Tommy Shaughnessy

Tommy Shaughnessy enters the confessional box and says, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I have been with a loose woman."

The priest asks, "Is that you, little Tommy Shaughnessy?"

"Yes, Father, it is."

"And who was the woman you were with?"

"Sure and I can't be tellin' you, Father. I don't want to ruin her reputation."

"Well, Tommy, I'm sure to find out sooner or later, so you may as well tell me now. Was it Brenda O'Malley?"

"I cannot say."

"Was it Patricia Kelly?"

"I'll never tell."

"Was it Liz Shannon?"

"I'm sorry, but I'll not name her."

"Was it Cathy Morgan?"

"My lips are sealed."

"Was it Fiona McDonald, then?"

"Please, Father, I cannot tell you."

The priest sighs in frustration.

"You're a steadfast lad, Tommy Shaughnessy, and I admire that. But you've sinned, and you must atone. Be off with you now."

Tommy walks back to his pew.

His friend Sean slides over and whispers, "What'd you get?"

"Five good leads," says Tommy.

So there's this Pirate with a parrot.
And this parrot swears like a sailor, he can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself.

Trouble is, the pirate who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and this bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy.
One day, it gets to be too much, so the guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard, and yells, "QUIT IT!"
But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever.

Then he gets mad and says, "OK for you." and locks the bird in a cabinet.
This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of invective that would make a veteran pirate blush.

At that point, he is so mad that he throws the it into the freezer.
For the first few seconds there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes.
Then it suddenly gets very, very quiet.
At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt.

After a couple of minutes of silence, he's so worried that he opens up the freezer door.
The bird calmly climbs onto the man's out-stretched arm, smiles a parrot smile, flutters his eye lids and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on."

"By the way, what did the chicken do?"

Mediterranean Living...http://www.med-liv.com
Feedback on the news
from Daily Mirror Comment
Mirror.co.uk

I REFUSE TO WASTE MY TIME ON GREEN MYTH

Sue Carroll

THIS week a man knocked on my door and asked me if I might like to discuss my "motivation towards recycling".

I was, frankly, rather surprised. I didn't know I was supposed to have any "motivation towards recycling".

I could have lied and told him I run my car on panda blood and dine only in restaurants that serve endangered species. But on the basis that life's too short to irritate super-annuated council waste disposal officers I explained that I didn't feel the urge to discuss my pivotal role in saving the planet today, or any other.

I suppose I'm now marked down as a subversive and soon, I predict, the refuse Gestapo will be round to inspect my bins. I hope every householder in my street politely told the berk with a clipboard where to stuff his rubbish survey. But I doubt it.

There's an orthodoxy about the "green issue" which means anyone daring to question it becomes a pariah. In the same way that, until recent spectacular U-turns, anyone who stepped out of line to condemn the government's multicultural policy was branded a racist.

Green is the new religion and we're all meant to be cowed by the propaganda preached by evangelical MPs who've taken to howling the message like zealots at a prayer meeting. Speaking after apocalyptic reports of impending doom were released in the Stern Review of global warming, the PM told us sagely that the consequences for the planet are "literally disastrous".

Well, don't you worry about scaring the children, Mr Blair. Meanwhile the Environment Secretary, half-man, half-android David Miliband, has rushed in to announce he'll save us all from a disaster greater than two World Wars by taxing us to kingdom come.

Just a minute, sunshine. The British public can be extraordinarily gullible but we know when the green wool is being pulled over our eyes. While we're asked to pay an "eco tax" on electricity, petrol, energy-inefficient electrical appliances and holiday flights, the Chinese plan to open more than 500 coal-fired power stations.

In other words even if we sat in the dark for two years, every power saving made would be wiped out by China's growth. Surely Miliband realised that once global warming became top of the political agenda the genie would be out of the bottle?

Britain uses just two per cent of the world's energy. More to the point, if carbon emissions mean global suicide why is this government hell bent on another terminal at Heathrow Airport?

Shouldn't we be told, since we're being encouraged to fuel our cars with melted chip fat, what plans are afoot to trade in the fleet of ministerial gas-guzzling Jags and Range Rovers in favour of electric ones?

And where will the windfall from all this green tax go - on armies of recycling motivation specialists? The unpleasant whiff of "do as I say, not do as I do" has just become more pungent.

Happily, out of all this ideology comes some sanity from scientists prepared to stick their heads over the parapet and tell us carbon emissions may have little to do with climate change.

Perish the thought, but perhaps it's time we stopped swallowing the melting ice-cap theories and put it all down to natural cycles as Orlando Whistle-croft, who chronicled country life in the 19th century, did.

I leave you with observations from his book, The Climate of England, in which he wrote how the "fabulous weather" of 1846 saw kitchen gardens continuing to grow through the winter. "Overcoats were superfluous, fires quite disagreeable and walking in the moonlight was preferable to sitting in the chimney corner."

In March, Whistlecroft noted that young people in his village were gathering cowslips. A drought set in till November "which made us feel we had two long summers in one year".

No blame attached then to people driving 4X4s or flying off on easyJet to Majorca. Something to remember before you start bottling the chip fat.

Mediterranean Living...http://www.med-liv.com
Feedback on the news
from Daily Mail Comment

Blair must face his day of reckoning

1st November 2006

Fearful and flustered, the Prime Minister goes on the offensive as the Conservatives call for a public inquiry into his gross mishandling of Iraq.

Accusing them of nothing short of treachery to our servicemen, he asks through his spokesman: 'When troops are serving overseas, in whose interests is it to make such an announcement?'

Well, we all know who would stand to lose most from public scrutiny of the Government's conduct - and we don't mean British troops, struggling bravely to do the impossible job with which Mr Blair has saddled them.

No. There is nothing remotely unpatriotic about David Cameron's demand for a thorough investigation into every aspect of the war.

True, he and his party backed the invasion - an honourable position at the time, although one with which this paper profoundly disagreed. But there is no inconsistency about voting for the war then and insisting on an inquiry now, when the Government's handling of it has been so disastrous.

Indeed, it is a sign of political maturity that Mr Cameron is seeking to loosen the Tories' attachment to a foreign policy virtually dictated by the White House.

The truth is that the case for a truly independent inquiry is unanswerable.

It must look into the abuse of the democratic process, which saw parliament and people deceived by a 'sexed-up' dossier put together by a spin-doctor.

It must examine how and why the Government fell totally under the spell of Washington. It must investigate what appears to have been a complete lack of planning for equipping our troops or reconstructing Iraq.

Above all, it must find ways to ensure that a catastrophe like this misbegotten war can never happen again.

Last night the Commons rejected the call for an immediate inquiry. But now even Defence Secretary Des Browne is forced to admit there must be one 'when the time is right'.

Mr Blair's day of public reckoning is coming.

Freedom to differ

This newspaper has long campaigned for an end to the secrecy that shrouds our family courts, whose decisions to remove children from their parents so often cause anguish and despair.

We therefore applaud Lord Justice Wall's call for wider Press access to the courts, so that the public can see how these heartbreaking cases are decided.

But it is profoundly disturbing that this senior Appeal Court judge goes on to suggest the authorities should have the right to pick and choose which newspapers should be admitted.

