Am giving a talk in Karachi on Sunday, and very much looking forward to it. Entry is free. This blog has a number of regular readers and two donating subscribers in Karachi, and it would be a great pleasure if they can introduce themselves. I am speaking primarily on Sikunder Burnes, (after whom Karachi’s famous Burnes Road is named), but shall happily wander off into the vicious folly of modern western military interference in Afghanistan, the illegality of drone strikes, the two century long history of western exploitation and exacerbation of the Sunni/Shia divide, and the great work of Julian Assange.
As always, I shall also be talking about why Scottish Independence, just like Irish, should be seen in the context of decolonisation, despite the eventual co-option of Scots to the Imperial project. As I have explained till I am blue in the face, the domestic law of the metropolitan country is utterly irrelevant to the legality of secession; the only determining factor is international recognition.
Bizarre to see there are still remainers claiming a no deal Brexit will prevent life-saving medicines from being allowed into the UK by our own HMRC. We’ve been hearing this preposterous argument for months, and none of the “journalists” have pointed out what a ludicrous pack of lies it is.
Of course the EU is well known for doing deals at the very end of the deadline, in fact they often stop the clock and continue for days after.
I have never heard so much hysterical nonsense in my life.
I write as one who feels that Brexit will be a mistake and that the UK would probably be better served by remaining inside and playing/gaming membership in the same cynical and hardheaded way it had been and is by the french and the Germans (to take only two examples – there are others, but those two excel).
I would agree with your point that this business about empty supermarket shelves, panic, famine and troops on the street, etc, is just a load of hysterical nonsense, And also cynical, because those who write it know that ot is nonsense. This country is not Venezuela. after all!
A good example of the nonsense talked is the claimed adverse effect on the “just in time” supply of components for manufacturing. Manufacturing will be paralysed, say the pocket Cassandras and peddlers of snake oil. But this adverse effect is purely chimerical for the simple reason that just in time supply is by definition infinitely flexible and adjustable. Components will take longer to clear Calais and Dover? Then the sender will send them 24 hours earlier than hitherto. “Problem” solved!
Comments please.
One things for sure the hike in prices will lead to a scarcity of troll food owing to a universal detestation of Tory government
And thus you demonstrate how all the amateur armchair experts like yourself haven’t a clue what you are talking about, or the complexity of how the JIT system works, one which has been built up over the last couple of decades. Pub bores on this subject are ten a penny, as you can see here.
How candid you are about yourself Ian. Refreshing to see.
JIT will be replaced with waiting in time. Frencj customs will work on a first queued first in line, and the above dreamers who think that sending something a day earlier will not get round the custom rules.
Backstop means a border and however many troops perpetuate an increase in violence, thanks to consecutive scarycat Tories worried about a ukip exodus of their members, the assumption that the UK can just walk all over EU single market borders, effectively creating a smugglers paradise, is just another case of having someone elses cake and eating it.
Ireland will not be walked over however many barclay bankers shifting considerable assets to Dublin, the black and tan days are over.
“JIT will be replaced with waiting in time. Frencj customs will work on a first queued first in line, and the above dreamers who think that sending something a day earlier will not get round the custom rules.”
I get the impression you don’t really know what “just in time” delivery is, Nevermind, Du grosser Luemmel. Just in time delivery takes account of all possible factors – including, in this hypothesis, the time needed for (lost by) border checks at Calais and Dover – in order to ensure that the delivery arrives….just in time! 🙂
Yes Charles, the crescendo against No Deal does seem to be organised, in fact so much so that nobody appears to believe it. In fact it appears to be backfiring so much that even Remainers like yourself have almost been turned into No Dealers !
No Deal will certainly require considerable change, which is always painful, but with out change there is no growth .
Charles.
You sound to me like a reluctant remainer, like most remainers i know. Visiting The Guardian and coming into contact with slimy pondlife that tirelessly shill for the Brussels Mob turned me towards Brexit, despite not voting in the ref. Now i find the idiocy of the hysterical doomsday predictions laughable.
Am I right that your own argument is that the EU is known for formally reaching agreements at or shortly after deadlines (which is true), therefore this will be what happens with Brexit, therefore claiming a “No Deal” Brexit will occur is mistaken, therefore claiming that it will have any effects on anything is also mistaken?
A problem here is that you may be giving too much weight to the Noel Edmonds dichotomy “Deal and No Deal”. And the amount of weight that should be given to it has changed. See my earlier comment.
It’s it about anybody preventing the transfer of medicine of food it is about the collapse of the smooth physical and regulatory pathways without a clear substitution.
Talking with people at work it seems that we all choose our parties to support from bitter experiences in the past. If like myself you had three small children and the Thatcher state wouldn’t give out 1 p in benefits because I was self-employed, I’m not going to forgive the Tory party till I die. Another person who lost £30k from a Labour party crash with mortgages will never vote Labour ever again .
So let’s hope the hedge fund cabinet blow their chances for many generations and do a no deal brexit. And let’s hope the lib dems never find another Clegg to shoehorn the unelectable back into power
Begs the question did you vote for them before?!
I voted green. Does that count?
Barclays Bank is moving the assets of 5000 rich people from Britain to the Republic of Ireland, clients who have an average of £33 million each in their accounts. The total amount is a sixth of a trillion pounds. That’s 166000000000 pounds.
It is difficult not to see this outflow and relocation of monetary assets as being the part of the flight of capital and business out of the Brexit bound UK.
That is why a united Ireland and an independent Scotland within the EU makes so much sense.
Would this be the same Ireland that even after having falsified its GDP has a debt to GDP ratio of 320%? Would this be the same Ireland that has financial assets equivalent to 1750% of GDP. Would this be the same Ireland whose exports overwhelmingly go to or through the UK?
The Irish people are being used by the EU as cannon fodder in its assault on the will of the British people. Ireland gets nothing out of this at all – it is all risk and no reward. Why would the Irish people want to engage in such activities?
If only the Irish could come to understand the depth of the EU’s total disdain for them then too would surely follow the British to the sunlit uplands of freedom.
@Loony
Ireland’s debt to gdp ratio is around 66%. That means, you’re simply wrong — https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/public-debt-percentage-gdp
Ireland recorded a budgetary surplus of around 100 million Euros last year. Your country, which I assume to be engerland (because you seem dim and jingoistic), borrowed around 45 billion pounds last year, just to keep the lights on.
Another reason for the UK not to leave the European Union is that when the really hard part of Brexit begins – I refer of course to the negotiation of a future trading relationship – the rEU is going to do its best to take the UK to the cleaners. Which is, of course, rather natural behaviour for the EU and, indeed, for any major trading nation or bloc, no one can or should blame them for that.
So, for example, there is not going to be a future trade deal which does not carry with it, and as a condition for it, substantial access to UK waters for rEU fishermen. And the same will happen in a number of other areas not directly related to trade in goods and services.
That is one of the reasons why the UK would be better off staying in the EU. What it should concentrate on is learning to play the same game as France and Germany (in particular). Specific courses of action would be, for example, never to gold plate EU directives; another would be not to stick out as the awkward squad but to go quietly with the flow and then be let us say …less than punctilious…. in applying national legislation implementing EU directives…..or even firmly and consistently implementing directly applicable EU legislation. All of that is not, of course, the English way, but it’s a tough world out there.
” play the same game”
Michael Hestletine . To give in to the EU would be as if we lost the war to Germany.
Nice try heebijeeb
Don’t give up the day job.
E.U. plots to sue Britain unless Mrs.Theresa May forks out over £39billion divorce bill in no-deal scenario!
