The Observer instructs us to fear Muslim women now. “European intelligence chiefs have launched a major investigation into the threat posed by female Islamic militants within the EU, whose involvement runs from logistics or propaganda activity to suicide bombing, they say.”
What a load of bollocks. Samuel P. Huntington must be laughing up his sleeve.
I find it amusing when China is criticised for censoring Internet content. It becomes clearer by the day that the “powers that be” here in Europe, and especially in the UK, would love to be able to do the same out in the open, just like China.
But one of the “great” things about living in a democracy is that the fact that I am a slave to the system is fairly well hidden. So I have the freedom to live my life with my head up my ass, in blissful ignorance of my own slavery, while my actions are policed by public opinion and the derision of my peers. Sure it’s a more convoluted technique, but, really, do the “powers that be” have any reason to be jealous?
The Guardian reports today that “the internet industry must take more responsibility for protecting young people from the ‘dark side’ of digital content relating to abuse, violence and suicide, according to a committee of MPs.”
Apparently, the committee “recommended the establishment of a self-regulatory body to create better online safeguards to protect children from being exposed to unsuitable material. The body would police websites, adjudicate on complaints and could help crack down on piracy and illegal file-sharing in Britain.”
Why? Are kids not entitled to know this stuff goes on? And where will the line be drawn? Sex? Drugs? Or, maybe, it’ll be any content which might open young people’s eyes to the truth of this Brave New World we live in.
What the hell do these MPs think qualifies my ISP to police my or my children’s Internet usage anyway? I’d have thought it’s the responsibility of parents to manage their children’s Internet time, and not some nameless, unaccountable little Hitler at an ISP?
Just another in a long line of those they want me to bend over for.
Apparently, banks and building societies are to blame for the economic turmoil, with the finger of public opinion being pointed at the biggest players, in particular.
Bloody cheek! While the banks are clearly corrupt, greedy, almost Satanic in their world view, they are not to blame for anything. Just as Monsanto is not to blame for Aspartame becoming the most widely consumed food additive.
JOE PUBLIC IS TO BLAME!
Yes, folks, instead of staring wide eyed around yourselves to find an excuse for your increasingly shitty lives, why not look in the mirror for a change and take some personal responsibility? No-one forced you to speculate wildly on the housing market, remortgage to the hilt to buy your gold plated bath. No-one forced you to run up massive credit card bills at Gordon Ramsay restaurants. Wise up! And while you’re at it, how about taking some responsibility for your children as well?
Science was recently able to announce proof that women’s brains are different to men’s. Anyone with a wife probably knows that anyway. But what science has so far not been able to prove, is whether Jacqui Smith, the British Home Secretary, has a brain at all.
On the 17th June, the government published the crime figures for 2007/08 (pdf). The statistics show a 12% fall in violent crime over the previous year, and yet, as part of the British government’s effort to disarm the general population of everything from guns to rolling pins, we have all been bombarded with story after story about the rise of knife related crime.
According to the British crime figures, no-one knows whether or not knife crime is more common now than in previous years, because they haven’t collected statistics on this specific area before - the numbers were rolled into the statistics for general violent crime, which as I already pointed out, are down on the previous year.
So in an effort to make certain that next year’s figures show an upward trend, Ms Smith is encouraging members of the public to intervene in knife related incidents. I can’t think of a better way to get yourself killed, which would be ideal for the propagandists at the Home Office, who would have a field day.
This government doesn’t want to see a reduction in knife related crime, or any other crime - they are using it as an just another excuse to degrade civil liberties, in the same way they use the non-existent terrorist threat.
Several months ago, the BBC foisted its iPlayer on an unsuspecting Internet, severely denting the already tight profits of Britain’s Internet Service Providers.
It seems they feel the need to conduct a review of how they are funded, as there is no legal requirement in the UK to buy a TV licence unless you watch or record broadcast TV, and they are getting “concerned” about their future income. Oops.
Up yours, BBC, is what I say.
The UK has completed the ratification process for the Lisbon Treaty according to today’s Independent. Apparently, “under the UK’s ratification process, both houses of Parliament must pass the treaty.
