Filesharing - The New Economy of Community

The BPI has growled and snarled again and is victimising and showing its teeth to another small handful of people in the UK who form a tiny fraction of users in an Internet population of over 400,000,000 file sharers around the world.

The Antagonist has written several times about the fundamental truths that underlie the p2p debate, and the futility of the issuance of legal threats (here, here, here and here) and is once again duty bound to authoring the following article in another attempt to introduce whatever tiny degree of logic possible into the arena of file-sharing discussion.

Conceptually, the issue is not that file-sharing occurs, rather the inevitable consequences of that file-sharing.

Confused? You won't be...

The Inevitable Transformation of Copy Rights

Since its inception, the Internet has resulted in the emergence of the ultimate fantasy of free-market-fetishists everywhere, an entirely cooperative and entirely free-market that dissolves international boundaries, regulates itself without rules, and in which anyone with an Internet connection can participate.

This Internet community has built itself almost from nothing to the crescendo of now in the space of just 20 years and it is only just starting to be recognised, or perhaps openly acknowledged by those that have denied it for so long, as the force of evolution and escalating consciousness that is its very essence.

This community, for it is a community in the true sense of the word, has created all manner of things from open-source operating systems and applications that compete with the expensive corporate alternatives, right through to music, films and words - not for profit - but for everyone to use as they choose, and at their discretion. The price for this service? So negligible as to be as close to free as anyone might hope to achieve.

The world is unquestionably a better place for the novelty of these developments. Unless, of course, you happen to be entirely reliant on the captive market that results from the monopolistic or oligopolistic control of markets and distribution channels.

The international network of peer-to-peer users, Internet Relay Chatters and Instant Messengers consists of ordinary people who share freely and globally their local and individual forms of culture, music and ideas. The morality of doing so cannot be legislated, nor can any such legislation be realistically enforced, especially when the captive market on which that legislation depends no longer exists.

The P2P community is the embodiment of a global mass-rejection of the hard-copy, solid-state, media channels of yore that dictated, "Here, watch this, at this time, but only if you can afford it!" The old, inflexible, paradigm of controlled media distribution through specific channels has necessarily given way to worldwide networks of media consumers who listen to and watch what they want, when they want. This is the 'On demand' media utopia that multimedia always promised but that the media industries failed to deliver, instead choosing to rely on their captive audience remaining captive, despite technological revolutions greater than that of the industrial revolution which reversed that captivity forever.

Recently the media industries finally evolved enough to enter the digital media race, embarking on a game of catch-up in a competition that ended some time ago. That this is a fact, cannot be denied. Nor can it be denied that the media companies, even in their international collective cabals with all their legal might, have little hope of closing the file-sharing floodgates now, or at any point in the future, for this would be similar in nature to the Sissyphean task of trying to persuade everyone that the Earth is flat.

And, while the likes of RIAA/MPAA, and their international cohorts around the world, pursue their ill thought out, self-defeating campaigns of issuing legal threats against their customers - the very same people who fund the media's existence and who include children, grandmothers and dead people - for the abominable charges of watching films and listening to music, a whole other world emerges outside of the boundaries of currently acceptable peer-to-peer debate. Until now.

The very collectivisation and faux-dedication of the multi-national media companies to their hopeless cause tells us far more about what has not entered the copyright discussion thus far than what has. Aside from nearly every song and every film ever made, peer-to-peer networks also contain nearly every operating system, software application, research paper, radio show, TV show, lecture, interview, talk, speech, script, document, thesis, legal document and just about every book of every kind in every language ever published.

Are we to presume that those who claim ownership of anything else that can be digitised, and which therefore cannot be owned or controlled as before, follow the same path as the media industries? With the benefit of logic, rationality, and the hindsight of evidence demonstrating the extreme inefficacy of this tactic, I think not.

If the Stick Doesn't Work, Try the Carrot

The multinational media companies openly state that the only reason legal threats are issued against anyone is to serve as a 'deterrent' to the peer-to-peer community that, in private at least, the media companies know they cannot dream of stopping. Naturally, the deterrent function of a handful of legal proceedings has failed and all manner of peer-to-peer, Internet and network statistics exist to support this position.

File-sharing traffic now constitutes almost 90% of all Internet traffic, and as more of the world comes online, the number of users that comprise that 90% of Internet traffic will increase exponentially. This in turn this renders the idea of continuing to issue legal proceedings against individual peer-to-peer users even more redundant than it would already appear to any right-minded business person unfamiliar with the bizarre practice of suing their customers.

As the efforts of media companies to herd customers who have escaped via a variety of alternative sources back into CD and vinyl pens with a big stick, ever greater numbers of people around the world are actively demonstrating their reluctance to be shepherded, either through extortion, victimisation, or otherwise, into paying artificially-inflated, cartel-inspired prices for things which they have become accustomed to accessing for considerably less.

Of course, the media industries will make big noises about each individual case of victimisation because the reality of the matter is that one user, 1,000 users, or even 1 million users is still less than one percent of the overall user base and will never approach being anything other than an insignificant statistic.

What if 50 million peer-to-peer users decided to join forces and issue legal proceedings against the media cartels for price-fixing and other easily provable predatory 'free-market' tactics used to hold media buyers hostage since the advent of the gramophone? There isn't a lawyer in the world that wouldn't leap at the chance to lead that prosecution.

The Economy of Community

A world of sensory experience that previously required considerable disposable income is now accessible to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Those that stand to lose their self-appointed rights to that over which they had no legitimate claim originally will necessarily endeavour to hold back the unstoppable march of the progress which instantly dissolves their illegitimate and transparent claims to the right of eternal private profit at the public expense of everyone.

As file-sharing is vilified by those that wish to maintain the anachronistic status quo of a century of media control, it would be wise for the rest of us to remember that peer-to-peer networking and file-sharing liberates the media, information and knowledge for one and all, and that this liberation results in rapidly escalating levels of awareness and consciousness that serve the benefit of all humanity, albeit at the expense of those that desire otherwise. This, in part, is the menace of peer-to-peer networking.

The real menace of peer-to-peer networking and file-sharing as perceived by multi-national industries and governments alike, however, is not that files are being freely traded, but instead the direct and inevitable consequences of those files being traded.

The consequence of the digital revolution that has liberated information, knowledge and people, is that it challenges traditional profit-based market models. New, uncharted economic territory is being explored and the emerging economic models of this territory are so diverse from those we have known that they challenge the long-held positions of power and influence that multi-national corporations and governments have fought so long and hard against the people to preserve.

Everything wants to be free. If this wasn't the case, governments and corporations wouldn't have to go to such extreme lengths to make it not so. The new, emerging economic model of the Internet and file-sharing paradigm is now substantiating this claim as never before.

This is the power of sharing, co-operation and community, and it comes almost entirely free of artificially inflated charges.

There. It has been said. The cat is out of the bag. The horse has bolted. The banks have burst.

"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", as Neil Armstrong once said.

Cannabis Psychosis Myth Explosion #2

A comment on this post, and comments from a few others, have related that the alleged link between cannabis use and psychosis was bandied about during the Sixties, and indeed for some considerable time before, as if this was some sort of valid argument to defend the fact that the myth is still being perpetuated.

