With genuine reluctance, I find myself obliged to ban Larry from St Louis from commenting on this blog.
I am extremely happy for people to comment on this blog who disagree with my views. It makes it much more interesting for everybody. I wish more people who disagree would comment.
But Larry has a different agenda. His technique is continually to accuse me of holding opinions which I do not in fact hold, and which he thinks will call my judgement into doubt.
Take this comment posted by Larry at 9.35 am today:
I’ve re-read your post on the Russian spies, and once again you’ve proven to be a complete dumbass.
I predicted Russia claiming (in some minor way) those idiots. You didn’t. You thought it was a conspiracy.
You’ve once again self-indicted.
In fact my view on the Russian spies was the exact opposite of what Larry claims it was. As I posted:
I don’t have any difficulty in believing that the FBI really have discovered a colony of Russian sleeper spies in the United States.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/06/those_russian_s.html#comments
This is not Larry being mistaken – remember he claimed he had just re-read my posting. It is rather indicative of a very deliberate technique he has used scores of times, that of claiming I hold an opinion which he believes will devalue my other arguments in the mind of other readers, when I do not in fact hold that opinion.
He most often – indeed daily – does this with reference to 9/11. He tries to divert almost every thread on to the topic of 9/11 and to insinuate that I am among those who believe that 9/11 was “an inside job”. In fact, I am not of that opinion and never have been.
I have put up with this now for months, but Larry’s activities have become so frenetic and are so counter-productive to informed debate, I am not prepared to put up with it any more. I am also deeply sucpicious of the fact that he is able to spend more time on this blog than me, and to post right around the clock (often as with this one at 9.35am – think about it – what time is that in the US?).
Anyway, sorry Larry, your derailing days are over.
.
Clark: I was pretty sure the ‘clash of the Larries’ happened on the 911 thread but I’ve just checked and it’s not there. It must have been on another thread but I don’t know which one. I know that I distinguished between them by calling the wittier one ‘Louise’, which might be handy for search purposes.
Point taken about 911 stuff straying onto this thread, apologies to you, Craig and all.
No, its not “realism”. Its just the usual bunch of sad haggard masturbating bloggers needing to feel so important that their crazed theories and opinions merit James Bond being after them.
The wilder shores of Shaylerville and Ikeland beckon…
So you’re happy, glowing and never masturbate, alancampbell. Thanks for letting everyone know.
Otherwise, CAAT being infiltrated by BAe was quite interesting. I’d say it was mainly a corporate spy thing in activist circles, apart, of course, from the policeman who recently admitted to infiltrating the animal rights movement. And so on.
There’s little doubt that corporations use bloggers and other writers – viz the Guardian piece on the proposed Tesco in Norfolk, or any recent piece about BA, where the first comments are inevtability anti-union and pro-management.
‘Larry’ was certainly doing something beyond his own personality (the different styles were fascinating). Apostate et al are BNP. Whether M15 would bother, with all of this going on, I wonder.
Dear friends,
Many of us recognize the importance of the Internet as the new battleground for Israel’s image. It’s time to do it better, and coordinate our on-line efforts on behalf of Israel. An Israeli software company have developed a free, safe and useful tool for us – the Internet Megaphone.
Please go to http://www.giyus.org, download the Megaphone, and you will receive daily updates with instant links to important internet polls, problematic articles that require a talkback, etc.
We need 100,000 Megaphone users to make a difference. So, please distribute this mail to all Israel’s supporters.
Do it now. For Israel.
Amir Gissin
Director Public Affairs (Hasbara) Department
Apparently only 40,000 people have so far signed up. 40,000 Larries!
Otherwise see they’re reporting on the decision to find the Smash EDO protestors not guilty and calling it anti-semitism. Very sad that all those Larries should be willing dupes of a murderous regime, I think.
“The wilder shores of Shaylerville and Ikeland beckon…”
Now, that, Alan Campbell, is a typical – almost a textbook – tactic in the manual of ‘How to be an Internet Troll’.
It is fascinating that your normally one-liners seem now to have expanded into more than a paragraph. But always, the same, deeply cynical, tone.
I agree with technicolour, most of this activity is likely to be undertaken nowadays by private enterprises on behalf of corporate concerns. However, as, I think Richard Robinson or Clark suggested earlier, the state is likely to be only one of these outfits’ customers.
Furthermore, the state itself has now become so enmeshed with, and outsourced to, private military imperialism, it matters little except that all of these ‘trolls’ are serving imperialism and war. Ultimately, the killing of other people. Bottom line. That is what I am against, and they are for. So, while I am suspicious, I am not cynical.
Whereas, from your posts over these months, I see no reason to alter my view that you evince a deeply cynical attitude which can only be supportive of imperial power.
Megaphone, Camera and Hasbara are all old news and are dead ducks. All part of the Israel Project.
Zionist Israel is a failed state and will go down the pan inevitably.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Project – take with a pinch of salt as this page has probably been heavily edited by its supporters.
