Bouquets and Brickbats

If these aren't the acts of terrorists, I don't know what is.

Let us look back to 9/11. For years before this, the Irish St.Patrick's Day parades in Boston and New York, not to mention others, were used partially to raise funds for the IRA. Money that was used to kill our men, women and children. The US Government knew about this and did nothing. Then, September 11th, and a new hard-line front against terrorism, and the infamous "You're either with us or against us" ultimatum. The FBI made sure that websites and the like supporting "The Real IRA" were quickly shut down.

Consider this though. I bought the entire range of Blakes 7 VHS tapes in the early 1990s. The total would be about £260. Now some of them won't play due to tape degradation and its a frantic race to salvage the rest by copying them to DVD and finding replacement episodes to download from YouTube and the like. Should I be honest and buy the official BBC DVDs for a total of £60, or write off the £260, which with inflation would be worth £410 in today's money?

So, what can be done? Financial institutions are obviously in a bad way in the UK. They can afford to pay bonuses to staff who failed to protect them during the financial melt-down a few years back. They can afford to pay huge pay-offs and pensions to fat cat managers, who obviously need the money as they can't afford to surrender it to pay mortgages, expensive lifestyles, golf club memberships, the finest wines and designer clothes etc. And we, the taxpayer, gave them this money when the Bank of England ladled out buckets to cash to affect the afflicted. But when we, the plebs of society, plea for help from these financial institutions, we are often ignored, or some excuse is given as to why they can't assist, or, often, no excuse is given. Even after 20 years of faithful loyalty to one bank. It means nothing to them. Why should they mean anything to us?

So, what can we do to revolt against the revolting? Ask for a copy of your Consumer Credit Agreement. If you didn't fill one in, or it can't be found, they have no legal recourse to pressure you for repayment. NatWest don't seem to grasp this and indeed, broke the law when they provided a copy of my credit card application form and then failed to explain why they had not provided the CCA too. Why should we feel sorry for these bastards? If they hadn't been so lax as to fail to ensure a CCA form was provided, do they really deserve payments? These organisations may not be physically bankrupt, but they certainly are morally bankrupt! They can threaten you with a bad credit reference on "your file" for 6 years, but with so much debt, are you really bothered? I'm not!

This does leave me in a quandary. I don't believe in the 9/11 "conspiracy" but I do believe in a plot to kill JFK. The two are vaguely similar: a coup d'etat to trigger policy change that benefits a select few. But how come I find JFK worthy of investigation but not JFK?

So what am I complaining about?

A hefty £220 fee to attend, thats what! As Hayley Stevens says on Facebook,"Nice going on the 'fuck the poor people' approach to easily accessible skepticism...they're making it impossible to attend for a lot of people who have financial problems or committments. Basically, they're not catering for everyone and I don't know of any speaker in my mind that qualifies [for] that amount of money." Hear, hear. Some of the massive £220 fee is intended as a donation to the James Randi Educational Foundation, but there is no ability to opt out of this donation.
But what about those speakers, some people will say? They have to travel and have to have hotels. True, but other events, such as the excellent Fortean Times Unconvention don't charge as much for their list of (admittedly not so impressive) speakers. And they have a smaller venue too. Venue. Oh yes, venue. TAM is hosting the event at a prestigious locale, and certainly very expensive too. But I can't help but feel that the whole event would be better, and would not leave such a bitter taste in the mouth for those of us on the bread-line, if the pricing was a little fairer.

. But of course these sceptics can charge whatever they want and know that people will pay. Now who's gullible and credulous?

News that Pakistan has banned Facebook because of its "Draw Mohammed Day" have helped to expose this vile, intolerant religion for what it is. How many times have we heard of Islam's more rabid followers publicly denouncing those who defile their previous Prophet's name and image? There has been the furore over the Mohammed Teddy Bear, the death of a Danish cartoonist who satirised Mohammed (and perfectly justifiably under the laws of freedom of speech in his country, something the Muslim's just can't accept) and now, Comedy Central bleeping the name "Prophet Mohammed" in "South Park."

I wish I lived in a country where such hate is outlawed, and the Muslims who organise parades to draw attention to their oh-so-pitiful plight could be made to see how evil all this is, and, better still, to ban such demonstrations. They burn effigies in the street, hoist placards high demanding the death of anyone who they don't like..but our laws can't or won't stop them. Freedom of Speech is one thing, but this is another. Why have their been so few prosecution of the maniacs?

