The Coffee House Wall – 15th/21st June

Posted on June 15, 2015

This is the Coffee House Wall for this week. I won’t say that it is your chance to communicate with us, as we are all in this together. It is, nevertheless, the Conservative Blog post that has no particular theme, and where everything is on topic. Let’s just remember that we want to avoid ad hominem attacks on others. We don’t want to engage with trolls. We want to moderate our language ourselves as responsible and mature adults, choosing to use fruity language only where it is necessary. This is our opportunity to show what the Spectator Coffee House Wall could have been like.

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271 thoughts on “The Coffee House Wall – 15th/21st June”

  1. Welcome to Magna Carta Day!

    We have Cameron making noises, as usual:
    Magna Carta has been ‘distorted and devalued’ by Labour’s Human Rights Act, says Cameron
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3123872/Human-Rights-Act-devalued-Magna-Carta-says-Cameron-PM-say-documents-meanings-distorted-recent-years-clear-sign-prefers-scrap-Act.html

    We also had Hilary Benn telling us how important it was on the radio. I read it yesterday, in the Sunday Times, and found it to be very ordinary and normal. I suppose, that is why it is sooooo special, and valuable! We still think it is common sense.

    Benn then went on, seamlessly, to spin that 16 and 17 year olds should get a referendum vote, just as I was thinking that had the Trade Unions done a similar thing at the beginning of the last century, creating a document, taking responsibility, even-handedly, the Labour Party wouldn’t be where it is now.

  2. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAGNA CARTA
    by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | INFOWARS
    “Monday, June 15, 2015, is the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. In his book, Magna Carta, J.C. Holt, professor of medieval history, University of Cambridge, notes that three of the chapters of this ancient document still stand on the English Stature Book and that so much of what survives of the Great Charter is “concerned with individual liberty,” which “is a reflexion of the quality of the original act of 1215.”

    In the 17th century Sir Edward Coke used the Great Charter of the Liberties to establish the supremacy of Parliament, the representative of the people, as the origin of law.”

    A number of legal scholars have made the irrelevant point that the Magna Carter protected rights of the Church, nobles, and free men who were not enserfed, a small percentage of the population in the early 13th century. We hear the same about the US Constitution–it was something the rich did for themselves. I have no sympathy for debunking human achievements that, in the end, gave ordinary people liberty.

    At Runnymede in 1215 no one but the armed barons had the power and audacity to make King John submit to law. The rule of law, not the rule of the sovereign or of the executive branch in Washington acceded to by a cowardly and corrupt Congress and Supreme Court, is a human achievement that grew out of the Magna Carta over the centuries, with ups and downs of course.

    Blackstone’s Commentaries in 1759 fed into the American Revolution and gave us the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

    The Geneva Conventions extended the rule of law to the international arena.

    Beginning with the Clinton Administration and rapidly accelerating with the George W. Bush and Obama regimes and Tony Blair in England, the US and UK governments have run roughshod over their accountability to law.

    Both the US and UK in the 21st century have gone to numerous wars illegally under the Nuremberg Standard established by the US and UK following Germany’s defeat in WWII and used to execute Germans for war crimes. The US and UK claim that unlike Germany they are immune to the very international law that they themselves established in order to punish the defeated Germans. Washington and London can bomb and murder at will, but not Germany.

    Both governments illegally and unconstitutionally (the UK Constitution is unwritten) spy on their citizens, and the Bush and Obama executive branches have eviscerated, with the complicity of Congress and the federal courts, the entirely of the US Constitution except for the Second Amendment, which is protected by the strong lobby of the National Rifle Association. If the gun control “progressives” have their way, nothing will be left of the US Constitution.

    Washington and its European satellites have subordinated law to a political and economic hegemonic agenda. Just as under the heyday of colonialism when the West looted the non-white world, today the West loots its own. Greece is being looted as was Ireland, and Italy and Spain will not escape looting unless they renege on their debts and leave the EU.

    Western capitalism is a looting mechanism. It loots labor. It loots the environment, and with the transpacific and transatlantic “partnerships” it will loot the sovereign law of countries. For example, France’s laws against GMOs become “restraints on trade” and subjects France to punitive law suits by Monsanto. If France doesn’t pay Monsanto the damages Monsanto claims, France is subject to punitive sanctions like Washington applies to Russia when Russia doesn’t do what Washington wants.

    A new slave existence is being created in front of our eyes as law ceases to be a shield of peoples and becomes a weapon in the hands of government. Eight hundred years of reform is being overturned as Washington and its vassals invade, bomb, and overthrow governments that are out of step with Washington’s agenda. Formerly self-sufficient agricultural communities are becoming wage slaves for international agribusiness corporations. Everywhere privilege is rising above law and justice is being lost.

    The concentration of wealth and power is reminiscent of the aristocratic era and of Rome under the Caesars. The demise of the rule of law has stripped ordinary people of security and dignity. Peoples of the world must protect themselves by acting in defense of the Great Charter’s principle that governments are accountable to law. Governments unaccountable to law are tyrannies whatever they might call themselves, no matter how exceptional and indispensable they declare themselves to be.

    Monday in Westminster in London, the International Tribunal for Natural Justice is forming. If my understanding of this work of Humanitad is correct, we have a cause for hope. Perhaps the Tribunal will try the criminals of our time, almost all of which are “leaders” of Western governments, on the Internet with juries and prosecutors so that populations everywhere can witness the evil that every Western government represents.

    Once the West is perceived as the evil force that it is, it will have to reform and again embrace Edward Coke’s vision of the Great Charter or become an unimportant backwater while the rest of the world goes on to better things. The world is saved once the world ceases to bow down to the American Caesar.”

    http://www.infowars.com/happy-birthday-magna-carta/

  3. 23 killed in Canada suicide attack plus 4 attackers .
    Nothing to do with Islam I suspect.

  5. Malfleur June 15th, 2015 – 01:32

    “May be I have reached the point where bloggers start dreaming of hostile posts and must rest for a while…”

    Malfleur June 15th, 2015 – 13:18

    Welcome back.
    Well done. indefatigableness restored after only twelfty hours.

    Go on, smile 🙂

  7. Baron

    EC has jogged my memory. You accused Martin Armstrong, although not in so many words, of being like a stopped clock which showed the right time twice a day when he forecast, as you recalled, that gold would reach US$5,000 an ounce but did not say when thus pretty much ensuring that at some time in the interminable future the metal would indeed reach that price.

    It is an irritating habit people have to check other people’s assertions.

    Nonetheless, I have checked – and you were half right. Armstrong did indeed forecast (and from gaol) that AU would reach $5,000. But he also predicted WHEN: 2016!

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/22417671/GOLD-5000-11-11-09

    So don’t jump the gun Mr. Baron, but rather BUY GOLD!

  8. John birch – 13:53
    “23 killed in Canada suicide attack plus 4 attackers .”

    I think it was in Chad.

    Chad suicide attacks kill many in N’Djamena
    “At least 23 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in suicide attacks in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, officials say.”
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33133511

    Still, nothing to do with Islam I suspect.

  9. Frank P @ 14:07

    That’s the way to corrode the system that Putin’s built, Frank, hedonistic indulgence, sybaritic lewdness, moral decadence, call it what you will, are by far more potent weapons than tanks, stealth bombers, even nukes.

    Baron is a poor judge of accents, but the guy doing the singing doesn’t sound Russian, hard to detect any accent at all.

  12. Malfleur @ 23:18

    Listen to this carefully, my blogging friend, Baron will say it only once.

    If you lend the poorly educated Slav the funds one needs to buy the metal, better still, gift them to him, he will. As things stand, on a state pension, few bob from his private annuity, he’s glad he can buy the stuff he needs to keep breathing.

    If the guy were as good as you say he is, why isn’t he a multitrillioner, ha? He should emulate the Hungarian Soros, make a fortune, turn philanthropic, rid the world of pain and suffering.

    The reason he did the tempting forecast of the gold price from goal is what?

  14. Here is the core of the Greek tragedy as Baron sees it, Malfleur.

    It’s the German Frau who calls the shots. The decision she has to make is this. What’s better for the nation she leads in the long term. Is it to drop the Greeks, get on with federalising Europe without them, or should she do everything in her power to keep them in.

    (Everything really means everything. If the EU, with the help of the Americans, could engineer a regime change in Ukraine, sell it to the world as a popular uprising of the 40mn Ukrainian unwashed, why not apply the same stratagem in a country of 10mn, a country that’s even more a basket case than Ukraine was.).

    It seems to Baron, the latter option must win the day, if only because of the risk the departure of the land of the Zorbas would pose to the federal dream, the unwashed in other countries, and that includes Britain, may be tempted to follow the Greeks. Unthinkable that, it would stop, or at least de-rail, the dream of united Europe with Germany as the top dog in command of the new construct.

  15. Malfleur @ 23:55

    La Marseillaise may have put the fire into the hearts of the European unwashed then, stop the Panzers eventually. However, the Frau has a different weapon today – money. Can you think of an example of those without it, saying ‘no’ if it’s offered?

  16. Baron

    One of your complaints about Mr. Armstrong was that he did not offer any advice as to how to avoid the coming penury. Well, as gold is presently about $1186 an ounce, below the cost of production and the price is rigged low, I would say you are wrong in principle.

    The reason he did the tempting forecast of the gold price from goal is what?If you had bothered to watch ‘The Forecaster’ or to learn about it in links provided

    Please also note in the Daily Telegraph article linked above, the Greek government is reported to be under pressure from the European Union to CUT pensions as part of a deal with Greece’s creditors.

    I do not have any knowledge of Mr. Armstrong’s personal finances. I understand from what I have learned of him though that he refused the blandishments of the United States government which is a currently acceptable route to exchange one’s soul for a large income.

    ‘The reason he did the tempting forecast of the gold price from goal [sic] is what?’ He was and is a forecaster. He was in jail. What do you expect him to do? Forecast. Right. Or may be his intention was to trick Englishmen six years further on to squander their pensions. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

    I accept that gold is too rich for many people especially as I understand in England it attracts the outrageous VAT.

    Silver however is in a similar position to gold in that it is currently selling below the cost of production. The current price is $16 an ounce. Furthermore, JP Morgan is thought to have accumulated around 350 million ounces of silver at a time when, it is alleged, it was manipulating the market to force the price down.

    Meanwhile, http://kingworldnews.com/silver-market-getting-bullish-as-staggering-15-percent-of-entire-annual-production-of-silver-shorted-in-one-week-by-speculators/

    Worth I would have thought putting a few silver threepeny bits, sixpences, shillings, two bob bits and half crowns (those were the days) or available equivalents away from time to to time. One day our pensions may be paid in http://www.joelscoins.com/images/zimbpm100trillionr.jpg

    I am however interested in Armstrong not so much for his advice to the indigent as for the general insight he gives. The Ludwig Von Mises Institute seems to rate him, but what do they know? But as the commenter Sam Iam, a clear nutcase, writes: “Sam Iam • 5 months ago
    Not only is Martin Armstrong always right, the women are kicking down his door to ask for dates. I guess it means he’s good-looking, to women. Other than that, his forecasts are “on the money.” I don’t believe anyone else but Martin Armstrong, because he speaks from the heart and is the only truthful guy I know; in this world of lies, spies and deception”. https://mises.org/library/martin-armstrong-forecaster

  17. Baron on the Frau @ 00:26

    I know, I know – but they also seem to be rolling out the tanks and heavy weapons again – under the “NATO” umbrella of course. But which way will she jump? To Russia? You might argue that we have had , that is to say our masters have had, a long term interest in keeping Germany and Russia apart.

