2004/July    FINAL

ROMILEY NEWS Romiley man wins $5,750,000 in 2 days! July got off to a good start for an anonymous resident of the village when, on the 3rd, he received an email from Gateway Lotto International of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to tell him that he had won $4,000,000! And later that same day, he had another email from another Dutch firm called De Lotto. This time, he had won $1,500,000 in their email lottery.    His cup began to run over the next day, Sunday, when Techie Lottery International, also of the Netherlands, sent him an email telling him that he had won another $250,000; although he was starting to see a disappointing, downward trend in the prize money.    The recipient of all this good fortune is reported to be in hiding from the relatives and friends who besieged his home, offering to help him to celebrate his windfalls and wanting to know what he was planning to buy them.

Summer Bonus   Summer Bonus   Summer Bonus BlackFlag News would like to offer its readers a chance to read this work by one of Romiley's premiere authors.    Read the Book on the Romiley Literary Circle website    Read about the Book on the RLC website    Download a zipped HTML version of the Book at the        Romiley Literary Circle website Category : Crime & Commerce, mid-1990s

CONSUMER NEWS Ntl phone rates rocket through the roof After a 25% increase in the 'unlimited' dial-up internet charge this month, ntl will boost the cost of an 0845 local-rate call from 1st September by 14% for daytime calls and 52% for evening calls during the week, and by 45% at weekends. And pay-as-you go dial-up internet access will be the same price at weekends but the cost will be doubled on weekday evenings and tripled during the day on weekdays. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT POLITICAL CRIMINALITY Members of the UK parliament, and politicians of other nations, fall foul of the rules from time to time. BlackFlag News has come across the case of a local government councillor who seems to have suffered particularly disproportionate treatment in a New Labour inspired kangaroo court. CLICK HERE to find out (a) what sort of punishments politicians receive for their crimes (and what they can get away with) and (b) how their punishment compares with what happened to Councillor M. WHITEWASH NEWS The Butler Report – The Predictions: The Butler Report on the intelligence information gathered before the Iraq war will be published soon. Here is the verdict: THE SYSTEMS AND PROCEDURES in place at the time were defective, and no individuals can be blamed for the false information on WoMD, saying that they were ready for use against the UK in 4-5 minutes, and sexing up dodgy dossiers.    Among those totally without blame are: Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, who let his arm be twisted and who declared the Iraq war legal; Richard Dearlove, head of the SIS, and John Scarlett, his successor designate, who let Downing Street edit the 'intelligence' information and fabricate new stuff to paper over cracks and who failed to order rigorous checking of 'intelligence' information from blatantly dodgy sources; Vice-Prez Bliar, who decided that there would be Weapons of Mass Deception no matter what and who didn't give the SIS enough money to fund agents in Iraq; and Alastair Campbell, who sexed up the originally dull, dodgy dossier. The Butler Report – The Outcome: Butler has concluded that if the government believes its own lies, then everything is okay. There was no need to go to war with Iraq. The only driving force was Vice-Prez Bliar's need to suck up to Prez Bush, who had to have Saddam Hussein's head as part of his misdirected "War Against T'rr" because he thought Saddam was supporting Al Qaida.    Andrew Gilligan was right. Dr. David Kelly was right. Vice-Prez Bliar's henchmen sexed up the dodgy dossiers on Iraq with the willing connivance of the spy chiefs. Bliar fobbed off the Attorney General with a spurious assurance that Iraq had breached UNSCR 1441. He then sold a pack of lies to the Commons. And the UK went to war on the basis of a non-existent threat, which persisted only in Vice-Prez Blair's fevered imagination.    Vice-Prez Bliar takes 'responsibility' for the whole mess but he still thinks he's done nothing wrong. Vice-Prez Bliar and his henchmen 'sexed down' the Butler Report. Having received a draft copy, the Downing Street Mafia recycled all of the uncertainties which they had cropped out of the Iraq dodgy dossiers. Direct criticism of the Vice-Prez vanished and Lord Butler just let it happen.    But if Vice-Prez Bliar lied to the country to get his war going and lied to the Hutton Inquiry, it can hardly come as a surprise to learn that he supplied extra whitewash to the Butler Inquiry. For a more complete report on Butler, see the item on the Garbagegate website. Note: if you look for this item a long time after July 2004, it will be found in one of the Garbagegate archives. Smug bugger Bliar pleads ignorance MI6 binned as 'fundamentally unreliable' the 'evidence' that Iraq had WoMD, was producing WoMD or even planned to produce WoMD one month before the August 2003 Hutton Inquiry. John Scarlett, head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, and Richard Dearlove, then head of SIS, neglected to mention the binning to Lord Hutton.    Security & Intelligence co-ordinator David Ormand, MPs on the Intelligence & Security Committee (which reports to V-P Bliar) and Foreign Sec. Jack Straw all knew about the binning. And Jonathan Powell, V-P Bliar's terminally nosy chief of staff, had to know about it. But Vice-Prez Bliar is hoping his customers will believe that no one told him about the bad spy-stuff until 7 months after Hutton – i.e. not until February 2004. Looks like he's gone from False Memory Syndrome to Amputated Inconvenient Memory Syndrome. Or maybe he's just trying to find out how big a lie he can get away with. Tony Bliar Instant Poll Agree / Disagree Tony Bliar is innocent Tony Bliar eats babies Tony Bliar killed Princess Diana                                        What's the smug bugger hoping to get away with now? He got away with telling deliberate lies about Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass deception' (Vice-Prez Bliar's own words). Will he get away with making Mandy-poos the UK's EU commish?    Watch this space!    It is rumoured that V-P Bliar's next Big Idea is to shuffle David Blunk out of the Home Sec.'s job and shuffle in hook-handed terrorist suspect Abu Hamza. If he gets away with that, future cabinet appointments include: Osama bin Laden – Foreign Sec.; Asil Nadir – Chancellor; Saddam Hussein – Minister of Defence; Arthur Scargill – Trade & Industry Minister; Michael Meacher – Environment Minister; Dr. Harold Shipman – Health Minister; Benito Mussolini – Transport Minister; John Prescott – Minister of Education, Science & Technology; Alf Garnett – Culture Minister and Margaret Hodge – Minister for Children. John Morrison, sometime deputy chief of intelligence at the MoD, has been chucked off the government's Intelligence & Security Committee for speaking out of turn. He dared to say on Panorama that the spy agencies didn't agree that Iraq was 'a current and serious threat to the UK national interest' when Vice-Prez Bliar issued his sexed-up dodgy dossier in September 2002. So out he went.    But being sacked by someone as dodgy as Vice-Prez Bliar for telling the truth is not expected to do any harm to Mr. Morrison's future employment prospects. In fact, he can come and work with us, if he wants!

