Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

1,389 thoughts on “Wow”

1 … 31 32 33 34 35 … 47
  • John Goss

    Sorry, on the above link you will need to move the slider back if you want to hear all of what was recorded of Putin’s press briefing.

    They have all signed one paper consenting to implement the Minsk agreement. This would mean a ceasefire starting from midnight on 15 February. Poroshenko does not agree that his troops are surrounded but the separatists are obliged to create a corridor to let them withdraw into the fascist sector, though Putin does not use the word fascist.

  • Mark Golding

    On the subject of ‘no geographical limits’ to a strike against Islamic State my own thoughts are sensitive to and consider the frequently asked question “Do you believe that the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a US/UK citizen on US/UK soil, and without trial?” – That question remains unanswered.

    From a morality viewpoint I myself believe there exists a gross lack of transparency regarding the multiple legal opinions that purport to authorize the US president’s assassination power.

    Once you accept that the US is fighting a “war” against The ‘Terrorists’, and that the ‘battlefield’ in this ‘war’ has no geographical limitations, then you are necessarily vesting the president with unlimited powers.

    Just a modicum of sense exposes the ‘bottom line’ of this issue which goes to the heart of almost every civil liberties assault under the ‘War on Terror’ since it began.

    I ask when will intelligent humans comprehend it is almost impossible to impose meaningful limitations on a Prime Minister/President/Monarch’s war powers on a “battlefield”.

    This is the covert/obfuscated art of fascism peeps.

  • Mark Golding

    On the subject of ‘no geographical limits’ to a strike against Islamic State my own thoughts are sensitive to and consider the frequently asked question Do you believe that the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a US/UK citizen on US/UK soil, and without trial?” – That question remains unanswered.

    From a morality viewpoint I myself believe there exists a gross lack of transparency regarding the multiple legal opinions that purport to authorize the US president’s assassination power.

    Once you accept that the US is fighting a “war” against The ‘Terrorists’, and that the ‘battlefield’ in this ‘war’ has no geographical limitations, then you are necessarily vesting the president with unlimited powers.

    Just a modicum of sense exposes the ‘bottom line’ of this issue which goes to the heart of almost every civil liberties assault under the ‘War on Terror’ since it began.

    I ask when will intelligent humans comprehend it is almost impossible to impose meaningful limitations on a Prime Minister/President/Monarch’s war powers on a “battlefield”.

    This is the covert/obfuscated art of fascism peeps.

  • YouKnowMyName

    speaking of GCHQ and Hanslope Park HMGCC (as they are involved too), what is the effect of illegal UK mass surveillance on society?

    illegal according to the investigatory powers tribunal

    IT IS DECLARED The regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by US authorities pursuant to PRISM and/or (on the claimants case) Upstream, contravened Articles 8 or 10” of the European convention on human rights.

    So, lets examine probable UKUSA overcollection in a European Country, passing the spotlight that SIGINT fears over to the respected London based author Glyn Moody

    Political Meltdown In Macedonia Shows Destabilizing Effect Of Massive Government Surveillance

    if you want to see the reality of abusive governmental spying, look no further than Macedonia, where a huge surveillance scandal is unfolding…

    Those spied upon include government ministers, opposition politicians, journalists, entrepreneurs and many members of the judiciary and the security apparatus….”More than 20,000 people in Macedonia have been monitored over the years,”…

    With targeted surveillance affecting 1% of the population, it is hard to believe that alongside immediately useful information about what political opponents and key figures in society were saying and doing, a certain amount of blackmail material wasn’t collected by the government spies and squirrelled away for future use….

    The whole situation is a mess, and at its heart lies uncontrolled, abusive surveillance, where the inevitable leaks of incriminating material have now destabilized the entire political system. Sadly, there’s no obvious way out. …. the lack of press freedom or even an independent judiciary in Macedonia means that it will be very hard to get to the bottom of what is happening here, and then move on.

    Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter

  • Abe Rene

    @Fred “Scotland is run by gangsters in Glasgow and lawyers in Edinburgh, everybody knows that.” The late Scottish Minister of Education, Sam Galbraith, was a former surgeon, which doesn’t seem to fall into either category. From 1983 to 1987 the MP for Glasgow Hillhead was Roy Jenkins, a former Bletchley Park codebreaker. Same comment.

  • nevermind

    9 posts in that little time, Habby, do you think you are not overrating yourself a tad, old chap? I’m fine with the colour of my avatar, whatever it may be, so who is the bolshy one here?