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1080209/Brexit-news-EU-no-deal-divorce-bill-Theresa-May-financial-settlement-latest
more threats from the E.U.
It astounds me that anyone would want to be part of their club.
Why does it astound you that obligations and signed agreements will have to be accounted for.
your simplistic empirical notes here are getting a touch nonsensical.
It astounds me that anyone reads the Daily Express, let alone believe any of the content.
We have been told by U.K. politicians, that we only pay the Ransome money to E.U. if there is a deal, hence No Deal
No Ransom money to be paid by U.K. into E.U. chest.
…substantial access to UK waters for rEU fishermen….
Hypocrite.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if the Israelis allowed ‘substantial access to their waters (those that are within an Israeli imposed 6 mile limit) to Gaza fishermen, without shooting at them.’
Nice, clean catch.
No comparison, Sharp Ears – the Israelis are not fishing in the 6 mile zone off Gaza.
The British find it very hard to “play the same game” – not least because of the differing legal systems. If the EU is ever going to reach its stated end goal then Britain needs to effectively dismantle its system of jurisprudence and replace it with a system that is more aligned to the systems in mainland Europe.
Interestingly substantially every commercial enterprise almost everywhere seems to prefer that whenever possible commercial contracts are all governed by English law. So do away with English law and you undermine global competitiveness for everyone, and you deal a hammer blow to the City of London. Presumably absent English law people will move on to a law that is most similar in nature – probably somewhere in the United States.
So oh wow the British smash their legal system and the behest of their European masters and everyone loses except some rich lawyers in the United States.
If you do not do this then, for so long as it is in the EU, the UK will always be at an internal competitive disadvantage. So the choices are to deliberately hobble yourself in perpetuity, to radically change your legal system, or to leave the EU. It is does not strike me as a difficult choice.
Most of initial EU laws and regulations during the 1950s were set out and written by English lawyers.
try not playing up to your handle and think what that means.
“Most of initial EU laws and regulations during the 1950s were set out and written by English lawyers.”
Despite the fact that the UK only joined the EEC on 1st January 1973?
yes Charles do educate yourself.
So these were British lawyers and officials working for the Commission during the 1950s, despite the fact that you have to be a national of one of the Member States to work in the Commission and the UK did not become a Member State until 1st January 1973?
“Most of initial EU laws and regulations during the 1950s were set out and written by English lawyers.”
I am slightly confused by this, the original Treaty of Paris (1951) was drawn up by the French and West Germans, later Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands became involved, and in 1957 The Treaty of Rome was agreed, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Rome
Nowhere can I see any input by the UK. What is your source?
The Hague
I think it means that English lawyers assisted in the drafting of EU laws and regulations. I do not think it means that that these laws and regulations were written in conformity with English law.
Clearly you agree with me as otherwise you would have written “Most of the initial EU laws and regulations during the 1950’s were written by English lawyers in conformity with English law”
Anyway it seems likely that you are making things up as no such institution as the EU existed in the 1950’s – so it is a little difficult to see how anyone would be drafting laws and regulations for an entity that did not exist.
He wrote “The Hague”, which means he’s probably confusing EU las and regulations with the statutes of one or the other International Court based there.
Many people find difficulty distinguishing between the EU, the Council of Europe and, it would seem, the International Courts in The Hague.
Most people, especially the brexiteers like to befuddle people with ‘facts’ like the ECHR is the same as the EU!
I an still having to explain with otherwise rational people that Mrs May’s cat owning ex-prisoner or whatever not being deported has nothing to do with the EU – some people think any institution with the letters ‘eu..’ anywhere in its name is the EU!
You fuckwits!
‘The ECHR and its European Court of Human Rights are part of a completely different legal system to the EU. The ECHR and ECtHR are both part of the Council of Europe which has 47 member states including Russia and the UK.’
See that RUSSIA and UK are part of the SAME club.
I did think the plan was to run the clock down, declare a constitutional crisis following an historic defeat and then announce back to square one I.e. Remain! But it now seems, as a referendum would be a transparent betrayal of the vote, the plan is to secure a win for May’s Leave means Remain deal after shedding the dreaded backstop.
Clever, because her Leave means Remain deal means Remain, but no one notices, at least in MSM, because the backstop red-herring has gained such an importance, it means her deal can be supported without it.
I’m sure Brexiteers know this, but have decided the heavy price of “getting over the line” is worth it to secure Leave, even though it means, at least for now, Remain.
Leaving and busting EU borders to gain access is what this Government is proposing and the EU is not having it.
At midnight tonight, there are two months to go.
Who’s Lord Kerr* when he’s at home? You have to hover over the numbers to read his notes.
https://www.politico.eu/article/article-50-brexit-europe-annotated-with-comments-from-its-author-lord-kerr-theresa-may/
* He certainly lined up some lucrative directorships after leaving the diplomatic service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerr,_Baron_Kerr_of_Kinlochard
Actually two days ago on 29th March which is a Friday.
Shocking statistics for rough sleepers last Autumn have been released. These in a rich so called first world country.
NEW: Official rough sleeping stats for Autumn 2018. Figures are up 165% on 2010
https://twitter.com/e_casalicchio/status/1090907302033612800
Charles Bostock @ January 30, 2019 at 22:32
“This country is not Venezuela. after all!”
Schools are also reporting that 1 in 10 children are arriving hungry, and numerous incidents reported of children rummaging through bins looking for food but Jeremy Cunt and Sir Alan Dumcunt thinks it’s Venezuela that should be subjected to violent regime change because people are going hungry.
A lot of Brexiters dismiss the dark predictions as exaggerations and fear mongering.
But generally they offer only hand-waving assurances, devoid of specifics.
By contrast, here’s a supermarket food buyer on James O’Brien’s LBC phone yesterday, explaining in specific detail why a ‘no deal’ Brexit will lead to sky-rocketing food prices, panic buying and empty supermarket shelves.
He certainly sounds like he knows what he’s talking about to me. And he sounds scared.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/supermarket-fruit-buyer-no-deal-brexit/
@KoWN
I think panic buying is the main problem, so the predictions are self-fulfilling.
Yes, and tht could be easily overcome by retail outlets limiting the amount customers can buy. Two pounds of sugar a go and not a supermarket trolly-full.
‘…could be easily overcome by retail outlets limiting the amount customers can buy.’
That’s called rationing. Do you seriously think that would ‘easily overcome’ the fear of food running out? It would make it a thousand times worse.
So now you’re a fan of Venezuela?
It would not be formal rationing, you fools, just shopkeepers taking rational measures on a temporary basis.
Anyway, I don’t buy into this idea that there would be mass panic – to claim this is to show utter contempt for the common sense and intelligence people (the general public) in whose interest you always claim you’re speaking. And it would also help if people like you stopped issuing those very silly prophesies of doom which almost smack of incitement.
And, apart from the panic buying issue, the scaremongering is based on us continuing to buy the same amounts of foodstuffs from the same sources. If a hard brexit is confirmed, the big supermarket chains, etc, are not going to cut off their noses to spite their faces. They are going to identify potential shortfalls and quickly set up sources and supply chains from ex-EU suppliers. The idea that we won’t be able to buy enough food is a nonsense, and pure scaremongering.
‘They are going to identify potential shortfalls and quickly set up sources and supply chains from ex-EU suppliers.’
This is exactly the sort of hand-waving argument I was referring. What does ‘quickly’ mean in this context? Put a figure on it.