    I don’t know. I have reached that point in the morning’s online review of news and comments when all I know is that I know nothing – so I am going back to bed with my second cup of tea – to listen to what Alex Jones and his Infowarwarriors has to say – and to doze for a bit I hope…

  18. Baron June 16th, 2015 – 00:26

    “La Marseillaise may have put the fire into the hearts of the European unwashed then, stop the Panzers eventually.”

    But it didn’t. They had to be liberated. It fired them up to shave women’s heads though.

  20. Have been trying to post a small comment at the mails story about the suicide bomber being groomed on the internet when living in DEWSBURY he had mad Muslims all around him to (so call) radicalise him.
    They won’t print it and I can’t sneak it in to stories with non moderated comments.
    We all know this and more.

    Could it be the Koran, or the desire to kill unbelievers, or the belief that Islam is the only religion, or that peace will be obtained when all opposition to Islam is removed. Or unbelievers are pigs or worse, or every Jew should be exterminated , or every part of the world belongs to Allah as no other religion is relevant, or the world is divided into the world of Islam, and the war against the unbelievers.
    No it’s mystery to me. LOL

  22. Colonel Mustard @ 06:27

    A valid point, Colonel, it’ the barbarian’s error of oversimplification, he thought of the rousing French song as a proxy for all those opposed to the Nazi’s military expansion throughout the Old Continent.

  24. Baron June 16th, 2015 – 10:19

    It was tongue in cheek, Baron. There are French connections in this house.

  25. It seems that Mark Dice’s spoof petition asking for signatures in favour of an American nuclear first strike against Russiaand the welcome it received from the American yoof is not so far as might have been thought from the aberrant warmongering mentality of Washington D.C.:

    “The US is playing a dangerous game of nuclear brinkmanship. Robert Scher, undersecretary of defense, has even floated the idea of a nuclear first strike against Russia.”

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-15/obamas-anti-russia-policy-escalates-dod-tells-congress-nukes-are-still-table

    I wonder what Mr. Alexander Boot’s view is of this?

    Tell you what, how about an American nuclear first strike against both Russia and China? That would be a real warm up for the big one.

  26. Name me a single feminist that isn’t dishonest, stupid or deluded. Is there a single feminist who simply wants equality for women? I can’t think of a single one. The concept of feminism has got to be decoupled from the entity women. One is a sub-Marxist special interest group that harms women as much as men. And the other are regular people like you and I who want a fair crack of the whip.

    There’s a witty piece on the contrast between the fight for men’s and women’s rights at:http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/2015/06/two-oppressed-genders.html

  28. Crocodile tears flowing thick and fast on the BBC.
    Lord haw haw would be proud.

  29. Well well well
    James Delingpole is bidding to be interned in a Vatican Oubliette

    “This is the sort of hackneyed language and extremely dubious science you might expect from a 16-year old trotting out the formulaic bilge and accepted faux-wisdom required these days to pass a fairly typical exam paper in Geography or Environmental Sciences.

    But what it most definitely isn’t the kind of thing you’d want or hope to read from the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, whose word is supposedly infalliable and who holds an office that dates back two thousand years.

    First – despite the Pope’s much-vaunted masters degree in Chemistry – it’s wrong scientifically.

    Second, it’s wrong morally…….”

    http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/06/16/et-tu-pontifex-pope-francis-leaps-aboard-global-warming-bandwagon/

  30. Malfleur
    no VAT on gold.

    I think having some is a good insurance fir if the financial system goes tits up big time.

    i use bullion vault. You can buy shares in bullion for about £25 Once you have enough you can have ot sent to you to store somewhere if you want.
    all done on the internet.
    They do silver too.

  31. Frank P @ 14:51

    For once, Frank, there’s little Baron would disagree with Mr. Boot, and the man he talks about Zhirinovski. The head of the Liberal Democratic party is a thug, and he talks like one, not just in the Duma, in public, too. Debating with a group of young people in a programme ‘Election 2042’ few weeks ago, he said ‘the Russian banner will fly over Kiev by then, Washington will be a hole…’

    What Mr. Boot skilfully omitted was that his outfit, together with the communists, controls 148 seats (Putin’s United Russia has 238 seats), and next year, the country has Duma election. The two right wing, totalitarian parties are the real threat, to the Russian people and to the world, not the left leaning parties that cannot even agree on a common programme for the next year election, and there are many of them, Baron lost counts how many, down to a party for women.

  32. Alexsandr
    June 16th, 2015 – 19:49
    I wouldn’t believe I owned gold unless i had it in my hands or in my hidyhole.
    I suspect scams of one bit of gold owned by many people scenario.

  33. Looks like the Long Marchers have infested the Roman Catholic church too.

    Very few tranquil sanctuaries of the past free from the cloaked left’s tedious but pernicious garbage now. And the younger generation largely either brainwashed or stupid from decades of bad education and dumbed down culture. Even Radio 3 has been ‘popularised’.

  34. Colonel Mustard

    Yes, the Popes (both of them) are become ‘useful savants’ for the globalists. The Black one presents himself as an expert on apocalyptic climate change as a springboard to call for “a new global political authority” while the White one, now cultivating his garden, had laid the foundations in 2009 by calling for “a kind of super-UN to deal with the world’s economic problems and injustices”.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/15/pope-francis-destruction-ecosystem-leaked-encyclical

    (H/T Drudge report)

    God it seems has joined the New World Order.

    We love Big Brother.

  35. Alexsandr amd John Birch on gold

    Thanks for the note on VAT exemption. Yes, even in a personal bank safe deposit box, some say, it is not secure. In films I watched as a boy, there was sometimes a character who would bite a gold coin before accepting it – not a test now available to me I’m afraid.

    Frank P @ 14:51
    Thanks. I will read it.

  36. Frank P

    I read it.

    I am not sure if the dialogue on the Wall centering on Alexander Boot and his analysis of the Russian government is self-contained in each instance or whether it intends to link back to Mr. Boot’s blog in September 2014 –

    http://alexanderboot.com/content/useful-idiots-are-out-force-armed-moral-equivalence-and-%E2%80%98realism%E2%80%99

    Mr. Zhirinovsky is a piece of work, there’s no doubt – though his is probably the language that politicians use to each other in the “frank and candid talks” they have in private when warmongering is in the air.

    Occasionally a hint is given of this in public on the US side. In March for instance, on Fox News “General Bob Scales told the channel … that the situation in Ukraine is now “game, set, and match,” [whatever that means] and that the only way the US can have an effect in the region is to “start killing Russians”…“Killing so many Russians that even Putin’s media can’t hide the fact that Russians are returning to the mother land in body bags,” he added.

    Irresponsible talk and action of this kind by the parties’ psychopaths is outrageous and deplorable.

    Mr. Boot however sees a larger picture. In his September blog, he writes:

    ” With her economy failing and her population declining, Russia may well see conquest as a way of either solving both problems…Any realist would realise this and consequently call the West to arms.”

    Mr. Boot, if I read him right, is not talking about conquest limited to Ukraine. Despite his somewhat mealy-mouthed “may wells” and his “any realists”, he argues a Russia using invasion of western Europe as a solution to its economic and demographic problems – not a very “realistic” solution to my mind.

    Mr. Boot has called for war with Russia. His casus belli is to forestall Russian invasion of western Europe. We see growing encroachment of western forces on Russia’s borders and hear the bellicose language of Ms. Samantha Powers in the U.N. Security Council.Mr. Zhirinovsky’s rant, and I use the word advisedly, “may well” be in response to such encroachment. Someone though on one side or the other is proposing to burn down the temple of Artemis at Ephesus to save it.

    Where is Mr. Boot’s evidence of Russia’s intention and capability to invade western Europe? Is it merely based on a variation of the domino theory? Does it have any substance?

    *****

    Some of us are willing to see Ms. Powers grapple with the Russian bear, but only along the following happier and may I say more ‘realistic’ lines? We would even be willing to allow her to ride rantipole. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, that was first the policy. Who derailed it? Chapter and verse please.

    http://uk.businessinsider.com/russian-models-pose-with-bear-2015-4

  37. Our darling Jeremy is gone
    But no problem
    *
    “Who is Chris Evans, the new lead host of the popular British television programme Top Gear? Here’s a full explainer on this most royal and fancy humanoid creature.

    Chris Evans, like all British people, is a direct evolutionary descendant of the Wallyknottle Bird, which is known for its extreme adherence to class structure. It is also why all Brits eat worms for breakfast. They call this “tea.”

    Evans was born in a hospital in Wipplenottinghamshire just after midnight. British people refer to this time as “the loo.”

    He was educated at Oxford, which he told me personally using his powers of telepathy, a gift conferred upon the most privileged of Brits by the Queen.

    As a reminder, British people, not greatly unlike you or me, are able to walk up and down walls like a spider.

    Evans is a prominent car collector. He is well-renowned for his extensive garages filled with popular British car brands such as Willseley, Horndumpster, Ferril-Crimpton, and Shart.

    Evans announced himself in the running for the position of lead host of Top Gear just over a week ago in the traditional manner. He approached Stonehenge wearing nothing but the scalp of a common-born chamber maid, recited the 13 secret verses of Shakespeare that only British people can hear, and then made passionate love to a scarf commemorating the Treaty of Amiens.”
    *
    http://jalopnik.com/who-is-top-gear-host-chris-evans-an-explainer-for-conf-1711753377

  38. 07:15

    Whether or not the meek shall inherit the earth remains debatable, as there is little agreement as to who (or even what) the meek are; but that the freaks have inherited the BBC is now indisputable.

  39. Dear Frank at 8.49am
    As I said on last week’s wall they axed my three favourite pin up boys (Paxman, Clarkson and Ross) for having the temerity to fail to imitate Lord Reith.
    They are so rooted in the past that I know our children will reject them and the Licence Fee Poll Tax.
    I can see no justification for any other than a news service.
    Who ever watches BBC 4 or 3?
    Who listens to Radio 6?
    I have better things to do with my still hard earned money.

  40. Malfleur @ 23:07

    In Europe, no VAT on gold in Belgium, Malfleur, one needs to check it, but it was so still towards the end of the last century.

  41. And while I talk money, do any of you bank with George Osborne’s Bank, NatWest?
    By a quirk of history I get paid on the 17th of the month and I have not been paid.
    My payroll tell me it has gone from them.
    This may sound trivial but all my standing orders and debits for the house go out on the 18th.
    I am getting very tired of this.

  42. And my final rant.
    Who turned off summer?
    I have Wednesday off and God could have the Good Grace to give me a little sun!

