I am happy to say a busy time ahead:
18 January in Aytoun Village Hall, Berwickshire at 7pm for Yes Berwickshire documentary film London Calling talking about BBC Bias in the Independence Referendum, and how to prevent and counter it next time.
19 January Montrose, George Hotel, 7.30pm talking about Alexander Burnes just fifty yards from the family home where he was born
21 January 2pm Perth, Soutar Theatre, for Yes Perth City. London Calling, post film discussion also with Alan Knight and Allan Grogan. Register here.
23 January 2.30pm Jaipur India Sikunder Burnes. Talk at the Jaipur Literature Festival – the World’s largest with 330,000 visitors.
27 January 7.30pm Edinburgh for Edinburgh SNP Club. Talk on the situation in Iraq and Syria.
As I visit London, frankly, as seldom as possible, I thought I might give an early shout out for what seems to be an excellent event on 25 February at University College, London, a colloquium entitled “Noam Chomsky: The Responsibility of Intellectuals”. Half hour papers will be presented by Neil Smith, Milan Rai, Hilary Rose, Chris Knight, Krizta Szendroi, Nicholas Allott, Jackie Walker and finally by me; I am genuinely worried about following some brilliant minds. After which Noam Chomsky will respond by video-link. I can’t let this pass without noting my book Murder in Samarkand has an American edition, Dirty Diplomacy, which has strong cover quotes from Harold Pinter and Noam Chomsky commending it. My Edinburgh publisher wouldn’t put the Chomsky quote on the UK edition, arguing that nobody had heard of him!
The perceptive among you may have noted that I face a hell of a dash from Perth to Jaipur. It is however possible. But yesterday I received an email from Jaipur stating that they had changed my talk from 23rd to 20th, when I will get a larger audience. I have replied that this is impossible for me. I am waiting to hear back, but this has potential to go wrong.
When I published my offer to take over Bella Caledonia if the alternative was it folding, I received a surprisingly large number of offers from Independence supporters offering to write. Some – but by no means all – were excluded from writing for Bella because of what many perceived as that website’s rather specific ideological focus. As there are a number of good pro-Independence people anxious to express themselves in writing but with no outlet, I was wondering about starting up a new pro-Indy compendium site that gives a voice to every shade of opinion supporting Independence, providing it is not racist. It would run on the basis of minimal cost and not paying anybody, including me. I probably need friends to talk me out of this venture!
One place I am not speaking is at today’s Scottish Independence Convention. I asked but was turned down. This saddens me as I addressed the SIC by invitation twice when it was a bit in the doldrums, years before the referendum. I fear that this is another example of ideological narrowness taking hold.
I hugely enjoy speaking and the intellectual interaction of discussion with people in a meeting, and please do invite me to talk to your group. I do not charge any fee. I am however horribly disorganised, so do not be scared to keep sending me constant reminders. It is helpful rather than annoying. I am pretty sure for example there are engagements in Lanark and Aberystwyth I have lost touch with. Anybody expecting me do get repeatedly in touch!
a great rant from pilger, should read all, here is a taste
One of the persistent strands in American political life is a cultish extremism that approaches fascism. This was given expression and reinforced during the two terms of Barack Obama. “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fibre of my being,” said Obama, who expanded America’s favourite military pastime, bombing, and death squads (“special operations”) as no other president has done since the Cold War.
According to a Council on Foreign Relations survey, in 2016 alone Obama dropped 26,171 bombs. That is 72 bombs every day. He bombed the poorest people on earth, in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan.
Every Tuesday — reported the New York Times — he personally selected those who would be murdered by mostly hellfire missiles fired from drones. Weddings, funerals, shepherds were attacked, along with those attempting to collect the body parts festooning the “terrorist target”. A leading Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, estimated, approvingly, that Obama’s drones killed 4,700 people. “Sometimes you hit innocent people and I hate that,” he said, but we’ve taken out some very senior members of Al Qaeda.”
