Nationalisation Without Compensation 1600


When slavery was abolished in the British Empire, taxpayers paid huge sums in compensation to slave owners for the loss of their “property”. No compensation was ever paid to the slaves for the loss of their freedom.

The problem with that approach is, of course, that the state did not take into account that the “property” of which it was relieving the landowners was acquired as part of an inhuman and immoral situation.

I was considering the same question in relation to the constitutional moves of South Africa to redistribute land without compensation. It seems to me this is plainly morally justified. The only question marks I can see are of practicality, in terms of making sure those taking over the land are trained to keep it properly in production, and that redistribution is not corrupt. Those are not insuperable problems, and I support the South African government in its endeavours.

But I wish to apply the same principle, of the state acting to right historic injustice on behalf of the people, much more widely and in the UK.

I apply precisely the same argument to the great landed estates, particularly but not only in Scotland. I believe the fundamental answer to land reform is confiscation by the state of large estates, and that social justice can never be redressed by the taxpayer simply handing over money to the ultra-wealthy. We have already been doing far too much of that through the bankers’ bailouts.

I have no moral qualms at all about simply taking back the land, whether it be from the Dukes of Sutherland, Buccleuch and Atholl, from a Dutch businessman or from a sheikh. In England the Grosvenor estate, the lands of the Duchy of Cornwall, and similar holdings could be confiscated. I do not see this as harm to the “owners”. Let them work for a living, or try their luck with the benefits claim system. Residential properties in large estates might become council homes, while tenants of commercial properties might pay rents to the council rather than to the Duke of Westminster, and the council use a large portion of that money for homebuilding.

Agricultural land from vast estates might perhaps best be given to the tenant farmers who have rented it. In the Highland glens, there are vast tracts which were once cattle rearing and arable. We have been lied to for generations that these are only fit for moorland for grouse and deer hunting – despite the fact that they are studded with the croft foundations of the cleared populations they once supported, who reared cattle and grew crops. These unfarmed lands should be given free to communities to develop; with assistance for the expensive task of bringing them back into production. That assistance would be a better use of state money than paying “compensation” to the ultra-wealthy.

But it is not only land. I favour nationalisation without compensation of all PFI projects, and of all railways and utilities. The owners have milked the public and the taxpayer far too long. Any business investment carries risk, including political risk. If you misjudge the political risk, your business fails. These businesses have made a misjudgement of political risk in the view they could profiteer, that it is possible to rip off the people forever without blowback. That is a business miscalculation, and such businesses deserve to fail.

The Labour Party’s renationalisation proposals have been carefully calculated within the existing framework of “legitimate” property rights. Therefore John McDonnell has framed rail nationalisation in terms of the expiration of franchises, and talked of PFI projects in terms of buyouts. I reject this approach in favour of the more radical approach of confiscation.

Yes, I realise that some percentage of the investments removed will belong to pension funds and insurance companies and even foreign states, and to small investors. Still more will belong to hedge funds and plutocrats, and the stake of ordinary people in wealth through pension funds had been – deliberately – tumbling for two decades. The less wealthy individuals with a stake in pension funds will lose a little, but gain from the wider public good, and for them there might be a compensation mechanism.

I also realise the markets will not like confiscation, and there will be an increase in bond yields; but this will pass. There is no measure to redress social injustice the markets will like. The City of London is our enemy and will naturally attempt to resist or punish any attack on its continued ability to be the conduit for the hoovering dry of the national wealth.

The fact is, that the extreme injustice and inequalities of society have now become so very glaring that there is no way to make any impression on wealth disparity without changes that may be rightly considered revolutionary. Either we are content to live in a society where the wealthiest one per cent will within two decades own ninety per cent of all wealth in the UK and the rest of us be helots, or we make changes to the fabric of the economy and government which are truly radical.

The economic system has tilted beyond correction by tinkering.

What is immorally owned ought not to be compensated on expropriation by the community.

As with the owners of slaves, the owners of “property” would be likely to attempt to defend their riches through the courts. This is where the doctrine of the sovereignty of parliament might for once be put to good rather than evil use, in passing law making such state confiscation unequivocally legal. Both the UK and Scotland appear set for at least a period outside the EU; I cannot think of a better use for any window of legal autonomy.

I am fully aware that I am proposing very radical measures very unlikely to be adopted by the current political Establishment. But the most telling fact of recent western society, itself a natural and predictable result of that galloping wealth inequality, is that the political Establishment has its coat on a very shoogly peg.


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1,600 thoughts on “Nationalisation Without Compensation

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  • Sharp Ears

    Creeping fascism in Whitehall.

    BBC knowingly broadcasts ‘coded negative imagery’ of Corbyn, top British lawyer claims
    11 Dec, 2018 18:08

    One of Britain’s leading barristers has claimed that a senior BBC journalist has told him that the public broadcaster has indulged in showing “coded negative imagery” of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn since his election in 2015.

    Jolyon Maugham QC, director of the Good Law Project, a group which recently helped win the case in the EU courts for the UK to unilaterally stop Brexit if they wish to do so, took to social media to post the alleged evidence of bias against Corbyn.

    /..
    https://www.rt.com/uk/446186-lawyer-bbc-corbyn-bias/

  • Molloy

    .

    Just saying. In passing. Re. Property.

    If ‘Caesar’ DS war crims wannabees malfeasors really really truly merited adulation and praise. . . .

    . . . .(and ‘gifts’ of Land and Property and proxy-States’ Serfdom). . .

    . . .Then, If Psychotics Are Leaders And Not Property and Money Grabbers (pay it back you greedy-grasping-bas$turds),

    Then. . . . .Why a need for the propaganda? The marketing bollix? The big sell-oily-smarmy-$hite? The TV-numbing-down-bollix? The divisive-bollix?
    The ‘State’-lying-bollix. Why-the-FeckinBollix?

    Why a need to kill people for speaking the truth? Property?

    For what reason and rationale? (Hint. They’re killers full stop.)

    It is soon to be 2019.
    Reality, as far as one can see, is stuck in a regressive ‘1984’ and mired in ‘Animal Matrix Farm’. Run by a trepanned-class-obsessed-pig-called-Napoleon.

    The planet’s LMP leading (from-out-their-behinds), monied* psychopaths surprise surprise surprise are at the warmongering yet again. . . . .*monied as in money-not-lawfully-obtained.
    LMP’s do not give a toss do not understand the evil so easily seen by the 99% (as our children are bombed and shot and killed).

    Hey ho, very soon LMP’s will run out of islands and offshore bank accounts. The bankers the stooges the gangsters will be in a mega-factory-prison-of-their-own-design-with-LMP’s (or silenced forever as in the Carrian fraud case or that goddzwanker-godzilla who dangled from a Vatican bridge; the link is easily found).

    Criticism and blackguarding of Russia, Iran, PRC and others, that slagging off says-shouts-deafeningly-far-more-evil about the (usual) LMP killer-underminers. Than it does about the LMP’s intended victims, the-non-greedy-people and victims-in-the-wrong-for breathing-people.
    LMP, slaver traders and racists mindless all, delude themselves that we the many are ignorant and stupid.

    Russia and PRC and Iran and Syria are never stupid. Nor are some of we.

    The frequent, pointlessly psychotic use of torture and unlawful killing. The cuddly-Uzbekistan-boiling-live-people-not-talked-about and locking up the remainder. A Poxy-State supplied with Gilead killing machines to ‘protect the cotton’ and to pretend-find-for-money then live-sauté Gilead-made-AQ-not—oh bless! And. All the other proxy-client-cess-pit-holes the DS won’t tell about—those to.
    (Special thank you to CM.)

    The everyday boasting of WMD’s and touting of WMD’s, well, simply and plainly, as night follows day, points to property and resources and land gangster scammers chancers psychopaths and tax dodgers.

    “Does it not suggest that there is intent, that boasting and threatening of WMD’s, LMP prisoners in the dock?”, said a smooth cove wearing a dressing gown.

    LMP cliques competing, greed is good, posturing as if helping the downtrodden, with a smile and a threat, the poor sleeping on the street, then a stab in the back.
    Look the other way, watch Strictly Come Dancing, while we kill your children. The treacly-complicit-faux-authoritative-voice of neo-Goebb BBC$Psyops coat hangers.

    The BBCpsyops basket case, wheeler-in-and-on of the mealy-mouthed the sharks and the gangsters the troughers the voluntarily lobotomised the duplicitous. The Gove$. The ID$$’s. The Perry$$. The Neillz. The Ruddznasty. The Marsze. The Dwimblzes. The Vinerrz. The-Racist-Mays. The-Racist-Letwinz. The Grinning-smug-Murderdochs-and-Koch$. All the other gob$shite-neocon-job-nasty-bitz-of-works.

    Useful-DS-sanctioned-idiots killing and starving and threatening innocent humans. (And all the useful, pretend-not-involved facilitating idiots who sanction bombing children. Who look the other way when killing children “For Your Own Good, Dear” smarmy talk.)

