High school students in protest for more funding for education - Thessaloniki, Greece

High school students in protest for better schools - Thessaloniki, Greece, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Greek police turn blind eye to hotel tragedy

As anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows I'm no fan of the Greek police. I have seen their senseless brutality too often to believe that they are the "thin blue line" between us and chaos. There have been too many cases in which officers have attacked and beaten those they are supposed to be protecting, asylum seekers, protesters and minorities being their usual targets as reports by the UNHCR, Amnesty International, EU attest to again and again.

The flip side of this willingness to turn a blind eye to the law is incompetence and corruption. The cop who can beat detainees with impunity is also free to indulge in any other number of "extra curricular" activities, knowing that oversight is non - existent and chances of being punished slight.

Case in point being yesterday's double tragedy in the four star Nefeli hotel in the upscale Panorama neighbourhood in Thessaloniki. Within 24 hours two young men died of carbon monoxide poisoning, most probably caused by a faulty heater. After finding the body of a 27 year old man on Thursday the coroner, suspecting CO asphyxiation asked the police to call in experts to examine the hotel.

According to the police reports the case was investigated and finding no problems they gave it a clean bill of health. Neither the police nor the hotel management ordered an evacuation of the building despite the coroner's concerns. If they done so the second young man, a 28 year old athlete from the northern Greek town of Karditsa most most certainly be alive today. Instead he became the second victim of CO poisoning during the early hours o Friday morning. Only then was the hotel finally evacuated and the source of the leak found.

Now when you read about such cases you have to wonder how sch a tragedy can happen. It seems clear that the hotel was negligent in its maintenance procedures and that lead to the first death. However, how was the second person allowed to die? What "experts" were called in? Which officers handled this case? What promises were made by whom to whom?

Of course we will learn little or nothing of what really happened this week, the police are not going to let one of their own go to the wall for this. No, the culture of silence and complicity will make sure that even if charges are brought they will come to nothing. And so the cycle goes on unbroken, all the meanwhile crime rates go through the roof, terrorists operate with impunity and many have to live daily with fear of the police.

This is by no means an exclusively Greek phenomenon, just yesterday the British riot squad was condemned by the Guardian newspaper for upholding just nine complaints out of more than 5000 lodged.

"A former Royal Marine, Jones has had 31 complaints lodged against him since 1993. Twenty-six were assault allegations, most of which had been lodged by black or Asian men, but none were substantiated."

For more on the story in Greek click here and here.

So, Gordon we're in Afghanistan to preserve democracy? Would I lie you?

So, Gordon we're in Afghanistan to preserve democracy? Would I lie you?, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Former Brit Ambassador Craig Murray says UK and USA sent prisoners to Uzbek to be tortured

Video from Real News Network

"CRAIG MURRAY, FMR. UK AMBASSADOR TO UZBEKISTAN: I got called back to London and I expected there, you know, to have a sensible talk about the merits or demerits of the intelligence and how much evidence I had that it was obtained under torture. I was absolutely stunned, genuinely stunned—it changed my whole worldview in an instant—to be told that—and I knew it was coming from torture—that it was not illegal, because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture, as long as we didn't do the torture ourselves.

I just couldn't believe the chap who was telling me this, the foreign office's chief legal adviser, Sir Michael Wood, [who] was somebody I'd known for many, many years. He was a nice man. He is a nice man. And how somebody—you know, I thought, you're talking about children being tortured in front of their parents, and you're saying, "Well, I don't think Clause 4 quite covers it, and given this particular legal meaning of the word 'complicity'."

To read the rest of the transcript click here

STAGE workers demonstrate outside ex-ministry of Macedonia and Thrace

Workers in the STAGE program protest outside the ex - ministry of Macedonia and Thrace.

STAGE workers demonstrate outside ex-ministry of Macedonia and Thrace, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Residents of Sykies protesting ahead of a court case over mobile phobe base stations in their neighbourhood.

Remember, remember 5th November

Remember, remember 5th November, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Palace guards are questioning several men over the failed bomb attack on the Houses of Parliament last week. The five men arrested just before their planned attack Friday have been identified by the authorities as Catholic insurgents according to the sources close to the Crown.

One of the suspects, Guy Fawkes is said to have confessed that he was part of a terrorist plot by religious extremists to blow up members of the British government during the opening of parliament including representatives of the royal family.

A fifth man was also taken in for questioning over the IED found in the basement of Westminster Palace last week.

State security agencies are urging the public to remain vigilant to the threat of more attacks and report any suspicious activity to the authorities.

