I had excellent news from my cardiologist yesterday. Ready to think about other things now. I am horrified by the continuing stream of ” royal” baby hype on television. Truly pathetic – is this 1313 or 2013? Who buys into this nonsense?
I thought the Lib Dem take on Trident missiles was hilarious. This small group of islands does apparently need to retain the ability to wipe out one third of the urban population of humankind, as a defence against something undefined – possibly people we invade getting too annoyed about it – and in order to increase our “influence” in the World. As we plainly have less influence than the Germans, who don’t feel this need for the power of obliteration, I do not quite see how this works. Nor do I see Pakistan, which does have nuclear weapons, as very influential. Nor do I quite understand how our influence can be increased by possessing something under effective American control. But there you are.
Anyway, the Lib Dems have come to the intellectually scintillating conclusion that we do need this world shattering power, but we don’t need it on Wednesday or Thursday afternoons or on Saturday mornings, which will be cheaper. Brilliant, and plainly does not dodge any big ethical or practical questions at all.
Point taken, Suhayl, but nobody is attacking “Mary” the person. “Mary” could be one of a million different people, perhaps more. If “Mary” finds herself defeated, bullied, humiliated, whatever, it is only her online persona that has suffered (I would hope that she has a life beyond this blog). If any of us met Mary the person then it is quite probable we would get on just fine, and perhaps even share a few nature notes.
Mary is seen by some of us as exemplifying the very worst and least thought out of Murrayista contributions, and therefore is roundly, and rightly, taken to task by anti-Murrayista activists. Needless to say, Mary isn’t all innocence, and isn’t beyond a little viciousness herself!
And if we are to be frank, your support is a little patronizing in itself, Suhayl.
[Jon/Mod: snipped sexist attack on another contributor]
‘The system knows no limits’: so US will explode, says Pulitzer-winning veteran of foreign uprisings Chris Hedges: http://is.gd/MAvKoa
Massive police corruption: UK’s ‘FBI’ puts commercial concerns ahead of its responsibility to uphold the law: http://is.gd/oCj2AS
“I wouldn’t be fooled by Putin’s release of Navalny for his appeal – this is just part of the game that Putin is playing – although perhaps he is just a little concerned by the sponataneous demonstration of a reported 10,000 brave Russians last night in Moscow and the impact that this might have on the Moscow mayoral elections.”
It could just be Putin’s game, but need i remind you of the state of US democracy when first instituted?
When I hear these terrible stories about atrocities in connection with the Arab Spring and attempts to create some institutions to effect civil rights through a Constitution, I think of the US.
Thanks for responding RD.
Couldn’t the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo rescind the medals and cash money awarded to President Obama, Dr. Kissinger and two other unworthies (there must be at least two others — Al Gore comes to my mind for one revocation) and re-award them to Manning, Snowden, Assange, and, yes, Navalny.
There’s precedent. Sports people do it all the time, most recently with Lance Armstrong, and the US Congress likes nothing better than bipartisanaly wasting months investigating a sports doping scandal and denying some schlub his place in the records and whatever Hall of Fame.
No, Jon, that was not a “sexist attack”. It was a parody of Suhayl’s slightly sexist attitude towards Mary, as you well know! Men, port, next door, geddit?
@ Jon/Mod
“My personal view (if it is of any interest) is that folks here (e.g. Herbie) are reticent to engage with you fully because they aren’t sure you’re here in good faith. If you can lay off the snark a bit (Buy Shekels, Holiday In Israel etc) you might get some more engagement.”
____________
Certainly your views are of interest….in more ways than one.
But seriously : I think you have misdiagnosed certain commenters’ “reticence”. It’s fairly plain to see – and of course entirely human – that commenters who deliberately or inadvertently put out false or misleading information will not wish to “engage” with someone like myself who has corrected (or exposed) them for the edification of the greater reading public. The entirely human reaction in such a case is to ignore the correction, to “reply” by shifting the focus of the “discussion” or to resort to insult and/or innuendo. The above ways of coping are also deployed when I’m obliged to issue a rebuke in response to the sheer silliness, irrelevancy or mean-spiritness of certain posts. I very much doubt that it has anything to do with my perceived good or bad faith, although I’ll admit that chucking accusations of bad faith around is a convenient way of dealing with an inconvenient comment from me.