Don't get me wrong here, I am sceptical of most religions, but I have a special place in my heart when it comes to Islam, the infamous women-repressing religion (if there weren't so many people sucked into its vile embrace, I would call it a cult, on par with Scientology, but at least that doesn't advocate murder when it comes to views being spouted that they don't like). My dislike of Islam goes back many years: when "The Last Temptation of Christ" came out, Christians were upset and organised peaceful protests and picketing of movie theatres. When "The Satanic Verses" came out, Muslims wanted the author dead! Over a BOOK! I'm not trying to portray Christianity as better than Islam. I don't care in religion, full stop, but I am amazed and disturbed at the lack of tolerance in Islam. Some other points: The evil old man the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa over "The Satanic Verses" because it defamed Islam in his opinion and of course, all Moslems were up in arms and declared Salman Rushdie to the the devil incarnate etc. without actually reading the book. The actual reason for the Ayatollah's proclamation is that the frosty relations between the West and Iran started to melt after the 1979 US Hostage crisis, and the Ayatollah didn't want this. He wanted to maintain the animosity and so stirred up this bogus hate campaign.
And another thing. The singer Cat Stevens, who converted to Islam and became Yusuf Islam, accused newspapers of misquoting him over the Rushdie affair....the problem is, Steven's/Islam's quotes were recorded for a TV programme called "Hypotheticals" and his anti-Rushdie comments are there for all to see and hear. Funny how Yusuf backtracked when he had a new album out. Hateful Moslem, hypocrite and coward, to boot! (clips from "Hypotheticals" have since been removed from YouTube, but transcripts of relevant portions of the interview can be found on Wikipedia).
My niece died last year of cot death syndrome. The mother was western, the father was a Muslim. At the funeral, they demanded that the mother not attend. When this caused a furore, they backtracked and allowed her to attend - sat at the back of the mosque. The woman who bore the child for 9 months was barred from her own daughter's funeral!

And why did Joe ask to go to the toilet everytime he visits someone's house? Was it to snoop around and try to gather additional clues? And why didn't Joe get the name of the pseudonymous sitter?

Exit Polls: although these were proved to be right, we shouldn't be so complacent. Remember 1992, when every poll was wrong and the Grey Robot got back in? From the very beginning of the election, everyone assumed that the exit polls were correct. "You haven't got back in" Labour was told. "You haven't enough for a majority," the Tories were told. No one knew for sure.

The Daily Mirror In a triumphant, gloating tone, that surrogate toilet paper, the Daily Mirror depicted a huge picture of David Cameron and chums, saying that this picture shows them to be unfit to lead. Tell me why exactly? Why is a snap of Cameron and chums such as Boris Johnson in hooray-henry Oxbridge/Etonian suits a testament to someone's unwilligness to run the country. It isn't, is it?

Voting fiasco Many complained that they got to the polling station only to be turned away when the doors closed at 10pm. Could they not have got their sooner Some people do work double shifts, I agree, but the polling stations opened at 7am, and you could have submitted a postal vote. Many of the whingers and whiners said that there weren't enough staff to process the votes, but if people didn't leave it till the last minute, there wouldn't have been such a queue! Several people interviewed this morning said that they saw the queue at 7pm, thought it was too long, came back at 8pm, thought it was too long, and only decided to queue at 9pm! Perhaps if these people had spent less time in, say, the pub, rather than queuing, there wouldn't be this mess.

I won't be one of them.

I was booked onto a voyage that a Bristol based entrepeneur named Mike Cowlard was putting together. I first heard about this in early 2004 and agreed to be a guest lecturer. Then things started to go wrong. I heard tales of people who had to pull out of the cruise but found Mike reluctant to return their deposits. One unconfirmed story is that a gentlemen from Nottingham took Mike to a small claims court for his money back. Mike coughed up.

In the last telephone conversation I had with Mike a year ago, he said that, since he wasn't a registered Travel Agent, he couldn't book or plan a cruise, so he approached local travel firm Miles Morgan. Certainly, when Mike started all this, his website was plastered with "ABTA" symbols, but these all vanished after a time. Anyhow, at the end of 2008 Mike produced a very plush website called "Destination Titanic" advertising the ship MV Balmoral, and with a plethora of details. Within weeks, this website had been ordered to be taken down. Why? Miles Morgan had poached the concept and ejected Mike from the enterprise! I don't know how Myles Morgan have the cheek to claim the Titanic cruise as their own. Mike's email in December 2008 in addition to mentioning the Balmoral,also said that there was now a planned dog-leg in his transatlantic crossing to visit the huge Titanic cemetary in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A few months later, these details were on Morgan's website! Mike Cowlard claimed that he will have some news in April 2010, but I doubt that there will be two cruise liners vying for space at the Titanic's old dock in Southampton in 2012. I also don't see how two liners doing a wacky races cruise to the wreck site is dignified for the occasion, either. By the way, April 2010 came and went without any announcement.

