I have a guilty political secret. I do not detest Gordon Brown. That is such an unfashionable opinion that I don’t really expect any comments at all to agree with it. And yes, I do realise that he went along with the Iraq War and all the other horrors of the Blair era. Interestingly, I don’t remember the question of what Gordon Brown really thought about Iraq ever being discussed; he deserves condemnation for having not tried to stop it, and perhaps he was indeed an enthusiast. And I am well aware that the Private Finance Initiative is a terrible disaster, and that he oversaw creeping privatisation in the health services, and – worst of all – the introduction of tuition fees.
And yet I cannot dislike him. Probably because I just know too many people who have known him through decades, who are themselves good people, and who like him. Around Edinburgh and Fife you will find it hard to find people who actually know him who share the hatred and contempt he seems to arouse among the political and media classes of London.
As a general rule I do not like or dislike people according to their politics, but rather according to the sincerity of their political beliefs and the goodwill with which they hold them. I am sure Anders Breivik is sincere in his political beliefs, but those are lacking in goodwill. Sincerity is not enough – humanity and inclusiveness are also important.
There are one nation Tories who seem to me perfectly decent people, genuinely trying to do good. I don’t hate them because their political conclusions on the best way to do good are different to mine. Gordon Brown I put rather in the same category – I feel he was trying to do good for ordinary people, he just got it wrong.
Blair is in a whole different category again – insincere, absolutely focused on attaining personal power, and with a Messianic belief that what is good for him must be good for the World. The Guardian is publishing some emails around the Blair Brown rivalry this week. I don’t care and won’t read them. But while I see Blair as quite properly damned for eternity to the seventh pit of hell, I don’t think Brown deserves anything worse than North Queensferry.
I have been in Ghana the last 20 days living in a house with no internet connection and working (extremely hard) in an office with virtually no internet connection – not enough to load WordPress. I hope to get more chance to blog shortly.
Ben,
LADEE was announced early 2008. If they were aware of ISON then they kept it very quiet.
Ridiculous name ISON. Named after the Russian “International Scientific Optical Network” which discovered it. Okay it’s not the official name (which is C/2012 S1) but the “International Scientific Optical Network” has discovered many other objects before – including Elenin.
Strikes me if the “ISON” network had really discovered something bad then you might try to associate the name ISON with something benign if you wanted to throw people off the track of anything more dangerous the ISON network had actually discovered.
And the name Elenin “ELE Nin” – when ELE stood for Extinction Level Event in that movie. Crazy names these Russians have 🙂
Ben,
Btw, a lot of people have a hard time believing the Russian astronomer was really born “Leonid Elenin”. Maybe just the universe’s idea of a joke though!
$80 million? A bargain for sure, this LADEE.
Is your upcoming birthday still a tight sphincter? Something is in the air for October.
Are you being tongue-in-cheeky wrt Elenin? What’s his story?
@ Nevermind,
Off topic.
More on the ‘safety’ of Fukushima.
Aka ‘We’re all equal, but I wear a red ‘safety’ hat…’
‘Decide With Your Own Eyes: The Videos of the Chemical Attacks in Syria Show Tampered Scenes’
(I’ve seen clearer images elsewhere, but this is from boilingfrogs)
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/09/20/decide-with-your-own-eyes-the-videos-of-the-chemical-attacks-in-syria-show-tampered-scenes/
Daniel; Check this out. Since 1900 over 28,000 mag 8 and above quakes in Japan. The Worldwide leader in EQ.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/mag8/magnitude8_1900_date.php
The latest excuse du jour for Regional DHS exercises. MERS, Impact, now cyber-hacking.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/us/imagining-a-cyberattack-on-the-power-grid.html
Obama determined to save us all from CW. (DU and WP, not so much)
“The speech will focus on the “need for the international community to stand up to the use of chemical weapons,” Rhodes said. But that is only “one part of a broader challenge in Syria,” which also includes the “need for a political solution that removes Assad from power.”
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/un-treaties/323771-obama-to-make-case-for-quick-action-on-syria-at-un#ixzz2fTYqUqW3
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
AlcAnon; Are you Brit. or Expat? You are a cagey one.
This is how the bought and paid for corporate media reports;
Israeli Troops ‘Rough Up’ EU Diplomats
Just imagine if a “UN Inspector” had been so much as got a hold of by the arm in Syria what would the headlines be?
AlcAnon; Elenin is bad enough, but LEOnid? Since ISON is in the constellation LEO. it makes for great copy and headlines for those who see signs.