If they are even semi-professional corporations, they will already be putting provisions in place. To suggest that these businesses are going to drop off a cliff on the day of a hard brexit is utterly preposterous (or outright scaremongering). Wetherspoons Tim Martin (boos and hisses from the remainer gallery) is being quite open about his company’s ongoing plans for alternative sourcing (unlike most businesses), and they have already started reducing prices due to this policy.
‘Quickly’, and inexpensively too? Supermarkets are pretty hard nosed, and currently have the deals which deliver products as cheaply as possible. If there were other easy means of sourcing goods they would not have expressed the concerns they made earlier this week.
A 25% rise in prices might not sound much to you, but people on low salaries supplemented by benefits are already existing on the very minimum the government has determined they need to live. This includes everyone on a minimum wage, which is a huge proportion of the workforce, besides those existing on benefits alone.
People will not quietly starve by the million.
You forgot to mention that source prices of ex-EU goods will drop by 40 (yes forty) percent the day we leave the EU. The deals supermarkets currently have won’t look quite so good then.
KWN. people who know what they are talking about can explain it all until they are blue in the face, but brexiters and armchair experts won’t listen, because they have it all worked it out from their bar stool.
You have explained nothing Ian. You just parrot Project Fear’s mantras endlessly, and embarrass yourself with the usual remainer empty condescension.
O’Brien is a fervent Remoaner.
Yes Sharp Ears, he is certainly a passionate remainer. But I was quoting the supermarket food buyer not James O’Brien.
He does this for a living and seemed to know what he was talking about. He was saying WTO tariffs will add 10 – 14% to imported food and, if the pound tanks, that could be another 10 -15%.
Many people in this country, as you know, are struggling to make ends meet as it is, so what will they do?
The well off will panic-buy the food and empty the shelves. What will the people who can’t afford the food do?
There’s a good chance they will loot it, don’t you think? In recent riots people have looted Nike trainers so it’s not unlikely that they might be willing to loot food.
How likely is this? I’ve no idea but a very steep rise in food prices seems almost inevitable.
What is your view on this?
Many people in this country, as you know, have been struggling to make ends meet for the last 30 odd years, despite EU membership, so many of them voted for brexit?
But they’re just racists so should be ignored.
I don’t know if anyone has noticed but the whole world seems hopelessly divided and our slew of useless, grasping, self interested, bought and paid for politicians (delete where applicable) can hardly muster a useful thought amongst themselves.
What to do about small majorities? Rational compromises seem to be unavailable and the status quo is an old rock group who used to sing about matchstick men.
Sorry. I agree with Benjamin Zephaniah, it doesn’t matter whether it’s brexit or remain, yes or no (re Scottish independence) the poor and powerless will be shafted either way and the rich will continue to get richer.
The “smart money” has always been and gone before joe bloggs even wakes up and wipes the sleep from his eyes.
I don’t even know why I’m typing this.
Criminals run the world.
Dan O’Thebes. I agree. I would hope that out of this grows a new urgency about our ‘taken for granted’ preeminent position in the so called civilised world. The rule of law, our so called democracy, the oil wars, casino City and food waste
are all seen to be corrupted and no longer credible in the eyes of our own people. Hopefully we will no longer get subsidies for not growing food, and grow much more at home than we do. Hopefully the captains of industry will be patriotic and invest at home in manufacturing, training, infrastructure and plan for the future needs of the country than short term global transfers and tax advantages. I dont think the breakup of the UK will solve anything except give rise to the forces of the 30’s. I cant see how the EU can remain an exclusive two tier club, a poor version of the US. We managed to do so much after WW2 despite being broke. Why cant we again.
“He was saying WTO tariffs will add 10 – 14% to imported food and, if the pound tanks, that could be another 10 -15%.”
“WTO tariffs” means anything between 0% and some maximum, so why is it always the maxima that are quoted?
The pound tanked by 20% after the vote. I don’t remember any empty shelves, do you? Nor do I remember any appreciable price hikes. The supermarkets took it on the chin. That’s why they are bleating, they know they will have to again and they’d rather not have the loss of profits.
My view on this is that you are asserting wild speculation based on your prejudices.
James O’Brien, the man who thinks every opinion he has – on any subject – is automatically a verifiable fact and that anyone who disagrees is a moron. A terrible flaw for someone running a discussion show, and one he shares with the odious neocon Al Nusra cheerleader Majid Nawaz.
The good news is, that as someone who probably spends too much time listening to LBC, i get to turn it off when they’re on.
The plunge is under way
Italy falls into recession as Eurozone economy staggers
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2019/jan/31/uk-house-prices-brexit-eurozone-gdp-italy-business-live
The ‘Aquis’ to free mobility across borders in Europe is being discarded, a proper right, unlike so few others here, it is being denied to our children, not that the adults understand what it really means.
The freedom to roam Euirope when you are young, be allowed to stay and study abroad, meet others, widen your horizon without much worries, all this taken away from two generations that never had a say on this important issue. What a shamble to play petty empire games with subject who, one day, you would like to pay for your pensions.
Talking of pensions, a different issue, mixed age pensioners are set to loose £134,- month after the Tories decided to sneak in a proposal via a ministerial statement, what sly slugs.
I’m sure their ample pensions will be excempt from this measure.
@Nevermind
Young people travel all over the world – America, Africa, Australia, India, China. The lack of a “World Union” doesn’t seem to stop them.
Nevermind
Speaking as a Remainer, may I say that you’re being particularly fact-free today? As in :
“The freedom to roam Euirope when you are young, be allowed to stay and study abroad, meet others, widen your horizon without much worries, all this taken away from two generations that never had a say on this important issue”
No young person – or indeed any non-young person like yourself – is going to be prevented from travelling around Europe or studying there.
At first sight, the only thing that might disappear is the Erasmus facility, which, as you probably don’t know, is not a facility which enables study abroad for the full duration of a university degree course but merely for a semester or two. Higher education will survive, I think.
I think the government has stated that it wants to stay in Erasmus with an EU deal?
Travel in the EU is going to be visa-free, as confirmed by the EU. How are people goung to be stopped from travelling from country to country in the Schengen Zone, when there are no land borders or checkpoints?
Your concerns are yet another remainer myth.
“How are people goung to be stopped from travelling from country to country in the Schengen Zone, when there are no land borders or checkpoints?”
.
We will be a non-EU country. Simple.
What is simple is that, as non-EU British citizens, we will be able to travel to the Schengen Zone without visas. And once in the Schengen Zone, we will be able to move around within the zone freely. I’m not sure why remainers try to present this situation as something that it’s not, unless they have comprehension issues or are being disingenuous.
Mixed age pensioners!!
Disgusted . From Trollbridge Wells.
Should be banned.
Italy has the biggest government debt in the E.U. at more than £2tn. WOW
It is also the fourth-largest government debt in the world!
The country’s debt burden as a percentage of annual economic activity is second only to Greece in the E.U. at 132%.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47068401
If you strip the U.K. Economy out of the E.U.
you would find that the E.U. Economy is flat lining.
Germany is certainly flat-lining
they have only avoided recession by the meerest of meerest whiskers.
The previous quarter they were blow the line and some “accounting” made the last quarter come out as 0.00%
0.00% must be the book definition of flat-lining
The EU has always been Washingtons`s creature since they created it.
“The Empire’s European castle of vassals is crumbling. Right in front of our eyes. But Nobody seems to see it. The European Union (EU), the conglomerate of vassals – Trump calls them irrelevant, and he doesn’t care what they think about him, they deserve to be collapsing. They, the ‘vassalic’ EU, a group of 28 countries, some 500 million people, with a combined economy of a projected 19 trillion US-dollar equivalent, about the same as the US, have submitted themselves to the dictate of Washington in just about every important aspect of life.”
https://journal-neo.org/2019/01/16/europe-on-the-brink-of-collapse/
Yeah and I’m sure the US loves the Euro becoming an alternative to the petrodollar monopoly.