DITCH REPORTS Is Diana's Ditch the new Millennium Bridge? After its grand royal opening, Diana's Ditch overflowed on Day 2. There is a section which resembles a storm drain, where the water is pumped out and returned to the highest point. Leaves blasted off the trees by the storm at the end of the first week of this month blocked it and the result was a serious flood. So goodness knows what's going to happen come autumn, when the trees get into serious leaf-shedding. Lifeboats in Kensington Gardens? On Day 7, there was no water in the ditch due to a pump failure. According to a spokesman for the Ditch, the pumps are quite sensitive. [So why didn't they buy some rugged ones? Ed.] As a further consequence of the non-rugged structure, the ditch will be closed for 3-4 hours on at least once a week.    On Day 17, 2 adults and a child fell while paddling in the ditch and needed hospital treatment. So it looks like the whole thing will have to be fenced off to keep clumsy people out of it. The Ditch is currently surrounded by a seven-foot fence, it will be closed for the rest of the summer and 'experts' are now looking at it to determine whether it can be made safe. The problem is that slippery algae collect on the floor of the ditch and they can't be killed off by putting chemicals in the water as the run-off would pollute the Serpentine.    After all the problems with leaves, flooding and internal skiddiness, people are thinking back to the Millennium Bridge, which swayed like a novelty ride when first opened, and asking 'Why didn't they think of these things earlier?' And not getting any answers.

