Front Back Yard Photos

Gross Food provided by NHS - SkyNews

NHS accused of Deceiving  Public about Quality and Choice of Meals served to Patients.
Hospital Food: Patients Reject NHS Claims
4:39am UK, Tuesday 27 Aug 2013
http://news.sky.com/story/1133521/hospital-food-patients-reject-nhs-boasts

       Most hospitals claim they are serving five-star food to patients - but a survey reveals many patients disagree. Three in five hospitals give themselves the highest possible rating for the standard of their food, figures show. Out of 156 NHS hospital trusts in England 95 trusts rated the quality of the meals they served to patients as five-out-of-five. But the Campaign for Better Hospital Food (CBHF) said that the figures were a dramatic contrast to an independent Care Quality Commission survey. That survey showed that half of patients were dissatisfied with hospital food.

    The CBHF has renewed its calls for introducing mandatory hospital food standards on quality and nutrition. Alex Jackson, coordinator of the Campaign for Better Hospital Food, said: "It is time for the Government to come clean about the sorry state of hospital food in England and set mandatory standards for patient meals. "This would only involve extending an existing policy which has seen it set mandatory standards for prison food and food served in Government departments, to go alongside those that already exist for school food. "Surely patients recovering in hospital have the same right to good food as Government ministers, school kids and prisoners?"
      A Department of Health spokesman said: "There are many fantastic examples of really good food across the NHS thanks to forward-thinking and innovative staff. "But we recognise that there is too much variation across the country - that is why we have implemented a tough new inspection programme. "With our army of thousands of patient assessors we will drive up standards and reduce variation in hospital food." A spokeswoman for Patient Concern said: "The findings of this study are shocking. Over 10 years ago, the Department of Health recruited Patient Concern to join a team, headed by Loyd Grossman, to improve catering throughout the NHS.
    "We spent tens of millions of pounds commissioning celebrity chefs to create new nutritious dishes, had special snack packaging designed for patients who didn't want full hot meals and developed some glossy menus. "Patient Concern pointed out that unless all hospitals advised the Department of Health of the cost of implementing our plan and got ring-fenced budgets to do the job, we were wasting our time. Of course, we were ignored. Hence today's depressing report."

NHS Direct wants to End NHS 111 (Non Emergency) Phone service Contracts

http://news.sky.com/story/1121638/nhs-direct-plans-withdrawal-from-111-helpline

29 July 2013

Photo: NHS Direct

      NHS Direct, which provides the non-emergency phone line in nine regions of England, said it wanted to quit its contracts because they were too expensive. It has found that the cost of providing the service, where staff give the public non-emergency health advice, exceeded the contract price. NHS Direct is now seeking a "planned withdrawal" from the deals after projecting a £26m deficit for the coming financial year. Its chief executive Nick Chapman said: "We will continue to provide a safe and reliable NHS 111 service to our patients until alternative arrangements can be made by commissioners.

    "Whatever the outcome of the discussions on the future, patients will remain the central focus of our efforts, together with protecting our staff who work on NHS 111 to ensure that the service will continue to benefit from their skills and experience." The announcement came as an undercover investigation revealed "serious failings" in the system, with staff shortages, long waits for callers and unnecessary ambulance call-outs. In Channel 4's Dispatches programme NHS Undercover, one call centre manager was secretly filmed admitting the service was exposed at the weekends. "We had a very bad service. Still realistically on the weekends we still are unsafe. We don't have the staff to deal with the calls that are coming in," the worker said.

     Reporters posed as trainee call handlers and filmed secretly at centres run by the private health care company Harmoni, which has a third of the hotline contracts in England. They found many patients had to wait longer than 10 minutes to hear back from a clinician and some workers with no medical training were filmed giving medical advice to the journalists. A spokesman for Harmoni told the programme: "We provide a clinically safe service. We expect all staff to only provide advice according to their role and their level of training and take a zero-tolerance approach to any breach. "Our audits show no evidence of widespread poor practice. Our staffing levels are extremely robust with around one clinical adviser to every four health advisers.

     "While it has been acknowledged that NHS 111 services generally did not get off to a good start, we and other providers have successfully delivered substantial improvements including recruiting 180 more advisers." The 24-hour phone line replaced NHS Direct as the number to call for non-emergency care but has been dogged by problems since its inception. Patients complained about unanswered calls, poor advice and calls being diverted to the wrong part of the country. Doctors claimed its "problematic roll-out" had left patients not knowing where to turn and it has also been blamed for fuelling the current A&E crisis. Earlier this month, the Health Select Committee attacked ministers for the "premature" launch, claiming it was done with little understanding about how it would affect the wider NHS.

     NHS Direct worked on the 111 pilot, which was based on a cost of £13 per call to cover staff salaries and other costs. But it says local health commissioners refused to pay more than £7.80 per call when the first 111 contract was awarded in the North East of England. NHS Direct initially won 11 of the 46 regional contracts for the hotline but pulled out of two before they were even launched. It now wants to axe the remaining nine in Buckinghamshire, East London and the City, South East London, Sutton and Merton, West Midlands, Lancashire and Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire and Somerset. A company spokesman said it had encountered "significant problems" when it launched the three contracts in the north west of England and West Midlands in March.

     She said the calls took "twice as long as expected" and as a result, NHS Direct did not have "sufficient capacity" to handle all the calls that it received. The firm had worked on the pilot, which was based on a cost of £13 per call to cover staff salaries and other expenses, but local health commissioners refused to pay so much. The NHS Direct board remodeled its costs and decided it could bid based on £7 to £8 per call and was later awarded deals covering 34% of the country. However, its annual report says: "It is now clear that the trust is not able to to provide the 111 service within this lower cost range, and that the 111 contracts that the trust has entered into are financially unsustainable."