    Murderers. Who look the other way when selling weapons to kill children. To gas innocent people and then blame the local vicar (who was on holiday) via and thanks to the BB$C-brainwashing-factory.

    DS-Idiots and stooges and thugs chasing and killing traumatised and terrified men women and children – the not-always-escaping and ‘undeserving-don’t-matter-others’.
    Idiots. Selling more weapons. More dosh from death.

    Useful-to-the-DS-idiots mindlessly killing their own families. Would sell and kill their own grandparents for same-idiots to kill and control.

    Useful idiots who cannot even conceive justice or cannot spell ‘Ju$$tice’ and blindly deny justice – a foreign language to the psychopaths in their manicured self-aggrandising offshore hideaways, buzzing newly created food banks in corporate shiny, locust-like helicopters.

    Welcome to the Gilead of U$eful Idiots.
    (Thank you, MA and SdeB, more times than any can say.)

    Welcome to The Punishment Colonies, courteously provided and furnished and stripped of all good by the greedy and venal.

    Say Hello to The Dealers.
    The DS US$UK Milit. Indu$$trial conglomerate-of-hubristic-self-entitlement, candidly, vanished up its own R’s as far back as can be remembered.
    And way before then (RIP Lusitania; RIP DRCongo RIP Colombia RIP Afghanistan RIP Yemen RIP Palestine RIP WW1 RIP WW2 RIP Vietnam RIP Cambodia RIP Iraq RIP Ukraine RIP Libya RIP all the others equally worthy of mention).

    Now, say these Dealers-via-proxies. Pay-up-front-offshore-in-U$dollars, or else ‘consequences’ and ‘rendition’ no pretty please.
    You will have Trident on the never never but it’s our psychopath not yours who says when the world comes to an end. You still pay.

    As clear as day, and obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse, the bullying, fraudulent stoat-like greedy faces of LBJ and Ronnie and gobby Billy-perverted-WJC and moronic Bus$hes, not forgetting smooth-help-yourself-BombObama and perverted wannabee-HillaryRodham-Clitton Foundation . . .oh wot R’ssez and kknobbz, please add to the list———the front desk receptionists for fake-democracy at any given time.
    Killers, for money, of indigenous peoples all over the planet. Yes, killers all of them. Every bloody one of them.

    RIP Make Gilead Even Greater Saps.

    .
    Thank you JFK and RIP. (Occam says you were good.)
    Thank you David Kelly and RIP.
    For showing clues on how to think. Thank you conscience-stricken Mailer. Thank you Saul Bellow. Thank you Saramago. Thank you Anna Burns. Thank you Kafka. Thank you Dante. Thank you Roddie Doyle. Thank you Harold Pinter. Thank you Sandel. Thank you Clive P.
    Thank you all the disgraced-nameless-self-important-actually-giving-the game-away-without-realising mythologies and biographies-with-no-truth.

    Not-thank you to those-whose-only-interest-is-themselves.
    ¡No pasarán!

    Thank you to the obvious ones who I refuse to mention for reasons of the usual incoming gaslighting and no one likes a smartR’s-accusations-of-coat-tailing-hanging-on—you know who you are in Massachusetts! Salut and Happy Birthday.

    .

    Sláinte to all the family everywhere.
    ¡No pasarán!

    .
    ™ ☮️☯️♻️®️©️Molloy LLP

    .

    • Molloy

      .

      Again, thank you.

      Craig Murray; Sept 2017. . . .

      “IT IS A WAR CRIME.. because propaganda is used to PROVOKE WAR ..to sustain war, to turn other people, declared to be the enemy, into beings that need to be killed. It robs them of their humanity, of their kinship with us, their desires and dreams, and makes them into vermin to be destroyed with ease and even joy in the killing. ”

      and

      “The journalists who write these propaganda pieces and the presenters who read them on television are among the worst of criminals as they sit there looking attractive, with their fake smiles and fake concern, while taking lots of money to lie to our faces every day. It takes a very low person to sit there and lie to their fellow citizens so easily. It takes someone who has no sense of morality whatsoever. One could say they are sociopaths. But criminals they are and they deserve to be in the dock with the leaders that hand them the scripts they read so willingly.“

      .

  • nevermind

    Strasbourg shotter known to the security services and is still on the run.
    Another terror attack when a Goverent is vilnerable?
    Will it bring sympathy for Macrons soft backpeddling today, just as the Manchester concert bombing did for TM?
    Amnother attack on civilians, rather than the Government forces they despise.
    Still creating public fear at a time when uncertainty and chaos has Europe worried.
    But we should wait a couple of days and see what cctv footage will be kept back, whether the known terrorist is capture alive and what French whistleblowers feel compelled to share with us.

    • Paul Greenwood

      He is clearly a ShapeShifter able to escape into the background with only a 47 inch 10 lb AK47 for company. Just finished sorting his grenades for each day of the week and was called away from his appointment with arresting police but left them a note on the door as he rushed off with his trusty machine gun to do some Christmas Killing around the area the Al-Qaeda (?) bomb was planted in 2000 AD.

      Just another day in France – no doubt the gilets jaunts will now go home and let Jupiter take centre stage directing the noble Forces of Chaos & Inertia to find the charred body of Chérif Chekatt.

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Paul Greenwood December 12, 2018 at 06:25
        The old ‘Gladio’ ‘strategy of tension’.

    • laguerre

      It’s par for the course in France that the gunman gets away, and is caught later. That’s the way things are. I don’t think it’s anything to do with the gilets jaunes. Rather a lone wolf Islamist desperado – the name is Muslim. And it was the Christmas market.

      • Paul Greenwood

        Of course. He gets a call from his handler and meets up to be sliced up with FAMAS rounds “resisting arrest”. Hisautopsy will be secret and his replacement ready for programming

    • nevermind

      If the Saker is right, a whole bunch of worried politicians could get in on the act and ‘help,

      It would benefit fraudster Netanyahu who faces jail if found guilty.
      it would benefit the Tories and their Russophobic aims and actions, regardless which of them leads the donkeys. A war trumps,oops, all democratic desires like impending elections and referenda, postponement guaranteed and propaganda running amok 24/7.

      it would benefit Macron by changing the agenda and the priorities of the media. His soft words would be given a doubtful chance, a ceasefire to be replaced with support for war in Ukraine.
      Poroshenko will be able to call off all elections and use force in all the bordering districts were Martial law was placed.
      This looks carefully planned and our expertise in Novichok incidents and toxic daggers might well be required.
      Who will support Donetzk? Apart from the people

    • Dungroanin

      Unconfirmed report in southfront of summary execution of Ukrainian soldier refusing to play in the charade under martial law.

  • nevermind

    If JC is calling a.no confidence vote tonight, i hope the SNP will open their hearts to the idea of coalescing with Labour in Goverment.

    Should they start and argue their preferred case rather than focusing on the people of this country and a future Independence, after looking able and fit in Government, people will turn away from politics and Government with ugly scenes being unavoidable as the economy reacts to more failure.

    Whatever follows this chaotic warmongering shower better focus on whats best for us all. Outdated notions like the presbeterians future in NI and the Union, are inconsequential.
    A possible referendum on a united Ireland should not.be jeopardised by the likes of integrate initiative, who by then should have been axed for good. A united Ireland is a popular idea, time for some base democracy.

    • Dungroanin

      There is no point calling a no confidence unless the DUP abstain or vote for it.

      The numbers are what they are.

      • nevermind

        What?another round of bakshish for Ni? Just for being nice fraudsters.
        I for one welcome a custom regime regulating their affairs, it starts with biofuel schemes and ends up with mega payouts for supporting useless chaotic selfservers and power addicts.

        • Dungroanin

          The NI question was always a red herring in my opinion. Infact it was even more exotic – a real life unicorn!

          By legal statute of the Belfast GF agreement guaranteed by international partners NI/Eire aquired that very special status.

          It is unique and only exists on that island. A unicorn by law.

          Any brexit would mean that all the ports and airports of the UK mainland would have new restrictions against the EU and vice-versa. Including transit from NI to the EU. And NI to the UK for non EU traffic. That is a north south border in the Irish sea. I suspect the free movement of Irish people will carry on as it always has done.

          It always seemed straight forward by the international nature of that peace treaty.

          The DUP bribe is only there for one reason to deliver the hard brexit that was always plan A – of the global robber barons.

          • Paul Greenwood

            Of course the NI business was a red-herring. May let the EU set the agenda and went in without a negotiating strategy. They sent her off down a siding and she devoted 175 pages of a 585 page document to the siding. How such a p*llock could threaten Russia and flounce around like a drunken bridesmaid at a wedding lighting fires without any sense of combustion suggests a Tory Party run by somnolent fools.

            These negotiations could have been wrapped up in 6 months and a whole Operating Plan of Trade Barriers and Tariffs drawn up just to focus the EU Commission on the destination of 14% EU exports. The objective should have been to get rid of the UK trade deficit as a key priority in the BreXit talks.

            Banks should have been squeezed into directing loans to farmers and removing Business rates from food storage facilities (which is a big reason there is so little space in cities)………and doing the kind of things Chamberlain did as Chancellor after 1935 creating Supply Chains (Rolls-Royce set up supply chains with small companies for parts) and preparing for BreXit.

