Congratulations on going through all that correspondence. It sounds as though you have been immensely organised - and it's hard to revisit the past like that. I look forward to your return to blogging.

Well done Craig. Your strength in the face of all that is admirable.

Thanks Craig,

I love the way you mix personal stuff with serious purposive political stuff on your blog. Some advise against it, but you carry it off with aplomb. It makes you more human and sympathetic.

This has to be the all time greatest interim "I'm busy tidying my room" post.

Well done.

Best Wishes,
Stephen

"54 letters from debt collection agencies threatening court action..."

May I interest you in consolidating all your finances in one Masterful Credit card?

The JimmyGiro Masterful Credit Card, was almost voted as the most real financial solution in these trying times, according to The Credit Expert Group: "Helping to bring you the 'ease' in Quantitative Easing."; with 0% credibility per annum, we guarantee your present finances will be the least of your worries.

With one small fee and your bank sorting details...

Could you come and sort my heap out please Craig!

Glad you are OK and that Spring is arriving. Perhaps you also have the Seasonal Affective Disorder syndrome and the increase in daylight has given you a boost.

Best to you Craig - you are a champion...

you know craig if you need help valuing your gold reserve or if mrs murray wants her wedding ring valued please post it in the blatent 'steel me' envelope provided, and send to 'ones born every minute'.

keep your chin up, fix for the day completed.

regards

Craig, great to see you all again last week...thanks to Sam for the tea.. :-)

Good to know you're still in there kicking and scratching! And as a further lift to your spirits, take a look at the recent comments by the FSA head honcho who said that 90% of the City's financial activity was "economically useless". Made my day!

Like Mary, I've got a pile of post I could hand over to you if you're getting a taste for it! Disconnection threat envelopes always look so similar to junkmail, do they not!

Well done Nadira and Craig, + family,

Filing is an overrated experience.

Congratulations, Craig!

I have had two such episodes, the first when a close friend committed suicide, the second when I suspected the death of my father, but confirmation was kept from me by my mother for over a year. On both occasions the thought of opening my post filled me with horror. I got behind and The System started to chew me up. The authorities were utterly unhelpful, though I expect that many employees were well paid for keeping the meat-grinder running.

Thank you for surviving, recovering, and all your work, then and since; your example brings me hope and strength. Here's to a more compassionate future.

Spring is always a good time for jobs like this, (go for it Mary/Strategist) usually I end up in the garden, been preparing to put up my little greenhouse up this morning.

So glad you got your chores done and smarting to blog, I think the catholic church needs a serious blast for their global abuse of children, imho. the crime of the last fifty years and an outright abuse of human rights.

To have the smugness to still moralise is beyond me.

I 'm also naive enough to suggest that the Hague ICC should summon the pope to appear and suggest in not so many words, to give up celibacy and allow equality to take its course, why should they not allow women priests? And there they go and want to tell us about employment rights, when they so blatantly discriminate for reasons of gender.

Sorry for diverting the room cleaning thread.

PS. Craig do not forget that the little key you have somewhere is for a lock up, which needs sorting out before the end of summer. let us know if you need a hand.

Could Benedict take along his recent convert Bliar when he goes to the Hague?

By Allah, I do not believe in Bipolar.
Some of our minds simply cannot process lying. The Establishment is bipolar. Its constant psychotic deceit grinds all of us who have a conscience down. In my own psychology I find that being lied to opens up first a sexual reaction which I obviously have to control, second, if I decide to believe the lies, an intense anger. This anger is at having to alter my own clarity of perception in order to accommodate a credible lie.

My son has been diagnosed as bipolar and his mum is the biggest liar in the universe. They've doped him up, these overpaid doctors, so he can't do anything. By Allah, by Allah, by Allah, it is his mother's lying which has driven him crazy, and the greedy doctors who don't know ANYTHING are paid by the lying establishment to put the burden of the problem onto the innocent.

I challenge anyone on this blog who is here to recite the cruelty and double-standards of our establishment, in the illegal invasions and torture of recent years, to deny that it is the state that is bipolar and the people sane.
After you swallow their lies, they have the cheek to tell you that your sexuality is abnormal and that you have to go to anger management classes. It's time for the honest people of this country to stand up to these human-sacrificing druids.

@anno

You might enjoy a tour around the fiction of Philip K Dick. His short stories have given rise to a couple of movies - Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report spring to mind, but please don't judge the writer by the screenplays (although the movies quite creditably capture some of the meaningful surrealism).

What he questions is just why any of us should think that our view of reality is the only possible one, and any other represents some kind of pathology.

Technically I don't think he's a great writer, or even a good one, but the ideas are fascinating and disturbing. Always lurking in the background is the suggestion that schizophrenics see clearly, and the rest of us are mad.

R. D. Laing and the Anti-Psychiatry Movement.

220 letters would make a really good bonfire, or perhaps even, a spell...

Good on you, Craig!

"Technically I don't think he's a great writer, or even a good one, but the ideas are fascinating and disturbing"

Agreed. I think the writing is not good at all (the characters are horribly done, particularly the women. he didn't really like women, did he ?) but they're "important" reading anyway (to me). Poor sod.

Well done Craig,

I am so pleased for you and Nadira will feel so much better too. The children? well they are so precious.

So, Craig is now a human rights activist. That made me laugh! I don't trust former British Ambassadors - they weren't hired by the government to be charity workers, but Craig's fans seem to think they were.