I was alerted to the shady business when I contacted Miles Morgan a year ago asking about my money and they said they had no record of me being booked on board. Alarm bells started going off, so I contacted Mike. He said that only a few people had dropped out, and that he was using a (named) ex-Cunard Commodore to broker a deal with Cunard to lease a ship. The Commodore denies this and says that contact with Mike was only very infrequent and that he had no agreement with him.

In late 2009, my wife and I were in serious financial problems. We asked Mike for £1000 of our payments back and he happily paid up. But when we asked for the balance of £1800 back a few months later, he was nearly uncontactable. Telephone calls were not returned, emails unanswered and a letter to his home address did not elicit a reply. Even a reporter from Bristol could not contact him. I mentioned this on a Titanic messageboard and that I was thinking of taking legal action. Within a day or so, Mike was in contact, saying that he had received my letter (sent 10 days previously - so why no reply), and I eventually got my money back after a failed promise to send me a cheque never materialised. Others received their monies after similar torturous journeys.

I don't know who I blame more. Myles Morgan for not agreeing to go with Mike and honour his bookings - and Morgan is selling out fast so that people like myself will have nothing in 2012 - or Mike Cowlard for being opaque about his plans. He has let no-one know what he has been doing for some 6 years. Some of his guest speakers were getting upset and annoyed at the lack of communication and many privately told me that they wanted to drop out, one of whom (Claes-Goran Wetterholm) was even listed on both Cowlard's and Morgan's website. Now the page listing Cowlard's list of speakers has been removed.

But others seek to subvert the campaign of Mrs.Johnson to find Keith for their own aims. The psychics and their supporters.

I have seen mentioned on the Facebook website, comments from psychics' supporters, "What a shame they can't find Keith."
Well, why can't they find Keith? In such a high profile case, the open sore of the Moors Murders case, a successful discovery of Keith's remains would be a major publicity coup for any psychic who solves the mystery. But failure would be very dear; people who start to ask why the remains have not been found. Except for the gullible supporters, who will find any variety of pathetic excuses for the failure...or more likely, they will forget it, like "psychic" Sylvia Browne's 100% failure record on solving crime by supernatural means.
So, psychics could help find The Lost Boy, so we are assured, but they haven't. They could at least try, even if no fat cheque is dangling in front of their eyes; why should Mrs.Johnson, or whomever, respect someone's confidentiality for "no publicity" if the psychic quest fails....and knowing the way most of these people work, a "hit" would provide a great opportunity to crow to the press about their success. Neither of these has happened. And I don't accept the truly jaw-dropping excuse given by one apologist that some form of black phantom is inhbiting supernatural powers.

So, if the psychics can't find Keith (and if they can't, it raises questions about how truly "talented" they are), then the only other reason is that they won't find him...which again raises the spectre of just how moral these people are.

Then there was this week's "Mysteryquest" about the hunt for the Zodiac Killer. A 40+ year old memory lodged in the recollections of a retired Police telephone operator is used to (maybe) corroborate a tape recording of a Zodiac suspect. Why weren't the other two who heard his voice asked? Admittedly, one was a survivor of the maniac and probably wouldn't have cooperated with the show. Then there is DNA from this same suspect, but without anything to compare to, its useless. The SFPD refused to help and the suspect's DNA (the suspect died in 2004) was sent to the authorities in the hope that they would do the comparison. And thats the last we heard of it. And then there is one cryptoanalyst who suggested that three lines of a cipher may contain clues to the Zodiac's identity. Thats "may". So what is this clue? We are never told. It almost as if the programme makers liked to dangle a carrot at the audience and snatch it away, giggling, "hee hee, we're not going to tell you."

With plenty of time on my hands, I devour factual programmes. I don't rely on them to bolster my knowledge as they sometimes have "hidden agendas" and are very sensationalised. I prefer to do my own research if the topic fasincates me sufficiently. Then, and only, do I get a sense of betrayal as to what has been omitted.

Two of my favourite shows are "QI" and "Mythbusters". If you have never seen them, I strongly recommend that you view editions of them. But I have started to question their reliability.

A past edition of "Mythbusters" (entitled "Bullets Fired Up") demonstrated that a bullet fired, well, straight up, would not come down with sufficient velocity to cause injury. Any object falling from a great distance would not accelerate indefinitely (due to gravity) but would reach a terminal velocity due to air resistance. Even a penny dropped from the top of the Empire State Building would not cause harm.

Then, we had QI, which tells us, admittedly with no justification or proof that a bullet fired up would come down and kill the firer. To be fair, Stephen Fry of QI, did reiterate a finding of Mythbusters', that it would be impossible for a bullet to go up and come straight back down on the same trajectory.

