This last couple of weeks have seen the build-up to Julian’s arrest, the event itself, and the coordinated campaign of lies and hate that have ensued. Perhaps not coincidentally, it also saw the publication of the breath-taking exercise in state dishonesty that is the Mueller Report. Simultaneously these events brought me into close contact with other good friends, who in different ways are also right now going through very difficult periods indeed, involving state conspiracy and injustice. Despite the heartening interlude of a dash to Rothesay to speak to a full and inspiring hall, I not only found myself working rather too hard on all these matters, I also contracted bronchitis and ended up in bed wheezing and a nasty blue colour. To add to all of which, my family are rightly not exactly chuffed with the abandonment of cherished plans for the Easter holiday and my subsequent disappearance and lack of support to them.
I considered writing today something about Julian’s arrest and Mueller, and starting something on the other issues, but then decided that an auto-biographical piece on my last couple of weeks close to the centre of these events, incorporating the key arguments, may be more powerful in humanising those arguments, and thus reach a larger audience. To write such a piece will necessarily reveal a lot of confidences, and I am going to need to clear it with those involved. It will therefore be a few days before you can see it – and if the key people concerned are not comfortable, it may not see the light of day, and I may have to return to Plan A.
In the meantime I am working up a piece on my reaction to Extinction Rebellion, which I hope to publish today.
In the 13 years of this blog before I accepted subscriptions, one of the main reasons I did not do so was that I feared feeling guilty when I was not producing articles, and feeling obliged to explain myself. That is indeed now happening. Somewhat oddly, I find the process rather liberating, in showing myself as a real and frail person, not some disembodied intellect.
RIP Polly Higgins. She died too young. She was a Scot and a lawyer.
Polly Higgins, lawyer who fought for recognition of ‘ecocide’, dies aged 50
Campaigner and barrister attempted to create a law to criminalise ecological damage
22 Apr 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/22/polly-higgins-environmentalist-eradicating-ecocide-dies
There is a 2012 interview with her in The Scotsman too.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/interview-polly-higgins-lawyer-and-campaigner-1-2307488
RIP indeed.
How come good, decent people like this, and Carl Sagan, and so many others are taken at such a relatively young age, while miserable war criminals like Kissinger and Cheney go on, and on, and on?
I always think of Blair, unlike his victims, apparently as fit as a flea and alive.
Very good Reading Sharp Ears.. Thanks
RiP Polly, The Earth Lawyer
This is a complete tragedy.
On the specific topic of Extinction Revolution, though. Am I the only one who feels there is something off about the whole thing, almost as if it’s a staged state backed enterprise masquerading as a grass roots rebellion?
What would be the motive of ruling-class institutions for promoting Extinction Rebellion? Is it being used to channel opposition into more manageable channels? Any specifics?
Carbon tax.
Carbon tax might not be a bad idea – if corporations pay the lions share for producing the lions share ?
Bill/MJ
No a carbon tax is a very bad idea as it just acts as another way rich corporations can enclose the commons and a way that fiance can speculate with government issued near money. A carbon tax always persecutes the poor and further enriches the rich. For example how Goldman Sachs speculated on carbon credits in Matt Tabbi piece, ‘The Great American Bubble Machine’. The way carbon credits were over-issued to big US corporations allowing them to generate profits by selling them on to those less able to reduce their carbon footprint. Carbon credits are only a way of transferring the wealth of the commons to the rich.
The rich who would allow poor people to freeze to death so they can burn poor people to heat their swimming pools. Yes men fix the world did a good skit on this when they pretended to create candles out of dead people,in a presentation to an oil conference as a supposedly sustainable fuel. They invented a person called Reg (no connection) and showed a video of his last will and testament as they handed out candles moulded into the shape of Reg, and had oil executives waving these lit candles in the air before they were dragged off stage by security. The film is very funny and covers other similar political pranks.
https://www.wired.com/2007/06/yes-men-strike-/
This all derives from Coarse theorem where the problems of the commons would be dealt with by extending ownership to everything enabling the polluter to pay the polluted. This is of course neo-liberal nonsense as all life cannot be financialised, unless Toucans are taught the value of money and their is no asymmetries in information or power. A poor person does not have the same access to law as Bayer/Monsanto so this is all nonsense.
