Category: Scumbags

Much worse than idiots – people who know what they’re doing is bad, but don’t care.

Support Rachel North – find her stalker

~ Inquisitor ~ 4 Comments

Have you seen this woman? If so, call the cops.

Felicity Jane Lowde is a convicted cyberstalker on the run (old photo on the right). She’s been continually harassing, libelling, threatening and making false accusations against Rachel North, for no obvious reason. Backstory here and here. Anyway, she’s skipped bail and is somehow continuing her harassment campaign while on the loose (and possibly while living rough). If you regularly frequent cybercafes or libraries in the London or Oxford areas, you might see her.

If you do see her, please contact the police, do not approach. Useful telephone numbers follow:

  • Crimestoppers: 0800 555 111
  • Metropolitan Police: 020 7230 1212
  • City of London Police: 020 7601 2222 (within the Square Mile only)
  • Thames Valley Police (Oxford): 0845 8505 505

[Update 10.07.2007: Since FJL has now been found, I have removed her photograph. No need to look for her any more – let’s hope she gets the help she needs now. This post will remain as an archive.]

Hidden in the Celebrity Big Brother transcripts…

~ Inquisitor ~ 3 Comments

…is a gem. (26-page PDF, courtesy the Guardian.)

To summarise: Jade and her just-as-thick brother [Ed: AAARGH, mental classification screwup] boyfriend, Jack Tweed, Jo S Club and Danielle Lloyd played a very childish party game of “make up limericks about Shilpa” which involved trying to avoid a word that apparently rhymed with “tacky” and began with the letter P. Mostly it’s just as dull as Big Brother’s always been, but the interesting bit is how (a) none of this got to air and (b) the details of how Channel Four tried to cover it up.

Oddly, the game itself is not included in the transcript [Ed: wrote this before I realised it was on p5 and forgot to remove it, grr], but two of the warning interviews are: the one I’m interested in is the one with Jade’s brother bf:

Saturday 20th January 2007 approx. 20:20 – DIARY ROOM WITH JACK TWEED (p.18-26)

Jack: Hello.
Big Brother: Hello, Jack.
Jack: Hello.
Big Brother: Jack, please could you switch off your microphone and take the battery out, please? You should know that you are still being recorded.
Jack: Done
Big Brother: Thanks.

[…]

Big Brother: You were using rhyming slang to replace what you called ‘the “P” word’.
Jack: Okay.
Big Brother: You said the word rhymed with ‘tacky’.
Jack: Okay
Big Brother: It is clear to Big Brother, Jack, that this was a reference to the racial insult ‘Paki’.
Jack: Okay.
Big Brother: Do you understand that this is considered racially offensive language?
Jack: Yeah, okay.
Big Brother: What do you have to say about this, Jack?
Jack: I was explaining the word that someone that was meant to have rhymed with the word. I
wasn’t actually saying the word.
Big Brother: Do you mean you were trying to include the word in the limerick but were using another
word to replace it?
Jack: I can’t really remember what exactly happened but I think… that someone said ‘I know a word that rhymes with that’ and then I clocked on to what it was and then explained what the word was, but didn’t actually say the word.

Genius.

There then entails a long series of questions determining where they were playing the game, and then on p22…

Big Brother: Jack, do you understand that the ‘P’ word – Paki –
Jack: Yeah.
Big Brother: Is considered to be racist?
Jack: Yeah, I fully understand.
Big Brother: And that simply by replacing the word with a word that rhymes with it doesn’t take away from the racial insult?
Jack: I wasn’t saying it to anyone. I was explaining what the word… what the word is. That’s why, in a conversation, you’re allowed to say, ‘The word “Paki” is a racist remark’. That’s why you’re allowed to say it. So I wasn’t saying, ‘That girl is a Paki’; I was saying ‘the word is that’.

Oh, I’m sure. These people are just as appalling on paper as they are in real life, aren’t they?

