I had excellent news from my cardiologist yesterday. Ready to think about other things now. I am horrified by the continuing stream of ” royal” baby hype on television. Truly pathetic – is this 1313 or 2013? Who buys into this nonsense?
I thought the Lib Dem take on Trident missiles was hilarious. This small group of islands does apparently need to retain the ability to wipe out one third of the urban population of humankind, as a defence against something undefined – possibly people we invade getting too annoyed about it – and in order to increase our “influence” in the World. As we plainly have less influence than the Germans, who don’t feel this need for the power of obliteration, I do not quite see how this works. Nor do I see Pakistan, which does have nuclear weapons, as very influential. Nor do I quite understand how our influence can be increased by possessing something under effective American control. But there you are.
Anyway, the Lib Dems have come to the intellectually scintillating conclusion that we do need this world shattering power, but we don’t need it on Wednesday or Thursday afternoons or on Saturday mornings, which will be cheaper. Brilliant, and plainly does not dodge any big ethical or practical questions at all.
Mary, if you feel there is too much hype over the Royal baby, the best thing to do would be, you know, ignore it?
Sir Menzies Campbell has been on Radio 4 Today (so I am told by a friend) wishing to proscribe the armed wing of Hezbollah on the grounds that a victim of its actions does not distinguish between it and the rest. His argument was deeply flawed as he did not appear to advocate the same proscription on the IDF for similar reasons.
Reference:
0837
EU foreign ministers will meet today to consider whether the militant group Hezbollah should be declared a terrorist organisation. Alastair Crooke, a former EU mediator in the Middle East, and Sir Menzies Campbell, is a member of the foreign affairs select committee, discuss whether the group should be designated terrorists.
EU to discuss Hezbollah militant ban
EU foreign ministers are due to meet to discuss calls to list the military wing of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as a terrorist organ…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03754hr/live
Anon. Just illustrating what Craig said above.
‘I am horrified by the continuing stream of “ royal” baby hype on television. Truly pathetic – is this 1313 or 2013? Who buys into this nonsense?’
Mary, I’d forgotten all about it until you splashed the headlines all over the thread. Please, no saturation coverage like we had with the Royal wedding!
I don’t think it needed “illustrating”, Mary. And I hope you don’t post about it again. I would have thought that Craig made it clear what the interest is (and isn’t) in that crap here.
“Never trust hippies or new-agers. Their “belief systems” are so ill-defined that they can use them to justify anything they like and to criticise anything they dislike. No rigour; nothing that can be checked, no consistency.”
i think that applies to all belief systems doesn’t it? Otherwise how could a devout Protestant soon to be a devout Catholic cause so much death, pain and suffering of innocent people.
I see Sir Richard Dearlove is doing a Churchill and ensuring history is kind to him by writing it.
I feel very sorry for the people of China. If it’s not horrible coal mining accidents, it’s these
“China earthquake reportedly kills 54, collapses many homes”
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/22/19602512-china-earthquake-reportedly-kills-54-collapses-many-homes
rejoice, the birth of a royal descendent by a common woman will mark an end to past practises of caesarian birth. This woman will be proud to push and show all those hangers on that fashions and being vogue, has got nothing to do with giving birth.
Breaking with all royal past and protocol, it was announced that at all railway stations, airports, public buildings and open spaces, will have amplified loudspeakers relaying the first screams of the little wonder, delighting the British public in the sweltering heat.
Not. Instead we will hear what Ms. Baroness soandso was wearing entering the hospital and how her latest affair is not panning out…. The father proud words will make the day and photos of an exhausted smiling princess holding the baby will grace every paper in the western world for days to come.
Whoever takes the shots will become a millionaire and the British economy, Osborn announces will benefit from shit loads of billions, could we possibly dare to doubt it.
Queenie will be tempted to give the little new royal an ecologically sound, taxpayer subsidised wind farm or two.
It was not the sun who’s dun it, jolly good, so here’s to ………………………………………………?
cheers
Clark, i apologise in one second if my observations, based on limited info were inaccurate and if you’re still carrying it around with you. Let it wash off in the river. Good luck with the project and hope a spot of rain is on the way.
Everybody has their own path, and their own challenges. Yet there is a collective mind where ‘Belief systems’ can get in the way of seeing things directly as they are, leading to conflict.
Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.
Khalil Gibran
Sorry to hear about your water supply difficulties Clark. You are experiencing much the same conditions that appertain in Gaza except the water table there is now saline as so many wells have been sunk in desperation.
Now that the tunnels have been demolished the situation for supplies of everything needed to sustain life for 1.6 million people is dire.
As Gaza heads for water crisis, desalination seen key
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/us-israel-palestinians-water-idUSBRE95P0RK20130626
The JP see the blockade as mainly affecting Hamas’s revenues and secondary to its humanitarian effect.
