The Open Society
Taste and Decency: People in a Sutherland village have
claimed the water quality is so bad even their dogs refuse to drink it.
Since Scottish Water began treating the tap water with chlorine and ammonia, people in Skerray have protested, saying it is not fit for consumption, and are now petitioning the Scottish Parliament.
Now Scottish Water’s head of spin, former BBC head of news, Atholl Duncan (bald guy in suit pictured), has been disputing the claims saying it’s all just a matter of taste. Local people are now taking their water from wells or burns.
Anyone remember that scene in Erin Brokovich?
Only a year ago Spinwatch attacked the lack of openness of Scottish water saying: “The suppression of our report on openness in the Scottish water industry by the quango which commissioned it is one of those surreal experiences that seems to belong more in the script of an episode of Yes, Minister than the much-vaunted new, open Scotland."
More here.
Steve Vincent: A freelance American journalist whose blog exposed corruption and lawlessness in the Iraqi city of Basra has been abducted at gunpoint and shot dead.
Steven Vincent's body was recovered at the side of a road south of Basra late last night, several hours after he and his female translator were kidnapped as they left a currency exchange shop.
Vincent was severly critical of the British role, the Times reports: "There is speculation that Mr Vincent, who received death threats, was murdered in an attempt to silence him. Four days before his death he had written an opinion piece in The New York Times in which he said that the police force in the British-controlled city had been infiltrated by Shia Muslim extremist militias, who were responsible for carrying out hundreds of murders of prominent Sunni Muslims.
He criticised the British, whose 8,000 troops in the area are responsible for security in Basra, for turning a blind eye to abuses of power by Shia extremists. In his final blog, he wrote: "The British stand above the growing turmoil, refusing to challenge the Islamists’ claim on the hearts and minds of police officers."
Read the story here.
His article 'The Power of Shame' for the National Review here. Or visit his blog here.
Message from Murray: Meanwhile further evidence of our open society at work are unfolding at that bastion of liberalism, Ibrox Park -from which David Murray, steel magnet and landfill-enthusiast writes with a sinister edge:
“We live in world where we believe in the democracy and freedom of the press, but some of the personal attacks on Rangers people have been way over the top – and they know it….THE KNOW WHO THEY ARE.” Actually the media’s coverage is characterised by its fawning sycophantic uselessness, particularly around the issue of Murray’s businesses appalling environmental record and his clubs disgraceful cultivation of sectarianism-for-profit.
Read the full embarrassing paranoid delusional rant here at Rangers site.
