Moderation Rules for Commenters 391

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I am reposting the rules for commenting, as they were last set out exactly a year ago. I have been most disappointed by the degree of personal insult flying around the comments thread in recent weeks. In general, there is no need at all to address other commenters in your remarks. You can address their arguments, but that is different. Avoid referring to the person of other commenters, whether by name or by any other means of identification.

Address the argument, not the person. To do otherwise will be an immediate warning flag for deletion. Any reference to any commenter which is not courteous will lead to the comment being immediately deleted. This is an expansion of the way we will enforce the “fair play” rule below.

Here are the rules:

This is essentially a free speech forum… There is an important distinction between my writing, and the comments section. The proportion of readers who leave comments is well under 1%. I cannot know what percentage of the readers read comments, but I suspect it is not terribly high.

In social media I find establishment hacks – particularly journalists and Labour Party functionaries – dismiss my thoughts by referring to the comments section. “Craig Murray – have you seen the tinfoil hats comments on his blog!” being a genuine and very typical example. Well, if people wish to damn me by association with the views of other people, that is sadly an example of the low intellectual standards of the British nomenklatura of our time. The only views on here which are mine are those which I write.

I cherish the diversity of the comment threads and am fond of our little community, most of whom I have never met. I do not value people by the standard of how close their views are to my own. I am sometimes saddened by the personal animosities which arise between people.

We state some rules from time to time. This is the current set, which I just made up:

No racism. Any comment which is racist will simply be deleted immediately. The biggest problem we face is anti-Jewish comment, which I will not tolerate. We are not in the business of stigmatising anti-Zionism as anti-Jewish, but there are quite frequently distinctly anti-Jewish comments. I deleted one just an hour ago.

Similarly, no holocaust denial. I do not believe it should be illegal (I am against thought crime) but I do not wish to have it on my blog as those associated with it often have very unpleasant sympathies. That is not to say the subject of the holocaust can never be mentioned – it will never be possible to ascertain the precise number who were killed, and it is important we remember not only the Jews but the Poles, gypsies, gays, freemasons and numerous others who suffered. But the basic facts are not in doubt. It is surprising how often people attempt to insinuate holocaust denial.

Sockpuppetry.

It is in practice impossible to outlaw sockpuppetry without a formal registration system, which I do not want. But the adoption of multiple identities within the same thread is not to be allowed, nor the creation of identities of which the purpose is to ridicule, attack or insult another contributor.

Fair Play. Play the ball, not the man. Address arguments, not people. Do not impugn the motives of others, including me. No taunting.

Relevance

Attempts to keep people on topic are hopeless, but do try.

9/11

We don’t discuss 9/11. There are plenty of places on the web where you can do that. It tends to take over threads.

Contribute

Contributions which are primarily just a link to somewhere else will be deleted. You can post links, but give us the benefit of your thoughts upon them.

No explanation.

Enforcing these rules is necessarily arbitrary and needs judgement calls. Moderators are precluded from explaining decisions online. If you want to complain use the contact button.

Moderators

We have, and have had, excellent moderators over many years. But almost all have found it not only time consuming but also surprisingly emotionally draining. If you are interested in volunteering and are willing for me to know both your real and online identity, please get in touch using the contact button.

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391 thoughts on “Moderation Rules for Commenters”

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    • nevermind

      too late loony, you never told us that you are concerned for factory fishing ships from the EU hovering up west Africas resources, its a very old disgust we all have, another indication that nobody of your elected representatives did their job to change it.
      Have you told your MEP? what did you say? s/he is a party politician that does whatever their party says? you might be right there, so why did you vote for them?
      was it their smile, guile or did they buy you a beer?

      • Loony

        I was under the impression that the EU operates on qualified majority voting. This being the case it doesn’t really matter what UK politicians think.

        It is the (un-elected) Commission that forms and proposes legislation, not the Parliament so again it does not really matter what elected UK politicians think.

        However, you are correct – If you despise African fishermen vote Remain

  • nevermind

    If its me, I’m sorry, its because I have no vote and am rather frustrated about it, at least I can do some campaigning for my view.
    vote remain for your children’s future, keep on with the BDS and don’t troll

  • michael norton

    Gordon Brown ” why did you put me with that bigoted woman”
    Tony Blair ” Weapons of mass destruction”
    Peter Mandelson the E.U. has always been good to me
    Neil Kinnock the E.U. has been brilliant for my whole family
    Baroness Warsi I’ll stand on my head if you give me a plumb E.U. appointment
    David Cameron vote to stay and keep me in a job, I’ve never had a real job.
    George Osborne vote stay and keep me in a job, I’ve never had a real job.

    You know it makes sense,
    vote for the status quo

    • Alan

      I really like that! You’re obviously a very insightful person 😉

      Isn’t Cameron the pits?

