Over 30,000 people within two days had signed an old languishing petition against the Tory bias of Laura Kuenssberg. They were motivated by outrage at the undisguised bias of her election night coverage, though that bias had already been evident daily.
For 35,000 people to be outraged enough to seek out and sign an online petition, millions must have felt that outrage. But the real furore started after 38 Degrees cancelled the petition due to “sexist abuse”. Unfortunately for them, they were forced to admit there was virtually no sexist abuse from the 35,000 people who had signed the petition. They next claimed the sexist abuse was on unrelated social media, but refused point blank to present any evidence of it. Then an extraordinary group started to coalesce in defence of Kuenssberg – Laura Bates, Yvette Cooper, Jess Phillips etc – all of them denouncing this widespread sexist abuse. Not one of these people produced a single shred of evidence of the existence of this sexist abuse.
Probably some abuse is there. I am a much, much less well known figure than Kuenssberg, but since I started writing on this topic I have been the subject of numerous extremely unpleasant tweets and facebook messages. Please note the same epithet applied to Kuenssberg would undoubtedly be claimed as misogynist abuse:
I have cropped this to protect the identity of the sender, but I assure you it is perfectly real and not at all unusual. (This is actually sexist on my part as if it were a man I would not have cropped it. I can only ask you to forgive me, I am old). I am sure Kuenssberg, being vastly more famous, gets more abuse than I do. But the fact either of us receives abuse does not mean we are above criticism. The young woman tweeting above being unpleasant is not evidence I am right about anything. Still less does it mean criticism of me should be suppressed.
To say that abusers “hijacked” the petition criticising Kuenssberg for her terrible biased journalism, is like saying your car is hijacked by an insect landing on it.
But the extremely cheerful news is that the furore caused by 38 Degrees removing the petition has meant that tens of millions more people have heard of the petition, than if it had gone ahead. David Cameron standing up in the House of Commons saying Kuenssberg is not biased in itself will have made a million people realise that she is. Laura Kuenssberg, meet Barbra Streisand. The “Streisand Effect”, named after the actress’ attempt to suppress photos of her mansion, is the internet phenomenon whereby attempts to suppress information lead to far more people knowing it.
In this case, that is really important. Because what has struck me the last few days is the number of people who are saying “Wow, I thought she was pretty biased, but I thought it was just me.” No, it wasn’t just you. She really is the most appalling Tory shill. And now tens of millions more people are alert to it.
The Establishment, by its attempt to invent a “Misogynist campaign” and link it to Jeremy Corbyn, has just shot itself squarely in the foot.
You might enjoy this interesting word analysis of the comments of the 38 Degrees petition. The comments themselves can still be found from here. It should be understood that 35,000 people signed, but the large majority only sign and do not leave comments.
![count [607052]](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/count-607052-1024x512.png)
The two major points of contention that Craig Murray, largely highlighted, within the last two weeks, by defending those from outrageous propaganda attack, are now all over the blogosphere, and some of the mainstream press. Extremely large numbers of people, are both writing and reading about it.
Craig using detailed analysis, to unearth evidence, rather than opinion, simply presented his findings on his own blog.
This seems to have had a remarkable – even worldwide effect. The simple truths are quite obvious to see, possibly even to those who repeatedly are shooting themselves in the foot (though we can’t really be sure about that).
The can of worms, has been open for a considerable time, but now the worms are wriggling, because someone kicked the can. Even if those still asleep, can’t see the contents, they most definitely are aware of the smell.
Well done Craig Murray.
Change is coming.
It will probably still be horrible, but at least there is a chink of light, as more people gain the courage to stand up for what is right.
Tony
‘Change’ IS coming Tony. Ask the Syrians, Iraqis, or Gazans what it looks like. The idea that the neo-liberal, end-stage capitalist system CAN be reformed, peacefully, from within, is madness. The Right HATE other people. For further evidence of the way-stations to the final solution, look at Latvia, Greece or Ukraine.
On last night’s edition of Question Time from Aberdeen David Dimbleby gave exactly 9 minutes talking time to right wing journalist Merryn Somerset – Webb and 7 minutes exactly to Tory MP David Mundell.
In contrast SNP MSP Humza Yousaf got only 5 minutes 36 seconds and Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale fared little better with 5 minutes 45 seconds. Humza also received more interruptions from Dimbleby than any other panellist.
So the Nationalist grievance monkeys were sitting with their stop watches hoping for something to moan about.
The SNP had two spokesmen on the panel, they had Jim Sillars as well and making a better job of it than Humza Yousaf.
Jim Sillars was not representing the SNP. It’s many years since he was an SNP parliamentarian or party office holder. Anyway Jim also clearly was given less time than Ms Somerset-Webb but he didn’t need it since he was the best panellist.
And the SNP poster boy let slip that the SNP are republican but agreed to keep the monarchy for the sake of independence.
Cameron let slip that the Queen purred down the phone when she’s supposed to be apolitical.
Well, I didn’t listen to the programme but the following thought does occur – which might throw a little cold water over what you say.
While not being sure what exactly you mean by sayiing that Dimbleby “gave” so much time to various speakers, it is not at least possible that Ms Somerset-Webb and Mr Mundell were simply more loquacious than Mr Yousaf and Ms Dugdale? That they simply had more to say or took longer to say it?
And is it not possible that one speaker is interrupted more frequently than another one because he is saying things that the question master feels need clarification or explanation for the purpose of getting the panellist to be clearer in the interest of audience understanding?
If you’ll forgive me for saying so, I do feel that you are scratching the bottom of the barrel in your eagerness to present supplementary “proof” for the claim of consistent BBC “bias”.
Dimbleby eagerly interrupted Humza Yousaf just a few seconds into Humza’s first contribution. That is something he rarely does with Labour, Tory etc politicians who usually get to speak without interruption for their first contribution but he does regularly with SNP guests.
He was talking bollocks. He claimed that the Labour party did badly in the election because they joined with the Conservatives in the independence campaign. Dimbleby just pointed out that the Conservative vote went up, fair comment I would have thought.
Panellists that didn’t that didn’t say silly things didn’t get interrupted.
The Labour Party’s closeness to the Tories in the Better Together campaign didn’t go down well with many Labour voters who are now former Labour voters. Labour told the people of Scotland that the Scottish NHS was safe if we stayed in the UK because the Tories had no health privatisation plans.
The Tories increased their vote in Scotland to the still quite underwhelming 22% by whipping up unionist feeling among hardcore No voters. That’s why in the campaign Ruth Davidson kept on almost to the point of mania about opposing a second indyref. Many Labour hardcore No voters switched to the Tories as a consequence.
The Tories appeal is unlikely to spread much further among soft No voters who oppose austerity and Trident and who want proper extra powers for Holyrood instead of the con trick that was the Smith Commission.
“Panellists that didn’t that didn’t say silly things didn’t get interrupted”
___________________
Exactly one of my points.
********************************
And to Radio Shortbread I would say this:
The Queen is apolitical with respect to her public utterances but she is allowed her personal political opinions and to express them in private. It is not her fault if Cameron referred to them in public.
I see an e-petition on shoes has reached 100,000 in under two days.
Just shows how pointless these virtue signalling click-fests really are.
shoes = virtue signalling for anon1. Thank you for making your state of mind absolutely clear to us all.
I’m sure you soon get support for your virtuous shoe petition.
“virtue signalling” ? You mean like claiming that calling an unfit person to be removed a position of influence is “immoral” ? !!
Do you really believe that Mrs Kuenssberg is “influential”?
I should say that “Newsnight” is minority viewing and that that minority is the least likely to be “influenced” since it is probably more sophisticated than the broad majority of BBC TV viewers.
(Word of advice : if that’s the best you can come up with after your long and welcome absence from these pages, I would advise a renewed long period of silence on your part. Have a nice weekend, Macky)
Most people in the UK still get their news from the BBC, so let Richard Seymour explain it to you;
“The BBC’s political editors speak with the voice of authority: the authority of the Corporation. When they editorialise, they declare ‘the facts’, and there is no opposition.”
Macky, can you read?
Mrs Kuenssberg is in charge of Newsnight, which is minority viewing. That minority is the least likely to be “influenced” since it is probably more sophisticated than the broad majority of BBC TV viewers.
Your comment that “most people in the UK still get their news from the BBC” is debatable and in any event irrelevant to what I wrote.
*******************
(Further advice to Macky : read comments carefully before responding. Then think before responding.)
Macky, ‘virtue-signalling’ is a new Rightwing hate-trope for those morally superior to them. The Murdoch cancer uses many such here, like ‘moral vanity’ ie not being a Rightwing misanthrope, ‘do-gooder’, ie the ultimate crime, doing good, ‘nanny-state’ ie a Government that cares about its citizens rather than just the deserving rich etc.
Anon1.
Yes but shoes are far more important, if you can’t afford a good comfy pair, you’re said to be on your “uppers” any poor “sole” knows that. Now there’s a good lad don’t criticise petitions about shoes, or you’ll need to be on your “toes” as some folk will think you a “heel” and give you a “tongue” lashing . ?
As long as they’re not wearing lace underwear.
The Board of Deputies of British Shoes should get on to this. Though I’m beginning to lose faith in them: I saw BrianFujisan’s comment here, a week or so ago, about the British Library blocking access to the internationally-famous Jew, Norman Finkelstein.
Why has there been no outcry about this blatant piece of anti-semitism? Although he is Jewish and has lost family to the Holocaust, and with his parents having been in Nazi concentration camps, he surely qualifies. Could it be simply because he is not a Zionist?
Esclavo, the hatred for ‘self-hating Jews’, ie decent Jews who put their humanity first, before their tribal loyalty, is millennial. Just look how they treated Spinoza, Vanunu, even Rabin.
Why denigrate shoes? Have you know sole? You heel! You’re forever toe-ing that line, are you so callused?
I did sign. And I did briefly consider the sacking issue first. Then concluded that the petition might register an opinion in a public space – good – but could not realistically lead to anyones’ getting sacked, as that is not the way things work. If the petition had been taken seriously, there would have been an investiogation by her employer, which is charter-bound to uphold impartiality. And then, (and most improbably), if she’d been found in breach of the charter, she’d have been reprimanded, transferred, whatever. Most likely told to cool it a bit. And this would have been entirely her own fault, not that of anyone pointing out her partiality.
I compounded this with the known impossibility of a lone voice’s making any difference at all to BBC policy unless it has political or media clout. And I don’t. So I signed.
o/t, apologies
“State of Emergency
The governments of Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland have already declared states of emergency, and massive crop losses have caused food prices to explode in South Africa. Particularly hard stricken are the countries in the southern part of the continent as well as around the Horn of Africa, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and especially Ethiopia”.
Africa is suffering badly, not just from our shut door policy towards refugees, but from reoccurring droughts. These are the consequences of man made global warming and el Nino. I blame the largest fossil fuel producers, oil gas and coal traders for their carry on attitude. They are partly responsible for millions of people who suffer.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/drought-threatens-50-million-people-in-africa-a-1091684.html
Flash floods in Ethiopia yesterday. Same cause, different symptoms. Exceptional rains elsewhere, too.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-drought-floods-idUSKCN0Y22DH
nevermind,
The climate has always changed, and it always will.
Different parts of Africa have always been subjected to periods of both floods and drought.
Deserts change their positions.