A glance at Craig's latest posts, and nothing about British corporations or CEOs. Craig had time, however, to criticise Sting - what a pointless exercise that was! Forget CEOs - Sting is the man controlling the world's economies and buying up governments - better lay into him! Hilarious.

Sting was paid one million pounds (if it came from Karimov's regime, then it was, indeed, blood money), but how much do CEOs get, Craig, for doing business with all manner of vile and corrupt regimes, and for making sure the poor never get out of poverty?

Craig appears to be blaming everything on Blair, Brown, and Sting. The public can change the "figureheads" come the next general election - and the music! - but it won't change Britain's brutal foreign policy, which impoverishes and slaughters on behalf of British corporations and their obscenely greedy CEOs.

I'll come back in a few years to see if Craig has summoned up the honesty to speak about British foreign policy, British CEOs, and British ambassadors. However, I'll expect he'll still be blaming Sting, while praising BAT. British American Tobacco, is, after all, a first-rate humanitarian organization, doing good deeds around the world. I take it as read that a human rights activist will reflexively praise such an organization.

I trust Craig as much as I trust Blair, Brown, and Sting. They all seem to be corporate lackeys.

Craig's unspoken premise: corporations should never be subjected to any form of democratic accountability. Why? Naturally, it's because corporations bring INFINITE, ENDLESS growth, cheap products, and rising incomes - to the entire world! Every country could be as rich as America, if only they gave CEOs free rein - it's true!

Welcome back, Craig. I've done that job too, but on a much smaller scale. I'm glad you're back blogging - I thought the last thread would go on forever. Heavens above ...

Recently had a big clear-out experience myself. Taking advantage of Broon's taxing of energy companies to provide cheaper insulation, we had the loft and eaves done. Through our travels we had been putting things in storage, the parents off-loaded large quantities of our possessions when we returned, and the lot was just dumped into our storage areas.

So this was the mother of all chuck-outs. It's speculated that junk expands to occupy the volume available, and this provided a weighty data-point for the hypothesis. Anyone want about 500 old issues of Private Eye?

Also remarkable while going through old stuff back to childhood are the memories they evoke, many very strong, which would probably have lain dormant forever without these cues. The rather racy letters from old girlfriends were fun to read too. Think I'll hang on to them, actually.

What do you make of the story on the Guardian website that the government say we cannot afford the luxury of not cooperating with governments that mistreat detainees? Much as we might deprecate the ethical compromise behind that, what would your pragmatic answer be to that statement?

Is there no end to this character's greed and venality?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/17/tony-blair-cash-south-korea-oil

"Plus matching letters from the bank detailing payments not made and fines imposed for "administration"."

Could Craig reclaim any of that?
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges

Richard the other,

if you have evidence about a CEO, write a comment and post a link. Before you criticise Craig, remember that one person can only do so much, and take a look at his articles on corruption in Ghana. You'll gain respect if you're constructive.

I don't trust me.

Assuming you are you.

Anno,

though you state your position more radically than I would, I agree with you in many ways. Our society is morally deficient. No one in any official or commercial position ever admids that the system they work within is wrong, morally or in specific instances. Instead they lie. The entire culture is based upon deception at least, and often outright dishonesty. Examples include "spin" and advertising.

Every human attribute exists for a reason. Anger is no exception, but it has been all but outlawed in our society. "Customer Services" departments insulate the policy makers from the public who suffer from their decisions. Menial staff deflect the complaints with institutionalised lies; signs proclaim that abuse of staff will be met with police action.

Deception is so widespread that no one questions its effects upon their personal lives and relationships. The conventional wisdom seems to be that as deception is so institutionalised, there can't be anything wrong with it. There is essentially no law against it. That role was filled by religion, which is increasingly abandoned. I'm an atheist, but I still pray; a conversation with the Almighty is good for my morals, even if it's only pretend.

People who don't fit the mold are increasingly labelled with various mental ilnesses. The System proclaims itself as faultless, so anyone dissatified must have something wrong with them. A large proportion of the population are on "medication", there must be many more suffering who won't tell the doctor because they don't want to be on pills.

Two friends of mine have been put on "lithium". In both cases it has severly curtailed their personalities and caused unpleasant side effects. When I've been unable to cope I've been very careful about what I have said to my doctor. I'll see psychologists, but not psychiatrists. Psychotherapy is becoming increasingly difficult to get on the NHS; it's pills and little else. Of course, the drugs companies are doing just fine, nothing mad about dosing up ten percent of the population.

Richard the other,
Your words, 'Craig's unspoken premise: Corporations should never be subjected to any form of democratic accountability' seem to me more like Shakespeare's Richard 3rd's thoughts about the twins in the tower of London, than a description of Craig's views.
One of the delightful things about this space, is that people participate and add flesh to the skeleton of Craig's comment. For example, he spoke about Tony Baldry's forced apology for a conflict of interests between his govt. duties and his private interests. Dozens of references appeared, about the abuses of govt. and corporate power.

Had you thought of putting your own head in a bucket of Malmesbury wine?

Good for you, Craig. Always nice to make a fresh start.

"Psychotherapy is becoming increasingly difficult to get on the NHS"

One of the few things Nulab has done right is invest heavily in CBT provision. The fruits of that should be available on the NHS in the next few years.

Anno look at your son and be grateful you have him.
And Craig kick yourself up the backside and pull yourself together.
No matter what you have been through know that others have been through worse.
Be grateful for what you have been given and stop crying over the tests you have been through.

