an american idiot

Don’t wanna be an american idiot? Too late Donald!

Ain’t it grand, how any idiot can game Google results and show the world who really is the idiot?

That’s what activists have been doing: do a Google image search for the word “idiot” and you get a fine selection of Donald Trump pictures!

This is how it works:

According to Inquisitr,  part of the reason for this result is that several English articles published last week included the Green Day song titled “American Idiot” in the headline in relation to Donald Trump and his trip to England; (protestors were actually using the song in the protests). This meant that images were likely titled to describe the article and used the terms “American Idiot” and Donald Trump as descriptives in the image metadata as well as in the article content. As a result, Google’s algorithm has paired these terms together, and with so many people reading and sharing these articles, it has pushed its relevance to the top of the search results.

When you type the word “idiot” into Google’s image search, Trump is the first returned result. This is partly because the Green Day song American Idiot was used by protesters to soundtrack his trip to London. But since then there’s also been a concerted campaign to capitalize on that association, and manipulate Google’s algorithm, by linking the word to the picture. Mostly this involved people upvoting a post containing a photo of him and the word “idiot” on Reddit. [from theguardian.com]

This trick has been used many times before.  For instance, there was a spate of hook-nosed caricatures posted with the single word “Jew”, which resulted in an Image Search for “jew” returning the hook-nosed caricature.

And it was used by Trump fans to associate the word “rapist” with pictures of Bill Clinton.

Many of these were rudimentary, almost meaningless. “RAPIST! RAPIST! RAPIST! RAPIST!” “Today this rapist turns 70. Happy Birthday, rapist.” Most originated from the notorious Reddit forum TheDonald, where fans of Trump congregated to spread his gospel of doing whatever you like, screw the consequences.

The forum moderators would pin a post to the top of the forum to encourage others to upvote it, and the swell of upvotes would push it to the front page of Reddit, which already styles itself “The front page of the Internet”, causing it to leap up to the top row of Google images.

They also did it with an image of Michelle Obama with features Paintshopped to look like an ape.  And the TheDonald team did it with the CNN logo and the words “fake news”.

So it’s kind of fitting that the trick has now been turned on Trump and his idiotic fans!

So is there a moral to be learnt from this story?  Of course not!  The internet is utterly amoral, as are those of us who spend too much time in it. Who knows who will be belittled and demonized next?  And that’s probably the best thing about it – he who demonizes today may be demonized tomorrow.  The internet giveth and… well, it don’t giveth anything but it demands its pound of virtual flesh!

Should Boris Johnson succeed Cameron as prime minister?

Since David Cameron resigned as prime minister after the Brexit vote, Boris Johnson is one of the favourites to replace him.  Some people say “Not Boris!  He’s a liar!”  And indeed he is a bullshitter of great renown.  Here are some of his lies:

“As Mayor of London he promised to totally eradicate rough sleeping by 2012; it doubled under his leadership. His 2008 manifesto promised there would be manned ticket offices at every station; he closed all of London’s ticket offices. He aimed to reduce transport fares; they increased by 4.2 per cent.”

But why should this disqualify him?  All politicians are liars (I think… name one high-ranking politician who has never lied and I will accuse you of fibbing…)

I can think of other reasons why he shouldn’t be prime minister.  If he does turn out to be a serious contender, I might list some of these to you.  But for now: stop flapping!

 

Gove: “You’re a liar, Boris!”
Johnson: “Aren’t we all…?”

“Billionaires’ Row” farce shows the truth behind the bedroom tax

The government’s bedroom tax punishes the poor who have “unused” rooms in their homes; yet the rich are allowed to own whole streets of empty houses while the country’s homelessness problem gets worse and worse.

Look at the “Billionaires’Row” scandal reported by the Guardian. At least £350m worth of property is sitting unused in The Bishops Avenue, the so-called Billionaires Row, in the London borough of Barnet. The vacant and often ruined properties include 10 mansions previously owned on behalf of the Saudi royal family that have not been lived in for up to 25 years. Local housing and community activist Phoenix Rainbow said it showed “gross mismanagement of the space we have in this country”.

Clive Betts MP, chair of the Commons communities and local government select committee, said the situation in the avenue was “an astounding and stark example of the empty homes problem”. He called for councils to be given powers to treble rates on empty homes after a certain period. Betts said: “People can claim to do what they want with the property they own, but how must those living in cramped and poor accommodation feel when they see some of the most palatial, beautiful, properties with incredible amounts of space going to waste?