    The cease fire is in place, but Obama’s phone call to Putin yesterday and the unreasonable demands by Kiev to be handed back what they lost makes me feel as if this peace wrestling will fail.
    This old trick was used by Michael Howard par excellence, to say ‘yes, but you are for x and against y, so you will vote for x, won’t you’. Same for the Green delegation under Joshka Fisher at the Rambouliet conference, when they were teased during passing in the corridors, by the Serb delegation, saying’ Ah the Greens, the peace loving party who will vote against the bombing of Kosovo’, with the result that the greens debated the incident and voted for the bombing, reluctantly.

    In the same way as….
    Obama phoned Putin up for a chat yesterday and told him that it would be best for all concerned ‘to agree to the peace deal’??

    Why is it unreasonable? because Kiev had the choice to stop fighting altogether weeks ago and would not have lost these grounds. For exactly these reasons Hammond is wrong in saying that it is in our interest to ‘not to see the Ukrainian military fail’.

    What he is saying is that we are ready to interfere with more than arms, that we could send some crack troops and together with the already present ‘advisors’ and the right arms, could do some more killing, we can show you how its done properly.

    NOT IN OUR INTEREST, MR HAMMOND, AND NOT IN EUROPE’S INTEREST!

  • nevermind

    So the SNP is calling for the austerity cuts to be slowed down and hence, prolonged, not very much about banks tax evasion or aversion which is an essential part of the central European problem.
    Nicola is twinkling her eyelashes at Labour, but does nothing to endear the SNP’s and Scotlands presence in English affairs to the voters here.

    For the last time, please make the choice for fair proportional voting here in England an essential part of your possible future coalition talks, why would you not want us to have a fair vote when you granted it to the Scottish, indeed it was at the centre of your campaign for fair voting?

    Not enabling us with such choice means the SNP, not Scotland on the whole, would want to hold and keep the English in this unfair three party political perpetuation and unfairness of a FPTP system, that you cherish the status quo and establishment, as long as it is possible, and as long as it suits the SNP.

    This sounds like, we are alright Jack!

  • fred

    “From 1983 to 1987 the MP for Glasgow Hillhead was Roy Jenkins, a former Bletchley Park codebreaker.”

    After 1987 the MP was George Galloway.

  • fred

    “For the last time, please make the choice for fair proportional voting here in England an essential part of your possible future coalition talks, why would you not want us to have a fair vote when you granted it to the Scottish, indeed it was at the centre of your campaign for fair voting?”

    We had a fair vote, in 2011, the people voted overwhelmingly for FPTP voting. 68% to 32%.

  • Rob Royston

    Fred 11.23am

    “After 1987 the MP was George Galloway.”

    I don’t think GG is a lawyer, but he has been known to make good use of their services.

  • Anon

    I was wondering yesterday what could possibly be Mary’s interest in the Costa Concordia disaster, it not being connected to the Jews in any way.

    Alas, I was mistaken, for it appears Mary has indeed found a Jewish, link and hence the question of what piqued her interest in the story has been resolved.

    “Like the Concordia, hope the outfit sinks to oblivion.”

    Classy!

  • YouKnowMyName

    in view of Craig’s outstanding track record as a Human Rights Activist, I wonder if he noticed that someone is still debating torture…

    no, it’s not Reporters without Borders World press freedom index 2014

    but the current home of ‘FUKIP’ europarl.europa.eu

    the actual provisional text adopted yesterday isn’t that long, so I’ll see if it’ll fit here…

    EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 2014 – 2019
    TEXTS ADOPTED Provisional edition

    P8_TA-PROV(2015)0031 US Senate report on the use of torture by the CIA
    PE547.522
    European Parliament resolution of 11 February 2015 on the US Senate report on the use of torture by the CIA (2014/2997(RSP))

