You can see me speaking 24 minutes in here. Can’t work out how to embed this one. It was literally freezing and the very small crowd was understandable. I think four hour rallies outdoors in Scotland in midwinter are somewhat optimistic. I think we also need to face that the high excitement of the referendum campaign, where you could just put something out on Facebook and 10,000 people would show up, is behind us. What we have now is a period of hard graft towards the general election.
I think what I say in this short speech will give comfort to those in the SNP who blocked me as a candidate, because as usual I am joyfully off message. Shortly after me there is an amazing speech from Tommy Sheridan; his physical voice projection alone is astonishing! It was bouncing back off Salisbury Crags and Holyrood Palace.
This really is under 100 yards from where we live. That view of Salisbury Crags is what I see every time I look out the window. The balcony will be great once it gets a bit warmer.
RobG, 3 Feb, 7:19 pm; I just spotted this from you:
This seems to confirm the conflict of interest I mentioned near the end of my comment 3 Feb, 2015 – 10:40 pm. WHO accurately reported a projection of massive increases of cancer rates, but they’re gagged from attributing it to radioactive isotopes. The conflict of interest goes back to the “Atoms for Peace” programme; access to nuclear technology was to be used for political leverage.
The melted down Fukushima cores are presumably still reacting. Fukushima has all but disappeared from the mainstream news, just like the aftermaths in Iraq and Libya, and the origin of ISIS in projecting proxy-war into Syria.
‘Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism,’ Rules German Judge
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/Default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=25961
A German judge last week equated condemnation of Zionism with anti-Semitism, undercutting the arguments of many who claim that hostile criticism of Israel is not the same as hating the Jews.
In judging the case of 24-year-old Taylan Can, a German citizen of Turkish decent known for is anti-Israel activism, Judge Gauri Sastry refused to allow the defendant to hide behind the notion of legitimate criticism of the Jewish state.
Can was ultimately convicted for incitement against an ethnic minority for his role in a July 18, 2014 demonstration in Essen, Germany, where he and others used the term “Zionist” to stir up anger against Israel and local Jewish residents.
At his hearing, Can insisted he was not an anti-Semite, and was merely opposed to the policies of the State of Israel. But Judge Sastry was having none of it. Die Welt quoted her as clarifying that “‘Zionist’ is the language of anti-Semites, the code for ‘Jew.’”
It was likely that particular portion of Judge Sastry’s ruling would be overturned when Can appealed to higher courts, but European Jewish groups nevertheless praised the unprecedented and bold decision that had publicly unmasked one of the more dangerous lies of our times.
~~~
Also in The Times of Israel.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/german-judge-rules-anti-zionism-is-code-for-anti-semitism/
~~~
Also this in the JC
Centre studying antisemitism gets £1.4 million grant
By Rosa Doherty, February 3, 2015
Follow Rosa on Twitter
The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism has received a grant of £1.4 million that will fund its work for the next five years. The funding from the Pears Foundation will pay for a social sciences lecturer, and extend teaching and research into antisemitism.
Trevor Pears executive chair of the Pears Foundation, said: “The Pears Institute has quickly established itself as a pre-eminent centre for the study of antisemitism in the UK and internationally. Notably, it has become an important bridge between academic research and public policy.
“Our continued funding is in recognition of all that Professor David Feldman and his colleagues have achieved in these first five years, and the important role the institute now plays in how antisemitism is identified, understood and challenged.”
The institute, based at Birkbeck, University of London, is the only centre in the UK, and one of just two in Europe, whose mission is to promote understanding of antisemitism.
/..
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/129383/centre-studying-antisemitism-gets-%C2%A314-million-grant
Does a lot of charitable giving, does the Pears Foundation, Mary…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/mick-the-miner-davis-the-mogul-who-criticised-israel-heads-list-of-britains-powerful-jews-9724908.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10059773/Xstratas-Mick-Davis-gives-500000-to-Conservatives.html
That was a little bit out of date*, but he doesn’t seem to be on the dole yet:
http://www.mining.com/mick-david-has-got-3-75-billion-and-is-ready-to-build-a-new-mining-empire-90262/
*Mr Tony scored a million squid for mediating Glencore’s takeover of Xstrata, remember? Davis had to leave. And Glasenberg’s an old mate of Davis. Imagine what Mr Tony could have been paid if they had been strangers…
🙂 Yes I know and I used to think that the company was something to do with the Pears soap of old.
