Suddenly, I Realize What a Suspect Character I Now Am
by Ruaridh Nicoll Published on Sunday, August 27, 2006 by the Guardian/UK
I began to feel a little itchy as I read reports of the 11 terrorist suspects appearing at Westminster magistrates court last week. The 17-year-old suspect allegedly 'had in his possession... a book on improvised explosive devices, some suicide notes and wills with the identities of persons prepared to commit acts of terrorism and a map of Afghanistan containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.
Well, I thought, I have two out of three of those in my house. Then came a sudden horror at the vision of Special Branch knocking down my door and conducting a search. I imagined the newspaper report as I disappeared into the inner cordon of Belmarsh jail.
'Nicoll's eyrie in an old part of Edinburgh was cluttered with paramilitary equipment,' the report would read. 'There was a wealth of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.'
Take the book that sits between Jamie Oliver and Elizabeth David on my kitchen shelf, The Poisoner's Handbook. Opening it at random, I find that autumn crocuses are not only pretty, but they contain 'the very dangerous alkaloid, colchicine'. The book explains how to extract the colchicine using a coffee percolator and then kill someone with it. 'All alkaloids are more soluble in alcohol, so a target who has been drinking will experience symptoms earlier and have the least possible chance for recovery.' Alkaloids aren't very nice; strychnine is one. Actually, this book isn't very nice either. I think I'll throw it away.
Just looking around increases my unease. What is this I see on the desk before me? A stiletto I use as a letter opener, and the Bible, and there, propped against the window, is my old airgun with its broken spring. On the shelf is a book called David's Tool Kit: A Citizen's Guide to Taking Out Big Brother's Heavy Weapons. The cover shows a man dropping a Molotov cocktail into a tank which has its barrel pointed towards a woman and two children. There's also a volume called The Big Book of Secret Hiding Places, but I seem to have lost that.
There are rational explanations for all this. The books were research for a novel, the dagger is an heirloom, the Bible a superstition and the airgun a prop for the moments when I feel the need to stand in front of the mirror naked and scream: 'You talkin' to me?' But I wouldn't want these things listed in court and then revealed in a national newspaper. Hell, no.
There is another item on my desk - this computer. I wonder what terrors lie in this little black box, given the strange directions work-avoidance can take a man. But without completely humiliating myself, let's just take Google Earth, the extraordinary software that allows any of us to look at satellite images of any part of the planet and zoom in. Now, this is harmless, but in the newspaper it would read something like: 'Late at night, Nicoll had studied a number of US, British and Israeli military installations, his own house, several high-security prisons and Uma Thurman's swimming pool.'
For a more traditional take, The Times Atlas of the World could be interpreted as the possession of a man bent on global domination. Don't misunderstand me. I don't want to take anything away from the police. They can be certain of my gratitude if they have saved hundreds from a fiery hell over the Atlantic.
My point is this, and this alone: you could go into any home and find items that, once translated into court reports, would leave the owner looking suspect. I may be a little extreme, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that we're moving towards a society where even a map of Afghanistan can be read as a sign of guilt.
I wonder if I should be thinking about a spring clean.
BP chief faces court appearance over blast By Sheila McNulty in Houston Financial Times
Updated: 6:42 p.m. CT Aug 27, 2006 A Texas judge is to decide on Monday whether to compel Lord Browne, BP's chief executive, to be formally questioned before a court to decide claims against the UK oil giant arising from last year's fatal refinery explosion.
BP has refused a request by the plaintiff's attorney, Brent Coon, to question Lord Browne, forcing the decision into the court's hands.
"We are opposing the request because Lord Browne has no unique knowledge of the incident that is not available from other people within BP,'' a spokesman for BP said. "The head of BP's worldwide refining operations has participated in the discovery process," referring to the questioning of potential witnesses ahead of a US trial.
