I always seem to get back from Africa physically exhausted. I now have to tackle all the organisation of a family Christmas at the last minute. It is both the charm and disadvantage of this blog that the blogging is just me – it has no staff, and no revenue. That is not to devalue the contibution of the volunteer comment moderators – who help out with other things too – and the technical help from Tim, Clive and Richard and the the hosting team. But if I am not writing, nothing happens.
When I am lacking time or energy for deeper thinking, I tend to throw out some provocative thoughts from the top of my mind to see what people make of them. I am worrying today about the attacks on people of whom I disapprove.
I blogged recently about excessive police action against a blogger who argues against the existence of man-made climate change. I think he is wrong, but I don’t see why he should be the victim of police raids. I am going to surprise you by saying that I think that the hounding of Aidan Burley is going too far. Bad taste humour around the Nazis has existed throughout my lifetime – and was brought gloriously to the screen in the brilliant Mel Brooks’ The Producers (the first one, with the fantastic Zero Mostel).
Burley’s stag party seems rather a throwback to the Federation of Conservative Students of the late 70s, important elements of which delighted in singing Nazi songs to emphasise how right wing and taboo-free they were, with an element of self-parody (I speak as an eye-witness). You always worried there were genuine Third Reich sympathies in there – as of course there were so strongly in the British elite in the 1930s. That is the underlying worry in the Burley case – but if there were any evidence of real sympathy for Nazi views from Burley, it would have been dug up by now. I think we should just take this as bad taste humour a la Producers – a play which presumably cannot be produced under French law? Burley has been punished, revealed as a twit, and we should move on.
John Terry is a man whose TV persona and reported behaviour I have always found repulsive. I don’t know what he (or Suarez in a related case) actually said. I find racial abuse absolutely unacceptable. But again, I do not think that where it occurs between two individuals, and unless it is persistent and repeated over a period, it is a matter for the state and police. Not all bad behaviour should be a matter of higher intervention, and shaming can be a good sanction in itself. Both individuals and society have ways to sort things out without always involving the state or constituted organisations within it. I doubt Terry will do it again and it has been made plain that this is unacceptable behaviour in football. It is enough.
The same goes for Jeremy Clarkson. Again, total wanker. But nobody could have seen his TV appearance on the One Show and felt that he actually believed or advocated that strikers should be shot. His body language and tone of voice made it plain he was indulging in hyperbole with the object of being humorous. Exaggerated polemic should not be banned, or even censured. The real problem here is balance. Very right wing polemicists are very often allowed free rein to mouth off on broadcast media. On TV, opposing polemicists (like, err, me) are strictly banned. On radio, George Galloway on Talk Sport is pretty well a lone example. Personally I welcome the vigour of Clarkson’s expression – if only someone equally firm were allowed on to argue with him.
Finally, I am going to defend Herman Cain. No longer a candidate, and his tax and other policies were completely barking mad, therefore pretty mainstream Republican. But I saw very little wrong in anything he was alleged to have done in his love life. One woman alleged that he made a physical advance – put his hand on her leg – towards her in his car, after a dinner where she had asked him for help. It seems to me his behaviour was perfectly normal, and the important thing is she asked him to stop, and he did stop. If men were not allowed to make such advances, the human race would die out. Desisting once it is plain your advances are unwelcome is the important thing. The long term affair alleged was entirely mutual and consenting. Chatting up employees is tasteless, but ought not be a crime.
Burley, Terry, Clarkson and Cain are all people of whom, in different ways, I do not approve and with whose views on life I am heartily at odds. But I don’t hold the view that only people who hold certain approved views should be able to wander round and function, or that we should all be limited to certain highly constrained social behaviours. They are all, in various ways, victims of galloping political correctness. I thought I would express some sympathy for them. Human beings have a right to be wrong, and sometimes foolish. It is part of the human condition.