  43. Each year, Russia stages in St Petersburg the International Economic Forum, a gathering of the corporate powerful. It didn’t go well last year, virtually nobody from the West turned up. Not so this year, the CEOs of many top Western companies (sans the Americans), still obeying the messiah) are there, most prominently the oil majors, Shell, BP, Total, all keen to make deals. A BP review apparently says Russia ranks sixth in oil reserves, new discoveries put her reserves over 100bn barrels, the world will need it, the bird killing, seldom turning contraptions will not generate what consumers, the industry need …

    Go figure

  45. Jennifer O @ 11:11

    Summer? Don’t hold your breath. It is getting perilously close to that annual grunt, shriek and fist waving festival known as the Wimbledon All England Lawn Tennis Championships.(e&oe)

    I wonder if Sir Cliff (Sir Harry?) will be in/entertaining the crowd this year?

  46. Alex Jones seems quite enchanted by an English accent and articulateness? This must be his all time record for not speaking whilst a microphone is in reach.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSnHhZ-zO3A

    Interesting, in parts.

    NB. Fukushima had four reactors so difficult to see how you make 91% (i heard) out of that. I assume that Alex meant reactor contents – which is horrendous.

    NB. For the avoidance of doubt this is/was mainly just an attempt at a humorous observation on my part and is not in any way to be taken as a hostile comment or any other sort of comment about the content, the participants or indeed anyone or anything else.

  48. So, Michelle Obama swans in to the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets spreading love and hope, but, for whom I ask? The school she visited did not have a white face on show and the pupils were all swathed in rags, the only white faces on display were those of her security detail. What was the reason for this show of solidarity for the wogs of Whitechapel, surely she would have been more at home in Blackheath? and there were no males present, sexist or what?. Knowing what I do of the Obamas, which admittedly very little, one cannot but wonder if the real purpose for the Messiah’s missus visit was as a recruiting agent for ISIS?

  49. Malfleur @ 01:23

    After Crimea, the insurgency in the Ukrainian east, Mr. Boot wasn’t the only one suggesting Putin ‘won’t be happy with just the eastern Ukraine, he wants more, soon other countries will be annexed, Poland high on the list ….’

    How soon is soon, if ever?

    For the last time, the KGB Colonel wanted Crimea, badly, very badly, and the moronic West has given it to him, virtually free of charge, the sanctions and stuff will do FA to get it back to Ukraine.

    As for the Donbass region, he needs it about as much as one needs a kick in the groins. Nothing there that could be of any use to him, except that around 60 out 100 burghers living in the east of the country are Russians (see link below), he has no choice, cannot abandon them, it would be bad for his image in Russia proper, the communists, nationalists are already accusing him of not doing enough for the Ukrainian Russians.

    With the Duma election coming, he has no choice but to back the rebels, some of them are bitterly opposed to him, refuse to take orders from the two leaders of the uprising who, it seems, are more willing to listen to Kremlin.

    Not that long ago, one of anti-Putin rebels, a man called Mozgovoy, got killed in a strange road accident. The vehicle he was travelling in ran over a road mine. Instead of helping him after the accident, an unknown band of men who ‘happened to be around’ showered him, his comrades with machine gun fire. To Baron, this smells very much like a job initiated by the Russian FSB.

    http://www.rferl.org/contentinfographics/map-ukraine-percentage-who-identify-as-ethnic-russians-or-say-russian-is-their-first-language-/25323841.html

  52. Baron @ 12:20

    I have no idea what your post is about. The question is what evidence is there that V. Putin’s Russia was or is planning the conquest of western Europe?

    Why are we embarking on nuclear war with Russia? They are not even “communists”.

  53. Malfleur @ 13:05

    A quick scan of your post to Frank, and the barbarian formed the impression you may be moving towards Mr. Boot’s take on things. Baron has now read your posting slowly, realises he’s has made a mistake. Apology, Malfleur.

    And to anser youur question why we’re moving towards a nuclear skirmish with the land of the Russian Slavs? The last thing the crumbling US world hegemony needs is large, powerful, and racially, politically, culturally cohesive countries, even if these may have no appetite challenging the Republic for their top status in the world.

  54. Malfleur
    June 17th, 2015 – 13:05
    Baron @ 12:20

    Why are we embarking on nuclear war with Russia? They are not even “communists”.
    Exactement! But Obama is and so possibly is the establishment here! :=(

  56. It is a sad fact of international life that Politicians are incapable from learning from the mistakes of others. One of the oldest tricks in the lexicon of government is for a state which is in trouble, to launch a war in the fond hope that a cheap and easy won victory will buy domestic popularity. Russia tried that gambit in 1905, and we all know how that played out. Here we go again. Obama and the EU think they will achieve an easy victory, they will not, and as always we will pick up the tab.

  57. World’s largest hotels: 12 out of the top 20 are in Las Vegas.

    Who’da thunk that all that gambling and prostitution would be that popular, eh?
    Either way, the mob wins!

    dailym.ai/1LhFtgg

  58. stephen maybery – 16:30

    Machiavelli wrote about that ploy, but I don’t think that he didn’t invented it!

    Don’t know who said this but:

    “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly whilst everyone else repeats it.”

  59. When I was a boy our local Fire Station had maps in the window under photographs from Mururoa Atoll showing the total wipeout of my Northern Town if we upset the Ruskies
    *
    I have the same feeling in my bones
    *
    “Washington (CNN) Timeline 1700 17 June 2015
    The war of words between America and Russia is escalating. So, too, is the movement of implements of war — from U.S. fighter jets to Russian nuclear weapons.

    So is an actual war imminent?

    The rhetoric and actions from both sides have definitely ratcheted up in recent days, raising concerns of a new arms race — if not worse — amid tensions both sides blame on each other.
    The major players all claim their movements are defensive and necessary responses to their foe’s provocation.
    Still, that’s not what some experts are worried about. They say a bigger fear is what things can happen, accidentally, when you have increasingly powerful military forces lined up so close to each other.

    There’s no doubt that the military tit-for-tat has picked up this week.
    The U.S. Navy is among those participating in a NATO landing exercise in Sweden. Around the same time, U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Deborah James announced that it could be sending some of its most advanced warplanes to Europe in a show of force.
    Already, the Pentagon has rotated B-2 and B-52 bombers, F-15Cs and A-10 attack planes as well as Army and Navy assets through Europe for exercises with allies under what’s called Operation Atlantic Resolve. James said the F-22 Raptor, the Pentagon’s premier fighter, could soon join them.
    This is all in addition to previous U.S. military actions in support of Ukraine and several Baltic countries, some of whom fear Russian President Putin — either directly or indirectly — will come after them next.
    Russian President Vladimir Putin has given little impression he’ll back down.
    “If someone threatens our territories, it means that we will have to aim our armed forces” toward the threat, he said Tuesday, according to state-run Sputnik news. “It is NATO that is coming to our borders, it’s not like we are moving anywhere.”
    Russian officials, though, say they’re the ones being threatened. That includes reports that the United States might deploy tanks and artillery to bases in Eastern Europe, a prospective move Russian Defense Minister Yuri Yakubov called “the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War.”

    Nearly every American and European attempt at deterring Putin has instead triggered an opposite reaction: more military exercises, more provocative behavior and a persistent refusal to back down in the face of Western demands.”
    *
    We understood Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev
    We cannot fathom Putin

  61. EC @ 16:24

    Sickening, not only does the holy man interfere where he shouldn’t, but on the wrong side of the fence, too.

  62. telemachus @ 07:15

    The hope is he’ll rake in for the agitprop monstrosity even more money than Clarkson, Baron reckons.

    When it comes to moneymaking, telemachus, the left leaning fruitcakes are as bad as the lucripetous bourgeoisie, perhaps worse because they never admit it, always find an excuse for it, and the excuse sounds noble, heart warming, almost believable.

  63. srephen maybery @ 16.30

    Therefore, my Harry,
    Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
    With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
    May waste the memory of the former days.

  64. “Greek Debt Committee Just Declared All Debt To The Troika “Illegal, Illegitimate, And Odious””

    Zero Hedge

  65. telemachus @ 20:40

    The sabre-rattling on both sides of the divide is not a sign of strength, but weakness, Baron reckons. Neither side can win, they both know it, it’s not unlike to a couple of large dogs facing each, barking viciously when on the lead not because either is eager to fight, but because of fear. One can only hope common sense prevails in the end.

    The American conglomerates, in particular those in the weaponry business, must love it though. The asynchronous war with the sand dwellers was no good for them, not much profit in knife making. Forty three US companies e.g. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing, are amongst the world top 100 arms manufacturers. The reincarnation of the old cold war environment means not only fatter bottom lines, it means also more jobs, and jobs in the US mainland, something the politicians love for people with jobs are more likely to vote them in. And those investors quick enough to get on the bandwagon are laughing all the way to and from the banks.

    This is what the tosser Pope should have addressed, what happened to ‘love ya neighbour’ then?

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-25/syria-to-ukraine-wars-send-u-s-defense-stocks-to-records

  66. Malfleur @ 22:15

    One may have some sympathy with the Zorbas, but not much. Did they call the debt ‘illegal, illegitimate, and odious’ when the money landed in their pockets?

    Look, the debt is someone’s savings, one shouldn’t forget it, writing to off would mean someone, perhaps someone here, getting a smaller pension, lower return on his money being saved for a future pension, higher premiums everywhere. If they default, the unwashed in the countries most affected will have to pay for it in the end, not the politicians, or the banks, or Him.

  67. telemachus @ 21:20

    The link is telling, telemachus, the commercial talks about cancer cure, which is quite apposite for the story that follows because if nukes were deployed, there would certainly be a lot of cancer cases, and other boils to cure.

    And on the video itself: What are the Yanks doing next to the borders of Russia? If the Russian reconnaissance planes were messing around US borders, the Americans would go bonkers, very likely shoot them down, international airspace or not.

  68. EC @ 16:48

    Good quote, EC, it’s often inertia that takes over, makes things happen even if everyone, or at least a majority’s against it.

    It may well be there are laws governing mankind’s evolution (or His creative design, if you prefer) we haven’t sussed up yet, the unknown unknowns, laws that exists to ensure we don’t overpopulate, destroy fully other forms of life, damage the little cosmic blob of the earth irreparably.

  69. stephen maybery @ 16:30

    Indeed the unwashed will pick up the tab, stephen, if they survive in reasonable health, and that’s a big if, should either side resort to nukes.

    It’s well known, but Baron rather likes it, the Einstein’s answer to the question ‘what weapons will be used in WW3’. ”I have no idea what weapons will be used in WW3′, said the great man, ‘but I know what weapons will be used in WW4 – stones and sticks’.

    What you reckon, Malfleur, instead of hoarding expensive gold, perhaps we should all stock up on stones and sticks. The stuff’s free, so far.