     David Cameron's spokesman admitted there had been problems with the hotline's launch but insisted performance and patient satisfaction was now high. "He is confident that we will continue to push up standards and deliver a high level of service for patients across the country," the spokesman said. NHS England blamed the earlier problems on providers not having enough call handling capacity in place but also claimed they had now been resolved. The Department of Health said NHS Direct had "struggled to meet the standards required" but defended the hotline as a whole and vowed it would continue.

     A spokesman said: "There is widespread consensus that NHS 111 is in principle a good idea. "It makes obvious sense that for many patients, accessing the NHS by phone is often the quickest and easiest way to get advice and speak to a doctor or nurse when needed. "So of course it's disappointing that there have been problems with its implementation but these are flaws that can and will be overcome."

Report highlights 13,000 needless deaths across 14 NHS hospital trusts

     Sir Bruce Keogh's investigation will suggest that 14 trusts had higher than average mortality rates- 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/report-out-today-will-highlight-13000-needless-deaths-across-14-nhs-hospital-trusts-8710313.html


      Hospitals are preparing for tough criticism over the thousands of needless deaths that will be revealed in a major report released today. A report conducted by NHS England medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh is expected to say that 14 healthcare trusts had higher than expected death rates between 2010 and 2012. It will describe poor care, medical errors and management blunders at the 14 Trusts which have been investigated over high mortality rates. The review has been examining if trusts have already taken action adequate enough to improve care quality or if they require extra support.

      In his review, Sir Bruce will highlight that the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal may not have been an isolated incident. Sir Bruce's investigation indicates that there may have been up to 13,000 needless deaths from across the 14 trusts since 2005. The Prime Minister's official spokesman has suggested that hospital board members could be suspended following care failings. “Clearly there have been examples where patients and families have not received the high quality, compassionate care that it so important,” David Cameron's spokesman said.

     “The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State, and all the Government are deeply, deeply concerned at the evidence of failings in the NHS. “It is important to have undergone the review to get to the bottom of where failings may be occurring. What people can be very clear about is the Government's commitment to that culture of compassion and high quality care. “The Government will continue to take the action that is necessary. “One of the things the Prime Minister said in response to the Francis Inquiry is that a single failure regime would be set up whereby the suspensions of boards can be triggered by failures in care.”

     As part of the Government's response to the Francis report into serious care failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, ministers said that if a hospital is deemed to be failing, the Chief Inspector of Hospitals could initiate a failure regime in which the board could be suspended or the hospital put into administration. Following publication of the public inquiry, Sir Bruce launched an investigation into the 14 other trusts because of their high mortality rates. Nine of the trusts have been “outliers” on the Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR) for two years running and the other five were identified by the Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator (SHMI) as having higher than expected death rates.

    The latest SHMI data, published in April, in which the number of patients who died following admission to hospital is compared with the number who would be expected to die, suggests that as many as 3,000 people may have died needlessly in just one year at the 14 trusts. Researchers said that death rates were deemed to be “higher than expected” at eight of the trusts and “as expected” at the other six of the trusts. The trusts which have been under review are: Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, Medway NHS Foundation Trust, North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

      Reports suggest Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will send teams of expert “hit squads” into 10 of the trusts to turn around hospitals, the Daily Telegraph said. Professor Sir Brian Jarman, one of Sir Bruce's advisers and a mortality data expert, said that he warned health officials over the course of a decade about the high death rates but was ignored. “We felt we were banging against a locked door,” he added. Tories are likely to seize on the findings of the review to attack Labour's handling of the health service. Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham was in charge of the NHS between June 2009 and May 2010. But Ed Miliband, Labour leader defended his party's management of the NHS and said yesterday that he was “proud” of Labour's health record in government.
      Pressed on the role of the then Health Secretary, he said: “I think that's what you get from this Government, which is that they are wanting to politicise some of the problems there have been in the NHS.
“Now, we were very vigilant about dealing with those problems and I am very proud of Labour's record on the NHS.” “The high mortality rates had been known about for years previously and some of the trusts also had other indicators suggesting problems with patient safety. For example, Tameside had failed to implement large numbers of patient safety alerts at the same time as it had high mortality rates. We need a regulator who will investigate when there is one serious indication of a problem, let alone several”.

Do Immigrants Work Harder than Native Borns?

British House of Commons Speaker John Bercow said;

'Migrants are harder workers than Britons': Speaker John Bercow says arrival of Eastern Europeans has benefited Britain
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336050/Migrants-harder-workers-Britons-Speaker-John-Bercow-says-arrival-Eastern-Europeans-benefited-Britain.html#ixzz2VKZxoFYQ

There are some issues that need to be addressed, I think.

