I am proud of the company I was in of fellow Sam Adams winners; but also because in the circumstances I think this was the best speech I have ever made. If you listen from 15 minutes, the enthusiastic and sustained interruption of applause I received from the Oxford Union for my attack on those demonstrating against Julian Assange is remarkable.
It particularly explodes the appalling lies of the Guardian’s shrill hate campaign against Julian Assange, which you will recall covered this event under the headline Julian Assange finds no allies and tough queries in Oxford University talk . It has taken the Oxford Union two months to post this video, and then unlike other newly posted videos it does not appear on the front page of their youtube site.
The students no longer have any autonomy in the the Oxford Union where speakers and videos have to be approved in advance by a solidly and uniformly right wing board of trustees which includes William Hague and Louise Mensch.
It is, however, even at this belated time, a great pleasure to be able again to state and to demonstrate what a vicious little liar Amelia Hill is.
After my point on the Assange demonstration, you could have heard a pin drop for the rest of my talk and I was unsure how the audience were reacting. Unfortunately the video cuts off the peroration, so you will have to take my word for it that the applause was very big and after resuming my seat I had to half stand and acknowledge again. But I had concluded by introducing Julian Assange, so that may have been for him not me – I would be just as pleased.
Let me post this one again so you have the pair of me on consecutive nights in very different moods.
Anon @ 8 ;16 Nice Post there, wee bit of forgotten Sons too. The man was / is ahead of his time. Fish is still going strong, new album out in may, Sorry its very OT, but have you heard this ( his best Ever )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agWDIZ2a2g0
P.S We Only have to look at Shoemaker – Levy’s half dozen or so fragments Slamming into Jupiter in 1994 to be Very concerned about space rocks…and keep an eye oot in november for comet ison.
John Moore • November 30, 2012 12:32 PM
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/11/hacking_by_the.html#c1016377
The corporate media are telling us something we knew already.
Iraq anniversary: war intelligence ‘was a lie’, BBC Panorama documentary to say
Key intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq ten years ago was based on “fabrication” and “wishful thinking”, a documentary is to claim.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9936180/Iraq-anniversary-war-intelligence-was-a-lie-BBC-Panorama-documentary-to-say.html
.
MI6 and CIA were told before invasion that Iraq had no active WMD
BBC’s Panorama reveals fresh evidence that agencies dismissed intelligence from Iraqi foreign minister and spy chief
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-iraq-fresh-wmd-claims
.
Iraq invasion was based on ‘fabrication’ and ‘wishful thinking’
The West ‘ignored evidence from senior Iraqis’ that WMDs did not exist, according to a new BBC Panorama documentary
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/west-ignored-evidence-from-senior-iraqis-that-wmds-did-not-exist-8538286.html
.
and so on.
The actual programme. Mon 18 Mar 22:35
BBC One The Spies Who Fooled the World
How key aspects of the intelligence used to justify the Iraq War were based on lies.
.
Clever spin is being used to get Bliar off the hook. Soon he will be sainted.
Also meant to say that there were five minutes of propaganda from Kevin Connolly this morning on Radio 4 Today on the power and strength of the Israel lobby in the US. This was in connection with the forthcoming Obama visit.
It included excerpts from Biden’s speeches praising Israel and vox pop segments acknowledging AIPAC etc,. Between 6.15 and 7am.
Absolutely no reference to it on the Radio 4 running order or live page, so far at the time of posting this comment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r9904/live
Scroll down. A big gap between 6.15 and 6.50.
viz
1 hour ago
0650
Scientists have been investigating the deepest parts of the world’s oceans. The Mariana trench in the western pacific is 11 km deep, and results are showing there is more bacterial life there than expected – more than at the shallower depths of much of the ocean. The results were published yesterday by the journal Nature Geoscience.
0615
Business news with Simon Jack.
~~~
There was a mention that an attack on Iran would come into the Obama/Netanyahu discussions and also the situation in Syria. I cannot recall Connolly mentioning settlement building or the terrible outlook for the Palestinians living in Occupied Palestine.
Clark. I feel your deep despair and am thinking of you. I don’t know what to say except to say that we are all very fond of you here and are concerned for you. It is more that flicking some happiness switch and the possession of material goods or money, as some here suggest, that will bring contentment and peace of mind. We know that we are living under an unpleasant, unjust and unfair political system and that a fair way of distributing the planet’s diminishing resources must be found. The greedy must learn to share and to care for their fellows.
~~
Can Doug Scorgie be called by his proper name and not ‘scourge’ as I have requested before. It is nasty.
scourge (skûrj)
n.
