Why Rupert Murdoch considers it worth his while to pay David Aaronovitch a large six figure sum for such puerile antics as tweeting that I am insane, is a conjecture I find difficult to resolve. Today this exchange occurred on twitter:
David Aaronovitch: This suggestion that if elected Corbyn could be quickly ousted is utter bollocks. Democracy allows Labour to commit Hara Kiri.
Mark Doran: @DAaronovitch I hope everyone is watching how these servants of the micro-elite try to paint “attracting popular support” as “committing suicide.”
Mark Doran: @DAaronovitch Craig finds the elite-serving contortions every bit as funny as I do
David Aaronovitch: @MarkJDoran I tend to find Craig Murray unpersuasive on the grounds of him being unhinged. I can see why you like him, though.
Mark Doran: Says the man who managed to find Bush and Blair credible. I can see why you liked them, though.
It is remarkably ironic that on being referred to an article which argues that views outside a very narrow neoliberal establishment narrative are marginalised and ridiculed by the media, the Murdoch hack’s response is that the author is unhinged. Aaronovitch could not have more neatly proved my point.
But something else struck me about the twitter record. Aaronovitch’ twitter account claims to have 78,000 followers. Yet of the 78,000 people who allegedly received his tweet about my insanity, only 1 retweeted and 2 favourited. That is an astonishingly low proportion – 1 in 26,000 reacted. To give context, Mark Doran has only 582 followers and yet had more retweets and favourites for his riposte. 1 in 146 to be precise, a 200 times greater response rate.
Please keep reading, I promise you this gets a great deal less boring.
Eighteen months ago I wrote an article about Aaronovitch’s confession that he solicits fake reviews of his books to boost their score on Amazon. In response a reader emailed me with an analysis of Aaronovitch’s twitter followers. He argued with the aid of graphs that the way they accrued indicated that they were not arising naturally, but being purchased in blocks. He claimed this was common practice in the Murdoch organisation to promote their hacks through false apparent popularity.
I studied his graphs at some length, and engaged in email correspondence on them. I concluded that the evidence was not absolutely conclusive, and in fairness to Aaronovitch I declined to publish, to the annoyance of my correspondent.
Naturally this came to mind again today when I noted that Aaronovitch’ tweets to his alleged legion of followers in fact tumble into a well of silence. I do not even tweet. The entire limit of my tweeting is that this blog automatically tweets the titles of articles I write. They are not aphorisms so not geared to retweet. Yet even the simple tweet “Going Mainstream” which marked the article Aaronovitch derided, obtained 20 times the reactions of Aaronovitch’s snappy denunciation of my mental health. This despite the fact he has apparently 10 times more followers than me. An initial survey seems to show this is not atypical.
In logic, I can only see two possible explanations. The first is that my correspondent was right and Aaronovitch fakes twitter followers like he does book reviews. The second is that he has a vast army of followers, nearly all of whom find him dull and uninspiring, and who heartily disapproved en masse of his slur on my sanity. I opt for the second explanation, that he is just extremely dull, on the grounds that Mr Aaronovitch’s honesty and probity were never questioned, m’Lud.
And…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-corbyn-welcomes-snp-pact-6206359
Duck and cover, fellow-retards….
“Just between us, I thought Saint Fred would see that post as the joke it was intended,”
My name is Fred, not St Fred. I don’t alter other people’s usernames kindly do not interfere with mine.
Personal abuse is never funny, bullying is never funny for the person being bullied it is just the bullier who finds it amusing.
Ted Heath was a paedophile. My neighbour is a retired copper who had a good friend in the force who saw documents pertaining to this. That friend was leaned on by MI5 not to spill the beans and is now dead.
Concrete proof, if it were needed, that Blair is Netanyahu’s patsy:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-pays-multiple-visits-to-home-of-top-producer-declines-to-comment/
Netanyahu privately met with Milchan in Herzliya on June 10, July 9 and July 28, according to Haaretz. On Sunday, Herzog and Blair were seen at Milchan’s home along with the prime minister.
The offices of both the prime minister and the opposition leader stated that the two attended a “private farewell event for Blair” organized by Milchan, and stressed that other guests had taken part in the event as well, Haaretz reported. However, security footage shot at Milchin’s home during the event did not show any additional guests entering the building, Haaretz claimed.
