Nothing to say?
“He who knows doesn’t say, he who says doesn’t know”. – Lao Tzu
After six years of regular blogging I have taken a long break. I didn’t have much to say. It’s not because I know it all, as the Lao Tzu quote above may imply … but because I have been somewhere in the middle … not knowing and staying quiet.
Time to get back to the mill. Probably going to post one or two posts a week .. we’ll see what happens. But I’m back blogging.
Listen to this post
Garden Bench
Put a garden bench in the communal garden today – the second to go in. Will post a picture soon. Sorry I haven’t posted in the last six months. I’ve been rather busy. Will tell all soon …
Listen to this postAssange Heads Time Magazine’s “Person Of The Year” Award – And a Call To Nobel Peace Prize Nominators.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2028734_2028733,00.html
Go there to vote for Julian Assange – in court today he was denied his freedom despite such luminaries as Ken Loach, John Pilger and Jemima Khan standing bail of £20,000 each.
Justice must be done here.
Those who are in a position to nominate candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize need to ask themselves if they want to live in a world where, as Congressman Dr Ron Paul so eloquently said, “If telling you the truth makes you a traitor we’re in big trouble”?
Assange deserves Time Magazine Award and the Nobel Peace Prize this year – the whistle blower systems he has in place will make Government around the world, corporations and others accountable to the press. Behind all the rhetoric this is the real reason Assange sits in gaol tonight.
Listen to this postBloggers, Wikileaks, Assange: and Bad Journalism.
Bloggers are oft accused of bad journalism. It’s true in many cases. Bloggers do not have access to the databases, resources and sources that traditional journalists command. Nor do they have the training and professionalism. However, the wikileaks/Assange scandal is creating a very widespread picture of bad journalism in some of the most renowned journals worldwide.
Numerous prestige publications continue to state that Asssange is wanted in Sweden on charges of rape. This is completely untrue. He is sought on charges of not using a condom. One of the women concerned “twittered” about her wonderful night with him – before comparing notes with the other accuser, trying to remove the record of her tweets then going to police to enquire. The first arrest warrant for rape was struck down immediately and many legal sources in Sweden have decried the treatment of Assange.
Many of these same publications accuse him of putting lives in danger by carelessly releasing 270,000 cables to the internet. Untrue. The cables are being redacted to remove such information by the five major News organisations Wikileaks is working with. As of yesterday 871 cables were in the public domain.
The truth is that Wikileaks last major release proved that the USA had been committing war crimes in Iraq recklessly. Over 100,000 civilians dead. Not a single death anywhere can be or has been traced to any of Wikileaks leaks. Ever.
The fact is that the USA is highly embarrassed by these leaks and so it should be: they contain highly embarrassing material. More embarrassing still is the unconstitutional and undemocratic pressure exerted through Corporate America via enterprises such as Amazon and Paypal to try and “hit them where it hurts”.
The only thing that will lead to the full 270,000 cables being released to the wild is if the USA and it’s allies maintain their current stance in the face of undeniable truth. Hillary Clinton ordered illegal spying on senior UN figures. US politicians, broadcasters and other idiots are calling for Assange to be killed. These are criminal acts.
Publishing leaked documents is not as many US legal commentators have maintained.
Listen to this postFIFA and Russia: Perfect Partners in Crime.
Thanks to the Wikileaks “cablegate” releases we now see in writing what many have known for a long time: Russia is virtually a Mafia state and Putin has little distance between him and the Mafiosi.
Thanks to the journalism of Panorama we now see clearly what many have known for a long time: that FIFA is also virtually a Mafia state and Sepp Blatter has done little to reverse things (but then there was some $50 million in bribes unattributed to anyone in the ILS scandal).
It’s pretty obvious why Russia won: not because of the Panorama investigation throwing the judges off – but because the Russian Mafia gave the FIFA Mafia a “helping hand” in deciding how to bid. Some Swiss bank accounts just got fatter.
Listen to this postHaiti
