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157 thoughts on “Hiatus”

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  • Ba'al Zevul

    Beacon of democracy still shining, I see.

    http://occpalgaza.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/israeli-supreme-court-approves-ban-on-palestinians-from-gaza-entering-israel-for-cases-against-iof/

    On 16 December 2014, the
    Supreme Court of Israel rejected a petition submitted by human rights
    organizations against Israel’s policy of preventing residents of Gaza who have
    submitted compensation lawsuits for damages against the Israeli military, and
    their witnesses, from entering Israel to attend their own court hearings.

    Adalah filed the petition in
    2012 in cooperation with the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Palestinian
    Center for Human Rights, and Physicians for Human Rights –
    Israel on behalf of four individuals from Gaza who filed tort lawsuits
    against the Israeli military for killings, injuries and extensive property
    damages and whose requests for permission to enter Israel to pursue their cases
    were repeatedly denied. Former Adalah Attorney Fatmeh El-‘Ajou filed the
    case…
    …Adalah’s General Director Attorney Hassan Jabareen stated that, “The court’s
    decision is fundamentally at odds with international humanitarian law, which
    clearly and definitely establishes the right of victims, who live under
    Occupation, to submit claims for damages to the courts of the occupying power,
    and stipulates that the legal proceedings available to them should be effective
    and just. The decision also contradicts claims made by the Israeli Foreign
    Ministry before the courts of European states that Palestinians have the
    opportunity to submit lawsuits to the Israeli courts and that there is
    therefore no need for foreign courts to decide on this matter.”

    Someone fired a rocket at Israel today. Any wonder?

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    OldMark

    “O/T, Mandy Rice Davies died this morning; she was a footnote in our recent history but quite a significant one.”
    _______________

    Yes indeed – and her life post-Profumo was happier than poor Christine Keeler’s. BTW, did not Christine Keeler die a couple of years ago or is my memory playing tricks?

  • Ben the Inquisitor

    The Red Queen, still enjoying her anonymity .

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/unidentified-queen-torture

    “According to sources in the law-enforcement community who I have interviewed over the years, and who I spoke to again this week, this woman—whose name the C.I.A. has asked the news media to withhold—had supervision over an underling at the agency who failed to share with the F.B.I. the news that two of the future 9/11 hijackers had entered the United States prior to the terrorist attacks. As I recount in my book “The Dark Side,” the C.I.A. got wind that one of these Al Qaeda operatives, Khalid al-Mihdhar, had obtained a multiple-entry visa into the United States eighteen months before 9/11. The agency also learned, months before the attacks, that another Al Qaeda operative, Nawaf al-Hazmi, had flown into Los Angeles. Yet the C.I.A. appears to have done nothing. It never alerted the F.B.I., which had the principle domestic authority for protecting the U.S. from terror attacks. Its agents had, in fact, been on the trail of at least one of the hijackers previously, but had no way of knowing that he had entered the United States. Nor did the C.I.A. alert the State Department, which kept a “TIPOFF

  • Ben the Inquisitor

    Check out his Venn diagram on our FREEDUMB of Press.

    “Back when I lived in Russia, I knew lots of reporters who really did risk their lives and had enemies who really did violently attempt to silence them. I had one Russian reporter friend who wrote something about a bank connected to one of Yeltsin’s advisers, and two days later a thug in a ski mask literally jumped through his bedroom window and bopped him over the head with a crowbar. I vaguely knew people like Anna Politkovskaya and Yuri Sheckochikhin, famed reporters who were literally murdered because of their work. Even I had to skip Moscow once, after a certain mob-connected pimp had a bit of a sense of humor failure about a thing we’d published in the eXile.

    But in America, nobody needs to silence journalists, particularly if you’re talking about just one journalist, and more particularly if it’s just one print journalist. Ignoring such people is easier and way more effective. You just let the reporter throw whatever hissy-fit he/she has decided to throw, and five seconds later the main audience will be back porn-surfing and watching football and “Wives With Knives” and so on. The notion of the dangerous dissident who so threatens the corrupt state that he or she must be physically eliminated is unfortunately an old-fashioned fantasy that no longer fits our sophisticated dystopia. Or anyway, even if such a person did exist, it would be someone with better sources than me.”

    Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/taibbi-mailbag-on-uva-swearing-and-the-usa-russia-venn-diagram-20141217#ixzz3MLseyC1u

  • Ben the Inquisitor

    The war against Saddam resulted in nothing but civilian casualties…same as with Russia’s Putin.

    “Alexsei, a fire truck driver with a salary of around 65,000 rubles a month isn’t too worried about his car repayments as he’s on a fixed interest rate. He says he’s one of the lucky ones because he didn’t take his loan in dollars or euros, even though they were offered at a lower rate. “It’s going to be really hard for people to repay those,” he says.

    Food prices have already risen, and it’s expected they will rise far more
    His main concern is food prices. The price of grechka, a buckwheat cereal and staple of the Russian diet, has doubled due to a poor harvest, and products like sugar, flour and bread have also gone up. Fortunately many supermarkets were well stocked so the prices of foreign products allowed in under the sanctions have only just started to rise, but it’s believed they will skyrocket as new stock comes in.
    Alexsei has a small child and his wife, Irina, is nearing the end of her paid maternity leave. “I was hoping that Irina would be able to stay at home for longer, but if the ruble keeps going down, and prices go up, she might have to go back to work sooner than we’d hoped to help support the family,” he says.”

    http://www.dw.de/rubles-freefall-leaves-russians-bewildered/a-18138769

  • Mary

    Ali Abunimah on EI

    Why I want Obama to veto Abbas’ UN resolution on Palestine
    http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/why-i-want-obama-veto-abbas-un-resolution-palestine

    ‘I believe in a positive vision of a Palestine whole and free, where all people live in a decolonized and reunified territory without discrimination based on religion or ethnicity and without sectarian territorial partition.