Jon Donnison on Radio 4 Today on Christmas Eve in Nazareth. He is one of those ZBC reporters who, throughout the year, has filed ‘Israel says’ reports, where Palestinians are militants and Israelis are soldiers, when atrocities have taken place. Here he reports on the expansion of the settlements and the effects on the Palestinians. This is a token piece to make us think that the ZBC reports impartially. Very seasonal to hear the sheeps’ bells.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/b006qj9z/console last five minutes.
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Omitted from the end of this recording is a list of their guest editors next week which includes Lord Coe (some more propaganda for the increasingly militarized Olympics?) and a list of guests which included Bliar. No words.
From Jonathan Cook, who lives in Nazareth, we hear the truth.
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‘Most at risk from the planned changes are Palestinians under Israeli occupation and the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Critics warn that with democratic controls removed, and monitoring bodies silenced, Israel will have a free hand to intensify abuses in the occupied territories and entrench its discriminatory policies inside Israel.
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The new political atmosphere in Israel has prompted additional concerns that the government is further straining already tense relations with Washington – a fear heightened by remarks reportedly made by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, this month during a closed meeting of the Saban Forum in Washington.’
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….
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israel%E2%80%99s-new-house-rules-deepening-authoritarianism
You could not make it up. Coe, Sir Victor Blank who oversaw the collapse of HBOS/Lloyds Bank, Tracey Emin, etc etc.
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Guest editors set to take over Christmas Today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9655000/9655382.stm
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The 2011 guest editors start on Boxing Day featuring Seb Coe, Victor Blank, Betty Boothroyd, Tracey Emin, Mo Ibrahim, Stewart Lee
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And their various guests Jose Morinho, Ian McEwan, AS Byatt, Alan Moore, Mark E Smith, Tony Blair, FW de Klerk, Heston Blumenthal and much more.
Yep, Mary. Yawn, yawn, yawn. The ‘Great and the Good’ (who often, are neither). This is one of the reasons I don’t read The Guardian any more and why sometimes, I turn off the radio. I don’t need the constant barrage of loud-mouthed luvvies and their loud-mouthed liberalism. I’d rather be out there, at the Bow Shock, facing the cold interstellar wind, while they sit at home knitting cardigans in interesting patterns.
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But I’m just bitter and twisted and northern.
It took two days to die for this poor man. No Christmas for him and his family. Perhaps the Military Wives could sing Wherever You Are at his funeral.
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24 December 2011 Last updated at 16:25
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Afghanistan injury kills RAF man
Britain recently announced it would invest in new roadside bomb counter-measures
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UK military deaths in Afghanistan: In images
UK supports Afghan army operation
Storm diverts PM in Afghanistan
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A Royal Air Force serviceman who was injured in an explosion in Afghanistan has died at a UK hospital, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
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He was flown to the UK after being wounded when his vehicle was caught in a blast south of Kabul on Thursday.
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He died of his wounds at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and his next of kin have been informed.
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The number of UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since military operations there began in 2001 stands at 393.
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Meanwhile, the head of the British Army – Gen Sir Peter Wall – has paid a pre-Christmas visit to UK forces in Afghanistan to thank them for their work.
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He met servicemen and women at Camp Bastion in Helmand province.
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Of the RAF serviceman, the MoD said it confirmed his death with “great sadness”.
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The explosion which caused his injuries is the same one that claimed the life of a Royal Marine on Thursday.
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It has also emerged that a helicopter carrying UK troops made an emergency landing after coming under fire on Friday.
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The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said the forced landing, which occurred safely and without incident, took place in Nahr-e Saraj district, southern Helmand Province.
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Isaf said the aircrew were recovered unharmed.
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Earlier this week, Prime Minister David Cameron indicated he was planning a phased withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
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Some 500 are due to be pulled out next year, with more expected to follow in 2013.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16327379
Happy Christmas everyone; may Craig keep up the good work in 2012 on the Fox/Werrity affair, western double dealing on Uzbekistan, and amused/informed/infuriated (according to taste)with his take on everything else !