Are some of you shocked that I'm not part of the St Craig gang?
Craig you have children to look after and a Jihad to fight. Slap yourself across the face, and get on with the struggle. You don't have time to rest, there will be plenty of time for that when you enter the grave.

I am a lawyer Craig....and I know ... am not, generally speaking, a loved breed.

However, I believe, I do have a conscience ( impossible - you might say - a lawyer with a conscience...huh?)

All to say, my interest in world affairs keeps me visiting your blog.

Not knowing you, save and except by this medium, I feel in a funny sense that I do.

Coincidentally, I have a close family member who is bipolar. So, I can relate to your situation.

And, to top it off mate, I think you are a genuine and sincere person.

So, before your ego gets too big. Just get back to the blogoshere a.s.a.p.

Cheers and chin up 'ol boy.

Courtenay

arsalan: Craig didn't say he was inconsolably blubbering and intends doing so for an indefinite period, he was saying about stuff dug up from the past. He didn't say anything about resting up either, but rather that this was sorting out some outstanding administration duties. Not really sure where you're coming from with your criticism - it certainly doesn't appear to have much to do with the blog entry.

glenn

Arsalan's invitation to count one's blessings is always a valid comment and not a criticism. I think Arsalan was also recognising the vastness of the brainless destructivity of the powers that be, before sending us out 'over the top'.
A water-logged trench full of corpses is no better place to be, than facing the enemy. Given the powerless situation we are in, the struggle is its own reward. And if even if it sometimes seems daunting, getting out of the trench and facing the music is a triumph of free-will and an absolute refusal to be cowed into submission.

Emphasise the positive, minimise the negative. Hey-ho!

Also Glenn, was it you that said you chatted sometimes with your imaginary Creator. What about the logic of, 'communico, ergo est'?
'I talk, so He must be.'

"What about the logic of, 'communico, ergo est'?
'I talk, so He must be.'"

Doesn't the answer come into it, somewhere ?

Now when I talk to God, I know he understands,
Says "Stick with me, I'll be your guiding hand
But don't ask me what I think of you.
I might not give the answer that you want me to".
Oh, well ...

... cue some unmistakable guitar playing.

Anno: Absolutely not me, my friend. I have no time whatsoever for sky-spooks and imaginary all--powerful beings in my own image. You must have me confused with someone else, because whenever anyone calls upon mystical mumbo-jumbo and "belief" to make an argument, you will find me on the other side of it.

Sympathy and solidarity, Craig.

@anno
"the struggle is its own reward"

Bloody well has to be, from the look of things. Vaclav Havel says "Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."

He must have known our troll, for he also says:

"The man who hates does not smile, he merely smirks; he is incapable of making a joke, only of bitter ridicule; he can't be genuinely ironic because he can't be ironic about himself. Only those who can laugh at themselves can laugh authentically. A serious face, quickness to take offence, strong language, shouting, the inability to step outside himself and see his own foolishness these are typical of one who hates."

..hmmm...also sounds a bit like Gordon Brown..

I think, therefore I may be... maybe.

There was a good book written recently, critiquing the whole industry of 'positive thinking', a modality of 'therapy' which derives from late C19th fundamentalist capitalism and the 'supermen'. It's basically Nazi. These are not quotes from the book, just my phrases:

"You're in a crap job: think positive, think like a 'Dragon's Den' entrepreneur": In your world you have zero control there is nothing you can be remotely entrepreneurial about. It's a great big lie.

"Personal development": angels dancing on the head of a pin.
If you want to develop your mind, read books and join a movement.

"Everything's working like clockwork, so let's change it for the sake of change so that people can never have a sense of security and gang together against us. Then, when people can't cope any more, let's say simply that they had difficulty coping with change and if positive thinking doesn't make them compliant, let's just manage them out the door". See through a glass, darkly.

Welcome back Craig.

God fled when he read that, men were created in his image.

Can anyone say, why we still swear an oath on the bible to assert truth? It's full of Judaical fantastical stories, which are now perpetrated by "The Sun" and other Murdoch productions.

It should be known as "The First Book of Original Spin".

Bravo; more strength to your elbow. DLTBGYD.

Looking forward to your posts again.

'The government is being accused of dragging its feet over the publication of new guidelines for the intelligence agencies on the treatment of terrorist suspects held abroad. Gordon Brown signalled last week that the guidance would be released before a Commons debate on intelligence matters yesterday. Security correspondent Gordon Correra outlines the guidance, and Michael Mates, a senior Conservative MP on the Intelligence and Security Committee, discusses why the government delayed the report.'

Radio 4 today - there is a link to the segment -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8575000/8575788.stm

PS No show without 'I was there' Frank Gardner or 'I know eveything about terrrrr' Gordon Correra. I looked the latter up once and there was a link to risk management/assessment within the likes of Price Waterhouse or similar (can't remember which outfit).

A comment on the 'interview' with Mates from Badger on medialens.

Water boarding is not torture
Posted by Badger on March 19, 2010, 9:15 am

according to Michael Mates, the Commons intelligence committee and the government. Most torture techniques are not torture but extreme forms of treatment, and so legal. Only the most extreme of these physical abuses cause concern, but not because they are torture. By definition (the definition was not supplied, but it is obviously: what we and our american allies actually do, but not what Moroccans, Pakistanis, Egyptians etc do) they are not, but they obviously make "civilised" men uncomfortable when confronted by their own hypocrisy and sadism.