    The European Parliament,
    • having regard to the Treaty on European Union (TEU), in particular Articles 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 21 thereof,
    • having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in particular Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 18 and 19 thereof,
    • having regard to the European Convention on Human Rights and the protocols thereto,
    • having regard to the relevant UN human rights instruments, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 16 December 1966, the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of 10 December 1984 and the relevant protocols thereto, and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance of 20 December 2006,
    • having regard to the European Court of Human Rights judgments in cases al-Nashiri v. Poland, Abu Zubaydah v. Lithuania, Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland, El-Masri v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Nasr and Ghali v. Italy, and al-Nashiri v. Romania,
    • having regard to the Italian Court judgment that convicted and sentenced to prison terms in absentia 22 CIA agents, one Air Force pilot and two Italian agents over their role in the 2003 kidnapping of the Imam of Milan, Abu Omar,
    • having regard to its resolution of 6 July 2006 on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners, adopted midway through the work of the Temporary Committee,
    • having regard to its resolution of 14 February 2007 on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners,
    • having regard to its resolution of 11 September 2012 on alleged transportation and illegal detention of prisoners in European countries by the CIA: follow-up of the European Parliament TDIP Committee report,
    • having regard to its resolution of 10 October 2013 on alleged transportation and illegal detention of prisoners in European countries by the CIA,
    • having regard to the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) study on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Detention and Interrogation Programme and its use of various forms of torture on detainees between 2001 and 2006,
    • having regard to its resolutions on Guantánamo, the most recent being that of 23 May 2013 on Guantánamo: hunger strike by prisoners,
    • having regard to the Council conclusions on fundamental rights and the rule of law and on the Commission’s 2013 report on the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Luxembourg, 5 and 6 June 2014),
    • having regard to its resolution of 27 February 2014 on the situation of fundamental rights in the European Union (2012),
    • having regard to the Commission communication “A new EU Framework to strengthen the Rule of Law” of 11 March 2014 (COM(2014)0158),
    • having regard to the Commission’s EU anti-corruption report of 3 February 2014 (COM(2014)0038),
    • having regard to its resolution of 12 March 2014 on the US NSA surveillance programme, surveillance bodies in various Member States and their impact on EU citizens’ fundamental rights and on transatlantic cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs,
    • having regard to Directive 2012/29/EU of 25 October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2001/220/JHA,
    • having regard to Rule 123(2) of its Rules of Procedure,
    A. whereas respect for fundamental rights and the rule of law is an essential element in successful counterterrorism policies;
    B. whereas Parliament has repeatedly condemned the CIA’s secret detention and extraordinary rendition programme, which resulted in multiple human rights violations including the use of torture and other inhumane or degrading treatment, abduction, secret detention, detention without trial, and violations of the non-refoulement principle;
    C. whereas, despite their particular nature, policies of national security and counterterrorism are not exempt from the principle of accountability, and there can be no impunity for violations of international law and human rights;
    D. whereas accountability for extraordinary renditions, abductions, illegal secret detentions and torture is essential in order to protect and promote human rights effectively in the internal and external policies of the EU, and to ensure legitimate and effective security policies based on the rule of law;
    E. whereas Parliament has repeatedly called for full investigations into the collaboration of EU Member States with the CIA’s secret detention and extraordinary rendition programme;
    F. whereas the former Parliament, in its above mentioned resolution of 10 October 2013, called on the current Parliament to continue to fulfil and implement the mandate given by the Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners, and consequently to ensure that its recommendations were followed up, to examine new elements that might emerge and to make full use of, and develop, its rights of inquiry;
    G. whereas the report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reveals new facts that reinforce allegations that a number of EU Member States, their authorities and officials and agents of their security and intelligence services were complicit in the CIA’s secret detention and extraordinary rendition programme, sometimes through corrupt means based on substantial amounts of money provided by the CIA in exchange for their cooperation;
    H. whereas the report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence rebuts CIA claims that torture revealed information that could not have been collected through traditional, non-violent interrogation techniques;
    I. whereas an open criminal case (No.150/09, before Central Court No 5 (Juzgado Central No 5)) concerning the torture taking place at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base is ongoing within the National Court (Audiencia Nacional) of the Kingdom of Spain;
    J. whereas US President Barack Obama committed to closing the Guantánamo Bay detention facility by January 2010, a facility which holds 122 detainees without formal criminal charges having being brought against them before a criminal court, including 54 who have been officially cleared for release;
    K. whereas the assistance of EU Member States in resettling some of the Guantánamo Bay prisoners has been slow and limited;
    1. Welcomes the decision of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to publish the summary of its report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Programme; encourages the publication of the report in full, without excessive and unnecessary redactions;
    2. Expresses its deep condemnation of the gruesome interrogation practices that characterised these illegal counterterrorism operations; underlines the fundamental conclusion by the US Senate that the violent methods applied by the CIA failed to generate intelligence that prevented further terrorist attacks; recalls its absolute condemnation of torture;
    3. Considers that the climate of impunity regarding the CIA programme has enabled the continuation of fundamental rights violations, as further revealed by the mass surveillance programmes of the US National Security Agency and secret services of various EU Member States;
    4. Calls on the US to investigate and prosecute the multiple human rights violations resulting from the CIA rendition and secret detention programmes, and to cooperate with all requests from EU Member States for information, extradition or effective remedies for victims in connection with the CIA programme;
    5. Reiterates its calls on Member States to investigate the allegations that there were secret prisons on their territory where people were held under the CIA programme, and to prosecute those involved in these operations, taking into account all the new evidence that has come to light;
    6. Calls on Member States to investigate fully recent allegations that illegal rendition, detention and torture took place on their territory and to prosecute those responsible;
    7. Expresses concerns regarding the obstacles encountered by national parliamentary and judicial investigations into some Member States’ involvement in the CIA programme, the abuse of state secrecy, and the undue classification of documents resulting in the termination of criminal proceedings and leading to de facto impunity of perpetrators of human rights violations;
    8. Calls for the findings of existing inquiries relating to Member States’ involvement in the CIA programme, in particular the Chilcot inquiry, to be published without further delay;
    9. Calls for the adoption of an EU internal strategy on fundamental rights and invites the Commission to propose the adoption of such a strategy and a related plan of action;
    10. Instructs its Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, with the association of its Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in particular its subcommittee on Human Rights, to resume its inquiry on “alleged transportation and illegal detention of prisoners in European countries by the CIA” and to report to plenary within a year by:
    • following up on the recommendations made in its above mentioned resolution of 11th September 2012 on alleged transportation and illegal detention of prisoners in European countries by the CIA: follow-up of the European Parliament TDIP Committee report;
    • facilitating and supporting human-rights-compliant mutual legal assistance and judicial cooperation between investigating authorities and cooperation between lawyers involved in accountability work in Member States;
    • organising a hearing involving national parliaments and practitioners to take stock of all past and ongoing parliamentary and judicial inquiries;
    • organising a Parliamentary fact-finding mission involving all interested political groups to the EU Member States where CIA secret detention sites allegedly existed;
    • gathering all relevant information and evidence on possible bribes or other acts of corruption linked to the CIA programme;
    11. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

    EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 2014 – 2019
    TEXTS ADOPTED Provisional edition

    mentions of this adopted resolution were strangely absent from UK media, Telegraph, BBC.co.uk etc

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Mary

    “Israel born Micky Arison, owner of Carnival Cruises and employer of the reckless and cowardly Schettino, has taken a big financial hit from the wrecking of the Costa Concordia. £2bn for the recovery of the wreck and countless sums in damages in cases being brought by the survivors.”
    ___________________

    Which rather contradicts what you foolishly wrote a little earlier on, viz:

    “There seem to be no penalties for those who employed him and failed to manage him.”

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Mr Goss aka Big Liar(re http://www.stopfake.org)

    ““He has not responded to my repeated invitations to give us the names of those on the editorial team of http://www.stopfake.org who have been Fulbright scholars (and who are therefore, according to Mr Goss, CIA stooges).”

    Noddy, are you still posting that US-funded shit for the twentieth time ad nauseum?”
    __________________

    Ah, I see the narrative has now changed from “four of the editorial team were Fulbright scholars” to “www.stopfake.org is US-funded3

    So the question to Big Liar must also change to read: what is the basis for your assertion that http://www.stopfake.org is US-funded?

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Anon

    “I was wondering yesterday what could possibly be Mary’s interest in the Costa Concordia disaster, it not being connected to the Jews in any way.

    Alas, I was mistaken, for it appears Mary has indeed found a Jewish, link and hence the question of what piqued her interest in the story has been resolved.

    “Like the Concordia, hope the outfit sinks to oblivion.””
    ______________________

    My wonderment was a little less strong than yours, Anon, because I just thought “there’s old Mary again, having one of her gripes, couldn’t find anything better to waste Craig’s bandwidth with, probably can’t sleep and doesn’t want to listen to the BBC”.

    But you were right, she soon got on to the Jewish angle.

    No surprise – as I’ve said a hundred times, there’s a Jew-hater just underneath the surface of this make-believe anti-Zionist. And the give away – if one was needed – is that she’s written a couple of times to assure us she has “Jewish friends”, just as David Irving tells us on his website that he once employed a Jewish secretary!

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    “mentions of this adopted resolution were strangely absent from UK media, Telegraph, BBC.co.uk etc”
    ___________________

    Have a guess at how many Resolutions are adopted by the European Parliament at each of its sessions, Youknowmuname.

