Britain's biggest Supermarket in huge property scam.

Sadly the only one who is running this story at the minute is Murdoch's rag The Times so unless you're a paying member of their site (or have parents who refuse to end their subscription) you wont see this story at the minute. The best I can do is a retail news site linking to the story.

In essence what has happened is that Tesco used a front company to buy up a city centre, deliberately ran it down, forced potential rivals out of business etc and then won the regeneration contract to repair all the damage they inflicted. Fans of The Wire or The Sopranos may find this story somewhat familiar.

If this story goes anywhere I'll keep you updated.

War Crimes trial for SS Captain who emptied entire magazine into 13 year old Jewish girl.

Oh wait no, I typoed, turns out an Israeli Captain emptied an entire magazine of his assault rifle into a 13 year old Palestinian girl and then he was found completely innocent by an IDF investigation!

Pomplamoose are so cute.

Like I'm almost getting diabetes just watching this but still, its nice.

Hip to be square?

Reading an article about comic books (this one)and I've just learnt about the 1954 comics code. Corporations sure do love free speech.

Passionate artists or pretentious videogame makers?

So yeah, as the title suggests I'm really not sure about whether to admire or disparage the sentiments in this presentation made into a website. I think that might be a good thing, something that makes you think, makes you wonder is probably a good thing. Anyway this manifesto for making videogames more than games is worth reading.

Or maybe it isn't and I'm falling into the trap of trying to overjustify my hobby.

Those who have nothing to hide in their homes and vehicles have nothing to fear

So those full body scans they're rolling out to airports? Yeah they've got roving versions of those vans that can scan vehicles and homes on any street.

Can't wait for the 5-4 / 6-3 (KAGAN HATE TERRORISMISTS!) decision on this kind of thing not requiring a warrant.

thanks jonny

EDIT: Actually turns out the supreme court have already ruled this kind of thing is a search under the fourth amendment (thus requiring a warrant) from the comments:

The Supreme Court already ruled on this issue in KYLLO V. UNITED STATES. It ruled that “…the use of a thermal-imaging device aimed at a private home from a public street to detect relative amounts of heat within the home constitutes a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” The ruling details may other relevant and obvious reasons this technology is illegal.

Read the ruling here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-8508.ZO.html

Sadly, the agencies who invade our privacy will no doubt hide behind National Security to further erode what once made this nation free.

The commenter is of course right, this ruling will be ignored thanks to the War on Terror or what have you.

Had a bit of a revelation

I realised (in the shower albeit with no shout of eureka) that the reason the holocaust is condemned uniquely among the vast array of western atrocities is because the holocaust is pretty much the sole incident where the abhorrence occurred without a profit motive, the final solution to the Jewish problem was an ideologically pure act.

In short it was a crime against capitalism and thus intolerable for the elite and perfectly acceptable for the general population to know about it and think it terrible. Had the victims of the holocaust merely been worked to death as slaves the condemnation would be much milder; note how little mainstream condemnation there is for major collaborators such as hugo boss, Coca Cola and IBM (without whose custom designed and directly operated Hollerith tabulators the holocaust would've been logistically impossible) because they aided evil for profit.

Libertarians believe the freer the markets the freer the people.

Alas, reality keeps displaying that liberal bias.

Reddit, one of those websites where you upvote or downvote links has been forbidden by its' corporate owners from accepting paid for adverts in favour of Califronia's proposition 19 which is the legalising Marijuana ballot.

To Reddit's credit they have decided instead to run pro-prop 19 ads for free, still a nice example of corporate censorship.

thanks jonny

The Guardian is absurdly optimistic.

So apparently some amongst the GOP are beinging to worry their hatemongering, xenophobia and racism will hurt their election chances. Quite why they're worrying their core principles might be failing them when they've worked so well in the past I'm unsure. Their central concern seems to be their hysteria about brown people building a religious community centre is distracting voters from their efforts to shift the blame for the aftermath of Bush era "free" market policies onto Obama.

