The General Discussion Thread

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[Publish Date updated to restore to front page]

Okay as an experiment here it is. Discuss your favourite generals here!

Well perhaps… Really this is simply the place to post news-items, fun-items or whatever takes your fancy. In short just post what you want here.

It’s just another wee experiment – comments welcome.

Squonk.

[Image: General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett (Stephen Fry)]

17,285 thoughts on “The General Discussion Thread”

  1. The tsunami wasn’t inevitable but an overdone. human-made disaster, and 9/11 was certainly not a surprise as Yale student Suzanne Jovin had predicated it in her senior thesis and was murdered for doing so, John O’Neill was fired as WTC security chief for still predicting it, and NSA director Michael Hayden lied when he said that it was not following the hijackers whose money and support came from Osama bin Laden.

  2. Fred, I said, “No conspiracy, Fred, I just think that you will always swallow the ‘official line’ no matter what.”

    Your response is just shite. Lol

  3. Anglo-Americans ala NATO are still trying to call the shots in East Asia.

    Mike Pompeo calling China’s development of islands in the South China Sea as illegal when it is only following a precedent it set in building a naval base off Jeju island which resulted in that ferry disaster in 2014 carrying materials for its construction.

    Then it was in the process of shooting down a joint Russian/Chinese mission to the moon when the FSB discovered how known launch details was being learned to cause an undiscoverable NATO disaster.

    Then Australian right winger as the UK representative there, Governor General Sir John Kerr, dismissed in 1975 Gow Whitlam and his reforming government without Queen Elizabeth’s knowledge or approval, action that may have profound effect upon the Commonwealth’s very existence.

  4. I’ve been surprised there wasn’t indisputable evidence of irreparable harm to our Oceans after Fuk.

    It’s possible it was mitigated by the uploading of fuel for spacecraft.

    They tend to hang around nukes not out of curiosity, but practicality.

  5. “The bald fact is, us humans need to cut back our energy consumption until we have a decent method of supplying it.”

    So you want an authoritarian government which will force everyone to use less power, throw away their technology, stop taking holidays, stop going to music festivals.

    You will oppose anything which will stand in the way of brainwashing children into thinking if they don’t overthrow the capitalist system they will die.

  6. Trowbridge: John O’Neill was fired as WTC security chief for still predicting it

    John O’Neill wasn’t fired, he was still WTC security chief on 9/11. He was recruited to the role 2 weeks before 9/11 by deeply sinister security firm Kroll Associates He was in the South Tower when the first plane struck the North Tower. He was seen by multiple witnesses to be alive and well several hours afterwards, then he disappeared and is counted amongst the victims.

  7. “I’ve been surprised there wasn’t indisputable evidence of irreparable harm to our Oceans after Fuk.”

    The Pacific Ocean is incredibly big Ben, if you are in the middle of it the nearest humans to you are likely to be on the space station.

  8. Ben, suspect there is the evidence, just not reported, although some issues can’t be kept under wraps – and even then probably because MSM are more interested in the Olympic Games to be held in Japan 2021.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W8nD1gIA5_Q

    The fishing industry isn’t the best (!) following the disaster and I wouldn’t fancy eating any fish from there now, never mind after radioactive water is spewed into the ocean.

    The size of the ocean is irrelevant, so I’m not sure what Fred’s point is with size e.g. if he were 7ft tall, he would likely complain if someone suggested he could afford to lose a leg.

  9. Node, in my article about O’Neill he was fired by the Bureau officials below the Director for going on about the islamists still going to attack the WTC by the people you mention, for what purpose?

    None that I can see. Just spouting off to cause continuing confusion.

  10. “The size of the ocean is irrelevant, so I’m not sure what Fred’s point is with size e.g. if he were 7ft tall, he would likely complain if someone suggested he could afford to lose a leg.”

    But I wouldn’t be worried about cutting my toe nails.

  11. – “So you want” blah blah blah… “You will oppose” blah blah blah…

    Stop telling me what I think.

    You’re just a troll, Fred.

  12. “Stop telling me what I think.”

    An argument against nuclear is an argument for global warming.

    You are telling me what you think.

  13. JOML: Acre-feet measurements of water dont account for depth so volume is relevant. Even terrorists have learned that city water supplies would necessitate truckloads of Agent to be added in order to significantly affect the drinking water of the population

  15. – “You are telling…

    Start speaking for yourself Fred. I find your style rude and aggressive. It puts me in a bad mood, making it difficult to think clearly. If you want to know my thoughts, you can ask.