What’s really interesting about this is the style of the questioning. This interview is asking very short, simple, almost primary-school level questions, whereas the questioning of Jo S Club is much more detailed and inquiring (and she gives better game, too.) Is this an assumption that Big Brother is making directly of the Goody/Tweed family, almost talking down to them in much the same way they seem to think Shilpa was talking down to them?

Big Brother: Jack, was the limerick about Shilpa?
Jack: I think… I really can’t remember. I think so. I don’t know.
Big Brother: Jack, Big Brother is going to remind you of the limerick.
Jack: Okay.
Big Brother: Jo began: ‘There once was a house that was happy’. You then said: ‘Until…’ Jo said: ‘And then there entered…’ Cleo then interrupted and said, ‘You are all going to [Big Brother] prison’.

That’s actually a brilliant one-liner – the conversation in question is on p5-6 if you’re interested. Excellent timing from Cleo Rocos there. Watch out for Jack’s grammatical howler:

Jack: Yeah. So that wasn’t referring to the word ‘Paki’. That was just people who was tacky.
Big Brother: Jack, in a previous conversation, you had substituted the word ‘tacky’ for the word ‘Paki’.
Jack: In that limerick just then, I wasn’t at all suggesting that the word was meant to be ‘Paki’. I was saying tacky, as in tacky people. I wasn’t – not at all.

He’s got a bit of a cheek calling Shilpa Shetty tacky considering exactly how tacky the Goody/Tweed family are – Jade herself spent a lot of the time before stupidly deciding to go on BB again making low-rent, truly dreadful reality programming for LivingTV (“Britain’s Most Popular CSI Repeats And Psychic Bullshit Channel”) with titles like “Jade’s Salon” and “Jade’s PA”. Making exploitative reality TV that no-one watches has to qualify as tacky even by their perspective, surely?

Big Brother: Jack, do you understand that some people may consider what you said to be racially offensive?
Jack: Yeah, some people who got the wrong end of the stick, I would, yeah. Can I just ask: is this… What, is this out in the paper, because if it is, I’d rather just leave now.

And Jack gets pretty much straight to the heart of the matter here, which is really quite surprising. Big Brother is tiptoeing around the issue but this is the only reason he’s being questioned about it – because news of the “Shilpa Poppadom” incident had already got out and C4 was worrying that this would get out too.

(In fact – although this is from memory, not my email archive so could be unreliable – news had got out through the usual Popbitch-type channels that Channel Four had material showing Jade et al making racist comments and had covered it up. Because it was from Popbitch et al, it wasn’t taken seriously. Now, of course, we know that this was true.)

Big Brother: Jack, as a result of this incident, Big Brother is now issuing you with your first and only formal warning about this.
Jack: Okay.
Big Brother: Any further incidents could result in your immediate eviction.
Jack: Okay. Could I just… Can you just please tell me if this is out in the paper or anything like that, if anything’s out there suggesting, because if it is, I’d rather just leave now.

At least he realises he’s made a major boner and wants to stop making them – which is more than can be said for a lot of people.

Big Brother: Jack, just listen for a second.
Jack: Okay.
Big Brother: Big Brother would ask that you exercise some care in the future with your language.
Jack: Yeah.
Big Brother: And Big Brother would like to remind you that, as always, all diary room conversations between Big Brother and housemates are confidential.
Jack: Okay.
Big Brother: Do you understand?
Jack: Yeah. Thank you.

The implication here of course is “don’t speak about this ever again and you’ll be fine.”

What this transcript shows is that all along C4 had the power to control the events on BB, editing out this limerick incident (which happened at around half eleven on the 16th of January, the same day as the cooking incident that triggered the press furore) from even the E4 live transmission and similarly keeping the official reprimand out of public view. Very interesting in its own way to watch how they were all manipulated for the camera – so much for BB reflecting real life then.

The sponsors for this season by the way? Virgin Media. My cable company. Who, through their ownership of Living TV, make all that psychic bullshit and Jade-featuring reality shows (although of course they don’t feature Jade anymore, they’ve got Pete Burns in instead.) Aaargh, not impressed – with that and the service I’m getting, I think I might soon be giving BT a call.