The Antagonist wishes to make one thing clear before addressing these claims:

The existence of the notion of a link between long-term cannabis use and psychosis is not sufficient basis to assume that there exists any link at all.

In response to those who still suffer the psychosis and confusion that arises from a distinct lack of cannabis use, The Antagonist dedicates the following:

Every thing must necessarily must be viewed in the context of every other thing.

In this instance, and with regard to Sixties, the expounding of notions of the myth of a link between cannabis and psychosis must be viewed within the context of what were deemed to be 'excessively permissive' times.

During the Swinging Sixties, cannabis use was at an all-time high, and the propaganda campaign started when governments came to the realisation that their control over the general population, cannabis users in particular, was rather more tenuous than they first thought.

It still is, They still think so, and so the cycle repeats, evolving us no further forward than when it was first assumed that the morality of the masses could be enforceably legislated by the miniscule minority that sought to do so.

Taken in its correct context, the attempts of authorities to promote the myth of a link between any principle factor behind any cultural revolution that threatens their positions of power, influence and control, and some catastrophic and disastrous consequence, can be seen exactly for what it is - a very deliberate and specific tool of propaganda that has no substance.

The same notion of a link between cannabis and psychosis was indeed prevalent in the sixties and still continues. This leaves us with the facts, some fifty years later, that a long standing myth continues to be expounded today, and for which science has no supporting evidence, despite half a century of dedicated scientific reasearch using increasingly sophisticated and advanced technology.

To scientists, governments and politicians:

Propaganda can alter perceptions of history but it cannot change history. Nor can it change the resonance of the consequences of that history which lives on in each and every one of us.

Millennia of empirical and experiential evidence shows continued use of cannabis throughout evolution and across every civilisation and culture known to man, without harm to self, or others.

Let the myth go or, alternatively, come clean and admit your lies.

To everyone else:

Blaze Ganja!

Wimbledon: Tim Henman Reaches Break Point...

... and breaks down.

Just as predicted, but far earlier than even The Antagonist thought, with Henman failing to reach the second week of Wimbledon this year, despite a relatively easy first round draw.

Thanks to Rugo for passing on news of Henman's even-hastier-than-usual exit from the tournament.

The Antagonist is now wondering whether or not it might be a tad premature to offer Tim commiserations on behalf of any efforts he might endeavour to make in the forthcoming U.S. Open...

The Cannabis Psychosis Myth Exploded

Just posted the note below to the UK Cannabis Information Alliance Mailing List. For those not on that list, the missive is reproduced here for the edification and enlightenment of all:

>On Tue, 2005-06-21 at 08:03 +0100, Derek wrote:

>> Incidence of psychosis in South London
>> has roughly doubled over the past 40 years...

The noted increase in psychosis in South London is not a statistic demonstrating the perils of cannabis use, rather a statistic that clearly evinces the perils of living in South London, or indeed any part of any other major town or city you care to name.

The links between the heightened pressures of urban living and increased instances of psychosis are increasingly well documented. It is also sensible to not lose sight of the fact that, according to BBC1's One Life programme, aired last night, 1 in 4 people is likely to suffer some form of mental disorder as a matter of course, irrespective of cannabis use, and this happens to be the exact same figure cited for cannabis users.

Another point worth noting is quite how we define 'psychosis'.

The dictionary definition of 'psychosis' is:

"A severe mental disorder, with or without organic damage, characterised by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social functioning."

So before we begin labelling people as psychotic, and linking that psychosis circumstantially, and almost inextricably, to any use of nature's plants that humans the world over have been using, without any harm to themselves or anyone else, for thousands upon thousands of years, we must first ask:

"What definitions of 'reality', 'derangement of personality', 'contact with reality', and 'normal social functioning' are we using to determine cases of 'psychosis'?"

And, further, once definitions of these terms are established:

"Are these definitions of 'reality', 'derangement of personality', 'contact with reality', and 'normal social functioning' those that best serve the interests of the many, rather than the few that seek to control them to their own ends?"

If the answer to the latter of these two questions is, 'No', then we must necessarily return to the first question and redefine our terms accordingly.

Ant.
--
Anything that defies my sense of reason....
http://antagonise.blogspot.com/

Will Mel B. Do it for Charideeee?

Live8 nears, Bob Geldof's doing what he seems to be best at, and Mel B can't extricate her head from her anus for long enough to reform the rather tedious Spice Girls for the occasion owing to, "difficulty going back to something she did in the past".

Geldof, ever the diplomat, said, "I'll call her during the week and if she can't do it, she can't do it".

Just as well Bob doesn't have a problem with going back to something he did in the past, or there would be no Live8 concert for the has-been primadonna to rebuff.

The Antagonist has never known, or cared, what the 'B' in 'Mel B' stood for but is now guessing it's 'B' for 'Bollocks' and draws attention to the rebuff, not for lack of charity, but for a sense of wonderment about the following:

If the world has to rely on pop stars who have long passed their best-before dates, and dancing windbags of less-than-zero creative talent, to put the world to rights, quite why is there continued allowance, toleration and support of governments and International non-governmental organisations whose purpose seems to be little more than perpetuate the ills of the world as we all dig deeper into our pockets to rectify those same ills?

While we're on the subject, has anyone other than The Antagonist noticed the subtle irony of the latest Geldof African debt and food relief extravaganza being called 'Live Ate'.

Tom Cruise - Rainman Gets Wet

Oh how the heady world of celebrity stardom is paved with trials and tribulations.

The Super Ego of everyone's favourite Scientologist,Tom Cruise, was minorly bruised in a life-threatening terrorist attack earlier this week that resulted in the pint-sized-protagonist of War of the Worlds becoming ever-so-slightly wetter than he usually is.

Mr Cruise was squirted in the face with a small amount of water from a mocked-up microphone and became very upset by the stunt that occured during publicity interviews outside the premiere for War of the Worlds (or, more correctly, "Raw fo teh Drowls" for those in the know):

"Why would you do that?...why would you do that...why would you do that? That's incredibly rude. I'm here giving you an interview and you do that...it's incredibly rude... "You're a jerk ... you're a jerk!"

So offended are the sensibilities of Thomas Cruise Mapother IV's concept of 'I', that he is considering legal action against the pranksters who carried out the stunt for a new Friday night show on Channel 4, Balls of Steel.

Within hours loud-mouthed, media-whore supreme, Sharon Osbourne (sorry, Ozzy, it has to be said), herself a recent 'victim' (in the rather undramatic sense) of the same pranksters, leapt in on the free-publicity ride that constantly rewards mediocrity and the majesty of irrelevance and has vowed to help Cruise get revenge.

Osbourne retalliated in kind, soaking a cameraman with a bucket of water which, as if to indicate the perversity of the whole debacle, had previously been used to chill champagne.

Cruise has yet to take action and The Antagonist very much looks forward to witnessing the course of action chosen by the $25 million-a-film Rainman with an aversion to water.

What keeps you cooler, Mr Cruise, water or Scientology?

'Evil' P2P - The One Microsoft Way

P2P is evil and the scourge of the Internet. Or so those that seek to part everyone from their hard earned cash at every available opportunity keep telling us.

Now, Microsoft enters the world of evil P2P with its own file-sharing software, codenamed 'Avalanche', which is based on Bram Cohen's well established and respected BitTorrent protocol.

