Banned from the Guardian for expressing a skeptical view of global warming

The website of the British newspaper, the Guardian – hitherto regarded by many, including myself, as a bastion of democracy and free speech in the press – has now joined the rest of the mainstream (and almost entirely right-wing) media on the question of global warming, and is routinely deleting comments submitted to its “Comment is Free” section which express skepticism of the man-made global warming hypothesis. Meanwhile, articles making the case for the skeptical viewpoint are being rejected by the paper’s editorial department. To all intents and purposes the paper has become a propaganda rag for the man-made global warming campaign, with an endless succession of articles outlining the alleged damaging effects of human-produced CO2 emissions on the environment, and no coverage whatsoever of alternative viewpoints.

Today, after months of having my contributions on this subject promptly deleted by the Guardian’s CiF moderators, I have been banned completely from submitting posts on any subject.
Let me reiterate that there was nothing remotely offensive in any of my comments. They did not contravene the CiF “community standards”, as the Guardian website calls its posting rules. They were deleted solely, I have to assume, because they expressed a skeptical view of man-made global warming. A number of other contributors have also had their posts blocked or deleted because they questioned the man-made global warming hypothesis.

The fact is that the global warming debate is far from settled; nor is there scientific consensus on the subject, as GW activists repeatedly insist. Some of the most highly qualified scientist working in the field of climatology have publicly repudiated man-made global warming, and over 31,000 scientists in the US have signed a petition rejecting the claim that human-produced CO2 is causing global temperatures to rise.

This is clearly an important subject that should be open for discussion and debate. But the issue that concerns me here is not whether man-made CO2 emissions are or are not responsible for global warming (or even whether global warming is actually occurring), but the fact that the skeptical viewpoint is not being fairly represented in the media, and in fact is being quite deliberately suppressed, even in supposedly liberal and democratic newspapers like the Guardian.

I have written to the Guardian to ask for an explanation. I will post their reply here if and when I receive one.

UPDATE
Just to let you all know… It is now three weeks later and I am still banned from posting on the Guardian website, and so far I have received no reply to my request for an explanation from the Guardian’s Comment is Free moderators.

US government saves Afghanistan from the threat of democracy

So, as expected, Karzai has been “reinstalled” as president of Afghanistan, despite the fact that there has been no election, and despite the fact that he was caught trying to rig the election that was supposed to have taken place.

The main opposition candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, decided not to run again, citing, as his reason, the fact that the officials who rigged the first election had not been sacked, and would also be in charge of the second election.
This explanation strains credibility, as the second round would have come under close scrutiny from UN monitors, and there was a better than reasonable chance that Abdullah would have won (he had almost half the votes after Karzai’s known fraudulent votes had been discounted). A far more likely explanation is that Mr Abdullah was “persuaded” by the US government via the CIA to step aside, with bribes, threats, or – more likely – a combination of both (probably something along the lines of: “If you resign from the election we’ll give you a squillion dollars and a powerful position in the next government. If you don’t resign, something bad might happen to you and your family”). Whatever it was, it was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

And so now the US’s puppet government in Afghanistan has been saved from the pernicious threat of democracy, and all those lucrative oil contracts are, for the time being at least, secure. American and British soldiers are now fighting in Afghanistan to protect a one-party state.

Oh, and “Honest Joe” Obama has proved beyond any doubt that he is as corrupt as any previous US president.

Where was Obama’s “fury” when Israeli forces were slaughtering civilians in Gaza?

Slaughter of innocents in Gaza had Barack Obama's tacit support

“Obama’s fury at Baghdad bloodbath” is the headlines on the BBC website.
The report states that “US President Barack Obama has led international condemnation of Sunday’s double suicide bomb attack in Baghdad that killed at least 132 people”.
Obviously these cowardly bomb attacks deserve to be condemned in the strongest terms. But where was Mr. Obama’s outrage when Israeli forces were slaughtering women and children in Gaza last year?
He was in hiding, that’s where. After years of daily public appearances and “press calls”, Mr. Obama disappeared from view and could not be contacted for a comment when Israeli bombs and missiles began to rain down on densely populated areas of Gaza, killing over 1,000 innocent civilians – most of them women and children – and injuring and maiming thousands more.
Obama had already won the election. He didn’t have to worry about losing the Jewish vote; and a single word from him – even the slightest expression of disapproval – would almost certainly have saved hundreds of lives.
Instead, Obama gave Israel his tacit approval by remaining silent, and the US government rejected a UN motion to call for a ceasefire, giving Israel a green light to continue with its massacre of civilians.