Sent to my university email box…

~ Inquisitor ~ 3 Comments

A customised “scholarship award” 419 scam! Let’s deconstruct it, shall we…

FROM: THE DESK OF THE VICE PRESIDENT MR.AUSTIN THOMAS.(TRANSNATIONAL
AWARD INTERNATIONAL) PRIZE AWARD DEPT.
REF NO: 12/0078/IPG
BATCH NO: EGS/ 20054117/08

Generated randomly, probably.

ATTN: WINNER.

RE: SCHOLARSHIP AWARD NOTIFICATION, FINAL NOTICE.

We are pleased to inform you, that as a result of our RECENT LOTTERY DRAWS HELD ON THE 28TH DECEMBER 2006. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number:021-7276083-04 with serial number:31270-0 drew lucky numbers:05-06-12-14-38 which consequently won in the 5th category. You have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay of (FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS) in cash credited to file with REF:.EGS/3662367114/13

Oh, look, is that a different random batch number? Note the amateurish nature of the scam. I’m amazed anyone gets taken in by these things, but they do.

Note that all participants in this lottery program have been selected randomly through a computer ballot system drawn from over 20,000 Officials and 30,000,000 individual email addresses from all search engines and web sites,from Asia, Australia, NewZealand, Europe, North and South America, Middle East and Africa, as part of our International Promotions Program.This promotional program takes place every year, and is promoted and sponsored by eminent personalities like the Sultan of Brunei and other corporate organizations. This is to IMPROVE THE LEVEL O!
F EDUCATION WORLDWIDE and to ENCOURAGE THE USE OF INTERNET AND COMPUTERS WORLDWIDE.

“30,000,000 individual email addresses” obviously means “dictionary attack on .edu and .ac.uk”. This appears to be a fill-in-the-blank lotto scam – with the reasons for it just entered in by the scammer in particular depending on his run. Also, that O!<carriage return>F is in the actual email. Brilliant.

Your fund is now deposited with EcoBank and insured in your name For security purpose and clarity, we advise that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims have been processed and your money remitted to your account.

Nah, I don’t think I’m going to do that.

This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claims and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants. We look forward to your active participation in our next 4 million dollars slot.

This of course is the hook for the scam – there’s 4M available if you phone in. Shame the scam’s so bloody obvious, and the hook is too well hidden in the long paragraphs.

To begin the processing of your prize you are to contact your claims agent through our accredited Prize Transfer agents as stated below:

Name..Rev Paul Edward

Oh, a “reverend”. How trustworthy.

TEL: +234-80-3819 1724 CALL HIM IMMEDIATELY WITH HIS ABOVE DIRECT PHONE NUMBER IF YOU ARE CALLING FROM (USA) THIS IS HOW YOU DIAL 011-234-80-3819 1724 BUT IF YOU ARE CALLING FROM ANY OTHER COUNTRY,THIS IS HOW TO DIAL +234-80-3819 1724

They obviously think we’re that dumb that we don’t know how to dial an international number. Oh, and +234 is, of course, the international calling code for Nigeria; it is a mobile phone on the MTN Nigeria network.

Googling on the telephone number for the scammer has cropped up someone on Livejournal who’s received the scam from the same people; the name given in his scam email is “Rev Frank Ive”.

You are also advised to provide your claim agent with the under listed information as soon as possible send it to his two email addresses below,YOUR CLAIM AGENT E MAIL ADDRESSES BELOW,

E MAIL: pauledward1616@yahoo.com
E MAIL: pauledward555@myway.com

The same email providers were used for Frank Ive, presumably because these are the easiest free email providers to automate account creation for (and slowest to terminate people for 419 scamming.)