Michael Mates revealed all this to the Today (I frequently type that as Toady) programme, to not one murmur of dissent from the toadying interviewer.

Blaise Pascal disait, « Tout notre malheur vient de ce que nous ne sommes pas restés dans notre chambre. » Évidemment, avec les moyens de communications modernes et déjà avec le simple courrier journalier, il n'est pas assez de justement rester à la maison. Il faut encore ne pas prendre trop au sérieux les choses.

Mes meilleurs souhaits à vous

L'Enfer, c'est les autres, n'est ce pas?

I heard that as well Mary, not surprisingly they are desperate to find reasopns to continue their war on terror approach.

last nights news highlighted IED smuggled in from Iran, making out that they are fuelling our boys death, not the Taliban who use them and isntall them.

This is spinning war with Iran and it is the BBC doing it. Should Israel, due to its diplomatic corner it find itself in, want to have a go at Iran, our election might be postponed.

On the other hand, should it happen after an election that returns a hung Parliament, noLabour and Conservatives will support a war and try and brow beat the Lib Dems into it.

Can someone translate sceptique's post please, I'm partial to german Spanish and some portuguese, but not french, thank you. Something to do with modern communications.

Mary

Craig tried to convince the JCHR that our acceptance of material from torture creates a demand for it.
The regimes in Morocco etc were put in place by us at the end of the last big thrust of colonialism WW2. So we had already made the supply end as well.
The JCHR pondered and asked,'Does it really look that bad? What can we think of in our own defence?' Answer1/ We were following George Bush who cancelled the Hunman Rights of the Muslims. Answer2/ It wasn't really torture anyway. Answer3/ We won't get any evidence if we decide to prosecute, so copy Obama and close the file. Answer4/ A bell has rung for a parliamentary vote, which we will lose our jobs if we don't go and do. Answer5/ It's time for a cup of tea anyway.

Ingo, I think they're saying we all got out of bed the wrong side and don't take life so seriously, but hopefully a more accurate version will materialise soon.

Craig,

Your honesty in laying out your most personal guts on here is most unusual and disarming.

I went through a similar period when my life was falling apart in 1985, when I too wouldn't open any mail and hid it from my partner.

Whilst some of the stuff I write on here after drinking large quantities of alcohol undoubtedly gives the impression that I am insane and writing gibberish, most of it is actually true.

For example at 2:10 am Yesterday morning someone did decide to have a bonfire in the middle of the road right outside our house.

They took a kid's plastic sledge from outside next door's and got a mound of old clothing, doused the lot with petrol and set fire to it. Some of the charred mess and molten plastic is still welded to the road.

They ran for it when little Wendy came out with a bucket of water (pity it wasn't a bucket of piss).

I suspect they were probably associated with the same group of people who stole my car several years ago. The police phoned me up the next day and said the good news is that we have found your car, the bad news is that you won't want to see it as its been completely burnt out.

I don't get paranoid about such things, its just symbolic of the way our society is collapsing.

I'm just glad there has been no personal confrontation that could have resulted in serious violence, but if lunatics are going round doing stuff like this you can't just ignore it.

Although I have no evidence, I suspect the culprits may live a few miles away, very near to the field where my burnt out car was found.

The pub is about a mile in the opposite direction.

Tony

Useful phrase, learned on a walk through France: on va le voir.

So, there's another thread of terrorism that leads back to Iran--and therefore a further move towards a threat to Iran.

It is pretty-well, a certainty that Israel will do another cowardly pre-emptive strike, while the Zionist controlled western countries sit on their hands.

I have not heard it explained, how Israel became a nuclear power through the 1960's to the present, without some obstruction/objection from all the usual organisations and countries, interested in non-proliferation.

I do not fear Iran with nuclear weapons, so much as I do, America and Israel nuclear armed. These are two of the most aggressive countries in the world at present and it is difficult to see, which is striving the more, for hegemony.

So why doesn't America and the western powers, demand Israel's total nuclear disarming, in exchange for Iran's renouncing of its alleged aspirations for nuclear weapons?

Is this too simplistic--or does it interfere with a little Armageddon further down the line?

Anno, Glenn, Richard Robinson, Suhayl Saadi,

Anno,

I'm the atheist that prays to a possibly imaginary creator - see the third paragraph of my comment, yesterday at 8:54 PM. It is something I have mentioned on a previous thread.

Glenn,

I do not believe in a personal god, separate from reality, that intervenes in physical reality from 'outside'. I'm not really sure about what I do believe on this matter, it is a 'work in progress' and I'm not sure that it could be described by words anyway. But I'm intrigued by aspects of relativity and quantum physics that enable the existence of free will. Remember Schrodinger's Cat; it is conscious observervation that collapses the wave function!

Richard Robinson,

yes, the answer does come into it. There are only certain answers that a deity for everyone would give. Praying for my own advantage to someone else's detriment is likely to be 'answered' with 'NO'! The exercise consists of remembering that I'm praying to everyone's God. This only works with monotheism, of course.

Suhayl Saadi,

thank you for your 7:54 AM comment. My vague ideas about reality may seem New-Age-ish, but I have noticed this 'right-wing' aspect to the individualist, 'positive thinking' approach, and I dislike it.

Translation of Sceptique's post : Roughly along the lines of...