1. The effects of Immigration on Economic Status of African-American Men
   A. The employment rate of black men, and particularly of low-skilled black men, fell 5.9 % between 1960 and 2000.
   B. At the same time, their incarceration rate rose 1.3%.
   C. 2.5% reduction in Wage of Black group by, 10% increase in the supply of workers.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0335.2009.00803.x/abstract;jsessionid=B8D425F27E152A061C5E4D43028D3443.d04t01

ARMED Police patrol Luton Public Housing to stop shoot-outs between Gangs

Portrait of modern Britain: ARMED police officers patrol Luton estates to stop dangerous shoot-outs between gangs

• Bedfordshire town suffers nine shootings in four month crime wave
• Paul Foster, 46, murdered in April while teen shot in the back on Saturday
• Police say armed patrols in place for 'foreseeable future' to stop crime
• Officers with guns and dogs will also be increasing searches to find weapons

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324949/Armed-officers-patrol-streets-LUTON-stop-dangerous-shoot-outs-feuding-gangs.html#ixzz2TPT71mY6

         A town at the heart of the usually sedate Home Counties is being patrolled day and night by armed police trying to stop feuding gangs killing each other. In the past four months there have been nine shootings in Luton linked to trouble between youths on the Marsh Farm and Lewsey Farm estates. In the latest attack, early on Saturday morning, a 16 year old young man was shot in the back on Marsh Farm. The police have said he may never walk again.

      A boy walks past an armed officer as police patrol the Marsh Farm Estate after a spate of shootings

    Patrol: Armed police with a dog walk through the Marsh Farm estate in Luton after a spate of shootings in the Bedfordshire town

Response: There have been nine shootings in Luton in recent months in explosive rows between rival gangs

        Reassurance: Bedfordshire Police say the patrols will be in place 'for the foreseeable future' to ensure local people feel safe and to prevent further crime
    On April 9, Paul Foster, 46, known locally as Big Shyne, was shot dead on the Lewsey Farm estate. Armed officers are now patrolling both estates and using stop and search powers in an attempt to find weapons. A £1,000 reward has been offered to anyone who gives the police information that leads to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in gun crime in the town.

   Case: On April 9, Paul Foster, 46, known locally as Big Shyne, was shot dead on the Lewsey Farm estate (pictured)
   Today a jury at Luton crown court is continuing to consider its verdict on a youth accused of driving a car and killing a rival gang member. A Bedfordshire police spokesperson said: 'Armed officers, together with members of the local policing team, for Marsh Farm and Lewsey Farm will be out and about in greater force for the foreseeable future; reassuring the public and ensuring offenders who carry guns or weapons in public are stopped and arrested. 'Patrols, already on the ground in significant numbers, will be doubled and will be using stop and search powers to ensure public safety. They will also be asking the public for help to find the person responsible for Saturday morning’s shooting which left the victim in a serious condition in hospital.'

Twitter Interactions with Alex Nowrasteh about Immigration

He says, Hypothetical is common method to figure out what somebody actually thinks.

@torankrai Asking hypotheticals is a common method to figure out what somebody actually thinks. My mistake for assuming that.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 16, 2013

After I have replied his tweet with a good argument, he replies;

@torankrai Ha, another non response.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 16, 2013

Here, He deals with Hypotheticals;

Wikipedia:
In some cases, the hypothetical scenario might be considered impossible in any sense at all. David Chalmers says that we can imagine that there are zombies, or persons who are physically identical to us in every way but who lack consciousness. However, some argue that zombies are inconceivable: we can no more imagine a zombie than we can imagine that 1+1=3. Others have claimed that the conceivability of a scenario may not entail its possibility.
Dealing in Hypotheticals is a Thought Experiment.

@torankrai What if 10,000 US companies each want to hire 1000 peaceful immigrants to work here on their property. Would use you gov to stop?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

Here, Alex admits he doesn't want Open borders;

@torankrai I am not advocating for open borders, but if you want to rant about what u think I support go ahead.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai The government should have no power to stop peaceful interactions between willing adult parties across borders.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai That's a non-sequitur.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai How is hiring an immigrant to do a job, selling him goods, or renting him an apartment an "invasion"?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai It's not national security when the goal is to keep willing workers from willing employers.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai Tens of thousands of border patrol/immigration agents running check points, inspecting firms, & checking ID isn't Big Gov?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

Here, he is trying to equal Border Security with Big government;

@torankrai You are avoiding the question. You can say "it is called a NATION!" to justify any Big Government program. It's a non-argument.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai That is not an answer. US had open borders 1790-1882, we were not a nation then?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai First, why should Big Government be deployed to stop peaceful & healthy migrants?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai So? Let them come so long as peaceful & healthy.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

The following twitter interactions on May 13, 2013

@torankrai No. How do u explain ~$500 billion in remittances annually? Is there a point to your questions?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

@torankrai If incomes reverse, you will see mo out migration as you've seen w/ US & Mexico post 2006.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

@torankrai Because convergence takes a while. As incomes increase in poor nations, migration should increase to a point then diminish.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

@torankrai Mexico too, is growing at a decent clip.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

@torankrai Given massive economic growth rates in Africa, India, & China, they might have learned.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

Education Secretary-Michael Gove berates 'the Enemies of Promise'

I refuse to surrender to the Marxist teachers hell-bent on destroying our schools: Education Secretary berates 'the new enemies of promise' for opposing his plans

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2298146/I-refuse-surrender-Marxist-teachers-hell-bent-destroying-schools-Education-Secretary-berates-new-enemies-promise-opposing-plans.html#

Exactly 75 years ago the great English writer and thinker, Cyril Connolly, published his most famous book –  The Enemies Of Promise. Connolly’s work explores the ways in which the talented individuals of his time were prevented from achieving their full potential.

It’s time someone produced an update. Because there are millions of talented young people  being denied the opportunity to succeed as they deserve. Far too many are having their potential thwarted by a new set of Enemies Of Promise.

The new Enemies Of Promise are a set of politically motivated individuals who have been actively trying to prevent millions of our poorest children getting the education they need.