When can we expect the US to condemn Israel for amassing nuclear weapons?

US President Barack Obama has condemned Iran after it acknowledged the existence of a second uranium enrichment plant.

“This site deepens a growing concern that Iran is failing to live up to its international responsibilities,” he said.
“Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow.”

Except Israel, of course.

As we know, Israel is exempt from all the international rules, laws, regulations and treaties that apply to other countries.

“Iran must comply with UN Security Council resolutions,” Mr Obama added.

But Israel can disregard UN resolutions with impunity, and has done for decades.

Iran has never attacked its neighbours. Israel has. Repeatedly, slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians. Yet no action of any kind has ever been taken against it. Attempts to do so have always been thwarted by the US veto.

Israel is guilty of state terrorism, war crimes, crimes against humanity, illegal occupation, torture, assassination, land grabbing, ethnic cleansing, and yet it is Iran – which is guilty of none of these things – that is being threatened by the US government (and, laughably, by the bumbling, nodding dog British PM, who has turned ineffectuality into an art form).

I’m not in favour of Iran having nuclear weapons – no more than I am in favour of the US, Russia, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and North Korea having them – but this whole thing reeks of hypocrisy.

If the US, Britain, France and the other nuclear powers want to persuade Iran not to pursue the nuclear option they should start by getting rid of their own nukes. Or demanding that Israel – which has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – give up its nuclear arsenal.

Coincidentally both the US and Britain have, in recent days, announced plans to reduce their nuclear stockpiles. It’s almost as if they knew they would be delivering this ultimatum to Iran and wanted to be able to point out that they themselves were committed to nuclear disarmament.

But, of course, that would mean that they knew in advance about Iran’s “secret” nuclear facility and carefully picked their moment to announce this to the media.

The idea that nuclear weapons can be eradicated by gradual reduction is absurd in any event. What difference does it make whether a country has 10,000 nuclear warheads or 100?

Unilateral reduction is merely a device to justify exerting pressure on countries which are in the process of “going nuclear”. Countries like the US are never going to give up their nuclear weapons, and that being the case they will never be in a moral position to dictate to other countries on this issue. And “do as I say, not as I do (or else!)” has never been, and will never be, a reasonable or persuasive argument.

Netanyahu says peace is possible if Palestinians give up everything

The odious Benjamin Netanyahu has been speaking after a meeting in Downing Street with bumbling UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Mr. Netanyahu’s message was that peace was possible if Palestinians gave up their resistance to Israel’s brutal and illegal occupation of their country. He repeatedly asserted that a demilitarised Palestinian state was needed if peace was to be attained.
There was no mention of a demilitarised Israeli state, of course, since, as we all know, Israel needs its US-sponsored army to protect itself from the people whose land it has stolen.
So basically his proposal is that Israel should be allowed to keep all the Palestinian land it has “confiscated”, and retain its huge arsenal of arms (which includes chemical, biological and nuclear weapons), while Palestinians are allowed to remain in the “refugee camps” and tent cities to which they have been banished by the Israeli government (ethnic cleansing by degrees), and give up all armed resistance to the occupation of their country.
Gee, that sounds like a good deal. For Israel.
But I have a better idea. How about if Israel gives up all its weapons, dismantles its army, navy, air force and the hired thugs it calls its police force, and gives the land it illegally occupies back to its rightful owners. And then compensates them for putting them through 60 years of hell. How would that be, Mr. Netanyahu?

We’re creating a Master Race of mice

So this week Sarah Outen (left) became the first woman to row solo across the Indian Ocean.
She set off from the west coast of Australia in April and landed on the island of Mauritius on Monday, 3 Aug, after spending a total of 124 days at sea.
Which just goes to prove that Brits will do anything to save on travel expenses.
Sarah, a biologist from Rutland, UK, said it had been “an astonishing experience” and she had seen the elements “in all their states”.
“In the last days I’d have whales surfing past the boat and albatrosses flying overhead,” she told the BBC website.
It’s when you start seeing whales flying overhead that you know you’re in trouble, Sarah.