1. Name in full
2. Address
3. Nationality
4. Age
5. Occupation
6. Phone/Fax
7. Batch Number
8. Serial Number

All winnings must be claimed not later than one month after the date of this notice. Please note,in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications,remember to quote your Batch number and Serial numbers in all orrespondence.Furthermore,should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.Congratulations!!!once more and thank you for being part of our promotional program. Bear in mind that 10% of your fund will be going to the lottery organization that played the lottery with peoples name and email addresses that should be after you most have received the fund in your account,the 10% would have been given to them,just because the fund has been insured and will not be removed till you receive the fund in your account.

This of course is the trick to confuse people into not reporting their scamming until it’s way, way too late. Oh, and “orrespondence”? Tee hee.

Sincerely,

MR.AUSTIN THOMAS
VICE PRESIDENT.
TRANSNATIONAL AWARD

The same name was used on the Livejournal recipient’s mail too.

So what we’ve got here is a scam that is cleverly targeted but still misses the mark by a very long distance, not least because it got picked up by my university’s SpamAssassin system and was marked with a spam warning, but also because of what it lacks in spelling, grammar, good sense and layout. The question of course is why so many people get stung by 419 scams after this long and why they are allowed to just keep on going. It’s the money, isn’t it?

Telemarketers, scum of the earth

~ Inquisitor ~ 4 Comments

I’ve just been called for “market research” again and am frustrated to find out that the TPS complaints form requires you to find out the name and address of the scumbag who’s tried to call you (I have no doubt that if I actually trawled for such information, they’d hang up on me.) Since I hang up immediately on all such calls, I don’t have it – however, they did leave their number on 1471.

So, whatever firm of “market research” droids it is at 0870 220 9317 ignores the TPS. And is probably responsible for my silent calls and recorded message telespam too.

It’s nowhere on Google and I’m not going to call it (it’s the principle of the thing, I’m not paying call charges just to talk to them again and I recommend no-one else does the same), but if anyone on the ‘net has any more information about who owns this I would appreciate it greatly. There used to be a page somewhere listing 0870 numbers by the licensing operator; I can’t find it again, but if it’s still there it would be very useful for hunting these pricks down.

Watch out for the slime

~ Inquisitor ~ 4 Comments

As you may know, there’s an election on and I’ve just received a massive pack of election communications through my door. Unfortunately amongst these was one for the BNP (oddly hidden inside one of the other leaflets, indicating that this was their one free Election Commission mailout.) I felt dirty just touching the thing.

The fact is of course that they have no chance of getting anywhere in Scotland, but they try: commendably the parents of Kriss Donald told Griffin and co. exactly where they could stick their anti-Asian propaganda when they tried to hijack their tragedy, and hardly anyone up here has ever voted for them.

But what of the leaflet? Well, it’s typical BNP propaganda. Home printer quality, twenty years outdated styling, crap about how they’re Scotland’s “fastest growing political party” (maybe from two members to four), grammar errors, almost all in bold fonts, randomly changing font sizes, self-aggrandisation (“likely to be elected to Holyrood” my arse) and much reference to the BNP national 0870 number (whilst printing their Scottish phone number in very small print elsewhere).

Interestingly, the amateurishness of the design of the one-sheet is in itself an indication of why the BNP will probably never have any serious power – it’s aimed at the true believers rather than Mr and Mrs. Nimby, which would be the most dangerous demographic for a group of fascists to get hold of. Le Pen and many others of the like are experts at dog-whistling, the art of saying something that sounds innocuous and “safe” to the ears of someone not attuned to the code whilst being a call to arms to anyone clued in – a good example is the phrase “international bankers” in the context of world domination (meaning of course “Jews”). The thing is, most British die-hard fascists are of the sort that the dog-whistle codes basically have to be spelled out in very big letters, which makes their true nature obvious to all those except the exceedingly dense.