Michael Gove believes that school children are not being challenged enough with current curriculums

Our education system should give all children the tools they need – mastery of English,  fluency in arithmetic, the ability to reason scientifically, a knowledge of these islands and their history – to take their place as confident, modern citizens. 

There are many brilliant schools – a growing number – which do just that. Their students earn the qualifications which allow them to choose where they will go on to work, or study.

 

More...

• The spectre of Red Ed's Thought Police
• Repeat after me: If 100 experts say it's wrong for children to learn by rote, they must all be nitwits

And they acquire the stock of knowledge required to take their place in a modern democracy  – how to communicate in formal settings, appreciate the arguments in newspapers’ leading articles and understand the  context behind big political decisions.

But, tragically, there are all too many children who still don’t leave school with these basic accomplishments. Businesses report that school-leavers lack basic literacy and numeracy. 

Survey after survey has revealed disturbing historical ignorance, with one teenager in five believing Winston Churchill was a  fictional character while 58 per cent think Sherlock Holmes  was real. 

Gove believes that students should leave school with the basic skills needed to excel in the modern world

Expectations in science have been so dumbed down that children could be asked if grilled fish is healthier than battered sausages in their GCSEs. And the greatest tragedy is that poor educational performance is concentrated in our most disadvantaged communities – places like Knowsley in Merseyside, Hull and East Durham. Because of my own background, I am determined to do everything I can to help the poorest children in our country transcend theirs.  

But who is responsible for this failure? Who are the guilty men  and women who have deprived a generation of the knowledge they need? Who are the modern Enemies Of Promise?

Well, helpfully, 100 of them put their name to a letter to The Independent newspaper this week. 

They are all academics who have helped run the university departments of education responsible for developing curricula and teacher training courses. 

The academics who criticised the coalition's plans for education wrote with reference to Karl Marx (pictured)

You would expect such people to value learning, revere knowledge and dedicate themselves  to fighting ignorance. Sadly, they seem more interested in valuing Marxism, revering jargon and fighting excellence. 

They attacked the Coalition for our indefensibly reactionary drive to get more children to spell properly, use a wider vocabulary and learn their times tables. Expecting 11-year-olds  to write grammatical sentences and use fractions in sums is apparently asking for ‘too much too young’ and will ‘severely erode educational standards’.

How can it erode educational standards to ask that, in their  11 years in school, children be given the opportunity to use the English language in all its range and beauty to communicate their thoughts and feelings with grace and precision? What planet are these people on?

A Red Planet, if their published work is anything to go by. One of the letter’s principal signatories claims to write ‘from a classical Marxist perspective’, another studies ‘how masculinities and femininities operate as communities of practice’, a third makes their life work an ‘intergenerational ethnography of the intersection of class, place, education and school resistance’. 

It is no surprise that two signatories co-authored a paper proclaiming ‘Marxism is as relevant as ever’. It certainly seems to be if you want a position in a university department of education.

School reformers in the past often complained about what was called The Blob – the network of educational gurus in and around our universities who praised each others’ research, sat on committees that drafted politically correct curricula, drew gifted young teachers away from their vocation and instead directed them towards ideologically driven theory. 

Some wonder if past reformers were exaggerating the problem in university education departments. Thanks to the not-so-Independent 100 we can see that, if anything, they were underplaying the problem.

In the past The Blob tended to operate by stealth, using its influence to control the quangos and committees which shaped policy. But The Blob has broken cover in the letters pages of the broadsheets because this Government is taking it on. 

We have abolished the quangos they controlled. We have given  a majority of secondary schools academy status so they are free from the influence of The Blob’s allies in local government. We are moving teacher training away from university departments and into our best schools. And we are reforming our curriculum and exams to restore the rigour they abandoned.

GCSEs and A-levels had been systematically devalued. We have acted. GCSEs and A-levels will again be taken after two years’ study, instead of broken into ‘modules’, and will stretch children with the challenges they need, such as extended essay-writing and more problem- solving in maths and sciences.

Michael Gove has described how necessary it is for the government to invest in education in impoverished areas of the country

We believe children will  flourish if we challenge them, but The Blob, in thrall to Sixties ideologies, wants to continue the devaluation of the exam system.

These reforms have the support of the growing number of great heads and outstanding teachers who want children to succeed. More and more schools are now being rated good and outstanding. But there are still a tiny minority of teachers who see themselves as part of The Blob and have enlisted as  Enemies Of Promise.
They are the ultra-militants in the unions who are threatening strikes. They oppose our plans to pay good teachers more because they resent the recognition of excellence and they hate academy schools because heads in those schools put the needs of children ahead of the demands of shop stewards.

Previous school reformers have been stymied by these  Enemies Of Promise before. Just last week Tony Blair was lamenting the fact teaching unions ‘have stood out against necessary educational change’ and arguing for the policies this Government is pursuing.

Indeed, across the world those politicians who want to help children from poor backgrounds get on are fighting the Enemies Of Promise. Last week I was talking to the Democrat Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, about his battle with the teaching unions.

That’s why it’s such a pity that, this week, Labour’s education spokesman Stephen Twigg chose to side with the Marxists and failed to condemn the unions who want to close successful schools.

The fight against the Enemies Of Promise is a fight for our children’s future. It’s a fight against ideology, ignorance and poverty of aspiration, a struggle to make opportunity more equal for all our children. 

It’s a battle in which you have to take sides. Now that Labour seem to be siding with the militants, it’s even more important that we support the great  teachers and heads fighting for higher standards for the sake of our children.