            This was Amateur Hour writ large.

  • Molloy

    .

    via Monbiot and desmog

    (Dark money; corporate greed; Land destruction)

    “Their (Koch$s via corrupt media) primary aim is disruption and chaos and to prevent any restraint on the actions causing the climate breakdown in which we are engulfed. Far from being “free thinkers” dedicated to liberty for the common person, we now know Spiked and the LM network are ‘proudly’ at the bidding of these billionaire (Koc$hs) oil barons.”

    https://desmog.co.uk/2018/12/04/spiked-lm-dark-money-koch-brothers

    https://www.monbiot.com/2018/12/10/you-want-it-darker/

    .

  • Molloy

    .

    Robert Fisk

    “Their countries — and their countries’ histories – are their personal property, to dispose of as they wish. They may lock up their opponents by the tens of thousands or drop barrel bombs upon them or chop up an unruly journalist. But they know – and it is true – that there must be residual support for the beloved dictator from all those millions who swear that they will sacrifice themselves – “our blood, our soul” – rather than allow harm to come to them.”

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/saudi-arabia-trump-bin-salman-khashoggi-iran-syria-russia-robert-risk-white-house-a8658801.html

    .

    • laguerre

      Fisk was talking about the Gulf countries there (or should have been). It doesn’t apply to other Arab quasi- or real dictatorships. Those Gulf countries don’t have millions of population to be loyal to the “beloved dictator”. The minimal national population is paid off by oil wealth. Though Saudi alone has rather more, they are still paid off. I note that Fisk doesn’t often venture to the Gulf from his Lebanese fortress (though he does to Syria and Iraq).

      • Molloy

        .

        Here, Fisk illustration of the dictator-property-mindset is being used as a metaphor/analogy for the UK$ Regime mindset.
        Obviously and patently very similar.

        Keep up at the back, please.

        ¡No pasarán!

        * * * *

  • giyane

    “The time has come,” the Walrus said,
    “To talk of many things:
    Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
    Of cabbages–and kings–
    And why the sea is boiling hot–
    And whether pigs have wings.”

    First, Divorce.
    If someone is seriously pissing you off , and making you mad, and irredeemably wrong in your opinion, and if you are tied to them by what is in your heart a sacred bond of loyalty, a vow of fidelity and sharing children,
    => to preserve your sanity and the sanity of your children , you have to get away from that person.
    Second , pain.
    You have to balance the choice between two sides, the pain of continuing to be daily hurt by their intolerable behaviour and the pain of being separated from your family; the pain of scaring your family with your disagreements, and the pain, if the other person is incorrigible, that by separating you are no longer going to be able to influence your children by your own commonsense and they are going to be brought up by this crazy person.
    Third, Taking a leap in the dark, growth and self-realisation.
    We see now that the EU is a bully, a persecutor and embezzler in the case of Greece. The EU, in the form of Germany, has directed the criminal war against Syria and the Syrian people. It also put down an Independence movement in Spain with ruthless nastiness, snuffing it out with Robespierre alacrity. This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you. When I left my marriage in 1991, the first thing I saw in Birmingham is Muslims. If you live in Erefordshire, you see not much more than grass growing, incest, adultery to avoid your ex consuming half your property and suicide, and countryside. two fingers up to all of that IMHO
    Fourth, Life , jihan, la vie, zindigi
    The person is not going to change, by persuasion, or a lightening bolt, by reason, trial or sudden conversion. But if you sit at home and put up with their emotional perversion, your children are going to think that you either agree with , or condone this perversion. So by staying, you confirm the perversion , and by leaving, you abandon your children to the perversion you yourself could not tolerate, with a very strong message of total disagreement , not condoning anything for a second.
    Fifth, Mrs May.
    As I have said before , much to your concern, I don’t agree with Mrs May’s tory dogma, but I do agree with her understanding of the need to compromise, in the context of divorce. The EU are Fuckers, with a capital F and not using the word as a swear-word. They extended their benign, but dominating, control over Eastern Europe, buying land cheap, supporting fascist politicians , and forcing them to house prisons for torture rendition and build arms factories. EU is a not a NAZI institution but it has some exceedingly tarnished deeds in recent times. Now they are trying to extend their authority over Turkey, Syria and the Middle East.
    I voted leave because I’m not a Nazi and I believe the Middle East is better left alone and not bent, raped and humiliated by a Nazi EU. We’re supposed to have fought that battle and won.
    Sixth, Islam.
    Britain is slowly getting used to its 3 million Muslims. Islam shares with Britain many of the values of religion, respect for others, privacy, private property, morality. there is much common ground between Christianity and Islam. Neither are perfect as they are practised in their present state, but there is always possibility of redemption repentance and reform.
    Seventh, quitting the European Union.
    It’s going to be sore, your new knee, your new hip, your newly repaired fracture or your newly killed cancer.
    But it has to be done, and compromise is the way of lessening the pain. You have declared yourself the loser against an oppressive partner, but you are going to gain so much by not entering their home territory of confrontation, where they always win. But right now you are not in a position to tell the 27 what to do. you have to lead by example and make a Britain in your own model guided by your own imagination.
    Mrs May didn’t make the EU the terrorist, neo-colonial monstour that it has become. It was Zionist, ex-Nazi, neo-cons in Washington.

    Don’t blame Mrs May for making the problem. The best way to divorce is to know in your heart that freedom is better than being tied by the neck to a Gothic ,Frankinstein monstour like Grendel’s dam. Allah Kareem. God is bountiful. As soon as we have moved on, great things are going to happen, the first of which is that we totally dissociate ourselves from the destruction of our Syrian neighbours by proxy madmen and women.

    • Paul Greenwood

      Islam shares with Britain many of the values of religion, respect for others, privacy, private property, morality. there is much common ground between Christianity and Islam.

      Dream On ! There is zero Christianity in UK Politics. There is no respect for others. There is NO Morality. The system is a Proto-Fascist system with Big Business holding sway. If Big Business had wanted BreXit and the public were opposed – BreXit would have been attained long before Media let the public know !

      The Political Class is pseudo-Marxist with contempt for Religion regarding it as an “opiate” to keep the docile quiet. They fear Islam not because of men kneeling in a mosque but because of Raw Violence. They fear Violence. If Tommy Robinson could pack hundreds of armed men on the streets either in random formations or phalanxes he would be having tea with the Prime Minister like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

      Islamic “terrorism” in UK is orchestrated by MI5 and switched on and off as the handlers require. It was Blair who let Imams into prisons but Imams are not “priests” and their Visas are not awarded to graduates of seminaries. It is a total joke.

      Most people in UK cannot discuss Religion because they know zilch about it. They don’t know the difference between Trans-Substantiation, Consubstantiation, or even the difference between Orthodox and Catholic and Protestant and Calvinist and Baptist and Congregationalist and Unitarian. Nor the difference between Episcopal and Presbyterian.

      Have had more meaningful conversations about religion with Muslims than with Churchgoers, but the Muslim understanding of Christianity – Trinitarianism or even Resurrection is so facile as to be of comic book quality

      • giyane

        It’s a strange coincidence that 30 years of continuous war against Islam is the time we’ve been in the EU. Split them up. Kick out the zs. We fight on the side of the Muslims against the Nazi EU.

    • Mistress Pliddy

      What nonsense, heartfelt, well-meaning, but nonsense nonetheless. Why? Because, in this distorted story, the Great Satan does not exist. Any account of the world in the 21c without accounting for the All-Powerful One at the Western Edge of the Map is just so much make-believe.

  • certa certi

    Scots Wha Hae

    The Surafend Massacre – a case for compensation?

    ‘The reprisal was carefully planned for 7pm on the evening of the 10th, and the men – including a good many Australians – determined to arm themselves with bayonets, axe handles and sharpened sticks, to get all of the women and children out of the village, to kill all males over 16 and to burn the village. Afterwards they also killed men at the nearby Bedouin camp and torched it.
    The Scots blamed the New Zealanders. The New Zealanders blamed the Australians. The Australians blamed the New Zealanders and the Scots. The official inquiries were a whitewash…’

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2018/dec/10/the-moment-that-forever-changed-my-perspective-on-anzac-mythology

    • laguerre

      And it was after the end of the war in 2018 as well. Disgusting what British authorities (in command in Palestine) conceal. As well as Oz and NZ.

  • Mistress Pliddy

    The Kraken awakes, complains about people who complain, and then promptly slumps fast asleep again. Rinse and repeat at some indeterminate point in the future.

    • nevermind

      What an ancient farce indeed. Britain is stulified, hopelessly split as if the cartharsis at the centre of an austerity Goverment has to be mirrorrd by us sheeple.

      Nobody in Westminster cares about facts or those they purport to serve, they are on cloud nine worrying about being deposed from power.
      The woman who failed to implement immigration policy, who does.not care about public services, or the 4 million people, most of them working, in need to access foodbanks, she likes to talk tough spurring Russia and be the concubine to the City of London corp.
      And she will win tonight because there is nobody to lead or direct this rabble.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Architects and Engineers join Lawyers to support Grand Jury initiative’:
    Been a long time a’coming….

