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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Question of the day:
Which is worse, and why – an Estonian President educated in the USA or a Russian President educated in the KGB?
Yeah, yeah, Mark. It’s completely black-and-white. USSR – white hats – East Bloc radiantly happy and prosperous, no corruption anywhere, free speech guaranteed. Us/US, evil repressive bastards….got it.
I have said before I regard Ukraine as pretty well comparable to Putin’s Russia. Here’s a little comfort for the Moscow amen corner:
http://m.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/02/20/country-future-and-drastic-reshuffle-ukrainian-tycoons-ranks.html
Just bear in mind that Russia is no less corrupt, and no less beholden to Pinchuk-alikes.
As usual Obi-Wan is behind in thinking!
Ne marche pas devant moi, je ne suivrai peut-être pas. Ne marche pas derrière moi, je ne te guiderai peut-être pas. Marche juste à côté de moi et sois mon ami.
Agreed Komodo – like Jacob who am I to wrestle with the Angel?
Unlike any of the Russia admirers here, I have made a prediction based on the very limited evidence available to me of Russia’s intention. To recap: Russia wants a corridor, substantially under its control, to connect it by land with Crimea. It – or its sympathisers – already have the transport hub of Debaltseve (handy rail connection to Voronezh and the north). Obviously, seizing Crimea and the Ukrainian navy was for the benefit of the oppressed Russophone population. Only a cynic would suggest Russia wants this major naval base for total dominance of the Black Sea. Why? Cynic suggests, FSU countries, especially oil-related ones. Georgia, then Azerbaijan and the Caspian.
Prediction: the Ukraine war will not stop until the land corridor is established and materiel can be moved by rail and road from Russia to Crimea. Further infiltration by Russia and destabilisation of existing regimes elsewhere will occur – and are indeed already happening. If I’m wrong, you can beat me up. Let’s see what it looks like in six months.
Oh, and if we ease off, Russia will, too? Recall that despite Ukraine’s pleas, NATO declined to get involved initially, because Ukraine isn’t a NATO country. But half of Putin’s appeal to the unthinking is that he feels threatened by NATO. It backed off – he didn’t.
Six months.
TY Mark 🙂 .(I shall shed no tears if Viktor Pinchuk gets it in the neck, whatever happens)
Habby and Ba’al
I think you’ll find that the UK itself has been amongst the biggest imposers of its will upon a less than welcoming world.
That’s the only way they know to make a crust.
The US is leading that game today.
When the Soviets and West were probing eachother in the past, they were mutually enforcing agreements made at Yalta.
Now that that cold war is over it seems the British still haven’t had enough.
The British in particular, much more so than France, Germany and other western Europeans nations are still sticking their nose in where it don’t belong.
On the basis of this British antagonism towards Moscow, Ba’al states that we must prepare for war to ensure peace.
I merely suggested that perhaps Britain mind its own business, and at least pay some attention to the causal factors in play now.
To do otherwise is certainly indicative of malevolent cuntishness.
“Unlike any of the Russia admirers here, I have made a prediction based on the very limited evidence available to me of Russia’s intention. To recap: Russia wants a corridor”
We don’t need predictions to know that the US, UK and other warmongers wanted all of Ukraine.
But wanting and getting are two different things.
Especially now that western plunder and pillage economics are meeting an obstacle to their banking world order.
At least habby is a consistently malevolent cunt.
Ba’al is just schizoid. Perhaps as a result of his programming during military service.
Amazing the way it just kicks in eh, when needed.
The West is bust and depressed. The East and South aren’t bust and have loads of resources and growth potential.
The bust West wants them, but in the short term it’ll settle for a new Bretton Woods where its bustedness is relieved at a cost to everyone else.
Russia is the only thing standing in the way of that plan.
That’s the reason for the West’s current onslaught against Russia, and why Russia must defend itself.
Most of the world is wishing Russia well in this endeavour. Even in Europe now.
And that explains why smaller countries and larger ones are rallying to Russia’s side.
They’re fed up with Westerners nicking their stuff and demanding that their citizens live in poverty to pay for it.
It never ceases to amaze me how lightly people will sell themselves for advancement by jumping on an establishment-led bandwagon. Not just the insane zealotry of the convert Ba’al Zevul, but that of Craig “OMG The Rooskies are coming” Murray.