A fascinating edition of Mythbusters explored the myth of the supposed survival of the Alactraz escapers from June 1962. The two main protagnists of the show plus a third man paddled a makeshift rubber raft from the prison to the mainland, thereby confirming that escape was possible. But another show, part of the "The True Story" series contradicted this finding. So, who do we believe?

The Mythbusters analysed the remnant of the original escaper's raft and paddled and fashioned replicas that were as close to the ones used in 1962 as possible. Based on FBI original notes, they devised a triangular shaped raft, with a bottom made of rubber.

The "True Story" chose to create a pontoon that looked like a huge inflatable sausage instead.

The Mythbusters raft, if a version of it was used four decades ago, would have had to be inflated on the roof of the prison, or on the shore of the island. The conditions for the Mythbusters "escape" was 'similar' to the ones in 1962, and the threesome performed their stunt at night. It is difficult to see in the show, but the Mythbusters did not start their journey from the rocky shoreline, which could conceivably have damaged their frail craft. The heroes of the show decided that the three escapers would have known of the strong westward current and would have paddled not to Angel Island, but the more distant Marin Headlands, assisted by the strong drift heading from Alcatraz to the Golden Gate Bridge. They succeeded in their attempt with a few caveats. They had to bail out their vessel and reinflate portions of it every 10 minutes. Were it not for the helpful illumation provided by a support motor launch, would they have known of the deteriorating state of the raft?

Then we have "The True Story" team, who noted that the craggy shoreline would harm their craft. The three of them, including two (?) coastguards decided to attempt their crossing in daylight, to go direct to Angel Island. Their first attempt to mount the inflatable sausage resulted in a capsize, so they decided to grasp their flimsy construction and paddle to shore, like Brody and Hooper at the end of Jaws. Their attempt was unsuccessful.

So, which version is 'correct'? Which is closer to the 'truth'? Who knows, none of us were there to see the escape attempt, but I find myself drawn to the laconic conclusion of the sadistic governer played by the late Patrick McGoohan in the film "Escape from Alcatraz": "they [the trio of would-be escapers] drowned."

As regular readers of this board will know, I have a particular interest in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. This started out as a fasincation when the wreck was found in 1985. It has since escalated into something of an obsession and seems likely to become overwhelming, a situation I do not desire.

It has also become unpleasant in recent years. Do a search for "Titanic" on this page and you will see why. A particularly unpleasant development emerged last year. Sit back and I'll tell you...

Like it or loathe it, Encyclopedia Titanica (ET) is the on-line source for all things Titanic. It has a consierable database of passengers, crew, technical details, newspaper clippings and a forum.

Enter Thomas McCluskie, MBE, who worked for many years in Belfast at Harland and Wolff, the company that made the Titanic. Tommy served as head of technical services (a euphemism for archives) and was happy to help with enquiries about their most famous, and ill-fated, ship; he helped Bruce Beveridge et al. with enquiries relating to their debunking of the bizarre Robin Gardiner "Titanic Switch theory"; he assisted with the UK Government's re-appraissal of evidence relating to the steamship Californian and its involvement in the disaster; and he helped with the filming of James Cameron's 1997 film.

While preparing two books on the Titanic (viz."Anatomy of the Titanic" and ""Titanic" and Her Sisters "Olympic" and "Britannic"") and a poster ("Wallchart of the "Titanic""), Tommy suffered a debilitating stroke. This occurred at the same time as a downsizing at Harland and Wolff and Tommy was made redundant (various dates for Tommy's departure are April 1998 or September 1997 depending on whether you read his facebook or linkedin pages). Tommy recovered and was made an MBE for services to the maritime industry in 2004.

Nothing scandalous there?

In 2004, ET published unsubstantiated allegations that Tommy had misappropriated ("stolen" in common parlance) various documents to fund his retirement. This was swiftly deleted from the forum, Tommy complained, an apology was issued and this seemed to be the end of the matter. The rumours seemed to have no basis in fact.

We now move forward to the summer of 2009. Tommy had evidently decided that he had been horribly libelled and decided to instigate legal proceedings against ET. There then followed much legal joustings and back and forth debating between the various legal representatives, leaving Phil Hind (the proprietor of ET) with a bill running into 4 figures. By the end of the year he was appealing for financial help on the forum and people responded with kindness.

It seems that Phil then closed many accounts on ET until a subscription fee was paid; this author, with 6 years of history on the board and over 2000 posts, was one of those "banned" and many abandoned ET altogether. Until then, the board was free, and of course, Phil is free to do what he wanted; server space is not cheap and to host it for free was a great altruistic gesture to Titanic and ocean liner research. Why inhibit something that many hundreds of people used?