After Breitbart's relentless push Pigford Scandal comes to Light from Shadows

Breitbart.com

Andrew Breitbart championed Pigford Scandal when most of us were unaware of it. In honor of Breitbart and impact I have posted the following news links where the story has just recently been covered.

I googled Pigford New York Times and following are the ''results'';











Obama's Pigford Scandal & Breitbart was Right
Investor Business Daily. Editorial
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/043013-654139-breitbart-was-right-about-pigford-case.htm

Pigford Forever-          
National Review Online. The Editors
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346810/pigford-forever


New York Times exposed Pigford...three years after we did.            

Beaufort Observer. Commentary

http://www.beaufortobserver.net/Articles-NEWS-and-COMMENTARY-c-2013-04-28-266556.112112-iNew-York-Timesi-exposed-Pigfordthree-years-after-we-did.html

PIGFORD FRAUD WORKSHOP STILL DRAWS HUGE CROWDS AFTER NYT EXPOSÉ- 

Breitbart.com. Lee Stranahan

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/29/Day-After-New-York-Times-Expose-Pigford-Fraud-Workshop-Still-Draws-Huge-Crowd

"It’s Easier to Blame Bob Diamond than Reform UK Banking"- Simon Dixon

http://www.positivemoney.org/2012/07/bob-diamond-its-easier-to-blame-him-than-reform-banking-but/

July 4 2012

     It seems like there is a new banking scandal everyday now. Every time I think we have heard it all, a new scandal pops up. I think we are all getting used to billions in financial fraud now. Libor scandal this month, rogue trader last month, and the next banking bailout coming in the next few months, when the bankers get themselves in trouble again. But one thing that still amazes me is how we think that Bob Diamond is the one behind all this madness, Fred Goodwin last time or whoever the next CEO is when we unearth similar financial fraud in Lloyds and HSBC next.
  As crazy as it sounds, I found myself feeling a little sorry for Bob Diamond this morning. Now normally I would be the last person offering any sorrow to the CEO of a bank, but if the truth be told, Diamond just happened to be sitting on the seat at a time when whoever was sitting on the seat would have had the same fate. Our banking system is designed in a way where fraud is inevitable. Remember, politician wants to get more people borrowing money to push up property prices and the economy just as much as Bob Diamond does.

So when George Osborne calls for the job of Bob Diamond, he should take a look in the mirror and wonder why they keep getting more of the same.

   All policies that have come since the wake of the banking crisis have all been about getting back to business as usual. Business as usual for a bank is to find as many ways as possible of getting as many people as possible into debt. That might be through credit cards or mortgages, but the government wants it too. The success of the company is dependent upon it, the shareholders dividends are dependent upon it, the bankers bonuses are dependent upon it and the CEO’s job is dependent upon it. So it is time for politicians, bankers and us to make up our mind. Do we want more debt, more mortgages and more credit cards which will involve more financial fraud to achieve, or do we want real change in banking?

Here is a recent interview I did with Max Keiserlooking at some deeper issues…

   If we want to put an end to the scandals, we need banking reform, we need a complete cultural shift within banking and we need banks that lend to job creating businesses. If we want business as usual then keep blaming the CEO’s and call for Bob Diamond’s job, but have it be known that nothing will change and Bob Diamond is only doing what all the other banks are doing in order to prop up a banking system that needs big change. The change will never come when we focus on the CEO’s and their jobs. It is easy to get angry about their bonuses and their fraud, but the change has to come from government enforcing structural changes in banking and a cultural shift in what the bank is for.

Art Establishment helped Paedophile Painter Graham Ovenden get away with Child Abuse for 20 years- Daily Mail

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2304791/How-art-establishment-helped-paedophile-painter-Graham-Ovenden-away-20-years.html?ICO=most_read_module

• Guilty of six counts of indecency with a child and one of indecent assault
• Ovenden sexually abused under-aged sitters in his paintings
• The abused girls were all aged between six and 14
• The Tate showed Ovenden's pictures of naked girls in its galleries

     Nearly 20 years have passed since police from the Child Protection squad banged on the door of the celebrated artist and photographer Graham Ovenden, searched his Cornish home and packaged up hundreds of images of naked children they considered to be obscene. From that moment the art establishment, in all its pompous glory, has been defending Ovenden’s sexually suggestive works on the grounds (note this, mere mortals) that art must not be confused with porn. Such was the furore raised by the art world over the 1994 arrest of the artist — whose works were selling for up to £25,000 — that, to the incredulity of Scotland Yard, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge him.

    Guilty: Renowned artist Graham Ovenden, 70, was convicted of indecency with children after first being arrested in 1994. 

    Fifteen years later the police were back with another search warrant, and this time he was charged with having indecent images of children on his computer. He was acquitted. Each of these episodes was seen as a victory for art itself and gave rise to learned articles explaining, for example, how Ovenden’s re-creation of pre-Raphaelite photography permitted candid child nudity. One London gallery even put on an exhibition of work under the title The Obscene Publications Squad Versus Art. So it was quite a shockwave that hit the art world this week when Ovenden, now 70, was exposed as a devious paedophile who sexually abused some of his innocent young sitters.
    Ovenden’s pose of genial respectability was torn away as he was found guilty at Truro Crown Court of six counts of indecency with a child and one of indecently assaulting a child. All took place before his first arrest. The children, all girls, were aged between six and 14. Even the Tate, home of British art, which has always stoically stood by him, at last decided it had little choice but to remove its collection of 34 works — including naked child images — from its website. Nor will the works any longer be available to view by appointment. A spokesman said his convictions ‘shone a new light’ on his work. Indeed so. The police could have told them that years ago. But then, down the years, Ovenden — who has a son and daughter by estranged wife Annie, a fellow artist whom he married in 1969 — always had powerful supporters.



