Ray McGovern and the Sam Adams party have presented the Sam Adams award to Edward Snowden. I am delighted. This from Ray’s account of the event:
In brief remarks from his visitors, Snowden was reassured — first and foremost — that he need no longer be worried that nothing significant would happen as a result of his decision to risk his future by revealing documentary proof that the U.S. government was playing fast and loose with the Constitutional rights of Americans.
Even amid the government shutdown, Establishment Washington and the normally docile “mainstream media” have not been able to deflect attention from the intrusive eavesdropping that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment. Even Congress is showing signs of awaking from its torpor.
In the somnolent Senate, a few hardy souls have gone so far as to express displeasure at having been lied to by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA Director Keith Alexander — Clapper having formally apologized for telling the Senate Intelligence Committee eavesdropping-related things that were, in his words, “clearly erroneous” and Alexander having told now-discredited whoppers about the effectiveness of NSA’s intrusive and unconstitutional methods in combating terrorism.
Coleen Rowley, the first winner of the Sam Adams Award (2002), cited some little-known history to remind Snowden that he is in good company as a whistleblower — and not only because of previous Sam Adams honorees. She noted that in 1773, Benjamin Franklin leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by then-Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas Whatley, an assistant to the British Prime Minister.
The letters suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” might be necessary. The content of the letters was so damaging to the British government that Benjamin Franklin was dismissed as colonial Postmaster General and had to endure an hour-long censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.
There has been a determined attempt by government to justify the need to intercept everybody’s communications, all the time. We have, yet again, had MI5 claim there are many thousand violent Islamic terrorists running around the UK, (yet somehow not managing to kill anybody). The cry of “paedophiles” is raised, as always. I can imagine them suggesting the entire population be shot dead, and justifying it as making sure they get the paedophiles. The tabloids would go with that.
There still had not been a single credible claim by the mainstream media that any named individual has died, despite that contingency being trotted out all the time as the reason Snowden and Manning should not have revealed state crimes and abuse of power. I am hopeful that, with the internet still largely free to the dissemination of information, out next massive whistleblower is only weeks away.
It will be fine. The people who know what Craig’s talking about will wait for his posts. The pearl-clutching hasbara noodges will get bored waiting for a fight to pick or a rhetorical shoah to whine about.
Alcanon’s forum is in the grand tradition of Moon of Alabama, a spinoff that found its own way. It will doubtless be a boon to mankind.
Not to negate Alcanon’s invaluable initiative, but one serious question: can we trust the Amazon cloud, or any corporate cloud? Corporations are criminal scum. What kind of logging, what kind of fingerprinting will they do? We could always put it on Freenet or i2p.
Happy birthday, Craig!
Hope all is well, wherever you are, and that you will be opening a bottle of the finest bourbon :-/
Herzlichen Glueckwunsch zum Geburtstag Craig.
“intellectually lazy and inconsistent.”
It’s the inconsistency you don’t like, Glenn. Because, like many leftists, you hold on to AGW theory for ideological reasons, Craig’s “inconsistency” is in his departure from those lines. That is why you do not question his stance on the science. And you try the usual trick of trying to conflate scepticism about the science of AGW with a lack of care about environmental degradation. If the theory were proven, then Craig would doubtless be supporting measures to combat global warming, but he has a more inquiring mind than you do.
There is nothing “intellectually lazy” about questioning why there has been no statistically significant global warming for 17 years, given that global temperatures should have risen exponentially in that time.
Sorry to see Komodo go. One of the blog’s fiercest Anti-Zionist campaigners, his 10,000+ contributions on Israel, Zionism and the Jews achieved precisely fuck all in changing the life of one single Palestinian living under Israeli occupation, but I’m glad he got it all off his back.
I am therefore heartened to learn that he will henceforth be pursuing more “direct action”, (whatever that might be?) and hope he will pop in from time to time to keep us updated on his endeavours.
Cheerio Komodo, and Allah’u Akbar!
