CCTV is rubbish, say criminals

Criminals of most persuasions are, understandably, not very keen on closed circuit television cameras - but they don't let a little matter like that stand in the way of them going about their business.

Professor Martin Gill of Leicester University asked 101 offenders (probably students forced to shoplift and burgle in order to pay of their student debt) to rate 13 different crime prevention methods in order of effectiveness. SmartWater - a liquid substance which can be used to invisibly mark both property and thieves came out on top. Bars on windows, locks and police patrols were all rated more highly than CCTV, which came sixth.

Image from Schnews - used without permission (so please click the link and go and have a look at their site - believe me, you won't regret it).

Some sources claim there are around 4.2 million public cameras (ie; not those in shops, private homes etc.) in the UK, with half a million in London alone - roughly one for every 14 people. Yet there is very little evidence of their being an effective crime-fighting tool - according to research carried out by Justin Davenport, writing for the London Evening Standard says that 80% of crimes go unsolved and that "police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any." In fact, of the five London boroughs with the most cameras, four have below average solved crimes. Even the Metropolitan Police admit that, in 2008, just one crime per 1,000 cameras was solved.

Liberal Democrat policing spokeswoman Dee Doocey says that her party estimates 10,000 CCTV cameras in London "have cost the taxpayer in the region of £200 million in the last 10 years." Sounds like a lot of money, doesn't it? Could it not have been better spent on new police officers, seeing as how they're known to be a very effective method in both preventing and solving crimes?

The basic rate of pay for a Metropolitan officer is £22,104 per annum during the 31 week training period, then £24,675 per annum when initial training is complete; so we can assume that a copper costs £23,142 for the first year and £24,675 each year thereafter - £245,217 for ten years. Therefore, £200 million would pay for just 815.6 coppers...and 0.6 of a copper is no use to anyone.

That's why CCTV is such good value, you see. It might be fairly useless as far as crime prevention/detection/solving goes, but the public are so worried about crime they're willing to vote for any party which promises to be tough on criminals. All those CCTV cameras are highly noticeable - especially now that the civil liberties people have unintentionally helped the cause by drawing attention to them - so the Government get to look as though they're doing something while in actual fact they're sitting back and doing what they always do - a combination of worrying about how they can get enough votes to win General Elections instead of trying to improves the lives of British people and bugger all.

Straw repels Evil

It's no secret that Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Secretary Of Whatever He Tales A Fancy To Peter Mandelson don't get on, and now the gloves are well and truly off.

Mandelson, who not long ago got involved in a bit of a spat with the eminently dislikable Tory George Osborne (it never came to much, but served very well at taking a bit of the flak being directed at parliament by the media after the expenses scandal) and who has been forced to resign from the House of Commons on two separate occasions, is a bit of a mixed blessing as far as Labour's top brass are concerned - he's an extremely clever politician (he was largely responsible for Labour's election win back in 1997) and always gets what he wants, so if he wants what you want and he's on your side you're onto a winner. Unfortunately, he has one very slight drawback - he's the spawn of Lucifer, the public loathe him (except those in Hartlepool, for some odd reason - they kept voting for him as their MP) and he gives the impression that sooner or later he's going to stab the entire Cabinet in the back and annex the party as his own personal kingdom.

"Argh! What fools we have been!" Jack Straw wards off The Evil One.

Now, if you're a Cabinet minister, you get paid a very tasty £144,520 per year along with all sorts of perks such as the notorious second homes allowance and, in some cases, even grace-and-favour (translation: free) accomodation; so it's no wonder that those lucky MPs who have found their way into the Cabinet are pretty damn keen to stay right where they are (though to be fair, there's an never-proven rumour that some of them want to keep their positions so they can use them in Britain's best interests). Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, while more than happy to let Mandelson prowl the Commons' corridors provided he only drank the blood of those they sought to dispose of, have both given unitentional indications that they consider him a man of whom one should be wary - which could be why Mandelson got a Life Peerage thrust upon him and was shuffled off to the House of Lords, which is the nearest British politics comes to hammering a stake through the heart and burying the body in a welded-up coffin, because unlike Hereditary Peers - who have been able to resign and contest by-elections since 1963 when Tony Benn changed the law and gave up his Viscount title so that he could stand as a socialist (becoming one of the most popular MPs in history) - Life Peers are, or have been, quite literally stuck in the position for life. This was not the first time that a figure considered dangerous by the Government has been quietly got rid of in this way.