Powerful supporters: Ovenden is now facing jail despite the art establishment rallying round him

    These included celebrated artists such as David Hockney, Sir Peter Blake and Sir Hugh Casson, as well as Sir Piers Rodgers, the non-artist former secretary of the Royal Academy. And despite the shocking turn of events, twice-married Sir Piers, 68, still has no qualms about his support for Ovenden’s child images. ‘I did stand up for him when he was attacked in the mid-1990s and I think I was right to do so,’ he says. ‘There was no question, as far as we knew, of his having touched or abused any of the children he painted. He made images of children and we [the Royal Academy] felt that they were legitimate. Any other view would make many of the great masterpieces pornography in an utterly ridiculous way.
‘The depiction of children in itself seemed to us to be unobjectionable. We supported Graham Ovenden in that. If I had thought that his intent was to get sexual gratification from young children I wouldn’t have supported it.’
   It remains surprising, however, that the art world, with its many flamboyant ‘experts’, didn’t spot just what Graham Ovenden really had in mind by looking at his collection of drawings called Aspects Of Lolita. This is a series of suggestive drawings depicting the 12-year-old girl lusted after by a middle-aged professor in the Nabokov novel Lolita, published in 1955. One critic this week described Ovenden’s Lolita images as seeming ‘quite baldly and openly sexual in a way that dares the onlooker to accuse him of something’. A number of them of them, including Lolita Seductive, Lolita Meditating and Lolita Recumbent — images of a naked or semi-clothed pre-pubescent girl in different poses — could until this week be seen at the Tate. A second-hand, hardback, 48-page copy of Aspects Of Lolita was on offer on Amazon this week at just under £1,275.
   So is there anything in his background to suggest a predeliction for very young girls? Not on the face of it.
Ovenden enjoyed an idyllic childhood in Hampshire. He grew up in a Fabian household, and the poet John Betjeman was a family friend. After school, he studied at the Royal College of Art and befriended the pop artist Sir Peter Blake, best known for creating the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover for the Beatles. Ovenden has said his main interest is in English landscapes. But what he became famous — and then notorious — for were his studies of girls, and his paintings hung in the world’s most respected galleries.



Celebrated artist: Ovenden pictured in his Bodmin studio

    Only now, after his conviction, are some observers finding a new significance in Ovenden leaving London for Cornwall in 1975 and founding with a group of fellow artists the so-called Brotherhood of Ruralists which took a traditional, backward-looking view of art. In Cornwall, he settled on an estate called Barley Splatt on the edge of Bodmin Moor. Its eccentric house of Cornish granite, complete with turrets and slit windows, was set in 22 acres of grounds with a beech wood, pastureland and a tumbling stream. It was here that Ovenden entertained fellow artists, writers, musicians . . . and children. When he gave evidence at Truro Crown Court, Ovenden portrayed Barley Spratt as a hidden Eden, where children could live as nature intended. They were encouraged to run free — and naked when it was warm.
    The jury was told that Ovenden was a man of good character, with no convictions, cautions or reprimands. The artist denied the abuse ever happened. He told the court he had taken pictures of children—- including those in various states of undress — but said they were not indecent. 'Witch hunt': Ovenden told the court he had taken pictures of children in various states of undress but said they were not indecent and accused police of 'falsifying' images from his home computer. In evidence, Ovenden said there was a ‘witch-hunt’ against those who produce work involving naked children and he accused police of ‘falsifying’ images recovered from his home computer. He argued that he had a ‘moral obligation’ to show children in a ‘state of grace’. The idea of pictures of naked children being obscene was ‘abhorrent’.
    His artistic haven in Cornwall, where he encouraged girls to pose, provided the perfect opportunity for him to create ‘fine art’ images that echoed some of the 19th century pornographic pictures of children that emerged in the early years of photography. In this context, although it makes difficult reading, it is worth repeating just a part of what prosecuting counsel Ramsay Quaife told the jury in Truro this week. He described how Ovenden would dress the children in Victorian-style nighties before leaving them naked and blindfolded, then get them to perform what he called ‘taste tests’.
   ‘The defendant would put tape over her eyes,’ said Mr Quaife. ‘She could not see anything. The tape was black, stretchy and smelt of glue. ‘Although she could not see, she could hear the defendant and she could remember the sound of his belt buckle.‘The defendant would tell her she would do a taste test and would get 10p for every taste she got right. He would then push something into her mouth . . . he told her it was his thumb.’ In fact, Ovenden was performing a disgusting indecent assault on the girl. Prosecutor Mr Quaife also described how naked girls with taped eyes were moved into different positions and photographed so that their genitals could be seen.
    Until this week, Ovenden’s defence against allegations of his pictures of children being pornographic was to use mockery — depicting his accusers as ignorant philistines. On the second occasion he was arrested — and charged with having indecent images of children on his computer and making indecent images — he bizarrely paraphrased Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the police officers, telling them ‘it is but skin and film’.
    The case against him was lost that time when the Crown Prosecution Service failed to call as witnesses two key police officers without whom, said the angry judge, a fair trial was not possible. The freed Ovenden accused the police of being ‘transfixed by childhood sexuality’. After that, in a series of interviews, Ovenden grandly declared: ‘You should not create a neurosis about child nudity. The pervert is the one who puts the fig-leaf on.’And: ‘A man once told me that each time he looked at a photograph of a [naked] child the first thing he looked as was the genitals. Surely that makes him the pervert and not me.’It all sounded so high-minded and grave, this fine-art speak. And with the art world’s support, his life and his work continued uninterrupted, his seedy obsessions impregnable as ‘art’. It is a situation which comes as no surprise to Brian Sewell, the distinguished art critic and commentator.
    ‘In my experience whenever the police have attacked artists’ work, the police have lost every time,’ he says. ‘The art world does seem to have rules of its own. Whether it should or not is another matter.
‘Pictures of nude figures can be beautiful works of art, of course. If, on the other hand, you’re setting out to make an erotic photograph, then this is indefensible, because you are setting out not to remind people of the beauty of the human body, the skin, the eyes, but to remind them of what arouses lust.’ But how does one know an artist’s true intention? ‘I certainly do not know what Ovenden had in mind,’ says Sewell, ‘but he should have known very well the consequences of what he was doing. He should have behaved differently. He has only himself to blame.’ And yet, even after his conviction, for which he is on bail awaiting a likely jail sentence, Ovenden has still not been cast adrift by dedicated supporters.


