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By popular tradition in the USA, the groundhog comes out of his winter burrow on February 2nd for a look at the weather. If he can see his shadow, he disappears back into his hole, expecting a further 6 weeks of bad weather. If it's cloudy and he casts no shadow (as on Feb. 2nd in Romiley), he comes out of his burrow, expecting spring to arrive at any moment. Naturalists are confident that there are no longer any groundhogs resident in Romiley the ones which weren't drowned in their burrows by floods will have been blown into the next county by gales. Scumbag thieves sabotage Romiley's health care The Health Centre was in chaos after thieves broke in and stole the computers. [Update: it was the monitors which were stolen, not the PCs, but the denial of service effect was the same. Ed.] Unable to access appointments made and medical records, the service was reduced to emergency appointments only. Anyone with info on the scumbags is invited to pass it on to BlackFlag News so that we can give them some exposure. Romiley's Committee of Vigilance to retake the streets Following criminal assaults on the Health Centre and the Gateway supermarket this month, the RCoV has decided to set up Vigilance Patrols. The teams will be armed with tasers, which are guaranteed to subdue the most violent of criminals until electrified restraints can be applied. Minor offenders will be chained to something solid and left to experience public humiliation. More serious offenders will be removed to a People's Prison 'somewhere in the neighbourhood'. There, they will enjoy starvation rations and grim conditions until they repent. |
The New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers clashed in Texas to settle Super Bowl 38. The match started as a defensive battle but it featured a 3-minute shoot-out at the end of the first half to leave the Patriots ahead 10-14. The American Crunch Pro Bowl involves the best NFL players of the year as chosen by the players themselves. They meet in Hawaii for what is usually a by-invitation, end-of-term exhibition match. Not this year, though. Recently, the American Football Conference has been beating the National Football Conference and nobody has cared too much. But finding themselves 25 points down at 38-13 early in the second half, the NFC team woke up.
While the nation was questioning Lord Hutton's judgement, and his contact with reality, bits of the truth were crawling into the light of day. If Vice-Prez Bliar and his cohorts were blameless, then fingers had to be pointed elsewhere, e.g. at the 'Intelligence community'. And when the scapegoats started defending themselves, e.g. by accusing the Bliar regime of using the Intelligence services for PR purposes and virtually sweeping the floors of Spy HQ in search of useful scraps, some of the fog began to disperse. A message from the Downing Street Communications Unit The Blessed Leader has said all that he wishes to say about Iraq's multiple and well-documented Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Hutton Report is having the desired effect on the BBC, where leadership of the chicken-hearted is now the order of the day. As well as editing everything uncomplimentary to the government out of news and current affairs programmes, comedy shows like Radio 4's Absolute Power (which features a couple of spin-doctors) are also being snipped as the panic spreads. And the snipping exercise was a second-best choice after the outright surrender of cancelling the programme proved too much for the chicken-hearted ones to get away with. |
The cancellation of flights from the UK and France to the United States at the Super Bowl weekend is generating a high degree of scepticism in the UK. There is a suspicion that the US security services are engaged in an exercise in self-justification if they're in charge of homeland security, then they have to dig up threats to their homeland to justify their existence. Prez Bush and Vice-Prez Bliar have been nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize by a Norwegian MP. BlackFlag News has no information on whether he is a notorious hoaxer or just trying to get himself noticed. Lord Butler Who He? A bloke who thinks it's okay for government ministers to deceive by telling selected parts of the truth. Also the guy who paved the way for Alastair Campbell to turn the civil service into a Labour Party propaganda unit. And someone who won't even be told that Vice-Prez Bliar and his chums snipped off warnings about the reliability of intelligence reports and used the raw data as a basis for sexing things up, amplifying the apparent danger and setting the nation on a path to war in accordance with Prez Bush's wishes. Lords cheer up the lawyers The House of Lords has ruled on the practice of clearing snow from the pavement in front of one's house. If anyone slips on the cleared surface, they can sue the housholder for creating a hazard. But if the passer-by slips on a snow- or ice-covered pavement, they can sue the local authority for not making the pavement safe. The Butler Inquiry The Results : None of the testimony and documentation fell within the exceedingly narrow remit of the inquiry and so no evidence of incompetence or wrongdoing was detected. Single Choice Issue Buff Hoon, minister for lying about, and to, the armed forces, reckons that the 4-5 minute claim in Vice-Prez Bliar's dodgy dossier is insignificant. The Vice-Prez himself pleads ignorance of the whole matter. Both have attracted the headline: Liar or Fool? Which begs the question, "What do they mean, or?" We know both of them are liars and if they expect anyone to believe their ever-changing stories, that makes them idiots as well. BBC Goes Totally Chicken The craven acting director-general has decided that the BBC can no longer pursue breaking news in case it is seen to be in competition with newspapers and in case it embarrasses the government. (Oh, what a giveaway!) In future, the BBC will report only well-established fact, which will require corroboration in the form of signed statements endorsing the accuracy of the report from 2 participants in the news event. The