Like the fascism of the 1930s, big lies are delivered with the precision of a metronome: thanks to an omnipresent media whose description now fits that of the Nuremberg prosecutor: “Before each major aggression, with some few exceptions based on expediency, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically … In the propaganda system … it was the daily press and the radio that were the most important weapons.
Take the catastrophe in Libya. In 2011, Obama said Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi was planning “genocide” against his own people. “We knew… that if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.”
This was the known lie of Islamist militias facing defeat by Libyan government forces. It became the media story; and Nato – led by Obama and Hillary Clinton – launched 9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. Uranium warheads were used; the cities of Misurata and Sirte were carpet-bombed. The Red Cross identified mass graves, and Unicef reported that “most [of the children killed] were under the age of ten”.
Under Obama, the US has extended secret “special forces” operations to 138 countries, or 70 per cent of the world’s population. The first African-American president launched what amounted to a full-scale invasion of Africa. Reminiscent of the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, the US African Command (Africom) has built a network of supplicants among collaborative African regimes eager for American bribes and armaments. Africom’s “soldier to soldier” doctrine embeds US officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer. Only pith helmets are missing.
It is as if Africa’s proud history of liberation, from Patrice Lumumba to Nelson Mandela, is consigned to oblivion by a new master’s black colonial elite whose “historic mission”, warned Frantz Fanon half a century ago, is the promotion of “a capitalism rampant though camouflaged”.
It was Obama who, in 2011, announced what became known as the “pivot to Asia”, in which almost two-thirds of US naval forces would be transferred to the Asia-Pacific to “confront China”, in the words of his Defence Secretary. There was no threat from China; the entire enterprise was unnecessary. It was an extreme provocation to keep the Pentagon and its demented brass happy.
In 2014, the Obama’s administration oversaw and paid for a fascist-led coup in Ukraine against the democratically-elected government, threatening Russia in the western borderland through Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, with a loss of 27 million lives. It was Obama who placed missiles in Eastern Europe aimed at Russia, and it was the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who increased spending on nuclear warheads to a level higher than that of any administration since the cold war — having promised, in an emotional speech in Prague, to “help rid the world of nuclear weapons”.
Obama, the constitutional lawyer, prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president in history, even though the US constitution protects them. He declared Chelsea Manning guilty before the end of a trial that was a travesty. He has refused to pardon Manning who has suffered years of inhumane treatment which the UN says amounts to torture. He has pursued an entirely bogus case against Julian Assange. He promised to close the Guantanamo concentration camp and didn’t.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/17/the-issue-is-not-trump-it-is-us/
The significance of Trump’s reiteration of his heretical view of NATO- which simply brings him up to the point that the Labour Party had reached in 1960- is that, like the rest of the ‘bi-partisan consensus’ on Foreign Policy in the United States it exists solely because no politician has dared to challenge it, except for a few who have been destroyed pot marginalised as lunatics.
In fact support for NATO is a mile wide and a quarter inch deep in most of the USA and it is very susceptible to the sort of attack that Trump is making -“Why should we pay for their Defence?”
And now we are not just talking about Defence: NATO has become Ludendorff’s wet dream a permanent instrument for bottling up Russia, organised by eastern European states which are in reality economically dependent on Germany and fueled by racist hatred of the Russians.
The EU and NATO as presently constituted achieve everything that the Germans wanted to get out of the First World War. Germany will be very happy I imagine to watch as the UK, France and Italy drop out of the EU it will make their domination of the rest of the continent just a little easier. Retaining Ireland and Scotland would be a bonus.
It is the case that the EU and NATO as presently constituted achieve German aims. The problem for Germany, as always, is that this state of affairs will not persist.
Aside from timing the only unknown with regard to the EU is whether it explodes or implodes.
The Germans tried relying on Eastern Europeans once before – Stalingrad if memory serves. That did not seem to work out too well for them.
