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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The only thing puerile or facile about this is the fact that Republicofscotland posted it.
This suggestion of Danny Alexander’s is more or less the same as the European Union requiring public infrastructure projects which it co-finances together with a Member State to be identified with hoardings giving the total cost of the project and saying that there is EU co-financing.
One would have thought that even someone like Republicofscotland would welcome this in the interests of openness and transparency and as a way of showing taxpayers where some of their money is going.
One would need to be rather puerile and facile not to welcome this initiative.
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Hmm… It kind of makes a mockery of the present UK coalition governments policy, of leaving the EU, by openly copying its infrastructure mantra.
Why have an in out EU referendum, when you are initiating EU policies.
One could almost be forgiven, for looking upon this as some kind of oneupmanship, on Scottish nationalists.
“Republicofscotland: if you ever put this to Gordon Brown, he might give you the George Galloway answer! 🙂
You know what the Geiorge Galloway answer is, I’m sure, because you’re an admirer of his, I believe.”
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Fishing again Habb, and not even in a subtle way, tisk! tisk!
I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll answer your question, I admire his stance on Palestine, but that’s all, as an MP he’s useless, he’s loud brash, and he couldn’t buy a seat in Holyrood.
He thinks its okay to have sex, with a woman when she’s sleeping, and has lost many supporters, due to his verbal antics and rightly so.
Finally he advocates independence for just about every country in the world, except the country of his birth, and I find that galling.
Mr Goss
“I thought he spoiled the article right at the end by saying the solution was for Ukraine to join the EU which clearly shows he is an American and does not know how difficult it is to join the EU. Those in power in Kiev at the moment have pushed that process (joining the EU) back at least a decade. Nobody wants a bankrupt country in the union.”
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On the contrary, Mr Goss, recent events have shown rather clearly that the European Union has every interest in fast-tracking Ukraine into the EU. In the same way as Ukraine (shorn, of course, of its eastern regions which would just provide Russia with a permanent Ukrainian Achilles’ heel) should be fast-tracked into NATO. Ukraine not being in the EU and not being in NATO are precisely why the Moscovite state fsscists have been flexing their muscles against Ukraine. Thy would not have dared to do so had Ukraine already been in the EU and NATO.
As for the financial aspects – the cost – well, I hope that is something that the West would be willing to bear as a peaceful means (are you listening, Peacewisher and Mr Goss?) of checking Russian bullying, adventurism and expansionism. After all, this would by no means be the first time that the EU has admitted poor(er) countries with a legacy of repressive government – cf Spain/Portugal in the 1980s and then the Central and Eastern European countries in the 2000s.
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“The other thing is that Ukrainian politicians, brawls in parliament, dumping opposition MPs in bins, waging war on its own citizens, no confidence from its populace all lead the rest of Europe to see immature people trying to play at realpolitik.”
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Those things are indeed immature. Perhaps the Ukrainians are copying the Russians – especially in the Putin era? Past fights in the State Duma, the murder of opposition politician, the war against the Russian Federation of Chechniya refer..
The Ukrainians will quickly leave behind such copy-cat immaturity once they are on the road to EU and NATO membership.
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Republicofscotland
“Hmm… It kind of makes a mockery of the present UK coalition governments policy, of leaving the EU”
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Oh, is that the Coalition govt’s policy?
News to most people, I should think. Is this a scoop? 🙂
“Justin Raimondo on Who Killed Boris Nemtsov;
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/03/01/who-killed-boris-nemtsov/”
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Justin Raimondo – sounds like the leader of a 1930s swing band.
Who is this person, what status does he have and why should we listen to him?
“One could almost be forgiven, for looking upon this as some kind of oneupmanship, on Scottish nationalists.”
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I wouldn’t call it one upmanship but rather a reminder to the Scottish citizen that the infrastructure projects in question are being financed by the UK as a whole and not the Scottish govt in Edinburgh.
Now, you would surely, Ros, not deny the Scottish citizen the opportunity to reflect on the fact that without UK funding those particular projects might not have been undertaken at all, would you?
Of course you wouldn’t!
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And now, let’s have something serious from you for a change! 🙂
“Justin Raimondo – sounds like the leader of a 1930s swing band.
Who is this person, what status does he have and why should we listen to him?”
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Calm down Habb, you’ll have a stroke, its just someones opinion, you know an opinion, something we all have, whilst the government lets us, though some people are opinionated, you know of whom I speak of? of course you do.