Very private, then.
In 2013, Arnon Milchan — whose films include Fight Club and Pretty Woman — told Israeli television that he for years had worked secretly as an arms dealer for the Israeli defense establishment.
“Just for Fred:”
Looks like the intimidation brigade are in full swing at the moment. Usually happens that way, one starts and the others join in.
It’s not intimidation, Fred. Stop being paranoid.
Is only discussion of Labour politicians such as Janner and Blair to be allowed on here?
Do not mention the late Sir Edward and certainly not the long term MP for Worthing. He has a lot of litigation ahead judging from the number of entries from a Google search on the subject.
“It’s not intimidation, Fred. Stop being paranoid.”
It’s intimidation.
Thanks for doing that Brian. I think of the flowers being carried on past the obscenities moored at Faslane.
Campaigners: ‘Those weapons at Faslane can deliver seven or eight Hiroshimas’
The National – 10 hours ago
FOR veteran anti-nuclear campaigners, the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima highlights how hard they have fought, and how far they still have to go.
Yesterday activists in Edinburgh and Glasgow began a three-day fast to commemorate the anniversary of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ellen Moxley, a member of the “Trident Three” acquitted for damaging a nuclear submarine at Faslane in 1999, is among those taking part
http://www.thenational.scot/news/campaigners-those-weapons-at-faslane-can-deliver-seven-or-eight-hiroshimas.6098
A friend of mine in America wrote this. He has a Japanese wife.
Hiroshima Spring
By Gary Corseri
30 July, 2015
[Author’s Note: UNESCO declared 1979 “The International Year of the Child.” Fatefully, I found myself in Hiroshima that spring, surrounded by ghosts…. On the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of civilians in a prostrate, defeated Japan—the greatest act of “terrorism” in history, not to end a war, as has been told, but to establish imperial hegemony– let us look around our world today and consider– to what end?]
“… how beset we were with what… we had been taught….”
–Kenneth Patchen.
A poem for voices, shakuhachi and koto….
(Sound of shakuhachi, as though the instrument itself is breathing–)
http://www.countercurrents.org/corseri300715.htm
PS The mood of the work and the layout is spoilt by the insertion of a great big appeal for donations for the website.
Ted Heath was a paedophile. My neighbour is a retired copper who had a good friend in the force who saw documents pertaining to this. That friend was leaned on by MI5 not to spill the beans and is now dead.
Fine, I don’t doubt you. I don’t doubt your neighbour. And I don’t doubt your neighbour’s friend. I have no basis for doing so, as I cannot check what any of you said or saw. (And it’s anecdotal, at three removes, and it isn’t specific to any indictable offence. A court of law would rightly reject it.)
That said, it is not impossible that any one of you three have your own reasons for embroidering, misremembering or simply making up the allegation. The documents may have referred to a false allegation…or not, sure*. And, since MI5 aren’t known for advertising their presence, was it MI5 doing the leaning? What did the guy die of, and have you any reason for thinking there’s a connection?
Now you hate me. But I’m merely questioning your story in exactly the same way as the trial-by-public-opinion supporters question the expressions of innocence of alleged paedophiles. Fair’s fair, no?
*Maybe it was this story.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3186719/Police-probing-links-Ted-Heath-Jimmy-Savile-paedophile-ice-cream-mogul-known-King-Cornet.html
Complete with damning picture of Heath on official visit to Scarborough, actually talking to the (not known at the time to be a paedophile) mayor of Scarborough. Also damning picture of Ted appearing in public on Jim’ll Fix It, like any celeb of the time looking for, god save us, street cred. The Mail definitely needs us to believe this.
‘He later told us that Ted Heath was an abuser but that he didn’t know who he was at the time. He said it was a year after the abuse took place that he was watching TV and recognised him.’
A year? Heath was absolutely unmistakeable. He was PM from 1970-1974, and never off the TV news, even after that. However, note, the date isn’t specified.
It’s intimidation.…and if you don’t stop saying it isn’t I’ll tell you to FOAD,R, eh?
