Saturday, June 16, 2007
BBC JOURNALIST WHO FABRICATED KOSOVO LIES IDENTIFIED
On a previous occasion I quoted a comment from an Army liaison officer about his BBC correspondent who had deliberately faked stories about what was going on in Kosovo. He politely declined to name her but has done so now on a separate matter.
Which means that if she is the best of the BBC there is absolutely nobody there & no "news" there which can be, in any way, trusted.
I saw Kate [Adie} at exceptionally close quarters during the Kosovo expedition. I was her Army Liaison Officer and was with her where-ever she went.Not really a surprise but I think worth nailing down. I had previously respected Ms Adie as perhaps the best BBC journalist & the one most willing to stand by the facts against political demands, as she was reported as doing over the Tripoli bombing. I still do.
What we forget is that she trail-blazed for women in the media. She fought for everything she achieved against considerable odds. That she seeks to protect it is understandable. It is in her blood.
I didn't agree with everything I saw her do, but I learnt a lot from her and couldn't fail to respect her.
Which means that if she is the best of the BBC there is absolutely nobody there & no "news" there which can be, in any way, trusted.
Friday, June 15, 2007
THE SCOTSMAN- AN OBSCENE NEWSPAPER?
TO THE SCOTSMAN EDITOR
Dear Bill Jamieson,
May I suggest that there is a certain impropriety in the Scotsman censoring my factually undisputed online comments about the Dragodan massacre on your article on Wednesday about the Yugoslav war crimes "trial"? I grant that this tended more towards the Serb side than anything your paper reports but if what I wrote is factually accurate this should not, in theory, be a barrier. If there was anything in what I said which was untrue there would be a case but neither the Scotsman nor any participant could dispute its truth.
Having censored my point I think it doubly wrong that you should have allowed the comments of Mr Donald who appears, at the very least, strongly sympathetic to the Nazi side. I do not believe Nazis should be censored as such but I think it is wrong of you only to insist on a one sided pro-Nazi view.
I believe that even if the Scotsman, like Joseph Goebbels, chooses to censor what its journalists write in what appears to be a genocidal Nazi cause, you should not seek to take the further step of censoring what others say, particularly when there is no dispute as to them being truthful.
------------------------------------------------------------
Beyond even that I think that having removed my comments the decision to retain obscene sexual remarks about myself, of a purely personal nature completely unrelated to the newspaper article was not the behaviour a reputable newspaper would, under any circumstances, wish to engage in. To allow me to be identified, though I have never sought to hide my identify, compounded the insult & appears to be against the advertised code.
I consider an apology in order.
Whatever the results of my protest you may be assured that I will not publicly refer to any person at the Scotsman as having a small penis - I must accept that this is the standard of decency (& honesty) to which your paper aspires. Mine is far higher.
In the event that the Scotsman ever aspires to any form of honesty or indeed decency I will put up Mr Jamieson's reply.
Dear Bill Jamieson,
May I suggest that there is a certain impropriety in the Scotsman censoring my factually undisputed online comments about the Dragodan massacre on your article on Wednesday about the Yugoslav war crimes "trial"? I grant that this tended more towards the Serb side than anything your paper reports but if what I wrote is factually accurate this should not, in theory, be a barrier. If there was anything in what I said which was untrue there would be a case but neither the Scotsman nor any participant could dispute its truth.
Having censored my point I think it doubly wrong that you should have allowed the comments of Mr Donald who appears, at the very least, strongly sympathetic to the Nazi side. I do not believe Nazis should be censored as such but I think it is wrong of you only to insist on a one sided pro-Nazi view.
I believe that even if the Scotsman, like Joseph Goebbels, chooses to censor what its journalists write in what appears to be a genocidal Nazi cause, you should not seek to take the further step of censoring what others say, particularly when there is no dispute as to them being truthful.
------------------------------------------------------------
Beyond even that I think that having removed my comments the decision to retain obscene sexual remarks about myself, of a purely personal nature completely unrelated to the newspaper article was not the behaviour a reputable newspaper would, under any circumstances, wish to engage in. To allow me to be identified, though I have never sought to hide my identify, compounded the insult & appears to be against the advertised code.
I consider an apology in order.
Whatever the results of my protest you may be assured that I will not publicly refer to any person at the Scotsman as having a small penis - I must accept that this is the standard of decency (& honesty) to which your paper aspires. Mine is far higher.
In the event that the Scotsman ever aspires to any form of honesty or indeed decency I will put up Mr Jamieson's reply.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
WORLD'S TOP PHILOSPHER
Karl Marx is the world's top in the philosophy biz.