In his speech to a conference on family law, Lord Justice Wall cites his disapproval of the Mail's reporting of a case in which an Essex couple had their children removed by social workers and put up for adoption after a secret hearing.

As the court heard, the parents were 'entirely decent and respectable people', who loved their baby son and four-year-old daughter, keeping them well-fed and well-dressed. The children were removed only because their mother was considered too slow to care for them properly.

We thought then - and we still do - that the court's decision was cruelly wrong. Even the Government agrees our coverage highlighted concerns over how such rulings are reached.

Are newspapers to be blackballed for bringing such injustices to public notice?

Lord Justice Wall appears to have difficulty understanding the concept of Press freedom. Let us explain. It means the freedom to draw public attention to the truth as we see it - whether judges happen to agree with us or not.

Mediterranean Living News Update
http://www.med-liv.com

Colombian drugs boss arrested in Spain

· Sabogal 'played part' in many murders by gang
· Cartel accounts for up to half of world's cocaine

Giles Tremlett in Madrid and Sybilla Brodzinsky in Bogota
Wednesday November 1, 2006
The Guardian

One of the world's most wanted and violent drugs traffickers, the Colombian Orlando Sabogal Zuluaga, has been arrested in Spain as police around the world try to break up a cartel that accounts for up to half of the global cocaine market.

Sabogal was picked up in the Madrid commuter town of Majadahonda on Thursday as part of a global crackdown on the violent Norte del Valle cartel and its offshoots, which are thought to be responsible for some 1,000 murders.

"Investigators believe that, as a Norte del Valle lieutenant, he has taken part in many of the murders carried out by this organisation," the Spanish police said yesterday.

US authorities claim the cartel has exported more than 500 tonnes of cocaine to the United States since 1990.

"Norte del Valle regularly uses violence and brutality to further its goals, including the murder of rivals, individuals who failed to pay for cocaine and associates who were believed to be working as informants," the US state department said.

Sabogal was one of a group of four Colombians who took over the reins of the country's biggest drug-trafficking outfit after the arrest and deportation to the United States of drug baron Luis Hernando Gómez Bustamante in 2004.

Sabogal, known also as "Alberto" or "The Monkey", and fellow trafficker Johnny Cano Correa had since become leaders of their own sections of the cartel.

"After Gómez Bustamante's arrest, Johnny Cano Correa and Orlando Sabogal Zuluaga rose in the cartel to become leaders of their own drug-trafficking organisations," a US treasury spokesman said.

Cano was arrested and deported to the US in September.

The US state department had offered a $5m reward for information leading to Sabogal's arrest, but refused to say yesterday whether anyone had been given the money.

"Orlando Sabogal Zuluaga ... is responsible for arranging the logistics of hundreds of thousands of kilograms of cocaine to the United States and Europe," the state department said when it offered the reward.

Sabogal, who was carrying false identity papers, was arrested at a shopping centre in Majadahonda, 15 miles north-west of Madrid.

Spanish police said they had been asked by their US counterparts to track down Sabogal after they were tipped off that he was in Spain.

US embassy sources in Madrid confirmed yesterday that the arrest had been made on the request of New York public prosecutors.

On the day of his arrest the US treasury department announced that it had frozen Sabogal's assets and those of several family members.

Sabogal and Cano were indicted on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges by a New York court in July 2003.

The Norte del Valle cartel, based in the Cauca valley and the south-west of the country, has become Colombia's most notorious group.

Colonel Cesar Pinzón, deputy director of Colombia's judicial police, said Sabogal "was the last of the strategic line of leadership of the [Norte del Valle] organisation that had yet to be captured".

"He could be deported to Colombia where he will be processed and then we would begin the process of extraditing him to the United States. But Spain also has an [extradition] agreement with the US," he said.

A Norte del Valle leader called Diego León Montoya remains on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, alongside Osama bin Laden.

The FBI rates the cartel as "the most powerful and violent" trafficking group in Colombia.

Mediterranean Living Bizarre
http://www.med-liv.com

Bizarre Coincidences

A distraught architect threw himself in front of a train in the London Underground in a suicide attempt.
Luckily, the train stopped inches from his body; in fact, it had to be jacked off its tracks to allow his removal.
When questioned, however, the driver informed officials he hadn't stopped the train.
An investigation revealed that one of the passengers, unaware of the suicide attempt, had independently pulled the emergency brake.
London Transport officials considered prosecuting the passenger for illegal use of the emergency brake but ultimately decided against it.

George D. Bryson, a businessman from Connecticut, decided to change his travel plans and stop in Louisville, Kentucky, a place he'd never visited before.
He went to a local hotel and made preparations to check into Room 307.
Before he could do so, a hotel employee handed him a letter addressed to his exact name.
It turned out the previous occupant of Room 307 was another George D. Bryson.

One three separate occasions - in the years 1664, 1785, and 1860 - there was a shipwreck in which only one person survived the accident.
Each time that one person was named Hugh Williams.

In 1983, a woman told British Rail authorities about a disturbing vision she had of a fatal train crash involving an engine with the numbers 47 216.
Two years later, a train had a fatal accident, similar to the one the woman had described.
The engine number, however, was 47 299.
Later, someone noticed that the number had previously been changed by nervous British Rail officials.
The original number: 47 216.

Several secret code words were devised by Allied military commanders during their preparations to invade Normandy in World War II.
Among them: "Utah," "Neptune," "Mulberry," "Omaha," and "Overlord."
Before the invasion could begin, however, all of these words appeared in a crossword puzzle in the London Daily Telegraph.
After interrogating the puzzle's author, an English school teacher, authorities became convinced that it was sheer, inexplicable coincidence.

Mediterranean Living News Update
http://www.med-liv.com

Livingstone backs terrorist's Tube job

Last updated at 16:18pm on 31st October 2006

Together: Mohammed Mostafa and father Abu Hamza at a Trafalgar Square rally. Mostafa worked on the Tube

Ken Livingstone today defended the right of Abu Hamza's son to work for a Tube contractor - despite his conviction for terrorism in Yemen.

Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, 25, from Wembley, was given a security pass and had access to restricted areas - including tunnels under Parliament - during his time as a labourer at nights and weekends on the Underground.

But the Mayor said he doubted the veracity of any conviction from Yemen and said Mostafa had passed Tube security checks.

He said it was wrong to restrict his ability to work simply because he was the son of Abu Hamza. Mr Livingstone said: "Has he broken any laws here in Britain? The answer is no. We are happy to have him working for us.

"No one can be blamed for what their parents do. All we ask is that they respect the law of the land and do not hurt anyone."

His extraordinary intervention came after Tube chiefs were accused of an appalling blunder after allowing Mostafa to work in restricted areas.

He was employed by a sub-contractor working for Tube Lines, the private sector consortia which looks after the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines.

The Jubilee line serves Westminster, the most politically sensitive station on the Underground and where security is supposed to be at its highest level.

Working as a labourer on the Jubilee line would have given Mostafa - jailed in Yemen in 1999 for plotting to kill Western tourists - access to the labyrinth of tunnels at Westminster and where the Tube runs virtually under Parliament.

