Brazilian crowd whiter than a Broederbond meeting. Hard to enjoy the match without thinking of the 25 billion dollars squandered on the tournament by the Brazilian government – and plainly attendance is restricted to rich white people.
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Courtenay, your analysis of Messi’s goal-scoring genius is spot on. Towards the end of a game he nearly always conjures up that little piece of magic that turns the result. I have seen him do it time and again. I was expecting it. And it came.
As to unusual results, I don’t really find them unusual. I would be surprised if a European team wins the world cup! The air in Brazil seems to be squeezing all the oxygen from their lungs. But who? Argentina? Brazil? Costa Rica? Even Ghana looked capable last night. There have been some very entertaining matches thus far. I was sorry to see England go out. Hodgson is a good club manager. I was saying long before this that we needed someone with international experience. We get rid of decent managers, like Sven, thanks to media hype, and replace them with English club managers who are just not up to the job. It is always fatal. Alf Ramsay was different. The press is totally irresponsible in this respect, as it is in reporting world news events. A manager gets the worst results in fifty years and, almost all newspapers sing in unison that we need to keep him. He had his chance. He’s just missed an opportunity to get back to West Bromich Albion, who have just appointed Alan Irvine. One door closes, and sometimes another door closes.
Ben
What I mean it think is there is a them and us situation.
Democratically Harry Rednap was the given choice of the commoner for the England managers job.
The de facto outcome failed to realise this. The intentions of which was purposeful in hinders fe of democratic authority. I.e will of the people.
‘I love my country as Great Britain but not as the 51st state!’
Well said Peacewisher and Mary. Me too. Though I would probably call my country the British Isles, since Great Britain reeks of the imperialism from which the phrase was born. Today, if the imperialists dare, they would call the US “Great America” but communications are much better than when Cecil Rhodes was carving out a chunk of mineral-rich Africa for his Rothschild backers, and all decent people would laugh at the term “Great America”. The sadness is that the US had the opportunity to become a great exemplar of common good, but chose, like NAZI Germany, to empower itself with weapons, until now there is only one direction in which it can go.
Who’s them those you can’t observe in deference.
Wholly unequal but ad hominem.
http://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/bbc-and-press-ignore-massive-demonstration-against-austerity-in-london/
How to complain to ZBC. Don’t waste your time.
+
http://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/austerity-protest-in-london-june-21st-2014/
photos and coverage
+
This in the Guardian.
Tens of thousands march in London against coalition’s austerity measures
An estimated 50,000 people in London addressed by speakers, including Russell Brand, after People’s Assembly march
Kevin Rawlinson and agencies
Saturday 21 June 2014 20.45 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/21/protest-march-austerity-london-russell-brand-peoples-assembly
Royal troughers. Pt 99999… in sharp contrast to the lives of many on the anti-austerity march.
Apartment fit for a Prince: Will and Kate’s pad to cost $6.8m
Living space was last refurbished in 1963, shortly after the newly-married Margaret moved in
http://www.emirates247.com/lifestyle/living/apartment-fit-for-a-prince-will-and-kate-s-pad-to-cost-6-8m-2014-06-22-1.553781
BUT bid deal. They are ‘paying’ for the furnishings such as carpets and curtains.
Ba’al Zevul (Keeni-meeni) 21 Jun, 2014 – 10:48 pm
“Phil – looks like a lot of people objecting to austerity to me.”
No doubt. But that’s not what they got. The PA is centralised, undemocratic and the organisers are Labour supporters. The banners, mass produced and handed out in their thousands, were overtly anti-Tory or sympathetic to Labour party causes. All the speakers were Labour party supporters and often spoke for Labour party policies. See Owen Jones as one example. All without mentioning Labour. Anti-austerity was the great disguise because no one would attend an overtly pro-labour party demo. Steer the demonstrators towards main stream parties. An anti austerity march that promoted a pro-austerity party.
Gove out!
Tories Out!
Save the NHS!
You don’t want austerity then vote for austerity! VOTE LABOUR!
“And mindlessly destructive.”
Not sure what you mean by this. I guess you think anything outside of party politics is mindlessly destructive. Which is nonsense of course. The party system has all the armies. Admittedly the destruction is not mindless. Jolly good.
“I love my country as Great Britain”
What is it that you love about your country?
What’s wrong with austerity. That should not be the main issue. You can’t sit down for long in our household.
We have got austerity for sitting down too long!
. Waste fullness and not using our resources properly I am told is my problem.
Seems endemic really, lazy lazy man…
We have got so many disenfranchised workers that have not got the it to demonstrate our ability to work and have a place in society.
“Maybe Gareth Williams was a message to any of them inclined to go off message?”