BBC News

Gordon Brown accepts his ABC award for best newcomer on West Wing

Gordon Brown accepts his ABC award for best newcomer on West Wing, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Following hot on the heels of Hugh Laurie, Gordon Brown has taken the now well trodden path from British stage to Hollywood screen. Brown's guest appearance on the revival of the 90's classic TV drama, West Wing was enough to get him this year's ABC award for best newcomer.

Twitter News

How Gordon Brown paid West Wing Writers $40,000 for 'tailoring' speech

"Gordon Brown's speech to the US Congress in March earned no fewer than 19 standing ovations, a congratulatory call from President Obama and plaudits for its command of global economics and rousing call to action.

What American politicians did not know at the time was that at least some of it was the work of a Washington-based speechwriting company called West Wing Writers – which charged the prime minister $7,000 (£4,300) for its services."

The Guardian

Adventures in poster activism

FRONTEX - Keeping fortress Europe safe, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

"With the “road map of Stockholm” the EU and national governments go on to escalate their border regimes to a real war as Frontex’ role in militarising the borders will be strengthened once again. Many thousand people have died and drowned trying to cross the borders of Europe over the last years, hundreds of thousands have been detained and deported. Refoulement is a daily practice at all hot spots of the EU external border."

clandestinenglish.wordpress.com

"The home secretary, Alan Johnson, is facing growing anger from scientists and government advisers over his decision to force the resignation of his senior drug adviser, David Nutt.

Two other senior scientific advisers to the Home Office told Nutt they were "horrified" at his treatment. The former chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) told the Guardian that Dr Michael Rodd, a specialist in computing who sits on the Home Office Science Advisory Committee, and Professor Sheila Bird, a Cambridge University statistics expert who sits on the same committee, had written to him privately saying "they were unhappy with the way the Home Office had dealt with my case". Neither could be reached for comment."

The Guardian

All inspired by various stories that I came across during the week.

28th October parade - Thessaloniki, Greece

28th October parade - Thessaloniki, Greece, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Twitter - Tar and feathering for the modern age?

It seems that even in the 21st century we still need a vat of boiling tar and a sack of feathers on hand to punish those considered to have violated the rules of their community. In times gone by the hapless transgressor would have been covered in the black stuff and then rolled in down, a lesson to others that the upstanding folk of this burg would not put up with their shenanigans any longer.

In an electronic twist on this fine tradition we now have Twitter, on which tweets, retweets and hash tags achieve much the same results but with less mess (besides, trying to pluck a frozen chicken is a thankless task).

Yesterday's casus belli involves uber Twitter user, Stephen Fry and fellow Twitterer, Brumplum shows that other pre-modern traditions are alive and kicking 2000 years after Cicero wrote that;

"Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion."

A mild comment by Brumplum that he found Fry's Twitter output boring followed by the surprise announcement by Fry himself that he was considering quitting Twitter as there was "Too much aggression and unkindness" sparked off an instant reaction and people quickly reached for their electronic pitchforks and went a - hunting for the culprit. Here is a taste of some of the Twitter responses;

abacab1973 @brumplum wanker. hope you enjoy the whirlwind of shit that you've invited.

musicknurd721 This person @brumplum is be the mosthated individual in the world..Finally found someone that wins douche of the year instead of Kanye

iamJaymes This asshole (@brumplum) may have caused@stephenfry to quit twitter, I don't know about you but I want torches and pitchforks at the ready!

Brumplum, or Richard as he known to the non - Twittering world is not the first to feel the wrath of keyboard avengers. In the last couple of weeks oil trading firm, Trafigura, Home Office minister, Alan Johnson and newspaper columnists Jan Moir and A.A. Gill have all attracted the collective ire of Twitter users. Thousands upon thousands of words have been sent out into the ether condemning them for their sins, both real and imagined.

Richard's case, however, is different as he is not a scum bag corporation guilty of untold human misery, a hate mongering hack looking to raise sales figures nor a rifle carrying moron with taste for blood.No, he was an ordinary guy who happened to politely express his opinion about a public figure and as a result was hounded for it by thousands online.

This whole affair has the whiff of the lynch mob about it, a reminder that even "nice people" can behave badly and that online beastliness is not the sole preserve of far right conspiracy theorists and religious wingnuts.

Thankfully, this story has a reasonably happy ending with profuse apologies being offered and accepted on both sides and appeals by Fry to put all this behind us. Yet this incident does raise some worrying questions about the nature of sites such as Twitter and the internet in general. As people, organisations and government become more adept at using this new technology they will realise that the mob still has its uses for dealing with those who disagree with their views and I predict that future Brumgate incidents will not have such a benign conclusion.