Mostafa and his father were central figures at the Finsbury Park mosque when it was taken over by hardliners. Hamza, 48, is serving seven years for inciting murder and preaching racial hatred during sermons there.

Labour MP Andrew Dismore said today of Mostafa: "It beggars belief. It wasn't like he was nicked for shoplifting. It was terror offences in Yemen. You would think the Underground would be particularly sensitive to terrorism."

Questions are being asked over the Tube's security checks, which were supposed to have been increased following the 7/7 atrocities. Brian Cooke, chairman of the passenger watchdog TravelWatch, said: "It is surprising that LU does not appear to have greater control over the reference checks of people employed by contractors."

Mostafa was only stopped from working on the Tube when colleagues recognised him and informed bosses, who withdrew his pass. LU chiefs tried to play down Mostafa's employment, saying he was allowed to work because "he has no criminal convictions in the UK".

LU pointed out that he was not Tube staff but was employed by a "minor" sub-contractor. An LU spokesman said it was up to the contractor - which he refused to name - and not LU to make criminal checks.

The spokesman added: "The question of whether the checks were tight enough is a matter for the Government to address. We don't do criminal checks on every single individual who comes on to London Underground."

It was claimed that Mostafa had worked only for "a few weekends" on the network. Asked if LU checked the contractors to ensure they were carrying out the specified vetting procedures, the spokesman added: "There is an assumption that criminal checks are made." He said there were "spot checks" - but not as a regular and ongoing process.

The security blunder by the company was described as "appalling" by the father of one of the victims of the 7/7 bombings, in which 52 commuters were murdered. John Taylor, who lost his daughter Carrie, 24, in the attacks, said he was "shocked and stunned".

The security manager from Billericay said: "This man is a convicted terrorist and he has been allowed access to some of the most sensitive areas of the Tube."

Mostafa had previously attempted to forge a career in rap, with lyrics describing waging holy war and dying for Allah.

Mediterranean Living News Update
http://www.med-liv.com

Fish oil 'helped children manage anger'

31st October 2006

Children with severe behavioural problems were better able to control their angry outbursts during a six-month trial of fish oil supplements, it was revealed today.

Eaton Hall School in Norwich recorded a 68% reduction in the most extreme type of attack while pupils ate a healthy diet and took eye q fish oil supplements.

The school provides specialist education for boys with severe behavioural, social and emotional difficulties. The trial was carried out on 28 pupils aged 10-16.

During the six months before the trial began, the pupils were involved in 112 incidents of outbursts that required physical management to prevent a child harming themselves or others.

This dropped to 36 during the trial. Three pupils who exhibited the biggest change in behaviour were involved in few or no incidents at all.

Lisa Christensen, Norfolk County Council's director of children's services, said: "This is the first time that a study of this size just on children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties has been carried out.

"It was a unique opportunity because there was already detailed information about individual pupils' behaviour from before the changes in their diet and the introduction of the supplements."

Lianne Quantrill, the project co-ordinator at the school, said: "These statistics suggest that as a result of the new health programme and supplements, the children were able to control their anger better, so while outbursts still occurred, they were less extreme, requiring minimal physical intervention from a teacher."

Headteacher Valerie Moore said: "This was a worthwhile study. For some children it made a positive difference.

"Even if it had only helped one child, it would still have been worthwhile. Within the wide and varied behaviour modification methods we use at Eaton Hall, this was another strategy well worth exploring."

Mediterranean Living News Update
http://www.med-liv.com

Spain to hit "Costa del Crime" with UK hotline

31/10/2006

MADRID (Reuters) - British and Spanish police, struggling to track down expatriate fugitives and break into a web of foreign traffickers and fraudsters, have asked charity Crimestoppers to set up a tip-off hotline on the Costa del Sol.

Both countries hope Crimestoppers Costas, launched on Tuesday, will become an key intelligence source from the 350,000 expatriates living around the southern city of Malaga -- a group difficult to tap because of the language barrier.

For years British criminals have used the Spanish Costas as the perfect place to disappear among English-speaking expatriates and tourists, but British police are increasingly concerned it is being used by drug traffickers as a base for British operations.

A series of adverts in local papers and on the Crimestoppers website: www.crimestoppers-uk.org/wanted/spainwanted/ aims to hunt down criminals wanted in Britain for a range of crimes including fraud, trafficking, kidnap and murder.

Tip-offs passed to the charity in Britain help solve an average 17 crimes a day and one murder a week, and its head of operations Dave Cording said that until-now weak links between Spanish police and expatriates meant the pilot scheme could make an immediate impact.

"There is good information out there to be had and it’s just a question of coordinating the whole thing to bring these people back into the British crime justice system," he told Reuters.

Crimestoppers’ anonymous freephone number -- 900 555 111 -- will route calls directly to its London call centre and information will then be passed to Spanish police.

Ronnie Knight, jailed for one of Britain’s biggest-ever cash robberies hid on the Costa del Sol as did Kenneth Noye, who helped melt down millions of pounds of stolen gold from the Brinks Mat robbery and was jailed years later for stabbing to death a fellow motorist in a road-rage attack near London.

Spain curbs Romanian, Bulgarian workers

October 31 2006

Spain on Tuesday joined Britain in saying that it would restrict access to its labour market for Romanian and Bulgarian workers. Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Spanish foreign minister, said the country would limit access to its market for two years when the two countries join the European Union in January, as it did with other new entrants in 2004.

Spain has one of the highest immigration levels in Europe and is a favourite destination for Romanian workers, whose language is similar. An estimated 400,000 Romanians and 160,000 Bulgarians already live in Spain, about half of them illegally.

Romania and Bulgaria have protested against the UK’s decision to limit immigration of their workers, disputing the notion that their EU membership would prompt a huge influx of workers to other European countries. They have threatened reciprocal restrictions.

Emilia Maslarova, Bulgarian labour minister, said she was “disappointed” by Britain’s decision to limit immigration from Romania and Bulgaria after adopting an open door policy with other EU entrants.

Ms Maslarova insisted the outflow of Bulgarian migrant workers would be small, citing an opinion poll carried out in August by Gallup International that showed only 46,000 Bulgarians of working age were seriously considering working abroad. Spain and Germany were the top destinations, while the UK ranked sixth, with only about 3,100 to 3,400 intending to go there.

It is debatable how much impact restrictions would have, since any EU citizen with a valid passport is free to go and live in another EU country for up to three months, and self-employed citizens are often not covered by job restrictions.

Representatives of Romanian and Bulgarian workers in Spain argue that restrictions will simply force the thousands of existing workers in the country to continue working off the books.

Gelu Vlasin, spokesman for the federation of Romanian associations in Spain, told Spanish daily El Pais this week: “Fears of an avalanche of immigrants is baseless. What is true is that Romanians work here...and they want to do so legally and to pay taxes.”

Spaniards have become increasingly concerned by the tide of immigrants, despite the fact unemployment between July and September hit its lowest point in 27 years. In a survey published last week, 60 per cent said immigration was their main worry, up from 28 per cent in May last year.