  • Macky

    Did Craig make up the stories about her husband’s behaviour,? No, that really would have been “vile”; instead in the speculative aftermath, everybody was trying to find possible clues as to why she was murdered, so why is it “repulsive” & “vile” that Craig found her husband’s reported sex pest behaviour, interesting in this context ?

  • RobG

    Gawd, can’t we speed up time to get this bloody referendum over with. I’m not sure I can take another three days of this.

    And on the same theme, in the House of Commons this afternoon there was one of those very rare and quite remarkable occasions; in this instance tributes to Jo Cox.

    It lasted for an hour and about 15 MPs spoke, starting of course with Cameron and Corbyn. Whilst many paying tribute mentioned Cox’s work with the ‘Friends of Syria’, not one person mentioned her support of the Palestinian cause, or her support for a boycott of Israel.

    Yes, Cox was a Blairite, which would make her a political enemy of me. However, like most human beings she was multifaceted and I’m sad that in the tributes to her this was brushed under the carpet.

    • Alan

      Yes, Cox was a Blairite, which would make her a political enemy of me.

      Too true, but remember that thing I posted earlier about do-gooding rich people? Hey, I hate to sound like a Christian, what with Blair being one, but what about that parable of the old woman who gave all she had, compared to the rich shits who were handing out gold Maundy money?

      Kinda Blairite by name, Blairite by nature.

      • RobG

        I believe Jo Cox had good intentions, but because we now live in an almost full-on police state she, too, was taken in by the propaganda (her support of the White Helmets being a good example).

    • Ba'al Zevul

      …not one person mentioned her support of the Palestinian cause, or her support for a boycott of Israel.

      Have a heart, Rob. Mentioning those would be more than their jobs would be worth. And even if they did, it wouldn’t be on the front page.

    • Ian

      How depressing that someone as vibrant and decent can be reduced to a sloganising category such as ‘Blairite’ by people who want to simplify the world into little camps of opposing factions with, naturally, their faction being pure and true, and the other evil and deplorable. Part of the problem of the Labour party is getting away from this absurd bunfight between the ideologues and bar room bores. Jo Cox was one of those who could have accomplished this, had she lived. There are others though, and I hope they come through, sooner rather than later, and we can bin this whole interim playground fight between self-righteous, narcissistic control freaks.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    SCOTS – READ THIS!

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/20/this-countrys-opponents-would-love-to-cause-mischief-if-we-left/

    While I absolutely agree Putin is probably not the UK’s best friend, this disgraceful attempt to link Scottish independence, a Leave vote and The Bear Shall Not Have Constantinople* marks the nadir of the divisiveness and fearmongering its author affects to deplore. Note: most of the article is about the SNP, the pic of Putin at its head refers only to an afterthought at the end.

    Hague is an unprincipled expletive, the product of not nearly enough ridicule.

    * as our jingoists used to sing when justifying the Crimean War.

    • Ben Monad

      Nice catch. Remember our History. Putin would love to pay back US for the fucking of Gorby and sticking them with yeltsin. It’s called Karma, and although Putin is the kettle, the West is truly Black.

      • Resident Dissident

        I think you will find that Putin and his crowd had little time for Gorby either – and you forget that it was Yeltsin who appointed Putin at the instigation of Berezovsky. Putin only rotates the demons for his nationalist audience – it really means very little the aim is money and control for Putin and his oligarch chums.

  • Summerhead

    I had a look at the Independent website the other day and they appear to have adopted the opposite policy to the Guardian in that there appears to be no moderation at all on their comments section, the result being lots of extremely unpleasant racism and personal insults – it makes YouTube look civilized. The Guardian on the other hand will obliterate your account for simply suggesting an article they have posted is not as journalistically thorough as it could be. Is this the first comment to be on topic with Craig’s post I wonder?

  • Mark Golding

    Cameron/Osborne keep Schtum on the Secretive TTIP/TPP Putsch waiting for the ‘Remain’ win whatever happens in the polls.

    This EU Super State is a preliminary requirement for a Corporate take over of European political systems and potentially renegade political rebellion against Corporatism rule. Goldman Sachs ex employees run most of the show now. That was always the plan. Its a clever mutated form of fascism. Cameron/Osborne are the principal Actors protecting British Corporatism with the same objective in the EU Referendum fraud as in the TTIP/TPP trade deal putsch.

    It’s a clever way of gutting national sovereignty and the dangers of democracy to Corporatism’s Puppet government and the British people will fall for it by voting Remain and TTIP/TPP by default.