Microsoft researchers said 'Avalanche' could be used to help distribute software and security patches, which The Antagonist finds rather odd because Microsoft recently invoked the nonsense DMCA against P2P group Downhill Battle for doing just that.

With regard to 'Avalanche' the software - Stable doors, horses and bolts.

In reality, it promises nothing that some bright kid somewhere won't improve upon immediately, if not before, 'Avalanche' starts rolling down the Microsoft mountain. Such is the fluid, dynamic and fast-paced nature of the Internet. So fast and fluid, in fact, that the traditional, behemothic industries of yore are finding it increasingly more difficult to compete and stay afloat.

The Internet paradigm has, since its inception, forged new, diverse, cooperative communities of inter-connected people that traditional supply/demand economic market models cannot entertain and simultaneously survive.

This new international community of peer-to-peer users, Internet Relay Chatters and Instant Messengers, where users of these services share globally their local and invidual forms of culture, music and ideas in a mass-rejection of the hard-copy, solid-state, media channels of yesterday, is now a living, breathing entity outside of anyone's direct control and it has high-speed access to the world's single biggest information resource.

This Internet community has built itself, almost from nothing, in the space of just 20 years and is only now starting to be recognised, or perhaps just openly acknowledged, by those that have denied it for so long, for the force (read: threat) of prominence and escalating conscience that is its very essence.

Those that stand to lose that over which they had no legitimate claim originally, will necessarily endeavour to hold back the unstoppable march of progress, or continue to jump on the bandwagon a short while after it's already too late.

Microsoft's 'Avalanche' is a shining example of the latter.

Tim Henman: Wimbledon 2005

Today sees the start of the most prestigious of tennis tournaments, Wimbledon.

Before even the first match is played, The Antagonist would like to offer Great Britain's Great White Hope, Tim Henman, the most sincere of congratulations for maybe, possibly, winning the coin-toss prior to the match that sees his imminent departure from the tournament.

North Yorkshire Flash Floods

Ten days ago the Yorkshire Post reported the findings of a nine-year York University Environment Department study which concluded that the world is facing the biggest climate change for 18,000 years, and that these changes will have massive effects on vegetation in Africa, the largest since the last Ice Age.

Seemingly, the report didn't highlight the dramatic effects that this climate change might have on a slightly more local level as today's news reports begin to fill themselves with stories of huge flash-flooding in North Yorkshire.

The flash-floods affected parts of the county that have previously been flood-free and water levels are said to have risen at a rate of 15-20 feet in the space of two hours. At the same time, just 200 miles away in London, temperatures soared to a country-wide high of 33C (91.4F).

The Antagonist thinks it might be worth considering whether we are witnessing a bit of freakish weather, or in fact the results of testing of climate control technologies by these guys and their ilk, who also happen to be located not terribly far away in North Yorkshire.

Simply put, climate change, or climate control?

If the notion of Climate Control seems a little far-fetched, bear in mind that the only possible solution to the massive effects of global warming and climate change is to achieve a high-degree of climate control, on a global level, for this is the only way to reverse the extreme effects of global warming.

At least, that's what all the International bodies formed to monitor and manage the effects of climate change openly state. Furthermore, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changee (IPCC) - a union between the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - have a whole bunch of papers online explaining how to do it.

With that new bit of knowledge in mind, does climate control on a small, local level - say, flash-floods in North Yorkshire during a countrywide heatwave, for example - seem like such wild and crazy idea?

Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Elvis & P2P

Word is that Michael Jackson might have to sell his ownership of rights to the back catalogue of Beatles and Elvis tracks to bail himself out of financial difficulties. Jackson owns half of Sony/ATV Music which owns the rights to 200,000 songs, which includes the Jackson-owned Beatles and Elvis catalogues. Sony's publishing business is worth in the region of $1 billion, 50 percent of which is attributable to Michael Jackson, himself reported to be worth somewhere around $150 million.

Apparently.

It beggars The Antagonist's belief that this continued assumption of ownership of vibrations in the airwaves, and the huge sums of money associated with so doing, can continue when anyone with a TV, radio, or PC and Internet connection can readily avail themselves of those very same vibrations.

Sure, a centralised bunch of media companies can wave around lots of bits of paper containing all sorts of legal jargon which implies ownership of everything ever recorded, but they can't really argue with a world-wide, decentralised, fully-redundant world of half-a-billion Internet users, who account for up to 85% of all Internet traffic, and who are all actively asserting a rather different paradigm.

Evidence shows they still haven't quite got it yet.

Police Curiosity Piqued by Cash Carriers

Hot on the heel's of The Antagonist's post about the cashless society, the BBC today reports news of a couple under investigation for carrying large amounts of cash with them.

Drivers, and the authorities, in Hampshire were accidentally alerted to the large amount of cash being carried by the couple when over £10,000 in twenty pound notes showered the motorway from the bike on which the couple were travelling.

From the BBC story:

The motorcyclists, from the Isle of Wight, told police they were going to buy a car with the money.

"This raised our suspicions and we are making checks as to where the money came from at the moment but it's not an offence to carry money," the [Hampshire Police] spokeswoman added.

What's suspicious about anyone buying a car? And, for the sake of clarity, in case anyone missed the concept first time around:

"... at the moment it's not an offence to carry money."

It helps if we all pay very close attention to the words used by representatives of the authorities for they contain subtle pointers to the future they have already determined for us.

More Hot Air from British Gas

Just seen an advert for British Gas where a talking flame - yes, a talking flame, this is the stuff of television after all - speaking on behalf of British Gas, and it announces that it found the service from British Gas to be somehow 'better' than the service from a competing supplier.

What?

There's a pipe into your house. Gas comes through it. Someone sends you a bill.

Where exactly is the scope for 'better'?

The Cashless Society

By way of a conversation betwixt The Antagonist and a very dear friend, the topic happened upon the notion of a society without cash, its implications, and whether or not such a thing could ever occur.

Said dear friend stated that the notion of a cashless society was beyond comprehension until The Antagonist pointed out the following:

• No cash ever changes hands when salaries are paid by bank transfer, or cheque.
  
• No cash ever changes hands when standing orders and direct debits transfer funds to pay for the likes of mortgages and rent; water, electricity and gas bills, along with other frivolities like gym memberships, satellite TV and Internet access.
  
• No cash ever changes hands with credit card purchases and, earlier this year, credit card purchases in the UK exceeded cash purchases for the first time ever.
  
• No cash ever changes hands when you use your permanent ticket to ride on public transport.
• No cash ever changes hands when you purchase things online.

And there are countless other ways in which we can and do interact with the already existing cashless society on a daily basis, if we choose to see them for what they are rather than conveniences.

In reality, we're not terribly far from an entirely cashless society, to the point where most payments in the UK are now no longer rely on the transfer of physical tokens, but the modification of arbitary numbers on bank and credit-card company owned computers and networks.

The point of all this? Ultimately, the gradual removal of society's dependence on the tokens we still occasionally use in order to obtain goods and services from each other.

Why?

This makes cash and credit management far easier to control for those that run these systems as it reduces the need for banks and governments to concern themselves with the whereabouts of all the millions of bits of paper and metal that we can all currently freely exchange, without having to be accountable to anyone for it.