    • Clark

      I hope this gets to court. Misguided though many of the petition’s claims are, a court case may reveal further information, and matters that have been concealed by authorities.

      However, its scope is very limited; the Lawyers’ Committee’s Petition focusses exclusively upon the collapses of buildings at the WTC site, and offers no evidence implicating any plausible, specific suspects for their main, mistaken allegation of extensive demolition rigs pre-installed throughout the Twin Towers. It could not, since in nearly two decades of coverage, mainstream and alternative, no such evidence has ever emerged.

      Of course if it does get to court, and the court finds against pre-rigged demolition of the Twin Towers, the conspiracy theorists will simply continue to howl “it’s a cover up!”

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Clark December 12, 2018 at 14:36
        As expected, but let’s see.
        And I’m a real good ‘howler’, one of my few forte’s.

  • Sharp Ears

    The Tory wolf cubs are coming on to the news channels one by one to defend and support the pack leader prior to tonight’s ‘confidence vote’.

        • Blunderbuss

          MPs can’t decide so we need a temporary dictatorship to enforce the will of the people.

          • Clark

            On a referendum split almost 50/50, with its margin completely dwarfed by the undecided? Surely a second referendum based on the actual negotiating position would make far more sense.

            I think you’ve just shown up the Brexiteers for what they are, and democracy doesn’t come into it. Quite the opposite.

          • Clark

            So you prefer martial law to a second referendum, to “enforce the will of the people”.

            Obviously nearly half the people aren’t people in your opinion. Is that fascism I can smell?

          • Blunderbuss

            It is a standard EU dodge to keep having referendums until they get the result they want. They did it with the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon.

          • Clark

            I’d rather democracy than martial law, whatever my position on the EU. I worship nothing but the creative excellence of reality, but your hatred is clear; you advocate violence to get your own way.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Clark

            My hatred? Have you forgotten that you have made veiled death threats against me and my family?

          • Clark

            I have made no threats. I have merely challenged you figuratively to put your money where your mouth is. It’s YOU that says science is a scam, not me But only when it suits your unstated purposes.

            Yes; your hatred. Advocating dictatorship over democracy.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Clark

            How old are you? You are so immature that I suspect you are a child posing as an adult.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ Blunderbuss December 12, 2018 at 13:20
            Since when did HRH and Martial Law enforce the ‘will of the people’? You have to be joking, but I know you’re not.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Paul Barbara

            I think there are times when a dictatorship is the least worst option. For example, the dictatorships of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were preferable to the chaos which followed them.

            The fact that the Queen, not the Prime Minister, is the head of the armed forces is an important safeguard. For example, if Britain elected a Nazi government which started sending people it didn’t like to death camps, I would want the Queen to intervene.

            You may say that the present situation is not as serious as that. Maybe not, but the present impasse over Brexit is seriously damaging to the national interest. Somebody needs to sort it out but Parliament has shown itself incapable of doing so. I think a short period of military rule would do the job.

            Another event that I found heartening occurred in Russia. I think it was during the Yeltsin era when Russia’s economy was in a mess and the public sector wasn’t paying its bills. The electricity company cut off the electricity supply to a nuclear submarine base because the bill had not been paid. This created a dangerous situation because used nuclear fuel rods could not be kept cool. The base commander took a band of armed men round to the electricity company and forced them, at gunpoint, to turn the electricity back on. I approved of the base commander’s action.

          • Dave

            In difficult times there is always a contest between democracy and dictatorship, between chaos and leadership to resolve matters, but the way you lean depends on whether you think the problem is due to democracy or a lack of democracy.

            I would say the present problem is due to a lack of democracy as a Remain Parliament seeks to thwart a Leave referendum result, which is part of a wider argument between representative and delegate democracy.

            For a long time we have been electing MPs on the basis they make the decisions and we vote them out if they get it wrong, but that system is broken, hence the need for voting reform, but because its broken they agreed to give the decision to the people and act as delegates to implement the result.

            The result hasn’t been implemented because the unelected establishment aka the dictatorship have revealed themselves by opposing the result.

            I.e. We need more democracy rather than dictatorship to resolve the matter and despite project fear its not a crisis in the true sense because the economy is doing rather well considering the political shenanigans.

          • Dave

            Well the problem is, those who can change the system, Lab/Con, are elected under the present system, so have no particular interest to change the system, but Labour are more likely than Conservative to change the system, and would win if they made it a manifesto promise to do.

            Its forgotten but the crushing Labour (and Lib Dem) victory in 1997 was due to tactical voting to defeat the Conservatives on the back of a Labour manifesto promise to hold referendum on voting reform, which Blair, being a dishonourable MP, reneged on.

            Corbyn is more likely to honour such a promise, knowing the perils of not honouring a promise, and don’t confuse genuine voting reform with the pigs ear AV referendum in which Clegg sold himself and sold out the Lib Dems for office.

          • Clark

            Paul Barbara, I have been trying to alert you for some considerable months. Understanding science is my thing. With science, we are not at the mercy of opinion; positions can be assessed by direct reference to facts and reasoning. From what has transpired between myself and Blunderbuss, it should be clear that one of us was reasoning scientifically, and the other was just slinging shit in the hope that it would stick:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-12/#comment-808631

            Now Blunderbuss draws a false equivalence between the slimmest, most ambiguous majority for Brexit, and the need to keep nuclear fuel rods from melting down! This is the commenter who would have you believe that global warming is caused not by capitalism’s insistence on producing greenhouse gasses in pursuit of profit, but by unspecified magic performed with HAARP, weather radars and mobile ‘phone masts. If Blunderbuss really was a scientist as claimed, s/he should have recognised the stroboscopic illusion exploited in Geoengineeringwatch’s misleading video.

            TRUTH, Justice, Peace.

          • Clark

            Dave, your 13:10 is one of the most insightful comments I’ve seen you post. But the first UK EU referendum was made in ignorance. Vast numbers of people voted based upon their impressions, influenced by widespread mass-media propaganda. The debate going on during the following negotiations is the debate we should have had before we went to the polls. The actual actions of “Leave” were not specified. Another referendum is clearly essential, and must include more options covering immigration, economic union, and law.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Clark 13:38

            My vote in the EU referendum was not made in ignorance. I voted for Brexit and I still want Brexit. I am happy with the May deal and I wish the extremists on both sides (pro- and anti- Brexit would stop blocking it.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Clark 13:23

            “With science, we are not at the mercy of opinion; positions can be assessed by direct reference to facts and reasoning. From what has transpired between myself and Blunderbuss, it should be clear that one of us was reasoning scientifically, and the other was just slinging shit in the hope that it would stick”.

            Not so. Clark and I have looked at the same evidence and come to different conclusions. Genuine scientists do not provide facts and they do not claim to. Clark claims to provide facts but I do not. I just say: “This is my theory and it is up to you whether you accept it or not”. I do not try to impose my theories on anyone.

            “This is the commenter who would have you believe that global warming is caused not by capitalism’s insistence on producing greenhouse gasses in pursuit of profit, but by unspecified magic performed with HAARP, weather radars and mobile ‘phone masts”.

            Actually, I didn’t claim that. I just put up a video and invited people to comment on it. This is because I am in favour of free speech.

          • Clark

            “I have looked at the same evidence and come to different conclusions”

            What, you believe the icecap will refreeze over winter:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-12/#comment-808859

            AND that it is disappearing in the blink of an eye after 33 million years?

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-12/#comment-808905

            Those were adjacent comments. You believe that the icecaps are melting (see above) AND that the temperature data showing warming is faked? –

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-12/#comment-808834

            Pull the other one mate, it’s got bells on. Scientist? You? Pah.

          • Clark

            As for your appeal to free speech, that’s human rights. Barefaced lying gets you slung out of the Brownies in science.

          • Clark

            Blunderbuss, since you might not understand where you went wrong, let me put it this way:

            ‘Nay, nay,’ quod he, ‘than have I Cristes curs!
            Lat be,’ quod he, ‘it shal nat be, so theech!
            Thou woldest make me kisse thyn old breech,
            And swere it were a relik of a seint,
            Thogh it were with thy fundement depeint!
            But by the croys which that seint Eleyne fond,
            I wolde I hadde thy coillons in myn hond
            In stede of relikes or of seintuarie;
            Lat cutte hem of, I wol thee helpe hem carie;
            Thay shul be shryned in an hogges tord.’

          • Blunderbuss

            @Clark

            Is that Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale? I just looked up Geoffrey Chaucer on Wikipedia and I see that:

            “Chaucer achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, and astronomer, composing a scientific treatise on the astrolabe”.

            Fancy that, he was an astrophysicist, like Piers Corbyn.

          • Clark

            Yes, it’s the eventual ridicule of the Pardoner.