HOME NEWS Letters of Exemption After lying about it initially, the Ministry of War has admitted that some specialist personnel, e.g. communications and engineering types, were sent to Iraq incompletely trained. But they were issued with a letter excusing them from being properly trained. Which leaves us wondering how widespread this practice is in Vice-Prez Bliar's regime.    Could it be that the Vice-Prez himself is the bearer of a note from his mum telling 'whom it may concern' that 'Anthony is not trained in running a country and any disasters he makes are not his fault'? If so, it's likely that Saddam Hussein has a similar 'get out of gaol free' note stashed away. So don't be too surprised if he tells his judge that he can't be held responsible for killing thousands of his customers because he wasn't properly trained in the art of being a despot.    The prospect certainly makes the mind boggle. Vice-Prez Bliar has issued an official admission that Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of WoMD will never be found because they existed only in his (the V-P's) imagination. Sir Peter Davis plunged the Sainsbury supermarket chain into a period of shrinking market share and tumbling share prices. Angry shareholders gave him the bum's rush despite the board's best efforts to keep him in place. But he can stroll off into the sunset with a couple of million quid as a reward for his failure. Nice work, if you can get it. The board of J. Sainsbury has cancelled his free shares, which were worth £2.3million, and it wants to reduce his 'golden get-lost' of £1.5million. Sounds like more Rollers for the lawyers on the way. Inspired by their success in the European and local council elections, gerrymanderers in Birmingham are known to be busy collecting postal votes for the Hodge Hill by-election on the 15th. The same is probably true in Leicester South, but the spivs aren't being as blatant there. Labour just held on to Hodge Hill with their majority cut from 11,618 to 460. They failed to collect enough postal votes in Leicester South, which they lost to the Triv-Dems. Beautiful Basra or 'Join the army and clean the world' The British army of occupation is having to spend much of its free time picking up litter and sweeping streets to make their areas of Iraq look half-way respectable for visiting politicians. Thousands of off-duty troops were hauled out of their rest areas to clean up Basra for War Minister 'Buff' Hoon's state visit in June. The troops are not happy about it but Vice-Prez Bliar is quite ruthless about enforcing his policy of keeping his ministers out of contact with the real world. Gordy "No Balls" Broon Now that his head speech writer, Ed Balls, has quit to become an MP, who's going to supply the Mugger with Balls-esque catch phrases like 'neo-classical endogenous growth theory'?    Anyone wishing to apply for the post of purveyor of impenetrable tosh to the Chancellor should apply in writing to No. 11 Downing Street, London SW1 and mark the envelope New Balls. Irony or Hubris? Home Sec. Blunk exposed to the nation his plans to make incitement of religious hatred illegal. This is another of New Labour's distractions from doing anything useful for the customers (like banning fox hunting and trying to define how hard people can smack their kids).    As he was busy telling us how much better he's going to make things, into the country strolled an arch inciter of religious hatred! And as the guy is a Moslem and here at the invitation of Labour Party grand old man Ken Livingstone, Blunk can't do a damn thing about it. Even if the guy has been banned from entering the USA for having links with terrorists, and he supports execution of sexual deviants, wife-beating and using children as suicide bombers.    Note: Yusuf Qaradawi's visit is sponsored by Scotland Yard and the Department of Work & Pensions, and supported by what V.I. Lenin would call 'useful idiots', e.g. the Mayor of London and Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart. [Is this a real person or a name inspired by the Scottish TV detective and used to fool the Inland Revenue? Please check and remove this comment. Ed.] "Any more ideas we can nick?" New Labour bust a gut to abolish grant-maintained schools when they came to power because they were a Tory idea. But guess what? Vice-Prez Bliar is bringing them back as his big new idea in education. Only he's calling them foundation schools because he wants people to think they're something different. [And also because he's a fundamentally dishonest oik, we're almost too polite to point out. Ed.] Talk about 'beat yourself up' The Commission for Racial Equality is in trouble with itself for not employing and promoting enough black people. Evil, racialist whites and Asians are hogging all the jobs and managerial posts. This is a fine example of the government's doctrine of circular employment – the race police pretending they have useful jobs by investigating themselves.    [Is this what New Labour means by joined-up government? Ed.] Diana's Ditch is to get a Cool Britannia award. A spokesman for the Institute of Contemporary Engineers said, "The structure fits all of the New Labour criteria for coolness in terms of having style without substance, looking good at the planning stage, excessive cost, excessive time of construction and not working when built." Safe in their hands? Nice to know for sure what would happen if Islamic tourists visited the UK with their chemical and biological weapons. The police would set up an exclusion zone and hand out aluminized plastic wrappers to the customers inside it. The police would exclude the fire brigade and their decontamination gear from the exclusion zone for a couple of hours. It would take 4½ hours to decontaminate 400 people, including an initial delay of 3 hours when nothing happened. The refreshments of coffee and cream cakes would arrive before the police and the other emergency services. The contaminated victims would get bored and sneak off for coffee while waiting to be treated. This is what happened at this month's drill at Birmingham's NEC. Did Mandelson blackmail his way to another top job? It's clear that no one in his right mind would trust Peter Mandelson again. Mandy is seriously damaged goods and the odds are that he'll self-destruct again as soon as he gets his nose in the trough at the sleazy, corrupt administrative heart of the EU. So his customers are left wondering if Vice-Prez Bliar has finally flipped his wig. Or is there a more sinister explanation for Mandy's rehabilitation? After all, he must know where plenty of bodies are buried, having played the role of gravedigger often enough himself. So if he is blackmailing the Vice-Prez, it must be with something bloody good! The SAS is to take over Diana's Ditch as an assessment assault course. A spokesman at the Herford HQ said, "Anyone who can run round the Ditch and keep his footing on smooth granite coated with invisible, slimy algae is definitely someone we'd be interested in." The war against terror Trade & Industry Sec. Pratty Hewitt is threatening to beef up the law to provide added protection against psychopaths posing as animal rights activists. Current laws, apparently, are unable to stop this breed of terrorist promoting violence, destruction of property, harassment of British citizens, disruption of legitimate business and murder. The National Association of Pension funds will help out by placing a £25M bounty on the heads of the terrorist organizers. And the government plans to help out further by assigning armed troops to guard animal research labs. Saving the world or saving face? (at the taxpayers' expense) The reason behind Vice-Prez Bliar's sudden enthusiasm for a new generation of nuclear power stations has been dragged out of the shadows. It's nothing to do with bogus attempts at preventing climate change. It's all to do with the £600,000,000 which Vice-Prez Bliar has blown, against expert advice, on a nuclear fuel factory, which is 8 years behind schedule and unlikely to open before 2006.    The cost of this further New Labour white elephant is soaring because the taxpayer has to shell out for the upkeep of the factory while nothing is happening there and the wages of hundreds of unproductive workers. Vice-Prez Bliar took a personal decision to push on with the project in 2001 on the basis of secret financial advice, which he withheld from his ministers. The whole undertaking seems to be another example of the application of New Labour's Voodoo Economics to public projects and about as much use to the nation as the Millennium Dome. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT Phishers In Action "Phishing" is the repellent practice of stealing information from other people with the intention of emptying their bank accounts and sticking bogus charges on their credit cards. One way of doing this is to send potential victims an email got up to look like a communication from their bank in an attempt to obtain account, pin number and password information. As a public service, Jenson Farrago is offering access to examples of phishing emails. CLICK HERE to find out what they look like. GOVT. NEWS Slackened security for regional assembly referendum Deputy Vice-Prez Mr. T.W.O. Jags has decided that people can sign their own postal voting security statements for the November referenda on regional assemblies. Instead of having to look for a witness, people can sign their own name where it says: 'I certify that I am the person I say I am'.    The government is hoping that having fewer, and looser, security checks than for the recent local council & Euro elections will make it easier for fraudsters to produce the desired 'yes' vote. To avoid further embarrassment, the government has abandoned 2 of its 3 planned referenda. The sole survivor will be in the North-East, where Labour Party politicial corruption is endemic and the government has the greatest hope of fixing the result it wants. Solicitor General Harriet Harperson has decided to lock up more men for rape. Her target figure is 5% of the male population in line with her totally bogus statistic that 5% of women over 16 have been raped. Members of ethnic minorities and asylum seekers will be excused on political correctness grounds. Ms Harperson's claim is based on dodgy government statistics, which are 'selective and distort the reality'. "No, don't lock them up. I have shares in the probation service." Lord Chief Justice Woolf still doesn't think it's a good idea to send criminals to gaol; even violent ones. Home Sec. Blunk is said to be 'actively considering' sending him on a compulsory re-education course to bring him into closer contact with reality. "Gimme the F-ing dosh or you're toast!" Their hands in your pocket The government is taking £210,000,000,000 more from the taxpayer in 2004/5 than it took in 1997/8 to cover increased spending (on Millennium Domes and other useful projects. Ed.).    The money is not being spent on hygiene in the NHS to stop customers being infected with MRSA and other superbugs; spy-networks in countries where we are likely to fight a war and co-ordinating and providing effective public transport to prevent more and more of our country from disappearing under motorways. Education, Schmeducation! The government has admitted that its first 7 years of messing about with schools have been wasted and either 25% or 33% of kids leave primary school illiterate and innumerate (the government doesn't know which figure is accurate). But the good news is that Education Sec. Charlie Clarke has a new 5-year plan for schools which is based on Tory policies. Except for grammar schools. New Labour MPs still don't want oiks to have access to their schools of choice for their own kids. Damned lies, official statistics and government spin The Statistical Commission has concluded that the government is not to be trusted with previews of official figures. Vice-Prez Bliar's minions are bringing the process of government into disrepute if they have access to new statistics up to 5 days before their release to the public. Their use of spin is spreading public mistrust, especially when the minions conspire with friendly newspapers and try to make bad news seem almost welcome next to bogus shock-horror stories. Brains on hold 1. The Mugger wants to sack 80,000 civil servants (so their union is making noises about a strike). Meanwhile, the government, councils and quangos are hiring more public sector staff at a rate of 30,000 per year. And the Mugger has a secret plan to hire another 360,000 public service workers by 2006. Talk about trying to empty a bath with the taps full on!    2. The Ministry of War, which can't afford equipment that works for the troops in Iraq, is buying 3,000 super-duper office chairs (R.R.P. £1,050 each) for its HQ to reduce days off caused by staff having bad backs.    3. The government is fixing to revise the Protection of Animals Act of 1911. Its new version will include everything that walks, crawls, slithers, flies and swims. Flushing a baby alligator down the toilet will leave a customer facing a year in gaol and a fine of £20,000. And so will swatting a wasp! What this government needs is a sense of proportion. Fast. Another lie from Mr. B. Liar: The number of bodies found in mass graves in Iraq is 5,000 – not the 400,000 he was claiming. Stealth Tax #87 in the making The government has ambitions to set a Council Tax rate in excess of £6,000. Paying a rate support grant, or its equivalent, has always been a headache for central government. Which is why this one is planning to make councils raise most of their revenue locally and just apply modest 'top ups'. The plan is also a cynical exercise in putting cash into the pockets of Labour voters at the expense of Tory voters.    What about people who have been living in the same house for decades and watched neighbouring properties change hands at crazy prices? The government has a stark message for them. If they can't afford the new rates of Council Tax, they have to give up their friends and their usual haunts and bloody well move to somewhere cheaper and grottier. Things we can look forward to The government is advising customers to stock up on bottled water, medical supplies and non-perishable foods to help them survive an Al Qaida attack. Defence Sec. Buff Hoon plans to make such an attack easier to pull off by messing about with the armed forces again. Expensive people will get the axe and be replaced them with even more expensive, high-tech gadgets, which won't work. In fact, wounded by accusations of lies about the Iraq war, Vice-Prez Bliar has decided there ain't going to be no more wars. Which is why he's more or less abolishing the RAF and the Navy, and reducing the size of the Army. Something else which the government has abolished is its target for switching off analogue TV in 2010. This won't happen until at least 2012 now. The government's decision to cut the Coastguard strength to below an effective minimum led to a 30% increase in deaths and a 20% increase in accidents between 1998 and 2002. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency is 'entirely complacent' about the situation, says the Commons Transport Committee. Vice-Prez Blair has handed the job of the UK's EU Commissioner to his much disgraced crony Peter Mandelson. And there will be no cabinet reshuffle because the Vice-Prez has spent too much time haggling over the Mandy-poos situation to do one. The commissioner's job is strictly a consolation prize after the rest of the cabinet decided that he was much too dodgy to be allowed back in. "Indolence, neglect & complacency" At a cost to the taxpayer of £8.3million, the government is sending every household its leaflet on what to do if terrorists attack with WoMD. The dodgy leaflet was dismissed by an expert on Radio 4's PM as "a statement of the bleedin' obvious" and most people see it as just another example of the government putting an alibi in place in case the unthinkable happens.    The leaflet is a rip-off of one issued by the Australian government 18 months ago, which leaves Vice-Prez Bliar & Co. open to a charge of sloth. It fails to tell customers how they're supposed to know if there has been a chemical or biological warfare attack.    The main points of the leaflet seem to be: buy lots of bottled water, tinned food and batteries, stay at home, whitewash your windows and wrap yourself in several layers of kitchen foil, and listen to the radio while you wait to croak. After the success of its leaflet about avoiding Islamic tourists, the government is doing a follow-up on heatwaves. The blindingly obvious advice will include: stay in doors, stay in the shade if you go out, wear loose clothing and a hat, don't move around, drink lots of water and take cooling showers and baths. And be careful when reading the leaflet in case it drives you into a rage over the millions of taxpayers' dosh wasted on it and you blow your top. Vice-Prez Blair denies ... Having anything to do with the Iraq war; being responsible for sacking John Morrison from his Intelligence & Security Committee; taking a huge bung from the manufacturers of bottled water, tinned food and batteries in return for a recommendation to buy lots of them in the government's leaflet on How to panic in the event of an Islamic tourist attack; having anything to do with making Peter Mandelson the UK's EU Commissioner, etc. etc. Smart by name but not in practice New Labour introduced a 'Smart Acquisition' initiative at the Ministry of Defence 6 years ago. Result? Troops aren't getting vital equipment, massive delays and monstrous cost over-runs are endemic, civil servants have been covering up the mess furiously and 'Smart Acquisition' has failed to deliver on all of its targets.    So the government is to abolish the targets.    The man to blame for the mess is Defence Procurement Minister Lord Bach, who got both his peerage and his job from our Blessed Leader. When the government set up its website to go with its £8.3million booklet, it reserved the domaign name "preparingforemergencies.gov.uk" but it did nothing about variations. So student Thomas Scott bought the domaign name "preparingforemergencies.co.uk" and set up his own spoof version. His reward was a lot of personal publicity in the papers and a pathetic email from some government dogsbody moaning about him trivializing what was already a very trivial government effort. Vice-Prez Bliar has taken his brood off on holiday for the next 6 weeks. He intends to free-load on anyone who'll have him, especially in Italy. So we won't be hearing much about him for a while.