Church of England has decided that the Three Wise Men story is inaccurate. There is no evidence that they weren't as thick as 3 short planks or that they were men. In short, the truth lies somewhere between 3 wise men and 3 clottish women. Where we go from there has not yet been disclosed. Fingebant atque credebant : The Roman historian Tacitus knew all about spin-doctory and he devised a suitable epitaph for Vice-Prez Bliar's minions and hangers-on. The usual translation is 'they both pretended and believed in the pretence'. "Please try to sneak into and out of the country!" The British government has given an Israeli minister an immunity from arrest in this country. Shaul Mofaz is wanted for crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli army in occupied Jordan during 2002 but the Bliar regime is pretending that he has diplomatic immunity. Those eager to have Mr. Mofaz arrested are planning a legal challenge the moment he sets foot on British soil. Trade Unions get 67% Return On Investment. The trade unions handed £6million to New Labour last year. In return, Vice-Prez Bliar intends to hand them £10million of taxpayers' money if the current Employment Relations Bill slides through Parliament. Sounds like a sweet deal! Lord Chief Justice Woolf reckons that a building to house the government's planned Supreme Court will cost the taxpayer £50million. But given the experience of the Scottish Parliament building, which was supposed to cost £40million but which will now cost in excess of £500million, and the 'Bloody Sunday' inquiry, the cost of which has blown up from £10million to more than £155million, the Supreme Court sounds like it's going to be another Millennium Dome. [And given the track record of the usual suspects in getting things like this built, it probably won't come 'on-line' until the turn of the next millennium. Ed.] Public protection scheme The public gallery of the House of Commons is to get a bullet-resistant screen in case an outraged customer decides to take a pot-shot at Vice-Prez Bliar. Which seems to be another waste of public money as we're enjoying the sight of the bugger wriggling too much to put him out of his misery. Vice-Prez Bliar is to allow Genetically Monstered crops to be grown in the UK. Why? Because the US government wants GM to be legitimized world-wide and when Prez Bush yells 'Jump!', the Vice-Prez gets on with it. Labour bunger and V-P's crony Lord Sainsbury is expected to do 'very nicely' out of the deal. Immigrant cab drivers who can't speak the language and don't know their way around are standard in American films. But it would appear that the situation is no better in the UK. Auto Express magazine put researchers accompanied by a driving examiner in black cabs and minicabs in London, Birmingham and Manchester. The conclusion of the skills survey was that 90% of the drivers would fail a standard driving test. Their offences included yakking into mobile phones, driving the wrong way down one-ways streets, snacking while driving and not keeping both hands on the steering wheel for other reasons, and not using mirrors. Doctors at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, have found that coughing as the needle goes in provides a distraction and makes an injection as pain-free as possible. One cough per jab is required for multiple injections. "Vice-Prez Bliar is liable to croak at any second from a heart attack!" Although the Vice-Prez is making light of his unfitness to rule, from the medical standpoint, Labour MP Dr. Lewis Moonie begs to disagree. He has the same irregular heartbeat problem but he insists that the Bliar version is much more serious, implying that the Vice-Prez should quit on the spot and hand over his job to the next in line. Given Downing Street's tendency to lie and lie again about the health of the incumbent, his customers can expect more of the same over Vice-Prez Bliar's heart condition. Civil servants are requested not to leak anything about the latest Iraq war and breach the Official Secrets Act, even if the government cannot prosecute them for fear of having the war declared illegal in the courts. Thank you. |
The government intends to ban 'Happy Hour' in pubs. Vice-Prez Bliar's new direction, post-Hutton, is towards trivial, achieveable targets rather than ones which will give him any trouble. Useful legislation is now a no-hoper; which is good news for all those who believe that when a government tries to do something, it only makes a bad situation worse. Bush & Bliar to be impeached after misselling scandal? The Prez and his side-kick sold the Iraq war with all the enthusiasm and dodginess of purveyors of used cars or endowment mortgages. That's the gist of what retired UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is now saying. Mr. Blix seems surprised to find that B&B sexed up their 'evidence' for going to war and he rather naively expected sincerity from them! Tony Bliar probably doesn't know this, but he also faces impeachement for negligence. It has been ruled that if he didn't know the 4-5 minutes readiness claim applied only to Iraq's battlefield weapons, then he was failing to do his job properly. The soon to be established Fadocrag website will offer payments to registered 'snouts'. Informers will be able to sign up at the webside, provide their credit card details and become eligible for payments. If the Fradocrag assessors judge that the information is useful, a payment will be made to the credit card from an untraceable source. If the scheme proves to be a success, the Home Office will consider expanding the system of indirect payments to include top-ups for household utilities (electricity, gas, water, etc.) and mobile phones. Octogenarian tells town hall bandits where to get off Miss Elizabeth Winkfield was hauled before Devon magistrates when she told Torridge District Council that she wouldn't pay their demand for an extra £114 in Council Tax. She offered to add the rate of inflation to the previous year's bill but the council insisted on their 18%. Miss Winkfield's options now are to let bailiffs seize her property and sell it off for ridiculously low amounts or go to gaol. And she is quite prepared to do the latter. |
