Haven, I'm in haven.....

Tax Haven are good! This is the summary of a little piece of journalism in Economist. I do not accept its premise I don't support its conclusion. Is the idea of tax leakage a tool for slimming the governments down? Definately. Is it a good thing? Sometimes. Who benefits? Fat cats. Who pays for a short fall? Labour. Why? Because labour cannot change its address like any respectfull corporation can. Because government can lay its hands on the tax before little people like you and me even smell the money. Because we are sitting ducks. Because naither party will seriously let go of personal tax on labour and go after real money. So when is it good?. When even the politicians are outraged by the simplicity of accounting slight of hand and feel moved to do something. No, politicians are no longer outraged by greed. Not in anglosaxon countries. Being outraged by greed is virtually unheard of. It smells too much like communism, and as we know communism is dead and socialism is ....well dead as well. So why is tax haven a good idea? Well, as soon as I make my millions I will go to one of those havens myself. Wouldn't like to miss out or what.

Iranian Chalabi?

People's Mojahedin of Iran (Monafiqeen-e-Khalq, Mojahedin-e-Khalq) organization are as exotic as they make them.

Considered as a cult by some, as an terrorist organisation by the others, it is famous by its strict requirement that the women share the duties and responsibilities of the movement. Hence 50% of the "leader" grades are given to women - this is unparalleled in the (not only Muslim) world.
Another reason for fame was it's leader's insistence that all the followers decided, individually and without pressure to dissolve marriages they were in.

They make a dashing sight - disciplined and well trained, with women wearing the signature red scarfs on their heads - the epitome of gender equality in action.

The wife of (now believed departed) dear leader Rassoud Rajavi, Myriam Rajavi, is living in some style in Paris.

People's Mojahedin of Iran is fighting Teocratic Iran since 1979. Using the principle that enemy fo my enemy is my ally, they have bases is Iraq and sided with Saddam Hussein during Iran-Iraq war.

The sleekness of the new website from which Myriam Rajavi is presenting herself as a "President of Iran in exile" makes me wonder if by any chance she is not joisting for the position of head of state of "liberated" Iran when Americans invade their country.

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Attacking Iran

Ray Mcgovern predicted the attack on Iran - the timing slipped but hey, he no longer has an access to all the info from inner circle of CIA.

I am utterly frustrated at the spectacle of Bush's Administration playing the same propaganda moves that preceded Iraq and not being challenged by the pliant media. I read somewhere that one of the strategies that Israel admired the British Empire for was our ability to fracture and anger the "locals" and then sit and enjoy when they spent time, money, blood and life, fighting each other out.

What is happening in Iraq? Sunnies are angered and frightened by sudden removal of power from their hands. They are not even given enough power to protect themselves from vengeful Shia masses, have organises themselves into the militia force. They are using their military and police expertise to create enclaves that they control and feel safe in, and from those basis strike at American forces who brought their fall from position of privileged minority to persecuted, scattered minority without protection from the multiple enemies that they made for themselves when they ruled Iraq in the past. So we have Iraq fractured into the three areas (lets not forget Kurds). We have Saudi's making fantastic profits on their oil ( as Iraq is hardly producing any), military - industrial complex getting fat on Saudi profits that are spent on arms ( Saudis are very worried about Shia crescent), Lebanon and Palestine on the brink of civil war and Israel thanking God because he granted them virtually every wish they ever made.

To sum up:

Military Corporations are making the fattest profits for a quarter century.

Saudis are again rolling in it. Israel's potential enemies are fractured and engaged in internal strife.

Still to do:

Involve Iran and Iraq in another war, so that they quietly bleed and weaken.

Pressure is temporarily off Syria, but the chances that it will remain uninvolved in the Iraq-Iran fighting is slim.

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John Bolton sure gets around

Nobody disputes that the Bush Administration is a tight knit affair with all participants belonging to neo-con, or new neoconservatives. Florida 2000 voting was a fiasco with recount showing graphicly how punching voting system was inadequate. There is a iconic picture of John Bolton, he of UN fame, who is checking the voting staff doing recount. It was a complete and VERY public spectacle. Of course other systems worked perfectly well. But the hype facilitated lots of money being made available for voting reform. The result is manipulators dream. The Diebolt company produced voting machines that do away with paper ballot. Hence there is no audit trail. On top of that they can be hacked into almost at will. Buying an election will become so much cheaper!