And what of the policy? The usual bullshit: a combination of racism, philistinism and populism. There’s the usual bashing of the “flood” of “immigrants from the EU” (it’s only 32,000 in a 5m population, excluding the self-employed, mostly in the service sector) who apparently in their tiny minds “squeeze” jobs out of locals and “push down” wages. The Poles and so on come here and generally end up getting pushed into menial jobs that no Scots actually want to do; are usually paid minimum wage; work entirely legally so contributing to our economy in NI, income tax, rent, food purchase and so on just like anyone else; plus unlike a lot of young Scots they actually want to be here. For one, I welcome them.

(What’s funny about Pole-bashing is that not only are Poles white, which should normally make them very amenable, Poland has a number of political groups which would be the BNP’s best mates if they ever got any European power – Wiki “League of Polish Families” and “All-Polish Youth” sometime. By the way, Googling for “Polish immigration Scotland statistics” gets you a neo-Nazi news aggregator as the top hit right now and a sane Times blog article with the real story at #7. Ugh. Hint hint.)

And then there’s their other policies. Motoring and police policy ripped straight from the populist “stop persecuting motorists” and “filling in paperwork” handbook. “Discipline” and “traditional teaching methods” (read corporal punishment and rote-learning) in education over “trendy PC nonsense” like actual learning. Bollocks about protecting companies (“and employees”, ooh sinister) from foreign imports. Some trad-socialist policies dressed up in fascist clothing: council housing in particular. No mention of course of some of the BNP’s more dodgy policies – oddly even their usual Muslim-baiting is absent from this one, obviously they think the Poles are a more acceptable target up here – plus no references to Nick Griffin or even the Scottish leader. Can’t imagine why.

What do I think of it? Well, put it this way, I’ve already ripped it up and stuck it in the recycler along with the rest of my political junk mail, a place where it can at least go on to hopefully do something useful. You can’t be too careful, but I think the evil has been pretty much vanquished for now.

If you’re interested, please do do read Unity’s very detailed deconstruction of a different, English piece of election slime. More is definitely better here.

Just stop it

~ Inquisitor ~ 1 Comment

Every time you get a school shooting in the States that makes big news you get the Jack Thompson and worse “media experts” coming out of their swamps to opine on how video games/violent movies/role-playing games/comic books/the Internet/Satan caused the incident instead of the guy that fired the gun. This always seems to me to be a bit of an overreaction.

The current blame target in development is Chan-Wook Park’s brilliant “Oldboy“, a Korean thriller that won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes a few years ago and remains one of the best films I’ve seen at a film festival. Apparently since one of the photographs in said guy’s dossier resembles a promotional image for the film, that means the film must be responsible – never mind that he apparently doesn’t mention it anywhere else. This is on the AP newswire. This has been referred to by the New York Times.

And they haven’t seen the damned movie. The entire point of “Oldboy” is that violence doesn’t help anyone – it simply screws both the perpetrator and victim, which is demonstrated throughout the film. It is not a Steven Seagal movie for the arthouse crowd, it’s much more than that. But because most people seem to think that a film with subtitles isn’t worth watching for themselves, they’ll believe whatever their media outlets tell them about it, which is why they should actually be responsible. However, with outlets like Fox out there, that doesn’t seem to be very likely:

Fox News - as subtle as ever

Not a Photoshop. Real. Including the bit about how he was probably possessed by the devil. Wow, that’s really responsible reporting right there, although I think Fox is aiming at the wrong target – we all know from Mark Kermode (a truly reliable source) that the only thing that actually is possessed by the devil is Marlon Wayans’ Little Man.

No. Just stop it. Surely we can’t be that thick. Surely. Happily, most of the commenters on Fark are shredding the “Oldboy did it” crapola with relish – if only we can say the same for the rest of the population.

Why I hate telemarketers

~ Inquisitor ~ 28 Comments

I have an ex-directory phone number. I have this for two reasons – one that I had a very unpleasant stalking experience while living in university accommodation that I’d rather not repeat (this is also why I try and maintain some form of Internet anonymity) and the other is that I cannot stand telemarketers and would like to make it as hard as possible for them to get my information. It worked for a couple of years too.

