Lapdog Computer

A great few weeks for conspiranoids. Sometime I think the hated mainstream media have given up. Their hearts are no longer in it. They just stand there doling out the the same uniform slop, like so many SERCO prison cooks. Where is the love??
Nevertheless, they have promoted some very successfully conspiratorial propaganda recently:

Heroic Harry single handedly saves squaddies!!

....From bad publicity. The lockstep revelations of Prince Harry's courageous efforts to boost opium production through the bombing of afghani's have all but drowned out that messy stuff in Iraq. It'll be good to see him back in his favoured civvies again.


Muslims true nature frustrates Israel's efforts for peace!!

The tsunami of tears that surrounded the Mercaz Harav yeshiva (the spiritual heart of the illegal settlement movement) shootings will, for some, hopefully wash away the blood, shit and corpses that Israel has relentlessly accumulated in Gaza.
Haaretz writes Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station broadcast that:

An organization calling itself Galilee Freedom Battalions-
the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh claimed responsibility for the attack.

Coyly adding:

The claim could not be verified.

and coyly reflecting:

The Galilee Freedom Battalions has claimed responsibility
for a number of terror attacks in recent years but there is
no definitive proof that the organization actually exists

Though for sheer coyness, these guardian headlines takes the shit filled cake:

Hamas not claiming responsibility 'yet' for Israel killings
Peace process in peril after seminary bloodbath

Which, presumably, it was not as shells rained bloodbathlessly on Gaza...Where's your peace envoy when you need him?
As there are so many suspects, it looks like the only solution is more collective punishment for everybody. What would borat say?. We know what melanie says:

Its not a holocaust, it just looks like one!

Chavez seeks to take over world and force it to pay for oil!!

Your worldwide correspondent

While not quite as sickening, the events in Ecuador are as fascinating. They bring together waronterror, warondrugs and warforoil in one dazzling package

Laptops belonging to Reyes were seized in the raid. The most sensational document on them strongly indicates that Hugo Chavez, president of Venenuela, paid or planned to pay the guerrillas $300m!!

Laptops are wonderful things. Like dogs or journalists, they are obedient and, with proper programming, can perform amazing tricks. They are also where terrorists always keep their secretest thoughts.
Think what the chronically humourless Richard Curtis could do to dramatise a diary like this!
As he was busy (probably) making poverty history, the Columbian government and their global press pals had to get it together themselves. Working feverishly, they cooked cooked up a tale that is both cock and bull. It's certainly not as conclusive, or true, as one might hope. According to Greg Palast:

Where is Hugo? Where’s 300 million? And 300 what? Indeed, in context, the note is all about the hostage exchange with the FARC that Chavez was working on at the time (December 23, 2007) at the request of the Colombian government.

Bill van Auken puts it more prosaically:

The facts, however, tell another, far uglier story. The three Andean nations have been brought to the brink of war by a brutal and cold- blooded political assassination carried out to further the interests of US imperialism at the expense of the Colombian people and the population of the entire region....

....In the final analysis, this episode in the “global war on terrorism,” which has brought three South American nations to the brink of armed conflict, is the product of a filthy political murder carried out to defend the strategic and profit interests of US capitalism..

However everybody else seems to be going with the least charitable interpretation of the contents of the deadly terrortop. If true, what were the chilling plans for all that lovely loot??

Another document indicates the guerrillas were trying to obtain radioactive material for dirty bombs. "About the uranium, there's a man who supplies me with the material for the explosive we are preparing," a person named Edgar Tovar wrote to Reyes in a memo dated February 16.

Our old friend the dirty bomb! These are a clear and present danger.Terrorists the world over are always about to get their murderous hands on them. They only thing stopping them is that they don't fucking exist.

However our jungle based enemies might well think on the practicalities before rushing off to Mr Bout's all night weapons shop. Heed the terror instructions of the extreme right Heritage Foundation:

A truck bomb, for example, with 220 kilograms of explosive and 50 kilograms of one-year-old spent fuel rods could produce a lethal dosage zone with a radius of about one kilometer

Among the problems in building such a large device is the heavy shielding required to work with a significant amount of highly radioactive material. Otherwise, it would melt the carrying containers and sicken or kill anyone attempting to assemble or transport the weapon.

Though in respectful deference to their can-do spirit, it adds:

While such weapons may not be practical tools for most terrorists, the idea of martyrdom could lead some to disregard the dangers.

All this has nothing to do with:

For extra-heavy oil alone, the US Department of Energy (on its web site) estimates Venezuela has 1.36 trillion barrels, or 90% of the world total. That's more than all "proved" world reserves combined and in addition to Venezuela's "proved" light sweet resources of around 80 billion barrels that alone ranks it seventh in the world behind the five largest Middle East producers and Canada.

Or Operation Pliers??

Or ExxonMobil's antics

Marxism and Capitalism; Who says they can't get on??

To end on a more hopeful note, the jolly roger will no doubt be flown half mast today over ex NYSE head honcho Richard Grasso's house.

In a picture of happier times, he is seen here embracing marxist firebrand Raul Reyes in 1999. What did they discuss? Alas most records have disappeared, though the moment is captured here.
Just shows you can get along with anyone, if you make the effort.