However, as we blogged last month, the Government changed all that. In their efforts to revamp the House of Lords, which hasn't been viewed in a very good light by the electorate - who see it as an out-dated and unfair institution - for many years, they brought in new legislation which was very much the equivalent of digging the coffin up, pulling out the stake and saying "Here's my jugular, Vlad - it's party-time!"

The Devil - though he stayed put for the moment - was free to ride out anytime he chose.

Jack Straw seems to be the most worried about the nature of what Labour has unleashed upon the world, because he's just shipped in several tons of industrial strength garlic and is about to hang it from every rafter, wall, ceiling, hook and anything else in the Commons that a bulb of garlic could ever be hung on by announcing he's creating a new law that will force any Life Peer who does choose to resign to go into quarantine for five years during which they will be unable to stand for any elected position. This means that Mandelson would be in his early 60s by the time he once became eligible, close to retirement age and - since the general trend seems be for younger MPs and party leaders in particular (Menzies Campbell, ex-Liberal Democrat leader, was commonly thought to be too old even though he was just 66 when he left the position) - this could well end any chances he has of leading the party.

Megrahi welcomed home

Despite what we wrote yesterday, when we were favourable concerning the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, we were as disturbed as anyone else to see him receive a hero's welcome when he arrived back in his homeland of Libya.

Megrahi received a hero's welcome upon his return to Libya. In the bottom right can be seen one of the many Scottish flags waved by those who greeted him - where the hell do you buy Scottish flags in Libya?

Right now, many Muslims unfortunate enough to live in those nations where the population must depend of state-controlled media for their news and information will view anything that appears to show Muslims "getting one over the Yanks" in a good light - many of those who greeted him on the tarmac yesterday would not claim to support Megrahi's actions which resulted in 270 deaths.

Do they even realise this is what he has done? Or could it be the case that Gaddafi's regime - which in recent years has decided to pretend it's friendly towards the west (and being the oil-whores we are, we believe them) - has not been entirely truthful when saying how many people died that night in 1988? Could it be that Megrahi's case has been subject to political spin, calculated to make the Libyan people see him as a political prisoner and a hero in Islam's struggle against the Great and Little Satans? After all, if you as a leader can get the population so riled up about something they become obsessed with it, they'll ignore whatever injustices are being committed closer to home (hmm - could that be why the main parties have chosen to neglect British concerns over immigration, perhaps? Maybe immigrants provide a convenient scapegoat for the public to blame everything on, rather than starting to realise the reason our country is in such a state is because of the gross negligance and incompetance of its leaders). For a man like Gaddafi, with the shocking human rights abuses that go on in his country, there'd be definite advantages in that. Is he really our friend? The UK and US governments would be wise to be very wary indeed in their dealings with Gaddafi.

Either way, we're just happy to see that the Scottish Government has the balls to run Scotland in the way that they see fit, rather than bending over backwards to do whatever Uncle Sam demands, like the UK Government show such willingness to do.

One thing though - it was noticeable that quite a few people amongst the crowd that turned out to welcome Megrahi home were flying the Saltire, the national flag of Scotland. What we want to know is, where the hell did they get them from? These were not flags made out a stick, a sheet of A4 and the kids' felt-tip pens; they were proper, professionally-made, correctly-hued cloth ones. Were they imported from Uganda, once Idi Amin lost his presidency in 1979 and his collection of Scottish stuff was sold off, then stored until the right moment? Is there a compnay that keeps a careful eye on the news and fills a fast container ship with whichever flags are about to be in the news and heads for the relevant nation at a high rate of knots - and if so, were they behind the inexplicably large numbers of Danish flags that were burned in the Middle East following the publication of satirical cartoons depicting Allah by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper? Or is there, bizarrely, a shop down some backstreet in Tripoli that sells Saltires? In the latter case, some businessman who has previously suffered what must be among the lowest sales figures ever recorded by any company is going to retire as a very rich man fairly soon.