"Rising star" of the party Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie is worried about it for some reason, he of course blames the Democratic party as much of the GOP of course. But seriously, Christ Christie? I can only imagine his middle name is Christ with his parents fervently hoping he would be so "Christian" that he would be Christ Cubed.

But heck, when part of the GOP is worried you're being too racist and hateful albeit for political reasons and not common decency, you must be being spectacularly hateful.

Of course the final paragraph illustrates another potential reason members of the party might be backing away from Islamophobic hysteria:

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, has called for an official investigation into the opposition. "There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some," she said. "And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded." "How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City."

Given the corporate astroturfing of the Tea Party movement it could just be that the popular anger over this issue has been calmly bought and paid for rather than spontaneously emerged.

Unpaid internships are illegal, ubiquitous.

Not much to say about this one, just a UK graduate ranting about how bad the situation of the necessity of unpaid internships is especially because it is illegal.

Read here

thanks RPS

Wikileaks founder convieniently accused of Rape.

That guy in charge of releasing all those documents the US didn't want releasing? Yeah, he's actually done some very bad things. So yeah, everything wikileaks released was patently false and you should just back to saluting the flag while watching American Idol.

Another awesome Al Jazeera image.

The dejectedness of Abbas, the smugness of Netanyahu and Obama offering the most appropriate salute for Israel and America's actions in the region makes this the perfect image to sum up the hollow farce of America and Israel's favoured delaying tactic, the "peace process".

Taken from the front page image for this story

The Best Bull

A bull, who was to be a victim of being tortured to death in Bull "fighting" managed to jump out of the arena and injure forty of the sadistic scum that had assembled to watch it die. Sadly no one was killed but nonetheless all praise to the bull for turning the tables on those motherfuckers.

Norm Coleman never gives up!

Senator Al Franken's home was shot at while he and his wife were elsewhere. Likely just a good honest conservative wanting to defend freedom and democracy, if you don't kill anyone with an opposing point of view how can Republicans keep our country free?

thanks jonny

Israel to fight reality's liberal bias.

Two zionist groups have realised wikipedia is full of evidence that Israel's oppression of Palestinians, breaking of international law, war crimes and crimes against humanity on wikipedia making them look bad, which has made them "frustrated" so, they're training up wikipedia editors to "correct" wikipedia. But don't worry kids, they're not going to spread propaganda or anything oh no:

"We don't want to change Wikipedia or turn it into a propaganda arm," says Naftali Bennett, director of the Yesha Council. "We just want to show the other side. People think that Israelis are mean, evil people who only want to hurt Arabs all day."

Controversial options like stopping doing evil things would perhaps work better but just censoring all criticism of Israel seems easier, hell they've already clamped down heavily on media access oh and of course by happy accident the blockade also limits media access and they've blocked aid worker's access to gaza just so the west gets as little info from the Gaza strip as possible. So yeah, why not keep going on the same path.

To finish a chilling and oddly candid announcement they're not simply trying to alter pages to fit their views, they have designs on taking over the community:

"We learned what not to do: don't jump into deep waters immediately, don't be argumentative, realise that there is a semi-democratic community out there, realise how not to get yourself banned," says Yisrael Medad, one of the course participants, from Shiloh.

So look forward to the Holocaust page on wikipedia detailing how the victims of the holocaust were 8 billion jews, a gay person (who was just confused) and a jehvoa's witness oh and the concentration and death camp guards were Palestinians.

Tea Partiers consult actors dressed as historical figures for political advice.

I sometimes use titles that are exaggerations or deliberate misinterpretations but make no mistake, this is exactly what tea partiers are doing. They're going to Colonial Williamsburg (I know little of the history of the American Revolution so I can't speak to its' historical significance) and they're straight facedly asking jobbing middle aged actors how to deal with the "problems" facing America, this is after all a dark period in American history, one might almost say black.

I read a lot of terrifying stuff and post a fair amount of it but this utterly simplistic and childlike view of the world, of political knowledge and wisdom, really does worry me. If this were the plot of a TV show or a play it'd like be panned for being too absurd, for chasing laughs past the point of plausibility and yet here we are.