            Astrophysics, the study of the nature of astronomical objects, could not exist in Chaucer’s time, long before the development of telescopes and spectroscopy. Piers Corbyn indeed studied astrophysics, but has not for nearly forty years. For about twenty-five years he has been a private sector commercial weather forecaster, but has excluded himself from the scientific community by refusing to disclose his methods.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Clark 14:06

            “But the icecaps are melting, so there is warming.”

            My information is that the ice is shrinking in the Arctic but growing in the Antarctic. That suggests a transfer of heat, probably due to ocean currents.

            “clearly, you work to defend greenhouse gas pollution”.

            Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

          • Clark

            (sigh) Your information is out of date, as Dave’s “380 PPM” was. Funny, that deniers keep referencing old figures, from when the changes were smaller. The Larsen C ice sheet in West Antarctica cracked last year, and now East Antarctica is confirmed to have been losing ice since 2002:

            https://www.google.com/search?q=10.1029/2018GL078173

            And even when Antarctic ice did increase, it was only a fraction as much as the Arctic was losing; that was just another deception from the denial industry. But just keep bluffing. Hopefully you lot can spin it out long enough that it’s too late for everyone.

            Excess CO2 is a pollutant because it’s a greenhouse gas, and you pollute public information.

          • Dave

            Clark, I teased out of you, your support for “end justifies the means” and in view of your apocalyptic warnings, this must mean extreme measures, such as bombing Chinese (and US) coal mines, to save the planet! Your “end of days” mind-set is the new old time religion dressed up as science.

          • Clark

            Blunderbuss, December 14, 14:17 above:

            “Yes, I support […] Jeremy Corbyn…”

            Blunderbuss, December 12, 13:22 below:

            “Welcome Nigel [Farage]. You can be the dictator, appointed by the Queen.”

            About as honest as Alastair Campbell:

            “It was like it was in slow motion. All these words came tumbling out of the middle of his face and just went crashing headlong into this huge truck full of truth and sanity that was coming the other way.”

            https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/traffic-slows-down-to-stare-at-alastair-campbell-201001132374

          • Clark

            But Dave, you’ve found NO argument against the science. In fact, you’ve shown no understanding of any science.

            I’d very much like global warming to be untrue. I’m hoping that Valentina Zharkova’s prediction of solar cycles proves to be correct, because it might buy us the time we need. Or maybe effects upon water vapour will provide negative feedback which prevents further temperature rise. But these are faint hopes.

            I’m not religious; I don’t believe in an afterlife or reincarnation, and this crisis isn’t like a religious Armageddon, because religious scenarios always offer some way out; salvation of the soul through repentance or virtue, or resurrection into God’s new kingdom. This is more like a car crash on a global scale; just a stupid, avoidable tragedy, but on a vast scale.

          • Clark

            Dave, I don’t know how extreme actions need to be to ensure a good outcome. But they wouldn’t have needed to be extreme at all if action had been taken earlier; just a phased transition to replacement energy technologies, a reduction in animal farming, more careful use of resources etc.

            It’s highly ironic that the urgency of the situation was brought about by exactly the hollow arguments that you still propagate. You claimed you’d be persuaded by reasoned argument. You haven’t been. What would it take to convince you?

          • Dave

            So you don’t rule out bombing the coal mines, everywhere? “End of Days” offers salvation for 50% who go upstairs but 50% go downstairs, which I suppose is fair, but its the mark of a religious mind-set.

            You still have strongly held religious beliefs, which explains how you can steadfastly say 3 towers with a combined 267 storey’s of reinforced concrete and steel can turn to dust in seconds after being hit by 2 planes, which is scientifically impossible, but presumably could happen if an act of God.

          • Molloy

            .

            Clark — for FexSake. . . . “BB” is obviously taking the pi$$.

            It’s divisiveness personified. It’ll be gone back to Cheltenham very soon.

            Sláinte

            * * *

          • Clark

            Molloy, it doesn’t really matter whether the antique firearm is serious or not; the discussion proceeds in public, so the fallacies need to be countered.

            Doubt Blunderbuss is GCHQ. God help us if our intelligence officers are that illogical. Corporate shill would make more sense, or maybe funded from the Gulf by a torturous chain of connections. But the UK has fuck all hydrocarbons left to sell, so there’s little incentive for GCHQ to be pushing global warming denial.

            Radar O’Reilly’s GCHQ; he’s posted so, but he seems one of the good guys. He posted some interesting stuff about how ‘phones get compromised on one of the Skripal threads. I’m not saying GCHQ don’t get up to dirty tricks; they do, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad people when off duty.

            Do you know who’s who at this blog? Craig, obviously. Iain Orr was Consul General of Shanghai, Clive P is Clive Ponting. The late Brian Barder used to comment occasionally. There have been a few visits from Patrick Haseldine. Charles Crawford either doesn’t visit any more, or has taken to using a pseudonym.

          • Clark

            Dave, I see you didn’t follow the physical arguments on the 9/11 thread. Too busy sniggering along with Paul Barbara I guess. I don’t know what happened to WTC7; I have my suspicions. But the calculations for the Twin Towers would proceed exactly the same now as when I did them then. There is no way the floor assemblies could arrest the descent of the top sections; they were never intended to. I guestimated the momentum transfer; there was no need for greater accuracy because the result was overwhelming; the internal collapse would accelerate, and the energy of deformation at each floor was equivalent to enough TNT to decouple it from the frame. The internal collapse left the perimeters unbraced, so they toppled outward, and when we look at the wreckage, lo and behold, all four bolts between each box section had stripped out. No surprises there.

            I did the physics. It’s not a ‘religious’ belief.

            Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean no one else can. If that weren’t the case, there’s no way you could be posting comments via the Internet, because you don’t understand a fraction of how that happens either. You’re making an “argument from personal incredulity”, a classic logical fallacy.

          • Clark

            Dave, if you start with the assumption “this is impossible”, you close your mind to any explanation of how it is possible.

            You have to put your assumption on hold, and then go through the steps of the explanation asking if each is possible. Then, if all the steps are possible, then the overall explanation is possible, and your original assumption must have been wrong.

          • Clark

            Dave, sorry; I left out the very first first piece. The critical question regarding the Twin Towers is “what will happen if the vertical columns become misaligned at the damaged zone?” The answer is that the section above the damaged zone will begin to descend, and its weight will hit the topmost horizontal floor assembly below the damaged zone like a hammer blow. Can the floor assembly take it? The numbers say “no way”. The next floor assembly down is therefore hit by even more weight, moving even faster. Accelerating internal collapse follows from there; it’s inevitable.

          • Dave

            Except the towers aren’t collapsing, they’re disintegrating evenly into dust at free fall speed.

          • Clark

            Blunderbuss, that’s hopefully good news. I shouldn’t read too much into it though, since the heating is coming from the atmosphere.

          • Clark

            Dave, those are just things you’ve been told. The collapses proceeded at less than free fall; you can check this on the videos, in fact Chandler has put a video in his YouTube channel on which he’s added moving markers for free-fall, and the collapses move at about 2/3 of that rate, which is pretty close to my momentum guestimates. And nearly all the dust is produced as the internal collapses hit ground, when the concrete floor assemblies would have been crushed; that’s very clearly shown by the videos.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Dave 00:07

            What I want to know is why did the twin towers collapse but Grenfell Tower didn’t?

          • Clark

            Various reasons immediately occur to me. Firstly, Grenfell Tower was reinforced concrete construction throughout, whereas the Twin Towers vertical frame was steel only, no concrete. The horizontal floor assemblies were mostly concrete, but there was none in the vertical support structure (core and perimeter). Concrete is more resistant to fire because it doesn’t soften like steel does.

            Secondly, The Twin Towers had huge notches cut into them by the aircraft impacts, and those are the regions at which the collapses initiated. The Twin Towers weren’t destroyed directly by the aircraft impacts, but by the sections above the damaged zones falling onto the sections beneath.

            Thirdly, Grenfell Tower had quite evenly spaced vertical support structures internally, whereas the Twin Towers had 22 metre open-plan floors supported only at their edges. It was these extremely heavy, mostly concrete floor assemblies that became entrained in the internal collapses.

          • Dave

            Your like a religious zealot denying the fossil evidence and denying your very own eyes. The towers are disintegrating, exploding, evenly all the way down, even as the towers get much stronger nearer the base. And then to say after all this time you’re still puzzled by the sympathy collapse of WTC7, because it wasn’t hit by a plane, is just wilful blindness, which you transport to climate change, again serving the official narrative.

          • Clark

            Just try to watch the videos with an open mind. Just see what’s there to see, ignoring what other people have said. Yes there’s considerable dust throughout, but it’s overwhelmed by the massive dust cloud which starts just as the line of ejections approaches ground level, and then wells up and spreads out. That IS the evidence of my own eyes, and I’m not going to deny it on anyone’s say-so.

            My suspicions about WTC7 do not accord with official accounts. See me as I am too please. That, especially, because being misjudged is distressing.

          • Clark

            All this time, here and on the 9/11 thread, I have hoped that some other reader would look at the videos and see that I am speaking the truth.

            But the fable of The King’s New Clothes is too optimistic. Had a child spoken the obvious, some in the crowd would have turned and ridiculed him, and the others would have held their tongues, and then shuffled away.

