Sam Iles's Blog

Electronic tattoo ‘could revolutionise patient monitoring’

Well this is funniest thing I’ve read all year.

It starts with monitoring ‘patients’, perhaps. Heart beats, that kind of thing.

Then, they track what meds you’ve had to make sure you’re sufficiently drugged up at all times.

Then, they get a GPS to, y’know, make sure patients are safe.

Then, they become permanent tattoos. Going to hospital? Leave with a tracker.

Then, they get administered at birth to, y’know, make sure you always take your meds and we know where you are.

Then, we congratulate George Orwell for being spot on.

I’ll die before I let anyone tattoo a tracking device onto me.

This video from CSB news is abhorrent.

In it is discussed the “inevitable” retaliation terror attack due to the killing of Bin Laden and the ‘fact’ that terrorists are expected to aim for “soft targets”. Soft targets are classed as shopping malls, museums, grocery stores, places or worship, stadiums and the rest.

The security ‘expert’ advocates and predicts security check points at every soft target, not just airports.

That means going through a scanner whenever you enter, well, anywhere.

Their theory is that terrorists wanting revenge for Bin Laden’s death will turn to attacks “less dramatic” than 9/11. This, obviously, makes no sense and goes against every rule of terrorism.

Some guy from something called Security Inc. says, “there have to be security checkpoints entering all soft targets for the safety of all people”.

Also present is the requisite member of the public who “doesn’t agree”, who turns out to agree totally (are people really that stupid to ignore this stuff?).

Once again, a fictitious threat is being used to remove just about any freedom you have left. sigh

[backup link if video above doesn't work - video at bottom of page]

It has been around two months since the president signed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010” into law. This act would repeal America’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law which forbade openly gay men and women from serving in the Armed Forces of the USA.

Every single news source in America reported it will great jubilation and headlines proclaiming that it had ended. If you ask an American on the street, they will say that it has been repealed and that Americana can serve openly.

This isn’t the case. If anyone actually bothered to read the Bill (which is just a couple of pages), they’d see this:

“No Immediate Effect on Current Policy- Section 654 of title 10, United States Code [DADT], shall remain in effect until such time that all of the requirements and certifications required by subsection (b) are met. If these requirements and certifications are not met, section 654 of title 10, United States Code, shall remain in effect.”

Said requirements are:

1) The Secretary of Defense has received the report required by the memorandum of the Secretary referred to in subsection (a). 2) The President transmits to the congressional defense committees a written certification, signed by the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stating each of the following:

• That the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have considered the recommendations contained in the report and the report’s proposed plan of action.
• That the Department of Defense has prepared the necessary policies and regulations to exercise the discretion provided by the amendments made by subsection (f).
• That the implementation of necessary policies and regulations pursuant to the discretion provided by the amendments made by subsection (f) is consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention of the Armed Forces.

Essentially, a report must be prepared and the President, et al, must agree with it. This is a big report. It’s scope is so long I won’t put it here, but you can read it in the Bill.

What this means is that this report must be done first and people must be happy that the repeal will work. Reports like this in America take years (for anyone unfamiliar with this process, Google). Once this report is in, it will be subject to a “hmm, we don’t actually agree with DADT”.

Meanwhile, you can’t be openly gay in the military. Servicemen and women are still being discharged from the military every day. DADT is not repealed.

Then consider this. This very week, the Department of Justice in America has filed papers with a court in California to stop the DADT repeal. The DOJ is under full control of Mr Obama. So, why then are they fighting to have the repeal banned? This makes no sense to me. (By the way, this is fully findable online and reported by a few major sources as minor news and independent bloggers too).

Let’s assume something now. Say Mr Obama – for the same reason as every president before him – does not really want DADT repealed. The DOJ (for reasons officially unknown) doesn’t want it repealed. The military (specifically the Marines) don’t want it repealed. So, maybe Mr Obama doesn’t either.

So what does he do? Well, he makes his little repeal Bill. The media writes their headlines (either through simply not reading the Bill or because they are complicit in lying to you). Obama is a hero. He can say (and has said, many times) that he repealed it. Then, he makes this report happen. And, “oh, what’s this”, the results of the report are not favorable? You mean to say that your report came up with a reason why it can’t be truly repealed? Oh, you need to do another report? What’s this – you’re no longer president? Well, gee, Mr Obama, you sure do try your hardest! Man, are we happy with you!