    Each trade deal contains a section called ‘Investor State Dispute Resolution’ that would end important aspects of the sovereignty of each signatory nation, by setting up an international panel composed solely of corporate lawyers to serve as ‘arbitrators’ deciding cases brought before this panel to hear lawsuits by international corporations accusing a given signatory nation of violating that corporation’s ‘rights’ by its trying to legislate regulations that are prohibited under the ‘trade’ agreement, such as by increasing the given nation’s penalties for fraud, or by lowering the amount of a given toxic substance that the nation allows in its foods, or by increasing the percentage of the nation’s energy that comes from renewable sources, or by penalizing corporations for hiring people to kill labour union organisers — i.e., by any regulatory change that benefits the public at the expense of the given corporations’ profits. (No similar and countervailing power for nations to sue international corporations is included in this: the ‘rights’ of ‘investors’ — but really of only the top stockholders in international corporations — are placed higher than the rights of any signatory nation.)

    Trade deals will thus internationalise the system to bail out billionaires on their losses and after the ‘Remain’ win the time will be ripe for them to establish a global corporate dictatorship. The political money this year will be flowing like never before.

    ################### Vote ‘Remain’ folks and kill the NHS ###############

      • Mark Golding

        More nukes – more subs – Paul Mason indeed – the empty suit that offered up the propaganda needed to dress up a Syrian intervention as a necessary defensive and even humanitarian move against the Islamic State, as well as a means of combating supposed Russian aggression in the Middle East.

        He writes: “Isis attacked civilians irrespective of their position on Islam or imperialist war; it attacked, specifically, symbols of a secular, liberal lifestyle. It did these things because that is what it is fighting: the west, its people, their values and their lifestyle.”

        Defence of a Western “lifestyle” is a goal that is close to Mason’s heart and one clearly of more concern than the hundreds of thousands of casualties and the devastation of whole countries resulting from imperialism’s predatory wars.

        • laguerre

          It’s no good emitting a generalised bleat against P. Mason. The issue is the specific one of what’s going happen after Brexit. It is evident that the point for the Tories is that they’re going to be freed of all that EU employment and social law which restrains them at the moment. They’re rubbing their hands with glee at what they’re going to be able to do to slash the welfare state, and terminate the NHS. And you’ll be able to do nothing about it, because the main lines are doable before the GE in 2020. Gove and Johnson in office – you’ll be putting yourself in the power of a bunch who talk loudly about independence and sovereignty, but are actually heading towards turning Britons into work-slaves. Nothing to stop them, if you vote Brexit.

          I’m surprised the older generation (of which I am one) don’t take to heart the interests of the young, who are massively for Remain. They are the ones who are going to have to live with the results of this referendum, we will not. Their point of view should be preponderant, not that of us wrinklies.

          • Mark Golding

            Exactly my reasoning laguerre when the referendum was announced, precariously pivoting on the premise of EU employment and social law constraint. I have to rush but please think carefully about this tie up. Your last paragraph is kinder cuddly although the crow’s feet tread a bit harder these days. ;0

  • Loony

    Do you like neo-Nazis?

    Perhaps you have considered funding the BNP, but just been too embarrassed to cut the check. Don’t worry the EU can help you – they will fund neo-Nazis on your behalf. You get to fund them in secret so can always deny your actions in polite company.

    http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5035_en.htm

    Love neo-Nazis, love the EU.

    • Jim

      The House of Windsor has nothing whatsoever to do with Putins neo-Nazi affiliations.

      • Loony

        That Putin is a neo-Nazi makes eminent sense. After all he is the leader of a country that lost over 25 million of its citizens, including members of his own family, fighting Nazi’s

        Obviously he would need to be mad to be a Nazi – and of course we know he is mad.

        How then to explain that he has the approval of 87% of the population. Simple 87% of the Russian population are mad. The other 13% are a bit more difficult to account for, but the likelihood is that they are both mad and illiterate.

        A couple of simple facts coupled with logical deduction is more than enough to deal with Alan and his irrelevant avoidance tactics

        • Jim

          Those claims fail to address his fondness for neo-Nazis like Shprygin. Fascists don’t have to speak German, as if you didn’t know.

          • Alan

            Jim says “Vladimir Putin is not a member of the House of Windsor as far as I’m aware.”

            So what? You were claiming that Putin has Nazi roots and I was simply pointing out that The House of Windsor has Nazi roots also and neither must we forget the fact that the Kaiser was a cousin of said House of Windsor.

          • Jim

            I was pointing out that Putin has close neo-Nazi affiliations right now. Why you think well known 70 year old House of Windsor fascistic enthusiasms have any relevance is odd to say the least. Desperate more like.

  • michael norton

    I just saw a bit of the BBC News, Parliamentarians were paying tribute to Jo Cox,
    I am very sorry the woman got so brutally murdered
    but why does the spawn of Kinnock have to milk it so relentlessly for REMAIN?