This can be demonstrated in the following graph very easily. The earliest indication of "subscription only" was in June as far as I can determine. From the end of 2009, the daily posting rate had diminished noticeably and many regular posters have not returned.

[Click on the graph for a larger version. The large spike about May 31st, 2009 is due to the tributes paid to Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the disaster, who died on that day. Note that the number of current postings is due to moderators posting news items; very few new posts are from non-moderators.]

What on earth has been going on? There are only two reasons for Tommy's attack on ET: since an apology has been given and accepted, this cannot be the reason. The two reasons are: he either wants to destroy ET, and/or is after money. Why wait nearly 5 years to commence legal action? Tommy is out of time though on this point; the UK Statute of Limitations is 1 year.

Why now? There have been rumours that Tommy has been bankrolled by the Kamudas of the Titanic Historical Society (THS) to destroy ET. I can find no evidence for or against this theory. But another THS member may provide a hint: Tim Trower has been gloating on Facebook about the imminent demise of ET, and described Tommy's case against Phil Hind as "excellent." Trower was banned from ET in late 2008 when he insulted the well received books "Titanic: The Ship Magnificent" and its authors. He has been glowing with indignation since then and admitted to this author that he wanted ET shut down. He set up the THS message board shortly afterwards which has been dismally underused (1 or 2 posts a day on average), and has been trying to divert people on the Titanic-Titanic message board to his THS creation by reminding people incessantly, "Ken Marschall posts exclusively [there]" ... that the THS board is free...and that you can even remonstrate with Titanic day-dreamer Douglas Faulkner Woolley on the board...etc....etc....etc....

Tommy certainly has a place in the heart of the THs and is regarded as a hero; he worked at the shipyard where the ship was built for starters, and his book "No place for a boy" is trumpeted as an essential item in any Titanic enthusiast's collection. The book even has a huge advert on the THS website. In return, Tommy has said, "[Karen] & Ed are two of the most honest people I have ever had the privilege to know which makes your opinion so valuable" when those of us who know anything of the workings of the THS regard them as two utterly repellant individuals.

What of Tommy's books? In Titanic circles, his efforts are universally dismissed as trash; nice eye candy, but with few redeeming features. There are errors in the text and picture captions which are surprising for someone who worked in the archives of Harland and Wolff. Tommy told me that the books were prepared when he was ill and someone else partially wrote them, disregarding his instructions to remove his name from the covers...or perhaps, as he told someone else, "the pictures in his books were assembled and labeled by the archive department while he was in the hospital but that the book text was all written by him"....or, as he now says in the safe harbour that is the THS message board, the most disputed areas of the text were accurate after all!

So, which is it, Tommy?

On some other forums, Tommy has been taken to task for misidentifying pictures that any Titanic enthusiast would be able to spot in seconds. He apparently became indignant, abusive and angry when his errors were pointed out.

Some other points about Tommy and his memory, which may have been affected following his stroke. In some documentaries of later years (in relation to the "missing pieces" or "Achilles heel" of the Titanic), Tommy has lent his voice to several highly controversial aspects of the Titanic. He says that the Olympic, the Titanic's sister, suffered from an effect called "panting" during its sea trials, where the side plates of the ship would flex back and forth by a small amount. The key to solving this was fixing thin metal plates to the superstructure. Tommy claims to have seen internal memos at Harland and Wolff referring to this problem. Not only have naval architects dismissed this notion, but not one single piece of evidence has been provided to support this claim. And if "panting" was alleviated by the addition of these thin plates, why was not the Olympic retro-fitted? And, a friend who is an authority on these vessels, says that the problem should have been noticed in files held by the UK National Archives. They aren't.

The "panting" problem is also missing from "Wee Man" Tommy's 1990s Titanic books.

Of course, all ships "pant" but the way Tommy describes it, it makes it sound as if the Olympic was unseaworthy.

And then Tommy makes other mistakes, such as his assertion that Titanic's younger sister was originally called "Gigantic" but this name has been crossed out and the name "Britannic" written in in the Harland and Wolff order book. A researcher who has seen this states that this is untrue and he has pictures to prove this.

During the making of the documentaries, Tommy was shown reviewing footage of a dive to the wreck, in particular, double bottom fragments shorn from the hull during the break-up and descent to the ocean floor 2 1/2 miles down. With a camera literally in Tommy's face, he siezes his opportunity to provide a soundbite that will guarantee his piece is not consigned to the floor of the cutting room. He tells us that was he is seeing is the "most significant" piece of Titanic footage he has ever seen. I find this disingenuous; what about footage showing the forces that broke the engines apart? The iceberg damage?