  17. And Fred, stop misrepresenting my position. I haven’t argued against nuclear power. I have argued against pressurised water reactors and their variants, because they produce far more radioactive waste than necessary, and they are prone to and have a record of melting down and blowing up. These are the same criticisms as made by their inventor. I already told you that, and I find it insulting to be ignored.

  18. JOML – “Suppose we deserve all we get”

    No we don’t. Things are done wrong and badly for political and economic reasons. Much better choices have been available in just about every field, but governments bend to short-termism and vested interests, and fail to lead in the best interests of people and planet. People vote ineffectively due to misinformation, and lack of time to remedy ignorance.

  19. Trowbridge: John O’Neill was fired as WTC security chief for still predicting it

    Would you believe Wikispooks?

    John O’Neill was an active and sincere expert in anti-terrorism. He was killed on September 11, 2001, where he had been told to report at his first day at work as head of security at the WTC.

    https://wikispooks.com/wiki/John_O%27Neill

  20. 1963 Vajont Dam collapsed killing 1,917 people. 1975 Banqiao Dam collapsed killing 26,000 people, 145,000 more from subsequent disease and famine, 11 million homeless. 1979 Machchhu Dam collapsed, 25,000 people killed.

    Yet no one is saying we shouldn’t build hydro electric power plants because they are dangerous. Instead they point at Dounreay and say it has a poor safety record or Fukushima with just one recorded fatality.

  21. I dont believe the vague carping of the Wikispooks article with no mention of O’Neill working for the FBI and without reading it. I had a 2002 article about him, a voice in the wilderness, in Eye Spy magazine which editor Ian Birdsall paid me nothing, and i have had articles in Wikispooks which Peter Pressland won’t even acknowledge the existence of, like the one on Cyoptome.org’ s John Young.

    Web articles are often stolen, and crooks often are the editors of publications.

  24. I’m not in favour of more hydro. I have quoted the dangers of dam failures myself.

    Fred, I have my doubts about expanding nuclear power in its current form, at a guess a hundred-fold to replace current energy needs, or maybe four hundred-fold to make enough for the poorer parts of the world to live by Western standards. In the Twentieth Century there were worries that there was insufficient uranium to last for very long; that was why breeder reactors like Dounreay were tried. Later, more uranium reserves were found, but a hundred or four hundred times as much? Enough for a long term future? I asked you about this, but you simply ignored the question.

    I mentioned developing less energy-intensive lifestyles, but you misrepresented this as a call for authoritarianism. Many people I speak to don’t like the modern, high pressure, consumerist way of life. They’d like more free time, less work, better pay and less commercialism. You yourself told me that you moved to where you are for such a life, yet you argue for neoliberal, highly consumerist capitalism as the only acceptable option.

    I don’t get it Fred.

  25. I worry about the security state that nuclear power necessitates, and the weapons proliferation risk, the terrorism risks. I worry that it’s very centralised, whereas a more distributed system would be more robust, especially when climate change causes extreme weather wreaking havoc on distribution grids. I wonder, if civilisation starts to break down, who would shut down, de-fuel and decommission these tens of thousands of reactors. I worry about the necessary enlargement of enrichment, reprocessing and geological disposal facilities. I have read nuclear bomb designer Ted Taylor’s book, The Curve of Binding Energy.

    Fred, only you know why you’re pushing so hard on this. I quite like nuclear tech; I like this little film:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QcN3KDexcU

    But I can see serious problems with trying to supply humanity’s energy needs with nuclear power.

  26. “But I can see serious problems with trying to supply humanity’s energy needs with nuclear power.”

    So what about all the bad things you say will happen if we don’t do something to reduce carbon emissions soon?

    Governments can’t force people to use less energy, not if they want to still be the government after the next election, they can build nuclear power stations though.

  27. – “Governments can’t force people to use less energy, not if they want to still be the government after the next election”

    Yes, that’s precisely the problem. Governments can’t govern, lead, for the more distant future because they need to satisfy more immediate desires to get re-elected. That’s why XR are calling for a Citizen’s Assembly.

    * Tell the Truth.
    * Act Now.
    * Beyond Politics.

  28. – “Governments can’t force people to use less energy…”

    But the current economic system is very effective at almost forcing people to use more energy. Your local hospital had cutbacks, forcing you, and probably others, to drive a very long way several times, and that’s an example from the public sector. The private sector is pretty much predicated on getting people to buy stuff and throw stuff away.

    “Throw it away” where? Little clues in our language – “dispose of it thoughtlessly (“throw”) away from me!” – Disperse it in the atmosphere (CO2). Throw it down a hole (Dounreay). Dissolve it in the ocean (Fukushima). But we’re everywhere now; “away” has gone.