    • michael norton

      I think “THEY” have recalled Parliament today
      because the
      Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National, Plaid Cwmry, Green parties are all in favour of REMAIN.
      These undemocratic thieves are trying to steal the result of the Peoples Referendum.
      These Parliamentarians want their snouts deep in the E.U. trough

  • Jim

    I give you the Daily Express your honour. You seem to have a lot of faith in their scrupulous academic and journalistic credentials.

  • Alan

    From the day a ballot on UK membership was first announced by David Cameron three years ago, the financial sector has sought and won significant lobbying victories thanks to a complicit UK government and EU efforts to keep the City of London happy. The appointment of Jonathan Hill as European commissioner for financial services, the deregulation agenda of the so-called “Capital Markets Union”, the impending roll-backs on rules to protect against financial instability, and special decision-making privileges for the UK should the interests of banks come under attack, are all highlighted as the key triumphs of the sector and its allies in the UK government since the prospect of Brexit was raised as a serious possibility.

    Revealing the main developments, actors and methods used in various lobby battles surrounding financial services (de)regulation, the study also examines the work of the International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG) – in which the City of London Corporation is involved – to promote the interests of the financial sector.

    It also reveals how multinational banking and financial services company Barclays helped convince Commissioner Hill of the need for a consultation on what regulations should be scrapped.

    Read the full report by Corporate Europe Observatory HERE

    http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/attachments/how_camerons_referendum_delivered_victories_to_big_finance.pdf

    • laguerre

      I’m not sure I’d take that Sarah Kendzior piece too seriously. She doesn’t appear to know that al-Ghazali was not a Sufi, but rather more like a theologian.

      • laguerre

        Sorry, I forgot to add that al-Ghazali was a Sunni, and played a major role in the revival of the hard Sunnism that we so excoriate today among the Wahhabis.

      • Macky

        Can’t see how that invalidates the sound advice of the quotes she presents ?!!

  • RobG

    This year we’ve had to suffer the Queen’s 90th birthday (gawd bless yer maam), and going back through the centuries all these ‘royals’, all across Europe, were basically just various mafias fighting for control of territory and stealing other people’s assets.

    It’s no different today (except you can replace royals with corporations).

    Which brings me onto the incredibly confused Brexit debate. It’s confused principally because the general public are given no real information whatsoever. Instead there’s cleverly contrived propaganda, on both sides of the debate, with comic book talking points; all egged-on, of course, by the presstitutes.

    I’m still trying to figure out the totally wacko Brexit debate, but it seems to me that we are witnessing the age-old battle between various criminal mafia gangs; not the politicians, but the lunatics behind the scenes who pull the strings.

    • michael norton

      David Cameron has been disingenuous from the start with this Peoples Referendum, he never wanted it, he never thought he would win the last election, he imagined he’d have the weakened Liberal Democrats up his arse.
      He should resign straight after the Referendum for trying to cheat the voters.

    • Jim

      I know, everybody knows. Why you think this diversion from addressing the issue of Vladimir Putins neo-Nazi affiliations is relevant is the mystery here.

      • Alan

        Similarly why you think this diversion from addressing the issue of The House of Windsor’s Nazi affiliations is relevant is the mystery here.

  • Alan

    The House of Windsor & The Nazi Connection They Don’t Want You To Remember

    http://yournewswire.com/the-house-of-windsor-the-nazi-connection-they-dont-want-you-to-remember/

    One of the biggest public relations hoaxes ever perpetrated by the British Crown, is that King Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne in 1938, due to his support for the Nazis, was a “black sheep,” an aberration in an otherwise unblemished Windsor line. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    The British monarchy, and the City of London’s leading Crown bankers, enthusiastically backed Hitler and the Nazis, bankrolled the Führer’s election, and did everything possible to build the Nazi war machine, for Britain’s planned geopolitical war between Germany and Russia.

    Support for Nazi-style genocide has always been at the heart of House of Windsor policy, and long after the abdication of Edward VIII, the Merry Windsors maintained their direct Nazi links.

    http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_blacknobil09.htm

  • Trowbridge H. Ford aka The Biscuit

    As predicted, Congress did nothing to make gun terrorism in the USA less likely.

    I hope that some Muslim terrorist on everyone’s watch lists does us all a favor when he decides to launch yet another assault by hitting the fucking place.

    Perhaps, its survivors would then do something positive about solving the problems.

    • glenn_uk

      Nothing will happen, Trowbridge. If a couple of dozen 5-year olds can be literally “shot to pieces” in the words of a sheriff, and nothing whatsoever is done, there is little hope of enlightenment on the US gun policy.

      Republican politicians (and dems to a large extent) are spineless cowards, bullied by the NRA and will do nothing. The death toll will continue. Idiotic statements about the 2nd Amendment, “Freedom” and protecting oneself against the government will abound, together with blaming the victims.