The Queen then gives Royal Assent, and signs goatskin ‘instruments of ratification’ along with the Foreign Secretary.
These are then sealed, bound in blue leather, and deposited with the Italian ministry of foreign affairs in Rome.”
Which all raises an interesting question - can the reigning monarch be guilty of treason? What is treason in a so-called modern democracy anyway?
I suppose, in general terms, it is any act which will in any way weaken the integrity of the nation state. The BBC defined it as “the crime of betraying one’s country,” when discussing the possibility of prosecuting Islamic “radicals” a few years ago.
There is no question that the Lisbon Treaty weakens the integrity of the nation state of Great Britain, and it certainly looks like a betrayal of the country to me. But does the Queen’s ratification of that Treaty constitute treason against the nation state and the Monarchy itself?
I’d really like to know the answer to that …
There was an interesting exchange between Sir Peter Tapsell and Gordon Brown during yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions. Naturally, Tapsell was only ever going to get no answer at all.
Tapsell asked, “Are we to understand that the Right Honourable Gentleman’s bleak message to the country is that for many years to come, at Prime Minister’s Questions, he and his successors will be paying mournful tribute to the gallant men and women who in the previous week have been killed in Afghanistan, fighting an unwinnable, and deeply unpopular war, when it is widely understood that the Taliban are not international terrorists, who are now mostly … and the international terrorists are now mostly trained in Pakistan, Iraq and Britain.”
Brown responded, “Let me invite the Honourable Gentleman to join, eh, the Defence Secretary in a visit to Afghanistan, to see for himself. As a result of what has happened, the Taliban have been removed from power, 40 nations are contributing 50,000 troops, and as a result of what we have done, there were no girls in education in Afghanistan at all, now there are 2 million in education, and I would hope he will take up the invitation.”
Ah, but Mr Brown, that’s not quite the whole story, is it? For some reason, you seem to have failed to mention when questioned that as a result of what has happened, opium production, which had dropped from 3,656 tonnes to 74 tonnes between 2000 and 2001, has risen to record levels (6100 tonnes in 2006, 8,200 tonnes in 2007).
Rather than stopping poppy growing and promoting sustainable sources of income for the farmers (can anyone say “global food crisis?”), British troops are there promoting and protecting poppy production.
What is the nature of the war in Afghanistan, Mr Brown? Is it a war on terrorists, or is it an Opium War?
Is there any difference between the Britain of the 18th and 19th centuries and today? Then the British East India company was the British Empire, with a bigger, better equipped army than the British army, and control of the intelligence services. Lord Shelburne and his successors simply nationalised it. Today, it’s been privatised again, with whole swathes of the Ministry of Defence sold off to private interests like Carlile. With their better equipped private armies not only providing so-called VIP security, but running covert operations answerable to no-one, Britain is again the centre of operations for these interests. And just as the British East India company ran the opium trade from the mid 18th century onwards, British based private interests run it today, fully supported by the British Government.
So, Mr Brown, does your invitation to Sir Peter Tapsell include a tour of the poppy fields?
–
On the 28th June 2008, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime released their 2008 report. They say, “Afghanistan had a record opium harvest in 2007: as a consequence, the world’s illegal opium production almost doubled since 2005. However, the problem is much localized. Most cultivation (80 per cent) took place in 5 southern provinces, which are the most unstable. This is twice as much supply than demand but it is not clear where it is going. A “heroin tsunami” is starting to wash up on shores of Europe, which is seeing a fall in heroin prices on the street. ” The full report can be downloaded as a pdf.What with the British Army putting so much effort since 2001 into protecting opium poppy production in Afghanistan, resulting in record production, the British government obviously feels the need to improve the retail end of the market.
So in an otherwise bland budget speech today, Alistair Darling added 4p tax on a pint of beer, 14p on a bottle of wine and 55p on a bottle of spirits.
I wonder what the result will be, in these days of wildly increasing household bills? Does Darling really think he will increase tax revenues with this move? Or could it be that people will feel more inclined to spend their weekend entertainment money on the range of now cheaper-than-beer illegal drugs?