    Meanwhile, I have a migraine. I have not yet returned a friend’s computer I’ve been solving some problems on. I haven’t yet fixed my washing machine and the laundry is accumulating, I’m out of clean socks. I’m failing; it’s my fault.

  29. “That’s why XR are calling for a Citizen’s Assembly.”

    You honestly think people are that stupid? You think sticking the word “Citizen’s” in front of something will make people accept it?

    What makes you think your citizen’s assembly will do what you tell them to do?

    We need real solutions.

  30. I think any poster who takes Node seriously should think again. He is one of the biggest trolls on the web, making grand claims about a conspiracy when the debate about it is still going or deliberately picking a fight with someone like me over a detail of one wrongly.

    FBI Director Louis Freeh was so upset over what happened to John O’Neill because of CiA’s George Tenet’s taking over domestic counter intelligence that he attended his funeral.

    And Peter Pressland of Wikispooks is so unconcerned about facts that he still has me retired living in Sweden after 8 years working here in New Haven, Connecticut, and had me write an article about space weapons for another site, and attacked it as wild speculation and blamed complaints about it wrongly as coming from Craig Murray’s doubting posters.

  32. Fred, I don’t understand your 10:34 comment:

    – “You honestly think people are that stupid?”

    It’s because I think people aren’t stupid that I support the call for a Citizens’ Assembly.

    – “You think sticking the word “Citizen’s” in front of something will make people accept it?”

    The proposal is for an assembly chosen by random selection from the population, like jury service. This is called sortition.

    – “What makes you think your citizen’s assembly will do what you tell them to do?”

    The proposal is to teach incoming members critical thinking, and for the assembly to be informed from expert scientific and academic sources.

    – “We need real solutions.”

    I wholeheartedly agree. James Hansen testified to Congress in 1989, yet the existing political systems are still failing to halt the problem.

  36. Fred, thanks for The Faulty Science, Doomism, and Flawed Conclusions of Deep Adaptation; excellent article:

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/

    The authors’ first four points make a decent summary:

    – 1. There is an unprecedented global climate and ecological emergency. If governments do not undertake enormous measures to mitigate climate change, then some form of “societal collapse” is plausible — albeit in varying forms and undoubtedly far worse for the poorest people.

    – 2. Policymakers and society at large are not treating this grave threat with anything approaching sufficient urgency.

    – 3. The climate crisis is dire enough in any case to justify urgent action, including mass sustained nonviolent disruption, to pressure governments to address it swiftly.

    – 4. However, neither social science nor the best available climate science support Deep Adaptation’s core premise: that near-term societal collapse due to climate change is inevitable.

    I haven’t actually read Deep Adaptation, but the Open Democracy article is excellent in its own right, with several linked articles I hope to read.
    – – – – – – – – – –

    I might get to watch your YouTube link about Small Modular Reactors too, but I’m only one person and I find your adversarial style very demanding. I think the General Electric / Hitachi PRISM reactor, and its derivative the Stable Salt Reactor may be promising as well. Both claim to help utilise and thereby break down “spent” fuel, something I think should be done anyway, if it can be done well.

  37. “Citizens’ assemblies and their context, deliberative democracy, have pages at Wikipedia”

    I know about them already and I don’t know I would consider them democracy, with democracy you have accountability, they are an attempt to replace democracy, to replace a well tried and tested system which has evolved over centuries with an untested hare brained scheme of Roger Hallam’s for no other reason than he thinks it will produce what he wants.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YHk_6Hi_IU

  38. What Roger Hallam wants and what XR might actually achieve are entirely different things, and XR is an international movement.

    – “to replace a well tried and tested system which has evolved over centuries…”

    Fred, come on! Hansen testified in 1989, emissions rise faster year on year, we’ve had nearly two decades of Arctic ice loss! We cannot just carry on as usual, time has nearly run out, the “tried and tested system” has consistently failed for over three decades. Even the article you linked says:

    – The climate crisis is dire enough in any case to justify urgent action, including mass sustained nonviolent disruption, to pressure governments to address it swiftly.

  39. So let’s talk of ways to reduce carbon emissions not ways of overthrowing the capitalist system.

  40. Strange that people can visualise the end of civilisation more easily than they could the end of capitalism. Capitalism does not allow for any form of coorporation. Capitalism did not defeat the Nazis in WW-II, socialism did.

    We need full worldwide coorporation in order to arrest and then possibly reverse climate change. That is not going to happen under a system where any given player can pop up and take advantage of everyone else’s sacrifices, particularly when industry is free to off-load their costs onto the commons indefinitely.

    Read Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything” for a very good discussion of this. (She is a bit wordy and labours points at times, admittedly)

  41. Fred, thanks for yet another Mallen Baker vid. His argument seems to be that the current political system can’t be improved on much. But seeing as it has consistently failed to address climate change for over thirty years, I disagree.