Pears family comes out of the property shadows
William Pears Group is one of Britain’s biggest property companies, but few have heard of it. And for good reason. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/profiles/8569562/Pears-family-comes-out-of-the-property-shadows.html
That article does not refer to the Pears’ involvement in the Holocaust education programme.
http://www.het.org.uk/index.php/education-general/teacher-training?id=14
and p 9
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/206418/20121101_ITF_Country_Report_of_the_United_Kingdom_of_GB.pdf
‘HOLOCAUST RESEARCH
10. Holocaust studies and research at universities and museums and in specialist archives is thriving up and down the UK. Notable is the 2011 move of the Wiener Library http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/, the world’s oldest Holocaust research institution, to new premises in Central London, adjacent to the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, http://www.bbk.ac.uk/ and not far from the IOE’s Centre for Holocaust Education http://www.ioe.ac.uk/holocaust, both within the University of London.’
‘In 2008 the UK government and the Pears Foundation jointly funded a £1.5m three year national project to improve teaching and learning about the Holocaust in England’s secondary schools. They established the Holocaust Education Development Programme at the Institute of Education (IOE). The IOE is the UK’s foremost institute for education and practice, with more world class researchers in education than the rest of the top ten universities combined, according to the latest official audit.’
’25. In 2012, in recognition of the overwhelming success of the programme and its contribution to Holocaust education in the UK, the university granted it Centre status and it became the IOE’s Centre for Holocaust Education. Funding by the UK government and the Pears Foundation was increased to £4 million, allowing it to continue its national programme of teacher development and expanding the capacity of the Centre to offer a national programme of Initial Teacher Education; to undertake the first large-scale national study of young people’s understanding of the Holocaust; and the establishment of a network of Beacon Schools in Holocaust education across the country.’
You can see where the wealth is being spent and on what.
@Clark, for information purposes, here’s a Guardian piece about last year’s WHO World Cancer Report (all of the mainstream ran similar pieces):
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/03/worldwide-cancer-cases-soar-next-20-years
If the WHO forecast turns out to be correct, over the coming decades the vast majority of people will get cancer at some stage during their life. To get some perspective let’s look at the odds as they stand at the moment: on average, worldwide, men have about a 1 in 2 chance of getting cancer, that’s 44 out of every 100 men, and for women it’s a 1 in 3 chance, or 38 out of every 100 women. It should be noted that these are the odds on getting cancer, not of dying from it (across the 200 or so different types of cancer it averages out that about 50% of people who develop cancer will die from it). It should also be noted that these rocketing cancer rates are not because the world’s population is sharply increasing: the incidences are taken per 100,000 head of population; ie, they are proportionate. It’s often said that cancer is a disease of old age. Not true. More than half (53%) of all cancers are diagnosed in adults aged 50-74. Those aged 75 and over account for just over a third (36%) of all cancers. One of the most worrying things in recent years is the steep rise in childhood cancers, particularly Leukaemia. This cancer pandemic is just as prevelent in the developing world as it is in the developed world, so it can’t easily be ascribed as being down to lifestyle choices.
To get more perspective let’s go back to 1975, when the incidence rate for all cancers combined in the United States was 400 new cases for every 100,000 people in the population; that’s a 1 in 250 chance, here…
http://report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/viewfactsheet.aspx?csid=75
So, in the space of 40 years we’ve gone from a 1 in 250 chance of cancer, to a 1 in 2 chance now, and if this latest WHO report bears true, over the next 20 years it’ll be odds-on that you’ll get cancer. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this steeply rising curve of illness and death is the lack of public outrage.
In 2010 the University of Manchester published a study called ‘Cancer: an old disease, a new disease or something in between?’ Here…
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=6243
… which concluded that cancer is a man-made disease; ie, prior to the Industrial Revolution, cancer was almost unknown, and even during the Industrial Revolution rates were low, despite all the pollution and terrible working conditions. It was only after World War Two that the incidence of cancer started rocketing.