Mr Moratinos gave no indication of the kind of restrictions Spain intended to impose, but Maria Teresa Fernández de la Vega, Spain’s deputy prime minister, said last week any curbs would be less tough than those promised by the UK, which aims to place strict visa requirements on skilled workers.

Focus on terrorists, not tactics

It's easy to defend against what they planned last time, but it's shortsighted.

******************************************
I came across this on security...it's dated 13th August, so bear that in mind when reading dates and timings.

Author:
Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World."
******************************************

By Bruce Schneier
Minneapolis Star Tribune
August 13, 2006

Hours-long waits in the security line. Ridiculous prohibitions on what you can carry onboard. Last week's foiling of a major terrorist plot and the subsequent airport security graphically illustrates the difference between effective security and security theater.

None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 -- no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews -- had anything to do with last week's arrests.
And they wouldn't have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn't have made a difference, either.

Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation. Details are still secret, but police in at least two countries were watching the terrorists for a long time. They followed leads, figured out who was talking to whom, and slowly pieced together both the network and the plot.

The new airplane security measures focus on that plot, because authorities believe they have not captured everyone involved. It's reasonable to assume that a few lone plotters, knowing their compatriots are in jail and fearing their own arrest, would try to finish the job on their own. The authorities are not being public with the details -- much of the "explosive liquid" story doesn't hang together -- but the excessive security measures seem prudent.

But only temporarily. Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-ons won't make us safer, either. It's not just that there are ways around the rules, it's that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

It's easy to defend against what the terrorists planned last time, but it's shortsighted. If we spend billions fielding liquid-analysis machines in airports and the terrorists use solid explosives, we've wasted our money. If they target shopping malls, we've wasted our money.

Focusing on tactics simply forces the terrorists to make a minor modification in their plans. There are too many targets -- stadiums, schools, theaters, churches, the long line of densely packed people before airport security -- and too many ways to kill people.

Security measures that require us to guess correctly don't work, because invariably we will guess wrong. It's not security, it's security theater: measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.

Airport security is the last line of defense, and not a very good one at that. Sure, it'll catch the sloppy and the stupid -- and that's a good enough reason not to do away with it entirely -- but it won't catch a well-planned plot.

We can't keep weapons out of prisons; we can't possibly keep them off airplanes.

The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror.

Last week's arrests demonstrate how real security doesn't focus on possible terrorist tactics, but on the terrorists themselves. It's a victory for intelligence and investigation, and a dramatic demonstration of how investments in these areas pay off.

And if you want to know what you can do to help?

Don't be terrorized.

They terrorize more of us if they kill some of us, but the dead are beside the point.

If we give in to fear, the terrorists achieve their goal even if they were arrested. If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose -- even if their attacks succeed.

Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World."

"Sexsomniacs" puzzle medical researchers

Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:35am ET24

LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters Life!) -

Researchers are struggling to understand a rare medical condition where sufferers unknowingly demand, or actually have, sex while asleep, New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday.

Research into sexsomnia -- making sexual advances toward another person while asleep -- has been hampered as sufferers are so embarrassed by the problem they tend not to own up to it, while doctors do not ask about it.

As yet there is no cure for the condition, which often leads to difficulties in relationships.

"It really bothers me that I can't control it," Lisa Mahoney told the magazine. "It scares me because I don't think it has anything to do with the partner. I don't want this foolish condition to hurt us in the long run."

Most researchers view sexsomnia as a variant of sleepwalking, where sufferers are stuck between sleep and wakefulness, though sexsomniacs tend to stay in bed rather than get up and walk about.

While sleepwalking affects two to four percent of adults, sexsomnia is not thought to be as common a problem, according to Nik Trajanovic, a researcher at the sleep and alertness clinic at Canada's Toronto Western Hospital.

But an Internet survey of sexsomniacs carried out in 2005 that drew 219 reliable respondents concluded it was more prevalent than medical case reports alone might suggest.

"Most of the time sleep sex occurs between people who are already partners," Mark Pressman, a sleep specialist at Lankenan Hospital in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, told the New Scientist.

"Sometimes they hate it," added Pressman of the reactions of sexsomniacs' partners. "Sometimes they tolerate it. On rare occasions you have stories of people liking it better than waking sex."

With no cure, addressing triggering factors -- stress or sleep deprivation -- can help, while Michael Mangan, a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire in the U.S. has set up a Web site, www.sleepsex.org, to help sufferers.

Meanwhile Trajanovic is devising a procedure for diagnosing sexsomnia in legal cases where sufferers have been accused of sexual assault.

URGENT - ALERT FOR NEW IE7

Spoofing bug found in IE 7

Description:
A weakness has been discovered in Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct phishing attacks.

(A phishing attack is where a rogue website attempts to discover secret information about you...credit card details and othe confidential stuff)

The problem is that it's possible to display a popup with a somewhat spoofed address bar where a number of special characters have been appended to the URL. This makes it possible to only display a part of the address bar, which may trick users into performing certain unintended actions.

Secunia has constructed a demonstration, which is available at:
http://secunia.com/internet_explorer_7_popup_address_bar_spoofing_test/

The weakness is confirmed in Internet Explorer 7 on a fully patched Windows XP SP2 system.

Solution:
Do not follow links from untrusted sources.

*****************************************


More....

Security experts have found a weakness in Internet Explorer 7 that could help crooks mask phishing scams, the type of attack Microsoft designed the browser to thwart.

IE 7, released last week, allows a Web site to display a pop-up that can contain a spoofed Web address, security monitoring company Secunia said Wednesday. An attacker could exploit this weakness to trick people into believing they are on a trusted Web site when in fact they are viewing a malicious page, Secunia said in an alert.

"This makes it possible to only display a part of the address bar, which may trick users into performing certain unintended actions," Secunia said. The company has created a demonstration that shows a Microsoft Web address in the pop up window, but displays content from Secunia.

For more on this...
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6129626.html

Labour's bloodiest week

Political Comment
Daily Mail
By BLACK DOG
11th September 2006

Overheard explaining massive security arrangements for the Labour conference in Manchester later this month, the city's Chief Constable Michael Todd said the PM would be under 'constant vigilant watch' before adding mischievously: 'Normally it's terrorists we're protecting him from - not members of his own Cabinet.'

• This is not the first time Charles Clarke has made intemperate remarks about Gordon Brown. The ex-Home Secretary delivered a similarly brutal assessment of the Chancellor in front of a gaggle of Brownite MPs at a Pizza Express restaurant in Westminster. And as he ranted, he tucked into two man-sized pizzas.

• Brown's hitmen have their line of attack ready if ex-Defence Secretary John Reid throws his hat in the ring. Reid sent our boys back to Afghanistan in April saying it was such a piece of cake they would probably be back, mission accomplished, without firing a shot. Nineteen have been killed in the past week. 'We won't let him forget that,' said a Brown crony.

• Tory MP Nicholas Soames defended rebel leader fellow ex-Defence Minister Tom Watson, who was branded a 'traitor' by No 10. 'Watson did brilliantly when his toe-rag boss Des Browne missed a Commons statement on the deaths of five British soldiers and kindly arranged a posthumous promotion for an RAF officer who lived in my constituency,' said Soames.

