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.
…The Prawer plan…
Have you only just spotted this, FJ? Bloody hell. If anything the Bedouin, despite their relative loyalty to the Israeli state, get shittier treatment than the West Bank Pals. And that’s not new.
Strange attack of morning sickness in nonpregnant male: listening to R4 Today’s coverage of some woman having a pup in a Paddington hospital.
Who are the dismal zombies who turn out “in their thousands” to associate themselves with a family which gives not a solitary fuck about them?
Clever of the woman to eject the infant after the school hols had started, though. Much more pester power to get the groaning zombie parents out with their Union Jacks, eh?
No I haven’t just discovered it Komodo. I posted something way back about the Bedouin clearances.
Ref the coverage of the birth. Nearly all the TV presenters have left their desks and sofas to stand outside the hospital and Buckingham Palace and there are royal experts by the dozen being collared by the countless reporters to expound upon the trivia.
I don’t know whose coverage is the more obsequious, the BBC’s or Sky’s.
Komodo, I have the same “Strange attack of morning sickness in nonpregnant male:” but for a different reason: the way this blog is now being moderated.
Its downright DISGUSTING.
Jon Perhaps you could do a little more deleting in Villager’s comment @ 22 Jul, 2013 – 11:00 pm. His commentary on my input (by name) is ceaseless.
“Why shouldn’t he? Every bugger else seems to.”
But Fred, every bugger else doesn’t have the power to snip at will.
From the Medialens editors
Media Lens@medialens
Relax folks! Just because the national media are in patriotic overdrive, we’re not living in Saudi Arabia or North Korea! #statepropaganda
https://twitter.com/medialens/status/359575057112109057
I am pleased that the largest recipients of state handouts has contributed another parasite to their flock. Didn’t call me Dave promise to wipe out these families that live entirely on benefits? Why are they still breeding like rats?
The BBC found it so difficult to get positive reactions from Joe Public on the streets of London they ended up having to show idiot street reactions from the New York. And did you see the crowds at Buckingham Palace? No? That will be because there was no crowd. Call me Dave said ‘people are excited’. What a fucking liar that man is.
Komodo, I have the same “Strange attack of morning sickness in nonpregnant male:” but for a different reason: the way this blog is now being moderated.
Its downright DISGUSTING.
AS far as I can see, it’s trying to be as fair as it can. I don’t envy any moderator on any blog or forum, myself; he/she’s bound to irritate some while pleasing others. And moderation is certainly needed in view of the recent upsurge in trolling. Free speech is one thing, but intentional aggravation is another.
Not sure why you stay here if you feel so strongly about it, (with [a bit more] respect [than I’d give to some other complainants]). There are plenty of blogs/fora out there to suit all tastes; you might find one in which disruption of a broadly socialist commentary was encouraged by a socialist moderator, but I doubt it.
“Its downright DISGUSTING.”
Calm down dear, it’s only someone else’s blog who has kindly allowed you to comment. Start a blog of your own and see how far your patience with the ‘community’ goes. Also, don’t forget the majority of popular sites that allow comments are now occupied by government paid ‘professionals’ who steer the conversation towards the official line – when they can’t win on simple argument they throw the insults, they love it when people get angry.
“Jon Perhaps you could do a little more deleting in Villager’s comment”
Perhaps you can STFU instead. Whiny little drip.
I very much regret having to read this here this morning.
‘You are not fit for purpose.’
This single comment is uncalled for. I would dread having a control freak such as Habby moderating this forum and once again thank Jon for trying his best to cut through this ego circus that has been whining and moaning about one or other word, minutia or trivial point.
BTW. RIP to la vita e bella, its writer, Vincenzo Cerami is no more, gone.
Maybe that should/could be a hint for change here.
Call me Dave said ‘people are excited’. What a fucking liar that man is.
Desperate attempt to divert attention from qualified towel-folder and paint heir Osborne’s economic mess – note new initiative announced today (good day to bury dodgy news) to reflate house price bubble by guaranteeing bad debt with money we haven’t got. Who gets the taxpayer’s cash* when the punter defaults? Why, the banks…
Evidently his nakedly populist move of suggesting he might ask Google to control kiddie porn while failing to ask Amazon to pay its bloody taxes didn’t result in a poll surge. Whether it’s tennis, cricket golf, or popping out an heir to the throne, Dave needs to be associated with success. It’s all the qualified(?) PR man and heiress’s husband knows.