Thanks, anonymous poster at 1247pm. Very interesting. I think we ought to infiltrate the ‘megaphone’, begin to diversify the epistemology. I can’t do it, because I’m not anonymous and because I want to be accountable for what I say/ write. You, on the other hand, are anonymous. And perhaps there are 500,000 of you. But I suspect they would have the facility to block such interference with their outsourced state propaganda. Worth a try, though. Or maybe there needs to be a kind of CAAT/ CND, etc. of the internet, an organisation dedicated solely to countering imperialist propaganda. Now, there’s a business opening there for someone… I raise a toast, then, to the anti-troll trolls!
Yes, someone I know and respect intimated to me that once a foregrounded troll identity is out of the picture (well, sort of), another of the ‘sleepers’ suddenly tends to become more aggressive. Well, let’s see what happens.
“Old trolls never die, they just get new usernames”
To troll, or not to troll, that is the question.
“Go ahead. Make my day, troll”.
“Play it again, troll.”
“Whereas, from your posts over these months, I see no reason to alter my view that you evince a deeply cynical attitude which can only be supportive of imperial power.”
OMG you’ve seen through me.
But actually I “evince a deeply cynical attitude” which can only be due to reading the ravings of self-aggrandising nutters.
“I see. So while shoot-down orders were in place the USAF did nothing, even though it had ample time to follow the orders, intercept the plane and shoot it down. Only once the orders were lifted did the USAF do anything, even though it was now required not to. You’d be better off pursuing the pizza theory.”
So much wrong with this. Where to start?
How much time did the USAF have between being told a particular plane was hijacked and that plane crashing? Very little.
The incident happened at about 10:30 but the object that was only ten miles out turned out to be a medevac helicopter. Mineta’s testimony seemed to refer to that even though he got his timeline wrong.
Shootdown orders hadn’t actually been given until all the planes had crashed.
I don’t know what the pizza theory you’re talking about is.
“As originally published there were not. The first lists were published, by the Washington Post and others, on Sept 12, before the FBI had released the names of the alleged hijackers. No Arab names were on the lists. A couple of days later, when the FBI had released the names, the same lists were in circulation but were renamed ‘victim lists’.”
So, you are saying the full passenger lists WERE published? Do you have a link for this?
“It stayed that way for several years, until the Moussoauri trial in 2007, when the FBI suddenly came up with new lists that included the alleged hijackers’ names. None of the lists in circulation appear to have come directly from the airlines. The 911 Commission did not ask for them as evidence.”
Usually flight manifests won’t be made public unless there are very compelling reasons to do so (The Moussaoui trial would be a good example). The 9/11 Commission may not have asked to see the passenger manifests in open session (perhaps, I don’t know, the commissioners would already have looked at them) because they weren’t assessing which people on the manifests were most likely to have carried out the hijackings. They already knew who was responsible. Others who testified such as Dick Clarke had already seen the manifests much earlier.
However, you are incorrect to say that the “new lists” (i.e the actual manifests) didn’t surface until 2007. Terry McDermott had been shown the mainfests by the FBI (you can trust the FBI because they are the ones skeptical of OBL’s involvement, apparently) and has a photograph of one of the manifests in his *2005* book, Perfect Soldiers. There’s a lot of information in that book about the hijackers (ever read it?)
“All this may or may not be significant. Without seeing the verifiable and original lists it’s impossible to say. I haven’t argued anything other than the above and am not sure which goalposts I’ve moved.”
You have moved the goalposts because in our first exchange you said:
“ICTS also provided security at all the airports from which the alleged 911 hijackers boarded the planes. Since none of them appeared on the passenger lists we must assume they managed to do this without tickets or boarding passes.”
And
“The passenger manifests of the 911 planes were released by AA and UA. None of the names of the alleged hijackers appears on them.”
(Earlier you said, “None of the lists in circulation appear to have come direct from the airlines” – a complete contradiction and a strange evidence-free assertion).
When I asked you for a link you provided me with a link to “What Really Happened” which then went to a CNN web address.
MJ: “The passenger lists were published by CNN but those links are now dead. The lists are however reproduced here:”
Here’s the address:
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html
The “victims” thing is a dead giveaway.
So, again, what we have is DRG labouring under the misconception that the CNN victims list was the flight manifest when actually those flight manifests were being held by investigators (presumably the FBI) who went through them to take off the names of the suspects. The lists without suspects were then published by MSM sources and clearly labelled “victims list”.
The actual flight manifests were probably first glimpsed by the general public when McDermott published Perfect Soldiers but not seen by very many until the trial of Moussaoui after which they officially entered the public domain.
You, on the other hand, stated as fact that the names DID NOT APPEAR on the manifests and later back-pedalled to say that as far as you were concerned the issue simply hasn’t been resolved.
“However, as, I think Richard Robinson or Clark suggested earlier, the state is likely to be only one of these outfits’ customers.”
Not me, I think. “likely” captures my attitude, though, as distinct from “is”.
What I mean is, the paradox. The more someone approaches misrepresentation as a serious professional business, the less one would expect to be able to prove it.
I can’t see that the existence of astroturf/propaganda operations is in doubt, nor that there are bodies looking to take advantage of such a market opportunity, or that funding can be shown (both commercial and governmental) for such generally/euphemistically-described purposes (this didn’t start with the internet, of course). But to ascribe any particular post to such, is in the nature of things (he goes recursive !) likely to be a matter of likelihood.