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Democracy Justice Current Affairs Voting Conspiracy Diebolt Florida UN John Bolton

Proof is in the pudding NOT in the majority view

"It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth... Just as there is a 'folie a deux' there is a 'folie a millions.' The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane." (Fromm, The Sane Society, Routledge, 1955, pp.14-15)

14th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement

14th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), in the Palace of Conventions in Havana makes uncomfortable reading. All those rogue states plotting together to destroy the democratic and liberal forces on this planet.....

That is of course one way of looking at it. The other is that the small guys are meeting to talk without the big guys and big guys don't like it one little bit. The BBC said (with delicious understatement) that the member list makes uncomfortable reading list for London and USA. Why would some of the greatest powers of the planet feel uncomfortable?. Its the economy, stupid!

Cuba is a real sore in the USA's side: despite the tightening of the sanctions and embargos at precisely the point when Cuba lost Soviet Union as a sanction busting partner and bodyguard, and despite a catastrophic decline in living standards the country did not break and did not embrace the loving capitalism of its nearest superpower neighbour.

Iran is equally infuriating. It will simply not accept, that the sort of backtalk that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dares to engage in, translates into very measurable fury of the free world: His country can end up paying the same price as Iraqis paid when free world imposed sanctions on their people.

And what about Mr Hugo Chavez of Venezuela? Didn't he learn about the price that people pay, if countries like his vote "the wrong sort of guy" into the government? Did he forget Haiti, Nicaragua and Uruguay? Doesn't he read the papers about Hamas and Palestine?

Anyway, back to the Non-Aligned Movement: Countries join the Non-Aligned Movement if they do not like being aligned with free world of western democracies. Aligned means of course opening its borders to free world's imports, opening it's banking systems to market forces and capital flows, and opening its press and media to objective, free and democratic media moguls of western free worlds. Not to mention to open its economies to free worlds economic policies specially designed by IMF to speedily increase the welfare of its populace: to eliminate poverty, lack of universal education and lack of universal access to health care.

Well, they decided that rather than benefit from all these blessings, they much rather try and communicate with each other and, while respecting the sovereignty of it's own political systems, they will try to emulate some of the most successful enterprises of their respective nations. One very positive example of this co-operation is project to create a Cuban-style Medical School in Venezuela where poor background students can gain the medial knowledge of Cuban Healthcare which belongs to the best, and to most cost effective in the world.

The added bonus of the summit is the outspokenness of some delegates, which makes for excellent reading for the old skeptic like me.

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When are Children Children

This chilling entry found by me when I surfed the blogs seeking examples of successful propaganda exercises should be a standard text for any Media Student. (nota bene links are inactive. For original text with active links go HERE)

On Sunday, Israel hit a building in Qana, Lebanon, killing 34 children. The Associated Press story reporting the killing of these children was headlined "34 youths among 56 dead in Israeli strike," which seemed really peculiar to me. (The text of the story correctly reported that the victims were children. The headline was also used by many outlets that carry AP stories.)
Youths sounds just a bit less childreny, I suppose. We've already declared that all "military age male"s are terrorists. The women are collaborators. The infrastructure is all command and control centers. Trucks carrying food and aid could be munition relief. Ambulances... don't ask.
But the children pose a bit of a problem because while we have managed to dehumanize entire nations, our caring towards children is a bit more resistant to propaganda.
Ergo, all children are youths. And they will one day grow into adults, who are all terrorists (men) or collaborators (women), after first growing into youths.
But this child in Qana will not be doing any more of that pesky growing up thing, solving in one fell swoop the problem of the tension we have between continuing to care about children, and our utter lack of concern for their parents, their environment, and their well-being:
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USA stands for justice and fairness