          • Dave

            The tower is disintegrating all the way down with debris exploding away from the building. You have remarkable and lengthy explanations for why the towers collapsed but Grenfell remained standing, but can’t explain WTC7, which in contrast becomes a remarkable omission.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Clark 10:32

            “See me as I am too please. That, especially, because being misjudged is distressing”.

            Luckily, I’m not easily distressed. Being called a liar, cheat, deceiver and fascist just runs off me.

          • Blunderbuss

            @Dave 11:59

            I haven’t looked very hard at the twin towers collapse. Until recently, I hadn’t even heard of the WTC7 collapse – they certainly kept that one quiet.

            Most of the controlled demolitions I’ve seen have gone perfectly – the building just crumbles vertically. I don’t know how this is done. I would expect that the shock of the explosion would separate the concrete from the steel, the concrete would fall and the steel would either remain standing or topple over. However this is not what happens.

            Since I know so little about the science of demolition I’m not going to jump to any conclusions yet.

          • Clark

            “The tower is disintegrating all the way down with debris exploding away from the building”

            Look closer; there’s a sequence of events. Various distinct types of destruction can be seen, each with their own development over time. When is the most dust produced? How long after initiation?

            No one has suggested a satisfactory explanation for WTC7. At least I admit that I have only guesses rather than picking one guess and insisting it’s the only possibility. Which is what everyone else seems to do.

          • Clark

            Blunderbuss: – “they certainly kept that one quiet”

            Wrong yet again. The BBC helped paint it day-glow green and pink some 23 minutes before it went down.

          • Clark

            It is easy to see that most of the videos of WTC7’s collapse were taken from cameras mounted and stationary, directed at the building, apparently rolling, as if waiting for something to happen. And firefighters had been told for some hours that it would collapse and they must stay outside its safety exclusion zone; five blocks, I think. Pretty much the opposite of keeping it quiet,

            When it went down it looked like a highly skilful deliberate building implosion. It did damage two adjacent buildings, but it was remarkably neat considering that no building nearly that tall had ever been imploded. And it was on fire.

            Bloody thing couldn’t have been more conspicuous if they’d dressed it up in a dinner jacket, but no one was killed or even hurt.

          • Clark

            Dave, answer the question please. You claimed that “the towers are disintegrating, exploding, evenly all the way down”, that the Towers were “disintegrating evenly into dust at free fall speed”; When was most dust produced? Did the collapses proceed at free fall or less?

            Surely you’re not trying to evade the facts?

            “Your king is naked!”
            “You’re on your own there, child.”

          • Dave

            Your point that it wasn’t free fall speed, but a few seconds more, is a mute point and intended to deceive.

            As if a few seconds, or even hours, makes the difference, when the towers couldn’t have disintegrated progressively into dust and evenly into their own footprint, so clearly before your eyes without explosives being fitted throughout the buildings and in the basement.

            If you look up “carbon trading” you will find why the 1% promote the climate scam, but which is opposed by those who want to promote an industrial policy and build things.

          • Clark

            Dave, the Twin Towers did not “fall into their own footprints”. This too is merely something you have read. WTC7 fell almost entirely into its own footprint, but the Twin Towers fell as would be found after progressive collapse – The remains of the floor assemblies were funnelled into the footprints by the perimeters, which themselves toppled outwards while breaking into sections, falling into two huge overlapping crosses. The cores fell last, each strewn on top of its pile. And the dust of crushed concrete was blown all over Manhattan by the air that was in the buildings and which the collapses expelled.

            “Your point that it wasn’t free fall speed…”

            But Dave, that wasn’t my point, it was yours; you accused me of ignoring the evidence of my own eyes by refusing to see this free fall. The depravity of corrupt carbon traders is worse than you suspected; the climate is in crisis, yet they use this global emergency, merely to line their own pockets. Possibly they console themselves with false arguments against global warming; please help deprive them of this false comfort. Peace and justice begin with truth.

          • Clark

            Corrupt carbon traders don’t build things. Builders build things, and engineers design them and work out how they can be built. Engineers are paid somewhat more than builders, which separates them slightly by class, but neither rake in anything near the grotesque profits of the traders.

            I build things. I haven’t climbed the career ladder but I’m a scientist and engineer at heart, and the most essential prerequisite of those is to observe well, see the world as it is, and not impose our illusions upon it. It’s a discipline and I’m a disciple.

          • Dave

            Yes again strictly speaking you’re correct, they’re not falling into their own footprint, because they’re disintegrating into dust clouds covering the surrounding area, but the collapse is through the line of greatest resistance, evenly downwards, the mark of controlled demolition, as opposed to collapsing unevenly or toppling to one side.

          • Clark

            “the collapse is through the line of greatest resistance”

            This again is just something you’ve been told. Engineering describes it more accurately.

            The line of least resistance was outside the perimeter, down through empty air. The line of second least resistance was down through the floor assemblies, mostly empty air between perimeter and core. The line of third least resistance was down through the perimeter, and the line of most resistance was down through the core.

            And the collapse behaved accordingly. Perimeter sections from the top hit the ground first, falling outside the perimeter through empty air. The internal collapse was the fastest wave of destruction, down through mostly air obstructed only by four inch concrete floor slabs, but constrained, caged by the stronger perimeter. The perimeter went next, toppling outward in sections, and finally the core fell last. All in sequence, in accordance with their relative strengths.

            “First, observe well”.

          • Clark

            Dave, there was no one to tell me all this. Bažant’s description is nearly as crude as Chandler’s, treating the buildings, with their varied internal structure, as if each were “two blocks”. I had to work it out for myself, by studying the videos and the buildings’ structure.

            I was always slow at school because I would never accept things on trust. I felt compelled to sit and work out why. Same at uni. But I think I did it 🙂

          • Clark

            “There shouldn’t be any emissions trading because there shouldn’t be any emissions!”

            The very term “emissions” is a misnomer. It just means “out of our factory”, but it can’t get off the planet. The term accepts the capitalist doctrine, “internalise the profits, externalise the costs”. It’s like “throwing things away“. The end of the sentence is left off; “throw things away from me“. There’s nowhere called “away” on our planet.

          • Dave

            Clark you say “there was no one to tell me all this”! Well I do think the truth can often be found outside the consensus, but as you discount dissent over the climate scam as “a tiny minority”, you should logically discount your own views about the twin towers with added conviction, as you are in a minority of one!

          • Clark

            Dave, I don’t want to bomb anyone or anything. That was your idea, not mine. But climate change has caused war in the past, and world-wide conflict over diminishing resources seems the most likely outcome if global warming isn’t brought under control.

            The numbers supporting various positions are just facts, but some like to misrepresent those facts in pursuit of political credibility, eg. the Oregon Petition signing up graduates and even false names to make it seem as though there’s a scientific controversy over global warming. Just as every major scientific institution in the world has endorsed AGW, not a single university supports Twin Tower demolition theory. Within their relevant scientific fields, these debates reached conclusions years ago, because they’re really very simple.

            On what basis are you now dismissing global warming as a scam?

        • Clark

          And Dave:

          “Well I do think the truth can often be found outside the consensus”

          There isn’t just one consensus. Your Twin Tower demolition theory is a consensus too. A particular minority agree that “the Twin Towers collapsed at free fall into their own footprints through the line of greatest resistance, proving they were brought down by controlled demolition” etc. None of those claims are true; they’re just sound-bites, slogans. But they form the basis of a consensus none the less, just like the “Russian bots” nonsense currently pervading the mainstream media.

          • Clark

            Come to think of it, consensus must matter quite a lot to you or you wouldn’t have said to me:

            “No one agrees with you, you’re on your own!”

            So how do you pick which consensus you’ll believe? Not too big but not too small? You just like the sound of it so you join the club?

            I’m glad I can think for myself. You could learn to, but I suspect you prefer your prejudices.

          • Clark

            But how do you pick a consensus to sign up to? You’ve pretty obviously bought into Twin Tower demolition consensus, because you repeat all those particular slogans. You even fell as low as trying to dispirit me rather than admit that they contradict facts. And how are you supporting your “climate change scam” belief since we discussed it?

          • Dave

            The climate scam is the enemy of the environment in many ways. For example, it’s responsible for the epidemic of fly tipping, including plastic, at home, abroad and in the oceans, due to climate change legislation promoting a mad recycling agenda and very expensive waste disposal costs, resulting in fortnightly bin collections to save the planet.

          • Dave

            Well it helps to choose a consensus with at least a plausible scientific explanation, which is why there is no consensus for your shock & sympathy theory.

          • Clark

            So you admit to just choosing a consensus. You are therefore a sheeple. Your choice.

            There’s nothing as low as a liar, but again it’s your choice. You know what I propose has no resemblance to “shock & sympathy theory”. You accused me of ignoring the evidence of my own eyes, but it was you that was doing so. You misrepresent the evidence to make it fit your preferred conclusion.

            And you’re still avoiding facts. Whatever your opinion of government policy, it is irrelevant to the fact that human activity is progressively destroying the environment upon which we all depend.