Farewells also to Glenn, Jon and the conspiranoid KOWN, who seems to believe the comments section is for his or her views and no-one else’s. Farewell to you all.
And with so many sad departures, on a more cheerful note may I extend the warmest return welcome to Habbabkuk.
As they say, every cloud has a silver lining!
@Anon, here to gloat again; shame you are still around, but then again trolls never ever leave voluntary; perhaps you can be persuaded to take a small, “working trip” if you like;
http://a0.vsoh.com/353146644091b7c5.jpg
I am very sorry you are giving up as mod Jon but understand your reasons. It cannot have been easy going. I wish you all the best. Craig too has to earn a living for his wife and family entailing some long absences abroad and he has had health concerns too. Thus the blog is not his No 1 priority.
Clark says – ‘Don’t feed the trolls’. Quite right too. Some here even deny their existence although the slimy trails are here in the record for all to see. Some too have friendly little chats with them and some who support the PSC even say that there are too many posts here relating to Israel!
Here are just two reminders of what the owner of the blog said about Israel
after Cast Lead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Egova7DRsw
and after Mavi Mamara http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSbXEeLQBvk
It is nearly a year since the troll known as Habbakuk arrived on the blog. He must be pleased with his handiwork and that of the others seeing how things have turned out.
Thanks to those people for the kind remarks addressed to me on the previous page and for the advice about my friends’ Parkinson’s and Motor Neurone Disease respectively which I will pass on. Unimaginable for a husband and wife to be dealing with their diagnoses.
Cheers to Clark and happy travelling.
Need I say any more? The last three posts by ‘Anon’ say it all. You would think they would exercise some hesitation and shut up for the time being.
Jon,
Tho’ I have disagreed with many of your positions, I am happy to say you are probably the single most eloquent writer I have read here – some of your lines were like riffs. Thank you for the polite exchanges and best of luck to you.
Jon.
I’m sorry to see you’ve thrown in the towel. What an impossible and thankless task you had. As one of the cats in the bag you were holding I know you’ve earned a break.
…
Anon. 9 08am
Are we going to see more of this new attacking people who are not even there thing? Pure Genius! If only the IDF adopted your tactic we might see a little less slaughter of civilians.
BTW, that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about.
Hi Mary, thanks for the links, and good to see you engaging 🙂
It is true that Craig was outraged after Cast Lead and the Mavi Mamara incident, as were we all. But those two events, heinous as they were, do not justify the all-consuming obsession with Israel and Jews we see on every page of every comments section of every blog. Craig hasn’t actually written about Israel for quite a while.
Meanwhile, last month, September, saw 233 attacks, in 19 countries, on 5 different religions, with 2005 killed, and 3079 citically injured. But the perpetrators weren’t Jewish.
“Tho’ I have disagreed with many of your positions, I am happy to say you are probably the single most eloquent writer I have read here.”
Seconded. Whatever his views or the quality of his moderation, Jon is indeed an outstanding writer.
The head of the Israeli navy has been apprehended at Heathrow and questioned. Not arrested of course as we have no universal jurisdiction now so war criminals can come and go at will. What was he doing here is the question?
http://www.jpost.com/International/Former-Israeli-navy-commander-questioned-at-Londons-Heathrow-Airport-328682
Marom was in charge of the Israeli navy at the time of Cast Lead when they bombed and shelled the Gaza coast, the attack on the Mavi Marmara flotilla and also when the Free Gaza mv Dignity was rammed.
I see this Wikipedia entry has been ‘edited’ by the CAMERA brigade. See that ‘the Iranian boat was LADEN with weapons for Hamas’ heading for Sudan?? and the Dignity almost rammed itself! There are accounts on the net of the latter incident which describe the triple ramming of the boat by Israeli gunships in the dark in rough seas 53 miles off Haifa.
Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War
Naval operations[edit]
The Israeli Navy attacked Hamas’ rocket launchers and outposts, command and control centers, a Hamas patrol boat, and the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, using the Typhoon Weapon System and Surface to surface missiles.[141][142] The navy coordinated with other Israeli forces and used powerful shipboard sensors to acquire and shell targets on land.[113][143] Records of the attacks published by the navy indicate that for the first time vessels were equipped with Spike ER electro-optically guided anti-armor missiles. Videos of an attack showed precision hits from a Typhoon stabilizing gun despite a rolling sea. Versions of the Spike were also used by ground units[1] and possibly by helicopters or unmanned aerial vehicles.[144] Shayetet 13 naval commandos were also deployed to attack targets on land,[20] and reportedly attacked an Iranian ship loaded with arms for Hamas, which was docking in Sudan.[145] On 28 December, Naval vessels shelled the Port of Gaza.[124]
On December 29, the Free Gaza Movement relief boat Dignity carrying volunteer doctors with 3.5 tons of medical supplies, human rights activists (Among them Caoimhe Butterly and former US Representative Cynthia McKinney), and a CNN reporter was involved in an altercation with Israeli patrol boats. The captain of the Free Gaza vessel said that their vessel had been rammed intentionally and that there had been no warning before it had been rammed.[146] An Israeli spokesman disputed this, and said the collision was caused by the Dignity attempting to outmaneuver the patrol boats after disobeying Israeli orders to turn back.[147]
On January 4, the Israeli Navy extended its blockade of the Gaza Strip to 20 nautical miles.[148]
Throughout the war, the Israeli Navy employed Sa’ar 4.5 class missile boats and Super Dvora Mk III class patrol boats.
~~
This is still my favourite.:) Google have put a little dissuader on it. Hilarious.
Gaza flotilla video mashup: Internet Killed Israeli PR http://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DME_NpnH7jDc
I believe this is called ‘parsing the lies’.
The NSA Spying and Lying Does Relate to 9/11
Posted on October 16, 2013 by Kevin Ryan
Earlier this month, National Security Agency (NSA) head Keith Alexander admitted that he had lied to the U.S. Congress and the American people in an attempt to justify the NSA’s growing surveillance of U.S. citizens. In June, while attempting to defend the secret NSA programs revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, Alexander claimed that over 50 terrorist plots had been thwarted though collection of the phone and internet records of American citizens. Alexander said that his agency had provided Congress with 54 specific cases in which the programs helped disrupt terror plots in the U.S. and around the world.
/..
http://digwithin.net/2013/10/16/nsa-spying-and-lying/
“There is nothing “intellectually lazy” about questioning why there has been no statistically significant global warming for 17 years, given that global temperatures should have risen exponentially in that time.”
No it shouldn’t. It should have fallen.
Take a look at this graph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record
In the past the five year average has risen and fallen with the natural cycles, there doesn’t seem to have been any significant falls from 1995 to 2010. Temperatures haven’t fallen below the 1961 to 1990 average since the early 1990s.
To say we had an exceptionally hot year in 1998 and we haven’t had one all that much hotter since proves global warming has stopped shows a total lack of understanding of the subject.
It depends what subject is at issue. If the “global warming has stopped” argument is actually about making the world safe for unlimited fossil fuel consumption, then it shows a perfect understanding of neoliberal political theories and the demands of the globalised free market. The science is as clear as science can be (given that it never stops trying for a better understanding of a subject). The politics, on the other hand, is deliberately misleading.
Anon
I think you are being a little unfair on Komodo for although he clearly had strongly held opinions he did at least recognise that others were entitled to hold other views and was prepared to engage with them. I never saw him as part of the “if you are not 100% with us you are against us crowd” which has many adherents and even goes so far as criticising those who do not show sufficient fervor in support of what they see as at times the sole political cause within the world (e.g. “and some who support the PSC even say that there are too many posts here relating to Israel!”). I live in hope that one day the zealots here will eventually realise that the reason for the misery being perpetuated in Palestine and many other places in the world is that the problems usually arise because the zealots on both side of the argument have entered into a mutual relationship where there mutual hate just feeds each other.
