Sign this petition, damn you!

Please, please add your name to this petition. “If not now, when? If not us, who?”

Of course signing an online petition isn’t much of a heroic act. There’s lots of other stuff we can do. But signing the petition is surely the least we can do?

Police given the green light to kill protestors

16 months ago, Constable Simon Harwood of London’s Metropolitan Territorial Support Unit killed Ian Tomlinson at the anti-G20 protests… even though Tomlinson was not a protestor. He was an innocent bystander, passing by the area of the protest to go home and watch football on TV. Yet there is video footage of Constable Harwood shoving him viciously from behind. Tomlinson died minutes later, because of internal bleeding caused by the assault according to 2 separate post mortems.

Yet, 16 months later, the Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service have decided that Harwood will face no disciplinary action. The authorities have decided, yet again, that the police can kill with impunity.

Remember Jean Charles de Menezes? He was the Brazilian electrician shot dead on the London Tube by police officers in the wake of multiple terrorist attacks, even though he had nothing at all to do with those attacks. Well, Tomlinson’s another one – an innocent man brutally killed by police officers. Neither Tomlinson nor Menezes had anything to do with crime, yet both were murdered. By the police. And the officers involved have been told that their actions were legitimate. In other words: the police can kill whoever they like, whether there’s a reason or not.

Take my advice: if you see a police officer anywhere near you, get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Don’t stop, even if the police tell you to stop. And don’t let the police corner you, as they did Menezes and Tomlinson. Because the police will kill you, even if there are hundreds of witnesses present. Tomlinson’s murder was televised for fuck’s sake! No one is safe so long as these psychopaths are allowed to do what they want. Fucking murderers.

Oh, and before someone tells us that the CPS made their decision because of differences between medical opinions on the cause of death: there were 3 post mortems; 2 of them, including the PM ordered by the Met itself, found that Tomlinson died because of internal bleeding caused by the assault. There’s very little doubt that Tomlinson was murdered. But the CPS and its political masters refuse to put their hired hands on trial for their heinous crimes.

How to make pepper spray (and believe me, this one *works*)

DISCLAIMER: Everything here is just for informational and entertainment purposes. The author can take no responsibility for the consequences of your actions. In fact, taking any notice of anything he writes is just crazy. The guy’s a certifiable loon.

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UPDATE: A serious problem with this has been the use of non-aerosol cans.  The pump sprays are far inferior.  So, at last, here are some ideas I’ve found that may solve the problem:

• Make your own pressurized spray cans out of soda bottles http://hackaday.com/2011/12/01/make-your-own-spray-paint-cans/ and http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-spray-paint-1/

• Buy refillable cans http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/refillable-aerosol-spray-can.html
• A couple of DIY videos (from Youtube):

Please bear in mind that I have not tried out any of the above.  Do it at your own risk, safety is paramount, don’t do anything stupid.

Thanks

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Women out alone at night are still vulnerable to rape and other attacks. And they’re not the only potential victims of violence: society as a whole is getting grimmer and grimmer. When I was a teenager, growing up in a small city in 1980s England, very few of my contemporaries carried weapons. But now knives are almost de rigeuer amongst the youths in Britain; and guns are no longer just a big city problem.

So before anyone posts a comment saying “Why make pepper spray? Go buy some”, please bear in mind that in the UK (and some other countries such as Ireland, Belgium and Iceland) the possession of pepper spray by private citizens is illegal. There’s plenty of reason why someone might feel the need to carry some. (I recommend you read the passage on pepper spray legality in Wikipedia, as it is pretty interesting. For instance, in Germany it is legal for anyone, even children, to carry pepper spray so long as the container is labelled that it’s to be used for protection from animal attack. Yet in the UK and Ireland it’s considered in law as a firearm! What a strange world we live in…)

However: I am not suggesting that anyone makes this stuff to use as a weapon. I use it as a garden spray to keep bugs off my gardenias. But that’s just me…

Anyway, to the recipe. I found this on the interwebs somewhere. I can’t recall where, so I can’t credit the author. But I’m happy to do so if he/she gets in touch.

Required: hot red pepper powder (I use Schwartz’s Cayenne Chilli Pepper Powder); surgical spirit (aka rubbing alcohol); baby oil; 2 small glasses (one with a lid); coffee filter paper, or muslin, or something like that; a funnel; a spray bottle.

1. Put 2 tablespoons of pepper powder into a small glass.

2. Add enough surgical spirit to completely submerge the pepper powder to a depth of 1 cm or so.

3. Give it a good stir. You want to dissolve as much pepper powder as possible, though a certain amount will remain undissolved even after 15 minutes of stirring.

4. Add 10 drops or so of baby oil.

5. Put the lid on the glass and shake well.

6. put the muslin/filter paper in the funnel, then use this to filter the mixture as you pour it into the second small glass. This will filter out the undissolved pepper powder – you don’t want it clogging up the spray bottle in your hour of need! Pour it slowly. Once it’s all been filtered, discard the filter and the waste powder.

7. Transfer liquid to your spray bottle. Obviously you can’t use a pressurised can as these can’t be opened and re-used. But some products, like Body Shop lotions and antibacterial handwashes, come in spray bottles that use a pump system to spray out their contents and can be opened and refilled. These spray bottles do not contain a propellant under pressure, so you can’t deliver a long, continuous spray – but believe me, with this stuff you won’t need to.

Now, I was pretty leery about putting too much faith in a recipe I found online. I could see from the list of ingredients that the spray was unlikely to blind or cause permanent damage to a target. But I didn’t much like the idea of spraying this stuff into an attacker’s eyes just for him to laugh at me before pounding my face into the ground. So I knew I had to test the stuff. And the only ethical way of doing this was to test it on myself.

First of all I dabbed some on my lips and the skin on my face. That didn’t do much at all. So then I sprayed a little into one of my eyes.

I was prepared, and it really was only a little spray: but the shock and pain still doubled me up. If I had been blasted in both eyes with a few shots, I would have been blinded and probably knocked off my feet. Yet 15 minutes later I was okay again. (Note: if you get sprayed, it helps a little to wash your eye with milk.)

So there you have it. If you are attacked and happen to have a bottle of this stuff on you, a few sprays to the attacker’s eyes should distract him long enough for you to make good your escape or whatever. But remember: it has to be sprayed into his eyes. Stuff like Mace, CS spray and proper pepper spray will hurt an assailant’s skin. But a pair of sunglasses will probably protect him from the effects of this stuff. So this isn’t some magic potion or Touch Of Death. Keep its limitations in mind.

If anyone knows of better recipes, please share them in the Comments. But remember: we don’t want anything that causes real, long term damage. If we wanted to do that, we could just carry concentrated sulphuric acid or caustic soda (please, please, please don’t throw acid or caustic soda in anyone’s face. That kind of stuff can cause horrible disfigurement and even death. I’m talking about legitimate self-defense here, not malicious wounding of other human beings. Seriously).