    This is why I have consistently opposed steps to “recognize” the so-called “State of Palestine.”

    Those “recognition” initiatives are an effort to undo the death of the “two-state solution” and rescue Israel as a racist Jewish state, as Joseph Massad explained in an essential article for The Electronic Intifada this week.’

  • Mary

    I remember hearing this last March. Still on the iPlayer. Many things you want to listen to again disappear after days.

    Rupert Harrison Profile

    Ahead of the budget Mary Ann Sieghart profiles Rupert Harrison. He’s the top economic adviser to George Osborne, and the man some call the ‘real Chancellor’ and ‘the most important man you’ve never heard of’. Those who know him well and have seen his influence grow describe his career and characteristics.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xzsnz

  • Republicofscotland

    Get well soon Craig.

    Meanwhile
    ……….

    A Ukrainian soldier who was part of the crew that operated the supposed missile-battery that the Ukrainian Government claims shot down the Malaysian MH17 airliner on July 17th has testified publicly for the first time.

    Saying that the missile-battery was operated by the Ukrainian military, not by the rebels as asserted, and that he and his former crew-mates who operated it laughed when they heard their Government say that this missile-battery was operated by rebels and had shot the airliner down.

    http://www.ukrainewar.info/shooting-mh-17-buk-312-story-false-says-ukraine-crew-member/
    ………………………..

    This Ukrainian soldier is confirming what many of us already suspected.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    The always pleasant Baal-Komodo writes at the end of yet another whinge:

    “Singlehandedly, Gideon is restoring growth to hardworking families. At least I’m assuming this particular parasite on the state has a family.”
    _________________

    The chances are that Baal-Komodo, one of the baby boomers and nicely retired, is a bigger “parasite on the state” than the Chancellor (whatever “parasite on the state” means).

  • Republicofscotland

    Stories of the horrid conditions for workers in Amazon warehouses have been trickling out for years: The temperatures at the warehouses vary wildly, with some workers having to work in sub-zero conditions, others passing out from days where the temperature soared above 100 degrees.

    Workers crying from not being able to keep up the brutal pace demanded, and then being threatened with termination for crying.

    And we can now add another indignity to the list, coming yesterday at the hands of the US Supreme Court, which ruled in a 9-0 decision that it is legal for Amazon warehouse workers not to be paid for a portion of their workday.

    At the end of long, taxing shifts at warehouses, Amazon requires workers to go through security screenings to ensure that no one has stolen anything from the warehouse.

    Because Amazon does not hire enough security guards or stagger the quitting times of the workers, these screenings add an additional 25 minutes to each employee’s shift.

    These workers sued, arguing that under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the staffing company that hired them to work in Amazon warehouses was required to pay them for the time spent in these security checks.
    …………………………

    None of which surprises me when you find out who the CEO and founder is.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Republicifscotland

    “None of which surprises me when you find out who the CEO and founder is.”
    _________________

    You’ve puzzle me, ROS.

    It’s Jeff Bezos, isn’t it?

    I’ve looked him up on Wikipedia saw nothing to take special exception to.

    Stop teasing and tell us what you mean, there’s a good chap.

  • Kempe

    “Saying that the missile-battery was operated by the Ukrainian military, ”

    The rebels don’t have any aircraft. Why would the Ukrainian military deploy anti-aircraft missiles against an enemy that doesn’t have any aircraft?

  • Republicofscotland

    “The chances are that Baal-Komodo, one of the baby boomers and nicely retired, is a bigger “parasite on the state” than the Chancellor (whatever “parasite on the state” means).”
    ………………………..

    Re parasites I’ll give you a clue whilst you formulate one of your legendary thoughts.

    Parasite:

    Definition.. R-Y-L F-M–y

    I’m sure you can fill the blanks in.

  • Republicofscotland

    “The rebels don’t have any aircraft. Why would the Ukrainian military deploy anti-aircraft missiles against an enemy that doesn’t have any aircraft?”
    _________________________

    Erm!

    Pretty obvious actually, they were aiming at a passenger plane. Hoping to blame its destruction on the rebels, it reeks of CIA involvement.

  • Ishmael

    God I hate the BBC. Just listened to that iPlayer propaganda on Putin.

    “We are certainly paying attention now”

    There is no WE. There is you who claim to speak for “us”, while telling us what to think and what’s important. As all totalitarian structures do. Defying democracy and representation.

    It’s simply a one way propaganda service for the elite and that’s the last time i’ll partake this century. I think my ears are bleeding.

  • Republicofscotland

    Despite being a far bigger country than the UK, Russia has less than a tenth of our debt. It also has foreign currency reserves more than 82% larger than the UK’s, and crucially 70% larger than its debt. It could pay the whole lot off in one fell swoop if it chose to and still have £100bn in the bank.

    Putin’s country is on a fundamentally sound economic footing, with a monthly trade surplus of £10bn, while the UK loses another £2bn every month. Unemployment in Russia is lower, and while inflation is higher so is wage growth, so Russian workers are getting fractionally better off in real terms, and also doing slightly better relatively than British ones (0.7% above inflation compared to 0.6%).

    http://wingsoverscotland.com/it-could-be-worse/

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Republicofscotland

    So when are you going off to Russia then?

    Tell us in good time so we can organise a send-off party for you.

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