Dungroanin
February 1, 2019 at 00:20
The Euro is flaky and a mirage only backed up by the dodgy Bilderberger who runs the IMF
I think you will find the Euro is actually ‘backed’ by the exporting nations of the EU to the RoW.
The Euro too is a fiat currency.
The ECB issues bonds and has done QE.
Many things once priced in $ only are now also priced in €.
Think the ‘Fed’ likes that?
Multiple accounts that May is approaching individual Labour MPs from former mining constituencies with promises of development funds. Naked, pork barrel politics. First the bungs to the DUP, now this. Funds for former mining towns 30 odd years too late, not because it’s the right thing to do but ’cause Theresa needs to force her deal through. Westminster is broken, time for Scotland to grow a pair o’ stains and depart.
A woman motivated only by love for her country according to the BBC.
Who has learned to lower the pitch of her voice two octaves to sound more like an alpha-male.
Like Hillary did.
“Who has learned to lower the pitch of her voice two octaves to sound more like an alpha-male.
Like Hillary did.”
…and Thatcher – both ridiculous women, completely lacking in self-awareness or compassion.
Our splendid EU showing it’s true face again:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190125IPR24303/venezuela-parliament-recognises-guaido-urges-eu-to-follow-suit
Disgusting.
The fact that it’s taking so long is actually good.
I agree
Yes, eight days to set up and hold a presidential election is a remarkably long time.
Just to be factually accurate they wanted elections announced in 8 days rather than being conducted in that time. Maduro should announce them, most Venezuelans will see through the blatant US interference and the orchestrated demos of the wealthy upper classes, and it will knock the “Maduro is a dictator” narrative on the head.
Yingluk’s government tried this tactic in Thailand in 2014. The opposition disrupted the general election, claiming that it was corrupt, vote-buying, blah, blah…..then the army (which was sponsoring the protesters) stepped in and took over. Whilst it’s debatable as to whether-or-not the army in Venezuela would do something similar, it’s easy to see a scenario where Guaido and his gang pull out of the election process with the same claims of corruption, and his sponsor (the US government) ramping up pressure exponentially to who-knows-what level on Maduro’s government. Maybe even a direct intervention?
Javid was criticized by Bercow and others for not announcing his new Asbo measures to the HoC as is the Parliamentary convention. Instead he went to the media last night with the news.
Sajid Javid introduces knife crime prevention orders
Asbo-style orders could limit use of social media in order to stop gang rivalries escalation
Wed 30 Jan 2019 19.01
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/31/sajid-javid-introduces-knife-prevention-orders
GG’s success.
The humanitarians from Israel arrive in Brazil to help after the Vale dam burst. Remember the Israelis arriving in Haiti?
George Galloway
@georgegalloway
Hundreds of #Israël soldiers have just arrived in #Brazil which is an applicant for membership of #NATO Meanwhile #Colombia is now a NATO candidate member. Both border #Venezuela
TONIGHT: on #Livestream at 7.30pm please join me.
https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1090932454695817216
Read the tweets underneath. Most get it.
Bolsonaro and his two sons are very Israel friendly needless to say.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/11/6/brazil-president-bolsonaros-sons-show-off-israeli-military-t-shirts
and in Ha’aretz
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-bibi-comes-to-brazil-to-offer-bolsonaro-a-little-help-with-his-leftist-dissidents-1.6790001
Sharpie,
Aside from your usual Israel bashing, your post above is incorrect (well Galloway, who you quote, is wrong). Neither Brazil nor Columbia are applicant or candidate members of NATO.
IrishU:
Well, Columbia and Brazil may not be applicant or candidate members of NATO but Columbia has an agreement with NATO regarding security and intelligence communication.
As to ‘Israel bashing’ by ‘Sharp Ears’, all I can say is that Israel, or its administration at least, deserves every bashing it gets and then some…
Garth,
Glad you agree re. Columbia and Brazil. Interesting that Sharp Ears doesn’t fact check what she posts providing it fits with her narrative of attacking Israel at every turn.
I suppose the point I was making was this: if Galloway and Sharpie are wrong about the Brazil and Columbia applying for NATO status, what malevolent reason is there for Isreal sending aid to Brazil in the wake of a disaster? It isn’t the first tiem such aid has been sent, I doubt it will be the last.
Of all the things, real and fake, to hold Israel to account over, surely it must be acknowledged that the sending of aid is a strange one to choose?
Haven’t the Israeli’s bought up large chunks of Patagonia? Which is to say they have growing interests in South America.
“Israel bashing”, eh.
And what are you?
An apologist for an apartheid state.
NI unionists are unabashed supporters of the apartheid state.
https://sluggerotoole.com/3636148326_a44b064602/
As you say. There is never any Israel propaganda without Regev.
https://nifriendsofisrael.wordpress.com/herzog-centenary-celebrated-in-northern-ireland/
Milord Bew is in the forefront of the grouping along with Trimble.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bew
Chair of the Anglo Israel Association
https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-bew/3832 (register of interests)
https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-trimble/658
(A visit to Israel courtesy of Chatham House! and another to the Australian supporters)
Fonso,
It would be foolish to say all unionists are supporters, unabashed or otherwise, of Israel. A typically hyperbolic and incorrect statement relating to Northenr Ireland. I am not sure how you lept to such a conclusion based on a single (and old) photo of the old Ulster Standard defaced with the Star of David.
BJ,
Wonderful retort. See response to Garth above. Particularly the following:
Of all the things, real and fake, to hold Israel to account over, surely it must be acknowledged that the sending of aid is a strange one to choose?
Don’t you agree?
New offshore gas project may turn Israel into ‘energetic power’ – Netanyahu
Netanyahu toured the newly-placed foundation for the coastal rig in the Leviathan gas field, Eastern Mediterranean Basin, on Thursday. Its arrival marks the first stage of an ambitious project the PM says will wean Israel off coal and revolutionize its economy by turning it into an energy exporter.
SE.
It’s likely in the future that Brazil will join Nato, Brazil under Balsanaro has shifted to pro-USA.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/brazil/2018-10-28/trumpism-comes-brazil
As for Colombia, apart from being the only South America country to support the US led Iraq war, the country is a dirty little staging post for the Great Satan’s nefarious activities on the continent.
RoS,
On what basis do you say it is likely that Brazil would join NATO?
Why would it?
Have you a source (s) for your assessment that Brazil is likely to join NATO, or is it more of a gut feeling?
Its just case of amending the NAT, in my opinion Balsanaro being pro-US would go for it.
“Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute proposed Mexican membership of NATO in order to enhance NATO cooperation with Mexico and develop a “North American pillar” for regional security.”
“In June 2013, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos stated his hope that Colombia’s cooperation with NATO could result in NATO membership. Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier proposed a “global NATO” that would incorporate democratic states from around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, South Africa, and India, while Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani suggested expanding NATO to include Singapore, Israel, Australia, India, and Japan. Expanding NATO outside of Europe would require amending Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO
RoS,
For some reason you omitted the following sentence from your Wikipedia copy and paste:
‘…though his [Juan Manuel Santos] Foreign Minister, Juan Carlos Pinzon, quickly clarified that Colombia is not actively seeking NATO membership’
Funny you didn’t include that section, eh?
EU once again breach international law by supporting the overthrow in Venezuela.
This is beyond big in terms of hypocrisy and law breaking.
“EU once again breach international law by supporting the overthrow in Venezuela.