HEALTH NEWS Safe in New Labour's hands? 300,000 NHS customers pick up an infection in hospital, the National Audit Office says. Alternatively the infection rate is 10% of the 7,000,000 people who inhabit an NHS hospital bed every year – i.e. 700,000 customers. So it looks like no one knows for sure and we're playing 'pick a number'.    20,000 of the customers are infected with the MRSA 'superbug' and 5,000 patients per year are killed by it. Bugs acquired in hospitals also contribute to a further 15,000 deaths per year. The Health Protection Agency puts the blame for this squarely on Vice-Prez Bliar's government.    Hospital occupation rates above 100%, achieved by parking customers on trolleys in corridors, may provide massaged waiting lists but they have an adverse effect on patient care.    Doctors and nurses not washing their hands (or changing their gloves) between patients, and chucking people out of hospital too quickly (as another tactic for making waiting lists smaller), also help to spread infections inside and outside hospitals.    So if the government really has been pushing vast amounts of taxpayers' cash into the NHS, where has it been going? Certainly not on anti-bug precautions. And why not? Whatever happened to all this 'joined up government' we were promised?    p.s. 10,000+ NHS customers croak every year from the side-effects of medicines prescribed for them. Where the money the government says it's putting into the NHS really goes : Around £1million per year is wasted by the Ambulance Service on contesting speed-cam fines imposed on emergency vehicles. Smoking lots of dope helps people to see in the dark, is the conclusion of research conducted in Jamaica and Morocco, where lots of dope is smoked by fishermen who operate at night. Hospital Zone ERADICATE MRSA Please wash thoroughly after handling each customer Nicotine is good for schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease – but obtaining it via smoking can still prove lethal. Health Sec. John Reid is abolishing government targets for hospitals because fiddling the figures is consuming too much cash and the customers are on to this dodge anyway. Something else this government is giving us more of that we don't want: Sexually transmitted disease rates are up 4% overall and as much as 28% higher in specific cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. When a treatment service was introduced during World War I, the customers were treated right away. In the 21st Century, they have to wait up to 6 weeks to see the pox doctor. There's progress for you! That thing about not using a mobile phone in a hospital or on a plane in case it disrupts vital equipment or makes the plane crash? It's all a bunch of bullshit, the Medical & Healthcare Products Registration Agency has admitted. If doctors can use their mobiles in hospitals anywhere and everywhere, they must be safe. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT A London Olympics? No, thanks! WORLD NEWS The CD industry strikes back BMG is to introduce no-frills music CDs at €9.99 a go; but only in Germany for the moment. The el cheapo versions have the title printed on the disc and they are free of the lyrics and other stuff which no one ever reads.    BMG is hoping that their product will be able to compete with home-made copies, iPods and their rivals, and mobile phones which can retrieve music files from the Web. Fans will also be able to buy 'regular' CDs at the usual price and also luxury versions (at an inflated price) with bits of video on them. CDs have been around for over 20 years and BMG has decided that the CDs themselves, and their marketing tactics, need a bit of a face-lift. I'm the Prez Bush is the criminal I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, so watch it! Saddam Hussein has chosen defiance and mockery as his major themes for the theatrical performance at his trial in Iraq. His fate is clear. He can't be release and he can't be stashed in prison in case his criminal associates start a revolution to restore him to power and kill further thousands of people.    So Saddam is for the chop. And as he's murdered more than enough people to earn the death penalty thousands of times over, there should be no problem about applying the death penalty after the lawyers have had their gallons of blood. [Although, if they're planning to spin the trial out for 3 years, maybe a few lawyers should be sorted out as a message to the rest. Ed.]    Knowing that things are heading in only one direction, Saddam has opted to go out as the great man brought down by criminal midgets like Prez Bush and Vice-Prez Bliar. And he's hoping that he'll receive better treatment in the history books than either of these busted flushes – atheistic, barbarous and dishonest is better than God-bothering, mealy-mouthed, and dishonest. "J'Accuse! Bush is the real criminal." Vice-Prez Bliar is reported to be highly dischuffed at being excluded by the man who claims that he is still Prez of Iraq. Mr. B. Liar feels that he should receive at least as much credit as Prez Bush for getting the Iraq war started on the basis of bogus 'intelligence' information and sexed-up dossiers. EU budget commissioner Schreyer (who has to be German with a name like that [and she's female – nuff said, Ed.]) is trying to abolish the UK's rebate. Again. Instead of cutting down on waste and fraud, and dodgy subsidies to the French, the EU would like us to hand over our £3billion and not make a fuss about it. Killer kangaroos are rampaging around in the suburbs of Canberra, Australia's capital. Drought in the surrounding bush has left them without food and pissed off to the max. Good news from Brussels!!! The European Commission has given the Mugger 2 months to stop interfering with free trade and persecuting booze cruisers by imposing arbitrary and illegal limits on how much drink and tobacco they can buy. The UK Customs & Excise policy of stealing vehicles from booze cruisers is sticking in the Commission's collective throats in particular. The International Court of Justice at The Hague has told Israel to tear down its illegal version of the Berlin Wall. Israel replied, "Sod off!" – with American backing. Another pronouncement to issue from the state of Israel is that it would like to see a nuclear-free Middle East. Which is rather rich when Israel is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons, even though it denies having any. Prez "I'd be in gaol if I wasn't in office" Chiraq has promised to give the French nation a referendum on the EU constitution in late 2005/early 2006 – well after the next French general election. Whose EU is it really? The European Court of Justice has ruled that the EU governments acted illegally in letting France and Germany violate the eurozone rule which states that budget deficits must stay below 3% of GDP. Britain's own chancellor The Mugger was a party to the crime. France and Germany could be fined one squillion euros [like that's going to happen, Ed.]. They are both heading for a budget deficit of above 3% for the 3rd year running. Prez & Vice-Prez in secret talks with Saddam? In the light of our Blessed Leader's multiple problems over going to war in Iraq on false pretenses, and the growing dissatisfaction in the United State as the prezidential election approaches, Prez Bush and Vice-Prez Bliar are reported to be engaged in secret negotiations with the former World's Favourite Despot. Their ambition seems to be to restore the status quo ante in Iraq in a way which involves no apologies from the aggressors. They feel that Iraq needs a totally ruthless leader to restore order and expel the Al Qaida terrorists who have come flocking to the country. And as he has no WoMD and he is no threat to either the United States or the United Kingdom, Saddam looks the ideal man for the job. Two women, who were the first to take advantage of Canada's same-sex marriage law, would now like a divorce. Only they can't have one as the Canadian Divorce Act still defines spouses as a man and a woman. Talk about being the agent of your own misfortune! Greek Olympic scam The authorities in Athens are selling off tickets for their Olympic games to anyone who makes them a reasonable offer. The only catch is that the purchaser's bum will never hit the seat. Why? Because it's impossible to book a hotel room anywhere near Athens. They are all either spoken for or being held empty deliberately in the hope that they can be offered at a rip-off price at the last minute.    So what is the Greek government going to do to fill the embarrassing empty expanses at the opening ceremony? Insiders are predicting that the local police will tour the city's streets and round up anyone found lurking about. And advanced computer graphics will be inserted into the television pictures to fill up any remaining holes. The real reason for invading Afghanistan was to stop the natives growing opium poppies, just as the real reason for invading Iraq was to take control of the oil and keep Al Qaida out of the country. Only the Taliban were on the opium ranchers' case and Saddam Hussein didn't want anything to do with Al Qaida. So as a result of the efforts of Prez Bush and Vice-Prez Bliar, papaver somniferum is now Afghanistan's main product, Al Qaida are coming and going freely in Iraq and the oil ain't flowing because tourists keep blowing up the pipelines. Don't you just wish the politicians would go on holiday permanently and stop their bloody meddling!