Dark Lord Mandelson faces op

Peter Mandelson, the man whose career would not die, has been admitted to hospital for an operation to remedy what is said to be a "benign condition of the prostate."

Get well soon, Lord Peter!
(adapted from an original image at Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license)

Hopefully, none of our readers were expecting us to be nasty about this - seriously, what do you take us for? We've not been too kind to him on this blog (and we still won't be, because he's a nasty, slimy, self-serving little git) but hey - the man's ill. We'd feel bad if something went wrong, and we wished Mrs. Thatcher well when she broke her arm recently - Mandelson's pretty harmless in comparison. It'd be horrible if the anaesthetist messed up or something.

Benign growth of the prostate is very common amongst men of Archimandrite Mandelson's age (55), but treatment is not always necessary (especially if you're working class and don't have private medical insurance, we should think, both of which are unlikely to apply in this case), and symptoms - such as difficulty passing urine - are usually mild.

While the surgeon's poking about up there, perhaps he could have a quick look up the man's jacksie too? We realise this will be a highly unpleasant task but it seems difficulty in passing urine isn't the only problem he's been having, because he's brimful of shit too.

Oxfam's most donated author - official

The Oxfam chain has released figures showing which author's books are most often donated to their 700 shops and anybody who buys second-hand books on a regular basis will be unsurprised to learn it's Dan Brown, the author of the not-very-intriguing-despite-huge-sales Da Vinci Code. John Grisham and Helen Fielding also ranked highly.

The Da Vinci Code: sold around 937 billion copies, but not really very good.

Have you ever noticed that you see the same books in every single charity shop you go in? You can guarantee there'll be at least four Da Vinci Codes (one of which will be hardback) and a similar number of the book's sequel, Angels and Demons. However, the second title will all appear unread - this is because they were bought as a present for somebody who enjoyed the Code. But once they'd read the first one, they looked further into it and discovered it's actually a load of bollo...make-believe and never bothered with the second.

There will also be three copies of Bridget Jones' Diary - this one is harder to explain, since it's actually not a bad tale in a slightly sickeningly middle class way. Presumably, people who don't usually read saw the film, bought the book and never got round to it. That probably explains the three Captain Corelli's Mandolins, too.

Many charity shops have a whole shelf full of Jeffrey Archer novels. Books by the loathsome Tory toad are bought by people who know no better simply because they've heard the name and have a relative for whom they don't know what sort of gift to buy. This does have a good side, though, even though it's made the lying bugger a very rich man - since his books tend to come out in hardback just before Christmas, you can guarantee a good crop around Easter time which in recent years has become the festival of DIY - and if you're building a patio, a wheelbarrow full of 'em (many shops will sell them to you at 10p per ton) makes an excellent low-cost alternative to rubble for the hardcore foundation.

Ian Rankin, creator of the insanely (and inexplicably) popular Inspector Rebus series, says that authors like to know "their books are popular. With Oxfam, it's also heartening to realise that each book donated and bought is helping such a worthwhile organisation." If he's being truthful, he's in the minority. Authors are, on the whole, an incredibly conceited bunch - it's not unknown for them to buy every copy of their own book that they see in remainders shops just so they're not seen as poor-sellers.

Incidentally, the Vatican declared Angels and Demons to be "harmless" back in May this year. Whichever poor priest was given the task of reading it must be seriously wondering what he did to annoy God so much.

Lockerbie bomber to be released

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who was jailed for life in 2001 after being found guilty of the 1988 atrocity in which an aircraft was blown up and 270 people killed, is to be released from prison on compassionate grounds after courts heard that he has three months to live.

Acid Rabbi probably ought to apologise for the gross stereotyping in this image. But we're not going to.