This week there was great news for epileptic mice – but not much joy for humans with the condition.
“Scientists halt epilepsy in mice,” was the BBC website headline on Monday.
Great. Now they’ll be able to drive trucks and operate heavy machinery.
Has epilepsy been a big problem for mice? Not that I am aware of. I don’t know a single mouse whose life has been ruined by epileptic seizures.
Meanwhile, rodents everywhere have also been celebrating (with cheese and wine parties, presumably) the discovery of a drug – aptly named rapamycin – which has been found to extend life in mice, according to a study published on July 8 in the journal Nature.
The research, conducted as part of the National Institute of Aging Interventions Testing Program, took place at three separate test sites and involved nearly 2,000 genetically similar mice.
Exactly how rapamycin works is “still an open question,” says Randy Strong, a pharmacology professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and one of three lead authors of the study.
And then comes the inevitable disclaimer: “Earlier human trials have shown, however, that rapamycin can have serious side effects”.
In other words the drug will kill you long before it extends your life.

I’m getting a bit tired of reading about medical “breakthroughs” in mice that never seem to translate into cures for people.
At this stage there must be a miracle cure available for every disease known to mousedom. Hardly a day goes by without news of some new medical advance that has been successfully tested on mice.
We’re breeding a master race of rodents – while we humans are still dying from the same old diseases that killed our distant ancestors.
Isn’t it about time the medical boffins came up with a few genuine cures for human diseases – such as cancer and coronary disease?
For all their “breakthroughs” with mice, they have yet to produce a single cure for any of the most common diseases that kill humans.
This is the 21st century. A cure for cancer is long overdue. Yes, I know it’s a complex and difficult disease, but you’d think that after more than a hundred years of intensive medical research – involving tens of thousands of researchers and costing countless millions of dollars – they’d have made a bit more progress towards finding a cure than they have.
In any event their failure to find cures for these common killer diseases might be a bit easier to accept if they didn’t keep reminding us in their smug and arrogant way of how clever they are.
At finding theoretical cures for diseases in mice.
The sad truth is that most of the medical research effort goes into developing (profitable) drugs to “treat” diseases, rather than finding (far less profitable) cures to eradicate them.

Where real estate is FREE for the taking!

Israeli police have evicted nine Palestinian families living in two houses in illegally occupied East Jerusalem. Jewish settlers moved into the houses almost immediately. Palestinian officials say the families lived in the houses for over 50 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

You have to hand it to the Israelis. They’ve come up with a great system which guarantees a home for every Jew who comes to live in Israel (from any country in the world).

Here’s how it works: First, you identify a nice property that is currently owned by a Palestine family. Second, you turn up with early in the morning with a couple of tanks and 20 armed Israeli policemen (ie, paid thugs) and evict the family from their home. Third, you give the keys of the property to some Jewish family who have just arrived from the US or France or South Africa or wherever.

Neat, or what?

The Israelis have been doing this for decades, of course. Bulldozing entire Palestinian towns and building Jewish settlements in their place. So what’s new?

What’s new is that in the past the Israeli authorities at least made a pretense of acting in the interests of Israeli “security” (“a rocket was fired from a house in this neighborhood, so we have to demolish the entire area and build a Jewish settlement”). Now they appear to have abandoned even this flimsy pretext.

The truth is that the Israeli long-term plan has always been to eradicate the Palestinian people and take over all the Palestinian territories, and to this end it has engaged in a slow but steady campaign of state terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and land-grabbing. Today, after more than five decades of brutality, and with the support of successive US governments, Israel effectively controls almost all of Palestine.

What we are seeing now – and what we saw recently in the wholesale slaughter of civilians in Gaza – is a last push by Israel to make as much ground as possible – or, to be more accurate, to take as much ground as possible – before world public opinion turns decisively against Israel and it is finally cornered into taking part in negotiations to resolve the conflict (something it has always claimed to want, but which it has done everything in its power to avoid).

Israelis in search of war criminals don’t have to look far

Prosecutors in Munich, Germany have today charged alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder in World War II.

The action was welcomed by Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which regards Mr Demjanjuk as the world’s most-wanted Nazi war criminal.

“This is obviously an important step forward,” he told the Associated Press. “We hope that the trial itself will be expedited so that justice will be achieved and he can be given the appropriate punishment.”

I’m all in favour of hunting down war criminals and forcing them to stand trial. However, if the Wiesenthal group genuinely wants to carry on this work, why not start a bit closer to home, with the war criminals who currently comprise the government and military leadership of Israel?

It is a bit rich for Jewish groups to continue to invest large amounts of time and money hunting down individuals who carried out war crimes 70 years ago when there are Israeli war criminals all around them in Jerusalem, who committed their crimes within the last 12 months.