  • bevin

    Anyone seriously interested in neo-nazi influence over government will be looking not at Putin’s government but its enemies.
    It is in Poland, the Baltic states, and NATO countries-at Ukraine most of all- that neo-nazi politicians are pursuing the ancient strategy of encircling Russia.
    Smearing Putin on the basis of his associations with odd individuals is peculiar when the actuality of neo-nazi gangs, wearing nazi uniforms, sporting nazi insignia, gathering around statues of nazi collaborators, setting up think tanks named after Joseph Goebbels, recruiting nao-nazis from all over Europe and celebrating SS military engagements (and massacres) is to be seen in living colour in Ukraine and its NATO allies.
    Add then the fact that the policies they promote-slavophobic and anti-communist- are exactly the same as those that Hitler followed and the matter of the Second World War memorials they are destroying and it is hard not to notice that it is not Putin but Russia’s enemies-and the friends of the imperialists- who are reviving nazi militias, as they have been since 1945, and celebrating the memories of those who fought against the Red Army when it was winning the war.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Further confirmation of documented CIA fact

    “https://professorwerner.wordpress.com/2016/06/21/eu-basics-your-guide-to-the-uk-referendum-on-eu-membership/”

    Extract

    “The revelation that the EU is the result of a major US secret service operation – effectively just yet another secret creature of deception launched by the CIA (taking seat of honour in the hall of infamy that includes false flag operations, invasions, coup-detats, and the establishment of organisations such as Al Qaida and ISIS) solves the third mystery, namely how on earth the allegedly democratic European nations could design such an undemocratic, virtually dictatorial design. With the EU/United States of Europe the US not only achieves its geo-strategic goals in Europe, but it has also eliminated the role of pesky national parliaments that could on occasion get in the way of US or CIA foreign policy. And another puzzle is solved, namely why the EU had so readily agreed to a US request a few years back that US spy agencies get access to all European emails and telephone calls….

    A vote to stay in the EU thus is a vote to abolish the United Kingdom as a sovereign state and merge it into the undemocratic United States of Europe which the European elites are building under US tutelage. That the European public – and, it seems, even European politicians – have little or no input in key European decisions can be seen from the increasingly aggressive NATO stance against Russia (Brussels-based NATO being the military arm of the EU, which is overtly under direct US control), and the one-sided sanctions against Russia that the US could simply order the Europeans to implement (causing significant losses in incomes and jobs in Europe, while boosting US business interests). Immigration policies are another case in point. If the US had in the past considered the largely homogeneous European populations a source of potential European resistance against its plans for Europe, then the policy to replace them with balkanised failed ‚melting pots‘ also makes sense.”

  • Loony

    You should vote to remain in the EU if any of the following sounds like attractive ideas to you:

    (i) You wish to destroy the agricultural and fisheries base of most African countries
    (ii) You wish to subsidize and otherwise support neo-Nazis in Ukraine
    (iii) You wish to follow foreign policies with a high risk of leading to nuclear war
    (iv) You see merit in an incoherent and un-managed immigration policy, whilst simultaneously providing economic signals designed to encourage a minimum of 2.8 billion people to migrate to Europe.
    (v) You do not consider yourself competent to use a public restroom absent specific EU rules and regulations governing your urination habits.
    (vi) You have a visceral loathing of the inhabitants of southern Europe and wish to hollow out and destroy their economic and social bases.

    If these things are not attractive to you then you should vote to leave the EU.

    It is worth bearing in mind that any expression of concern for Africans or southern Europeans or any reluctance to finance neo-Nazis is sufficient to have you branded a small minded racist. If you ascribe any value to the preservation of reason, and do not wish to live in an Orwellian Newspeak dystopian nightmare you should also vote to leave the EU.

  • Anon1

    Lord Jacob Rothschild and George Soros have announced their support for Remain, warning of dire consequences if Britain leaves the EU.

    Let’s get behind them and vote to keep Britain in the EU.

    • nevermind

      Yes they are both gambling on the British pound to go down and will make millions if it does anon1.
      What are our children future interests, never mind the old who had a life of Reilly during the 60’s 70’s and 80’s?
      Is it a future without resources powered by dangerous nuclear power under a TTIP regime, which will follow a Brexit as day follows night? all this talk about getting our democracy back, making decisions about our sovereign country.
      what democracy and what sovereignty.

      Now where do the future resources lie? listen to the US neocons, they say they lie in Russia and hence their drive to start a war with Russia which will backfire.
      It is Europe’s and Eurasia were our interest lie, but if you have shares in fracking and agree with the Tory’s decimation of green energy start ups, then vote for Brexit.

