The Times claims to have identified the Kremlin’s latest secret weapon in Cyberwars – “Bikini Girl” @Organicerica. Except there is no evidence @Organicerica has any Russian links or promotes any Russian interests.
It does appear likely that @Organicerica is a bot. The Times claims this is proven by the timing and regularity of the postings (interesting as they claim the same kind of activity pattern proves nothing in the case of Philip Cross). I am prepared to accept, for the sake of argument, that @Organicerica is a bot, or at best a young woman running an automated posting programme.
But what is the output? Promotion of organic restaurants in Seattle. Environmental campaigning particularly against pesticides and genetically modified food. Nothing whatsoever on wider politics, foreign policy, Clinton. And nothing whatsoever related to Russia.
What kind of mindset do you need to have, automatically to equate opposition to Monsanto and to chlorinated chicken with being an agent of the Kremlin? Why is The Times publishing this absolute rubbish? It says something both about the quite hysterical Russophobia gripping the media and political class, and about the desire to delegitimise environmental activism, as witness the jailing of the anti-fracking protestors (against which jailing 1,000 academics have now signed a letter of protest).
That Bikini Bot story is more of the same old Russophobia, but it also serves the interests of the agri-giants who make profits out of GMO.
Russia doesn’t allow the growing of GMO, and had a record grain harvest last year. Dismissing criticism of GMO by “Bikini Girl” as Russian propaganda kills two birds with one stone – it’s also a way of rubbishing any positive views of Russian GMO-free agricultural methods.
Some huge powerful companies are afraid that people will see their industry for what it is. It’s less about technology than about a business model based on controlling farmers by getting them to sign contracts and pay licensing fees, not to mention the risk of damage to the environment.
There’s nothing unique about this way of dealing with customers – software companies like Adobe have increased their profits by turning their products into cloud-based subscription-only services, but it’s hard to see how customers have really benefited.
I agree with Brendan. Russia is firmly opposed to GM crops and has even established its own seed bank in the Arctic, while also sending seeds to the vault in the Svalbard archipelago. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa [AGRA] which is the US government programme for spreading GM crops in Africa, is worried about well-informed opposition in Africa, which is at times coordinated with the volunteer US group AGRAWatch. Russia is aware of this.
GM foods actually promote the US project in more ways than one. They promise to earn vast profits, as farmers are locked in and have to buy each year’s seeds afresh – as well as complementary fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides, etc. Moreover, they offer an ideal way of locking in everyone – everyone who wants to eat, anyway – and controlling them.
Hence those who value their liberty as well their health must be backing Russia, with its program of decent healthy traditional foods.
Russophobia is only skin deep.
On the one hand you have the British insisting that Russians are running wild poisoning people in Salisbury and various British politicians swearing allegiance to NATO and stationing British troops in the Baltic in order to defend against imminent Russian aggression.
On the other hand you have the British establishment determined not to leave the EU – and to punish the population for daring to suggest that they do in fact wish to leave the EU. Anyone not in love with the EU is naturally a bigot or a racist or an uneducated idiot.
Naturally there is nothing idiotic in remaining part of the EU and funding that organization to the tune of billions per year. Just look at how they use the money:. Step forward Danske bank, who through their Estonian branch office have so far laundered some $234 billion of dodgy Russian money.
So the British are paying to defend the Estonians against Russian aggression and simultaneously subsidizing the EU so as to allow Estonia and Danske bank to enrich themselves via laundering Russian money.
All makes perfect sense – especially the part where no member of the establishment or no critic of the establishment will ever ask questions about this. The population must be punished – consequently they must pay to protect other people from Russia and also pay to allow other people to enter into illegal commercial transactions with Russia. Only a bigot or an idiot would not want to subsidize both sides simultaneously.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-28/ecb-s-rimsevics-to-face-prosecution-in-latvia-after-graft-probe
Baltic Banks are “wild”. It is how the Icelandic Banks went down in 2008……insider dealing and corrupt political elites
http://www.socialeurope.eu/iceland-alone-latvia-captured
http://www.calert.info/details.php?id=1191
I think you forget that the Russian mafia involvement in Icelandic banks wasn’t negligible, nor is the amount of illegal Russian raw material exports that go through the Baltic states.
I and fully aware which is why two of the clowns that acquired banks in Iceland’s privatisation had made money in St Petersburg with breweries before settling up the laundromat
The ‘population’ didn’t all wish to leave the EU, for every 13 who did, 12 didn’t.
The British do not understand direct democracy, as a referendum is, as they have little experience of partaking in it, and little interest in trying to understand the specific issue being put to them as they never have to in the beauty contest of our first past the post Representative Democracy.
They have grasped the most essential point, that the side which achieved more votes won. A point that seems to be escaping the grasp of some who pose as authorities on democracy.
The thing to grasp here about democracy is that a minority government in a flawed non representative system , propped up by 8 DUP MPs is making decisions or taking 2 years not to make decisions on behalf of all of us.
@SA,
That is the truth, and so many people ignore the fact, that until we have PR then we will never be a truly democratic country.
The referendum vote was around 73% and was a perfect example of democracy in action, where the majority of people voted one way.
AnyOldLabour
You’ve lost me here. The referendum, surely, was a first past the post job writ on the national scale? Only one vote more for either side would constitute victory. And the current Parliamentary electoral system is also first past the post but on the constituency scale.
One of the beauties of democracy is that it allows people to change their minds
Basically, the English did.
@MaryPau!,
so did the Welsh.
You are correct – not all people wished to leave the EU, but then I am aware of no intelligent democratic process that results in a 100% to nil outcome.
Maybe some of the people that wish to remain in the EU do so because they have a visceral hatred of Mexicans.
Consider that Wisconsin is a state famed for its production of cheese, and cheese producing methods were introduced by Italian immigrants. Wisconsin produced a lot of Parmesan cheese – much of which was sold to Mexico. Then along comes the EU and signs a trade deal with Mexico, part of which requires Mexico to ensure that the only cheese allowed to be marketed as Parmesan has an origin of Parma. This puts a lot of downward pressure on the economy of Wisconsin and raises the price of cheese in Mexico.
Parma is a lot further away from Mexico than Wisconsin and so there are added transportation costs plus increased emissions.
So all I want is some truth – you like the EU why? Is it because you hate Mexicans or because you want to increase global warming? How come someone that does not hate Mexicans and does not want to fry the planet is a racist and a bigot?
How many times are you going to mention Wisconsin cheese makers? What do you, trawl anti-EU websites or YouTube videos for little titbits that you can get your head around and make your own?
“I’ll ‘ave that…”
A fake intellectual spreading fake news.
And fake cheese.
Is it fake? Are you claiming that it is not true? If so on what basis?
You are in danger of taking fake news to a whole new level, by simply denying objective and verifiable truth.
Why not take a look at Greek suicide rates and see of you can spot any form of correlation between EU/ECB money printing and the death of Greeks.
You want to be a slave to Germany – be my guest, you have no need to explain. You want other people to die in order to maintain your delusional view of the world then I think you owe an explanation to those that you want to die on the alter of your ego.
Lol @ spreading fake cheese
Loony, you’ve been duped. Get over it.
I can see why you are angry, they took advantage of your most primitive emotions, racism, xenophobia, fear, etc., but, unlike your world of cut and paste waffle, there’s no simple “undo” button in the real world.
Loony: “Why not take a look at Greek suicide rates…”
Wisconsin cheese and Greek suicide rates…got it.
My sides are sore with laughter.
Fake laughter. H, you have not dealt with a single point of Loony’s intellectually.
Observer, there’s very little in what he says to deal with. He’s basically regurgitating Trump’s anti-EU line.
