The Lord President of Scotland’s judges, Lord Gill, has made a complete fool of himself by leading British judges in a walk-out from the Commonwealth Law Conference. The action is in protest against Julian Assange’s participation by video-link in a panel discussion on surveillance and the role of the security services.
The walk-out happened after Julian’s talk, not before it, which rather gives the impression that what Lord Gill and his fellow judges objected to was the content of Assange’s talk, rather than the fact of it. Assange stated among other points that nationalists were right to believe that MI5 were active against them in the referendum campaign.
The Assange talk proved extremely popular with lawyers and judges from all over the Commonwealth. In fact it had to be shifted to a larger room to accommodate them all. So it seems Lord Gill’s disinterest in the concept of freedom of speech is not widely shared in the Commonwealth.
What Gill and his Scottish and English colleagues could have done – and I presume actually did – was to boycott the Assange panel and simply attend other panels on at the same time. What they have now done is to boycott all the panels happening after the Assange talk is gone, at some of which some of the boycotters were due to be talking or chairing, as an attempt to mess up the conference as some childish kind of spiteful revenge.
The members of the English Supreme Court who took part in this action have demonstrated their extreme prejudice against Assange – who has exercised his right in law to claim political asylum and who has never been charged with anything.
Julian has today told me that he is concerned that their action is also prejudicial to the cases currently before the Swedish Supreme Court and the UN Committee on Arbitrary Detention. Quite why the English and Scottish judges were moved to this peculiar display of prejudice is not immediately clear; I suspect they were pushed. Lord Gill is an interesting example of the self-made lackey. If you always promote the interests of the Establishment, even a man of talent but humble origins can get to the top, provided he is an entirely unscrupulous character.
STOP PRESS
In an effort to make Lord Gill and the judges look less like asses, it is being assiduously put about that they did not know Julian was going to speak before his appearance, and he unexpectedly appeared at the session. That this is a blatant lie is easily proved. Julian’s appearance was at short notice – a week. His name was in the conference programme, and the event was announced in the Scottish Legal press the day before it happened. Everyone at the conference knew Assange was appearing, that is why the room had to be changed for a larger one.
That our judges are not just asses but lying asses ought to be the source of some concern. Where is Lallands Peat Worrier when you need him?
Palestinian Prisoners Day, marked on April 17, commemorates the first liberation of a Palestinian political prisoner – Mahmoud Hijazi – by an exchange conducted by the Palestinian resistance. Since 1974, Palestinians and their supporters have taken action, marched, demonstrated and have come together to demand freedom for all of the Palestinian prisoners held in the prisons of the Israeli occupation on this annual occasion. Take action this year to demand freedom and justice for the prisoners of freedom behind Israeli bars.
Today, there are nearly 6,500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails; 500 of them held under administrative detention without charge or trial. There are 200 child prisoners, 24 women prisoners, and 14 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council behind bars. There are 85 prisoners, released in the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange of 2011, targeted for re-arrest and persecution by the Israeli occupation. There are 1500 sick prisoners, including 16 severely ill in the Ramle prison clinic, 24 with cancer, and 80 with other severe illnesses.
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http://samidoun.ca/
My point was that, if it’s wrong, because they happen to be Jews, to criticize certain Jews like Netanyahu, it would presumably also be wrong to criticize certain other Jews that I trust no one would defend (although some were doing so yesterday). QED, there’s nothing wrong with criticizing Netanyahu, even if he is a Jew. Obviously, to make my point, I was obliged to name those other Jews.
Mr Goss (to Villager)
“Meanwhile on a separate topic I know you will share my sadness at the abuse of Palestinian children arrested by Iraeli’s often from their beds in the middle of the night.”
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I wonder (again – I must really stop wondering lest I turn into a UK version of Lysias!) whether Mr Goss feels any sadness about the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted over a year ago by the gentlemen of Boko Haram; or about the young university students massacred in Kenya the other day by the gentlemen of Al-Shabah; or even about the young children abused and brutalised by paedophile rings in the UK.
When in a hole, Lysias…..well, you know the rest of the phrase, I’m sure.
I think the person who said that someone who criticizes Netanyahu is the one who is bringing up “Jews” is the one who’s in the hole.
Surprise. Surprise.
Operation Elveden: Andy Coulson and eight other cases dropped by DPP
No evidence will be offered in case of nine journalists, including former editor of News of the World, facing trial over leaks from public officials
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/17/operation-elveden-andy-coulson-cases-dropped-dpp
There’s a whole lot of ‘dropping’ going on by Ms Saunders.
Lord Gill, by all the diversions thrown into the ring, the fingers pointed into dinghy alleys to divert, has missed an opportunity to educate himself, after pompously declaring that he will attend.
To then pompously walk out due to the lack of Chablis noblesse oblige is poor show, no bloody willpower.
I suppose a jolly in Glasgow must have cuddled their fancies somehow, was there some single Malt competition somewhere next to the Convention?.
“Meanwhile, your apology is noted but, given your intellectual laziness,”
Well aren’t you an ungrateful ignoramus. I bend over backwards to try and build a bridge with one of the most disagreeable of the trolls and that’s what I get.
Don’t do to much “thinking”, old boy. Why not just regale us with another story – eg, about when your time advising the National Security Council. Or when you were in the running to become Master of the Oxford college you attended (allegedly).
Mr Goss
“I bend over backwards..”
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Shouldn’t that have read “I bend over forwards” – you know, so Putin’s boys can stuff you with their propaganda more easily?
Just checking that SuperBritPatriot Fred is still being paid to troll the blog.
How much are you being paid?
Toytown Idiot and friend of Noddy. As you have resorted to insult I will take your verse apart.