• Mahmood's decision to resign as a Government aide in protest at the PM's failure to step down prompted Blairite loyalists to recall another occasion when he was accused of being unfaithful.

He dumped his Muslim wife over an affair with failed Tory Parliamentary candidate Elaina Cohen, above, who persuaded him to cut off his moustache. No. 10 must wish she had gone even further.

• Long-haired Labour MP Sion Simon, who signed the 'Blair must go' letter after being passed over for promotion, will have to take even more drastic action before he is made a minister by 'Prime Minister' Brown. The Chancellor thinks Simon's Byronesque flowing locks make him look like a 'beatnik'.

• If Brown takes over, Downing Street aides are threatening to copy a stunt by Bill Clinton's White House staff when they handed over the keys to George W. Bush. They removed the Ws from White House keyboards so Bush's name couldn't be written in full.

'We are going to remove the Bs,' vowed a cheeky Blairite intern.

• Hartlepool Labour MP Ian Wright's decision to resign as a Government aide over Blair's refusal to quit had nothing to do with his feelings about Blair or Brown. He was furious with Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt for welching on a vow to save his local hospital.

• Celebrations planned by Leftie MP Harry Cohen in anticipation of Brown replacing Blair in No10 hit an unexpected snag. 'I put some champagne on ice ages ago but the wife drank it,' he said.

Tories won't save us being

squeezed to death by the EU

Daily Mail Comment
11th September 2006

Gosh, the Tories have just discovered that the European Union is a threat to Britain's existence.

Tory MP Eric Pickles has unearthed a map showing that there is a Berlin-inspired master-plan to create a United States of Europe, in which the existing nations would vanish and be replaced by regions which deliberately ignore all the old national frontiers.

Congratulations, lads. This fact has been known, and obvious, for decades. If you support the EU, with its commitment to ever-narrower union, this is what you back. And the Tory Party continues to support it, pretending that we can negotiate an exemption from this fate. You might as well negotiate with a boa constrictor as it tightens its coils around you.

As it happens, in a couple of weeks we seem likely to lose our veto over criminal justice affairs, which means the end of this country's uniquely free legal system and its replacement by the continental one.

The boa constrictor squeezes harder every day, and the Useless Tories squeak about being 'in Europe but not run by Europe'.

They might as well argue for 'Being squeezed to death by a snake, but not eaten by that snake'.

How can walking free ever deter morons like Naseem?

Boxer Naseem Hamed was released from jail after serving 16 weeks of a 15-month sentence, imposed because of his unhinged, irresponsible driving, which could easily have led to many deaths and actually severely injured two people.

Hamed remarked as he walked to freedom: 'Thank God nobody's died.' Indeed, not that God had much to do with this moron's decision to drive as he did.

If anybody had died, he might actually have had to stay in jail for, let's see, at least six months.

The Anthony Blair who is now despised

The Anthony Blair who is now despised and reviled is exactly the same person who, nine years ago, was greeted with almost universal adulation. Nothing has changed except that time has revealed to the slow learners what the sharp-witted could see from the start. He's no good.

I won't be sorry to see him go, though it will make little difference. But this festival of contempt is unseemly.

Everyone who ever praised him should now be forced to remember that praise, and have their noses rubbed in it, before they make the same mistake with David Cameron. How many of these empty, dim people must we endure before we get a proper government?

Parasites do the bitching as real men do the dying

While Westminster had its meaningless little squabble last week, real men were fighting and dying in Afghanistan. Each of those deaths was infinitely more important than the empty question of who leads this Parliament of dunces.

The soldiers and airmen were much more worthy of our concern than the failures and parasites who now make up our political class.

Badly paid, palmed off with equipment half a century old, the Forces sent to the world's most dangerous battlefield have done as they were told because that is their job. They probably know it is futile, which it is. But they live and work to a higher standard, where it is a matter of honour to do your work well, however idiotic the instruction.

The important fact is that the people who irresponsibly sent our soldiers to Afghanistan are so much less impressive than the men they have ordered into peril. And this is now the case throughout our poisoned, decaying society.

Those in charge are inferior to those Comrelations who actually keep things going. The chief constables are not as bright as the constables. The education chiefs couldn't control a classroom. The local authorities couldn't run an ice-cream stall, yet impose their will on competent small businessmen.

Spend time among politicians and you find people who are barely qualified to tie their own shoelaces. Many of them are in politics because they are failures in their chosen trades or professions - or never had any in the first place. Many are unrepentant anti-British Comrelations and their fellow-travellers. Many have never done anything else but hang around the pig-troughs of power, grovelling on the floor for greasy scraps until their sycophancy is noticed, and they are allowed to sink their own snouts into the swill.

Look at them. I have never been able to discover a single person who was represented in court by the supposed barrister Anthony Blair. His alleged rival and self-proclaimed heir, David Cameron, was a corporate public man, described by those who dealt with him as 'poisonous and slippery' and whose only real passion appears to be the watering down of the laws against dangerous drugs. Why's that, Dave?

By contrast, the men and women who make up our Armed Forces are personally courageous, invariably masters of their tasks, self-disciplined and diligent to standards long ago forgotten in the rest of this country. No, this isn't an argument for a military coup. For the other thing about our Armed Services is their conscientious refusal to mess around in politics.

It is an argument for a mighty clear-out of Parliament, not a palace putsch where one nonentity is replaced by another.

'Who is to do the clearing-out?' I am asked week after week by letter and e-mail.

Why, you are. First, you must withdraw your support from the discredited and bankrupt political parties - above all the Useless Tories - who have misgoverned us so badly for the past 50 years and who currently guard the gates to Parliament so that it is virtually impossible for a decent person to get in there, or to survive if they do get in.

Then you must build new parties that properly represent you. Don't wait for a leader to appear from the clouds. None is coming. Do it yourselves, or learn to like what you get if you won't.