1. A source of widespread dreadful affliction and devastation such as that caused by pestilence or war.
2. A means of inflicting severe suffering, vengeance, or punishment.
3. A whip used to inflict punishment.
Re. Clark’s recent posts, and the various responses to them:
I suspect that one of the problems we face is that to open oneself to the current condition of the world – both natural and social – is (to quote a seminal environmental writer) “to walk alone in a world of wounds”. It takes a good deal of courage to engage fully with what is happening today; and the temptation is to withdraw into individualism of one sort or another, finding a safe psychological position from which to snipe, disparage, or criticise those who courageously try to engage with the depressing realities, or to paste a fake smile over one’s own hurt by pretending that ‘I’m all right’ – which is certainly not so, at a deeper level.
But we need to balance this sort of integrity with the need for self preservation. As the psychotherapist David Smail points out, A “great and very often damaging mistake is when a disintegration of [society] is interpreted or experienced as a breakdown in the individual personality” – in other words, when we experience the corruption and fragmentation of the world around us as if it were the corruption and collapse of our own selves. While to an extent this identification with what’s happening around us is necesssary and admirable, it’s also important to retain a part of ourselves that can stand aside from the ongoing train crash and survive to fight future battles . . .
Well said Runner 77.
~~~
PS Many outraged on the Medialens Message Board on the BBC propaganda going out tonight.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1363594039.html
There are two other threads.
@ Mary :
“Can Doug Scorgie be called by his proper name and not ‘scourge’ as I have requested before.”
Can Mary also urge various other contributors to call Habbabkuk by his/her proper name?
Just to be consistent, don’t y’know.
********
La vita è bella, life is good!
Liam Fox News
On the subject of donations, Liam Fox has taken £7,200 from one Mick Davis. Known as “Mick the miner”, Mr Davis is the super-rich boss of mining company Xstrata, and a big player in the British Jewish community. Nothing wrong in that, except he was also one of the millionaires who bankrolled the mysterious Adam Werritty. Fox’s odd relationship with Werritty cost him his ministerial position. Still, who can say no to a few grand?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/diary/the-feral-beast-baroque-around-the-clock-8537493.html?origin=internalSearch
Doug Scorgie You can have fun on this website too. CQS is Hintze. Some of the sums you come across are staggering.
http://searchthemoney.com/associate/604
Then google ‘Hintze Fox Werrity’ and you get lots of links like this one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/8885995/Liam-Foxs-adviser-Adam-Werritty-facing-questions-over-missing-60000..html
Morning all, just popping in here on the news, as well as the prospect, of east Anglia’s mentally challenged having to treat themselves from within in future so it seems.
Some 500 mental health staff will be made redundant, declared not needed, which will most likely be support services, assessments and counselling.
This is bad news full stop. Add to this the cheap pedlars of fake medicine’s, hoping that the placebo effect will ‘self heal’ the patient.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/a-889198.html
On some, this undoubtedly works, but is it a mere poignant reminder of what our bodies are capable of? for others these loss of services will be an added kosh.
This sort of moronic use of a celebrities sad state to make a point about celebrity publicity, the police and the failing mental health services is callous electioneering, Lib Dems punching above their weight.
Once, some years back, I was of the opinion that Norman Lamb was amicable, part of the lesser evil. I have to revise my view.
The sun is just coming out and a walk with deep breathing exercises will most likely cheer me up no time, for pete’s sake, what am I suggesting here…. that fresh air and exercise is a good balance for staring at a screen for hours on end, self depressingly breathing in the ozone? hmmm….
Make it a personal policy to not sit longer in front of a screen than two hours, and that your next steps have to involve the fresh air outside. If it rains, no worries, we’re not made of sugar. Indeed lets adopt this for the blog. Gangam/Harlem shake style.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/norfolk_mp_to_investigate_claims_after_meeting_boxer_frank_bruno_1_1981945
Matthew Gould is in the middle of this unlovely bunch of Tory shills for Israel.
Tory Friends of Israel gang up to condemn Palestinian ‘incitement’
March 3, 2013
Jews For Justice For Palestinians | March 2, 2013
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/tory-friends-of-israel-gang-up-to-condemn-palestinian-incitement/
plus something new to me.
UK embeds a hub and an envoy in Israeli enterprise
The FCO’s logo
This posting has 6 items:
1) Times of Israel: Britain appoints special technology ambassador to Israel;
2) Conservative Friends of Israel: CFI’s Year in Review, extract;
3) FCO: Purpose of the tech hub;
4) JPost: London hosts conference touting Israeli innovation;
5) Times of Israel: High-tech diplomacy puts Israel and UK on the same page (so stop worrying about boycott);
6) JPost: British hi-tech hub, Israeli start-ups look to partner This is the start of the project;
Britain appoints special technology ambassador to Israel
UK prime minister personally announced appointment of ‘tech envoy’ Saul Klein
By David Shamah, Times of Israel
December 12, 2012
http://jfjfp.com/?p=38162
No sun shining here! Pouring down. I was out for an hour or so and got drenched. I have never seen my gravel drive flooded before in 30 years.