The US government has opposed his release every step of the way, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally urging the Scottish Justice Secretary to keep him in jail. However, it seems that those politicians who choose to remain in Scotland rather than hoofing it down to the bright lights of London have backbones of their own, are prepared to stand up to the Americans and make their own decisions about what happens in their own nation, unlike Blair (born in Edinburgh) and Brown (Glasgow) who are more than happy to let them walk all over us and demand extradition of British citizens virtually on a whim. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said, "Our interest is justice, and our interest is the commitment that we made to the families that we would find the perpetrator of this terrorism act...He was brought to trial. He had a fair trial. He was convicted. He's serving his time. And we think he should stay in jail," adding that there are "compelling reasons" why he should do so.

"Mr al-Megrahi did not show his victims any comfort or compassion," says Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, "They were not allowed to return to the bosom of their families to see out their lives, let alone their dying days. No compassion was shown by him to them. But that alone is not a reason for us to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days." Mr. MasAskill, it seems, is that rare thing - a politician who understands that revenge has no place in justice and that in showing compassion and mercy we make ourselves better human beings than those who do not. One of the reasons we invaded Iraq - assuming it was not in fact because we need their oil - was to rid that nation's people of a tyrant who carried out public execution on a vast scale. By hanging Saddam, and then showing the horrific footage on television, in the eyes of many Iraqis we made ourselves look little better than him - perhaps England and the USA could learn a valuable lesson from the Scottish and realise that if the people of Iraq and Afghanistan are to accept democracy, we democrats need show compassion in our ways so that they're aware of democracy's advantages. Right now, all they can see is that one load of vicious, torturing tyrants have been replaced by another load of vicious, torturing tyrants that differ from the old ones only in that they're foreign.

Mr. MacAskill added, "Compassion and mercy are about upholding the beliefs the we seek to live by, remaining true to our values as a people - no matter the severity of the provocation or the atrocity perpetrated. For these reasons and these reasons alone, it is my decision that Mr Mr Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, convicted in 2001 for the Lockerbie bombing, now terminally ill with prostate cancer, be released on compassionate grounds and be allowed to return to Libya to die." Libyan Megrahi will be flown by a specially chartered plane to Tripoli today, following a decision that he cannot remain in Scotland for security reasons.

Now - isn't it a pity that Glasgow-born Asperger's Syndrome sufferer Gary McKinnon was living in England when he naively hacked NASA and Pentagon computers while looking for information on UFOs and later e-mailed them alerting them to the weak spots in their security? Had his case have been dealt with by the Scottish government and legal system, he might not now been facing the extradition that doctors fear is likely to lead to his suicide.

Cost of Parliament falls

New figures revealed in a written answer from Baroness Royall to the peer Viscount Tenby show that the cost of running Parliament fell by just over £30 million in the last year. The House of Commons went up by more than £12 million, in part because the total cost of MPs' salaries and pensions rose by £6 million, but the Lords dropped by to £46 million£106.5 million leading to an overall cost to the tax-payer of £498.4 million compared to £531.8 million the previous year.


MPs' salaries and pensions cost a total of £157.2 million, while Lords administration costs dropped from £152.5 million to £106.5 million. Wonder what the figures will be like next year, now that they have to declare expenses and aren't quite so keen on screwing us for every penny they can?

We'll be very surprised if there isn't at least one minister on the news later droning on about how these figures demonstrate what good value Parliament is - so we'll probably watch something else instead.

"Democratic" BNP choose strange bedfellows

Despite their (sadly, slightly successful) attempts to persuade the British electorate that they are a legitimate, democratic, non-racist political party one does not need to delve far into the murky world of the British National Party to discover that they are friends with some very strange and unpleasant characters.

The BNP have long been seen as no more than neo-Nazi thugs

Party leader Nick Griffin loves to put on a sharp suit and appear on television, where he paints a pretty picture of the new image that the far-right neo-fascist party has been forced to adopt since finally realising that the British are - on the whole - a tolerant people who would never vote for a bunch of Nazi thugs. So power-hungry is he that under his leadership, the party has transformed itself into one that at first glance appears to be the only political group willing to tackle the public's fears over issues such as immigration. Meanwhile, the main parties are so obsessed with three minute soundbite politics and electioneering that they have entirely failed to take note of how widespread these misconceived fears are (to date, only Boris Johnson - G_d help us - has done anything to put these dangerous worries to rest), with the result that our peaceful, friendly, tolerant nation is now represented by a pair of fascists in the European Parliament. That's right - fascists. As in what Hitler, the same man many of our grandparents gave their lives to defeat when he threatened Britain and the British, was.