It also removes the need to worry about counterfeit money, cash-transactions that avoid tax, and any transactions that could be vaguely considered 'illegal' under the plethora of ever-increasing laws over which mere citizens have almost no control.

When the tokens we can freely exchange between each other are replaced entirely by electronic transactions on bank computers, every single transaction will be monitored, non-repudiable and, ultimately, taxable at whatever rate those that we allow to decide these things for us choose.

Luckily, there is still a choice. The question is whether or not this choice will be acknowledged by sufficient numbers before it's too late.

Negative Equity

The Antagonist was half way through penning a rather long post (coming soon) about the economy, pensions, and all sorts of other things that weren't necessarily going to be included in the post when the notion for it was conceived.

Somewhere during the course of penning that lengthy post, the little paean to the modern economy that are the words below wrote itself, bringing a wry but almost imperceptible smile to the lips of The Antagonist:

negative equity, by the antagonist, 2005

negative equity,
it's such a tragedy

just bricks and mortar,
a house, you see

a roof over your head,
a place for your bed

the place you would have rested,
until you were dead

you worked for the man,
but it wasn't enough

so they took away your home,
how ruthless and tough

your fleeting romance,
with fixed-rate finance

burnt all of your fingers,
and left memories that linger

but no roof over your head,
nor place for your bed

the place you would have rested,
until you were dead

fin.

The Antagonist leaves it to the reader to choose whether they wish to relate the above words to property market crashes of the past, or those of the future.

Chamone! Jackson Beat It!

Michael Jackson has been found not guilty of all 10 charges of child abuse and child molestation levelled at him by Gavin Arvizo and family, thereby escaping a possible 20 year jail term.

Quelle surprise!

The Antagonist finds it very hard to believe that Jackson wouldn't have been nailed (no pun intended) for child abuse a very long time ago, if indeed there were any truth in any of the allegations.

Jackson, labelled the Peter Pan of Pop, was cleared of all four counts of child molestation, one count of attempted molestation, all four charges of giving alcohol to a minor and one charge of conspiracy to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion.

Apart from the rather bizarrely ironic childrens BBC web site dedicated to coverage of the trial, media reports are citing the jury's lack of faith in the testimony (read: 'the lies') of the accusers as the prime reasons for allowing Michael Jackson to walk free from a trial that should never have happened in the first place.

Now we can put Michael Jackson child abuse scandals to bed, once more, and go about our daily lives knowing that the plastic-prince of pop didn't really do all those nasty things that everyone's been talking about and that have now filled the consciousness of media consumers everywhere.

Still, the whole affair has provided a very nice distraction from Iraq, Afghanistan, ID cards, European constitutions, CCTV, automated number plate recognition systems, satellite tracking of cars, and anything else of any real relevance that relates to us all, and that appears to happen around us, ever further from our direct control.

And the media circus rolls on.

Temporary Word Blindess

The title of Anne Robinson's show on BBC1 tonight makes far more sense when you ignore the question mark.

Freeing the Media

File-sharing's at an all time, and ever-growing, high, digital media companies can't give music away, so there's only one thing for it...

The Antagonist Returns

The Antagonist has been away enjoying the joys of the countryside for a while and is full of the bliss that comes with avoiding news of the sort of reality that streams out of televisions, and which one doesn't find half way up most mountains.

So much has happened in the interim. Yet another interminable round of Endemol's UK version of Big Brother has started featuring an even bigger bunch of vacuous retards with fewer discernable skills than ever before, and a Tory speechwriter. Oh, wait, retards with no discernable skills... Tory speechwriters, much the same really.

Then it seems the European constitution is done for because it is being recognised everywhere for the worthless bit of junk it is, even by the Dutch who just booted it into touch. Despite all the negative connotations associated with their liberal drug policies, the Dutch people look like they're thinking straighter than a lot of others.

As if this wasn't enough, the UK government is now surpassing its own Big Brother ID card nonsense and also wants satellite tracking devices fitted to all cars to enable charging of road users for road use on a per mile basis. They announce this as if car drivers paying stupid amounts of tax on petrol isn't charging people on a per mile basis.

A minor by-product of making all cars uniquely identifiable by satellite tracking devices is that they'll also know the whereabouts of every car in the country while simultaneously making it too expensive for anyone to bother leaving home in the first place.

If you are physically free to get in a car and drive somewhere, but you can't actually afford to go anywhere, or do anything, can you still be described as being 'free'?

It's almost as if The Antagonist had never been away.

Word seems to have it that if we let this nonsense satellite tracking thing happen, then some roads could cost as much as £1.34 per mile. So, if all goes according to the government's barmy plans, it's going to be cheaper to jump on a low cost jet plane and leave the country than it is to go anywhere in the country.

Thinking about it, leaving the country isn't such a bad idea...

World No Tobacco Day

Today has been declared World No Tobacco Day, by the World Health Organisation (WHO?).

Remember people, no tobacco in those spliffs today!

United Mistakes of America Wants Access to UK ID Cards

The Antagonist is wondering quite how much surprise to feign at the news reported in the Independent today about how pleased the American government would be if the proposed UK ID cards were compatible with those in the United Mistakes of America.

This news should help even the most ardent supporters of ID cards realign their fundamentally mistaken perceptions about the fraudulent benefits of any system that tags, bags and tracks the movements of individuals, nearly 100% of which are not, have not been, and will not be criminals, unless governments change laws without due consultation and criminalise thousands of people at a whim.

In case anyone is still unclear on the matter, ID cards are not the tools of 'free' and 'democratic' countries. Instead, ID cards are yet another in the long line of technologies of political control used by governments living in full recognition of the fact that a large number of their citizens have had enough of their bullshit.

Stop the ATM Charging Rot

Back in March, The Antagonist covered the release of a Treasury Select Committee report on fee charging ATMs, the findings of which highlighted that it costs UK bank customers £140 million each year to access their own money. The report concluded:

• Signs which warn users of fee-charging ATMs must be made larger and be easier to see (yay)
  
• Post offices must "urgently" re-examine the decision to allow fee-charging ATMs (except, sub-postmasters have no control over which machines go in)
  
• People on low incomes suffered the most (that's how the rich get richer)
  
• Some communities were heading towards a situation where there were no free cash machines (it's Capitalism, fuck 'em)
  
• Banks must "think carefully" before selling off their free non-branch based ATM sites to fee-charging providers (why would they "think at all" to care?)
  
• Greater regulation of fee-charging cash machine operators is needed by bringing them under the UK Banking Code (don't hold your breath)
  

Yesterday, as a true testament to the usefulness of the Select Committee, and the general usefulness of those who claim to protect our best interests, the BBC cited an APACS survey which reports a surge in fee charging ATM numbers, with more than four out of 10 UK cash machines operated by independent firms, nearly all of which charge fees for transactions.

More than four? The Antagonist thinks, for the sake of antagonism, argument and making a damned good point, 'more than four' might as well be referred to as 'five'. Five out of ten machines equates to one out of every two, or half, of all ATMs that charge fees.

Half all ATMs in the UK now impose a penalty for transactions. The customer battle is already half lost, and news of the loss is cunningly hidden inside the phrase, 'more than four'.