---Start quote
Blaise Pascal said, “All our misfortune comes from not knowing how to remain quietly in our room. Obviously, with the modern means of communication and already with the simple daily mail, it is not enough precisely to remain at the house. It is still necessary not to take much too seriously these things.

My best wishes with you
---end quote

£300 isn't bad for a decent shooter... where's this pub, Tony?

Glenn they will show you a real gun, then when you give them your money they will give you a box with a water pistel inside it. Who will you cry to?
The police?

'I talk, so He must be.'

I talk to an imaginary friend.

Therefore she must be.

Sorting out the mail.

Sometimes i'm away from base for a month or so and there is an avalanche of mail to deal with on return.

quickly put into three piles judging by the outside. 1 Junk, leaflets, free newspapers etc.

2 Official looking stuff, brown envelopes, that kind of stuff.

3 Personal looking items, cards, letters

Look at 3 straight away and catch up on what really is 1mportant. look at items from pile 2 during the next few days.

As for the first batch, straight in the bin with them or now back to the royal mail red boxes for them to deal with as they probably delivered it anyway.

For items in 2 demanding money, reseal and send back saying opened in error , gone awa. will buy some time at least.

paperwork is best done quickly and always remember the best filng cabinet is the rubbish can

If you have never done this for real, then you cannot possibly understand.

I had done this for real between 1976 and 1979.

I had also worked on the most powerful computer in the World.

When they made me redundant in 1980, I dreamed about doing this - and actually made a start.

But it wasn't possible on a Commodore Vic, nor a Commordore 64, nor even a Commodore Amiga.

Ten years ago, and more recently Microsoft gave it a shot, and spent Millions on it...

Their efforts were actually pretty good, but they were only really tailored for Powered Options. I had tried the Powered options for real too, but found them incredibly boring. There didn't really seem any point except for if you wanted to get from A to B quickly. Even doing it for yourself didn't require much skill. You just point the thing in the general direction and press go. The power would pull you along even if you were pointing sideways...

Now there have been some valiant efforts, done for free, by volunteers to improve on Microsofts efforts, and they do work quite well...

But none of this comes close to what arrived today.

It is so completely Brilliant, that I am determined to get really fit again and do it for real, even though I have not flown a glider since the morning of Led Zeppelin's last ever concert (with the original line up) in 1979

In the morning I flew from Dunstable. In the afternoon I went to Knebworth with My Girlfriend.

The Condor Gliding Simulator is Completely Fucking Amazing.

£7.17 + £1.99 shipping from Amazon.

Loads of Police about today.

Good to see them.

Tony

Tony: don't wish to appear pedantic (well maybe I do) but Zep's last ever concert (with the original line up) was July 7, 1980 in Berlin. I was at Knebworth too, for both shows. They were OK.

Your real friends are the people who do things for you for Free. They do not do it for any financial or other reward. They do it because they want to - for themselves - because it will make them feel good for giving something for Free.

They expect no reward whatsoever, except the smile on your face.

Tony

MJ,

I don't claim to be a historian, but I did see Led Zeppelin at both of their concerts at Knebworth in 1979.

And in about half an hour a mate of mine is going to pick us up and take us to see a Led Zeppelin Cover Band

Some of these Young Kids do it better than the Original

Tony

"Some of these Young Kids do it better than the Original"

I know, it's frightening really. Hope you enjoy it.

Our Friend who is picking us up in about 5 minutes in his Silver Machine is one of the most remarkable people we have ever met

He is English

He spent the first 19 years of his life as a travelling gypsie

Really traditional - horse drawn

And then unlike the usual thing, he did it the other way.

He Opted Into Society

Completely Gave Up All His Old Habits

And After a Government Training Program, Eventually Got a Job as a Trainee Computer Programmer

That was a few years ago

I reckon it worked

Tony

I thought he was here - but not yet.

Despite giving up all drugs, and he never even drinks more than one alcoholic drink a night...

Despite being completely English and having a Really Posh Refined English Accent

He Has Long Dreadlocks and a Brown Face

His Mum is Lovely, and his Sister Incredibly Beautiful

Both his Parents were born in Jamaica

Shouldn't we Celebrate Our Commonwealth?

Tony

"In my own psychology I find that being lied to opens up first a sexual reaction (?!) which I obviously have to control, second, if I decide to believe the lies, an intense anger."

Why would you choose to believe lies? But then anyone who's chosen to believe the biggest lie of all, (religion), might as well continue on the same path, having already said goodbye to common sense. Pretty lies may seem preferable to plain truths if you don't have an innate respect for truth, and religion offers certain privileges, such as exemption from logic, reason and secular law.....

I was thinking about her older sister Mutsa, she is barely 2 years old yet

And her New Born Sister Shamiso is getting all the attention

So I thought it is only fair that Mutsa Gets a Present Too

And When She Realises, and Her Baby Sister Realises

I just hope I live long enough to see these Girls Grow Up

So that I can tell them about their GrandFather

I just want to say to them that,

When I was about 10 Years Old

He Nicked my Metal Globe of The Earth

And He Did It

I Honestly Don't Think ANYONE Had Done This Before

He Made My Metal Globe of The EARTH

Spin Completely Stabley in FREE AIR

This was before Computers

He had an electro magnet at the top and bottom and coded the stabilisation circuits with a soldering iron

Catherine's Dad, My Older Brother Richard is The Cleverest Person I Have Ever Met In My Life

Tony

Love you to bits Tony...but>

Give us a fuckin' break man yeah?