If you think the human race can do anything to stabilse the climate, so that it doesn’t change, then you have far more faith in human capabilities than I have.
I accept that we are needlessly trashing and polluting the planet, and we should change our behaviour, but if we stop using the energy we have been using, then Billions will starve to death.
If you actually believe in Peak Oil – which I do not (because I am convinced oil is not a fossil fuel), then the conclusions of dieoff.org are true. Stop using oil, and Billions die.
Tony
Yes, the climate changes. It fluctuates on several timescales and for a variety of reasons. The extremes are getting extremer right now, and there is an underlying warming trend. The projection is that if the warming trend continues, we are really in deep shit as large areas of the planet, formerly inhabitable, become hostile. Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere increases warming. We need to decrease it, no matter where you think the carbon is coming, or even if the CO2 is manmade (though there is no other credible source of the tonnage concerned): it’s one of the very few ways of controlling thermal runaway that we have, and certainly the most feasible.
We can drastically reduce the use of oil in several ways, while at least starving fewer to death than will starve to death if we don’t. Less greedy consumption by the developed nations, for one thing, and the development of alternative sources, such as solar water heaters – widespread already in the Med and China to name but two – solar arrays in sunny deserts, etc. I won’t labour the point, but hoping the problem will go away is not an option.
I’m sorry, I don’t buy all this nonsense about increasing levels of CO2, having any significant effect on climate, but there is no point in arguing about it here or anywhere else. Its like a Catholic Priest arguing with an Atheist (or vice versa).
Anyhow, plants love the stuff – and that is what we eat, and I bet I can still get the same boat through Potter Heigham Bridge with the same clearance as I did 50 years ago. It is tidal you know…just up the road from where they hide the decline. I know a bloke who works there actually (Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia)
http://www.broadsnet.co.uk/images/potter-heigham/yacht-navigating-potter-heigham-bridge.jpg
Sea Level Rise???? No evidence of any significant change beyond normal…other wise the boat wouldn’t fit.
Tony
It’s tidal, you say?
Therein might lie a clue.
Herein might lie another.
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
Why don’t you just say, “I refuse to believe it” and leave it at that? It’s just a “belief” thing for people like you.
But then you go on to give a couple of feeble reasons for supposedly why not. If you just have faith – like a religion – state it and have done, but please don’t waste everyone’s time with supposed “proof” like the nonsense you gave – an inland river doesn’t rise N inches in a given location, just because the sea has risen N inches.
Glenn, below…
““I refuse to believe it” and leave it at that? It’s just a “belief” thing for people like you.”
“People like you – Refuse to Believe..”
Jesus – That’s pathetic.
Hope you are happy with your religion.
I am happy with my physics and maths.
Ba’al Zevul, Think about the problem logically – re a Tidal River flowing into a sea that is at a higher level…than it was.
You might even be able to test it in your bath with a few toys.
“I am happy with my physics and maths.”
That’s not “physics and maths”, much as you might like it to be. Try sites like this:
http://guymcpherson.com/climate-chaos/climate-change-summary-and-update/
And this :
http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.uk/
(updated today)
Let them see your astonishing working of “physics and maths” – I’m sure the scientific world will be fascinated. Plaudits from the great await you – don’t waste your time here!
*
As far as your river “proof” is concerned – Nobody’s saying the sea is already higher than every point of every river. You’re not managing simple logic, never mind “physics and maths”.
Damn, Tony – you can be insightful at times. Other times, you act annoyingly stupidly.
Glenn,
Its all a part of The Program – written – about 30 years ago.
You can’t fight the Program. Billions of Dollars have been invested in it.
http://www.green-agenda.com/
“We should all want to be wise and careful stewards of the beautiful planet we call home. But most of us realise that humans in general are not being good stewards. We are wasteful with our natural resources and have reduced biodiversity. Therefore, when we read about groups and organisations calling for a ‘green revolution’ and a new relationship between humanity and nature it is easy to agree with their ideas.
However, certain aspects of the modern green movement that is permeating every segment of our society are not about protecting the environment. You don’t have to dig very deep to discover the true beliefs of the influential leaders who are using genuine concerns about the environment to promote an agenda of fear and control. Please carefully consider the implications of the opinions that they so openly and freely express:”
Ba’al, with all due respect, the IPCC’s SREX sought and found no evidence linking increased CO2 levels and extremes of weather. I realise that what is reported in the media is different, is more alarming, more headline-grabbing, but the reality is different. Knowledge is scarce, the science of climatology is very much in its infancy and is NOT settled, there remain enormous uncertainties and some of these (because the climate is a coupled, non-linear chaotic system) are insurmountable.
Where science is most certain is in what it tells you about the past (call this observational science). The climatology stories that seem to have influenced you are about what may, might, could, potentially…. happen in the future. This is prediction and projection. It is not evidence-based, it is largely computer modeled, and it is definitively NOT what you most likely understand science to be founded upon. In short, sir, you may not know what you think you’ve learned. With respect.
On the subject of CO2 influencing the global temperature (the notion of a global temperature being rather meaningless, to be frank), I don’t think there’s good reason to believe that it doesn’t influence, and some compelling reasons to believe that it does. There have been some extremely alarming estimates of climate sensitivity (the term used to describe a doubling of atmospheric CO2, by whichever means whether natural or man-made) in years past, but for the last 3 or 4 years the literature has rather rebutted those and currently hovers around ~+1.2C. This is a long way short of the postulated and extremely alarming projections we’ve seen, of up to +7C in the past.
There is little to no evidence that CO2 is the “temperature control knob” of the earth. There never really was, as far as I can find, any evidence of this to be rebutted in the first place. I appreciate the headlines read this way, and some very politically motivated scientists made very bold claims that were unsupported in the literature. The most effective greenhouse gas is water vapour and the earth is very good at stabilising. Water vapour facilitates cloud formation and cloud formation results in a reduction in the amount of warmth reaching the surface of the earth.
No, the reason CO2 is “the devil” is because it’s released by traditional fossil-fueled power stations. Since climatology is attractive to environmentalists and environmentalists are traditionally very left-wing, there is good evidence that the subject has been contaminated by the political motivations of those pursuing it in academia. The truth is that the 0.0001% increase in atmospheric CO2 that we’ve seen since we began our journey of industrialisation is a negligibly influential trace gas in the atmosphere which is absolutely essential for life on earth, is not in any way a pollutant, and in the great scheme of things at one of its lowest atmospheric concentrations in earth’s history.
Mine is not an argument against adaptation to climate change, but is certainly an argument against attempts to mitigate it. There is simply no discernible ROI on the $trillions that would be necessary to reduce humans’ CO2 contribution to zero while there is an inordinate amount of harm that would be done. We have no right to deny the 3rd world access to the energy/materials that made us rich, and the hurt that green taxes bring on our own poor is unconscionable.
End apartheid, May 13 20:21:
This is entirely untrue.
Since 1850 atmospheric CO2 has increased by over 40%, from 285 to 400 parts per million, in other words from 0.285% to 0.4% of the atmosphere by volume (more by mass).
End apartheid, May 13 20:21:
Is it meaningless to say that Mars has a lower temperature than Earth, and that Venus’s temperature is much higher? Frankly, neither Mars nor Venus could support human life.
Once the polar ice has gone*, temperature will soar and civilisation won’t last much beyond that.
With civilisation down, thousands of industrial and environmental disasters will ensue – several dozen Fukushima disasters anyone? A million tonnes of depleted UF6 in the groundwater? I just encountered those two looking into nuclear; God knows what the chemical and biological industries etc. have to offer…
* It takes 80 calories of heat to melt a gram of ice. Once it’s water, 80 calories will heat that gram to 80 degrees centigrade. Lose the icecaps and it’s all over for humanity.
Clark: You’re right, of course. But lies about the East Anglia University will continue to abound – look at Tony’s silly reference to how “they hide the decline”.
People like this are simply not interested in truth or facts. It’s most annoying that Tony lies about “having the physics and maths” yet fails to produce it, and only vaguely refers to risible “evidence” as a cop-out. No substance, ever. None. Cowardly stuff, to be frank.
Rather like the 38 Degrees “evidence”, I suppose.
I have to leave for work so I can only pick off one slice of nonsense right now.
Apologies for the mis-blockquote.
Sorry, yes, I did make a mistake, 285 to 400 parts per million is 0.0285% to 0.04% – I got lazy and was thinking in “ten to the threes”, so I got it ten times too big. Your figure is a Hundred times Too Small, and in any case the concentration has still increased by over 40%.
The CO2 is also dissolving into the oceans and destroying their alkalinity. Humans wouldn’t be the first species to create a mass extinction by altering the global environment, just the “most intelligent”.
My figure is not too small at all. It represents the change in CO2 as a component of the atmosphere, and I use that figure because it is important to understand it in the context of the atmosphere. Stating an increase of 40% of total CO2 without context is unhelpful, lacks meaning and tends to lead to palpable fear about absolutely nothing that is tangible. In my opinion, that’s the fundamental problem, here, and one that I am very happy to debunk.
I’m not sure where you’re going with this but what I meant was that the very notion of a global temperature is not useful in considering the energy balance of the earth. Energy resides in many different forms within the atmosphere, and temperature is only one way to measure that energy. To focus so stringently on a global mean temperature is to make a caricature of earth sciences which in no way encapsulates its variety or nuance. It was a throw-away comment alluding to a much more complicated problem. It’s all very well talking about global temperature but it invites questions to be answered, such as what the explanation is why global mean temperatures have not risen significantly in over 18 years despite exponentially increasing CO2 emissions, if indeed CO2 is the primary driver of global warming as some alarmists and fear-mongers claim.
Which pole? The North pole is free-floating, so if it melted away (which, incidentally, it was supposed to have before now, and yet is apparently still growing some years and shrinking others) there would be no discernible increase in sea levels. If you’re talking about the South pole, it’s not losing ice it’s growing it. Inconvenient or what?
Umm… huh? Seriously, dude, take a valium.
Ahh yes, “ocean acidification”. If you can find a SINGLE oceanographer, ANYWHERE on the planet, that believes that ANY ocean on the planet will EVER become acidic… well, you won’t be able to. But hey, “ocean acidification” sounds scary! Let’s use THOSE words!
End apartheid, May 14, 10:39:
Your figure “0.000115% by volume” should be 0.0115%; it’s a hundredth of what it should be.
Please tell me whether you’re lying or just wrong as I have limited time and unlike you I’m not looking for a fight; this crap sickens me.
What lies about the CRU? I’m familiar with the “hide the decline” saga. Are you claiming lies have been told about this? Kindly tell me, sir, what lies are they?
Clark : * It takes 80 calories of heat to melt a gram of ice. Once it’s water, 80 calories will heat that gram to 80 degrees centigrade. Lose the icecaps and it’s all over for humanity.
You are comparing specific heat with latent heat of melting.
The specific heat of ice = 0.5 cal/g-oC
The latent heat of melting ice = 80.0 cal/gm
The specific heat of water = 1.0 cal/g-oC
Phase change requires a lot of energy. You might just as well use the figures to say that there is a huge resistance to the polar ice melting.
Conceded. Hey, I started work at 4am, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Neither of us were having a good maths day, but we’re there now. 🙂
Clark, incidentally, I’m not looking for a fight either. I’m looking for the truth. I’m looking to cut through the hype and find out what the science actually says, before the politicians and the activists get their hands on it. I’m interested in the disinterested “Popperian” science, in which I still trust, and I’m seeking to cut through the pseudoscience of hypotheses masquerading as observational evidence.
