Ray McGovern and the Sam Adams party have presented the Sam Adams award to Edward Snowden. I am delighted. This from Ray’s account of the event:
In brief remarks from his visitors, Snowden was reassured — first and foremost — that he need no longer be worried that nothing significant would happen as a result of his decision to risk his future by revealing documentary proof that the U.S. government was playing fast and loose with the Constitutional rights of Americans.
Even amid the government shutdown, Establishment Washington and the normally docile “mainstream media” have not been able to deflect attention from the intrusive eavesdropping that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment. Even Congress is showing signs of awaking from its torpor.
In the somnolent Senate, a few hardy souls have gone so far as to express displeasure at having been lied to by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA Director Keith Alexander — Clapper having formally apologized for telling the Senate Intelligence Committee eavesdropping-related things that were, in his words, “clearly erroneous” and Alexander having told now-discredited whoppers about the effectiveness of NSA’s intrusive and unconstitutional methods in combating terrorism.
Coleen Rowley, the first winner of the Sam Adams Award (2002), cited some little-known history to remind Snowden that he is in good company as a whistleblower — and not only because of previous Sam Adams honorees. She noted that in 1773, Benjamin Franklin leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by then-Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas Whatley, an assistant to the British Prime Minister.
The letters suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” might be necessary. The content of the letters was so damaging to the British government that Benjamin Franklin was dismissed as colonial Postmaster General and had to endure an hour-long censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.
There has been a determined attempt by government to justify the need to intercept everybody’s communications, all the time. We have, yet again, had MI5 claim there are many thousand violent Islamic terrorists running around the UK, (yet somehow not managing to kill anybody). The cry of “paedophiles” is raised, as always. I can imagine them suggesting the entire population be shot dead, and justifying it as making sure they get the paedophiles. The tabloids would go with that.
There still had not been a single credible claim by the mainstream media that any named individual has died, despite that contingency being trotted out all the time as the reason Snowden and Manning should not have revealed state crimes and abuse of power. I am hopeful that, with the internet still largely free to the dissemination of information, out next massive whistleblower is only weeks away.
…(3) ensure that only those selected institutional investors who have agreed to sell on their shares to T.N.T at a pre-agreed profit within a pre-agreed time scale are allowed to get their snouts in the trough.
Good point, ANode, and who am I to contradict it? Also, the planned dynamic of these flotations ensures that most of the “retail” shares find their way into corporate investment hands within a few days of hitting the market. Bob the Punter gets a nice little profit for contributing to the democratic look of the thing, but there is no danger of the float winding up anywhere it can’t be asset-stripped and sold on to Qatar.
Royal Mail shares sold by HMG for 330p
Trading a minute ago @ 488p.
Enough said.
Mary, there is no reason for you to set up your own blog because you already have – this one. By your grace, and yours alone, should anyone be allowed to comment here.
I want to make a suggestion. That the blog be renamed “Mary’s Blog”, so visitors are in no doubt as to who runs the show. Indeed, judging by the number of words you’ve posted here in the last 30 years, it really should be called Mary’s Blog. Tho’ it’s a pity that most of the words you posted weren’t actually yours. Not even quotation marks in humble acknowledgement.
And maybe a logo in the fashion we have come to associate with old-fashioned decency like they have on “home baked” foodstuffs – a pic of a smiling, bespectacled, grandmotherly woman holding a hot pie – or for this blog, a dying Palestinian child. No, that would be too morbid. Let’s keep the pie.
http://mymissourian.com/2010/05/20/grandmas-homemade-doughnut-recipe/
http://www.zazzle.com/vintage_grandmas_homemade_pies_gifts_print-228454800651910297
http://www.mrsmacs.com.au/
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-grandmas-homemade-cherry-pie-image27205140
” the missiles fired into Isr@el aren’t very long ”
It varies, the smallest is 800mm but it weighs 35kg (77lbs or 5.5 stone if you’ve not been metricated recently) I would suggest manhandling something that heavy in a narrow tunnel with a dirt floor (which would make using a trolley difficult) over a distance of a kilometre or whatever it was would be difficult, time consuming and exhausting. I imagine there would be easier ways for Israel to smuggle rockets across the border but then why bother at all? To anyone on the receiving end a rocket fired from just within the border is undiscernable from one fired from just the other side of it.
The point is there is no evidence the tunnel was built by the Israelis for this purpose. It’s simply that certain posters here WANT to believe it, it’s unacceptable to them that Hamas might be trying to idiscriminately kill Israeli civilians, all evil springs from the US or Israel so they MUST be responsible.