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Peace

Richard Ben Cramer's latest book is called WHY ISRAEL LOST. I started this book twelve hours ago and just finished a last page. I'm Polish and lost family members in struggles with Tzar's Russia two hundred years ago, and relatively recently - 60 years ago - in struggles with Nazis. My first thought was to purchase couple of hundred copies of this book and take it personally to movers and shakers of UK and EU and say: " Read this book. See1? there is a way forward in the Israel/Palestinian conflict! - just recognize that real people really hurt if you do nothing". I felt that the prose is so strong, so powerful, so illuminating, that if only it was to get to people it would actually, like some churchillian speeches in the Houses of Parlament, make a difference. I read a lot of books and I have never felt like this before. Ben Cramer's prose makes the hurt and the fear and the hate somehow understandable, human and, in an powerful beam of the work that manages to state the obvious, real. It is, as if the events described in the book translated the news and the statistics and the belicose statements of the politicians into real emotions, of real people, in the nightmare that they can neither shake of nor escape from.

Here I must confess that I am not impartial in the subject matter. I have therefore an emotional baggage which colours the way I read about the military campains, occupations of land, extrajudicial killings, checkpoints and targeted assasinations. You see - its not a fiction for me.

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Technorati Keywords: Middle East Iran Anti-semitism Killing Middle East Occupation Terrorism Suicide Bombers Extrajudicial+Killings Israel Palestine

Thank You Israel for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East

How entirely predictable. Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons of mass destruction created an imbalance which Iran is trying to redress, while blowing raspberries at USA.

Is it really so difficult to predict? If it isn't, then let's reflect: there are only two possible avenues that lead to this state of affairs: Primo, that Israel obtained nuclear warheads despite West's opposition or that Israel obtained nuclear warheads with West's blessing.

Let's take the first scenario.
After spending much of the fifties and sixties in Cold War, with possibility of nuclear conflict sometimes closer, sometimes less close but always somewhere on the horizon of the subconscious mind, we arrived at the times, when people started to sleep better at night. This corporate sigh of relief was not least due to the signing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968. The phantom of "Doctor Strangelow" receding into the half forgotten twilight where night terrors reside. Israel decided that it will develop nuclear weapons and that it is not bound by any obligations towards the world community. It refused to listen to 188 countries that signed the treaty hoping that by limiting the amount of weapons it will limit the probability of them being used. It put it's own interests first, and undermined the universal law of reciprocity in its dealing with the West. In the layman's terms it stuck two fingers at the West and said A: it's our business and B: you are anti-semitic if you dare to object. I do not recall any serious critical opinion expressed in the western media. It is almost as if Mordechai Vanunu's abduction offended our sensibilities more than weapons of mass destruction smack bang in one of the most volatile regions on the earth. I remember a cartoon from before 1st world war where Balkans were represented as barrels full of dynamite on which the solemn heads of state were smoking a peace pipe. Israel, by unilaterally deciding to upset the delicate balance of nuclear deterrents and contr-deterrents have made a world a decidedly less safe place for its friends and its foes alike.

Lets take a second scenario. Instead of ignoring its friends and allies the scenario offers exactly opposite: that Israel got covert or overt blessing for its entrepreneurial spirit and West had no issues with it's program of proliferating weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. West liked (and likes) Israel so much that it considered the price of OPEC raising oil prices and triggering a near-catastrophic recession of 1973 as a small price to pay for it's protege's feeling of safety and security. West felt that the collapse of non-proliferation treaty was a acceptable price to pay to welcome Israel at the God's table where Olympians able to destroy the planet eat drink and make merry with the 7 (pardon now eight) red nuclear buttons sticking at the centre of the table). Israel must have something of incredible value to offer to West, something so precious that it is worth more than billions lost in catastrophic 1973 recession, worth more than increased risk of proliferation and worth more than loss of good will of numerous countries in the Middle East. In short: What Israel offered in return for approval of it's nuclear program is worth more than West's countries' good. There is no running away from it - we do like Israel an awful lot!