Node, 11:38
That’s right. And when all the ice has melted, that resistance will be gone and the temperature will rise much more rapidly. It’s just like ice in a drink; it stabilises the temperature, but only until it has melted away.
I can’t be bothered to argue with you either, Node. I’ve done my research.
End Apartheid, here’s some of the depleted uranium hexafluoride I’m worried about:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/DUF6_cylinder_leak.gif
There are another 300,000 like that one:
http://www.killick1.plus.com/pictures/aerial_paducah_yard.jpg
Clark, thanks. I’ll take a look.
End apartheid, I’ll accept that you don’t intend to be looking for a fight. However, there certainly is a corporately-funded campaign to deny the warming effect of carbon dioxide; that body certainly is seeking a fight, and you’re repeating their false arguments and rhetoric.
For instance, “ocean acidification” is the correct term, even if pH remains the alkaline side of neutral. Naturally, the conventional scientific term was used rather than inventing some monstrosity like “ocean de-alkaline-ation”, but the physical process is just as dangerous no matter how you name it; it attacks the base of the food chain, further reducing oceanic carbon burial in the process, and you should ask marine biologists rather than oceanographers – but the sites you’ve been reading will omit all that.
I don’t create or repeat false arguments and I don’t regurgitate rhetoric. I don’t give a damn whether Big Oil does or ever has funded climate scepticism. I know that Big Oil funds universities, I know it funds/ed the CRU for example. I have never seen an ounce of evidence to support the claim that they have been involved in any campaign of “denial” about the climate. As for myself, I’ve been labelled a “merchant of doubt”. This is because I have attacked, at source, what I would call “concealers of uncertainty”. Science is uncertain. All of it. The very suggestion that the science of climate is “settled” is wholly anti-scientific. I view myself as standing in defence of rigorous science and, by direct consequence, in opposition to *some* prominent activists in climate science, but mostly in opposition to exploitative politicians.
This is utter nonsense. The “conventional scientific term”? “Ocean acidification”? For THIS process? You must be joking! You absolutely HAVE to be! The term is pure invention, and I actually think you know it.
On this, and many other things, I find myself aligned with Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace. If you’re in fact NOT being disingenuous, I suggest you take a few minutes out of your busy day and familiarise yourself with some facts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bJjBo5ICMc
End apartheid, 15:54, I object to your continually scoffing tone, and I resent your implication that I’m an agent of some implied conspiracy to deceive the public about carbon dioxide emissions. Any further such abuse may be met with more direct abuse in return. Or I may not feel like responding at all. You have been warned.
I will watch your video later (sigh. Node; recognise this pattern?).
Likewise! What goes around comes around. I don’t appreciate your suggestion that I’m a shill for Big Oil, or that I’m some mindless peddler/repeater of lies or some kind of misinformation. Do you even read back what you write?
I have been warned? Abuse? Did I mis-handle your sensitivities? LOL Have you warned me that you might resolve your cognitive dissonance by hurling abuse? Or are you going to ignore me to death? Seriously, if being challenged on your understanding of climate science is so discomfiting perhaps you need to re-examine whether the thing I’m challenging is your understanding of science or your religious faith in a modern ideology. Scientific knowledge shouldn’t be triggering the emotions like you seem to be experiencing. Perhaps what you think is science is actually just a deeply held ideological belief. That being the case, I feel no compunction to apologise for disrupting it. If it were a belief worthy of your devotion, it really shouldn’t be so easy for me to disrupt.
Oh, are you upset because I called you on the horseshit claim about “ocean acidification”? Perhaps instead of getting pissy with me, you should take it out on the asshole that told you that “ocean acidification” was a “conventional scientific term” instead of the politically motivated construct that it is.
End apartheid, 18:53; go fuck yourself you vile troll. I will watch the video, but you personally aren’t worth shit. Fuck off.
Wow! LOL!
End apartheid – “Wow. LOL” (laugh Out loud)
You think it’s funny to piss people off, so probably you post this shit for a laugh, whether you realise that or not. Your figures were both grossly wrong and misleadingly presented; you think it “unhelpful” for people to learn that CO2 concentration has risen by 40%, so apparently you regard others with contempt. I’ll watch the video you linked because I always try to be fair, but my opinion is that you, personally, have treated me like dirt.
Lot of nonsense being said here. Yes, CO2 is only a relatively small part of the atmosphere, but the effect is huge. Raising it by 40% will not make a massive difference in absolute volume, but the effect is the enormous.
Look – salt would be about 200g in a 50KG person:
http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-much-salt-human-body
That’s about 0.4% . Not much. So adding 40% to that would make 0.56% – a trifling amount! Tssh, pah! Except for the inconvenient fact that 80g of salt is well over a lethal dose.
‘End Apartheid’ – try not to be so disingenuous, please. I have the distinct impression you know better than the disinformation you’re presenting here.
You’re a dot on the internet and you’re an ideologue who insults me while being incapable of accepting the same in return. Why the hell would I care about upsetting anyone like you?
I haven’t treated you like dirt at all. I’ve treated you like anyone should treat anyone who is rude to others and overly sensitive in regards to themselves. Like you are to me, I am just a dot on the internet to you. What do you care what a dot on the internet says to you? So I challenged your belief system and exposed its ludicrousness. So what? I’ve learned long ago that there’s no point trying to convince a true believer that their faith is misguided. I counter your faulty belief system with the truth in defence of science, not to attack you personally. You just take it personally because of the strength of your mistaken belief.
glenn:
Is there something untrue in what I have posted? If so, please explain in detail so that it can be addressed.
I also asked you what lies were told about the Climategate “hide the decline” email. I ask again, what lies? I understand that some people believe “hide the decline” referred to a fall in temperatures, which is incorrect but not necessarily a lie.
“Hide the decline” refers to the decline in correlation between the dendrochronological record and instrumental record. Hiding the decline was the act of concealing that break in correlation to falsely imbue an impression of integrity and usefulness upon the tree-ring chronologies, once by cutting short the dendrochronology on a graph and hiding the end of the series behind another line on that graph and another time by splicing the dendrochronology with the instrumental data, smoothing the result, and again giving the false impression that the dendro data correlated precisely with the instrumental record. This is egregious behaviour in science and should not be tolerated, but in climate science it is apparently acceptable. This is what happened and is a matter of public record. If you have any evidence to show that the public record is flawed, inaccurate, mistaken or in any other way wrong then I invite you to highlight it.
Yes, lots of nonsense right there. The effect of doubling CO2 is estimated to be in the region of 1.2 degrees C of additional warmth. This was the measured finding of Arrhenius in the 19th century and the latest research agrees. Economists for the IPCC assert that warming less than 2 degrees will be net beneficial globally. There is simply no justification for your claim that raising atmospheric CO2 concentration by 40% would have (or in fact has had) an enormous effect. None.
EA: There is simply no justification for your claim that raising atmospheric CO2 concentration by 40% would have (or in fact has had) an enormous effect. None.”
http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.uk/
Argue it there, or here (the URL is from the latest contribution):
http://guymcpherson.com/2016/05/q-a-from-two-presentations/
Why not tackle the real experts with your superior knowledge?
End aparthied, you are a liar:
The truth is an increase of 40%.
Yeah right.
So at least maybe you’re honest about your wilful blindness.
No, it’s you displaying the deceptiveness of an ideologue; I merely corrected your deception. It was also you that introduced insult into the argument, and I put up with it for too long. You’re a liar, and I hate liars.
Clark (Quoting EA): “global mean temperatures have not risen significantly in over 18 years”
Clark: Yeah right.
Thanks Clark, I missed that. Anyone going on about 1998 as the basepoint for a discussion about global temperature is either completely stupid, ignorant, or a disingenuous liar – there is nothing else.
They are also (either through ignorance or deception) ignoring the fact that the 1998 high point has been exceeded. Every month for many years now, has recorded a higher than average temperature for that month.
Denial is a powerful, and a necessary, survival technique. But using it as an argument for Business As Usual is plain evil.
EA (to Clark): “|Ahh yes, “ocean acidification”. If you can find a SINGLE oceanographer, ANYWHERE on the planet, that believes that ANY ocean on the planet will EVER become acidic… well, you won’t be able to. But hey, “ocean acidification” sounds scary! Let’s use THOSE words!”
Again, this is an exercise is sheer disingenuity. Clark quite specifically explained that this acidification indicated the direction, but EA chooses to howl and crow as if an absolute claim about the ocean becoming an acid was being made.
EA would like to pretend the discussion was about something it was not. Draw your own conclusions.
So what’s special about eighteen? Eighteen years ago it was record-breakingly hot. Comparing with 16 or 17, or with 19 or 20 years ago all give much higher figures for increase in global mean temperature. Eighteen years provides the lowest available increase for longest available time.
Another figure apparently crafted to deceive.
Glenn, I see that our comments crossed. I’m naive; I thought that eighteen looked a bit specific and went to the temperature graph and looked it up. Grief I’m sick of this sort of “reasoning”; two wrongs don’t make a right, and propaganda is still propaganda no matter that the perpetrator may feel it to be counter-propaganda. Straight or counter, propaganda seeks to influence rather than inform; it’s the method itself that is objectionable, not the direction it’s facing.
Clark claimed that “ocean acidification” is “the conventional scientific term”. I very specifically pointed out the fact that this is not true.
Was it a lie? Did he mis-speak? Was he making shit up as he went along? Yes.
The figure is not crafted to deceive, you dimwit, it’s the number of years that – as I explained – the global average temperature failed to rise while CO2 continued to rise exponentially. The reason it’s important is that, IF CO2 were the primary driver of global warming, as we have been assured it is, then both global temperature and CO2 should be in lock-step. They are not in lock-step, therefore other factors – most likely primarily natural variability – are ALSO at play.
If you dispute this, you are disputing the findings of the IPCC AR5. So go ahead, bite the hand that feeds your idiocy! LOL!
As for the “death spiral” of the Arctic sea ice, in order to point at sea ice loss as a result of man made global warming you have to do two things. First, you have to show that the variation in sea ice extent is a catastrophic and unprecedented loss (which you can’t), and secondly you have to show that there is a mechanism at play by which a connection can be made between anthropogenic forcing and sea ice extent (which you also can’t).
You may believe that the arctic sea ice is in a death spiral because of man’s activities, just as some Pacific islanders might believe the Volcano God is angry because some bastard ate all the coconuts, but unless and until you can provide evidence (not just hypothesised but observed, or else it’s no better than pseudoscientific bullshit) of a viable SCIENTIFIC mechanism to link mankind and sea ice loss, it’s just your stupid religious belief. And for the record, “it must be mankind because we can’t think of any other explanation” is not science, it’s ignorant stupidity. So much of what you believe boils down to that. It’s laughable.
End apartheid, thank you, I can see that you’re right. I am a complete idiot with utterly irrational beliefs. I recognise your superiority and I won’t correct any of your figures again. OK?
End apartheid, it’s difficult to describe how miserable I feel when reading your comments. You scoff, laugh and mock. You seem very sure of your conclusions, and act as though your air of superiority will cow others to accept them too, yet you have to lie and distort figures to support them.
The apparently increasing prevalence of such behaviour saps my hope.
