Difficult journey to Ghana Europe snow now here very intermittent connection speedtest 3kbps (sic) when working. Almost impossible post. Ghana Telecom privatised to Vodafone much worse. Try post tomorrow.
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Some great stuff on the theologian David Ray Griffin:
http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/search?q=david+ray+griffin
Clark – Having suffered it myself, it’s indoctrination of children I’m most opposed to.”
Yes, but. We’ve got to teach them something, and how would it not be what we think ourselves ?
etc etc. Sorry, I let my name get lost. ’twas I, gentle reader.
Honest, watch it, it’s sweet:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24365.htm
Clark, is Loughton on Tuesday evening possible?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24365.htm
yip!
I’ve seen those. Makes you proud to be British.
well, in my case, proud to be a human 🙂
GLENN, I am sympathetic to your argument as it relates to water utilities. I personally believe that water should be provided free by the municipality as it used to be.
But you do make an interesting point with your comment “Competition is always hailed as a great benefit to customers, but corporations tend to amalgamate”. My view is that Governments should exercise a responsibility to ensure that no amalgamation adversely affects competition. I go beyond just laisey fair (spelling?). I think it is government’s role to be proactive to ensure the health of the free markets. And where one can’t have free markets and the discipline they impose, then the utility companies should be very well regulated to ensure that they serve the customer properly.
I recognize that there are many excellent managers in the public sector, and that there are poor ones in the private sector. But, competitive markets provide a mechanism that eventually corrects bad management in the private sector, since if they continue with bad management practices they will go out of business. However, how do you deal with poor management in the public sector? Control and oversight by politicians? My recent experiences with our political masters have not greatly impressed me.
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Your comment on Ritter and how they smeared him was very instructive.
It fits so well with the SMEAR approach that CARTOONIST referred to (Jan 13 6.14 PM comment on Craig’s Greek Orthodox blog) as a definition of Zersetzung (which I misspell as ZERZETSEN).
It is worth just recalling what CARTOONIST said. He writes ?” “It’s about manipulating people or groups of people by typical STASI methods (hearsay, gossip, lies, spreading rumours about someone … the list goes on. It’s basically what has been done to Craig by the UK Government, funnily enough, although I fail to see the funny side)”.
As a decades long victim of zerzetsen, I don’t see the funny side either.
In Ritter’s case it appears to be the FBI that is involved. But, it is certainly not unique to the FBI. As author and academic Stephen Dorril writes in the last chapter of his book “MI6″, MI6 has a dirty tricks section (I/OPS) that does indeed deliberately spread smears about innocent people ?” as I know only too well.
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Tragically once the security services have invoked zerzetsen smears, it can lead on to full blown zerzetsen – torture and threats. WHY? Because eventually some victims will start speaking out with the truth. The purpose of the threats is to try and stop this. The threateners are more comfortable where their slanderous smears run without any opposition from their victim. In my case the threats kept me silent for years, before I crossed the Rubicon and started speaking out. But, even if you speak out, zerzetsen has a secondary benefit to its perpetrators and that is witness intimidation. In fact as some, perhaps Ruth, may understand ?” where zerzetsen is practiced by the intelligence services ?” it scares off lawyers as well. Indeed as my case so clearly demonstrates, the politicians are scared of their own intelligence services.
Just on some other people’s questions. I am a 63-year-old Chartered Accountant, married to a former schoolteacher and we were both born in Glasgow. We live in Calgary, Canada.
So, Roderick, basically you’re saying that Scott Ritter should have open season on young teenage girls.
So Larry, basically you’re saying that everyone should be forced to have sex with donkies. What is this blog coming to?
No, I’m not saying that.
Roderick and others here seem to think that Scott Ritter must be innocent because of his past problems with the Bush administration. As such, it doesn’t matter what he does – he’ll always be innocent.
It will be funny to see Scott Ritter NOT bring up a government conspiracy in his defense. I mean, if you were entirely innocent, and suddenly the state were bringing up these sorts of charges against you, wouldn’t you want to put the system on trial? Wouldn’t you enlist the support of everyone you could in protesting at the court house?
In any event, that won’t happen. He’ll take the plea and do some time. Probably like six months.
He’ll never bring up your kooky conspiracy.
What is this unhealthy obsession with Scott Ritter’s sex life, Larry? He is innocent until proven guilty. That’s all you, or anyone, needs to know.
PS did you watch the video?
Hi Clark… you wrote (concerning police and privitisation): “some privatisation is happening, with the increase in private security, and the increased powers granted to such.”
I apologise for being imprecise. I meant nobody is _calling_ for it, not that it isn’t happening to some degree. And by “nobody”, I meant people generally, rather than some politicians for ideological reasons, and of course security firms who stand to benefit.
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Very good day to have been out walking for a few hours, particularly down around on the coast. Even better, we didn’t have to drive to get there (it – the sea – being a 10 minute walk away).
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Strange that the most shrill and abusive “arguments” (if they can truly be graced with such a term) on the Demolition Day 9/11 debate comes from those pumping the government’s case. If one is convinced they are in full possession of the facts, why get some angry and upset at those who disagree?
One point often forgotten by True Believers in the government’s case – the Magic Arab Theory if you will – is that every last point in the Official Story has be to be correct. There is no need for the Truthers to come up with a watertight alternative theory, as desperately as True Believers would like them to do so. All the Truthers need to do is point out the huge discrepancies in the Magic Arab Theory, and the Official Story is shot through.
