I am becoming quite fond of my little corner of Schiphol airport. I have put up my Christmas cards and a few bits of tinsel. I now have a boarding card for the 0800 to Manchester. This is the sixth boarding card I have had. It is very hard to understand why, time after time, they don’t know a flight is cancelled until some time after it was due to leave and all the passengers have queued at the gate for hours.
Of course, Manchester is a lot further from Ramsgate than Schiphol is, so even if the flight atually goes, this represents rather dubious progress.
Happy New Year everybody.
Remarkably, KLM delivered my lost luggage, including my laptop, at 9.30 pm on New Year’s Eve. At that time a pretty lively party was already in full swing,much improved by the presence of a great many beautiful young women, mostly from Latvia. I am not sure why; my life as ever consists of a bewildering succession of chance encounters with really nice people. I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that Nadira was the most lovely of all, without indulging in dutiful hyperbole.
It was an extremely happy Christmas. Having my mum, both my brothers and all my three chidren together was as great as it was rare.
We have been through the laptop in lost luggage discussion before. The problem is that my shoulders dislocate at the drop of a hat, and I travel without hand luggage to avoid an accident.
2011 is going to be a very important year for me. particularly the first quarter. A number of crucial events are going either to set me up financially for the rest of my life, or result in real distress and failure. At present I have reason to be very optimistic. I am also very absorbed in my life of Alexander Burnes, which I hope will help establish a serious academic reputation.
The Portuguese edition of Murder in Samarkand has sold unexpectedly well in Brazil. The translation of the Turkish edition has just been finished.
I hope to do a Wikileaks retrospective in the next couple of days. Just a quick thought on the case of the poor young gardener in Bristol. Of the Jill Dando case, long before Barry Bulsara’s succesful appeal I blogged that this appeared to be a miscarriage of justice in which the police had fitted up the local weirdo.
Despite not being enamoured of landlords in general, I fear the same dynamic is at work in Bristol, albeit Chris Jefferies is much more intellectually capable than Bulsara. My instinct is that the police have picked up on Jefferies for being camper than a boy scout jamboree and archer than Trajan.
Jefferies’ release on bail has me worried that there was nothing against him other than the “He’s a weird one, guv” instinct of some not very bright cop. The case needs to be closely watched as history shows that the powers of the police to make the evidence fit the suspect are considerable.
Wrong spelling. S/be Amiriyah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiriyah_shelter_massacre
@Mark,
> I’m getting closer to you now Blair for murdering all those Iraqi children – so you could get rich?
I have a different take on it, perhaps looking at Bliar’s motivations from a psychological angle. From an early part of his premiership, he kicked international law into the long grass (see Craig’s coverage in his books on the arms to Africa affair). As is so likely with the human condition, Blair imagined himself as a grand old statesman, a war premier, and he was at great pains to strengthen the Special Relationship partly because he was attracted to the power and influence that this brought.
Naturally, with a close relationship with a bellicose and right-wing US president, Blair’s views on international terrorism and ‘official enemies’ had to take on a distinctly establishment character. With the potential for this political course to increase domestic dissent, he went on to support substantially increased powers of surveillance and draconian anti-terror legislation; strangely, this process of shifting ones own perspective to avoid an inevitable cognitive dissonance is quite subconscious, and very human. Blair now shilling for the JP Morgan and for capital power in general is just a natural extension of the business-oriented worldview he exhibited during his premiership.
He is acquisitive, and certainly without conscience – and this view fits in with my long-held theory he might be a high-functioning sociopath. But he didn’t murder Iraqi children to get rich – I think the process is much more subtle than that, and that such hyperbole can damage areas of reasonable agreement. He should certainly be taken to the Hague, along with several others, for falsifying evidence to go to war, and for breaking international law.
Interestingly, his wife is a human rights lawyer, clearly believes in his inate ‘goodness’, and has obviously stood by him. But in an interview after Blair left office, she replied quite testily to a question regarding their wealth and their large number of homes, that she genuinely thought of herself and her husband as socialists. In a similar vein, then, her capacity to weave an alternate reality to avoid otherwise appalling conclusions is quite breathtaking.
Btw, I’ll gently remind Craig today of the need to have some manual moderation here – hopefully he’ll sort something out now he’s back in the country. The above irritations will be the first to go, touch wood!
(If anyone feels the need to respond to a seriously off-topic post, and also wishes to say something on-topic, please write two separate messages. That way, once an off-topic message has been deleted, any complaints relating to it can also be removed, since they will no longer be relevant.)