*or the taxpayer’s children’s cash.
Make up your mind which way to go Tech Savage. Variant of Technicolour?
Glenn: “I would really have appreciated knowing what the “[Jon/ Mod: Deleted]” comment was, that you saved my fluttering heart from having to witness.”
Think this captures the essence of it very well. Well said and I genuinely look forward to reading Jon’s response.
Komodo and Tech Savage, thanks for your responses and i understand your broader perspectives re other blogs etc. I hope that the magic “light touch” which operated here and was widely appreciated is not now evaporating. I think Glenn puts it very eloquently. We’re supposed to be all growed up here, i thought, that is all. Anyway, isn’t Jon trying to shepherd the proverbial cats? I thought this comment of his was very patronising:
” During this past week, we’ve held debate with religious and non-religious supporters of Islamic fundamentalism, and I think discussion may be pending with Hasbarista, who is normally prone to making statements here that are deleted for their anti-Jewish content. These debates are important, and I invite you to join in.”
Anyway, have a freewheelin’ day!
Fred, at 05h51, says
” “Infant mortality (deaths/1000 live births)
Gaza – 16
Brazil – 19,83
South Africa – 42,15
Kenya – 42,18
India – 44,6″
Israel – 4.03″
_______________
Well, in addition to repeating the figures I gave (thank you – I take it you accept them), Fred adds the figure for Israel.
Apart from showing that Israel infant mortality is at Western European levels – for which it is surely to be congratulated, is it not? – I would be interested to learn how the Israel figure invalidates my argument, which was, in summary as follows :
there are millions of people, eg in Brazil, the Indian sub-continent and Africa, whose lives are considerably grimmer and more miserable than the lives of the Gazans. This point is also valid for the water situation, from where this discussion started. So all this talk about Gaza being a concentration camp or that the Gazans are being exterminated, is tosh.
Now, it is always possible to snip and delete this inconvenient point, but I haven’t yet read a good argument against it.
Anan it is amazing you would say you would need to be in Gaza to truely know what it is like.
Do you say the same thing about knowing what a Nazi concentration camp is like?
That you would have to have been in one?
Can we use pictures from pro-Nazi places showing what a nice time the inmates are having to say, it is really not so bad there. Maybe even call them free holiday camps, with free room and board all paid for by the German tax payer?
You are dishonest by trying to accuse me of using the term for my own ends, like a rabid Zionists, when it was the The United Nations expert on the right to food has called the Gaza Strip a concentration camp.
Zionsist do not own the word, concentration camp. Concentration camp means exactly what it states.
It is a camp where people that the state wants to concentrate are placed. Germany wasn’t the first nation to use them. It wasn’t even the last.
But if the Zionists don’t want to be compared to Nazis, maybe they should stop doing what Nazis did?
Israel wants to do whatever evil it wants, and then to cry, Antisemitism when anyone complains.
It isn’t just us comparing them to Nazis, even fellow Zionists do exactly that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8
The way to deal with them is to say they are “self hating jews”.
“Flaming June
23 Jul, 2013 – 9:51 am
Make up your mind which way to go Tech Savage. Variant of Technicolour?”
A positively sick observation. Disrespectful of commenter’s objectivity and stabbing another commenter in abstentia on their back.
To be framed and hung, not snipped.
Nevermind tells us that
“BTW. RIP to la vita e bella, its writer, Vincenzo Cerami is no more, gone.”
_______________
Yes, that’s true. Funny how it happens to all of us in the end, isn’t it? Dying, I mean.
“All kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out.”
― Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn)
What do elites do to secure and maintain popular support?
1. Arm and give privilages to the protectors of the elite and disarm the masses.
2. Provide sufficient comfort and entertainment/distraction, for the majority while maintaining visible public poverty “pour encourager les autres.”
