Showing posts with label BBC News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BBC News. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Despicable! Growing national backlash against sickening British police scandal that's only getting worse over time - Prime Minister David Cameron and entire U.K. literally staggered by the depths of despicable revelations re organized undercover police efforts to withhold evidence and smear the family of an innocent teenage boy murdered in 1993. Stephen Lawrence was murdered, and since then, it seems that Police and govt. bureaucrats have intentionally taken aim at his family to keep them quiet via orchestrated smears!; Damning news videos by BBC and Channel 4 News

Channel4News YouTube Channel video: Home Affairs correspondent Simon Israel reports on revelations that Stephen Lawrence's family was targeted and smeared by police. The parents of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence were treated as a threat to be smeared, according to a former undercover officer with the Metropolitan Police Service. Uploaded June 24, 2013. http://youtu.be/iXjGX35InhQ

BBC-TV video: The MP for Eltham & Plumstead, Clive Efford, who was involved in the call for the original 1997 inquiry into the case, describes the very grave nature of the revelations that some members of the Metropolitan Police -as well as people connected to the Home Office in the '90's- have not only been withholding damaging evidence about the truth surrounding the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, but been involved in even further corruption via an organized effort to smear the Lawrence family. MP Efford, a Labour Party member and the Shadow Secretary for Sport, further stated that he believed that the only way the truth will all come out is via a new inquiry that does NOT involve the "police investigating police" agreeing that it was "not going to be good enough" for the British people. And he's 100% correct.
Video at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23030577
Despicable! Growing national backlash against sickening British police scandal that's only getting worse over time - Prime Minister David Cameron and entire U.K. literally staggered by the depths of despicable revelations re organized undercover police efforts to withhold evidence and smear the family of an innocent teenage boy murdered in 1993. Stephen Lawrence was murdered, and since then, it seems that Police and govt. bureaucrats have intentionally taken aim at his family to keep them quiet via orchestrated smears!; Damning news videos by BBC and Channel 4 News 










Much of Britain has woken-up lately feeling like a thunderous punch has been delivered to their collective stomachs, out-of-the-blue, while they were minding their own business this wet summer.
Except that was then quickly followed-up with a swift billy club to the back of the neck and a taser to their groin.
Groggy and barely able to stand, they hold on as best they can and wonder what sordid fact is  coming down the pike next in a police scandal that gets every one's emotions boiling in a flash.
And with that comes the larger possibility of yet another flash point.

Me being me, being interested in the very wide variety of things that I am, which, fairly often, confounds and frustrates both family and friends, and listening, reading and consuming by the ton the digital media that I do every week with a very heavy U.K. flavor, especially radio and TV, I've been following the Stephen Lawrence case for years.

BBC's timeline on the case:

Before these most recent revelations that have taken away every one's breath by their sheer level of cruelty and evil, the “hunt for disinformation” to discredit the Lawrences,l had planned on posting something about it over the Fourth of July weekend, when I'd finally post a lot of non-South Florida posts that I've already written and have been keeping in cold storage until the right time came.


But Monday morning while looking for something else, I found this powerful BBC News video
that falls hard on the heels of all the dozens of news articles, columns, blog posts and radio program discussions so very upsetting and despicable in the tale it told, that I found myself unable to wait any longer.
And when I received my daily Snowmail from London after Noon on Monday from Channel 4 News that gives me the rundown on the news stories they'll be doing later,
https://mailing.channel4.com/public/read_message.jsp;jsessionid=0;apw63?sigreq=1937640847
I was absolutely sure of it. http://www.channel4.com/news/

The Guardian
Police 'smear' campaign targeted Stephen Lawrence's friends and family
Exclusive: former undercover officer Peter Francis says superiors wanted him to find 'dirt' shortly after 1993 murder
Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, The Guardian
23 June 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/23/stephen-lawrence-undercover-police-smears


The Guardian
Stephen Lawrence: Cameron deeply concerned by smear campaign claim
PM calls for investigation into claims undercover police officer was part of operation to smear family of murdered teenager
Alexandra Topping, Paul Lewis, Rob Evans and Patrick Wintour, guardian.co.uk, 
24 June 2013 04.24 EDT


The Telegraph
Who’s keeping tabs on the undercover cops?
Stephen Lawrence's family are not the only ones concerned about their activities
By Philip Johnston
8:43PM BST 24 Jun 2013

I had to get it out of my system before I literally blew a gasket, and so have deleted many prior links to stories about the case that have been attached to the Draft for many months, given that they no longer seem nearly as important to the overall picture, given what we've learned of late.

Most of you reading this now know as well as I do that there are some things that are more than merely dramatic literary license and fictional threats delivered in film or criminal procedural drams on TV, but actually common knowledge.
One of those things that we know to be true is that former policemen in prison have a very difficult time surviving.

But knowing what I know about this case and the way that some undercover police and govt.
bureaucrats seem to have attempted to orchestrate a PR lynch mob against the family of a teenage boy killed for no logical reason other than sheer hate, I only hope it's even worse in prison for the people involved in this case, since they have been drawing a public paycheck for years as guardians of civility, without people they encounter having any idea of the true depths of their immorality.

Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe responds to allegations in the media about undercover officers conduct in the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation:
http://content.met.police.uk/News/Commissioner-statement-following-allegations-about-undercover-officers/1400018214005/1257246745756

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Speaking of incompetent and/or unethical police, I will soon be posting some information here on the blog about what I and many other concerned and well-informed Hallandale Beach residents believe is the completely unsatisfactory performance over the recent past of the Hallandale Beach Police Dept.

I will be mentioning and raising questions about several specific situations and episodes that I am all-too-familiar with, as well as daily policing practices that STILL defy logic and reason despite how obvious it is that they bear no semblance of common sense.
But continue they do, ridiculous or not...

They continue because the HBPD was, is and will likely continue to be led by people who really are NOT that interested in improving the performance and reputation of the police force and making hard choices, so that it at least measures up to what HB residents, taxpayers and small business owners have a reasonable right to expect, considering the giant over-sized slice of the city budget the HBPD currently consumes.
The ratio of HB taxpayer money spent on policing to the actual HB taxpayer's level of satisfaction is completely out-of-whack.

Things really need to change dramatically there soon.
In part, before the HBPD pension problems become so much worse that even the sleepwalking local news media finds themselves unable to ignore the problem any more, and HAVE TO start showing up at HB City Hall in person -which they hate, and not without reason.

Oh the ignominy of them showing-up at 400 S. Federal Highway, knowing perfectly well before they finally find a place to park in the too-small public parking lot that they will be met with a stonewall just like so many HB residents are when they want to know what's really going on at HB City Hall.

Imagine that, reporters actually (finally!) asking hard questions about how large those pension obligations are, and actually reporting what the percentage of the city's future budget they'll be consuming, though the truth is that we all know most of the local print reporters would rather just be leaving messages from their officefor the city's spokesman, messages that will never be returned.

You know, "unavailable for comment."

Try looking up "unavailable for commentin the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel's archives  PLUS the words "Hallandale Beach" and see how many times that comes up.

If yours truly only had a five-dollar bill for every time a newspaper article said that about someone at HB City Hall since i moved here, we'd already have that next trip to Sweden in the Fall already paid for -airfare, lodging and some really good food this time!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

"A" is for Awesome and ABBA as the new ABBA Museum in Stockholm officially opens this afternoon. Monday night's gala premiere brought Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn together, cheered on by a select group of invitees from across Swedish society and the music industry, who are, in the end, just fans of the band like everyone else, and very excited that this amazing museum is FINALLY a reality; #abba, #AbbaMuseum, #ThankYouForTheMusic, @stockholm, @sweden


Euronews YouTube Channel video: Euronews reporter Valerie Zabriskie speaks with lucky Abba fan club members selected to get a sneak preview of the new museum in Stockholm. Uploaded May 5, 2013. http://youtu.be/xbDW3FdtEgM
"A" is for Awesome and ABBA and the new ABBA Museum in Stockholm, which officially opens today at 1600 Stockholm time/10 a.m. Eastern U.S. Monday night's gala premiere brought Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn together, cheered on by a select group of invitees from across Swedish society and the music industry, who are, in the end, just fans of the band like everyone else, and very excited that this amazing museum is FINALLY a reality; #abba, #AbbaMuseum, #ThankYouForTheMusic, @stockholm, @sweden

I could mention who some of these VIPs are and why they're important and why they're there,
but that's not worth spending the time it would take today to do that, and besides, TMI as I'm sometimes reminded by friends here in Hallandale Beach and elsewhere around the globe.

Plus, I've had a very clear idea of how this particular blog post would look ever since I was there in January, so trying to explain to you all who Carola or Sarah Dawn Finer are and why they are in the video below iis, well, just a losing proposition today.

Aftonbladet TV video: Här invigs ABBA-museet -Jonas Bilberg levererade livebilder från galaöppningen. 
May 6, 2013. http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/article11311.ab

Aftonbladet TV video: Här inviger kändiseliten ABBA-museet  
7 maj 2013 00:12
http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/article11311.ab

It's enough to know that it's logical that they were there.
Just go with it.


BBC-TV video
Abba museum in Stockholm celebrates Swedish pop group
7 May 2013 Last updated at 04:22 ET 

BBC-TV video
As the Abba museum prepares to open its doors in Stockholm, the BBC's Russell Trott takes a look inside.
6 May 2013 Last updated at 21:54 ET


Aftonbladet TV: Nu öppnar ABBA-museet, Björn Ulvaeus: - "Kan visa det för barnbarnen med stolthet" 6 maj 2013 15:31
http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/musik/article11284.ab



SVT video: TV Abba-museet öppnades
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/article1203720.svt


NTDTV -ABBA Museum in Stockholm

Tickets for the much-discussed and anticipated museum that's full of innovative technology run about 195 SEK/ just under $30 U.S. for adults, and 50 SEK/$7.63 for children up to age 8, at today's current ratio of about 6.52 Krona to the dollar, more or less.

