In a land long ago under the Presidency of George W Bush the big, bad CIA engaged in a practice known as "Extraordinary Rendition." This involved capturing enemy combatants (mainly Muslims) and transporting them to a third location for interrogation. The weak ones broke under the enhanced techniques at Guantanamo Bay while the slightly tougher ones had to be flown to secret prisons in various Eastern European nations. The really tough ones though were sent to Egypt where they were dealt with by Omar Suleiman's intelligence service and according to some reports Suleiman himself personally took part in a few of the torture sessions.
So far before the Palestine Papers were released Omar Suleiman was deeply unpopular amongst Egyptians. In fact you could say that Mubarak only appointed him as vice-President in order to enrage the protesters further. In short that means that the longer that the CIA continue to back Suleiman the less and less likely it becomes that Egypt will experience an orderly transition of power.
Now if you need further evidence of how badly the Americans totally failed to organise the current situation in Egypt then the sad fact is that they hadn't even bothered to update their contingency plan since Bush left.
And yes the above is the post that the Mubarak regime were hoping would save them. The idea was that if they could cling on to power long enough they would provoke me into starting a loud and massive argument between the American establishment. Once their Zionist allies have received this intelligence boost they would reward the NDP by keeping them in power. I'm not sure how that was meant to happen and I really don't know why the CIA were so keen on the idea.
Now I would like to dedicate the rest of this post to the late, great Leslie Nielsen but given the crash at Cork airport I thought that might cause too many problems around Tahrir square and really is it not time for you to go to bed for now?
Friday, 11 February 2011
Mubarak Has Gone.
After thirty years of rule and 18 days of protest the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down from office. He has now left Cairo and is looking forward to a quiet retirement in the resort town of Sharm el-Shiekh.
The only small problem is that rather then following the Egyptian constitution and handing power to the Parliamentary speaker Mubarak has instead passed power to the military, led by vice-President Omar Suleiman who has become known as the CIA's torturer in chief. This means that it is very difficult to argue that Egypt's regime has changed and it's days as a military dictatorship are over.
However for now this is only a small problem because it is still very early days and this is probably the first time in the last thirty years when Egypt has actually been in a state of emergency. So for tonight at least I think Tahrir square is going to been the scene of the worlds largest party.
The only small problem is that rather then following the Egyptian constitution and handing power to the Parliamentary speaker Mubarak has instead passed power to the military, led by vice-President Omar Suleiman who has become known as the CIA's torturer in chief. This means that it is very difficult to argue that Egypt's regime has changed and it's days as a military dictatorship are over.
However for now this is only a small problem because it is still very early days and this is probably the first time in the last thirty years when Egypt has actually been in a state of emergency. So for tonight at least I think Tahrir square is going to been the scene of the worlds largest party.
Anarchists to Ruin Royal Wedding.
On the one day when i didn't get time to buy a newspaper The Sun newspaper ran this story as a front page exclusive. Apparently they'd infiltrated a top secret meeting of British anarchists and uncovered plans to ruin April's Royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. Proving that you can't always believe what you read in the papers the Sun's reporting was very different from the accounts I've heard of the same meeting.
As you may have noticed Britain is in a very difficult financial position with earnings and livings standards falling at rates not seen since the 1920's - a period in British economic history where things got so bad the great depression of the 1930's was actually considered a marked improvement. As a result protests and widespread civil unrest is expected. In order to monitor and control this unrest Britain's security service, MI5 have set up an organisation known as "Network X" to suck in those who may have been radicalised by November's "Day X" student protests. Network X held it's second open, public meeting in Manchester about a month ago. Most of those in attendance were undercover police officers and members of front organisations like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) along with a few students and people associated with Climate Camp. However some of the larger anarchist groups did send low level delegations to the meeting.
The keynote speaker at the event was a man called Chris Knight who you may remember as the organiser of the London G20 kettle and the man who brought you the 2010 Democracy Village which helped engineer the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Mr Knight used his speech to outline a frankly ridiculous plan to disrupt the Royal wedding. The main idea was that a week before the wedding groups of protesters would storm and occupy key strategic locations including the Royal Courts of Justice, several central London police stations and the Wellington Army Barracks located next to Buckingham Palace. Then assuming that the defeat of the British army within it's own capital city didn't mean that the Royal wedding was cancelled further groups of protesters would hide amongst the crowds only to spring out and block the path of the Royal convoy with barricades and smoke bombs before storming Westminster Abbey.