Actually. I think there would be a natural tendency to rally round a contributor regardless of their gender (or perceived gender) if the perception was that they were being singled out for sustained attack. Also, I don’t think it’s just the male contributors here who might rally round a bit.
For example, when in the past (pre-moderation), a gang of organised, longstanding trolls were focussing on me, there was support from the regulars, both female and male, which I do appreciate. This is not the same type of situation, I hasten to add, as pertains now, not at all.
So, while I may well have been being a little patronising – not intended, but I accept how it might be construed that way – I don’t think there was anything sexist in my suggestion.
Anyway, I take your points, too, Anon. Thanks.
Clearly this place would be better without Jon’s heavy-handed moderation, which always seems to fall on the one side, but not the other, apart from a few throwaway moderations directed at Hasbarista and Fedup to give the impression of even-handedness. Jon seems to enjoy his job a little too much for someone it is often claimed receives a lot of flak for nothing in return. It may be the case that Jon get’s a kick out of manipulating discourse here in lieu of having gained any real political influence in this country.
Yes, but you’ve avoided the points, Suhayl!
“Clearly this place would be better without Jon’s heavy-handed moderation”
Actually this place would be better if it looked outwards at the problems of the world not inwards at itself.
If you can find a better hole go crawl into it and if not stop whinging.
“Yes, but you’ve avoided the points, Suhayl!” Anon.
No, I’ve accepted your points. I still may not agree with your approach, but I see where you’re coming from and understand your rationale. That is what, “I take your point,” means.
“Actually this place would be better if it looked outwards at the problems of the world not inwards at itself.”
THAT’s the ticket !
For those here who like to follow developments in the Swedish investigation of allegations against Julian Assange, there’s been some interesting stuff coming out recently. Updates here:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-8/#comment-419221
and following posts.
Many years too late for him but finally Alan Turing is to receive a posthumous pardon.
http://drawger.com/gdubois/images/1377484559.jpg
His crime. For being homosexual in 1952, then convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to chemical castration.
Enigma codebreaker Alan Turing to be given posthumous pardon
Government indicates support for backbench bill to pardon mathematician who took his own life after indecency case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/jul/19/enigma-codebreaker-alan-turing-posthumous-pardon
Seconded!
Extending the occupied territories, the cyber settlers take over the blog, expecting privileged status, to boot. $2000 buys lots of beer in the heat of the summer recess.
Arbed; You are a pitbull with lockjaw. Don’t let it go….
It’s not the equal of Terrell/Gaye original, but it’s close, villager.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keTzmE_Qjbw
Grownups!
Can’t I leave for five minutes (Ok, Ok fourteen hours then) without all you feckers running amok and turning the whole place upside down?
Another glorious long, hot, sweaty day picking blackcurrants and giving blood to the doctors (aka, horseflys, clegs, clags, deer flies, gadflies, or zimbs, depending on where you grew up).
It was while I was performing the clag-dance that I had one of those Eurika! moments and suddenly, in a single blinding flash, had the impossible enigma of Habbakonian Mathematics revealed to me.
Remember all that business last week, about two and a half million US soldiers transiting through the airport of a “neutral” country. The claim bothered Dad who insisted that a number like that wasn’t really “millions.” and I cruelly teased him about it.
Well, as I flailed, and the blackcurrants flew around in the still, hot air, it dawned on me that if a single horsefly is a crowd, which it just is, then why wouldn’t two and a half million US soldiers thru Shannon be like just a big singular million? ….And it all fell into place!
I can’t wait to find Kibo and explain it to her. She’ll be running back into those tunnels, of MBL-fibrations from Stein manifolds, in a flash!
Oh. And just to show that I can be as consistently dogged on the theme of Nabka as any other card carrying Murrayista, here’s a piece for the Hasbara legions. What do you think of that lads?
Flaming June
19 Jul, 2013 – 8:59 pm – Thanks Mary.
The Chilcot Inquiry started as veneer and will end as concealment. The important documents reveal the written communication and phone conversations between Blair and US president George Bush, in 2002 and in the days before the Iraq war began in March 2003.