“This is a government obsessed by under-occupation of two-bed council houses in London occupied by people with nowhere else to go. But in the same city you have mansions unoccupied with no action being taken.”

Labour’s policy is a 100% council tax levy on empty homes; it estimates there are 50,000 empty homes in London.

Local authorities have the power to take punitive action against absentee landlords who leave houses empty, but the “punitive” action takes the form of council tax hikes that the owners of The Bishop’s Avenue would laugh at. On The Bishops Avenue the fine would be just £1,416.20 a year. And in any case local authorities have little interest in dealing with the problem despite the disparities between the treatment of the rich and the poor, revealed by the numbers of homeless people sleeping rough and the bedroom tax on the poor. Barnet council’s Conservative leader, Richard Cornelius, said: “The Bishops Avenue is in its own little bubble and frankly has little connection with the rest of Barnet. I would rather spend public money bringing family houses back into use than get involved in battles with the lawyers of billionaires.”

Of course, this does not impress those who want something done about homelessness. David Ireland, chief executive of the Homes from Empty Homes campaign, said “There are countless people in inadequate housing and here are homes on The Bishops Avenue that could be used. I call on the local authority to use empty property management orders or enforced sale of these properties. If they showed they were willing to do that it would force other owners to take action.”

How to tackle homelessness: make it illegal

Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up. The Independent reports on how “Police seize possessions of rough sleepers in crackdown on homelessness”. Apparently the cops took blankets, sleeping bags and food from people they found sleeping rough in an abandoned public baths:

One of the men targeted in the action, Adam Jaskowiak, pleaded with officers to be allowed to keep his possessions for warmth. The 34-year-old said: “They [the police officers] were just taking the sleeping bags and chucking out everything. I asked to keep it, and the food, but they said ‘No’.

“I just grabbed as many of my things as possible and put them into a bag and ran.”

The police then had the nerve to defend this action, saying the shocking intervention was part of a co-ordinated effort to “reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers”.

Chief Inspector John Fish told the Ilford Recorder: “The public rely on the police to reduce the negative impact; this includes the need for us to assist in the removal of tents and bedding from public spaces and other inappropriate locations.”

Inspector Fish’s comment is very fishy. The rough sleepers were in an abandoned public baths, not pitching tents by the roadside or sleeping in shop doorways. Not that I think it’s wrong for anyone to sleep rough – it’s wrong that anyone needs to sleep rough.

This is clearly part of police action to intimidate homeless people so they leave London. This is because the sight of homeless people sleeping out may negatively affect tourism. And I can see how it might develop: “solve” the problem of homelessness by sending homeless people to jail. Then the streets of London will be nice and shiny for the tourists, who will then find it wonderful to see rich people staggering out of nightclubs at closing time, drinking and fighting in the streets… when the poor do it, it’s wrong; but if the rich do it, it’s just “natural exuberance”.

To see more of what I think about this issue check out Streets of London Redux. To put it succinctly: it makes me fucking sick.

Streets of London Redux

(You have been warned!!)

Have you seen the old man who walks the streets of London
Lies in a doorway to kip when he is tired?
And have you seen the old man who walked the streets of London
Til kids with lighter fluid set the cunt on fire?

And have you seen the young girls who work the streets of London
Selling a piece of ass for a ten quid wrap of smack?
Have you seen the young girls who work the streets of London
Who’ll suck a dealer’s cock for a poxy pipe of crack?

So how can you tell me you’re lonely
And that for you the sun don’t shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I’ll show you something you’ll never understand.
Let me take you by the hand and drag you through the streets of London
I’ll show you something that’ll make you fucking sick!

Lyrics by Martin X
With apologies to Ralph McTell
and a nod to the Anti-Nowhere League

Another 1200 soldiers deployed to fill G4S Olympics security shortfall

Well whaddayaknow… G4S, the private security company allegedly providing security for the upcoming London Olympics, still haven’t got enough properly trained staff in place, despite the fact they’ve had seven years to sort it out. So now 1200 personell mostly from the Royal Marines, and 16 Air Assault Brigade have been drafted in to make up for g4S’s appalling failures. I don’t know if their failure is going to hit G4S in the pocket; but it should.