The audacity of Trump dressing up his trade war with the EU as concern for Mexico — yeah, that’s right, the same Mexico he wants to wall in and bully — is probably worth discussing but what’s the point? We’re dealing with real halfwits here.
Incidentally, the EU’s position that say Champagne must be produced in (you guessed it) the Champagne region of France, etc., isn’t the EU’s position at all, it’s pretty much accepted across the world and has been for decades.
Of course, if it was up to Trump and the various loonies who buy his horseshit without thinking, Scottish Whisky would be made in th US alongside Parmesan, Champagne, chlorinated chicken and genetically modified everything.
I’d take the EU’s standards on anything before America’s, from food to financial regulation, but let me tell you right now that I really look forward to watching the hungry faces of English Brexiteers being stuffed with chlorinated chicken. And one thing is for sure, there will be plenty of them going hungry soon enough.
To Loony
What is wrong with Wisconsin cheese being labelled and sold in Mexico as ‘Wisconsin Hard Cheese’ with the sub heading, suitable for grating on pasta dishes etc.?
The EU does not stop the sale of sparkling wine, merely the labelling of sparkling wine as being ‘Methode Champenoise’ if it did not come from Champagne. Ditto Stilton cheese must come from the Stilton area, but most cheese making countries have blue cheeses.
Unfortunately, Cheddar was too slow off the mark as ‘cheddar’ has become a generic name for a kind of cheese that originated in Cheddar, but is now available as Irish Cheddar, New Zealand Cheddar and countless other cheddars.
Cheddar is not only a town in Somerset famous for the eponymous cheese, it’s also a verb which describes a process used in the production of that comestible. In this respect its meaning is distinct from, say, Champagne or Parmesan.
Semantically “to cheddar” is analogous with “to produce using the methode champenoise” and so it could never be protected such as by AoC. Thus it is spurious and wrong to say that “unfortunately, Cheddar was too slow off the mark” et seq. Also, Stilton was never produced in that town, and it is an equally and distinctly wrong conflation to mention it here.
The wider question of protected statuses for food and beverage production seems entirely straightforward not to say trite, and presents no particular intellectual complexity worthy of the usual opinionated yet curiously ill-informed twaddle being “discussed” as usual on here.
Trump needs to be taken with a pinch of Maldon sea salt, but that’s not very interesting either.
My word, boredom is a terrible thing, and what a dull place this blog has become.
JM Nuttall.
Au contraire. This Parmesan cheese from Wisconsin stuff has been the most entertaining debate for weeks. Fortunately for my pocket, my palate prefers the supermarket “Italian type hard cheese” to the expensive stuff from Reggio Emilia.
Viv
I think you mean Emilia Romagna (the region) and not Reggio nell’Emilia (the town).
Best Cheddar I ever tasted was from Cheddar.
I like the EU because all its citizens can live and work anywhere within it. That’s a massive extension of a fundamental freedom for ordinary people which I hope will eventually extend to the entire planet.
In nature, we see massive waves of migration every year. For some reason, similar freedom is denied to the human species.
People who want to stop that are bigots because they want to deprive other people of the freedom to move about our home planet.
I have nothing to say about the trivial matter of cheese trademarks.
If you think the permanently open door was instituted in order to achieve some enchanting multicultural benetton ad vision, I think you’re deceiving yourself.
The institutors are the same people who have championed the historic neoliberal cons of outsourcing, trickledown, privatisation, deregulation, ‘liberalisation’ and austerity, They are ideologues devoted to serving the interests of big capital.
Given those predilections, might it not be slightly more likely that the intention is to decisively suppress the cost and power of labour in western Europe, to the historic benefit of a narrow class at the top? The same class that has benefited from all their other policies.
Whatever our disparate opinions of continuous mass immigration, we should be clear-sighted about the
motivations of those, both here and in Brussels, who are most determined to sustain it.
It is exactly what the Jewish seed merchants did in Central Europe and Ukraine and why their role lending money to buy seed and having the peasants on the hook made them so hated, especially as they dominated the grain trade and rural communities. This is what Monsanto aimed to do – rent out the seed with its terminator gene – so the farmer could not harvest his own seeds.
It is the same game as Big Pharma trying to turn patients into prescription-junkies tied to a doctor to feed their addiction.
Big Pharma feeds antibiotics to animals to ensure humans get sufficient dosages to require more.
That isn’t true Clark. You must live in UK which failed to enforce EU Rules. You are only allowed to remain in an EU country for 90 Days to “seek work”. After 90 days you must “register” but without work you cannot unless you can prove means of support and health insurance.
The UK simply fails to have a registration system or to enforce EU Rules which is why it had so many Romanian “self-employed” Big Issue vendors claiming benefits……..
But it could also be said that having freedom of movement in a trading zone where the national incomes are at very different levels, encourages a movement of people from low income/high unemployment areas to higher income/low unemployment areas. This clearly suits the people who move because they are better off, it also suits the employer class because those who move will work for lower salaries than the local population (they can do this because, for example, if they are sending remittances home, they may be prepared to live in lower standard accommodation than if in their permanent homes>0
On the other hand, if people can just move in large numbers, with no restriction, this means that the country or region they move to is unable to plan for their arrival in terms of resources like education (especially if the children of the new arrivals do not speak the local language), health care and transport. They will also not have contributed to the social welfare programmes of the region they move to.
We are told that immigrants pay more in taxes, than they take out in benefits, although this is argued. However sooner or later they will have children/get old and require more benefits. We were told when the Poles started to arrive in the UK in large numbers, that they would be mainly young men who would go home after a few years. When they found out they could have a better life than in Poland they started settling and bringing their (extended) families over. The same for other Eastern Europeans like Romanians and Bulgarians.
At the same time their home countries are being deprived of many of their brightest and best and are rapidly depopulating, in the case of countries like Romania, while the new arrivals are putting an increased strain on the housing stock in countries like the UK, already in very short supply, unlike Germany when it is plentiful and at a reasonable cost.
The problem surely is in assuming that the countries in the western EU can easily sustain large unplanned movement of people from Eastern Europe (while also facing pressure from African migration) without any prior planning for this to happen.
@Clark: “I like the EU because all its citizens can live and work anywhere within it … I hope (this freedom) will eventually extend to the entire planet.”
But, Clark, surely in the absence of strong national government and strong national trade unions, to protect the existing working population of the nation and its wage levels, then wages will chase each other down in a global spiral, until all workers everywhere receive little more than enough to buy a bowl of rice and a cup of tea, and rent a space somewhere to unroll a palliasse? Which among other things means that their rate of reproduction each year drops precipitously? Have you read about the effects of the Chicago Boys’ liberalization of the Russian labour market, and evisceration of its national protections? The Russians lost a decade in average life expectancy.
Mary Paul at the dovish end of the racist-xenophobic spectrum says; “We are told that immigrants pay more in taxes, than they take out in benefits, although this is argued. However sooner or later they will have children/get old and require more benefits..”
What a horrible way of looking at people and the world. The UK population as a whole going back thousands of years is basically made up of immigrants from all over the place. The long list includes Romans, Gaels, Vikings, Dutch, Irish, Normans, Saxons, and more.
As if that doesn’t do enough to render this whole immigrant debate totally moot and counter-logical, Britain more than any other country in human history made it its business to stick its nose into every corner of the world and colonise other peoples’ lands. I’m sick of repeating how brutal and nasty that experience was for the countries that Britain claimed.
You simply must have something better to think and talk about than this. You must.