Blair Spin Again

Stage-managed spin from start to finish Daily Mail Comment 6th September 2006 Nothing better sums up Tony Blair's time in office than his closest aides' toe-curling plans for his departure. In a leaked memo, they say the great man should appear on Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and Chris Evans's radio show. He should make a final tour of the nation, visiting "iconic locations" and celebrating the "triumph of Blairism". "He needs to go with the crowds wanting more. He should be the star who won't even play that last encore…". Lord, give us strength! There are five flesh-creeping pages of this, recommending the Prime Minister should be "carefully positioned" to distance himself from the "political village". So it is that Mr Blair's premiership is to end as it began - as an elaborately stage-managed public relations exercise, all style and no substance. Tellingly, the Prime Minister's aides come close to admitting Mr Blair has achieved precious little of what he promised. They write that his "genuine legacy" is not so much the delivery of his policies as the dominance of New Labour ideas. You can say that again! All around us - in schools and hospitals and on our crime-ridden streets - can be seen the evidence of Mr Blair's failure to deliver on the confident pledges he made in 1997. So what concrete achievements can he claim after all these years? The list makes dismal reading: All-out war in Iraq and Afghanistan; a Human Rights Act that jeopardises our security by protecting terrorists; record immigration; devolution that makes nonsense of the constitution; countless billions wasted on grandiose computer systems that don't work; an unprecedented crackdown on civil liberties; a preposterously expensive Millennium Dome, now mired in sleaze...Oh, yes...and a cash for peerages scandal. No wonder Mr Blair's aides prefer to live in a fantasy world, in which their hero is pressed by adoring multitudes demanding "encore!". Back on Planet Earth, with increasing numbers of Labour MPs queueing up at the door of No 10, Mr Blair finally caved in and named the date of his departure. But even so, effective government is on hold until the succession is resolved. And that is nearly a year away. What was it that memo said about the Prime Minister needing to go "with the crowds wanting more"? Sorry, Mr Blair, but it's far, far too late for that now. St Paul in the dock How can it be a crime to distribute leaflets containing quotations from the Bible? That, believe it or not, is what led police to charge Stephen Green, of Christian Voice, with using "abusive or insulting words", contrary to the Public Order Act. But the words complained of were not Mr Green's. They were those of St Paul and the prophet Leviticus, extracted from the Authorised Version of the Bible and distributed by members of Christian Voice at a gay rally in Cardiff. Why did the police object? For the same reason that they accused author Lynette Burrows of "homophobia" when she dared suggest that same-sex couples did not make ideal adoptive parents. And the same reason Strathclyde firemen have been disciplined for refusing to attend a gay parade. Mr Green's "crime" is to believe, along with St Paul and traditionalists of many faiths, that homosexual acts are sinful. Not so long ago, gay intercourse was severely punished by law. Quite rightly, that has changed. But what a slippery slope we tread if it is to become a crime to disapprove.

Smiling in the face of justice

Daily Mail Comment
5th September 2006

What a sickening spectacle it was, when 'Prince' Naseem Hamed was released from Moorland Open Prison in Doncaster yesterday after serving only 16 weeks of a 15-month sentence for dangerous driving.

Waving and smiling like a lottery winner, the boxer strode down the road and stepped into a silver Rolls-Royce. Behind was a stretch limousine, blaring loud music and fitted out for a riotous party.

Hamed's brief mention of his victim seems wholly inadequate beside the hideously reckless crime that put him in prison.

Just to show off to his friends, he had driven his £230,000 McLaren Mercedes at 90mph on the wrong side of the road over the brow of a hill, straight into a VW Golf.

The crash very nearly killed 39-year-old Anthony Burgin. It left him with crippling injuries from which he may never recover.

The real scandal, however, is not that one brash, self-obsessed boxer - and his family and friends who laid on that hero's reception for him - seem to lack any sense of decency or shame.

What is really shocking is that thousands like Hamed are being set free after serving the merest fraction of their sentences.

His release, after barely a quarter of his 15 months, epitomises the state of British justice under a Labour Party embarrassed by prison overcrowding but too short-sighted to build the jails the country so desperately needs.

Every drastically reduced sentence like his makes a mockery of the Government's repeated promises to 'rebalance' the system in favour of the victim.

Hamed is not the only ex-convict smiling today. Criminals all over the country are grinning their contempt for a justice system that has lost all its power to instil fear and respect for the law.

March of progress?

It is just as well that the Victorian Duchess of Leeds is no longer around to discover what became of the girls' orphanage, run by nuns, which she built in the heart of the Sussex countryside at the height of the Empire in 1868.

We can guess she would have understood it when the massive gothic pile later became a Catholic junior seminary and then a ballet school.

After all, not only did fewer women want to become nuns as the 20th century progressed, but the state began to take over the charitable work for which the orphanage had originally been built.

But what would the old Duchess have made of the building's present use - as a run-down school for a mere dozen Muslim boys, in which half of every day is devoted to learning the Koran? Wouldn't she have been utterly bewildered?

And wouldn't she have been horrified to learn that the mansion and its grounds would become the focus of today's massive police investigation into a group of terrorists intent on destroying the British way of life?

One other aspect of modern life would surely have puzzled the Duchess.

How incredible that over the past year, the Sussex police have been sending officers and civilians to this bizarre school for 'diversity training' - in spite of the fact that the security services had been warned more than seven years ago that terrorists might be using the building or its grounds.

Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know about security services so obsessed by 'multiculturalism' that they don't dare investigate what goes on under their very noses?

What a great deal the history of one building has to tell us about developments in Britain since the Duchess built her orphanage.

Is this what is known as progress?

Mission impossible in Afghanistan?

Daily Mail Comment
4th September 2006

Less than five months ago, John Reid suggested British troops could be withdrawn from Afghanistan in three years 'without firing a shot'.

Did he actually believe it - or was he just trying to pull the wool over the public's eyes?

Either way Mr Reid's remark, made when he was Defence Secretary, has proved tragically wide of the mark.

So far, 15 of our servicemen have been killed in action. And now Saturday's terrible plane crash has brought the total British death toll to 36.

The fate of that ageing Nimrod MR2 reopens vital questions about the adequacy of our troops' equipment in the toughest prolonged battle since Korea.

We know they have nothing like the manpower they need. Some exhausted units are having to fight continuously for up to 40 days in temperatures of 120F.

Even when the latest reinforcements arrive in Helmand, barely 4,500 troops will have to police an area four times the size of Wales. And their job becomes less clearly defined every day.

Not only are they being asked to fight the Taliban and other jihadis seeking to sabotage the Kabul regime. They are also expected to tackle opium production and the warlords who control it.

This weekend's UN figures, showing a record poppy harvest, prove how impossible that task is.

Meanwhile, the repercussions of the war on terror continue to be felt at home. Police warn that thousands of radicalised British Muslims are being monitored, while an alleged jihadi training camp is uncovered in the Sussex countryside and 14 more suspects are arrested in London.

How long will the fight go on in Afghanistan? The omens are not good.

Yesterday, it emerged that rules of engagement have quietly been changed. British servicemen are now effectively on a war footing, with all that this implies for an open-ended and increasingly bloody and expensive conflict.

Will Ministers now tell us exactly what our 'war aims' are, how they see the conflict developing, and how they propose to give our troops the reinforcements and equipment they need? And will they be honest this time?

Betraying our future

A year ago, the Government caved in to union pressure and ditched plans to raise the pension age for public sector workers from 60 to 65.

Already it is becoming clear what a massive price future generations will have to pay in tax for that act of cowardice.

Last year the total liabilities of six of the seven largest public-sector pension funds rose by a staggering £50billion. Accounts for the NHS Pension Scheme could bring the figure to £70billion.

How typical of Tony Blair that when he had the chance to put fairness and the national interest first, he flunked it.

Wiped off the map

On its website the EU has a list of more than 150 'Euromyths', from a Brussels ban on curved bananas to an edict that barmaids should cover their cleavage.

They're all nonsense, claim Eurocrats - just nationalistic scaremongering.

Now cartographers have redrawn the map of Europe, proposing new regions lumping Kent and Sussex with northern France, parts of Scotland and East Anglia with Scandinavia, and Wales and western England with Ireland.

Is this the work of Eurosceptics, trying to frighten us all? Far from it. The maps have been commissioned by the EU itself.

Funny, isn't it, that no matter how mad the scare-stories of the Eurosceptics, the EU always manages to come up with something far madder?