Carbon Credits are written into law by rich corporations for the benefit of rich corporations as a way of getting the poor to pay for the pollution of the rich and to create another profit centre.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/coase-theorem.asp
@Reg
I disagree, a carbon tax would be a very good thing. In today’s politics things usually only get done when it makes economic sense to do so. A carbon tax forces Capitalism to take into account CO2 emissions and gives reason for people and companies to reduce their energy use and use low carbon technologies.
You attack the idea of carbon credits because they have been abused but a carbon tax is a different beast and not one you can easily game. In fact one of the main proponents of a carbon tax, James Hansen, warned against the use of cap and trade. His idea is to create a revenue neutral carbon tax. the money from the tax is returned to people on a per person basis. This would make the tax progressive and mean people who do not use as much resources (the poor) would gain from the tax, while those who generate the most carbon dioxide would lose out.
Mighty Drunken
You have no idea what you are talking about. A carbon tax would be abused in exactly the same way as carbon credits as they are introduced by exactly the same people on behalf of exactly the same vested interests. Go back and read what I wrote previously as you clearly do not understand it, you cannot internalise an economic externality by charging for it. You are repeating neo-liberal economic theory without even the vaguest understanding of it, and without even the understanding this is neo-liberal THEORY not reality. This is neo-liberal theory you repeat is without even the vaguest modicum of empirical evidence it even works. If you understood anything, which is doubtful, you would understand for this to work requires people to act rationally as isolated individuals to maximise their utility, this is from neoclassical theory and is in technical terms bollx.
A good example of this is the carbon tax Macron put on Diesel in France that completely missed the point. It is the super rich that create the most damage, and Macron reduced taxes on the super wealthy while loading taxes including carbon taxes on the poor and the just getting by. In France poorer people have to live further out of large cities because of gentrification and need a car to get to work as they cannot afford to live close to work. So rather than make it affordable for ordinary people to live close to their place of work they add another tax on poor people a tax on the diesel cars the French government previously encouraged them to buy as they were thought to be more efficient at the time, they also added another tax on essentials such as food after the protest began.
So it is not theory, it has happened in France a carbon tax always ends up under this system being a tax on poor people, as this system is run for rich people. This is why the extinction rebellion is a middle class self indulgent waste of space, as it does not address these issues. So your statement “This would make the tax progressive and mean people who do not use as much resources (the poor) would gain from the tax, while those who generate the most carbon dioxide would lose out.” is proven to be an untrue statement as this is never how it works when put into practice as these are taxes imposed by the rich on the poor for the benefit of the rich.
I really do wish those repeating neo-liberal theory in a sheeplike mantra without thought or understanding would at least think about these ideas before they repeat them on look at the evidence to see if these theories are applicable.
https://www.stalkerzone.org/rt-documentary-yellow-vest-fever/
Yes, I agree there is something ‘off’ about Extinction Revolution. It was a staged state-backed enterprise designed to preempt and usurp any possible grass roots protest about the arrest of Assange. The protest was a well-publicized piece of propaganda designed to divert attention from Assange and eliminate his legitimacy. Take Assange off the front pages, and brainwash the sheeple into thinking that no one cares about him. Fill the air waves with a diversion (a “colour” protest).
Some background on Gail Bradbrook (leader at XR):
https://nowhere.news/index.php/2019/04/01/dr-gail-marie-bradbrook-compassionate-revolutionary-for-hire/
Gail epitomises the new generation of ‘professional activists’, having positioned herself at the epicentre of the revolving door between big business, government bureaucracies and establishment-friendly NGOs, campaign groups and charitable organisations, all of which increasingly function as the public face of international corporate and financial power.
I struggle to think of another ‘issue’ in my life time that has been so roundly taken up and promoted by mass media, as climate change. Sure, one could chalk that up to the apparent impending doom of ecological disaster and the media deciding to get their shit together to drive the message home, but given that we’re routinely lied to and manipulated by the same media and their patrons on a whole host of other potentially world ending issues, the en-mass adoption of the crisis narrative by the mass media at large, should be enough to set the alarm bells ringing.