Churchill once observed that “Americans will always do the right thing – after exhausting all the alternatives” We may be getting to that point and the US may just say Nein when it comes to subsidizing Germany. No doubt the Germans will draw all the wrong conclusions. and will think the tactics deployed against southern Europe will work against the US.
Ordinarily I do not find much to commend Margaret Thatcher but she once observed that “all problems come from mainland Europe and all solutions from English speaking countries” The Germans would be well advised to pay attention to these words as the times they are a changing.
Every good CIA agent gets paid and then tortured to remind them not to get cocky and continue to be an obedient slave. Certainly that has happened to some I know, and definitely happened to Mr Belhadj .
Why should the EU or Germany be any different. They have been up to their eyeballs in serving the CIA in de-commissioning Syria with terrorist Al Qaida. What follows will not be punishment. A faithful slave needs a good thrashing to keep them in their place. Followed by a good shag of master’s wife.
The neo-colonials are neo-American colonials who have never forgotten the hard ways of their past.
Trump is the new slave-owner who is going to bang a few heads. The US is a very sick society teetering on lunacy, and only saved by a thread of nutter religious rhetoric to get them all singing from the same hymn sheet.
If I was Mrs May. I’d get my hair blonded so I could sing in the gospel choir next to Boris.
In other words, even if hard Brexit is going to piss off 90% of the UK business community, it’s a winner with Trump. Chief Tory whip Theresa understands how to whip in Trump – play his silly games. Was this not the same Theresa, vicar’s daughter, who was traipsing around with hairy Hindus in a train of flowers last month?
Much depends on exactly what Donald Trump actually is.
If he grasps the magnitude of the problem facing the US then he will attempt to do something about it. His ideas regarding bringing jobs back suggests that he does understand and that jobs are a partial solution. Another part of the solution will be to radically cut down on US global hegemonic ambitions – this would involve, among other things, seeking to normalize relations with Russia and consequently being less interested in either NATO or the EU.
A problem that Europe faces is that its entire leadership is essentially comprised of US puppets. If the puppet master ceases to pull the strings then what happens to the puppets? There is no independent shadow leadership waiting in the wings – and so a power vacuum is a distinct possibility.
Part of improving the US economy means that it is necessary to confront both China and Germany both of whom exploit unfair advantages. The US is a coherent whole and hence there is a transfer of resources from rich states (e.g. New York, California) to poor states (e.g. West Virginia, Mississippi) In the EU the situation is the opposite in that all states are poor compared to Germany and all states transfer money to Germany. Not only does the EU allow Germany to plunder Europe it also provides the German export focused economy with a cheap currency against which it can support more and more exports.
That this is broadly speaking what is going on is evidenced by the so called migrant crisis. Look at unemployment levels in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy and ask why Germany prefers migrants with unknown skills from unknown origins to unemployed Europeans.
Trump is much more likely to pull the plug than he is to push the button – and this bodes ill for Germany. Germans are not noted for their geometric thinking abilities and so likely will not understand what is going on and will react viscerally to extract the last dregs of wealth from their European “partners” – Well we have this story before, and as it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end. Except this time it is likely to be much messier. Someone called the Kaiser Chiefs once predicted a riot. Well I predict a pan European civil war – only the riming is uncertain. Some people will blame the US but only because they too indoctrinated to realize that ultimately they are responsible for their own decisions and for their own actions.
A Demand for Russian ‘Hacking’ Proof
Our VIPS colleague William Binney, who was Technical Director of NSA and created many of the collection systems still in use, assures us that NSA’s “cast-iron” coverage – particularly surrounding Julian Assange and other people associated with WikiLeaks – would almost certainly have yielded a record of any electronic transfer from Russia to WikiLeaks. Binney has used some of the highly classified slides released by Edward Snowden to demonstrate precisely how NSA accomplishes this using trace mechanisms embedded throughout the network. [See: “U.S. Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims,” Dec. 12, 2016.]