Do look at the accompanying image gallery if only to wonder who on earth would earnestly ask those people for advice.

found via the exiled

Questioning democracy.

A concept that was quite alien to me was introduced to me yesterday, in a thread in LF by Dead Ken (he who created the greatest of all quotes*) he brought up the fact that democracy, especially liberal democracy is the symptom of a specific type of government and is not nearly as universaliseable or as inherently desired as it is portrayed to be. This does beg the question is the kneejerk Democracy (or at least "good" democracy as defined by foreign policy requirements) = good?

I honestly don't know and it is something I will likely be devoting a fair bit of thought to from now on. Certainly while the type of democracy we currently have now is flawed and deeply problematic what to replace it with is the big question, if the governed don't have some kind of input or right of reply to their rulers then they will be exploited and used. Then again they kind of are now. Still the lack of an immediately obvious alternative to democracy wont come to mind if, like me, you haven't thought that democracy as it is now is not what you assumed it to be.

Anyway, wondering about this caused me to do some googling and I found this transcript of a public discussion between Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou about the problematic nature of democracy and the problems of its' current sacred cow status.

Edit: turns out the guy whose blog that transcript was posted on is a major fraudster and is on the run from the police in several countries. I don't think the transcript was false but given he holds some pretty hardcore libertarian views who knows? Details about his fraud and a link to a BBC current affairs program about him (that anyone can access) can be found here



*"Science is a debased form of Marxism"

BBC is pretty sexist.

Yeah, shes really pretty so you'd probs be safe to assume she spends all her time thinking about shoes or handbags or something but shes actually capable of carrying out proper people stuff!

From here.

The rest of the article is standard panic mongering about why we should be terrified Russia is still conducting espionage in rival nations. Something we would never do.

Set Uh-Oh levels to 10! Affluent whites affected by Mexican drug civil war.

I may be feeling this a little too harshly but while this report is informative it smacks to me of "the nice place I went on holiday isn't so nice now, this is a shame for white little me but because I went on my hols there I am an expert you see." The snapshots of everyday Mexican's views of the conflict are certainly interesting but one wonders if the war hadn't escalated to the point that the cartels no longer were willing or were able to keep the lucrative drug trade in tourist areas peaceful and safe if we would be hearing about Mexico's problems in such details.

Exceptionally important seed bank to be destroyed because "priceless" = "worthless" to capitalists.

A seed bank, in fact the seed bank, the world's first, on the outskirts of St Petersburg is looking set to be destroyed so some flats can be built in its' place. The concept of seedbanks is one of Russia's greatest gifts to the world but not only will the capitalist inability to perceive value in anything but the most vulgar and short terms destroy a cultural and scientific artefact but also 90% globally unique plant stock that could well be useful in feeding people as climate change renders traditional crops ungrowable.

Oh well.


thanks jonny

The Sound of Music is racist.

I knew I was right to dislike it.

To be more serious I would argue that the subtext of agrarian fascism winning out is not the specific focus of this film but rather a fundamental flaw with Western conceptions of purity and nobility (in the sense of a noble spirit, not the elite class). We know that nearly all the time urban areas are more progressive and more tolerant than the countryside and yet we consistently have the myth foisted upon us that the countryside is where true decency resides. Whether this is due to the simple misunderstanding that because rural locations are prettier and pleasanter to reside in the inhabitants will follow suit or it is a more deliberately fostered myth by right wing elites wanting to justify their base and rural right wingers mythologising themselves. Regardless Americans will be most familiar with this concept in the contemporary praising of "small town values" by the GOP.

To go further into the link between idealised rurality and fascism I recommend Jonathan Meades' documentary about Nazi architecture:


part 2
part 3
part 4

Obama loves torture just as much as Bush.