For this reason, this author has labelled Tommy as "rent-a-gob." He'll tell you what you want to hear. On the Titanic-Titanic forum, I mentioned that "I had no time for the man" and Tommy replied with a venomous email. I am not the only one to have received such messages; two other people have been on the receiving side of Tommy's litigious streak; there may be others. In his message to me, Tommy gloats that he has a reputation in Titanic circles unlike myself, but he has certainly destroyed whatever good feelings people may have had towards him by his actions. On ET, one gentleman even described Ol'Tommy as a "parasite" and this is partially true. A parasite cohabits with an organism to the detriment of its host. If one considers the "host" to be the Titanic herself, this is indeed accurate of this odious owl-face.

Sir Terry now supports Alzheimer's research, in much the same way as Michael J.Fox supports work done on Parkinson's and the late Christopher Reeve supported spinal injuries.

Is it just me or these people not supporting these charities through a sense of duty, or that their presence will help to raise funds, but simply because they want a cure, to help themselves? After all, if these people had never been afflicted I doubt they would have given a second chance towards helping these charities.

From Pratchett's Wikipedia page: "In March 2008 Pratchett announced he was donating one million US dollars (about £494,000 at the time) to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, ... and that he was shocked "to find out that funding for Alzheimer's research is just 3% of that to find cancer cures." Of his donation Mr. Pratchett said: "I am, along with many others, scrabbling to stay ahead long enough to be there when the Cure comes along.” Pratchett's donation inspired an internet campaign where fans hope to 'Match it for Pratchett', by raising another $1 million."

i was involved in the 1996 and 1998 recovery expeditions. back then, there was very little acceptance of tulloch & co [the salvagers], so i wrote in 1996 an article why i am involved. in it i mentioned also how unlogic[al] the arguments of the critics are, like the ths being proud of owning coal recovered from the britannic [the Titanic's younger sister ship, sunk in World War 1 by a mine] but titanic coal is such a bad thing, and how they destroy[ed] some pieces in the ths collection just to have some give aways for their supporters (pulling off pieces of the carpet [fragment], lifejacket etc that "fell off". i just pointed out a few points.

then i was kicked out without a reason being given (which is to my knowledge illegal in a non-profit organisation). all i received were letters by karen [Kamuda, wife of the THS "founder" Ed] (several people confirmed me that the wording is definitely from karen, including typical mistakes that i would not spot, being a native german speaker), sent under an alias.

in order to receive my money back i was ordered to send money for the postage, which i did not send. so they keep my money since 1997. in fact paul lowden-brown keeps the money, he "took over" the case as european representative.

by coincident i was a few years later in london at the science museum exhibition when i noted a sign about a public discussion about the artifacts that very afternoon by experts. of course i was curious to learn who these experts were - and one of them was of course plb [Paul Louden-Brown]... he started to talk how the whole ths agree that things should be left at the wreck site etc... i tried to keep my mouth shut, but after a few lies i could not resist. i confronted him with the only survey that ths did in this matter in 1986, that showed [approximately] 50% like to see artifacts, and that their president wanted to raise a piece of steel to melt commerative coins etc, all things that the commutator printed a while ago. but the society, which against law never has a member meeting and never present their figures kicks out people that do not share the trustees view. PLB tried to make me like a little fool by saying this is all a lie, and that ths never kicked someone out. this was of course to much, and i accused him of being involved in kicking me out, and that he even has stolen my money a few years back...

[The "poll" was actually based on information based on information gathered from letters and phone calls to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the co-founders of the wreck.]
[The THS had also kicked out Steven B.Anderson years before too - Paul].

after the discussion he came to me, almost hitting me with his stick, how dare could i accuse him about all this. he then admitted, that he had "heard" my name before, and will investigate what my case is. he promised that all must have been a mistake and he will contact me. he never did.

all the above can be proved by witnesses and with letters etc. this is just my story, and there are many more of others.

[NB: the "you" in this next section refers to another person who had problems with the THS including ordering items from their shop. His wife had tried to order Christmas presents for her husband from them: "Not only did we not get the presents, but they mishandled my credit card info. When I emailed them about it, they got rude very quick. I don't think asking to make sure my info is secure is unreasonable, but apparently Karen thinks it is."]

since you had troubles with the shop, well, this is such a sad chapter as well. over the years i lost hundreds of dollars by ordering stuff, being overcharged with postage. it all goes into their pockets. i remember a case when i was charged 120 dollars for postage (they rip off people out of the usa) and when the item arrived only some 25 dollars were on the parcel. i asked if the rest is credited on my account, a question that was ignored and with the next order it began again at zero...

