The General Discussion Thread

[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. And you always post with “common manners”, do you Macky? I think not.

    BTW, it’s common manners to spell a person’s name correctly. And the spelling is
    DREOILIN.

  2. Macky

    That ‘conversation’ has been going on for a year or so. I just decided to take a break from CMs for a short while because it get’s time consuming and I have more productive stuff to do right now. As for leaving Herbie mid way he said he was going down the pub.

    Nice to hear you’re missing me though. 🙂

  3. @Macky,

    “I”m sure Phil is probably pleased that you used him as a basis of another pathetic snark.”

    Since 90% of your comments on CM involve “pathetic snark”, it’s funny to see you accuse others of the same thing. In other words, you’re up to your neck in projection — something you also accuse others of. 🙂

  4. And I’m leaving here now, for the moment. So you can accuse me of lack of proper etiquette also, Macky. 😀

  5. @DREOILIN., LOL!

    I hope you feel a bit better after your little spurt of venom; maybe one day you will have a pop at me for something legit, but I’m not holding my breath ! 😀

    BTW Good to see that I provoked you into posting something Habby will not approve of !

  6. Got the camera in a second hand shop,
    cannae beat the ol second hand shops, My lady friend ( listeningwater ) works as volunteer in one..they raise funds to take sickly folk to Lourdes ( though she herself aint religious ) in fact it looks like three of my lady friends will be there this year, as Carers.

    I can see you ending up an expert at Astrophotography Clark..Stand by the Nebulae. and Galaxies.

    BEN.. i Know you gave a hint that you could be offline awhile. Great to see ya back Noooo 🙂

  7. Brian
    How many 55
    Its been like withdrawal from schedule 1 narcotics but i hope soon to be exchanging quips with y’all on a regular basis. In the meanwhile I’ve been harassing conservative ignoramuses with thr same tactics Havasack employs. He teaches without underdtanding the import or the strategy.

  8. So long as yir safe Ben.

    methinks some things may be unpleasant if forced…Machines failing, bank empty. illness…if on the other hand We take leave by choice, get re-aquinted with nature… that would be both wise, and therapeutic… According to me

  9. @Brian, I’m replying here to you as your comment was about Sqounk; yes I made a comment about certain Posters, namely Clark & Phil, having ceased from the Ukraine debate at CM’s, and instead can be found here at Squonk, glazing at stars; my point is that both have done a runner when they realized that their povs were having no traction except with the well-known pro-establishment trolls. I was not having a pop at Sqounk, and I do actually find many of the diverse topics frequently discussed here interesting, even though I rarely participate in them.

    On a general but relevant personal point, I don’t share Craig’s often repeated & bizarre boast that he “doesn’t chose his friends by their politics”; this would mean for instance that Craig’s crowd of friends could include, fascists, racists, right wing Tories, free market freaks, women haters, blood stained New Labour people, etc, etc, you get the picture; a person politics tells you a lot about a person because it tells you their principles, for what they stand for, what their stand against, their priorities, etc.

    In addition to a person’s politics, a person moral & intellectual integrity is reveal as to how they conduct themselves, and frankly you have to have no integrity yourself if you are willing to overlook somebody’s politics you strongly disagree with, and whose behavior you find repellent & dishonest, just so because you want to call them “friend” and discuss safe subjects like star glazing; rest assured if you ever disagree even over a obscure astronomical point with such a “friend”, you will face the whole ugly package deal of what really constitutes that person.

  10. “Its been like withdrawal from schedule 1 narcotics but i hope soon to be exchanging quips with y’all on a regular basis.”
    _______________

    And there you have Ben in a nutshell – “exchanging quips”.

    Not serious.

  11. You are such a hilarious tosser Macky.

    Your comments on page 16+ of an obscure blog are so important!

  12. Phil; “Run you say? You are such a hilarious tosser Macky.”

    Yes you calling me a tosser really proves you didn’t rudely leave mid-way in a debate; you didn’t even say goodbye ! 😀

    I’m used to the RD & Habby trolls doing disappearing acts when debates get too hot for them, don’t know why, but perhaps I expected better from you.

  13. A haddock wrote

    And there you have Ben in a nutshell – “exchanging quips”.

    Hmm, better Ben’s quips than a yelping haddock!