There’s something inherently authoritarian about the protests as well, which rankles my libertarian streak. Lots of people who would ordinarily advocate for personal freedoms and agency in other topics suddenly come over all Malthusian when it comes to the environment.
The apparent connections between ER and US led regime change operations makes me think this is just an attempt at stage managing the fall out from late stage capitalism, and arranging the playing pieces nicely for whatever they envisage coming next. Either way, ordinary people will be the ones who suffer.
Except the science is firm and getting concrete harder every day. Us scientists are hard to corral and shut up (outside of military-security circles) and anybody can look up the data themselves just like all the genomes and proteomes and expressomes and other -omes are on public databases with free to use interrogation tools with online help files.
I point people who think God wrote codes in the DNA to the databases and the tools and the help files and tell them to go fill their boots and seek and ye shall find. I’m still waiting for their results.
Anthropogenic Climate Change is real. The window of opportunity to limit temperature increases to 2C is closing fast and the models say bad and difficult things will happen above 2C which will make reducing the temperature back down difficult to impossible, the earth will enter a new hot stable state.
The campaigners tend to overstate how impending the changes are but coastal erosion is increasing the world over. The beach here in Dundee has now been almost totally shored up with a boulder wall outside of the groomed public bathing area. Storms ate into the dunes.
A story from NZ has a council having to close a road and carpark because forecast erosion happened very much faster, the road has been eaten away so only cycles and pedestrians are allowed to proceed now and their access is no longer guaranteed.
Big, damaging storms are getting bigger and more damaging. Think of a pot of water on the stove and what happens when you turn the heat up. Especially with glass lid on so you can see. Things get much more active.
Note that while the peaks of heat get higher so the troughs get deeper. So still expect Beasts from the East and the ice storms which hit the US and Canada last winter. They are entirely consistent with global warming as well. That one is not well understood.
Just because various media organisations have got on board doesn’t make AGW a corporate conspiracy. It means editors and publishers have become persuaded of the science too. This is a good thing.
Craig, do get well. The extinction rebellion is evolving faster than lightning, trying to write something relevant, that will stay relevant, might be a task best deferred, till it settles a bit!
The frisson on the ground in London these last days has been like nothing I’ve experienced. I think your troop of faithful trolls may be finding themselves very shortly reassigned to be attempting to be putting the social media expressions of that genie back in the bottle, a task I deem improbable. ( I hope you won’t miss them ! The unwavering attentions of Chas Bostik and his pride (or should it be pod ?) of sea lions must be very flattering.)
Just witnessing the emergence of that egregore has left me burnt out in parts seldom reached. To quote somebody from some time ago: My feet are tired, but my soul is truly rested ! (at my age I shouldn’t dance like that.)
“I find the process rather liberating, in showing myself as a real and frail person, not some disembodied intellect.”
They don’t come more real than you Craig.
What causes abnormal weather conditions like flooding and heatwaves in February in the UK during the past few years. Climate scientists say that is caused by Global warming which is nonsense. Any answers?
If anyone is interested in tracing what’s behing the Greta Thunberg act, there are some leads here. The “climate focused” PR agency that runs her raised nearly a million quid in their share issue ahead of which they used her image so much. What’s interesting is that she was at Davos. She’ll be meeting Jeremy Corbyn soon. It’s sad that the leader of the British labour movement can’t name this crap for what it is, but feels constrained to play along with it.
You’ve managed to conclude she’s an “act”?
She was in Davos precisely to deliver a message, not to hob-nob with billionaires, FFS.
What’s really sad is your pretence to be a Marxist, while actually giving every impression of a homophobic (and particularly a transphobic) bigot along with being an establishment shill.
Can anyone ‘go to Davos to deliver a message’ ? Can I ?
If not, then how do you get the invite?
These are the kind of questions behind questioning Greta’s media platform. She is in parliament today, to ‘deliver a message’.
What does that even mean? Has she some insight into the climate situation that the leaders of this country are unaware of? Is she a negotiator, a power broker, a strategist ?
If not, then maybe it is so that leaders can be seen to be ‘listening’ to the youth, which would make the whole exercise a PR stunt.