Of course, this all really could be very innocent. Maybe this time in six months there will be openly gay people serving. However, the evidence is mounting ever more for my theory (which is why I am writing the post now rather than when the Bill was signed).

What confuses me is why the media aren’t all over this. Why aren’t they writing about it and complaining? Is the Ministry of Truth working overtime, or does the media just not care? Or, maybe they don’t know? Why aren’t my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters outraged?

That’s why I am writing this. Not to tell of doom and homophobia in the White House, just to inform. To make you question what you read a little more and think that perhaps everything isn’t as simple as you think…

I hope sincerely that I am wrong.

I just watched a video that scared me more than any other I have seen before it.

It features a man called Greg Gutfeld. He is on Fox News, giving a monologue, or as they not-so-eloquently put it, a Greg-ologue. The video is entitled “Let’s help the crazy people” and, in my opinion, comes straight from the Ministry of Truth, not this Gutfeld guy.

His message is about the Arizona shooting of a congressman and others (in which a judge and a little girl died). Obviously, this event has been jumped on and instantly capitalised to promote all kinds of messages: from gun control to insanity. The topic of Gutfeld’s video is insanity.

He starts off by blaming the liberals for trying to end involuntary commitment (the act of indefinitely locking someone in a mental hospital without their or their family’s consent). He says perhaps the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard, and jumps to a conclusion like no other:

They [liberals] also created the right to refuse psychiatric drugs. The result? Saturday [the shooting in Arizona]

This is madness. How can he possibly say this? The man who did this “refused” psychiatric drugs (with the help of liberals) and the direct result of this was that he shot people? There is no evidence that this man was even insane. He goes on:

The fact is we now know the killer’s a nut. We also know that a lot of people knew he was a nut before we did.

Firstly, we don’t know this at all. All we have is hearsay and conjecture: people who claim to know him saying he was crazy. That doesn’t sound like a fact to me. He then goes on to say that he was thrown out of his college and describes him as an “internet troll in real skin” (and I can’t begin to imagine what that is).

Then comes the scary bit:

But no one could do anything, which raises the question ’should the civil rights of one guy put the rest of us at risk?’. I say no. For it is the mental illness which prevents the mentally ill from seeking help from his mental illness. And you’re not acting against their will if their will isn’t present.

He then sums up his argument with one very odd way of putting it:

I’d rather get these folks with meds, before they get us with bullets.

“Get us with bullets”? Please. He makes it sound like there are thousands of crazy people roaming the streets shooting us.

So, let’s break down what he is actually saying (or, being told to say by the Ministry of Truth).

He is saying that the Arizona shooter should have been locked up or drugged up to control him because he was “obviously insane”. He says that the “barrier of proof” of insanity is too high and that it should be easy to “get them with meds”.

However, let’s look at the evidence of insanity. All this guy ever did that was unusual was make YouTube videos and talk about how his disliked the government. Sure, kept himself to himself and the like but many people do that – and I don’t think we consider them crazy.

So, that’s all we have here. A man who dislikes his government and shares those opinions with people online and in the real world. And what is Gutfeld’s solution? Lock him up and drug him. He says the guy should have been dealt with before he shot people – without the current proof of insanity required.

To simplify this right down: he is saying that anyone who dislikes their government should be put in a mental institution without proof or trial.

To me, that is a truly scary prospect.

This is just a miniature blog post to bring an interesting topic to your attention.

You may remember that last year we were faced with a swine flu pandemic. Vaccines we coming out of all kinds of companies and the government of the UK bought tons of the stuff from the drug companies.

In the last few days, we’ve been seeing increased reports of flu deaths. Fifty in total (no time frame ever given) and eleven in the last week. People are prophesying a pandemic.

But, every year in the UK between 3,000 and 4,000 people die from flu – and we’re being told that these current deaths are terrible and that they are some anomaly. They simply aren’t. ^{[source, BMJ]} Any scientist will tell you this.

Then we realise why. After a week or so of the government building the hype, telling us there is a epidemic afoot, suddenly they announce this: Old vaccines left over from the swine flu pandemic will be used to plug the shortfall in this winter’s supplies.