            Some people simply lack conscience. They are called psychopaths.

          • Dave

            I’m not choosing a consensus, I’m just giving my view, but you said every view ends up as part of a consensus, big or small, except your own view doesn’t belong to any consensus, because shock and sympathy theory isn’t shared by anyone.

          • Clark

            Dave, when I leave this life, which I hope will not be too long, I will know that I was true unto myself. I no longer wish to share reality with beings like you.

            Moderator, please do not delete this comment again; it does not contravene the rules. If you wish to contact me, Craig has my ‘phone number; I have not looked at my e-mail since May.

          • Clark

            “you said every view ends up as part of a consensus”

            No, that is presumably what you thought I meant, but it is not what I said.

            “I’m not choosing a consensus, I’m just giving my view”

            When and how did you arrive at that view? Can you remember? Be warned; I am likely to ask questions which are likely to reveal that your assumptions about your own thinking process cannot be true, so try to remember accurately before you reply.

          • Dave

            I learn as I go and am happy to accept constructive advice, but you keep trying and trip people up and make a meal out of a minor point or technicality whilst steadfastly refusing to accept elementary points and the evidence of your own eyes. Sad really as you are intelligent and informative on many issues.

          • Clark

            These are not “minor points or technicalities”; they are absolutely foundational to your beliefs.

            I suspect you do not know physics well enough to understand this, so I tried to broaden the context by discussing consensus. But you have returned to specifics again, with an accusation. What evidence of my eyes do you claim I am denying?

          • Dave

            The towers are collapsing, exploding, into dust, from the very beginning, which you claim you cannot see, which only a wilfully blind or worse person cannot see, because of course, once you see, it means controlled, which you refuse to see, for whatever reason, beyond the obvious.

          • Clark

            Consider WTC1. I see the top section begin to collapse into the bottom section at the damaged zone, where the fire is. Around that height only, I see large gouts of flame and dark smoke ejected.

            Something I do not see, though I have looked very carefully, are bright sparks immediately before collapse commences. I see gouts of yellow flame immediately after the start of collapse. I have compared with many videos of known demolition by explosives. In all cases, you can see the bright sparks of explosives immediately before the structure begins to move.

            I do not see the “towers […] exploding, into dust, from the very beginning”, because I can watch the top section descending, apparently intact, until its roof line disappears into a dust cloud developing around the damaged zone. Likewise, below this dust cloud, much of the building stands intact. This dust cloud starts to form around the damaged zone just as the top section starts to descend, but not before. Debris is also flung out at this time and place. But very clearly, the destruction starts at the damaged zone, and the dust cloud does not start to form before the top section begins to descend.

            Next I see an advancing horizontal front of ejections accelerating downwards beneath the dust cloud at the damaged zone. This is dark in colour. It is not yellow flame with dark smoke, as was ejected at the damaged zone as the collapse began. This advancing front is overtaken by large falling perimeter sections, so it must be descending at less than free fall, and Chandler’s video confirms this. The falling sections trail dust, and a dust cloud starts to develop near ground level.

            It is as the descending front of ejections merge into the dust near the ground that the massive, final cloud of dust is produced. This cloud is several times bigger than all the previous dust together. It blasts out horizontally and then wells up.

            So far I haven’t described the toppling perimeter sections, nor the remnant of the core, but this is enough to be going on with for now. That description was from memory. Is there any of it that you disagree with?

          • Clark

            Incidentally, by “from the very beginning”, I take it you mean from collapse initiation. Progressive deformation of the exterior of the buildings was observed, photographed and videoed several minutes before collapse initiated, in both cases.

          • Dave

            None of what you describe could be the result of the 110 storey tower of reinforced concrete and steel being hit by an aluminium tin can which would have folded on impact.

          • Clark

            Dave, you’re sort of moving the goalposts, and that could recur indefinitely. Can we sort one thing at a time please? Do you still accuse me of ignoring the evidence of my own eyes in my observation of the collapse?

          • Clark

            “At remarkable length”? There are whole phases of that one collapse that I didn’t even attempt to describe, because I was concentrating upon the leading edge of destruction as it progressed down the building. I haven’t even mentioned the great breaking apart around the top of the standing section, roughly when the roof line descends into it, and only mentioned in passing the toppling of the perimeter sections which this initiates.

            Of course, description necessitates simplification, so I tried to describe some of the major processes of destruction as succinctly as I could. But I have deliberately avoided imagination. In all rational analysis it is essential to determine what is actually there rather than imposing our own preconceptions, and in the technical community this is usually a collaborative effort of successive refinement. Exactly which parts of my description so far do you think are wrong, and how should they be instead?

          • Dave

            Well an elementary starting point is the impact of an aluminium tin can wouldn’t initiate the collapse you so eloquently describe, which requires a very fertile imagination to begin with!

          • Clark

            Dave, if anyone is displaying fertile imagination it is you, equating 80,000kg aircraft with 0.015kg drink cans, and you are trying to change the subject again. It was you that accused me of denying the evidence of my own eyes regarding the collapses. Now substantiate that, or retract it, up to you, but don’t try to weasel out of it.

          • Clark

            The aircraft were not “empty shells”; each weighed eighty tonnes unladen, and each was carrying over thirty tonnes of fuel. Between them they had about ten tonnes of people on board; maybe you should try some “shock and sympathy theory” of your own. Aircraft debris was found in the streets and on nearby buildings.

            Dave, about the collapses you wrote:

            “The towers are collapsing, exploding, into dust, from the very beginning, which you claim you cannot see, which only a wilfully blind or worse person cannot see, because of course, once you see, it means controlled, which you refuse to see, for whatever reason, beyond the obvious.”

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-13/#comment-810859

            Now obviously you are far superior to me, in both intelligence and morals. But WHAT exactly are you accusing me of, and WHAT exactly am I blinding myself to?

          • Dave

            So you subscribe to the official narrative that hijacked and fully laden passenger airliners hit the 2 towers?

          • Clark

            Stop ducking and weaving. You made accusations against me, of “wilful blindness”, and something unspecified “beyond the obvious”, based upon my observations of the collapses. What is it that you insist I should see, or should say that I see whether I do or not, that I might be admitted among the ranks of the Holy Ones such as yourself? What do you wish to control Dave? Just people’s communication, or their very perception?

          • Dave

            If you don’t subscribe, it debunks your shock and sympathy theory, which must be calculated on the tonnage you describe, although the 2 towers were hit in different areas, and yet you clam the same result.

          • Clark

            If you refuse to answer the question, say so. You should retract your accusations because they are based on no evidence, but I doubt you have the integrity to do so.

            I do not propose a “shock and sympathy theory”. That is merely your term, abusive ridicule presumably intended to cow me. As for the rest of that gobbledegook, please try to express it more clearly.

          • Dave

            Your explanation of the collapse (of one tower?) and hence your calculations are based on the 2 towers being hit (in different places and yet with same result) by fully laden passenger airliners. Please explain why they both collapsed in the same way. Alternatively study Pilots for 9/11 truth.

          • Clark

            The very rough calculations I made, many months ago on the 9/11 thread, concern only the collapse of WTC1, and only collapse progression, not collapse initiation. The same reasoning would apply to WTC2, but since the damaged zone of WTC2 was lower, the section above was much heavier, so collapse would proceed even faster, which it did. For this reason, most theorists consider only WTC1; if WTC1 could collapse, WTC2 certainly would.

            The point of this is that there are two arguments, one by Chandler and one by Wood, that the collapse could not have accelerated (which it did) unless assisted by some other destructive process. Chandler’s physics is valid, but his argument is wrong because it treats the building like a solid block, ignoring its internal structure, and ignoring that most of the interior was empty air. Wood’s “physics” is really pseudo-physics; she states and manipulates the equations correctly, but applies them perversely, in ways that objects never actually behave. She also lies about the energy required to decouple floor assemblies from the vertical support structure (perimeter and core). Chandler just gets it wrong through oversimplification; even A&E9/11Truth no longer explicitly endorse his theory, though they still quietly link to it. Wood seems to be taking the piss out of anyone foolish enough to believe her, and is engaged in a slanging match with A&E9/11Truth.

            My own calculations are just simple reasoning with a little secondary school physics, treating the building as it really was rather than as Chandler’s solid block. It confirms that if the top section of WTC1 fell upon the lower section at the rate it was measured to (about 2/3 of g), it would initiate an accelerating progressive collapse through the horizontal floor assemblies. The rest of the collapse sequence is consistent with this – the internal collapse creates the enormous final dust cloud as it hits bottom, as shown by the videos The perimeter topples outward and breaks into sections by stripping the bolts in the ends of the box columns, as confirmed by the debris. And the core stands longest after the rest has fallen, as shown by the videos.

            My calculations have nothing to do with the aircraft impacts. They apply no matter how the top section started to descend. They require only that, at the height of the damaged zone, enough of the vertical support structure becomes misaligned that the top section starts to fall. If that happens the rest of what we saw is very likely to follow; just gravity and Newton’s laws of motion, no explosives involved.

