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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Daniel, 1:17 am: I agree with most of your comment; I’ll just pick up on this part:
That’s the overall situation between the “West” and the Russian power-bloc, the global view if you like, but from Ukraine’s point of view it’s two big powers trying to carve it up and eat it.
I’m a bit fed up with an apparent team of commenters here who seem deliberately blind to one of the two big powers, and seem to do all they can to ignore, minimise, justify, distract or deceive on its behalf.
Sure, there’s a big mainstream propaganda exercise for the greater of the two predators. But the lesser of the two predators actually has weaker internal rule of law, and they do their propaganda by murder.
@Rob
Rob What an earth are on? Do you know were the term “Cold Fusion” came from? I do know a little about it.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re still talking about nuclear fusion here, cold or otherwise”
Cold Fusion is also happening in Low Energy Light Bulbs.You do seem to come out with very confused
statements like ” nuke industry propaganda.” were do you get this from? seems to me you are a bluffer.You are like these people who still believes that electrical energy travels down the copper wires.
“…from the unelected western-sponsored fascist coup.”
This is not strictly true. The influence of the far-right, and their presence in the new government, dangerous though it is, does not mean Yanukovych was the victim of a “fascist coup”. He fell because oligarchs – notably Rinat Akhmetov and Dmitry Firtash – who had been key backers of his Party of the Regions reacted to the popular mobilisation of Maiden by withdrawing their support and instructing the deputies they controlled to vote for his removal by the Ukrainian parliament:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/how-oligarchs-in-ukraine-prepared-for-the-fall-of-yanukovych-a-955328.html
So, despite “Euromaidan”, this last “colour revolution” was merely the latest twist in Ukraine’s corrupt game of Tweedledum and Tweedledee which the American’s
exploited.
There is also a misconception by many on the left as to the nature of the protest movement that comprised the Maiden. This movement seems to have been motivated by many factors that included opposition to Yanukovych, illusions in “Europe”, hatred of all the oligarchs and their political cronies, and the Western version of Ukrainian nationalism. It was these factors which gave an important opening to the extreme right:
http://avtonomia.net/2014/02/20/maidan-contradictions-interview-ukrainian-revolutionary-syndicalist/
Can’t we get back to nuclear fusion.
I love talking about this stuff.
What’s the matter with you lot?!
Clark @ 1.34
I couldn’t agree with you more.
John Goss, 1:03 am:
John, true, and well spotted. Shame you didn’t correct Macky when she mentioned only NATO in that context. You could have saved me some work doing yet ANOTHER correction.
I just love the way you lot gang up on me, but thanks for at least acknowledging my point on this latest one.
@Dave: give me some science, pal, and we might have a conversation.
I am not the least bit interested in debating what is probably the most important issue of our age with people who give links to Wiki, or other pseudo-science claptrap sites.
Give me peer reviewed studies, if you can, and you might be taken seriously.
Technicolour, 12:48 am; yes, that’s Macky performing what I think is known as “a reverse ferret”. She linked that article herself, see, and called it “a must read”.
RobG, I’ve yet to see any evidence that you can do science, and I’ve given you plenty of opportunity to show me. You criticise nuclear technology, but you didn’t even know the primary source of DU. You linked me a peer reviewed paper and I made use of it, but you’ve had sweet zero to say about that. Sorry, I think you’re all bluster, mate. But do prove me wrong.
Daniel, 1:36 am; interesting comment, and one that I expect to learn something from. Many thanks; that’s what I come here for. But I’ll read the links tomorrow. Good night.
Good night all.
Macky: “You don’t think she was deliberately doing a Blair in keeping dirty, maybe even illegal shenanigans officially off the record ?”
No, certainly not in the case of Benghazi. That’s been examined to death, with the filthy Republicans doing their damnedest (and completely failing in every case) to plant even a halfway decent slur. It’s hoped just screeching “Benghazi!” alone will do its job, there’s simply no “there” there.
The CIA, on the other hand, was very probably up to no good there. That is not something that the State Department would necessarily either know about, and definitely not need sanction. The State Department getting caught short by CIA operations would be nothing remotely new. There would have been no official word on official channels about the CIA’s shenanigans in any case.