“On November 28th, Adnan Gheith, a Silwan grassroots organizer, received written notification that Israel intends to issue an order expelling him for a four months period from his city – Jerusalem. Adnan is a resident of Silwan, and a member of the al-Bustan Neighborhood’s committee, which was formed to oppose plans for massive house demolitions”:
http://popularstruggle.org/adnan-gheith
how can you have an ‘on topic’ post when the topic in this case is about someone being stranded in an airport?
Mark Golding: “Cameron (interestingly another Scottish name)”
OMG! The Scots did 911!
Tony,
Please keep both your horrible drunken poetry and your 911 trutherism coming. You’re making a great case for how disturbing you fucks really can be.
Tony: “Don’t You Realise What The Right Wing Are Like in America…”
Well, we get a tremendous dose of the extreme right-wing in America right on this blog. 90% of the people here have far more in common with Tim McVeigh and David Duke than they have with Barack Obama.
“And Most Americans are Completely Fucking Crazy
They REALLY Want To KILL HIM
They Are Habing ORGASMS About String Julian Assange Up By The Balls”
You’re partially right there. The last ORGASM I habed did involve The Balls.
Jon – I prefer to describe the Blairs as a pair of psychopaths, a condition more common among males.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
@somebody (2:32): yes. My point was to add some nuance to the simplistic position that Blair is happy to kill children for money. I don’t think it’s true, and it doesn’t advance the cause of bringing Blair to justice to say it.
That’s not to say I don’t admire Mark’s tenacity on the topic – I do. I have little faith in the prospect of bringing the war criminals to justice, but it is nevertheless a worthwhile endeavour.
Having just posted two comments about Israel on this thread about being stranded at an airport, I wasn’t going to mention on- and off-topic-ness, I was just going to see what happened, expecting it to work out OK. The whole blog has overall topics as well as the individual thread topics, and of course reality is a unified whole, everything relates to everything else, somehow. The topicality of a comment is a subjective judgement, but broad agreement seems likely.
@ Mark,
Way above my head to be honest.
But – if there is a web site that explains what you posted about – then pass it on or the name of book.
Have no thoughts on it one way or the other right now. Like reading the Dick Tracy comics as a child and seeing pictures of him talking into a small device on his wrist and now – I talk into my cell phone. So – send the information and I will consider what you are saying.
Cheers.
Thanks Courtney for the resumee of TCI requirements as you see it, it no doubt has opened our eyes to the palliative state the british protectorate is currently under.
You have mentioned the strong links to treasury and to the british Governor and it makes Cameron and Osbornes positions on taxing those who avoide taxes at all costs, ever more questionable, imho.
Thanks also to Clark for the last two posts. Wer should promote the book
‘The Occupation of the Territories’ just as we promte Murder in Samarkand, despte the reluctance of soldiers to speak out about sadists amongst the IDF.
It will make for a more or less accurate picture of how a country obsessed with secrecy and deceit, has to deceive, lie and encourage young brainwashed soldiers into being machines.
Jon,
I am forced to agree on the ‘hyperbole’ but to me it is amplification or magnification of horror, a horror that has permeated my mind and eventually frustrated rational thinking.
Saying that I hope you understand that this colouring is really a driving force in me to unearth obfuscation, the use of ‘cut outs’ , lack of paper trails, the use of ‘block & bridge’ the prepping of ‘patsies’ and magician’s tricks intended to draw ones attention away from the real action – an enveloping fog intended to put facts under lock & key forever.
Most times it is a perplexing array of unsubstantiated evidence – but small pieces of intelligence can be crafted to realise a deeper cantankerous picture that deserves a re-think.
If I have over-stated I sincerely apologise although I hope you understand the operandi and the importance of my work.
Tony_opmoc,
Having commented favourably on your previous posts I now feel it is my duty to dig in heels and object to your disclosure of what is personal and private moments in any close relationship – out of respect for your partner I hope you understand.
Another totally useless, badly reserached article, written by Katha Pollitt of the Guardian, today, has already been closed for comments, no doubt due to the amount of protest.
She wrote this drivel about an alledged crime, which according to the swedish prosecutor two weeks ago, could not possibly be said to have enough, if ANY evidence at all. She is part of the deceiving news that is promoting the status quo. clearly.
Thats the good thing about leaks, we can see who’s up a tree.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/27/rape-left-julian-assange-swedish-law-wikileaks
Tony_opmoc, a project for you. Build a steady-hand peripheral, one of those loops you have to move without touching the wiggly wire, rigged to the “Post” button on successful completion only. Or write a script to delete your whole post if it detects CR-CR. Or you have to play a hard guitar scale. Or make the “Post” button rove around the screen so you can’t catch it if you’re too drunk.