  70. Apologies for the errors, and to ensure you’ll have a pleasant night sleep, the poorly educated Slav’s signing off.

  71. “Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave
    them the power to create money and control credit, and
    with a flick of a pen they will create enough to buy it back.”
    -Sir Josiah Stamp, former President, Bank of England

  73. How will the BBC spin this?
    Mo Farah missed two drug tests before London Olympics, putting 2012 double gold at risk
    * Farah’s first missed test appears to have occurred in early 2010, six months before he broke David Moorcroft’s British 5,000m record
    * The second test seems to have occurred once Farah had started working with Salazar, taking place at Farah’s home in Teddington
    * Farah contested it by appealing to the UK Anti-Doping Agency on the basis that he claimed he did not hear his doorbell
    * With the Olympics looming, Salazar warned Farah on May 5 2011: ‘If you miss another test, they will hang you’
    * Farah won gold in the 5,000m and 10,000m at London 2012
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-3128695/Mo-Farah-missed-two-drug-tests-London-Olympics-putting-2012-double-gold-risk.html

  74. And how will the BBC spin this?

    Hollande antagonises town halls by sending migrants to countryside
    “Mayors in rural France are furious that President Hollande has ordered them to accommodate thousands of migrants after Paris and the Channel ports became overwhelmed with Africans and Arabs seeking a better life.”
    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4472794.ece

    Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow EU province!

    Aren’t these ‘Africans and Arabs seeking a better life’ being racist in rejecting their homeland, homelands that have rejected the ‘European’ influence by using violence and, in some areas, vibrancy.

    tA better recruitment agent for the FN

  75. Battle of Waterloo June 18th 1815 – Napoleon applies to the British government for refugee status: application denied.

  78. Baron 2158

    But the obverse is true
    Some Companies pursue profit and damn the consequences

    http://eco-chick.com/2009/05/3845/profits-before-people/

    “Money isn’t everything – or is it? To most corporations, making a profit is goal number one – but some of those companies take it way too far, sacrificing the health of the planet and its inhabitants for a bigger bank balance. Far too many corporations turn a blind eye to the consequences of their destructive, exploitative practices. The worst of them are committing atrocities that go beyond the realm of objectionable into criminal, dumping toxic chemicals without regard to public health and employing child labour”

    There follow many examples including
    Dow Chemical (along with Monsanto) will never escape the shadow of Agent Orange, the chemical used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War during the ‘Herbicidal Warfare’ program, which lead to 400,000 deaths and disabilities and 500,000 children born with birth defects…….

    Furthermore, following the purchase of Union Carbide – the company responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster which left nearly 20,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands disabled – Dow has refused to take responsibility for the health and environmental effects of the incident.
    *
    Some of us believe in pristine profit

  79. John Birch 0612

    You need to get into Test Match Special to understand Yorkshire
    As this from the Yorkshire Post attests
    *
    “The Prime Minister sparked some debate last year when, during a conference speech, he described Richmond Conservative William Hague as “the greatest living Yorkshireman”.

    Asked during a visit to this newspaper’s Leeds office who his second nomination for that title would be, Mr Cameron said: “Well, I upset him so much with that comment, that I will have to say it is Geoffrey Boycott.

    “At the last Prime Minister’s Question time I saw Geoffrey, he was there in the Commons, and he offered to give my son a cricket lesson. I had to explain to Elwen, who is only a wee nipper, just how important this man he was talking to is. It is quite interesting to explain to nine-year-old about this, because I grew up with

    Geoffrey Boycott, I remember watching those extraordinary innings and was trying to explain to my boy, who knows a little about Alastair Cook and James Anderson and stuff, just how massive this guy was. He promised him a lesson, I will make good on that.”

    http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/politics/cameron-second-greatest-yorkshireman-geoffrey-boycott-will-teach-my-son-cricket-1-7213777

  80. Malfleur @ 23:06

    The quote is spot on, Malfleur, but keep in mind that without credit creation – sensible, well structured, spread amongst many classes of assets – the unwashed would be as poor today as our grandparents were a century ago.

  81. telemachus – 06:43

    “Baron, But the obverse is true”

    The obverse by definition can never be true!

    obverse adj an opposite or counterpart, eg of a fact or truth.

    ref: OED, Chambers, any dictionary you like…

    Beyond my pay grade here, so far be it from me to point out your relationship to… etc.
    but cue Col. Mustard.

  82. When it comes to the commentary of telemachus it is probably superfluous to use the phrase ‘my suspicion is aroused’ but it is curious to note that this apparently devoted fan of cricket once accused my Colman’s Mustard advert W G Grace avatar of holding a ‘baseball bat’ and threateningly.

    The avatar is small but the figure should be unmistakeable to any devotee of that truly beautiful game of gentlemen in Little England. Perhaps this confusion of bat was alleged only for effect as an integral part of the Colonel Mustard as ‘menace’ label and trope recently deployed.

    In that game, telemachus, as you should know, it is the ball that is more threatening than the bat and the virtual ones that I bowl to you invariably set you on an ignominious walk to the pavilion with the shortest of innings and the only run the one you make away whenever your propaganda is challenged. Bobbing and weaving has no place before the stump. Face the bowler and hit his ball for six – or try. But don’t shout labels and silly denouncements as you flee sideways and attempt to bat from a different position on the field, or whine to the audience about how ‘menacing’ the bowler is.

    It is also to be noted that the telemachus here is not consistent in behaviour with the telemachus there. Here he has reined in his malevolence and personal attacks. There they are still indulged in, often misquoting from this place.

    You might profess to be a fan of cricket, telemachus, but you are no cricketer. And there’s an end on it.

  83. I am sorry that I mislead you all

    Cameron was dead wrong about the first and second greatest Yorkshiremen
    *
    “Sir Leonard Hutton was more than a cricketer. He was a real gentleman with a modest demeanour. He brought the qualities of determination, discipline and restraint to the cricketing crease creating at times an attitude of invincibility. Often the fortunes of England were closely connected to the fortunes of Len Hutton. After the war he was made captain of England and led England to regain the Ashes in 1953. His cricketing career was all the more remarkable for the long break during the Second world war, where in a war injury he lost 2 inches off his left arm.

    Despite this injury, it didn’t seem to affect him. Before the war he made over 11,700 runs at an average of 48.98. After 1945 he made another 28,292 runs at an average of 58.81. This included 129 hundreds. If the war had not intervened his record would have been even more special.

    He was one of the few cricketers to be knighted by the Queen”
    *
    http://www.biographyonline.net/sport/cricketers/len-hutton.html
    *
    There is the story that a letter was delivered to Sir Len, at the time just Len, with a picture of his eyes as the only address
    *
    For those of us fortunate enough to have been born in Yorkshire and migrated across the Pennines for a fine Education in one of Lancashire’s most celebrated Direct Grant Schools Len and Geoffrey are in our bones (and remember they had to compete with my adoptive Brian Statham and Cyril Washbrook)

  84. As an afterthought I should just say that up here we have no truck with Gloucestershire upstarts, particularly those who try to trumpet 126 centuries when there was no war to hold them back

  86. Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders have put together an official group in the European Parliament giving them more rights and money.They have been joined by the Lega Nord,the Vlaams Block and the (Austrian) Freedom Party,along with two Poles and an ex-member of UKIP.Their group is called Europe of Nations and Freedoms.

  91. Radford NG 1452

    A few weeks ago I paid my 1.20 Euros and climbed the 226 steps to the top of the Butte du Lion and marvelled at the history of the battle that in the end led to the slaughter of the Somme and later the killing fields of Poland

    Let me explain

    This is particularly necessary as today has been falsely hailed as support by those who are against the European project
    *
    Let us go back to 1799 when Napoleon rescued the bold initiative of the French people to rescue themselves from the oppression of centuries of autocratic rule. In doing this they provided a template of freedom for the whole peoples of Europe
    Napoleon not only saved the revolution for the French but then applied the model throughout Europe
    *
    Until the forces of Prussian and Anglo-Irish Aristocracy put an end to this on 18 June 1815
    *
    As a direct result of this the Unity of Free Europe was destroyed and the Prussian Military machine went on murder millions in Flanders and later in Eastern Europe
    *
    Gladly visionaries like Churchill and de Gaulle recognised the need to go back to Napoleon’s vision and give us a peace that has endured these last 70 years
    *
    It grieves telemachus that forces are abroad to threaten the security of myself and my children
    *
    I have no truck with Brussels bureaucracy and I know that David Cameron will do his duty
    Let not forces, whether Juncker, whether Cash, thwart Our Prime Minister

  92. If you think being colonised by the French is preferable to being colonised by the British you probably need to read more primary sources on both in their original languages. Even some Frenchmen conceded that the British Empire was preferable to various French empires.

    I realise that the frisson of excitement you experience at the word “revolution” will militate against such enlightening exploration. Given your admiration of Stalin the number of dead in Napoleon’s wars will probably matter little, other than to give you another opportunity to deploy that less than compassionate soundbite about omelettes and breaking eggs in the pursuit of that bloody chimera – socialist utopia

    A lovely anecdote about the liberated Belgians could be added here, but since it draws comparison between Tommy Atkins and Merkel’s Mob rather than dwelling on Napoleon as saviour of Europe it is of little relevance.

    Until they were sucked into the EU the British were a less frenetic people in office.

  93. I’m getting really quite tired of telemachus posting here. Maybe it’s because I’ve had a stressful week. But his posts are now long as well as tedious and trolling. Has there been any change in attitude towards him/her/them by the community here? Or is it just me?

  94. Ben Bradshaw, MP reports that it is not unusual to be showered with urine from above while working in the crumbling edifice of the Palace of Westminster. Not sure whether he’s complaining about it, or celebrating one of the in-house pleasures – golden rain. Many of his co-workers in the Westminster gasworks would pay good money for the service. An apt metaphor for a debauched society and its corrupt government.

  96. No Peter, it is not just you.

    PfM – 18:23 ‘Allison Pearson’
    In an earlier article, Allison describes her complete lack of empathy towards the twelve on their way to a hell hole. I have similar reactions to the troll: not on our planet at all!

  97. Sky falls in over Denmark :Social Democrats loose office ;`euro-sceptic`ant-immigration
    party wins more seats then official opposition.

  99. Radford NG June 18th @ 14.09

    I was thinking of making the facetious comment that I hoped the cameraman got out of the way in time but then read in the accompanying commentary on the painter that “She also stood in front of charging cavalry to capture the momentum of the horses”!

  100. Frank P @ 22:31

    Or is it Ben Bradshaw giving his coded comment on Parliament’s relationship with Brussels?

  102. I’m not quite sure what to make of this:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3130590/Blair-shows-credibility-Putin-summit-Former-PM-speaks-vanity-summit-set-Russian-leader-alongside-regime-s-ministers.html

    or this:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3130476/Did-Michelle-Obama-not-irony-Tower-Hamlets-speech-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-asks.html

    except perhaps that the political class of the West needs to be swept away and something honourable put in its place.

  103. Is it possible … I mean, is it REALLY possible that CMD is leading the EU Elite up the garden path?

    When he gets this response:
    Cameron told he has ‘NO CHANCE’ of British opt-out from EU’s drive for ‘ever closer union’
    DAVID Cameron was today warned he has “no chance” of withdrawing Britain from the European Union’s founding principle of ‘ever closer union’.
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/585300/David-Cameron-told-no-chance-British-opt-out-EU-ever-close-union-by-German-politician

    how can he present a credible ‘stay in’ argument?

    He cannot! But he could say, ‘If that is how you all feel, we are leaving, pronto’.

