What do Rebekah Brooks, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price have in common?
The answer is obvious – they were all born on May 27th.
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“But this is a humane blog, read internationally, Craig and many here know that a vital part of reconcilliation is reflection and contemplation, not exclusion at all times.”
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Quite, Ingo. But Craig is still talking about, “a general note to delete Yugo’s blatant attempts to derail threads, which happen continuously.” Larry/Yugo does little else only attempt to derail threads. I’m trying to find out if there is a policy regarding Larry/Yugo, and if there is, what is it.
@dreoilin – fair point. However it is sometimes counterproductive to delete comments if people have later replied to them, as it makes for a confusing comments thread. I take Craig’s view on board, but personally I’ve not found Yugo/Larry that disruptive – there are often excellent discussions in the comments, and he is easily ignored. I am still mildly curious about his motivation though.
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But I shall endeavour to make my reluctant trigger finger more itchy in future!
Dreoilin,
He is banned, but not much! I don’t mind argument at all. What Larry does is simply try to put off visiting readers by spreading 9/11 discussion in every thread – as a quite deliberate tactic. His motive is to reduce the readership or influence of this blog. I strongly suspect he is part of the paid Karimov PR setup.
If he wants to actually discuss the blog postings or join in general debate, he is welcome.
Dreoilin, Craig has always stated that he welcomes views opposing his own here. There are two things that Yugo does that make him unwelcome. One is his apparent obsession with 9/11, and the other is personally offensive attacks, such as the ones he’s directed against yourself.
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I think Jon is doing a good job of deleting the latter, and few people rise to the bait of the former any more; I think I remember that a quick comment from yourself on a recent thread prevented just such an escalation. And just occasionally, we meet Yugo’s more humane side, such as his denunciation of Kissinger above.
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And Yugo and Craig are quite right. My idea of seeding comments with decoy “9/11″s was daft.
Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch are asked to appear before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee next Tuesday.
Will they?
We shall see.
Jon, Craig, Clark, okeydoke.
Incidentally Dreoilin, I remember a heated argument between yourself and Yugo (then calling himself Larry from St Louis) about what would become of Haiti after the earthquake and the deployment of US troops. Well, the US is exploiting it, just as you predicted:
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http://www.thenation.com/article/161216/wikileaks-haiti-cable-depicts-fraudulent-haiti-election
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http://www.haitian-truth.org/wikileaks-haiti-cable-depicts-fraudulent-haiti-election-added-commentary-by-haitian-truth/
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jun2011/hait-j24.shtml
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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/28-9
Thanks for the links, Clark. I’ve been trying to keep the subject of Haiti alive on Twitter – as have others, indeed. That and Fukushima, about which we hear very little via the mainstream.
Tim Ireland in 2010 on the friendship and contact between Hayman and Coulson.
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2010/12/andy-coulson-andy-hayman/
Breaking News Laura Kuenssberg Chief political correspondent, BBC News channel In the last couple of minutes it has been confirmed that the government will support Labour’s motion that says MPs believe it would not be in the public interest for Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation to takeover BSkyB.
16.07 12.7.2011
@mary, that would be remarkable if the Tories were to support that. I wonder if they are calculating that supporting the Digger now would be akin to proving that the media-political nexus exists, and that the public disquiet might bite them in the ankles come next election?
Dreoilin, if we’re not hearing much about Fukushima, this could have something to do with it:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/01/fukushima-emails-government-nuclear-industry
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/30/british-government-plan-play-down-fukushima
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On the other hand, we don’t hear much about molten salt reactors either; development was abandoned by the US because the design was no good for making weapons-grade plutonium.
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“Alvin Weinberg was aware of both the promise and the dangers inherent in the [light water] reactor. During the 1960’s Weinberg directed a series of tests at ORNL, designed to verify theoretical assumptions made about the safety of light water reactors being pushed by the AEC for the generation of electrical power. The results were disturbing to Weinberg and his staff. The standard design of light water reactors was shown to have serious safety flaws. Weinberg began to warn people within the industry about the problem.
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For Weinberg superior safety was one of the most important features of the Molten Salt Reactor design. Weinberg regarded the AEC’s commitment to electrical power generation through light water reactors as irrational. Not only were they less safe than other designs, but also they could not be used to breed new fissionable materials [U-233], the Molten Salt Reactor could.
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A misguided Holifield confronted Weinberg and said, “Alvin, if you are concerned about the safety of reactors, then I think it might be time for you to leave nuclear energy.” Holifield was powerful enough to have Weinberg fired from his position as Director of ORNL”.
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http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2010/12/alvin-weinbergs-integrity-and-vision.html
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Alvin Weinberg invented both the Light Water Reactor and the Molten Salt Reactor.
I wrote to my Tory MP, told him outright, if he supported the Murdoch takeover, there was no way he could prove to me he wasn’t being blackmailed. They’ve let this go too far and none of them have any answer. They can’t let the merger go ahead.
Keith Olbermann http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0aOFsT0wgA
Whittingale has just said he is not ‘entirely sure’ that he has the correct message about the Murdochs and Brooks attending their committee meeting next week.
Dear Sir,
I should like to complain in the strongest possible jockstrap at your posting photographs of loathsome creatures responsible for appalling acts of horror and blood-lust and unspeakable and society-corrupting depravity next to pictures of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee!
It shouldn’t be allowed!
Yours faithfully,
Baffled of Wrexham (retired).
Your Honour,
it must be pointed out that Vincent Price and Christopher Lee are depicted in character, and no association with the human actors of those names should be inferred.
