Good Saturday Morning!
Notice to all concerned: Shona will not be joining Auntie Moses for churching today>>>> nor will we be attending church tomorrow. WE HAVE NO CHILDREN FOR THE WEEKEND. “Free at last, free at last!” even if only for the weekend.
Thank you so much to a dear friend. You know who you are.
What’s on the web today as we cruise around? Let’s take a look…
Walmart As The Statue Of Liberty?
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
Does this famous poem describe Walmart?
Our old friend Amit says so. I think he has a point.
Push! Pull! blog: Thoughts on Wal-mart, America and a poem
Barbados Offshore Oil Belly-flop?
The bidding for the right to drill for the trillions of dollars of oil just sitting there for the taking a few feet off our coast has come to a close. (Yes, our tongue is firmly in cheek.)
The results? Only three companies are interested in all that free money that the BLP assured us would rescue the country from their wanton and reckless spending and thefts. The government sent out a press release with this face-saving phrase…
Companies that had previously shown interest indicated that their last minute non-submission was not due to the quality of the prospects but rather the recent economic economic upheaval in the United States and other countries. (see Three Bid In Barbados Licensing Round)
Golly! Does that mean we’re not all going to be rich next week like Mia and the gang tried to say without saying in the run-up to the last election?
Police Officers and Judges Arrested, OH MY!
“Stuart Jack, a governor with balls. It is not often that you see a British governor of a colony taking firm action to restore integrity in public office. I have written often enough about the FCO’s preferred technique of brushing the dirt under the carpet. But, Stuart Jack is a governor of a different breed…”
…Don Mitchell of Corruption-Free Anguilla blog writing about the number of police officers and judges arrested, charged or suspended lately in the Cayman Islands
Lately Barbados has seen a fair number of police officers and lawyers arrested and charged with various offences. We view this as healthy because the absence in the past of such arrests and charges was not proof that we didn’t have any crooked cops or lawyers. Quite the contrary – the absence of arrests and charges was proof of an old boys’ network in Barbados that valued loyalty to each other above the rule of law.
Whether those now charges fade off into nothing as usually happened on the rare occasion that somebody was “forced” to do something is anyone’s guess.
Here in Barbados our David Thompson DLP Government does a whole lot of screaming about the corruption that we all saw with the Arthur/Mottley government – but they don’t have the (excuse me, please) balls – as Mr. Michell says – to perform any serious investigations or arrest and charge any of the millionaire politicians from the last government.
Remember when then Leader of the Opposition David Thompson gave a bombshell speech at Bussa and actually showed canceled cheques and business records that were strong evidence of fraud? (BFP story at the time here.)
That’s the last you’ll ever see of that evidence because Mr. Thompson and his fellow DLP compatriots only used the BLP corruption to gain access to the trough. They want to feed themselves and they have no intention of maddening the BLP by actually charging anyone.
It might come back later to haunt them for their own misdeeds.
7 Comments
October 5, 2008 at 9:24 am
Knock yourselves out.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
October 5, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Wow here’s some more good news for you guys in Jolly Ole’ England.
Gordon Brown and The Home Office plan to use updated surveillance techniques to monitor every citizen’s phone and online activities in order to become more vigilant against terrorism using something called the [B]“Interception Modernization Program.” This story was dropped back in May by [url=http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/05/22/230779/revealed-government-plans-to-tap-phone-and-internet.htm]Computer Weekly[/url] when it seemed that people’s worst fears about government intrusion into their private lives was coming to pass. Now it’s become reality. According to [url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4882600.ece]The Times Of London[/url], Gordon Brown and The Home Office. Pretty soon we’ll have to start checking the waistlines of our Fruit Of The Loom’s for microchips. It’s getting serious guy’s.
Computer Weekly
Revealed – Government plans to tap phone and internet use
May 22nd 2008-The Home Office is considering radical plans to develop a centralized surveillance system to track in real-time every kind of electronic activity undertaken by citizens.
The project, driven by intelligence services, would require the development of a surveillance system unprecedented in its scope and technical sophistication.
The work is still at the discussion stage and has not been agreed by ministers. But if the project goes ahead as expected, it would require the development of untried technology to tap into phone lines and the internet, retrieve details on every individual’s browsing and communications traffic, and store it in a central database.
The envisaged database would not record the content of telephone calls, e-mails or other internet messages. However, it could hold records of telephone and interent traffic data, which would enable investigators to build up a proile of an individual and identify their network of contacts.
[url]http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/05/22/230779/revealed-government-plans-to-tap-phone-and-internet.htm[/url]
Times Of London
Government will spy on every call and e-mail[/SIZE][/FONT]
Oct 3rd-David Leppard
Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.
GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project.
Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers – thought to be BT and Vodafone. BT has nearly 5m internet customers.
Ministers are braced for a backlash similar to the one caused by their ID cards programme. Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “Any suggestion of the government using existing powers to intercept communications data without public discussion is going to sound extremely sinister.”
[url]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4882600.ece[/url]
October 5, 2008 at 8:33 pm
1984 – ready or not, here we come!
October 5, 2008 at 8:49 pm
HOMELAND SECURITY’S SPACE-BASED SPYING GOES LIVE
While America’s attention has shifted to the economic meltdown and the presidential race between corporate favorites John McCain and Barack Obama, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Applications Office (NAO) “will proceed with the first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even though an independent review found the department hasn’t yet ensured the program will comply with privacy laws.”
As I wrote in June, NAO will coordinate how domestic law enforcement and “disaster relief” agencies such as FEMA use satellite imagery intelligence (IMINT) generated by U.S. spy satellites. Based on available evidence, hard to come by since these programs are classified “above top secret,” the technological power of these military assets are truly terrifying.
Unlike commercial satellites that beam TV programs, forecast the weather or provide global positioning services, their military cousins are far more flexible, have greater resolution and therefore, more power to monitor human activity. By utilizing different parts of the light- and infrared spectrum, spy satellites, in addition to taking ultra high-resolution photographs to within a meter of their “target,” can also track the heat signatures generated by people inside a building. (”Homeland Security’s Space-Based Spies,” Antifascist Calling, June 4, 2008)
In other words, when combined with illegal NSA and FBI domestic surveillance programs–from data-mining to the massive interception of telephone and internet communications–NAO will furnish DHS and outsourced corporate grifters who actually run the program, with the blanket coverage of American citizens long sought by securocrats. Aside from The Wall Street Journal and The Raw Story, not a single media outlet has disclosed this vital information to the public.
http://www.republicbroadcasting.org/index.php?cmd=news.article&articleID=1807
October 6, 2008 at 1:25 am
Corruption? You don’t have to go to Cayman Islands for that. What is Thompson going to do about Owen Arthur’s $75,000 cheque illegally deposited into his personal bank account?
http://bajan.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/what-about-the-cheque-prime-minister-david-thompson/
October 6, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Naomi Wolf: “We are facing a coup as of this morning”
Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XgkeTanCGI
October 6, 2008 at 4:52 pm
So.
How are y’all enjoying
“The Geo. W. Bush Financial Meltdown?”
Isn’t it GREAT that this has happened at the end of his watch?
So it can’t be blamed on anyone else coming after him?(poor sod, whoever he be!!)
___________________
Careful what U pray for Obama
- you just might get it!
What a nasty cleanup mess THAT’s gonna be!