Why shouldn’t Russia have a land corridor to their naval base through what have long been, for centuries, parts of Russia. The alternative is what? Refusal of access by artificially created wholly-imaginary states defined only by their hysterical propaganda-fed xenophobic hatred of Russia, force-fed to them for their entire lifetime. What is particularly perplexing about this is the deliberate refusal to recognise that the present Russian Federation government bears no responsibility or resemblance directly or indirectly, ideologically to Russian/Soviet regimes over the last century. Even the Stalin regime probably bore no relation to those post-revolutionary regimes that preceded it, Kruschev I believe publicly denounced his predecessors and their actions. Never acknowledged too is the decidedly non-native Russian character of previous regimes for which Russians today are inappropriately wrongly tarnished and demonised, judged guilty for crimes for which neither they or their ancestors could conceivably ever be blamed, were more probably instead, victims collectively and individually than perpetrators. Leading figures too originated from the provinces and former SSRs, republics, in name only, which even Churchill documents were created largely at Yalta formally in order to counter British domination of the larval UN for which Britain claimed assembly seats for the littlest specks of island possesions, to which Stalin countered by making those SSRs nominally nations or countries. NovoRussia will come to encompass Kiev itself. Ukraine should move its capital to Lvov, the centre of historic and modern day fascism, a basket-case country, which Poland – itself a fabricated country made up from folk tales and reborn at Versailles in the early 1920s, to everyone’s surprise and consternation – soon after eyed with undisguised acquisitiveness, signing a pact with Hitler’s Nazis years before Stalin did, to further this then still infant pseudo-nation’s territorial eastward expansion ambitions.
It all pales beside utter domination of the entire American continent from Alaska, through Canada, the US itself, to South and Central America, with constantly occuring US corporation-run revolutions at the drop of a Mexican Hat whenever the people or the reigning banditry got a little too uppity and put either themselves or their people before outside domination and exploitation of people and resources, to the imperceptible detriment of the reigning US elite’s hoard of ill-gotten booty.
Fred should watch the sea-gulls, too, and the crows, they’re all in on it as well.
Is Ba’al working at the BBC.
They’ve produced a spotter’s guide.
Pics and all, so everyone can play.
Be keeping them eyes peeled lads. There be Russians about.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31537705
I see Joey Essex, aka Fred, is having melt down.
La vita è così buono per i padroni delle banche!
~~~
UK Bank Bosses Land £3m In Annual Bonuses
http://news.sky.com/story/1431171/uk-bank-bosses-land-3m-in-annual-bonuses
I’ll dismiss the USSR-Russian Federation arguments because I don’t think they are any longer comparable except to say that Russia proved that it could become a global superpower by trading with countries that fell within its sphere of influence in the global cold war divide, which shows that sanctions against it are not going to work. What changed when the USSR fell was that NATO moved ever closer to Russia’s borders grabbing Poland, and the Baltic states, Finland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria, (which, excluding Finland formerly sheltered under the Soviet umbrella) yet the west portrays this as Russian aggression. What also changed was its economic independence ceased and it fell, like so many other countries (all the NATO countries in fact) into dollar debt, and is now reliant on cheque-book diplomacy. It has been a hard lesson but measures are afoot via a Chinese-Russian led alliance to establish a competitor to the World Band and IMF.
The main player in NATO is the US. It saw Ukraine as its latest NATO outpost and was prepared to instal a puppet government of fascists to meet these needs. Having failed in this, its umpteenth attempt, it has within the last week ramped up its interests in the Baltic States. From a cheque-book diplomacy point of view the only way the current dollar-diplomacy system can be kept afloat is if the US can impose hegemony on the whole world.
As to the Ukraine I am inclined to agree that there will be a separation of Eastern Ukraine which will fall again under the Soviet umbrella. This civil war however has caused embitterment among all people. There is almost no support for Poroshenko and I cannot see him lasting this short month. If elections take place the support for fascists will decline. This does not answer all the questions but it is my assessment, broadly-speaking, on the current situation and its causes.
“Let us not forget either that all the Royal princes, with the exception of Prince Edward, are qualified pilots…”
__________________________________-
Hmm…. The poncing parasitic Prince’s like their father, have a chest full of medals, to prove just how gallant they are.
They make me laugh, standing dressed up in the full regalia, like Idi Amin, at least Amin had a real job at one time, as a army cook, the cosseted poncing Prince’s however, rely on mummy and daddies state hand outs.
http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/02/19/un-report-reveals-how-israel-is-coordinating-with-isis-militants-inside-syria/
21WIRE reported back in December 2014 and again in January 2015, how the State of Israel has consistently provided both material, medical relief and IDF airstrike support to various terrorist and ‘rebel’ insurgents fighting in Syria.