    To ‘stay in’ looks like being a complete train crash, while the surprise ‘we’re leaving’ would leave him standing victorious. A completely different scenario to the Greek tragedy that is unfolding.

    He could retire, to play poker!

  104. Baron – June 17th @ 22:26 and June 18th @ 8:04

    An interview some years ago with John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, provides insight into how credit (and debt) is misused by sovereign states:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8

    (The story of Perkins’s recruitment by the way is another fine story of how the US National Security Agency is whole-heartedly dedicated to the defense of the realm.)

  105. In Denmark the Folkeparti (DF) won in south Jutland and the west and centrer of Denmark’s main island :the `Liberals`won in west and central Jutland.
    The Blue Block won 91seats (50.7%)……..DF 37seats (21.4%)/Liberals34seats (19.5%)
    The Red Block won 84seats (49.3%)………SDs47seats (26.3%).

  106. Daves not happy with our Muslims , this is part of a speech about the problem.

    ‘It says religious doctrine trumps the rule of law and caliphate trumps nation state and it justifies violence in asserting itself and achieving its aims. The question is: how do people arrive at this world view?
    One word answers it. Islam.

  107. I should point out the last line was mine, he’s not far enough down the road to admit that yet.

  108. Re comments about tellytubby.
    Yes he is an annoying tit. But I will defend his right to be a tit. Its quite si.ple. if you dont like what he says dont read his stuff. Same as muslims didnt have to read charlie hebdo.

  109. John Birch June 19, 2015 – 05:19

    It is very worth a read of the whole article:

    “We’ve always had angry young men and women buying into supposedly revolutionary causes. This one is evil, is it contradictory, it is futile but it is particularly potent today.
    “I think part of the reason it’s so potent is that it has been given this credence.

    “So if you’re a troubled boy who is angry at the world or a girl looking for an identity, for something to believe in, and there’s something that is quietly condoned online or perhaps even in parts of your local community then it’s less of a leap to go from a British teenager to an Isil fighter or an Isil wife than it would be for someone who hasn’t been exposed to these things.”

    And yet the Police and Judges think the response is to lock these disaffected kids up, giving more reason to their peeers to consider the attraction of the Jihadi images on the Internet.
    How can we find an alternative to excite them?
    This boring Government cannot provide it.
    Is Cameron simply compounding the problem?

  110. EC 1156 17 June:
    The sun is smiling on me today.
    And Cliff needs all our support against all the lies.

  113. My son has as much reason to get bored as any other teenager, but he spends his time at the gym, playing music, doing work for his family to raise a bit of cash, doing a paper round.

    There is zero excuse for anyone becoming a Muslim terrorist. And it is not the Government’s job to entertain people. The main reason for the existence of a state is to protect its people.

    Anyone travelling abroad for the purposes of terrorism should lose their right to return immediately, pending enquiry. Their family should be investigated and should also lose citizenship and right of abode if they have encouraged or had any idea of what was being planned. All further Muslim migration should cease pending working out how to protect ourselves. All non-British citizen Muslims should be required to return to their homelands pending the same review. All British mosques should be registered and monitored, not because of having different opinions, but to the extent that violence and the subversion of the British people is preached.

  114. I think my view about telemachus is that he/she/they are NOT exercising free speech – which in any case doesn’t mean freedom to say what you want on other people’s platforms – but he/she/they are doing the equivalent of advertising Viagra tablets or time share apartments. He/she/they have no interest at all in an honest conversation.

    To that extent I am not sure that this is a free speech issue at all. Would we support someone on that basis who posted 20 adverts each day?

    I happened to visit the other site yesterday and found the comments unbearably infested with trolls with no apparent attempt to deal with them. I had no pleasure even in reading the comments. I am sure that is the intention.

  115. Sorry peter. I think the site would be the poorer if we disallowd comments from someone with whom we disagree.
    Maybe put a limit on number of posts per 24 hour period so no-one can spam the site. Do any posters post more than 10 per day?

  116. I don’t think we disagree with him/her/them, since they are not here to actually say anything. If Ed Balls posted here we might disagree with him, but this poster, and the tens that now seem to infest the other site, are not here or there to discuss but to subvert.

  117. theres more…

    Peter. We disagree quite strongly about whether there is a deity of some sort, and you find atheism worrying, I think. Would you seek to ban people who post atheist views?

    Separating yourself from views that differ from your own makes you think your views and beliefs are safe. If you allow yourself to the challenged by differing views then that argument should strengthen your own views. Thats if they are robust enough for challenge and discussion.
    One of the issues with Islam is that it doesnt allow discussion of other views. They feel safe in their faith because it is not challenged. Challenging or taking the piss out of views is part of a mature society.

  119. Alexsandr, if you deliberately kept posting anti-Christian comments designed only to cause trouble and subvert the site then that would be an issue. If you posted comments to have a discussion that would be entirely different.

    I am not sure that any of the posts by telemachus are designed to engage others in a conversation. That is the issue. If he/she/they are not here to participate then their comments are not ones that need to be challenged but deleted. It would be very easy for me to act as telemachus does, and post constant drivel designed to take up time without any positive intent.

  120. You can’t “disagree” with provocations, however thinly disguised as “argument” they are.

    Besides, the Marcusean gambit sometimes deserves a reciprocal response. Instead of letting lefto-fascists exploit the right’s belief in freedom of speech to advance their agenda for suppressing it just have done and shut them up. They get plenty of platform elsewhere.

    I’m appalled at what they have done to the country of my birth and in which I grew up and sick of their relentless agenda. Personally I no longer give a fig for accommodating their right to crow about it in deference to some lofty principle which they are exploiting in order to destroy it. Their cynical connivance at this should be well understood by now and not pandered to here of all places.

    http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/pastor-james-mcconnell-vows-not-to-be-silenced-by-courts-as-he-faces-prosecution-over-islam-is-satanic-sermon-31311916.html

  121. Surely the telemachus here shouldn’t be held accountable for his/her/their behaviour elsewhere? His posts here have been much more humorous of late.

  124. There are outraged protests to yet another mega mosque project in the midlands. There is almost no point in trying to stop mega mosques, stable doors and horses etc… The only thing worth stopping is the invasion of Muslims itself.

    And I guess we will be in for more demands to build mosques after the people we’ve “saved” in the Mediterannean have bedded themselves in. Your tax pounds at work.

    There’s a good piece on why the EU leaders can’t bring themselves to do the obvious and just ferry the migrants back to Libya at: http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/2015/06/true-believer.html

  125. I’m going to add a poll I think, to gauge opinion. But I do not intend to do anything at all at the moment. And I am having a break in Scotland for a week or so and this may improve my mood, or make me feel worse, depending on how many Nationalists I meet.

  128. Forgive me for returning here after a long absence. I’ve no right to express an opinion about how this blog is run but I would like to share my experience of what has happened at the other place.

    The infestation of trolls there is in fact one troll (not Telemachus) using well over twenty sock puppets – around ten regularly. This troll uses its sock puppets to manipulate the order of comments by mass upvoting & downvoting. Posters that he targets find their comments buried in the middle of a thread by the mass downvoting.

    Many of its sock puppets are false flags designed to draw the unwary (&, sorry, the less bright) into upvoting the absurd. The troll is having a great laugh at Spectator commentators’ expense. Its ‘comments’, if you can call them that, are incomprehensible, sneering, mocking & disrupt the thread. They often talk to each other, faking a conversation between legitimate posters.

    You would think that after the cull of conservative posters in the new year, that the Spectator would do something about this. I & another poster have flagged the troll posts & written to the Editor. I haven’t even received a reply & the posts remain. The troll knows we have done this & is of course emboldened.

    The result is that the Spectator has become a very unpleasant place to be. I also note that the number of comments is in steep decline – perhaps due in part that many people hate the infestation.

    I have no doubt that this disruption of civilised debate between right & right & right & left is the motive. And the question is, who funds this troll? He posts on most of the pages daily, which means a paid subscription. He clearly has no other job.

    Compared with this, I’d say that Telemachus’s contributions to CHW are relatively benign & I wish that is all we have to contend with at the other place. But as Peter says, the Wall is a ‘private’ platform & can admit or ban whoever it likes. I only wish the Spectator took the same view & acted to protect its posters.

    I also want to apologise for a rude remark made about a CHW poster. It was an embarrassing case of mistaken identity.

  129. I forgot to add that the use of many sock puppets (which upvote their own posts) destroys trust in the integrity & sincerity of the comments. If you’re going to participate in online debate, you need to trust that other comments are sincere. I’m sure this is another motive for the scam. Telemachus may hold obnoxious views sometimes, but at least he is upfront about them – even if he does often back peddle very fast.

  130. Damaris, the problem is that telemachus has a collection of sock puppets that are used. He has tried to use them here, and we know that he uses them elsewhere, though they have been generally retired because they are so well known. It may well be that telemachus is using others on the Spectator site. It is not clear that he is one person or a he at all.

  131. surely you can detect sock puppets bu capturing IP addresses of posters. If you get 2 posts from the same IP address from different users then that should be against the wall rules. (Of course you have to allow for 2 different posters at the same address_it happens)

  132. What’s this obsession with banning views we disagree with, ha?

    Anything to do with the malevolent air that seems to pervade the society at large? A man of science says women in labs cry a lot, fall in love with (hopefully) male colleagues and, before one blinks, the poor professor gets the sack, no career, no pension.

    It may well be the left leaning school of thought, some in our midst may be guilty of, is not unakin to cancer, it certainly is true that each can deprive one of life, life as a free, healthy man, but can banning cure either the decease of the body, or the one of the society? if it could, we would almost certainly already live in a society without either.

    The barbarian from the East reckons the only way to rid the society of the delusion of the Marx cum Alinsky inspired virus, to get the societal compass back on the right track, is to be fully aware of, to understand, engage with those who carry the pathogen, convince them of its malignancy, lead them out of the tunnel.

    Baron’s deadly against any banning, Peter, unless the postings incite, condone, excuse violence or, as Damaris says, destroy the cohesion of the thread.

  134. Holidaying in the land of the haggis eaters, Peter? Lucky you. For each of the last fifteen years, Baron (and his boss) had been up north, too, not this year, the health isn’t up to it.

    The Duirinish Lodge (Kyle of Lochalsh) was the place, rustic countryside around, awsome views, awful cuisine everywhere except for a couple of places, both on the Isle of Sky, if you need direction, just ask. And give a miss to the midges, a deadly irritant.

  135. Colonel Mustard @ 11:14

    But, Colonel, you are always winning the argument, why object? Magnanimity can be a potent weapon, too, you know.

  136. I know Telemachus uses Patriccia Shaw & David Lindsay. But their styles are quite different from the malevolent stable I’m talking about. And they don’t pretend to talk to each other & upvote each other. However, if he’s still doing it, it is deception in my view.

  137. Baron: Agreed – I often see posters being accused of being a troll simply because another poster disagrees with them. Disagreement isn’t the issue. Deceit, derailing & manipulation are.

  138. A stowaway who is believed to have clung on to a plane has fallen to his death, while another is in hospital.
    The two men are believed to have been clinging to a British Airways flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow.
    The victim was found on the roof of notonthehighstreet.com’s headquarters on Kew Road, Richmond, at about 09:35 BST on Thursday. Police said his death was being treated as unexplained.
    BUT IT WAS ON THE HIGH STREET!