“A year? Heath was absolutely unmistakeable. He was PM from 1970-1974, and never off the TV news”
That’s no surprise. When surveys are conducted where UK adults (never mind 14-year olds) are asked to put the names to pictures of senior politicians, the results are invariably tragi-comic.
MJ
10:51am
I could probably put names to faces of most of Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet Ministers. I probably couldn’t do the same for more than about half a dozen of the current Cabinet, and the Shadow Cabinet? Forget it.
Perhaps that is because I don’t watch Question Time any more, but quite frankly I think it’s largely because they are all clones, grey, uninteresting and devoid of personality or originality. I am just not interested enough to retain the information.
Kind regards,
John
John: I know what you mean. Oh for the days of Healey and Benn, Heseltine and Hurd. Big hitters who could hold an argument. Todays lot seem to have inadvertently stumbled into Westminster from the prestigious fast-track junior management training programme at Dixons.
When surveys are conducted where UK adults (never mind 14-year olds) are asked to put the names to pictures of senior politicians, the results are invariably tragi-comic.
You have stats to support that? Oh, never mind…
MJ has now conclusively proved that Heath fucked little boys and threw them off his boat. Well done, MJ.
Arguing with this is, I realise, quite futile. Believing the worst of someone you know very little about on the basis of something you heard from someone else, is now the default position…and in the next breath you defend “big hitters who could hold an argument”
I disliked Heath and Tebbitt about equally, while having some respect for both, for different reasons. Tebbitt cordially disliked Heath, and says so here. I agree with him 100% on the rest of what he says:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11788129/I-didnt-like-Sir-Edward-Heath-but-these-wild-claims-are-a-travesty-of-justice.html
There are, his accusers declare, questions to be answered. Indeed there are, but Ted Heath is unable to answer them, while his accusers have free rein to canvas throughout the media for victims to come forward to denigrate him.
You’d think paedophilia was an evil confined to celebrities, wouldn’t you? If I were of the tinfoil hat persuasion, I would wonder if the current pumped-up ruckus isn’t a distraction from something more sinister. Like TTIP, fr’ instance? Or the general incidence of paedophilia in the population at large? Or even the exploitation of young girls in some urban centres by some members of ethnic communities – well documented, and widespread, but politically extremely sensitive.
“MJ has now conclusively proved that Heath fucked little boys and threw them off his boat”
Don’t be so silly. I’ve merely pointed out that public ignorance of national figures is rife. Get over it.
I’m over it, sunshine. You appreciation of sarcasm needs a little work, however. And you have such intimate knowledge of the people in public life that you can smear them at will. Well done you.
Note for any rational lefties still listening: this issue illustrates exactly what gave rise to McCarthy. The point where reasonable concern about a public wrong crosses into a witch-hunt has been passed.
Lord Janner did not attend court this morning for his hearing, but the magistrate has ordered that he should appear.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33814819
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11789363/Lord-Janner-fails-to-appear-in-court-to-face-child-abuse-charges.html
Giving evidence for the defence was Dr James Warner:
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.warner
I would be surprised if Dr Warner were not a witness of unimpeachable integrity. However, I would question the following:
“Andrew Smith QC, defending, called two medical witnesses to give evidence that Lord Janner would suffer “catastrophic distress” if he was made to attend court.”
I think that is probably a bit more than the truth. If he is treated in a proper manner it strikes me as very doubtful that he would suffer “catastrophic” distress, although I do not know him and can only go by my general experience.
Kind regards,
John
Heath
“‘Eleven boys went on Edward Heath’s yacht but I counted only 10 who left his boat’ claims mum”>”
“Linda Corby said she watched 11 boys aged six to 11 from Jersey’s notorious Haut de la Garenne home board the former PM’s yacht in the island’s capital St Helier.”
“A few hours later she counted only 10 as they left the Tory leader’s boat.”
“Describing what she saw in the early 1970s, Linda, 62, said: “I was with Jersey senator Ralph Vibert who has since died.”
““He said he had been warned about children going on Heath’s yacht, Morning Cloud, and some not coming back. We watched as a group of boys from the home got on. They were in shorts and T-shirts and looked as if they were on a day trip.””
And Heath was involved in sailing circles in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, an island he visited a lot, attending Cowes Week and taking part in the Round the Island race.