I am generally polite with call centre workers for the most part because I know the kind of work they’re doing is hard and nasty and completely unappreciated; it’s not their fault that they have to follow Virgin Media’s “Cable Modem Diagnosis for Morons” script sheet whenever I call up, and at least the Indian call centre workers are generally polite if useless. (Top tip: if you know what you’re talking about, go to the USENET support.broadband groups, where there are technicians around who know how their network actually works.)

I see no obligation, however, to be polite to telemarketers. Telemarketers are taking up your time. They invade your privacy. They feel entitled to force themselves on you; they’re just the same as spammers, stalkers, script kiddies and fundamentalists. I can appreciate that it is not the call centre operatives who make four-second silent calls to my phone line who are at fault here, that they’re just doing what their bosses and their computer systems tell them to, but I feel no remorse when I tell them that I don’t answer telemarketing calls and put the phone down before they can respond.

All the calls I seem to get right now are survey calls. I’ve had ICM and MORI, one of whom on being told I was ex-directory told me they got my number from a random number generator. Obviously that’s how it started; once out the random generator, it got sold on as a positive lead. I’ve had people who just say “we’re doing market research”, as I just had half an hour ago. I’ve had recorded messages telling me that I’ve won stuff and to dial 0901 SCAMMER. I’ve never asked to be put on a list; I don’t want to be on any telemarketing lists, I cannot stand being interrupted by some scumbag who wants to persuade me to buy New Tory, Let’s Try Harder or whatever it is they’re actually trying to sell me.

If telemarketing was as ethical an industry as those who promote it claim it to be, they would stop making silent calls, stop the use of recorded messages, stop calling people who plainly don’t want to be called, and stop selling number lists. But they won’t do that, even though by not calling people who don’t want to be called will decrease annoyance factor for people like me and increase the number of actual takers of telemarketed products, because they want to annoy me. They sincerely believe that by calling someone a hundred times they might pay up to make them go away. That’s why telemarketing simply cannot be ethical; because no-one really wants to be sold to on demand. It’s exploiting those who simply don’t know how to say no, the elderly in particular.

I thought I’d said no pretty strongly by having an unlisted number, ticking the DON’T SELL MY DETAILS box on the electoral register and being forthright with those who call me. But they simply cannot be reasoned with.

Which is why the fact that the telemarketing industry is allowed to run their own regulator (the DMA) is extremely worrying – no wonder silent calls and recorded messages aren’t dealt with. The do-not-call register – the Telephone Preference Service, or TPS – is run by the DMA, and expires your number off every so often; what’s more, this means that if you register the telescum have your number on a list which might as well marked “IN 12 MONTHS, YOU CAN CALL THIS DUMBASS AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE”. But quite frankly it’s the only option I have left to stop the deluge of marketing calls.

The good news is that as Jon Ronson pointed out in this Guardian article, 100,000 of us are signing up every week, too many to ignore. And this will kill the telemarketing industry. Do it.

Sony’s PS3-sized hole keeps on getting deeper

~ Inquisitor

So at the current count, the European PS3 is going to be more expensive than the US or Japan, the British PS3 is going to be more expensive than most of Europe or Ireland, the PS3-only games are going to suck until Metal Gear Solid comes out and you’re not going to be able to play all your old PS2 titles, although you’re going to be able to play ‘some’, because they’ve done a “cost reduction” (without actually reducing the cost).

Even more infuriating is that while one of the very few good decisions Sony have made with the PS3 is to make PS3 games region free, this doesn’t apply to the PS2 part of the system. As a result, you can’t play our PS2 games on an American PS3, but you will be able to play more of the American games. Lovely.

If you really must have a PS3, you can buy a British PS2 (now £50 from ASDA) and an American 60GB PS3 for less than the £425 you’ll be screwed by if you buy a single PS3 here, even when you include VAT and Customs charges. It’ll probably arrive before the launch too. Such a shame that Sony keep on threatening retailers who try and sell even a control pad over here (and apparently perfectly legally, too) – why would you want to encourage them, anyway?