Burying people in densely populated Taiwan is now a severe problem, which is why Houston-based Celestis Inc. is extending its 'space burial' service, which has been available in Japan for the last couple of years. |
Prez Bush, hard-core boozer turned abstainer and God-botherer, isn't happy about being exposed as a draft-dodger. Especially when John Kerry, his likely Democratic opponent in the coming election for Mr. Prez 2005, is a decorated Vietnam war veteran. But George Dubya can take comfort from one fact: he didn't zap off to Canada to avoid military service. Does that matter? Well, not really, because both hopefuls for the Mr. Prez job seem to have the same qualifications as the captain of the Good Ship Venus. While Prez Bush was a non-participating member of the US National Guard, John Kerry (now a Vietnam veteran) was protesting against the war with 'Hanoi Jane' Fonda (as proved by a photograph of them sharing the platform at an anti-war rally). According to Prez Bush's supporters, this makes George Dubya more patriotic than Mr. Kerry. [Do I detect the sound of bottoms of barrels being scraped? Ed.] The 'Hanoi Jane'/Kerry picture has been shown to be a composite created from 2 pictures taken 13 months apart in Miami Beach (Fonda) and New York (Kerry). The prime suspect for creating the bogus picture is the Republican party's Dirty Tricks Department because nobody else would do something as dodgy as that! Demonize, Demonize, Demonize! Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who first suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism and bowel problems, is now top of the government's hit list for boat rockers. Mainly because Vice-Prez Bliar is being held, wriggling, in the spotlight for refusing to say if his kid Leo had the triple jab. Which leaves his customers coming up with conclusions like:
Notes : Those wishing to reach an informed conclusion are invited to consider the following:- Another grumble. Clare Short is 'totally irresponsible and entirely consistent'. Which has what to do with the accuracy of her revelations about Vice-Prez Bliar bugging the UN Secretary General and a whole bunch of others? If his counterblast is 'totally tangential and entirely evasive', it must mean that she's telling the truth and he's not happy about it. Unwhipped Tory MP Ann Winterton told a joke about a shark going for a Chinese in Morcambe Bay in an after-dinner speech, Labour MP Nick Palmer told the papers. |
The MyDoom virus is sending the people who guestimate how much these things cost into a feeding frenzy. One of its objects seems to be to swamp the website of the SCO Group, which is claiming intellectual property rights to elements of the allegedly open-source Linux operating system for PCs. Upgrade and perish? Those lucky people who are still struggling with Windows 98 were cheered to learn that the latest security panic at Microsoft doesn't affect them. Only versions of the operating system from Windows 2000 onward are affected by a huge hole, through which any competent hacker can stroll to take over an individual PC or a company network. Apparently, Microsoft was warned of the serious flaw in July 2003, but they've only just got round to releasing a patch for the hole. Microsoft adopts new New Labour policy The Gates Empire has decided to follow Vice-Prez Bliar's new direction. Instead of concentrating on fixing major bugs in its software, Microsoft will now focus on tiny, easily fixed details. Accordingly, Microsoft has turned its big guns onto the font Bookshelf Symbol 7 [bssym7.ttf]., which is included in Microsoft Office 2003.
The great thing about space travel is that you don't have to be stuck on the same planet with Peter Mandelson. Understanding Hutton : Judges tend to be notoriously soft on serial offenders. This is evident from the number of 'last chances' offered to criminals who leave the court one day and return the next with a new charge sheet. And judges sometimes try a short, sharp shock. So what has happened now becomes clear. Hutton gave another 'last chance' to Bliar, Campbell and all the other dodgy-dossierites and he came down good and hard on first-offender Andrew Gilligan to frighten him into staying on the straight and narrow in future. Hutton , what next? We could always follow the EU's standard practice for a referendum: if the stupid public votes for the wrong option, the EU insists that they keep voting again and again until they get it right. So if one stupid judge gives the wrong verdict ... Is £5,200 one-way a reasonable price to pay for a 47-hour, 1,861-mile train ride from Adelaide on Australia's south coast to Darwin on the north coast? 250 mugs actually paid that much for the new trans-continental train service's inaugural journey. Which is worse: the retentive knowledge of Buff Hoon (he knows everything but doesn't pass it on) or the wilful ignorance of Vice-Prez Bliar (he should know things but can't be bothered asking questions)? It seems inescapable that politicians in government get so used to covering their asses that they end up incapable of telling the truth. Experience shows that they will tell any lie to maintain an illusion of personal infallibility; and modify the lie until it reaches a form which the public will accept or until they are overtaken by another crisis. Anyone seen A Poka A' Chips, Now!, the new Vietnam war classic from the Scottish film industry?
On Monday February 16th, TheGuardian copied the Daily Mail by putting a big picture of a 19-year-old, blonde, female American actor person on its front page. This is okay for a mere tabloid but is it what one expects of an allegedly serious broadsheet? And on Wednesday 18th, TheGuardian put the story about the faked John Kerry photograph on its front page one day after the Daily Mail had given us all the gen on the source of the photos used to make the composite. Which mean that by the time TheGuardian got round to delivering the story, it was olds rather than news.
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Created for Romiley Anarchists' League by workers in revolt against oppression. Sole © RAL, February 2004. |