Not mentioned until now is our conclusion that leaks are the source of the WikiLeaks disclosures in question – not hacking. Leaks normally leave no electronic trace. William Binney has been emphasizing this for several months and suggesting strongly that the disclosures were from a leaker with physical access to the information – not a hacker with only remote access.
This, of course, makes it even harder to pin the blame on President Putin, or anyone else.
In addition, former U.K. Ambassador Craig Murray has said publicly he has first-hand information on the provenance of the leaks, and has expressed surprise that no one from the New York Times or the Washington Post has tried to get in touch with him. We would be interested in knowing whether anyone from your administration, including the intelligence community, has made any effort to contact Ambassador Murray.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/17/a-demand-for-russian-hacking-proof/
“The support that Kerry offers to Daesh violates several UN resolutions and constitutes proof of his responsibility and that of Obama in the crimes against humanity committed by the terrorist organisation.”
Thierry Meyssan
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194952.html
Kerrycunt fried chicken on toast.
If you’re in Ayton and like Belgium beer you should drop into the Hemelvaart Bier cafe, http://www.hemelvaart.co.uk/
Love it. That’s the sort of propaganda I can live with.
Cheers!
I always keep an eye on the presstitutes in the USA (which is not a pleasant experience), and this last week or so I’ve been keeping a closer eye than usual, because of course Donald Trump will be sworn in as President on Friday.
Inescapable conclusion: they’re going to take Trump out. Here’s a prime example of the propaganda barrage, from Rachel Maddow on MSNBC (a 20 minute clip)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3kCog-OKw
I should add that I’m not a Trump supporter (Trump and I are diametrically opposed when it comes to politics). I am a supporter, though, of the democratic process.
From Aangirfan today
“The 1980 novel by Ted Allbeury, called The Twentieth Day of January, is about a Republican populist getting elected president of the United States.
“It turns out that his chief adviser is under the influence of the Kremlin, a connection that is unearthed by a British intelligence officer.
“When confronted with evidence that the Russians have sexually compromising pictures of him, the president-elect takes an overdose, which the CIA passes off as a heart attack.”
He must listen to radio 4.
Babushka, you really couldn’t make this stuff up; and while many are drawing parallels to the assassination of President John F Kennedy, it shouldn’t be forgotten that a more recent President who made peace with the Russians also suffered an assassination attempt (4 minute clip)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6CNRlQG0mg
Ain’t the military-industrial complex wonderful. The Cold War ended, so they had to make up the Muslim bogeyman, just to keep those trillions of dollars flowing, and now that the public are starting to see through this complete rollocks they are giving us Cold War 2.0 with the usual comic book stuff.
Da, Da Dah!
I’ve just looked up the author- either he is a prophet, or TPTB have stuck to the script, so far.
Getting back to Ukraine briefly, there are two main plans for Donbass, Poroshenko’s blast them to oblivion and Pinchuk’s pretend they’re not there. All this is in response to the new PEOTUS perhaps not being so generous to the coup government. Here are Pinchuk’s main points.
“– Ukraine should eliminate EU membership from its short-term goals;
– it should put off the issue of Crimea’s return for 15-20 years, while maintaining the position that «Crimea is part of Ukraine»;
– it should agree to local elections being held in Donbass under current conditions as a compromise that will facilitate a peaceful reunification;
– the country should give up the idea that it will join NATO in the near- or midterm; and
– it should agree to the lifting of sanctions imposed on Russia.”
Of course their bidding hand is no stronger than that of May negotiating a favourable Brexit from the EU.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/ukraine-and-us-devious-plans-two-ps/ri18539?
By way of intellectual interaction a top secret examination of China’s ICBM nuclear capability established from a soup of data from spies (stock-piles, including underground tunnels of land based missiles, mobile missiles, radar positions, intercepts from our own submarines (Jin class SSBN data such as noise and electro-magnetic signatures, data transmissions including voice and positioning) and MIRV production information from satellites etc.
To avoid a certain weariness in all this soup a jump forward to the synergy concludes that US/Britain can win a nuclear confrontation with China and lose the same encounter with a China allied with Russia and possibly Iran.