If every country in Europe had comparable living standards that would be one thing, but it does not and therefore allowing anyone to work anywhere in the EU has all sorts of repercussions which have not been properly thought through. The average monthly wage in the UK is 2,400 euros. In Bulgaria it is 450 euros. Naturally Bulgarians want to come and work in countries like the UK. For some professions, like medicine, the salaries are so different between Eastern and Western Europe that recent years have seen a large brain drain: in the past seven years, 10,000 doctors and nurses have left Romania to wkr in Western Europe, according to estimates from a doctors’ organisation. (Source BBC News Report.) Clearly if all the traffic is one way, from East to West, without any restrictions, this creates problems in both the receiving countries and the ones left.
Everyone I have asked why they voted to Remain discusses it purely in terms of their own personal benefit: “Because I want to be able to travel where I like”, “Because I want to be able to work where I like”, “Because I want to go on holidaying in Tuscany” . It may be because they believe in the European ideal, but no one I have asked has ever said that to me, all their aspirations have been purely personal. No one ever wants to discuss the implications for the poorer countries of losing their best and brightest people in migration to Western Europe.
In Romania remittance incomes are the largest source of foreign currency. Romania is the country who has lost most of its population in recent years, and each year Romania loses the equivalent of an 85,000-people city ( source: Liberation). Romanians noaw outnumber the Irish and the Indians in the UK and all in a short space of time. Surely there must be more to the European ideal than this?
I realise that it’s only an example, but actually Parmesan cheese is just a name. You can buy dozens of kinds of cheese – some of them from Italy, some not – that work just as well with pasta and other similar dishes.
So if Wisconsin cheesemakers are forbidden to call their cheese “Parmesan” (which sounds fair enough), they can certainly label it “Similar to Parmesan” or even “I can’t tell it’s not Parmesan”.
Welsh
Parmigiano is by far the best for pasta. Why do you think that producers of cheeses of a similar type located outside Italy (and more precisely not in Emilia Romagna) tried to call their products “Parmesan” and now resort to calling them “Parmesan-type” or “similar to Parmesan”? Clue: it’s not because they have a particular affection for the mere word.
Chuckie B.
Your first point is merely opinion. Your second; producers outwith the Reggio Emilia area would use the term Parmisan if they could get away with it because of product recognition. I doubt that producers from other parts of the world lack the ambition to match if not surpass the original. After all, some of the best whisky is acknowledged from Japan. Fortunately for me, I have a paupers palate. Give me a packet of fish fingers anyday, the ones that specifically don’t say what species of fish.
Tom, the cheese makers of America have already started renaming their cheese. Some of them have had some fun with that (Holy Cow instead of Swiss, for example) but most aren’t very happy. They want to con consumers into buying Parmesan that isn’t made in Parma.
VivBliv
“Your first point is merely opinion.”
True. But shared by most gourmets.
“Your second; producers outwith the Reggio Emilia area would use the term Parmisan if they could get away with it because of product recognition.”
Correct. That’s what I said.
” I doubt that producers from other parts of the world lack the ambition to match if not surpass the original.”
It is not ambition they lack, it is ability.
” After all, some of the best whisky is acknowledged from Japan.”
If I were naughty, I’d quote someone who wrote “Your ..point is merely opinion” 🙂
” Fortunately for me, I have a paupers palate. ”
As ably demonstrated.
The Americans have a horrible cheese concoction they call Monterey Jack – the cheese never mind its geographical origin should be strictly controlled. From what I know of American cheesemaking ( after living for a year in the States I was very much pining for a decent piece of cheese) I very much doubt that Wisconsin gets anywhere near the large piece of Parmesan I picked up in Le Roncole market a few years back.
“Blessed are the cheese makers?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xLUEMj6cwA
Don’t forget Grana Padano, slightly more northern cheese than from Parma. It’s been made by monks for nearly a millennium, but was only ‘protected’ in 1996. It is a worthy competitor to Parmesan.
The EU department for ‘protection’, now EUIPO, based in Alicante, was interesting . It made so much money that it slightly distorted the EU budget, as it wasn’t supposed to make money! I remember it as the Office for Harmonisation of the Internal Market, which recently suffered a reverse takeover by the Commish, to solve this minor €€€.
https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/INauditinbrief-2017/INauditinbrief-2017-EN.pdf (2mb pdf)
The auditors are in full ‘brexit’ mode, ensuring accuracy of figures whilst toning down critical language that has been misinterpreted by ukippers in the past.
Names matter, as I recently discovered when I offered my family a delicious platter of slimehead amandine.
The result was to leave the EU not be half in, half out.
Leaving the EU will enable us to become a fully fledged tax haven, this reports tells us what that will be like: http://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/want-to-know-what-tax-haven-post-brexit-britain-could-look-like/
Biggest onshore tax havens are in Delaware and Nevada and of course Canada.
The result was to leave the EU not to take 2 years for the Tories to air all thier dirty linen in public and get a no deal Brexit.
The result was nearly meaningless because the question was nearly meaningless. “Remain” obviously meant “carry on as is”, but what “Leave” meant was neither defined nor described. So now there’s massive confusion trying to define it.
Clark, what tosh. The question was perfectly clear. Either way it did what it said on the tin. “Remain” clearly meant remain in the EU and accept the democratic deficit that that implies. “Leave” clearly meant leave the EU and recover a degree of that democratic deficit. What would happen post Remain or post Leave were obviously unclear, but the difference was (and still is) that Leave offers a greater opportunity for self-determination. Who knows where Britain and the remaining EU members will be in 10 years’ time, but at least the people of Britain will have a greater say in their future. I fully appreciate the risk of the Tories signing us up to trade treaties that hand more power to corporations, but for God’s sake that is the very essence of the modern EU!
I do find it intensely irritating, this assumption that Leavers were Little-Englanders too thick to know what they were voting for, whereas Remainers were fully informed people of the world. I don’t know if that’s your view, but it is the view of many.
OK, I’ll try to phrase it more simply for you. “Remain” implied that there were no changes to be made, because the UK was already in the EU where it would remain. “Leave” implied that there would be massive changes in the way the UK interacted with the EU, but the government had not specified what those changes would be. There wasn’t anything written on any tin; indeed, the business of politics is to invent the metaphorical wording. The government obviously hadn’t done that pre-referendum, or there wouldn’t be such a panic about doing it now.
Since the UK electorate have only minimal control over the Westminster government, “opportunity for self-determination” is moot in either case.
It find it frustrating that such clouded minds were permitted, indeed encouraged, to vote on such a far reaching matter.
Half in, half out?
Looks like we got “shake it all about”.
We’re definitely off!
The last I heard was that only around sixty British staff still work for the Commission, of course I could be making this up.
Some UK scientists are rather annoyed at UKGOV, for regurgitated PR rather than meaningful actions, but what do these sci-types know about the difficult problems of personal priority enrichment (PPE)?
http://www.scientistsforeu.uk/nodeal_brexit_undermines_strategic_science
FPTP voting is essential in a Constituency-based System. Otherwise you have a List System where The Party choses who is elected and the Voters have no choice once they vote for Party.
The Referendum was a List System because it was not Constituency Member-based.
– “FPTP voting is essential in a Constituency-based System. Otherwise you have a List System where The Party choses who is elected”
Not so. There are many possible systems, with various advantages and disadvantages. The Electoral Reform Society promote the Single Transferable Vote STV system in constituencies which each elect multiple representatives; this produces nearly proportional outcomes while maintaining voter selection of individual candidates. In single-representative constituencies, STV simplifies to the Alternative Vote AV system. The List System produces the most proportional outcome, but deprives voters of selection of the individuals get elected, handing that choice to the political parties.
– “The Referendum was a List System because it was not Constituency Member-based”
The EU and AV referenda were about outcomes that affected all voters in the same way, so voter selection of representatives would not have been relevant.
