A Place to Stand

I urge you to see the video tape of Mr Berlusconi on Iain Dale's site.

I guarantee you won't see this on the 6 o'clock news, or even the 10 o'clock. n fact treating it seriously I think we should since it shows a lot about how, under all the democratic & law abiding veneer politics is stll a lot about alpha male chimpanzee dominance games.

PS His minders look very much like something out of The Godfather though he himself doesn't have nearly enough class.

PPS This film is available directly on http://www.break.com/index/primeminister.html

Students from the University of Leeds have demonstrated against a lecturer who claims black people have a genetically lower IQ than white people. Dr Frank Ellis, a Russian tutor, said data stretching back 100 years pointed to a "persistent deviation" in the average IQ of black and white people.

The basic problem here is that Dr Ellis is undeniably right. Such data do show a persistent difference.

They also show Jews & South Sea Islanders consistently about 12 points ahead of the Europeans & Orientals about 6 - points which draw less attention, at least among Europeans. What does all this mean - the answer is that nobody really knows & that so long as nobody is able to try & find out. If asked to guess & it is not even an educated guess I would suspect that the Ashkenazi Jewish & Polynesian differences are genuine & derive from relatively recent evolution. Western Jews, being prevented from making a living other than by their wits made brains an evolutionary necessity unknown to peasant farmers. There is strong evidence that pre-diaspora Jews weren't particularly known for their brains & neither are middle eastern Jews whose Moslem neighbours didn't treat them with Christian harshness. Similarly the island hopping Polynesians are descended from people who, for about 1,500 years have been moving from one island to the next so that the Hawaiins & Maoris are descended from generation after generation who left the less inquisitive behind. Both groups, however are relatively small & in evolutionary terms, recent. I suspect that in a really long term either high IQ isn't really an evolutionary advantage or these consistent figures owe much more to things like childhood diet & stimulating environment than anything innate. There is conclusive evidence that city dwellers outperform county dwellers everywhere & that South Africa's Afrikaners went up the IQ scale as they assumed dominance over Anglos - in neither case can genetics be a factor. Another alternative would be that what IQ measures is only the sort of dissoci.ated thinking notorious among absent minded professors & that what we call being streetwise may, for most people, be much more useful - there is considerable evidence that blacks who score 90 on an IQ test are much more competent than whites on the same score. On the other hand it is then arguable that while streewise was good enough for most of our history the sort of mind that enjoys pure mathematics is essential today, not just for the individual but even moreso for society. On the third hand the largest human skulls known belonged to late Neanderthal & early Cro-Magnon skeletons so it may well have been downhill for us all for the last 25,000 years.

however what is scientifically much more wrong than Dr Ellis's opinions, even if they are wrong, is the idea that examination of the evidence should be suppressed.

The University of Leeds said Dr Ellis's view were "abhorrent" and it had written to him asking him to stop making any further public comment.

It said it had to be satisfied that he was not undermining its commitment to equality and diversity but added that it intended to discharge its full responsibility under the Race Relations Act.

Dr Ellis said he was unable to comment on the demonstration but has previously denied doing anything wrong and said that labeling him as a racist was an attack on his freedom of speech.

Whatever the University of Leeds feels their obligations under the Race Relations Act the should point out that (A) a statistical average does not mean that all Maoris are smarter than all Europeans (just as not all Scots are shorter than all Englishmen & (B) their job is to defend the freedom to ask questions - that is what Universities are about.

Not being at all interested in sports I never thought I would be doing a sports story here. However this in the Scotsman explains the Scottish achievements at the Commonwealth Games which were so pronounced that even I had noticed.

The science of success
IAN JOHNSTONE

In 1998, at the launch of the Scottish Institute of Sport (SIS), its inaugural chairman, Alistair Gray, offered a sparkling vision for the future for Scottish athletics. The nation, he said, could be entering "the most exciting period in the history of Scottish sport", an era which could see it win as many as ten gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in 2006.

.........As Scots, in Australia and at home, celebrate victory after victory, there is just one question being asked - how did we do it?

The answer for many of our athletes lies, in large part, with the Scottish Institute of Sport in Stirling and the appliance of science. Modelled on the world-renowned Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), it offers our elite athletes the very best in coaching techniques and in-depth analysis of training, using techniques from all over the world.

Technology at the centre allows athletes to be filmed from all angles, to enable every movement of their bodies to be analysed in minute detail and compared against the ideal technique; training is no longer a case of pushing yourself to exhaustion, but to an optimum point determined by sophisticated computer programmes.