After all, what is the point in trying to book an appointment with the local doctor's surgery only to be told there is a 2 week waiting list. Oh yes, I know you can book an emergency appointment, but either (a) Cambourne is full of hypocondriacs who cram the valuable doctor's slots with complaints of every little ache and pain; and/or (b) many residents have Munchaussen's syndrome; and/or people don't cancel their appointments when they get better before their appointments; and/or (d) there is a management and manpower problem.

The Right Testicle of Hell:
History of a Haitian Holocaust

Blackwater before drinking water

by Greg Palast for The Huffington Post
Sunday 17 January 2010

1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?
2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.
3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?
4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.
5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.
6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, "I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.
7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.
9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.
10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.
11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with [no] infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - an infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off? Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)
12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zombie-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.
13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.
14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since. From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves' successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.
15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!
16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.

Its all so much different from that bloody awful series "The X Creatures" hosted by Chris Packham on the BBC in 1999 when he, as a zoologist attempted to explain or explain away unknown animals, like the Yeti, Nessie etc.. He contacted Robert Gimlin and asked him about his fellow Bigfoot hunter, Roger Patterson who had died decades earlier. Gimlin was pestered by Packham and admitted that Roger could have been behind a possible fraud. Taking this as a definite admission of fraud, Packham concluded that the Bigfoot legend was a sham.

• Take one shot if the word "collective" is mentioned. Take an extra shot if this is preceded by a variant of "When you freed me from the ..."
• Take a shot if the word "individual" or "individuality" is mentioned
• Take two shots if the phrase "hive mind" is uttered. Take another shot if this is preceded by something like "disconnected from the.."

Although the idea that Mengel was behind the twin 'explosion' was debunked, the documentary led to worrying revelations. I had known that South American countries provided a safe harbour for Nazi War Criminals, but now we have the information that the Brazilian police force not only knew where Mengele was, but were keeping track of him! Why then was he not extradited to face trial? How was Brazil admitted to the United Nations while it knowingly harboured this despicable creature?

A similar situation existed in Argentina, under the protective Peron regime. Adolf Eichmann was forcible extradited when diplomatic moves failed. And that country was also allowed into the U.N too! Given that Eire, declared neutral in World War 2 (despite a small Nazi following if the documentaries are to be believed) was forbidden entry into the UN until 1955 because of its desire to stay out of the Allies-Axis confilct, the decision to allow Nazi saviours Brazil and Argentina into the UN is inexplicable.

Sprite was the first guinea pig I ever handled, in February 2007. She was tiny then but became a bit of a fat, lazy slob over time and thought of herself as the alpha female. She loved nothing more than to cuddle in her daddy's arms and be stroked where I was met with delirious and loud happy cooing noises. She got a bit grumpy in her old age, growling whenever she was taken out of her cage, and pulling the hairs out of my arms. Which hurt. A lot!

The mission designated STS-133, currently scheduled for September 16th, will be the last of this remarkable machine. A "stay of execution" seems unlikely given that the production facility for the Shuttle's External Tank (thats the big orange bullet shaped thing) has already been closed down.

And what do we have to replace it? Not a winged vehicle, but a capsule. Yes, a return to the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era used "tried and trusted technology" developed in the 1960s. Evidently, the Constellation programme (the umbrella term used to describe the Orion and Ares launch vehicles) is a rejection of ground-breaking design, and I feel that the shuttle concept has been dismissed unfairly as a bad idea, best relegated to history, or "a jihad" against the shuttle as one NASA administrator puts it. The logical way to proceed with manned space missions was; to proceed to low earth orbit, create a space platform as a jumping off point for deep space missions, and then missions to the moon and mars. But President Kennedy's jingoism forced a rush for the moon to beat the Soviets. Then Nixon, who was not a space fan, decided to reduce the costs of launches by deciding on a reusable launch vehicle. And therein lay the problem: political meddling forced the abandoning of a completely reusable (and prohibitively expensive) vehicle into a mostly reusable system that would have to glide back to a landing (a 100 ton glider with relatively poor aerodynamics!), it had to have a 60 foot long cargo bay for military payloads; it had to fly once a week every week, it had to pay for itself, by carrying 25 tons of cargo every launch. Oh and it had to use solid fuel rockets which had never been used on manned missions except for escape rockets. Oh, and the concept of "escape"? Well, of course, the risk could be mitigated by making it failsafe, the most reliable machine ever built. The concept of crew escape was dispensed with.

Its easy to look back at the flawed decisions that were made. After all, unsinkable ships do sink, fireproof buildings do burn down...and failure proof spacecraft can and do fail. Put all that into a blender and add a dash of managerial and political bickering, and the failure becomes evident as a consequence of the project's genesis. NASA, up till then a scientific agency, had to tout for business on the market place for commercial satellites to launch. And an impossibly optimistic launch schedule meant that the launches had to be heavily subsidised. And then the media began twisting the blade whenever there were launch failures or postponements.