XX

So i said to her...

What the fuck do you mean?

I've been researching Space Exploration for 40 years.

And what i found was.

Nobody drank our cider.

Except for her.

And she was the most beautiful woman i'd ever met.

Apart from that guitarist last week.

Who was the best guitarist ever-and i know the difference.

I used to drink scrumpy with Peter Green.

Although my lad's in the CIA-although we dont mention that.that'd be provocative.

So i said to him...what do you mean the wholemeal bread's gone off?

He couldn't answer that.
I knew

So i said to this beautiful girl i me tin Goa>

What does that mean?

And she didnt know either.

So i plugged into the FOH system and Eq'd them until they sounded like the best.

And they all came back to ours for spliff and shit.

I never knew it could be so kinda real.

Owen Lee Hugh-Mann,

I think that your interpretation of religion as 'the biggest lie of all' is a mistake. Dawkins goes into the human propensity towards religion in some detail in The God Delusion, interpreting it as a byproduct of human instincts towards dualism and childhood belief in the authority of elders.

Also, as most religious teachers believe what they are teaching, it is not a deliberate deception.

Your point about secular law is also dodgy. Religious adherents often submit themselves to more demanding rules than are required secularly. This sometimes brings them into conflict with secular laws, in which case many of them are prepared to suffer the consequences.

You don't need to tell me that people like Blair make a total mockery of what I've just written. That's not religion, that's ego motivated hypocracy, and yes, there's plenty of that about.

Look

Its Just There

We Couldn’t Give a Fuck If You are Rich or Poor

We Couldn’t Give a Fuck What Your Religion is Or the Colour Of Your Skin

We Couldn’t Give a Fuck About Your Politics or The Music You Listen To Or The Books You Read – Or Your Behaviour

We don’t care about the Language You Speak

If The Time Has Come

And You Have To Give Birth

We Will Welcome

Your Child Into The World

Tony

"Hmmm..." at 1:39 AM was posted by an American, IMO. They follow the Chicago Manual of Style.
Not a funny post.

"Not a funny post"

Nil nisi carborundum.

tony,

have you thought about writing several books this year?

Tony, have you been to the Bow Shock?

"Not a funny post"

Well, apart from the last two lines, I thought it was quite a good parody. If Tony isn't offended I won't be.

Owen Lee Human

Not being given to lying myself, I don't have a conscious method of detecting lying in others. I don't choose to believe lies. I choose to believe statements that appear to be credible, rather than accuse people of being dishonest.

The allergy to lying operates through my subconcious. For example you deny the existence of God. That is a blatant lie. It doesn't make me feel uncomfortable at all, rather I pity you, that God gave you everything you have and you were unable to respond with anything in return. By contrast, the twisted lie that torture is acceptable for security purposes, being considered by the JCHR, makes me exceedingly uncomfortable.

If you definitely knew that someone knew about a bomb, but you just wanted to make them confess it, I can see some justification for a bit of force. But if you were blindly guessing, on the premise for example that someone had attended a madrassah, there is no chance that torture will elicit anything except something to stop the pain.

As I said above, the suppliers of torture, corrupt regimes, and the end-users of torture, our government are THE SAME PEOPLE. It is not just that they are making a demand for torture, as Craig argued. I would go further and state that they make regimes that torture, supply them with the equipment for torture, because they like to threaten Muslims especially, with torture, to scare them into relinquishing their practises and beliefs.

The fact that they are, as a bonus, receiving information from torture is so that they can deceitfully claim that the torture saved lives. The purpose of torture is to scare people in the War against Islam. The powers that be use war and torture as a tool for persecuting Islam. The JCHR is a committee for obfuscating that fact, not for clarifying the morality of their policy.

4.30 PM is from me.

Owen Lee,

Carisbrooke High School 1970s ?

Anno and Owen Lee Hugh-Mann,

anger and the sexual response are quite closely related, sharing a majority of their associated physiological reactions,

http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/anger.htm

That Anno has noticed this suggests that his self observation is better than average; most people would suppress such a thought.

Anno,

Owen Lee's denial of God would only be a lie if he believed in God, but wrote that he didn't. Also, Owen Lee wrote nothing about God, only religion.

If Tony isn't offended I won't be.

Posted by: MJ

I love a bit of (highly amateur) sleuthing. I was involved in a couple of group blogs, with Australians and Americans. We had an debate about punctuation (for a "house style") and the Aussies and I had the 'Chicago Manual of Style' quoted at us by the Americans. Their rules for punctuation are quite different from ours. If that parody wasn't written by an American I'll be surprised. Not that it matters who wrote it. It's just me doing my Clouseau impression.

Clark
'Owen Lee's denial of God would only be a lie if he believed in God..'

What an exraordinary statement!
The JCHR think that putting the disgusting acts of removing people's finger nails and tanking their lungs with water into a gentlemanly discussion in an annexe of parliament under the bongs of Big Ben obfuscates the lie that the Brittish Government subsidises, pays for, demands, expects, commissions, receives, and is grateful for torture.