The German team beat the Greeks with a full 5 places in the top ten - Marx, Wittgenstein, Nietzche, Kant & Popper (technically Wittgenstein & Popper were Austrian & Kant was born in what is now Russia but both members of the groovy master race). The Greeks made an early start with Socrates, Plato & Aristotle but scored no more goals for the next two & a half millenia.
The spaghetti munchers were represented by St Thomas Aquinas scoring heavily with the left foot.
However local lad Dave Hume romped off with the silver medal. Atheism & a bit of good Scots grit saw off all of them except Marx & with the continuing rise of marketv system capitalism insiders say the chances are good that "Edinburgh Davie" as he is known locally (by journalists alone) will take the crown next time.
Look forward to more tips for the top from philosophy gurus like Mariella Frostrup, Terry Wogan & David Blunkett
Hat tip to John Brignell's Numberwatch which first pointed out this ridiculous but real BBC poll.
The German team beat the Greeks with a full 5 places in the top ten - Marx, Wittgenstein, Nietzche, Kant & Popper (technically Wittgenstein & Popper were Austrian & Kant was born in what is now Russia but both members of the groovy master race). The Greeks made an early start with Socrates, Plato & Aristotle but scored no more goals for the next two & a half millenia.
The spaghetti munchers were represented by St Thomas Aquinas scoring heavily with the left foot.
However local lad Dave Hume romped off with the silver medal. Atheism & a bit of good Scots grit saw off all of them except Marx & with the continuing rise of marketv system capitalism insiders say the chances are good that "Edinburgh Davie" as he is known locally (by journalists alone) will take the crown next time.
Look forward to more tips for the top from philosophy gurus like Mariella Frostrup, Terry Wogan & David Blunkett
Hat tip to John Brignell's Numberwatch which first pointed out this ridiculous but real BBC poll.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
SCOTSMAN LETTER - ON AVOIDING BLACKOUTS
Letter in the Scotsman today on nuclear power & the improbability of our being able to extend the life of Hunterston much beyond its official retiral date of 2011.
Mine was the 3rd of 3 letters, all of which were of pretty much the same view. It seems likely that among the population at large the need to avoid blackouts has been won, all that has to be done is to persuade those in charge to accept reality.. I have marked editing { }. Since there are 3 letters I cannot complain about a need to edit for space though I would have prefered to keep my sarcasm intact::
"[ Hunterston B nuclear reactor has been closed down. This is what you get when you run an elderly system to the end of its design life. It is an old system & stuff like this happens. Clearly it is merely the control systems rather than anything structural.
It is the official position of] both the SNP & Greens that they are prepared to see Hunterston keep working beyond its design life, i.e. beyond 2011. This is a contradictory position for parties which claim [to believe] that nuclear is dangerous & to give the LibDems their due [they have disavowed any such mealy louthed double standards -] they want Hunterston closed down in 2011 come Hell, high water & blackouts.
[What this shows is that] it is becoming increasingly likely that they don't have the option. We need to have a new reactor in place by or very shortly after 2011 (or some other non-intermittent power source) or we will have blackouts. It takes 4 years to build a nuclear power station though most timescales given by government assume that they will first spend at least 5 years shuffling paper [to decide whether French or American designs which have worked for decades work & whether Hunterston is a suitable site for a nuclear power station]. We do not have time for this nonsense if we want to avoid blackouts & hypothermia deaths
Mine was the 3rd of 3 letters, all of which were of pretty much the same view. It seems likely that among the population at large the need to avoid blackouts has been won, all that has to be done is to persuade those in charge to accept reality.. I have marked editing { }. Since there are 3 letters I cannot complain about a need to edit for space though I would have prefered to keep my sarcasm intact::
"[ Hunterston B nuclear reactor has been closed down. This is what you get when you run an elderly system to the end of its design life. It is an old system & stuff like this happens. Clearly it is merely the control systems rather than anything structural.
It is the official position of] both the SNP & Greens that they are prepared to see Hunterston keep working beyond its design life, i.e. beyond 2011. This is a contradictory position for parties which claim [to believe] that nuclear is dangerous & to give the LibDems their due [they have disavowed any such mealy louthed double standards -] they want Hunterston closed down in 2011 come Hell, high water & blackouts.