I really don’t understand why G4S is one of the government’s favoured private sector security companies. But I can tell you this: if G4S win any of the upcoming contracts to provide privatised police or prison services after this cock-up, it will be plain to see that the ConDem “government” is rotten to the core. If G4S win contracts despite their all-too-obvious ineptitude, we’re gonna be looking to see who stands to benefit from such a ridiculous decision. Corruption in government is nothing new – but we’re talking about crucial security services at a time of terrorist alert. I don’t want my safety in the hands of the G4S cowboys… do you?

Tomlinson killer “held his head in his hands” when he saw himself on video.

Simon Harwood, the copper who killed innocent non-rioter Ian Tomlinson in London on the day of the G20 protests in 2009, “held his head in his hands” when showed video footage of his unprovoked attack, and said to his boss “I think it’s me.”

So why was Harwood so distraught?  Was it because he only then realised that he was the police officer who attacked Tomlinson, from behind, completely unprovoked?  Or was it because he knew the game was over – here was undeniable proof that he was the killer – and now he was likely to have to face the music?  I bet cops everywhere hate the fact that advanced video technology has become so affordable – whenever a cop crosses the line, he can’t be sure that someone’s shooting it for posterity.

Isn’t it odd that Harwood wrote in his notebook that during the demo he had used his baton sparingly and only to defend himself and to prevent rioting… yet here is video footage showing him strike Ian Tomlinson in the back of the legs then shove him forcibly to the ground when Tomlinson was walking away from him?  Inspector Williams was asked at length by Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, whether it was proper police procedure to strike or shove a protester who might be walking away from police lines. All Williams could come up with was that it depended on the situation. “It’s very hard to answer a hypothetical situation,” he said.

Come on, Williams… tell us how it can ever be right to attack an innocent man from behind when that man is clearly cooperating with the police and walking away from their lines.  If  Harwood gets found not guilty for this, I predict another wave of rioting – specifically anti-police rioting.

Simon Harwood, the cop who attacked Ian Tomlinson shortly before his death

 

G20 “murder cop” to face misconduct charges over Ian Tomlinson death

Doubtless some of you will remember that on 1 April the G20 meeting of the world’s economic superpowers was held in London.  Such an event requires heavy policing, to protect the delegates and their cronies from evil demonstrators.  And on that day, a man named Ian Tomlinson died as a direct result of police action.

Unfortunately for the police, a couple of circumstances surrounding the death quickly came to light: the entire episode was caught on CCTV; and Tomlinson was not a demonstrator, he was a newspaper seller trying to get home after a hard day’s work.

The police officer who attacked Tomlinson, PC Simon Harwood of the Metropolitan Police’s infamous Tactical Support Unit, is not going to face criminal proceedings related to the killing of Ian Tomlinson – this despite the fact that Harwood’s unprovoked attack on Tomlinson from behind is clearly visible on the many videos that have been posted on the internet (for example here.  There are plenty of other examples online, as even a cursory Google search will find).

But even though Harwood isn’t going to see a court room from the “wrong” (or should that be “right”?) side of the dock, it has been announced that he will face a Police Complaints Commission into his alleged misconduct during the attack.  During the brutal attack, Harwood wore a balaclava to hide his face, and had concealed his badge number – all signs that he knew he was doing something wrong.

The PCC decision to accuse Harwood of misconduct equivalent to manslaughter is likely to place additional pressure on Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, who controversially decided the officer should not even be prosecuted for assault.  Now Starmer will have to explain why he decided that Harwood should not be punished for what was undoubtedly an illegal attack.

The way Harwood has been protected up to this point has sent a very clear message to other coppers: they can be as brutal as they want, even up to the point of murder, and the establishment will protect them.  Now I just hope that the misconduct hearings are held in a properly transparent manner, so other bully-boy cops will learn from this experience.  No one is above the law – especially the police.

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Smear campaign succeeds at last: Met top cop Dizaei jailed for “attempting to pervert the course of justice”.

Ali Dizaei (left) and Waad al-Baghdadi

Today at Southwark crown court, London, Commander Ali Dizaei of the Metropolitan Police was sent to prison for 4 years after a jury found him guilty of misconduct in public office and attempting to pervert the course of justice. His alleged crime was false imprisonment and making up a story that he was threatened and assaulted. Dizaei is the most senior officer in recent times to stand trial.