Pursuing this rather bizarre conclusion we can understand and grasp a truth that Trump while upheld as the US ‘Deep State’s’ Manchurian Candidate controlled by Putin thus striking a perplexing and deflecting fear, DonaldTrump’s actual role develops into the ideal US deal maker with Russia with the ancillary aim of weakening Moscow’s alliance with Peking. The ‘deal maker’ of course fully epitomizes the art of black-mail, inducements, kick-backs, reward, gifts and hush-money i.e the quintessential trader.
Will Vladimir Putin take and eat US crow?
The good ole USA broke the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty shortly after 9/11…
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0311-NPT.html
Since then the USA has continued a massive ramp-up of nuclear weapons…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/01/obama-claims-nuclear-weapons-reductions-start-treaty
… that continues to this day.
These people are all criminals, and they should be put on trial.
(I won’t even get into the Fukushima/nuclear stuff, because I know I will be wasting my time, until you lot start dropping dead in large numbers in the coming years)
well thought out Mark G., with a massive trade war between the US and China looming at the horizon/doorstep, Trumps moves could be far more strategic than we imagine. By nestling up to Putin in a non nonchalant way he might be trying to put a wedge between the two, he will want to sow seeds of doubt, one reason why Tzi Ping spoke up for the values of globalisation.
After today’s Brexit wish speech by Ms. May many globalised companies will seek continuity and access to the largest markets.
Globalised companies would not want a trade war as it is their goods that will be the weapons of choice.
What would apple say if US customers can’t get their latest iphones made in China, and what would Chinas elite make of a London/New York investment ban for their funds?
Trump is nudging up to Putin, nestling in his armpit to make China feel insecure of its friendship,’ appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak…..’ Sun Tzu
Terezza wonderful menu today for all concerned looks rather desperate, she wants to lord it over Ireland but hasn’t got any much support for it, the Irish want to ‘be in charge of their own affairs’. She will find that many of the EU grants upholding community cohesions are vital for many, her attempts are paltry and undeliverable.
In which case she will walk away with no deal, her very best option for all the Brexiteers wanting yo carve up services for their very own interest.
Thanks nevermind for understanding my point. Interestingly Craig warms to globalisation and tariff free trade albeit within the EU framework; the heat becomes unbearable when we grasp the implications of Agenda 21 which is to establish a global government, global economic system, and global religion. When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon spoke of “a dream of a world of peace and dignity for all” this is no different than when the Communists promised the people a “workers paradise.”
http://americanpolicy.org/agenda21/
Is there some ancient Native American rule that will allow Trump to take many concubines, UK, China, Russia, etc and screw them at will? I am conscious of the “synergy” of the US deploying all of their collective fire-power against Islam by creating a Caliphate honey pot which then gets bombed to shreds.
But when you take the pee out of plummy toned generals discussing the winnability of nuclear wars, I ask myself what they’re fighting to defend? The right to be gay, drink whisky, have affairs and pillage in the name her Majesty the Queen?
Is it so terrible to have a stable loving family, be sober, accumulate savings in this and the next world, and to die in the certainty of an eternal holiday? No, that would be horrible, and anybody thinking such treason should be hounded into the ground.
Mark, if you are right that Obama to Trump is a not just contiguous, but a continuation of policy by the US deep state, and that NATO exercises on Russia’s borders are phoney, would you consider the possibility that these troop movements are a precursor to deploying NATO boots on the ground in the Middle East?
I guess giyane you mean NATO fitting up to war with Russia – which you would agree is farcical considering the deployment – No – the thing is theatre to strengthen NATO’s existence and no – no NATO boots in the Middle East I understand as too many IS in the region are our own security contractors training CIA paid assets. Trump is pinched into a polymorphic accord with Putin before long that invites buddy fighting the terrorists, cuts sanctions, backs off from Putin’s inner circle, gifts Tartus and Khmeimim, pitches gas and oil yields all en masse in return for indirect pressure on China to reduce it’s nuclear arsenal, halt MIRV advances and declare and abolish chemical and biological WMD viz busting the Russia/China rapport after that totally dumb estrangement by the US/West.