Mary, thanks for your sweet words on the Whittingdale thread- and here for digging out the Tim Ireland post from last year, hinting at a creepily symbiotic relationship between Coulson & retired Top Plod Hayman.
“Dreoilin, if we’re not hearing much about Fukushima, this could have something to do with it”. — Clark
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Yes, Clark, I’m fairly sure I already posted that first link on this blog, but on what thread I’m not sure. I posted it on Twitter. When I asked on Twitter, “where has Fukushima disappeared to from our News bulletins?” there was an immediate reaction from several countries, everyone asking the same. And of course the people in Japan are still suffering hugely, in the aftermath of the whole disaster, but we see virtually nothing. It’s as if a magic wand was waved.
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I don’t know a thing about Molten Salt Reactors, but if you’re interested in the technicalities at Fukushima, there’s a video of a lecture here (not the best presentation):
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http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/07/why-fukushima-can-happen-here-secrets-nuclear-industry
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“In this video nuclear engineers Arnie Gundersen and David Lochbaum discuss how the US regulators and regulatory process have left Americans unprotected. They walk, step-by-step, through the events of the Japanese meltdowns and consider how the knowledge gained from Fukushima applies to the nuclear industry worldwide.”
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It might be small potatoes for you! I know you’re already au fait with the subject.
No, Dreoilin, I’m learning about nuclear physics as fast as I can, as I wish to verify the claims made for MSRs. But it would fit a pattern, if a dangerous technology was chosen when a much safer one was available, in the pursuit of weapons.
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The UK is committed to building six new nuclear power stations. I’d rather they were building one MSR prototype. One claim made for MSRs is that they can “burn up” spent fuel, using the unused energy to generate electricity in the process. The waste left over is tiny by comparison, and returns to background levels of radioactivity in about three centuries, as opposed to tens of millennia. If that’s so, we need these reactors. My limited understanding of the physics suggests that it’s plausible.
Dreoilin, I don’t have time to watch that video at present, but I have little doubt that it is right. I’ve never seen a conventional reactor design that I feel comfortable about, and in poking about I keep finding that corners are cut in safety in order to reduce costs, or simply because operators become complacent. I mean, Fukushima; I know, let’s store the spent fuel in the roof space! U mad bro? Chernobyl; let’s see what happens if we cut the power to the cooling system. Three Mile Island; no, we can still run the reactor with the cooling valves closed. It truly beggars belief.
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“Alvin, if you are concerned about the safety of reactors, then I think it might be time for you to leave nuclear energy.”
Oh, SL-1. Let’s leave three lads in charge of a “small” nuclear reactor:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
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“The design power was 3 MW (thermal). Operating power was 200 kW electrical and 400 kW thermal for space heating. The core power level reached nearly 20 GW in just four milliseconds, precipitating the reactor accident and steam explosion.”
“I’m learning about nuclear physics as fast as I can”
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Clark, http://www.karlgrossman.blogspot.com/
Anon, thanks, but I’d read that article already. I am not opposed in principle to the use of the nuclear forces. I expect that humans in prehistory had many an accident before they learned how to control fire safely. Indeed, we still suffer accidents with fire. I also accept that burning fossil coal releases more radioactivity into the atmosphere than most nuclear activities.
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The only way we can clean up the mess already made is by using further nuclear reactions. What alternative do you suggest? Launch it into the Sun? A fair proportion of rockets explode on launch, and the US alone has 70,000 tonnes of (partially) “spent” fuel.
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I do not support the building of unsafe reactor designs, but neither do I consider it impossible in principle to design safe reactors.
Clark, Renewables can fuel ALL the energy we will ever need. For some reason it does not suit a few that it is so. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Iug28mWSlY&playnext=1&list=PL600DAD312C6EB51A
Well I didn’t know about the birthdays, but I knew it wasn’t talent, because of the three, only two (Price and Lee) have talent.
Anon, OK, I’m not so sure, but I’ll watch the YouTube when I get the chance. But (1) how do we get rid of the 70,000++ tonnes of radioactive “spent” fuel, and (2) if nuclear can be done well (which I stress it ISN’T at present), why shouldn’t we? Good nuclear would have some advantages. Power generation could be sited where industry actually uses the power, so less pylons to defile the landscape, and less wind generators in our wildernesses killing birds.
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I will only support reactors if the danger is less than either keeping the existing waste, or other methods of neutralising it. But we need to do something about it. This is why I’m studying the matter. Just storing the waste really isn’t morally acceptable. It would just drop our problem onto thousands of future generations of people and wildlife.
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If nuclear disarmament is ever achieved (as I hope), there will be tonnes of weapons grade material to be disposed of, too. Bury it? Or burn it down to lighter elements in MSRs and make electricity as a by-product? “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshears”?
And, Anon, I know there are vested interests in the nuclear industry and government. Beware. Some of them probably oppose MSRs because:
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(1) MSRs are better at destroying weapons grade material than creating it. MSRs make heavy elements lighter. Conventional reactors take uranium and make both lighter and heavier elements, including plutonium.
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(2) Most of the profit being made in the current nuclear industry is in fuel rod fabrication and reprocessing. MSRs do reprocessing within the reactor, and they don’t need fuel rods, they use the fuel in molten form, dissolved in beryllium fluoride.
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So watch out. The nuclear industry may use the Green movement to oppose MSRs, and we’ll be stuck with all that “waste”.
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But I may be wrong about this; that’s why I’m trying to learn.
Frazer… defuses bombs?… jeez… respect, awe, phew.