Category Archives: Crime

Freedom Next Time

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Diego GarciaFrom a new book, Freedom Next Time, by John Pilger, excerpted in The Guardian, comes news of government intrigue and mendacity so extreme that it surprises even me. Until this report, I'd never heard a word of the forcible deportation of the entire population of the island of Diego Garcia and its subsequent illegal sale to the US.

What happened in the Chagos Islands was so searing, it may seem barely credible. Indeed La Lutte, as the Chagossians call their struggle for justice and freedom, arose from a crime that allows us to glimpse how great power works behind its respectable, democratic facade and how governments justify their actions with lies.

During the 1960s and 1970s, British governments, both Labour and Tory, tricked and expelled the entire population of the Chagos, a British colonial dependency, so that their homeland could be given to a foreign power, the United States, as the site for a military base. This "act of mass kidnapping", as one observer describes it, was carried out in high secrecy, along with the conspiracy that preceded it.

For almost a decade, neither parliament nor the US Congress knew anything about it, and no journalist revealed it. BBC newsreaders still refer to US aircraft flying out to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq from the "uninhabited" island of Diego Garcia. Not only was the Chagossians' homeland stolen from them, but they were taken out of history. This scandal is unresolved today – even though the high court in London has twice ruled that the islanders' "wholesale removal" was an "abject legal failure".

Here is a slideshow of the current inhabitants, US military personnel. It sure does look nice there!

The Classic Middle Name: the Classic Darwinian Response

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Wayne's WorldFrom the always-amusing News of the Weird.

The Classic Middle Name (all new)

Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Bruce Wayne Potts, 34 (DeSoto, Texas, February); Oral Wayne Nobles, 71 (arrested in Kingman, Ariz., on a Massachusetts warrant, April); Ronald Wayne Spencer Jr., 19 (Richardson, Texas, April). Arrested and suspected of murder: Darrell Wayne Lewis, 32 (Tempe, Ariz., March). Sentenced for murder: David Wayne Hickman (Dallas, May); Anthony Wayne Welch, 27 (Viera, Fla., March). Committed suicide while serving life in prison for murder: John Wayne Glover, 72 (Sydney, Australia, September 2005). [Dallas Morning News, 2-2-06] [Boston Globe, 4-4-06] [Dallas Morning News, 4-12-06] [Arizona Republic, 3-15-06] [Dallas Morning News, 5-12-06] [Miami Herald-AP, 3-8-06] [Sydney Morning Herald, 9-9-05]

Conrad Blackout

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the Black LordSo it turns out Conrad Black may be tied to the $ for honours scandal, quel suprise. But really, the only surprising part of this is that he got his title while Labour was in power. Appeasement isn't to be underrated, apparently.

Lord Black, the disgraced Tory peer and former owner of the Daily Telegraph, has been named in a series of letters surrounding the 'cash for peerages' police investigation.

The Observer has learnt that Scotland Yard is seeking information on Black, who is facing a multi-million-pound fraud trial in America. Last week, his name featured in a letter written by Tory chairman Francis Maude to former party treasurers asking for information about the investigation.

A senior party source, who has seen the letter, told The Observer that it asked for a range of background information in connection with the investigation. Black was the only peer named in the letter, the source said. Maude confirmed that he was asking former treasurers, party chairmen and other party leaders for whatever information they might have. 'We want to co-operate fully,' he said.

The Irish Heather Painting and its REAL story; the second of several parts

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Well, it's two parts so far until I hear from Fire-man. From what I hear of that lad, this could go as many installments as Nancy Drew, and I say bring it on!

So I dig up something from the archive, from 2002 specifically, and feed it into the blog on a day I'm feeling unoriginal. And it turns out to be wrong. And Sean Heather, being no shrinking violet and something of a friend of mine besides, lets me know it.

And the true story is so much more amusing than the version I'd posted that I am practically drooling to type it out, and a damn good thing he can't tell over the phone or he'd be cagier. The saliva nearly shorted the damn thing out, I tell ya.

So here is the actual story of the real painting(s) of the Irish Heather, another painting entirely, and done by another Fireman entirely. Who knew the Lower Mainland would hold two paintbrush-wielding firefighters of brusque, macho persuasions? But so it does. And this story involves, as the other does not, allegations of IRA terrorism, the L.Ron-esque founding of religions, cop-punching, incendiary rivalry, con artistry, wild chases through Gastown, death threats, art, and flame-clad gimp-ism.

I just wish I could somehow work "mango porn" into this: I'd absolutely own Google!

[this is what's known as a teaser. I'm off typing the rest, assuming you all to be hanging by the monitors, waiting for an update. Ain't I the egotistical one. Besides, I don't want Sean to cut off my credit, thinking I'm not correcting the record ;) *waves*]

Update: We're gonna hafta wait till I come down off the cold meds, sometime tomorrow, for the update. Currently don't trust myself to do more than post amusing video and deliberately misquote Tories, a talent which never deserts me.

Best. Police. Blotter. Ever

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Village People CopI don't know where Ponoka is, but I should move there immediately. Here are exerpts from the best police blotter report in human history, or, as Fark put it, "This is what happens when a frustrated novelist writes for the police blotter."

This weeks most unusual complaint referred to a Scrabble game, gone horribly wrong. A woman reported that she was having a friendly game of on-line Scrabble with someone, she believed to be a kindly, grandmotherly type. During their “chat” she was provided instructions as to how to set up and activate her web-cam (it came with her new PC) so that they could see each other as they played and chatted. The web cam was fired up and “oh dear!”, Granny looked like an ugly man. In fact, given that she had an Adam’s apple, she probably was an ugly man. This she found to be a little weird. What really mortified her was the second man, standing behind Granny, madly tugging on a part of his lower anatomy, commonly believed to cause blindness. The proper term for which is potentially a “Triple, Triple word score” if positioned just so.

By the way, when reading the roadkill report, it makes far more sense if you know, as do most Canadians, that the QE2 isn't a boat, but a highway.