Tellingly, it is in the pool and on the cycling track that Scotland has continued to excel, where scientific techniques have been used the most.

Malcolm Fairweather, sports science co-ordinator at the SIS, is now offering a prediction of further dramatic improvements.

"I think the potential to build is enormous," says Fairweather. "You always have to have a good athlete, a good coaching process and a really good set of environmental conditions to train in, but science can provide an edge."

Prior to the games, Allan Scott was Scotland's top hurdler, and used perceptual goggles "to adjust his technique". "Last year he smashed his personal best indoors and out, and he is looking like one of our main athletes in terms of natural prospects in the future. He's looking towards the Beijing [Olympic] Games and beyond," says Fairweather.

After swimmer Todd Cooper won a bronze medal in the medley relay, he said it was a victory to savour, but only for a couple days. Then he would "sit down and have a think about what's happened and make plans for the next six months, assess what's gone wrong, assess what went right".

Cooper, who is based at the National Swimming Academy in Stirling and benefits from SIS input, says this is now a "habitual thing that we do even if things go brilliantly". Using scientific analysis is now a major part of the coaching support network behind Scotland's top swimmers, overseen by coach Chris Martin. Such has been the success of Scotland's swimmers, SIS coaches now expect their methods to come under scrutiny from the once all-conquering Australians. Fairweather says: "The AIS will be looking at some of the things we have been doing and thinking, 'this is a fairly young organisation that has moved forward pretty quickly.'"

Here, we look some of the techniques behind the SIS's success...............

I hope we see a few knighthoods all round for Mr Gray & his team. I also hope the UK Olympics Committee make full use of him.

As a general pusher of high technology as the answer to most problems I am cheerfully surprised to see that even in a field like this (& despite all the politico's worries about Scots being so unfit) we have, when we have the will, got the technology to be world beaters.

So much better than the "Ah kent his faither" syndrome we normally seem to suffer from.

Someone had to draw my attention to these 2 letters published by the Daily Mail (I assume just the Scottish edition since a disproportionate number of letters are from Scotland) since they don't put them on the net & frankly I had not thought that they, or anybody else much, would do so given my experience of not getting letters on Yugoslavia accepted. I suspect that the Scottish edition are anxious to get letters from Scots addresses on their letters page.

The point is however that these 2 letters had gone out to every national UK newspaper & many US ones & nobody else had wished to publish them, indeed the second was originally drafted as a reply to a letter published in both the Herald & Scotsman which neither paper wanted to accept a reply to.

It's called Murder

Slobodan Milosevic is dead, and the NATO-funded "court" will not mourn his passing. By refusing him access to his own doctor & putting him under intolerable pressure when he was known to be very ill, there is a case that his life was deliberately shortened. Legally this is known as murder.

It is not surprising if the West should have chosen to do this. In four-&-a-half-years, the only actual evidence ever produced against Milosevic was the claim by former NATO chief & presidential candidate that at an international conference Milosevic had, for unknown reasons, taken him aside to say he had known in advance about the alleged Srebrenica massacre.

In fact it is highly probable the only deliberate massacre that took place in Srebrenica was the massacre of at least 3,800 Serb civilians of which the Muslim commander, Nasir Oric boasted, and he is alleged to have shown home videos of him beheading people to journalists.

When the history of these atrocities comes to be written, the role of our media will not appear to have been honourable. Throughout, reporting was consistently anti-Yugoslav side and every propaganda lie, no matter how improbable, was treated as fact.

ITN even - it insists accidentally - faked an extremely influential "concentration camp" video. The failure of the media to report on what they called "the trial of the century" as soon as it became clear Milosevic was dismantling the prosecution case is also shameful.

Friday 17th March
Apart from a few words shortening & the addition of an "alleged" re Oric's showing videos this is as I wrote it. They even let through the bit about ITN even though this is precisely the allegation that ITN sued LM magazine over some years ago (ITN's successful prosecution depended on the lack of overwhelming mention of the possibility of accident & that at the time, because the European declaration of human rights didn't apply it was possible for a judge who knew his duty to decide that the truth "didn't matter" & find for the liars).

Still it does establish a precedent.

Earlier letter - 14th March

Divide and Rule

Western leaders are promoting, as a matter of principle, a referendum in Montenegro to get these people to choose independence from Serbia. This is somewhat different from their position in Iraq, where they have struggled, as a matter of principle, to prevent the Kurds choosing independence.

The difference may be that the Montenegrin government is so firmly committed to alliance with Messrs Blair & Bush.

The government of Montenegro, whose leaders the West has accepted "personally benefited finacially" from Western aid, has, for a number of years been recruiting police entirely from Albanians & Croats.