Under Nick Griffin's leadership, they have worked hard to give themselves a respectable image.

For all his faults (being a fascist and a racist with criminal convictions to match), Mr. Griffin is a clever politician. During his leadership, the BNP's image in the public eye has changed from that of booted skinhead hooligans to a party that can achieve a respectable share of the vote in elections.

However, you barely need to scratch the surface to discover that they're still the same racist yobs that they always were, and one of the most effective ways to demonstrate this is to look at those the BNP choose as their political friends. Mr. Griffin has faced problems in the past when photographs of him on stage looking distinctly pally with the Ku Klux Klan's Stephen "Don" Black were published. Not long after that, it emerged that James von Brunn - the gunman who opened fire in Washington's Holocaust Museum - had links to the party (Griffin calls the Holocaust the "Holohoax," incidentally). In 1995, William Pierce, founder and leader of the USA's National Alliance - a group which celebrated the 100th anniversary of Hitler's birth and referred to him as "the greatest man of our era" - spoke at the BNP's annual rally in London. Other members of the organisation have spoken on several occasions at BNP fund-raising events in the USA. And there are many others.

Yet another example comes to light in the wake of this year's Red, White and Blue festival. Red, White and Blue is an annual event organised by the BNP and held on land belonging to a supporter in Derbyshire; this year, it was attended by around 1500 people - worryingly, that's twice as many as last year. Highlights of the festival included talks by Mr. Griffin himself (including one on the subject of tracing your ancestors - and no doubt how to cover up the facts if you discover that dear old Granny was Jewish) and some no doubt hilarious comedy from Mad Frankie Waller (sadly, Mr. Waller seems to live in the same century his political leanings belong to - he doesn't have a website, so you'll have to do without a sample of his material).

Those festival-goers so inclined were given the opportunity to sit down and listen to speeches given by foreign guests - one of them in the shape of Roberto Fiore, the leader of Italy's far-right Forza Nuova and a man who once said that he is happy to be described as a neo-fascist, talking about the alleged threat Europe faces from what has become known as Islamic extremism (we say "what has become known as" because a five minute conversation on the subject with any well-informed, intelligent Muslim will reveal there is nothing Islamic whatsoever about attacks such as those carried out in London in 2005 and Madrid in 2004).

Roberto Fiore, leader of Italy's far-right Forza Nuova and a man who says he is happy to be called a neo-fascist, spoke at the BNP's Red, White and Blue festival last weekend.

Back in 1985, Mr. Fiore was sentenced to ten years in prison for being a member of the outlawed terrorist group Armed Revolutionary Nuclei who carried out the 1980 Bologna bombing which killed 85 people and wounded 200 (Fiore was tried in his absence, remaining out of Italy until the conviction was "timed out" under the country's statute of limitation laws, and returned home in 1999). The organisation also assassinated magistrate Mario Amato, who had been investigating far-right activities and groups and carried out another 33 murders during the four years that it was active.

You can tell a great deal about somebody according to the company they choose to keep, don't you think?

Bloody (alien) immigrants!

Since all the MPs are enjoying their annual three month holiday...sorry, we mean opportunity to work in their constituencies without worrying about Parliamentary debates at the moment, many of you will no doubt be scanning the day's news for anything worth reading during that boring seven hour period when you're supposed to be working. There's not much today, so thank the News Gods (by which we categorically do not mean Rupert Murdoch) that the Ministry of Defence has just seen fit to release details on a whole load of alleged UFO sightings.

One of the records concerns a UFO witnessed in full daylight in 1994. Hovering over a stage. At Glastonbury Festival.

Hmmm...


According to the BBC, Lord Hill-Norton wrote to Michael Heseltine about the so-called Rendlesham Incident, when several people at a Suffolk USAF base saw strange lights in nearby woodland; an event later covered and, it seems, embellished somewhat by various writers - including famous UFO researcher Jenny Randles - who before long had added enough gumpf to the story for it to become known as Britain's Roswell. In 2003, an ex-US Security policeman who had been employed at the base admitted that he and another man had faked the incident using torches and a loudspeaker - it is notable that all those (witnesses and writers) who claimed to have seen a craft of some description have been keeping unusually quiet on the subject ever since.

