The Respectability of Torture
St Mary’s University College, Thurs 1st August, 7.30pm
Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, was a whistleblower who was removed from his ambassadorial post by Tony Blair for exposing the Tashkent regime‟s use of rape and systematic torture, including the boiling to death of political opponents. He has also spoken out against Central Asia‟s appalling dictatorships, regimes which are allies of the West, involved in torture and rendition, and was accused of threatening MI6‟s relationship with the CIA. Now a human rights activist, author and broadcaster, he outlines the dynamics of torture and the hypocrisy of incriminated Western governments.
My first public appearance for a while will be in Belfast on 1 August where I shall be giving a talk. Long term readers of this blog will recall that, while my focus is largely on international affairs, the domestic political achievements I most hope to see are a united Ireland and an independent Scotland.
Balcombe lies in Francis Maude’s constituency.
Maude appointed Lord Browne to a cabinet post.
http://gasdrillinginbalcombe.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/balcombe-mp-appointed-cuadrilla-director-to-government/
Thanks Phil, that’s more than pocket money then. Mind you, NGO’s such as Greenpeace make millions, its peanuts to them.
I think the one that is required has six to eight rotors, takes the weight of a Hollywood spec. camera, up to 5 kilos load so I believe.
Enough to have it carry some confetti, so every time someone gets manhandled, bashed or pushed over, collateral damage, shot on the tube, one could release some red confetti in appreciation of our civil servants….
These things can fly anywhere and quiet high, like take a cage shot of the London Eye visitors from close up. Or join someone close by on his walk over the foot bridge, so many possibilities…
‘As it happens TV’ could have an extra live page here, were news is made. It would preclude to having a more business like blog/site that pays a wage or two, maybe take some NGO’ ads, nothing too corporate, so one could allow the drone and its operator to travel.
@Nevermind
Drones dropping confetti on out of control coppers is a genius idea full of symbolism.
Occupy discussed using drones but I have not seen that they did. I suspect the actual value is limited and any attempt would be quickly jammed by the rozzers.
There has been a clip of a drone filming police movements from poland online for a while. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOxh9dbkNT4
Jon, some reasonable points but hating a country and, by implication, its people is not reasonable. It suggests a domination of emotion over reason. We see enough of that in the world and on this blog.
Mary, you can wish upon a star for any name you like. I wish to be addressed as Prince Gerhardt IV.
Don’t be surprised to see private drones banned outside of designated areas for hobbyists in the next ten years.
Aug 5: Seal Team 76, led by Kathryn Bigelow and camera crew, burst into Yemeni conference room at enemy hovel, where lecturer is translating Snowden’s filched 2007/2009 Power Point presentations into Arabic.
One member is taking notes. 54 are snoring, as is customary at any Power Point presentation. One dastard is discovered in mens room, writing his last testament/manifesto on wall with ballpoint pen.
Aug 6: With a fiendish worldwide plot foiled, just before The Enemy learned how NSA really worked and ceased their endless chatter about this, that, and the other thing, President Obama triumphantly appears on NBC-TV’s Jay Leno comedy show, greeted with thunderous applause and 17 minutes of chanting, “USA, USA, USA!”
Aug 7: Congress votes unanimously to quadruple funding of spy machinery.
But worth a try Phil, worth a try, jamming the frequency would be an own goal and endangering the public, the police could not be seen jamming a 20 kg device and sending it trundling down in to a mass of people, they could not defend such action in court when they knew it carries a camera and confetti.
‘We are very sorry, your honour, we did see the live pictures on their website, but we did not like the poppy red colour of the confetti and so we jammed it and it fell from great hight on to that pushchair with a two year old, unfortunate collateral damage, sir , as I’ve said, we are so very sorry….
sounds of slapping wrists…
Jemand, how can you ban something that is unregulated by law? Are you drafting it?
@ Jemand :
“I wish to be addressed as Prince Gerhardt IV.”
_____________
Your wish is my command, Sir (sorry : Sire!)!
