Random News Stories

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-24379841

A couple have been left "mystified" after an oil painting of an "ugly" woman in a white headscarf was sent to them in the post with no explanation.

The parcel was addressed to Keith Webb at his home in Winchester, Hampshire, and contained the unmarked portrait.

He said his wife Sue felt "threatened" by the image, which arrived on Wednesday without an accompanying note, so they banished it to the garage.

Royal Mail has been unable to tell the couple the identity of the sender.

Wonderful. More of this kind of thing.

Its a portrait of his great great grandma sent by an unknown family member. Apparently he's quite embarrassed to have blown off like that about it since he's related to the ugly old crone. His wife is still insisting it stays in the garage though.

That thing would have pride of place in my house.  Garage, my ass.  It would hang on the living room wall.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://www.wcyb.com/news/jury-selected-in-first-facebook-murder-trial/-/14590844/22313574/-/kfxafe/-/index.html

HELLO, TENNESSEE!   

[Junkenstein]

The day gets funnier with EDL incompetence:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/04/edl-leader-stalks-tweets-wrong-person

As intimidation tactics by a leader of a far-right group go, it sounds scarily effective: using Twitter to invite yourself round to the home of a leading critic for "a chat" before tweeting photos of the person's block of flats, the front door of their apartment and a letter addressed to them.

However, it would have been somewhat more effective if Tommy Robinson, the leader of the English Defence League, had not gone to the address of someone with a differently-spelled name about 40 miles away from his intended target.

The editor of EDL News, a critical website and Twitter feed which bills itself as "bringing you the news that the English Defence League often won't", has labelled the incident embarrassing and bizarre for Robinson.

Amazing. Just imagine the stream of thoughts that resulted in this being a good idea. Try and do this without laughing.

Moon, who lives in London and has helped run the EDL News site since 2010, said he was away watching football but was alerted to the tweets and photos by a friend, and left baffled.

"I didn't understand them," Moon said. "I thought he seemed to be stalking someone but it didn't seem to have anything to do with me." Then came another tweet, showing a man's hand holding a letter addressed to a "Garry Moon" at an address in Reading. This was when the penny dropped.

Moon said: "Robinson had been helped out in the past by someone who tracked down the servers we were using at the time, which were in Reading. I thought, 'He's only gone and found a slightly different name in a phone book and headed to Reading by mistake'."

And now.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24442953

English Defence League leader and founder Tommy Robinson has left the group, saying he has concerns over the "dangers of far-right extremism".

Their decision follows discussions with the Quilliam group, which describes itself as a "counter-extremism think tank".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilliam_(think_tank)

From the "Criticism" section:

The organization has also recommended spying on Muslims unsuspected of any crimes, which led Jonathan Githens-Mazer and Robert Lambert to note:
Charles Moore and Dean Godson of Policy Exchange, have explained that this is a re-make of a 1980s Thatcherite counter-subversion strategy in which Husain is cast in the role of Frank Chapple the "moderate" trade union leader who was, they suggest, used to discredit and undermine the "extremist" miner's trade union leader Arthur Scargill. Husain, they argue, can help defeat Altikriti, Bungalwala and their colleagues in the same way

There's something fucked up going on here, will dig into it when I get time.

[Junkenstein]

Again, something smells here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24454596

Thousands of Islamist extremists in the UK see the British public as a legitimate target for attacks, the director general of MI5 has warned.

Andrew Parker was making his first public speech since taking over as head of the UK Security Service in April.

Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan and Yemen present "the most direct and immediate threats to the UK," he said.

n conclusion, Mr Parker said he did not believe the terrorist threat was any worse now than before. But it was "more diffuse, more complicated, more unpredictable".

Translation - Give us more money or you won't be safe from terrorists.

This may just be a bit of ongoing PR/damage control on behalf of GCHQ. Or it may be added justification for continued support of drone strikes in these countries and mass monitoring generally. Either way, the narrative over any GCHQ shenanigans seems to have moved from outrage to acceptance quite nicely. 