It’s poor politics, that’s all. And as said before, I hold no brief for H. Clinton whatsoever – she seems even more pro-corporate and centre-rightist than her husband. I don’t like her, and would favour her candidacy over a swivel-eyed teabagger like Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Ted Cruz, or a dullard Xian blow-hard like Huckabee, Perry or Christie, only on Clinton being the lessor of two evils.
Shame Ben’s not here – I’d appreciate his weighing in on some of this stuff.
*
I’ll say one thing for you Macky – you don’t appear to bear a grudge for too long. At least, assuming you actually remember the individuals with whom you correspond.
Clark, I’m about to crash out for the night, so will go for the easy one: there are three commercial size reactors at Fukushima that have been in complete meltdown for almost four years now.
As a result the Pacific Ocean is on its last legs.
As a result worldwide cancer rates will go through the roof.
As a result most of us will be dead.
I’m not sure what you don’t understand here?
Oh, the math; like you do a lot of figures to somehow show that you are not a bunch of psychos who have destroyed our world.
You are all going to be put on trial; you know that, don’t you.
RobG, it isn’t that I don’t understand your words; it’s that you’ve done nothing to convince me that you have enough understanding to be right, and you’ve written various things to suggest that you lack such understanding.
OK, you’ve made a prediction above. I predict that the Pacific should now begin to recover. I predict this because the initial, highly radioactive I-131 will have decayed away by now.
However, neither of us has assessed the radiation from the 30 year half-life caesium, nor that from other isotopes, and we don’t know the rate at which fresh isotopes are being generated in the melted cores and released from the disaster site into the ocean.
You claim to know your stuff, so knock together an assessment of the above. Or if you’ve already done that on your site, please link to it.
I suspect that it’s still more likely that I personally will get cancer from smoking rather than from Fukushima.
Rob: You need to give people a bit more of a chance. There is an awful lot to digest online, and that with which to entertain ourselves, with the few hours not spent working (or doing exercise. Or riding our motorcycle. Or…) .
Can you cut this “I can wipe the floor with you on any of this stuff” BS out, please? None of my best teachers were macho braggarts, and – as a wise friend (now passed away) once told me, persuasion is an incremental process. It requires patience, and rewards. It takes time, and finesse. These are rare qualities, which is why there so astonishingly few teachers actually worthy of the name.
I still haven’t got round to looking at Clark’s figures on Uranium – and I actually like him! I’m not going to spend that much effort looking at a subject you want to interest me in, if you’re making it a challenge from the outside, and you look like you want a fight about it in any case.
Wise up, kid. 😉
Rob, I didn’t build Fukushima. I’ve always opposed pressurised reactors. It’s not a crime against humanity to do a bit of maths. You say we’re all to be killed by Fukushima. Well, stop taking your anger out on me or you’re degrading what little time I have left. And cheer up because you may as well enjoy your own limited time too. Thankfully, you’re probably wrong anyway, but you should still follow my advice because no one gets out alive, nuke disasters or none.
There were also many factors involved in Hitler’s takeover in Germany.
Rob, my words may seem harsh, but actually, they’re not as harsh as yours. And yours aren’t as harsh as Tony M’s, who accused me of gloating over some inevitable nuclear extinction. The pair of you have both falsely accused me of causing or wanting mass death. I’ve merely called you both blusterers, which is probably true.
Now what exactly was the nature of my crime?
“…because no one gets out alive, nuke disasters or none.”
Ain’t that the truth. I’ve been present when a couple of people have been put into the ground, when I hadn’t really properly considered that the world might still exist without them. Certainly not for me.
And what do we do with this incredibly limited time? Find people online who basically agree with us, and bitch and curse and call them names, because we find a point of divergence. When none of our differences is likely to make a scrap of difference in any case.
No wonder we’re all doomed. The whole thing is a farce, a dark comedy.
Lucky for me that I see the funny side of it now and then. 🙂
Glenn, it’s always good to see you. I remember that time you turned up when I’d been arguing with Angrysoba and it as as late as it is now, years and years ago. I was so glad to see you.
Good old Angry; I know what he was doing now. Trying to bang some sense into me. Well, it worked.
Hey Rob, there’s a chap that hasn’t visited for a while; he lives in Japan. He felt the earthquake that caused the tsunami that stopped the diesel generators. He convinced me to go off and learn a bit about nuclear physics. He’s a teacher. A good chap. You might meet him here one day, or you can look back on old threads.
We were worried about him here after the earthquake and tsunami. We were pleased when he turned up and commented. I hope he’s well.