Respectable: The Tate Gallery in London only removed its collect of 34 Ovenden's works from its website last year

   Among his staunchest defenders are the art-loving explorer and author Robin Hanbury-Tenison, 76, and his wife Louella, a former High Sheriff of Cornwall. Indeed, an Ovenden portrait of one of their sons — fully clothed — hangs in the sitting room of their manor house. ‘I simply do not believe Graham is capable of the allegations made against him,’ declares Mrs Hanbury-Tenison. ‘They are not credible in my view.’

   Her husband adds: ‘These accounts are coming from women who are now in their 40s. One wonders why it has taken so long. I find it outrageous that there is shock-horror at him having painted little girls naked in the Sixties and Seventies. For this to be compared with the gross activities of people like Jimmy Savile or the appalling pornography on the internet — it just defies belief. ‘The blindfolding of a child [for art] — yes, I can see what he was trying to do in representing innocence and justice. ‘But it is the last gasp of puritanism to be concentrating on somehow making that innocence of childhood into something vulgar.’
   As for Ovenden’s pictures of children, the great explorer says that the European art world is ‘laughing at Britain over its obsession with this matter’, adding: ‘As Oscar Wilde said, there is “no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality”.’Oh lucky man, Graham Ovenden, to have such loyal friends. Sir Piers Rodgers, too, says he would not change the decision he took in 1995. ‘I would probably continue to take the same view now about his work that I did then,’ he admits. ‘What is obscenity is a matter of judgment.’ Too true, and most of us will be forming our own judgments about Ovenden’s ‘art’ in the light of this week’s court case.

UK relations with Saudis: Grovelling to Oil Despots Demeans us all. - Dan Hannan

  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/3678411/Grovelling_to_oil_despots_demeans_us_all_/


      For the past 48 hours, our television studios have been filled with well-fed, sleekit men in pinstripes telling us how critical Saudi Arabia is to British interests. "British interests" is, of course, a much nicer phrase than "my place on the board of a Saudi-funded company", which is often what they really mean, but never mind. They have set the terms of the debate. As far as commentators are concerned, this is now a moralityversus Realpolitik issue. On the one hand stand the namby-pamby liberals, with their concerns about feminism and capital punishment; on the other the hard-faced hommes d'affaires with their talk of defence contracts and counter-terrorism.


What prompted King Abdullah's comments?

Yet to posit the debate in these terms is to beg the question. Let's stop for a moment and analyse the contention, made by every recent British Prime Minister, that the Saudis are "our key allies in the region". What precisely are these "allies" doing for us?

King Abdullah began his visit by saying that the Saudis had given Britain counter-terrorist intelligence on which we failed to act in advance of the London bombings. British security sources have denied the claim, and you can see their point: none of the Tube bombers had any connection with Saudi Arabia. So why did the monarch make this curious contention?

Perhaps he was trying to anticipate the criticism that his country is a teeming womb of terrorism. Most of us now know that 15 of the 19 bombers on 11 September 2001 were Saudi nationals, and that the majority of foreign jihadists in Iraq are also Saudis. At the same time, there is growing concern about the way Riyadh funds some of the dodgiest mosques in Europe. A devastating new paper by Policy Exchange, authored by Dr Denis MacEoin, draws attention to material sponsored by the Saudi authorities which describes Jews and Christians as enemies of Muslims, lauds jihad and urges that apostates be killed. We meekly accept that it is impossible to open a C of E church in Riyadh, yet we put up with this insidious hate-mongering because, well, the Saudis are "our key allies in the region".

Some analysts go further, charging "our key allies in the region" with sponsoring terrorism. Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, has written a detailed book alleging Saudi involvement in terrorism in Afghanistan, Palestine and further afield. The Saudis strenuously deny any such involvement, and it is true that, at least since 2001, they have been working to turn the radicals away from violence.

But, even if the Saudis are not directly backing the jihadists, they are sitting on the swamp which breeds the mosquitoes. Saudi Arabia is experiencing a population explosion. Like all countries with a surplus of young men, it is potentially violent. Many urban Saudis have had enough of living under what they see as a corrupt tyranny, in which the entire state is treated more-or-less as the personal property of the family after which it is named. They are angry with their regime, and angry with those who support it, not least the British. In an eerie repetition of the mistake we made with the Shah, we are propping up an unpopular kleptocracy, thus ensuring that we shall be blamed by its successors.

