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566 thoughts on “A Good Idea

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  • nevermind

    First it was a virtual attraction of Mary that turned into vicious stalking, then the ‘too posh to talk proper’ came for John Goss who’s been frequenting this blog far longer than socket, soon it will be that German immigrant who gets to feel his jackboot.
    where will this all end?

    Thanks for the good news on Sasha Billy, he received as much violence as he was prepared to use on others.

  • Herbie

    Meanwhile, Argentina, despite voting against Russia at UNSC on the Crimea issue, is back again all mates with Russia:

    “Russia’s Vladimir Putin has called President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and praised Argentina’s position against the “double standard” of world powers in the resolution of conflicts.”

    “The statement by the Foreign Ministry finally says leaders Putin and Kirchner discussed a joint agenda they had addressed at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg last year, involving key issues such as “energy, military, trade, strategic development and joint activities in the Antarctica”.”

    http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/155360/putin-calls-cfk-praises-argentinas-double-standard-concerns

    They’re even talking about setting up Russian military bases:

    http://guardianlv.com/2014/03/argentina-to-host-russian-military-bases-while-america-sleeps/

  • Herbie

    Some video has emerged of the killing.

    Now they’ve got female police on the scene with clipboards and stuff, all very official and western looking, and they’re fiddling around at the bullet entry point trying to save his life or retrieve the evidence or something.

    WARNING: Not that grisly:

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d79_1395749112

  • guano

    Tony M

    Thanks for rescuing me from that small, fascinating world, back into the real one.

    The problem is not with Sufism, of the traditional or Fethullah political variety. The problem is when Egyptian Zionist Arab Nationalism uses the cultural blind obedience to the Ulema of Pakistan/Afghanistan to tell the ordinary Muslims to accept violence without questioning its validity. It’s not a matter that obedience is wrong, when it is to the right thing, but when it is invoked for the wrong thing, as in Syria, without discrimination, serving the cult of Zionism.

    Saudi Arabia seems to have been deceived into rejecting Deobandi Islam as being Sufi, when in fact it is passionately jihadist, and promoting Al Qaida as being political, when it is in fact nihilistic, brain-switched-off violence. Maybe they were deceived by the Arabic of the promoters of political Islam/ Muslim Brotherhood into thinking that they thought the same about Islam as the scholars of Saudi Arabia think about Islam.

    Turkish Islam is a kind of piracy, the buccaneer spirit that gathers the spoils of war under the licence of superpowers but outlawed and independent at the same time. Fethullah is slave of UKUSIS. for all the corruption I prefer real politicians like Erdogan any time.

  • John Goss

    Herbie, 25 Mar, 2014 – 5:57 pm

    Who knows, Argentine might be considering joining BRICS. If so it only needs Canada and Barbados to join and they’ll have to change the name BRIC-A-BRACS perhaps?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    “More on Fair Pay Fortnight at http://fairpayfortnight.org/
    ________________________

    Since I agree with the concrete measures proposed in the text of the petition (eg higher minimum wage, more employers to pay the living wage, etc)I am happy to add my signature as well and thank Mary for having brought the petition to my notice.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    Nevermind

    and never fear – it’s not a jackboot but a rather stylish Italian mocassin of the finest leather nature can provide.

    I wouldn’t sully it with contact with your backside. 🙂

  • Ben

    “Yats’ is still pushing the IMF. Notable list of players.

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/regime-change-in-ukraine-and-the-imfs-bitter-economic-medicine/5374877

    “In the days following the Ukraine coup d’Etat of February 23, leading to the ousting of a duly elected president, Wall Street and the IMF–in liaison with the US Treasury and the European Commission in Brussels– had already set the stage for the outright takeover of Ukraine’s monetary system. The EuroMaidan protests leading up to “regime change” and the formation of an interim government were followed by purges within key ministries and government bodies.

    The Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Ihor Sorkin was fired on February 25th and replaced by a new governor: Stepan Kubiv.[right]

    Stepan Kubiv is a member of Parliament of the Rightist Batkivshchyna “Fatherland” faction in the Rada led by the acting Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk (founded by Yulia Tymoshenko in March 1999). He previously headed Kredbank, a Ukrainian financial institution largely owned by EU capital, with some 130 branches throughout Ukraine. Ukraine Central Bank Promises Liquidity To Local Banks, With One Condition, Zero Hedge, February 27, 2014).