Perhaps once in a while rather than pointing out the continual human rights abuses by the IDF and the State of Israel (and I have no problem with this being done whatsoever) they should engage in a little thinking about what is the underlying motivation (and they can ignore or the Rothschilds/International Banking conspiracy/Protocols of Zion garbage elsewhere) and how that may be addressed – particularly since the political reality is that the State of Israel is not likely to go away or dissolve for the forseeable future.
For the return of Habba and Free Speech 17 Oct, 2013 – 10:33 am
OK, I’ve had a think about it and I conclude that the underlying motivation for the continual human rights abuses by the IDF and the State of Israel is a wish to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Palestinians. Do you agree?
And why do think they wish to do that?
Great stuff Jon, Komodo and concerned – much appreciated here.
For the return of Habba and Free Speech 17 Oct, 2013 – 11:02 am
To have all of Palestine for themselves. Do you agree with my analysis?
4-6,
Can Amazon be trusted? Well Wikileaks trusted them until thy were booted off, But given the recent revelations there has now to be at least the possibility that Amazon booted Wikileaks off their server farm rather than let the NSA get secret back-end access to it. Also Amazon have millions of virtual hosts running at any one time. I’d think it would be more likely for the smaller providers to have employees trawling through customer data just because they can.
Of note though, from recent leaks we discovered that GCHQ bought virtual servers in the Amazon cloud to run their investigations into breaking into TOR – which suggests they trust Amazon security 🙂
But if a proper official forum was set up I’d think the place for it to be is on the same server this blog runs on.
Agent Cameron brazenly lies to MPs ;
“ when asked politely by my national security adviser and cabinet secretary to destroy the files they had, they went ahead and destroyed those files,”
A Guardian spokesman said: “The prime minister is wrong to say the Guardian destroyed computer files because we agreed our reporting was damaging. We destroyed the computers because the government said it would use the full force of the law to prevent a newspaper from publishing anything about the NSA or GCHQ.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/16/mps-investigate-guardian-edward-snowden-leaks
A Node
It isn’t really much of an analysis to agree or disagree with at present – sure some Israelis think like that – but you need to think harder about what the motivating factors are.
“Do you agree with my analysis?”
Baiting trolls to prove that they are not trolls is a fun pursuit if you have the time & patience !
Seems that the World Bank is the latest to agree with your analysis:
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/world-bank-report-is-a-message-against-israeli-occupation#full
Exactly so A Node. 11.19am You will not get any agreement though.
~~
‘Oh dear Camilla! I see that British Gas have just put up their prices for electricity and gas by 10.4% and 8.4% respectively. We will have to turn down the thermostats, and isolate some radiators and just wear more jumpers.’
I see he is very concerned for us and our pension entitlements, even saying he is concerned for his grandson! Speaking as one of the richest grandfathers in the land, I don’t think Georgie will have any worries when he reaches the age of 65.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/10383790/Prince-Charles-calls-for-pensions-industry-fit-for-21st-Century.html
Further to my above guardian link iro plans to investigate that paper over the Snowden leaks, here’s some reasons to be very cynical about that investigation;
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/16/national-security-leaks-gchq-nsa-intelligence-agencies
For the return of Habba and Free Speech 17 Oct, 2013 – 11:54 am
It is a precise and honest answer to your question (i.e. what is the underlying motivation for the continual human rights abuses by the IDF and the State of Israel?).
Please reply to my question (i.e. do you agree with me?).
…Prince Charles is speaking as one of the richest grandfathers in the land and I don’t think Georgie will have any worries when he reaches the age of 65.
~~~
British Gas’s prices rises are higher on average than SSE’s.
The BG energy mob have recently employed Christine McGourty for their PR. She was the BBC’s environment correspondent and afterwards did PR for Energy UK, an energy industry trade association with 80 members. They are well organised you see.
She was aggressively strident just now on Sky News in defence of her new masters.
http://www.prweek.com/article/1192541/energy-uks-christine-mcgourty-takes-british-gas-corporate-affairs-role
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christine-mcgourty/18/bb4/b65