate crashed the start.

30) Living in the time of the digital revolution I have managed to create a foot print the size of a small ant and ensure any musings or thoughts can be found many years from now, as long as the energy that powers our devices and the oil that currently makes them last.

Some personal, others more general but none of despair or regret. We are shaped by the moments we make and whilst there may be some that are seated in pain for us all, we should not dwell on them, nor regret them. I await the next 30 years with the intention of living them on my own terms.

Economic time bomb on the horizon with interest only mortgage bubble about to burst.

The news this week has been rife with worry that the interest only mortgage bubble from the p1st ten years is about to burst.

Families who took on interest only mortgages, on the proviso that their homes would continue to grow in value, now face the stark reality that when the loan comes to mature, there may be no equity in the property to cover the bill at the end. Experts have warned that families have not been putting anything to one side to cover this deficit, but with ever increasing food and energy bills, how can anyone be expected to put anything aside?

Radio 4 had a specialist on who said that there could be two extremes that may resolve the potential crises, one was that the banks would write of the debt and that the other would be home owners having to hand the keys back. What goes around really goes around.

What the media has not said is that the people handing out these deals knew that a vast number of people they put on these 'deals' would not be able to pay back their debt and so would have no option but to default, leaving the greedy bankers to profit on the suffering of others again. These people have been paying interest for years and not even making a dent in the original principle. This principle was created by the bank in the first place out of nothing.

As George Carlin once said: "They want it all back, your social security money, your retirement money to give back to their criminal friends on Wall Street." 2.6 million people will apparently be affected by the interest only mortgage bubble that is about to burst and with it future generations futures buried under a mountain of debt.

Newell News-round up, week 6 - *Bank Holiday Special*

Today is the May Bank Holiday special weekly news round up and there have been some corkers this week.

UK Politics

The local byelections have taken place this week and the top story has been the UK Independence Party. The media have been running coverage from dawn until dusk on UKIP and as a result there have been significant gains by them on what they are calling the "issues that matter" to hard working people in the UK; namely immigration and the EU. UKIP came second in South Shields to Labour, forcing the Tory party into third place. The BBC, Sky and the rest of the media have been pushing the UKIP rhetoric on immigrants and the EU being the causes of most problems within the UK today, focusing on welfare amongst other areas. Predictably, hard hitting Tory figures such as Lord Tebbit and Theresa May have come out swinging by saying that the Tory party will focus in future on the key issues that supposedly affect us, immigration and the EU. Lord Tebbit said that he "could not blame Tories for voting UKIP", whilst Theresa May confirmed that the Tory party must "convince voters that there would be a referendum on Europe" and is sure that they can win voters back.
UKIP have served their purpose, aided and abetted by the mainstream media, in bringing right wing agendas to the forefront of mainstream politics and paving the way for the next general election to be fought on the grounds of immigration. The history of fascism is cyclical and this week we have seen the  foundations laid.

Economics

Experts warned of an economic time bomb as, home 'owners' who opted for interest only mortgages, face the very real possibility of having to hand back the keys to their homes as they are unlikely to be able to pay back the debts at the end of their terms. As many as 2.6 million people have taken out such loans which need to be paid back over a period of 30 years.  There may be two extremes on the table to deal with these loans as they come to maturity; either the banks will right off the loans or they will claim the lot back. You do not have to be a genius to work out which of those two extremes will be followed if it does come to this. People have not been putting anything aside to pay off the debt at the end of term but, with ever increasing energy and food bills, is it any wonder families are struggling today to find the money for tomorrow?

NHS/Health/Welfare 

The corporate vultures at Big Pharma have taken a slating this week as cancer doctors accused the companies of profiteering from patients over the sale of drugs, stating that the soaring costs may harm some patients who may be forced to forego treatment. This we should all be mindful of as the government continues its course of privatising the NHS.

The ambulance service hit the headlines again as an anonymous paramedic blew open the lid on issues surrounding the treatment of patients and the time taken for them to attend incidents within the East of Anglia Region. The paramedic cited numerous incidents that may have resulted in the harm or potential death of patients. The constant drip feeding of issues around the ambulance service may be a ploy to convince the public that privatisation, or a potential merger with another blue light service, as being the way forward. Without proper funding, resourcing and training all they will do is exacerbate the problem and drag another frontline service into the problem.