The deed is a lie, because it contravenes the fundamental social law of human nature that if we cooperate together we succeed and if we discriminate and persecute we fail. So the boffins of the UK think that they and they alone have the wisdom to rule the world, and nobody else has anything to contribute to the sum total of civilisation. That UK plc is the best of all societies in the best of all possible worlds and that anybody else with a variant of their disgusting creed is a deviant and only fit for oppression and torture!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wake up and smell the coffee, Messrs UK plc. Are you going to carry on blasting your opinions onto the rest of the world, by bombs and drones and nuclear threats and prisons until the day of judgement, totally regardless of the punishment in the hereafter of such crimes? Are you going to carry on sending your devious diplomats round the world to subvert and subjugate, spy and deviate till the rest of time?

By Allah, if this is your intention I hereby now relinquish all ties and relationship with the United Kingdom.
Let my curse be added to the curses of the angels to a race that rejects the truth of ISLAM.

Anno,

good morning. I wish you well.

A problem is unlikely to be solved unless it has been properly understood. Misrepresentation of reality occurs through multiple processes, for instance:

1) Lying - where I say that which I know to be false.

2) Lack of self knowledge - where I speak from a belief without understanding my unconscious motivation.

3) Error - communication of erronious belief.

All must be countered to achieve accurate representation.

I attended Craig's JHCR hearing. Some members seemed to be trying to minimise the government's responsibility for torture, or maximise legal manouvering space. Another seemed to use the matter for party political advantage. I wanted to jump up and shout, but I knew I'd be escorted from the room (as one person was), so I did what I felt I could by scrutinizing the face of each speaker, hoping that they felt that scrutiny.

I doubt that I will ever share your faith. But I believe that we already share much in the domain of morals, and I'll continue to try to influence things for the better.

Which is better? A mashuarah or Islamic consultation process with one leader who takes the opinion of all, or an inquiry where the audience is compelled to silence and the chairman steers the discussion to his own will?

The only reason that the disbelievers were left to walk upon this earth was to prove to the Muslims that the disbelievers would never cease from creating mischief without the fear of Judgement to chastise them, and to convince humanity that the punishment of hell was deserved.

Clark
Good afternoon

The most common reason for the denial of God is that people were taught false religions, i.e. we worship God THROUGH Jesus, stones, trees, saints, which contradicts the fitra or inner understanding of God's existence on our human hard drive.

The second common reason is where guilt at having broken God's commandments is solved by denying the existence of God and what we have been taught.

The third, and most alarming reason is now prevalent in the younger generation who have been brought up by their mothers, to deny the existence of God's commandments and to think that religion is merely patriarchal control.

Yet other people, or their parents, saw sufferings that made them question God's mercy. But He says in the Qur'an that by no means whatsoever did He ever do harm to His creation, except to bring them back to their inborn faith which is written on the human hard disk. ( Not His words of course. )

Not knowing the faith-deniers on this website personally, I couldn't possibly know what drove them to disbelief. What I object to is the INSTITUTIONAL USUKIS attack on Islam, through western-armed despot dictators, through savagery conducted by mercenaries like the Jesus Army in Sudan, through overwhelming explosive force like Baghdad, by torture and the fear of torture, by withholding charity promised in good faith, like the 20 billion promised to Gaza by Gordon Brown , like the whipping up of racial hatred in the western media, and the endless, endless lying and cover-ups by the powers that be.

If anyone wants to disbelieve, that's fine by me, but don't let us participate even remotely in the institutional persecution of Islam by Christianity in the form of respectable committees consisting entirely of liars and obfuscaters of the truth.

Lastly, and for me most importantly, we citizens of the UK should remember that however much our leaders persecuted other peoples through the nations, they persecuted US, the citizens of the UK, FIRST. The principle of freedom of speech and freedom of belief, secured for us by force by Oliver Cromwell , the product of Civil War and Revolution by our forbears, had as much weight as the Geneva Convention. It is a freedom that is not awarded to anyone who dares to oppose the murderous activities of our leaders through the ages against the Muslims. it is a freedom that is is banned completely from the adherents of our faith.

When Craig put his freedom to the test, he found it didn't exist, and he was in the establishment. What hope is there for the rest of us?

Sorry, for nations please read generations. Ta.

Anno,

please nuture your hope; I hope that the following mild contradictions can help you to do so.

We, including Craig, still hold freedom of belief and (slightly limited) freedom of speech. The JHCR proceedings were obviously constricted, but they were broadcast live by Internet and later on the UK Parliament channel.

Mainstream Media coverage of the issues we would like publicised is meagre, but not non-existent. Yes, it is swamped by the messages of capitalism, but a small flame is visible, and flames can sometimes spread rapidly.

Things do not always go in favour of the elite. The Internet was partly a US Military project, but now is a great vehicle of free speech, and Twitter is based on the commercial system of mobile 'phones.

The restrictions placed upon Craig were of power and employment rather than of free speech, though I do see your point - Craig's voice *as an ambassador* was silenced, though not his voice as a person.

More robustly, I disagree that the 'respectable committees' are Christian in any meaningful sense; though I can see how they could appear to be a continuation from past (false) Christian atrocities, I think they have lost any vestage of true Christianity. Likewise, I think that the power base uses fear of Islam (deriving from an outdated instinct) to further their capitalist ambitions.

Yes, morality is 'built-in' (I think it resides in the 'Human BIOS' rather than the hard disc) - science is steadily revealing this - though I would argue that there is a propensity for faith, but not for any particular faith.

Most hard drives come with the ultra capitalist Windows(r) pre-installed. I prefer to erase this, and replace it with the community generated Linux, which requires no antivirus software because it is less promiscuous by design!