  14. Phil; “Oooh Mrs Macky you’re just too hot for me!”

    Or perhaps it was your control freak “friend” who was getting too hot for you, so you simply had no choice but to obey orders, for the sake of your “friendship” of course !;

    ““PHIL! Give it up. They’re not real. See my comments above.”

    (hope you didn’t get an earache with such a big capitalised addressing to ! 😀 )

  15. I happen to love haddock but fried in beer batter as a filet. I don’t like whole fish on my plate with an eye on me, much less yelping..
    🙂

  16. Oh god I’ve just seen what you wrote:

    “…rudely leave mid-way in a debate…”

    Macky we’ve been over and over the same patch of ground for more than a year, probably two. And you think we’re only mid way through?

    I know when I’m beat. Alright I give up. Yes I ran away from your superior argument, your superior logic, your superior intellect, your superior everything. You are top dog of comment page 57.

  17. @Phil, no it wasn’t a competition to win an argument, but an attempt to understand each other’s position.

    I hope you obey your mrs as readily as you do your new friend !

  18. Anyway, Ben, good to have you back. And I don’t really mind quips as long as they’re reasonably clear and and not over-cryptic.

    Does your return mean that you sorted out your inheritance problem satisfactorily (something about a rogue brother, wasn’t it?)?

  19. If you don’t hear from me for a while I’m taking a rest from Craig’s. Last night my comments were put into pre-moderation for calling those who supported the fascists in Ukraine fascist supporters. Perhaps I need a rest.

    Macky, Peacewisher, Herbie and a few others thanks for your support. It gets quite lonely standing up against the western media bias which has poisoned good people’s minds and I think I am beginning to understand what the brave Germans who opposed Hitler’s Nazis had to put up with due to the indoctrination of the German people en masse.

    Good to know everything’s all right with you Ben.

  20. I have some visitors; a friend and his daughter. We all had a walk this afternoon. In the evening I roast some potatoes and set up the telescope. Coincidentally (I think) my friend had brought his Olympus 14megapixel compact camera so of course we tried it on the ‘scope. It fits much like my Samsung; a bit better through being smaller and lighter – very versatile, that hair-band and cable-tie mounting system. So all systems go, had a look at Venus, Jupiter and the gas cloud or whatever it is in Orion’s Sword, went to try some photos and of course the battery expired…

    Small and light is good but fancy custom battery less so; can’t charge up with my generic charger, so my friend’s gone off to get the custom one. Meanwhile I’ve lit the paraffin road lamps which are both practical and oh what’s that word when something reminds you of the old days?.

  21. John you ought to build a bridge for people to get across. The great divide isn’t really much help. But I don’t want to talk politics here… My friend is back and has brought me some KitKat. But the sky is clouding up.

  22. Mary, Lambkin,

    “Mind your own business. You are SO nosy.”

    _____________

    Waddya mean, so nosy? It was you and a couple of others who were continually asking “where’s Ben gone to” and “has anyone heard from Ben” when the Old Quipper disappeared from here and CM.

  23. John Goss; “If you don’t hear from me for a while I’m taking a rest from Craig’s. Last night my comments were put into pre-moderation for calling those who supported the fascists in Ukraine fascist supporters. Perhaps I need a rest. ”

    Yes, it’s a surreal topsy-turvy Orwellian world on CM, where calling people who post support for fascists, fascist supporters gets you on pre-mod; according to McClarky, where you are going wrong it that you are not building bridges to fascist supporters, especially for one in particular, who also has other endearing qualities such as smearing untold people as “anti-Semites” or as “Stalinists”, who threatens to cause real life trouble to other posters (ie to you), whose known to sock-puppet, and who once cause CM to shut down for a period of weeks because he threaten to call the police over mysterious anti-Semitic comments; yes how could you fail to see, like Clark does, that the sun rises & sets on well-meaning sweet, fascist supporting RD ?

    John Goss; “Macky, Peacewisher, Herbie and a few others thanks for your support. It gets quite lonely standing up against the western media bias which has poisoned good people’s minds and I think I am beginning to understand what the brave Germans who opposed Hitler’s Nazis had to put up with due to the indoctrination of the German people en masse.”

    I remember thinking exactly like that during the intense demonization of the Serbs leading upto & during the NATO attack; a conflict that apparently went unnoticed by a certain Craig Murray !!