There have been many assassinations of pro-Serb community leaders which the police have, perhaps unsurprisingly been unable to solve.

Were anything remotely like this to have been going on in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, one would expect the numerous western observers to have noticed & expressed doubts as to the reliability of any vote.

This has not happened, as indeed it did not happen in the independence referendum for Bosnia & Hercegovina. Western powers pronounced this a triumph of democracy. It was also the start of five years of genocide.

Perhaps before meddling in the dismemberment of other countries, NATO members might look to their own. Turkey has a genuinely oppressed Kurdish region which would choose separation by a majority of probably 95 per cent.

Spain has, as part of its constitution the forbidding of secession - certainly a large majority of the Basques and probaly also of the Catalans would vote to secede if given the choice.

There is also the question of what sort of "independence" NATO is proposing. Certainly, where we decide the rules and set aside the county's constitution it is a limited sort of independence.

Again a few shortenings & the removal of a particularly graphic passage about net's Montenegrin government use of enslavement & torture of women for fun & the presence of Comorra & KLA gangsters, & also of an overly subtle dig at the US government having fought a civil war against secession. No complaints about that.

All in all, for whatever reason, it is very good to see one newspaper willing to report unpalatable truths when rags such as the Guardian will allow no trace of honesty to be published about their Nazi friends.

If the Milosevic trial was the "trial of the century" as the media initially insisted then his death must be the murder of the century, or at least the locked room murder mystery of the century.

Since the undernoted article was written the Netherlands coroner has declared that he died of heart failure & that they found no "poison" in him which looks like being economical with the truth, in that Rifampicin is not technically a poison but a medicine (for leprosy) which induces heart failure. There is no question that he did have this in his blood & that it did play a part in his death. The only options are therefore that he deliberately took it himself (suicide) or that some ITCY employee or employees administered it (murder). The former is not credible because it is not credible that he would wish to kill himself in such a painful & obscure way, because it would have required a major conspiracy of lawyers & doctors to supply it secretly over such a period of time in unnoticeable quantities & because he was clearly enjoying the opportunity to destroy NATO's case, had such amusements as Nazi Ashdown's reappearance when he was due to explain his ability to see through mountains & was thus not a perjurer, & the final crescendo of his defence.

The fact that the Netherlands coroner is clearly being dishonst (Netherlands is an obedient NATO member whose troops played a major role in assisting in Nasir Oric's true Srebrenica Nassacre of Serb civilians) shows guilt on the part of the entire NATO organisation. That they were prepared to undertake this when there was, officially, a chance that he would be allowed to receive hospital treaement in Moscow, where the poisoning would have been found, proves that they could rely on the judges to fix that & therefore that the judges, including our own Lord Bonamy, are accessories to this murder.
----------------------------------Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

On the occasion of Slobodan Milosevic’s death, the Hague Tribunal and
the Western media have concocted an elaborate conspiracy theory in an
apparent effort to absolve the tribunal of responsibility.

According to this conspiracy theory, Milosevic secretly took a drug
called Rifampicin to block the effectiveness of his high blood pressure
medicine, which in turn created a fake medical condition that he used to
justify his request to go to Moscow under the pretext of obtaining
medical treatment, however obtaining medical treatment wasn't
Milosevic's real objective that was just a ruse so that he could make
his escape.

Dr. Donald Uges, a professor of clinical and forensic toxicology at the
University of Groningen, was the first to advance this theory in the
media. He told the New York Times “It's like a James Bond story", and on
that score he’s absolutely correct it’s exactly like a James Bond story
– it’s fiction.

Dr. Uges told the New York Times: "There was one escape for Milosevic
out of prison, and that was to Moscow where his wife and son, and
friends were. He wanted to go to Moscow on a one-way trip.”

Moscow was never an avenue of escape for Milosevic. On January 18th the
Russian Government gave the Hague Tribunal assurances that it would
guarantee "Milosevic's personal security during his time in Russia and
his return to The Hague within the timeframe specified by the Tribunal."
Milosevic would have been under armed-guard the whole time he was in
Russia. There was absolutely no chance that he could escape by getting
medical treatment Moscow.

Dr. Uges was all over the media, acting more like a politician than a
doctor, he told the Irish Times that Milosevic "took Rifampicin himself,
not for suicide, only for his trip to Moscow.” Of course Dr. Uges is a
toxicologist, and not a mind reader. He can’t possibly know what was
going on in Milosevic’s thoughts, but he didn't let that get in his way.