[What this shows is that] it is becoming increasingly likely that they don't have the option. We need to have a new reactor in place by or very shortly after 2011 (or some other non-intermittent power source) or we will have blackouts. It takes 4 years to build a nuclear power station though most timescales given by government assume that they will first spend at least 5 years shuffling paper [to decide whether French or American designs which have worked for decades work & whether Hunterston is a suitable site for a nuclear power station]. We do not have time for this nonsense if we want to avoid blackouts & hypothermia deaths
CROATIAN WAR CRIMES "TRIAL"
The ICTY have, after another of their racist kangaroo courts sentenced Milan Martic, leader of the exterminated Krajina Republic to 35 years as a "war criminal"
A WARTIME leader of Croatia's rebel Serbs was convicted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal of murder, torture and persecution yesterday and sentenced to 35 years in prison for a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign of non-Serbs in Croatia.It is of course impossible to deny that the ethnic cleaning that took place was virtually all done by our Nazi allies & that The Krajina Serbs were the victims. This was my perhaps over restrained comment:
What happened to the people of Krajina of whom Martic was the leader?
Genocide pure & simple. The entire region was "cleansed" of 250,000 human beings, at least half of whom are still as missing as the Jew's who went into Auschwitz. This was done by a Croatian Nazi army led by US officers, under the orders of the Nazi murderer Bill Clinton & with the active support of NATO.
This "trial" is the exact & precise equivalent of bringing the leaders of the Jewish Ghetto to trial for daring to resist the noble SS troops who were exterminating them. I have no doubt whatsoever that, had the war gone differently every single member of the ICTY would have enthusiastically supported the SS in the same way.
Martic is clearly innocent - a man who tried to protect people from our genocidal Nazi friends. On the other hand obscene racist murdering filth like Clinton, Blair, Kohl & indeed the majority of our MPs deserve this punishment or worse.
UPDATE
The Scotsman have deleted my post while leaving in 3 posts which "replied" purely by accusing me of sexual deviance (I won't repeat) rather than answering the points raised. I think this is a first for the Scotsman. I suspect it would be a first even for the Daily Sport. I have put up this protest & will mention if it is removed (or indeed in the unlikely event that somebody makes a serious factual dispute.
The Scotsman moderator has chosen to delete my comment no 8. This said that the removal by the Croatian Nazi army, trained & de facto led by US officers & assisted by NATO, of 250,000 Serbs from Krajina, half of whom are still missing was the true crime here.
That is a factually accurate statement.
I compared this genocide to that of the SS in the Warsaw Ghetto & charging Martic to charging the Jewish survivors with resisting the SS. The validity of that comparison is obvious.
Having engaged in that censorship the editor has specificly chosen not to delete 9, 10 & 12 which are not only obscene & clearly personally offensive but make no attempt to debate the issue.
Would the Scotsman also wish to censor the Simon Weisenthal Centre which denounced the "criminal character" of our Croatian Nazi allies & stated that the first ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia was of 50,000 Serb civilians from territory claimed by Croatia. Certainly the "court" has been unconcerned about this atrocity. Certainly reporting of that has always been absent.
It has long been apparent that the British media have censored any reporting of the genocide which our government has been complicit in.
Take, for example, the murder, in the British controlled sector of Kosovo, of at least 210 unarmed civilians in the Dragodan mass grave. This, an atrocity carried out under our command authority, comparable to the My Lai massacre in Vietnam or even the Lidice massacre of Czechs by the SS, has been totally censored from the entire British media. This is merely 1 of many examples which have led to our government getting away with crimes smaller in degree but not in principle, than those of Hitler. And to the painting by our press, of the Serbs in terms neither less offensive nor less dishonst than those used by the German press against the Jews.
That the Scotsman is now bringing this censorship to online debate is an unwelcome extension.
UPDATE 2
The Scotsman removed the 2nd post. On attempting to partly repost I got this response
Thanks for your comment. Comments on this article must be approved by our moderator before being displayed.Meanwhile all of the obscene comments against me have been kept up.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
JOHN SWINNEY ON NEWSNIGHT SCOTLAND
I just thought I would mention the appearance of the Finance Minister John Swinney on Newsnight Scotland last night. He was interviewed by Gordon Brewer about the reports issued yesterday one of which said we were doing well & the other badly. Gordon, who clearly does know the facts & figures pointed out that Scotland (like most countries) can be divided into the areas with deprivation (Glasgow, Lanarkshire & perhaps Dundee) the bits that are doing well & tried to get Swinney to commit to the old Labour method of micromanaging these area & pouring all the money in there (they also vote Labour & have the general useless Labour councils - whether this is a cause or an effect, or both, of deprivation is open to question).