Maybe you’re wondering why I’ve called this a smear campaign when a jury has found him guilty of the crime? Why do I doubt his guilt? Simple: this case bears all the hallmarks of a stitch-up. Dizaei has been an outspoken critic of the Met for a long time, and this court case follows other, failed, attempts to ruin him. And in my view the evidence against him just doesn’t stack up.

The case against him is as follows. In July 2008, Dizaei and his wife were sitting in a car outside Yas, a west end restaurant, talking to the restaurateur, when they were approached by a man named Waad al-Baghdadi. Baghdadi, a website designer, claims that Dizaei owed him £600. Baghdadi, and the prosecution, say that he wanted to talk to Dizaei about this debt. Dizaei didn’t want to discuss the matter, and told Baghdadi to leave the restaurant “or else”. A row broke out and Dizaei abused his position as a police officer to insult, threaten, assault and falsely arrest Baghdadi. Dizaei then invented a reason for the arrest, reporting that Baghdadi threatened him then stabbed him with the mouthpiece of a shisha pipe (a type of hookah). That’s the prosecution case, which the jury believed. Of course Dizaei disputes this: he claimed that Baghdadi did threaten then assault him, and had an injury to his stomach to back this up. His wife agreed, saying she felt “terrorised” by Baghdadi’s threats. And Sohrab Eshragi, the restaurateur and also a friend of Dizaei, also corroborated the commander’s account. Eshragi told the jury that Baghdadi was “a crook basically”, adding: “His history … everybody knows he’s not a good gentleman.” Eshragi said that, far from Dizaei intimidating Baghdadi by ordering him out of the restaurant, he had urged him to ask the web designer to leave because he feared a fight might break out.

The prosecution claimed they had CCTV footage to show that Dizaei was lying. But this footage showed only part of the incident, and it is impossible to verify from it if any threats were issued by either party. A police doctor testified for the prosecution, saying that the wound to Dizaei’s stomach was “probably self-inflicted”. But this was disputed by Dr Nat Cary, one of the country’s leading forensic pathologists who has worked on many high-profile cases including the death of Benazir Bhutto and the case of Ian Tomlinson, the newspaper seller who died at last year’s G20 protest. Cary said the claim was based on a “fundamentally flawed approach” to forensic medicine. “He [Dizaei] alleges he has been poked with the shisha pipe,” he said. “In my view, that’s consistent [with the injuries].”

In the end it all came down to a question of who the jury believed: a police commander and his wife and a respected restaurateur… or Baghdadi. Surprisingly, they chose to believe Baghdadi.

No doubt you’re wondering why I believe Dizaei. After all, supporting the police isn’t something I’m noted for. And you’re right. I hate bent coppers; in my opinion any police officer found guilty of commiting a crime should be sent to jail for a very long time. But there’s a lot about this case, and about Dizaei in particular, that makes me feel he has been fitted up.

Ali Dizaei is no stranger to controversy. He has always been outspoken on the subject of racism in the Met, and is president of the National Black Police Association. In 1999, it was later revealed, MI5 thought that the Iranian-born officer (he holds dual nationality) was an Iranian spy! They reported these suspicions to the Met, which resulted in a protracted investigation. Some outrageous charges were made at this time – it was claimed for example that he consorted with prostitutes and used illegal drugs, on top of being “a danger to national security” – and he was suspended from 2001 to 2003. Of course there was no basis to any of these outrageous claims, and none of them appeared on the final indictment. Instead he was accused of just one rather minor offence, and in 2003 a jury cleared him unanimously of any wrongdoing.

Back then it was widely believed that he had attracted this trouble because of his connection with the National Black Police Association – no one knew about MI5’s ridiculous suspicions until the Guardian revealed all in 2007 – he worked as a legal advisor for the Association in 2001. And in 2008 this possible motive still existed. In September 2008, when he was suspended for the second time, he was involved in a huge race row that hit the Met. The assistant commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur – the Met’s third most senior officer – sued the force for discrimination and described his boss, the commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, as a racist. For such a high-ranking officer to make such accusations was highly embarrassing, and Dizaei was right in the middle of it – he was both Ghaffur’s main adviser and the president of the National Black Police Association. The Met employed all sorts of dirty tricks against Ghaffur, such as leaking allegations about his private life to the press; and they used similar tactics against Dizaei, a paper at the time claiming that he was a bigamist. It’s certainly not outlandish to suggest this latest development is more of the same.