Israelis who are genuinely in search of war criminals don’t have to look very far.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre describes itself on its website as: “A Jewish human rights organization…. confronting antisemitism, hate and terrorism, promoting human rights and dignity, standing with Israel, defending the safety of Jews worldwide, and teaching the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations”.

Promoting human rights and standing with Israel?
This is a contradiction in terms.

How on earth can a human rights organization stand with Israel, a terrorist and apartheid state which illegally occupies large swathes of Palestinian territory and which has been condemned by every independent civil rights and humanitarian organization in the world for the atrocities it carried out – and continues to carry out – on defenseless civilian populations?

Israel continues to pursue 20th century Nazis even when they themselves have become the Nazis of the 21st century.

“The effort to bring Demjanjuk to justice sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator,” Efraim Zuroff told AP reporters.

Quite right. But the same principle must also apply to the war criminals responsible for the persecution and slaughter of the indigenous people of the land that is currently occupied by Israel.

Princess Diana moment

Every year around this time I receive a spate of phone calls and emails from journalists researching articles, radio and TV programmes about my former client (and subsequently good friend) the late Princess Diana.

Tomorrow, 1 July is Diana’s birthday, and therefore a journalistic opportunity to write “commemorative” articles about her.
Even all these years after her death, Diana’s photo on the front page of a newspaper or magazine guarantees increased sales.

There will be another spate of requests for interviews in August, the anniversary of her death. This year, no doubt, the task for journalists will be to make connections and comparisons between Diana and Michael Jackson (of whom, by the way, Diana was a huge fan). Already, there is press speculation about whether Jackson’s funeral will turn out to be be another “Princess Diana moment”.

It is Diana’s death – and the circumstances in which she died – that journalists are mainly interested in talking and writing about, with the central question being whether it was an accident or she was assassinated.

Most of the journalists I’ve talked to about this are personally convinced that Diana’s death was a tragic accident. Journalists are by and large a conservative bunch who tend to accept official versions of events; but that isn’t going to stop them from writing articles questioning the official version of Diana’s death and outlining what they themselves privately believe to be hair-brained conspiracy theories.

Of course, people don’t buy newspapers to read stories with headings like: “Diana’s death: It was an accident”. But they do buy newspapers to read articles with titles like: “Diana’s death: Was it really an accident?” or: “Startling new information reveals that Princess Diana may have been assassinated”.

Or even “Diana’s former psychic adviser claims princess was murdered”.
Hence the requests for an interview. Any new hook will do to hang an old story on.

When Diana was alive I received a constant stream of offers from British newspapers – and not only from the tabloids – to “spill the beans” about the princess.

However, I’m a big believer in client confidentiality (even if the client is no longer alive), and the only time I ever spoke about Diana to journalists was at her own request, to help her to get certain facts into the public domain. This was information that she wanted people to know about, but which would have been problematic for her to reveal herself (in particular, Prince Charles’ involvement with Camilla Parker Bowles, which I was the first to reveal in a number of press articles).
When the information was published, Diana was asked to comment on it, which gave her the opportunity to confirm it publicly. Or, in some cases, to decline to deny it, which journalists understood to be confirmation.

I was only too happy to help. Diana had been treated shabbily to say the least; and when she first came to me for advice – and I don’t think I’m betraying any confidences when I say this – she was in a desperate state, caught, as she herself put it, “between a rock and a hard place”. I advised her as best I could, though in reality our sessions were mainly an opportunity for her to talk freely about her problems to someone who was “out of the loop”, and would give her objective feedback.

It is one thing to ask for, and receive good advice; but it is quite another thing to act on that advice. Diana was constantly seeking advice, and she did recognize good advice when it was offered; but she was in the grip of powerful political forces, and her options were severely limited. From the moment she became pregnant with Wiliam – the future King of England – her fate was sealed. She became a hostage to the British Establishment, and to the shadowy forces which exist to protect it. She was never going to be allowed to disappear into the sunset with the heir to the throne. Nor, on the other hand, was she ever going to relinquish custody of her children. (Although Diana had joint custody of William and Harry with Prince Charles, her influence on them was far stronger than his.)

The media spotlight was on her 24 hours a day, and every move she made was closely scrutinized. And, even though she was immensely popular, she understood that this could and would change in an instant if she said or did anything that showed her in any other light than that of the adoring young wife of the prince. Diana was expected to play the role of the fairytale princess, and the people would continue to adore her – provided she did not deviate from that role.