But fair warning, the museum in the beautiful Djurgården section of Stockholm WON'T take bills or coins, only electronic payments, because as the museum puts it loftily, "Vi har en dröm om ett kontantfritt samhälle, därför går det inte handla med mynt eller sedlar hos oss."
("We have a vision of a cashless society, therefore we don’t handle coins and bills." )

Yes, sorta like in the future as seen in Star Trek, but not quite, since there's a 5% discount with MasterCard.

Björn's explanation on why abba-museet doesn't take bills and coins, largely to prevent crime, has a great introduction that only a real genius like him could get away with saying in his Big Picture way
There was a time when bills and coins served their purpose. They replaced cumbersome barter and made trade between people and nations possible. But do they still serve this purpose? Do we really need cash? Or is it a fixed idea like with Scrooge McDuck? Have we lost the ability to see that coins and bills are mere symbols and that those symbols easily could be exchanged for others? Cards and smartphones today and who knows what in the future.
Read the rest of Björn's comments at http://www.abbathemuseum.com/cashless

Combining innovation, ideals, crime-fighting and Scrooge McDuck! 
Brilliant!!!


Dags för ABBA The Museum 
by Lars Epstein 
15:14, May 6, 2013
http://www.dn.se/blogg/epstein/2013/05/06/dags-for-abba-the-museum/

According to Lars Epstein's post yesterday, above, at his Stockholm-centric Epstein's STHLM blog at Dagens Nyheter, the museum is expecting about 217,000 visitors a year.

Yes, holograms...


ABBA Museum website:

Here's the website of the ABBA Museum exhibit at Stockholm Arlanda Airport that I saw back in mid-January when I arrived for my nine-day trip in Stockholm, where I snapped some photos while waiting around for my luggage at the arrival carousel at Terminal 5which was festooned with photos of... who else?
http://www.swedavia.se/arlanda/om-stockholm-arlanda-airport/om-flygplatsen/official-airport-of-abba-the-museum/


All original photos on this page by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. Right-click photos to enlarge them.


For someone like me who has been a huge ABBA fan for more than two-thirds of my life, the  biggest ABBA fan that most people I've known have ever met, as small as this exhibit at the airport was, in looking at it and reflecting back on everything, it was hard to get over the fact that for so long, like millions of other fans, we fervently hoped that there'd be a museum some day that would be shaped along the lines of,,, well, just what they seem to have actually done: music plus heart -musik plus hjärta.

Like those other fans of the band, over the past 20 years I've given up counting how many interviews I'd seen with the band members, especially Benny and Bjorn, discussing the idea

of it, but quite naturally, being somewhat unsure of how to answer such a question without seeming pretentious.
But it IS a weird question, isn't it, when you really think about it?
Should there be a museum that people pay to get into that's all about you and three other people you've known for most of your life?
How do you answer that?

TheSpringOf74 YouTube Channel video: ABBA - Dancing Queen - LIVE at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, June 18, 1976, at the gala tribute to Sweden's King Carl XV1 Gustaf and future wife and Queen, Silvia Sommerlath, the night before their wedding. If I remember my ABBA history correctly, this was the first time the song had ever been performed in public in Sweden. http://youtu.be/33Yj5pbsXAs
Above, in my humble opinion, the single best version of this iconic song ever recorded on film.

Here are those January 10, 2013 photos I snapped at Arlanda before and after grabbing my luggage:
 



All original photos on this page by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.





Here's how they appear on the airport's official exhibit web page:
http://www.swedavia.se/arlanda/om-stockholm-arlanda-airport/om-flygplatsen/official-airport-of-abba-the-museum/

You can see more photos of this exhibit by going to Google Images using these words as your search terms: "Terminal 5, Arlanda, ABBA"


Here's the link to the ABBA Museum-related news videos that have run on TV4, most recent first, obviously, in Swedish, but many with lots of great video of the musem: http://www.tv4play.se/s%C3%B6k?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Abba
Obviously, there's a lot to see and watch!



Thursday, February 21, 2013

British welfare system run amok: Heather Frost, unemployed Gloustershire mother with 11 children, is slated to get new £400,000, eco-friendly, six-bedroom council house built in Tewkesbury at taxpayers expense. Naturally, taxpayers are irate; #HeatherFrost


liarpoliticians YouTube Channel video: BBC News Points West video re Mother with 11 children gets new council house built. Uploaded February 20, 2013.
http://youtu.be/ZLyRhDcz3I4

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do... 
But in Gloustershire, Heather Frost, an unemployed mother with 11 children (and a horse) is getting a new £400,000, eco-friendly, six-bedroom council house built in Tewkesbury at taxpayers expense.
And are people ever upset about this!

BBC News/Gloustershire
Heather Frost may turn down offer of purpose built home

Mum-of-11 Heather Frost says her current pad was only ever 'temporary' before she moves into council 'mansion' http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Mum-11-Heather-Frost-says-current-pad-temporary/story-18200202-detail/story.html#axzz2LVnNrfbM


#HeatherFrost  https://twitter.com/search?q=%23HeatherFrost