That’s my take…
Obama commutes Chealsea Mannings sentence? Can someone confirm this please, it makes any further zest to get at JA vindictive.
http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/17/14239900/chelsea-manning-pardon-obama-wikileaks
New York Times article looks genuine. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commutes-bulk-of-chelsea-mannings-sentence.html
A vain attempt to clean up his ‘legacy’.
Whilst I don’t doubt that Manning might have been given some kind of a pardon, it’s all total bullshit that relates to this…
https://popularresistance.org/assange-agrees-to-extradition-if-us-releases-manning/
(‘Popular Resistance’ are a totally controlled web site)
We’re expected to believe that Assange would willingly go into US custody?
Ha!
Assange and Wikileaks were taken out last October.
Here’s some of the stuff they were leaking in the run-up to the US presidential election:
http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/
(and that’s not the half of it)
The lunatics have completely taken over the asylum, and the lunatics now control all news/information.
This means that we’re totally fucked.
Would Trump want to see Assange prosecuted? Wouldn’t any trial of Assange be a circus?
I’m not saying that Assange has been killed, but anyone who follows Wikileaks will know that it’s all gone pear-shaped since last October.
Trump, as far as I’m aware, has been positive about Julian Assange, but Trump is not yet President.
The coming days are going to be interesting.
There appears to be No Credible Source on this one Nevermind… I do though, think Obomsalot is saving, and making Chelsea pay…till the very last day.. Evil.
BBC Radio 4 news at 2200 headlined it*. Also a rumour that Snowden had also undertaken to return to the land of the
freemaximum security prison on the same condition. But I think that was a misunderstanding. Assange’s offer was reported yesterday.
*Obviously a lie, then. 🙂
Breaking news is that Obama has commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence.
… which means that Assange will willingly be extradited to the USA.
Keep rolling it out.
Yup. Obama has an evil sense of humour, I’m certain. Wonder if Flump will uncommute Manning’s sentence on Saturday? Or will he wait until Julian arrives? Like him or loathe him*, Assange was most unwise to give that particular hostage to fortune, and I reckon he’ll find some excuse to reverse-ferret. Pass the popcorn.
*Feel free. As long as you give him a lot of attention.
There is no suggestion that Obama’s clemency was related to Assange’s generous offer so there was no deal there.
I would like to see Leonard Peltier set free. I’d like to see the Canadian government make the request, too.
There was no suggestion it wasn’t related….which should be enough for a CM conspiracy theorist. Never mind. Everyone got the headlines they wanted.
I suppose so.
The emptywheel blog has come up with the ultimate explanation for Assange’s offer: he is, she suggests, afraid of being assassinated by Putin’s hit men, because he knows too much. Thus he is hoping to be taken into protective custody by the US government.
Theories don’t come much dafter than that.
When nations go crazy they do as fish rot- the intellectuals go first.
Well ferreted….
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/314783-assange-lawyer-conditions-not-met-for-assange-manning-extradition-offer
Though it was tempting to think that even twenty years plus in a Federal correction facility would be preferable to Sweden.
Sturgeon spitting feathers – May has done the dirty on the SNP
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has criticised United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May for not considering Scotland’s opposition to BREXIT and reinforced Scotland’s right to self-determination.
May said on Tuesday (January 17) the UK will not seek any partial membership of the European Union when it leaves the bloc. She used her much-anticipated speech to clarify the UK’s stance on the pending divorce and it appears to confirm Sturgeon’s worst-case scenario of a so-called “hard as Nails Brexit”.
http://www.euronews.com/2017/01/17/scotland-hits-back-threatens-uk-with-independence-after-may-s-brexit-speech
After months of political speculation and economic uncertainty, May’s speech saw the value of the pound skyrocket Tuesday. But within hours of May’s address Sturgeon had hit back, reminding London that Scotland had not voted to leave the EU, and that under London’s stewardship, Brexit would be “economically catastrophic” for the UK.