This latest WHO report listed the following as some of the major causes of cancer:
Smoking
Infections
Alcohol
Obesity and inactivity
Radiation, both from the sun and medical scans
Air pollution and other environmental factors
Delayed parenthood, having fewer children and not breastfeeding
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26014693
It is interesting to note that it carefully attributes radiation from only the sun and medical scans, and not from other forms of nuclear energy. In fact, I’ve never come across any report by the WHO that links worldwide cancer with nuclear energy per se, even though the cancer pandemic correlates directly with the atomic age (the first atom bomb, the Trinity Test, was exploded in July 1945). There’s no shortage of scientific evidence that proves such a link. Ionizing radiation, which refers to several types of particles and rays given off by radioactive materials, is one of the few scientifically proven carcinogens in human beings (even the American Cancer Society says so); yet the World Health Organisation barely mentions it in this latest report. Strange, don’t you think, particularly since the The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was brought in precisely because it was understood how dangerous to human health such radiation is (by way of irony, the WHO report says that the Solomon Islands, in the Pacific, has the highest rate of cancer in the world – now where did they test all those bombs?).
I fully understand that I’m saying stuff that most people don’t want to hear, but remember that old adage: don’t shoot the messenger.
Lastly, you’re right, Clark, that radiation is not very well understood by the public. All official reports on the health risk of radiation, are, to this day, still based entirely on external dose, and much of it from studies done after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What they never mention is internal dose, and particularly so-called ‘hot particles’.
This post is already too long, so I’ll just briefly finish by saying that there are, in the context of what we’re talking about here, three types of radiation: alpha, beta and gamma. Forget gamma, because if you’re getting hit by that it will fry you in short order. This leaves alpha and beta emmitters, which are widely misunderstood by the general public. As an example, supposing everyone reading this is sitting round a table. If I placed a sugar cube size of plutonium in the middle of that table everyone would be reasonably safe, because plutonium is an alpha emmitter and alpha rays don’t travel distances and can’t penetrate very far (the Queen, on a visit to Windscale in the 1950s, was famously handed a plastic bag containing plutonium). If, on the other hand, I placed a cube of cesium 137 on the table you would all be in trouble, because cesium is a beta emmitter (also some gamma) and does travel a distance and will penetrate your skin and organs causing damage.
But here’s the rub, and it’s what is commonly misunderstood: alpha emitters might not penetrate very far, but they are extremely energetic and long lasting (many emit for geological times spans). If you get an alpha emitter inside your body, nestled up against your cells, your chances aren’t good. Sooner or later, and it could take decades, the resulting cell damage will cause cancer or other health issues (man-made radiation causes a huge array of other serious health problems).
It’s the reason why they have to bury this stuff miles underground. Talking of which, how many people here have heard of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in the New Mexico desert? It was supposed to be America’s solution for the storage of nuclear waste, in WIPP’s instance described as ‘low level transuranic waste’; ie, alpha emitters like plutonium and americium. WIPP blew up in February 2014 causing what I would say is a public health disaster comparable to Chernobyl.
The silence from the media is deafening, just like with Fukushima.
I apologise in advance for any typos in this post.
RobG, yes, the WHO are legally gagged from attributing illness to nuclear causes, in which matters they have to defer to either the UNSCEAR or the UAEA, I forget which.
For the benefit of Peacewisher and others reading, do you agree that the depleted uranium in the form of UF6 should be converted to insoluble solids as a matter of urgency?
Do you agree that the great bulk of depleted uranium is waste from enrichment? That seems likely to me, from my slight knowledge of the nuclear fuel cycle.
What do you make of my point that DU should have lower alpha emissions than natural uranium, with similar emission particle energies, and that if Rokke’s team measured higher levels it probably indicated that “dirty DU” from reprocessing had been used in DU munitions?
“So, in the space of 40 years we’ve gone from a 1 in 250 chance of cancer, to a 1 in 2 chance now, and if this latest WHO report bears true, over the next 20 years it’ll be odds-on that you’ll get cancer.”
1 in 250 was the chance of getting cancer in 1975. 1 in 2 is the chance of getting cancer in your lifetime. It’s two entirely different statistics.
Fred, I’m not sure what you are saying. Here’s the fact that my above link leads to:
“In 1975, the incidence rate for all cancers combined in the United States was 400 new cases for every 100,000 people in the population; the mortality rate was 199 deaths for every 100,000 persons.”
‘Incidence rate’ does not mean during that particular year, it means historically. Here’s the link again (to the US Department of Health)…
http://report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/viewfactsheet.aspx?csid=75
“‘Incidence rate’ does not mean during that particular year, it means historically. Here’s the link again (to the US Department of Health)…”
No, the incidence rate is the number of new cases diagnosed that year.
If you follow the page down it says:
“In 2007, the latest year for which we have updated statistics, the U.S. incidence rate for all cancers combined was 461 new cases diagnosed for every 100,000 people in the population; the mortality rate was 178 deaths for every 100,000 persons.”
