Craig Murray Is Back
Here. He's also put his Rectorial Address on his site. Read it for two reasons - a) it's funny and b) there are people in the world who'd rather you didn't.
Heckling is a process in the jute industry. To heckle is to comb out the jute prior to spinning. It was a tough, manual job and the heckling shops were murky with dust that choked the lungs. The hecklers were famous for their radicalism, probably a reaction to their terrible working conditions, and would turn up and yell at politicians. I think that’s quite right – present company accepted I don’t recall ever meeting a politician who did not ought to be shouted at. Thus the hecklers yelled, and the verb “To heckle” jumped from a textile process to a political barracking. Uniquely, as far as I know, what other student unions call election hustings, DUSA called election hecklings.
One appalling development in modern politics is the death of heckling.
Nowadays politicians deliver their sound-bites to a pathetically complacent and complicit media, in front of a carefully selected and vetted audience of the faithful. Just try getting close enough to a politician to heckle them. I mean that literally – please do try. When someone does manage, like Walter Wolfgang, the eighty year old who shouted “Rubbish” at Jack Straw, they are likely to be manhandled and arrested under the laughably named Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Jack Straw, incidentally, is a man who should have “Rubbish” shouted at him from the moment he steps out of the shower in the morning until the moment he retires with his evening cocoa.
Good to have him back
Good to have him back
Good to have him back
Good to have him back
"Prevention of Terrorism
"Prevention of Terrorism Act"
"Two well-respected US peace activists, CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin and retired Colonel and diplomat Ann Wright, were denied entry into Canada On October third. The two women were headed to Toronto to discuss peace and security issues at the invitation of the Toronto Stop the War Coalition. At the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Bridge they were detained, questioned and denied entry."
"The FBI's placing of peace activists on an international criminal database is blatant political intimidation of US citizens opposed to Bush administration policies,"
http://tinyurl.com/34swty
Access to Services Before
Access to Services
Before the recess the Speaker approved the Administration Committee’s recommendation that Members should have priority access to services throughout the Commons part of the Parliamentary Estate.
With effect from today, staff and other users should be prepared to give way to Members when queuing for retail and catering services, the post office, travel office or when using other facilities such as lifts, photocopiers, telephone cubicles, etc.
When using parliamentary facilities, please bear in mind whether there is, or is likely to be, a heavy demand from Members and, if so, try to amend your own plans or schedule.
Peter Grant Peterkin
Serjeant at Arms
Sue Harrison
Director of Catering Services
[source]
Scott Ritter (UN weapons
Scott Ritter (UN weapons inspector in Iraq) wrote an interesting article "Oil, Israel, and America: The Root Cause of the Crisis" but what makes this really interesting are some of the deeper posts.
Remember when Carole Coleman
Remember when Carole Coleman tried to get Bush to answer a question instead of spewing his talking points? We need more like her.
Good article, but for the
Good article, but for the part that reads "present company accepted". I suspect the author means "present company excepted".
I like the bit about Jack
I like the bit about Jack Straw being a man who should have "Rubbish" shouted at him continuously from breakfast time to supper time. Straw is the man who said the most incredibly stupid things in favour of invading Iraq (including claiming that Blix's list of disarmament issues was a stock-list of Iraqi WMDs) but then claimed that he wasn't in favour of the invasion. He once said about Saddam that he lived in a world of lies so he wouldn't recognise the truth if it was plonked down in front of him: the evidence suggests however that the same could be said of Straw.
"British government
"British government accessing telephone records"...
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/ukda-o18.shtml
George you've done it again,
George you've done it again, I've just spent the last ten minutes with my head in my hands. Are we such a bovine population that these crimes are perpetrated against us and all we do is moo? damn. Anyway may I respond with Gordos finally traded away the UK but kept the levels of labour 'flexibility' that keeps us the capitalists first choice in europe. And Hillary is taking it up the tradesmans from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon. Its a topsy turvy world and I want to get off. Maybe if I started by cancelling broadband and started reading the Sun & vow never to watch the news (apart from ITV) again, hit myself over the head at 12 noon everyday I would forget that they record the way we vote.
tio Here is some more. "It
tio
Here is some more.
"It beggars belief that US health privateers straight out of Michael Moore's Sicko are being lined up to run core NHS services"...
http://tinyurl.com/29j6sh
MPs will have an additional
MPs will have an additional four days of holiday in 2008 compared to this year, it has been announced.
They will take 91 days - or 18 working weeks - off, Harriet Harman, the leader of the Commons, has confirmed...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7051836.stm
OK you win :(
OK you win :(