If you have multi-member constituencies they must be much much bigger. Currently median total parliamentary electorate across constituencies of about 72,400 in England, 69,000 in Scotland, 66,800 in Northern Ireland and 56,800 in Wales.
STV is used in N Ireland GE to rig the result. In Germany the mixed system of FPTP plus List leads to increasing fragmentation and there are nowhere parties in the Bundestag than at any time since Weimar Republic and the Bundestag gets bigger every election. In 2013 it had 630 seats and now in 2017 it has 709
Is that meant to be an argument?
First you post something that’s just wrong, then you defend it with a few spurious numbers and some alarming but unsubstantiated assertions. You’ll need some actual arguments if you want to change my mind.
StephenR, October 7, 20:16:
– “The British do not understand direct democracy, as a referendum is, as they have little experience of partaking in it”
I strongly agree. Rather than examining the actual issue, voters pick a side, based on the perceived characters of the people presented as promoting or opposing the issue.
Culturally speaking, “British” is a mythical category. It’s mainly the English and a percentage of the Northern Irish who Identify with it, maybe a few confused Uncle Jocks. I can’t speak for the Welsh, as I know very little about Welsh cultural identity.
Mostly, you could substitute “English” for the term “British” without any loss of meaning. And yes, I know that the nation state of which we “Brits” are citizens is British, but hopefully we will get another chance to vote to change that sooner rather than later
I’m 100% Scots, and I regard myself as British. What’s more, I think Britain has contributed a lot to the world and is still a better deal for its inhabitants than fractured Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Yorkshire, Devon, Wessex… And how long would it be before Scotland fractured into Strathclyde, Dalriada, the eastern Picts, Orkney, Shetland, the Hebrides…?
The aptly named one lives up to his apt name when he mentions money laundering. “The City” is the biggest money launderer on the planet and all those highly educated peasants in England didn’t just wake up one day and decide they were anti-EU, they were talked into by “The City” which has a very special interest in avoiding EU regulations — regulations that would make the operation of secretive money laundering schemes, shell companies, and trusts, much more difficult.
And that’s the real reason we are talking about immigrants and the EU’s budget, nothing else. Nobody likes to admit they were played, but that’s the truth; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8
If people like Rupert Murdoch and his pals who own the UK private media hook, line, and sinker, were to pay tax like everyone else instead of hiding it offshore, the UK treasury would more than get back every penny it sends to the EU. That’s right, every penny, you read that correctly, such is the scale of Britain’s global role in offshore banking and money laundering.
As for immigrants, let us remind ourselves that we are talking about a country that brutally occupied and robbed around a quarter of the planet for hundreds of years. Contrary to what various loonies would have you believe, they didn’t colonise India and the rest because they wanted to introduce railways.
Britain’s standing in the world today derives in huge measure from robbing the world under the guise of Empire and continues to be propped up by illicit banking practices that starve third world countries of much needed wealth. It’s corrupt to the core and highly damaging, robbing places like Africa of hundreds of billions that could be used for development.
I can only imagine what the fleeced think of our concerns about immigrants.
AMLD5 is unworkable. Registration of Customers using Prepaid Credit Cards with transactions of €150 ???!!!! Public Register of every Beneficial Owner of a Company or Trust available in a central searchable register ? That means every single member of the National Trust or Charity or Pension Scheme !!!!!
Registration of users of Bitcoin ????? !!!!
This is in a Europe that cannot even develop a Funds Transfer System immune from US sanctions or ensure a Member of the Governing Board of the ECB is not engaged in money laundering.
It does nothing about Hawala Banking nor huge transfers of Cash from Germany to Turkey and Middle East from drug dealers. What about controlling Airline Tickets which are currency. In the US drug dealers are using Surf detergent as currency.
This is where the EU simply becomes preposterous. It is very difficult to open a bank account legitimately but it is very easy if you carry suitcases of cash into the right facility. HSBC survived the 2008 Crash because of Narco-Dollars from Mexico and Columbia being CASH.
Every single Mutual Fund would have to reveal every single Investor before and after every sale. This would bring the financial system to its knees. Why not simply put the Communist Party in charge and prohibit Private Property ?
Well regulation of finance seems to work in most of the world; that’s why the secretive elite do so much of their business through the relatively unregulated City of London. It also worked better in the past, which is why the mass media dominated by the elite propagandised for governments that would remove the restrictions.
– “This would bring the financial system to its knees”
Actually, “on its knees” is where the financial system belongs. Its purpose is to serve, by making spare, idle wealth available to those who could put it to good use. At present it rules, by making spare wealth a source of further income involving neither labour nor risk.
I concur. Couple of good points there.
Paul, take a deep breath. There’s no communists here.
The idea that you can open bank accounts, hide and move large sums of cash without government interference, and avoid paying tax, might appeal to you on some level but where does it leave society?
In other words, why should I need to pay taxes if other companies and individuals don’t? How does your proposal work? Who pays for the NHS, defence, policing, etc?
Now let’s not get too unrealistic. The devious financiers will find ways and means to avoid anything that amld5 has to offer (how do you stop laddering across the globe?) but there’s principle here. If the poor guy has to pay tax and be accountable, then the rich guy should too.
For the first time this year, possibly ever, I think we are actually discussing the real reasons for Brexit on this website. If the phrase ‘national interest’ means a thing in Britain, this is it; Britain is the dominant global force when it comes to offshore banking and money laundering, by a country mile.
AML does not affect drug barons or oligarchs. It affects individuals trying to deposit or withdrawn cash from their bank. Boris Berezovsky bought his way into the UK just as Bill Browser did and no-one will ever restrict their rights to park capital offshore or invoice their groceries to a Channel Islands company. But try and be a French Citizen opening a bank account in London while living in France or using UK banking facilities as an expatriate digital nomad
Paul, nobody said it would be easy to regulate these people. If you read what I said, I made that clear.
But that doesn’t mean we deregulate completely at all levels. I think most would agree that people and companies ought to pay tax and be transparent. That’s the ideal.
99% of tax fraud in terms of depriving the tax authorities of cash is most likely down to big companies, though, rather than the average individual you mention. I see why it annoys you that it’s the ordinary guy in the street that gets encumbered with the new regulations but you need to start somewhere.
The EU is in a great position to tackle this transnational problem because it has transnational reach; which you’d need in order to have any chance of success. That’s what worried “The City” with its connections to places like Gibraltar, Ireland, and Cyprus. And it’s why Brexit was essential for them.
BTW, anyone who has enough money can buy UK citizenship. It’s no secret. The last time I looked, the going rate was £1million.
Hatuey
But it’s not only the City and the UK state, is it.
“That’s what worried “The City” with its connections to places like Gibraltar, Ireland, and Cyprus. And it’s why Brexit was essential for them.”
Is the City responsible for the tax and regulatory policies of other independent EU states such as Ireland and Cyprus?
“BTW, anyone who has enough money can buy UK citizenship. It’s no secret. The last time I looked, the going rate was £1million”
And in Greece (another independent EU member state) a third country national can obtain permanent residency (and thus visa free travel throughout the EU) by buying a property for a mere 250.000 euros.
Boisvert
” But try and be a French Citizen opening a bank account in London while living in France or using UK banking facilities as an expatriate digital nomad”
What are you talking about? It is easy for an EU citizen or resident to open a bank account in another EU member state. All you have to do is to prove identity and address and supply your TIN (the Tax Identifier Number you have in your EU country of residence). The same even applies if you (eg a UK citizen) wish to open an account in Switzerland. Freedom of capital movement is one of the EU’s four freedoms.