Om the free speech issue, one of the minor ripples in the past few days has been the faux furore over Alan Hansen’s use of the term ‘coloured players’ on MOTD.As a pundit he has a great ability to make the same points over & over, and is seldom original, but I’m prepared to cut him some slack here. He’s 56 and grew up in a sixties Britain where ‘coloured’ was the approved, genteel collective noun used to describe non-whites. Furthermore (or so I’m informed by those well versed in diversity linguistics), although uttering terms such as ‘coloured’ man, woman, player etc is strictly verboten, using the construction ‘people OF colour’ or ‘person OF colour’ is perfectly acceptable.
I also understand that post war US political history, with particular emphasis on the civil rights campaigns, is now taught widely in secondary schools. If an alert pupil asks teacher what the abbreviation NAACP stands for, WTF is the poor teacher supposed to say ?
The cliche ‘political correctness gone mad’ is, for once, apt in this context.
Of course, Wendy, there is an unremitting and intensifying barrage of anti-Iran propaganda across all media. Those in power know that they can get away with anything. Now they are pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, one suspects the next operation will be on Iran. They don’t care about the natives fighting back, they want chaos there, the more fighting, the better for their purposes. They feed on death and war; it is both a means to an end and an end in itself. There is nothing to stop them now. What we are witnessing is the invasion of the world.
Old Mark, I haven’t had time to read about the alleged incident you describe. But yes, I agree that the public sphere appears to have become unnecessarily neurotic about such matters. I think it’s a diversion from dealing with the real – structural – iniquities that exist in society. The whole garbage spectacle on ‘Big Brother’ b/w Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty was part of the same rubbish.
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Furthermore, I have to say that, eg. the South Asian community in the UK and elsewhere needs to look itself in the mirror before it screams ‘racism’ at every turn. The attitudes I’ve come across in that (my) community all too often remain unreconstructed wrt ‘blacks’ and dark people – eg. Tamils, Makranis, etc. – within its own community, and sometimes also in a pejorative way wrt ‘gorees’ and ‘goras’ (whites) as well.
@Leonard, thanks.
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Think you meant climateaudit.org, rather than climateaudit.com; I’ll take a look.
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Is there a *published* metastudy available? That would be interesting, and much more likely to be trustworthy. I’m currently on Monbiot’s side, since everything he does is referenced, and he’s been through a lot of the arguments and the data.
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I am not sure where you stand with the value of peer review, but since that is – in my view at least – one of the core principles of science, I am quite immovable on that. If it is peer reviewed, the research is worth a look; if it is not, then it isn’t. “Peer review”, as far as I know, doesn’t mean “review by anyone who wants a go” – it is review by scientists who subscribe to the same journals. I kind-of like the idea that such a thing can be brought to the public, but I wonder if the value of unexpected strokes of brilliance by spare-time theorists would be outweighed by the inevitable cranks and nutters who have a lot of time and energy? I’m sure Mark Of The Beast can be worked into the climate debate quite easily!).
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See also: my comments yesterday in this thread, 11:09 pm. The paper that @Scouse put forward did not look like it was submitted to a journal, and a web search didn’t reveal that the author was an academic or was working under the auspices of an academic institution. I accept that it *could* still be valuable, but one has to filter somehow – of course it just isn’t possible to read everything on climatology ever produced.
I forgot to ask – is it the proposition of the anti-AGW movement that IPCC or East Anglia University etc. have been *deliberately* making it up? I’ve only come across the suggestion that the “science is wrong” or has been “misinterpreted”, but you seem to think that there is a widespread conspiracy afoot, involving thousands of scientists.
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I don’t see that there is more wealth in promoting AGW than supplying energy – quite the opposite, in fact; exponentially so. I am happy to be proven wrong, though.
Jon –
“Phil, thanks for your thoughts – guarantee there will be no dirty laundry in the open.”
Steig:
Sorting Through the Stolen UAE Emails
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2011/11/sorting-through-stolen-uae-emails.html
Shukla/IGES:
[“Future of the IPCC”, 2008] It is inconceivable that policymakers will be
willing to make billion-and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the
projected regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate variability.