      Gove this morning said that ‘Germany wants to carry on selling cars here not sack or lay off his workers’ its shows his narrow understanding of industrial relations, because unions in Germany sit on the board of directors and are part and parcel of every decision taken. Workers are NOT sacked, the last recession has proved this, workers were working shorter shifts and or had aid weeks off. Sacking people hurts a manufacturing process as it takes away years of expertise, people would seek a new job and would be lost, increasing costs and possible flaws in manufacturing and finish due to a unexperienced work fore would only result in the British consumers moaning about bad customer relations and finish of cars, thats the archetypal British history of bad motor manufacturing, Mr Gove has no clue on this mall point in question.

      • FranzB

        nevermind:- “never mind the old who had a life of Reilly during the 60’s 70’s and 80’s?”

        Of course, when I was a lad we had our choice of jobs when we left school, the jobs had a good pension, there was plenty of council housing, buying a house was affordable, university education was free and you got grants, the NHS was free of controversy, and we had a football team that won the world cup. And you try telling the kids of today that and they won’t believe you.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    This article is not directly about the EU, but is completely brilliant at explaining US policy re the wars in the Middle East, and why this policy is built on the religious myth of Thomas Malthus, and why it has been demonstrated to be totally flawed. Surely, one would think that the US Government formed around Richard Cheney, would be properly informed in order to make sensible decisions affecting not just the USA but much of the World…but as Thierry Meyssan points out in this article, decisions are not made on evidence and logic, but on myth, religious belief and groupthink. That is why the results are incredibly destructive to all concerned.

    Tony

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article192267.html

    Extract

    “…I remember having met, during an AFPO assembly in Lisbon, the General Secretary of the White House work group. He presented a report on the study of known reserves, the imminence of «Hubbert’s peak» and the measures which had to be taken to limit US energy consumption. At that time, I was convinced – mistakenly – by his reasoning and his assurance.

    With time, however, we realised that his analysis was completely false, and that the first five wars on his list (against Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Syria) had, from this point of view, been entirely useless, even though the programme continues today. This huge error in prospective should not surprise us. It is the consequence of «groupthink». Within a group, an idea can progressively impose itself to the point where no-one dares to question it for fear of being excluded from the «circle of reason». It’s «intellectual orthodoxy». In this case, the White House advisors started off with, and stayed rooted in, the Malthusian theory which dominated Anglican culture in the 19th century. According to this theory, the population increases exponentially, while resources only increase arithmetically. In the end, there will not be enough resources for everyone.”

    • oblivious

      Tony, previously I had you down as slightly mad, and after a few sherberts, you probably are but it has to be said that when you are sober, few contributors make as much sense as you do. I’m thinking the leave box will have to be ticked (with a biro) despite (and certainly not because of) Anon1’s laughable attempt at reverse psychology. Agreeing with the despicable Michael Gove and the criminal Liam Fox on any policy makes me feel grubby but I’ll have to live with it.

    • Silvio

      Before writing off peak oil as a non-issue, I recommend reading the papers put out by the US based, insurance industry actuary Gail Tverberg. She publishes her material on her blog OurFiniteWorld.com. Because oil prices have dropped significantly over the last few years the general consensus seems to be that with modern day know-how we can bring technology to bear as needed and produce however much oil we need far into the future. Therefore, there needs be little concern that in the near future the economy will collapse caused by oil production hitting a peak followed by a permament, irreversible decline.

      As Tverberg explains it since many of the world’s oil fields have been exploited to the extent that the easily pumped, cheaply produced oil is gone, the overall oil supply now includes a greater proportion of more expensively produced oil derived by using techniques like fracking and other secondary recovery techniques on depleted fields or by using oil extracted from tar sands like the ones in Alberta, Canada (again high cost oil compared to oil from a traditional type oil field). This means we have been able to produce oil to replace the traditional oil lost from the depletion of the cheaper traditional sources, but only at a higher production cost. Tverberg papers are on the interactions between energy production costs, energy retail prices, energy demand & energy supply, the effects of increasing debt to produce newer, more expensively produced oil etc. Her conclusions are, “Yes Houston, we still do have a problem.”

      From Our economic growth system is reaching limits in a strange way by Gail Tverberg :

      What Causes the System to Fail? Too Little Energy, or Too Much Entropy?

      In an interconnected system, it is sometimes hard to understand what causes the system to fail. Is it too little production of energy products, or too much entropy associated with these energy products? Astrophysicist Francois Roddier tells me that he thinks it is too much entropy that causes the system to fail, and I tend to agree with him. (See also “Pourquoi les économies stagnant et les civilizations sʼeffondrent” by Roddier in Économie de l’après-croissance.) The rising amount of debt, pollution, and income inequality tend to bring the system down, long before “running out” of energy products becomes a problem. In fact, the low commodity prices we are now experiencing appear to be part of the entropy problem as well.

      Can Renewable Energy Be a Solution?