Whitehouse spokesperson Gibbs will have to refer most of the ACLU for drug testing thanks to a report that shows Obama is just as bad as Bush. To be honest it would seem the Tea Partier assertions Obama is like Hitler are true, albeit for policies the astroturfed dupes likely approve of, operating concentration camps, the widespread use of torture and gaming the judicial system to suppress opposition. But yeah, that Mosque in New York thing is totally what Americans should be publicly and angrily debating.

A historian you haven't heard of has died.

You haven't heard of this historian because he was an Israeli Jew hebrew speaker who in his youth was part of the Labour Zionist movement, who while remaining a leftist was able to apply critical thinking to its' flaws and the wider failings of the leftist movements in America and Europe from his youth that lead to the rise of neoconservatism. His greatest reason for obscurity though was his well informed and intellectually honest criticism of Israel and calls for a one state policy that lead to him becoming a persona non grata among the US Pro-Israel lobby who ensured the only mentions of him were deeply negative.

Read a sort of obituary for this guy here

Competition for Worst State in the Union 2010 starts to hot up!

While some Arizona fans thought their racial profiling based anti-immigrant hysteria legislation would carry them to victory, cooler heads knew that they had made their move too early and not nearly sneakily enough. As the federal government is forced to act to maintain the pretence it cares about minorities Florida is making its' move, adapting Arizona's vile populism to be more insidious AND more unpleasant. Will Texas pull something even more despicable out of their hat? Or will everpresent dark horse Georgia steal Albama, Florida or Tennessee's water to pull off a surprise win?

Everything is still to play for in the closing five months of the year. Stick with us and we'll keep you up to date with all the rumours and happenings.


PLEASE NOTE: Alaska has been disqualified from the competition due to the timely death of Senator Stevens within their territory.

A freeware game about the difficulties of policing different minorities in the modern urban crime environment

The Games subforum of Something Awful are currently having a game development competition and the top ten games have been announced and opened to public voting.

One of those games is P.I.G.S. which as the title suggests allows you to step into the shoes of an inner city law enforcement official and see what these brave men and women of the thin blue line face.

Brought to you be Governor Jan Brewer

and those godless commie liberal bleeding heart nazi scum wonder why we need a border fence!

How the military deals with soldiers who have a conscience.

An article detailing the various reprisals military people face if they try and alert the media and the wider world to all kinds of absuses and the hollow lie that is the assertion they should've dealt with it through proper channels, the proper channels simply don't care. Rather than the phony silliness that all Troops are heroes, it is, as the article states, these people who risk (and often lose) everything to get the truth out that are the real heroes

Trust no one, denounce everyone.

Sure that image gets broken out a lot by foreigners who like to deflect away from the erosion of their own civil liberties but in this case its hard to view this as anything but a portent of things to come.

The Association of Chief Police Officers have put out an advert that encourages you to denounce and report people for inoffensive actions that are not in any way illegal.

It is interesting given the article I linked yesterday that one of the warning signs is not using a credit card thus linking being poor to terrorism.

Listen here.

Gibbs channels Ceauşescu

I hate to ever admit Right Wing caricatures of Obama and his Whitehouse are true but jesus christ if this doesn't seem like they are as arrogant as rightists like to say. But anyway, Whitehouse press spokesperson Robert Gibbs has denounced left wingers that criticise Obama's actions as "crazy" and in need of drug testing.

How far up your own ass do you have to believe that only that the course of action you have taken is the best but that it is so good anyone who dares to criticise is insane? Of course Gibbs goes even further with his "apology".

I watch too much cable, I admit. Day after day it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout - but I know that's not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.

So not only are any critics on the left just as crazy as teabaggers but don't worry, they're just a very small minority who are too dumb to realise the Emperor isn't naked.

4chan founder Moot's testimony

The guy that "hacked" Sarah Palin's Gmail account is / was on trial and 4chan founder / administrator Moot was one of the witnesses called, he was asked some odd questions:

http://www.businessinsider.com/4chan-founder-moots-weird-testimony-in-sarah-palin-email-hacking-trial-2010-8

Full transcript can be found here:
http://i.cdn.turner.com/dr/teg/tsg/release/sites/default/files/assets/poole-testimony.pdf

thanks jonny

Brought to you by the NYPD and New York Tourist Board:

The top voted comment questions what would've happened if this chap was brown or black. Certainly something to ponder.

