William Hague today is giving a speech saying that he wishes to “Draw a line” under the question of UK complicity in torture. It is hard to do that when the intelligence services remain today complicit in torture. The British government still gets intelligence from torture from Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Gambia, Afghanistan and numrous other spots. It remains their contention that it is not illegal to do so provided that three conditions are met: they do not do the torture themselves, they do not ask for the torture to be done, and they do not use the resulting “intelligence” in court proceedings – rather than to assassinate people, detain them without trial, hand them over to another country for more torture or ruin their lives through control orders.
I have written before about the farce of having Sir Peter Gibson, the former Commissioner of the Intelligence Services, conduct an “independent” investigation into UK complicity in torture, while Gus O’Donnell, the biggest liar in the country, will decide what can and what cannot be published. Now the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, has added his voice to the many condemnations of this farcial procedure.
I am going to give evidence to the inquiry, but a key part of the government’s plan is for the inquiry never to actually happen. It has been decided that numerous legal cases and pretend police investigations have to conclude before the inquiry can start – for no real reason I can see. There is, quite literally, no timescale and I am told not necessarily in this parliament. I worry in case Sir Peter Gibson, who was born in 1935, doesn’t live long enough actually to get going. I was born in 1958, and given the glacial rate of progress – indeed absolutely none is visible to the naked eye – I may not live long enough either.
Yet another total betrayal by the coalition government.
Hague bats for the other side and,since being caught,i imagine,has been blackmailed by we all know who.
Is but my opinion.
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Elephant in the room. They are ALL blackmailed.
Carrot and stick. Look at Blair, has he been rewarded or not?
We are now run by Eton failures, BULLY Bullingdon yobbos.
Total scum.
Scouse: Like you, I do not engage with parapsychology (crystal healing, ear candles, homeopathy…). But I keep meaning to follow up as far as my limited maths permits, on Mach’s implication that the universe is intricately interconnected. And I can’t explain the dogs.
Vronsky: thanks.
The topic beckons, well, nearly –
The Chilcott enquiry will not now be published until at least Summer 2012:
The Iraq Inquiry has concluded its public hearings and is currently analysing the written and oral evidence it has received and drafting its report.
Pulling together and analysing the evidence and identifying the lessons, for a report that covers so wide and complex a range of issues and a time period of some nine years, is a significant task. The Inquiry has advised the Government that it will need until at least summer 2012 to produce a draft report which will do justice to the issues involved. Very considerable progress has already been made, but there is still much to be done.
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http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/
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BBC R4 this morning adds (not in those words) that the Government is dragging its feet over releasing notes from Laughing Boy to The Chimp. Surprise, surprise.
Vronsky – just had a look at your link, and (I’m sorry) the guy Josephson appears to be madder than the average prof. He is listed by the Cavendish Institute, as a visiting or emeritus prof, but he’s not permanent staff, and the two students he mentions are not CI students according to the CI homepage. The project apparently exists. But there is little in the way of published research, and much in the way of polemic, including, interestingly, staunch support for cold fusion. In short, not what you’d expect from the CI at all. Looks as if he started with something uncontentious like neural networks, and allowed his imagination freer rein than Popperian science encourages…but, hey.
Vronsky, thank you – the Mind Matter Unification Project could be interesting.
“Komodo, did you watch the talk?”
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I watched it. Brilliant and humorous. “I have no mobile phone” I liked that. I’m missing the bigger picture. Not included, since you’ll have a hard time getting data on it.
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“If this interest you then I would also recommend a talk by NASA physicist Thomas Campbell”
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Yes, consciousness. I like the Vedic model as well. Modes of Nature, in relation to Sheldrake.
Sunflower, you may also like Sheldrake’s talk at Google Tech.
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The Q&A at the end is superb – at one point he calls James Randi a liar and proves his point 😉
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY
I haven’t got time to watch interminable videos of rambling lectures (see My Big TOE above – he hadn’t got going after ten minutes, and I gave up) covering the sum of human knowledge with a comfort blanket of spirituality. Any peer-reviewed journal articles relating to any of this (preferably small parts of this) would be welcomed. Meanwhile, one way of dispensing with time altogether:
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Barbour_The_Nature_of_Time.pdf
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which illustrates the minimum level of technical comprehensibility involved in even a basic topic. Good essay, btw. Deserved the FQXi prize.
That’s a pity, komodo – I admit I should have suggested skipping the first 30 minutes of Campbell’s talk which is his personal history wrt Bob Munroe and the binaural lab.
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Perhaps when you do have time you might watch the rest.
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Entirely up to you 🙂