Um, what? The OLD swine flu vaccine? Don’t forget now, the WHO declared swine flu to be done and gone months ago. Also remember every other flu strain evolves each year – but swine flu, apparently, doesn’t change at all. And we also learned today how much of this old vaccine the government has left over: 12 million vaccines. 12 million. It’s no wonder they want to get rid of it. By creating some bogus disease they can make us all get vaccinated. The current winter 2010/2011 vaccine and the winter 2009/2010 the government has purchased are different, too! But they’re letting us have it anyway.

The other odd thing is that not anyone can have this jab. If you want it but you can’t get it on the NHS you have to pay £12 to the drug companies for it.

Last point: all drug companies say (you can see it on investor sections on their websites) that vaccines are where the money is at. They make hardly anything from drugs which cure you. Most of the profit is in vaccines. Just remember that.

Anyway. Good luck.

Today, the UK government announced that they are bringing back the weekly rubbish collections. Labour introduced fortnightly collections in the hope it would force people to recycle more. The Tories, however, have decided to bring them back. Their reason, they say, is due to situations in some parts of the country where, due to the recent snow, people’s rubbish hasn’t been collected for a while. They say it’s terrible that Labour made this happen.

Um, what? How could weekly collections help this problem? The rubbish wasn’t collected because of snow. Not because it was the wrong week. Snow didn’t happen to fall right at the time of no collections. They say (and the media says too) that this was introduced solely to cut costs. There is no mention of the recycling benefits. None at all.

Also, if this was a cost saving measure, then why then do it now? When local councils face record spending cuts, why add an additional unnecessary cost?

It seems to me that the way to collect rubbish during snowfall isn’t to collect snow more often during the rest of the year, it’s to invest in smaller, snow capable vehicles. Remember, collections continue in many other countries with much heavier snow, but the Tories would rather ignore the real problem that we are horribly underprepared for snow?

I think the answer is simple. This is nothing but a popularity move. I for one think the idea of fortnightly collections is great. If you recycle properly, you won’t have a problem. People complain their bins attract maggots if not collected weekly – but your bin shouldn’t contain food anyway. If it does, you’re doing it wrong. But, a lot of people dislike the idea (who wants to recycle, huh?). And so the Tories have jumped on the opportunity of snow to keep the slaves happy and say, ‘hey, look! Remember how you all hate us because of these cuts? Well – we’re bringing back the bins!’ Please don’t fall for it, OK?

I am not a big fan of the media and news in general and in this post – rather than explain why – I just want to show you. I’m going to dissect parts of a ABC News (which is a pretty much totally compromised organisation) article and we can look at what is wrong with it all. The article is here, you may want to read it before we begin.

The headline: Attorney General’s Blunt Warning on Terror Attacks.

The first paragraph is instantly confusing and wrong.

“Attorney General Eric Holder has an urgent message for Americans: While he is confident that the United States will continue to thwart attacks, ‘the terrorists only have to be successful once.’”

Um, what? In the first half of that sentence, the reporter paraphrases that attacks will be thwarted, but then from somewhere else in the interview, taken out of context we get him saying there will be attacks. How can you be confident that attacks will be stopped, but still carry a blunt warning about the likelihood of attacks? Immediately in this first paragraph, we are confused at this nonsense, wondering what it’s talking about and reading on.

“And while it is not certain we will be hit, the American people, he told ABC News, ‘have to be prepared for potentially bad news.’”

First off, when you read ‘not certain’, your brain only gets the certain bit. You read, “And while it is certain we will be hit”. This is a known trick that advertisers use. “Not certain”, instead of “uncertain”. And again, his comment has no context.

“‘What I am trying to do in this interview is to make people aware of the fact that the threat is real, the threat is different, the threat is constant,’ he said.”

Immediately we’ve got a triplet power of three technique, making you remember the word threat. THREAT THREAT THREAT. No context, just a unnamed threat.

“In a rare and wide-ranging interview, the attorney general disclosed chilling, new details about the evolving threat of homegrown terror, and touched on topics ranging from Wikileaks to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.”

“Wide-ranging”? Did he talk about his kids and his favourite band? And, he “discloses” information, which makes us think it’s secret and important. Also, that information is “chilling”. Chilling! That is to scare you. “New”. Again, that we are privy to secret knowledge. Then they call them “details”. But, they’re just not. Nowhere does he give details of anything – just vague, meaningless comments. Then they throw in the words “Wikileaks” and “Guantanamo Bay”. Why? There is no reason to – these two examples are chosen because they aim to scare the American people. Throw in a mention of Wikileaks or Gitmo Bay and people pay attention.