    I see that Mallen Baker also has failed to make much difference, failing to get elected as a Green Party MP and then joining the Liberal Democrats. He then got involved with the Prince of Wales and now seems to be doing OK for himself as a speaker at corporate events and a sort of consultant / coach. His personal comfort within the existing system does not endorse that system.

    I’m bored with his patronising, finger-wagging approach, and so far he has offered no positive suggestions.

  42. Anyone who says governments haven’t made a difference isn’t old enough to remember life before the Clean Air Act.

  43. Fred, you’ve presented yet another either-or, and I haven’t said anything about “overthrowing” anything. In fact, if you stop talking about “overthrowing the capitalist system”, there won’t be anyone mentioning it.

    Try not to take Roger Hallam so seriously; he’s just one person, same as Baker and Shellenberger.

  44. – “…before the Clean Air Act.”

    Yes, and the Montreal Protocol that controlled ozone-depleting chemicals including CFCs. Governments can change things (or they could), but in the case of greenhouse gas emissions they have failed to for thirty years, and are still failing.

    The fact that politics has steadily moved to the Right and capitalism has become increasingly neoliberal presumably has much to do with this. The Clean Air Act was 1956, during the “post-war consensus”. Those post-WWII governments did many great things, but almost all their gains have been eroded.

  46. I know Fred, but XR happens to have started in Britain, which is where I happen to live. Plus Britain’s per-capita emissions are still many times that of the vast majority of countries. Plus it depends what you count; Britain imports a lot, so the emissions for that production is really Britain’s, but it isn’t counted that way. Plus Britain is a powerful country, economically and militarily; it’s supposedly a “world leader” that “punches above its weight”. Indeed Britain does use its military to control much oil production; it has a naval base in Bahrain, and it’s disgustingly cosy with Saudi Arabia. Plus many fossil fuel companies are based in Britain; it was BP, British Petroleum, that had democracy overthrown in Iran. Plus the City of London is hugely powerful in finance, which determines what gets invested in. Plus Britain already used its own and many other countries’ carbon budgets because it’s where the Industrial Revolution started; Britain owes a carbon debt to most of the rest of the world. Plus Britain is the poodle closest ally of the US, the biggest emitter of the lot, by far.

    But anyway, XR is an international movement:

    https://rebellion.global/groups/#countries

  47. And dividing emissions up by countries is just another “blaming and shaming” exercise leading to yet more procrastination, like complaining that only those people with zero carbon footprints have any justification for taking action – nothing will ever get done that way, and indeed that precisely is a major reason for the failure of the emissions treaties, all the countries squabbling over which of them is more to blame, each refusing to do much before some other does more.

    So in Britain XR is pressuring the government to lead by example, and simultaneously setting the example to people in other countries of how to pressure their governments.

  48. – “How are the communist countries doing?”

    China leads the world in decoupling emissions from economic growth, by a factor of about five I think over the next best. China’s emissions are rising, but its economy is expanding many times faster, which is encouraging seeing as China manufactures so much for the rest of the world. China has greater growth in renewables than all other countries put together, I think. And they have a very interesting nuclear programme, developing some of those reactor concepts that the West abandoned for commercial reasons.

    Cuba’s done quite well as well, I think.

  49. Capitalism is not the problem.

    If only people could regulate their behavior there would be no need for regulations or incarceration. Imagine what we could do for society without the need for law enforcement.

    Imagine what progress could be made if currency werent the prime motivator for advances in medicine/pharma

    Imagine if research on botanical remedies had been funded properly from even 50 years ago.

    Adam Smith tried to mitigate the human avarice of Hobbesian concerns with the fantasy that some ‘Invisible Hand’ would temper greed through a divine method unseen and unknown.

    Trumpkin Bumpkins want even more deregulation for big bizness as though their success lifts all boats and they are responsible owners who do the right thing without constraints. Sure thing.

    It’s like their Nirvana is China with their unregulated bizness paradise.

    USSR showed how corrupt Socialism is little different from Capitalistic corruption because the Corruptor is Us

  50. – “Imagine what progress could be made if currency werent the prime motivator for advances in medicine/pharma

    – Imagine if research on botanical remedies had been funded properly from even 50 years ago.”

    Many pharmaceuticals are of botanical or other biological origin; often they look for interesting molecules in traditional remedies. Pharma isolate or synthesise the active substance or a variant of it, and patent it, so that they own the rights to it.

    But why do you say that capitalism isn’t a problem, when you also say “Imagine what progress could be made if currency werent the prime motivator”? I thought that currency being the prime motivator was the essence of capitalism.

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