Honoured to give the keynote speech at Amnesty’s conference on torture in London yesterday. Then dashed back to Edinburgh for a very romantic evening with Nadira – and Cameron!
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@Mary “March 12, 2015
Bringing Hope Amidst Radioactive Ruins
Fukushima’s 4th Anniversary
by HARVEY WASSERMAN
‘The catastrophe that began at Fukushima four years ago today is worse than ever.
But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad—if we make it so.”
Hope ? Not if Lady Barbara has her way.
Nuclear queen Lady Barbara Judge to persuade the Japanese that radiation is good for you.
http://www.independent.co.uk/…/lady-barbara-judge-japans-sm…
YouKnowMyName*
“With the externally funded coup that was pushed into European Ukraine, without much care or pretence, by the USA or Russia (take your pick) are we on the threshold of some nation believing they are actually pre-emptive first-strike counterforce capable?”
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No, we are not on that threshold or, indeed, anywhere near it.
Anyone who might think we are on that threshold lacks historical knowledge, geo-political awareness and a sense of proportion.
In fact, it is the sort of thing only newspapermen and alarmists of various sorts, eager to make our flesh creep, would think.
The Guardian:
How 30 years of a polarised economy have squeezed out the middle class: The number of middle-income households in England is falling as the extremes of rich and poor rise – with London highlighting the divide.
Lord Rothschild Demands All UK Citizens Call Him ‘Massa’
http://internationaltimes.it/lord-rothschild-demands-all-uk-citizens-call-him-massa/
[cm-org.uk – this is a reply to a deleted comment]
You haven’t been paying attention, Lysias.
If you’re referring to Habbabkuk, he announced the name change either yesterday or the day before.
TonyF 1234
We know Washington does not like Vladimir Putin and wants to create a political environment in Europe where we all cough up our 2pc membership fee for the M.A.D. Club.”
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Tony, does Washington have any particular reason for liking Putin? Are his policies especially likeable ones from the perspective of the US or Europe?
Tony, let me point out you’re conflating (whether wilfully or out of ignorance) the 2% defence expenditure target with MAD. As you’ll be aware, defence also has non-nuclear forms and there is nothing in the 2% defence target which obliges NATO members to go nuclear. Indeed, they would be prevented from doing so by various international treaties. So your putting these two notions in the same sentence is rather pointless.
If anyone is interested in viewing how the nation grid is being supplied in a live feed, showing the capacity levels and the supply mix between all sources please see the attached link.
It’s interesting to see that the uk is in a lot better shape than France if you follow The links on the page
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
I think we all remember how the west showed their deep respect for the honorable Gorby and Yeltsin, only taking brief breaks from belly laughs at the poor drunken sod.
Some raw data (PDF, small file):
http://www.cdc.gov/wtc/pdfs/wtchpminlatcancer2013-05-01.pdf
The above was issued by the World Trade Center Health Program (dealing with health issues that 9/11 first responders have been encountering – no mention of the general public who were there at the time).
This document, which is a government publication, talks about ‘radiation-induced’ cancers as a result of 9/11.
“I think we all remember how the west showed their deep respect for the honorable Gorby and Yeltsin, only taking brief breaks from belly laughs at the poor drunken sod.”
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“Poor drunken sod” is singular, Ben, so which of the two are you referring to – Gorby or Yeltsin?
If, on the other hand, that was a typo and you meant to refer to both of them, then I think you need to research your subject a little better.
I should have added that the ‘Centers for Disease Control’ are part of the US Government.
http://www.cdc.gov/
ANNOUNCEMENT
I liked “Jumpin’ Jack Flash, He’s a Gas” very much as a nick, but – as Mary speedily pointed out – the blue of the pictogram wasn’t near enough to the Israeli blue and so, for that reason, I’ll go back to Habbabkuk tomorrow.
And thanks to the Mods for their indulgence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Habbabkuk” – the nick that strikes terror into the hearts of the confused, mislead, intellectually lazy and the plain crazy.
Ben: Very good to see you back.
Isn’t that how the West liked to see the Russians, though? A former foe, ruined, a joke of a leader, a shattered economy with its empire dissolved?
Then again, it made a great distraction from our own problems, when we could play stupid games of espionage and keep the weapons industry happy, by playing up a threat of imminent invasion. Far more plausible that the supposed threat of “terror” from Muslims which has had to do in the meantime.
Now we’re getting back to the serious business of potential global conflict, our great leaders are filled with joy once again – “keeping us safe” can be the excuse for any excesses it pleases them to inflict upon us.
Rob: You may have missed my previous notes to you on this… have you read Naomi Klein’s latest, on climate change? It goes a long way to explaining something I’d missed, the reason for the right-wing’s knee-jerk rejection of the very science of GCC, and particularly the notion that we could (or even should!) do anything about it.
Glenn_UK
“Now we’re getting back to the serious business of potential global conflict, our great leaders are filled with joy once again – “keeping us safe” can be the excuse for any excesses it pleases them to inflict upon us.”
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Oh, come on now, Glenn, don’t be as intellectually lazy as the masses on here!
Most people, including our leaders, like an easy life – why should they build up a sweat by “inflicting excesses” on people without good reason? They would, after all, still be our leaders without going through all that trouble.
No, keeping the people safe is – and indeed has to be – the first task of any govt. All other liberties we enjoy depend on that and would be both useless and short-lived without it.