But wait! APACS says it's not all bad as only one in twenty of the transactions analysed had incurred a fee. Emma Smith, a spokesperson for APACS, told the BBC:

"This shows that people are going to free machines operated by banks and building societies over fee-charging machines.

"The spread of fee-charging machines is about consumer choice. It is worth remembering there are a greater number of free to use cash machines than ever before."

Consumer choice? Let's just clear one thing up before we proceed any further. The Antagonist refuses to refer to 'customers' as 'consumers'. This errant nomenclature just perpetuates the myth that we're here to drain, devour and dissipate as much as possible, in as many different ways as possible. This is wrong.

So, now we know we're talking about 'customer' choice, let's work through this one step at a time.

Customers were previously free to use free ATMs to access their money. Theoretically, this was a total absence of choice, but as far as customers were concerned, it was the best possible situation. No choice needed to be made. Customers could access their own money for free, and all was well.

The introduction of fee-charging ATMs into the equation also introduced a 'choice'. That it was a choice nobody in their right mind would exercise, nor even something they would elect to have as an option, is something which appears to have escaped everyone's notice and is mentioned here for completeness.

At the same time as this marvellous 'choice' was introduced, so too was a dramatic reduction in the opportunity to exercise the right to the original, and far better-for-customers, option. Now that half of all ATMs impose penalties for transactions, only half of all ATMs allow customers to access their money without penalty.

Then consider the Select Committee warnings of communities where no free ATMs exist, and their concerns regarding more communities that are rapidly heading towards having only fee-charging ATMs.

If we allow the status quo to deteriorate further, such that it reaches its only logical conclusion, we will end up in the exact opposite place to where we started - a total absence of choice but, this time, one that imposes extreme financial penalties on customers.

This, of course, is how any business makes its money, but that doesn't imply that there should be no limits to the levels of extortion allowed by regulatory authorities, or tolerated by customers.

It's time to stop the ATM charging rot. Plan ahead. Take cash out in advance without penalty. If you get stuck, borrow, and pay it back when you have access to your money without penalty. Keep a cheque-book with you. Better still, don't leave your money in bank accounts at all. Haggle. Barter. Be resourceful. Most importantly, spread the word.

When there is no money to be made installing and maintaining fee-charging ATMs that nobody uses, despite the near eradication of free alternatives, and when research continues to show that, despite their increasingly limited choice, customers are still refusing to use fee-charging ATMs, fee-charging ATMs will disappear.

Queen Orders ID Cards & Tracking of Subjects

The Queen has spoken. Again. Presumably for the benefit of those who can remember quite how she and her extended Germano-Greco family got there in the first place and quite why she and her Germano-Greco extended family are still there now.

The Antagonist isn't sure how relevant the strange qualifications of 'swanning around on huge chunks of land stolen from under the feet of the people that lived there' and 'extensive Corgi-walking' might be when it comes to dictating how the people that one has deemed one's subjects should live their lives, but that doesn't stop the old bag from trying.

Top of the list is money, and continuing to grow the bullshit economy that a bunch of bankers dreamt up over the years to keep them rich (solely in the material sense, of course), and to make sure the rest of us do precious little else other than work so we can live in a small box for the rest of our natural born lives, until someone comes along and puts us in a slightly smaller box, 6 feet under. No great surprises so far.

Next in the Queen's Speech came some nonsense about public services with increased security measures and education with increased security measures because we really need sniffer dogs and CCTV in all schools, otherwise kids won't become accustomed to the idea of being permanently monitored. It seems Big Brother and other, similar abominations loosely termed 'reality TV' aren't working well enough in conveying the underlying message that is their sole purpose, so Brenda intervened.

Then she said the two magic words, ID cards. As if anything else could follow all the references to increased security measures than the ID cards that will cost the people that have no want or need for them a lot of time, money and hassle, while simultaneously providing no additional security and ultimately curtailing civil liberties.

The great thing about this for B.Liar and cronies is that they can now claim, quite validly, to have dropped the ID card bill prior to the election, and that they are only bringing it back because the Queen said so. Labour claim they dropped the bill. Those that knew the bill was only gone for the duration of the election propaganda can't claim that they didn't, and the government can now say, "I'm sorry folks, the Queen made us do it!"

Children in their CCTV and sniffer-dog filled classrooms wouldn't get away with this sort of infantile, buck-passing behaviour. In 'free' and 'democratic' societies, neither should any government or authority.

Royal Mail Loses Jobs, Post Offices & Profits

The Royal Mail has announced record profits. That they made this profit through sacking 33,000 workers and closure of 2,500 post offices is, apparently, merely incidental because remaining workers get an extra £1,000 or so for their efforts, and those that removed the unnecessary costs of workers and Post Offices pocket up to £3 million each.

Is This The Way To Propaganda

Quick mention for the nonsense video, put to Tony Christie's 'Is This The Way To Amarillo', made by a bunch of off-duty soldiers in Iraq and for which all the newscasters are cracking fake smiles and lots of false laughter.

The Antagonist thinks this rather unsubtle piece of propaganda to popularise the invaders speaks for itself and isn't even going to grace it with a link. The only saving grace of this story is that, for a few minutes at least, British soldiers weren't killing anyone in an illegal invasion that was based on lies.

ASBOs and the Curbing of Political Dissent

The living legend that is 63-year old peace activist Lindis Percy escaped an Anti-Social Behaviour Order barring her from the vicinity of the Menwith Hill spy base near Harrogate in North Yorkshire. Unfortunately, she didn't manage to escape the imposition of a fine, a night time curfew for eight weeks, and the fitting of an electronic tag to monitor her whereabouts.

The BBC ran a nice article highlighting the implications of ASBOs being used to curb peaceful and legitimate protest, and even though it didn't go that way this time round, a watchful eye needs to be kept lest a dangerous precedent be set in future.

To his credit, judge Roy Anderson said:

"I am firmly of the view courts ought not to allow anti-social behaviour orders to be used as a club to beat down the expression of legitimate comment and the dissemination of views of matters of public concern."

The Antagonist can't help wondering if that means it is now possible to have open discussions with the authorities about the American spy base that inhabits the Yorkshire countryside, or whether Menwith Hill will continue to make the headlines occasionally, only to be dropped just as quickly as it appeared, unmonitored, unlike everyone and everything else.

The Antagonist also hopes the hideous irony of electronically tagging someone who has so vocally, passionately, and peacefully protested against the global monitoring and surveillance network that operates in part from Menwith Hill, is not lost.

To quote Lindis Percy on the matter:

"You can't suppress the human spirit."

If ever there was repeated testament to that statement, Lindis Percy is it.

Galloway Vs the Senate & Iraq Lies

George Galloway, the British MP for the Respect Coalition who has a bit of a reputation for asking the awkward questions that all us proles wish someone would ask of those that seek to remain unaccountable, voluntarily appeared before a Senate sub-committee in Washington today to answer accusations about links with Iraq, Saddam Hussein and alleged profiteering from oil-money.

In his impressive and bombastic rhetoric, Galloway not only countered the charges, he also asked all the questions that Tony B.liar and leaders of other puppet administrations around the world should have been asking when the first hints of war surfaced, even if they came long after the clandestine plans for war were originally conceived by NeoCon think tanks.