Charles, you’re right, “The City” isn’t the only place offering these services. Switzerland and The Netherlands are big players and the French do it off the West Coast of Africa.
I mentioned Ireland, Cyprus, and Gibraltar, though, because they are conduits of the British system — money directly flows from these places to “The City”, as everyone knows.
Britain more than any other country in the world, in absolute and relative terms, is dependent on what we might call “offshore banking” which is intrinsic to Britain’s status and role in the world. Naturally they have most to lose if there is any serious drive to regulate, and there might be.
My son happens to be a bankster and he is 100% pro the EU. He assures me his friends all think the same way. Their in house newspaper, The Economist too is pro EU. Where do you get the idea that the City is against it?
We have already discussed this in some detail. There are two sides to banking in say London. They are both connected but it’s important to distinguish between the sort of banking that is illicit and essentially black and the sort of high street banking that your son might be involved with which is just plain old banking.
The way these two hands interact is interesting. One hand scoops in vast amounts of money secretly from say Africa, launders and legitimises it, and uses it for investment purposes (loans etc.) towards making profits. One hand washes the other, as they say.
It’s all done in tight secrecy for a reason, of course, and much of the money comes from criminal activities.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is some relatively trivial extra income stream for banks. it’s the other way around, if anything. There’s actually comparatively little to be made in regular high street banking, especially in Britain where people expect to pay virtually nothing for banking facilities.
You might want to watch this video, if you find this stuff interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8
As it happens, my son works for a large multi-national investment bank. Of course there are plenty of people in the banking sector, for which I personally have no time, who will launder money from wherever it arrives. The same is true surely for parts of the British government, letting in so many dubious Russians. Are you saying that this will not happen in the EU in future that all foreign trade will be closely controlled, in ways which do not happen now? And that is why we should Remain?
Mary Paul, no, I’m not saying that or saying it’s why we should remain. I think we should remain for other reasons.
EU regulations frighten the wits out of “the city” though. It’s easy to imagine a push for more and more regulations over offshore banking, trusts, shell companies, etc.
And that’s why they talked people into voting Brexit.
A very interesting and informative film, thank you for sharing the link. While much of the political right, and a growing number of lazy or conspiratorially minded thinkers of all flavours, promote the idea that powerful people like George Soros and other individual actors in business and government are omniscient Blofeldian super-villains with godlike powers to shape the destiny of countries and people…the actual empirically verifiable “conspiracy” that is destroying the livelihoods of billions is left in peace to about its dirty business unimpeded.
Even much of the supposed left has acquired amnesia about the power of capital and prefers to pickle itself in the formaldehyde of identity politics (h/t john Pilger) and take its cues from the mainstream media and multinational corporations. The scenario laid out by the late Jane Jacobs in her book Dark Age Ahead is unfortunately well on its way to becoming reality.
We could have done without the T&A. I come to places like this to get away from that… That aside, good post.
Queuing posts to send later is a feature available in many social media software tools.
Tweeting regularly is good for getting followers. But you don’t want to spend all day on it. So you write the tweets once a day or once a week and then queue them up. The software sends them out for you. This is just simple automation, and does not in any way mean that the account is a ‘bot’ – all the tweets could have been written by the same real person – only the schedule of release in automated.
Looking at the tweets, it is typical of an SEO campaign (I do this professionally):
1. lots of blog posts are written
2. the software churns out regular automated tweets based on new blog posts and random picks from the ‘back catalogue’ of blog posts
3. …profit??
In this case they are – very obviously – doing SEO for an organic restaurant directory. It would not surprise me in the least if the SEO company has managed to fool the times into going with this ludicrous ‘Russian bot’ story, since being featured in The Times is going to make their SEO go off the charts!
All of that stuff you mention in point 2 can be automated with simple WordPress plugins. As for point 1, it really means nothing; many people write lots of blog posts and, as you should know, it’s basically Day 1 / lesson 1 in any book on content marketing.
Hi Hatuey
Exactly, it is completely common, run-of-the-mill stuff that hundreds of thousands of sites are doing. I think we are in agreement on this.
I’ll concede we are in agreement, but keep it quiet… I have a reputation to worry about on here.
😐
Is there some way of testing what you say “very obviously” should be the conclusion, @premonition?
What kind of searches right now are bringing up loads of references to what site, and how many references to it would you expect the same searches to have brought up before this story?
That would be real “SEO”, right, rather than the bullsh*t that “IT” scammers sell to small businesses?
Hi N_
The reason it is obvious is because all the tweets feature links back to blog posts on their organic restaurant directory. Whether or not this actually *works* as an SEO campaign is a separate matter, the intention is absolutely clear if you have studied content-led SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques. So my analysis does not depend on google searches actually sending traffic to the site. So there is not a ‘test’ as such, but it really couldn’t be clearer, if you have done a number of these marketing campaigns, that that is what it is.
Actually, it does work. The trend dictated by Google towards what they are calling “domain authority” puts a lot of emphasis on social media links, ownership, etc. SEO is not as straight forward as it once was, domain authority is more complex than say simple link building and keyword stuffing, but it does work, even if success is harder to measure than it was before in terms of SERPs.
What does “SEO” stand for?
Search engine optimization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
SEO stands for search engine optimisation which basically is the art of getting websites listed on page 1 of search engines, Google especially, when certain keywords are entered. So, for example, if you had a website called mathiasalexander.com which focused on lets say Macedonian politics, when users input the keywords ‘Macedonia’, ‘Macedonian’ or ‘FYROM’ into their search engines your website would appear on the first page of the results. That’s the theory anyway but there’s thousands of companies claiming to offer the bestest SEO and they can’t all be right can they given that most search engines list ten search entries per page.
There’s a bit more to SEO than I’ve explained so if you’re really that bothered Wikipedia provides a better overview.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
I will say though that when I typed ‘Seattle organic’ into Google, seattleorganicrestaurants.com was the first entry on page one.
@ premonition October 7, 2018 at 20:53
I’ve heard their Novichoks a la Polonium is a selling like hot yellowcakes!
Again, why has someone not uncovered the source of this “blog”? I am waiting to read the interview.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/russia-could-face-further-sanctions-over-cyber-attacks-jeremy-hunt-says-a3953596.html
The Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on 4th October in connection with the expulsion of Russian agents from The Netherlands in April “If anyone had questions in their mind about Russian military involvement in the Salisbury attacks this will put to rest those doubts.”.
He also said “Evidence of the Russian military launching a cyber attack on the very organisation set up to investigate those Novichock attacks … why would you do that if you weren’t the guilty party?” A recording of this statement was shown repeatedly on the BBC News Channel but I cannot find a copy now.
There is probably a name for this sort of argument but I simply do not see how the actions of the Russian agents in the Hague in April prove that the Russian agents in Salisbury a month earlier were guilty of attempted assassination or worse.
If he wants to put people’s minds at rest he needs to tell them what really happened.
Time to topple the toxic Tories.
Jeremy Hunt is saying “Use Prejudice it saves Thinking”
Hunt, and Wallace (Security minister) are both idiots, sadly.
How to make people read a blog? Tell them something scandalous about it, and thousands will start reading it. Craig, you need to accept that marketing folks are a couple of steps ahead of everyone else, and never take marketing at face value.
Not related to “Bikini Girls” of any sort, but rather to anti-Russia propaganda, specifically the Skripal case, I just came across this piece which at least purports to be an edited account of an interview with someone with direct knowledge of ‘special agents’ and their doings. The piece is entitled “SKRIPAL CASE: ISRAELI EXPERT ON THE WORK OF THE SPECIAL AGENTS” and it may be found at:
https://en.news-front.info/2018/09/28/skripal-case-israeli-expert-on-the-work-of-the-special-agents/ I thoiught it might be of interest.