Banjamin Franklin had a better view of the relative values of safety and liberty: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Politicians in the U.S., even the presidents, keep saying that their highest duty is to preserve Americans’ security, but in fact the oaths they swear are to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and to see that all the laws are faithfully executed. Nothing about security. That is their duty.
“National security” is the mantra of our current servile state. The very opposite of what Patrick Henry said: “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Benjamin Franklin, that should of course have been.
The Franklin quote gets trotted out regularly and of course the essential question is : what constitutes an essential liberty or essential liberties. There are those who argue, for example, that to be free to write whatever you like using the internet without fear of being read is an essential liberty but there are others who would not agree. The same questions of interpretation and evaluation arise around the expression “a little temporary” safety.
Likewise, given that the enemies of America would show scant regard for the US Constitution and the laws of the Republic, the primary duty of the US President and authorities to ensure the safety of the US hardly needs emphasising.
@Mr. J J Flash: I find it hard to believe that the priority of our government is, in fact, “keeping the people safe”.
Just take simple, everyday examples. The number of people dying on the roads every year in bicycle accidents exceeds – by several factors – the number of those killed by terrorists in our worst year in recent history (2005). What’s being done about that? Next to nothing. But we have to undergo farcical procedures whenever we dare travel by air, with no consideration given to costs, and have sacrificed considerable civil liberties in the name of preventing terrorism.
Why don’t we spend more than pennies per person per year on measures which would make cycling a very less deadly pursuit than it is at present? It’s not as if it were an insolvable problem, for which we could not find workable solutions (as demonstrated by a number of our more enlightened European neighbours). It would not only ameliorate traffic casualties, but would make people fitter, save road wear and tear, cost the country less, save pollution, on and on. Just to make cycling more widespread. It would even make traffic jams less frequent.
This is only one example, but one so absolutely blatant that it is hard to argue that governments do what they do to “keep the people safe”. Their priorities are entirely skewed, the language is completely dishonest.
The ambitious politicians and unprincipled plutocrats now in charge of the United States are much more dangerous and immediate threats to the U.S. Constitution than the co-called “enemies of America” could ever be.
The oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution (which as a naval officer I happen to have taken) says “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.
Let us for a moment and for the sake of argument accept that the ambitious politicians and unprincipled plutocrats now in charge of the United States are a dangerous and immediate threats to the U.S. Constitution.
I am interested in the expression “now in charge” because it calls out the question : when did this phenomenon begin?. When did they take over – with Eisenhower? Nixon? Reagan? Earlier? More recently?
In our ‘country’. March 2015
But the Cameron/Gideon duo is promising £12bn cuts in the benefit system so there will be many more such suicides.
Dad-of-three killed himself after benefits were stopped and he was threatened with eviction
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/11838628.print/
George Osborne’s big benefit freeze: Budget to signal election pledge to cut £12billion from welfare
Slashing £12bn from benefits bill will be at the heart of Tory election pitch
Child benefit will be restricted to three children for new claimants
Overall cap on welfare claims to be cut to £23,000 from £26,000 now
Measures would help Chancellor find £30bn needed to erase budget deficit
Officials believe £5billion can be raised from tax avoidance crackdown
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2990587/Osborne-s-big-benefit-freeze-Budget-signal-election-pledge-cut-12bn-welfare.html
…£12billion from the nation’s bloated benefits bill will be at the heart of the Tory pitch …
Benjamin McDonald’s body was probably ‘bloated’ when discovered.
The key event happened on Nov. 22, 1963. Since then, there has been a gradually accelerating degeneration.
Glenn_UK
Well, obviously there are many things which could – indeed should – be done to keep people safer. Cycle tracks, as you say, are one of them.
But I think you should be wary of implying (without wishing to, I’m sure) that because the govt does not do enough to promote the safety of cyclists it should do less to promote our safety from acts of terrorism and similar acts, or that it is doing too much to promote our safety from such acts.
*
Yes. Yeltsin was the drunk the wrst exploited. Gorbachev was merely take in by the illusion the west was well intentioned. Cheers glenn.
Yeltsin may well also have been well-intentioned. It was only gradually, during the 1990’s, and then more clearly in the succeeding decade, that it became clear how malevolent the West had become.
I’ve always disagreed most strongly with the Monbat over nuclear issues, but he has always been right on the mark with one thing. This piece was published more than four years ago…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/dec/13/astroturf-libertarians-internet-democracy
… and it’s now all very, very much worse.
It’s an extremely difficult issue to deal with, and the root of it is not comment threads like this. It’s the kind of society we want to live in.
Are you referring to the slaying of President Kennedy?*
If so, two questions:
1/. could you be a little more explicit about what you think the pre-November 1963 position was? Are you saying that the level was running flat until then and if so, how would you characterise that level – almost unknown? very low? low and recognisable…?
2/. re the acceleration since Nov 1963; would you say that the acceleration was linear or did it come in fits and starts? If the former, that would imply that you think, for example, matters were worse under Clinton than Bush senior and worse under Obama than under Busg junior. If the latter, under which Presidencies do you think liberties and freedoms suffered particularly grievously?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/amnesty-international-conference-on-torture/comment-page-18/#comment-513704
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http://media.giphy.com/media/89U4ODjFSNdV6/giphy.gif
Benjamin Franklin had a better view of the relative values of safety and liberty: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
So true – now apply it to the people of Russia, Ukraine or the other former Soviet colonies that Putin wants to keep in his sphere of influence. But of course they are meant to keep quiet so as to pursue the perceived greater enemy. I’m afraid the smell of hypocrisy becomes over powering at times.