      As far as I can see, renewable energy, unless it is very cheap (like hydroelectric dams were many years ago), absolutely does not work as a solution to our energy problems. The basic issue is that the energy system works on a flow year basis. To match energy-in versus energy-out, we need to analyze each year separately. For example, we need to match energy going into making offshore wind turbines against energy coming out of offshore wind turbines, for each calendar year (say 2016). To keep the net energy flow positive, there needs to be an extremely slow ramp-up of high-cost renewable energy.

      SNIP

      Conclusion

      If a person doesn’t understand what the problem is, it is easy to come to the wrong conclusion. Part of our problem is that we need a growing amount of net energy, per capita, to keep the economy from collapsing. Part of our problem is that entropy problems such as rising debt, increased pollution, and increasing complexity tend to bring the system down, even when we seem to have plenty of energy supplies. These are the two big problems we are facing that few people recognize.

      Source: https://ourfiniteworld.com/2016/03/17/our-economic-growth-system-is-reaching-limits-in-a-strange-way/

    • RobG

      I agree with Thierry’s take on things. The sad thing is that it’s very difficult to make the general public understand that Washington is now infested with batshit crazies.

      We’re up against the biggest propaganda machine ever seen in history.

    • nevermind

      conspiraloons or facts. They rigg just about every election, Hallo Mr. Cameron, what about the electoral expenses and the 29 by-elections due.
      hallo Electoral Commission, go waste your time why don’t you.

    • fred

      Nobody does exit polls any more because they are expensive, inaccurate and not needed in the modern world of mobile phones.

      Why pay people to stand outside polling stations in the rain asking stupid questions when you can just ring people and have a better chance of an honest answer?

      Exit polls are so 20th century, get with it.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    I know many of you will think I a mad, and on the evidence of some of my posts made after consumption of large quantities of alcohol, I can completely understand why you may think this.

    The following you will probably think provides more confirmation of this.

    Despite everything you have read and seen over the last week in the newspapers and on TV, I think there is a high probability, that the murder of Jo Cox was faked for propaganda purposes in order to influence the result of the EU Referendum.

    I was suspicious as soon as I heard details of it on Saturday night when I got back from holiday.

    In isolation, of course this makes no sense, and I accept that my analysis may be wrong, and that she may well have have been murdered, as has been described. But over the years, I and many others have analysed a large number of similar events, mainly in the US, but now increasingly in Europe too, where detailed analysis of photographic and other evidence strongly suggests at least some if not all the event has been staged for propaganda purposes in order to control and change public opinion.

    So if Jo Cox was not murdered, what exactly has happened to her? If she is still alive, both herself and her close family must have agreed to partake voluntarily. Why would they do this? Well, they might have been convinced, because of their own political beliefs, but surely this is a grossly extreme thing to agree to. Jo Cox can never just turn up again as Jo Cox. Her identity will have to be completely changed. She can’t just pop up and say “Hi – I faked it cos I thought it really important that we stay in The EU”. If she did that, then her chances of really being assassinated would be very high. In fact agreeing to such fakery must in itself be extremely dangerous, as it makes far more sense to the people who design and control such operations to dispose of the “dead” people by making them dead and burying them. They have absolutely no empathy or compassion. They drop bombs on vast numbers of innocent people and conduct real false flag operations as well as fake ones.

    Anyhow, as I am an old bugger, I have been to lots of funerals, and many of the parties after the service have been very jolly affairs indeed. Its a way some people deal with the grief – usually after about a week or so after the death. It takes time to organise a funeral, and invite everyone.

    However, there is something very odd about Jo Cox’s funeral – including this. I have never actually witnessed this before. I certainly didn’t look like this when making a speech in similar circumstances. Of course this in isolation doesn’t prove anything. People are different..not everyone reacts the same…..but this wasn’t at the funeral. It was 28 hours after her “death”.

    “BREXIT FALSE FLAG: Jo Cox’s family… What’s wrong with this picture? ”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxmTiUa__tU

    Tony

    • Tony_0pmoc

      correction – on seeing this again – I think she said “identified the body last night” and mentioned both 28 hours and 48 hours…but even so – it was a very cheerful performance before even before burying her sister – and they are Yorkshire people.

      • Mark Golding

        Tony_Opmoc – Tony thank-you – at great risk I will tell you that Jo Cox born 27th June 1974 worked for the British intelligence services…

        • Tony_0pmoc

          Mark,

          Well I have just spent some time trying to work out her political views.

          1. She nominated Corbyn but stated she wouldn’t vote for him (sounds rather Blairite)
          2. She wrote a detailed article that supported military intervention in Syria under the R2P nonsense
          3. Jo Cox, the new Labour MP for Batley and Spen, told Newsnight: “If the PM can convince me that he has a comprehensive strategy on Syria with a humanitarian, political and military component then I would contemplate two things: the first would be support for extending airstrikes airspace over Syrian airspace to target ISIS and the second would be UK support for a no-fly zone over Syria.”