After a period of consensus based, non-hierarchical decision making and, quite frankly, giggling the anarchists announced that they would be prepared to help Mr Knight's plan by organising a protest featuring over 100 naked prostitutes danced around and giant penis. This is of course a creative and polite way of saying that Chris Knight is a massive cock. He started his career as part of the governments university counter-extremism screening program and when the economic crisis struck he got promoted into organising protests that serve the state's anti-protest agenda. The most depressing part of his story is that he doesn't even get paid for his work because the boost he gets to his tiny little ego is reward enough for him.
As you may have noticed Britain is in a very difficult financial position with earnings and livings standards falling at rates not seen since the 1920's - a period in British economic history where things got so bad the great depression of the 1930's was actually considered a marked improvement. As a result protests and widespread civil unrest is expected. In order to monitor and control this unrest Britain's security service, MI5 have set up an organisation known as "Network X" to suck in those who may have been radicalised by November's "Day X" student protests. Network X held it's second open, public meeting in Manchester about a month ago. Most of those in attendance were undercover police officers and members of front organisations like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) along with a few students and people associated with Climate Camp. However some of the larger anarchist groups did send low level delegations to the meeting.
The keynote speaker at the event was a man called Chris Knight who you may remember as the organiser of the London G20 kettle and the man who brought you the 2010 Democracy Village which helped engineer the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Mr Knight used his speech to outline a frankly ridiculous plan to disrupt the Royal wedding. The main idea was that a week before the wedding groups of protesters would storm and occupy key strategic locations including the Royal Courts of Justice, several central London police stations and the Wellington Army Barracks located next to Buckingham Palace. Then assuming that the defeat of the British army within it's own capital city didn't mean that the Royal wedding was cancelled further groups of protesters would hide amongst the crowds only to spring out and block the path of the Royal convoy with barricades and smoke bombs before storming Westminster Abbey.
After a period of consensus based, non-hierarchical decision making and, quite frankly, giggling the anarchists announced that they would be prepared to help Mr Knight's plan by organising a protest featuring over 100 naked prostitutes danced around and giant penis. This is of course a creative and polite way of saying that Chris Knight is a massive cock. He started his career as part of the governments university counter-extremism screening program and when the economic crisis struck he got promoted into organising protests that serve the state's anti-protest agenda. The most depressing part of his story is that he doesn't even get paid for his work because the boost he gets to his tiny little ego is reward enough for him.
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Pedantry Alert.
There is an important difference between a military coup and a military mutiny.
In a military coup the military conspires amongst itself and then tries to impose it's will on the people. If you believe the rumours about Sadat's assassination this is how Mubarak came to power in Egypt in the first place. In a military mutiny however the public conspire amongst themselves and then the military impose the will of the people on an unpopular or illegitimate leader.
What is happening in Egypt at the moment is a mutiny with broadly two camps in the military. One camp which simply wishes to overthrow Mubarak and another camp which wishes to overthrow Mubarak and replace him with Suleiman because that's the CIA's choice.
The problem I have is that Mubarak has so badly lost his grip on reality he doesn't know that's going on. Instead he thinks that if he can trick me into some complicated mind game his British allies will reward him by helping him break the protests and allow him to stay in power after September. Obviously this makes it very difficult for me to post about the situation in Egypt or indeed anything else because today I posted about my problems with British Gas and Mubarak assumed that something to do with him.
So basically what I'm saying is that regardless of what I may or may not post tomorrow it's all down to the Egyptian people
In a military coup the military conspires amongst itself and then tries to impose it's will on the people. If you believe the rumours about Sadat's assassination this is how Mubarak came to power in Egypt in the first place. In a military mutiny however the public conspire amongst themselves and then the military impose the will of the people on an unpopular or illegitimate leader.
What is happening in Egypt at the moment is a mutiny with broadly two camps in the military. One camp which simply wishes to overthrow Mubarak and another camp which wishes to overthrow Mubarak and replace him with Suleiman because that's the CIA's choice.
The problem I have is that Mubarak has so badly lost his grip on reality he doesn't know that's going on. Instead he thinks that if he can trick me into some complicated mind game his British allies will reward him by helping him break the protests and allow him to stay in power after September. Obviously this makes it very difficult for me to post about the situation in Egypt or indeed anything else because today I posted about my problems with British Gas and Mubarak assumed that something to do with him.