I think so. Good job, Al.
Yesterday evening’s ITV news reported that the majority of British people see David Cameron as more of a leader than Gordon Brown. This view is echoed by the Telegraph, which seems to be leading the anti-Brown campaign these days.
The Telegraph, that City of London mouthpiece, wants to get rid of the “weak kneed” Fabian, because they see Cameron as the “tough guy” who will steer Britain through the austerity needed to deal with the collapsing economy, and push imperialist provocations abroad. In an effort to bolster Cameron’s chances by questioning Brown’s capabilities when the going gets tough, the Telegraph’s Ambrose Prichard has been amazingly honest about the state of the economy, with a steady stream of doom and gloom articles in recent weeks and months.
Prichard’s honesty is echoed from time to time by other City of London mouthpieces. Jacques Attali, writing on the 3rd of January in the French financial weekly, L’Express, said “It is the whole world which seems to be going over the precipice … as if a collision of trains going at full speed was being prepared. As if, in a vortex emptying the bottom of a bathtub … [T]here is no stability in sight for the global economy.”
He went on, “Beyond the subprimes, many other debts are circulating and no one knows how the banks will be able to honor them: those of hedge funds, of monoline insurers, of LBO funds, and of holders of credit cards, which form a pyramid amounting to much more than the bank’s own funds, which would have been closed a long time ago, had the central banks not agreed to refinance them all without restraint.”
However, unlike Prichard, Attali dared to identify the link between the proceeding financial collapse and the eruption of chaos in an increasing number of nations of this planet. “That the murder of an opposition leader of a country of the South [Pakistan] would so gravely shake the Asian financial markets, and with them those of the entire world, reveals the extreme fragility of the planet.”
Attali is not the only commentator to notice a link between financial collapse and increasing chaos. In his homily for the Feast of Epiphany, the Pope said “It cannot be said that globalisation is synonymous with world order, it is the opposite. Conflicts for world order and the pillaging of [natural] resources, water, and raw materials make the work of those who strive for a just and fair world, all the more difficult.”
And in South Africa, Thabo Mbeki’s mother, wrote in a letter to the South African people, published in the Johannesburg Sunday Times. “The anarchic tendencies that have taken root in the ANC lately,” she wrote, “coupled with the blatant disrespect towards the highest office in the land, raise high suspicions of a Third Force in operation … South Africa wake up. Zemk’iinkomo Magwala Ndini!” (The cattle are being stolen, you bloody cowards!)
The question is, who is stealing the cattle?
Since the summer, it is estimated that $1.5 trillion in bank assets have been wiped off the books, and an equal amount of equity has evaporated on world stock markets. The idea that the crisis can be “solved” by hyperinflationary injections of cash is insane. If anything the crisis is only going to get worse, with a collapse of the insurance sector and a popping of the derivatives bubble.
And it is in this context that the globally increasing levels of assassination, ethnic cleansing, tribal conflict and general chaos, can be understood. None of these is a local or regional event. They are all part of a single strategy aimed at one objective: the destruction of nation states resulting in the consolidation of the raw material wealth of the planet, in the hands of City of London based private cartels - today’s British Empire.
It’s not hard to see the shape of the “invisible” British Empire if you shine a light in the right places:
“If you’re looking for the origins of Kenya’s ethnic tensions, look to its colonial past,” wrote Africa specialist Caroline Elkins in the Washington Post on the 6th of January. “Far from leaving behind democratic institutions and cultures, Britain bequeathed to its former colonies corrupted and corruptible governments … Added to this was a distinctly colonial view of the rule of law, which saw the British leave behind legal systems that facilitated tyranny, oppression and poverty rather than open, accountable governments. And compounding these legacies was Britain’s famous imperial policy of ‘divide and rule,’ playing one side off another, which often turned fluid groups of individuals into immutable ethnic units, much like Kenya’s Luo and Kikuyu today … We are often told that age-old tribal hatreds drive today’s conflicts in Africa. In fact, both ethnic conflict and its attendant grievances are colonial phenomena … Britain was determined to protect its economic and geopolitical interests during the decolonisation process … It’s not hard to discern similar patterns … in other former British colonies such as Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Iraq that share similar imperial pasts.”