I see that Alisa’s inquest is postponed again Nevermind.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21805824
Runner77, 8:45 am; thanks for this:
Yes, that’s similar to what I’m experiencing, but I deny that it’s a “mistake”; the personal is the political; the mistake is to believe that they are separate. Rather, it is something to be faced and worked upon; I doubt that it can be solved within a lifetime.
It’s not a mistake, it’s a problem of inequality of power and propaganda; I have opinions which are unpopular in the world at large, because they are unpalatable. I was having a conversation about Syria with a “friend” (I doubt that I have true friends any more); he’s a Guardian reader and considers himself politically aware. He said that, if in power, he would ban all arms shipments to Syria, and then issue Assad with an ultimatum – leave Syria, or be killed in a precision airstrike. So I asked him; “would you also call off your packs?”
“What packs?”
“Your packs of islamists, creating so much death and chaos in Syria”.
He became confused, and I had to explain about NATO, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. He did recognise what I was describing.
“There are no such packs.”
“May I use your computer system to show you on the Internet?”
He grudgingly half-agreed that “our” hands may not be clean, but the computer remained off and he chose a new subject; can you guess what? “Conspiracy theorising”. I didn’t press the issue, as partial communication is better than none.
“Mental illness” consists of closed compartments in our minds, such that our hidden motivations can find expression in behaviour while rationalisation and self-deception protect our self-image. The sickness of our world is protected by a similar restriction of communication. Unfortunately for me, I am part of the inconvenient awareness that has to be silenced, and it’s a lonely way to exist.
Just to say that Freeview Ch 81 is running the HoC Iraq War debate of 18 March 2003 through to 2.30pm.
Habbabkuk – Doubtless you’ll deny it, but it seems to me you’ve got the bit between your teeth in regards to Mary, simply because Mary does a Sterling job at exposing the dirt that is Zionism. You’d be much better off taking Mary on in an intelligent and honest way, something that most here would find quite reasonable, Mary herself presumably.
Clark,
I undestand your suffering when confronted with friends like the one you describe. Being a decent man you do not take things lately, which is not in these difficult times the best attitude. World is rotten as we are surrounded by scum like halibabacus and other residents who are actually quite happy in the trap of their own imbecility having no insight into their depraved minds. Their logo is La vita è bella , rather than La vita in culo al mondo, where we have all somehow landed. Only moron can be happy all the time like our hahababa who would lead a joyful life in any concentration camp.
“We truly are living in a global village, complete with shop keepers who know just what we like and how we like it, town gossips who eavesdrop on our most intimate conversations and, of course, the constable who looks in every now and then just to make sure that everyone is behaving as they should.
“To anyone who wishes to know you, you are an open book.”
What Facebook Knows (And Not Just Facebook Either):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2013/03/18/what-facebook-knows-and-not-just-facebook-either/
A hedge fund was fined $600 million for a $276-million profit based on insider trading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/15/sac-insider-trading-record-fine
Comment by rms:
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#18_March_2013_(Hedge_fund_insider_trading)
‘No peace partners, says incoming deputy defense minister’
Danny Danon: United States and the rest of the world will have to get used to increased settlement construction
http://www.timesofisrael.com/no-peace-partners-says-incoming-deputy-defense-minister/
Clark,
I meant to say lightly rather than lately but lately lightly would also do. Sorry for the confusion
Interestingly Clark when I wrote to Cardinal Murphy O’Connor after the Cardinal endorsed Blair’s conversion to Catholicism, I received a lengthy reply from the Cardinal’s office in which his private secretary and adjuvant said in précis:
“Rest assured Mr Blair has shown dedication and commitment to a period of investigation and training before being allowed to come into the [RC]Church […]
..my advise is to calm down, relax, take it easy and pass up the worry and sadness of worldly events and their impact on our lives.”
In other words, be stupid, dumbed down and happy – forgo care – life is good.
Who would have thought that the baby faced Agent Cameron with the high stiff collar (almost like an Eton collar) sitting intently in the very back opposition row alongside Boris Johnson making the case for war, would be Prime Minister now making the case for war(s) ten years later on?
Cameron sat there with his head resting on the panelling behind with his eyes darting around but staying silent. The occasional smile appeared when Boris got the sex of the deputy Speaker wrong.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2003-03-18.811.3
btw What was Johnson doing in Belgrade when he spoke of this earlier in the debate?