I have no expertise whatever in this area, so make no comment on veracity, plausibility etc, though it chimes well with my pre-existing skepticism about the entire Skripal. The “News-Front” outfit claims to offer “Breaking news from the DPR/LPR, Ukraine, Serbia, Russia, Middle East, Europe, Asia and the USA.”
The head of Interpol, whose predecessors in the post include Richard Heydrich, architect of the Nazi extermination programme, has been arrested in China.
Reinhard Heydrich in point of fact who took over when the IKPK formed in Vienna in 1923 moved to Berlin following Anschluss. It was dissolved in 1945 and Interpol created in France
Targeting the GRU Russian Miliary Intelligence is today de rigeur; with Times & LBC conjuring the perfect storm with a cloud of accusations i.e. Salisbury, OPCD, MH17, Brexit, Trump, Georgia and Crimea.
‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here’ – yes I am conjuring a storm by magic to expose England’s LBC as Radio Propaganda. Mark ‘Haw Haw’ Urban we know has been briefed by former MI6 head Dr (sic) Dearlove who warned ‘ ..that assassination was part of “Russian political DNA”.
Dearlove said on Sky News, “The attack in the UK fits a historical pattern. Russia has always used assassination as a weapon. It’s a rather terrible thing to say but it’s a violent country and they tend to kill each other.”
So Mr Dearlove ‘they kill each other’ – rather than Iraq’s children; the incinerated Iraqi toddlers in Baghdad eating breakfast or the cluster bomb playground ripping, the sparkling toys(bomblets) that entice and mutilate, or, the hungry dead Iraqi babies once suckling at mummy’s breast, now carbon dusk in a scorched soil, … all on a dodgy lie to war propagandised within an even dodgier dossier.. Oh and let me remind the UK Defence chiefs, I am fully aware Britain has battlefield nukes and nuclear tipped torpedoes… – are you?..
Richard Dearlove
Dearlove seems to have been stricken with foaming-at-the-mouth-itis. Life presumably got a bit boring after his role in the murder of Princess Diana. After retiring as head of MI6 he got a mastership at a Cambridge college, which is one of the most luxurious non-jobs in the country. At Cambridge he ballsed up the running of a discussion group, which he then claimed Russian intelligence had undermined. And he has disgraced himself by getting involved in politics, propagandising for Brexit and helping his beloved Tory party by spreading the idea that Jeremy Corbyn is a foreign agent.
C’mon, Dickie boy, wipe the foam from your chin and tell us about Paris. We want to know about Paris!
As far as I know, he hasn’t got a non-honorary doctorate in anything, and therefore should not be referred to as “Dr”. I will stand corrected if someone shows otherwise.
Here’s what I’m wondering: since Dearlove is so pro-Brexit, has Russian intelligence taken him over? Perhaps Keir Giles has an opinion on this?
N_
“Dearlove seems to have been stricken with foaming-at-the-mouth-itis. Life presumably got a bit boring after his role in the murder of Princess Diana”
What role would that have been?
Indeed Mark
And Now, we have the Criminal U.N Warning of a Million child deaths from starvation. NOTHING about the wests WAR CRIMES in Yememen..Nothing on how easy this can be prevented
Wasn’t dearlove in charge at mi6 during the special rendition operation ? Shouldn’t be listened to if so.
Maybe over the top to say don’t listen to distinguished senior civil servant I thought after writing. But cheek for him to criticise Corbyn when actions like Special Rendition plus accompanying lies are far more damaging to the UKs reputation and to ordinary people’s trust in their officials and government than anything Corbyn could possibly have done. They cause more distrust of official sources than a foreign campaign of fake news would. Though it is a good thing that it was actually investigated later, that’s cheering.
“Russia has always used assassination as a weapon.”
That statement is very clever because it implies that other countries such as the United States and U K do not.
But we know that they do. The CIA killed and attempted to kill many world leaders over the years and it very much looks like President Kennedy was one of them.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/devils-chessboard-allen-dulles-the-cia-and-the-rise-of-americas-secret-government/oclc/971560070?referer=di&ht=edition
The Times article references a report by Chatham House describing the use by Russian state propagandists of pictures of “scantily clad young ladies” as designed to target “an especially vulnerable social group, men over the age of 45”.
I remember that phrase.
It’s from Keir Giles’s article “Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West: Continuity and Innovation in Moscow’s Exercise of Power”. Giles also wrote “The Next Phase of Russian Information Warfare” for NATO. He’s worth reading.
The Times omits to mention that Giles has strongly suggested that UKIP and the push for Brexit were Russian-backed. He is certainly no ignoramus where either MI6 or British military intelligence are concerned, yet you will notice that his position seems rather different from Richard Dearlove’s. I wonder whether he
controlsis mates with Carole Cadwalladr.Let me see if I have this right: a London newspaper is describing the use as a marketing tool of “pictures of scantily clad young ladies” as peculiarly Russian?
thanks craig for highlight this ongoing insanity that is being expressed by the usa, uk and all the other poodles.. it is really quite pathetic, but i do believe a lot of money is being provided for propaganda aimed at creating a bad image of russia.. some of it is sticking.. i guess if you throw enough jello at the wall, some of it is bound to stick, however briefly…
paul robinson – a canuck, has written an insight post that is in line with your observations and that some here would enjoy..
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/no-history-no-culture-please/
According to rabid nick Cohen , Assange decided not to leave the embassy because he refuses to face his “ crime “ …
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/07/russian-interference-goes-beyond-spying-to-the-very-heart-of-britain
Who owns the media?
Who has had their expansionary plans thwarted in the M.E.?
Who was it that thwarted their plans?
All this stupidity is to distract the population from the West’s abject failiure in the ME and Ukraine.
What were you doing on October 8th, 2008?
Brown and Darling were busy in No 10, so was Mervyn King at the Bank of England. In the City and Canary Wharf, they were snorting their lines of cocaine and drinking Pommery in bars.
‘The government of Britain announced on the morning of Wednesday, October 8 that it would make £25 billion available as “Tier 1 capital” (preference share capital or “PIBS” [Permanent Interest-Bearing Securities]) to the following financial institutions: Abbey, Barclays, HBOS, HSBC Bank plc, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Standard Chartered as part of a bank rescue package. An additional £25 billion was scheduled to be made available to other financial institutions, including British subsidiaries of foreign banks. “In reviewing these applications the Government will give due regard to an institution’s role in the UK banking system and the overall economy”. The plan included increased ability to borrow from the government, offered assistance in raising equity, and a statement of support for international efforts.
The plan has been described as partial nationalization. The crisis was very severe; according to the BBC’s Robert Peston on 22 December after interviewing government and banking leaders “For me, what stood out when interviewing this quartet was the revelation about how Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS were—in October—only hours away from being unable to open for business”.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_financial_crisis_in_October_2008
The funding to HBOS was a breach of FSMA 2000 and particularly that Lloyds repaid it to the Treasury after acquiring The Black Hole and wiping out their own equity.
That Jeremy Heywood (now Supreme Commander of Cabinet Office) was then working for Morgan Stanley which was hawking Andy Hornby’s poison chalice around a reception at the Nat History Museum attended by Gordon Brown and Victor Blank – the lovely swindle of Shareholders by the Treasury as it was agreed to let Lloyds – which had been blocked from acquiring Northern Rock – swallow The Black Hole and choke with indigestion and keep secret from Lloyds Shareholders that they had done NO due-diligence and had breached FSMA 2000 by deceiving shareholders in the Prospectus by failing to mention they were to pay £25 billion to the Treasury after acquisition and wipe out Shareholder Equity
Yes. I remember seeing Sir Victor Blank getting into his tiny car at the time after one of the meets.