Lord Hill-Norton's letter states that the incident raises two concerns. The first was the possibility that an unknown aircraft entered British airspace with impunity. The second was the possibility that several US military staff from the base were capable of making what he called a "serious misperception."

We wonder how many employees of the USAF and other military branches voted for George W. Bush when he was competing for his second term in office? Because let's face it - if you can believe that was a wise thing to do despite the contrary evidence, you must be capable of some pretty massive misperceptions.

Gov. appeals to shed owners in the fight against terror

The anti-gravity machine will not be invented by NASA (pah - they've invented nothing of note since the 1970s) or in the laboratories of Oxbridge. Nor will the death ray, nor cold fusion, nor a method of faster than light travel. Nor even a cure for the common cold - all of these things will be invented by a flat cap-wearing, tea-fuelled old man named Fred or Bert, in the shed at the bottom of his garden somewhere in Britain.

This is where the magic happens.

These old boys are generally past retirement age and have wives who don't like them being in the house because they get in the way. As a result, from first thing in the morning to last thing at night, you'll find them pottering about in their creosoted refuges, developing Projects. In many cases, they don't really have a lot else to do with themselves - once a fortnight they'll either drive or take the bus into town with the missus to pick up their pensions and then they'll do a spot of shopping. Then, it's back home to the Shed.

Think back to your own childhood. Did your own dad or grandad have a shed? Mine both did, as did all of my friends' dads and grandads. Without revving up the ol' memory too much I can think of a fair few impressive things that they created - my dad used to take old motorbikes apart, tinker about with whatever motorbikes with are filled with and then, when he put them back together using various gearbox bits of his own design, they'd be able to travel at least 50mph faster than they originally could. My mate Will's grandad - at the age of 85 - decided to build a hovercraft powered by an Austin Allegro engine that he "just happened to have knocking about the place." He took it out for a test run on the school field, discovered it worked every bit as well as he'd planned (considerably better than an Austin Allegro, in fact) and then it vanished back into the shed and was never seen again. When he died seven years later and they cleared the shed out, it had disappeared entirely - presumably cannibalised and turned into other things. The there was Alan: his grandad built his own hydroponics system "for the tomatoes" and then grew his own extra-strong marijuana which, apparently, did his arthritis a world of good.

The Government know all this, which is why they're making an appeal for Britain's army of amateur inventors to suggest new devices to help in the war against terror. Security Minister Lord West calls it "one more tool in our fight against those who would wish to do us harm" and devices already created include a new type of barrier to halt suicide bombers in cars and a rocket-propelled net than can be fired at speedboats (somewhere out there, somebody's grandad has been banned for life from the local park after testing it out on the ducks). The nanotech homing knife missile can be only months from realisation. It is hoped that these inventions will prove crucial in what the BBC call "the fight against groups like al-Qaeda."

We have our own idea. We don't know what to call it yet, but since it's a fairly complex device we're not worried about sharing the details here because we doubt any of our readers will steal the concept. What it is, basically, is a sort of very highly-developed computer that has a massive amount of memory and can perform lightning-fast calculations based on extremely fuzzy variables without the owner-operator even realising it. Now, the really clever bit is in ensuring this computer will never be left at home, resulting in the owner becoming a potential victim of terrorist attack - being highly efficient, it can run on little power and as a result can be implanted within the human skull, where it will be kept at its optimum operating temperature by the bloodstream. Once in use, it will allow the owner to accurately assess the likelihood of terrorist attack at any given time - for example, if the owner sees a person with brown skin carrying a bag of some description, the computer will instantly recognise it as Mr. Anwar from down the road nipping to the shops for some catfood; rather than becoming confused and paranoid because of all the useless and scare-mongering stories continually crapped out by the media - this will also prevent the government from having to waste time creating all the new "in the nation's best interests" legislation like they've been doing since 2001 and get back to things like trying to patch the economy back together and otherwise doing good stuff instead of eroding our civil liberties. If he or she sees a man talking on a mobile phone while driving a white Transit van, he or she may immediately think of the Government's mind-numbingly stupid How to spot a terrorist poster, but the computer will instantly kick in and remind them that it's far more likely to be a builder negotiating the price for his next job (however, it will not prevent them from shouting, "Get off the phone and watch where you're bloody going, you just ran over and a killed a cyclist"). A continually-running sub-routine hard-wired into the device could even prevent the owner falling for the common and hopelessly incorrect idea that it is actually possible to "fight against groups like al-Qaeda" since al-Qaeda are not a group in the first place, and the name is merely a label given to a particular set of beliefs and causes and serves as no more than an umbrella term for those groups that believe in them.