Last month Israel launched its sixth airstrike inside Syria in the last 18 months, which is described as a ‘targeted killing’ against Hezbollah, whom Tel Aviv maintains is backed by their sworn enemy Iran – which leader Benjamin Netanyahu claims, affords Israel the right to kill them at any time, or any place.
Back in 2013, the Assad government in Damascus invited Lebanese Hezbollah militia into Syria to help eliminate terrorists in Syria, and now the uncomfortable reality is finally surfacing – that Israel has been picking off Syrian military and Hezbollah targets who are trying to fight-off ISIS, al Qaeda and al Nusra terrorists – which means that Israel is actually helping ISIS.
the UN report identified what the Syrians label a crossing point of forces between Israel and ISIS, a point of concern brought before the UN Security Council.
………………………………..
Syrian forces are under attack, disguised as attacks against terrorist organisations, its a proxy war, fought out by the west against the east, similar to the war in Angola.
Ba’al is just schizoid. Perhaps as a result of his programming during military service.
No, I just try not to let my judgement of one issue be clouded by (a) my opinion on largely unrelated issues or (b) someone else’s dogma. I would probably be a much more effective supporter of Habbabcuk if I looked at what he’d written, but I don’t. My experience is that a neat set of OK right-on beliefs fails to cut it, and is frequently proved idiotic. Hence what you see as contradictoriness and I prefer to think of as taking account of the data.
I was universally acknowledged to be the worst serviceman on my unit, by the way. But very, very practical.
There are increasingly signs that Merkel and Hollande operated behind the backs of the Americans, when they travelled to Minsk last week, in an attempt to reach an agreement between the warring factions.
During a closed-door meeting at the Munich Security Summit, Nuland fumed that the Europeans needed to be fought.
Der Spiegel described a closed-door meeting, apparently reported on anonymously both to it and to the Bild newspaper, held by Assistant Secretary of State Nuland at the Munich Security Conference one week ago, with perhaps two dozen U.S. diplomats and Senators.
There Nuland gave instructions to fight against the Europeans on the issue of arming Ukraine to fight Russia.
She was described as bitterly referring to the German Chancellor’s and French President Hollande’s meeting with Russian President Putin as Merkel’s Moscow junk, and Moscow bullshit, and she welcomed a Senator’s calling German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen the Defeatism Minister.
In my opinion the US weilds far too much influence on European affairs FDR probably mean’t well, keeping in touch with Europe after WWII, though he died a short while later.
Its time European countries, curtailed the American influence, on EU affairs, Europe should concentrate on what matters to Europeans, not, US interests.
Competition for energy resources, and for food resources derived from large energy inputs, is not Russia’s fault. This is classic scapegoating which we’re all able to identify, particularly when $Deity’s anointed chosen people are coming in for, possibly justified, criticism. It differs not from redneck yanks in “Kick their ass and take their gas” T-shirts apportioning blame for the certain events of 2001 bizarrely to Iraq. Russians are not squatting malevolently over ‘our’ gas, it’s theirs by right.
On that subject, much talk of ‘sedimentary schist’, yes that was deposited by the river flooding occasionally overflowing the area, over millenia, that’s what is and was excavated prior to construction, particularly of tall buildings, in order to reach the underlying bedrock granite. Tall-buildings are not built upon loose depositions of river silt, as some in their ravings here insist. Hasty attempts to discredit incredible scenes of melted-granite to great depths, far deeper than the excavations for the site’s bathtub and building footprints, or indeed the lowest depths of the screwed pile footings, do not account for the fact that granite has a lower melting point that of construction steel, so the fact that temperatures were sufficient to melt granite should not be considered extraordinary, when far-fetched claims emanate from the same sources that the structural steel itself melted or was even significantly weakend or softened, but granite did not and anyway its not granite but sediment, just river mud and dead algae.
Even if the separatists take Mariupol (and has their alleged advance on that city been reported by any believable source?), they will still be 100 miles or so from the isthmus joining Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland.
RT: EU ‘sleepwalked’ into Ukraine crisis due to poor understanding of Russia – UK Lords:
Report is here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldeucom/115/115.pdf
Herbie This is the MLMB take on that BBC production.