So rich, he has his own cricket ground. What a man! http://www.sirvictorblank.co.uk/philanthropy/ and so vain, he has his own website.
The cricket ground is at his second home. He lives in Hampstead.
https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/features/the-banker-who-bats-for-charity-1.59936
BBC Central in the form of Nick Robinson give us a follow up.
The Next Financial Meltdown
Decision Time
One decade on since the great crash, Nick Robinson asks whether we can handle a crisis in our financial system of a similar magnitude. Have politicians and officials, central bankers and the leaders of our major financial institutions learned the lessons of 2008?https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bktltl
I am sure they have Nick and of course we can handle it all over again. 😉
PS They don’t even have a question mark on the title.
Well having read the tweets I can only think that The Times must think it is April 1st! It cannot be serious!
“Donald J. Trump
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
8:15 PM – Nov 6, 2012”
Didn’t he mean the Russians?
http://uk.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-climate-change-global-warming-beliefs-2017-6?r=US&IR=T
Sophisticated spam bots, whether political or commercial, look a lot alike. They spend most of their time saying what their target audience likes to hear, and looking like what their target audience likes to see. The goal is to build a following of real people. Only then do they risk pushing their “payload” messaging.
The goal is to get the real people to push the payload messaging organically. Fake it till you make it.
People think political bots try to “spread chaos” and polarization. Nonsense. They no more try to spread chaos than Fox News does. The polarization is a byproduct of trying to build an audience where it’s easiest – namely among those who (sometimes rightly) feel silenced and neglected.
What are Russian social media manipulation payloads? That Magnitsky sanctions are bad, that Assad did not gas people, that Skripal wasn’t poisoned, that there are no Russian soldiers in Donetsk etc.
You are their greatest win, Craig Murray. Which is why you have 200+ comments on your posts in hours, mostly pushing various dissent unrelated to what you’re even writing about.
Harald, I hope I am not misrepresenting you.
You contend that this spam only appears to be for organic restaurants in Seattle, and that one day, eventually, suddenly Russian propaganda would start to be slipped in, which the Times has brilliantly prevented.
Your position is that anything on the web which is not Russian propaganda is a blind, and one day it will be?
I do hope I have represented you. Because otherwise you are a lunatic prejudiced fuckwit.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Yes, you have misrepresented me.
As I just said, this sort of propaganda can be commercial, or it can be political. You can’t really tell unless you see an obvious payload message that is dissonant with the other content of the account. As far as I know this bot hasn’t done that yet.
The Russians are only one of many groups doing this. They’re not particularly advanced or subtle when it comes to Twitter bots – I think they even just rent from spam botnets there.
The same thing goes on in traditional media. Russia is much more present there. RT gives air to all sorts of western dissidents, from Assange and Chomsky to vaccine denialists and goldbugs. It’s not because they believe in any of it, but because they want to cultivate an audience for their payload messaging – they’re just throwing everything to the wall and see what sticks. They don’t care if you believe any of that, as long as you keep thinking there’s a chance Putin didn’t order the Skripal poisoning, or that Assad didn’t gas anyone, etc. Which you don’t.
Harald,
so are you accepting that Erica is not a Russian bot and the Times got that spectacularly wrong? You are still not clear to me.
“It’s not because they believe in any of it, but because they want to cultivate an audience for their payload messaging – they’re just throwing everything to the wall and see what sticks. They don’t care if you believe any of that, as long as you keep thinking there’s a chance Putin didn’t order the Skripal poisoning, or that Assad didn’t gas anyone, etc.”
What a bizarre pile of one-sided assumptions and accusations. I’d like to see you turn that laser-like reasoning towards the BBC and other mainstream media outlets. Not a mention from you of their “payloads”. These organisations have the blood of millions on their hands and, even if what you are saying about RT is true, it really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans by comparison.
Your invective, CM, towards Harald K(ing?) seems a whisker misdirected. I think you are, perhaps, failing to see the Troika for the Ittok, as Charles Crawford was apt to opine.
The point Harald K makes about Trojan payload injection techniques seems to me not only accurate and authentic but entirely clear.
The side issue of the etiology of Erica in particular, and veracity or pedigree of The Times article more generally is exactly that. Is this fast becoming a house speciality here, I wonder?
Cool yer jets, pal.
Anthony, if you think you are throwing light on anything here by suggesting that the payload injection system itself makes sense, as a sort of marketing system, or one that allows the manager of that system to inject destabilising propaganda messages into the market of public opinion more successfully or less blatantly than he might otherwise would, then I think you are wrong. This sort of stuff has been going on in marketing for decades — think “content” and “fill”.
In the specific case Erica mentioned here and in The Times, though, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of evidence to suggest that that’s what is going on. The suggestion that this is some sort of Russian propaganda sleeper cell stinks of rabid desperation, to be frank, and takes us very close to a culture of 21st century McCarthyism where anything remotely at odds with Western interests and/or positive towards Russia is immediately called into question.
The idea that those of us who don’t want to eat GM food or chlorinated chicken, or bomb the middle east for that matter, are knowingly or unknowingly being played by Russia isn’t only insulting to our intelligence, it’s dangerous and and stinks of totalitarianism.
In itself it’s fairly trivial in this case but when you look at the bigger picture and how these various components are combined at a propaganda level, it’s definitely quite disturbing.
If we are going into a cold (or hot) war against Russia or anyone else, with all that that entails for current and future generations, it needs to be based on real evidence, not this flimsy junk.
Plain good business sense by RT too. Filled glaring gaps in the UK and US media markets, where native media won’t question the crimes and lies of government.
RT says:
‘They all take Saudi money’: Suspected murder of WaPo columnist by Saudi Arabia ignored by UK press
https://www.rt.com/news/440693-uk-press-khashoggi-saudi-wikileaks/
So if that is what “RT” is doing what does that say about BBC and Sky and ITV ? Clearly BBC is failing to represent ALL licence payers impartially as required under its Charter
So did the times have serious reasons for thinking this was a russian bot? Apart from content and posting patterns? Or is anything seemingly innocuous a russian bot unless proved otherwise?
Why doesn’t someone turn up and interview the woman (?) running it?
Harald K’s use of pseudo-technical terms like “payload” is presumably designed to dazzle the gullible with the sophistication of his insights – which, when the pretentious waffle is put to one side, amount to nothing more than the usual “Anyone who sez Assad didn’t gas those noble jihadists is a Russian bot, I tell you!”
I remember watching a news programme a while ago and it said about how Russia had interfered in the US presidential election.
One example that it gave was RT ‘interviewing the candidates’. I could not believe it.
This book deals with the question of the current scapegoating and demonisation of Russia. I have read it and it is a very interesting book.
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510730328/the-plot-to-scapegoat-russia/
We are reliant on Russia for a large percentage of our energy. Remember last Winter – the stupidly names Beast from the East. Who coined that phrase? The Heil or Murdoch? **
Russia gains gas foothold in UK as relations deteriorate
Increasing dependence on LNG imports has created an opening for Moscow
March 14 2018
https://www.ft.com/content/62856154-26b1-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0
‘Half of Britain’s imports of liquefied natural gas so far this year have come from Russia, illustrating how UK households have started sending more money to Moscow after Vladimir Putin made boosting exports of the super-cooled fuel a priority. Russia has accounted for three of a total of six LNG shipments that have arrived since early January in the UK, whose tensions with Moscow have risen to the highest level since the Cold War following an alleged Russian nerve gas attack in Salisbury.