“The UK government cannot be allowed to take us out of the EU and the single market, regardless of the impact on our economy, jobs, living standards and our reputation as an open, tolerant country, without Scotland having the ability to choose between that and a different future,” Sturgeon said. “With [May’s] comments today, the prime minister has only succeeded in making that choice more likely.”
___
poor lamb doesn’t sound happy
The turnout on the Brexit vote in Scotland was only 67%. The majority of the electorate in Scotland either voted to leave or weren’t too bothered either way.
That isn’t a mandate for another independence referendum, Sturgeon would need a majority of the electorate voting remain for that.
Prostitution. versus the MsM –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVMOd45K65Y
The video stops part-way through.Brian. I remember when the UK and US were just the same. When I was young there were Beauty Parades, girls in swimsuits, the Tiller Girls, and prostititutes. There were films like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to represent the seedier side of human nature. There were also public demonstrations of karate and muscle-shows. Perhaps I’m getting old but I try to be tolerant. Though many of my friends support Gay days I never go on them. I have nothing against the gay community. I am sorry it has been shoved in our face. In a way it may help keep down a potential population explosion problem. But I believe as with feminism we have gone too far. The late Aaron Russo, a good Je.wish man, told us that the criminal elite had cfeated feminism to divide man from woman. In many cases it seems to have worked. A man’s a man for a’ that. Burns Night a week today-orrow. 🙂
Hi John..
Hope the Injury is healing
cheers for heads up Re the Video.
this one should work –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnuZvlEJG0E
Brian, it does work the video. It is the same. It just ends with soemone asking a question and Putin being cut off before he can start to answer it. Knowing how long some press-conferences go on with Putin (4 hours and more) I guess RT or whoever decided to cut it there. I would have cut it before the question was asked.
The injury is coming along well. The damp weather does not help and we’ve had three days of it including a protest on Monday against potential cuts in the mental health and other health services where I stood around for above an hour in the rain. I might have overdone it yesterday and got some pain on the last two holes. Also got a stinking cold which I tried to drown with wine last night. But when I read of others’ injuries I feel very lucky.
British nationals on holiday in The Gambia are being repatriated as a state of emergency is declared.
The Gambia’s president declares state of emergency
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-38652939
Hundreds of UK tourists set to be flown out of The Gambia
Nearly 1,000 UK holidaymakers are set to be flown home from The Gambia due to growing political unrest.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is now warning against “all but essential travel” to the west African nation due to potential military intervention following the Presidential elections on 1 December.
The holiday company will lay on additional flights from the capital Banjul on Wednesday to bring 985 package holiday customers home. An additional 2,500 “flight-only” customers will then be contacted and offered the earliest possible flights back to the UK.
Sky News
A terrible legacy there. A colony of the Portugese and then part of the British EmPyre for 200 years until we got shot in 1965.
‘The Gambia’s economy is dominated by farming, fishing, and especially tourism. In 2008, about a third of the population lived below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambia
Jammeh’s a big boy by the looks of him in the BBC website photo!
You ought to be a big fan of Jammeh’s. He dislikes Britain intensely and blames all Gambia’s ills on colonialism, while he steals virtually the entire wealth of the Gambia.
When Jammeh came to power he was on $40 /month as a lieutenant in the Gambian army. His net worth is now twice the entire GDP of the Gambia at an estimated $2 billion. He has mansions in France, Switzerland, Morocco and the US while his people scratch around trying to make a living out of peanuts. Literally.
But pulling Gambia out of the Commonwealth ought to atone for that sin, shouldn’t it Mary? We are, after all, to blame for everything in the world, including decades of rule by a corrupt dictator who routinely tortures and murders political opponents.