“The topicality of a comment is a subjective judgement”
I know what you meant. Repeat your advice later when the topic of the thread makes the problem clearer – I’m afraid it will be necessary. Anyone who doesn’t understand, check over at CiF where they delete posts, but not responses to them. It’s confusing (and makes the deleted posts sound more interesting than the ones you’re left with, but I suppose that’s the Guardian for you).
On a thread like this I think we are OK to treat the topic as moveable. It seems at the moment to have moved to the precise mental state of the Blairs. I don’t think we have to speculate on what exact pathology is at work. It is just normality magnified into monstrosity by unnatural opportunity and circumstance. In a long career as a political activist I have seen fellow pavement soldiers graduate from posting leaflets to filling out expense claims, and somewhere in that process morphing from radicals into rent boys. They didn’t really change – their personal interests changed, and their views were never deeper than an expression of their personal interests. They help the poor when they’re poor, and the well-off when they’re well-off.
@tony
No more about your sex life please – it’s vanquishingly dull, you poor thing. Post again when you have a really racy yarn for us.
Good point Vronsky (‘radicals to rent boys’, indeed). I think the Blairs’ pathology is also based on an assumption of privilege in his case, combined with insecurity at not being quite ‘top drawer’ and a ferocious resentment at not having had privilege (hers). But it’s probably also that ‘mired in blood so deep’ thing: easier to carry on than to go back.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/tony-blair/8225008/Tony-Blair-makes-710000-from-mysterious-web-of-companies.html
What a tangled (financial) web he weaves.
Tony,
“Please keep both your horrible drunken poetry and your 911 trutherism coming. You’re making a great case for how disturbing you fucks really can be.”
Larry, do you really think poetry is simply the use of double-spaced lines and an overabundance of capitals? If you do, you’re as deluded and/or drunk as he is!
Vronsky,
I see activism as having a well defined meaning, that of action for change that is deeply rooted and possibly part of that persons personality or disposition or both. Thus activism is a life-long moving and shaking unaffected by personal interests.
My comment to Tony looked very PC on reflection. Oh well my mum was Mrs Grundy.
One for ‘Our Tone’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM3ImqIX6lQ
@Tony..really mate, it is about time you stopped burning the brain cells and called it a day !
@ Ingo,
Katha Pollitt woffles in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/27/rape-left-julian-assange-swedish-law-wikileaks)
She states:-
“Maybe it’s true that an ordinary guy, faced with similar accusations, would have been allowed to slip away quietly once he left Sweden rather than become the subject of an Interpol red notice. (Maybe not, though. The 11 Swedes on Interpol’s public red list include people wanted for fraud and other non-spectacular crimes. Much has been made of the fact that only one of these, an alleged child molester, is charged with a sex crime. But the vast majority of wanted people are privately listed, so actually there’s no way of knowing if Assange’s case is exceptional.)”
And:-
“In fact, Swedish law does distinguish among degrees of rape, with Assange being accused on one count of the least grave kind.”
So I might ask Pollitt ?” was it mere molestation or did Assange rape the two women?
The fellow did not call the woman the next day after he had consensual sex with her; his condom broke or he had unprotected sex with her ?” which was it?; and ?” a harassment charge ?” not a direct unequivocal rape charge ?” well was she raped or wasn’t she? ?” not even the woman is sure; then four days later when the second lover calls the first, then Ardin cries ?” rape ( guess it took her a while to figure out if the sex was desired consensual sex or not). And to make matters worse he participated in two brief affairs ?” absolutely criminal assault with a friendly weapon.
But, more seriously Pollitt fails to touch any of the big issues ?” such as when Assange sought to rely on the benefits of the Swedish media laws ?” the CIA threatened to stop sharing secrets with SEPO ( i.e. the Swedish Secret Service). Ab initio the CIA did have a direct interest. But, the issues don’t simply end there, for there are still bigger issues at stake.
Ever thought that Afghanistan’s pipeline, the revelations of Wikileaks, and the US cosseting of President Islam Karimov might simply all be intertwined. Is the US setting out to reach Assange via Swedish proceedings, while being fully aware of military documents accessed by Wikileaks that expose the consistent blind eye turned by the US in its dealings ( non-dealings or intervention) with the torture, forced labour, organised crime and one man and family rule by Karimov in Uzbekistan? What would be the implications for the US if it acted in a principled way about the extensive abuses in Uzbekistan? Well, seems to me it would immediately place in danger a key supply route into Afghanistan. Incidentally Sweden had sent troops to Afghanistan. Silence please.
The sad truth is that it is we the people who are the voters and those in high office are ?” or ought to be our honest representatives. The leaks so far have been no more than the impressions of the employed diplomats who are hired to give such honest opinions as they form them about the country and individuals in the countries they have been assigned to. How horrendously dangerous for the US Empire when the people start reading the truth. The more we know about any dirty dealings in the name of the people, the more the people are empowered to stop the elected tails from wagging the electoral dog ?” so press on Wikileaks.