So basically what I'm saying is that regardless of what I may or may not post tomorrow it's all down to the Egyptian people
The Ego Has Landed !
For the past 17 days the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has faced unprecedented protests calling for him to leave power. After 7 days the size and scale of these demonstrations forced him to announce that he would be stepping down in September in the hope that this would be enough the quell the protests.
Since then the protests have become larger, more frequent and more widespread across the country and hundreds of demonstrators have been killed or disappeared. Both Egypt's currency and credit rating have collapsed forcing Mubarak to close the country's stock market to prevent investors pulling all their money out of the country. Egypt is estimated to be losing US$200million for every day that Mubarak remains in power.
Today (10/2) this prompted sections of the Egyptian military to do their duty by the constitution and protect the country by mutinying. This forced Mubarak to flee to Sharm-el-Shiekh while the commanders of the Egyptian military held a meeting. At this meeting the leaders of the Egyptian military appear to have supported the mutiny and announced that Mubarak would be addressing the nation at 20:00 GMT presumably to announce his resignation. 20:00 GMT came and went with no sign of Mubarak but by 21:00 a pre-recorded message was shown in which Mubarak announced that everything was fine and he will be staying in power until September. Although with large sections of the military now against him I'm not sure how he's going to do that.
So it would appear that yes Mubarak is taking his cue from ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story Gordon Brown was overwhelmingly told to leave by the British people in March 2009. However rather then leaving with dignity he clung on to power until he was constitutional forced to hold a General Election in May 2010 and although it was clear that he'd lost that election he still refused to go until almost two weeks later.
He is now so hated in British politics that he is unable to show his face in public even though he is still, technically, an elected MP.
Since then the protests have become larger, more frequent and more widespread across the country and hundreds of demonstrators have been killed or disappeared. Both Egypt's currency and credit rating have collapsed forcing Mubarak to close the country's stock market to prevent investors pulling all their money out of the country. Egypt is estimated to be losing US$200million for every day that Mubarak remains in power.
Today (10/2) this prompted sections of the Egyptian military to do their duty by the constitution and protect the country by mutinying. This forced Mubarak to flee to Sharm-el-Shiekh while the commanders of the Egyptian military held a meeting. At this meeting the leaders of the Egyptian military appear to have supported the mutiny and announced that Mubarak would be addressing the nation at 20:00 GMT presumably to announce his resignation. 20:00 GMT came and went with no sign of Mubarak but by 21:00 a pre-recorded message was shown in which Mubarak announced that everything was fine and he will be staying in power until September. Although with large sections of the military now against him I'm not sure how he's going to do that.
So it would appear that yes Mubarak is taking his cue from ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story Gordon Brown was overwhelmingly told to leave by the British people in March 2009. However rather then leaving with dignity he clung on to power until he was constitutional forced to hold a General Election in May 2010 and although it was clear that he'd lost that election he still refused to go until almost two weeks later.
He is now so hated in British politics that he is unable to show his face in public even though he is still, technically, an elected MP.
The British Gas Saga.
Both my father and grandmother have maintenance contracts with British Gas to service their gas boilers, central heating systems, hot water systems and gas fires.
On Tuesday, February 1st they both had their annual service and safety inspections done and both passed without any problem. That night the gas tap on my grandmother's tap failed open, filling her house with poisonous and highly explosive natural gas. Luckily she was mentally aware enough to notice the problem and after some 3AM drama the gas supply was turned off, the windows were opened and disaster was averted. The next day another British Gas engineer turned up, replaced the faulty parts and got everything working again. Now the gas fire in question is quite old so I can't definitively say it was sabotaged but the fact it was certified as safe just 11 hours earlier doesn't look good does it.
Then on Tuesday, February 8th the boiler in my father's house stopped working meaning no hot water and no heat. A third British Gas engineer came out that same day, re-started the boiler and told my father there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. 90 minutes later it stopped working again. This meant a fourth British Gas engineer came round on Wednesday, February 9th and after he'd taken the boiler to bits and called in a fifth engineer with a replacement part he got it working again and it is still working now. The once we'd found a way to make sure the kitchen was kept nice and warm the refrigerator broke spoiling all the food and forcing us to buy a new one. So this week has mostly been taken up with grumbling and swearing.
Oh and reports that Hosni Mubarak has hired ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to plan his exit strategy cannot be confirmed at this time.