What the public did not know was that her marriage had ended in disillusionment after only a few months, when it became apparent to her that her new husband was more interested in another woman.

Diana’s downfall was her sense of loyalty and commitment. Instead of walking away from what was clearly a disastrous situation that could only get worse – and that had always been my advice to her – she decided to fight for her marriage, in the romantic but hopelessly naive and misguided belief that everything would work out fine in the end, and that she, her husband, and their children would all live happily ever after.

It didn’t happen like that, of course. Nor was there ever any chance that it would.

In the end, Diana decided – in fact she felt she had no other option – to go public about the circumstances of her marriage. She knew that she would be criticized for taking this route (even in modern Britain, one doesn’t air one’s dirty laundry in public, least of all if one happens to be the wife of the future King).

However, Diana had reached a point where she felt that she had no other choice but to get it all “out in the open”. She was also, it is not generally realized, afraid for her own personal safety, and she saw “going public” as a kind of insurance policy.

Diana was convinced that, having served her purpose (by providing the Prince with two healthy male heirs) and having become a liability and potential threat to the Royal Family, she would be targeted for assassination by “the powers that be” and the “dark forces of the state”.

At the time, her fears were dismissed by some as paranoia (and are still dismissed as such today by many). But in fact Diana had been warned on at least two separate occasions by secret service agents concerned for her safety, that she would be wise to “keep her head down”, as there was a real possibility that “certain elements” in the British intelligence community might deem it “expedient” to take her “out of the picture”.

Diana had also become aware of a “second level of surveillance”, by which she meant secret service agents – she referred to them as “spooks” – who were not part of the official Royal protection team.

As time passed, and particularly after her divorce from Prince Charles was finalized, Diana became increasingly concerned for her own safety, and for the safety of her children. She knew that it would be she, and not they, who would be targeted, but she feared that they might somehow be caught up in any attempt to assassinate her; and she did not, in any event, want her children to be left without their mother. She understood that the danger level had risen substantially now that she was completely independent and beyond the control of the Royal Family and its many faceless minders.

“I’m convinced they’re going to kill me,” she told me one day. “They can’t poison me or shoot me, so it will have to look like an accident. A car crash would be the easiest thing to arrange, I expect.”

Diana voiced these fears to a number of people, including Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon, who recorded the details of his conversation with Diana in a note whose contents he kept secret until after her death. Sir Paul – whose tone suggests that he was highly sceptical of the Princess’s fears and accusations – dutifully made a note of her belief that “efforts would be made if not to get rid of her (be it by some accident in her car such as pre-prepared brake failure or whatever)… to see that she was so injured or damaged as to be declared ‘unbalanced’.”

That was in 1995. A year later, after her divorce was finalized, the plan, if there was one, to have Diana declared “unbalanced” became redundant. A more permanent solution would be required.

And a more permanent solution was arranged.

I have never had the slightest doubt in my mind that Princess Diana was murdered in a hastily-planned operation by secret service agents who had been closely monitoring her movements for years, gauging her level of threat to certain interests within the British establishment on an ongoing basis, and seizing the opportunity to assassinate her in a foreign country at a time when they deemed her level of threat to have risen too high. (Under the Intelligence Services Act of 1994, British intelligence agents are immune from prosecution in Britain for criminal offences carried our overseas; but in any event the blame for any apparent lapses in security would automatically be apportioned to Al Fayed)

The various official investigations into Princess Diana’s death have been nothing but cover-ups, not least the British inquest, in which the presiding judge, Lord Justice Scott Baker, specifically instructed the inquest jury to reject the possibility that the Princess had been deliberately murdered.

Diana’s fears for her own safety were well-founded. Her instincts were good. The danger was real. Where she – and Mohamed Al Fayed – went wrong was in personalizing the threat and assuming that any plot to kill her would originate with members of the Royal Family. Diana suspected Charles of seeking to have her killed. Al Fayed blamed Prince Philip for ordering the murder of Diana and his son Dodi. In reality the decision to arrange this “accident” was made by people they had never met, and of whose existence they were only dimly aware.

Occupation 101: Voice of the Silenced Majority

“A thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict — ‘Occupation 101′ presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions.

“The film also details life under Israeli military rule, the role of the United States in the conflict, and the major obstacles that stand in the way of a lasting and viable peace. The roots of the conflict are explained through first-hand on-the-ground experiences from leading Middle East scholars, peace activists, journalists, religious leaders and humanitarian workers whose voices have too often been suppressed in American media outlets.”