  • Ben

    http://thebricspost.com/brics-at-hague-slam-attempts-to-isolate-putin/#.UzHmVSgcWFJ

    “BRICS have slammed recent reports ahead of the G20 meet to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin or to place any restrictions on his participation at the G-20 summit in Australia later this year.
    “The Ministers noted with concern, the recent media statement on the forthcoming G20 Summit to be held in Brisbane in November 2014. The custodianship of the G20 belongs to all Member States equally and no one Member State can unilaterally determine its nature and character,” said a joint BRICS statement on Monday. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had said earlier that Putin could be barred from attending the G20 Summit in November.

    BRICS Foreign Ministers met on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague on Monday to review cooperation among the bloc of five after the adoption of the eThekwini Action Plan of 2013.”

  • Ben

    Obama speaks from the Hague.

    “”So my response then continues to be what I believe today, which is: Russia’s actions are a problem. They don’t pose the number one national security threat to the United States. I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan,” said Obama.”

  • Ben

    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/weak-sister/

    ” Why is it in our interest which way Ukraine tilts? It has been in the Russian orbit for hundreds of years under one administration or another. Are we disappointed now that Kiev won’t answer to the floundering Eurocrats of Brussels? Was that ever a realistic expectation? Really, the best outcome for western Europe would be a return to the prior condition of Ukraine as a mute bearskin rug with oil and gas pipelines running through it to the oil and gas starved West. The idea that the US could supply Europe with oil and gas instead of Russia is a preposterous fantasy. Anybody wondering whether Ukraine might turn its armed forces loose on Russian forces supposedly massing at its border should ask themselves how Ukrainian soldiers will get paid.

    I’m sure Russia can’t afford to annex all of Ukraine. Russia can barely maintain its paved roads. But it obviously couldn’t afford to give up its rented warm water ports and naval bases in the Crimea, either, with the new Kiev government making so much anti-Russian noise since the “revolution.” The annexation of Crimea changes nothing materially about the disposition of Russian military force in the region. They were already there. Given the size of their navy compared to the other nations in the neighborhood, the Black Sea is Russia’s bathtub and has been as long as anyone can remember. Was the brass at the US State Department shocked to discover this two weeks ago?”

  • Resident Dissident

    @ John Goss

    “But that’s where you’re wrong. I never particularly targeted you and I can only assume, as I assumed yesterday, that guild had a part in this assumption. If I did particularly target you as being a blackshirt show me where and I will see if an apology is in order.”

    Shameful.

  • Tony M

    Ben (25 Mar, 2014 – 8:54 pm)

    Kunstler had been a prime cheerleader for Obama, years before Obama had ever been heard of outside Democratic party machine circles. How he must lament the fall of his idol.

    The natural prime resources of Ukraine and the industrial heartland are largely in the predominantly ethnic-Russian east and south which are also the most populous. I wouldn’t trust these neo-nazi clowns the US has baited and switched for the Ukranian’s legitimate anti-oligarch movement, with the stewardship of the volatile Chernobyl reactor ruins. It seems a trite analysis but everyone’s, ours, the Russians and the Ukrainian peoples best interests would be served by Russian action to secure the country to some line well west of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, due south down to the Romanian border, leaving an economic basket-case strip bordering Belarus, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the anti-Russian zealots who can fester there to their heart’s content and prostitute themselves to the IMF, NATO, EU and US, until they get fed up playing soldiers and turn inwards on themselves, Lord of the Flies style and do peaceful peoples around the world a good turn by their self-eradication. At which point Ukraine can clean up, arrest the remaining miscreant ringleaders and the world can return to the status quo ante Yeltsin/Papa Bush.

    Until the EU looks and is something Russia – under Putin or some some equally competent non-stooge popularly chosen leader the Russian people endorse – would willingly, happily wish to join, not the centrist all-controlling monolith it has moved steadily towards, but the free friendly association and trading community of European peoples, we were once sold, we’re doomed to suffer repeats of this hair-raising unpleasantness.

    One happy day the United States could be permitted even to rejoin the international community, after a period of isolation and containment, sustained, until its people can own what horrors they’ve allowed in their name, and rise peacefully, united and radically reform themselves and institute some functional form of democracy there at last.