    BTW Dave has posted something that will amuse you;

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/amnesty-international-conference-on-torture/comment-page-17/#comment-513505

  24. My friend and his daughter decided to stop over. I haven’t taken any more photos yet; mostly I just learned my way round the camera’s menu system. But I can’t quite believe what I did do. About three years ago I bought two digital cameras for ÂŁ5 each, I think. One was the Samsung Digimax D53 that I took the Jupiter photos with. The other was a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ1 which for some reason that I can’t remember I took to pieces, modified something in the optical assembly (I think), decided I needed to modify it some more, and then put in the drawer in pieces waiting further attention. That was about three years ago, I think. Could be longer. It was in four major pieces with screws and smaller pieces in a container cluttering up the drawer. Well I just put it all back together despite parts of it being too small for me to see these days and it worked! It all seems fine!

  25. John & Macky

    Your whining is laughable. Your sense of superiority misplaced and your righteousness zealous.

    You called me a fascist just because I maligned Putin.

  26. Clark

    I’ve got one of those lumix cameras. It takes good pics.

    I still miss 35mm slrs though. These digital things are just so slow.

  27. Phil; “Your whining is laughable. Your sense of superiority misplaced and your righteousness zealous. You called me a fascist just because I maligned Putin.”

    Are you sure it’s not actually your sense of misplaced paranoia, as I don’t recall either John or myself calling you a fascist, although I did infer you were Clark’s bitch.

  28. “Most of us were just concerned about Ben’s absence.”
    _________________

    And I was doubly concerned, which is why I went further and not only welcomed him back but also asked whether his problems (which were first raised by Ben himself) had been resolved satisfactorily. I care, you see.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=

    “NONE of us were prying into his personal affairs.”
    ___________

    I think that should read “NONE of us WAS prying into his personal affairs”.

    Had it been a mere typo or a rogue finger I would have said nothing but bad grammar is another matter altogether.

  29. Macky

    John did call me a fascist. As he has called just about anyone who doesn’t unquestioningly swallow Russian propaganda. No wonder he is in pre mod. He’ll be back before you know it.

    And you are just as bad. Attacking everyone at such great length. How many times are you going to make this same old snipe about Clark? It was never anything but dull. You are such a relentless bore.

    I’m going back to ignoring you for a while. We need a Habbabreak for Squonk. Mackycrap?

  30. Habbabreak
    “bad grammar is another matter altogether”

    None can be singular or plural. In this case it was plural so “were” is correct.

    My grammar is shit and I knew that.

  31. Phil

    “None can be singular or plural.”
    ______________

    You are correct but why did you have to spoil my teasing of the Rogue Finger Finder (a worthy occupation for our friend Mary)? She’d never have come back to this herself.

    I like how all you on-message people leap to each other’s defence: correct Mary and Phil answers; give Mr Goss a kick and Macky starts barking; reprove Macky and Mary clucks away in the background. It’s like an orgy! 🙂

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    PS – I’m not of course comparing you to Macky, even I wouldn’t stoop so low.

  32. Poor doors is the subject of the moral maze on r4 right now. Including class war candidate Lisa Mckenzie.

  33. ” In addition to a person’s politics, a person moral & intellectual integrity is reveal as to how they conduct themselves, and frankly you have to have no integrity yourself if you are willing to overlook somebody’s politics you strongly disagree with, ”

    Macky ..replying here is kool with me.

    I disagree that putting politics to the side as friends is morally Wrong… i was with my best friend on Friday the 19th September, he was No, i was yes, i let him know i was heart broken.. repellent & dishonesty , to me is another matter entirely .

    I have found it heart breaking to the point of tears, as we helplessly watched the evil Carnage in Libya…and Then Syria. then Ukraine, next up Venezuela, and though we cry fury on Blogs, we remain helpless, it wont stop me going on protests, especially outside the bbc shits in Glasgow…i am 100% certain the MSM have Blood on their hands…But next up for me is the Scrap Trident demo on the 4th of April.

    Anyhoo, for what it’s worth, Peace All.