It’s what they want to do with Julian Assange too. He’s not wanted for rape. He’s wanted for releasing the truth through Wikileaks cables. All that nonsense about swearing oaths of allegiance is precisely nonsense. We should tell the truth. Not RD’s truth but the real truth. Expose all governments and their secret services’ lies, elect parties that commit to doing that, and the planet will start to become a decent place again.
The IDF’s murderous hunt continues.
One more killing of a Palestinian. In Nablus. How many deaths is since this ‘kidnapping’ took place let alone the terror, the arrests, the wounding?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27961927
I’m with you Phil, the remnants of a shameless left using austerity to drum up support, without realising that they have nothiong to offer but more of the same old crap. The politics of empty barrelled party oligarchies who need to project themselves as powerfull alternatives, with a scaffold pole propping up spines and a double layer of anusol to straighten their faces.
A decentralisation of protests leaving London to Londoners and concentraing on on’e own abodes will up the mileage on those water canons. They’ll be needed all over the country, not just protecting Londons monied elites. Unless they want to use it to fill up kiddies paddlin pools these monstrosities will be useless if people don’t frequent London protests but do their demo’s at home.
John Goss
You clearly do not know what you are talking about when it comes to football either. I think you will find that Roy Hodgson has plenty of international experience – the failure of England at this World Cup clearly lay elsewhere.
As for Messi “towards the end of a game he nearly always conjures up that little piece of magic that turns the result” – I can agree about the magic but I think you will find that it is nearly always the case that the result is tied up before the end of the game when Messi plays. I bet you were on the terraces abusing the young Blair when he watched Jackie Milburn.
@Peacewisher
I did have internet access in 2000, I was posting to forums, I was one of those arguing against RIPA.
Now I am older and wiser and have benefit of hindsight. If someone is suspected of drinking and driving they are required to take a breathalyser, not to do so is an offence. If someone is suspected of having indecent images of children encrypted on their computer they are required to hand over the key, not to do so is an offence.
If you agree with the law or not and I do understand the concerns of those worried about abuses of the law, it is a subject highly debatable with arguments on both sides, it does not alter the fact that your statement:
“UK citizens weren’t allowed to encrypt data they sent unless they made their encryption key available to the state.”
is just not true and this does not concern Habeas Corpus.
https://twitter.com/UKBanter/status/480089759260635136
😉
Did the BBC report this? I assume not …
Snowden gets German Fritz Bauer award for exposing US intelligence
http://rt.com/news/167572-snowden-german-bauer-award/
@Peacemaker
The case of Babar Ahmed was particularly disturbing. Probably the most extreme example of UK law rolling over and being completely subsumed into US “requirements”.
I presume that you are referring to someone other than Babar Ahmad who following extradition from Britain, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and providing material to support to terrorism and is now serving his sentence. His extradition was of course considered and eventually cleared by the European Coury of Human Rights after Ahmad had exhausted all the UK’s legal processes that you so disparage. On the other hand you might be quite keen to allow terrorists to run around doing their own thing without any legal challenge in the UK, Europe and the US.
you forgot the two words ‘under torture’ after conspiracy RD and your attempts to justify these pratcises are pitifull.
Babar Ahmed should be home with his family.
That said, the 500 or so hotheads who thought joining ISIS is a great crack, made their choices clear, they want to change Iraq, not live here.
They should be assisted in that aim, and so should all the other mercenaries who take the Saudi dinar.
Here is RD’s truth that you continually ignore when you chose instead to rely on RT and Putin’s “decency”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-russia-mafia-kleptocracy
I appreciate that Wikileaks isn’t awfully keen on the leaking of official documents from the Russian government – but for those who not believe in JG’s alternative reality then they might wish to look at RuLeaks and similar sites
Of course this (and worse) is what happens to those that try to expose truth in Russia
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/20/uk-russia-opposition-navalny-idUKKBN0EV2E120140620
Nevermind
And where is your evidence for this claim – I am presuming they tortured his US lawyer as well.
Mary
“Ref Habbakuk’s infantile comment about mine about more Israeli atrocities appearing at the top of this page. It says it all. He implies that I engineered it which is untrue. I think it is the actual content that really bothers him.”
______________________
No, the content doesn”t bother me – as a true democrat I feel you have the right to say whatever you wish (subject, however, to challenge – that’s part of democracy).
Nor did I speculate on whether you engineered it – only you can tell us that.
Regarding the “infantile” nature of the comment, I’d remind you that you made exactly the same comment about me twice in the not-so-distant past. So if I’m infantile, you must be as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rather to my surprise, there has been some good and interesting discussion in the last 24 hrs, sparked off by the London demonstration. Thank (most of) you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One slightly worrying general feature of the blog is that commenters can post thongs which are clearly wrong (false) and refuse to admit their error when challenged.