For sale (price $10m): two shoes missing a heel

In the instant I saw those two shoes flying, three separate thoughts flashed into my mind in rapid succession. My first reaction was “Yes!” At last somebody has been able – and has had the cahunas – to get through George W. Bush’s hitherto impenetrable wall of security and give this piece of pond life a piece of their mind relatively up close and personal.

My immediate follow-up thought was, “What a pity he didn’t have anything a bit more lethal to throw than a pair of shoes (a grenade, for instance)”.

And my third thought – which tells you something about this internet age we live in – was:  “Those shoes will be advertised for sale on eBay within the week, and they’ll fetch a small fortune!”

In fact it took less than a week; and the fortune being offered for them isn’t all that small, even in these inflationary times.

The former coach of the Iraqi national football team, Adnan Hamad, has reportedly offered $100,000 for them.  But this bid has already been trumped by an anonymous  Saudi citizen who has apparently offered $10m for the flying footwear that so narrowly missed the world’s most wanted (or unwanted, depending on your point of view) war criminal.

Muntadar al-Zaidi, the journalist who threw the shoes, must be a fearless sole – sorry, soul – to do what he did, knowing, as he must have, that he would, at the very least, be beaten up and quite possibly tortured for his one-man protest. And, indeed, the BBC is now reporting that Mr. al-Zaidi has already been subjected to physical abuse, and has suffered a broken arm, broken ribs and internal bleeding. He now faces the prospect of seven to 15 years in an Iraqi prison under a law outlawing “aggression against a president”. So much for free speech in the new US-sponsored Iraq.

Before throwing the shoes, Mr. al-Zaidi shouted: “This is a farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”

Apart from the implied insult to dogs, it is a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly concur.

In fact at least 100,000 innocent civilians were killed by US forces in Iraq (aided and abetted by the Royal Air Force, which carpet-bombed densely-populated civilian areas) in an illegal invasion that had nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism or weapons of mass destruction and everything to do with the US gaining control of Iraq’s oil resources.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children have been maimed, orphaned, widowed or made homeless on the orders of America’s self-styled “war president”, who served only the interests of the oil corporations, deceived the American people, prevented a criminal investigation into the 9/11 attacks, and unleashed nuclear anarchy on the world.

In the early days of his campaign, Barack Obama promised that if he was elected he would indict George W. Bush for treason. However, like most of president-elect Obama’s promises, that one seems to have been forgotten, and apparently the two men are now good buddies. Next thing you know they’ll be going hunting together.

Politicians – can’t live with them, can’t shoot ‘em. But at least we can throw shoes at them. So here’s a toast to Muntadar al-Zaidi. Thank you, and well done!  You’re a brave man, and I salute you – but I don’t think I’d like to be in your… um… predicament.

There’s one born-again every minute

You have to pass a driving test before you are allowed to drive a car; but you don’t have to know the first thing about politics to have a say in who gets to run the country (any country where governments are elected). Which leads to the kind of situation such as that in the US, where candidates get elected because they have been born again (there’s one born-again every minute), or because the candidate in question comes up with the best one-liners (supplied, of course, by a team of highly-paid script-writers, copywriters, PR experts, psychologists and astrologers) in a TV debate.

There are major differences between the US and Britain when it comes to electing leaders. In the US, candidates garner support by drawing the public’s attention how intelligent, experienced, cool, qualified, and great in general they are. In Britain, candidates get support by expressing humility, modesty, and self-effacement. For a British politician to say: “When I am elected Prime Minister…” would be political suicide. It would be seen as arrogant and presumptuous. In the US, by contrast, any politician running for office who used the phrase: “If I am elected…” would be seen as weak, dithering and lacking in self-confidence.

No British politician would dream of citing Joe the plumber as an example of the country’s economic woes. In Britain plumbers earn more than Members of Parliament and live in luxurious villas with high walls and armed security guards at the gate. And while economic recessions come and go, people will always call a plumber when their sink gets blocked or their toilet overflows.

In the US, aspirants to high political office do not hesitate to wheel out their wives, children, and family pets for “media opportunities”. In Britain, the families of politicians are regarded as a liability and an embarrassment, and are kept locked away in secret dungeons until after the elections have taken place. (Tony Blair was a notable exception to this rule; which just goes to prove how sensible a rule it is.)