3. Use the monopoly of force to maintain enough public order for the population to feel protected.
2. 4. Construct narratives/ideologies/religions that justify kleptocracy. Boss Kleptocrat may combine political and divine power or have political power served by another group of priestly kleptocrats.*
Though I wish the royal baby a healthy and happy life, I fear for him. His upbringing will, almost inevitably, create just another privileged parasite.
My wish for the boy is for him to have what it takes to cut through the crap. One such hereditary kleptocrat, by all accounts, once broke free and has inspired subsequent generations of people to
Pay attention.
Practice compassion.
Tell it like it is.
Of all world’s religions Buddhism seems to me the only one to consistently promote human well-being. Why is that?
*Also builds non-kinship bonds of relationship that promote co-operation and self-sacrifice for the group and can be focused agressively on groups of “others.”
Habby, thank you for widening the discussion and perspective about the greater sadness of the human condition. May our compassion and attention flow in all directions where it is required, not just towards a certain pet zone, unfortunately prolongedly conflicted as it is.
@ Arsalan, who says to Anon at 09h57 :
“Anan it is amazing you would say you would need to be in Gaza to truely know what it is like.”
__________________-
But is that not more or less what Flaming June appears to be saying at 09h56 yesterday? Namely :
“I don’t think that those heartless people who are jeering on the sidelines here have ever been to Gaza as I did following Cast Lead. Living conditions were terrible, either in the rubble or whole families in a tent with the mothers trying to cook food on a small burner.”
I think you should discuss this with her, don’t you?
Commentary on the Prawer plan…by a rabbi.
Rabbi Alissa Wise
Some Things Never Change: The Prawer Plan and the Legacy of the Nakba
Posted: 06/14/2013 5:04 pm
When I visited Al-Araqib a few years ago, the Bedouin village in the Negev had just been razed and trampled by IDF soldiers in bulldozers for the 26th time that year (to date the village has been razed closer to 50 times)……
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-alissa-wise/prawer-plan_b_3438201.html
….Since 1948, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has planted more than fifty forests over destroyed Palestinian villages. Whether in the West Bank or within the Green Line, Israel seeks to preserve the Jewish majority through strategic displacement.
The JNF has long been responsible for using forestation, “sustainable” development, and other “greenwashing” projects to Judaize Israel and cover up displacement of Arab communities. The Knesset’s decision to move forward with the Prawer plan supports the plans of the JNF, which owns 13 percent of the land and explicitly only allocates it to Jews. The JNF is also currently engaged in a $4 billion “Blueprint Negev” project to ensure that the area has a majority Jewish population. Their plan includes economic development projects that seek to attract young Jewish Israelis and Jewish westerners to move to the Negev. Despite the centuries that Bedouin people have been living there, ethnic/religious identity alone is being used as a criteria for who has access to the land….
(ibid)
I read with some interest the (approving) comments of a couple of the supporters of Jon’s newly-acquired snipping and deleting prowess (Komodo and Tech Savage playing starring rôles).
In summary, they seem to be saying two things:
1/. there is an established body of thought (or an ethos, if you wish) on every blog
2/. comments which deviate from that body of thought or ethos are intrinsically disruptive
3/. dissenters should go away and start their own blog.
The conclusion which must be drawn from that summary is two-fold:
1/. Some people on this blog (I call them the Eminences) are allergic to having their claims and comments tested (never mind contested)
2/ Those same people feel more comfortable in an environment where let us say a dozen or so people simply post to one another in order to mutually reinforce a set of common beliefs/prejudices.
I wonder if that was Craig’s intention when he started this blog?
Re moderation of this blog –
If the most voluminous poster here was banned or heavily moderated, there would be a dramatic improvement in the tone of the commentary. Like a serial arsonist, that particular (suitably named) poster lights fires and runs away to witness the ensuing blaze and mayhem. I guess it’s a kind of power trip.
Just sayin’.
I did not know there was more damned sport and fascist brainwashing coming along next year until I heard the BBC this morning. The CE is an American. Good at running games are they? I thought they were better at bug splatting.
Grevemberg the chief executive as just been on TV.
http://www.glasgow2014.com/about-us/team/executive-team
http://www.glasgow2014.com/about-us/team/board
£1billion has been spent on venues – swimming, cycling etc. http://www.glasgow2014.com/games/venues
In the TV piece I just watched, a local woman said that these venues have been created in the middle of poverty and have no relevance to their lives. Very much like the Limp Ics then.