Swapping the barrels of alleged oil for the metaphorical barrels of a verbal super gun, Galloway unleashed facts, accusations, and a written dossier of evidence supporting his claims which he casually cast down before the Senate committee that orchestrated the immoral and provably illegal invasion of Iraq.

Galloway's performance was beautiful. It ranked up alongside those highly rehearsed and stage-managed PR efforts of top-ranking American politicans, only this time the words were coming from someone who, for a brilliantly refreshing change, was telling the truth.

In the words of Mr Galloway:

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies."

Full transcripts of how George Galloway truly earnt his 'gorgeous' tag are available from The Times and Common Dreams and provide something that slightly closer resembles the truth than that which was presented as justification for the illegal Iraq invasion by the U.S. and British administrations.

Halliburton Increase Deaths, Profits & Share Prices

On the eve of Halliburton's Annual General Meeting in Houston, Texas, Corporate Watch have released The Alternative Annual Report on Halliburton, which gives a little more insight into Halliburton's activies than the AGM might.

In all likelihood, tomorrow's AGM will see Halliburton CEO David Lesar waxing lyrical about the $7.1 billion revenue the company has made from recent work in Iraq, which doubles the profits Halliburton made in Iraq in 2003.

However, Halliburton's overall revenue for 2004 is $20 billion and the graph below from the Corporate Watch Alternative Annual Report on Halliburton shows a very interesting correlation between Halliburton's increasing stock price, increasing revenues generated in Iraq, and the increasing number of deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The Antagonist believes that this rather limited focus on the number of deaths of U.S. soldiers should be expanded to include the deaths of soldiers from all countries involved in the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq.

Furthermore, if we also include all civilians deaths in Iraq in this figure, we would see a much more interesting correlation between the volume of deaths that have occurred as a result of the illegal invasion of Iraq and the illegitimate revenues that Halliburton and their ilk have been allowed to generate from this illegal act.

By not including the sum total of all deaths resulting from the Iraq invasion and mapping these to the revenues generated by all organisations involved in Iraq, we are all giving tacit approval to the blatant, largley unspoken and entirely mistaken presupposition that the lives of U.S. solidiers and civilians are somehow more important than those of soldiers and civilians from any other part of the world.

This presupposition of American life being somehow more relevant than that of every other life on the planet, dear reader, means you and your life in whichever non-American land you happen to be as you read this.

If you are happy about this, and allowing this flawed presupposition to perpetuate and be used to justify illegal acts of war at a whim, solely in the interests of global control and profit, then carry on as you were.

If, however, you believe that your right to life is equal to that of any American, that that right to life is equally as valid as that of every other being, and that the profit and global control of the few, at the huge expense of the many is not the best way for the many to proceed into the future, then now is the time to start to making changes.

Magnetic Stimulation Treatment for Retail Therapy

"IMAGINE movies and computer games in which you get to smell, taste and perhaps even feel things. That's the tantalising prospect raised by a patent on a device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain - granted to none other than the entertainment giant Sony."

Those were the words that heralded the New Scientist news of a Sony Patent that allows ultrasonic remote control of people's brains and which featured on "Anything...." some time ago.

Earlier today researchers at Antagonist Twin Towers spied this story about the use of the same Transcranial Magnetic stimulation therapy being used to treat depression.

Source: Newswise

Barbara Baas ran away from home and tried to kill herself as a teenager. As an adult, she has tried more than 15 varieties of antidepressants. But, thanks to a new weapon, she has finally reached a truce in a 45-year battle.

Mrs. Baas says a new treatment for depression is changing her life – so much so that she’s willing to drive 115 miles five days a week from Decatur to UT Southwestern Medical Center where she is participating in an experimental study. She undergoes transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive, nonpharmacological technology, in which short pulses of magnetic energy stimulate nerve cells in a specific area of the brain – an area that research has shown to be associated with depression.

All of which sounds great until you remember that the technology is referred to as a weapon, and that TMS is the same technology for which Sony recently acquired a patent to allow remote, fake sensory stimulation in the brains of media consumers.

The story continues with Mrs Baas thoughts (or are they her thoughts?) on the matter:

“I am experiencing joy for the first time in years,” Mrs. Baas, 60, said. “I’m participating in life again. I went shopping at a new store near my home and realized it wasn’t drudgery. I actually enjoyed myself."

Mrs Baas.... Mrs Baas.... it's a very simple choice between that of being a little depressed as you wander through the rest of life, and that of being completely deluded through reliance on sensory information that is not your own and which someone has beamed into your head.

The Antagonist beseeches you to save yourself the 115 mile drive five times a week, and the expensive treatments, and urges you to not worry about the opening of these frivolous new stores about town for it is entirely natural that you feel almost-suicidally depressed at the prospect of buying a load of useless shit for which you have no need.

Live with it, learn from it, and adapt accordingly.

CIA Plane Bomber Outed

No, not a September 11 hijacker, not yet anyway.

Today the BBC reports that Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-born Venezuelan and anti-Castro dissident who was a CIA agent and informer abd on the CIA payroll from the 1960s until mid-1976. Carriles was also responsible for a 1976 Venezuelan plane bombing and plotting to kill Fidel Castro.

Declassified (they keep these things secret for many reasons, folks, and 'truth' is not one of them) documents contain statements from an FBI informer who "all but admitted" that Luis Posada Carriles was one of those behind the 1976 bombing that killed 73 people.

Mr Carriles once boasted of being responsible for a series of bomb attacks of Havana tourist spots in the 1990s. Five years ago he was arrested in Panama and accused of plotting to kill Fidel Castro during a summit there. Castro referred to Carriles "a monster".

After living in hiding for fear of his life since the trial, Luis Posada Carriles last month crossed the Mexican border and sought asylum in the U.S., in an attempt to finally come home to roost like so many other terrorist chickens in the past.

Castro demanded to know how a high profile terrorist like Carrilles could breach U.S. border security. The Antagonist is guessing that Castro didn't meet with the response, "Hey Fidel, since when do you stop your employees getting in to their places of work?"

The Antagonist believes that this is just one in what will prove to be a rather long line of high profile plane bombers to be outed in the coming years because the truth, as this and so many other stories show, cannot be suppressed indefinitely.

Bliar's Third Term

The UK election is over. Bliar is in for a third term and dictionary.com's Election Word of The Day couldn't be more appropriate:

Word of the Day for Thursday May 5, 2005

claque \KLACK\, noun:

1. A group hired to applaud at a performance.
2. A group of fawning admirers.

The Lamposts Are Listening

The walls once had ears in a metaphorical sense. Now modern technology is enabling the lamposts to listen to us as Westminster Council in London sets about installing microphones in lamp posts and CCTV cameras.

In towns and cities around the world the everyday journeys of everyone have long been followed on camera and startling numbers of people don't appear to have noticed, or have been led to believe that a tiny fraction of the population being criminals is sufficient justification to watch absolutely everyone, all the time.

Now, if we're not careful, we're all going to be listened to as well.

On London's public transport you can be followed by CCTV for your entire journey and tracking could be (and in all likelihood already is) automatically initiated just as soon as the Oyster Card of a tagged individual hits the system. A few stealthy photographs of everyone as they innocently pass through tube ticket barriers while innocently going about their business makes light work of constructing detailed and accurate facial recognition databases and activity profiles of everyone.