So the incidence rate rose by 61 between 1975 and 2007 and the number of deaths fell by 19.
RobG, an incident rate has to have an interval, doesn’t it? Those numbers look right for yearly rates, as they’re much too low for lifetime rates, compared with the WHO lifetime rates you’ve quoted above, but they roughly match if you multiply by, say, 70; a rough figure for life expectancy.
Clark, I think natural uranium should be left in the ground, where it belongs and where it largely doesn’t harm anyone (and as an aside, do you know who has the biggest stake in the world’s uranium mines?).
But with regard to uranium hexafluoride, the Strangeloves do sometimes coyly admit that it contains ‘traces’ of alpha emitters like plutonium and americium. Americium can be produced by chemical methods, but the God of Hell, plutonium, can only be prodeced by the fission process. The Dr Strangeloves being what they are, I wouldn’t lay money on depleted uranium being just a by-product of enrichment. In fact, because there’s mountains of manmade crap sitting in spent fuel pools, crap that no one knows what to do with, it would seem perfectly normal for the psychos to use it in weaponry; and DU, of course, is banned by the Geneva Convention; not that anyone these days takes a blind bit of notice of that.
Just one last point for anyone else reading this: I feel the most important thing to understand is that uranium 239 (of which DU is a by-product, pre-fission) and the other transuranics, plutonium, etc) do not exist in nature. If they did there wouldn’t be any life on Earth; or at least, not life as we know it.
These are completely manmade isotopes that have only really come into existence since the end of the Second World War, which was 70 years ago. These manmade isotopes are all shrouded in secrecy and are defended by the worst kind of pseudo-science imaginable. Yeah, we’re all dropping dead from cancer because we live longer (oxymoron) and have such good lives.
When that first mushroom cloud went up, on a July dawn in 1945 in the New Mexico desert, it started a madness, a cult, that continues to this day.
But cancer is clearly on the up and up, and I reckon a lot of it is due to nuclear pollution. The WHO wouldn’t be allowed to say that, though.
RobG?
Eh?
You’ve clearly gone to the trouble of learning about types of radioactive emissions and particle energies. Have you looked into the fuel cycle? I know there are extensive cover-ups, but you seem to have some misapprehensions. See also my earlier comments.
I try to be factual. We’re better off without exaggerations because they get used repeatedly to discredit the anti-nuclear movement.
Grief, if the DU from enrichment has been mixed with “Dirty DU” from reprocessing, the whole lot is a major disposal problem. DU from enrichment could just have been re-buried.
No, who does hold the stakes in uranium mines?
I don’t care what’s natural and what isn’t. The natural stuff has been decaying longer, obviously, so it’s less radioactive. But if there’s a safe way of destroying ie. transmuting the worst isotopes I think it should be done.
Yes, of course uranium should be left in the ground. So should the fossil fuels.
UF6 is a very bad form to keep any uranium in; it makes it easily dispersible.
Fred, and Clark, here’s the figures from the American Cancer Society for the years 2009 to 2011, which I based part of my earlier quote from…
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/lifetime-probability-of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer
Men now have about a 1 in 2 chance of getting cancer, that’s 44 out of every 100 men, and for women it’s a 1 in 3 chance, or 38 out of every 100 women, or do you believe a US Government department?
I quoted the US Department of Health for the 1975 stats because from my own research they seem accurate; and again, talking of which, do you know how difficult it is to get accurate historical cancer rates, country to country. It’s almost enough to make you think that something is being purposely hidden. What me paranoid..? no…
You can also look at the various UK cancer organisations to find similar stats. I won’t hit you with more links.
I will also say to anyone else reading this, forget Clark and Fred and I arguing the toss, just go on your own experience: how many people in your own life have either had cancer or sadly have died from it?
Countries like the US and UK have had nuclear war, and it was inflicted on them by their own governments.
Fukushima and Chernobyl:
Neo-con radiation is good, communist radiation is bad
Neo-con radiation is good, communist radiation is bad
Neo-con radiation is good, communist radiation is bad
@RobG
The only thing I have argued is that you can’t compare annual incidence rates with lifetime chances.
Clark said: “Eh?
You’ve clearly gone to the trouble of learning about types of radioactive emissions and particle energies. Have you looked into the fuel cycle? I know there are extensive cover-ups, but you seem to have some misapprehensions. See also my earlier comments.”