The Onion often cuts very close to the bone but... jeez...

I mean I get the joke but I'm not sure if there even is a message?

Poor people fund the perks of Credit Card usage for the rich

Pretty simple really, turns out the additional cost of credit company fees and the cost of perks for high level credit cards are 80% funded by poor people paying cash. As with lots of other things the poor are subsidisng the rich to a great degree which makes the assertions of the rich they work harder, or their attacks on "welfare monarchs" rather hollow.

Still you can't be rich or right wing unless you're a hypocrite.

The UK Borders Agency is unsurprisingly racist.

However following a government report not much is being done!

A TV show on youtube edited to be different!

A concept so alien I am consuming handfuls of LSD just to stay sane:

Two comics from IRC!

and before the second one just wanna say I'm a vegetarian:

Aristocrats in deed and bank account.

Naked Capitalism asks Should be leery of the generosity of the uber rich? making the convincing point that aside from this being a nice PR move they are taking on the traditional aristocratic pursuit of noblesse oblige which I suppose was an early modern PR system but essentially it is both an act and philosophy that by giving the poor some crumbs they deserve some fabulous wealth.

Even if this isn't the case one has to wonder if the charities founded by the super rich and controllable by them will move towards worthwhile goals, given how deeply undemocratic they are. Imagine a charity controlled by Steve Ballmer.

link found via http://www.archein21.com/

Hitchens is dying.

A strident Neo-con who uses Atheism seemingly as a crutch for his belief in the white man's burden and misogynist (who still isn't as bad as his brother) I can't call myself a fan of Christopher Hitchens but nonetheless this video is worth a watch.

Good riddance to the UK Film Council and Boo to Hollywood System.

It would appear that those within the UK film industry, or at least those who remembered it when it existed. British screenwriter Johnathan Gems has written to culture minister Jeremy "Rhyming Nickname" Hunt about his abolition of the UK Film Council. He certainly doesn't paint a positive picture of either the UKFC or the Hollywood System and its' effects on British film making*. Certainly American sadness at the departure of the UKFC seems less like artistic fellow feeling and more like the disappointment of lost revenues at this point.

Adam I'd be very keen to hear what you have to say about this.





*I still stick by my assertion that Nationalism is the worst folly but it is to no one's benefit if major Hollywood studios completely wipe out the rest of western cinema, nationalism sucks but different cultures' views of the world should be explored and celebrated.

You see, criminals understand how to prevent crime best of all!

I am not a fan of Robert Peston but this editorial is good and shows pretty clearly that not only is it business as usual for banks but they're still able to set their own opaque agenda with only the mildest of comment from the media. Oh well, at least everyone knows their proper place in a feudal society.

Two months supply of Smart Water!

People in prescence of heavily armed men say nice things about them...

...which is concrete evidence the NATO occupation of Afghanistan is adored by the local populace.

To quote the old joke: "What do you call a Gorilla with a machine gun?

Sir."

4chan makes a funny

Yeah, this was a good line.

Computer nerds privileged white manbabies???

Idly going around the bbc news website I happened upon a link to something interesting, a blog post detailing something really obvious that had never occured to me. Basically starting using computers at a young age is less a sign of deep interest in the field and more a sign your parents were rich enough to buy you a computer. Its quite short and very interesting do have a look

Of course just with anything else that suggest maybe affluent white males didn't succeed solely because of their amazing abilities but, ya know, benefited from entrenched privilege within society those white guys feel the need to point out that possibly poors, women and minorities have a little bit of a disadvantage they got to where they are based solely on merit so the crazy bitch who wrote this article should shut up. Theres few groups more right wing and self important than computer nerds so if you do so choose to read the comments you get to some truly hilarious levels of denial.

super secret note for tony: more proof YOSPOS is a terrible place populated by terrible people