I am proud of the company I was in of fellow Sam Adams winners; but also because in the circumstances I think this was the best speech I have ever made. If you listen from 15 minutes, the enthusiastic and sustained interruption of applause I received from the Oxford Union for my attack on those demonstrating against Julian Assange is remarkable.
It particularly explodes the appalling lies of the Guardian’s shrill hate campaign against Julian Assange, which you will recall covered this event under the headline Julian Assange finds no allies and tough queries in Oxford University talk . It has taken the Oxford Union two months to post this video, and then unlike other newly posted videos it does not appear on the front page of their youtube site.
The students no longer have any autonomy in the the Oxford Union where speakers and videos have to be approved in advance by a solidly and uniformly right wing board of trustees which includes William Hague and Louise Mensch.
It is, however, even at this belated time, a great pleasure to be able again to state and to demonstrate what a vicious little liar Amelia Hill is.
After my point on the Assange demonstration, you could have heard a pin drop for the rest of my talk and I was unsure how the audience were reacting. Unfortunately the video cuts off the peroration, so you will have to take my word for it that the applause was very big and after resuming my seat I had to half stand and acknowledge again. But I had concluded by introducing Julian Assange, so that may have been for him not me – I would be just as pleased.
Let me post this one again so you have the pair of me on consecutive nights in very different moods.
Habbabkuk. Don’t tell me I’m wrong when you just get your facts from Wikipedia. The US broke the terms of the Avery Porko Treaty when it imposed sanctions against Cuba. Go study some international law.
@ John Goss reprimanded me as follows :
“Don’t tell me I’m wrong when you just get your facts from Wikipedia. The US broke the terms of the Avery Porko Treaty when it imposed sanctions against Cuba”
Two comments on that :
1/. I didn’t get my facts from Wikipedia. If I had, though, your comment would seem to imply either (1) that a commenter is not entitled to consult Wikipedia, or (2) that of a commenter has to desist if the matter he/she wishes to comment on appears in Wikipedia. If your position corresponds to the one set out under (1), then I look forward to your condemnation of all posts which, for example, link to Wikipedia.
2/. Can you please refer us to the sources you used to say that US sanctions on Cuba broke the terms of the Avery Porko treaty? (By the way, I’m not saying that there are no international jurists who support your claim, but I suspect that there is no unanimity on this question). Thank you.
***********
La vita è bella, life is good!
Habbabkuk. The treaty allows for free trade. In dreadful hurry for Guantanamo protest outside US embassy 2-4 p.m. today.
Me in Us Here are some Russian grannies singing ‘Imagine’ in the London Eye with guitar accompaniment from one of the Channel 4 news presenters. They became ‘famous’ after spearing in the Eurovision song contest.
http://www.channel4.com/news/russian-grannies-imagine-singing-with-guru-murthy-video
There is a YT of it in case you cannot see Channel 4 outside the UK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APlGpwkZYfE
Great stuff !! Reassuring to know that the voice of reason is getting louder. Loved the speech Craig.
Thomas Drake speech at National Press Club luncheon on attitudes towards whistleblowing in the US national intelligence community, on C-SPAN (dated 15 March 2013, don’t know when the luncheon was):
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/311537-1
Free speech undermined at universities?
“The University of Chester Debating Society attempted to host an event with the MP for Bradford West, George Galloway. However, at a meeting of NUS’s national executive council last year, executive members resolved not to speak at events with George Galloway.”
[This] was apparently due to the National Union of Students’ (NUS) ‘No Platform’ policy, his appearance was barred, and this was upheld by the University of Chester Student’s Union (CSU).
“The policy is designed to protect students from potentially offensive speakers. However, in an event where the students of the society all consented to his appearance, is this policy student protection, or is it a violation of free speech and an example of bureaucratic NUS practices?”
“Evidence suggests a restriction on the right to free speech of George Galloway.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/sam-mercer/nus-no-platform-rule-george-galloway_b_2859602.html
Habbakuk: if putting 10 pence into one side of a balance, the other side of which is weighted with bricks, is an attempt at ‘balance’ then I agree with you.
On the topic of whipping up hatred and disgust at each and every politician/banker/civil servant, this is an instructive read.
Green Facism: Beppe Grillo Is the Most Dangerous Man in Europe
http://bit.ly/16AqjA3
From Bruce Schneiers Blog
“The Implausibility of Secrecy”, by Mark Fenster
Direct Link to the Paper,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2220376
Article by Bruce Schneier in the CNN, “The Internet is a surveillance state”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html
Clark,
No I don’t hate nuclear technology in all its forms. I just hate the way we have gone about it. The Thorium forward path is most certainly not a proved technology either (at least with all the claims for it) and is a distraction. That distraction seems to have elements of a psy-op to me. You’ve grabbed onto it along with an army of internet readers who have swallowed it hook, line and sinker. The general Internet “meme” being that Thorium is so much safer, cleaner, proven etc but these horrible bomb makers just wanted plutonium for bombs.
