Greek military sackings highten fears

In an extraordinary developement the heads of all three of Greece's armed services have been sacked and replaced with figures seen to be more sympathetic with George Papendreou's regime.

General Ioannis Giagkos, chief of the Greek National Defence General Staff, to be replaced by Lieutenant General Michalis Kostarakos

Lieutenant General Fragkos Fragkoulis, chief of the Greek Army General Staff, to be replaced by lieutenant general Konstantinos Zazias

Lieutenant General Vasilios Klokozas, chief of the Greek Air Force, to be replaced by air marshal Antonis Tsantirakis

Vice-Admiral Dimitrios Elefsiniotis, chief of the Greek Navy General Staff, to be replaced by Rear-Admiral Kosmas Christidis

Like the anouncement of the referendum yesterday this seems to have been done with the utmost of speed and secrecy.

The opposition are furious and point out, not without reason that with a vote of confidence to be passed next week this is a rather precipitous act.

“Under no circumstances will these changes be accepted, at a time when the government is collapsing and has not even secured a vote of confidence,”

Is it just me or has the tyemperature round here just dropped a couple of degrees?

Excuse me are you worried that you might die...horribly?

Just seen a rather partial press release,

Majority of Europeans ‘Worried by Dangerous Lighters’

Cripes. And it gets worse,

nearly 87 per cent of Europeans are worried by information that pocket lighters with the capacity to kill and maim are openly on sale across the continent

AS one of the 13% who gaily walks along the street, not concerned that anybody I pass could ...BURST INTO A FIREBALL AT ANY SECOND, I find this amazing.

Even more so when this research, commissioned by, natch, Bic, Europe's largest manufacturer of lighters and produced by APCO, their PR firm goes onto suggest that what we really need is a ban on or massively increased import controls on imported lighters. I wonder why they think that?

I have written to the contact at APCO Insight and have asked,

I have read the survey you have produced with Bic on the safety of pocket lights with some interrest. I was wondering if it would be possible to see the actual questions used in your survey as well as the interpretations of those questions that you give in the published research.
As a PR firm, is APCO Insight a member of the Market Research Society or bound by the MRS code of conduct?

I await the answer with interest.

Update

Good for APCO, they have got back to me very quickly.

1) The questions are at the bottom of each page. (Doh - GT)
2) "RE membership in MRS or bound by the code of conduct.  APCO Insight is the research division of APCO Worldwide.  At Insight, we are all research professionals; most of our staff are based in the US.  Insight has membership in two US survey research organizations (CASRO and AAPOR), which have very similar codes of conduct to MRS.  We aren’t currently members of MRS but do abide by their code of conduct."

So I am left with a distinct feeling that this is still very partial research, and secondly the panic headlines are not justified, but fair play to APCO for responding so quickly.

How Euroscepticism can kill millions

No really it can. That is if you take the latest propaganda wheeze from the European Parliament office in London, launching tomorrow at the BETT trade fair it Olympia, at face value. Called 'Crisis Point' it is an interactive whole school program by which a children are encouraged to pretend to be EU Commissioners or MEPs for a day. This way they learn vital citizenship lessons.

The day starts with a news report. Xtreme Drug Resistant TB has claimed a life in England, and Europe goes into scare meltdown.

We must have new legislation to stop this horrid disease today...

Of course this just exemplifies the way in which the EU now propagandises itself. As we know from their own 'Communication Strategy' a key target demographic is kiddiewinks,

"It has to be seen as complementary to the already existing or proposed initiatives and programmes such as those in the field of education, youth, culture and promoting active European citizenship".

First they see a target audience, then they commission somebody to produce something that targets that audience. In this case to the tune of 70,000 Euros through a subsidiary of Bell Pottinger/Chime. Then launch.

If you go to the website there are all the things that you as a teacher need to have a fun day promoting the efficacy of EU action in public health. Oh yes it claims to be 'impartial', well given the strictures of the Education Act it could hardly do otherwise now could it? After all the Act states,

"407. - (1) The local education authority, governing body and head teacher shall take such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that where political issues are brought to the attention of pupils while they are- (a) in attendance at a maintained school, or (b) taking part in extra-curricular activities which are provided or organised for registered pupils at the school by or on behalf of the school, they are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views."

But if you play with the rather spiffing flash program available to download from the site, then what do we find. If you put in that you want to retain national control over policies the outcomes include tens of millions of deaths, and a 60% likelihood of civil unrest. Now if you take a communitarian approach you can bring down the deaths to the low teens (best I have managed) and have no civil unrest.

Genius.

Now apart from the basic propaganda aspect of this is the point that this sort of exercise ties into another major issue facing us, an issue that is dealt with today in the Daily Mail by Chris Booker, and is a reprise of his excellent book (with Richard North) 'Scared to death'.

Those that purport to govern us are past masters in the use of the 'Doctrine of Beneficial Crisis'. Pick up an incident, exaggerate the situation, position government action as our saviour and produce centralising legislation, giving themselves more power. Of course this is all done at breakneck speed with the concomitant that it is done badly and ends up costing a packet of our money.

Result, more central power, and massively increased costs.

More genius.