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    Re Yulia Tymoshenko’s aspirations…

    “Listening to the tone of her voice (these Ukrainian nationalists are speaking together in pretty good Russian, by the way; they are both urbane and Ukrainian is a village dialect) I almost feel sorry for her. Except that she is talking about murdering people like me (my father was born in Kiev, so I have the right to a Ukrainian citizenship). Ahem, President Putin, do you have a moment?”

    From, http://cluborlov.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ukrainians-on-verge-of-nervous-breakdown.html

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    War may be raging here on the blog but back at Den Haag Humor Studio former star Obamah entertained a packed house with a stream of one-liners…

    “It is up to Russia to act responsibly and show itself once again to be willing to abide by international norms… if it fails to do so, there will be some costs.”

    “We [the US] have considerable influence on our neighbors. We generally don’t need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them.”

  • Kempe

    “The idea that the US could supply Europe with oil and gas instead of Russia is a preposterous fantasy. Anybody wondering whether Ukraine might turn its armed forces loose on Russian forces supposedly massing at its border should ask themselves how Ukrainian soldiers will get paid.”

    Europe recognised the need to reduce it’s dependency on Russian oil and gas imports some years back and they’ve already been reduced from 45% to 30% although some countries are more dependent than others. The problem for Russia is that once the european market has been lost they’ll find it very difficult to win to it back and any deal with China is going to be several years away. Gas and oil account for 65% of Russian exports.

    The question is not what will Ukraine’s armed forces do but what is Putin’s next move going to be. Comparison has been made with events in the late 1930’s so as with Hitler and the Sudetenland will Putin be satisfied with “liberating” just part of Ukraine or will he find an excuse to invade the rest of the country?

  • GutterTheQuantifier

    Newsnight. Paul Flowers. Genuinely decent bloke, stitched up like a kipper.

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    Herbie.

    Thanks. “The Nazis had flaws, but they did look fucking fantastic!”Russel Brand

    Ben.

    Your “entertainment” makes my brain hurt this time of night, but thanks anyway. Interesting stuff!

    Here’s Eva Cassidy “True Colours” to sooth your battered ego. I’d never ever fry your posts.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SIX-Qp6v4k

    Goodnight all, и спокойной ночи товарищ Джон. Мы не должны оставить никаких намеков..

  • Herbie

    “The problem for Russia is that once the european market has been lost they’ll find it very difficult to win to it back and any deal with China is going to be several years away. Gas and oil account for 65% of Russian exports.”

    Thanks for that, Kempe.

    How long will it take for the high dependency European states to wean themselves from Mother Russia’s breast?

    Surely the China deal will be done whilst she’s weaning the West.

    You do realise that fracking has a rather short life.

  • fred

    “The question is not what will Ukraine’s armed forces do but what is Putin’s next move going to be. Comparison has been made with events in the late 1930′s so as with Hitler and the Sudetenland will Putin be satisfied with “liberating” just part of Ukraine or will he find an excuse to invade the rest of the country?”

    I think there is a parallel with Germany. At the end of WWI Germany had no option but to accept the demands of the victors. In the 1930s when they had recovered they began to set right what they saw as the wrongs done at Versailles. Re-unite the German speaking peoples.

    At the end of the cold war with the break up of the Soviet Union Russia wasn’t in much of a bargaining position. Since around 2006 they have been in a better position and working towards something called Russian Revisionism. They aren’t planning on world domination like America is but I think they would like to just tweak the map of Europe a little.

    Had Germany not been ruled by extremist supremacists who ignored the rights of minorities I think their invasion of Poland might have been overlooked, they were only interested in the Germanic bits anyway, they had no desire to annex any Slavs.

    I think Russia may have their eye on a bit more of Ukraine yet, but not all of it, not by any means and I think they are prepared to wait, unless they are pushed.

  • Peacewisher

    @Tony

    Thanks for the history lesson. I didn’t realise that Churchill had been marginalised at the Yalta meetings, but could explain how he felt it necessary to make his “Iron Curtain” speech… or was that after the war had finished and Truman had become the leader of the free world (!)

    Truman took over at a rather delicate time, it seems. Through Hiroshima and Nagasaki he has to go down as alongside Stalin, Nixon, Pol Pot and Hitler as one of the most bloodthirsty men of the 20th century. Thank goodness no Brits. Hey, wait a minute… Blair may just have sneaked us into the rankings through the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. It is said that we get the leaders we deserve…

  • Peacewisher

    One more question, Tony…

    In the post-war carve up how did Bulgaria manage to stay relatively independent?

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