Hamas reeling from Egyptian crackdown on Gaza tunnels http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Hamas-reeling-from-Egyptian-crackdown-on-Gaza-tunnels-320534
~~
I see on the Reuters site that Sir Menzie Campbell’s and others’ wish for Hezbollah to be declared a ‘terror’ organisation has been fulfilled by the EU.
Breaking News: EU foreign ministers agree to put military wing of Hezbollah on EU terror list: diplomats
[Mod/Jon: commentary upon other posters is discouraged, removed]
@Flaming – I have no strong views about posting about the royal sprog, though I have some sympathy with the view that the MSM doesn’t need feeding on that particular “subject”. Dreoilin wasn’t having a go 🙂
Whilst I gently prune the excess sideswipes upon your avatar with my electronic secateurs, if you could avoid returning those swipes, that’d be helpful. As ever, “freely discuss or ignore” is the best policy. And the summer-weight Kevlar coat, too.
Oh dear. Germany’s indignant messages were false. They are up to their necks in it. The BND has been crawling up US arses for some time so it seems, helping the NSA and GCHQ, a succinct part of a greater……. now what do we call this sole drive towards a more homogeneous war on terror?
Cooperating with the devil?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-whistleblower-edward-snowden-on-global-spying-a-910006.html
do we have sympathies for devils?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKY9UuAPNZA
The secret links between BND and NSA. This sounds to be a cracking week, hot in every sense.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-intelligence-worked-closely-with-nsa-on-data-surveillance-a-912355.html
Interesting tweet
Why is Hezbollah on EU terror list but not Mossad? Mossad murder squad killed Hamas official in Dubai using stolen EU member state passports.
From this guy
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-wight/
John Wight – insight?
Syria is now the frontline in a struggle between western powers intent on a unipolar world, and a Russian and Chinese-led multipolar alternative in which sovereignty is not a gift of Washington and its allies but the inviolable right of all nation states.
Absolutely. Thanks Dreoilin.
@Jon, please don’t feel you have to delete Mary’s swipes at me – being called ‘pathetic’ by Mary doesn’t bother me in the slightest!
Nextus at 12:47 am – thanks ever so much for linking to that superb Galloway vs Hitchens debate. One of the best things I’ve watched in ages and thankfully no Jon to moderate it!
“Sorry to hear about your water supply difficulties Clark. You are experiencing much the same conditions that appertain in Gaza”
Dear Lord, is there anything that can’t be used to drag up Gaza?
How can you have a “Russian and Chinese-led multipolar” alternative? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? What makes you think Russia or China will respect people’s rights of sovereignty any more than the US? Chechnya, Xinjiang, Tibet? Why on earth would you want global hegemony to belong to a virtual dictatorship and a one-party state?
Agent Cameron takes a walk in the park desperately trying to avoid the dog poo and bring the smell home on his English Oxfords .-
+++++++++++BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.+++++++++
Cameron scowls, “I think he[Assad] may be stronger than he was a few months ago but I’d still describe the situation as a stalemate,” he said. There was “appalling behavior from this dreadful regime[Syria] using chemical weapons,” Cameron demanded, admitting though that there also was “too much extremism amongst some of the rebels.”
Agent Cameron babbled, “We’re not intervening by supplying weapons, but I think we can with partners… strengthen those parts of the Syrian opposition that really do represent the Syrian people,” [we’re working with
fuckin’ terroristslike-minded countries[Quatar/Saudi] including those in the region, agent Cameron continued…http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/21/syria-assad-david-cameron
Cameron inwardly ferments while ‘dirty rag’ cleansing revolving door modern folklore ‘ “Samantha went to a refugee camp in Lebanon because she wanted to see for herself. She does some work for Save the Children and was very moved by what she saw. You hear from people – and I’ve done this – who are fleeing an appalling regime that is murdering their husbands, wives, children, wrecking their communities.
Hint to Samantha – BROWSE TO ‘Children of Iraq’ then SURF TO ‘Children of Conflict’ – Oh dear – the appalling regimes are surprisingly, Britain and America. We smash innocent countries, destroy all the hospitals and schools and then install puppet regimes to continue the mayhem, destruction and violence too boot.
Tell me this Samantha Cameron, are you another Dr Barnardo aspiring Pharisee?
I believe it was Komodo who posted a link to a site that verified that some 20 odd wells have been diverted and are now not serving Gaza.
When Anon, who, not unlike Jeffrey Dahmer, proposed to kill Prrrt, then we have to see his comment above
‘ Dear Lord, is there anything that can’t be used to drag up Gaza?’
in the context to his proposed actions. I’m sure Nextus would not refuse to have a field day with Anon, and maybe these two should vie for a date.