THEY OUGHT TO CALL IT SOMETHING OTHER THAN 'INTELLIGENCE' Torture in Iraq 'mainly cosmetic' Senior US intelligence officers have hinted that the images of torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war and other detainees at Abu Ghraib prison were 'largely staged'. Prisoners were eager to tell what they knew about the activities of Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists but they were too afraid of their fellow inmates to be seen talking to the Americans. But if they talked under torture, that mitigated their betrayal of what was a lost cause. And so the images of torture and humiliation were concocted to protect the co-operative.    Anyone believe this? Meanwhile, the CIA's director is history and now, the US Congress has concluded that: The CIA's claims that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, and it was trying to develop nuclear weapons, were false; CIA analysts ignored evidence to the contrary because it was Agency policy to believe that Iraq had WoMD; The CIA had no spies in Iraq after 1998 (when UN weapons inspections ended) and it was getting its 'intelligence' information from crooks who were saying what their paymasters wanted to heard and exiles who wanted rid of Saddam so that they could take over; The agency suffered from 'broken corporate culture and poor management'; The CIA let bad information sex up the case for war and it built up small scraps of information in grand scenarios; and The Director, George Tenet, gave biased advice to Prez Bush. The conclusion of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is that the war would not have been authorized if anyone had know what a shambles the CIA had become. They were looking the wrong way Iran, not Iraq, helped Al Qaida's September 11th terrorists, says the US Congressional committee which is inquiring into the attacks. The Iranians gave 8 of the terrorists safe passage to Afghanistan and told the border guards to look the other way and forget about stamping passports.    Note: A US attack on Iran is unlikely as the US client state in the area, Israel, is eager to give its forces a bit of bombing practice, using Iran's nuclear reactors as targets.