Investigators should take a very very close look at the Bottomleys.
Older readers may remember what it means for a policeman to “do a Challenor“.
Do a Challenor. Do a Saunders/Pinochet. And now Janner will try to do a Moran.
Notice that the medical profession so far has kept itself insulated…
N_
07/08/2015 12:52pm
I wish I could say otherwise, but this story does not strike me as probable. It is too convenient that the only other alleged witness to it is dead. It would be pretty difficult to count 11 boys on to a boat and 10 off it again and be sure you hadn’t made a mistake. And unless, say, one boy was killed by accident or something, it seems improbable that a party of 11 boys would be allowed on to a boat and only one disposed of and the rest returned safely. What on earth purpose would that serve? It would be much safer and less risky to do it one at a time.
Kind regards,
John
Ba’al
“Or even the exploitation of young girls in some urban centres by some members of ethnic communities – well documented, and widespread, but politically extremely sensitive.”
The same community that supports Islamic State, where every female between 12 and 45 has had their genitals mutilated on the pretext of a “Sunnah” of ‘ female circumcision ‘ which does not actually exist in Islam.
The malice of this ethnic community is not directed only against the British for past atrocities against their female population, but also against the Syrian and Kurdish populations who have done never done anything against them apart from the fact that Chavy Dave is paying them to go and populate Islamic State and Saudi and Qatar are paying them for killing Muslims too.
Somehow the penny doesn’t drop that the British have divided the Muslims throughout the colonial period and they are doing the same now with Islamic State. Why doesn’t this ethnic group just look at the money on offer by Chavy Dave for going to fight and dispossess Muslims in Syria with Daesh and say . ” No thanks, we are not going to fight against our Muslim brothers and sisters for you, thank you very much Chavy Dave?”
Obviously they had got a green light from the police for exploiting UK teenagers, same as they have a green light for attacking Muslims in Syria. Green lights are not just for MPs.
Or as the airport spook put it to me yesterday. In these places, ( Syria in a war zone ) nobody knows what’s going on anyway.
The British establishment attitude is always the same: Don’t worry: We’ll cover your backs and hide the dirty, disgusting things you’re doing from nosey parkers who care about justice.’ MPs are supposed to look after our interests and Muslims are supposed to look after other Muslims. UK plc stinks.
Hiroshima radiation, Anthropocene, Bonobo noises, Physicist Henry Moseley
BBC Inside Science
In the 70 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what are the long term effects of exposure to radiation? Adam Rutherford talks to Professor Richard Wakeford who has been studying radiation for many years about his research following the nuclear bombings as well as nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Marnie Chesterton talks to one of the short-listed entries for the Royal Society Winton book prize, Gaia Vince for her book, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet we Made. Other short-listed entries are:
*The Man Who Couldn’t Stop by David Adam – a scientific and personal memoir of a life with OCD.
*Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe Mcfadden and Jim Al-Khalili
*Alex Through the Looking-Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life by Alex Bellos
*Smashing Physics by Jon Butterworth – an insider’s account of the discovery of the Higgs boson
*Life’s Greatest Secret: The Story of the Race to Crack the Genetic Code by Matthew Cobb
Also, Adam talks to Zanna Clay about research into our closest relatives, the bonobos and the unique ‘peep’ noises they make and why they could provide clues to the evolution of human language. Roland Pease reports on one of Britain’s great yet little known physicists, Henry Moseley. He died in the First World War but in just 18 months of research transformed ideas about X-rays and the atom and the Periodic Table of elements.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b064mjp9#play
30 mins
6 August 2015
“I wish I could say otherwise, but this story does not strike me as probable”
No worries. Just let the police investigation take its course. It will focus on the evidence only.
The presenter of the programme Inside Science
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Rutherford
Prof Wakeford plays down the risks from Fukushima. The marine food chain? Not mentioned.
Prof Richard Wakeford, Visiting Professor at Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester and contributor to the WHO report, said:
“The release of radioactive materials into the environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident was substantial; but based on measurement data, the radiation doses received by the surrounding population are small, even for the most exposed communities.