In the US, leadership contests are settled by having a shoot-out at the OK corral. In Britain, the dilemma for would-be replacements is to make it abundantly clear to all and sundry that they want the top job and are prepared to kill to get it, whilst being careful not to express anything other than sincere and wholehearted support for the person whose job they are after.

To get back to the American electorate (and, to be fair, the British electorate isn’t all that far behind in the sucker vote stakes), perhaps a solution would be to require all would-be voters to pass a basic intelligence and current affairs test. It wouldn’t have to be difficult. Polls have revealed that large swathes of the American public believe that Europe is a country, the London Underground is a branch of Al Qaeda, George W. Bush is doing a great job, Saddam Hussein personally organized the 9-11 attacks, America won the war in Vietnam, and almost every important invention – from the telephone to the internet – was invented by an American.

(Where on earth are they getting their information? Ah, yes: Fox news.)

A few simple questions would quickly eliminate electoral applicants whose IQ didn’t quite make it into double digits; and that in itself would represent a major advance. Question 1 could be something along the lines of: “What planet are you on?”

America is a big place. Can it really be so hard to find a candidate who is intelligent, sane, well-educated, non-racist, non-xenophobic, non-born-again, and filthy rich? Well, okay; that last criterion might eliminate a few people. But still, suitable candidates for the US presidency are as rare as Higgs bosons in a particle accelerator.

But at least Americans are getting to elect their leader, which is more than can be said for the people of Britain, who have been lumbered, through no fault of their own, with arguably the most ineffectual Prime Minister in British history – foisted on them by Tony Blair as revenge for their rejection of him.

I don’t think anyone doubts Gordon Brown’s sincerity. He obviously has great faith in his own sense of destiny, and sees himself as a great British statesman. Unfortunately, his inflated opinion of himself is not shared by the vast majority of the British people, who didn’t elect him, don’t like him, and don’t want him as their Prime Minister. Any normal, non-megalomaniac person would take the hint and withdraw gracefully from the fray; but Brown is determined to persevere in the face of overwhelming unpopularity, presumably in the belief that people will eventually come around to him. That will happen when pigs fly and Republican politicians learn how to pronounce the word nuclear.

Psychic TV

I have been asked to co-appear in a 3-part documentary-style show (“organic” was the term they used) on BBC television with British illusionist Derren Brown. The “flexible plot” – as outlined to me by the show’s producer/director Heenan Bhatti – calls for Derren and myself to take to the road in search of mysteries – unsolved murders, missing persons cases and so on – in need of resolution. The idea is that Derren would approach the case from his psychological, “mental magic” perspective, while I would attempt to get to the truth using my psychic profiling skills.
It sounds interesting. It might even work as a regular TV series, if it was handled properly.

However…

I haven’t done any TV for years. It’s not because I wouldn’t like to, or because I’m not asked. It’s because almost every show that’s ever been made on “the paranormal” has been – in my opinion, anyway – complete dross. TV producers seem to “lose the plot” whenever they set out (probably with the best intentions) to make programmes dealing with this subject.  That’s why there’s a message on my website advising media researchers that I’m not interested in taking part in TV programmes unless they are “original and thought-provoking” – which, of course, deters 99% of them, because most psychic-related programmes fall firmly into the “duh!” category.

Even so, I still receive one or two proposals every week, usually from Japanese television companies who seem to be obsessed with the paranormal. (That and bottom-smacking.) Most of the concepts that TV producers “run past” me are mind-bogglingly lame. So I usually refer them to Uri Geller. I did that once when I was asked to co-present a show with Sir David Frost called “Beyond Belief”. I thought the proposed format stank, and that the “psychics” they’d lined up to take part were indeed “beyond belief” (as it turned out I was right on both counts), so I politely declined and said: “Why don’t you get Uri Geller to do it?” If they realized that I was being ironic they didn’t care -  because they did get Geller to do it! (Geller, by the way, threatened to sue me a few years ago for suggesting that he was a fraud.)

There are several problems inherent in making TV programmes about the paranormal. In the UK there is the “balance” issue. This means that producers of programmes on psychic or paranormal topics will come in for a barrage of flak from various TV watchdog groups if they are seen to be “promoting” belief in, or acknowledging the existence of the paranormal (bizarrely, however, they produce religious programmes; so they have no problem with supernatural forces, only with paranormal ones!). In practice, this means that if someone makes a programme which appears to support or confirm the reality of some paranormal event or ability, they must also, in the interest of “balance”, include someone who will set out a counter argument – for example, a magician or professional “debunker” who will make the argument against the reality of the phenomenon in question and demonstrate how it can be replicated using trickery.

