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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RobG
In the light of your post at 23h28 and my post just now, may I take it you’ll be sending off an email along similar lines to mine?
Britain to remain in NATO – you know it makes sense!
Macky
“informationclearinghouse” yet again? Are you incapable of referring to any website which is not anti-Western and pro-whoever is the latest anti-Western poster boy?
Less obviously biassed and partial sources would do more to persuade the neutral reader (assuming of course that’s what you want to do…)
10 years on & is it time for Craig to stand again against Jack Whittacker Straw?
Habbabkuk; “Britain to remain in NATO – you know it makes sense!”
When Europe finally gets its act together & creates an EU Army, I think Britain may well indeed be left stuck in NATO !
Here’s your favourite Greek advising how this may happen;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRRWaEPRlb4
Habbabkuk; “Less obviously biassed and partial sources would do more to persuade the neutral reader (assuming of course that’s what you want to do…)”
If the articles are so “obviously biassed”, then it should be very easy to illustrate the problems with their points, otherwise it can be assumed that you are playing the man instead of engaging with actual the points made; if you can’t refute them, say so, or say nothing, but don’t play the man.
“Here’s your favourite Greek advising how this may happen;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRRWaEPRlb4”
______________________
What is your opinion on Mr Varoufakis’s use of humour in that video, Macky?
Would you say it reinforces or detracts from the effectiveness of his message?
Macky
I just just trying to be helpful – although God knows why I should bother.
The point is that your arguments, such as they are, are pretty feeble at the best of times and you therefore suffer from a credibility problem.
Referencing dubious websites like you do merely reinforces that problem.
Can’t say it any clearer than that.
@Habby: you are behaving like a secondary school teacher asking his pupils questions to help concentrate them on content, rather than throw things at each other.
That must be why Craig keeps you on here… to help with motivation(!)
Habbabkuk; “What is your opinion on Mr Varoufakis’s use of humour in that video, Macky?”
Beware of Greeks bearing humour ! 😀
@Habby: in Macky’s defence, the popular “free” media have strict guidelines on what they can and cannot publish, so he often will have to go “outside the mainstream”. I know you know that, but why did you have to be so obnoxious to Charles. Looks like you’ve scared him off.
Habbabkuk; “The point is that your arguments, such as they are, are pretty feeble at the best of times and you therefore suffer from a credibility problem.”
Classic reverse-projection !
Academics & in fact all normal rational people reference work to support their povs, and other rational people examine & critique such reference works; only charaltans not interested in an honest debate try to avoid addressing uncomfortable issues by seeking to cowardly dismiss or invalid the cited povs. It’s called “playing the man, rather than the ball”; not very sporting of you !
Peacewisher. Eve Pollard, one time editor of the Daily Express! and mother of Claudia Winkleman!!, was reviewing the papers on Sky News earlier when the Straw Rifkind stuff was hot news.
She referred to Straw as having had ‘a distinguished career’ LOL and thought she was telling us, shock horror, something new that Rifkind was involved in the country’s intelligence operations. ‘He should be very busy, especially at the moment’.!!!
You can easily lose the will to live listening to dimwits like her.
~~
Fool. Straw is standing down in May. He thought he would be going out in a blaze of glory with eulogies from his fellow occupants on the green benches and grateful thanks from the whole nation for the part he played in our offensive wars.
Instead he will slink out like the creep he is. He won’t even get a peerage from the Nu Liebour crowd. They have suspended him, metaphorically speaking, but not from the nearest lamp post.
The troll continues with his plan to discredit the ICH and Global Research websites. Why should that be? Perhaps because they tell us truths that the corporate MSM do not publish.
Dawks… good way to describe many of them. One honourable exception: Nicky Campbell.
OK I’m out of here. Have signed the UK out of NATO petition. Suggest it’s shared with Friends of the Earth, Stop the War, Left Unity, CND and other like groups. Geting petitions to work is a special skill, if you know any experts, influential or famous people whos might put their weight behind it it could work. Many people are sick of NATO’s wars and backing of fascist and other puppet states. I’m one of them.
Peacewisher; “the popular “free” media have strict guidelines on what they can and cannot publish”
Yes, funny how the MSM media always echos Western propaganda; maybe something to do with what that German whistle-blower said, who recently revealed that every major media outlet has been compromised by the CIA & other government’s agencies.
That’s why for some, a source can only be “credible” if it spouts pro-West propaganda; ie Government rubber-stamped version of the “Truth”.
Ba-aa.
Platform for shills, and intelligence gathering operation. Murray comes in from the cold.
Ba-aa.
@Peacewisher: Yes, I have read Stark, back in the day. Jolly entertaining it was too – although Gridlocked was a bit more down to Earth, if you know what I mean. Shame Ben Elton became such a right-wing stooge, just about the time he actually started lying openly in public (eg, denying that he’d ever said he was a “lefty”). He was pretty good, back when he used to be a good guy.
@John Goss: I’ve read Robert Tressell’s “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” too, I think this is the passage you were looking for:
http://libcom.org/library/great-money-trick-robert-tressell
@Habbabkuk: Not wishing to leave you out, I too have “The Waste Makers”, that farsighted 1970’s book. Did you get “Future Shock” too, from around the same time?
