Honoured to give the keynote speech at Amnesty’s conference on torture in London yesterday. Then dashed back to Edinburgh for a very romantic evening with Nadira – and Cameron!
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Cue the usual suspects, who will tell us that everything is normal and under control.
Oh-my-God…
Rob
You are certainly under control but by no stretch of the imagination normal.
Hope that helps!
Rob, the most basic original principle of programmable computers was to separate the function from the machinery. The hardware should no longer matter. It should be possible to perform the necessary tasks on any available hardware.
Proprietary software tried to defeat that objective by shackling the software to each specific machine, but free software has broken those chains.
There are plenty of junk computers everywhere. Just get one and run a modern GNU/Linux system on it.
Well I did look out for Phil, but didn’t spot him; anyhow if you ever get a chance to see Norman Finkelstein in action, then take it, as he is fantastic ! Not only will you learn, not only will you see a skilled debater, but you will be entertained better than most West End shows !
His opponent tonight was a certain Professor Alan Johnson, and after tonight the word “Professor” should be in quotes ! When he wasn’t trying to argue how devastating the Hamas enhanced fireworks were, he was actually trying to make the case that the IDF are so moral that their collateral damage ratio of civilian to non-civilian casualties is 1:1 !!
Of course Norman ripped him to shreds; and the bonus was that I had chance to have a few words with Norman, and at one stage I told him that I recently saw his recent appearance on the BBC Hardtalk programme, and he quipped that they should rename it as “Hard To Talk” as the presenter wouldn’t let him speak ! 😀
Habbabkuk, Macky seem sensitive about that matter. I call him “she” because he self-identified as female in an e-mail, but he got very upset when I called him “her”. Hope that helps!
As an hermaphrodite nematode worm, such matters don’t trouble me.
“But that still leaves us with the trolls…”
Yes, fortunately.
Every family has a black sheep, every village has it’s idiot and every forum has it’s troll it’s a natural law of the universe.
So long as it’s somebody else it isn’t you.
Habbabkuk, I don’t really mean to “floor” anyone these days. Macky and John Goss seem not to want to answer my question. I can’t work out why, but Macky in particular seems to get very upset about it and accuses me of all sorts of nasty things. Neither of them seem to have any criticism of the Kremlin’s governance, and if I felt like that about some government I’d be proud to advance its agenda. A minor mystery.
I’m probably a troll to, well, everyone here tonight.
🙁
@Clark, I see you have found your true debating level, between RD & Habby ! 😀
Like Habby hardly ever posts anything worth responding to, you seem to really have gone in that same direction to.
“Clark
And hello to you too. You’re doing a great job flooring Mr Goss and his friend “Macky” with pointed comments and questions and it’s good to see that you’re not being intimidated by their threats and insults.”
Quite clearly neither of you took the trouble to read the very enlightening article linked by Macky, which dismantles everything you people hold dear regarding Ukraine. It’s a bit long for Noddy.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/amnesty-international-conference-on-torture/comment-page-12/#comment-512294
Habbabkuk and Macky, I do disagree with both of you that people shouldn’t engage on political forums unless they’re “tough enough” or whatever it is you’ve said. The logical conclusion of that is that all the gentler, more sensitive people should KEEP THE FUCK OUT OF THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS, YOU PANSIES, and I think that’s really part of the problem rather than the solution.
John Goss, I’ve only skimmed that excellent article so far, but I did upload a copy to my web-space to make it easy to find should I need it in future. It’ll take me a long time to read thoroughly. It is extensively referenced. I put my copy here:
http://www.killick1.plus.com/uploads/ukraine-summary.html
So John, Macky, Habbabkuk,
Are you three all here for a fight, then?
@John, it’s no good John, Clark has already told us that he is so open-minded that he doesn’t bother with our links, but only those of the RD Guru ! 😀
Oh gawd, page 13 of comments. This is going to be trouble!
Not that I’m superstitious in any way; and I’m not chucking salt over my shoulder or kicking a black cat (Herricka will be relieved).
Hubble bubble toil and trouble
John, you’ve been a bit daft believing RT. You discredited yourself with me when you tried to dismiss that artillery as combine harvesters, and then tried to ridicule me as “an expert in interpreting satellite imagery”. That article has a different and far more acceptable argument – they ARE artillery, but not a lot of it and only just within the border; they are minor, in other words.