It is the apparatus of the British Empire that has been unleashed, all around the globe, to foment chaos and provoke warfare. Global assymetric warfare, in combination with a global financial and economic collapse, is the last phase in the great game which will bring about the New World Order.
According to Global Vision, a eurosceptic think tank, 73% of British voters want a referendum on the EU treaty constitution. What a surprise.
Sadly, we won’t get what we wish for, because the UK is not a democracy. Its an Oligarchy, where a small, unelected, ruling class tells our elected representatives what to say and what to do. Our representatives’ job is to represent the policies of the Oligarchy to us, the voters. Those that do the best sales pitch, and make the most progress pushing forward the Oligarch’s agenda, get elected next time round.
Waken up, folks! There’s nothing an Oligarchy fears more than a politically active public. Don’t lie down and except this!
Business Secretary John Hutton announced on today’s BBC Politics Show that the UK would be solving its CO2 problems by building off shore wind farms all round the coastline of the UK. Now, anyone who has either been to the UK coast, or has seen the Open University’s series Coast, will know that the UK has some of the most beautiful coastline anywhere. To plaster these travesties of taste around the place may impress a bunch of green nuts, but I doubt the tourism or fishing industries will be jumping for joy.
Apparently the government’s plan is to have all UK homes powered by these things by 2020. I’d imagine that in order to guarantee suitable airflow to keep them turning all year round, they are going to move the Houses of Parliament offshore as well.
This is the wrong strategy.
With typical generosity, the government today offered £20,000 for information leading to the return of the data CDs containing millions of bank account details of Britain’s citizens.
Don’t worry, folks. I’ll be in touch just as soon as I’ve taken a copy or two.
Apparently Gordon Brown feels we Brits are having far too good a time, what with rising inflation and falling house prices, so he decided to pass along some of his misery. He trotted out Jacqui Smith yesterday in a cynical attempt to divert attention from his own troubles by scaring the crap out of everyone.
Apparently, some people in Slovakia were recently arrested for dealing in Uranium, so that means there’s going to be a dirty bomb attack in the UK.
Unfortunately for Brown, if the Daily Mail is at all representative, no-one’s buying it. 53 comments, and all but one expresses a desire that he sticks his propaganda up his arse.
You gotta feel sorry for him, no?
Well, no, actually.
In Sunday’s Observer, Henry Porter wrote: “Welcome to Fortress Britain, a fortress that will keep people in as well as out. Welcome to a state that requires you to answer 53 questions before you’re allowed to take a day trip to Calais. Welcome to a country where you will be stopped, scanned and searched at any of 250 railways stations, filmed at every turn, barked at by a police force whose behaviour has given rise to a doubling in complaints concerning abuse and assaults.”
“How have we allowed this rolling putsch against our freedom?” he went on to say. “Where are the principled voices from left and right, the outrage of playwrights and novelists, the sit-ins, the marches, the swelling public anger? We have become a nation that tolerates a diabetic patient collapsed in a coma being tasered by police, the jailing of a silly young woman for writing her jihadist fantasies in verse and an illegal killing by police that was prosecuted under health and safety laws.”
Henry Porter asks good questions. Lets investigate.
In 1990, a quarter of a million people protested against the Poll Tax, a system of local government taxation which Margaret Thatcher attempted to foist on the British people. Although the Poll Tax contributed to her downfall, the Conservative government, led my John Major, stuck their fingers up at the British people and introduced the Council Tax in 1993. “Oh, alright then,” the British people said.
In 2003, I watched a million people protest against the Iraq war. I continued to watch as a month or so later, Tony Bliar stuck two fingers up at a million people and went to war in Iraq. “Oh, alright then,” the British people said.