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Technorati Keywords: Israel Nuclear Proliferation Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Nuclear Bomb Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Iran OPEC Recession Oil Crisis Mordechai Vanunu Anti-semitism

Israel extrajudiciary killing in Palestine Occupied Territories

Twenty first century. 2000 years of Jesus Christ teachings. We, the superior western civilisations are meant to be the peak of human evolution tree. We are supposed to be powerfull, and able to insist that our lofty ideals of human rights and individual freedoms and compationate capitalism and equality and and rule of law and democracy without trampling on minorities etc, etc, etc...
And then I'm surfing the internet and find that the powerful and influential are exempt from the rules. Why we subject the young soldiers with inadequaty personalities who commit war crimes to the full wrah of the law, but sit on our hands and ignore totally a much more cold blooded, pre-meditated and executed without flicker of the remorse murders occuring under our noses in Middle East?
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Creating Technorati link

This post is to try to create technorati links
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US: Military strategy based on business strategy?

In his essay "The end of the Bush Revolution" (published June 2006) Philip H Gordon argues that the Bush administration, despite keeping the rethoric of war on terror and the ideology that America has moral right to show the liberalism and democracy down peoples throats whether they want in or not, have, in fact modified its approach and, behind the scenes takes more conciliatory approach, trying diplomacy and making overtures to mend the bridges with Europe. "America is at war ... Axil of evil..." has been replaced with "US will continue to rally the world " . This softening of approach is in retreat since the Israel attacked Lebanon. America had no option but to support Israel and must have been aghast to realise that Hezbullah have an upper hand. Iran's and Syria's posturing while entirely predictable must grate badly. It will be interesting if re-activation of neocon-pur "America is at war, Iran is a clear enemy of US interests " will win against the american public's and world's revulsion against so called collateral damage inflicted on Lebanese people. Frederic W. Kagan in an essay in periodical Foreign Affair describes the recent approach of the neocon military strategists responsible for distribution of funds to various military sections of the Pentagon. The business acumen requires that the product bringing the best returns should be expanded at the expense of the less profitable product. This is hardly revolutionary. Using this logic in the military milleau can be quite disastrous. US has been pouring funds into high tech military hardware, especially aircraft and information gathering systems, while cutting down on actual soldiers and ground support. The problem with this choice of priorities is obvious to anyone who heard of Hannibal and his "victory" over Roman Empire or seen VietCom withstand US might and Hezbollah virtually untouched in its warrens spanning the south Lebanon. The point is that destroying military targets and destroying country infrastructure is NOT a military victory per se. To win the war, the loosers must accept the authority of the victors on the level of government and administration. Hence Israel did not "win" the 1967 war - they are still fighting it every day.

Litani River

This is Litani River. Will red poppies grow on its banks , watered not by rain, but by blood of Lebanese people?

Exploding dell computer at Nuffield

Not so long ago, while working at Nuffield Hospital, a computer started smoking at the back of the large piece of equipment. We pulled the plug, thus preventling the chunk of hospital going up in flames, we let it cool down overnight, went home, and next morning called an engineer. The engineer let it slip that this was by no means the first time it happened. These computers often overheated. He also said, that as the computer was made by Dell, and simply added to the back of the unit, the manufacturers of the analyzer itself were not really responsible.

Well I thought that this may need to be reported, as the NHS hospitals are littered with this equipment and as they tend to be left unattended for prolonged periods of time, overheating may well cause fire.

Alas, I was naive. For a while I expected incident report to be completed. Then I approached our estate manager, who is responsible health and safety, and asked him if this incident comes under RIDDOR. He didn't think so, but he was waiting for a official report about the incident from my boss. In addition, I heard that hospital already reported two incidents to local Health and Safety Executive, and the third one may trigger an investigation. I asked if it would make sense to write to Medical Devices Agency but got brushed off.

After a while it became obvious that my boss had no intention to waste time on the incident report, and I was pissing him off just mentioning it. Medical Devices Agency would not take

anonymous report and I would step on every imaginable toe if I were to circumvent proper channels and take the matter to them myself.

I always felt a coward for not forcing the issue. Sometimes I had nightmares that there is a burning hospital building with fire started by computer at the back of these large analysers.

Yet reporting the incident was clearly not part of my job description. I raised it with all appropriate people and agencies. Did I do enough? When is a right time to let go of something? At which point do you draw the line and say "Lets forget it, its somebody else's ball, they get paid more than me, I want to get on with my life and clear my conscience."