Rifampicin is odorless and tasteless, and as such could have been mixed
into Milosevic’s food without his knowledge. He was administered all of
his medicine by guards at the prison dispensary. He took the medicine
that they gave him. The drug could have easily been added into one of
his medicine capsules.

Clearly, Dr. Uges can’t know whether Milosevic took the drug knowingly
or not, but we can find a clue in the letter that Milosevic wrote to the
Russian Foreign Ministry on March 8th:

“I think that the persistence, with which the medical treatment in
Russia was denied, in the first place is motivated by the fear that
through careful examination it would be discovered, that there were
active, willful steps taken, to destroy my health, throughout the
proceedings of the trial, which could not be hidden from Russian
specialists.”

“In order to verify my allegations, I'm presenting you a simple example,
which you can find in the attachment. This document, which I received on
March 7, shows that on January 12th (i.e. two months ago), an extremely
strong drug was found in my blood, which is used, as they themselves
say, for the treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy, although I never
used any kind of antibiotic during this 5 years that I'm in their
prison.”

“Throughout this whole period, neither have I had any kind of infectious
illness (apart from flu).”

“Also the fact that doctors needed 2 months (to report to me), can't
have any other explanation than we are facing manipulation. In any case,
those who foist on me a drug against leprosy surely can't treat my
illness; likewise those from which I defended my country in times of war
and who have an interest to silence me.”

In his interview with the New York Times Dr. Urges confirmed that March
7th was indeed the day that Milosevic learned the drug had been found in
his blood.

Clearly, the detection of the drug is what motivated Milosevic to write
the letter. As the text of the letter makes plain Milosevic was not
knowingly taking the drug.

The letter raises some serious questions: Why did it take the tribunal’s
medical staff two months to tell him that the drug had been found in his
blood? If they knew in January, then why wasn’t an investigation
launched immediately to determine how the drug was getting into his
system? Why was this information concealed from him for two months?

The conspiracy theory being advanced in the media by Dr. Uges and
certain "unnamed sources" at the Hague Tribunal just doesn’t hold water.
The conspiracy would have to involve: Milosevic, the Russian Government,
the doctors at the Bakulev Medical Center in Moscow, the person who was
procuring the drug and sneaking it in to him, the doctor who was
advising him on how to take it, etc…. It’s all just too far-fetched to
be true.

The fact that the tribunal is floating such a stupid story tells you
right off the bat that they’re guilty as sin for Milosevic's death.

Milosevic had no motive to sabotage his own health. A trip to Moscow for
medical treatment would not have allowed him to escape. The Russian
Government guaranteed all the way back in January that it would return
him within the timetable set by the tribunal.

If Milosevic had been sabotaging his health he would have been running
the risk of handing his defense over to Mr. Kay. Anybody who followed
the trial proceedings knows that he would have never done that.

The trial was not going well for the prosecution. They had not presented
a stitch of evidence to show that he ordered or condoned the commission
of a single crime. The prosecution spent a great deal of time trying to
prove that crimes were committed, but they never made a link between any
of the alleged crimes and Milosevic.

At the end of the trial the judges were going to have to write a
judgment based on the evidence presented in court. Writing a credible
judgment convicting Milosevic on the evidence would have been
impossible, because the prosecution never managed to link him to a
crime.

The Milosevic trial was an embarrassment for a lot of very powerful
people, which is why the media very rarely covered the proceedings. He
was using the trial as a platform to expose the crimes committed in
Yugoslavia by various Western governments and political officials.

Milosevic had an extremely long list of enemies. A person would have to
be an fool to think that nobody wanted to kill him. It is a well-known
fact that MI6 was plotting his assassination in 1992.

It isn’t hard to believe that one of his many enemies wanted to shut him
up so badly that they poisoned him. Maybe they didn’t want to kill him
outright; maybe they just wanted him to be sick enough that Mr. Kay
could take over his defense.

At any rate, it’s a lot easier to believe that a foreign intelligence
agency, or a corrupt tribunal official, was able to infiltrate one guy
into the prison who mixed the drug into Milosevic’s food or into some of
his other medicines.

Whatever their intentions might have been, Milosevic is dead, and those
responsible must be held legally accountable. Clearly, Mr. Robinson, Mr.
Kwon, and Mr. Bonomy bear the most responsibility because it was their
decision that denied him the medical care he urgently needed in Moscow.

The doctors who knew that the Rifampicin was in his blood, but didn’t
tell him for two months must also be held accountable, and the prison
officials who allowed the drug to be smuggled into the prison must also
be held responsible. If nothing else they were negligent in their duty
to keep non-prescribed drugs out of the prison.