I don’t know if I can handle all the synchronicity.
‘Turns out, there was, indeed, a plan for one world government uniting Europe & USA’
http://www.maxkeiser.com/2013/09/turns-out-there-was-indeed-a-plan-for-one-world-government-uniting-europe-usa/
which links to
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/elites_strange_plot_to_take_over_the_world/
Rhodes. That’s what’s great about hiring some washout from a shitty creative-writing program. He’s a blank slate: utterly ignorant about international law and trained to make shit up. US democracy is such a joke that even the power behind the throne is an empty suit.
@ BrianFujisan,
Off topic: sometimes you give someone a piece of rope and they create beautiful decorations that enhance the overall living experience of one’s home; others just hang themselves.
In a 2006 speech at Chatham House Gordon Brown chaired a meeting called, ‘Meeting the Terrorist challenge where he outlined the governments Counter-Terrorism Strategy following the London bombings. In that speech he outlined the dangers of radicalisation solely from contact with the Internet.
GB said, “..we have to argue not just against terrorism and terrorists but also against the violent perversion of a peaceful religious faith. And we have to recognise that the very existence of the internet and the exchange of ideas across it means that it is not only right now but necessary to engage these ideas openly and win the global battle for hearts and minds.”
The result of a better connected society increases our ability to exchange knowledge and ideas. It is that connectivity that enables political activists, researchers and citizen journalists to expose a myriad of distorted facts, contortions, lies, propaganda, concealment and deception by government and other in power.
It is precisely that web structure and mental hook-up, perceived as an artery of truth, that aroused the UK corporate ‘Establishment’ to groupthink the consequences and the importance of an emerging shift of public consciousness.
That buzz session took place at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in an open discussion in December 2012 presented by Billy 14 pints and in subsequent ‘closed’ sessions held under ‘Chatcham House Rules’ or secrecy.
Simply by ‘over-egging’ cybercrime statistics (Hansard:Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)) this government justified and then introduced the National Cyber Security Programme:
https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/keeping-the-uk-safe-in-cyberspace
to be followed by a cyber awareness school program in 2013-2014-on shrewdly named ‘The Cyber Security Challenge UK.’
http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/analysis/2292462/how-the-government-intends-to-close-the-cyber-security-skills-gap/page/2
The Chatcham House ‘think-tank’ is an invited members only institution that sprouted from a cabal of Oxford elites and now funded by partners, patrons and corporate members that read like a Who’s Who of the Fortune 500, including Tesco, BP, Vodaphone, BT, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, the European Commission, and dozens of other corporations, institutions and foreign governments.
H-o-l-y shit. One low voltage switch away from disaster.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-carolina-1961
“Not sure that’s what Jonestown proves”
It doesn’t prove anything, but it shows you can get people to do anything once they accept a form of religion, i.e. a faith based belief system – whatever you may think about the socialist, anti-religous and pro-USSR angle the cult was set up as a religion, Jones was already a seasoned and well connected US political operator when he set up his cult, he knew every political trick in the book and knew that a ‘religous’ set-up would attract less independent minded followers who would be mostly unquestioning.
Jones was insane and addicted to drugs but when he created the false-flag sniper attacks upon Jonestown he knew what he was doing, he understood the mentality of the crowd. Once he created a non-existant existential threat (by claiming the CIA had the place surrounded and were planning to kill everyone insde in the most horrible fashion) he then offered them a way out by ‘revolutionary suicide’, which he said would be far less painful than the humiliation, torture and death that awaited them at the hands of the CIA.
To me this appears a microcosm of how societies are run in the West and how they get people killing each other and accepting mass deaths in global war based on the idea that there could be something even worse out there. Jones was running ‘both sides’ in his fantasy world in much the same way that the trans-national banker folks do when funding both sides in a major war.
Astute Dreoilin – important NWO links…
Fedup , Alcanon, Ben
i had to pop out awhile. Airport Run.
Fedup,
just imagine if a “UN Inspector” had been so much as got a hold of by the arm in Syria what would the headlines be?
Exactly…And thanks for response Re Libya, i’ll never froget how that satanic bitch said that with smile – after the way Gaddafi was so sickeningly murdered.
This is a video of the crazed Dictator driving through Tripoli exposed from the waste up, many amazing facts in there too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XorKTwkFPDU
Alcanon.
yes the voyager’s are nuclear powered, But the way they they solved the Scan Platform Fail was quite something, i go back to the chapter in Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot ( The Triumph of Voyager ) every now n then, amazing stuff,
Deffo Strange Timing Methinks for Deep Impact Shutdown / fail ?