I’ve tried to find you in the Almanach de Gotha but without success; could you give some geographical indications which will help me trace your lineage, pls?
My guess at this stage would be the House of Groessenwahn-Nix-Bessereszutun… 🙂
“Uzbekistan’s cotton is the subject of an international boycott over alleged child labour.”
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/12/05/how-the-bureau-investigated-bell-pottinger/
“High street banks have lent to payday loan companies.”
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/06/13/the-money-pouring-into-a-boom-for-consumer-loans/
The honours system is, as most people here would agree I’m sure, a corrupt elitist abomination where decent hard working people get a few scraps (CBEs, OBEs, MBEs, BEMs, etc.) and the elite get the far more “influential” honours of Knighthoods/Dames and Peerages for services to “the state”.
Peerage being the honour that allows a person to sit in the House of Lords in a political capacity without being elected.
There are some decent people “elevated” to the Lords on a token basis to make the system look fair in some way; Doreen Lawrence being a good example.
People get honours for achievements like:
“…improving life for people less able to help themselves.”
So no honours for Ian Duncan Smith or George Osborne then?
Here is an accurate reflection on what has happened, and is happening, in the Middle East and North Africa, from Russian Prime Minister Medvedov.
http://ruvr.co.uk/2013_08_04/Medvedev-slams-Wests-Middle-East-policies-Syria-Iraq-Libya/
““If we’re being completely honest, what good did the Arab Spring bring to the Arab world? Did it bring freedom? A little, at best. In most countries it led to endless bloodshed, regime change, and continuous unrest.”
This seems to be directed at Wikileaks, as well John. Tunisia’s awakening was a direct result. I hope this is not a harbinger of things to come for Snowden.
The Arab Spring is not Irish Spring with a 4-leaf clover scent. Any People struggling with oppression, revolution revert to political and social evolution. It may be glacial in it’s progress, but instant transformation should not be a required hurdle in order to qualify.
Suhayl
“What a stinking rotten country I was born into. No wonder I hate it now.” Flaming June.
The UK is certainly a deeply imperialist entity and so entities like Hakluyt are nothing new. I think you’ll find, however, that most countries engage in such covert arms-dealing operations; we are simply one of the biggest arms-manufacturers/dealers in the world.To feel down about, and to oppose, certain aspects/power-structures/policies is one thing. But to hate the country in its entirety suggests something different.”
Jon adds:
” @Jemand,
I should think “hating one’s country”, if this dynamic can be reduced to that, is a common enough dilemma amongst leftists. We should not trivialise it, and we should instead strive to understand it, and be understanding of the people who it affects – as Suhayl does above.”
First Jon, ” if this dynamic can be reduced to that, is a common enough dilemma amongst leftists.”
True, IF it can be reduced to that…well, Mary in her original comment was quite emphatic and so did with full intention reduce it to that. It follows i disagree that it “is a common enough dilemma amongst leftists.” Are you sure about that Jon? I mean there could be some strong dislikes, even abhorrence of certain policies or the way of politics, but “hate” is surely another phenomenon isn’t it? Btw to say “we should instead strive to understand it, and be understanding of the people who it affects – as Suhayl does above.”, is a stretch too far. Suhayl was saying nothing to that effect. What he was saying is “To feel down about, and to oppose, certain aspects/power-structures/policies is one thing. But to hate the country in its entirety suggests something different.”
Yes to “hate the country in its entirety suggests something different.” Lets be clear this is what the original post by Mary said and it is an entirely different suggestion.
Why do people here feel the need to whitewash Mary’s feelings of hate? Why is it minimised and sugar coated by others with intellectual dishonesty. Mary intrigues me no end when she paints all S Koreans with the same brush of (unproven alleged) incompetence of their Boeing 777 pilots or petitions God on this website to Damn (yes again, the whole of Amerika). Even suggesting that there’s something fraudulent happening at the humble Krishnamurti Foundation — cheap pathetic plain envious/jealous shot like there’s “gold in them thar Krishnamurti hills”. How uninformed and sick is that?