Thorne/MetO:
Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical
troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary […]
Thorne:
I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it
which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.
Carter:
It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.
Wigley:
Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive […] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC […]
Overpeck:
The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out.
Wilson:
I thought I’d play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I could ‘reconstruct’ northern hemisphere temperatures.
[…] The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. I guess this is
precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about.
Bradley:
I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year “reconstruction”.
Adams:
Somehow we have to leave the[m] thinking OK, climate change is extremely complicated, BUT I accept the dominant view that people are affecting it, and that impacts produces risk that needs careful and urgent attention.
Jones:
We don’t really want the bullshit and optimistic stuff that Michael has written […] We’ll have to cut out some of his stuff.
Mann:
the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing the PR battle. That’s what the site [Real Climate] is about.
Wilson:
Although I agree that GHGs are important in the 19th/20th century (especially since the 1970s), if the weighting of solar forcing was stronger in the models, surely this would diminish the significance of GHGs. […] it seems to me that by weighting the solar irradiance more strongly in the models, then much of the 19th to mid 20th century warming can be explained from the sun alone.
Jones:
I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process.
Briffa:
UEA does not hold the very vast majority of mine [potentially FOIable emails] anyway which I copied onto private storage after the completion of the IPCC task.
Problem is with CC, we’ve all been agressively propagandized since the 80’s to buy the moonshine of ‘apocalyptic’ warming induced by CO2. There is NO EVIDENCE to support this, unless you include the totally busted climate models that the IPCC -conveniently- use.
This is a classic ‘megatrend’ which -generally- last about 30 years in normal circumstances, this trend is now coming full circle & hopefully we’ll have some ‘climate sanity’ in coming years.
Interestingly, I have just finished a three-month contract assisting a major energy Corp develop a ‘detox strategy’ as AGW alarmism continues to die. . . .carbon-capture is a fantasy now strictly off menu, solar is crumbling, turdbines will be next. How much more can they cram in the saddlebags before they get out of dodge?
“future evils we seize in advance, those not in the future we invent” Marsilio Ficino
Thanks @Orkneylad,
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I am briefly familiar with the Climategate emails, and agree it was badly handled. Not sure which way you want me to interpret the link though – sounds like the author is siding with the AGW scientific consensus, and is sympathetic to the suggestion that the authors were ‘blowing off steam’. That has been my perspective on that furore.
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I thought Monbiot’s response was quite good (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response). He is honest enough to say that it shouldn’t have been dismissed as unimportant by environmentalists, and I agree. @Leonard is right that science should be seen to be done as openly as possible.
@Orkneylad – our messages crossed. Can you provide references for your “NO EVIDENCE to support this, unless you include the totally busted climate models that the IPCC -conveniently- use”?
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A recent excerpt from Monbiot, which is my current position:
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“So if you are among those who reject the vast weight of scientific evidence for manmade climate change, I don’t expect this article to persuade you. Ask yourself what it would take to change your mind. If tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers, against a tiny handful supporting your position; basic physics, demonstrable in a lab; instrumental temperature records spanning 150 years and much else on these lines can’t sway you, what could?”
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(Ref: http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/08/a-levelling/)
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I stand by my earlier post today (5:18 pm) about peer review.
I agree we’ve been propagandised, btw – but I think it’s been the other way. I think the media have been slow to respond to climate change, and too keen to support status-quo advertising promoted by established big industry. We are not sufficiently prepared, and the precautionary principle should prevail.
On Benny Peiser, a sceptic, Campaign Against Climate Change has this:
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“His claims scrutinised: Peiser wrote a paper criticising Dr Naomi Oreskes’ study which reviewed 928 research papers on climate change, finding they all agreed with the scientific consensus. Peiser claimed that 34 of these “reject or doubt” the scientific consensus for man-made global warming, but later retracted this, admitting that only one did.”