Quiz: You see a man with a mobile phone and a white van. Terrorist or builder?
Write your answer on the back of a stamped postcard, then screw it up and throw it in the bin.

In time, we would hope to see the computer installed within authority figures too. As an example, a police officer fitted with one would not immediately assume that anybody who looks a bit foreign taking pictures of the House of Commons has plans to later blow it up (which would be a terrible crime - but only against architecture) - it's a million to one that they just want a nice photo to show to their friends when they get home to whichever country they've come here on holiday from. It could even be programmed to recognise the difference between a Brazilian student and an Arab suicide bomber, or between an unarmed newspaper vendor on his way home after work and a dangerous bomb-throwing anarchist, or British citizens taking advantage of their right to peaceful protest from a threat to Queen and country. You never know - if they had this ability, then perhaps they wouldn't waste so much time and money (and, in some very sad cases, lives) apprehending innocent, law-abiding people and then be able to concentrate on combatting real threats instead. Installed within a politician, it could enable the owner to realise that Osama bin Laden is almost certainly not in Afghanistan, is probably dead and continuing the Afghan war will solve nothing (with the possible exception of reducing the surplus of soldiers that they apparently think the armed forces have).

We know it works, because several people have already volunteered to be fitted with the devices and so far they've all given us positive feedback. Here's what Kevin Horrocks of Milton Keynes, one of the first of our victi...er, volunteers, has to say: "Oh yeah, I got one of these new skull-mounted computers and it's fookin' great. It just sits there mindin' its own business until I come across summat I don't fully understand, like. Then all I 'ave to go is switch it on by deciding not to swallow all the bullshit that's pumped at me and before you know it, it's 'ad a little think and I can make rational decisions based on actual facts. Thank you, Acid Rabbi!"

Mrs. Jenkins of Solihull is similarly glad she got hers fitted. "A year ago, before I was fitted with one of your incredible machines, I was constantly paranoid because it seemed to me that every dark-skinned person I saw or foreign accent I heard meant I was about to be torn limb from limb in a terrorist atrocity - but now, I can walk down the street without fear, because I know that all the people I see are just normal people like myself, going about my everyday business. My children are delighted, because I let them play outside with their friends now that I know there isn't a paedophile hiding behind every tree. Best of all, it saved me money because I make my own opinions now instead of buying the Daily Mail everyday. Jolly good value, if you ask me."

If you'd like to try one out for yourself, it couldn't be any easier. Simply leave a request in the comments section, and the following night we'll send one over the Internet directly into your own skull. The next morning when you wake up, watch the news and question what you're being told - you'll be amazed at your own ability to think and will never have to believe whatever rubbish you're told ever again. Best of all - it's free!

US politician fails election by one vote - his own

Here at Acid Rabbi, we pride ourselves on having as much awareness of what's going on in the world of American politics as the average American has in the politics of the rest of the world. None, in other words.

But this one can't be ignored...

Micheal Heagerty - probably no longer grinning.
Image nicked from www.syracuse.ny.us, used without permission.

Michael Heagerty, the Common Councillor of Syracuse (no, we have no idea what a common councillor is or does either), needed a minimum of 335 signatures in his petition to run for re-election to the Democrat Party. Not very many, is it? He had 20 volunteers helping him and between them they managed to collect a more-than-sufficient 398 names - not bad. But then it all went badly wrong.