  139. I am not sure that it is reasonable to suggest that being concerned about the activities of trolls is an obsession. Nor have I banned anyone at all, and certainly not for holding opinions which I disagree with, and even find offensive. The reason we started this site was because of the malign activities of telemachus above all, and that has proved a blessing in disguise. But to suggest that he is a victim here is bizarre.

  140. anne wotana kaye @ 19:08

    The story’s hard to believe, anne, clinging to the landing gear all the way from Jo in South Africa? Alive until the flight neared Heathrow? Hmmm

    And another aspect of the story. What if the two madmen were to plant a bomb in the landing gear compartment rather than themselves? How did they get there? Were they smuggled to the plane by an airport employee?

    We’ve invested in expensive body search systems at the departure gates, down to people being asked to take their shoes off (that happens to Baron regularly, even though the soles of his slipper like shoes are unlikely to hide a bomblet), then two blokes get on a plane, unseen, ride for hundreds of miles, drop on London.

    If anyone were to write a film script with a ploy like this, the producers would tell him to go have running jump.

  141. Baron
    June 19th, 2015 – 21:05
    I thought exactly what you have stated. I think the world has gone mad! I was once, many years ago mistaken for a terrorist, and even now in my dotage, I have to remove my shoes and display bunions, gout and geriatric toe talons to the world.

  145. “Sparking a panic has been the most powerful tool at the troika’s disposal to bring PM Alexis Tsipras to the negotiating table and forcing Syriza to either concede to pension cuts and a VAT hike or risk social and political upheaval in the face of dark ATMs and public protests – we said this first in February and finally even the Greek government realized just what game Europe is playing.” (ibid)

  146. DENMARK.
    The ex-Prime Minister,and Leader of the defeated Social Democrates,is also Mrs.Steven Kinnock,being married to the son of Neil and Glenys. (He is now MP for Aberavon-nr.Swansea-although he has never had a real job.He got 15,000 votes-well down on the old days when Labour got 30,000 for decades:UKIP in 2nd place got +4,000)

    She caused a scandal at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service taking a `selfie`,sitting between David Cameron and Barak Obama.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/11/david-cameron-danish-pm-mandela-memorial-selfie

  148. Malfleur June 20th, 2015 – 05:34

    Allowing for the Anglicisation of the Americanisms 24 out of 25 – never threw rocks at snakes in the river.

    Generation of weenies is spot on. Another outcome of the relentless feminisation of society and too many of the wrong kind of women in politics. When they say they want to go into politics to make society better they mean in order to turn the country into a giant primary school classroom that they are in charge of.

  149. Reading the advocated indulgences for telemachus, whose presence here is entirely cynical and manipulative, the reasons for the situation our country is in becomes much clearer.

  150. The left, the SNP and Trident.

    In a small Chinese village a merchant kept a fierce guard dog. Every night thieves would creep towards the village and the dog would set up a loud barking, frightening them away. After several nights the neighbours complained to the merchant that the barking was keeping them awake and disturbing them. The merchant’s wife nagged him that the dog was a nuisance, barking for no reason. The merchant scolded the dog and when it continued to bark he beat it.

    Eventually the barking, his nagging wife and the complaining neighbours drove the merchant in desperation to kill the dog to obtain some peace and quiet. The next night the thieves crept in to a silent village, robbed and murdered the merchant and his wife and all his neighbours.

  151. Col M: Perhaps I’ve become blind to T because I suffer only from the other lot. However I note that he is using his sock puppets again at the other place. I’m not voting here because I’m not a regular contributor, but having seen this my indulgence is wearing thin. Whether you should ban him for his actions elsewhere, is another matter. And I’m aware you have known him much longer than I.

  152. Baron,

    “then two blokes get on a plane, unseen, ride for hundreds of miles, drop on London.
    If anyone were to write a film script with a ploy like this, the producers would tell him to go have running jump.”

    “Commando”, 1985, Arnold Schwarzeneggar.

    Arnold drops into a swamp as the plane is landing in a third world hellhole. There are plenty of shit tanks around London Heathrow for the trick to be successfully repeated.
    Thirty years ago Arnie was built like three brick shithouses and almost as indestructible as Captain Scarlett but, back then, weren’t we all… 🙁

  153. telemachus aside, Damaris, it is good to see you commenting here again and I do hope you make that a habit.

    The other place has been ruined for any kind of serious discourse by the Goatmince/Dado troll “group”. It is not even clear what motivates them and they are elusive when it comes to their own political allegiances. Hugely amusing that UnionJihack complained of “Col.M and his trollerati”. Pot. Kettle.

  154. Hello ColM: I only left in a huff because a poster made a malicious comment about me! That was silly I know, but I was hoping to escape from the other place & be among friends, so I had an over-emotional reaction. Unfortunately, the good professor who was forced to resign did speak some truth!

  155. ColM: The dado_trunking group are left wing I’m sure. It sets up sock puppets like Damian Hurts to make absurd rightist comments for the unwary to upvote. The other place has indeed been ruined & I’m at a loss why the editors allow it.

  156. At the other place:

    telemachus • 15 hours ago
    “Why are we subsidising these God Botherers to burn wood and contribute to greenhouse gasses?”

    “David Lindsay” to telemachus • 15 hours ago
    “Because we all believe in the Lord”

    “Patriccia Shaw” to David Lindsay. • 15 hours ago
    “Except for those of us who worship Allah”

    telemachus to Patriccia Shaw • 15 hours ago
    “Please desist from trolling
    You are lowering the tone”

    God botherers? From the professed Methodist and promoter of Labour Christianity Unite? And you lot want that malevolent mischief maker here?

  157. And:-

    Ben Richie-Hook to telemachus • 13 hours ago
    “Patricia Shaw, David Lindsay and Telemachus all show a remarkable similarity in prose style and upvote each other. Speaking as a Pansy Resting On It’s Laurels I wonder if they are the same person?”

    telemachus to Ben Richie-Hook • 3 hours ago
    “And if you are correct, I suggest a poll organised by Fraser to assess the views of the Spectator on line fraternity as to whether they be removed permanently”

    And you still think he posts here with any sincerity?

  158. ColM: The telemachus e-onanism that you’ve reproduced makes me wonder whether he is part of the dado_trunking lot. Suddenly the three sock puppets sound & look like them. And since when did the supposedly religious telemachus call monks God Botherers? The underlying issue is that you need to know who you’re dealing with online, even though most of us don’t use our real names.

  159. ColM: I’m sure that UnionJihack deliberately made the absurd comment & knew it was absurd: it was designed to evoke an outraged reaction. But sometimes responding to these comments is the only way of making other posters aware of what is happening.

  160. The Shavian mob must be wallowing in the attention they are arousing here and the consternation they are causing. Not only are the trolls being fed – it has become a virtual banquet for them.

    FFS!! We all recognise agitprop for what it is. I doubt that any Wallsters here are in anyway susceptible to its twaddle. So what’s the problem? Either bar the offenders, or studiously ignore them. One or the other: the continual agonising about their presence here (and elsewhere) is becoming more irritating than the content of their propaganda. As for their antics on Trolltopia? WGAF??

    Lets not forget that the raison d’etre of this platform is the existence of that gathering of a-holes and its hosts. Most of us here were blackballed from it – its a badge of honour to be so proscribed, surely? I thought that anyone that posts there now is either an adherent to its ethos or an occasional troll to stir the shite.

  162. Frank: Re your first paragraph, you are of course right & the risk of discussing the issue is that it gives comfort to them. I thought about it long & hard before posting. But if we say nothing doesn’t that allow them to affect our discourse by shutting us up?

  163. Colonel Mustard @ 09:22

    I threw rocks at snakes in a river, but never ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the school refectory. I am not quite sure why today that would be a bold deed anyhow, but then I was at school in the 40s and 50s for which period the list would be somewhat more robust. I am not even sure if there was an equivalent in English schools at that time. I could probably add to the list though and I see commenters do. I did not see catapults mentioned for instance (or indeed the less deadly potato guns which are no doubt outlawed now).

  164. Reading the advocated indulgences for telemachus, whose presence here is entirely cynical and manipulative, the reasons for the situation our country is in becomes much clearer

    As he has previously stated, Peter of Maidstone would really like really to operate the CHW as a free speech blog open to all. Thus far he has displayed admirable stoicism enduring without too much complaint some/many comments which I sure have have caused his nostrils to flare and bristle. I’m sure that we can all appreciate Peter’s dilemma when it comes to barring people, not that blocking/barring is that easy and it is time consuming to police – I’m certain that he has more pressing demands upon his time.

    Run with the CHW being free speech blog, or by all means make it a private subscription only one. Half-measures don’t works. The decision has to be Peter’s alone.

    I found the recent a poll in asking the crowd “what is to be done” not without some irony. Not that I’m casting Peter in the role of Pontius Pilate, or telemachus in the role of Jesus.

    It’s not compulsory to read the usually incoherent comments of telemachus. Delve into them at your own peril, but after the first few times you surely have ask yourself why on earth you keep doing it.

    “You have the right and the responsibility to ignore trolls” could be another slogan for the CHW

  167. Malfleur June 20th, 2015 – 11:26

    I think that might refer to the current policing of lunch boxes and the insistence on healthy food, etc., by adult weenies. I equated it to illicit drinking and smoking as well as eating unripe scrumped fruit although I am not unfamiliar with the delights of peanut butter and jelly – or to give it its correct title – jam.

    The making of bows and arrows was a regular, even expected, pastime and as well as catapults propelling ball bearings and marbles I remember a metal crossbow could be bought in toy shops that could fire pencils and the like at a dangerous velocity. There were homemade catapults and the more deadly store bought metal types. A school friend and I, inspired by the classics, went through a period of making slings and experimenting with them on unsuspecting targets using various objects as missiles. The range, accuracy and velocity surprised us both. “War” injuries, even those requiring stitches or plaster casts, were usually treated as accidents and the “boys will be boys” dismissal (anathema to feminists now). The concept of litigation and compensation was unheard of. The nearest you got was a slanging match between sets of parents.

    Boys found in class with “weapons” usually had them confiscated and were subjected to immediate physical chastisement that nowadays would be classified as abuse, such as repeated blows to the back of the head with a text book, or being led to the front of the class by the ear or the short hair at the temples. Most of the male teachers in my school were eccentric veering on deranged if not insane.

  168. Frank.
    I post on the Spectator site under a succession of pseudonyms usually triggered by the attack of one or other stupid fellow posters who think it good to target a lady. It is however no business of others why I change or indeed whether I have posted before.
    I wonder how many of your regulars have posted under other names and how many continue to do so.
    On this blog there are some who irritate me and dear Malfleur springs to mind. But irritating posters take away the impression of sameness for which we have been criticised.
    I have said before that we miss some of the “Greats” like Austin Barry and I understand from elsewhere that they like interesting debate.
    I do not think that you should deny this by pursuing sameness.

  169. Damaris Tighe June 20th, 2015 – 10:26

    I have ‘flounced’ (© telemachus) from here before too! The irony is that it was a comment from telemachus at the other place that brought me back.