Islamofascism

I am extremely offended by use of the phrase "islamofascism". It is emotive, divisive and it attempts to deliberately incite religious hatred.
“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America , nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice of no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounced the pacifists for the lack of patriotism and exposing the country to the danger. It works the same in any country”
Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials. (quote thanks to Les at Newsnight ‘s website)

On frogs, resistance and terrorism

I have just finished listening to the beautiful and powerful song written about a soldier of polish resistance leaving his beloved to join partisans fighting German occupier. These men knew very well they faced almost a certain death. They lived the life full of danger, appearing from nowhere and dissolving in the night, fighting the enemy army, knowing full well that the British and French are not coming. We remember them, we salut them, we teach our children to remember them as heroes, we lit the candles in churches for them, we lit the candles in cemeteries knowing that many never had a Christian burial. They fought and they fell, and if they didn’t fell their fate was often worse in the hands of the German.
Please can someone tell me how, somehow, fight of men wanting to get rid of aggressor from their soil is different in Middle East than it was in Poland 60 years ago, how can we consider those who want to protect their land and their families and their livelihoods as terrorists? How and where did we get brainwashed into thinking that resistance to the ruthless aggressor is somehow wrong. And talking of wrongs - I do not believe and I never condone attacks on civilians. But It is grotesque to accept and to accept without thinking the preposition that just because people fight dirty their fight, their resistance, their sacrifice is invalid, is all criminal., is all terrorism.
How do we arrive at the stage that we are indifferent to this desperate injustice going on under our own noses and in front of our own eyes. Is this how Germany let fascists to lead them to despise Jews so much that their fate was not worth putting oneself in danger.
I am sure that this belief in Jews and Gipsies and handicapped as somehow subhuman did not happened overnight. There must have been a gradual process of the whole society deciding that they are superior to other groups of fellow human beings. How did this gradual process occur? Did it start with Cristalnacht and with sense that one can destroy other people’s property without consequences? Did it followed that as those people had less right to the justice they did not deserve justice? Did it followed that as society stayed indifferent to their fate the perpetrators were not really doing anything reprehensible? Did it follow that these “people” were not really same as us and as such did not deserve the society’s protection. Can you see how easy it is? Those people becoming those “people” becoming those dirty scum becoming vermin to be exterminated? It didn’t take Germans long to make this journey. Are we, civilized as we are, becoming de-sensitised to the tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes? By awarding some people right to kill others with impunity, while standing idly by, are we awarding a different “intrinsic” value to different groups in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel - are we on a slippery slope walked by our German friends 70-plus years ago?
I always wondered what it was like to have humanity sucked out of you in pre-was Germany. Did people notice? Or was it like that frog, that put in the pan of cold water does not try to escape when cooked alive?

Army strength and individual morals

I saw an interview between Amy Goodman and Sergeant Ricky Clousing on DemocracyNow.org: He was an Army interrogator in Iraq and a year ago went AWOL .
On one hand I salute him for the strength of character that allowed him to follow his conscience. On the other hand I can see how the army of democratic nation which has freedom of speech can be weakened by those uncomfortable moral questions. The successful army has to have total dedication and iron discipline. None of this is likely to be present in the unjust war. Lest just hope that our troops will not be weak when the enemy will land on our soil and just war must be waged.