Forget war-porn the BBC is reaching wargasm
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1424441259.html
~~
I think I heard Smoothface described by a parliamentary committee earlier today as a ‘diplomatic irrelevance’. Ha!
“”No, I just try not to let my judgement of one issue be clouded by (a) my opinion on largely unrelated issues or (b) someone else’s dogma.”
Are you saying that the Western financial situation has nothing to do with the West’s baiting of Russia over these past few years?
Is that what you mean by unrelated issues?
Are you arguing that the expansion of the EU and NATO eastwards and up to Russian borders is completely innocent and something the Russians should not concern themselves about?
David Cameron’s government has snuck a new definition of fracking onto the statute books – allowing hydraulic fracturing for shale gas to take place outside the new regulatory regime.
Cuadrilla’s exploratory fracking, which caused two earthquakes in 2011 at Preese Hall in Lancashire, would not be classified as hydraulic fracturing under the new official definition set out in the controversial Infrastructure Act.
Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK said: “The shift in fracking definition illustrates again how desperate Government is to get fracking moving despite the problems and opposition.”
DeSmog UK is the first to report on how the government appears to have rendered its own regulation of fracking useless, as the late changes made to the Infastructure Bill have gone unnoticed.
Under the new Infrastructure Act, shale gas exploration and extraction must involve more than a total 10,000 cubic metres of fluid in order to be defined as hydraulic fracturing.
http://www.desmog.uk/2015/02/20/new-fracking-definition-infrastructure-act
So what will David Cameron and his band of Tory tools, now call fracking?
Maybe they’ll call it deep rabbit hole making, or drilling for gold, or drilling for Lord Lucan, who knows.
On that subject, much talk of ‘sedimentary schist’, yes that was deposited by the river flooding occasionally overflowing the area, over millenia, that’s what is and was excavated prior to construction, particularly of tall buildings, in order to reach the underlying bedrock granite.
No. This is an error on someone’s part, and yours. There is no such thing as a sedimentary schist. Schists are metamorphic. In the case of the Manhattan Schist which is the bedrock for this part and much of Manhattan, it’s an ancient sediment which has been altered and recrystallised by pressure and heat due to deep burial*, and is entirely adequate for foundations. Elsewhere, the Fordham Gneiss somewhat resembles granite, but is again a metamorphic rock, and has a banded irregular appearance too. Yes. the recent sediment cover will have been removed before building. But that’s not schist.
http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/nyc/highlands/manhattan.htm
*then completely naturally exhumed by erosion and plate movements, since you ask
Banks mired in scandal and bailed out by the state are set to infuriate hard-up families by announcing their share in nearly £5 billion in bonuses.
The bumper payouts could include £2.2 billion for staff at HSBC amid controversy over its Swiss banking arm, accused of helping super-rich customers evade tax.
And a £500 million handout at Royal Bank of Scotland will be a slap in the face for taxpayers landed with a £9 billion loss on the bailed-out bank.
They are part of a near £5 billion bonanza that could be unveiled by Britain’s Big Four banks alongside a surge in profits in the coming weeks.
The politicians at Westminster protect the banks, whilst the banks, take the piss out of all asunder.
The system is well and truly broken, unless you’re a banker, or politician.
Last night Clark, I and a few others stormed Tower Bridge.
EXPLICIT WARNING – photos include people with covered faces. Anonymous windbags may soil themselves.
http://www.demotix.com/news/6937894/class-war-protest-blocks-tower-bridge-flaming-torches
A coup plot against the Venezuelan government has been foiled, with both civilians and members of the military detained, President Nicolas Maduro revealed Thursday, Feb. 12, in a televised address.
Those involved were being paid in U.S. dollars, and one of the suspects had been granted a visa to enter the United States should the plot fail, Maduro said.
Venezuela’s president stated that the coup plotters already had a “transitional” government and program lined up once the plan, which included bombings on the Miraflores Palace and the teleSUR offices in Caracas, as well as assassinations of members of the opposition, Maduro and others, was carried out.
Apparently its the third failed American backed coup upon Venezuela in the last 25 years.
http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/02/20/venezuela-coup-timeline-plotters-paid-in-us-dollars-planned-to-assassinate-president-and-install-de-facto-regime/
“The system is well and truly broken, unless you’re a banker, or politician.”
True but it will end one day. The last time they were throwing themselves from skyscrapers like lemmings.
“Fred should watch the sea-gulls, too, and the crows, they’re all in on it as well.”
Fuck off and die retard cunt.