Despite the UK economy apparently increasing by 0.3% the news has informed us that households are borrowing money to pay for food. With the increase in food banks around the country and now this, families are really starting to feel the pinch with the depression created by the corporations and the banks. There are now 'approved food' websites where you can buy food on or out of their sell by dates.

Human Rights

Every week we witness a new assault on our human rights and it is getting tiresome repeating the same reasons for why we must stand up for them, but this week may have been the most dangerous attack yet.
Some fascist dictators in the Police have decided it is a good idea to tag dementia patients with a GPS tracking device to alleviate the cost of search and rescue when they go missing. Human Rights campaigners have called it barbaric and a number of people are of the same concern that this is another step towards compulsory tagging for all. Some schools already have your children's finger prints or iris scans to pay for their packed lunches and are sometimes taken without parents permission. We are creating a society of acceptance in people, children, who are unable to make the decision for themselves, biometrically bagged and tagged before junior school. Oh and they can do it without a parents consent.You could not make it up.

But no US or UK...

The Independent had an article on press freedoms and ranked different nations on them. Surprisingly the US and the UK did not feature, despite them both having legislation pending, that will curtail the freedom of expression for all, namely CISPA and the Communication and Data Bill respectively.

World

The Great actor Barack Obama has renewed his vow to shut Guantanamo Bay. We have heard this before and comes in the wake of the hunger strikers that are protesting there at this time. This man promised peace to millions but has caused more death, misery and loss of liberty to people than any of us could have imagined.

Hezbollah have pledged help to Syria and so the war mongering state of Israel launched a devastating air strike on a Syrian arms base. The fight for the Syria and the Middle East is ratcheting up a notch every week and it will surely not be long before the US commits to help the Syrian rebel alliance ,with boots on the ground, in a preemptive move on Iran.

The Syrian rebel alliance have been accused, not for the first time, of using chemical weapons which were presumably supplied to them by the Americans or the UK. Made in USA.

Environment

The EU have ruled in favour of a ban on pesticides that may be contributing to the decline in bee population. Interest has gained momentum in recent weeks with protests in the UK concerning current farming practices. A report conducted in the UK had estimated it could cost as much as £1.8m to do what bees do for free. Another report can be found here.

A row has erupted in the courts over who owns the fish in the sea. What do any of us own really? As fish stocks decline and humans continue to pollute the ocean, nations are arguing about who owns fish stocks in previously uncontested waters. We live as part of an eco-web and every action we take has a consequence. Unfortunately for us, we are led by the least amongst us and so they will carve up the territory and we will fish the sea to extinction.

Carbon dioxide levels are set to pass 400ppm, worrying times indeed. Will they use information like this to introduce a tax on air? Who knows, what people should be asking themselves is where (or what) is the line that they are not prepared to cross in paying tax?

Technology

Straight out of a Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, they have managed to create advertising boards that will track our eyes, ensuring we have a more immersive shopping experience. This will probably lead to a more targeted advertising campaign, focusing on the individual rather than the masses. The house of cards that our society is built on relies on 360 degree immersive advertising and this is another step towards securing, or enhancing this goal.

Not content with drones the size of model aeroplanes to surveil, maim and destroy, they have now come up with insect size drones that mimic the flight of flies. Perhaps they can program these devices to replace the bees once we have killed them off.

Nanoscientists have been showing off again with IBM creating a short video of a nano sized boy, kicking a nano sized football. It is quite simply amazing and shows how the world of the small could truly revolutionalise the way in which we build things in future. Richard Feynman was correct when he said there was plenty of room at the bottom.

Conversely whilst we have had these dramatic advancements there is always something to chill the mood and today is no exception. The worlds first 3D printed gun has been created and fired with only the firing pin being made from metal. 3D printing offers perhaps some of the most creative solutions to building, with the potential for people to buy their own printers and download schematics from the Internet, to create stuff in their own homes. Unfortunately this serves as an example of how Pandora's box gets perverted.


There is no sport, there is no entertainment. The weather is great-ish.