“ISON is not a threat to the Earth proclaims Russian scientist Yural Goeyntodiekov.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/world/you-are-all-going-to-die-kov.html
Ben
Shit, Didn’t know about that one.
there has been a few other times we almost became a Non Communicating Civilization As it were.
Have you heard of Stanislav Petrove, he sure saved our bacon, and was subsequently Demoted, i’ve got a facebook page dedicated to him.
Cheers for that info.
Ben,
I’m British/Scottish and not an ex-pat.
No new tracking updates on my birthday surprise. Still officially “lost in space” and still officially has a non-zero possibility of hitting earth soon.
I’ve been called a lot worse than cagey 🙂
Btw, the USAF nearly blew up the UK as well once.
http://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-broken-arrow-nuclear-accidents-2013-5
– Date: February 28, 1958
Location: Great Britain
A B-47 based at the U.S. air base at Greenham Common, England, reportedly loaded with a nuclear weapon, caught fire and completely burned. In 1960, signs of high-level radioactive contamination were detected around the base by a group of scientists working at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE). The U.S. government has never confirmed whether the accident involved a nuclear warhead.
Oh as Jonestown has come up – anyone who comments on Jonestown without listening to the “Death tape” hasn’t clue. And if you listen to that tape and still believe the official story well listen closer…
Happy birthday there Alcanon. have a gud one..i hear its to be clear skies sunday, Aurora chance in the making too. hope so
Off to bed .
Good night
“Atos, KPMG and the NHS. Be afraid. Be very afraid”
http://dpac.uk.net/2013/09/atos-kpmg-and-the-nhs-be-afraid-be-very-afraid/#comment-20363
“Salmond’s £1.7 million bung to KPMG is a kick in the teeth for taxpayers”
http://www.ianfraser.org/scottish-governments-1-7-million-bung-to-kpmg-beggars-belief/
Did I say that Jon, in his role as moderator, was not fit for purpose?
Sorry, but I do not recall making this personal attack.
Ben, Brian,
Oh a little bit more intrigue. The only professional astronomer I can find who has ever mentioned in public the possibility this might hit earth turn out to be one of the very few scientists who should have got the close approach data in 2007 from their own telescopes – but apparently failed to do so. That’s weird. He never mentioned that the reason they couldn’t rule out an earth hit completely was apparently due to his institution’s failures (and others).
It continues to puzzle me.
Totally off topic, I just discovered my Android Phone now3 can translate/understand spoken Latin. Thanks to Google.
I am not making this up.
Magnificat anima mea dominum
Ben the BBC have it too and were reporting it on the World Service overnight.
The mad men. Just a few years after their Nagasaki and Hiroshima holocausts too.
21 September 2013 Last updated at 07:34
US plane in 1961 ‘nuclear bomb near-miss’
Eric Schlosser: ‘We nearly had a hydrogen bomb detonate a few days after JFK’s inauguration’
Schloser: ‘Close to disaster’ Watch
A four-megaton nuclear bomb was one switch away from exploding over the US in 1961, a newly declassified US document confirms.
Two bombs were on board a B-52 plane that went into an uncontrolled spin over North Carolina – both bombs fell and one began the detonation process.
The document was first published in the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
The US government has acknowledged the accident before, but never made public how close the bomb came to detonating.
The document was obtained by journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879
Schlosser’s book Command and Control (video)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183541
Out of the same funny farm as Blunkett’s tanks at Heathrow.
‘I’ll put troops on the streets’: Gordon Brown’s spin doctor reveals just how close to anarchy Britain came when the banks crashed
Brown’s former spin doctor Damian McBride reveals what happened behind closed doors
Speaks of Brown’s despair at being unable to solve banking crisis
Tells of daily sniping between camps of Blair v Brown
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2427617/Ill-troops-streets-Gordon-Browns-spin-doctor-reveals-just-close-anarchy-Britain-came-banks-crashed.html
Ditto John Reid 9 August 2006,
Terror ‘may force freedom curbs’
John Reid addressing think tank Demos
The UK might have to modify its freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their “misuse and abuse” by terrorists, John Reid has said.
He conceded that was never an easy request, but it was up to everyone to ask: “What price our security, at what cost can we preserve our freedoms?”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5257518.stm