The only thing I am certain of is the truth, that nothing is certain. Neither a Catholic priest nor an atheist can be certain that what they believe is the truth. In matters relating to the climate, I am neither the equivalent of a priest nor of an atheist. Apart from one error in calculating a percentage, which I readily conceded, nothing that I have posted is anything but the truth. I don’t much care whether you can accept it or not because that’s your personal journey. Could I be kinder? Of course I could, but why should anyone resist mocking someone who is insulting and who accuses them of deliberate lies and distortions? My response is to offend people like you with the truth, and the fact that the truth hurts people like you is immensely satisfying to me.
You should watch that video I linked, of the talk given by Greenpeace co-founder Dr Patrick Moore. He is a man of impeccable integrity, a genuinely good man and an honest broker of science.
End apartheid, you wrote:
But then:
Hmmm. So why try to disguise the 40% increase in CO2? And twice you’ve used that word “conceded”. Correcting an error is not a concession, unless that concession be to the truth of the matter, and why should the truth be your adversary? Whether you realise it or not, you’re engaged in a quest to impose your preferred beliefs upon others, and I resent that because it’s personally manipulative.
This is untrue. Global temperature has continued to rise.
This is not true.
I very much doubt that you can support this with links and quotes. I strongly suspect that it is untrue.
So do correct me; what IS the normal scientific term for a decrease in alkalinity? I’d quite routinely used “acidification” long before ocean acidification entered public awareness – or was that the scientific conspiracy playing the long game, all the teachers and lecturers priming me, two decades in advance, for the scam their elite colleagues were preparing in cahoots with the corrupt politicians? They really are a formidable enemy, and all we have to protect us are the few fearless truth-sayers such as yourself – I really should be grateful for your insults; I know they’re for my own good…
You don’t get it, do you? My objections are not about climate science; they’re about your personal aggression, variable respect for truth depending upon its convenience to your preferred conclusions, and grandstanding, playing to the gallery. But I suspect that you don’t even realise what you’re doing. You probably picked it up unconsciously from the bad examples we’re all exposed to; indeed, competing and winning are espoused as the highest values in our society. So I’m not blaming you personally, but the communicational problem rests with you, nonetheless. Treat others as equals, not mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed on shit) – we all have as much right as you do to know that CO2 concentrations have increased by over 40%, and that global temperature is still rising. Stop fooling yourself that you’re serving others by deciding which FACTS they should be protected from.
I’ll repeat what I said for the hard of intelligence: my figure “represents the change in CO2 as a component of the atmosphere, and I use that figure because it is important to understand it in the context of the atmosphere.” A 40% increase in CO2 is a minuscule increase in atmospheric make-up. If there were any evidence that CO2 was a pollutant rather than a life-giving gas, required for all life on earth and at a near all-time-low concentration, I could MAYBE see an argument for the figure 40%, without any context. MAYBE.
But you use the figure of 40% as if CO2 were a BAD thing, which is a dirty shitty lie, told for dirty shitty reasons, so dimwitted morons like you will think there’s a cause for panic. 115 parts per million is a very fucking small number, relating to a very insignificant trace gas which is infinitely more beneficial to the planet in reality than it is harmful inside your delusion. How do I say this without making it sound like I think you’re a fucking idiot? I don’t know, because I think you’re a fucking idiot.
You’re just being a dickwad. I conceded that I made an error in calculating a percentage. The correct figure was still one measly hundredth of a percentage point. The second time I used the word was in reference to the first. Is this the shit you’re left fighting with? Your argument is truly fucked. It must be embarrassing trying to fight your corner with this crap to work with.
You’re a liar. There was no statistically significant increase. Or do you not know what statistical significance is? Okay so you’re either a liar or an idiot. Let me know which in the comments below.
Explain this. How is it not true? Why is it not true?
IPCC WG1 Chapter 9.2
Why don’t you watch the video like you repeatedly said you would, but obviously didn’t. Fucking slack.
says the jerk who said:
and you didn’t even watch the fucking video. Lying twat.
Some days I’m in the mood to kick idiots like you around the internet. Other days I can’t be arsed. Line up some more bullshit and maybe tomorrow I’ll be in the mood to shame your idiocy some more.
Oh I’d already looked up Moore and watched the video. It is quite interesting, but I don’t remember any different term for “ocean acidification” so please remind me. And if you’re taking anything for your blood pressure, don’t take “one measly hundredth of a percentage point” of your body weight because it would probably be fatal.
Maybe I was on the right tack with my troll comment. Do you still maintain that I’m part of the conspiracy?
The term is pH neutralisation, as well you know. But why is it acceptable to you that a new and scary sounding term is invented? One that sounds ominous to replace one that is accurate? Because it fits with your agenda to mislead. You don’t care about where the truth lies, as long as you get your way politically. Tricking people into believing that a catastrophe is imminent is just a means to an end for you. And you wonder why I laugh, mock and scoff at you?
You’re anthropomorphising the environment and it sounds stupid. Besides, it’s a stupid false equivalent.
I’m not really one for conspiracy theories but if there were one, it seems obvious you’d fall for it. You already think “Big Oil” is involved in a giant conspiracy to.. I’m not sure to do what. Remind me how your conspiracy theory goes, please. I forgot already.
“Acidification” wasn’t invented for “ocean acidification”; you’re getting all worked up about a coincidence of language. There happens to be no single word for “becoming more alkaline”; I think you’ll find that “to alkalise” implies specific combination with the OH- ion (though convention may have changed), and in any case “acidification” flows more naturally than “de-alkalisation” would – my browser’s spelling-checker certainly objects. It is perfectly normal for chemists to refer to a reduction in alkalinity as “acidification”, or at least it was, well before there was widespread concern about CO2 emissions. You’re making something out of nothing.
“pH neutralisation” would give an inaccurate impression that the process seeks neutrality, as well as introducing a technical term unfamiliar to most people. This may have helped or hindered understanding in the long run, but then I’d never seen anything sinister in the term “ocean acidification”. Science isn’t about value judgements and the connotations of technical terms is generally just a nuisance – “positive feedback” comes to mind…
Look, why are you banging on about this anyway? If it wasn’t CO2 it’d be something else, or are you an “infinite growth” fantasist?
Look at this:
No, “end apartheid”, I do not have an agenda to mislead. What end are you accusing me of seeking?
Incidentally, I’d never encountered the term “death spiral” with regard to the Arctic, so I suppose “end apartheid” must be some sort of double agent, trying to put the fear in me…
I haven’t a clue what’s going on here. “end apartheid” makes no sense to me.
Clark: EA is blowing smoke with his affectation of indignance about the term ‘acidification’. Any fool can see that’s simply a way of describing the direction.
Perhaps he also objects to the idea that the Arctic could be ‘warming’, because it’s cold there!
It’s a stupid distraction, because EA is a fraud and blowing loudly on non-issues is all he’s got.
Glenn, I sometimes think I must be an alien, I have so much difficulty communicating with the locals. Ho hum…
Clark: I think your main fault is assuming your correspondents are playing with a straight bat.
EA is obviously a fraud, with a right-on sounding handle and plenty of scoffing and condescension, yet the best he can manage is some sly play on words, and third rate statistical chicanery. If he’s being paid more than a nickel a post, good luck to him – he’s ripping off his paymasters for what they’re getting.
I’m surprised you’ve never heard of the arctic “death spiral”. Let me help you out with that: http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/513544/Arctic-ice-cap-death-spiral
As usual, it’s the same case of environmental activists in academia chatting bollocks, but this is the stuff you lap up all the time and regurgitate. You’ll probably complain that it’s in the Express, and that’s understandable, because it’s all bullshit. But it’s YOUR kind of bullshit, spouting the shit you want to hear. You can find the same press release gushed about on thinkprogress. The reality, of course, is much less alarming… but what do you care about reality?
glenn says:
Ahh yes, THAT conspiracy theory! haha!! I’d forgotten for a moment. How sad you are.
glenn says:
Ahh yes, that clever trickery otherwise known as “rigour”. How damned inconvenient those people who hold with established standards are, to your scaremongering drivel, eh? You can’t defeat my argument with your shonky claims so it must be because I’m a paid shill. You’re a pair of jokes. 🙂
I think we’ve established clearly that you’re an idiot, regurgitating rhetoric that you yourself have been mis-led by, without any examination of the facts yourself. You are to the Blairites and Conservatives what the USSR used to call a “Useful Idiot”.
It’s not inaccurate if the process cannot achieve acidity. The process cannot achieve acidity, and so pH neutralisation is entirely accurate as a marker for the direction of change, even though the process will not achieve pH neutrality. Why will it not achieve pH neutrality? Because the process that, ludicrously, you like to call “ocean acidification” is even LESS of an environmental problem than even MY term suggests.
Yes I’m an idiot and I’m sure you’re far superior – in my idiotic opinion – but what end are you accusing me of?
Tommy Wills of Swansea University wrote:
Well nobody wants to kill Tommy or anyone else, but the question he poses is an important one which deserves an answer.
So what am I accusing you of? Noble Cause Corruption. Groupthink. Confirmation bias.
OMG – you mean if it turned out not to be true (just for the sake of argument), we’d end up with cleaner energy, less dependence on foreign oil, a less polluted environment, a greater environmental awareness, vastly more efficient vehicles, better insulated homes/businesses etc., reduced energy consumption, less wasteful methods of lighting, a greater respect for the oceans and forests… and so on and so on…. that would be just unimaginably terrible! Nightmare scenario, and no mistake.
“end apartheid”, those aren’t ends. You wrote:
What’s my agenda? What is my objective? What is it I’m trying to achieve, and why?
The effort to mitigate climate change is in fact extremely expensive – up to 5.5% GDP. I work that out at in the region of $150 billion annually (based on $2.67 billion GDP for 2013), just for the UK. Is this paid for by the rich or by the poor? The effort to deny developing countries access to cheap energy in the name of the false god climate change is disgusting. The transfer of money from the poor to the rich (eg: excruciatingly expensive electricity from wind and solar power bought at preposterous prices, paid by everyone who needs electricity, with no relief for the poor, and the money transferred to the investment bankers and rich land owners).
And what have the billions bought in regard to CO2? The best, most optimistic estimates suggest that we have delayed the progress of climate change by two weeks by 2100. The cost is appalling, the new heights of fuel poverty in the UK and other countries with green stealth taxes are a travesty in this day and age, and though you clearly don’t care, I do. What will the ultimate cost be? To STOP global warming? The climate changes, with or without our assistance.
You present a false dichotomy. There is no reason why we can’t have clean air – CO2 is not a pollutant. There is no reason we can’t lift millions in impoverished countries out of devastating poverty, provide them with an alternative to the murderous dung that they have to burn and breathe for warmth and light – because CO2 is not a pollutant. Nobody argues against efficiency. Nobody argues in favour of harming the environment. It’s only your sanctimonious self-delusion that intimates to you that you’re the only one who cares about the environment. I’m both an environmentalist AND a humanitarian. Unlike you, I don’t regard humans as an unnatural affliction on the planet but an integral part of nature. One of your fellow ardent environmentalists once told me that I should ascribe as much importance to a flower as to a child. Such people should never be allowed near children. Ever. And they should never, EVER, be allowed control of the purse strings, on the one hand to de-industrialise the world and on the other, whether by action or omission, to prevent ANY child, black, white or any other shade, from accessing every opportunity for a healthy and prosperous future.