Swinney wouldn't go for it. He said that going for growth was the way to do it. Brewer asked him several times in slightly different words & Swinney didn't flinch. That was impressive. He clearly understands that as a rising tide lifts all boats a growing economy is the necessary condition for everybody getting better off.
I didn't approve of Swinney because his support for the Yugoslav war was, if anything, more extreme than Blair's while then & future SNP leader Alex Salmond opposed it but he is an accountant & clearly not only understands the problem but intends to do something.
Swinney wouldn't go for it. He said that going for growth was the way to do it. Brewer asked him several times in slightly different words & Swinney didn't flinch. That was impressive. He clearly understands that as a rising tide lifts all boats a growing economy is the necessary condition for everybody getting better off.
I didn't approve of Swinney because his support for the Yugoslav war was, if anything, more extreme than Blair's while then & future SNP leader Alex Salmond opposed it but he is an accountant & clearly not only understands the problem but intends to do something.
Monday, June 11, 2007
CAN WE STILL EXPECT THE LIFE OF HUNTERSTON TO BE EXTENDED WHILE WAITING FOR "SOMETHING TO TURN UP"
Hunterston B nuclear reactor has been closed down
The 485-megawatt reactor in Scotland was shut down manually at 11.00 p.m. local time (2200 GMT) because engineers were "experiencing issues relating to auto control loops controlling the reactor temperature," he said.This is what you get when you run an elderly system to the end of its design life. It is an old system & stuff like this happens. Clearly it merely the control systems rather than anything structural. It isn't in any way dangerous but it is a pain in the arse. This is the 2nd such major breakdown - previously they found that some pipes in the reactor were on the edge of fracturing.
"They took the conservative decision to shut down the reactor," he added, and are "now looking at the root cause of the problem."
It is the official position of both the SNP & Greens that they are prepared to see Hunterston keep working beyond its design life, ie beyond 2011. This is a contradictory position for parties which claim to believe that nuclear is dangerous & to give the LibDems their due they have disavowed any such mealy mouthed double standards - they want Hunterston closed down in 2011 come Hell, high water & blackouts.
What this shows is that it is becoming increasingly likely that they don't have the option. We need to have a new reactor in place by 2011 (or some other non-intermittent power source) or we will have blackouts It takes 4 years to build a nuclear power station though most timescales given by government assume that they will first spend at least 5 years shuffling paper to decide whether French or American designs which have worked for decades work & whether Hunterston is a suitable site for a nuclear power station. We do not have time for this nonsense if we want to avoid blackouts & hypothermia deaths.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
A SCEPTIC SEES PRINT
There is a very good article here from Gerald Warner in which he entirely supports not only warming scepticism but the entire trend of western governments to push scare stories, even using al Quaida as an example< to keep us easily led. I am amazed this got published:
In classic totalitarian style, indoctrination of children is a priority. Last March, pupils at Prestonpans Infant and Nursery School, East Lothian, earned plaudits by objecting to a fund-raising balloon race, on the grounds that balloons might harm dolphins and turtles. They insisted a ban on balloon races be written into the school's 'green constitution'. A promising beginning: with further education, these Young Pioneers may eventually be trained to denounce their parents for eco-crimes.
Suppression of dissent is made necessary by the inconsistencies between the Greens' propaganda and observed reality. Their claim that the polar ice-caps are melting and sea levels rising was contradicted even by the recent fourth report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which unobtrusively reduced its 2001 prediction of sea level rises by 52.7%, to preserve a minimal scientific credibility. As for the Arctic ice-cap, shrinkage has been observed - it happens seasonally - but its depth increased as it bunched up close to the Canadian land-mass. At the opposite pole, despite much-hyped film of the Larsen ice shelf fragmenting, the ice mass has increased by 8%. Temperatures in East Antarctica have fallen, which is what one would expect if the sun is the principal agent in climate change.
Al Gore, the Greens' answer to Sergei Eisenstein, has made an ironically entitled film, An Inconvenient Truth, denouncing man-made global warming. It proved an own-goal when the core ice samples featured in it demonstrated that increased CO2 emissions have historically followed 800 years after periods of warming, rather than preceding them. The UN's team of tame scientists is often invoked as definitively authoritative. They are chosen for their compliance with the climate agenda. In this instance, the normal scientific discipline is reversed: the conclusion is preordained and the men in white coats are expected to construct the evidence - a convenient untruth.