Most people are not aware that highly-organized groups of dedicated skeptics target producers of programs on psychic topics with various demands as to how the programme should be made.  In most cases they will insist that a magician representing the skeptical viewpoint – who can “explain” how the phenomena or abilities in question could be attributable to trickery – also take part. Their mission is to attack and undermine any and all claims of psychic abilities (often, unfortunately, by attacking the character of the person making, investigating or reporting these claims). For example, Wikipedia articles on paranormal topics are routinely and systematically trashed by dedicated skeptics if they appear to accept the reality of psychic abilities.

Another problem with television is that it is a medium which relies to a large extent on results on demand. Especially, of course, in a studio setting; and even moreso with a live audience. The viewers (or audience members) want to see something paranormal happen, and they want to see it now. Time is money, and there are deadlines to be met. And psychics – if they are genuine – are rarely able to “perform” at the drop of a hat. Psychic impressions come in their own time; and sometimes they don’t come at all.

TV companies can’t afford to waste time on psychics who can’t produce instantaneous and reliable results; and so they turn to performers who can: which is why most of the psychics you see on TV are frauds – albeit highly entertaining ones.

Another problem with the mainstream media is that psychics are expected to stay “in character” and “on theme” at all times. Or, to put it another way, they are rigidly typecast. Psychics are popularly depicted as detached, unworldly characters, with no interest in or knowledge of subjects like politics, business, science and current affairs – and that’s how TV and radio producers want them to be.

I remember one radio show producer in London went bananas when, in the course of an interview (I had been invited to talk about “anything you like”), I criticized the policies of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and made reference to the fact that the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant was pumping 2 million gallons of toxic radioactive waste into the Irish Sea every day, and that there was an abnormally high level of leukemia among children living along the east coast of Ireland. He accused me of “ruining his show” and said, “You’re supposed to talk about ghosts and extrasensory perception, not nuclear bloody waste!”
Politics was a different “slot”.

All of which explains why I am wary of doing television. The box really is a box, and as a psychic you’re expected to fit into it, snugly. But most of the shows on the box – and especially shows dealing with the paranormal – are, in the words of the old Malvina Reynolds song, “all made out of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same”.

The interestingfulness is terrific

“May you live in interesting times” is an old Chinese curse.
Has there ever been a more interesting – or, to be more accurate, bizarre – period than the first decade of the 21st century? We’ve had the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq over non-existent WMD, the execution of Saddam Hussein (the fall guy in every sense), war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic turning up as a Rasputinesque holistic therapist with a bushy beard, warble gloaming, evidence of water on mars, and – perhaps most unthinkable of all – a black man well on the way to becoming president of the United States.
And now – just in case we didn’t have enough on our plate – we are suddenly having to deal with a global financial meltdown.
Things are becoming more “interesting” by the day, it seems.
And this past week has been exceptionally interesting and eventful.
In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown finally found his calling. God came down to him while he was sitting on his potty wondering why the British public didn’t like him (“They just don’t appreciate the Brown stuff”) and said: “Gordon, I have chosen you to lead the global crusade to correct the credit crunch and avert a madmaxian apocalypse.”
“But how, Lord?”
“Take money from the public and use it to enrich the bankers.”
“But, Lord – that’s what we’ve always done.”
“Yes, but now you can do it and say that you’re saving the world from Armageddon.”
“Thank you God. You know, if I manage it carefully, I should be able to do quite a bit with a hundred zillion quid….”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sarah Palin revealed further details of her plan for dealing with the Russians: “Look, it’s only a short sled ride from where I live to Russia. Heck, with a really good high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight I could probably shoot Vladimir Putin from my bedroom window.”
She also outlined her solution to the global financial crisis: “What we need to do is go back to using fur pelts as the basic trading commodity. That way, we won’t have to rely on foreign oil.”
It’s been a bad week for Seve Ballesteros, who this week was told by surgeons that he has a tumor the size of a… well, a kumkwat.
And an even worse week for far-right politician Joerg Haider, who was killed in a car crash that was, to all appearances, a complete accident. Even before the crash occurred, Mossad was vehemently denying any involvement. Ironically, Haider was driving the latest model of Hitler’s “People’s Car” when he veered too far to the right and left the road (and the planet).
The only good news of the past week also came from Germany, where a farmer underwent a successful double arm and hand transplant. He told reporters how happy he was to be able to play the trombone again. Or something along those lines.