            I think WTC7 may have been brought down by a covert or military demolition team, rigging probably thermite and/or explosives from the time that Jennings and Hess were finally evacuated. This is highly speculative. There was a court case and an appeal about WTC7; the court records might be interesting, but hardly any Truthers seem to have heard of this. Shrug.

          • Clark

            Sorry, I missed one of your questions.

            WTC1 and WTC2 collapsed similarly because they were almost identical structures. There are differences in the collapses that seem consistent with the somewhat different damage to the two buildings. The lower damage to WTC2 caused its collapse to proceed faster, due to the top section being heavier and having less far to fall. The less central damage to WTC2 caused the top section to tip more as it was breaking free and starting to fall. This also affected the destruction of some of the lower section’s perimeter:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2I1UMuBWRE

          • Dave

            You rightly say there is a big difference between 80,000kg and 0.015kg but there is also a big difference between 80,000kg and 40,000kg!

            Clearly you mean 0.015kg couldn’t haven’t initiated the collapse, but 80.000kg could (but what about 40,000kg?) and must have made your calculations accordingly. I would have thought if the planes hit different parts of the towers they would need to be different weights too to have the same effect you describe?

            And now after saying for so long WTC7 is a mystery you offer controlled demolition. I suppose that’s progress of sorts!

          • Clark

            Dave, if you had been reading what I wrote, you’d have known my thoughts about WTC7 for many months. But you haven’t even read, or more likely not comprehended, my most recent comments. You could read them again, maybe mull them over for a while.

            There’s a big question here, much bigger than what happened at the WTC. It’s about how to communicate, and about how and why people fail to communicate.

            I really don’t know how to proceed. The ideas that I’ve been trying to send to you seem to be all scrambled by the time you’ve received them. I suspect that this situation is very common, probably pretty much universal throughout humanity, and that this is why so much human interaction degenerates into conflict.

            How can we establish effective communication?

          • Dave

            For many months I.e. 17 years later!

            You are in a bubble of your own regarding how the towers collapsed. You read the dust clouds to explain how they collapsed, illogically assuming both could collapse in the same way despite being hit in different places by the planes.

            But you admit your explanation of the collapses doesn’t follow an examination of whether the tonnage of the planes could initiate the collapse. So you have fanciful notions about the collapse, without calculating whether the planes could have initiated the collapses or whether passenger airliners actually hit the towers. See Pilots for 9/11 truth. Hence wilful blindness.

          • Clark

            Dave, my previous comment was all about how to establish effective communication. Apparently you ignored it.

            I get it. You own the privilege to pronounce the Truth of matters; you are The Pope. I am an oik and my responsibility is to accept what you say. I’m tired of fighting, so go ahead. You tell me what’s what, and I will submit to your elementary superiority.

            Will that make you happy or something?

  • remember kronstadt

    Dreaming of a white christmas? The one and only king and saviour is now party free and available – if a tory mp chokes to death on a brussels sprout be afraid. deck the halls with boughs of folly here comes nigel.

  • Republicofscotland

    Radio chatter has Theresa May favourite with the bookies to hold on, Boris Johnson also appears to be the bookies favourite to take over, in the event May loses.

    So the Brexit process started with the Tories in turmoil, and it looks like it will end that way as well. Whether we leave or not is still, to be decided though.

    The surrealism of Westminster hit me square in the face earlier when Victoria Derbyshire on the BBC was interviewing another faceless grey suited Tory on the £39 billon pounds exit bill.

    Derbyshire said we owe the EU this exit money, the grey suit mildly disputed the fact, that it must pass through the House of Lords first, as they have a duty to look after the taxpayers money.

    Although a no deal Brexit will be very damaging across these Isles. The SNP needs to take a step back at Westminster, and let the two main parties concentrate on playing their violins on the deck of the Titanic, whilst they head for the lifeboats through Scottish independence.

    • remember kronstadt

      Looking at the way that NI has been an issue that derails an agreement and that the UK pays more to NI than the EU fee, and has a remain majority, I can’t see Scotland ever escaping from the ancien regime.

    • Sharp Ears

      One of the grey suits was Grant Shapps, leading light in the CFoI incidentally. Another was Crispin Blunt and another was Ed Vaizey.

      The Health SoS MattHancock came on and also Sir Graham Brady the chair of the 1922 committee. Theresa gave Brady a knighthood this year.

      They had all been sent out to both news channels to puff up May’s position and to defend her.

      Vaizey is at a deep trough. He employs family members on salaries totalling £40-45,000 pa including his wife. Wikipedia.
      His Register of Interests – https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10062

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Brady Quite illuminating.

  • Republicofscotland

    Well, there’s nothing like a convenient shooting to turn heads away from social and economic injustices, forced on to you and your family by a neoliberal president such as Macron.

    Surprisingly or should I say unsurprisingly, the “shooter” exited the crime scene in a taxi, that dropped him off near the police station in Neudorf.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46535552

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Republicofscotland December 12, 2018 at 11:29
      ‘..Surprisingly or should I say unsurprisingly, the “shooter” exited the crime scene in a taxi, that dropped him off near the police station in Neudorf.’
      Nipping in the police station, he changed into his Gendarme uniform, and rushed out to join the hue and cry.
      Reminds me vaguely of London Bridge/Borough Market:
      ‘London Police Changing Clothes – HOAX/ACTORS?’:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ampLXJzWVc8
      While I was reading your link, I saw a news flash that the ‘gunman’ shouted ‘Allah Akbar’ – well, he would shout that, wouldn’t he? (, as Mandy would say).

  • Sharp Ears

    Alan Duncan, Con MP and Minister of State for Europe and the Americas in the FCO, is refuting all information that has emerged on the ‘Institute of Statecraft’ and the Integrity Initiative, in reply to an urgent question from the Opposition. 🙂

    Emily Thornberry is wiping the floor with the little toe rag. He has history as a government stooge of the first order.

    • Sharp Ears

      Duncan is having apoplexy.

      Emily Thornberry
      ‏Dec 9
      Leaked documents show the FCO’s funding of the ‘Integrity Initiative’ explicitly mentioned support for its Twitter activity. Did they know that would include taxpayer-funded attacks on the Labour Party? My statement on today’s revelations Infowars revelations.
      https://twitter.com/EmilyThornberry/status/1071816239482372097

      Her statement – https://labour.org.uk/press/emily-thornberry-responds-reported-government-funded-attacks-labour-party/

      • Sharp Ears

        Aaron Bastani –
        Undermining Democracy, Not Defending It: The ‘Integrity Initiative’ is Everything That’s Wrong With British Foreign Policy
        This weekend a truly extraordinary story was unearthed regarding the machinations of the ‘Integrity Initiative’ (II), a British think tank funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the tune of £2.2m.

        While several of the think tank’s tweets – attacking Jeremy Corbyn and key advisors – have garnered the most interest so far, it is leaked documents concerning its working processes and efforts abroad that are particularly shocking.

        In these documents the core approach of the II is made clear – their modus operandi being a ‘cluster approach’ where influencers, policy-makers and journalists coordinate across a range of countries. One such cluster operates in Spain, where the II successfully obstructed the appointment of a reservist colonel, Pedro Baños, who was preferred by the socialist government as the country’s next head of national security. Despite his strong resume – Baños was once head of counterintelligence and security for the European army – his admission on Twitter that Spain ‘would not gain anything from provoking Russia’ was apparently a stretch too far.

        /..
        https://novaramedia.com/2018/12/10/undermining-democracy-not-defending-it-the-integrity-initiative-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-british-foreign-policy/?

    • Geoffrey

      Wasn’t Alan Duncan the one that the Israeli’s tried to smear earlier this year as Craig wrote in a previous blog ?

      • Mistress Pliddy

        Yes, it was. He is not one of the worst of the tory (not to detract from the Integrity Initiative story), he is disliked by the neocon tories
        and to some extent, he has been a countervailing force against the truly evil Verity Fox faction. Not to say he isn’t nme, but he will probably receive life in prison when the Verity Fox gang have their heads fed to the ravens on Tower Hill.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Sharp Ears December 12, 2018 at 15:03
      I’ll be sorry to see her go – before a General Election; same as I was with Thatcher.
      Better they ‘Face the People’ with a loser….

  • Sharp Ears

    ‘She’ is off to Brussels again, by Eurostar I heard, for some more humiliation.

    I wonder how much taxpayers’ money in total has been expended with Eurostar transporting her and the flunkeys to and fro so far.

      • flatulence'

        yes but I’d be more concerned about the methane emissions from her mouth. And I know about these things.

    • Sharp Ears

      I am told she flew (not on her broomstick) but on a chartered plane.

      Heard on LBC from one of the presenters that the sight of the crowd, mostly male, banging their tables and clapping and cheering when that silly vote was announced last night was worthy of N Korea. I should imagine that N Korea is much more democratic than this bunch in power.

      • Dave

        Its all pure theatre and a pretence, as May’s aim is to lose the vote by as many votes possible to sink Brexit, but in the name of honouring the referendum result.

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