On Tuesday, February 1st they both had their annual service and safety inspections done and both passed without any problem. That night the gas tap on my grandmother's tap failed open, filling her house with poisonous and highly explosive natural gas. Luckily she was mentally aware enough to notice the problem and after some 3AM drama the gas supply was turned off, the windows were opened and disaster was averted. The next day another British Gas engineer turned up, replaced the faulty parts and got everything working again. Now the gas fire in question is quite old so I can't definitively say it was sabotaged but the fact it was certified as safe just 11 hours earlier doesn't look good does it.
Then on Tuesday, February 8th the boiler in my father's house stopped working meaning no hot water and no heat. A third British Gas engineer came out that same day, re-started the boiler and told my father there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. 90 minutes later it stopped working again. This meant a fourth British Gas engineer came round on Wednesday, February 9th and after he'd taken the boiler to bits and called in a fifth engineer with a replacement part he got it working again and it is still working now. The once we'd found a way to make sure the kitchen was kept nice and warm the refrigerator broke spoiling all the food and forcing us to buy a new one. So this week has mostly been taken up with grumbling and swearing.
Oh and reports that Hosni Mubarak has hired ex-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to plan his exit strategy cannot be confirmed at this time.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Unbelieveable!
No not the fact that it's a Tuesday night and I've come back from the pub, a little bit drunk, to discover that everything is OK. Instead it is today that once again the momentous event of me having my haircut has once again occurred. While it was a severe haircut I'm not going to tell you where I had it done for a reason that is about to become immediately obvious.
According to the gossip since my last visit one of the women who works in the salon has picked up her very own stalker. Apparently some middle-aged man has been following her about and loitering outside her children's school. The local police have been informed but as usual don't appear to be making any progress. Now like bar staff hairdressing is one of those professions where some customer's can get a little bit confused about the social boundary between staff and customer so this might have absolutely nothing to do with me. However it is also possible that someone in the council has got some weirdo to terrorise this woman in order to start the rumour that I've got someone to intimidate her in revenge for her giving me a bad haircut. Although I would dispute the fact that she's ever given me a bad haircut I'm the sort of man who will walk home caked in his own vomit so I think it's fair to say that a bad haircut is not the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me.
In related news British Telecom (BT) have removed the telegraph pole outside my house. Officially this has been done due to some "new technical specifications" however I think it was done because the pole was blocking the sight line from my grandmother's house to the council spy living across the road. Also we've been going through another episode of the long saga with the British Gas maintenance engineers. The next episode is coming tomorrow morning but as no-one's actually been blown up yet that's probably a story that needs to be told in more detail at a later date.
In television news yesterday some amateurs tried a smash and grab robbery on a jewellers in some rubbish British town. A passing old lady took one look and decided they were a bunch of amateurs so decided to stop the robbery by clattering them over the head with her handbag. While I think there may be some element of Britain raising questions about a spate of similar robbery's in London I think it would be more useful to interview the bunch amateurs rather then the old lady.
According to the gossip since my last visit one of the women who works in the salon has picked up her very own stalker. Apparently some middle-aged man has been following her about and loitering outside her children's school. The local police have been informed but as usual don't appear to be making any progress. Now like bar staff hairdressing is one of those professions where some customer's can get a little bit confused about the social boundary between staff and customer so this might have absolutely nothing to do with me. However it is also possible that someone in the council has got some weirdo to terrorise this woman in order to start the rumour that I've got someone to intimidate her in revenge for her giving me a bad haircut. Although I would dispute the fact that she's ever given me a bad haircut I'm the sort of man who will walk home caked in his own vomit so I think it's fair to say that a bad haircut is not the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me.
In related news British Telecom (BT) have removed the telegraph pole outside my house. Officially this has been done due to some "new technical specifications" however I think it was done because the pole was blocking the sight line from my grandmother's house to the council spy living across the road. Also we've been going through another episode of the long saga with the British Gas maintenance engineers. The next episode is coming tomorrow morning but as no-one's actually been blown up yet that's probably a story that needs to be told in more detail at a later date.
In television news yesterday some amateurs tried a smash and grab robbery on a jewellers in some rubbish British town. A passing old lady took one look and decided they were a bunch of amateurs so decided to stop the robbery by clattering them over the head with her handbag. While I think there may be some element of Britain raising questions about a spate of similar robbery's in London I think it would be more useful to interview the bunch amateurs rather then the old lady.
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