“These doses produce an extra risk of cancer over a lifetime of about 1% at most, in addition to background lifetime cancer risks from all other causes of, on average, 40% for men and 29% for women. The extra cancer risk is much lower than this outside the most exposed communities. Radiation exposure from the Fukushima accident has had only a small impact on the overall health of the nearby population, and much less outside the most affected areas.”
WHO Fukushima health risk report:
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/fukushima_report/en/index.html
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-the-who-fukushima-health-risk-report/
The Met Chief has questioned the decision by Wiltshire force to name Sir Edward Heath as a suspected paedophile while still investigating unproven allegations against him.
“Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said he favoured providing suspects with anonymity until they were charged with an offence…”
“His comments came AFTER a minister [UNNAMED] described the police investigation into the former prime minister as a reactionary witch hunt…”
“The decision by [the UNNAMED] senior minister to speak out is unusual…”
Note “senior minister]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11788936/Heath-should-not-have-been-named-as-suspect-says-Met-police-chief.html
AND:
“Britain’s top police officer today dismissed claims that the investigation prompted by the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal has turned into a witch-hunt.”
Sir Bernard said accusations made to Operation Yewtree could not be ignored. He said: “I don’t think it’s a witch-hunt at all, we’re just going where the evidence takes us and victims are making allegations.
“The alternative is to ignore them, and if you look at Yewtree the broad allegation is that they have been ignored for 20, 30 years.”
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/jimmy-savile-abuse-investigation-is-not-a-witchhunt-says-met-chief-hoganhowe-8759612.html
@John
“It is too convenient that the only other alleged witness to it is dead.”
The event happened more than 40 years ago and the other alleged witness was born in 1911 and was therefore in his late 50s or early 60s at the time, so it’s not surprising that he’s dead and therefore unable to corroborate. He died in 2008 aged 97 (Aficionados please note: once worked for the SOE!)
“It would be pretty difficult to count 11 boys on to a boat and 10 off it again and be sure you hadn’t made a mistake.”
I disagree. Usually people walk in single file on gangways. It’s an excellent time to count people.
“And unless, say, one boy was killed by accident or something, it seems improbable that a party of 11 boys would be allowed on to a boat and only one disposed of and the rest returned safely. What on earth purpose would that serve? It would be much safer and less risky to do it one at a time.
I think you are naive about the depths of some people’s depravity.
Linda Corby has a website and it seems to me that she is speaking from the heart and not at all trying to put a spin on things or tell lies.
Here is what she says, in her own words:
“As I reported to the Police back in the 1970’s seeing 11 children go out from Jersey on the Morning Cloud with Ted Heath, Jimmy Saville and a Jersey States Senator at the time, I was with another Jersey States member Senator Ralph Vibert, he told me later that day that only ten boys came back and I went to the Police with him to report this and ask for the matter to be investigated. Nothing was done Senator Ralph Vibert told me that nothing was being done and we could not take things further on instructions from above, I know the Police man who wanted to investigate stopped doing so being in fear of repercussions. Disgusting but true. I do not for a moment that the truth will ever come out now as there is still a continual cover up in the island and anything dirty will be swept up and shoved under the carpet. I speak openly about this as I will not be party to it,the abused deserve better, end of.
I hate it when people have said to me in Jersey that they are fed up of hearing about those who have not had justice that have been abused in the island, like a lot of the general publish in the island also wish to brush everything under the carpet, this in my opinion is because they have been brainwashed by the continual whitewash reporting by the islands main media who have in the past continually been party to the cover up that continues to go on in the island.
It would be wonderful if everyone stopped being afraid of their own shadows and told the truth about the things they know about, the Jersey way has to stop, there are plenty of others who saw what I saw, just wish they would come forward and help put wrongs to rights, that is the only way the island can clear its name. Come forward and be clean stop the lies and cover up.
Jersey people need to stop allowing themselves to be part of a culture of fear!
I hope the new inquiry will not be another whitewash! We will see?”
It’s very interesting that the Mirror did not report that she says Jimmy Savile and a Jersey States Senator were also on the yacht with the boys and Edward Heath.
“I don’t think it’s a witch-hunt at all, we’re just going where the evidence takes us and victims are making allegations.
“The alternative is to ignore them, and if you look at Yewtree the broad allegation is that they have been ignored for 20, 30 years”
Well said Sir Bernard. I like this guy already.