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(Ref: http://www.campaigncc.org/hallofshame)
Jonm,
My goodness there are so many to choose from, let’s go with CERN:
CERN: ‘Climate models will need to be substantially revised’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/25/cern_cloud_cosmic_ray_first_results/
“The first results from the lab’s CLOUD (“Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets”) experiment published in Nature today confirm that cosmic rays spur the formation of clouds through ion-induced nucleation. Current thinking posits that half of the Earth’s clouds are formed through nucleation. The paper is entitled Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation.
This has significant implications for climate science because water vapour and clouds play a large role in determining global temperatures. Tiny changes in overall cloud cover can result in relatively large temperature changes.
Unsurprisingly, it’s a politically sensitive topic, as it provides support for a “heliocentric” rather than “anthropogenic” approach to climate change: the sun plays a large role in modulating the quantity of cosmic rays reaching the upper atmosphere of the Earth.”
Geology: before us stands yesterday
http://www.glebedigital.co.uk/blog/?p=89
“In all, the climate in the geological past seems controlled by solar activity (Milancovitch cycles and cosmic ray changes) and if there is a relationship between temperature rise and C02 rise it is certainly not a simple one.”
Belief in ‘climate catastrophe’ is straight out of Charles Mackay and his history of great delusions.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
Charles Mackay 1841
Hi Jon, I would avoid both Monbiot & Pieser if you can, both are rhetorically tied to one camp or the other.
Unfortunately my other post [with links and additional info] is held in the mods queue . . . . I’m sure this will appear at some point. 🙂
Marsilio Ficino to Marchionne Donati of the Council of Eight: greetings.
You ask, my friend, why I am bound to no man; because I have no desire for power. But then why do I not want power? To avoid perpetual bondage. Most men buy a false power at the price of perpetual bondage, and when they seem to have most power then will they be most severely bound. But we have attained true freedom simply through the exercise of restraint. It is the mark of a great soul to value lightly what mean spirits praise highly. Only such a man lives in freedom. A man in bondage is not master of himself, and he who does not master himself is the master of nothing.
Suhayl – spot on – just indeed a dream until perhaps conveyed through the medium that connects us all. I bet you a dozen shekels the ‘gate’ will remain open for everyone that’s moved by the intention.
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Merry Christmas.
@Orkneylad –
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I’m not aware of the CERN piece, but a quick googling suggests that it doesn’t disprove existing research about climate change:
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http://mediamatters.org/research/201108310023
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I thought the section on “Major Scientific Bodies: Human Activity Is Behind Current Climate Change” was very good (do a browser-find for it, as the piece is quite long). It contains a list of respected scientific organisations that still subscribe to the basics of AGW.
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Your blog article is bound to be interesting, but again, it is not published or reviewed.
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Another item regarding the scientific consensus:
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“On the other hand, in May 2011 a joint poll by Yale and George Mason Universities found that nearly half the people in the USA (47%) attribute global warming to human activities, compared to 36% blaming it on natural causes. Only 5% of the 35% who were “disengaged”, “doubtful”, or “dismissive” of global warming were aware that 97% of publishing US climate scientists agree global warming is happening and is primarily caused by humans. [167]”
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(Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Public_opinion, see page for bracketed reference).
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I’ll be honest, I didn’t think the scientific consensus was as strong as 97%!
“Human beings have a right to be wrong, and sometimes foolish. It is part of the human condition.”
Craig, thanks for this most important Christmas gift. Even those of us (like me) who believe we are on the right side of humanity can use such a reminder!
Merry Christmas!
@Jon
A new 2011 paper by Richard P. Allan of the University of Reading
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~sgs02rpa/PAPERS/Allan11MA.pdf
discovers -via a combination of satellite observations and models- that the cooling effect of clouds far outweighs the long-wave or “greenhouse” warming effect. While Dessler and Trenberth (among others) claim clouds have an overall positive feedback warming effect upon climate due to the long-wave back-radiation, this new paper shows that clouds have a large net cooling effect by blocking incoming solar radiation and increasing radiative cooling outside the tropics. This is key, because since clouds offer a negative feedback as shown by this paper [and Spencer and Braswell plus Lindzen and Choi], it throws a huge monkey wrench in climate model machinery that predict catastrophic levels of positive feedback enhanced global warming due to increased CO2.