I’m hoping that we may really have some breakthroughs in fusion on the horizon with the Skunk Works claim of an “adjacent possible” 100MW reactor by 2020. That is probably just me grasping at straws though. My actual expectations are most likely for World War 3 which should do wonders for the world’s existing nuclear stations. I hope I am wrong about that.
Intelligence agency oversight? Hmm – well you could try becoming head of one I suppose. Other than that I don’t have much in the way of ideas.
On energy in general though I think we should push ahead faster with large scale wave and tidal pilots as well as instigating national infrastructure projects for storage (pumped hydro, fuel synthesis, electrical storage etc.
A worldwide HVDC grid and vast arrays collecting solar power in desert regions would be nice as well but geopolitics likely rules that out for the foreseeable future unfortunately.
The current world leadership plan appears to be to fail countries one by one and take them out of the resource equation.
But to repeat, I think most likely there is no solution to our current multiple dilemmas and we are just waiting for the chop. If someone builds a time machine maybe we could fix that.
Correction:
Link to Bruce Schneiers Blog, “Schneier on Security”
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/03/on_secrecy.html
Regarding the incitement of regime change in Libya, now Syria:
Dearlove, of “the facts are being fixed around the policy” fame, has been attending a Zionist chumfest at the UK Zionist Foundation. He says that Iran is “a state with many flaws and weakness, and a political system that is very fragile. There is a way through this crisis,” … “Iran is equivalent to a dangerous adolescent, but one does not want that adolescent to have access to certain technologies and weapons. The route the international community is on is the best and most practical.” … “I wouldn’t actually rule out significant political change in Iran. Politics in Iran is not stable.” He noted that Iranians see the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria as “the start of an attack on the viability of their own regime.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-is-dead-scared-of-israel-says-ex-mossad-chief/
So the obvious question arises: Do Libya and Syria form dry runs for the ‘ultimate prize’ – destabilization and destruction of Iran? Will the same methodology be tried? Aim for the installation of a patsy, but if that fails, the total destruction of (Libyan/Syrian/)Iranian civil society will serve just as well?
@CE
“An entirely sensible comment in the guardian;”
http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/17/syria-can-we-do-nothing-to-stop-slaughter
I couldn’t agree more – good to see a link to something that is really about truth and justice. For all those who are against foreign interference in other countries apart from remembering the obligation of all countries to support the UN Declaration on Human Rights they should also remember that if it were not for Russian interence in Syria the piece of shite that is the Assad family would have been cleared up a long time ago.
Arbed
Is that the same Thomas Drake who was able to defend himself sucessfully from a charge of whistleblowing by the US Government? Living proof that Western legal systems can sometimes be relied upon to reach the right conclusion?
@Mary
“They became ‘famous’ after spearing in the Eurovision song contest.”
One to remember the next time Mary criticises anyones spelling!
Res,
Try “anyone’s spelling”
RD And you are picking out Mary why exactly? Honestly.
@Mary: Tears
Thank you. Could see them both, watched them both.
It reminds me of the transformation scene in Brother Bear (Disney movie about young Inuit man who kills a bear in anger and is transformed by the spirits into a bear himself).
So here you have a Disney movie with a song by Phil Collins with Inuit lyrics sung by the Bulgarian Women’s Choir:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enYHe9gc-o4 – Bulgarian Women’s Choir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATrLBT9Odw – as it is in the movie (with Inuit and English lyrics in the youtube info)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKiwD7u3XMI – as sung by Phil Collins
Yes Anon – but not half as funny as Mary’s typo! Before you tell me off for using dashes – please look at the Brontes btw.
Technicolour – if you have any good jokes please feel free to share them. I’m afraid this blog is something of a humour free zone.
Res,
This blog provides free humour I agree. Just as well it isn’t a “humour-free zone”. There you go – I’m telling you off for not using “dashes”.
Have a nice day!
Hedgehogs. Why can’t they just share the hedge?
Technicolour, hello, I’ve missed you.
Anon, you’d annoy me less if you noticed that I’m not particularly interested in thorium, I’m interested in using MSRs to transmute nuclear “waste” in order to get rid of it and make oodles of electricity, synthetic fuel etc. in the same process. I think that one apparently successful prototype is several too few, and four decades is a long time to ignore an apparently promising technology.
This place is getting shit; hardly anyone engages in discussion any more, they just ignore what you write and bang on with their opinions.
CE, resident dissident, you make me sick, banging the drum for war. CE, the Guardian piece you linked to contained no evidence, just rhetoric for war. It appears to me the “We”, “the West”, are already engaged in Syria. Did you even bother to read the piece I wrote for you? Or are you as utterly contemptuous of the concerns I raise as you appear to be?