The CO2 hysteria is absurd, considering the minute contribution made by human beings. Of course the climate is changing - it always has done, hence the thriving vineyards of Northumberland in the 12th century and the Thames frozen three feet deep in the 19th - but human activity is largely irrelevant. The world's climate is controlled by solar activity, by variations in the earth's rotation and orbit, by external factors in space and, terrestrially, by clouds and volcanic activity. If the Canutes of the IPCC imagine they can control those elements, they are even more infatuated than they appear.
This is not a scientific but a political issue. Fear is the instrument used by governments to increase their power over citizens: the 'War on Terror' is an example. The grand peur orchestrated over climate change affords governments an opportunity to impose unimaginable restrictions on their populations. The UN - the most ambitious criminal enterprise in history - is the instrument of supra-national authority that will rubber-stamp the new tyranny. That assembly of dictators, genocides and thieves cut its teeth on scams such as the Oil for Food programme in Iraq. Now it is casting its net wider.
There is a bad time coming. Life in the developed world will be made a misery with compulsory recycling, statutory imposition of mercury-based light bulbs that damage the eyesight, escalating eco-taxes and myriad regulations that will reduce us to environmental servitude. The Scottish landscape is being raped by hideous, non-productive (but highly profitable) wind turbines. The amoral concept of 'carbon trading' will freeze economic advance in the developing world, as governments trade their populations' access to technology for hard cash destined to repose in Swiss banks. Crooks, both institutional and individual, will make billions
In classic totalitarian style, indoctrination of children is a priority. Last March, pupils at Prestonpans Infant and Nursery School, East Lothian, earned plaudits by objecting to a fund-raising balloon race, on the grounds that balloons might harm dolphins and turtles. They insisted a ban on balloon races be written into the school's 'green constitution'. A promising beginning: with further education, these Young Pioneers may eventually be trained to denounce their parents for eco-crimes.
Suppression of dissent is made necessary by the inconsistencies between the Greens' propaganda and observed reality. Their claim that the polar ice-caps are melting and sea levels rising was contradicted even by the recent fourth report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which unobtrusively reduced its 2001 prediction of sea level rises by 52.7%, to preserve a minimal scientific credibility. As for the Arctic ice-cap, shrinkage has been observed - it happens seasonally - but its depth increased as it bunched up close to the Canadian land-mass. At the opposite pole, despite much-hyped film of the Larsen ice shelf fragmenting, the ice mass has increased by 8%. Temperatures in East Antarctica have fallen, which is what one would expect if the sun is the principal agent in climate change.
Al Gore, the Greens' answer to Sergei Eisenstein, has made an ironically entitled film, An Inconvenient Truth, denouncing man-made global warming. It proved an own-goal when the core ice samples featured in it demonstrated that increased CO2 emissions have historically followed 800 years after periods of warming, rather than preceding them. The UN's team of tame scientists is often invoked as definitively authoritative. They are chosen for their compliance with the climate agenda. In this instance, the normal scientific discipline is reversed: the conclusion is preordained and the men in white coats are expected to construct the evidence - a convenient untruth.
The CO2 hysteria is absurd, considering the minute contribution made by human beings. Of course the climate is changing - it always has done, hence the thriving vineyards of Northumberland in the 12th century and the Thames frozen three feet deep in the 19th - but human activity is largely irrelevant. The world's climate is controlled by solar activity, by variations in the earth's rotation and orbit, by external factors in space and, terrestrially, by clouds and volcanic activity. If the Canutes of the IPCC imagine they can control those elements, they are even more infatuated than they appear.
This is not a scientific but a political issue. Fear is the instrument used by governments to increase their power over citizens: the 'War on Terror' is an example. The grand peur orchestrated over climate change affords governments an opportunity to impose unimaginable restrictions on their populations. The UN - the most ambitious criminal enterprise in history - is the instrument of supra-national authority that will rubber-stamp the new tyranny. That assembly of dictators, genocides and thieves cut its teeth on scams such as the Oil for Food programme in Iraq. Now it is casting its net wider.
There is a bad time coming. Life in the developed world will be made a misery with compulsory recycling, statutory imposition of mercury-based light bulbs that damage the eyesight, escalating eco-taxes and myriad regulations that will reduce us to environmental servitude. The Scottish landscape is being raped by hideous, non-productive (but highly profitable) wind turbines. The amoral concept of 'carbon trading' will freeze economic advance in the developing world, as governments trade their populations' access to technology for hard cash destined to repose in Swiss banks. Crooks, both institutional and individual, will make billions