NOTABLE ANNIVERSARY July 20th marks the 60th anniversary of one of the plots to kill Adolf Hitler. BlackFlag News would like to offer its readers the inside story of this dramatic event as told by one of Romiley's premiere authors.    Read the Book on Jenson Farrago's website    Read about the Book on the RLC website    Buy the Book at the Lulu.com website Category : Military History, World War II, 1944

FOCUS ON AMERICA The 9/11 Report So much whitewash was used up by the Hutton and Butler Inquiries that there was none left for the US Congress. The conclusion of their report is that Al Qaida was to blame for the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, but the Clinton and Bush presidencies, and the nation's 15 'intelligence' agencies, had enough information between them to avert the attacks. But the spies didn't pool their bits and the respective administrations failed to put in place effective security measures.    [And the Bush administration is still not doing much – see below, Ed.] Major Harry Schmidt of the US air force, who killed 4 Canadians in Afghanistan in 2002 with his gung-ho bombing, has been fined one month's pay ($5,700) and reprimanded as his punishment. Bad guys are finding out what they can get away with According to Audrey Hudson of the Washington Times, Middle Eastern men are currently testing security precautions at airports and on airliners in what look like dry runs for future terrorists attacks. They are boarding airliners pretending to be strangers and then clustered in groups, monopolized the toilets and passing fast-food bags around the group.    The FBI has issued warnings that terrorists are planning to bring the components of a bomb aboard an airliner and assemble it in the toilets. Flight attendants are not trained to handle terrorist attacks or the antics of these 'dry-runners'.    On one flight, a sky marshal forced his way into a toilet after a Middle Eastern man had spent a suspiciously long time inside. The man had removed a mirror and he was trying to break through the wall into the aircraft's cockpit. And a second sky marshal has reported that Middle Eastern men have tried to make marshals give themselves away by rushing toward the cockpit and stopping suddenly.    Maybe it would be a good idea to keep all foreigners grounded, or make them fly on their own national airlines, until they learn how to behave in civilized fashion. Islamic tourists, and their usual apologists, are now trying desperately to reduce these accounts to the status of urban myths. Hot food – if you're really desperate The US Combat Feeding Directorate, creator of the indestructible sandwich has come up with the ultimate dried meal as part of a plan to reduce the amount of water that soldiers have to carry. The pack offers an 800% reduction in the weight of a day's food. Customers can re-hydrate it by dipping it in a muddy puddle (if clean water isn't available) as the chicken and rice meal is stored in a microporous pouch, which can filter out 99.9% of all bacteria and most toxic chemicals. In an emergency, the customer can even pee on it – as long as he doesn't do this too often. The membrane cannot exclude urea, which can cause kidney damage in the long term. Stroppy sod gets ticket Leland Laird of Appleton, Wisconsin, likes to park his wheelchair next to the railroad tracks and give the trains a middle-finger salute. But he got too close to one of them this month. It clipped his wheelchair, tipped him out, and he ended up with cuts and abrasions. He also collected a penalty notice from the local police for 'being a pedestrian in violation of traffic signals'. Former Clinton advisor 'deeply regrets' an 'honest mistake' Sandy Berger, national security adviser to ex-Prez Bill Clinton, hit on an interesting solution to hiding embarrassing documents from the Sept. 11 commission's eyes. He strolled into an archive of classified material and let himself be seen stuffing documents down his trousers, into his shirt and into his socks. The US Justice Department is currently investigating his conduct.    Berger's story is that he removed handwritten notes, which he himself had made in the archive, by placing them in his jacket and trousers, and he 'inadvertently' put copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio. According to a poll conducted on the Fox News website, 82% of the voters think Berger is lying. "Hope is on the way!" is White House hopeful John Kerry's slogan of the moment.    But isn't it a rip-off of Prez Bush's "Help is on the way"?    And isn't it likely to be as big a load of bollocks? Would YOU vote for a draft-dodger? Where were Prez Bush and Vice-Prez Bliar during the Vietnam war. Not charging about the Mekong river on a gunboat like John 'Lurch' Kerry, that's for sure! But hey, what sort of a 'war hero' goes round bragging about what he did in the war at every opportunity? Don't vote, it only encourages them!