“The key that Shelley does not give to you:
No cultural interlude will create a mind that’s new.
Quote, quote, quote; that’s all ye can do
The second-hand human being reveals no truth.”
There is no sense of rhythm, rhyme or metre. There are nine syllables in the first line and a whopping fourteen in the next, eight in the next an twelve in the last. The stress is all over the place. The metre should be flowing, mellifluous, not harsh and jarring. The punctuation separating the penultimate line from the last is a nonsense as is the verse itself. A six-year old could do ten times better (we call that hyperbole).
Still you made an effort. Please don’t make any more.
Doubt you can play a musical instrument either.
Mr Goss is a right Fred Leavis, isn’t he…. 🙂
Or perhaps Queenie?
“There are nine syllables in the first line”
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I wonder if our transatlantic commenter would care to critique the poem from a classical Athenian standpoint?
Juteman
“Just checking that SuperBritPatriot Fred is still being paid to troll the blog.
How much are you being paid?”
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This is the second time in as many days that you’ve attempted to provoke Fred.
It didn’t work last time and I hope it doesn’t work now.
Are you really so stupid that you can fund nothing more intelligent to post about?
Sawdustman, not Juteman.
The amount of this mindless trolling is ridiculous. He does not seem to appreciate that the commenters are not intimidated.
“The amount of this mindless trolling is ridiculous.”
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I agree, Mary. Will you join me in telling Juteman to cease his provocations?
“Just checking that SuperBritPatriot Fred is still being paid to troll the blog.
How much are you being paid?”
Fuck off and die SNP blackshirt retard.
Fucking cunt. Fuck off cretin just fuck off and die.
Should we really be putting up with Fred’s disgusting language,if everyone stooped to Fred’s filthy profanity retorts, this blog would,need an 18 Certificate.
It’s becoming embarrassing now.
John Goss, the problem, I should say a problem (there are many), with people like you and Whimpering Mary is that you have no sense of humour and are unable to lighten up, leave alone even pointing your compass to enlighten.
Now do you take that accusation of ‘intellectual laziness’ as an insult? If so, however have you survived here?
We are in a debate re Assange having said that he has info that 90% of MP’s have stashed it away abroad in illegal bank accounts. That if he was arrested, he will throw all his bit coins out of the pram and reveal all. You try to bring in 4-yr old news to give that credence. Unwittingly, par for your course, you thereby paint Assange to be a childish blackmailer. Are you going to respond to my earlier set of questions around your lazy remarks or shall we assume you are throwing in the towel?
PS Why do you find me so disagreeable? Genuine question. Is it that I put your apology on hold while encouraging you to reflect? Assange made no allegation of a number of MP’s holding illegal accounts. The Guardian made no such ‘hint’ not then, not now. Admit it.
Republicofscotland
Blame Juteman. That’s the second time he’s dragged Fred’s name in, in an effort to get exactly the response he got at 7.07pm.
Lord Janner, the Labour peer who escaped charges over alleged child sex abuse because he suffers from dementia had in the past criticised the justice system for excusing a suspected Nazi war criminal for the same reason.
Greville Janner has criticised the Old Bailey jury system for allowing an 86-year-old man to escape being questioned in 1997 over Nazi atrocities that had taken place in 1941 and 1942…
…Lord Janner, a former Leicester MP and chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust had said: “I am sorry that he was not tried while he was fit enough to stand. War criminals have managed to evade prosecution under our system of justice for decades.
“There were absolutely no reasons why he should have escaped charges for ever.”
“I don’t care what bloody age they are,” he said in 2012, according to The Jewish Chronicle. “These criminals should have been dealt with years ago.”
ROS you should counsel Jutebag, shouldn’t you? He appears to be one of yours and I don’t mean that in any derogatory way. But if Jutebag can pop in here with the sole objective of provocation, surely someone like he could be spraying political parties’ doors?
Noddy, thanks for the correction. You’re learning to count at last. 🙂
A Japanes haiku has 17 syllables, the first line 5, the second line 7 and the third 5. While I do not think it works well to English ears, and is a contrived form, I do like John Cooper Clarke’s
To write a poem
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffic . . .
🙂
Is this another occasion for a boycottboycottboycott – no need to listen to their stupidships again ever about anything?
How long will it take for Janner to recover from his dementia, maybe satanically shafting a few pre-pubesence children might be the correct kabbala cure?
Talk about the captain staying aboard his ship, Mary taking flack from the misogynist ziophile Handbagbuster as she goes into her horrible iodine 303 cure.
Blame Juteman. That’s the second time he’s dragged Fred’s name in, in an effort to get exactly the response he got at 7.07pm.
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That may well be the case Dreolin,but there’s definitely no need for Fred to reply,using such foul language.
They’re are many followers of Craig, who only read the articles,and comments,I’m pretty sure such vile language will only turn them away,from the blog.
Fred’s an adult he can either ignore the taunts,as I sometimes do, or like me reply using sarcasm,not profanity in the extreme.
Do you agree Dreolin?
ROS you should counsel Jutebag, shouldn’t you? He appears to be one of yours and I don’t mean that in any derogatory way. But if Jutebag can pop in here with the sole objective of provocation, surely someone like he could be spraying political parties’ doors?
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I’ll take no consul from you Villager,I’ve read some of your comments,of course if a poster is trying to get a rise out of you, you can use ripostes,witty or not to defend your positions.
You can ignore them as well,so really there’s no need to go off on one,using vile words.
Do you agree?
RoS
The good people of Leicester who recently gave so much praise to Richard III double child-murderer – because he was a royal – might make asylum space for Janner in their cathedral?