At the last general election, the Labour government made, as a manifesto promise, the guarantee that there would be a referendum on the European Constitution. Now that the constitution has been abandoned, they have decided to call it a treaty instead. People are complaining bitterly that Labour are not keeping their promise for a referendum, but they have learned their lesson, and aren’t putting up much of a fight. Nonetheless, Gordon Brown is sticking his fingers up at the British people and will push the treaty through Parliament. “Oh, alright then,” the British people will say.
In 1951, Bertrand Russell wrote a book called “The Impact Of Science On Society” which may go some way to explaining our behaviour.
“I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology,” he wrote. “Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called ‘education.’ Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part … It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment.”
“The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray.”
“Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.”
Russell’s predictions are uncannily correct. Its almost as if he was outlining a strategy. It should be noted though, that although he predicted the use of “education” as a conditioning mechanism, the destruction of the family unit, and the mind numbing effect of modern music, he could not foresee the effects of “celebrity,” of “social networking,” or of computer games.
These days, people are spending all their time living in a fantasy world, scared to look out at the real world in case they notice just how shit it is. For a while there, it looked like we were wakening up to the scams our “ruling class” pull on us, but along came MySpace and Facebook to send us all straight back to sleep.
We really are living in The Matrix.
Poor Gordon Brown was on the receiving end of some vitriolic comment from David Cameron today in the run up to the Queen’s Speech. What could be so wrong with it?
Apprenticeships (draft) Bill
Applying in England, this bill is likely to give 16 to 18-year-olds an entitlement to an apprenticeship, in an effort to reduce the number of young people not in education, training or employment.
Come on, Gordy! Where are all these apprenticeships going to come from? Now, if your next proposal were to be a massive investment in basic economic infrastructure, you know, even if it’s only a couple of nuclear power stations or a maglev or two, then I could see where you’re going with this …
Climate Change Bill
This bill creates a legal framework to reduce the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions up to 2050 and beyond. It will propose statutory targets to reduce UK carbon dioxide emissions by at least 60% by 2050 and between 26 and 32% by 2020 - as compared with 1990’s emissions. Provides for pilot schemes by councils to cut household waste. Much of the bill applies to the whole UK.
Nope, nothing here which might create an apprenticeship. This one’s just silly. Gordon, repeat after me, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ANTHROPOMORPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE!
But as I have said before, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get rid of fossil fuel based power generation and transport systems. Why don’t you simply commit to complete replacement of our coal, oil and gas fuelled power stations with some nice, safe, pebble bed high temperature gas cooled reactors? Why not go for a hydrogen economy? Could it be that your mate Al Gore wouldn’t be able to make his millions through his various carbon trading hedge fund activities? Could that be it? Just maybe?
Energy Bill
This bill aims to provide greater incentives for renewable energy generation and to make it easier for private firms to invest in offshore gas supply infrastructure, in “carbon capture” research and provisions on nuclear waste and decommissioning financing. Applies to whole UK.
I’m confused now … why, if you want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, are you promoting gas supply infrastructure? “Carbon capture?!?!?!” You’re nuts! Spend the money on FUSION research. Then you won’t have a carbon dioxide problem, real or not. Nor would you have a nuclear waste issue. Remind me, why aren’t we involved in fusion energy research? Oh yes, you’re blowing bubbles, aren’t you?
Constitutional Renewal (draft) Bill
Promises to “rebalance power” between Parliament and the government and give MPs more clout to hold the government to account. Subject to more consultation, the bill will propose giving Parliament powers to ratify treaties and decide whether troops should be deployed. It will also incorporate the findings of the ongoing consultation on judicial appointments and the handling of protests in Parliament Square. Most of the bill applies to the whole UK.
So, does this mean it’s going to be harder in future to get us into one of your dodgy wars? Tony was good at that, wasn’t he? Or does this just mean that you’re going to redouble the propoganda effort to make sure that MPs are too scared to say no? Just like Hitler did, maybe?
Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill
Allows the government to use money held in bank and building society accounts which have not been used for 15 years to provide more youth facilities. Applies to the whole UK.
This one’s great! So, I’ve got some money in a bank account that’s just sitting there accumulating interest. And you come along and take it. Isn’t that theft? Ah, I see that if I notice that you’ve done it, I can claim the money back. Does that include the interest?