What time did an invidual enter the system? At which station? To where did they travel? Was the destination a known destination for this individual, or have they travelled somewhere new? Were they with anyone else? Did they have contact with anyone else in transit?

The possibilities are endless yet, to a lot of people, the idea of a unique, permenent, rechargeable ticket seems like such an innocuous idea.

If you are still to be convinced quite how invasive and pervasive audio/visual surveillance and tracking technology is, The Antagonist recommends setting yourself up for a few rather unpleasant surprises and taking a little time during your daily regime to expand your field of vision to include the multiplicity of CCTV cameras that are located everywhere and are frequently found 20-30 feet above eye level. Find them affixed to lamp posts, buildings and just about anything else and watch them swivel, pan and scan everything and everyone in sight. Get a feel for the size of the area each one of them covers and understand how coverage areas are overlapped to enable blanket coverage.

Recall the zoom functions on your cheap camera and imagine how much better the zoom functions might be on government surveillance devices and how much detail they would capture.

Imagine CCTV systems linked in to Automated Number Plate Recognition systems that track the wherebouts of each car that passes and, for the most part, each car owner too. Imagine these systems in patrolling police cars that automatically scan cars passed on the road and which alert units to cars that are perhaps seen driving some distance from their registered address, or at odd hours of the day given the owner's listed occupation.

Then consider that practically 100% of us aren't criminals.

It sounds like a nightmare vision of some dystopian future under an oppressive regime, or a similarly hideous past we'd all rather learn from and forget. In fact, it's the increasingly frightening reality of life in more and more self-proclaimed 'free' and 'democratic' countries around the world.

As you pootle off to the polls to cast your vote today (or not) be aware that, no matter who you vote for, the march of all technologies of political control that watch, listen to and monitor all of us, all the time, continues unabated, unchecked and unchallenged.

Forget for whom you are voting now and consider instead for what it is you are continuing to vote.

Last Minute General Election Voting Advice

On the eve of the 2005 UK General Election, The Antagonist feels obliged to offer a few words for those who are still undecided about how to vote.

As long as we keep replacing a small bunch of self interested idiots that don't much care about the masses with another small bunch of self interested idiots that don't much care about the masses, the problem of the country - nay, the world - being run by a small bunch of self interested idiots that don't much care about the masses will never be resolved.

Simple enough, eh?

Fake Terror - Ricin Ring That Never Was

Ricin rings in the UK? The Antagonist didn't buy it, nor did anyone else with a sense of reason, realising that it was yet another attempt by government agencies to scare the UK public just enough that they positively relish the soon-to-reappear ID cards bill, fundamental changes in UK law, and a whole host of other infringements of fundamental civil liberties.

Duncan Campbell's story of the truth about the non-existence of alleged UK ricin rings appeared, then disappeared, from the Guardian's web site and is reproduced here courtesy of Indymedia.

Fake Terror - Ricin Ring That Never Was

Yesterday's trial collapse has exposed the deception behind attempts to link al-Qaida to a 'poison attack' on London
By Duncan Campbell, The Guardian - UK 2004-15-05

Colin Powell does not need more humiliation over the manifold errors in his February 2003 presentation to the UN. But yesterday a London jury brought down another section of the case he made for war - that Iraq and Osama bin Laden were supporting and directing terrorist poison cells throughout Europe, including a London ricin ring.

Yesterday's verdicts on five defendants and the dropping of charges against four others make clear there was no ricin ring. Nor did the "ricin ring" make or have ricin. Not that the government shared that news with us. Until today, the public record for the past three fear-inducing years has been that ricin was found in the Wood Green flat occupied by some of yesterday's acquitted defendants. It wasn't.

The third plank of the al-Qaida-Iraq poison theory was the link between what Powell labelled the "UK poison cell" and training camps in Afghanistan. The evidence the government wanted to use to connect the defendants to Afghanistan and al-Qaida was never put to the jury. That was because last autumn a trial within a trial was secretly taking place. This was a private contest between a group of scientists from the Porton Down military research centre and myself. The issue was: where had the information on poisons and chemicals come from?

The information - five pages in Arabic, containing amateur instructions for making ricin, cyanide and botulinum, and a list of chemicals used in explosives - was at the heart of the case. The notes had been made by Kamel Bourgass, the sole convicted defendant. His co-defendants believed that he had copied the information from the internet. The prosecution claimed it had come from Afghanistan.

I was asked to look for the original source on the internet. This meant exploring Islamist websites that publish Bin Laden and his sympathisers, and plumbing the most prolific source of information on how to do harm: the writings of the American survivalist right and the gun lobby.

The experience of being an expert witness on these issues has made me feel a great deal safer on the streets of London. These were the internal documents of the supposed al-Qaida cell planning the "big one" in Britain. But the recipes were untested and unoriginal, borrowed from US sources. Moreover, ricin is not a weapon of mass destruction. It is a poison which has only ever been used for one-on-one killings and attempted killings.

If this was the measure of the destructive wrath that Bin Laden's followers were about to wreak on London, it was impotent. Yet it was the discovery of a copy of Bourgass's notes in Thetford in 2002 that inspired the wave of horror stories and government announcements and preparations for poison gas attacks.

It is true that when the team from Porton Down entered the Wood Green flat in January 2003, their field equipment registered the presence of ricin. But these were high sensitivity field detectors, for use where a false negative result could be fatal. A few days later in the lab, Dr Martin Pearce, head of the Biological Weapons Identification Group, found that there was no ricin. But when this result was passed to London, the message reportedly said the opposite.

The planned government case on links to Afghanistan was based only on papers that a freelance journalist working for the Times had scooped up after the US invasion of Kabul. Some were in Arabic, some in Russian. They were far more detailed than Bourgass's notes. Nevertheless, claimed Porton Down chemistry chief Dr Chris Timperley, they showed a "common origin and progression" in the methods, thus linking the London group of north Africans to Afghanistan and Bin Laden.

The weakness of Timperley's case was that neither he nor the intelligence services had examined any other documents that could have been the source. We were told Porton Down and its intelligence advisers had never previously heard of the "Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, containing recipes for ricin and much more". The document, written by veterans of the 1980s Afghan war, has been on the net since 1998.

All the information roads led west, not to Kabul but to California and the US midwest. The recipes for ricin now seen on the internet were invented 20 years ago by survivalist Kurt Saxon. He advertises videos and books on the internet. Before the ricin ring trial started, I phoned him in Arizona. For $110, he sent me a fistful of CDs and videos on how to make bombs, missiles, booby traps - and ricin. We handed a copy of the ricin video to the police.

When, in October, I showed that the chemical lists found in London were an exact copy of pages on an internet site in Palo Alto, California, the prosecution gave up on the Kabul and al-Qaida link claims. But it seems this information was not shared with the then home secretary, David Blunkett, who was still whipping up fear two weeks later. "Al-Qaida and the international network is seen to be, and will be demonstrated through the courts over months to come, actually on our doorstep and threatening our lives," he said on November 14.