Again, ask me why I’m disgusted by you. You don’t give a fuck about anyone but your own sanctimonious twatty self. You probably drive an SUV because you think it’s safer for your kids on the school run, and you wouldn’t think twice about getting on a plane to go on holiday. You talk the talk but you think walking it is for other people. You think you’re doing your bit by preaching your religion to others, for them to make the sacrifices. In your twisted mind, it’s your own personal version of carbon offsets.
Correction: 2.678 trillion USD (2013) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+gdp&oq=uk+gdp&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.5683j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
$3.049 trillion (nominal; 2015)
Clark:
See above.
Yes I can see why you’re so disgusted with me, but is my problem more that I feel guilty when I shouldn’t, or that I don’t feel guilty enough?
And I’m still not quite sure to what ends this all points, or the agenda; please spell them out clearly, remembering how stupid I am. Thanks.
Uhh so what should we do? Just burn the fossil fuels ’til they run out? Then what?
PS:
Actually, corporations effectively argue and lobby for harming the environment all the time, in all sorts of ways. Their activities cause less harm generally in richer countries because such governments can regulate them more effectively. But if you say CO2 isn’t a problem I guess I’d better believe you ‘cos that’s better than being dumb.
EA: You make so many fallacious assumptions it’s totally worthless even making a start. It would be laughable, were it not so serious.
Actually, your mask is starting to slip – you have me (collectively, ‘natch!) characterised as a SUV-driving, uncaring, plane-flying, sanctimonious blah blah blah – I switched off long before I came to the end of your stupid litany of cartoonish negativity. Unsurprising, that you have such a hostile, hate-filled closed in mentality.
Everything you suggested was wrong, btw – but don’t let that slow you down! If you met me, you’d grovel at my feet for your false portrayal, if you had even the slightest scrap of honesty in your worthless lying soul. Not that I’d allow anyone to grovel to me, but the point stands.
You pile all this worthless BS at my feet, and then expect yourself to be taken personally? Do me a favour.
Just take your denialist, exploitative, externality loading, corporate-loving ass out of here, and kiss the ring of every fossil-fuel interest you can find. But you already beat me to that suggestion long since.
I would just add that this is an entirely cost-free exercise for EA.
EA doesn’t have to do a thing, but sit back and scoff. No costs involved, because EA says he’s convinced there’s nothing to worry about! So not only can he thoroughly enjoy his externally destructive lifestyle, he can mock and blame those who are concerned about their own, those that try to reduce its impact as much as is possible in our society.
Seems to me, the likes of EA have justified this utter denialism while trying to portray themselves in the most favourable light, and actually have the utter gall to attach blame to those genuinely horrified about the environment.
EA: You have reached a level beyond shame. History did not prepare us for the likes of your miserable self, the scale is without measure.
End apartheid, I’ve been busy for a few days. Are you still visiting this thread?
I’m accused of conspiracy theorising (“end apartheid”, May 17, 20:31), yet Senator Sheldon Whitehouse seems convinced of a denialist publicity machine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu4HLr4hIUk
High tide, Tony? Low tide? The sea goes up and down twice a day. Come back when you have religiously taken your boat under the bridge at high springs, after first checking the river level. Some measurements would be nice. And if that’s low at low tide, taste the water at high and let me know if you’d make tea with it. Note also that if atmospheric pressure is high, the sea level locally will be lower. Look at the NASA site I linked. Mean sea levels by satellite and (generally higher – there’s a reason for this) – inshore tidal gauge records.
“I can still get my boat through” doesn’t quite have the same weight with me, but the situation could be improved if you provided details of the river level, tidal state, average fall from open sea to wherever the bridge is, barometric conditions, and times to the minute. 30 samples under adverse conditions please. It wouldn’t be in any sense complete, but it would be a start.
Sorry to be pedantic and nitpicking, but that’s what the scientists who do this kind of thing have to be. And I know a few of them.
Et in Arcadia, Ego. Even here the most brainless denialist imbecility. The climate is destabilising rapidly, far faster than at any time we know of in planetary history save the short-lived consequences of comet or meteor strikes, and yet we still see idiot statements that it’s not happening, and even more lunatic reference to the ‘abiotic oil’ stupidity.
haha! I’m sorry, but you made me guffaw! Honestly, I don’t know how you keep a straight face! Or do you?
It’s the privilege of fools to laugh at those of wisdom, so guffaw away – you certainly have that right.
You think I’m the fool for scoffing at the preposterous claim that “[t]he climate is destabilising rapidly, far faster than at any time we know of in planetary history [..]”?
There is no basis in science for these ludicrously extreme claims. Fanaticism and blind faith deserve nothing but to be scoffed at. I am happy to oblige.
I think you’re not only a fool, but a disingenious liar.
And I think that, deep down inside, you know that I’m neither a liar nor disingenuous. I think you’re struggling to come to terms with the realisation that something you’ve believed with all your heart for as long as you can remember might not be the imminent armageddon you thought it was.
Or maybe I’m wrong about you, and you really are a complete moron with absolutely no capacity for critical thinking. Who knows? Who really gives a shit? Not me, I’m afraid.
“Africa is suffering badly, not just from our shut door policy towards refugees..”
____________________________
That’s interesting reasoning (for want of a better word).
Most people would think that there are refugees because certain African countries are suffereng badly. Not Nevermind, though – he thinks Africa is suffering badly because Europe is not letting in enough refugees.
Gamma plus.
Babble-muck, Israel knows how to deal with African refugees, doesn’t it? Lock ’em up, even those from countries like Sudan that Israel worked so hard to destroy for so long..
What has that got to do with Nevermind’s post and my comment on it?
Meanwhile another man-made disaster continues to take its toll in “liberated” Iraq.
US Is Not Wanted In Iraq – ISIS to the Rescue With Gladio Style Explosions Everywhere
The reality is that the US empire is no less aggressive about their plans than any other empire in human history and they will not leave as they have been asked to. Their intent is to create as much havoc and instability as possible so that they can argue that Iraq somehow needs the US to stay in their country in order to fight ISIS and provide the Iraqi people with “safety.” This is the “story” the unassuming sheeple will be asked to believe by the mainstream media Intelligence apparatus. Looming in the background of this delusional storyline is the assumption that the US is somehow required to provide “security” for Iraq; I suppose because they were the ones who created the mess by launching illegal war against Iraq in 2003.
I’ve said this many times, the logic fits very nicely here and it’s something the ruling elite are well aware of. If ISIS goes away the new world order dies. And since they don’t want the new world order plans to die then ISIS cannot die either. ISIS is the name for the leading US proxy army whose existence and accomplishments remain both highly promoted and marketed by Western Intelligence media while at the same time the process of capturing, stopping, squashing and snuffing them out is portrayed as impossible giving them an aura of surreal invincibility ironically in a era of human history where almost every person on the planet is easily tracked and surveilled by an enormous rising new world order control grid. A control system ONLY ISIS knows how to both completely avoid and laugh at while fighting off all the world military powers … and winning.
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/us-not-wanted-in-iraq-isis-gladio-explosions.html
Although this is something of an aside; it does relate in the sense that there has been an attempt on the part of the anti-Corbyn brigade to use the Kuenssberg affair to undermine Corbyn. I refer to the sudden and spectacular silence on the matter of anti-Semitism. Once the election was over, last Thursday, silence has fallen upon the subject: it no longer serves to undermine the Corbynistas.
I emailed Lucy Allan condemning her question at PMQs and reinforcing my point with some of Craig’s findings. Her reply was a non-reply; and presented further argument – I have been ignored.
Bert.
Lucy Allen: Not for the first time she is exposed as a liar, and has lied to the House of Commons as seen on TV. Is she to be held to account?
Of course not! She’s a Conservative Member of Parliament! It’s what she’s paid for!
Top Hezbollah commander killed in Israeli strike in Syria, he was fighting for the Assad regime according to US reports.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/hezbollah-commander-badreddine-killed-air-strike-160513033448532.html
The BBC World Service has highlighted the story all day.
Badreddine was a real hero, and, don’t worry, there are plenty more like him. That is how Israel and all tyrannies always end. Their unrelenting cruelty and savagery leaves their victims no alternative but resistance or slavery and death, and that produces great resistance leaders. A non-aggressive, non-supremacist, non-expansionist Israel could, eventually, live in peace with its neighbours, but being run by the worst racist and fascist supremacists imaginable, they are intent instead on digging a mass grave for themselves and their neighbours, and God knows who else.
Richard Seymour’s article seems to come to the conclusion that L K’s bias is what we have come to expect from the BBC, at least since Blair’s unpicking of its neutrality over the Iraq war exposure of his lies. Nothing to see here folks, it’s just that female political reporting is a bit new.
This is complete rubbish. Jeremy Corbyn has retained the pre-Iraq war assumption that government lies can be challenged on air and in the media. It used to be challenged on air regularly by presenters like Robin Day. Jeremy Corbyn brings to UK politics a memory of how it used to be , before Blair castrated/neutered the BBC.
The press don’t like it. New ground rules would open the way for challenging many neo-con and Thatcherite givens.
The war on terror and the market economy have been absolute failures and real catastrophes, own goals, made by the oracles who are supposed to have chewed the Laurel leaves in the traditional way.
giyane, the ‘war on terror’ and the ‘market economy’ have been smashing successes for those who count.
A small o/t point about today’s reporting of the Libyan refugee crisis. The BBC seems obsessed with the profits people smugglers make going into detail of how much every boat makes for these opportunists.
How about the BiBiC being equally concerned about the military industrial complex whose shares have gone up by 27699% during the last fifty years, according to a study by Morgan Stanley, now compare that to the overall market which has increased by only 6777% over the same time. In the last three years alone Raytheon went up by 124%, Northrop Grumman by114% and Lockheed Martin by 149%.
As unaccountable as those people smugglers, equally dealing in death, only theirs is guaranteed, whilst refugees at least have a chance of survival.
Europe and the EU are under attack because we don’t follow the push for Ukraine, we are merely the little deputy to the full spectrum dominance pushers.
Nothing about BBC World reporting that the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon being killed just when The Hague tribunal on the killing of its PM Hariri was calling for his capture for leading it.
Just amazing how persons wanted by UN tribunals end up dead before they are convicted. Remember when Milosovic died while undergoing prosecution.
It’s called certain justice Western style.
What did he say?
Badreddine said he would return to Lebanon as either a hero or he would be a martyr, killed by the Israelis, so it looks like they did it.
I heard on the radio this morning that he was killed by an air strike. If that is true, Israel is the most likely actor. BBC report mentions Israel: Hezbollah commander Badreddine killed in Syria.
Well, now Hezbollah is saying that some Sunni group assassinated the guy.
So, another bit of speculation confounded.
Sorry, not assassinated. Killing in shelling.
Giyane makes a good point about Labour’s attitude to the-anti-socialist media. My own view has always been that socialists should refuse to have any dealings with the media: it only encourages them. If the BBC and the Guardian knew that they would be denied access to those which they invariably calumniate they would soon adopt some balance in their dealings. At the moment they can lie, distort, libel and jeer with contempt at Corbyn et al and nothing changes. No doubt someone in Labour believes that charm and persistence will win in the end. It won’t and missing any opportunity to discredit such media is a mistake.