Why doesn’t Mary come forward with explanations of and on her own. Take time our from her sellf-centred news service activity and take responsibility and retract or apologise — use the magic word ‘sorry’ if necessary? Until she moves away from her glossing over sweeping generalisations and stubbornness, i will see her fragmented posts for what they are — just another escape artist and fragmented lefty riding her one-trick pony of charging towards the windmills of Palestine who is not going to make one gitmo of a difference to the true injustices and conflict in this world. I invite Mary to respond directly.
Reflection of the day: Living in an Insane World
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=170&chid=4526&w=hate
Here’s a good article on browser support for Perfect Forward Secrecy/Diffie-Hellman key exchange and PRISM/Xkeyscore/Whateverleaksnext
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2013/06/25/ssl-intercepted-today-decrypted-tomorrow.html
Note that Internet Exploder virtually never uses PFS even when connecting to a website which supports a compatible variant. The article doesn’t mention this but it is possible to force Exploder to use diffie-hellman more often but the information on how to do so is buried in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.” **
** Well really an obscure hard to use mis-feature buried way down in gpedit.msc
Firefox 23 Out this week beefs up security even further by finally supporting TLS 1.1
Firefox 24 adds TLS 1.2
The Snowden leaks seem to be accelerating PFS and TLS security upgrades on both the server and client ends. Notably not from some such as Microsoft though.
This is a good one as well
http://blogs.computerworld.com/encryption/22366/can-nsa-see-through-encrypted-web-pages-maybe-so
‘momentum that even critics say may be unstoppable’?
400 people protesting NSA domestic spying – out of a population of over 300 million – is rather depressing
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/04/national-day-protest-nsa-spying
Jemand – Censorship Improves History 4 Aug, 2013 – 7:20 pm
2 years, tops.
With Regards the Propaganda Criminals of the bbc Here’s a Youtube video
Syrian man confronts BBC reporter for Lying
Lyse Doucet. She is a major player in Chatham House which is a British NGO that is a propaganda tool of the British Establishment. Chatham House is also known as the “Tavistock Institute”, the UK branch of the CFR. She has been behind directing most of the ‘Arab spring’ coverage from Libya to Egypt. When she claims to know nothing about the lies told previously she is dishonest. She is not only a purveyor of the lies but she is an architect of the entire edifice of lies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTX4-wNPIps
Honeyclap
For once you come in second-annoying with ‘Muzzies’. The ‘most offensive’ prize goes to the BBC’s references to ‘Moslems’, a colonial pejorative pronunciation. Please try harder to be more annoying next time. It’s nearly Eid.
BrianFujisan. 100 % agreed:
“She is not only a purveyor of the lies but she is an architect of the entire edifice of lies.”
How about ‘Mohametans’ Guano? Does that send your guano batty?
“Syrian man confronts BBC reporter for Lying”
What’s he saying? “Everyone supports the president” and you accuse the BBC of lying?
Chatham House and the Tavistock Institute are not one and the same.
Jemand,
Your contributions here over a certain time remind me of a sad plastic piece of plastic who really ought know better,but is prepared to pimp their limited skills out to the highest agendised plastic bidder.
Go away you shallow bought and paid for confused AND pretentious semi-literate droid until you’ve got something really truthful to speak of.
Taking your shill buddy-boy gang stalkers would be a bonus too.
But i shan’t hold my breath.
The rest of us don’t get paid to be here.
Habbabkuk, “Sire” is an acceptable alternative, thank you for acknowledging my right to be addressed in my preferred way. Of course, being of royal blood, it it my prerogative to not acknowledge the rights of anyone else who wishes to be addressed in any way other than that which I prefer. Hence Flaming Mary et al., will be addressed accordingly.