Anyway, a price comparison worth pointing out: the US Xbox360 Premium pack is $400 (£204.74). Adding VAT to that, you get £240.57. Considering shipping costs from the US that you’d have to cover, the British price of £269 actually starts to look reasonable, especially when you consider that bundles are starting to show up at around that price with actual games in it – and, what’s more, there’s actually more than one 360 game you’d want to own. When Microsoft are playing fairer than the competition, Sony really need to consider exactly why they’re in the wrong and how to get themselves out of it before the PS3 sinks them.

Nigel Humphries is an idiot

~ Inquisitor ~ 3 Comments

“In fact, it makes us feel a bit guilty that we haven’t campaigned hard enough on the legitimate front against the things that we oppose, to do with criminalising and bullying motorists, and because of our failure to campaign hard enough, somebody’s had to resort to this.”

[Nigel Humphries, Association of British Drivers. Quoted in BBC News Online, “Letter bomb injures DVLA worker“]

No-one’s “had to resort” to anything. Motorists aren’t a persecuted minority, they’re the majority; thankfully the true minority are pillocks like you who think that just because you’re in a car immediately absolves your responsibilities towards anything else, and scumbags like this letter bomber (whatever the aim may be.) The ABD, for example, campaigns against ANPR cameras – the entire aim of which is to make motorists safer by spotting uninsured and stolen cars and taking them off the road, since anyone who’s ever had their car stolen or been hit by a stolen or uninsured car will testify to the hell it is getting compensated.

Over 3000 people a year die in motoring related incidents, with the largest percentage being other car users. Honestly, it’s really depressingly like the US Christian Right’s claiming persecution by “liberal establishment” when they’ve got one of their own as President and Fox/CNN/et al; motorists already get far too little examination by the mainstream.

Google for their website and you’ll find global warming denial, doing the usual stupid quote mining. As an added bonus, they quote Kary Mullis, a creationist, astrology freak and HIV denier. Brilliant minds at work there. Honestly, why are they even getting airtime?

A “tribute” to Saddam Hussein

~ Inquisitor

“At night, he heard the sound of weeping from other parts of the building, and asked a guard what was going on. “Those are the Anfal prisoners,” the guard replied, “and they are leaving the prison.” Halabja, in other words, was not part of the Anfal operation. “Where are the Anfal prisoners being taken?” Faraj asked another guard the next morning. “That is none of your concern,” the man answered. “If you ask that question again, you will be sent off with them too, to be lost forever.”

[Human Rights Watch, “Genocide in Iraq: The Al-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds” (1993), ch. 8]

“…all persons captured in those villages shall be detained and interrogated by the security services and those between the ages of 15 and 70 shall be executed after any useful information has been obtained from them, of which we should be duly notified.”

[“Chemical” Ali al-Hassan Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin, Iraq Directive SF/4008, 20th June 1987]

Am I glad we’re rid of the bastard, the same way I was with Pinochet? Sadly, no.

This one is a bit harder than the Pinochet “tribute” because Saddam is a very different case, since we’ve killed him. Whilst the world is better off without him in power, this is only in that the world is better off with one less mass-murdering, genocidal despot. Unfortunately, we have managed to screw up so badly in Iraq that hundreds of murdering wannabe genocidal despots have taken his place, and this death will not change that one bit.

That report quoted above is 1993, describing actions that took place in 1987/1988, at a point in time where Western arms manufacturers were happily selling production capability for VX and mustard gas to Saddam’s Iraq (at the same time as surreptitiously selling arms to its main enemy at the time, Iran, perhaps purposefully in order to prolong the war.) We had a responsibility then to the world not to support Saddam, and we blew it big time. The Guardian’s obit makes clear the extent of his depravity throughout his career, all well known and televised; yet it was ignored until Kuwait made it impossible to ignore. The world should never let such a thing happen again, but it will.