  171. Jennifer: I agree that there is the temptation for a site like this to become a cosy mutual back-slapping. Debate must include those who we completely disagree with. If you are who I think you are, the succession of names isn’t a problem. Although I personally find it unsettling, that isn’t a reason to bar it. It’s your freedom & my problem. It’s the intention to deceive other posters by pretence that’s the issue.

  173. ColM & Malfleur: At school I was regularly stabbed in the thigh by a boy with a sharp pencil. I was mildly amused & it never occurred to me to report it.

  174. Being irritated by someone is close to finding someone offensive and finding someone offensive is now grounds for banning them or indeed having them locked away – go for it Jennifer!

    What on earth is all this waffle about trolls which seems calculated to draw us away from matters of substance – to the point that I begin to wonder whether the oleaginous Damaris Tighe is none other that telemachus.

    Let’s get back to trying to understand what evil this way comes and how, if possible, to forestall it; which I like to assume is the fundamental aim of CHWs – apart from having a bit of fun.

  175. Frank: I realise that you escaped here to have nothing to do with Trolltopia. But surely it’s wrong to stay in a cosy little womb & ignore what is happening at the only conservative mag? It reflects the wider world, the browbeating of the right, & therefore I argue an appropriate subject for comment.

  177. Malfleur: Oh for heaven’s sake, this is what I mean. There’s no need to make a personal comment because you disagree with me. Of course I’m not T. And if I’m ‘oleaginous’ it’s because I try to be polite & friendly, & restrain my temper.

  178. Personally, I think that’s a new and exciting démarche for the Wall.

  180. My presence here always seems to be divisive. I try to get away from the unpleasantness at the other place & instead get big dollops of it here despite my efforts to be friendly & polite. Is is because you can’t deal with dissenting opinion? If you want to be a cosy club without newcomers, I’ll go. (I’m as far from the left as it is possible to go without becoming a national socialist, btw.)

  181. Damaris Tighe

    “And if I’m ‘oleaginous’ it’s because I try to be polite & friendly, & restrain my temper.”

    Mm, you’re on a slippery slope there! 😆

  187. Damaris Tighe June 20th, 2015 – 13:28

    Malicious swipes from Malfleur are as the sun rising and bears defecating in the woods.

    Why anyone should seek to keep a hedgehog in a plastic tub of soapy water is beyond me.

  190. Malfleur 12.48: ‘the evil’ – here’s my take on it.

    After WW2, not only did the Allies win but the left won. It became impossible to be truly centre right without being touched with the taint of National Socialism. National borders, immigration control & the very idea of a nation above & beyond the ‘civic’ became associated with the malignant nationalism of the enemy we defeated. That is why the centre right wouldn’t touch these issues. The Mob only have to cry ‘Nazi’ or ‘racist’ & the most moderate conservatives run for cover.

    ‘Racism’ & centre right opinion were rigorously policed while the left had complete freedom. Within a generation children were receiving a politicised education & they in turn instilled in their own children the assumptions & mores of the left – reinforced continually by the casual, subconscious knee-jerk cultural marxism of their surroundings. These are the generations who are emotionally & intellectually unable to see anything wrong with mass immigration, and are so religiously illiterate that they think that Islam is no worse than Christianity. If they do raise a criticism, it’s about waiting times at the surgery.

    Some have pointed out that as WW2’s roots were in WW1, the disaster started in 1914.

  191. Here’s a malicious comment: the Obama administration,programmed by international corporate fascists, arranges the murder of Christians in the Middle East and the United States.

  192. Malfleur June 20th, 2015 – 14:24

    Not really. You have made unprovoked attacks. A response is therefore to be expected.

    Playing the victim after initiating hostilities is for the trolls at the other place.

    Xien loi!

  193. Damaris Tighe
    June 20th, 2015 – 14:49

    “Some have pointed out that as WW2’s roots were in WW1, the disaster started in 1914.”
    It goes back way beyond that
    The post of mine that produced such abreaction encapsulated it (telemachus
    June 18th, 2015 – 19:10)
    “Let us go back to 1799 when Napoleon rescued the bold initiative of the French people to rescue themselves from the oppression of centuries of autocratic rule. In doing this they provided a template of freedom for the whole peoples of Europe
    Napoleon not only saved the revolution for the French but then applied the model throughout Europe. Until the forces of Prussian and Anglo-Irish Aristocracy put an end to this on 18 June 1815”
    *
    Wellington laid the foundations of German hegemony and German militarism that was only crushed after the last German dictator over reached himself at Staligrad allowing the Zhukov and Eisenhower pincers to finally crush the Krauts
    The left never won however
    The military industrial complex of France and Germany now strike terror into wayward Europeans and starving Greeks

  194. Stalin, Mao, the ISIS “Caliph” and now Napoleon. The pattern of offending continues.

  195. Damaris Tighe (12:54)

    “… cosy little womb …” – inappropriate use of a uterine metaphor! The only womb I ever fully occupied had had four previous tenants and two more after I vacated, so the world into which it launched me was beset with familial complexities; ‘cosy’ it wasn’t!
    ” … only conservative mag …” -Inappropriate use of word ‘conservative’ – once was, no longer is.
    “… escaped here to have nothing to do with Trolltopia” No . was ejected and with others similarly ousted, decided to set up in opposition – for various reasons too numerous to delineate here. If you’re interested hark back to the early postings on The Wall

    We used to encapsulate the problem under discussion with a succinct acronymic imperative:

    DFTFT!

  197. John birch@June 20th, 2015 – 14:12

    have you found a definite reference for this being a muslim attach or just guessing?

    the criminal is said to be Bosnian. 45% of Bosnians are muslim.

  198. Frank: All points taken! I still don’t understand the speccie’s banning policy. Or maybe I’m beginning to understand …

  200. Damaris Tighe@June 20th, 2015 – 15:35

    filled my garden with tesserae. always digging them up.

  202. Graz attack: the modus operandum is one used regularly in attacks on Israelis.

  204. Damaris Tighe
    June 20th, 2015 – 15:34

    “I still don’t understand the speccie’s banning policy. Or maybe I’m beginning to understand …”

    From my observation you are most likely to be banned by expressing very right wing views

    Some of you may remember

    ‘telemachus

    Who was banned for a provocative “right wing” reply to (as it happens)David Lindsey (now of BlogSpot– http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.co.uk/ )

    My IP was address was banned for a month and then I was allowed to return as

    telemachus

    But not

    ‘telemachus

    i

  205. Frank P 15.52: Indeed, & far higher in my hierarchy of needs than aqueducts & roads.

  206. Frank P 15.26: I’ve now read the very first posts here, & see that I was teaching my grandmother to suck eggs.

  207. I see in the first posts here that Nicholas suggests the Wall replicates the bonhomie of the pub. I think this is a wonderful idea & could be constructed via a ‘happy hour’ (or two, or three) when all posters vow to comment only whilst consuming craft beer, claret or a good malt.

  208. Damaris, I’ve noticed that the usual suspect trolls always seem to be absent from the other place whenever there is a big anti-austerity protest.

  209. ColM: The current infestation today is around 17-25% of posts (you were tagged by one). I assume there are no demos.

  210. Colonel Mustard @ 09:22

    Baron may have been wearing short trousers when young, but he always carried a pocket knife, a sign of boyhood, every boy had one, without it one would be laughed at. Some of the time he spent with other boys was playing elaborate games, throwing it fully or half open down to ground, the holding of the knife was of importance in the throws, one or two hands were involved, as was the distance from the ground, the knife had to turn before it hit the ground, the greater the number of turns the higher the number of points ….

    If memory serves the barbarian right, and it does in this instance, knives were never used when a brawl developed amongst the boys, (and often it did), nobody ever got hurt.

  211. EC @ 10:19

    That only shows you, EC, how often Baron watches films featuring the macho man. Never.

  212. As those from the land of the samurai may say, Malfleur: Kawakute kakkoi desu.

    (This is not Baron showing off, it’s a friend of his commenting on the clip, and then the barbarian may have not remembered it correctly anyway, the Colonel may put him right).

  213. Frank P @ 15:41

    Staying as far away from any of the institutionalised religions, minding one’s own business, enjoying life as it is is probably the best way to go, don’t you think, Frank?

  214. EC 13:53

    Thanks for the link, EC, done. The postage is close to the cost of the paperback. Mark should give up writing books, switch to delivering them (only joking).

  220. Baron June 20th, 2015 – 17:05

    There was a game, I cannot remember now what it was called, where two boys stood apart and threw the knife into the ground beside each other. You had to stretch your leg to the knife, retrieve it and throw it back. The idea was to reach a point where the other boy could stretch no further. We used sheath knives which were commonly worn on the belt by those who were scouts. I cannot remember them ever being used in fights either.

    かわいいし、かっこいいですよ！

  221. Re various people earlier today.
    WW1 was an absolute disaster for Europe. After nearly a century of almost peace, barring the silly Crimean war, and the madness of the Franco-Prussian war, the ties that held Europe together in loose bonds were fractured, never to be restored.

    The old classic Liberal regimes destroyed, deeply unpleasant amoral leaders such as Lloyd George appearing, and the slow destruction of the old structures in Britain dissolving under the corrosive drip of those named after the well-known spelling mistake: Fabius Cunctator.

    WW2 merely finished it off. People sometimes tell me that I would rather live in the ’50s. True, but it would be the 1850s, provided I had good teeth!

  222. Damaris Tighe June 20th, 2015 – 16:32

    Damarism there were big demos of the crusty, caterwauling red mobs this afternoon and many of the usual names seem to be absent from the other place. No doubt they will re-appear later well lubricated.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33210014

    Guest rabble rousers the multi-millionaires Russell Brand and Charlotte Church, assisted by Len McCluskey and Martin McGuiness of Sinn Fein.

  224. 1705 ; 1839

    It was simply called “Stretch”

    To win you needed long legs and a good sheath knife that never bounced

    Anyone who was anyone had a decent bone handled sheath knife with serrations on the back for filleting fish (my nephews call these Bear Gryll’s knives-and yes they can still take them to camp)

  225. The sad thing is that the competition for good knives now has a whole new meaning

    “It was not like I was carrying it because I was going to go and stab someone, it was just other people were doing it so it was just like an arms race. I think in a way—and this is a personal opinion—to make it equal, governments have nuclear weapons because someone else has got nuclear weapons. It is to defend ourselves. No-one wants to use it but it is just there as a deterrent”

    http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmhaff/112/11207.htm

  227. There is a horrible case in Sunderland of a three-week baby dying after being bitten by a tiny terrier dog. The baby had been left alone in the house by the mother and her ‘partner’ and the other children, and a thirty year old man is being charged by the police, although what the charges involve are not made clear. Frankly this case stinks, the stench is as bad as all those child abuse cases hidden away for decades. I truly hope I am wrong and just have a vile imagination, but I don’t think it is the dog who should be destroyed.

  231. Colonel Mustard 18:39

    Thanks also for the hint, Colonel, the barbarian has forgotten even the poor knowledge of the Japanese tongue he once possessed.

  232. Chris Morriss @ 18:44

    Agreed, the time one should have lived, Chris, down to the teeth, but a small annuity wouldn’t have come amiss either.