As to my royal lineage and tragic heritage that saw my family dispossessed of its perfectly legitimate and legally obtained wealth and provincial property during the Crimean War in the 19th century, I am surprised that you have not yet discovered on the many, many, many hundreds of websites that comprise the internet, that my story is not told there, but rather on about a half dozen websites that discuss free energy appliances and cancer industry conspiracies. Please click past the first two levels of UFO revelations to find my family history.
Briefly, my family had a province around the area now known as Hutt River, in Australia’s equivalent of Switzerland. During the Crimean War, forces loyal to the bad side in that war took unlawful possession of our territories for reasons that are too painful for me to recall and I never studied European history because it was boring so I don’t know in any case.
Anyway, the province was never returned to our rightful possession but now resides in the hands of a pretender to the throne, a “Prince” Leonard, fraud and knave.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River
[Dedicated to “sad plastic piece of plastic” and paragon of British intellect, Jives]
Re Drones
As brilliant as these flying devices are, they represent a key piece of technology that logically advances the implementation of the Machine State, which extends the reach of totalitarian and authoritarian government. It should be again emphasised that the rise of a totalitarian Machine State does not need to be planned in an “intentionalist” process, but will form as a “functionalist” product of independent government efforts to reduce costs and improve management of various ‘problems’. When key pieces of infrastructure are in place, it requires very little effort to connect them all and, in doing so, realise a massive performance gain in surveillance and control of people. All you then need is for good people to do nothing.
From Jives, in the wee hours :
“Jemand,
Your contributions here over a certain time remind me of a sad plastic piece of plastic who (SIC) really ought know better,but is prepared to pimp their (SIC)limited skills out to the highest agendised (SIC) plastic bidder.
Go away you shallow (SIC – comma needed)bought and paid for (SIC – comma needed) confused AND pretentious semi-literate droid until you’ve got something really truthful to speak of.
Taking your shill buddy-boy gang stalkers would be a bonus too.
But i shan’t hold my breath. (PLEASE DO – PREFERABLY FOR 10 MINUTES..)
The rest of us don’t get paid to be here (SIC – missing full stop).
Keep up the good work, Jivesy
@ Jemand
Sire, thank you for your fascinating response!
By a remarkable coincidence, I read just a couple of days ago of the demise of “Princess” Shirley Casey (Obituaries section of the London “Times” dated 1 August 2013).
That obituary started with “In 1970 Shirley Casey, a West Australian farmer’s wife, was transformed into Her Royal Highness Princess Shirley Casey of Hutt when her husband Leonard declared that their vast wheat farm 600 km north of Perth had become a principality and he its prince”, and ended with “She is survived by her husband and their children: Crown Prince Ian; Wayne, Duke of Nain; Richard, Duke of Carmel; Graeme, Duke of Galboa; and Duchesses Kay, Diane and Sherryl.”.
There was, however, no mention of your good self (Prince Gerhardt IV.
Is this yet another example of how the MSM habitually suppress historical fact in the interests of large corporations, the wicked Con-LibDem govt, thus serving, albeit indirectly, the interests of the Zionist master plan?
I think we should be told.
Am I alone in detecting an increasing “chosen” hubris emanating from habba & co towards us goyim – punctuation mark deficiencies n all? Must be a harbinger of an upcoming usual millennial slimming course,proven time and again to clear out the effects of the expired kedem causing such delusion, gotta catch up on some “prepping” reading then !
It’s rather amusing to observe the international trade in election gurus. Rudd, with an election in a month’s time, has called on the services of an Obama campaign expert called Tom McMahon. He has also procured a Matthew McGregor from the UK who is a social media expert and a Joon Kim from a US consulting firm New Partners.
Rudd flies in Team Obama
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/rudd-flies-in-team-obama-20130730-2qxet.html
Cameron already has signed the Australian Lynton Crosby and last week we heard he had employed a Jim Messina from the US to advise on ‘strategic communications’.
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-08-03/obama-election-guru-to-have-no-input-on-tory-policy/
Whether in Australia or the UK be prepared for an onslaught of TV ads, poster campaigns and spin.