Oh, and further to our e-mail discussion, I sent you a question that I consider rather important, but you never answered it.
Tech,
I blame the hedge fund manager myself. Promised them all riches beyond dreams and a magnificent hedge in the country of their own.
Just wait until they are hit with the “spare bush tax”.
Clark,
I annoy you Clark? Interesting. Maybe the first sign of progress. We can burn-up much of the waste without using the Thorium cycle but yes U-233 reactors may have a part to play at some point. But that’s a long way off if ever.
In any case we can both sit back and watch how China gets on.
Btw, I am absolutely sure I would annoy myself of 20-30 years ago with my current opinions on civilian nuclear power. Whether I was more “gullible” then or “poisoned by cynicism” now… Bit of both I guess.
@ Technicolour :
“Habbakuk: if putting 10 pence into one side of a balance, the other side of which is weighted with bricks, is an attempt at ‘balance’ then I agree with you.”
Hi! At the risk of being taxed with always wanting the last word (I know it wasn’t you who did so), can I just say that of course you’re right. But you know that the two elements to which I drew attention weren’t meant to be exhaustive. The point was that the govt. is also capable of acting in the “right” way, a point which the Eminences seem to find difficult to acknowledge and impossible to accept.
@ John Goss on Guantanamo :
Hope your demo went well. To which treaty are you referring – the 1969 Vienna Convention or the 1903/1934 treaties? I re-read the latter two but couldn’t spot the article(s) which would underpin your point unambiguously. Perhaps you can refer precisely?
Clark
I don’t think myself, CE or Ed Vulliamy are banging the drum for war – I think we would all like to see arrangements put in place so that the abusers of human rights in places such as Iraq, Syria, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur etc.etc. never come into power in the first place and should they do so are very quickly isolated so that they never have a chance to kill, maim and torture. Now we have a war in Syria – I tend to think that it is best that we support those trying to remove a regime that has a long record of murdering and torturing its own people.
What really makes me sick is those who sit on their hands and appease the likes of Assad – back in the 1930s it was those on the true left who went and fought the fascists in Spain and were warning about the dangers of Hitler well before everyone else – don’t their sacrifices and what they believed in count for anything?
In the years since Iraq what has your side of the argument been doing in the way of suggesting improvements to international institutions so that they can deal with those who abuse Human rights (and I have no problems with putting Israel on that list) without resorting to violence and war? A lot of grandstanding but practically nothing in the way of constructive suggestions – is all I see. Where was the pressure on Russia/Iran to use their influence to make Assad go quietly? By all means sit back and appease – and then obtain some sort of vicarious pleasure of saying you told us so when the war to remove the dictator is worse than might otherwise have been the case. Just get into your head that it is because I know disgusting war and violence is that I want to see some effective method of dealing with its perpetrators at an early stage – precisely because I know if they are allowed to fester then the outcome will be even worse. Some of us actaully want international law that actually works – rather than a slogan to berate those whom you disagree with.
As I earlier pointed out:
….. sadly sometimes tribalism trumps logic and reason, and anyone on the shitlist of those in zionistan are copied onto the shitlist of those “commenting” here, too. Hence the almost comical repetition of the news headlines as “opinions and well thought out wisdom”! Isn’t it sad?
These do not come here to debate, they are here to “educate” and reinforce the message of the “two minutes hate” as per the bums rush of the “Media”, hence it is pointless to expect any other kind of conduct. Their minds are already made up, and classified as per the details of shitlist from upon high. This can be confirmed by the trends in their “contribution”.
resident dissident, 6:30 pm; OK, let’s see f you’re arguing in good faith. Point by point:
Do you mean “the rebels”? Who do you claim them to be? What do you say about the points I raised in the comment I posted to CE, here:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/of-this-i-am-proud/#comment-399569
See, I’ve already posted a wealth of stuff you could engage with, but you seem to be choosing not to.
Oh, well, absolutely nothing, of course.
Why do you make me and “my [entire] side of the argument” out to be uncaring shits?
And where are your suggestions? If you posted them I could possibly discuss them. Does it amount to any more than “arm the rebels and remove Assad”?
Why this obsession with “removing Assad”? What does that matter so long as the situation improves? Are you basically saying “it’s all just Assad’s fault”? If so, does that really make sense?
Anon, I don’t enjoy being annoyed. Why do you consider degrading my state of mind as “progress”? I’m not cheering for the nuclear industry and the status quo. I criticise the nuclear industry as a vested interest that has avoided funding research and development of technologies that could put nuclear “waste” to good use, preferring its cosy arrangement with government where the public pay to look after the mess it creates.
Seriously, why do you prefer to annoy me rather than engage with me?