The real science of climate change (i.e., science not politicized and not distorted and hyped by the mainstream media and many environmental groups) continues to march away from any serious consideration of anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide as being a significant climate driver and continues to reinforce natural climate drivers -which we can do nothing about.
OR
NASA Death Blow to AGW Alarmism
http://www.glebedigital.co.uk/blog/?p=3136
“Satellite data from NASA covering 2000 through 2011 cast doubt on current computer models predicting global warming, according to a new study. The data shows that much less heat is retained by carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere than is assumed in current models. ‘There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,’ said Dr. Roy Spencer, a co-author of the study and research scientist at the University of Alabama.”
From Forbes.
Original research paper here: On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance
The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA’s ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted.
Vindication for Lindzen & Choi, which is excellent news.
Check out the BBC website, you will not find any sign of this important story. Clear evidence that the Beeb is still fully committed to its anti-science, anti-truth agenda.
“There is nothing to stop them now. What we are witnessing is the invasion of the world” said Suhayl Saadi.
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You don’t say?
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Ever since the filthy, murky, and fake events of 9/11/reichstag fire II, the unhinged imperial expansionists have been running amok, spurred on by greed, supremacy, and imperious imperatives of owning the planet. The last time around it was Lebensraum, this time around it has been the infamous “war on terror”.
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The plethora of wars across the globe have been fought in the most brutal manner, resulting in huge numbers of civilians; deaths, casualties, refugees (not that embed Media ever cared to report these). This has been the result of the use of the most vicious weapons; ranging from thermobaric, Dense Inert Metal Explosive (dime, not so inert upon interaction with human tissue), to conventional explosives not forgetting the fancy rockets, and machine guns, helicopter gunships, fighters, and missiles.
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It now appears the above were not enough of force multipliers at the disposal of the invading hoards, the resistance offered by some locals in opposing the invasion had to be dealt with tactical nuclear weapons. Hence the presence of enriched Uranium in the samples taken from the Iraqis at Fallujah.
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Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah ‘worse than Hiroshima’, is an article in Independent, based on Dr. Chris. Busby’s research. Independent has hinted at the DU (depleted uranium), without any mention of the enriched Uranium. Clearly the US forces have been using nuclear weapons of sorts, including their use in attacks on Baghdad airport as per news trickling out and generally circulated on the net;use of the neutron bomb.
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Pr C. Busby: Fallujah health effects, new U weapons (tactical nuclear). Nov 2011
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This is rich when the climate lobby is banging on about carbon fucking foot prints, US is busy dropping Nukes all over the place.
We’re all fucked.
Merry Christmas.
Komodo,
You bet, the Malthusian bastards appetite for mass murder knows no bonds.
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Also keep an eye out for Euro, the currency markets have been bricking it.
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Merry Christmas to all.
Fedup
You’ve really cheered me up because you’re so much more very fedup than me, and I detest Christmas as the last cherry on the top of all the other lies of life. Saddam Hussain kept his country very un-educated about nuclear weapons, focussing rather on electric shock, beating with bars, hanging upside down, and raping with bottles. We have lived with the secrecy, menace, deformity and undisposability of nuclear materials all our lives. I very much doubt the people of Falluja understand fully what they have been exposed to.
There is a verse in the Gospels which changed my life. ‘What you are afraid to lose, you will lose anyway.’ The US told their peoples they had to attack Iraq before it presented a nuclear threat. Well, they are already preparing to get a taste of Saddam-style military brutality outside the rule of law inside their own country, and it doesn’t seem to occur to them that the tactical nuclear bomb might be used by their own insane government on US cities too.
Komodo: Not all of us mate, just the 99% of us who actually earn our living.
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Merry solstice to everyone here too!
Komodo –
“We’re all fucked.
Merry Christmas.”
Enjoy it – depending on what type you are speaking of…
Merry Christmas all!