Them Wagenknecht Types Are Wise Indeed –
Sahra Wagenknecht –
“NATO must be dissolved and replaced by a collective security system including Russia,”
Sarah even got an Oskar(well-deserved for her put down of Merkel in the Fed. Parliament).When the Scots Nationalists voted to stay in Nato and bcame hoffaehig was when I despaired of them.
Hi Brian, yes, she rather is a tough cookie. Could it be genetic?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wagenknecht
xlnt interview
Bacevich and Mearsheimer on Obama’s Legacy
too much to summarize, must read whole story
http://lobelog.com/bacevich-and-mearsheimer-on-obamas-legacy/
A 91 year old with severe pneumonia was discharged after 3 days, the NNUH decided that he was good enough to be going back to his nursing home were he died three days later.
Multiple thanks to Jeremy Hunt MP and St. Terezza for turning patient care into a speed dating event. This is what you get when you shut re-convalescence homes such as the Henderson ward.
This cheating Government needs replacing asap.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/health/family_s_fury_as_91_year_old_war_hero_is_discharged_from_hospital_48_hours_after_being_critically_ill_and_dies_three_days_later_1_4853158
Classic interaction with member of the public and senior French politician
http://www.france24.com/en/20170118-french-presidential-hopeful-ex-pm-valls-slapped-during-campaign-stop
a must watch, punter is downed in a choke-hold by the heavies of Manuel Valls
TURKEY: Hundreds being sought over Bylock app
http://www.euronews.com/2017/01/18/turkey-hundreds-being-sought-over-bylock-app
Turkish prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for 243 members of the military in 54 provinces across the country.
The state-run news agency Anadolu says it is part of the inquiry into last July’s failed coup.
Why are they being sought?
Anadolu says they are suspected of using Bylock, the messaging app the government says was used by the coup plotters.
The government claims the encrypted smartphone messaging app is used by the network of Fethullah Gulen.
Ankara accuses the US-based cleric of orchestrating the attempted coup.
Gulen, a former ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has denied the allegation and condemned the coup.
Bylock
In the UK, the Guardian newspaper quotes a senior Turkish official as saying intelligence officers cracked the little-known, amateur smartphone app last year.
The app has been described as having “weak security features”.
Officials have reportedly been able to trace tens of thousands of members of Gulen’s religious movement.
The government blames it for last summer’s failed coup.
Tens of thousands of teachers, police officers, soldiers and justice officials have been purged since then. Officials say many were traced via their use of Bylock.
Turkey’s coup – what happened?
Rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, helicopters and warplanes in Istanbul and Ankara on July the 15th.
They advanced on parliament and other institutions.
The coup failed after thousands of Turks took to the streets and faced them down, in response to calls from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey’s coup – in numbers
240 died
40,000 arrested
100,000 sacked or suspended
But was OBOMBA behind it?
The Prime Minister vows to deliver the Brexit that the people voted for and who do we have to suffer, buzzing away in the background like a fly that is long overdue a good swatting? The rabbiting munchkin Sturgeon of course. Give it another referendum and hopefully it’ll buzz off.
Alison Rowat:
United Kingdom Prime minister Theresa May’s “ONE OUT, ALL OUT” puts the pressure on Nicola Sturgeon
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15029545.Alison_Rowat__May___s____one_out__all_out____puts_the_pressure_on_Sturgeon/
Brexit clad in the Union flag, one that placed the preservation of “our precious Union” at its heart; in short, no staying in the single market for Scotland on Mrs May’s watch; no Norway-style, joining the European Economic Area, set-up; and no taking control of immigration.
The Prime Minister has done a Margaret Thatcher with the Scottish Government and said “No, no, no”. It is a long way from the crudeness of “Up yours, Delors”, being more of a “No, sorry Nicola” but the message from Downing Street is clear: a majority in Scotland may have voted to Remain but the UK as a whole opted to Leave and Leave is what the UK as a whole will do. As Mrs Thatcher never said, one out, all out.