Glenn, here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/missing_you/comment-page-2/#comment-272190
“There were also many factors involved in Hitler’s takeover in Germany.”
And……?
The ECB is printing 1 trillion Euros to ‘stimulate’ the European economy.
Can we all have some please?
Doubtful Mary. Maybe the bankers “we” will get some.
Hope you are all well, nice to see the back and forth on this blog (even though it’s depressing as hell) a striking contrast to Marxist one I was following a bit.
And it just so happens I’v been Following SYRIZA, just because it’s cheerful. A left government in Europe, in our lifetime. Can’t be a bad thing.
And doesn’t the finance minister rock. Can anyone believe the coolness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M
I just picture this guy, going underground “behind enemy lines” studying the most inane crap for years. Knowing it better than ‘they’ do.
It’s refreshing to see some people who seem human, not some totally self serving toss pots like the ….. who frequent our establishment. And this is why they are crap. Even the Greens. They actually don’t give a shit.
I wonder why they don’t save some face and leave politics. The right, the left. The ‘dissidents’ tokenism. And it’s not being dogmatic about government. It just shows we have a bunch of loser’s in power and opposition atm, when others can clearly do it. Do something.
Greek Hero lays the first blow to the Monitor, and it bleeds.
You know I see those idiots shouting at each-other in parliament. In any other walk of life who would think such an organisation could be functional..
Seems to just president a false dichotomy, meaningless division.
Like I watch David Cameron arguing about outside interests, and this assumption that there is some legitimacy in a governments serving the interest if a tiny elite. Largely private.
This party is subverting the last dredges of our democracy, patriotically. What sickness must lie in some peoples hearts to do this. Say what i’m told, say what i’m told, say what i’m told. Money money money.
“The ECB is printing 1 trillion Euros to ‘stimulate’ the European economy.”
One day someone here will understand that this isn’t how QE actually works – what it actually seeks to do is replace longer term bonds with shorter term ones that improve the liquidity of banks and therefore give the banks capacity to lend more – whether they do or don’t is really more up to the level of demand in the economy, which is really why QE is a bit hit or miss. If Mary has a good idea accompanied by good management skills then in theory the banks should have more capacity to lend to her than before – just pouring extra spending into consumption really isn’t a long term solution for anything, unless you are keen on more British Leyland etc. – even the Soviet planners beloved of many here realised that.
“This party is subverting the last dredges of our democracy, patriotically. ”
Actuly i’d have to say the esablishment has been doing this over the last 40 yers, so my whole lifetime.
And while getting kicked in the teeth in the process, even by the dissedents. It’s not a shock they they feel the way is the way, to find the “them”, “unhelpull” ones and cast them down to elrich ourselevs. Reputaion, identity politics, all the things that have been thickeling down from the privlaged to justify it. And no wonder when it’s all about image.
Our society seem expert in isoaltiong eveyone else in order to find any ‘power’ and the proof is in the pudding. Empty suits.
Anyway it’s inspierd me. Greece, I think I understand better now how some people can be dedicated, to give up large parts of life, who seem to do the more meaningfull things. It’s important to get what you feel good about and matters to bear other stuff.
Enjoy breakfast people.
Propaganda by murder – the crimes of the lesser are an order of magnitude less than the former:
Had the Nazis not invaded Europe, Auschwitz and the Holocaust would not have happened. Had the United States and its satellites not initiated their war of aggression in Iraq in 2003, almost a million people would be alive today; and Islamic State, or ISIS, would not have us in thrall to its savagery. They are the progeny of modern fascism, weaned by the bombs, bloodbaths and lies that are the surreal theatre known as news.
Over 118,000 children under 14yrs died as a result of the Iraq war. Half a million children died as a direct result of sanctions on Iraq.
John Pilger – Squeezed to Death 2000
http://johnpilger.com/articles/why-the-rise-of-fascism-is-again-the-issue
Fresh from Tel Aviv 2006-14, Katya Adler the BBC’s new Europe Editor, comments.
‘Baltic states shiver as Russia flexes muscles
Posted by spike on March 6, 2015, 8:28 am
‘Those most panicked here liken the sound of Nato jets policing the skies to the sound of freedom.’
Yes, she actually wrote that!
Even for the BBC, this is pretty spectacular nonsense.’
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1425630482.html