Mary
What Resident Dissident suggested was “all those who wish to make statements and comments which they do not want to be challenged and questioned upon (or not at least in a manner with which they may disagree) go and set up their own blogs where they can censor and ban responses to their own observations to their own desire (they can even leave a link as they leave)” – this comment could be applied to anyone trolls or otherwise, but it is interesting that you seem to think that the cap fits you. Everything I have seen from Resident Dissident suggests that he is more than willing to be challenged and questioned on what he says – you on the other hand ………..
“this comment could be applied to anyone trolls or otherwise, but it is interesting that you seem to think that the cap fits you.”
LOL — sharp observation.
“Everything I have seen from Resident Dissident suggests that he is more than willing to be challenged and questioned on what he says – you on the other hand ………..”
The usual Hail of Marys. Self-gratifying R E C Y C L E D – G A R B A G E , morning, noon and night.
Royal Mail shares sold by HMG for 330p
That’s what it’s worth to Bob the Punter
Trading a minute ago @ 488p.
That’s what it’s worth.
Ignore them. Let me know when they’ve gone.
This is important. During the current shutdown of services in the US, in which the NSA was not shut down and has continued spying on all the world’s citizens, a massive fracking oil spillage took place in North Dakota, which has virtually, at least until 8 October, been ignored by the media and totally ignored by the MSM. You lovers of the BBC whatever its agenda will still support its ‘unbiased’ reporting.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/10/10/20600-barrels-fracked-oil-spill-north-dakota-publicity-halted-due-government-shutdown
I banged my head when I fell out of that canoe so I had to visit the healer-woman. While I was waiting to see her I was idly leafing through the magazines and came across this ad in the cookery section.
…
“NSAGA.
Keeping My Homeland Safe and Warm.
My NSAGA “Total Control” isn’t just built to be beautiful. It’s built for modern life. It gives me fingertip functionality for great tasting intelligence.
It’s on when I need it and, for my peace of mind, it’s on when I don’t*.
It costs Americans billions to run but hey. there ain’t no such thing as a free meal, even with my NSAGA.
Cook up your intelligence with a NSAGA.
*Aside from every few days when bits melt off it and it has to be shut down while they are replaced.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304441404579119490744478398.html
…
An interview hrer with the French-Israeli activist Michel Warschawski,
http://jfjfp.com/
Kempe, I don’t know how firing missiles at Isr@el helps the Palestinians. It could be a contrived act of defiance by Hamas for appearances and morale – it certainly provides propaganda to the Isr@eli side so I can see how they would want missile attacks to continue on occasion. I suppose Hamas enjoys a boost to their popularity when Isr@el fires back too.
But I don’t buy this idea of transporting missiles being too difficult. What are soldiers for? How hard is it to push a dirt-trolley 1.7km? Tho’ if there is a better alternative, yeah, I agree. In fact, I’m inclined to think that the Isr@eli side would prefer to let Hamas import materials and fire off their own missiles. But that is much harder to manage in terms of timing. Sometimes, Isr@el needs a truce to be broken or a distraction from an embarrassing incident at a specific date and time.
So, who knows what the tunnel is for? On the face of it, it’s for transporting things or people one way or the other. Or maybe to mislead us into thinking it is.
I think we will learn a lot more over the next few weeks.
The reason why the oil spill was ignored was that until 8 October it had only been reported as being a relatively minor 750 barrels see the time line here before developing conspiracy theories
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/275741/
It’s not a conspiracy theory you twonk. It’s a fact. Mainstream media have totally ignored it. Even the link you provide is from a minor news outlet. Get a life instead of opposing everything not MSM.
Twonk yourself – the reason why it was ignored was that it had only been reported as a 750 barrel leak prior to October 8. Once it was reported as a major leak it was quickly picked up by the MSM – and if you knew anything about the MSM in the US you will know that they pick up stories from the local press such as the Grand Forks Herald using news aggregators.
What a plonker! You don’t consider 750 barrels of oil to be a problem! I’d like to see you clean it up. Where are your MSM links?
This is MSM on 7 September.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2414529/The-new-gold-rush-proves-anti-fracking-fanatics-got-wrong.html
“Have a pleasant evening and if you come up to London i’ll take you to the best coffee place there is and it’d make for a truly stimulating chat. Eggs benedict or Spaghetti al arragosta thrown in.”
Thanks, Villager. That’s nice of you.
But I don’t fly anymore. So it’d be a case of car ferry + road, and it’s a pretty long journey that way from Dublin. But we’ll see!