A high ranking military source is of the opinion, even from limited access to the Iraq war planning stages, that Prime Minister Blair had knowledge of a strike on Iraq some two years before the ‘Shock & Awe’ massacre of Iraqi families in 2003, a genocide more terrifying, more hideous than the Nazi Fire Bomb Blitz on East London dockyards 7 September 1940.
PM Blair eased his mind, while Mrs Blair QC was President of Dr Barnardo, by insisting on a second Security Council resolution, knowing that Britain’s top lawyers knew SCR’s 660, 678, and later inspections of Iraqi weapons programs SCR 1441, provided no legal contract for war.
This Blair/Bush communication revealed to The Rt. Hon. Sir John Chilcot, GCB, PC, will be sealed for 70 years.
Our great grandchildren will therefore know the ‘posthumous’ truth… unless?
A new euphemism is born!.
“We will no longer be pursuing approvals for new biotech crops cultivation of in Europe. Instead, we will focus on enabling imports of biotech crops into the EU and the growth of our current business there,” Monsanto
Welcome (not really) to little “New Biotech Crops”. Your brothers and sisters Colateral Damage, Nuclear Deterrent, Sellafield and Defense Industry, and your swarm of cousins, will be so proud.
Sofia’s link can be found here
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7t89yG3NCBNeHpfMTVfel9iR00/edit?pli=1
Thanks Fedup.
Something’s a bit scrambled tonight. Maybe it’s me. I never could handle heat over 26c.
Dudley Moore’s Beethoven Colonel Bogey Sonata is my all time favourite five-minute-feel-good clip. How could a person not be cheered up by his pure good-natured comedic and musical genius?
But my last two links were intended to be:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Israel%3a+A+tale+of+two+narratives.-a0216666607
and
http://rt.com/news/monsanto-europe-gmo-food-309/
I’m off to bed. Goodnight all.
An all-time first! Techno super-hack Duncan Campbell was put on trial at the Old Bailey in 1978 for revealing the mere existence of GCHQ; (now) QC Geoff Robertson (successfully) defended him. Here they both are at Chatham House on Wednesday evening raking over GCHQ’s latest lies & deceit with its former boss, Sir David Oman: http://is.gd/j1L5L1
GCHQ&A: http://is.gd/NuNxW6
Aforementioned Duncan Campbell’s new website. Highly recommended:
http://www.duncancampbell.org/
And calling all champions of liberty. More signatories needed:
http://stoptempora.com
It is left up to these reasonable parents to initiate court action to get at the truth why their son died in 2010 following a prolonged restraint involving 11 police officers.
The IPCC say that a new investigation is needed but the Met say that that would be unlawful.
This has been a denial of justice.
Seni Lewis death: IPCC taken to court over report
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23386934
‘Seni, a 23-year-old IT graduate from Kingston University, died after being taken to hospital when his behaviour became uncharacteristically odd and agitated.
He was restrained three times – first by hospital staff and then by 11 police officers – for 45 minutes before his collapse.
He never regained consciousness and died three days later.
The IPCC ruled in its original report, before it had full access to all the evidence, that no police officer was at fault.
It now says a criminal act may have happened and has told the family to take legal action so that it can reinvestigate.’
What is going on in this country?
Shall we call him King Charles the Meddler when he accedes to the throne? His earlier correspondence with various ministers has been kept secret by order of the Attorney General but now he is lobbying the Secretary of State for Health.
I said I had spotted Hunt’s audience with hin reported in the court circular. Has he found a like mind in Jeremy?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2370754/Charles-NHS-homeopathy-row-Prince-holds-secret-meeting-Health-Secretary-lobby-treatment-denounced-doctors-witchcraft.html
PS. Has anyone seen Poundbury? More of his Duchy of Cornwall stuff. It is an excrescence on the face of Dorset on the outskirts of Dorchester, seen on the skyline as you drive on the A35 which bypasses it. A mix of Toytown, Legoland and Stepford. You feel nobody lives in this artificial ‘village’ if you visit.