No it wasn't until the Challlenger disaster that most of this shuttle bashing emerged. It certainly shocked many, myself included. Nigel Macknight, editor of the now defunct Spaceflight News, refused to mention any of the shortcomings in his breathless reporting of the Shuttle programme. But let us look at what we have got as opposed to what we may have. A reliable, if somewhat workhorse, having completed well over 100 missions. It spawned many imitators - Britain's HOTOL, ESA's Hermes, Germany's Sanger, the USA Transcontinental Orient Express, and the Russian Shuttle programme, all of which were abandoned after Challenger. Only the Russian Shuttle flew - once.

Constellation/Areas/Orion is over budget, under powered and overweight. Some confusion existed as to whether it would survive the post-Obama transition. It represents a by-gone era but it is now more expedient to think of a space station-moon-mars directive rather than "mistaken" adherence to a space shuttle only programme.

To put all their eggs in the Constellation programme would be reminiscent of the space shuttle's early days when all the eggs were placed in its basket. Then Challenger, and many payloads couldn't be launched while the fleet was grounded. Accidents with other US rockets (the Titan and Delta shortly afterwards) practically decimated the US's space plans for many months. And then theres the scheduling problem. The shuttle was due to launch in 1977/8 originally. It didn't do so until 1981. From 1975 until 1981, no Americans were placed in orbit. Areas is due for a manned launch in 2915. What if it is delayed? When will the US put its citizens in space again? Oh yes, there are spaces aboard Russian Soyuz capsules, but I cannot help but feel that the US-Russian alliance is precarious. One has only to recall the stand-off during the Yugoslavian conflict, or what if there is another Litvinenko scandal? Would America try to man-rate is Titan, Delta, or another country's launch vehicles? Doubtful.

This is bullshit. If it were a countryside necessity to keep the fox population down, why do we need the spectacle of red coats, horns blaring their clarion calls, hounds and horses, and the toast with a glass of wine, port etc.? Why not just perform fox genocide in a less ostentatious manner with guns, traps or poison? The reason: the toffs want to see the blood of a poor animal dripping from the fangs of their beagles, oh the pleasure of the smell of blood in the nostrils, the adrenalin of the chase. I'm sure the exhausted fox sees it that way too.

Foxes do what foxes have not for centuries; kill to eat. To think the fox makes a mess out of chickens and their coups simply out of spite or pleasure is nonsense. And why don't humans make coups or enclosures stronger and fox proof? The notion that foxes need to be culled to control their population is rubbish too. The way the pro-hunt faction speaks, you'd think that foxes overrun the countryside and that the "toffs" own the land and how dare foxes creep around on my property? Well, tough, foxes don't obey land boundaries and kill for food.

"But," say the hunters, "if fox hunting was outlawed (which it is), thousands would lose their jobs, hounds would have to be put to sleep etc." I am sure that humans are not employed just to keep the hunt going. Don't they have anything better to do, like waving pitchforks at townsfolk who wander onto their property, yelling 'get orf moi land.' Apparently not, the lure of blood means that it is a full time job. Wny don't they join the army in that case. Plenty of people to kill overseas.

And isn't it a bit morally barren to breed and train animals simply to tear to shreds an exhausted fox (dozens of hounds for one fox - what great odds!)? If you think thats OK, then perhaps we should support badger baiting, and dog fighting.

Still, at least the public have voted with their pocket this time and given us what we want. Before the X-Factor, Pop Idol, and Pop Idol:The Rivals, there was no guarantee who would be no.1 at Yuletide and that was part of the fun. Remember when Bob the Builder and Mad World galloped to the top, effectively putting a digitus impudicus up to the pop industry. And when the pop industry didn't get its own way, didn't we know?! Recall when Pete Waterman tried to have Michelle McManus booted off Pop Idol because she wasn't pop material due to her size? Questions were asked in Parliament about this and the judges backed down. Until the final, when Pete couldn't quite bring himself to praise Michelle's effort and said "the public love you." When she won, Pete was nowhere to be seen. "A toilet break" perennical hosts Ant and Dec told us. Yes, OK, if thats what you want to be believe. More likely, Waterman stormed off because his sizist attitude hadn't won. And Waterman hasn't been seen on terrestrial in the intervening few years. Good riddance.

The following day, Reeder opened up a fresh Paypal dispute saying that the item hadn't arrived. The payment was suspended and now Paypal has decided in favour of Russell. Now Russell may be a typical Yankee Yokel who didn't know that I lived in England and thought that items would get to him in the blink of an eye. Or more likely he had no intention of paying for the item and decided to get his money back before the item arrived so he didn't have to spend any money. I favour this latter option.