Mods
“Insults or threats = pre-mod”
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I sincerely hope that the above is not a reference to me or to my post addressed to Macky and which read:
“And I’ll keep a look out for you, Macky.” (at the Finkelstein event at KCL) ?
You should interpret my statement as a friendly offer on the same lines as Phil offering Macky a drink at that event and not be influenced by what sound to be a rather nervous Macky and an alarmist Mr Goss.
Not that they really believe for a moment what they’re claiming, of course, so I’m puzzled about why you’re playing their game…
“@Phil, thanks for the offer, but i hope you can respect my wish to keep my real life private”
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Could the above be from the same “Macky” who has often accused me of being a coward for not revealing my identity on this blog?
Why, I do believe it can! 🙂
Any betting on what prop the devil who could start WW3 might use in US Congress address? Its two years since the UN podium cartoon that bombed.
A fistful of dollars.
RoS
“Calm down Habb, you’ll have a stroke, its just someones opinion,”
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Exactly, RoS – so why link to it on here?
It should be Cage that should be worried about it credibility in associating with AI;
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/terror-apologists-group-cage-likely-to-lose-support-of-amnesty-international-10079914.html
A Vid & article about those that many pretend don’t exist, & inadvertently support;
https://21centurymanifesto.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/us-trains-ukrainian-neo-nazis/
Reading between the lines in today’s press, it would seem Putin is under pressure….under pressure, to produce an assassin who’ll openly admit to killing Mr Nemtsov.
Not only that, Putin would also prefer it, if, the said assassin, admitted dispatching Mr Nemtsov, for the benefit of a foreign government, or alliance.
The last thing Putin needs right now, is civil unrest, I’d imagine, the said patsy, will be produced sooner than later.
A must-read. The author was dismissed from the ‘Garudian’ with Freedland involvement.
Death, drugs, and HSBC
How fraudulent blood money makes the world go round
By Nafeez Ahmed
https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/death-drugs-and-hsbc-355ed9ef5316
HSBC. Fairhead. Crookery and Trickery. Dodgy debt recovery charging. Financial Conduct Authority. All bases covered. What a journalist. He is unafraid of the powers-that-be.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/russian-opposition-putin-assassinate-opposition-leader.html
U.S. media is quick to blame Putin for the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.
But Itina Khakamada – a top ally of Nemtsov in the opposition – said the killing was clearly not in Putin’s interest. It’s aimed at rocking the situation.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev says the the killing is aimed at destabilizing the situation in the country, at heightening confrontation with the West.
Gorbachev says:
The assassination of Boris Nemtsov is an attempt to complicate the situation in the country, even to destabilize it by ratcheting up tensions between the government and the opposition.
Even the U.S. government’s Voice of America states – in an article entitled Could Nemtsov Threaten Putin in Death as in Life? – that Putin loses much more than he gains by the assassination.
It would appear, that not all of Putin’s opposition, believe he’s guilty, of the craven assassination of Mr Nemtsov.
Are these doubters, paid popinjays, or do their opinions,hold some validity.
The shambles that is Ukraine;
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/exposed-ukraines-massive-witch-hunt-12332
The Iraqi popular forces who shot down a US helicopter carrying weapons for the ISIL forces in Al-Baqdadi region released the photos of the shot down chopper through the Internet.
A group of Iraqi popular forces known as Al-Hashad Al-Shabi shot down the US Army helicopter that was carrying weapons for the ISIL in the western parts of Al-Baqdadi region in Al-Anbar province on Thursday.
Last week, Head of the Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli announced that the helicopters of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition were dropping weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL terrorists in the Southern parts of Tikrit.
He underscored that he had documents and photos showing that the US Apache helicopters airdropped foodstuff and weapons for the ISIL.
On Friday the Iraqi security forces regained control of al-Baghdadi district from the ISIL terrorists.
“Iraqi security forces seized control of al-Shohadaa neighbourhood and 13 Daesh (ISIL) militants were killed in the clashes,” Lt. Saoud al-Ibeidi said.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931209001345
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This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, previously the US Air Force, mistakenly (if you believe that) dropped a whole pallet, laden with weapons, and supplies, right into the lap of ISIS.
Of course the official fairytale, I mean’t story was, that, the supplies were dropped into Kurdish territory, to replenish their forces, in the fight against ISIS.
The BBC will back a radical overhaul of the licence fee, paving the way for the end of the current system of funding the state broadcaster, the Corporation’s head, Tony Hall, is expected to say today.
In a speech to staff at Broadcasting House, Lord Hall is expected to indicate the Corporation’s backing for a broadcasting levy that would apply to every household, regardless of whether they have a television.