Another thing I can’t see is, that it makes much practical difference. The only thing to do about a time-wasting fuckwit is to not let them waste your time, whether their satisfaction in it comes from a wage or a chip on the shoulder.
Which is not to dispute the point Vronsky (I think ?) and yourself and others have made, that there could be interesting analyses to be done on the detailed nature of various posters’ fuckwittery, and I’d be interested to see hard results if anyone comes up with any. Though I can’t see how one could trust anything that starts from a situation like this, where we don’t even reliably know what individual is posting what.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous bullshit
Or to take arms against a sea … *splosh*.
Knut the Great, he knew it.
“self-aggrandising nutters” Alan Campbell, whenever.
You’re really sounding more and more like the dear not-so departed, aren’t you, Alan? The aggression, the constant accusations of lunacy, the yelling of “Witch!” anytime there’s any criticism of imperialism. Predictable. But I’m glad you’re come out of your shell.
“I’m glad you’re come out of your shell”
He’s crabby ?
How would you describe yourself, alan campbell? If you want to insult me, by the way, last time I looked I was an anarcho-green-conservative-socialist-liberal-freetrade-fairtrade-libertarian. I think.
forgot to add “hedgehog”
“He’s crabby ?”
oiy’ leave my shell out of it :p
(still thinking) which would make me Alan Clarke. Oh dear. Perhaps I’ll just stick with the hedgehog.
Ah. Yes, I didn’t think of that. I apologise, sandcrab.
Ah, now I get it, technicolour, that’s why you’re ‘technicolour’, right?! Whereas, if you’d been ‘Eastmancolor’, you’d have been somewhat blue (in the Howlin’ Wolf/ Odetta, Smokestack Lightnin’, rather than the David Cameron/ Glasgow Rangers Football Club, sense). Of course, you’ve Anglicised ‘Technicolor’…
Alan Clark, the politician, you mean, not Allan Clarke, the lead singer of the Hollies? Now that is nightmarish. Yes, definitely, stick with hedgehoggery! Somehow, I hear Trevor Howard, that stalwart of the British feature film, striding around bearing a horsewhip and muttering, “Damned hedgehoggery!”
Suhayl
I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Judging by the pretentious sixth-form drivel you write (I read the reviews), I can assume Mossad got to your brain through the internet.
Alan, envy is a terrible thing.
That’s interesting, alan, because I read Boyd Tonkin’s review in the Independent, which picked out Joseph’s Box for a piece on the alternative Booker, and describes it as a “waywardly extravagant” novel “which drives us deep into the history and myths of Europe and south Asia alike”.
Honestly, how childish (in fact, most children are not so silly).
“How much time did the USAF have between being told a particular plane was hijacked and that plane crashing? Very little”.
In the case of AA77 about 40 minutes (picked up by radar heading toward Washington 8.59am, impact 9.37am). Quite a lot?
“The incident happened at about 10:30 but the object that was only ten miles out turned out to be a medevac helicopter”.
You’ve lost me.
“So, you are saying the full passenger lists WERE published? Do you have a link for this?”
I’m saying the first lists were published on Sept 12. I have no firm views as to their accuracy or completeness. I believe the Washington Post was among the first, not sure whether they’re still up.
“Terry McDermott…has a photograph of one of the manifests in his *2005* book, Perfect Soldiers”.
Golly. Must be genuine then. Am I the only person who’s curious where he got them from?
“”The passenger manifests of the 911 planes were released by AA and UA. None of the names of the alleged hijackers appears on them.”
(Earlier you said, “None of the lists in circulation appear to have come direct from the airlines” – a complete contradiction and a strange evidence-free assertion).”
Fair point. Certainly contradictory. I do give some credence to the Sept 12 lists because they were published so quickly and before names had been named. It’s hard to believe that they could have been put together in such a short time without input from the airlines. It remains the case however that the official manifests have never been published, or at least have not been explicitly cited as such.
You are correct however to show that I started discussing this subject in a loose and imprecise manner that did not do justice to all the facts and their implications.
“So, again, what we have is DRG labouring…”
Who or what is DRG? You mentioned that yesterday. Was it a poster on a thread I missed?
I was at first unhappy about 9/11 discussion being quarantined on another thread – it seemed like a surrender to the Sunsteiners – but from the irrelevant discussion appearing here it was clearly a good idea. I was careful on the 9/11 thread to include links to what I believed to be the most worrying evidence of US collusion in the attacks – this evidence is mostly in the realm of mathematics, engineering and physics.
The circumstancial evidence suggestive of collusion (i.e. mysterious coincidences, unlikely chances) is mostly refuted by angrysoba, apparently by reference to a check sheet of standard responses. Angrysoba is non-technical and therefore cannot or will not engage with the scientific evidence, but I believe that his other material at least has the merit of demonstrating that some ‘truther’ lines are weak and not worth following.
Anyway, to discuss 9/11 go to that thread. Assess the relative objectivity of the protagonists, and read the links. If you want to add anything, add it there. The topic is a red herring (deliberately?) here.