"We need stability in the Middle East" say the pinstriped ex-ambassadors in their Olympian way. Well, stability certainly suits the House of Saud, which is spared any criticism over the kinds of policies which we regularly condemn in Burma and Zimbabwe. But, to borrow a metaphor from chaos theory, Saudi Arabia is drinking stability from its environment. In order to maintain itself in power, the regime is displacing the resentment of its people to foreign quarrels. As Lenin might have put it, Saudi Arabia is "exporting its internal contradictions".

What, then, ought we to be doing about it? Should we boycott the regime? Should we work to overthrow it? Should we, as Mark Steyn once suggested, place the Holy Sites under the Jordanian Hashemites and divide the rest of the kingdom among pliable Gulf monarchs?

No. But neither should we demean ourselves by this nauseating obsequiousness. Saudi Arabia is one of many dictatorships around the world, neither the mildest nor the harshest. We should deal with it in a brisk and businesslike manner, as we do the many other regimes which fall somewhere between the categories of "distasteful" and "rotten".

This, though, is not enough for the Saudi lobby in London. So determined are they to grovel to the House of Saud that they secured the prejudicing of our legal system in order to prevent a handful of princelings from being accused of bribery. (I can quite understand why people might need to be bribed in order to buy the Eurofighter, which was obsolete long before it came into production, but that's another story.)

When a free democracy lowers its standards in order to accommodate a sleazy autocracy, the former is diminished and the latter magnified. We are, all of us, slightly cheapened by the readiness of our leaders to appease a handful of rich men. And don't fall for any nonsense about British jobs, by the way. We pay the same price for Saudi oil that other purchasers do, and they the same price for our luxury goods. Our foreign policy is not, or at least ought not to be, synonymous with the interests of BAE Systems.

I never thought I'd say this, but I admire the LibDems, who have boycotted meetings with Saudi officials. That they are behaving ethically is clear enough. But they are also behaving patriotically, advancing Britain's true interests, as opposed to the interests of a handful of lobbyists, government contractors and defence conglomerates.

We should be pushing for the spread of democracy in the Middle East, so as to drain the swamps where the mosquitoes hatch. Instead, we are repeating the age-old Foreign Office mistake of propping up "our" chaps simply because, you know, they're the ones who happen to be there. It's the error we made in Egypt and Iran, and one that we're repeating in Uzbekistan. Will we never learn?

Soldier Dying after being Exposed to Uranium in Iraq and NHS Can't help Her

Katrina Brown, 30, was exposed to radioactive material in Basra
Diagnosed with rare systemic sclerosis which is slowly attacking her organs
She believes the illness is linked to exposure to depleted uranium
Says her only hope is having stem-cell transplant to regenerate her organs

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2303368/Soldier-Katrina-Brown-dying-exposure-uranium-Iraq-raise-110k-NHS-help.html


Katrina Brown is suffering from a rare, deadly illness after being exposed to uranium while serving in Iraq    A soldier who developed a deadly illness after being exposed to uranium in Iraq is facing a race against time to raise the money she needs for potentially life-saving treatment. Katrina Brown, 30, was exposed to radioactive material while serving as a medic at a 600-bed military clinic in Basra in 2003. She was diagnosed with rare systemic sclerosis in 2008 which is slowly attacking her major organs - and will eventually lead to her death if left untreated. Mrs Brown, who joined the Army at the age of 17, believes the illness is linked to exposure to depleted uranium. She was handed a card before flying home from her 2003 tour warning her she had been in contact with radioactive materials. She currently survives on 18 pills a day, costing over £3,000 a month.
    Now, she believes her only hope is to have a stem-cell transplant in a bid to regenerate her organs. But the procedure is not available on the NHS and the health service has said it cannot pay for her transatlantic care. She is is now trying to find £110,000 to fly out for an operation in America after being turned down for funding by a host of charities. Mrs Brown, who lives with her husband Martin in Gloucestershire, said she still holds on to the dream of returning to her Army career. She said: 'Since I was diagnosed, everything's been a battle - as well as battling the illness I've been fighting to try and access the right treatment. 'Now we've been offered this ray of light but obviously we need help to raise the money. 'I've lost about 90 per cent of my mobility and the longer I live with the illness, the more I'm deteriorating physically, but I know I can't give up.'

Ms Brown was exposed to radioactive material while serving as a medic at a 600-bed military clinic in Basra in 2003. She was diagnosed with rare systemic sclerosis, which is slowly attacking her major organs
'We found out about this treatment in Chicago in November. 'Since then, I've started to be dream a little and it's given me such a lift to think about going back into the Army - and that I might have had my last Christmas not working.' Mrs Brown believes she needs the immunotherapy treatment before the end of the year as her physical condition continues to decay. 'I have to raise the money quickly or I will miss the timescale,” she said. 'You are supposed to have it done within four years of diagnosis. I’m in my fourth year.' The stem cell treatment involves effectively wiping out her immune system and 'rebooting' it. She said: 'It’s not the army’s fault. I was just doing my job. I just want to raise the money and get the treatment.'

If you wish to make a donation to Katrina's medical care, please click here.

London Horrible ...,a Dump and most Cruel of Cities

Map shows London in a Different Light

A map shows London in a different, and not altogether flattering, light – according to the most popular queries posed by people on Google.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9966785/Map-shows-London-in-different-light.html

Government Economic Development Initiatives

Kansas
http://www.kansascommerce.com/


Louisiana
http://www.louisianaeconomicdevelopment.com/



Virginia
http://yesvirginia.org/

South Carolina
 http://www.readysc.org
To prepare South Carolina's workforce to meet the needs of companies.

Texas
http://www.texaswideopenforbusiness.com