————————————————-
Fukushima
“A powerful typhoon was closing in on Japan on Tuesday, on a path that will take it toward the precarious Fukushima nuclear power plant.
“Typhoon Wipha, packing winds of up to 144 kilometres per hour near its centre, was in the Pacific south of Japan early on Tuesday and moving north at 20 kilometres per hour.
“It was forecast to reach an area off the Tokyo metropolitan area by early on Wednesday and later in the day would be off the coast of Fukushima where the crippled nuclear power plant sits.”
More: http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1332106/strong-typhoon-heads-japan-and-fukushima-nuclear-plant
Plonker yourself might I suggest you look at a map before dismissing the local news source – if you bother to read the timeline from the local reporter you will see why it was not considered a major spillage until 8 October – and could be dealt with by burning off the surface oil. The reality is that leakage of 750 barrels of oil is not considered a major environmental problem – perhaps you should do some research on this before making such a plonker of yourself – do you really believe that the MSM should report all oil spills of this size?
http://www.itopf.co.uk/information-services/data-and-statistics/statistics/
MSM plonker?
More than 865,200 gallons of fracked oil spills into the sea and not a word from MSM yet the plonker defends these outlets whose owners have so much investment in fracking to the hilt. Any wonder he’s considered a plonker!
Sofia, glad to see you’re back. Sorry about the head business. Have you tried vinegar and brown paper? Worked a treat for our Jack.
And of course if John Goss is really interested in oil spills rather than bashing his usual targets then he can get really outraged about this (not covered on RT of course)- which perhaps explains why Putin is so keen to get at Greenpeace
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/arctic-impacts/The-dangers-of-Arctic-oil/Black-ice–Russian-oil-spill-disaster/
“More than 865,200 gallons of fracked oil spills into the sea”
North Dakota is no where near the sea – what are you talking about. The MSM showed no hesitation in reporting the ND spill once they knew of its true siza and quite right too.
Sophia – good to see you did the right thing and saw the shamaness for your problem. It’s amazing how the old remedies work best, and that if you really believe it’s a mixture of turtle liver and a lethal local root, aspirin works so much better.
Struck by this, so to speak:
One project official described the electrical troubles—so-called arc fault failures—as “a flash of lightning inside a 2-foot box.” These failures create fiery explosions, melt metal and cause circuits to fail, the official said.
I just love US electrics. They’re so….unplanned. I’m torn between the theory that every single one of the thousands of sinister boxes in there has its own switch-mode power supply, and that every so often they all resonate with each other, causing massive current surges, and the idea that the colossal computing power in there has developed a mind of its own. Which is dangerously leftwing in its attitude to State surveillance, and says so.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=tioga+north+dakota&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x5320e404b283cc9b:0x877e97169da5a814,Tioga,+ND,+USA&gl=uk&ei=MRVdUsKoPMqN0AWY7YDYBw&sqi=2&ved=0CKsBELYD
Just in case John Goss needs a little help with his geography
John.
Thanks for your kind suggestion. I’m well recovered now. Not even a headache. I’m trying not to indulge so much now.
I have to tell you, after my recent jolijoli experiences I’d strongly advise you to “just say No” too. The fearsome 3000m Omigad falls plunge was in fact a kind of lazy slide through the fish-weir with all the Wathafeck kids hollering and splashing me. The potion did the rest.
My experience was simply an old Wathafek joke reserved for barbarians who try using humorous stereotypes and drink more than their fair share. I’m now treated with amused kindness even by the dogs.
As for letting ourselves get fracked, it seems like the party will be short and the hangover pretty severe.
http://www.postcarbon.org/article/1627120-faster-drilling-diminishing-returns-in-shale
Whenever a detractor cannot answer a question it uses diversionary tactics. Where are the MSM reports?
“The MSM showed no hesitation in reporting the ND spill once they knew of its true siza and quite right too.”
By the way Russia Today is quite good and critical in its reportage of domestic oil-spills.
http://rt.com/news/oil-spill-siberia-river-056/
And the MSM reports?
Although she is not the only guilty party on here, I have to say that Mary does post a significant number of ‘off topic’ comments that annoy me when reading the comments. I also get tired of the anti-Semitic stuff too.
Huffpost’s got it, John:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-radford/photos-harvesting-one-of_b_4097110.html
And as it seems to have been a pipeline, it could have happened anywhere, not just a fracked field.
Can’t take my own advice. “Ignore them. Let me know when they’ve gone.”
Sofia long may you enjoy your hospitality among the Wathefeck peoples. ‘Fraid you’re right about the rest of us getting fracked to death.