This is beyond big in terms of hypocrisy and law breaking.”
Well, the US and Israel are the special ‘chosen ones’ and so International Law is only broken when it’s broken by the ‘others’ (i.e. foreign inferiors).
The US and the West stuck up two fingers to International Law many decades ago and have simply been escalating the trend.
These arrogant, evil power elites who take it on themselves to police the world and then behave like a force of totally bent coppers.
Just as despicable are the journalists who kow-tow to this corrupt, vicious agenda. Journalists need to accept that they are complicit in the all the monstrous propaganda and deceit and therefore belong in the same cesspit as their corporate masters.
By God, I feel better after that!
I support what you say but the problem also lies firmly at the feet of ill-informed and ignorant voters who persistently vote for these criminals, and then just sit by silently when they commit their gross crimes. In this day and age of mass communication there is no excuse for the levels of ignorance and stupidity so regularly displayed by brainwashed, clueless voters.
The Great Satan’s (US) favourite minion Britain is leading the way. Westminster is profoundly obedient.
“The freezing of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England is a signal to all countries out of step with US interests to withdraw their money, according to economist and co-founder of Democracy at Work, Professor Richard Wolff.”
https://www.rt.com/business/450144-venezuela-gold-boe-wolff/
I wonder if Westminster would freeze Israeli gold (if they have any, and if it’s not stolen) as zealously.
Anyone else notice how the US puppet Guaido is very similar in appearance to Obama? Maybe the Great Satan thinks the similarities will win over the Venezuelan masses, as in the US.
Meanwhile.
“Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has claimed that Donald Trump ordered the Colombian government and mafia to assassinate him.”
https://www.rt.com/news/450108-maduro-trump-ordered-mafia-kill/
What is your problem here? With regard to Venezuela both Trump and the EU are moving in lockstep. You seem to idolize the EU but maybe you are awaiting instructions from your European masters as to the appropriate view to hold on Venezuela.
There’s a difference between wanting to remain in the EU market of which I’m in favour off, and agreeing with everything the EU does, of which I don’t.
I certainty don’t agree with the EU’s position on Venezuela. In saying that after we dump Westminster on independence, I hope to see Scotland remain or rejoin, my preferred option EFTA, the EU.
Of course we all know fine well what Westminster’s poistion is on Venezuela or the USA’s position. Glasshouses and stones springs to mind.
What currency are you using when you “dump Westminster”?
I think Guaido looks rather like Macron.
Problem solved claims Charlie Bostock. Have you ever played the game Pass the Parcel? Now just add that whilst the music is stopped the one holding the parcel pays a tick tock time monetary levy.
JiT is centred upon not holding inventory, and thus not having finance tied up in stock, i.e. not holding the parcel.
“JiT is centred upon not holding inventory, and thus not having finance tied up in stock, i.e. not holding the parcel.”
JiT is a daft idea and any company which uses it deserves to fail.
From funding the oppressive military apartheid state of Israel, to a second coup attempt in Venezula, the self-proclaimed world police the Great Satan, (US), is now attempting to interfere in Northern Ireland.
“A resolution opposing the re-imposition of a hard border in Northern Ireland has been introduced in the US Congress amid growing concern among the Irish-American caucus on Capitol Hill about the direction of Brexit.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/resolution-opposing-hard-irish-border-introduced-in-us-congress-1.3775295
RoS, please, the US is not a homogeneous entity. In fact it is deeply divided (some feel to the point of civil war). I’m sure you know the Democrats won The House of Representatives. They are deeply opposed to the current administration. This is the Democrats siding with their global EU counterparts.
Stop with this Great Satan stuff, your average Joe in the US (working class victims you support) has tried for years to vote someone in to be less “satanic”. We all saw how Obomber turned out. But then…Amusingly when they do, you all hate him anyway and can’t tell the difference. Largely due to huge propaganda, but I know you don’t see that.
If Trump were carrying on the neocon MIC agenda, do you really think he would be so vilified? Use yer noggin’!
Freddy.
My Great Satan is not aimed at the average American, but at consecutive US administrations. Im sure there are many many good American people appalled by their foreign policies.
I usually put consecutive US admins when I quote them as the Great Satan.
@RepublicofScotland
I agree with that: As has probably been noticed, I’ve always been a big critic of ‘the Great Satan’ US but I’m sure there are many great people in the US, UK, Russia, China, Israel and everywhere. However, power elites in many countries seem to have always become corrupted by their attempts to brainwash their populations in order to maintain control.
Trump did ask him to pay a visit to Minnesota but Satan replied it wasn’t him who started the next global depression . Every one knows what happens if you start trade wars.
This is quite unbelievable, the Great Satan’s spokeswoman thinks that God is on their side.
“White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that God “wanted Donald Trump to become president.”
“Sanders spoke with David Brody and Jennifer Wishon of the Christian Broadcasting Network. Brody during the interview asked the press secretary for a “spiritual perspective” on Trump’s presidency.”
“I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president,” Sanders said. “And that’s why he’s there, and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/427730-sarah-sanders-god-wanted-donald-trump-to-become-president?amp#click=https://t.co/CGbSqoYjhg
Then again maybe God has a twisted sense of humour.
This is the closest thing one can get to is Putin god?
As portrayed in the Bible, God was a psychopath…
Yes! I see you have no problem in disparaging the Bible. I wonder if you are so keen to disparage another Holy text?
Whatever it is that you think you know – you are wrong. Cowardice is not a virtue.
Every right minded person should disparage that obscene bunch of horse-shit called The Bible. Anyone stupid enough to have religious delusions, believing in sky-spooks and all the associated mumbo-jumbo, ought to be treated as having having questionable judgement. In the best case, they haven’t broken free of a lifetime of conditioning to whichever nutty religious cult they were born into.
Liberalism is modern history’s biggest cult/ religion of all. A 300 year con to justify making the richest richer still.
@glenn_nl
I thought you were an atheist. That explains a lot.
How surprising to see you jump to the defense of the right to disparage the Bible. Why limit your insults to the Bible? Cowardice is NOT a virtue.
Joel: I would think religion is still the greatest con ever.
BB: Yes, I’m an atheist. That means I appreciate science, logic and reason over mumbo-jumbo, superstitions and nonsensical “beliefs”. No wonder we don’t agree about a lot.
Loony: Good to see you appreciate the value of recycling! Hope you apply it to all areas of your life, not just the rubbish you’re repeating even on this thread.
By the way, I was clearly referring to ALL religions, not just the Christianists. That includes the nutty delusions Muslims harbour too. Which isn’t to say every religious person is a nut job, just that it severely tends one in that direction. So, Loony, your feeble point is null and void.
@glenn_nl 22:19
You are a classic Wikipedia-man. I encounter a lot of them when I edit Wikipedia. They are invariably atheists and they “know” that they are right.
You might be surprised how many chemists believe in God. Biologists are less likely to be theists and I have no information on physicists.
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio and glenn_nl, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
BB: “You are a classic Wikipedia-man.”
Kindly explain what this means. I could speculate and offer counter-points, but would rather hear you’re accusing me of, exactly, unless it’s some worthless generalisation of course.
–
BB: “You might be surprised how many chemists believe in God.”
A curiously unscientific offering of proof from you – truth is a popularity test, forsooth? 🙂
So the world was flat, when the majority believed that it was, and the Earth was once the centre of the universe? According to your argument about who believes it to be so, it may well have been.
The science of chemistry largely derived from alchemy, which is not to say any of those pioneering chemists were stupid. I have been surprised from time to time, to find an intelligent, rational person that suffers from sky-spook delusions. Happens less often these days, thankfully. As mentioned above, I blame it on brainwashing at an early age.
