Hmm, I think you may have some trouble ...

Turkish PM fails to consider US First Amendment:

Turkey is to start extradition proceedings against US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. Mr Gulen, a former ally of the prime minister, has been accused by Mr Erdogan of using his supporters to try to topple him. The cleric denies mounting a campaign against him. Turkey's government has faced a string of corruption scandals and rights groups accuse it of authoritarianism. Speaking at parliament after meeting with deputies from his Justice and Development Party (AKP) party on Tuesday, Mr Erdogan confirmed the extradition process "will begin", reports say.

Given that the Turks have "cancelled his passport" (Reuters), it is going to see how they construct a set of charges that won't simply be laughed out of any US court.

Officer Voldemort, I presume?

Sighs,

Mr Williams' family has told the inquest they believe he may have been killed by an agent "specialising in the dark arts of the secret services".

Then he wouldn't have been left in a bag in a rented flat where he was bound to have been discovered. He might have been left, dead, in an extremely compromising position. Or simply disappeared.

If you accept the (widely accepted) premise that SIS do actually run around in tuxedos, drinking martinis (shaken not stirred) and killing people.

Oh Noes! The 'R' Word

So, the great Peanut farmer has spoken - opposition to Obama's heathcare reform is racist.

Now, I don't doubt that there are people who do actually oppose President Obama on the grounds that he is black, as well as people who oppose him on the grounds that he is(n't) Kenyan and, I expect, black people who oppose him on the grounds (also racist) that he is mixed race. There are definitely black people who oppose him on the grounds that he is African not "African-American" and, not being the descendant of slaves (the sort carried to the colonies by evil white folks rather than the sort enslaved back home by evil black folks - 'cause there weren't any of the latter). I am sure, also, that on the fringes (at the very minimum) of any group opposing any Obama initiative, you will have some of the people who oppose him for more visceral reasons.

However ...

The last time a Democratic president tried for health care reform (something I, like most Europeans and even Daniel Hannan think the Yanks really need to have a go at), it didn't go down very well either. Why?

Well, clearly it was racism. I mean, wasn't Clinton (completely inaccurately) described as the "first black president"? Well, possibly not. It may be because Mrs Clinton was (and still is) the sort of do-gooding shrewish harpy that really gets the hairs on the skin next to your spine standing up - even if she is saying nothing more harmful than "Good Morning"? It may be because the Republican party are firmly in the pocket of big business and HMOs are very big business indeed. It may be because the tag "socialist" can be easily attached. It may even be because these are not desperately well thought out ideas (v.g. tick, standard government practice) and are going to cost a rather large fortune (ditto).

But opposing health care reform 'racist' - I really don't think, Jimbo, you've made the point.

Today's News

It has been an interesting morning for people I know to be commentating in the news - Sally Lievesley on "Good Morning Scotland" and Bob Ayers in the Scotsman.  It is a pity that they were both so badly misled (or, worse still, maliciously misleading.)

Sally was opining (here just before 2:09 to about 2:14) on Dame Stella Rimington's comments about the appallingly statist nature of recent law and of the creeping extension of anti-terror legislation into public order and minor crime investigation (although I must stress, hopeless pedant that I am, that RIPA is not and never was anti-terrorism legislation).  Sally is a specialist in risk analysis for catastrophic incidents and regularly applies this to anti-terror issues (I have said before, here I think, that if you want to know where to put your nerve gas or cyanide bombs on a tube train to cause maximum damage, she's the woman who knows :)  However, she makes some errors on the Human Rights front.

Human Rights law is not there to protect us from criminals - it is there to protect us from the overwhelming and potentially oppressive power of the government and its agents.  Terrorists are just a highly motivated subset of criminal.  And there are already distinct graduations in Human Rights law - in the European Convention on Human Rights the right to freedom from torture is an absolute, the right to life is qualified - originally also including allowing judicial executions.  The prohibition against slavery permits conscription and jury service.  The Article 9, 10 and 11 rights of freedom of thought, expression and association are so hedged with get outs, conditions and exceptions to be almost worthless in modern Britain (as some consider Articles 5 and 6.)  

She also mentions Identity Cards with the suggestion that they might contribute to the fight against terrorism.  I strongly disagree.  At least, at the end, she is encouraging public participation rather than direction by the nanny state. 

Bob, on the other hand, seems to have been reading too many Tom Clancy novels or, at least, too much into "The Sum of all Fears".  The Harry Ricks character who, in the fiction, plays tracking games in the USS Maine with Captain Dubinin's "Admiral Lunin", or as Bob alleges Vanguard and Triomphant were doing:

"They were playing games with each other – stalking each other under the sea," Mr Ayres said. "They were practising being able to kill the other guy's submarine before he could launch a missile." 

was overtly considered a dangerous lunatic (by Clancy and the plot) for doing that with a ballistic missile submarine .  Hunter-killer (or, to use the Americanism "attack boat") captains do track other boats, absolutely - that's their job.  Neither Vanguard nor Triomphant are hunter-killer boats.

Just to round things off - a couple of stories that have nothing to do with anybody I know:

Max Mosley, from Law in Action:

"At the moment you have a tabloid 'judge' taking the decision about whether he's going to ruin someone's life, and I don't think he should be allowed to."

No, the person who took the life ruining decision was the one who decided that an S&M 'orgy' was a good idea, not the creeps who reported on it. They were merely marginal contributors.

Then we have more police abuse of powers, from those guardians of our freedom in the Met. For our own good, of course.

Just what does Google know?

Reading the ever interesting Mr Worstall, I noticed some slightly disturbing Google Ads links seeming attached to the name of our glorious Foreign Secretary and putative Brutus.  See for yourself:

What Aren't They Saying?

Have a look at this very interesting response, from the less than universally popular Government of the People's Republic of China, to this Businessweek article:

After saying that, I should say that the Chinese government has on various occasions expounded its position on this global issue of cyber intrusion or hacking. The Chinese Government always opposes and forbids any cyber crimes including "hacking" that undermine the security of computer networks. Chinese laws and regulations are explicit in this regard.

As it is, China's cyber space and internet systems are frequently intruded and attacked by hackers from certain countries. As a victim of hacking attacks, China attaches great importance to cracking down on various cyber crimes including hacking activities.

China follows a path of peaceful development, and unswervingly adopts a national defense policy which is defensive in nature. China would never do anything to harm sovereignty or security of other countries. In conformity with such national policies, the Chinese government has never employed, nor will it employ so-called civilian hackers in collecting information or intelligence of other countries. Allegations against China in this respect are totally unwarranted, which only reflect the dark mentality of certain people who always regard China as a threat. Of course, there are some other people who are misled into believing that China is engaged in hacking activities, which is more than wrong.

(My italics.)

Now, I have worked in the past with the good people at CN-CERT/CC, the official computer incident co-ordinating centre for the PRC and they are keen and helpful when you are trying to knock out fraudulent web-sites and I am sure they are just as helpful in other similar circumstances.  But ...

Although it is not unknown for Intelligence Agencies to outsource the gathering of sensitive information to 'so-called civilian hackers', it is much more common for them to employ the appropriate resource directly - either via the military or as government employees.  Which may be, as well as having some of their billion-plus population being up to no good entirely on their own cognisance, how some of all these APNIC IP addresses are appearing in people's security logs.

Or, there are another couple of alternatives.  The "Press Counselor & Spokesperson Of the Chinese Embassy to the United States" may not have a complete picture of his government's intelligence activities or, and I know this may come as a complete shock, may be knowingly telling a slight fib.