Or, in other words, ‘an act’.
Three Norwegian MPs have nominated Thunberg for the 2019 Nobel peace prize. What has she done for peace? Absolutely nothing. Parliamentarians of any country can nominate a person (or institution) for the peace prize, but given that it’s the Norwegian parliament that appoints the Nobel Committee and it’s Norwegian MPs who have nominated her it wouldn’t surprise me if she has made it to the short list. Who knows, she may even get the prize itself later this year. There again, the publicity machine behind Thunberg packs quite a punch, so it may have been simply a case of brown envelopes for whichever three MPs seemed the dimmest, followed by a shiny press release. Or perhaps the three MPs – all from the small Socialist Left Party – jumped at the great marketing idea of associating their party with what they think is rising. One of them, Freddy André Øvstegård, said that climate change “is maybe the most important driver for war, conflict and refugees already”. So that’s what caused 11 million Syrians and 6 million Palestinians to become refugees then. If only we’d known, we could have poured food oil in our cars and they’d still be living in the homes they fled from.
uh war can have more than one cause you know. so here you are, apologising for giant corporations, and you’re a “marxist”. right.
@pretzelattack – Did you mistake this site for Twitter? Did you read the words “most important” before the silly bureaucratic word “driver”? That qualification implies “more than one”. I’m bright enough to know that, so there was no need for you to preface your statement of the obvious with the contemptuous interjection “uh”. I’m not apologising for any giant corporations, and yes I’m a Marxist – that is indeed right. Thanks for your contribution and the level of thought you put into it.
In other news, the Guardian reports a meeting addressed by Greta Thunberg in terms that approach the hagiographic. The name on the article is that of Jonathan Watts, the rag’s “global environment editor”. Thunberg is treated in his piece as if she is some kind of saint who causes everyone in a room to unite in the warm fuzziness of togetherness as she walks to her microphone, incapable of saying anything less than 100% right, a 16-year-old whose act is perfectly focused on what is most important, as she intones the words “nothing has changed” (I wonder where she got them from?) and calls for…a general strike. A general what? Big business and its states are up to something here for sure.
Child soldier, child politician. Used to be called child abuse.
In Greta’s case with her three psychological problems on top of her teenage rage and parental aggrandizement it is worse.
Jonathan Watts dutifully plugs the Greens’ call for political parties to have their manifestos climate-vetted by the Climate Change Committee.
The CCC is a statutory body chaired by “Lord Deben”, the Tory formerly known as John Selwyn Gummer. This guy’s entry on their lordships’ and ladyships’ register of interests is here. Among his many business interests, he is chairman of Nestlé’s “Health and Wellness Advisory Group”. To recap: that’s Nestlé. And this guy is in charge of a “climate change committee” that is being promoted as suitable for vetting political parties’ manifestos. He’s also chairman of Sancroft International, an “international sustainability consultancy” – which sounds very much like a public relations and government relations agency working for major companies. And he’s involved with Veolia, the waste and recycling racket that runs many local tips in Britain, forcing people to separate out different kinds of rubbish so that big business can pay less for its raw materials. The company also tries to put stickers with its logos on inside the cars of people who come to chuck stuff away. No flies on them! We are well into “Al Capone and the chief of police” territory here, and no it’s not left wing or people-helpy or planet-savy.
bs you’re a marxist, marxists don’t defend big corporations against people damaged by the use of their product. i’m not even going to bother to deal with the poor logic in the rest of your post.
‘US Agriculture Secretary Slams Vietnam For Banning Roundup/Glyphosate’:
https://nworeport.me/2019/04/22/us-agriculture-secretary-slams-vietnam-for-banning-roundup-glyphosate/
Bit of good news for the environment and people. Well done Vietnam.
Yes indeed. The people there had enough of Agent Orange ( a defoliant and a Monsanto product) and its life denying and changing properties.