But if chemists “believed” in certain physical properties based on no evidence whatsoever, wouldn’t you question their judgement, not to mention their proclamations ?
So why shouldn’t I question the judgement of someone claiming there’s a specific all-powerful, grand mover of the universe, but for which there is absolutely zero evidence?
Goodness your intolerance knows no bounds. It’s amusing too, however, to read your rants as you tear strips off the belief systems of others while failing to acknowledge that your own – atheism – is simply another type. Bless.
Jo1: Ah, sorry to hear of your condition – yet another “believer” who cannot accept that anyone holds anything except simplistic beliefs about existence, and holds them as a child would a comfort blanket.
Sorry, Jo1, some of us actually try to be evidence based. Possibly you’re not capable of seeing the world this way, and so imagine nobody else could either – bless.
@Loony
“Whatever it is that you think you know – you are wrong.”
Well that’s a pretty arrogant and vacuous statement.
How do you know what I think I know?
Anyway, I think I know that you think you know that what I think I know is not worth knowing.
(I thought I’d just say that as one loony to another)
“Yes! I see you have no problem in disparaging the Bible. I wonder if you are so keen to disparage another Holy text?
Cowardice is not a virtue.”
I agree that cowardice is not a virtue. However, I feel that the Koran and Islamists generally, receive plenty of criticism as it is. The reason why I didn’t criticise the Koran is because I haven’t read it – I’m more familiar with the Bible.
However, I have no problem in saying that from the little I have heard, the Koran is just as warped as the Bible. Both tomes seem to have been written by control freaks exploiting superstition to control the populace . Both books seem to contain psychotic and psychopathic material and both books are misogynistic. However, there also seem to be some good templates for living provided by the prophet Mohammed in the Koran – you just have to see how devout and genuinely public spirited most Muslims seem to be – as are many Christians.
I’m an atheist but believe everyone should be free to practise their religion of choice provide it doesn’t impinge on the freedoms of others.
It should be palpably clear to any sane person that the axis of evil – the US, Israel, and UK – has forced it’s Jihadist Neo-con religion on the rest of the world and then blame the mid east for the consequent blowback of terrorism.
Fair enough – you appear reasonable.
Garth can surely sleep easy tonight, knowing someone as estimable as your noble self has given him a pass this time.
Cowardice is a virtue because it saves you from danger.
@glenn_nl 02:38
“You are a classic Wikipedia-man.”
Yes, its a worthless generalisation
BB: “You might be surprised how many chemists believe in God.”
A curiously unscientific offering of proof from you – truth is a popularity test, forsooth?
Interesting that you say that. When it comes to anthropogenic global warming, truth is very much a popularity test – 97% of climate scientists believe in it so it must be true.
“But if chemists “believed” in certain physical properties based on no evidence whatsoever, wouldn’t you question their judgement, not to mention their proclamations?”
no evidence whatsoever? I can’t speak for all chemists but the fact that molecules look as though they have been designed might have something to do with it. The dream of August Kekulé was a big influence on me, although I haven’t been able to discover what Kekulé’s religious views were.
“So why shouldn’t I question the judgement of someone claiming there’s a specific all-powerful, grand mover of the universe, but for which there is absolutely zero evidence?”
Actually, I’m an agnostic. I don’t have blind faith in God but, because I have an open mind, I accept the possibility of a God.
Appreciate the reply, BB.
Fair point about democracy being a dubious test of truth, but science works by being peer reviewed, and having theories tested – the last couple of percentage of scientists not agreeing with the consensus are largely pro industry stooges, self-seeking contrarians and so on – surely you’re not so naive as to think there would be 100% consensus on anything at all which had such large considerations of money and politics and religion?
But to sit back, with a smug air of objective indifference, while encouraging others to doubt the bleedin’ obvious isn’t just an intellectual game, it’s recklessly endangering the vague hope humanity has left. Shame on you for that. You should know better than to cast doubt on established dangers, just as you would be if you encouraged people to smoke because the link between smoking and cancer isn’t quite strong enough for you just yet.
*
BB: “I can’t speak for all chemists but the fact that molecules look as though they have been designed might have something to do with it. The dream of August Kekulé was a big influence on me, although I haven’t been able to discover what Kekulé’s religious views were.”
Hmm, interesting 🙂 I’ve just done some reading on chemistry, and can certainly appreciate the splendid complexity and simplicity which makes its curious dance when it comes to the elements. The periodic table, and the relationships between the elements in their respective columns in particular – why they’re likely to have the same sort of relationship as others in corresponding columns and so on.
I thought for some time that the look of the universe must surely be designed in some fashion. Douglas Adams came up with an interesting thought about it… wouldn’t the world look to any creature that had arisen from it, that it must have been designed for his own existence?
I paraphrase, and probably very badly, but that’s a reasonable upshot, IMHO.
Isn’t the universe a fact of wonder and astonishment on its own? Why do we need to bow our knee to some supposed creator of it all, just in order to appreciate it?
Why not skip a step, and marvel and gasp in astonishment at the amazing beauty of creation, just on its own merits?
@glenn_nl 02:49
Peer review
Peer review started off as a quality control process – nothing wrong with that. The problem is that it has become corrupted. It is now just a closed shop used to stifle new ideas.
“surely you’re not so naive as to think there would be 100% consensus on anything”
I haven’t said anything about 100% consensus. Where did that come from?
“But to sit back, with a smug air of objective indifference, while encouraging others to doubt the bleedin’ obvious”
If it’s bleedin’ obvious then nobody is going to listen to me so why do you put so much effort into trying to discredit me? Clearly, you realize that what I say has some merit so you want to suppress it by ridiculing me. It’s just the same technique that is used by Integrity Initiative to discredit Jeremy Corbyn. “JC is antisemytyk, JC supports terrorists, JC will wreck the British economy”, etc.
Your attempts to put me down are a sign of weakness, not strength.
Don’t bother to look at this video because you won’t believe it. I’m putting it up for other people to look at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gDErDwXqhc
I think the bible’s authors were trying to offload some of their biblical apartheid onto the Creator. God told me to do it. Obviously the converse might be true that God told Hitler to do it. Oh dear, more than one chosen one. Any more and we’ll get to neurodiversity. Lots of nutters all thinking outside the Tory party homogene
RoS,
You might find this … enlightening:
Lobster Magazine: Donald Trump and the Christian Right
“The early attempts to find Biblical sanction for supporting someone as
wholly unChristian as Trump compared him to Baalam’s donkey. (Scott p. 10)
If God could speak through a donkey then why could he not speak through
Donald Trump? Given Trump’s readiness to take offence, comparing him with a
donkey was soon abandoned and instead a comparison with Cyrus the Great
was invented. Inevitably, the comparison was first suggested by God himself to
Lance Wallnau, something he recounts in his God’s Chaos Candidate. The Lord
told him to ‘Read Isaiah 45’ and here he found that God described the pagan
Cyrus the Great as ‘his anointed’ and charged him with rebuilding Jerusalem
for the Jews. (p. 22) And of course the significance of Isaiah 45 was that the
2016 Presidential race was to elect the 45th President. Clearly God had chosen
Trump to be the Christian candidate, regardless of his personal character and
past history. And this transparent crazed sophistry has become the way that
the Christian Right has justified their continued support for Trump, no matter
what.”
Thank you Dave for the link, interesting stuff.
Uri Geller calls Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite, and vows to use his psychic powers to stop Corbyn from becoming PM.
Geller adds God forbid Corbyn becomes PM.