This is all pretty circumstantial, I know. But it’s pretty believable too. And there’s one more factor, which anyone with any experience of police complaints will agree is very important. It is usually very difficult to make a complaint stick against even a low-ranking officer. If it is a case of your word against the cop’s, the investigators will fall on the officer’s side. If it’s just your word against that of a high-ranking officer and 2 witnesses, you don’t stand a chance. Yet the Independent Police Complaints Commission believed with Baghdadi. What the heck is that all about?

The IPCC chairman, Nick Hardwick, said after the verdict that Dizaei was a “criminal in uniform” who had behaved like a “bully”. But it seems to me that that description might better apply to some of Dizaei’s soon-to-be-ex-colleagues. It took them a while, but in the end they succeeded in getting rid of the pain in the ass. I wonder who they’ll take out next? It’s a relief to know that the police isn’t racist any more, don’t you think?

Note: Earlier I noted that Dizaei is the most senior police officer to have stood trial in the UK in recent times. This is true only because the UK is so weak when it comes to dealing with police forces that are out of control. On 22 July 2005, a Brazilian electrician called Jean-Charles de Menezes was shot to death on a london tube train by armed police directly because of orders given by Sir Ian Blair, then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The shoot-to-kill policy, called “Operation Kratos” was Blair’s invention. And after the shooting, Blair lied to the public, first suggesting that de Menezes was a terrorist, then claiming that de Menezes had tried to run after the officers identified themselves as police when in fact they had not identified themselves but had opened fire without warning, repeatedly shooting the man in the face when he was on the ground dying. In any democracy worthy of the name, Blair would have stood trial for his crimes. But in the UK, such men are rewarded for their criminality, incompetence and deceit. So yes, Commander Ali Dizaei is the highest-ranking police officer to have stood trial in recent times. He’s also the highest-ranking officer to go to jail for crimer he did not commit.

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“Stop and search” powers are illegal, rules European Court of Human Rights

It’s a victory for freedom! The European Court of human Rights ruled today that the British police’s powers to stop and search people whenever they feel like it are illegal.

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 gives police the power to stop and search people in “designated areas” without needing any grounds for suspicion. Police officers have been using these powers routinely to harrass photographers all over Britain, often citing the possibility that the photographer might be a terrorist on a reconnaisance mission. You might think that’s quite reasonable – until you realise that officers have repeatedly stopped and searched professional photographers covering demonstrations and tourists caught taking pictures of tourist attractions like Westminster Abbey and Trafalgar Square. And countless amateur photographers have been detained and harrassed thanks to the far-reaching powers.

So, now these powers have been ruled unlawful, I suppose the government will immediately order the police to stop using them, and will redraft the Terrorism Act as a matter of urgency. Right? Well, actually no. The government intends to appeal against the ruling. And you can be damn sure that in the meantime the police will continue to use and abuse their illegal powers. This despite the fact that the Court said the stop and search powers amounted to a violation of article eight of the European Convention on human Rights – the right to respect for private and family life. The Court recognised that the power to search a person’s clothing and belongings in public included an element of humiliation and embarrassment which was a clear interference with the right to privacy. And they expressed concern over the arbitrary nature of the powers, under which a police officer needs to offer no justification for his decision to detain and search anyone he feels like harassing. So the UK government is basically saying: “We don’t care that our agents are detaining and humiliating innocent people as a matter of routine. We will continue to encourage our agents to abuse members of the public for as long as we can get away with it.”

I think that the judges were especially concerned that the powers are being used against demonstrators who are clearly not terrorists, and to block the work of journalists trying to cover demonstrations. The case was brought by Kevin Gillan and Pennie Quinton, who were stopped by police while their way to a demonstration outside the annual arms fair at the Excel centre, in London’s Docklands, in September 2003. Gillan was stopped and detained for 20 minutes without good cause; Quinton, a journalist, was ordered to stop filming the protest even though she had shown her press card to officers. How can these police actions be justified? Remember, the police were using powers granted to them by the Terrorism Act, but there was no suggestion that Gillan or Quinton were in any way involved in terrorism. This is a clear example of the police abusing their powers. And there is also clear evidence that the police are going to continue abusing their powers, under government orders, for as long as they can get away with it.

The police are breaking the law. The police are the criminals. Let’s fight crime!

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