All three Russian shipments have come from the Yamal LNG project in Siberia that was targeted by US sanctions before its start-up late last year, though shipments themselves are not restricted.’
** A weather forecaster apparently. Good piece here – https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/beast-from-the-east-uk-weather-fallacy-why-anthropomorphism-personality-a8234181.html
How about Stoltenberg’s ‘We bombed you to save you’ to the Serbians?!
‘We bombed you to save you’ – NATO head Stoltenberg speaks about 1999 bombings on visit to Serbia
https://www.rt.com/news/440616-stoltenberg-serbia-nato-bombing/
How was that statement received by the university students in Belgrade? Hope none of them have suffered from the effects of NATO’s DU.
‘During the bombings, NATO dropped “between 10 and 15 tons of depleted uranium, which caused a major environmental disaster” and prompted Serbians to sue NATO over its actions, linking them to a rise in cancer-related illnesses across the region.
“In Serbia, 33,000 people fall sick because of this every year. That is one child every day,” a member of the international legal team that was preparing the lawsuit told RT in 2017. Back in 2015, Stoltenberg himself expressed “regret” for the civilian casualties of NATO’s 1999 bombing.’
Javier Solana was the Secretary General of NATO in 1999. Our old friend, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (then plain George) took over in October later that year.
Stoltenberg is a strange one. His father was Norwegian ambassador to Yugoslavia in 1962 and Jens comes from a family of politicians. Strange then that he has a DOR file at KGB where his codename was “Streklov”. No doubt the USA had enough “kompromat” on him to make him their man at NATO………….
“Butkov’s Norwegian debriefing officer, Einar Brusletto, implored Butkov to try to uncover the identity behind the alias Steklov. Butkov returned home to Moscow on a holiday in December 1989:
“During an uninterrupted moment in an act which can only be described as very daring and courageous, he managed to extract Steklov’s folder from the safe inside the KGB headquarters. The name was sensational: Jens Stoltenberg.”
At the time Stoltenberg was about to be selected for the Norwegian Defence Commission. Receiving classified information from this commission would have been a big coup for the KGB.
“Butkov learnt during the brief time he was able to peruse Steklov’s folder that it had been established in early 1989. He also discovered that the folder was a DOR folder — Delo Operativnoj Razrabotki. These folders were normally reserved for individuals in an advanced stage of the grooming process, or who were already among KGB’s confidential contacts.”
‘Young’ Stoltenberg was a person the KGB was grooming for the future. National intelligence agencies are meticulous and patient. It is fair to assume that Stoltenberg with his family background and his prospects was a contact the KGB valued highly.
The European Union is of course campaigning against “Russian disinformation” (https://euvsdisinfo.eu/news/) and recently granted a further license for glyphosate (https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/glyphosate_en), even knowing it is carcinogenic, as it is in the interests of the corporations (specifically Monstanto/Bayer). Calling critics of corporate exploitation, Russian bots serves to enhance neoliberal globalism and demonise Russia.
The more sinister element in the article was the reference to Scottish independence.
The rather unsubtle implication is that the Kremlin is masterminding the show.
Чёрт! We’ve been rumbled!
I’m obviously a bot but am I Russian or Chinese or North Korean? Why hasn’t anybody found out?
Just more outrageous Russophobia.
But it is getting to the point where anyone who expresses any opinion that does not agree with the mainstream narrative is immediately accused of being a Russian agent or similar.
– Agree with Some of Russia’s policy? – RUSSIAN AGENT
– Agree with Trump – WORKING FOR THE RUSSIANS
– Support Brexit – RUSSIAN AGENT or only voted for it due to RUSSIAN brainwashing.
etc etc.
@Agent Green,
Yes, you have pretty much hit the nail on the head. If you have opposing views to the neoliberal establishment, and attempt to post comments reflecting your views on MSM – Guardian, Independent etc – then you are labelled “Putinbot” “Russian troll” etc, and eventually like myself, they stop you from posting.
The more people with enquiring minds and contrary views they shut down, the more easy it is for the neoliberal establishment to push their agendas.
I’m getting the feeling that the US is holding a very big grudge against the USSR that it can’t resolve. An aspiring world champ didn’t get the title fight that it waited so long to win – so much investment so little cheering and worst of all no spoils. Those generals, those medals, no big bang. Worse, the USSR rebrand isn’t consumed by shame and embarrasment but has the chutzpah to swaggger and present an alternative to pax america.
US preferred Russia Communist. It is the fact that Russia is now so free that Russians can move abroad and England football fans can travel and party that throws US Elites into dysphoria
As I’ve posted before: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/13/americas-military-is-nostalgic-for-great-power-wars/
Good wee article that, Jiusito, I particularly liked this line;
“China was built to play in an infinite game, and my goal is to try to make sure that my grandchildren and your grandchildren have options other than giving massages to Chinese tourists when they grow up.”
Gives a whole new meaning to the refrain ‘the commies are coming…”
I wonder if this shift in emphasis has anything to do with the competition between land, sea, and air suppliers in the arms industries that President Eisenhower talked about… actually, that’s probably a given.
The whole Russophobia edifice is tumbling down. Just who, exactly, believes the ‘official’ story?
A couple of trolls here and two men and a dog elsewhere. Why does the government continue with such a failed strategy?
Because it’s under orders. There are jihadis to protect in Syria. In the long term, Eurasia must be colonised. The mineral wealth of Siberia must be appropriated.
After glassing the desert?
Funnily enough one person who spoke of Russia supplying the oil that is currently got from Arab states was Boris Berezovsky. Whether he had his hand on his Russian passport or his I__aeli one when he said it was unclear, but he was unlikely to have been thinking of his British one.
@Merkin Scot,
Unfortunately on other forums – cars, photography, money saving, cycling etc – Russophobia is alive and well and flourishing.
The majority of folks do not question anything, they simply graze on whatever is presented to them.
Any more news on the story that former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove has got snow on his boots?
Check out ERGO and his bedfellows……CIA plus White House plus Alphabet Soup and Think Tank Cutouts
He has to sing rom the right hymn sheet to keep being fed cupcakes
Renée DiResta at “Data for Democracy”. Or should that be “data for der’mocracy” (дерьмократия)?
Save me from private sector counterintelligence agencies!
Is there a term for the class of organisation consisting of groups such as Data for Democracy? Private-sector Counterintelligence Companies? Private CyberSecurity Companies? Cybersecurity Mercenaries? Oops, sorry, I mean “not for profit”, “grassroots”, and so “democratic” they’d make the CIA turn green with envy. Perhaps Non-Governmental Counterintelligence Organisations then?
The gentle beginnings of the campaign, so as to prepare the garden of the collective uk consciousness, for the flood of poison which will be making it’s way to our supermarkets from the good old usa, as part of the wonderful new trade deals, if we do leave the EU..
Russia have been taking a wonderful stance against the GMO assault on nature.
“It says something both about the quite hysterical Russophobia gripping the media and political class, and about the desire to delegitimise environmental activism”
And, presumably, the desire to have an excuse to publish gratutious pictures of girls in bikinis… present company excepted – Craig, you’re clearly illustrating the stupidity of the whole affair 🙂
“Delegitimise environmental activism” 🙂 That’ll be while they’re preventing Scots from “self-determining”? Environmental activism has long been supported by big business and the state.
‘Shut up and go away’ at it again:-
‘US-LED BLOC BOOSTS MILITARY ACTIVITY IN ARCTIC UNDER “RUSSIAN THREAT” EXCUSE’:
https://southfront.org/us-led-bloc-boosts-military-activity-in-arctic-under-russian-threat-excuse/
So now we’ve got the Arctic as our ‘backyard’, already?