Heagerty's Republican opponent, Matt Rayo, challenged the petition because he was of the opinion that some of the signatures might be invalid. Officials from the County Board of Elections found this was indeed the case and declared 64 of them to be no good. Bad luck for Mike - that left him just one signature short. So near and yet so far.

The thing is, it got even worse. The following day, a reporter phoned him enquiring why he hadn't signed his own petition. "I didn't sign my own petition? You've got to be kidding me," he said, doubtless smashing his own head into the nearest wall as the words left his mouth.

Minister backs "primaries"

Now, we're not often in favour of anything that aims to make Britain more like the USA because it's very obvious that we have a far better way of doing things over here - for example: no death penalty, TV that's only 98% rubbish, ginger beer, Marmite, real cheese instead of yellowish stuff in an aerosol can and so on; while they have corndogs, the KKK, Kid Rock and Sarah Palin. No contest really, is there?

David Miliband. Despite appearances, he is not in fact 13 years old and is fully eligible to act as Foreign Secretary.
Copyright-free image from Wikipedia.

But, every now and again you come across an American idea that seems to make a lot of sense and you can't help but wonder if we ought to copy it (not least of all because everything we copy from them we also make a lot better - ie, rock and roll, techno, graphic novels and...erm...other things). One example is the primary election, whereby constituents get to choose from a list of prospective candidates from each party who will then contest the coming election; instead of only being able to vote for a candidate chosen by the party as is currently the case.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has come out in favour and praised the US Democrats for the way in which they involve people who are not party members in the decision making process. However, any system which allows non-party members to take such an active role is likely to attract limited support from many politicians as it might lead to a fall in numbers of people who bother to join, a good source of party income: Labour's membership list numbers some 166,247 people, so with current membership renewal fees standing at £19 for the unwaged or £38 for those lucky enough to have hung on to their jobs in Brown's Britain, this equals a minimum of £3,158,693 for the party's coffers even if they all paid the reduced rate (in 1997, membership stood at 405,000 - which would have been £15,390,000). You can be sure of one thing - they ain't gonna be keen on losing over three million quid.

The Conservatives have been playing with the idea, which is unsurprising as they're doing their best to look as different as possible from Labour just so they can appeal to those voters who don't follow politics particularly closely but want to give their support to anyone but Gordon - it's surely significant that the recent "Totnes Primary," in which Tory Dr. Sarah Wollaston was chosen as candidate by the constituents, came so soon after the Norwich North by-election in which Labour's decision to rid themselves of popular MP Ian Gibson proved misguided when the Tory candidate won twice as many votes as the Labour candidate, a disaster for the party which has been partially blamed on Labour supporters choosing not to vote for a party-picked candidate they didn't want.

Neal Lawson, of left-wing group Compass, is not in favour and attacked Mr. Miliband who, we says, is one of those responsible for driving the party "to its death." He added, "This would be the death knell of the party." We can understand Mr. Lawson's wish to keep the party alive, of course - after all, he obviously loves it enough to have allowed it to become a very large and important part of his life.

It would be a little sad to see Labour die - just like it's sad when an elderly relative dies. After all, when it was performing at its best, Labour was undeniably a great institution which achieved an enormous amount in its efforts to improve daily life for a vast percentage of the population. But when you know dear old Great Aunt Maude has been fed up to the back teeth for the last twenty years since her legs gave up the ghost and put her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, severely limiting her opportunities to go out on the piss with her mates, don't you feel that, despite the sadness of her passing, just a little happier knowing that she's gone to a better place where she'll suffer no longer? Maybe it's time to put Labour out to grass too, let it spend its last few years peacefully dozing in the sun. It might seem unfair that it cannot keep soldiering on forever; but new parties, spawned in response to the new needs of the modern world, will arise with new ways of doing things. That's just the natural order of things.

Whatever. Increasing constituents' participation in this way, by allowing them to choose for themselves who they want to represent them in Parliament, is quite simply more democratic. The cost to any particular party - be it a reduction in funds or even a threat to their very existence - is of very little importance in comparison. Anything that increases democracy and gives citizens more say in the way that their country is run is worthwhile.