[Cain]

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[Junkenstein]

UK Racism wagon not OK, but kind of:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24452551

The advertising watchdog has banned a Home Office advert telling illegal immigrants to go home, saying it was misleading.

But the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) cleared the campaign of being offensive and irresponsible.

The campaign saw two vans drive around London for a week in July, carrying the message "Go home or face arrest."

The ASA said the posters on the vans referred to inaccurate arrest statistics.

The poster displayed a picture of handcuffs and read: "In the UK illegally?... GO HOME OR FACE ARREST."

ASA chief executive Guy Parker told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the campaign was considered unlikely to cause "widespread offence".

But he said the phrase "go home" was "reminiscent of the racist slogan" and "clearly carries baggage".

He added: "It clearly upset some people and I think it might be wise, if the government uses the poster van again, to perhaps think about using a different phrase - like return home."

Which is totally different.

"The ad must not appear again in its current form," said the ASA report.

"We told the Home Office to ensure that in future they held adequate substantiation for their advertising claims and that qualifications were presented clearly."

But it dismissed complaints that the slogan "Go home" had been offensive or irresponsible. It said that, while the phrase had been used in the past to attack immigrants, the Home Office was now using it in a different context.

The report said: "We concluded that the poster was unlikely to incite or exacerbate racial hatred and tensions in multi-cultural communities.

"It was not irresponsible and did not contain anything which was likely to condone or encourage violence or anti-social behaviour."

So it was not irresponsible, did nothing likely to cause offence, yet it must not be used again in its current form.

LOGIC.

There's also the part where it actively did incite racial tensions and gave the EDL/UKIP/BNP/Etc. crowd government approval for their idiocy. But let's not think about that.

[Junkenstein]

Tommy Robinson's going to found a "new organization" with the spooked up Quillam gang.  Because, you know, Tommy's such a credible person to take a principled stand against extremism.

My thoughts: the far right is splintering and fracturing at an impressive rate.  MI5 and Special Branch have, in the past, had significant control over the far right, which may currently be floundering due to said splintering.  By "repurposing" and mainstreaming a far-right figure, maybe the hope is for a "big-tent" movement to form, once the taint of obvious fascist sentiment is washed away.

Otherwise, the idea is to sell that to Tommy Robinson, and use his departure to fracture the far right even more, spread accusations of infiltration and covert action, and so keep the loonies fighting among themselves.

At the moment.  Theory may change when new data becomes available.

Cain, thanks for that. Beyond "This stinks" I hadn't got much further. It seemed extra odd given the day before he was attempting to stalk someone. To me, that's pretty odd way to act before a political U-turn like this. Then again, Tommy never did strike me as a clever chap. I wonder how long he's been talking/acting under Quilliam direction? I didn't see any mention of how long these talks have been going on. I'd guess it's either going to be quite a while or one very short, pointed meeting.

[Salty]

MAN WHO CANNOT DIE.

http://rt.com/usa/ohio-man-legally-dead-916/

Ok, that was deliberately misleading.

[Cain]

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[Salty]

 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

MAN WHO CANNOT DIE.

http://rt.com/usa/ohio-man-legally-dead-916/

Ok, that was deliberately misleading.

I have a friend who considered having her ex declared dead, as he basically did the same thing; he's been hiding from the court system for 17 years now.

It would serve him right. Also, I like that judge. "You wanted to disappear from your obligations and fuck your kids over? OK. No backsies."

[Cain]

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[Don Coyote]

that's pretty much how I picture a lot the people that unilaterally talk shit amor Obama.  crazy white dude with al the confederate colors.

[Telarus]

Posting here to read at home (the last story should probably get it's own thread in the appropriate forum):

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/14/nsa-reportedly-collecting-millions-personal-online-contact-lists-worldwide/

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/15/videos-appear-to-contradict-medal-of-honor-winners-account-of-afghan-battle/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24518203   <- Eating popcorn 'disrupts advertising'

[Telarus]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2013/10/15/new_snowden_documents_the_nsa_is_collecting_millions_of_address_books_and.html