Mr Boris Johnson (Henley, Conservative)
I am very pleased to be called to speak in this debate at such an early hour. I believe that I have perhaps one small advantage over other Members of this House, which is that I have personal experience of being bombed by the Pentagon while in a capital city. I was in Belgrade, and then in Pristina, during the Kosovo campaign, when B-52s and cruise missiles were deployed in an operation conducted, after all, by Mr. Cook, whose moving speech I listened to with great attention last night. Of course, that operation was carried out without UN endorsement. I remember writing some very angry articles while in Belgrade about the way in which that war was conducted, because I honestly hated the methods that were used. I despised the bombing from 30,000 ft, which seemed to me to be cruel and erratic. I also loathed some of the anti-Serb rhetoric, and I became, among the many unfashionable aspects of my beliefs, rather pro-Serb.
Karel, thanks. Yes, a light-hearted attitude towards our world’s problems is probably more easily maintained by people who have comfortable lives than those who encounter the problems more directly. But we can never know another person’s mind well enough to know how their internal knowledge is compartmentalised; it requires vigilant self reflection for each of us just to keep our own internal communication channels clear of self deception, to ensure that we direct our selective awareness fairly.
Mark Golding, thanks, that actually made me laugh!
This from Cameron’s Register of Interests. Do you think if we fancied a dekko at Israel, Mr Gould would put us up and send us around? Oh no. None of us is the Leader of HM Opposition as Cameron was at that time.
Overseas benefits and gifts
During a visit to Israel, 28 February-2 March 2007, I was provided with one night’s hotel accommodation and a helicopter flight for myself and my Chief of Staff by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (All other costs were met by the Conservative Party, the British Consulate General in Jerusalem and the British Embassy in Tel Aviv.) (Registered 29 March 2007)
Following my visit to Afghanistan, I was given a rug by Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. (Registered 30 August 2007)
and more private plane and helicopter flights than we have had hot dinners, some declared two or three years late. Tut tut.
This made me laugh. It’s not working Dave. You are never there. Always travelling like your hero Bliar.
Name of donor: Matt Roberts Ltd
Address of donor: 58-60 Berners St, London W1T 3JS
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: discount of £150 per session on 50 sessions of personal training; total value £7,500. I have made a personal donation to a charity of my trainer’s choice.
Date of receipt of donation: 21 January 2013
Date of acceptance of donation: 21 January 2013
Donor status: company, registration no 3087417
(Registered 1 February 2013)
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10777
Interesting that Cameron did not speak at all in the 18 March 2003 Iraq War debate.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?pid=10777&o=o&pop=1&p=20
He did of course ‘vote very strongly’ for the Iraq War.
I was at work at the time in 2003 and never heard the debate. It has been an experience seeing it now. It made me actually feel sick seeing Straw winding up with Hoon, Bliar, Reid, Blunkett and Prescott sitting behind him. Bliar and co were even laughing and joking as Straw was mocking a LD member who had expressed his reservations. As they all declared their support for the coming war, did any of them have a thought of what was to come and how much pain and suffering they were going to cause. They are vile, wicked hypocritical liars and criminals and I hope they rot in their own hells.
They were all so convinced of their correctness of their decision but it was still heartening to hear the few dissenters throughout the debate like Alex Salmond, Alice Mahon, Jeremy Corbyn, Peter Kilfoyle and Richard Burden and others.
The Iraq War Was Not A Media Failure
18 March 2013 .
By Editor David Edwards
Ten years ago today, on March 18, 2003, Tony Blair delivered a speech to parliament prior to a vote that resulted in MPs authorising war on Iraq. The war began two days later.
Last month, a Guardian leader recalled Blair’s role:
‘A decade ago, Tony Blair was lifting his sparkling rhetoric to new heights, whipping up fears of an imminent threat, claiming to hear echoes of Munich, and encouraging dreams of a post-Saddam world where tyranny was in retreat. As the forgotten and fraudulent second dossier was being foisted on journalists, he was perfecting the lines that would soon carry a belligerent majority in the Commons, lamely indulged by Iain Duncan Smith’s excuse for an opposition. Most politicians, and too much of the media, swallowed it all wholesale. The public, however, smelled a rat.’
They certainly did. At the time, however, a Guardian leader described Blair’s March 18 performance as ‘an impassioned and impressive speech by the prime minister which may give future generations some inkling of how, when so many of his own party opposed his policy so vehemently, Tony Blair nevertheless managed to retain their respect and support…’
/..
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/725-blair-speech.html
~~~
PS The vote that day – The House divided: Ayes 412, Noes 149.
Clark; Glad to see you’re back in the saddle again. Happy belated Birthday. You are officially half-a-century, but you have had the sagacity of elder peers long before your time.
Cheers—–
Clark @ 12:58
“A hedge fund was fined $600 million for a $276-million profit based on insider trading:”
Yes, 10x would be good. The only way to stop them is to take the profit motive out of it.
In the late 90’s, Archers Daniel Midland was find 400 million,(a new FTC formula) which was 10x the profit they enjoyed trying to corner the citric acid market. That was the first and last time I heard of this policy being implemented.