  233. Colonel Mustard @ 18:51

    If only Baron were younger, he would’ve attended, too, holding a home-made banner saying ‘a free roasted chicken for everyone, each day, home delivery’.

    Could anyone object?

  236. Whoops! Harley the Hedgehog – c’est moi! Forgot to change the name back: I AM a silly billy.

  237. telemachus @ 19:37

    It’s back to what the barbarian said often in the past. If those responsible for the safety on our streets protected us well, not many would carry a knife for personal protection. And it’s not about punishment only, of course.

    The great Burke: ‘Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters’.

    Think what we’ve done to the institutions that used to instal the ‘controlling power upon will’? The family, the church, the school? And as it that wasn’t enough, we’ve also lowered the barrier to entry to crime, abolished capital punishment, limited life imprisonment to 25 years (half of it, if the miscreant admits to the crime), switched from retributive to restorative justice …

    The result is what one sees watching the news every day: Serious crime in one form or another.

    Take a recent case of a bunch of thieves in East Anglia, who burgled over 100 houses in four counties over a number of years, sold the booty, pocketed over one million pounds, boasted about it on Facebook, but also, as the TV reporter said ‘destroyed the lives of many’. The leader of the gang got 8 years, the others from 8 months to seven years, serving half of the time they’ll be out on parole.

  238. Whoops! Harley the Hedgehog – c’est moi! Forgot to change the name back: I AM a silly billy.

  239. Baron @ 15l21

    You’ve lost me here, Baron; but since we can all understand or write simple Japanese if our Google search is working, I take that to mean in reference to someone or something: “you’re cute,handsome/good-looking/cool.”

    I just hope you are not being malicious; that would never do on a genteel site such as this 🙂 or possibly 🙁

  240. And to those who pull rank posting in Vietnamese: 去你的 !

    Now, can we leave the kiddy’s sandpit?

  241. On the Duke of Wellington

    Napoleon was obsessed by his goal of breaking England. His “Continental System” came close to achieving it. Perhaps this is what telemachus would like to have seen.

    If Wellington lay the foundations of anything by his victories in Europe, it was for the thwarting of that ambition of Napoleon’s.

  242. Malfleur @ 23:27

    That’s right, you’ve got it, Malfleur, first time.

    Not that Baron can get things right in first go. The institutions in his rant at 23.12 were responsible for injecting the young with the ‘controlling power upon will and appetite from within’, and if that failed, the controlling power had to be applied ‘from without’ by the criminal law. But you get the message anyway.

  243. Baron @ 23:44

    Yes, that controlling power seems to be neither within nor without at this time. How do we get it back before we are all enslaved or dead seems to be the question: to be, or not to be?

  244. Malfleur @ 23:31

    Now, that’s the mother of all showings off, Malfleur.

    But can you pronounce it?, or would the result be identical to that of Mark Twain talking in French to the French, then commenting ‘I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language’.

  245. Malfleur @ 23:51

    That, Malfleur, as our friends from the Republic would say ‘is the $64,000 question’.

    Btw, why $64,000? Anyone knows?

    The clock has struck midnight, it’s bed time for Baron (well, it isn’t really, he still has a book to read ‘How not to be wrong’ by a mathematician Jordan Eilenberg, null hypothesis, probability and stuff like that. Written wittily, but somewhat beyond the barbarian’s capacity to follow it all).

  246. ‘Get along with you’ (去你的 – ‘hoi lei di’ in Cantonese or ‘quiu ni di’ in Mandarin) is a bit tame. But maybe you were going by the imperfect Americanisation of Google which ripens it up.

    崖岸. . .

    Are malfleur and Malfleur one and the same or is that a telemachean sock puppet thing?

  247. Harley the Hedgehog June 20th, 2015 – 23:06

    More than ‘sometimes’. But I’d rather be a frequent silly billy than carry your burden.

  249. Come on Cameron, instigate a full enquiry into this accusation:

    UK terror police ‘radicalised and groomed our IS runaway wives’: Shock claim by husbands of women who fled to Syria with their children
    * Downing Street denounced claim as ‘wrong and dangerous’
    * The three sisters took their nine children to join IS terrorists last week
    * Husbands claim police encouraged the women to contact their radicalised brother in Syria
    * Lawyers for the men also blamed ‘oppressive police surveillance’

    “Plainly the North East Counter-Terrorism Unit (Nectu) has been complicit in the grooming and radicalising of the women.”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3132915/UK-terror-police-radicalised-groomed-runaway-wives-Shock-claim-husbands-women-fled-Syria-children.html

    It’s no good just denouncing the claim. It needs to be fully understood just what happened, so we can judge everyone, not just the Police, but those making the accusations, and the politicians! We need to know what guidelines the Police were given by the politicians, local and national.

  250. RobertC @ 09:44

    ‘The police encouraged the women to contact their radicalised brother in Syria?’

    Well, Robert, not a bad start, we should widen the approach, go nationwide, both sides could benefit. We’ll free ourselves from the people who may do us harm here, they, the ISIS thugs, will get more of willing cannon fodder.

    What puzzles on this touching, never ending saga of rainbow love is why should anyone in authority be in any way or form involved in what people want to do, where they want to go, when they want to go.

  251. 😯
    When I pasted Colonel Mustard’s Japanese phrase into the Google search box Google came up with a lot of images of Japanese, presumably, teenage, presumably, cheerleaders. However Google translate came up with the same results as Herr Fehlerblume obtained.

  254. EC @ 11:13

    Lazy of the barbarian not to think of the internet, thank you, EC.

    But still, what is it, a $64 question or $64,000 one? Could one say either what with a world in which a trillion of dollars here or there seems like a puny sum of money. For the Americans anyway.

    Your timing of the barbarian’s involuntary detention at the two no star establishments operated by the agency of the watchful eyes is close, but no cigar, EC. By the time of Leonid’s rule, the barbarian was already digging coal, helping to deliver the bright, carefree and plentiful future for all.

  257. EC @ 14:37

    It was he, EC, sadly, the man has pegged it years ago, no chance for any recrimination.

    The one thing on the clip that is of interest is the ocean scene, done quite well, one can almost believe such a creature exists, (perhaps it does?).

  258. Talking about the absent guru of the site, he has disappointed of late. Not a word on the land of the evil KGB colonel, and yet things have been happening either in Mother Russia or close by.

    The Ukrainians have got hold of 16-page, densely written document that is the outline of the Russian takeover of Ukraine, down to how to interrogate their soldiers, first offer them a drink, a cigarette or two, if they still cannot see the wisdom of surrendering shoot them dead. The document is now few weeks old, but it has been from page news not only in the Ukrainian MSM, but elsewhere in continental Europe, too.

    In Belgium and France, the courts are busy issuing orders for the confiscation of Russian assets. It has to do with the Khodorovsky’s Yukos oil outfit taken over by Putin years ago (2011), allegedly for avoiding taxes, other shenanigans, the Yukos shareholders, many of them from the west, have argued the takeover was illegal, motivated purely by politics, the International Arbitraging Court has ordered Russia to pay not an insignificant amount of $50bn, the Russians appealed, nevertheless the lower courts ruled the appeal illegal, Russian property, bank accounts were seized. The latest news seem to indicate the unfreezing of the confiscate assets. Hmmm

    It may well seem to you a side issue, but the barbarian reckons the KGB may be keeping an eye on Mr. Khodorkovsky, not to do him in, but to prevent others from dispatching him from this world. He has more than many enemies both inside and outside of Russia, amongst the emerging oligarchs, after communism imploded in Russia, he allegedly had the reputation of the most ruthless one. And the last thing the one who loves stripping to the waist needs is another corpse of someone who doesn’t see an eye to eye with him.

    And lastly, two of the girls of the Pussy Riot fame have staged a demonstration in the streets of Moscow. Dressed in the same prison garb they wore when inside, they were stitching a Russian banner, telling passers-by of how evil the Putin’s regime is. Nothing much happened, they were mostly ignored, even told to shut up, until the police were called, ordered the girls to strip off, stop sewing the banner.

    Of course, the two courageous females refused, were taken to a police station, questioned, but by some mistake left in the police room on their own, in which time they finished the banner, hanged it on the fall, got kicked out, altogether enjoying some three hours of the Moscow police hospitality.

    All that, and few things beside, and not a word from Mr. Boot?

  259. They, the two girls of courage in the land where dissent exists not, hanged the banner not on the fall, but on the wall.

    This actually isn’t the barbarian’s mistake, the new gadget he has recently acquired, is still getting used to, seems to have a mind of its own, it changes words at will, and as Baron doesn’t bother to check what he’s written (yes, yes, he should) he gets banners hung on the fall. Arghhh

  260. And on a more serious note:

    A top Russian official (Putin’s advisor) has admitted the one sanction that seriously bites is that barring Russian financial institutions from the Western long term capital markets. They cannot borrow over 9 months, that ‘avenue of loans has been closed to them’ as Basil Fawlty might say.

    That surprises Baron, he thought that not only the ban on long term borrowing, but also the one preventing western most up-to-date oil drilling technology to be exported to Russia were the two injurious parts of the sanctions. He still thinks so, (although the Russians may have already found substitute suppliers for the latter, (viz. the attendance of many oil majors in the St Petersburg gathering recently).

    Unless lifted, the two bans combined will unquestionably delay, and delay noticeably, the advancement of the Russian economy in the years ahead.

    The near spectacular growth in Western economies since the war (until the near financial collapse in 2007, or earlier, the timing is arguable) had been underpinned by two key macro components – the abundance and low cost of of both credit, and fossil fuels.

    Without either one or the other, the West would not enjoy the standard of living today that would have been a dream to any generation until the present. One can watch clips from the 50s everywhere from Britain, Germany even the Republic, compare to what we have today to appreciate the near unbelievable betterment in every aspect of our lives – material possessions, the deliver of health services, communications …

    The two biting sanctions imposed on Russia were designed to block, inhibit, or at least derail the country from replicating our post war success for to develop the vast oil reserves Russia possesses, it needs both the access to long term credit and the use of the most advanced drilling technology the West has. (The oil fields of the north will take years if not decades to bring to full flow).

  261. Baron

    It sounds like a variation on Napoleon’s Continental System which was designed to break England.

    We know what to expect should Nigel Farage manage to break the United Kingdom free of the absolutists in Brussels. This time our political class has largely dismantled our navy in anticipation.

  262. When is someone going to confront the Chancellor of the Exchequer publicly with the question of what he was discussing at the Bilderberg Group meeting in Austria this month and not going to allow it to be shrugged off with a facile, superficial or facetious answer? Under oath in open session before a parliamentary committee would be a good venue.

  263. “The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” George Orwell.

    I think it is fair to say that what unites us on the Wall is that we are trying to figure out what the truth is.

  268. The press now report the driver of the car in Graz is Alen Rizvanovic who left Bosnia at the age of four.No mention of Islam.Two of his victims are also from Bosnia;a young newly wed couple.

  270. RADFORD NG

    That’s Afghanistan Reconstruction for you, RADFORD NG! Ask Frank P.

    Good try – but no SIGAR.

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