Clark

It is not morality that is built-in. That is very much the product of upbringing. The required information comes from the prophets, peace be upon them all.

It is faith which is in-built, and this is proved when humans get into distress. They ask for help from God. Usually God responds to the sincerity of this prayer.

The JCHR, led by that pop-eyed terrorist and Friend of Israel, Dismore, were perfecting the art of English stiff upper lip when distressing things are being discussed.

" What I want to ask you is, you see I'm not entirely clear about... Do you think you could tell us a little more about that... " which means: I live in a little village in the Cotswolds where these sort of things are never discussed. Is this a bit like cricket without the umpire? or is it more like rugby, just for good sport?

The disingenuousness of these dreadful people could do with a military coup or even a false bomb scare to wake them from their unbelievable aura of tediousness.

Their strategy is to delay the process of government introspection until the general election and then declare it all old news. The JCHR is an absolute, total disgrace!

Anno,

God's work, or the product of evolution, whichever way you look at it, is more robust than you give it credit for. Psychological research across cultures has revealed an innate human morality. Computer simulations of "Game Theory" scenarios have revealed that morality can even be found in simple arithmetic! (See 'The Origins of Virtue' by Matt Ridley.)

I was astounded and deeply moved when I learned this; even beneath the substrate of matter, deeper than the physical basis of the universe, there exist morals. Now that I've got used to the idea, it seems sort of obvious and inevitable, I suspect that a universe without a moral basis would cease to exist almost instantly, as the first acquisitive thing that arose would consume all else.

I find this deeply reassuring. The universe has been improving for billions of years, and will continue to do so with or without humans. We can get our act together and continue on this great journey, or we can go the way of the dinosaurs. I doubt that the Creator, whether personal or just a principle, cares much either way, with two hundred billion other star system in this galaxy alone for entertainment.

You are right, the JHCR were pathetic. Still, in the long run things will change for the better; they always have. So I suppose you could call that my faith. And my moral motivation: I wish to be part of the Great Improvement that I call evolution, rather than an eventual irrelevance, such as these insipid politicians.

The leaders of both the disbelievers like the JCHR and also the Muslims have causes which they believe in and for which they are both prepared to suspend morality. That is because they believe in themselves more than they believe in God. Belief in yourself is a delusion which we call politics, which is the promotion of yourself over others.

The current wars are not one-sided. They are desired by the leaders of all creeds, who care nothing about the consequences of their lies and politicking. Like Tony Blair, like Usama bin Laden, they do not remotely care about the suffering of war. They care only about their own egos, and they admire eachothers' egos on different sides of the ideological divide.

All politics is the search of the ego for power. Morality is the search for helping and serving others and helping and serving God. The problems of our times are just as much caused by the dirty hearts of the Islamic leadership as the filthy hearts of the Western leadership. They are equally wrong, equally responsible and equally obsessed with themselves at the expense of the causes they pretend to support.

Leaders always underestimate the intelligence and faith of their followers. They see our suspension of criticism of them as evidence that we are convinced of their integrity. I am neither convinced of the integrity of the JCHR nor the integrity of the Muslim leaders. If a human being chooses to appoint someone else as custodian of his soul, caveat emptor, buyer beware.

My fiercely protestant, Huguenot origins refuse to appoint a mediator between myself and my Creator, which unfortunately is the tradition of both the Christians and the Sufis whose thinking still dominates Islam. Yes, Islam will eventually reform, when people realise that the leaders we have now are only interested in destructive power. Islam needs Protestant reform. Everybody reading the Book of Allah and making a direct connection with Him.
Leaders are the same as us, but they have been convinced by Satan that they possess special power.

"Leaders are the same as us, but they have been convinced by Satan that they possess special power."

In the secular sense, of course, they do have special power. It's called the "monopoly of organised violence".

("Satan" isn't language I'd use, but I don't think I'm disagreeing with you much).

"monopoly of organised violence"

Democracy appoints a monopoly of organised violence, without consultation and without appraisal from the people. But this can be and was opposed by leaders like Saddam Hussain. It's curious that the subjects of dictatorships try to subvert their tyranny while the subjects of democratic tyranny merely avert their eyes.

We submit to totalitarian control ourselves but criticise others for having robust power structures. Of course I am in favour of Islamic jihad challenging the monopoly of organised violence that we should be challenging ourselves, by civil unrest and informed discussion. Our leaders have got us by the balls, by bombarding us with taxes from everywhere, but Islamic groups are not unknown to exert unfair pressure on their supporters.

Why do we see fit to send our forces to Iraq and Afghanistan supposedly to break down their power structures, instead of challenging the steel grip of our own leaders?

Hi Anno,

two good posts here from you; as I expected, we phrase things differently but agree on much. It's been a busy day here, and Craig has posted, so I may have to continue this discussion another time...

"Why do we see fit to send our forces to Iraq and Afghanistan supposedly to break down their power structures, instead of challenging the steel grip of our own leaders?"

Er. The forces are fairly clear who they take orders from, I think.

Craig, replying to everyone is impossible. My advice is to knock up a letter template to send to those that write to you personally. Thank them for their correspondence and assure them you have read it. Then, explain that you are unable to reply individually to all the letters you get, but write something like 'best wishes' and sign them all personally at the end. Just my tuppence worth.

P.S. Alternatively, you could hire Lamby and Soba to reply for you. They seem to have plenty of spare time on their hands. ;-)

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