    And then tell us how many of those are commented on by the UK media (or the media of most other countries for that matter.

    Are you malevolent or simply a big chump?

  • Johnstone

    Mark G
    -Do you believe that the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a US/UK citizen on US/UK soil, and without trial?” – That question remains unanswered.-

    Yes, Obombers only stating the obvious, what is indeed immoral and implicit when the ‘war’ is against territorial-less ‘terror’. But why now?

  • giyane

    Hungbybollocks

    So what is your explanation for the 45 minutes Blair lie to parliament.

    An intrinsic advantage to world peace to render Iraq, then Libya, then Syria into rubble and chaos?

    Or, an economic fantasy gone horribly wrong so that it costs USUK multiple times the original outlay on bombs, personnel etc?

    Please can you explain how it is that UK parliamentary friends of Israel have no relevance to the buying, hook line and sinker of the opposite of what the UK population’s commonsense told
    them.

    The UK people do exist you know, in spite of your virtual Hasbara world.

  • nevermind

    “We had a fair vote, in 2011, the people voted overwhelmingly for FPTP voting. 68% to 32%.”

    You would not understand or know off a fair vote if it passes you by riding a sheep, Fred, how could you? having been conditioned by an unfair first past the post system all your life and having no experience of ever having had a fair vote.

    And before you say Italy, I say New Zealand Sweden, Germany, indeed most of the countries now have a proportional system, even India has a proportional STV system for its States, some 714 million voters.

    Firstly, Fred, it was not a choice, my central point, and there was no proportional system on offer, it was a take AV plus, or leave it question, with those who did not vote and those who voted NO to AV, being counted as in favour of FPTP.

    Why do you reckon are the English not being trusted to make a choice between more than one system?
    could it be that
    a) the MP rather like to manipulate the system as they have arranged it for decades, that they like what is called ‘safe seats’, an anathema in a real democracy, why should there be safe seats?
    b) AV is the worst possible option MP allow us to take, grudgingly.
    C) that the English are politically too inept to be trusted with a choice and that even the SNP would prefer this artificial unfair state of affairs.
    d) its all down to the City of London Corp. and the establishment.

    It is not original or surprising that you might want to call it a referendum, I prefer the word ultimatum.

  • giyane

    Johnstone

    Obama’s worldwide threat to ISIS is a smokescreen to divert attention from events unfolding near Israel, the long-planned expansion of Israeli territory into parts of Syria captured by so-called political Islam in exchange for a caliphate in the farther parts of Syria.

    Why would Obama dismantle what his own agent John McCain is creating, funding and noggin?

  • giyane

    Hungbyballs

    “There seem to be no penalties for those who employed him and failed to manage him.”

    No criminal penalties, prat. Financial penalties can always be written off against profits in other parts, like you write off your wasted troll-time on this blog against your years of patient silence pension.

  • Mary

    Keep up trolls plural. I would have said most of that Arison stuff before when the unfortunate shipwreck took place. I thought everyone knows who they are even the Z trolls here.

    I was not talking about civil suits for damages from survivors but International and state maritime legal penalties for the ship owners and employers of unprofessional crews. Other members of the Concordia crew were found to have been at fault. What a set up.

    Carnival/Costa have history.
    http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/02/14/the-eight-worst-cruise-ship-disasters

    http://www.businessinsider.com/carnival-disaster-timeline-in-photos-2013-3?op=1&IR=T

    and many more instances too numerous to list.

  • giyane

    Nevermind

    Who can listen to Hammond slagging off Putin for military force in a foreign country? Oh I forgot Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya all still belong to the UK.

    For the irony-challenged here- not.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Mary

    “I was not talking about civil suits for damages from survivors but International and state maritime legal penalties for the ship owners and employers of unprofessional crews. Other members of the Concordia crew were found to have been at fault. What a set up.”
    ______________

    It’s usually difficult to know what exactly you’re talking about. The word you used was “penalties”, no more and no less.

    As to your latest ‘(above) – make your mind up who you’re after: it was the owners and employers (is there a difference?), bow it seems to be other crew members as well.

    Anyway : why the emphasis,n in your previous post of the owners being Jewish? You didn’t even claim they were Zionists this time!

    Desist or this blog will start getting a name as a reputation for Jew-baiting.

1 … 31 32 33 34 35 … 47

Comments are closed.