The truth is that the BBC and The Guardian rely on the ‘left’ to support them in their hour of need, which is now. It is something akin to sado-masochism: Read us every day, protest at any changes to our Charter and we, in recompense, will treat you like the shit that you are. So get down on your knees and we will flog you.
You would think that Corbyn might have learned: his long campaign for leadership was accompanied at every stage by vicious attacks and the most appalling misrepresentation by both the Beeb and The Guardian. It never let up. And the net result was a landslide giving him a mandate of unprecedented moral authority in the party. A mandate to ignore the media.
Now is the time-and it is particularly auspicious, because The Guardan has just lurched into another fifty million pound loss and is calling for 250 job cuts, as well as announcing that Rusbridger will not be taking over as head of the Scott Trust, presumably because the Security Services don’t find him reliable enough.
Now is the time for the “left” to withdraw all support from the paper of Manchester Political Economy and improvise new networks independent of The Establishment and the capitalist system.
It may be worth considering the proposition that the real basis of Blairism and its long line of ideological ancestors, which have turned every Labour victory into a disaster, is and always was, the sense that compromise with the media was the only path to power. That, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it was necessary to have a Gentleman as leader, preferably a Public School graduate, with the right sort of accent and policies which could not be trashed as “marxist.” It was necessary in short for Labour to prove that it was not outside the imperial consensus, merely, like Gladstone or Lloyd George on the left of centre side of it.
You are absolutely right and I have thought the same as you for a long time. The Left should have fuck all to do with the media and should prioritise connection with people at a grass roots level perfectly prepared to explain why.
The MSM in Australia are, just as Chomsky and Herman pointed out and commonsense tells you they must be, propaganda weapons for their owners, the rich. However, the Murdoch MSM cancer, in my opinion, is an absolute evil, a mechanism for driving societies to the socially vicious and sadistic Right, to enrich the wealthy and drive the rest into the mire, to vilify and traduce anyone who gets in their way, make worship of the USA and Israel mandatory, and fear and hatred of Russia, China, Iran etc, also compulsory. And then there is the Murdoch malignancy’s role in the anthropogenic climate destabilisation industry, the apotheosis of its hatred of humanity. I think that during humanity’s brief posterity, Murdoch will be seen as one of the most Evil figures in all human history.
It may be worth considering the proposition that the real basis of Blairism and its long line of ideological ancestors, which have turned every Labour victory into a disaster, is and always was, the sense that compromise with the media was the only path to power. That, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it was necessary to have a Gentleman as leader, preferably a Public School graduate, with the right sort of accent and policies which could not be trashed as “marxist.” It was necessary in short for Labour to prove that it was not outside the imperial consensus, merely, like Gladstone or Lloyd George on the left of centre side of it.
Cogent. And see Marx on the 1848 French revolution for more awful warnings for supporters of ‘egalite’.
Bevin.
Good example of self flagellation, keep being mean keeps them keen, in this case it certainly seems to be working.
With the advent of social media, the press and tv, can no longer break or make people so easily, still they carry considerable clout, and mud sticks no matter how innocent the verdict.
So what’s an honest politician (if such a thing exists) to do, even if he/she lives the life of a pious monk the media will concoct some sort of smear campaign, it’s just their nature I’m afraid, scandal sells papers, and if no scandal is forthcoming one must be created.
Sensationlism far out sells truthful journalism, in the word we now live in, the truth of a story is often seen as an after thought. What are those now notorious expressions in the newspaper industry? Ah yes “sex sells” and “if it bleeds it leads.”
Dishing the dirt, has never been so popular . ?
Journalism has long been ethically doubtful. See such movies as The Front Page (first filmed 1930, based on a 1928 play) and Ace in the Hole (1951), written by former journalists Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, and Billy Wilder.
Or indeed Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh
Here’s the bbc’s adaptation – something they’re at least still good at
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B8CLASRTtx4
Jeez, why does this man keep telling us things all of us on here already know?
Is it to appear insightful and clever (several “higher degrees, a greater polymath than Jonathan Miller) or does he just feel he has to post several times a day? 🙂
I had long been aware of the movie of The Front Page, but I had only been dimly aware of Ace in the Hole, and hadn’t seen it or realized it was as good a movie as it is until I finally bought and watched the Criterion DVD that came out a couple of years ago. It’s certainly good enough to tell people about.
The Sweet Smell of Success.
Bevin and others may find this of interest: reasoned analysis of the Kuenssberg incident and its interplay wiith the political and media establishment, Concludes (but please do read the rest):
Now, if you’re a journalist, ask yourself how this looks. We live in a society where, like it or not, the breakdown of the representative link is coextensive with a general decline in trust in the media. People do not feel represented by the government, and they do not feel represented in the media. The mirror of democracy has cracked and warped, and that means that people are more and more critical of what they see and hear in the media, and more inclined to see the media as an extension of the ‘political class’. And what have you got here? A complete failure to understand the criticisms let alone take them seriously. A generalised smarmy smugness among the punditry, snorting at the silly little people and their silly little conspiracy theories. (There are conspiracy theories, but I don’t think we need any lectures about that from the people who gave us the story of Labour’s remarkable takeover by antisemites.) And finally, a crescendo, an undignified, hectoring campaign to shut them up, denounce them as sexist, get the petition taken down. A chorus extending from the Tory front benches to the Labour back benches, and right across the media, exultant and graceless in victory. Do you have any idea what you look like? No. Of course you don’t.
http://www.leninology.co.uk/2016/05/laura-kuenssberg.html
An informative post from Media Lens seems relevant to the main theme of this thread:
Anatomy Of A Propaganda Blitz – Part 1
We live in a time when state-corporate interests are cooperating to produce propaganda blitzes intended to raise public support for the demonisation and destruction of establishment enemies.
Below, we will examine five key components of an effective propaganda campaign of this kind.
1: Dramatic New Evidence
A propaganda blitz is often launched on the back of ‘dramatic new evidence’ signifying that an establishment enemy should be viewed as uniquely despicable and targeted with ‘action’.
SNIP
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also, of course, been subject to a relentless, almost surreal, year-long propaganda campaign. As we will see in Part 2, this has most recently taken the form of accusations that ‘Labour now seems to be a party that attracts antisemites like flies to a cesspit.’
Propaganda blitzes are fast-moving attacks intended to inflict maximum damage. State-corporate propagandists know that media attention will quickly move on from the claim of ‘dramatic new evidence’, so the durability of the claim is not a key concern. Marginalised media blogs and rare ‘mainstream’ articles may quickly expose the hype, but most corporate media will not notice and will not learn the lesson that similar claims should be received with extreme caution in future. A prime example was the campaign justifying war on Libya in 2011, which faced minimal corporate media scepticism just eight years after the obvious deception on Iraq.
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/818-anatomy-of-a-propaganda-blitz-part-1.html
Silvio, and straight after the destruction of Libya and its delivery to the jihadist allies of the USA, the destruction of Syria began, about which the Western MSM has lied and distorted in favour of jihadist psychopaths so Evil that it almost defies description, with unrelenting Groupthink, Newspeak and willful selective blindness. When the non-MSM, academia and even figures like Seymour Hersh have produced mountains of real evidence concerning this jihadist assault, and the propaganda trope of a ‘civil war’ (where all the combatants on one side are foreigners driven by a genocidal ideology)is transparently a Big Lie, what explains the Western MSM’s TOTAL suppression of all this evidence, and 100% Groupthink and Newspeak? Apart from the need to keep your well-paid job in a world of spreading pauperisation, the selective process where every decent, honest, humane individual is eventually ‘wedded-out’ for ideological unreliabilty, must, in my opinion, be the main force at work.
So Fred Goodwin and his banker cronies won’t face any criminal charges. Goodwin who once worked for the corrupt and now defunct BCCI, can now sail off into the sunset without a care in the world.
Meanwhile the taxpayer was left to pick up the £45 billion defecit, and will probably be charged extra in the long term to fund PPI and LIBOR.
What sprung to mind was David Cameron’s comment of how corrupt Nigeria is, yet Nigeria doesn’t seem to have a problem prosecuting bankers, on the otherhand however do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-32958635
You appear to be advocating that bad things should be done to bad people.
Prince Harry would be glad to hear of your endorsement 🙂
Habb.
No I’m not, I’m advocating that justice should be serviced on those who abuse the financial system, a system that affects us all.
Isn’t it rather peculiar that, there’s never enough evidence found to prosecute the Fred Goodwin’s of this world.
It’s not just bankers who are sucking us dry.
Just look nat how stock markets are manipulated, and how hedge fund managers handle our investments.
The world is just crap, dedicated to the Donald Trumps by some intelligent force which punishes us for being so lazy, and stupid.
There was an item on Democracy Now! yesterday on how much money hedge fund managers make. It’s turns out to be far more than even the best-compensated bankers get.
Top 25 Hedge Fund Managers Earn $13 Billion in 2015:
Did you see the report that Chelsea’s spouse lost 90% of the assets of his Hedge Fund? If true the guy is more my type than I figured. Lucky there are really good jobs available at the Clinton Foundation.
Big Bikkies, the reason that humanity is doomed, by ecological and spiritual collapse, is simple. The Right took over, totally, and they have forcefully projected their pathopsychology onto every aspect of life. The Right being psychopaths, more or less extreme, these ‘values’, ‘Western moral values’ in fact, are gigantic egotism, insatiable greed, fear and hatred of others and the manifestation of that misanthropy in the total absence of human empathy and compassion. Indeed their sadism is unlimited. This system is enforced by an operating system, capitalism, that has evolved into ever more malignant manifestations, the last, ‘Market Fundamentalist neo-liberal capitalism’, being entirely antithetical to Life on Earth, as we are witnessing.
At risk of being accused of returning to my vomit, I would add the following with respect to the idea of boycotting the media.
It strikes me that what is true of Corbyn, that he won despite the worst that the media could do, is true also not just of Sanders, whose candidacy received virtually no media attention until he started reeling off victories, and not much since then. He is currently getting the silent treatment, as in “Its all over. Hillary wins. No point in covering the last agonies of a campaign which was doomed from the outset.” And in social media, where money really talks and there are no rules, Sanders faces an extraordinarily well financed campaign employing thousands of trolls and provocateurs as well as the ‘seen it all before’ bloggers who know that Americans will never vote for socialists.
But the real revelation has, perhaps, been in the Trump phenomenon. For Trump has been treated with amused contempt mixed with alarmist spotting of a New Hitler (as if you could make in out in the crowd around Washington) and attacks from all sectors of the media. He has proved of course that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but it is something more than.
And, if you add the increasing public distaste for Tammany Hill, it is hard not to conclude that, as we populists have been saying all along, the people have pretty good bullshit detectors. Give them a choice and they will generally make the right decision (which is why there is very rarely a choice allowed).
When the media jeer, the people cheer.
Conspiracy Theories That are Bollocks.
1. Weather modification (except on a very small localised basis) it might be possible to seed clouds to make it rain..though they don’t seem to be having much luck in Canada or California…so they are Rubbish at that too. (its suddenly dropped over 10 degrees here now..but weather does that – I am not blaming anyone – just warned My “Sis” – to bring a coat. My wife told me.
2. Chemtrails – Oh Come On..the vast majority of aircraft travel in controlled air lanes like Motorways. If the aircraft in front was spewing out all this shiit, the pilot behind would be breathing it every day…and a lot more planes would drop out of the sky and even Bruce Dickinson would refuse to Fly.