The Ministry of Truth, aka the state mouthpiece aka the BBC, are drumming up plans to somehow, equate a TV licence, as a form of tax that everyone, must pay.
Campaigners at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, are celebrating a big victory for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement after a referendum to endorse an academic boycott of Israel passed by a landslide.
The results, released Friday after five days of voting, showed that an overwhelming 73 percent of more than two thousand voters backed the boycott. Those eligible to vote on whether SOAS should cut all ties with Israeli academic institutions included students, faculty and contract staff.
Although other university communities, student unions and academic bodies in several countries have backed the boycott in referendums, the all-inclusive nature of the SOAS vote is precedent setting.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rana-baker/londons-soas-backs-israel-boycott-referendum-landslide?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=91f5dbc661-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e802a7602d-91f5dbc661-290660781
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Putin’s not the only one, whose popularity is on the slide.
New Additional Moderation Guidelines, from Craig Murray:
1. Comments may use links to support arguments, but comments that merely link to other articles may be deleted.
.. note from mods: threads are not monitored continually so don’t bother complaining about inconsistency.
2. Mods are not required to explain moderation decisions.
.. note from mods: not that we always did anyway.
And as always, keep it on-topic and political, not personal; racist or hate speech lead to deletions or worse; and ranting about mod actions sends further comment to /dev/null
Oh yes, Fars News, the people that repeated a satirical story from The Onion (about US voters preferring Ahmadinejad to Obama) as if it were true, invented a meeting between the presidents of Iran and Egypt, claimed an Iranian scientist had invented a time machine and that the US is run by aliens the US acquired form Hitler.
The Iranian version of the Sunday Sport only less reliable.
Kempe, but only marginally more laughable than the BBC.
Republicofscotland, there’s not really a topic to be off right now but you are likely to be hit by off-topic rule when there’s a new thread.
Mods
My post of 18h29 is under moderation.
Why? Surely such a display of robust and ever so slightly Rabelaisian humour would delight many readers who, otherwise, would have to make do with the grey, bitter, relentless droning of the Original Trolls? Sooooo boring.
Lighten up and don’t be so po-faced !
Or even two-faced.
Recent stuff that either never gets mentioned, or never gets proper analysed on the BBC:
Fukushima, the greatest disaster in human history, which the BBC very occasionally covers by regurgitating press releases from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which is the largest and most (generally acknowledged) corrupt corporation in Asia; and that’s saying something!
The economic crash: whilst the BBC talk about the ‘economic crisis’ and ‘austerity’, they never mention the cause of it, not in real terms.
The Westminster paedophile scandal never gets mentioned (probably because many of them are now Governors of the BBC).
Just three examples from the British Bullshit Corporation. I could mention many others of the MSM. The BBC is particularly galling because it screws money out of licence payers under threat of imprisonment.
That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me.
Iranian Press TV palls into insignificance in comparison.
“The Ministry of Truth, aka the state mouthpiece aka the BBC, are drumming up plans to somehow, equate a TV licence, as a form of tax that everyone, must pay.”
That would be disgusting. I have friends who choose not to have a TV licence. They have a TV but only use it for watching videos. They are always being pestered by the Licence authorities but as things stand now do not have to pay because they never watch TV. I watch it less and less and hardly ever watch BBC, and then mostly drama. BBC news flagrantly breached its obligations to report the genocide in Eastern Ukraine on ideological grounds and on those same grounds I choose to get my news from a reliable source. Why should I pay to be indoctrinated?
RobG, I was interested by your comment that the Fukushima NPP was built over an underground watercourse. Do you have any links for that? A subsoil survey like Ba’al posted regarding the former WTC site would be ideal.
Did you see my reply on the other thread regarding overall hazard from I-129 versus I-131? Caesium (I forget which isotope) looks like it’s probably the worst; thirty year half-life gives a long enough persistence to hit successive generations, but not so long as to result in low overall activity. Did you understand the reasoning behind my half-life versus emissions comments?
I suppose a lot of the iodine isotopes in the ocean will be absorbed by kelp. What becomes of kelp?
Rob again, did you check on any nuke forums about my depleted uranium disposal suggestion? Don’t bother if you’re bored with DU, but as I said my own reasoning seemed counter-intuitive so I’m looking for a flaw in it. Or, do you know of any nuke forums where that’s already been discussed?
John, Goss, where have you found a source that’s consistently reliable? And how would you know if you had? I mean, how could you check it? Against what?