For instance, just point out that the Magic Arabs could not, in fact, fly at all. Or that all the jet fuel in the world would not melt as much as a padlock, less still hundreds of tons of interconnected steel that acts as an enormous heatsink. Particularly when it’s burned in an oxygen-starved fire (which one can tell because of all that dirty smoke). Or that these were not practicing Muslims, as required in the official Magic Arab story. Or that a couple of small guys with 1″ blades could take a control of the planes from well-trained ex-forces pilots. Or that 1/2 million tons of steel and concrete apparently provided barely more resistance than air to a collapsing structure. And that enormous explosions occurred in the basement, killing many, were witnessed and reported on.
Or indeed any of the multitude of serious problems in the Official Theory, which is even rejected by John Farmer, Senior Counsel and drafter of the 9/11 Commissions Report. All the Truther has to do is point to any of that and say, no – the Official Story doesn’t fly. So regardless of how belligerently a True Believer pushes the Magic Arab Theory, the government case must be treated as so dubious as to not even pass the laugh test.
Technicolour,
Tues evening should be possible. I’ll say “yes” for now, though I may have to cancel suddenly. Where in particular and what time? If you can pick somewhere that dogs are permitted, that’d be helpful.
I’ve been out and I’m catching up with comments
“There is no need for the Truthers to come up with a watertight alternative theory, as desperately as True Believers would like them to do so. All the Truthers need to do is point out the huge discrepancies in the Magic Arab Theory, and the Official Story is shot through.”
Glenn, you silly goose. You need to go back and take a remedial course in the scientific method.
I’m just curious – why does the “Magic Arab Theory” require them to be non-practicing Muslims?
Glenn,
one of the things that unites all of the various 911 truthers is that they get EVERYTHING wrong. They’ll point out
complete lies like “enormous explosions” “in the basement, killing many” which are based on the statements of LIARS like Rodriguez. There is NOTHING that cannot be explained. Which is actually not true of all conspiracy theories.
Glenn, in any event, you don’t seem like a very smart person. I really wonder what it’s like to be someone who’s full of anti-American hatred but is nonetheless being manipulated by the crazy right wing of America. You just seem pretty useless to any serious political debate or political movement.
Richard Robinson,
yes, intensity etc matters. Jehovah’s Witnessism includes three one hour sessions in the week, another two at the weekend, an hour’s one-to-one Watchtower study, plus time ‘on the doors’, preaching.
Classic indoctrination techniques are used – read the paragraph, get asked the questions beneath it, parrot back the right sentences. Lots of repetition.
But the beliefs are also insidious – “Believe this, or you will die at Armageddon, which is coming soon”.
We can teach ordinary things without indoctrination. If religious beliefs are taught (I think they shouldn’t be), they can be taught as a set of balancing alternatives, rather than “This is true, all who believe differently have been misled and have false beliefs, and will suffer for it”.
Crab,
I love that video. I want to join in!
Glenn,
no apology necessary, as you did say ‘calling for’, I think. But the government seem to be in favour (probably because it means that less funding needs to go to the police) as they have proposed increased powers for these private security agents.
The stuff Larry writes could easily be refuted, but it’s not worth wearing that much plastic off my keyboard.
Clark, you couldn’t refute anything I’ve written.
Larry,
no, I will bother to answer you.
You keep calling Glenn stupid. OK, let’s assume that Glenn is much less intelligent than you.
Now, what do you call a clever person that keeps calling someone stupid? What do you call a strong person that keeps calling less strong people ‘weed’ or ‘weakling’? Do I need to tell you, or can you answer it for yourself? Do you call them honest, or something else?
I’ve pointed this sort of thing out to you before. I think you need to take a good look at yourself.
Glenn writes things like Demolition Day 9/11, and cites dumb claims from years ago that have been thoroughly debunked. He’s being offensive to the truth and the victims of violence. In any event, he’s an arrogant asshole who thinks he knows so much more than those around him because of something he once read on the internet. I think I have wide birth.
Look, does it really matter? I have a feeling that all of this is successfully distracting us from what’s happening now, on our streets, in our parliaments. Richard Shepherd, one of last year’s candidates for Speaker, was telling people until he was blue in the face (well, he was a Tory) that Parliament is being eroded, that its powers are being taken away, but nobody was listening. I campaigned on the LLRB and it was the same story. As for the States, Larry, Obama looks like he’s in trouble, doesn’t he? What’s the alternative?
Clark, it’s funny how you get whiny and soft-chinned with things that I write, while you let blatant anti-Jew posters and pro-Muslim-takeover-of-the-UK posters go uncriticized.
For instance, you didn’t have a problem with Steelback’s following:
“The “team”-Eddie,Larry the Lamb,technidick,and angribollockbrain et al are on the payroll of a guy in the Chicago mafia around Obama,by the name of Cass Sunstein and in Israel,of Erez Halfon.”
Larry,
you don’t know that I didn’t have a problem, only that I remained silent.
Technicolour’s question looks good…
In what way does Obama look like he’s in trouble?
“Look, does it really matter? I have a feeling that all of this is successfully distracting us from what’s happening now, on our streets, in our parliaments.”
http://tinyurl.com/y9g6zp3
George, that same sort of crap was brought up when Bush was President. And when Clinton was President. Etc.
You might be paranoid of the New World Order, but I’m not.