Casino saga that would shame a backstreet bookie

Daily Mail Comment
3rd September 2006


How hollow ring the words of the Prime Minister's chum Lord Falconer, who, back in 2002, promised that the sale of the Dome to corporate giant AEG, headed by American billionaire Philip Anschutz, would create 20,000 jobs.

How empty now sits the pledge from John Prescott that it would 'create a new identity for the Peninsula'.

Indeed, there are jobs to be had. But they are low-paid tasks filled not by a local workforce, but Eastern Europeans working illegally, using forged National Insurance numbers.

Certainly the area is getting a new identity - one dominated by the spectre of a Government in hock to Las Vegas gambling interests determined to secure the right to operate Britain's first super-casino inside the Millennium Dome.

Last week saw an inauspicious start to hearings by the Casino Advisory Panel, led by Professor Stephen Crow, to determine which of seven rival cities should host the giant casino.

************

Professor crow airily dismissed the fact that John Prescott was the beneficiary of hospitality and gifts of cowboy regalia from Philip Anschutz as a 'silly story', ignoring a blatant conflict of interest and the Parliamentary reprimand that it earned him.

And it was soon clear that the panel was not even-handed in its interrogations. Soft questions were directed at Greenwich Council, a supporter of AEG's scheme, while rivals such as Blackpool received a hostile grilling.

To further muddy the waters, an official from Greenwich Council is working part-time for AEG.

It would be nice to believe that this was part of the much-vaunted job-creation scheme, were this person's salary not already being met by local council taxpayers. His job is to help fill jobs at the supercasino, a task which seemingly entails providing work for the illegal immigrants that the Home Office has now caught during raids on the site.

The behaviour of AEG raises questions, too. A faked letter of support from religious leaders turns out to have been drafted by a woman previously employed as a tourism officer by Greenwich before being hired by the US firm.

Plans have been distributed of the 'casino roof', raising questions about why Mr Anschutz should already be so confident of receiving permission.

************

The government's obsession with supercasinos beggars belief. There has never been a public demand for them. The evidence is that they are a malign influence on those who can least afford to gamble.

For a Labour Government, whose roots lie in defending the most vulnerable, this obsession with foreign gaming entrepreneurs is distasteful.

To suggest that it is all in the interests of jobs and regeneration is disingenuous, while Professor Crow's defence of John Prescott's fraternising with Philip Anschutz and his panel's apparent bias towards Greenwich is unacceptable.

Plans for a supercasino should have been abandoned long ago.

If we are to be forced to have this gambling carbuncle, then at least make the process to determine who should provide it above reproach.

A mug that says it all

Daily Mail Comment
2nd September 2006

Anthony…your refined inner voice drives your thoughts and your deeds. You're a man who's in charge, others follow your lead. You possess great depth and have a passionate mind. Others think you're influential, ethical and kind.

Thus Mr Blair presents himself to what he presumably believes is an admiring world as he poses for a carefully managed photocall at Chequers, clutching the tea mug that bears this toe-curling message.

Was he perhaps engaging in a bit of self-mockery? Attempting a little joke, to cheer us all up? It would be charitable to think so. But it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this most vain and self-deluding of politicians means every word.

Even as that picture was being taken, Mr Blair made it clear that he regards himself as indispensable. Though much of his own party aches for him to go, he refuses point blank to name a date for his departure, insisting he has great reforming work still to do.

Not surprisingly, his declaration has provoked a furious reaction from those Labour MPs who can't wait to see the back of him. With no obvious mechanism to force him out - short of a Cabinet revolt - they are stuck with a leader in denial, who simply won't accept his time is up.

So now we are back in miserably familiar New Labour territory; Gordon Brown frustrated yet again; mutual loathing between No 10 and the Treasury; the Government all but paralysed by rivalry at the top; drift and indecision everywhere.

And for what? Is there the slightest advantage to Britain or anyone else (apart from his best buddy, George Bush) to have a lame duck leader clinging like a limpet to office?

At home, he presides over a shaming litany of sleaze. Investigations continue into the cash for peerages affair and Mr Blair may yet suffer the indignity of becoming the first Prime Minister to have his collar felt by the police.

Meanwhile, despite all those wasted billions, his administration has become a byword for incompetence on everything from immigration to the NHS and the criminal justice system.

Reform? The bitter Labour feuding over Mr Blair's education plans - which had to be watered down to such an extent that they became virtually meaningless - exposes the emptiness of his ambitions. This Prime Minister is incapable of imposing real change, when his own party no longer respects or trusts him.

And now it seems the public feels the same way. The latest polls reveal that Labour support has slumped to just 31 per cent - its lowest rating in 19 years. Support for the Tories is at 40 per cent.

It gets worse. Labour MPs are bracing themselves for shattering reverses in Scotland and Wales next May. Many fear for their seats at the next election, unless the leadership issue is resolved soon.

But if Mr Blair is a sadly diminished figure at home, could he yet make a significant contribution on the world stage? He certainly dreams of it, talking grandly of embarking on a new search for peace in the Middle East.

Sometimes you just have to wonder what planet he inhabits. So damaged is his reputation over Iraq, Lebanon and his 'Yo, Blair' subservience to President Bush that the UN had to tell him to keep his nose out of negotiations for a Middle East ceasefire, fearing that he would make matters worse.

No, if any progress is to be made in that unhappy region of the world, it won't come from the discredited, distrusted and embarrassingly vainglorious Tony Blair. He is as much a busted flush abroad as he is at home.

And the longer he hangs pointlessly on, the more Britain will pay the price.

Another empty stunt

Daily Mail Comment
1st September 2006


Back from Barbados to find his troops downhearted, demoralised and just aching for him to go, President Tony tries to change the subject by producing yet another eye-catching initiative.

Yes, in the latest in a long line of Blairite wheezes - none of which has worked - he wants to take charge of babies even before they are born, by forcing pregnant teenagers to accept state help.

Of course it is true we have a major problem, as this paper has so frequently pointed out. Britain is the European capital of teenage pregnancies, family breakdown, fatherless children and the miserable social consequences that follow.

But hasn't New Labour made matters much worse by skewing our tax and benefits system in favour of single parents? By showing hostility to marriage and the family? And by scorning the teaching of traditional moral standards?

Mr Blair doesn't begin to address the real issues. This is self-serving stunt from a politician who won't accept his time is up.

Silly' stories and the smell of sleaze

Daily Mail Comment
31st August 2006

So that's all right then. It seems we're just imagining the stench of sleaze surrounding plans for Britain's first 'super casino' at the Millennium Dome.

Yes, according to Professor Stephen Crow, head of the casino advisory panel, the public can be reassured.

He insists he is independent. He says he hasn't decided whether this gambling monolith should go to Greenwich or one of its rivals. And he is scathing about the 'silly stories' over the Dome bid.

But the smell won't go away, even if we set aside the reckless way this Government - a Labour Government, of all things - is encouraging gambling.

Yesterday, for example, the inquiry into the bid was condemned as a 'farce' when so few opponents spoke out, because they believe Professor Crow's panel isn't interested in principled objections. But then, many people - like this paper - suspect this casino is already a done deal.