Who takes Anna Ardin seriously? Did she conspire with her friend /lover ( ?) Sofia Wilen to set Assange balls a rolling ?” that is the question. Ardin is the Political Secretary of the Swedish Social Democrats. Ardin was connected to the “ladies in white” who protest the Castro regime and has ties to anti-Castro groups ( supported by the CIA) and she was deported from Cuba for reason of subversive activities. Lieutenant Colonel Mattias Ardin, Deputy Head of Operations, Swedish Joint Forces Land Component Command cousin and close friend. He works with Nato Operations in Afghanistan. Is there any remote probability of a CIA link or operation? Would the CIA be smart enough to get a feminist leftist to smear Assange … duh… huh? Her blog is called ” 7 steps to legal revenge” and step one was to screw Assange. For goodness sake she brought the man to Sweden for a conference and a fuck. Then he bestows blessings on her friend Sophia as well and she too sets out to fuck him. Isn’t the whole affair a load of “poppycock” ?” sorry ?” double “poppycock” intended to smear Assange upon the flimsiest of so-called evidence? At least he has so far not been charged with impotence.
Top secret ?” I just figured it out ?” Assange has a weakness for women. So, my legal advice to him is that the next feminist Swedish woman he has sex with he proceeds as follows:-
A. Ask her in a calm voice if she desires to have sex with him, and ensure that the hidden recording machine is running.
B. Next, ask her to write down the words of consent that she just verbally agreed to and include in the consent document, the following:-
i) Names of the persons about to have sex.
ii) Protected or unprotected sex has to be agreed.
iii) The various positions in which the sex is permitted.
iv) The duration of the sex ?” with a pre-ejaculation clause included.
v) Whether the Kama Sutra can at any stage of the intercourse be consulted if the sex is not proving exciting enough.
vi) Finally ?” what are the expressions of sexual satisfaction to be when the two climax ?” be it a simple ohhhhh ?” or an ?” ahhhh ?” or some other pre-approved expression of appreciation.
C. Never forget to have the consenting Swedish woman sign with the words added ” I have signed this document of my own volition, without inducement, excitement, anticipation, or any other form of seductive invitation from the man with whom I am about to have sexual intercourse ?” and ?” I have signed because indeed I freely want to have sex with this man (insert the man’s name).” Then you can have sex and he can then insert his penis into the vagina ( but only for the duration that she has pre-signed to).
I plan to write a play about the whole affair ?” and it will be called ” Captain cocksman in blonde land”.
@ Tony-opomoc.
A Personal Appeal From All Of Us Here On The Blog
Your Rantings And Ravings Are Coming To The Effect That Are Driving Us Nuts
I Once Had A wife Or Maybe That Was A Delusion But I am Not Sure Anymore About Anything
I somtimes Read This Blog Looking For Political Comments. But What Are They For.
I Drink Beer And Lots Of Other ALOHOLIC Drinks That I can Get My Hands On Because I am Fucking Prat From Oldham.
Or Maybe Therabouts.
She Said To Me Once That I should Give Up Drinking.
I May Take Her Advice.
My Brain Cells Are Dead and I Will Promise Not To Get Pissed And Blog Here Anymore.
Why Do I Talk Drivel And And Am So Sad That I Spend Most Of My Evenings..
I Had A Dog Once
Her Name Was Mary.
She Used To Lick My Face And I Was A Happy MAN.
I Had A Hamster As Well
Need I go on Drivel Drivel Drivel !!
People, This is an actual comment from me above !!
Suhayl..good point and nice link..Courtney..excellent diffusion and gives me thought…Mark..great post..looking foreward to further analysis..Larry..interesting..
Ruth – ‘I thought at first you were a bit off your head but now it seems you’re deliberately damaging the blog. You seem particularly intent on burying what Mark Golding has to say. Is it because there’s a lot of truth in Mark’s comments and the intelligence services really fear this?’
I know for a fact that such disruption tactics are used, as well as the usual disinformation line (yawns at Self-insertion Soba from Kansas), and have wondered about Compo myself. It’s primarily designed to put newbies off posting and reading comments. If you really are genuine, then give it a rest please chum. 😉
Frazer, you encouraged him in the past by saying that you enjoyed reading his posts. Like prodding an IED, a reckless activity bound to blow up in your face. As you began your lampoon “@ Tony-opomoc” and the post is signed by you, it hardly seems likely that anyone would mistake it for one of his, so the disclaimer is superfluous. An excess of Christmas spirit on your part too, or just exasperation clouding the judgment?
On a serious note, best wishes with your work and keep safe.