Cold Logic of Suicide Bombers

I came across an interview, conducted by Harry Kreisler from Institute of International Studies , University of California at Berkeley with Robert A. Pape, professor of Political Science at University of Chicago. After 9/11 Robert A. Pape set out , in the problem oriented approach, to research the phenomenon of suicide bombers using research tools of social sciences. To say that his findings are surprising is an understatement. There are five necessary elements to persuading people to commit suicide in this extreme manner. First element, which is also primary and of overwhelming importance, is that there must be an occupation of the land that the resistance fighters/terrorists value extremely highly. The occupation of Palestine and Lebanon, the stationing of foreign troops on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula after first Gulf War both fit the bill. Second element is, that virtually all other tactics have failed to dislodge the occupier. The kamikaze fighter is firstly a weapon and his death is a secondary , abeit predictable consequence of using that weapon. Third element is that there must be a religious difference between an aggressor/occupier and victim/occupied. The religious difference is useful in presenting the conflict not only as a just war for the sovereignty of the land but also as a war between the most fundamental and basic religious and personal beliefs of the indigenous population. This is why Osama bin Laden uses phrases of "great shaitan " in "the land of the Prophet" and invokes the images of Crusades. There is always an element of urgency - perception that the loss of sovereignty (or defilement) of occupied land is irreversible/imminent unless something is done immediately. (there are no brownie points for realizing that this is pretty widespread political tactic in it's own right. Bush is using "an axel of evil" and Crusades, while Blair's infamous "45 minutes" have entered permanently to the political lore.). Fourth element is that there must be widespread social support for terrorists/resistance fighters as without it there would be no volunteers for the job. It must be said that the volunteers are rarely combatants/fighters. Their fate is to be weapons not to be soldiers. Finally, the occupying force must belong to a democracy. This is crucial, as democracies are uniquely vulnerable to loss of life of its soldiers and its civilians. Democracies also have freedom of speech allowing for re-assessment of gains due to occupation versus losses due to the terrorism/resistance actions, meaning losses of lives of its soldiers and civilians. In democracy there are usually a number of mechanisms for the change of policy by the elected government.
Like any good research this theory/hypothesis for the origin of the suicide bombers/terrorists/resistance fighters elegantly explains numerous inconsistencies in the suicide bombers phenomenon, which before were considered unexplainable or due to illogical minds of faith crazed Islamic fundamentalists . Suicide bombers were used by Tamil Tigers who's ideology is predominantly atheist Marxist/Leninist. The terrorist attacks in Britain are perpetrated by home grown operatives because the Home Offices own opinion poll suggests that 8-13% of English Muslims are in vehement opposition to occupation of Iraq which, rightly or wrongly, they perceive as augmentation of the presence of Kufr (unbelievers) on the sacred land of Arabic Peninsula in direct contradiction of their deepest religious beliefs. The change of ruling party in Spain immediately following the Madrid bombing and subsequent removal of Spanish forces from Iraq and Ronald Reagan's decision to remove US troops from Lebanon following the attack of suicide fighter on the marine barracks, both show vulnerability of the democracies to the loss of life and loss of perception of safety that suicide missions impose on the society. As far as I know this is the only comprehensive study of the phenomenon of suicide attacks and as such leaves me with a sense of bewilderment why the findings of this research have not been more widely reported by the press.

Islam Online

I have been spending days on Middle East Crisis and Middle East in general as well as getting side tracked on issues of Women and women's rights in Islam. I made my acquintance with two guys: one, Tarik Ramadan, who is a very good looking modernising islamic scholar with ability to be seriously oblique in his writing. He is a grandchild of the founder member of Muslim Brotherhood (conservative islamic religeous and social movement from the thirties, started in Egipt). The other is Yufus al-Quaradawi, who runs website Islam Online, is famous for being a quest of Ken Livingstone in 2004, and supporting kamikadze palestinian bombers. I have been impressed with two things: one, the number of websites supporting Israel which pretend to be objective, and number of websites run by muslims for muslims which are verymuch "They do what it says on the packet". I have also been slightly paranoid since sending money for a medical aid for palestinins - what if someone will diclare it a terrorism supporting organisation and I will get into trouble for helping? And what if my service provider is quietly checking all websites I visited for forbidden word combinations like Middle east islam invasion aperthait muslim and israel? What if my my visit to Wikipedia for entry on Dair Yussuf massacre is considered a sign of my radicalision ? Not for nothing I was brought up in communist Poland. The healthy paranoia is grafted in my bones. I was so proud of being in England. I felt free. I no longer do so. No I don't think anyone will burst here tomorrow for writing this blog or for surfing internet. No, I'm not worried about tomorrow; but for the next 5-10 years - definately. Todays surfing may be recognised as god knows what in the new wave of MacCarthism that I feel in my bones will come.