3. HAARP causing Earthquakes and Manic Destruction. Yes I know Muse sing about it…and of course HAARP is real..but it hasn’t got enough energy to bounce off the atmosphere and cause an Earthquake in Oldham or anywhere else.
4. Americans or Even North Koreans causing Tsunamis by triggering off Nukes close to Fault lines and kicking off underwater Earthquakes….Maybe possible – but highly unlikely – have you seen the State of the F35??
5. Nuclear Weapons – not actually being Real and Capable of causing the Destruction of The Human Race. Nuclear Weapons are Real and Can and Probably Will Cause The Destruction of The Human Race.
6. People From Lancashire – Being God’s Chosen People – rather than those other stupid idiots from the Borat Movie in Kazakhstan (we are just the nicest – and think you lot are clowns)
7. The entire world can’t afford to actually do anything useful- cos we are all in debt..We are all poor…cos we owe all this money to someone else…Err – who is the someone else..who we owe all this money too??…Surely there is a simple solution to this…but I am not allowed to say what it is for Politically Correct Reasons.
8. UFO’s and Aliens actually being Real and Here and Now…well I watched a UFO come over my house late one night and apparently land in the Park a few hundred yards away. If they were real..surely he would have knocked on my door and asked for a cup of tea. He didn’t and there was no evidence in the park either.
9. Crop Circles…Check Out This Pub and The People who Live on Canal Boats (I seriously pissed off someone famous from The BBC a couple of years ago – cos I didn’t recognise him..I said I don’t watch TV.) http://www.the-barge-inn.com/index.php
Some of the Rest of The Conspiracy Theories are True…I could give you a list but it would challenge your cognitive dissonance.
That is enough for now cos I can’t think of Number 10 and I am getting ready to go out to see a band.
Tony
People from Yorkshire are God’s Chosen. Lancastrians are the servants of the Devil.
They said the same in Kerala – and I am more inclined to believe them…though incredibly hot and sticky – if they had decent weather …Really Lovely People.
One of the first steps leading to Greek democracy was Solon’s Seisachtheia, which was a program of debt forgiveness.
“The laws instituted a ceiling to maximum property size – regardless of the legality of its acquisition (i.e. by marriage), meant to prevent excessive accumulation of land by powerful families.”
______________________
So if a landed man married a landed woman, some of the land would have to be given up if the maximum was exceeded.
Sounds rather totalitarian to me.
Tony, number 10 might be the flat earth stuff, which is the latest attempt by the CIA et al to discredit anyone who challenges the official narrative.
Any of your favourite ‘alternative media’ bods who promote the flat earth stuff is almost certainly in the pay of Langley.
Mark Lane, one of the first to challenge the Warren Commission fairy tale and the object of many government attempts to discredit him, has just died.
Natural causes?
Definitely not natural causes – he died suspiciously young (89 years old).
Imbecile.
Probably accidentally drank some Polonium 210, like Arafat.
I had thought chemtrails bollocks but swimming backstroke out of doors and you idly wonder at why most jets don’t leave trails and then other days there are these trails all over the place….
Sure there is some reasonable explanation.
Relative humidity.
Ta Ba’al, the old brain is not very analytical when swimming and sky gazing.
My brain is the size of a small planet, but it is very bad at finding its way to the river when the sun is shining. Which is a distinct minus. 🙂
Just bollocks by you, Tony, about conspiracy theories.
They usually involve people plotting against other people, often to assassinate them for some reason, like the CIA killings of leaders in the States during the 1960s which Nixon wanted so he could gain the White House, and then keep it.
Usually, though, the plots do not go as planned, resulting in some kind of cockup.
As for the plots not involving people, you are talking about manufactured or previous nonsense to kill off the idea of conspiracies, or you have gotten them wrong.
For examples of the former, there is the nonsense about no moon landings or that UFOs have come here from outer space.
And HAARP is essentially to make the ionosphere into a lens which will heat up the earth’s surface to cause weather modification like droughts and floods.
Its various lasers in the air or under sea which cause earthquakes.
Start using your mind rather than making up crazy lists.
And the U.S. slips further into totalitarianism. Washington Post: Want a security clearance? Feds will now check your Facebook and Twitter first:
hi Esther, I’d just like to record what a grand old party the Republicans are.
Our Transatlantic Friend appears to believe that any security screening is a sign of totalitarianism.
I wonder if this alleged retired “US Navy officer” said that to the authoroties when he was being security screened (allegedly)?
The thought of bots scanning for key words oblivious to irony sarcasm or loyal dissent is worrying. Peeps just keep heads down and become passive robots themselves.
Though the contrary position is there is nothing like censorship and the imposition of restrictions for the development of creative resistance.
Again, you are wrong. Lysias is complaining about the, illegal, federal surveillance of private correspondence.
As a Naval Officer he will have sworn to defend the Constitution of the USA. It would appear that he is still doing so.
Not at all., “Bevin”.
Our Transatlantic friend appears to be complaining about the extension of security screening to cover utterances on various social media accounts.
********************
PS – I very much doubt that you have the slightest idea of what is involved in the higher levels of security screening.
For a brief time today the Guardian featured this prominently; no reader’s comments allowed, of course:
“Why isn’t this a huge scandal, across the news everywhere?
It’s potentially one of the most explosive political stories of all time if the Tories were found to be guilty of deliberately fiddling election expenses to give themselves an unfair advantage in crucial marginal seats. People could go to prison. There might have to be byelections. It could turn out that David Cameron should never have had a majority government, which means we wouldn’t necessarily be having the EU referendum.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/13/tory-election-expenses
The article explains in Jackanory terms just why the big grown-ups in the media have to huff and puff and not properly report the biggest scandal in modern British politics.
“It really doesn’t matter if it’s raining or it’s fine
Just as long as you’ve got time
To playaway…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxkwy3WY0I
Typing too fast. I should have said: “… one of the biggest scandals in modern British politics”. (the other being the Westminster pedophile ring).
Richard Silverstein points out, in Israel Independence Day Evokes N***-Era Slogan, how the Israeli government made official use (by a color guard in a celebration), on Israeli Independence Day, of two-thirds of a N*** slogan: אמ אחד (ein Volk) מדינה אחת (ein Reich)
Your point?
As I’ve already pointed out, the Irish word for what we know as the “Prime Minister” directly translates as “Leader”. As in “Fuehrer” or “Duce”.
Would our Transatlantic Irish-American (allegedly) Friend care to comment on that? 🙂
The term ‘imbécile’ comes from a French noun which translates as describing someone who is a complete idiot and mentally impaired. It originally stems from the Latin term ‘imbecillus’, which means weak and feeble.
Your comments get more and more fatuous. Think about what this means:
“As I’ve already pointed out, the Irish word for what we know as the “Prime Minister” directly translates as “Leader”. As in “Fuehrer” or “Duce”….”
Now my question is so what? The term Leader as in Leader of the House or Leader of HM Opposition or so on presumably in your mind translates in Irish as Toiseach and in German as Fuhrer.
Are we making progress? NO.
The problem is that you smear so instinctively that you have lost any underrstanding of just how banal some of those smears are.
I think you’ve finally grasped my point, “Bevin”.
Which was that – contrary to what our Transatlantic Friend appears to be suggesting – there is no Nazi monopoly on words like “Volk” (people) or “Reich” (translated by Mr Silverstein in his article as “nation”).
So the attempted “smear” comes from Mr Sillverstein, lovingly brought to our attention by our Friend.
Would you write that if Palestinians had used the terms?
Crosby
Of course I would – because it’s a fact that no one has a monopoly on the words “people” and “nation”.
Silly question.
As Silverstein goes on to discuss, the slogan is offensive, not just for the N*** reason, but also because of the way that it excludes Israelis who do not belong to that particular Volk.
This is a reply to Habbabkuk comment @22.19 which doesn’t seem to have a reply tab for some reason;
Yes I can read, but can you ?;
“In July 2015 she was appointed as the BBC’s political editor, the first woman to hold the position.[8][16] Kuenssberg was involved in arranging for the Labour MP Stephen Doughty to publicly announce his resignation as a shadow foreign office minister on the Daily Politics television programme in early January 2016.” Wiki
A very brief piece on the latest CIA-led coup in South America…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lSjbV4YcZU
Turns out the new acting president in Brazil has a history as an informant for the U.S.
Had the BBC had the guts to stand up to the Blair government when it counted i.e back when dead bodies first started littering Oxfordshire, maybe a few more people would show them some sympathy; as it is, f**k the BBC, they deserve all they get from the government.
For insomniacs:
Professor Richard Wolff is an American economist and a Marxist. You can count high profile American Marxists like Wolff on the fingers of a decapitated hand.
For the last year or so, Wolff has tirelessly given a monthly lecture on the economic crisis. These lectures usually run to a half hour or so, followed by a Q & A. Here’s last month’s lecture, which amongst other things covers the Panama Papers, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and the American prison population…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WuynCnBrlY
Finally got around to QT. Chrissie Hynde was wonderful. Jim Sillars not bad either.
I hadn’t heard about this state guardian concept: the SNP has surely lost the plot on this – the policy is pure lunacy. I am surprised it got any votes.
Yes.
If I’d said people in Scotland weren’t fit to bring up their own children what would have happened? What constitutes being a bad parent in the eyes of the Nationalists? Voting Tory? We’ve seen it said on this very blog that people who voted against independence are either stupid or evil so it doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to include bad parent in the description.
Fred.
You Britnat idiot tell that to Liam Fee.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-36016542
Nationalist retard.
“Dead Inverness boy’s mother Amanda Hardie jailed for 10 months”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-36286050
The named person scheme has been operating in Inverness for seven years and Clyde Campbell had one it did him no good.
Now google and see how many teachers get sentenced on child pornography charges, I know of at least one head teacher in the Highlands prosecuted for downloading illegal images of children who was a named person.
Fred.
You really are a imbecile, for every child that slips through the net many more are saved, fools like you want to remove the only safety net left for children who are neglected.
Childrens charities back the scheme, yes the odd teacher here and there is convicted of child pornography offences of which I find appalling.. What about the majority of teachers health workers and other fields that deal with children, who spot child abuse and neglect.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/groups-unite-to-defend-named-person-policy-against-action-in-supreme-court.14779
If it were left up to you Fred, and thank god by the way it isn’t, vulnerable children would be even more vulnerable.
You are so blinded by hatred of the SNP and nationalists as a whole, that your judgement has been clouded beyond reason.
RoS I don’t hate the SNP I just don’t agree with them, there is a difference even if Nationalists find it hard to understand.
How about if the Conservative government in Westminster decided they were going to appoint a person to have legal access to every child in Scotland. Ask them questions, make sure they grow up good little Tories, ask them what their parents get up to. Would you agree to that? How about if we let the police search every house in Britain on a regular basis just in case they are doing something they shouldn’t? That would reduce crime wouldn’t it? They could put cctv in every home to watch every parent, tap their telephones.
There has to be a balance between security and civil liberties and the named person scheme crosses it, people have a right to bring their children up how they see fit without the nanny state watching and judging them all the time and that includes people I don’t like.
……For past 3 days I;ve been unable to access your site – first and only time this has ever happened….Basically I’m presented with an apparent security check consisting of a block of 9 (I think) photos and asked to identify those with a (requested) particular theme. Needless to say my answers dont satisfy the programme – and this continues ad infinitum…..