This is a long list of ‘God damn….’ Jay Janson writes.
https://dissidentvoice.org/2013/07/rev-jeremiah-wright-god-damn-america-for-her-crimes-against-humanity/
‘God damn America for its Holocaust in the French colonies of Indochina, dropping twice the tonnage of all bombs dropped during all of World War Two on the soft-spoken Vietnamese, and a similar amount on the equally beautiful Buddhist people of Laos and Cambodia. Your author was for six years Assistant Conductor of the Ho Chi Minh founded Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra, every member of which lost family “killed by the Americans“ they would say with Buddhist equanimity. Rev. Wright’s God damn America should include damning the American peace industry for having all but dropped the subject of America’s genocide in Indochina, in favor of protesting every new American cowardly atrocity wars as mistaken foreign policy, not prosecutable crimes against humanity.
Former fellow Americans! Instead of being captive to mind addling asinine TV commercials, rejoin the human race and watch the videos of lovingly cared for Agent Orange victims, awfully deformed but happy, crawling and scooting along enjoying being alive in spite of what Americans did to them.’
A terrible litany here. How they attempted to destroy the evil stuff. Poor old Johnston Atoll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
But the EU says Roundup / Glyphosate is good for us, cancer is growth right? Which is why they licensed it and not the sodium chlorate we used to use which was cheap and worked for a whole year rather than a month or two of Roundup / Glyphosate. Who cares how many die, it’s good for the profits of Monsanto / Bayer / IG Farben / The New Reich. ( Do I really need to add a /s at the end? ).
It was good news that in the U.K. we just went ninety hours without making any electricity from coal.
It was good news when our government claimed by 2030, 30% of all electricity in the U.K. will be produced by U.K. off-shore wind.
The U.K. has certainly done more than most countries to aim from a reduction in carbon produced electricity.
It was good news when the Norway Interconnector was initiated, so we can import electricity made from wind turbines and hydro.
All this, without a functioning government.
1. The vast majority of the renewables have been installed here in Scotland, often in the teeth of UK govt inhibition. ScotGov has done sterling work in planning law (energy is not devolved) and supporting energy startups to encourage this.
2. The Norway interconnector was funded by the EU. It in effect means that after Independence Scotland can sell its excess power to the highest bidder, not just to rUK. The idea that the power will run only one way is naive.
3. We did have two functioning governments, one in Edinburgh and one in Brussels. UK gov was only peripherally required for the interconnector.
4. The interconnector is planned to plug into the HVDC superconducting spine the EU wants to run up the middle of the North Sea so Norway and Scotland and Denmark can all send their excess wind energy to run aircon in the hot countries around the Med (I’m only have joking). Either way iScotland will have lots of energy hungry customers. The question is, where will rUK get its energy from? Especially if it has Brexited?
Blyth, Northumberland is the land point for The North Sea Link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link
So many humans are killing and wounding each other in the name of ‘religion’.
Sri Lanka bombings ‘retaliation’ for New Zealand mosques massacre – minister
The serial bombing of Christian churches and hotels in Sri Lanka may have been an act of retaliation for the gun rampage at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, a Sri Lankan minister said citing the initial investigation.
https://www.rt.com/news/457290-sri-lanka-attacks-christchurch-retaliation/
The Sri Lankan death toll is 321, so far, and 500 injured. That for Christchurch was 49 killed and 48 wounded.
so Assange hasn’t seen his lawyer since his arrest – just how many local and international laws do they intend breaking?
https://twitter.com/Suzi3D/status/1120492660312113154
“Somewhat oddly, I find the process rather liberating, in showing myself as a real and frail person, not some disembodied intellect.”
Craig, I just want to let you know that I enjoy and value your feelings, opinions and books immensely. I come to read your blog a lot these days because living as I do in the USKKK I need to be in touch with the sane, rational and logical thoughts of people like you to keep me from going crazy. Thank you so much for all that you do and I am sorry that you are sick, but glad that you are taking care of yourself despite creating a few disappointments. Feel better!!
Hi Craig,
a bit off-topic, but you might find this interesting: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=42170
An exploration of monetary and currency issues applied to Scottish independence, from an MMT perspective.
All the best,
Matt
Killing everywhere in the name of religion. NI. Sri Lanka. NZ.
and Saudi Arabia. Yet May entertains MBS and we supply Saudi Arabia with jets and bombs to wreck Yemen and kill and injure the people.