Just finance the damned projects! You don’t have to steal people’s money for this kind of thing.
The rest of it bored me, Gordy. Come on, you want my vote?
Speaking in front of Moscow’s St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square on Sunday, Vladimir Putin has cautioned against “those who wish to rule over all of mankind.”
Mr Putin told a group of military cadets and youth group members that while “an overwhelming majority of people in the world” are friendly toward Russia, there are some who “keep saying to this day that our nation should be split”.
“Some believe that we are too lucky to possess so much natural wealth, which they say must be divided,” Mr Putin said.
“These people have lost their mind,” he added with a smile.
There are people who “would like to build a unipolar world and rule over all of mankind”. He said any attempt to establish a unipolar world was doomed to fail.
“Nothing of this kind has ever occurred in our planet’s history, and I don’t think it will ever happen,” he said.
Contrary to the Scotsman’s assertion that these comments were directed at the United States, I would say its much more likely he was referring to certain people within the United Kingdom.
A parliamentary committee has recommended that the government appoint a minister specifically to deal with climate change, after its review of government policy revealed that departments are not coordinating properly to deal with the issue.
The Environmental Audit Committee said there had been a “decade of failure” to tackle Britain’s ever rising carbon emissions, and accused the government of not rising to the challenge.
On the plus side, it said, the government has created a cross-government Office of Climate Change and drafted the Climate Change Bill.
Well, whoopee-do! What a bunch of tossers. Repeat after me, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ANTHROPOMORPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE!
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stop using so-called fossil fuels as our main power source, so listen up if you are shouting at me for being a global warming heretic. Think about it … we build some small scale high temperature gas cooled pebble bed nuclear reactors with which we generate electricity. We use that electricity to desalinate sea water, power Maglev trains, goods delivery systems, and get this for a novel idea, make hydrogen by electrolysis. We pipe the hydrogen to the forecourts, and Honda’s proposed home hydrogen stations, where people can fill up their new hydrogen fuelled Honda cars.
Or, we could appoint a climate change minister and spend the next 20 years talking shit to each other instead.
On the 12th October, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors agreed to extend Federal Reserve contingency lines of credit to two British banks–$10 billion to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and $20 billion to Barclays, two of Britain’s Big 4 banks. The Federal Reserve would open these $30 billion facilities to the two banks, should the banks, in turn, need them to extend credit to their clients “in need of short-term liquidity to finance their holdings of securities and certain other assets,” the Federal Reserve said in a letter to the banks.
With respect to the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Fed said that the coverable assets could include “residential and commercial mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities, commercial paper and structured products.” At the same time, the Fed lifted the limit on how much credit the RBS and Barclays could extend to their “affiliated broker-dealers,” to $10 billion for RBS, and $20 billion for Barclays, matching the size of the contingency lines of credit that the Fed would extend to them. RBS’ and Barclays’ affiliated broker-dealers would be the vehicles, which would then extend the funds to the two banks’ collapsing clients.
Thus, the U.S. Federal Reserve is preparing to extend a hyper-inflationary $30 billion to bail out the British banking system, and the Cayman Island and London headquartered hedge funds.
With the Fed promising to backstop its actions, the Royal Bank of Scotland went into action: It announced on the 21st Oct, that it was deep in talks to take over the failed Cheyne Finance, a $6-7 billion Structured Investment Vehicle (SIV), which was set up and is controlled by the London-headquartered Cheyne Capital. This SIV was on the verge of a fire-sale of illiquid assets. Deloitte
Touche, Cheyne Finance’s accounting firm, received an extraordinary ruling by Britain’s High Court last week, which allowed Deloitte Touche to declare the Cheyne Finance SIV to be “insolvent.” Deloitte Touche, appointed as receiver, is now offering to sell Cheyne Finance to Royal Bank of Scotland.
Simultaneously, Barclays Bank is heavily involved with three deeply troubled SIVs, one of which, Solent, is headquartered in
the Cayman Islands.