The most ironic twist was an attempt to introduce an "al-Qaida manual" into the case. The manual - called the Manual of the Afghan Jihad - had been found on a raid in Manchester in 2000. It was given to the FBI to produce in the 2001 New York trial for the first attack on the World Trade Centre. But it wasn't an al-Qaida manual. The name was invented by the US department of justice in 2001, and the contents were rushed on to the net to aid a presentation to the Senate by the then attorney general, John Ashcroft, supporting the US Patriot Act.

To show that the Jihad manual was written in the 1980s and the period of the US-supported war against the Soviet occupation was easy. The ricin recipe it contained was a direct translation from a 1988 US book called the Poisoner's Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson.

We have all been victims of this mass deception. I do not doubt that Bourgass would have contemplated causing harm if he was competent to do so. But he was an Islamist yobbo on his own, not an Al Qaida-trained superterrorist. An Asbo might be appropriate.
________________________________________________________

Duncan Campbell is an investigative writer and a scientific expert witness on computers and telecommunications. He is author of War Plan UK and is not the Guardian journalist of the same name.

ALT + TAB Politics

Via B3ta and Heady.

Labour Domain Name Cybersquatting Skullduggery

It seems like Labour Party HQ have been busy on the domain name registration front in a desperate bid to drum up a little more traffic to their web site from anyone checking out the toryscum.com opposition.

A cursory search for Tory leader Michael 'Hecht' Howard throws back links to MICHAELHOWARDSCV.COM and MICHAELHOWARDSCV.ORG, both of which are registered and owned by the Labour Party and redirected to their web site.

Nice touch. And it doesn't stop there.

Michael 'Hecht' Howard has www.michaelhowardmp.com so, not to be outdone, those enterprising New Labour folk have introduced a devious third way to their web site and registered MICHAELHOWARDMP.ORG, to catch errant typists but have neglected to redirect it to the Labour Party web site.

Update: The Antagonist discovered these little factoids entirely by chance while researching the spectre of Hecht, penned this post, and then found this while waiting for a couple of new .gov.uk domain registrations come through.

Paxman To Grill Party Leaders

This week the BBC are screening a series of Jeremy Paxman interviews with the leaders of the only three political parties anyone ever hears about in the free and democratic society in which we live.

The first is being screened tonight at 1930 BST on BBC1 with Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy being the first to step up to the plate.

The two remaining Paxman Interviews will be broadcast on BBC1 at 1930 BST on Wednesday 20 April (Right Hon. Tony B.Liar), and at 1930 BST on Friday 22 April 2005 (Michael 'Don't call me Hecht' Howard).

If you have any questions you wish the Paxman team to consider posing to either of the three usual suspects, you can submit them here.

Respect Coalition Manifesto Launch

George Galloway's Respect Coalition have launched their 2005 Election Manifesto (pdf), the main points of which are as follows:

• End the occupation of Iraq
• End privatisation – bring public services back into public ownership
• End the attacks on civil liberties; no identity cards
• Comprehensive education; an equal chance to every child and young person
• A publicly owned, democratically controlled and fully funded NHS
• Link pensions to average earnings
• Scrap student tuition fees
• Raise the minimum wage to the European Decency Threshold of £7.40
• Oppose all forms of discrimination, defend refugees and asylum seekers
• Repeal the anti-union laws
• Tough action to control climate change
• Tax big business and the wealthy to fund public expenditure

All of which sounds rather good in principle and makes The Antagonist think it's a shame that democracy in the UK is little more than a two horse race.

The late and legendary Bill Hicks said it best when he said:

'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.'
'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.'
'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'

UK Election Blogroll Added

Two weeks in to the run up to the UK general election, three weeks to go, and The Antagonist has finally got round to adding a living, breathing blogroll to manage the veritable cornucopia of UK Election related links.

Rise of the Machines

The Antagonist wonders how long it will be before devices like the armed Land Walker turn up in situations that require warfare against the people cunningly disguised as crowd control.

Election Blogs & Forums Roundup

The Antagonist heartily recommends Richard Kimber's UK general election 2005 page as a starting point to the word on the web regarding the 2005 UK General Election, even though The Antagonist's own blog wasn't listed at the time of writing.

That's What We're Always Thinking

Inspired by the third Tory poster on this page of the UK Election Blog.

People in glass houses really shouldn't throw stones

Fag Packet Politics

In the interests of fairness and equality to all political parties and one man bands, The Antagonist presents Robert Kilroy-Silk - the veritable ass known initially for stirring shit and, more recently, for being covered in shit - and his Veritas Manifesto.

The Antagonist thinks Veritass' (sic) manifesto would have been imbued with a tad more credibility and charm if it were presented on the original cigarette packet on which it was devised.

Close, but no cigar, Robert.

Skeet the Rich

$207,000 a flight! Pull!

Howard attacks Blair over ricin case

"Michael Howard sought to bring immigration and asylum issues to the fore in the election campaign today, blaming failures in government policy for allowing Algerian ricin plotter Kamel Bourgass into Britain."

Source: Guardian | Howard attacks Blair over ricin case

Minor point, but worth mentioning, tighter immigration controls in the past would have meant Michael Howard wouldn't be here now to preach his own special brand of nonsense.

Riches In The Food You Don't Eat

Two stories from BBC News:

Tesco Profits Break Through £2bn

The UK's biggest supermarket chain posted underlying pre-tax profits of £2.03bn ($3.83bn), up 20.5% on 2004.

Source: BBC NEWS | Tesco profits break through £2bn

and

Britons Throw Away Third of Food

Around one third of food grown for human consumption in the UK ends up in the rubbish bin, new figures reveal. Statistics from the government and food industry show each adult wastes food to the value of £420 each year.

Changes in people's habits and scares over food safety are helping wastage to increase by 15% every decade, the BBC's Costing the Earth found.

Source: BBC NEWS | Britons throw away third of food

Through the clever use of well-documented predatory pricing, supplier manipulation, and other strong-armed business tactics to close off any viable, local competition, the supermarket cartels are openly generating obscene profits from the bulk manufacture and sale of food that it seems consumers just throw away.

Endless streams of in-store offers of '3 for the price of 2' or '2 for 1' and the occasional mass-produced food safety alert make overconsumption the default activity in supermarkets. This enforced overconsumption tactic of standard supermarket practices is now producing huge profits for the supermarket chains, huge amounts of waste, and huge costs to the safety, vitality, and the diversity of the food we eat and the local communities in which we live.

To date the onus has been on local communities to justify why they have no desire for a supermarket to be installed somewhere in the vicinity of a thriving community.

Until this process is reversed, and the onus is placed on the supermarket chains to plead their case to local communities, consumers are left with little other option than to vote with their feet and stay out of the supermarkets that actively encourage this hideous waste to occur.

Now We're Talking!

With all the fuss surrounding the Conservative 2005 election posters, and the advent of the superb Conservative poster generator, The Antagonist felt obliged to enter the fray....

Discuss.

The Humbled Apprentice

The Antagonist has been hanging fire on posting anything about this for some while, but the time has now come.

After this BBC series, if this apologist for failure ever manages to hold down a job that pays above minimum wage, much less the six-figure salary promised by Alan Sugar's Amstrad, The Antagonist will be more suprised than when Antagonist Twin Towers researchers found this photo of another Apprentice contestant in rather non-standard business attire.

Britain Forward Not Back II

Maybe it was by design...

http://tinyurl.com/3tsw3