Kangaroo Courts For 3 Gitmo Prisoners

David Hicks of Australia, Salim Hamdan of Yemen, and Omar Khadr of Canada are to be used to justify insanity tried by the Pentagon (not a legally constituted court). Hamdan was the subject of the case that threw a spanner in the tribunal works, as these won’t be proper trials in any sense the torture of the men and the prosecution cannot be properly contested.

“the mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country” -Winston Churchill.

Bird Flu Hysteria, My Contribution

Apparently for many Britons the biggest question they can come up with regarding bird flu is ‘Can I still eat chicken?’ (nevermind that it’s turkeys currently infected and I’m a vegetarian so like I give a shit). But this is the actual question they should be asking themselves-

Are a drug companies profits more important than my life?

There are 3 antiviral drugs, only one of which is in ‘mass’ production, Tamiflu:

-What’s more, Tamiflu is in short supply. Seventeen countries have ordered stockpiles of the drug from the Swiss company Roche, which holds the patent, and 10 more are said to be discussing purchases. The UK’s order for 14.6 million five-day courses of treatment will take two years to fulfil, for instance. The drug is made from a plant in limited supply, and Roche is still trying to develop methods for synthesising it from scratch.
There are two other drugs that target the same enzyme as Tamiflu. But zanamivir (Relenza) must be taken by inhalation and is not widely available, while peramivir was dropped by US company Johnson & Johnson, which thought it unlikely to be profitable. BioCryst, the small Alabama firm that created peramivir, is still trying to find a new partner.-

It is made by Roche, it is not a perfect protection but if taken within 48 hrs of the onset of symptoms it can make the illness less severe and in the young and elderly that can mean the difference between life and death. Therefore the WHO backed by the UN security council (ie. we got guns and planes and bombs and everything) take the patent from Roche, allow everyone to use it and have widespread manufacturing quickly in place, the rare plant the drug is currently named from can be regrown in many botanical specialist sites and world production can meet demand. Why is this not happening? Its called corporatism, its called capitalism. You can buy Tamiflu on-line for about £75 for ten, the price is increasing as I type, thus capitalism dictates if you have the cash and the means to order some you have a better chance of surviving an infection than not.

Guess the multimillionaire and great humanitarian ($200m personal fortune as of last year and growing) who will profit hugely from the demand on Tamiflu? Donald Rumsfeld.

So write to your MP & MEP’s and suggest the requisitioning of the Tamiflu patent. Otherwise should a Flu epidemic wipe out the human race (it is unlikely this will but one can hope) it is clear we pretty well much deserve it for being so stupid, stupid, stupid.

Garrison State

Bush announces he wants to increase military spending and cut all non-military spending, suddenly he’s mentioning the huge deficit, THAT HE RAN UP. This is full-on all the way fascist, garrison state economics- create war to use all the funds then starve the public purse (for the patriotic struggle) thus destroying all those programs you always wanted to destroy (FDR’s social programs have always been a target for conservatives, the poor must suffer, the rich must prosper as Dominionist theology demands). The above comparison is from 2004, the US extreme has since increased (and the ’emergency’ funding for Iraq/Afghanistan is not even covered in that total), in a country devoted to war the culture itself becomes pathological, civilisation ends and historically the only prognosis is massive wars ending in defeat for the aggressor. He will not tax the rich to find extra funds as that is ideologically profane to neo-cons. America already has lost habeas corpus, surveillance is unregulated by the courts and the leader rules by a theory of incontestable executive power that is wholly undemocratic.

Rome, Sparta, Berlin, Oceania- take your pick.