Saudi Arabia beheads 37 people, mostly from Shia minority, puts body on display
Riyadh has drawn outrage from human rights advocates after it put to death 37 people and displayed a mutilated body of one of them on a pole. The execution was carried out after “sham trials,” Amnesty International said.
https://www.rt.com/news/457375-saudi-executions-sham-trial/
From Reprieve.
‘Urgent – 37 people were just executed and three more are at risk
On 23 April, Saudi Arabia executed 37 people in one day – including three arrested as teenagers and tortured into “confessions”. This is yet another horrific display of brutality by the Saudi regime.
Conducting this mass execution without notice just days after Easter, it appears that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman thought that this could pass without international condemnation.
Prime Minister Theresa May must prove him wrong and speak up to condemn these appalling executions and call for the release of three others arrested and tortured as teenagers who are still at risk of beheading – Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Abdullah al-Zaher.
Join us now and call on Theresa May to act – before it’s too late.’
Please sign – https://act.reprieve.org.uk/page/s/condemn-saudi-executions?
So is Sir Alan Duncan going to resign from his Foreign Office job?
UK condemns Saudi Arabia over ‘repulsive’ mass executions
Foreign Office minister criticises country’s human rights after 37 people killed
24 Apr 2019
I bet not
‘Without whistleblowers we would not have a democracy. And there have to be people to distribute work and publish it. Julian Assange has done that in a way in which other publishers have not been willing to. Journalists should close ranks here against this abuse of the President’s authority, and against Britain and Ecuador for violating the norms of asylum and making practically every person who has achieved political asylum anywhere in the world less secure.
It is now up to us to make sure that the First Amendment is preserved.’
Daniel Ellsberg Speaks Out on the Arrest of Julian Assange
by Dennis J. Bernstein
April 23, 2019
https://progressive.org/dispatches/daniel-ellsberg-on-arrest-of-julian-assange-bernstein-190423/
Does anyone have news of Julian and how he is bearing up to his imprisonment? Any mention of his name has disappeared from the MSM.
He gave us nothing but the truth, and for free, at an inhuman cost to himself.
http://www.charlesglass.net/julian-assange-languishes-in-prison-as-his-journalistic-collaborators-brandish-their-prizes/
______
Update from Christine Assange
“Julian has had one video conference with his lawyers & they will visit him at Belmarsh Prison on April 26
Many thanks to all those calling for this visit from his lawyers.”
https://twitter.com/AssangeMrs/status/1120988234324926464
h/t TLN Poster 123
and on RT
Assange now has access to his lawyers – WikiLeaks
Published time: 24 Apr, 2019 10:43
Edited time: 24 Apr, 2019 11:45
WikiLeaks confirmed on its Twitter page on Wednesday that Julian Assange “has access to his lawyers.” He is “now speaking with them regularly and will have an in person visit in the coming days,” according to the statement. Earlier reports said that the WikiLeaks publisher was being held in isolation in Britain’s Belmarsh prison, without access to legal counsel. Christine Assange, his mother, said on Monday that he has “still not been able to receive any visits… not even from his lawyers.” Mrs. Assange tweeted that his treatment was “outrageous, & appears punitive to continue to keep him isolated.”
@ Sharp Ears April 24, 2019 at 13:48
The following was on the ‘Londoners Protect Julian Assange’ Facebook page; I don’t know if Facebook stopped the message (looks like it) or Twitter stopped it, and the lady just posted it there:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2392725574296516&set=gm.2025274871111199&type=3&theater&ifg=1
No laughing in the back seats.
The Fogh of War, Rasmussen, has been enrolled to the media watch outfit Newsguard. He will be able to distinguish fake news from real news!
‘NewsGuard, the trust-rating outfit that continues to approve of US media that spread the Russiagate conspiracy theory, has expanded operations to the UK and added a former NATO chief to its advisory board.’
https://www.rt.com/news/457468-newsguard-nato-russiagate-fake-news/
‘Our Advisory Board
Members of the advisory board provide strategic advice to NewsGuard. They play no role in the determinations of ratings or the Nutrition Label write ups of websites unless otherwise noted.
