EXCLUSIVE ANGLOSPHERIC INTELLIGENCE

Britain's domestic security chief has warned publicly that civil rights may need to be reduced to protect the public against the growing threat of Islamist terror. And in a startling expression of official British policy, Dame Eliza-Manningham-Buller, the director general of MI5, the British domestic security service, also made very clear she was opposed to indiscriminate increased intelligence sharing with all other members of the 25-nation European Union. The European Commission in Brussels has been pushing hard for all members of the 450-million population EU to step up intelligence sharing to combat both terrorism and organized crime.

But Manningham-Buller made clear she rejected this broad approach to intelligence sharing, even if it brought Britain into conflict with the EU overall. "There can be no coercion to share intelligence. ... If we splash it (intelligence) around carelessly we shall soon have none of it," she said in her speech delivered Sept. 1 in the Netherlands at the 60th anniversary of the AIVD, the Dutch security service. "So I could never agree to a compulsory exchange of intelligence as that would risk compromising valuable sources of intelligence. There would soon be little to exchange."

Manningham-Buller's comments reflect conflicts both old and new between the British intelligence and security services and other agencies in Europe's secret world. The French, German and other Western European security and intelligence services have long envied Britain's full access to and full participation in Echelon, the long-established elint, or electronic intelligence sharing agreement between Britain's General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham and America's giant National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Md. President George W. Bush recently approved Australia being granted the same full access as Britain to the NSA's "crown jewels."

More here

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ELSEWHERE

The "banned" article by Prof. Fraser about Australia's immigration policy is now online here. Prof. Fraser is a Professor of Law at Macquarie University in Sydney and wrote an article which called for a reduction in the number of black and Asian immigrants that Australia is allowing into the country. The article was accepted for publication by the academic law journal hosted at Deakin university in the State of Victoria but legal pressures were brought to bear on the university not to publish it and they caved in. As a consequence it will now get more publicity than ever. Prof. Fraser has asked that it be circulated to anyone "who might be interested in defending the editorial integrity of a university law review". I have put it online not because I wholly agree with it. I don't. I am not at all bothered by Australia's intake of Asians, for instance. But, as a libertarian, I will always do my utmost to defeat censorship.

Amazing French ignorance: The Foreign minister of France (no less) did not know that the Nazis had failed to invade Britain in World War 2: "He asked - while perusing maps of European sites where Jewish communities had been destroyed - whether British Jews were not also murdered. Needless to say, Douste-Blazy's question was met by his hosts with amazement. "But Monsieur le minister," Le Canard quoted the ensuing conversation, "England was never conquered by the Nazis during World War II." The minister apparently was not content with this answer, which, according to the magazine, was given by the museum curator, and persisted, asking: "Yes, but were there no Jews who were deported from England?"

Rabbi Spero has got it nailed: "In New Orleans, beginning Tuesday morning, August 30, I saw men in helicopters risking their lives to save stranded flood victims from rooftops. The rescuers were White, the stranded Black. I saw Caucasians navigating their small, private boats in violent, swirling, toxic floodwaters to find fellow citizens trapped in their houses. Those they saved were Black. I saw Brotherhood. New York Congressman Charlie Rangel saw Racism. Yes, there are Two Americas. One is the real America, where virtually every White person I know sends money, food or clothes to those in need -- now and in other crises -- regardless of color. This America is colorblind. The other is the America fantasized and manufactured by Charlie Rangel, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who constantly cry racism! even in situations where it does not exist, even when undeniable images illustrate love, compassion and concern. These three men, together with today's NAACP, want to continue the notion of Racist America. It is their Mantra, their calling card. Their power, money, and continued media appearances depend on it".

Price controls will impede Katrina recovery: "Governments from the Gulf Coast to California are urging investigations of "price-gouging," but gas, hotel, water, and other price increases after Katrina are not a moral failing by companies. They are an economic necessity. Price increases mitigate the shortages that occur after natural disasters by redirecting supplies and giving an incentive for individuals to conserve resources. Unfortunately, the stories of shortages and gas lines that fill newspapers after disasters are a product of governments' misguided attempts to prevent gouging. Since raising prices in the face of sudden scarcity is considered illegal "gouging" in twenty-three states, merchants have a reduced incentive to open stores or ship groceries, water, and emergency supplies to where they are most urgently needed. Even those who wish to keep their doors open as an act of service have their attention diverted from core business in order to control lines and ration the supplies they do have".

A good comment: "My trusty local paper has listed the top ten U.S. natural disasters according to the number of estimated deaths. It consists of seven hurricanes, the Johnstown Flood, a tornado, and the (1906) S.F. Earthquake. By far the worst disaster was the Galveston Hurricane (1900). Nine of the ten most deadly natural disasters occurred during the period from 1881 to 1938, with three major hurricanes occurring in the period 1881-1883. Katrina, the first event to make the top ten since 1938, does not even crack the top five. Although this is a crude measure that does not take into account many variables, it does tend to weaken the argument that deadly hurricanes have something to do with global warming". [See also here]

I have just put up on Education Watch a "Very short story" that I think everybody should read.

And I have just put up on Gun Watch a story about Scotland -- Yes, Scotland -- being the world crime capital.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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