CRIMINAL NEWS Stop 'n' Cop protests Since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA, an average of 8 Asians per day have been stopped and searched by the British police instead of an average of 2 per day. And as a result, racialist Moslems have been accusing the police of picking on them when they weren't threatening to join Al Qaida.    One answer to the problem would be for the Home Office to recruit a bunch of ex-KGB or ex-Stasi agents to give the 'persecuted' ones a taste of what it feels like when the police really pick on someone. Six months of real persecution might teach them how lucky they are to live in such a tolerant society. But given their in-bred level of intolerance, that's probably wishful thinking. Amazonian Indians, who used 29 invading prospectors for target practice, have been ruled insufficiently civilized to be responsible for their actions. So they can't be prosecuted for chopping the heads of anyone who didn't croak when turned into a human pincushion with arrows. [Sounds like a useful sort of argument to use in court if someone happens to write off a burglar who has invaded their home. Such as the burglar is uncivilized and undeserving of the protection of the law. Ed.] New Zealand has virtually broken off diplomatic relations with Israel until it gets an apology. Israeli spies were caught trying to obtain by fraud, a NZ passport in the name of a tetraplegic who is unable to speak. Two bungling spies received gaol sentences of 6 months, 2 others are still on the run. 7 wasted years on the anti-crime front That political opportunist PC Bliar would like us to forget that he has wasted the last 7 years dancing with criminals. He's now become PC Stalin and he's giving us a Soviet-style Five Year Plan for policing. And, no doubt, it will be as big a success as a Soviet-era Five Year Plan – on paper (after he's fiddled the figures) if not on the streets.    We are now waiting to find out how he squares his new role as a champion of the victims of crime with his policies of making cannabis use, 24-hour drinking and prostitution compulsory.    One tactic that he's using is the usual smoke screen. Police statistics show crime rising but the government is using a selective opinion poll, which ignores the worst categories of crime, to pretend that the crime rate has been going down for the last 10 years. It's not for nothing that we have a Mr. B. Liar in 10, Downing Street. Through its own neglect and incompetence, the Royal Mail is losing thousands of pounds every year. How? Because customers are writing FREEPOST on their mail instead of sticking a stamp on it. And the Royal Mail isn't bothering to check that the addressees have one of their Freepost accounts. They are there just to raise money The head of Norfolk's speed camera scheme has quit after a police investigation showed that half of the the county's speedcams could not be justified on road safety grounds. Norfolk Casualty Reduction Partnership's speedcams raised £2.4million from 40,000 customers last year. If there were any justice in this country, half of that sum would have to be returned. But the government has assured its customers that all 6,000 speedcams in the country are 'positioned correctly to save lives rather than raise money'. And we all know how resentfully Vice-Prez Bliar sticks to his lies. If you're going to be wrongly imprisoned, make sure it happens in Scotland rather than England or Wales. Because the thieving sods at the Home Office will knock 25% off any compensation award as 'living expenses which the claimant has not incurred'.

SPACE NEWS Cassini in Saturn orbit It's been on the way since October 1997 and NASA's Cassini spacecraft has finally entered orbit around Saturn to study the planet itself, its ring system and its moons. Saturn is known to have 31 moons but Cassini is expected to find more. It is hoped that studying how the rings interact with Saturn's moons will help to create a model of how the planets formed from a disc of gas and dust around the early Sun.    The bus-size spacecraft (it's 22 feet long and weighs 6 tons) is carrying a probe called Huygens, which will be aimed at Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in December. Titan is bigger than the planet Mercury and it has a hazy, orange atmosphere, which prevents direct observation of its surface. It is hoped that Huygens will settle the debate over whether Titan has a completely solid surface or there are hydrocarbon seas on it. ADVERTISEMENT BOOK OF THE MONTH   The Glory of the British Empire 1600-2000 by Lance Hastingly     "... the greatest civilizing force the world has ever known ..." "... it spread invention, industry, innovation and motivation to continents and tiny islands alike ..." "... the salvation of sub-Saharan Africa and the founder of a prosperous India ..." "... architect of a world-wide trade system which endures to this day ..." "... a power for good which has shaped the world we know in the 21st Century ..." Our special price just: Hardback £25.00 / €43.13, Softback £15.00 / €25.88 plus NO VAT because we don't believe in it. Full details from Romiley Bookstore, 101, Riverside Drive, Romiley. DEPARTURES Marlon Brando The actor who became the 'Monarch of Mumble' has died at 80. He made a name for himself in the film industry in the 1950s and he helped to make 'method acting' and mumbling fashionable. Brando made lots of money – by the Seventies, he was able to command millions of dollars for a couple of minutes' screen-time – but he blew it all and then he had the cheek to call the American way of life greedy and irresponsible.    When he slipped out of life at a grand old age, he was the size of a house thanks to serial noshing and $11million in the red – proving that some people do get out ahead of game. [Update: They're now saying Brando left $20million, so he wasn't as successful at beating the game as we first thought. Unless they're lying about the 20 mil.] DEPARTURES John Barron The television actor with an imposing frame and a comic talent has died at 83. His early career included parts in Emergency Ward 10, Z-Cars and its successor Softly, Softly but he is best remembered as Leonard Rossiter's pompous boss C.J. ("I didn't get where I am today ...") in the Seventies series The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin. His other television credits include All Gas And Gaiters, The Glums, To The Manor Born, Whoops, Apocalypse! and Yes, Minister, so he is ensured a place in 'digital heaven' on the UKTV Gold, Paramount Comedy and the other digital golden oldies channels. DEPARTURES 'Big' Pat Roach Another giant of the TV industry has died at 67. Once a familiar figure on ITV's Saturday afternoon wrestling programmes, Pat Roach also used his acting talents in TV dramas and films. His big screen credits include a Bond film and all 3 Indiana Jones epics. On TV, he could play big and bad in cop shows, big and funny in the likes of Auf Wiedersehen Pet and big and noble, e.g. in the role of PO Evans in The Last Place On Earth, a 6-part dramatization of Captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole. He also found time for poetry and he was the co-author of 2 books. DEPARTURES Professor Francis Crick One of the men who won the race to describe the structure of the DNA molecule has died at 88. He and his colleague John Watson deduced the double-helix structure in 1953 with the assistance of X-ray diffraction evidence produced by Rosalind Franklin, and suggested DNA's method of replication. In 1963, Crick, Watson and their colleague Maurice Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their discoveries. Thirteen years later, Crick joined the brain drain to the United States, where he investigated the workings of the brain.