.Don Baer, chairman of Burson, Cohn & Wolfe and former White House Communications Director (Clinton administration)
.John Battelle, co-founding editor of Wired and founding chief executive of Industry Standard magazines
‘(Ret.) General Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA, former Director of the National Security Agency and former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (George W. Bush administration)
.Elise Jordan, political analyst, NBC, and former speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
.Jessica Lessin, founder and editor-in-chief of The Information.
.Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Prime Minister of Denmark, former secretary general of NATO and founder of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation
.Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security (George W. Bush administration)
.Richard Sambrook, director of the Center for Journalism at Cardiff University, former Director of Global News for the BBC. (Sambrook provides editing and editorial guidance for NewsGuard’s UK Nutrition Labels.)
.Richard Stengel, former editor of Time magazine and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy (Obama administration)
.Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia
A longer list of gangsters-in-charge you could not wish to see. YCNMIU
Hi Craig, I don’t know if you’ll get to see this post – I assume it’s impossible for you to be able to read ALL of them – but I just read your March 7th piece about the Skripal saga about a week ago and, as such, couldn’t understand why you said – in relation to the (alleged) Novichok – that: ‘It had been on that door handle for several days before it was allegedly discovered there.’ I’ve not come across anyone saying this before – ie that it was SEVERAL days (before it was discovered) – and I’m curious as to how you came by this timeline, and for a number of reasons.
At the time – and after endless speculation by the media as to how the Novichok was administered – we didn’t get to hear about the door handle until some three weeks later (and that THAT was how all three of them came into contact with it and became (allegedly) contaminated), on March 28th, when it was widely reported right across the media. And THAT is when all the speculation came to an end. And you will recall there was also the dead guinea pigs etc thing in the media a few days later, implying that they hadn’t entered Sergei Skripal’s house until the point where they discovered the Novichok on the door handle. And in the blog you linked to in your piece, he actually mentions the date the CW experts discovered it on the door handle – ie March 26th, if I remember correctly, just two days before the story broke in the media. In other words, it took them a couple of days to test and identify the substance (before then imparting the info to the media). So given all this, I was of course somewhat intrigued as to where you came by the “several days”?
That’s it, but can I just quickly say that in the Real World, the investigators (and CW experts) would have been at the house within a matter of hours once it was known that Nick Bailey had been contaminated/poisoned by an ‘unknown substance’ also, as it was being referred to initially, and the very first thing they would have checked, prior to entering the house, would have been the front door handle. And needless to say, it is inconcievable that Vladimir Putin would think to have a former agent assassinated just three months before the World Cup Football tournament AND have it done in such a ludicrous and haphazard fashion, and put the tournament in jeopardy (which they were hosting for the first time ever) AND bring down the wrath of the international community, and the West especially. Cui Bono, and it certainly wasn’t Putin and Russia that benefitted, entirely the opposite. As for all the ‘speculation’, I have no doubt that THAT was so as to drum it into the minds of the masses that it had happened AND that it was Russia wot done it. Precisely because it hadn’t, and it was all staged.
Take good care (three times a day!).
So why did the North Korean leader visit Putin in the same armored train that he took to China last year? To pick up essentially the same amount of Russian nuclear material that he gave sway to the Chinese, and the Yanks claim he still has.
This way Putin would give away what he doesn’t need in order to get the Korean Peninsula ultimately denuclearized.
Remember you read it here first.
Just amazing how the media goes off track in matters like this, thinking that Kim was so concerned about his own safety that he took armoured train, and had it wiped down to make sure he wasn’t poisoned when it was all done to throw people off about his transport of nuclear weapons to China and than back home.