Just consider some of the issues. Why did the American billionaire pushing for the the casino, Philip Anschutz, offer hospitality at his ranch to John Prescott, give him presents and entertain him seven times in the last five years? For the pleasure of his scintillating conversation?

It doesn't stop there. Astonishingly, all five members of the casino advisory panel have so many vested interests that at one time or another they have each had to withdraw from discussions.

Who decided they were the right team to oversee a gambling explosion? Yes you've guessed it. . . Mr Prescott.

The story grows murkier. Mr Anschutz's company AEG produced a document purporting to show that local religious leaders favoured a casino at the Dome. To put it bluntly, that was a lie, for which the firm (now it has been caught out) has been forced to apologise.

More pertinently, AEG has already started building its casino, even though a gambling licence hasn't been granted. When he heard the news, Professor Crow said 'it's something we have to take into account', which many took as a nod and a wink to the Americans.

Though the professor now insists this isn't the right conclusion to draw, there is an obvious problem.

Mr Anschutz is described by Fortune magazine as America's greediest executive. So why on earth would he go to the huge expense of starting to build his casino if he hadn't already been tipped the wink that his bid would succeed?

Sadly, there is nothing remotely silly in such questions. Aren't they the inevitable response to a Government that has always been up to its neck in sleaze?

Clear this hornets' nest of extremists

Daily Mail Commentt
30th August 2006


Which country poses the greatest threat to America's homeland security: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea?

None of the above, according to a growing body of opinion across the Atlantic. The answer, say many American pundits, is the United Kingdom.

At first sight, this looks outrageously ungrateful. After all, aren't British troops dying every week, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, for an American foreign policy slavishly followed by Tony Blair?

Yet the more you think about the charge - spelt out in the current New Republic magazine and echoed by American think-tanks of every political persuasion - the more truth you can see in it.

Hasn't Britain indeed become, in the words of Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation, 'a hornets' nest of Islamic extremists'?

How have we let this come about?

Much of the answer lies in our authorities' spineless refusal to confront Islamic extremism for fear of being thought anti-Muslim.

Americans gape in disbelief when our senior policemen's first reaction to every terrorist atrocity is to try to appease religious extremists. Or when Ministers employ apologists for terrorism as special advisers at the Foreign Office.

Tony Blair is forever promising crackdowns on preachers of hatred. Yet what actually happens, after he has got the headlines he wants?

Not a single person has been charged under his new law against glorifying terrorism since it came into force in March. Not one.

Yet here is Abu Hamza's sidekick Abu Abdullah, free as a bird, announcing he would 'love' to kill British soldiers and making excuses for suicide bombings.

Certainly, you can expect trouble from the police if you are an 82-year-old heckler at a Labour conference or a woman who stands by the Cenotaph, daring to read out the names of soldiers killed in Iraq.

But the real warmongers face nothing harsher than a grilling from Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman and get the chance to broadcast their views.

No wonder the Americans are nervous, with more than four million Britons flying to the U.S. each year under the privileged visa waiver programme.

Until we clear these hornets from our nest, they will remain a deadly threat to the entire free world.

Dirty politics

Revelations about Charles Kennedy's drink problem cast the LibDems and their new leader in an ugly light.

When it suited their purposes, Ming & Co campaigned to put into Number 10 a man they knew to be an often-incapable drunk. So much for their sense of responsibility to the nation.

Now it suits senior LibDems to blacken Mr Kennedy's name, at the very moment when he is planning a comeback, by reviving memories of his past troubles.

We have long known that many LibDems like to play dirty - as much in politics as in their private lives.

That didn't matter so much while they were stuck in the political wilderness. But the way the polls are going, they may well hold the balance of power next time.

Isn't that a terrifying thought?

Give us a break

Prezza gagged. John Reid back in his box. Blair in Barbados and Brown on extended paternity leave. How peaceful the political world has been with the big guns out of action. And how serenely the ship of state has sailed on without them.

But now they're getting back into the fray, itching to bore us with their speeches and bombard us with fatuous laws.

Roll on next summer, when they clear off again.

Centre Stage Productions

Centre Stage Productions

The Final What's On 2006
Centre Stage Productions - Palma de Mallorca
**********************

3rd & 4th November At 9pm (21.00)
5th November At 8pm (20.00)

The Full Centre Stage Chorus And Dancers

La Magia Del Musical
(The Magic Of The Musical)

The Song - The Dance - The Spectacle

Sala Mozart - Auditorium - Palma
Tickets From The Box Office

This show was a total sell out last year... BEFORE the show even opened.
If you want seats - Be Safe - Be Sure - BOOK NOW!

**********************

17th & 18th November At 8pm (20.00)

Centre Stage Junior Company Presents
A Christmas Concert

At the Coleman Hall - Anglican Church - Palma
Tickets From The Centre Stage Office: 971 22 15 30

**********************

10th December At 5pm
For The 8th Year Running:

A Celebration Of Christmas

A Choir of Young People
From the International Schools of Mallorca

Under the direction of Conway Jones

Held in the awe inspiring:

Palma Cathedral

Free Admission
A Collection Will Be Taken In Aid Of The Ecumenical Movement

Centre Stage Productions

Centre Stage Productions

The Final What's On 2006
Centre Stage Productions - Palma de Mallorca
**********************

3rd & 4th November At 9pm (21.00)
5th November At 8pm (20.00)

The Full Centre Stage Chorus And Dancers

La Magia Del Musical
(The Magic Of The Musical)

The Song - The Dance - The Spectacle

Sala Mozart - Auditorium - Palma
Tickets From The Box Office

This show was a total sell out last year... BEFORE the show even opened.
If you want seats - Be Safe - Be Sure - BOOK NOW!

**********************

17th & 18th November At 8pm (20.00)

Centre Stage Junior Company Presents
A Christmas Concert

At the Coleman Hall - Anglican Church - Palma
Tickets From The Centre Stage Office: 971 22 15 30

**********************

10th December At 5pm
For The 8th Year Running:

A Celebration Of Christmas

A Choir of Young People
From the International Schools of Mallorca

Under the direction of Conway Jones

Held in the awe inspiring:

Palma Cathedral

Free Admission
A Collection Will Be Taken In Aid Of The Ecumenical Movement

The Final What's On 2006
Centre Stage Productions
**********************

3rd & 4th November At 9pm (21.00)
5th November At 8pm (20.00)

The Full Centre Stage Chorus And Dancers

La Magia Del Musical
(The Magic Of The Musical)

The Song - The Dance - The Spectacle

Sala Mozart - Auditorium - Palma
Tickets From The Box Office

This show was a total sell out last year... BEFORE the show even opened.
If you want seats - Be Safe - Be Sure - BOOK NOW!

**********************

17th & 18th November At 8pm (20.00)

Centre Stage Junior Company Presents
A Christmas Concert

At the Coleman Hall - Anglican Church - Palma
Tickets From The Centre Stage Office: 971 22 15 30

**********************

10th December At 5pm
For The 8th Year Running:

A Celebration Of Christmas

A Choir of Young People
From the International Schools of Mallorca

Under the direction of Conway Jones

Held in the awe inspiring:

Palma Cathedral

Free Admission
A Collection Will Be Taken In Aid Of The Ecumenical Movement