Now when Flaming June made this comparison, I thought of a picture of African children drinking from a cattle trough, with the caption’ you think you are having a hard time’, which I saw some days earlier, and how apt it was.
If the stream Clark uses would dry up, then the impact of that, in this weather would result in some very stressed and uncomfortable moments in days to come.
So how do you, Anon, think 1.657 million plus would feel, having to live under this temperature almost every day? I suppose you would want to drive them into the sea for their cleanliness? or encourage to share the bath water like our parents did?
Do tell us Anon, what are all these people going to drink?
Apartheid on water too;
From the horses mouth;
Thanks for underlining my point, Passerby.
Potable water is the resource which is scarcest and the politics of water are one of the first to hit Palestinian villages and farms as they struggle to make ends meet.
What happened in Gaza has happened in the west bank some time ago, it is official policy, something accepted by all political parties, as far as I know, please put me right if there is a chink of light in any of the mainstream parties on water equality.
Keeping this water Apartheid in relation, Palestinian businesses get less and hence are economically disadvantaged, we all should deplore this appalling policy in a country known for its hot Temperatures.
The need for water is a human right in my opinion, I know the CEO of TNC Nestle does not agree, it is not for anybody to apportion in equal measures, to use as they see fit to hold down other human beings, deprive them of enough water to clean themselves.
That said, I used to do with a minimum when travelling on my Triumph in the early 1980’s, it takes no more than a mug full to get wet, and maybe two or three mugs to wash down the soap, incl.hair wash, afterwards, so I have experienced what it means to use very little.
I think if we deplore inequality we also deplore the appalling opulent and waste full use of water by others, the two are inextricable.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/water.html
Hi Nevermind,
Forgive me, I had to look up Jeffrey Dahmer. According to Wikipedia,
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994) was an American serial killer and sex offender, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal who committed the rape, murder and dismemberment of 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with many of his later murders also involving necrophilia and cannibalism.
Why, thanks for the comparison, Nevermind!
Something needed to be done to break the toe-curling faux concern about little Prrt. I’m sorry my joke was not to everyone’s taste, but it really wasn’t any worse than a throaway line from a Frankie Boyle routine. Of course I wish little Prrt no harm, and I hope s/he has found a good companion in you and that s/he will enjoy the late-night conversations about waste recycling in Norfolk and the burning bodies of Dresden.
Now, you appear to take my insincere joke about Prrt to mean I would like to see the entire population of Gaza die of thirst, or be driven into the sea. It is this kind of hysterical assumption that turns people away from the Palestinian solidarity movements. Certainly, those I have met from inside these organizations, at universities and elsewhere, area uniformly obsessional, humourless, angry and utterly fixated on Israel to the extent that you wonder whether “humanitarian” concern really is their priority, as they like to claim. Needless to say, it is a political cause and the suffering of Palestinians is a stick with which to beat Israel. They are used by the likes of you as a tool, that is all.
For what it’s worth – and I don’t like to have to say this – I regularly donate to charities in India and Pakistan which deal with water contamination among other problems. I’m sorry I haven’t yet got round to helping the people of Gaza by posting the 412th comment on a Craig Murray blog, but I’m sure it makes all the difference and you feel much better about yourself.
re cubic metres of water available to the people of Gaza, etc :
Do feel free to throw buckets of shit over me after reading, but the following thought occcurs to me:
unpleasant as living conditions in Gaza surely are – and severely curtailed as various opportunities (education, health, infant mortality,economic life, etc) are, not least through the actions of Israel – I’m not entirely certain that calling Gaza a living hell or the world’s greatest concentration camp isn’t over-the-top selection.
Is life for millions in the Brazilian favelas or many Indian and African megalopolises like Bombay, Calcutta, Nairobi, Johannesburg, etc any better? I put the question not to excuse or justify the Gaza situation but solely to try and gain some perspective.
I may of course be wrong and it would be good if someone could supply some figures and statistics, eg from UN agencies, to validate or refute this thought.
Re water – a deafening silence from the resident DIYs assigned to police this blog, or is Villager desperately looking for a Krishnamurphian explanation of the disharmony between the israeli mind and its actions that do not wash!!? Perhaps Anon (Giles) can tell us more about water usage statistics and bantustani apartheid genocidal tactics there, as he seems to knows where all the mossad offices are. The DIY manuals were written by an ex-South African immigrant it appears.
Percapita useage in the UK is 45-100 cubic metres per year so the Palestinians are hardly dying of thirst and by that yardstick the 333 cubic metres used by each Israeli seems excessive unless they all take three or four baths a day. Are we sure that figure doesn’t include water used by Israel’s larger agriculture and industry?