And the following are all at odds with the Novichok having been discovered on the front door handle some three weeks later (and the guinea pigs being found dead etc):
This, in the Sun, on March 17th:
‘PET POISON PUZZLE Russian spy Sergei Skripal’s pet cat and guinea pigs are taken away for tests’
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5833121/russian-sergei-skripals-pet-cat/
And this, in the Evening Standard, on March 8th:
‘Russian spy nerve agent ‘plot’: Investigators begin fingertip search of Russian spy Sergei Skripal’s home’
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/russian-spy-nerve-agent-plot-police-officer-talking-to-investigators-in-hospital-as-sergei-skripal-a3784531.html
And this, in the Express, on March 11th:
‘Russian spy attack: Sergei and Yulia Skripal ‘poisoned by parcel’ – Graveyard sealed off’
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/930018/Russian-spy-attack-Sergei-Skripal-Yulia-victims-poisoned-parcel-investigation-nerve-agent
PS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaW7o5sFQuY&list=PLPAYZ_b8I6ebbWfvpVLKF_DVeRDsy-BCh
£20 to hear BLiar speak on The New Populism.
No thanks.
https://membership.theguardian.com/event/the-new-populism-in-conversation-with-tony-blair-59043808621
He must need the money.
@ Sharp Ears April 26, 2019 at 03:56
Horrible waste of £20, but…….a Demo outside??
Wonder if he chickens out, like with his aborted ‘book signings’?
Did you notice that the location is secret, only to be revealed to ticket holders??
‘Attendees will be given details of the location one week prior to the event.’
@ Sharp Ears April 26, 2019 at 21:16
Yes, I noticed it after I had posted. They did that at the ‘Witchhunt’ meeting too, which I missed because of that.
If any readers of this blog do get a ticket, it would be useful if they post the venue when they know it.
There is a public meeting re Julian Assange this evening (Friday) at the Unite building 128 Theobalds Road (Holborn station, near Red Lion Square/Conway Hall) at 18:00 – 19:45:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1120254348779560960/photo/1?
There is also a public vigil/Demo at Belmarsh tomorrow Saturday 27th April from 14:00.
Another whistleblower storm blowing up, this time in France:
‘Macron pursuing journalists who exposed French complicity in possible Saudi war crimes in Yemen’:
https://www.rt.com/news/457602-macron-prosecute-journalists-yemen-coverage/?
‘…The report proves that Macron’s government deliberately lied about having no knowledge that French arms, including French-supplied CAESAR howitzer artillery, tanks, and laser-guided missile systems, would be used “offensively” in Yemen, in violation of the 2014 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) which entered into force on December 24, 2014.
The journalists argue that the revelations “are of major public interest, that bring to the attention of citizens and their representatives what the government wanted to conceal,” adding that Macron’s decision to pursue them constitutes infringement on freedom of the press and speech in general….’
‘…“We have learned that a preliminary investigation for ‘compromising national defence secrets’ has been launched by the Paris prosecutors,” Disclose said in a statement.
The journalists are due to be questioned by the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), France’s domestic intelligence agency, in a hearing scheduled for mid-May. The move has been condemned in a statement signed by 36 French press outlets, including Le Monde and AFP.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen which has been waged since 2015. Up to 14 million people are at risk of starvation as a result of the ensuing Saudi-led blockade.’
At least the French MSM support them, not like our load of Presstitutes turning on Assange.
Going further, the DGSI is now officially doing a Julian on the three French journalists who reported on French battle tanks and other arms being used in Yemen…. the journalists are expressing surprise at being called for interrogation in mid-May
http://www.rfi.fr/moyen-orient/20190425-yemen-armes-france-disclose-dgsi
The original reports are in places like this https://made-in-france.disclose.ngo/fr/
which for some reason does not load where I am, what a surprise, mastery of the internet ….. then mastery of the world eh, chaps? remind me what our three rights are again.
that .ngo page loads from a desktop, but not from a mobile (and it is a bit over-professional at first glance)
Canary have a nice summary too here , that is word based and factual, not aimed at the YT generation
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2019/04/26/leaked-intelligence-report-reveals-just-how-much-the-destruction-of-yemen-depends-on-western-support/
‘David Attenborough is right warning our extinction is on the horizon – Ken Livingstone’:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/456701-humans-extinction-attenborough-carbon/
David Attenborough and Ken Livingstone on Climate Change.
They certainly believe it’s real.
And David Attenborough is a population bomber he is also a patron of Population Matters which supports and says this.
“Syrian refugees should not be accommodated in the UK,calling for “zero-net migration” to the UK and for supporting a UK government policy of stopping child benefit and tax credits for third and subsequent children “