          I can well believe you, and I am even more convinced she is sill alive.

        • Loony

          I do not think that is quite correct.

          I understand that Jo Cox was born on June 22nd 1974. I also understand that Bernard Kenny (the retired miner injured in the same incident) has a birthday of June 22nd.

          Coincidentally June 22nd is tomorrow and is on the eve of the date of the referendum.

      • Ba'al Zevul

        I don’t think the two younger women in shot were all that ecstatic. In the red on the left was certainly moist about the eyes, and stripy top on the right’s mascara was visibly running. Lack of identifiable drops probably due to surfactant in makeup. Maybe the others had done all their crying already? Not enough for a good conspiracy theory IMO, but do greatly appreciate Tony’s input when he’s not in an altered state of consciousness – not getting at you, TO.

    • oblivious

      The press conference is a little odd but I really don’t think there is anything untoward except the ‘remain’ camp making great use of her death. Empathy for the family is difficult considering Jo Cox had been a supporter of the criminal groups advocating the removal of Bashar Al Assad, despite the support of the vast majority of Syrians and the (overwhelmingly Sunni) Syrian Arab Army.
      She almost completely ignored civilians killed if they were in areas of government control and barely mentioned the almost daily car bomb attacks inflicted on Damascus. Her skewed proposals to solve Syrian problems included backing the discredited ‘white helmets’ and military intervention.

    • Macky

      Yes something quite odd here, and I would have thought her husband would have wanted to be at any family Press Conferences; wonder if his absence means anything or not ?

  • Tony M

    Here’s an expanded list (in dnsmasq format) of google urls, you’ll find there’s hardly a mainstream site, your local council, the met office, and so on that works without them, particularly common is dependence on google hosted library javascript and other code, for which there is no reason the site you’re on couldn’t host these themselves locally, without which these sites are deliberately broken and most functionality is lost. Then there any of the many sites which use google maps, with the result that independent street mapping sites have been squeezed out of business..

    address=/google.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googletagmanager.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/google.co.uk/127.0.0.1
    address=/googlehosted.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/google-analytics.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googleanalytics.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/google.syndication.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googlesyndication.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googleadservices.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googleapis.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/google-counter.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/gstatic.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/goo.gl/127.0.0.1
    address=/googlecode.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googleusercontent.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googletagservices.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/gmodules.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googlehosted.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googlegroups.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/feedburner.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/giyf.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/gvt0.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/thegroundwork.com/127.0.0.1

    And of course google bought youtube years ago

    address=/youtube.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/ytimg.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/googlevideo.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/youtu.be/127.0.0.1
    address=/youtube-nocookie.com/127.0.0.1

    and bought out most blog sites including:

    address=/htmlcommentbox.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/blogger.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/blogblog.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/uplift.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/blogspot.com/127.0.0.1
    address=/blogspot.co.uk/127.0.0.1
    address=/blogspot.gr/127.0.0.1
    address=/blogspot.com.ar/127.0.0.1
    # goes for most blogspot country level domains

    google is of course a hosting company too, so there are lots of sites whose dns resolves to a CNAME (canonical name) in google address space, which is vast, search (not using google) for google ip address ranges.

    This is something we need to stamp out and nip in the bud pronto. If , or a company you do business with etc. doesn’t work without phoning home to google, after blocking the above, let them know why they’re losing your visits/custom/business.

    What is at risk is the freedom of the internet from monopoly practices and a single point of failure as well as your privacy/security.

    • glenn_uk

      It’s exceedingly worrying, Tony. I am opposed to giving any information to google without my consent, but I never get the chance to express a wish. It’s simply assumed – such as when a company helpfully throws a ggl map my way. Other search engines exist, but are being squeezed out.

      Equally bad is a facebook implant just about everywhere, using the FB cookie on your machine to follow your every move, by reporting back to FB your tracking number (plus site, timestamp, browsing period etc. etc.). This happens for ggl & FB just about everywhere you go, on sites entirely unconnected to either. I have no FB account, but they have a heck of a lot of information on me.

      If you do as you suggest and tell companies you’re unable to use their sites, all you’ll get is standard replies about updating your browser and clearing the cache from the clueless numpty running the helpdesk.

      • Tony M

        Good points Glenn. Another thing is Glenn these little javascript applets that do trivial things, like mouseover effects today, could be over-written and do something completely different tomorrow, in place of or in addition to its present functionality, on millions of different websites. This leaves us as hostages to fortune or whim if we blindly accept unknown ever changing code run in the web browser context from untrusted third parties. Third parties I would add with startup funding from the cia/nsa/mossad and tightly integrated to the global five-eyes/US surveillance apparatus. They (the security/surveillance apparatus) are also the customers who are paying hackers silly money for 0-day exploits, long before public disclosure of them, in order to utilise them themselves against their targets i.e us.

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