See, that article didn’t put me off by trying to deceive me, whereas you did. When you wouldn’t see sense, after I’d put considerable time into explaining my reasoning, I decided you were just pushing propaganda.
Macky also lost respect with me by not correcting you on this matter of reasoning, while still claiming to be utterly logical.
Macky, there you go again. I refused to watch ONE off-topic video linked by John Goss. I’ve just told you that the article you linked was very good; so good I saved a copy to my server.
What’s the matter with you? Would you rather I just call you names?
Macky and John Goss seem not to want to answer my question. If it’s about pushing the agenda of the Kremlin I have already answered it.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/amnesty-international-conference-on-torture/comment-page-12/#comment-512212
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/amnesty-international-conference-on-torture/comment-page-12/#comment-512231
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/amnesty-international-conference-on-torture/comment-page-12/#comment-512258
John, you don’t even KNOW what I think regarding Ukraine. You’ve never asked!
I don’t like being deceived, or being insulted, or being lied about or insinuated against(ie. smeared). Who does?
Clark; “I’ve just told you that the article you linked was very good; so good I saved a copy to my server.”
Well I obviously posted before I saw your very, very surprising comment; so if you think the article is “good”, maybe you will now realise that everything that RD was/is saying iro Ukraine, and that you were faithfully parroting, is the exact opposite of good.
Sorry the first sentence in my last comment should have been in inverted commas. It was a quote.
As to supporting Vladimir Putin, if I think he’s following the right policy I do. If I don’t think he following the right policy I don’t. I posted this earlier today in which I support two Communist MPs in the Kremlin who oppose Vladimir Putin. It neither makes me a supporter of the Kremlin nor a Communist. By the way Communist opinion has been banned from the free Kiev putsch government.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/amnesty-international-conference-on-torture/comment-page-12/#comment-512258
Can anyone tell me why the USA never signed-up to the international criminal court?
And once again, it would be valuable to get an American view.
Macky, not really. That article gives multiple viewpoints, some of which you and John have expressed, some of which RD has expressed, and other ones besides.
What I was most upset about was the attempt to silence RD by ganging up and bullying. People react badly to that. RD gets all sarcastic which makes his comments difficult to understand. There’s no point in me asking him for clarity and not to assume prior knowledge when a crowd are making him angry by calling him a fascist.
Macky, that article was clear about when Russian forces had been active within Ukraine and when they hadn’t. That’s all I wanted. Clarity and good sources.
Wikipedia has a rule: Assume good faith. You have been assuming bad faith of me, and of RD. John’s been even worse, calling RD a “spook”. What a smear!
Rob, I expect the US didn’t sign up because they’re the most powerful nation on Earth. From a perspective of power, they had nothing to gain from signing up, but they could lose out if decisions went against them, which they would.
Power relations are really simple.
“Can anyone tell me why the USA never signed-up to the international criminal court?
And once again, it would be valuable to get an American view.”
I suspect it is because of Guantanamo Bay, supermax prisons, extraordinary rendition, putsches, wars, financial misdealings and the like. They would not want to be held responsible to international scrutiny.
Macky, you think you’re very logical but a lot of your thinking is based around assumptions. You found my comment above “very, very surprising” because of your assumption that I’m biased. Me pointing it out will now hurt you emotionally (so take a moment to be aware of the feeling). So you’ll try to strike back by belittling my reasoning abilities, ie. you’ll call my argument “illogical”! and thus end up actually acting illogically.
You’d do better to get it off your chest by just calling me a bastard or something rather than pretending to be more logical than you really are.
“John’s been even worse, calling RD a “spook”.”
Not strictly true. I suspected he was and asked him. He said he wasn’t. He has also said that he and ESLO were not the same person.
Macky, there’s no God-given law that being logical is the best thing in the world to be. I’m quite logical which is why I fix machines and electronics and write computer programs. I can’t draw worth shit, though, and I’m a crap dancer. I’ll bet you’ve never written a computer program in your life, whereas I used to do it for hours on end for fun!. So what? different people have different strengths and weaknesses, and Nature is resplendent in her divergence.