I also found out that ATOS is being employed to provide the IT software and to run the website as they were at Stratford. A row erupted when Johann Lamont’s husband defended them.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/political-news/labour-leaders-husband-defends-atos-role-in-glasgow-2014-x.20862495
Sturgeon too.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/political-news/sturgeon-in-disability-row-over-2014-games.19901247
ATOS receive strong criticism today from DWP ministers for the poor quality of their fitness-to-work assessments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23405339
Exclusive: US bankrolled anti-Morsi activists
“Berkeley, United States – President Barack Obama recently stated the United States was not taking sides as Egypt’s crisis came to a head with the military overthrow of the democratically elected president.
“But a review of dozens of US federal government documents shows Washington has quietly funded senior Egyptian opposition figures who called for toppling of the country’s now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi.
“Documents obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley show the US channeled funding through a State Department programme to promote democracy in the Middle East region. This programme vigorously supported activists and politicians who have fomented unrest in Egypt, after autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising in February 2011.
“The State Department’s programme, dubbed by US officials as a “democracy assistance” initiative, is part of a wider Obama administration effort to try to stop the retreat of pro-Washington secularists, and to win back influence in Arab Spring countries that saw the rise of Islamists, who largely oppose US interests in the Middle East.”
More
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/07/2013710113522489801.html
Jemand, and another example of the Gratuitous Resident Newsreader arsonist follows close at the heels of your comment, as usual scatter-brained and all over the place. IS THIS ACTUALLY ‘INVITING DISCUSSION’ IN THE SPIRIT OF THE MOD’S SUGGESTION THAT HE’S BEEN TRYING TO PRESS FOR SOMETIME NOW?
You’re right its a kind of obscure self-centred activity trip with no form at all projected into intrusively into public space.
Btw it seems you were quite prophetic in adding the “Censorship Improves History” tagline to your name when you did. Unfortunate the gentle protest of warning went unheeded.
So the royal baby is born, safely and healthy. What excellent news! The monarchy is safe for generations to come. We need them, else how could lefties get gratification out of declining honours from them?!:)
@ Komodom 23 Jul, 2013 – 9:26 am
“Evidently [call me Dave’s] nakedly populist move of suggesting he might ask Google to control kiddie porn while failing to ask Amazon to pay its bloody taxes didn’t result in a poll surge.”
Google and the ISPs will go for it.
Unblock charges:
All porn – £99.95 per month
Only – whips, ostrich feathers, donkeys – £19.95 per month
Only – nurses, Japanese schoolgirl gear – £19.95 per month
Only – Lady Chatterley, Ulysses, texts – £ 0.99 per month
Snowden Special – See what you neighbours
and social friends worldwide are watching £199.95 per month
Just so I can’t be accused of preaching with that last post, here’s an instant handy-guide to religions and related isms.
Taoism: Shit happens.
Hinduism: This shit has happened before.
Judaism: Why does this shit always happen to us?
Islam: If shit happens it is the will of Allah.
Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.
Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else.
Methodist: It’s not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve grape juice with it.
Fundamentalism: If shit happens, you will go to hell, unless you are born again. (Amen!)Creationism: God made all shit.
Secular Humanism: Shit evolves.
Buddhism: If shit happens, there is a four-fold path to the end of shit.
Quakers: Let us not fight over this shit.
Darwinism: This shit is food.
Capitalism: That’s MY shit.
Communism: No, it’s everybody’s shit.
Commercialism: Let’s package this shit.
Existentialism: What is shit, anyway?
Scientology: If shit happens, see “Dianetics”, p.157.
Agnostic: Did someone shit?
Satanism: SNEPPAH TIHS.
Atheism: I can’t believe this shit!
Nihilism: No shit.
Krishnamurtism: Shit happening is all in your pathetic mind.
Narcisism: I am the shit!
Rastafarianism: Let’s smoke this shit!
@ Komodo
Re previous, don’t know where the m at the end of your name was inserted. I copied and pasted. No weird insult intended. Last thing needed is another insult war.