"Ellas! Ellas!" Congrats to the Greek football team for winning something for the first time ever. Hard cheese to Portugal, but they knew they were there by false pretences after England were swindled out of a quarter-final victory, and if they were going to aim their shots at the car park rather than the goal, they didn't have much of a chance. It's a maxim of American football that great defences win championships. The Greeks have proved that it can apply to soccer, too.

FOODY NEWS They're messing about with the boring old banana Banana producer Chiquita International plans to torpedo its rivals with a new range of products offering different flavours and textures, and a size to suit the customer. Strawberry flavoured bananas at a premium price? Not likely to catch on, even if they are guaranteed not to be genetically monstered. Check the small print Supermarkets are injecting raw pork with salt water and additives, and selling the watered-down product at up to double the price charged by an independent butcher. Tesco pork chops, for instance, have contained 11% of water, dried glucose syrup, polyphosphate binder and other additives for at least 3 years. The supermarket chain has been fined token amounts after 'zero publicity' prosecutions.    The Co-op, Sainsbury's and Asda are all adulterating raw pork – in addition to ham and chicken. They are required by law to issue a warning on packaging but the print is always microscopic. The government's watchdog, the Food Standards Authority, has known about this evil practice since February of this year. The official viewpoint is, "It is completely unacceptable for consumers to pay for water instead of meat." The FSA had done nothing about the rip-off at the time of writing. Green vegetables, eaten at any age, are good for the memory. So if you've destroyed your short-term memory by smoking dope, eating lots of sprouts will restore it. Caffeine aids concentration by focussing the mind – which can lead to memories not immediately related to the matter in hand becoming inaccessible. There is currently no research into whether eating green vegetables is any help. Tesco has promised to put red labels on products with high levels of fat, salt and/or sugar. Which means that most of its own 'Healthy Living' range of foods will be wearing red badges. Which makes us wonder exactly what's in the normal, unhealthy Tesco products ... An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Unless you're a kid, in which case you'll probably go down with pesticide residue poisoning.

TRAVEL NEWS Govt. to price poor people off the roads Transport Sec. Alastair 'Eyebrows' Darling is looking at a plan to fit every road vehicle with an ID beacon and monitor their movements via one or more satellites.    The government knows that road capacity will never keep pace with vehicle growth, but it reckons that charging motorists £1.45 per mile for using the roads will cut demand in half overnight.    Unblocking the roads, the government reckons, will benefit the economy and the environment, and feed a much needed £10billion to the Treasury. [£10billion – isn't that the size of the Mugger's Black Hole? That can't be a coincidence. Ed.] The target for the Satellite Road Tax is to raise £16,000,000,000 per year. Messing about with the railways #1 New Labour's decision to let Railtrack fester in administration for a year before creating Network Rail has wasted £14billion of taxpayers' cash. No wonder the Mugger has such a big black hole in his accounts. Messing about with the railways #2 The government's next big idea for the railways is to scrap the Strategic Rail Authority and let Alastair 'Eyebrows' Darling become the control-freak in charge. Customers are expected to believe that replacing one set of bureaucrats with another will have a positive effect on the quality of service. And that when the Whitehall mob get the railways back into their eager, sweaty hands, they'll be able to resist their instinct to micro-manage them into utter ruin. Congratulations on your magnificent 2nd place in the German Grand Prix from 13th on the grid to J. Button, who had to hold his helmet on with one hand while doing nearly 200 mph during the final laps of the race to avoid being strangled. Congratulations also to L. Armstrong on his record sixth straight win of the Tour de France.  1. Princess Di's Ditch is a fountain and 2. Children will be allowed to play in it.  The extension to the M6 toll motorway will cost the taxpayer nothing (if it's ever built).  The Grauniad's headline on 2004/07/05: Football's coming Homer. [Where do the Simpsons come into it? Ed.]  Judge Alec Wilson's ruling that a farmer is liable for an accident cause by a gate left open by a rambler (who was forcibly inflicted on the farmer by the government's 'right to roam').  Halifax Bank of Scotland's claim that increasing its cheque clearing time to 6 days was done for security reasons rather than to screw more profit out of the customer.  The willingness of NHS managers to kill a few customers with superbugs in the name of meeting arbitrary waiting list targets.  Tony B. Liar's assurances that he and his henchmen didn't sex up the dodgy Iraq dossiers and sex down the Butler Report.  The government's solution to the MRSA problem – dropping this category from its league tables on infection rates.  Coventry Community Safety Partnership using public money to produce a leaflet advising cocaine users to snort it off a mirror or a ceramic tile, and to wipe their nose afterwards, to avoid leaving evidence for the police to find.  Where Johnny 'Two Jags' Prescott's 10 year plan for transport (unveiled in 2000) has ended up.  Having garden gnomes knocks £15K off the value of a property, uPVC windows drop the price by £ 12.5K, a 'themed room' [e.g. a computer room?] does for another £1.5K and having carpet in the bathroom is a crime with a penalty of £1,000.  Making spivvy Peter Mandelson an EU Commissioner.  Shagger Sven's performance in charge of England's football team and his taste in women.  Iraqi compensation vultures, and their lawyers, clogging up our courts at the British taxpayer's expense.

Created for Romiley Anarchists' League by workers in revolt against oppression. Sole © RAL, July 2004.