Everyone generally might care to read The Whisperers, by Orlando Figes. It’s mainly about private lives under Stalin’s rule, but gives some very interesting history of Stalin’s benevolent stewardship of the Ukraine back in the early 20th C. Only 10-12 million or so were displaced, dispossessed, and died through poverty and starvation as a direct (if not necessarily always desired) outcome of his policies there, so surely no hard feelings would yet persist.
Jackie “Boy” Straw…
“Charm and meance”….Oooooft!
And Rifki too…
My my.
Macky wrote, “It’s called “playing the man, rather than the ball”; not very sporting of you !
Actually, that would have been an ad hominem attack – literally, “to the man” – attacking the man rather than the argument. But that’s not what Habbabkuk was doing.
What you wanted was the “poisoning the well” logical fallacy – discrediting the source without bothering to challenge the content of that source.
There are plenty of logical fallacies to choose from, and here’s a good place to start learning how to distinguish between them:
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/
Examples of every type are to be found aplenty, in virtually every thread of this blog.
@Republicofscotland
22 Feb, 2015 – 5:09 pm
So, as regards the three teenage girls .. What are the possibilities?
1. it’s true and largely correct, in which case:
1.1 Girls, think of your family and friends, come home and join Respect or the Lib dems
b)
Oooops! Hadn’t finished formatting .. looks like Habby had the same problem, but his unintentional offering is beyond weird.
What the hell language was he inputting in?
.
Anyway, to continue ..
1.1.2 GCHQ and the NSA were asleep on the job and the all seeing, pervasive surveillance state isn’t what it seems?
2. It’s some kind of false flag operation, in which case .. who knows?
Rifkind eventually referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, as had Straw earlier. Don’t hold your collective breaths.
~~
Stuart Gulliver, CEO of HSBC, has been outed by the Guardian. Swiss bank account for his £5m bonuses which Panamanian company used for the purpose. Domiciled in Hong Kong for tax purposes. No illegality whatsoever nota bene chaps and chapesses.
Swiss account secret of HSBC chief Stuart Gulliver revealed
Leaked files covering 2005-2007 show bank chief executive sheltered £5m of his own money at Panamanian company with Swiss HSBC account
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/22/swiss-account-secret-of-hsbc-chief-stuart-gulliver-revealed
~~~~
How much lower can this country go.
Today described the Jack Straw/ Rifkind affair as ‘boasting’. 5000 quid a day for a boast. Whew! Can they influence policy? Probably not, they say.
One marvels at the naivete of these very senior political people. They must think of themselves as impregnable. They cannot be unaware of the dominating sense of disillusion and distrust that is so defining of politics at the moment,but they behave like rats on the proverbial sinking ship.
And to fall for such a sting reveals something other than integrity, (always in doubt) but also intelligence, and even low cunning. I doubt if this level of boastful delusional hubris is a tenable explanation for such experienced political figures.
If they survive as political figures it will be yet another breathtaking indictment of British politics.
Macky
Read Novaya Gazeta – and Putin has already admitted that the little green men in the Crimea were Russian special forces.
@Glenn_UK re “The Whisperers”…
Yes, shocking! That’s why I called him Brutal.
But a bit like The British Empire and treatment/starvation of the Irish in the 19th century. I was censored for talking about pots, kettles, and black, so I’ll leave you to join the dots.
@RD: My earlier point was that it took a ruthless tyrant like Stalin to turn the tide on Hitler. Better not to support fascism in any way in the first place…
RD: Didn’t you read my post at 11.44 yesterday? Sigh!
It took me ages to find, and I would have thought you could have at least read it before suggesting that Crimea is occupied. Obviously doesn’t suit your agenda. But maybe you just missed my reply. Easy to do.
Summary: Crimea was already autonomous and they would have been at war with Ukraine if the latter tried to impose anything on that province, which had never regarded itself as anything but Russian. The green men saved a lot of bloodshed. Of course, this doesn’t fit with the Western agenda.
Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind taking bribes. But unfortunately, as with the MPs’ expenses story, the Torygraph is setting the frame for the story.
Very much worth tugging on the Ukraine connection.
Is Britain (and for that matter, also the Ukraine) being treated like Georgia in 2008? Look what happened there…
@John Goss and everyone
The Britain out of Nato petition is here. It can also be got through the easy to remember tinyurl.com/outofnato.
There is the Twitter hashtag #leavenato
I will try to do a media blitz today.
Facebook help is needed.
Nobody has to ask anyone else before they do something to help with this. Just do it.
All efforts to publicise this petition are welcome.
There is also a rise in anti-NATO feeling in Bulgaria. People are pushing for a referendum on NATO membership. At the moment the right-wing racist party Ataka is playing a big role, but some left-wing people are also involved and a referendum would be bloody excellent.
The ‘bye-bye NATO era‘ meme should be spread big-time in Germany, France, Poland and the Baltic states too.
This is not ‘the latest political campaign’. This could be crucial if we are to avoid a major war in Europe.