The IP addresses you are posting from are listed in multiple databases as a source of attack traffic therefore Cloudflare automatically issues a captcha challenge but it should not be impossible to pass. I will manually whitelist your IP address range for now.
The IPs appear to be Vodafone dynamic addresses and you were just unlucky enough to get allocated an address recently misused by someone else.
This is off topic but important for human rights’ activists. I have only this morning discovered that Michael Ratner the human rights’ lawyer died 3 days ago. He represented Wikileaks and Julian Assange, spoke out for Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning but perhaps his main contribution to human rights’ injustices was in getting basic legal rights for detainees in Guantanamo Bay so they could have their cases individually heard in court.
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/may/12/michael-ratner-obituary
RIP Michael Ratner.
Tribute to Michael Ratner from Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss.net:
Michael Ratner was dedicated to radical social change, with humor and humility
Michael Ratner, who died yesterday in New York, cared only about action. He had no interest in people who weren’t trying to change society structurally. He was outgoing and could talk to anyone anywhere but he didn’t like liberals or puffery or trivia. He surrounded himself with people who were committed to real change, and had a sense of humor, and he pushed them to action. He was the opposite of big talk. He enjoyed laughter and teasing and the human comedy and his wife Karen’s garden. But when it came to work he was completely serious.
This site would not be here if he had not been there early on and later on too: to tell Adam and me, when he wasn’t teasing us, that we were filling a need. When he read the Goldstone Report seven years ago and saw the repeated references to indiscriminate bombing and actual targeting of civilians he grasped the landmark moment and called us to some diner and said we had to make a book of it, and so we did. He was the exact opposite of Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power who at every turn brag about their work against the biased Goldstone Report. He saw the truth and held it up for others to see. He took his kids to the Gaza Freedom March too.
Continued at: http://mondoweiss.net/2016/05/michael-dedicated-humility/
FAO Craig, too.
Oh my God! I have just seen that John Jones QC is dead! John Jones represented Julian Assange in the UK and died on or around 18th April 2016 in an apparent suicide – struck by a train. Jones was 48 years old.
http://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/news/article/doughty-street-mourns-john-jones-qc
I do not want to make a big thing of it as I do not know anything about his life, but I would like to know more about the circumstances of his death. Craig, have you any comment?
I am sorry to hear about the passing of Michael Ratner also. I confess I knew nothing about him (strange, that…) but he seems to have been a good man and a great advocate for people with no voice.
Democracy Now! a couple of days ago was entirely devoted to Michael Ratner.
What’s a ‘zoomer’?
In any event, I am sufficiently old-fashioned to distrust the powers of analysis of those who immediately resort to calling someone else a ‘cunt’. If they had anything useful and critical (in the analytical sense) to say they should say it and let the rest of us read and consider it.
As for Miss Kuenssberg, the best response I saw to her came from the ‘extreme right-wing’ (sic) Marine Le Pen, who said something along the lines of “Madame, you seem more interested in the questions you are asking than in the answers I am giving”. Kuenssberg isn’t the only B.B.C.-type that for whom that response is incredibly apt.
I will not contact the young lady who gave CM the nuanced and thoughtful title “Cunt of the day”, but if I were a feminist woman I might be inclined to ask her if it was a good idea to advertise herself as a feminist and a socialist and then demonstrate that the worst epithet she can apply to someone is a derogatory term for the female genitalia. It’s perfectly easy to discover who she is.
It’s not a derogotary term for the female genitalia, it’s a perfectly good and long-established term for female genitalia used by Chaucer (queynte) and Marvell (quaint) among others. It has become a derogatory term for an intensely objectionable person, as have most words pertaining to organs of procreation and the passing of waste, whether male or female.
I put that rather badly, and accept the correction. It is indeed a term with a long history, but has been vulgarised over the years and is now taboo slang, as they call it. Are you seriously arguing that “queynte” had the same impact in Chaucer’s time as “cunt” does now? I don’t think so.
It is, however, the worst derogatory term that can be applied to someone in the English language, and although there are exceptions, feminist thinking generally finds that unacceptable, in my view rightly.
I think there are grounds for restoring the word to its original meaning and useage and that involves removing its taboo status. That’s why many women including feminists use the term freely and without shame as their word of choice for describing female genitalia. It’s a way of reappropriating and rescuing what is a very good and useful word (the alternatives are just too clinical-sounding).
Quite right – I fully agree. And therefore describing someone you disagree with as “Cunt of the week” while calling yourself a feminist is in my opinion not helpful.
“Of the day”, rather.
I still don’t know what a ‘zoomer’ is.
Scottish Vernacular Dictionary: “A person of an erratic or volatile disposition”.
Two definitions offered to Iain MacWhirter on Twitter from ordinary citizens:
“I’d say someone who’s a bit dim but sprays opinions around regardless.”
“Tad partisan. Hyperbolic. Overly opinionated yet under informed.”
http://www.firstfoot.com/dictionary/z.html
https://twitter.com/iainmacwhirter/status/592742489565634561
It seems to have taken on a special meaning during the nationalist disputations meaning a fanatical nutcase advocate for one side or another. I think.
Very much on topic: I have had a reply to an email I wrote to 38 degrees, which runs as follows. Can anyone else spot the logical flaw?
“Thanks for getting in touch about the petition against Laura Kuenssberg.
Lots of members have been in touch about this issue, and many raise valid concerns like yours. David Babbs has written a blog post addressing the most frequent questions and comments, and I hope it helps to answer yours.
Please note that the original petition with over 35,000 signatures has now been delivered to the BBC, and that sexist comments were automatically removed from the Comments section of the petition while it was online. They could not of course be removed by 38 Degrees from social media.
You can read the post here:
https://home.38degrees.org.uk/2016/05/12/laura-kuenssberg-blog-david-babbs/
As David mentions in his blog, this is the first time a petition on our site has been closed for this reason.
Best wishes,
David and the 38 Degrees team (not David Babbs)”
Yes, that is the best they can do after three days. The comments were automatically removed, and then it had to be taken down for comments you were not allowed to see…and still aren’t.
Sadly I do not believe the David that works with Adam for the other David. Organisations such as this, who have been batting away, so they say, at the Government, managed to get politicians talking about the issues they raised,. etc. etc. will, by the time they are active for 4/5 years, be infiltrated by very clever people who work away silently as part of the team.
It is not the first petition they mismanaged, that’s obfuscation of the truth. There was another campaign trying to get the House to debate cannabis legalisation for medical use and it had 16.000 names removed because they ‘were suspicious about patterns’.
Nothing happened afterwards because without the 16k signatures it was just under the threshold.
The problem is the vast majority of their supporters would not have gotten the importance of 38 degrees being undermined, the majority has not felt the small ripple that has emanated from Craigs excellent work.
Thanks for that NM! “This has never happened to us before” was the only bit that I neither knew already nor had very good reason to deride immediately. There seems to be a very clear pattern of the powers that be using their servants to bombard anyone who speaks out with ad hominem statements, often accusing them of the very thing they have spoken out against. Bill Hicks was on the money: it’s a giant totalitarian conspiracy; you are free to do as we tell you.
I have just left the following comment on the 38 Degrees petition site.
“Oh yer! Sorry David it just does not wash. I for one will think very carefully before signing another 38 Degrees petition. And I am so pleased I never made a monetary contribution to 38 degrees especially now we all know where you stand.
Your apology to Laura Kuenssburg says it all. It is she who should be apologising to Jeremy Corbyn and BBC viewers. There was no sexist abuse and you know it. This is part of the political campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. Wake up world!”
Good on you!
Tweeted to 38 Degrees (@38_degrees) that I will never be signing another of their petitions, with a link to CM’s “Proof positive” article.
It is ludicrous that the dick heads at 38 Degrees keep referring to Social Media, without detailing what they actually mean by Social Media, what Social Media has got to do with their own organisation, or why there is now an imperative to cross reference Signatures posted on a Petition, any Petition that is, with what 38 Degrees host on their own website – which as far as I can tell has absolutely fuck all to do with Social Media.
Perhaps the dick heads at 38 Degrees could qualify what Freedom of Speech is, and while in doing so please explain why it is now imperative to Vet each and every person who signs a Petition on their websites, the persons details allegedly remaining private and confidential.
Maybe GCHQ paid them a visit, but their excuse for removing a Petition, which by today most probably would have had 100,000 signatures, holds about as much water as a thimble and I’m being generous here!
Lets shout it out for what it is, CENSORSHIP of the worse kind.
But now we know everyone signing a Petition on 38 Degrees is Vetted and all Social Media posts, however innocent checked – a capability they actually don’t have, unless working with the Security Services.
Surely we have nothing to fear from them getting into bed with the spooks collecting all that meta-data, as they would never have time to go through it all – or so I am told, haha.
“Maybe GCHQ paid them a visit…”
And supervised the destruction of their hard drives?
The hardest thing to understand is the cowardice that is being displayed by just about everyone involved, including those who concede that the likes of Laura-wallowing in the public eye- should not expect abuse, particularly when they set the standard of debate by being abusive not on an individual but on an industrial scale.
It would be nice of some of the sympathy for these media figures was matched by some empathy for the poor bloody working man who abides by all the rules, engages, at enormous expense in terms of time and family, voluntarily in the political process and along with tens of thousands of comrades, elects, fair and square someone to speak on their behalf (and on behalf of the most vulnerable and victimised members of the national community) only to find their efforts thwarted by a conspiracy of idlers, with paper qualifications and a superficial knowledge of politics, using every resource at their disposal, most of which are publicly owned and capitalised, to make life for Corbyn, and his illicit project of protecting the weak and promoting the interests of the workers, impossible.
Christ alive!!! The fact that only a couple of people called Laura a ‘cow’ or a ‘cunt’ is a testimony to the self restraint and good manners of the people.
On the other hand, to return to my point, they might just be afraid to say what they think, fearing all manner of consequences.
Well said, Bevin, I agree with 99.95% of your sentiments.
But it’s not only poor bloody men who work, you know.
I know, John.
Me too. Though I’ve worked through both.
Why would Scottish MSP’s have to swear an oath of allegiance to old droopy chops HRH and her benefit scrounging brood. In future the “oath” to the queen must be replaced with a oath to the people of Scotland. If as some say the oath is a mere ceremony, then it should be optional, to do so.
http://www.thenational.scot/comment/wee-ginger-dug-its-time-for-our-msps-to-swear-a-new-oath.17569
Infact come to think of why would any civil servant be it judiciary military etc, actually want to swear allegiance to old Lizzie and cosseted offspring and hanger-on in-laws?
In my opinion, royalty is a drain on society, it provides no real function, that a ordinary ambassadors couldn’t do. Allegiances by civil servants etc should be to the people not irrelevant spongers.
If the Crown couldn’t respect Scotland enough or take Scotland seriously enough in 1953 to have the Queen crowned Queen of Scotland in a separate ceremony to the one in Westminster Abbey, it’s nothing but arrogance from the British state to demand an oath of allegiance from our democratically elected legislators. The oath to the crown should be entirely optional for MSPs.
Why should Her Majesty have been crowned Queen of Scotland in a separate ceremony when she was crowned Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom?
Note for the stupid: the United Kingdom comprises England, Wales, Northern Ireland…..and Scotland.