I’m thinking here of the RIPA, where Peacewisher claimed something about interception/habeas corpus and was proved wrong by Fred, cf
“If you agree with the law or not and I do understand the concerns of those worried about abuses of the law, it is a subject highly debatable with arguments on both sides, it does not alter the fact that your statement:
“UK citizens weren’t allowed to encrypt data they sent unless they made their encryption key available to the state.”
is just not true and this does not concern Habeas Corpus.”.
What interests me in such cases is : are these errors made intentionally or merely out of ignorance, and once exposed as false, why do the original commenters find it so difficult to admit their error?
26°C with scattered clouds in Haifa right now, just thought I’d let you know.
Temperature set to rise as the week progresses.
It’ll be interesting to see who gets the bottom slot on this page and the top slot on the next.
I’ll be following this matter closely and promise not to comment if it’s Mary again.
Nevermind
You might also wish to reflect as to how Ahmad and his fellow criminal conspirator have been able to make plenty of noise about other matters through their lawyer while awaiting sentencing they have not once raised the question of being tortured while in US custody.
ResDis :
Kremlin sounds no worse than Westminster , Capitol Hill or Downing Street.
All corruption is bad,but would love the Guardian to begin reporting on what’s wrong´in our country instead of printing what politicians tell them to.
If we get it right,we might become a shining beacon of democracy to be emulated the world over.
Not sure what you mean by this (“mindlessly destructive” -BZ). I guess you think anything outside of party politics is mindlessly destructive. Which is nonsense of course. The party system has all the armies. Admittedly the destruction is not mindless. Jolly good.
I mean mindlessly destructive. As in burning, looting and physical violence. We saw these in 2011. We will see them again, inevitably. They achieve nothing (other than a market for secondhand German water cannon) either. You seem to have missed my point completely. Possibly intentionally. I am no more a friend of Labour than you are, but if it is cynical enough to organise protest against its own policies, that’s not doing the policies any favours. Good.
Anyway. Allow me to present the latest inspiration of the utterly philanthropic and wisdom-saturated, the selfless, the Saviour of Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone, the utterly blameless for Iraq, the one and only – I forgot self-effacing – Tony Blair!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10917264/Tony-Blair-strikes-gold-with-a-boxing-banker.html
Mr Blair, through AGI, also exerts influence in the country, providing free advice to the government. A team of eight to 10 AGI staff are deployed in Sierra Leone in government ministries, including the president’s office, to help with governance and the effective running of the country. Mr Blair has always denied any conflict of interest between his various roles as businessman and philanthropist but the spotlight will now be turned on Sierra Leone, where AGI has operated since 2008.
Before taking up his post as chief executive at Taia, Mr Untracht had worked for the AGI team in Sierra Leone as “private sector development adviser to the Government of Sierra Leone based in the Office of the President”.
Newspeak update: for ‘looting resources’ now read ‘governance advice’
PS. Tony will be jetting to Cartagena de Indias in Colombia for the Third Way Summit on July 1st. Also invited by Pres Santos, who loves Blair with a passion almost certainly related to his dollar potential, are Bill Clinton and a selection of heavy Latin American neocons.
Note to HM Customs: checking G-CEYL for white powders on its return would probably be counterproductive in the long run. Be somewhere else, and keep your jobs.
I’d better repeat that in Spanish for the benefit of our FARC friends.
Cartagena será el escenario de este evento que tendrá como anfitrión a Juan Manuel Santos. La cita es el primero de julio y asistirán el estadounidense Bill Clinton y el británico Tony Blair, entre otros….
….Están invitados cinco mandatarios que han tenido en su país un gran éxito en la generación de prosperidad y en la aplicación de los principios de la ‘Tercera Vía’, que son los principios que yo estoy aplicando aquí en Colombia”, dijo Santos.
Además del expresidente Clinton y el exprimer ministro Blair, son esperados a la cita el expresidente del gobierno español Felipe González, y los exmandatarios de Chile, Ricardo Lagos, y de Brasil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
http://www.portafolio.co/economia/cumbre-tercera-cartagena-2014
No, no. Thank you…
What a coincidence.
http://www.periodicolaguajira.com/index.php/general/nacionales/16434-ministro-britanico-estara-en-colombia
Hugo Swire will be visiting Colombia between the 25th and 27th, three days ahead of Blair.He’s the Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office with responsibility for, among much else, Latin America.
In May, Swire visited Mongolia (another of his reponsibilities) and was the first British Minister to visit the Oyu Tolgoi mine – a $7bn dollar investment by Rio Tinto.
What another coincidence. A year ago –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10108005/Tony-Blair-strikes-gold-in-Mongolia.html
And Blair has popped into Mongolia a couple of times since. Note the involvement of RTZ, and Blair’s wholly deniable contract for mediating between it and the Mongolian government.