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/uri-geller-to-use-telepathic-powers-to-stop-jeremy-corbyn-becoming-prime-minister-1.479364
Well, I have telepathic powers and can see Uri Geller in a padded cell in the near future.
Bending the bars on the window, I assume?
LOL!
Nice one!
Mystic May’s still talking bacon about her withdrawal bill. Well she wasn’t lying in the sense she always intended withdrawing before the climax. Just you were silly if you thought she was a lady.
Same as they lie to you the NHS is going to employ more pharmacists. Virgin is going to employ more pharmacists and we are going to pay for them. I suppose we thought Virgin meant virgin.
The hedge fund bet is: Can we string a whole country along for three years without them realising? Mrs May thought she was the lady to do the job. Hubby’s hedging on her succeeding.
When we finally flop exhausted into our Remain armchairs the Irish’re going to give her The O’Paque award for Best Blarney.
Roast hedgehog will enter the English language for the British habit of deceiving their own population
Syttinging the country along by carrying on with the dreaded EU VAT? Will all this control in our hands get rid of Vat?
Or will it be re designated as an environmental regulation and adopted with the rest of acceptable EU legislation?
Hmmm
Tory plan for rebuilding British industry after no deal brexit : get Geller to bend steel into car engines. So much wool needed to pull over the people’s eyes, so little time left to shear the sheep.
GOVE!
Yes ma’am
Get defra to make more wool.
Yes ma’am no ma’am 3 bags full ma’am. When do I get the job in downing street?
What’s he gonna do, bend all his spoons so he can’t eat his morning muesli?
I wonder if Geller’s powers extend to bending gun barrels by thinking about it. That could be a very useful defensive weapon.
See that Sir Christopher Meyer, a former doirector the the PPC and the British Ambassador to Washinton., got roughed up by a unnamed teenager at Victoria Station. Remember dealing with him unsuccessfully about a matter in The Guardian regarding “Natural Disasters” which the bastard refused to do anything about.
Trowbridge
They will relish their ultimate Tory achievement of recreating Victorian London.
As a further thought on stock-piling food…. those who can afford to do so, ought to get it done as soon as possible. Things like tinned goods, cereals, frozen food – anything which you might need for a couple of months. Just keep it, and use fresh foods in the meantime (or replace as you go along).
There is likely to be a bit of a rush as the Brexit deadline comes around, and it’s hardly “panic buying” when people make the entirely rational decision to stock-pile, particularly with everyone else doing the same. Those who cannot afford to stockpile, and live largely from paycheck to paycheck, will benefit from increased availability in supermarkets – those who bought their goods earlier won’t be contributing to the problems of shortages in supermarkets.
There might well be temporary problems, and buying early – if you can afford to do so – makes it easier for everyone to get over the hump, so to speak, during a difficult transition. Even if there is no difficult transition, stocks are bound to be lower for a time.
Just some kindly advice.
Glen rider
I don’t accept the premises of your argument. If you stack your bakebean tins against the walls of the bridge, you have to sleep in the stream.
Humans are genetically programmed to be spiritual, its part of the immune system. Just as the body heals the flesh, our spiritual side heals the soul. That doesn’t mean we are programmed to support a particular religious denomination, that is mostly a natural inheritance and atheism itself is a religious belief system in its belief there is no God. Whether you believe in the one God or many Gods or no God is an academic act of faith.
Utter tosh. Atheism is not a belief system, it’s a “give-me-the-evidence” system. Provide evidence, and I’ll accept it as the best indicator of the truth available right now.
Religionists like to pretend atheism is a belief system, because it gives them a crumb of credibility, as they pretend there’s some equivalence with their own whacked out delusions. But it’s a lie – religionists have zero evidence for their beliefs. Atheists accept only that which has evidence. A rather large difference.
I appreciate atheists believe its cheating to be asked to prove the negative, there is no God, rather than to prove there is a God, but as its impossible to prove there is a God/s, its also impossible to prove there isn’t a God/s. I.e. in the scheme of things its impossible either way, hence the rational non-religious response would be to say you’re an agnostic, non-proven either way!
Its the determination of atheists (no doubt their views vary) to say there is no God, that becomes the act of faith, without explaining “where we and everything came from”!
I agree and that’s why I’m a committed agnostic.
No Dave. I disagree. It may be equally impossible to prove that there is a God or isn’t a God but I think a Godless universe is far more likely.
Why invent a God when no God is needed to create the Universe? Believers may reply that something had to create the Universe – but then, who created God?
It seems clear to me that the Universe (or universes) exist because they always have existed – existence of matter is inevitable and pure nothingness is an impossibility.
Of course, we can choose to call this ever-present energy field God, but then we would need to review our definition of God –
Is God a conscious benign entity or merely a blind, unstoppable Life Force?
@Garth Carthy: “Is God a conscious benign entity or merely a blind, unstoppable Life Force?”
– Read Spinoza, he’s a life-changing writer. Spinoza’s God is Nature, ie the universe as a whole, which he considers to be alive, but he devotes a great deal of his writing to proving that there is no Providence. The universe as a whole clearly has no mind and no purpose. Later, when challenged on the immortality of the soul, he says we live on forever after death, as thoughts in the mind of God. This seems like an example of self-protection from charges of atheism. After all, Spinoza is a Jewish apostate of Sephardi origin in Amsterdam in the seventeenth CCE.
We are creatures of belief, but that doesn’t make the belief true. Rationality is hard. Really hard. It relies on lifetimes of observation and evidence. And even with a lot of evidence, it’s still possible to make mistakes or to mis-characterise the underlying heuristics. In part, because the world is weirder, more complex and more emergent than we would like it to be and we can’t properly understand it by just relying on what’s in our heads or ‘thinking about it’.
By contrast “God did it” is a pretty simple beginner level heuristic to explain things we don’t understand. Even my dog has a “God did it” portent-of-doom heuristic that causes it to run and hide from thunder.
It makes more rational sense therefore, to stick to the null hypothesis unless there is strong experimental evidence to the contrary.
Very reasonable position Dave.
I always find it interesting how furious some – not all – atheists become when faced with your argument. Glenn, for example, the rage is clear, the arrogance that he is right and everyone else is an idiot. I’m glad most of the atheists I know are fairly tolerant.
Jo1, you probably have no problem in badly – surely deliberately – misrepresenting me there, despite your own Holy Scriptures admonishments against bearing false witness.
What I’m doing is questioning unsupported conclusions, which is a belief system such as you doubtless hold.
With no surprise whatsoever, this declaring that the Emperor has no clothes is deeply troubling to you.
I agree that it’s impossible to prove there is or is not a God, just as (in Bernard Russell’s famous thought experiment) it is pretty well impossible to prove that a celestial teapot is not orbiting around Earth – too small to see, but impossible to disprove.
Someone saying a specific model of teapot which had very definite views was in orbit, and it was without doubt there, while offering no proof, is more predisposed to your support than mine.
You still (probably deliberately) misunderstand – atheists aren’t saying they KNOW there is no god, just that they aren’t interested in such a concept without proof. That’s probably while we’re called A-theists rather than ANTI-theists.
“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
…Stephen F Roberts
http://freelink.wildlink.com/quote_history.php
Humans are genetically programmed to be spiritual and create God/s in their minds and in so doing God becomes real and this clearly, even if not apparent, serves an evolutionary purpose, by promoting solidarity and fellowship, as otherwise it wouldn’t persist.
Just as for example, homosexuality persists, despite appearing an evolutionary dead end in men, because biologists say the homo-gene in women increases fertility.