This next paragraph (which is just a sentence) really annoys me:

“What was uppermost on his mind, however, is the alarming rise in the number of Americans who are more than willing to attack and kill their fellow citizens.”

What?! How do they know what is “uppermost” on his mind. Why is this unconfirmed rise “alarming”? This whole paragraph is just to scare you. You can’t throw out nonsense and made up news and expect people to take it. Written without bias, it should say:

What was on his mind, however, is the questionable rise in the number of Americans who are supposedly willing to attack and kill their fellow citizens.

Carrying on:

“It is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” Holder said. “You didn’t worry about this even two years ago — about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do. And — that is of — of great concern.” “The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born,” he said.

Oh, really? It keeps you up at night, Holder? Then he says you didn’t worry about this two years ago? Why not?! Why now?! What has changed? What makes you so scared about homegrown terrorists now, Holder? The article should tell us what’s changed (but, of course, nothing has). Then he uses the word “radicalised” to describe Americans. This is one of those annoying words which doesn’t mean anything but which is designed to scare you. He says Americans are going to “take up arms” against their country. Again, baseless.

“In the last 24 months, Holder said, 126 people have been indicted on terrorist-related charges, Fifty of those people are American citizens.”

Where is the evidence? Even if it’s true, problem here is that they have changed the definition of “terrorism” so much that this is no different to ever before. Americans have always strapped bombs to themselves and gone into schools and such like. That’s terrorism. There is no comparison to previous years here. It is just a pointless statement.

“I think that what is most alarming to me is the totality of what we see, the attorney general said. ‘Whether it is an attempt to bomb the New York City subway system, an attempt to bring down an airplane over Detroit, an attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square … I think that gives us a sense of the breadth of the challenges that we face, and the kinds of things that our enemy is trying to do.’ Holder says many of these converts to al Qaeda have something in common: a link to radical cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, an American citizen himself.

Converts to al Qaeda? What?! Says who? These are people who – even if they have become Muslim extremists – aren’t working for al Qaeda. There are thousands of terrorists organisations but (and notice this is the reporter writing here) using al Qaeda scares the reader, makes you think of 9/11 and Bin Laden.

And here is the name we’ve been waiting for – Anwar Al Awlaki! That radical cleric and an American citizen! The one the CIA were watching for years, the scapegoat of modern American journalism, mentioned in every piece on terrorism and Islam, who, in truth, has nothing to do with this article at all! Just thrown in there to scare you!

“Authorities suspect Awlaki helped mastermind last year’s Christmas Day underwear bombing plot in Detroit, and a recent scheme to blow up cargo planes travelling from Yemen to Europe and the United States.”

“Suspect”? This is a lie! They knew he was. The let the guys on the damn plane, knowing exactly what they were doing, just so they could catch them. It was just a sting operation. Horribly under-reported, and here we’re told they “suspect” him? Wow.

“‘He’s an extremely dangerous man. He has shown a desire to harm the United States, a desire to strike the homeland of the United States,’ Holder said. ‘He is a person who — as an American citizen — is familiar with this country and he brings a dimension, because of that American familiarity, that others do not.’”

“Extremely dangerous”, people. And, here comes my new favourite buzzword: the HOMELAND OF THE UNITED STATES. Oh, brother. You know who called their country the homeland? The Nazis. Soviet Russia. They used it as a term to mean just them, no foreigners. It’s an archaic term now used by politicians and the media more and more to mean the USA – sans terrorists.

And, what dimension does he bring? Because he knows his way around, he’s a better terrorist? You think al Qaeda doesn’t have a sat nav? Or, because he knows the opening hours for Wal-Mart? Please, it makes no difference what “dimension” he brings.

“Holder said that as a threat to the United States, Awlaki ranks right up there with Osama bin Laden. ‘He would be on the same list with bin Laden,” the attorney general said. “He’s up there. I don’t know whether he’s one, two, three, four — I don’t know. But he’s certainly on the list of the people who worry me the most.’”

First of all, there is a mistake between the reporter’s analysis and Holder’s quotation. The reporter says he in the list of biggest “threat to the United States”, Holder says it’s a list of people who “worry me the most”. And, based on what? If he were that dangerous, he’d BE ON A LIST, not on a list in Holder’s mind.