I freely admit that I’m no ‘expert’ on this, but I like to think I know my stuff.
It’s late and I have written some quite long posts here, dealing with a very complex subject that I try to make understandable.
I’m crashing out for the night. I’ll head back tomorrow to try and clarify my errors that you’ve pointed out.
ps. three feet of snow here, and I haven’t been able to get out for supplies. I might be a bit terse tomorrow due to nicotine withdrawal.
RobG, you seem to be taking me and Fred as the enemy.
I’m more miserable than I can describe. No one will discuss with me sensibly. I don’t want to argue, I want to clarify facts. But I suppose I’m lying because I’m a neocon stooge.
Fuck it all. Explode the nukes. I hate myself and everyone else.
Fuck it.
Nuke all the fucking power stations and sterilise this planet. We all hate each other anyway.
RobG, our comments crossed. My apologies. I see you were engaging sensibly.
I’m really sorry.
Clark spits – “Jemand, 6:42 pm: so basically you’re saying it’s morally OK to foist death and destruction upon ordinary Middle Eastern people and populations so long as the “West” gets cheap oil, right?
You presumably regard the worth of the lives of brown people as less than that of white people. Indeed, you must rate brown lives as of less worth than your luxuries. I call that despicable racism.”
Note Clark’s use of the terms “so basically”, “you’re saying”, “you presumably”, “you must” in order to transform an observation I made into a series of lies the sole purpose of which is to sully my character.
Clark, you are a manifestly dishonest person who, when cornered and unable to present a valid argument, goes on the attack with false claims against your opponent. Try looking in the mirror.
Clark hisses – “This is the racism that drives “Muslim terrorism”. YOU and your ilk are to blame, Jemand.”
Islam is not a race, Clark. Even a dope like you should understand that. Blaming me and my “ilk”, is a shabby attempt at deflection of valid criticism of your shameless apologia for an ideology that hates non-muslims. Try confronting your own Anglophobia before you accuse others of harbouring antipathies for muslims.
Anon observed – “Got that, Jemand? YOU are to blame for Muslim terrorism. You and your car-dragging of brown people.”
Yes, it seems so. At least according to one angry man with mental health issues that causes him to hate his own kind in favour of people who hate him for being unlike them. Weird, huh?
Hey Jemand, got any more videos from the EDL (or whatever White Power forum you hang around with these days), which shows Pakistani cricket fans celebrating a win? You know, the videos you like to pass off as Muslims celebrating some terrorist event.
My mate who lives there says Aussies are pretty racist on the whole. Would you agree?
“Hate his own kind”? What, you mean “hates other kind decent open-minded people”? Don’t think so.
Hiya Technicolour. I’ve been cracking up over on the Auschwitz thread.
Clark, to try to answer some of your questions/arguements, I’ll start with what is perhaps the most interesting one: HRH, Her Mag, the Queen holds the biggest stake in uranium mining (Canada and Australia, the two biggest producers of uranium, are still effectively owned by the UK royal family).
What’s commonly called ‘depleted uranium’ (uranium 236, if my memory of isotopes serves me correctly) is the crap left behind after enrichment for weapons – the power station stuff is just what they tell you kiddies.
If anyone thinks that the military use of these hideous manmade isotopes stopped 70 years ago, with the Mahatten Project, you’ve got another think coming.
They are all compltely, totally and utterly fecking mad, and it’s one of the darkest and most sick chapters in human history.
And someone like me will tell you that it is the last chapter in human history.
Now, for fuck’s sake, can someone give me a cigarette..?
RobG, you up for a chat now?
The UK monarch! I wouldn’t have guessed that. But it makes sense.
I’d expect most DU to be from the enrichment process. But I’ll post this so you see it and start another..
OK, unless I’ve been misinformed, uranium is mined and then refined, at which point it’s 99.3% U238 (fertile but not fissile), 0.7% U235 (fissile) and a trace of U234 (fertile). About half of the radioactivity comes from the U234 because it its much shorter half-life.
The U238 is not fissile so natural uranium needs to be “enriched” before it can be used as either a fuel or an explosive. Enrichment is achieved by removing U238 until the proportion of U235 is high enough.
Isotopes of an element behave the same chemically, so no chemical process can achieve enrichment. The two publicly known methods are diffusion and centrifugal separation. In each case the uranium is reacted with fluorine to get UF6.
Do we agree so far?