That "discovery process'' led Michael Hoffman, BP's group vice-president for global refining, to reveal the company is conducting an internal investigation, reaching up into its executive level, to determine whether to take further disciplinary action for the accident, which killed 15 and injured an estimated 500 at BP's biggest refinery.
More than a year and a half after the blast, Mr Hoffman said in a videotaped deposition that he was also being scrutinised in the probe. A transcript of the deposition, taken this month by the plaintiff's attorney in the civil case against BP that arose from the blast, was seen by the Financial Times.
The US Department of Labor found more than 300 health and safety violations at the refinery and fined BP a maximum allowable $21m before referring the explosion to the Justice Department for possible "criminal action". A grand jury is debating whether to bring charges against BP and/or its executives.
In preparation, the plaintiffs pressed Mr Hoffman to reveal that John Manzoni, BP's chief executive for refining and marketing, had chosen Wilhelm Bonse-Geuking, group vice-president of BP to investigate "whether or not there should be further disciplinary action . . . in the chain of command".
He said Patrick Gower, refining vice-president for BP's US region, and he believed Kathleen Lucas, Texas City operations manager, had also been interviewed.
The transcript of a videotaped deposition by Mr Gower, a copy of which also was obtained by the FT, reveals him saying he had learned in the month or two before his May deposition that he was being investigated.
Mr Gower said Don Parus, the refinery manager who has been on leave since the explosion, Ms Lucas and Willie Willis, an employee at the Texas City plant, were also being probed.
A BP spokesman, declined to confirm the probe. "As a matter of policy, we don't comment on personnel matters,'' he said. While BP has settled most of the claims arising from the blast, Mr Coon has more than 100 cases he is to take to trial on September 16.
New ABC Docudrama Blames Clinton For 9/11, Praises Bush
September 1, 2006 Posted by Think Progress at 11:20 am
On September 10 and 11, ABC will air a “docudrama” called “The Path to 9/11.” It was written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, who describes himself as “more of a libertarian than a strict conservative [ http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/index.php?p=462 ],” and is giving interviews to hard-right sites like FrontPageMag to promote the film.
A friend of mine [Cyrus Nowrasteh] out in California has produced and filmed — I think it’s a two-part mini-series on 9/11 that ABC is going to run in prime-time over two nights, close to or on 9/11. It’s sort of surprising that ABC’s picked it up, to me. I’ve had a lot of people tell me about it, my friends told me about it…And from what I have been told, the film really zeros in on the shortcomings of the Clinton administration in doing anything about militant Islamofascism or terrorism during its administration. It cites failures of Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright and Sandy Burglar.
Condoleezza Rice gets that fated memo about planes flying into buildings, and makes it very clear to anyone who’ll listen just how concerned President Bush is about these terrorist threats — despite the fact that we’re given little concrete evidence of the president’s concern or interest in taking action. Maybe my memory fails me, but the only person I remember talking about Osama bin Laden back in 1998 was President Clinton, while the current anti-terrorist stalwarts worked the country into a frenzy over what? Blow jobs. In the end, “The Path to 9/11” feels like an excruciatingly long, winding and deceptive path, indeed.
[F6 comment -- I still remember the night, about 20 years ago right after Capital Cities had acquired ABC, that Koppel spent [had to spend] a whole 'Nightline' on a profile and interview of RUUSSSSHHHHHHH, opening the show saying of RUUSSSSHHHHHHH 'You ignore him at your peril.' -- and I still remember how infuriated I was at seeing Koppel sucking RUUSSSSHHHHHHH's bunghole throughout that 'Nightline' (not because RUUSSSSHHHHHHH was 'conservative', but because he was then, as he remains now, an outrageous liar and bullshit artist that no 'real' news program should ever validate/accept as legitimate apart from the fact that RUUSSSSHHHHHHH is an outrageous liar and bullshit artist who has the mindlessly servile 'dittohead' followers he does) -- damned near threw a brick through the screen -- see my next post, a reply to this post]
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