  34. Phil; “John did call me a fascist.”

    Since you also incorrectly stated that I called you a fascist, I take with a pinch of salt all your accusatiions; however If he did, I would imagine it was because you expressed support/legitimacy for the Kiev Junta, or sought to deny that it has Neo Nazi members, &/or allows Neo-Nazis militias to fight for it; I doubt very much he would call anybody a fascist simply for querying something reported by Russian sources, but I can’t really speak for John, so if you have a problem with something he may have said to you, best address him direct.

    However I do repeat my charge that you & all the others presently criticising Russia, a country that is PRESENTLY in the IMMEDIATE cross-hairs of the Neo-Cons, are not only foolish in the useful idiot sense, but is actually being complicit in war-mongering, as well as being morally reprehensible. Have you really not learnt anything from Iraq, Libya or Syria ?

  35. Brian; “I disagree that putting politics to the side as friends is morally Wrong”

    I would have thought with your Eastern martial arts ethical background, that calling somebody a friend, who not only has different life principles & priorities to you, but holds principles & priorities that you find abhorrent , is not an honorable or morally valid position. This is without even considering how they conduct themselves, because even if they act decently, they still hold these indecent principles & priorities, and on the other hand, if they do conduct themselves in a bad way, and you still regard them as “friends”, then you empty the word of all its meaning, and betray your own moral integrity. Real friendships, as opposed to superficial ones, are based on empathy & compassion , which in turn are based on shared core values, if these are missing, there can be no friendship in its true meaning.

  36. Macky, while I know what you’re saying, it is possible to have friendships with people diametrically opposed to you politically because there are so many nuances of opinion and while you might not agree on some issues you might have common ground on others. One of my father’s best friends was a Tory. My father was Labour and a long-serving shop-steward. They went fishing together. And they were there for one another in times of crisis. A businessman friend of mine who has changed my opinion from time to time, with whom I have had many political debates, is also a vegetarian, and friend of more than thirty years. If you do not engage those with different points of view you will never win them round to yours. However there are some who are immovable objects thoroughly dunked in the baptismal font of government propaganda.

    Since I was put under pre-moderation on CM’s blog Resident Dissident has been given free-range to perpetuate his lies. Three days ago he was quoting the propagandist ‘Interpreter’ saying that Russian-backed fighters were breaking the ceasefire, when in fact it was the AZOV fascist forces. Resident Dissident thought Putin was in the village.

    “So much for Putin respecting the ceasefire.”

    After pointing out Resident Dissident’s deliberate misinforrmation he retorted:

    “Mr Goss

    Who held Shirokino at the time of the Minsk II ceasefire? Answer that question honestly and you will know who the aggressors are?”

    So I did the research, which he should have done before making a pillock of himself, which showed using ASOV’s own videos that the pro-Russian freedom fighters held the village at the time, and far from attacking the village they have been defending it against AZOV forces ever since. So yes Resident Dissident for once you are right. I answered the question ‘honestly’ and ‘know who the aggressors are”.

    For my efforts in dispelling the lies of Resident Dissident and those who support the pro-fascists I was put on pre-moderation. He never apologised or even acknowledged that he was wrong but went into hiding on the subject. This morning he is back with his innuendo.

    “Yes lets just ignore the facts about who is attacking Ukrainian positions after the ceasefire.”

    On this he should be supported since the AZOV forces are attacking Ukrainian positions. It is they who have not removed their heavy artillery to the designated areas.

    http://en.hunternews.ru/?p=493

  37. “Poor doors is the subject of the moral maze on r4 right now. Including class war candidate Lisa Mckenzie.”

    I listened in but didn’t think she came over too good.

    I’m a class pacifist myself mind.

  38. Fred

    I agree she didn’t come across great. I guess she was a fish out of water amongst experienced media types. It’s hard to present a complex unfamiliar pov within a framework that requires short speedy responses to leading questions.

    As Clark said she is spectacular with a megaphone though.

    But hey this issue is getting quite a bit of publicity in the msm.

  39. http://www.rferl.org/content/internet-thinks-putin-is-dead/26897066.html

    The Internet Thinks Putin Is Dead

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been seen in public since March 5.

    And with little further information to go by — his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said simply that there is “no reason to worry” and “everything is fine” — some have naturally assumed the most drastic possible thing that could have happened is what did happen.

    “Putin umer” or “Putin has died,” is now trending on the Russian Internet.

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