And the reason the universalist “one God” religions are popular is simply because its easier to believe in one God than in many Gods, like the Hindus do, and because having one God conveniently serves centralised power structures in which the one Leader claims to be there by the grace of the one God.
Any chance they get
Grossly Lying Gutter Press
Garners up the Grotesque…
Like this – From a Gutter Press Rag, As Explained below, by the Wee Ginger Dug –
the Wee Ginger Dug –
” Update, 8.15pm : It’s worse than I thought. The Scotsman has printed a piece about Jason in which it strongly implies that he is a Holocaust denier. This is nothing less than grossly defamatory. Jason not only fully accepts the historical reality of the Holocaust and does not dispute that the Nazis murdered millions of Jews, he has in fact published an academic paper examining the workings of the Nazi death machine. His paper details how in one death camp alone, in the space of a few short months in 1944, the Nazis were responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of people from the Jewish population of Hungary. It is entitled The Mechanics of Murder, the Systematic Murder of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The paper is online here ”
http://www.academia.edu/1982558/The_Mechanics_of_Murder
Our hedge-fund-gambling kleptocracy Tory party already dismantled Britain’s heavy engineering industry in the ’80s & ’90s. Now they want to dismantle our light engineering industry by poaching it’s technicians to the criminal enterprise of spying.
Spying enables the spyers to define criminality as whatever they find out people do in the privacy moments of their time. I was with a shop owner the other day who whipped his mobile out his pockets to look at his workers in the shop. In effect this means they have no second of privacy for the entire ten hour day
Can a nation survive on colonial theft, minimal technical competence and hedge-fund gambling alone? I fondly ask. But patience to prevent that rumour soon replied:
” yes the Tories think they can “.
Manufacturing is delegated to other nations; more money can be made manipulating the assert of business than making them with all the effort and risks involved. And craftsmanship is delegated to the social status of those who grow their own vegetables viz a recreational occupation with out financial reward.
The only fly in the ointment for this bonkers Tory plan is Russian military superiority standing in the way of colonial theft, European and international Law , and whitleblowers. You can see why spying might be useful in controlling those. You ignore the thousands of hours people are behaving normally and focus on the second the workers was picking their nose. Then you deplete the footage of them washing their hands.
Do you trust this government to lead us in any useful direction I think if brexit happens on hedge-fund gambling , empire2, cctv terms. You might see the dinghies going the opposite way towards the continent of Europe.
2 boats meet in the middle of the channel
Why you going that way? After a few hours of intellectual conversation they both get mown down. May’s brexit conversation is like this: up ship creek without a paddle. Hey, let’s talk about the Irish border while we’re stting in the middle ofva shipping lane.
The Tory troughers are loath to give up their Alpine holidays later this month.
MPs beg watchdog to reimburse their expensive ski holidays after recess cancelled
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/mps-beg-watchdog-reimburse-expensive-13934148
‘A spokeswoman confirmed to the Mirror: “IPSA does not compensate MPs for the cancellation of holidays when recess is cancelled in advance.”
It comes as Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt have the biggest hint yet that the date when the UK leaves the EU will be pushed back.
Meanwhile the chief whip Julian Smith wrote to all Tory MPs telling them they could have the weke off if they have scheduled “time with their families”.
They will still need to submit a formal request to be allowed time off. ‘
Sharpie,
Interesting that you say Tory Troughers, yet the article you quote makes no reference to the party affiliation of MPs who have supposedly asked for refunds.
Your usual bias or have you an inside source at IPSO?
The Barclay Brothers’ organ piles on the agony in this propaganda piece. The piece must give a great deal of satisfaction to readers in Whitehall, Brussels and Washington.
Crisis in Venezuela threatens neighbouring countries as infectious diseases return
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/31/crisis-venezuela-threatens-neighbouring-countries-infectious/
’31 January 2019 • 5:02pm
Venezuela’s economic ruin poses a health threat to the Americas and potentially beyond, as diseases like measles and diphtheria re-emerge and spread to neighbouring countries, academics have warned.
The country’s meltdown has been so profound its health system resembles that of a war-shattered state and people are no longer vaccinated for common infectious diseases.
A paper in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases says there are parallels with the return of polio in Syria and diphtheria in Yemen, after those countries descended into violent chaos.’
So you either think this is false, or you are indifferent about the spread of infectious diseases, all because it doesn’t fit into your simple binary narrative about Venezuela. The paper the Telegraph article is based on is serious and has some good recommendations, none of which are political. Perhaps you will give us the benefit of your expertise on infectious diseases and why that report is wrong, compiled as it is by leading experts in their field.
Seconded.
Well, Ian. I guess that a bit of regime-change will fix everything. It always works out so well. Oh- and the ‘Torygraph’? Ha, ha, ha!
Is that the best you can do? Silly ad hominem attack on the Torygraph?
Have you even glanced at the scientific papers they quoted?
How can you have an ad hominem attack on a newspaper? A newspaper isn’t a man.
Is America using unvaccinated Venezuelans as germ warfare agents?
“Outbreaks of measles and diphtheria have emerged years after they were thought to be under control in the country. And cases are now spreading to neighbours like Brazil and Colombia, as large numbers of Venezuelans flee abroad from poverty. There is even a risk that polio will return”.
Might just be that Venezuela can’t get vaccines because of sanctions.
If people in Brazil and Colombia have been vaccinated, why does this not protect them from infection by unvaccinated Venezuelans?
Vaccines don’t offer 100% immunity and there will always be some people who can’t be vaccinated, babies who are too young and the elderly or those too ill.
I, Daniel Blake, cont’d.
The DWP ‘Deflection Script’.
‘Deflection script’ used to get Universal Credit claimants off the phone emerges
A Labour MP has described the practice, which sees claimants urged to head online instead of speak on the phone, as “outrageous”
https://news.sky.com/story/deflection-script-used-to-get-universal-credit-claimants-off-the-phone-emerges-11624331
‘Leanne Bailey’s father Brian was put on Universal Credit at the beginning of 2018. In July, he took his own life. He was 59.
She said: “He couldn’t understand the system from the very start. He was told to go online and access his journal but he didn’t have a clue about the internet. He was constantly ringing up and asking for advice but was told to go online. It really got him down.”
Universal Credit was introduced in 2013 in an attempt to simplify the welfare system by “rolling” six means-tested benefits and tax credits into a single monthly payment – but has been increasingly criticised in recent years.
A National Audit Office report concluded that Universal Credit has been too slow in its introduction, causes unnecessary hardship and is not providing value for money. It has also been claimed that funding cuts have meant there was not enough support for those trying to access their claim.’
Did Leanne Baily explain why SHE couldn’t have helped her father with the internet problem?
This is for anyone who needs the cockles of their heart to be warmed. From Kazakhstan.
https://twitter.com/SocialistVoice?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Conservative MP has breakfast with war criminal just hours after backing coup in Venezuela.
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2019/01/30/conservative-mp-has-breakfast-with-war-criminal-just-hours-after-backing-coup-in-venezuela/
The Canary calling Dr Kissinger a “war criminal” (has he ever been indicted as such?) is as silly as if I were to call the editors of The Canary a bunch of child molesters (they have not been indicted as such).
Its not really Charles. One description is based on documented evidence and accurate, while your ”suggestions” are completely baseless and without merit.
Maybe you could opine on this statement? – ”People who support the ‘Israli defense force actively support child abusers” given the IDF abuse children on a daily basis as documented by the UN.
I still haven’t decided on whether I agree or disagree with the statement.
Do you consider them (the IDF) child abusers in uniform Charles? And if yes, why?