When asked whether the United states has a preference between killing or capturing and prosecuting Awlaki, Holder replied: “Well, we certainly want to neutralize him. And we will do whatever we can in order to do that.” Awlaki is believed to be in Yemen, but thanks to the Internet, his reach is global, and his influence dangerous.

So they want to kill him. OK, got it. Then we ‘learn’ that he has a dangerous “global reach”. Again, a nobody hiding in Yemen is suddenly dangerous. Used as an example only because he is an American citizen.

“The ability to go into your basement, turn on your computer, find a site that has this kind of hatred spewed … they have an ability to take somebody who is perhaps just interested, perhaps just on the edge, and take them over to the other side,” he said.

WHAT?! You are seriously saying that some kid in a basement switches on his computer, stumbles across a lecture from Awlaki and becomes a “homegrown terrorist”. It’s nonsense!

To combat the threat of Americans turning to al Qaeda and violence, the United States is monitoring scores of radicals and has set up stings to blunt the threat. The increasing number of FBI stings, such as the alleged plot to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, are not without controversy, but Holder vigorously defended them. ‘Options are always given all along the way for them to say, “You know what, I have changed my mind. I don’t want to do it.” Everyone that we have charged has said, “No I want to go forward,”‘ he said. ‘All those actions were designed to kill Americans. ‘I have to have all those tools available to me to try to keep the American people safe, and to do the job that I’m supposed to do as a 21st century attorney general,’ Holder said.”

Again, al Qaeda used without justification. And, “scores of radicals”! SCORES! Here is the kind of stings the FBI does. They say to some kid, “push this button and a car will blow up”. The kid does it and, boom, he’s in jail. Stings last minutes, the kids most likely think it’s nonsense and they’re being pranked for one thing. All this stuff is meaningless.

“Holder said the United States has made great strides in improving its ability to detect and block attacks, which is shown by the number of would-be terrorists who have been stopped before they could kill Americans. The intelligence community is working around the clock, he said, with little time off.”

The “number of would-be terrorists”? And, what does this mean: “little time off”? Does it mean the whole outfit, or the people? Are we supposed to feel sorry for them?

“‘We are doing everything that we possibly can to keep the American people safe,’ Holder said. ‘We are vigilant, we are doing everything we can to keep our homeland secure.’”

There it is again! The “homeland”. And, “everything we possibly can”. Again, your brain sees that sentence as meaning despite doing all they can, there is still this unnamed baseless threat he talks of so much. Just making fear.

“Turning to how terror suspects are tried, Holder said he still believes the ‘decision as to how people get prosecuted, where they get prosecuted, is an executive branch function. Even if those suspects are being held now at Guantanamo Bay.’ Holder said Congress should not be interfering with that.”

Throw Gitmo in there again to scare. Also, notice how a sentence which would seemingly precede the other quoted one is paraphrased? That means it’s been taken out of context and is a lie.

As for Julian Assange and Wikileaks, Holder said ‘it’s an ongoing investigation.’ ‘What Wikileaks did, at the end of the day, was harmful to American security, put American agents and properties … at risk … and I think for arrogant and misguided reasons,’ he said.”

What?! The very, very last two paragraphs and they throw Wikileaks in there? The conclusion to the whole article isn’t related to the article at all! Just to confuse and scare.

Now we’ve read the article, consider the headline: “Attorney General’s Blunt Warning on Terror Attacks”. What?! There was no “blunt warning”. And, let me tell you, that is the first sign that these articles are bogus: the headline differing from the content.

So, a conclusion now. In the article, they use scary, bogus terms like “radicals” and “homegrown terror”. They talk about Alwaki and Wikileaks where it isn’t needed. In the ABC News video of this, they do the same. Confusing people, scaring people. They constantly refer to al Qaeda (just them) as “sophisticated”. What?! They live in caves and steal weapons from dead people! Their time-sqaure bomb just made a little smoke, their underwear bomb wasn’t even a working bomb.

The worst thing about this is that they are turning Americans against Americans. It isn’t USA v. terrorists anymore, it’s USA v USA. That, my friends, is how the New World Order starts.

So, why do they do all this? All they are doing is driving fear into Americans. Making them think they are under constant threats from bombs, that there is a terrorist under every bed. All to make you think that the war in the Middle East has a meaning, has a purpose that is terror. When, really, it’s not. It’s about oil.

The government is lying. ABC News is lying. That’s why the media is bad.