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SUGGESTED GUESTS:
Politically neutral philosophers, psychologists and other rational beings. You will need to search diligently and set the bar high. I think you might start with Camilla Batmanghelidjh - she normally talks 'kids' but I suspect her views on a mad world would be interesting.

Just look: America, Russia, Greater EU, Africa-various. You name it. Humans, as currently configured, are unstable and incompetent.

We cannot mend the world with the current mind-set of 'commerce cures all'.
Every time you get Bishop Miliband and all the other pontificating politicians to sit round and decide 'how many dogmas will fit on the horns of a dilemma', you waste your time, our time and world time.

The underlying problem is human fallibility. Political posturing, in all its guises, goes nowhere. We must address US: why we are the way we are, and what we might do to change. Put Al Gore, Bono and Bob the Geldof out to grass and let them fart methane all they like. Any Promised Land they lead to will hurt in the morning.

1.
.....the Russian media queried where their Georgian foes had acquired weapons and tactical wherewithal.

Israel's name came up.

The link is well known. Aside from Israel's prowess in military matters, it enjoys a personal rapport with a number of senior colleagues to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who has been trying to align his country with the West. Saakashvili's defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a Jew who spent several years living in Israel. So is another Cabinet minister, Temur Yakobashvili.

The Russian government has not openly accused Israel of arming its enemy, but there has been a menacing subtext to the rhetoric from Moscow. In his speech to the U.N. Security Council, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin darkly denounced the Georgian commando units' "foreign trainers." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said those who supplied Georgia with weapons should bear responsibility for the bloodshed......



given the russian view of certain oligarchs it may explain the russian determination to crush resistance?


2.
Ex dectective arrested for confronting gang.

Last night a ´óÏó´«Ã½ embedded with the Russians in South Ossetia said I believe that there WAS large scale destruction. I assume destruction consistent with an artillery bombardment by the Georgians and that is what started this mess.

She did also report on revenge attacks, possibly official or unofficial.

The Georgians reported attacks on the pipeline that runs through Georgia. As I understand it the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have confirmed that this is untrue. There was no damage to or near the pipeline.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ has hinted at Georgian miscalculations in fairness.

Can a sovereign state launch a full scale artillery bombardment on largely ethnically different civilians? Why are the US and the UK allowed to talk about Russian bullying and to not even mention the loss of life caused by Georgia? I can't see any comparison with 1968 Czechoslovakia.

Is the French position going to crystallize into a form that can be used to contrast the US-UK? A French diplomat as a guest?

So far as I am concerned the Russians contributed to the Yugoslavia conflicts with hard line support for the Serbs when they should have been reigned in in Bosnia and Kosovo. But on this I cannot reconcile the West's position with reality as seen on the TV.

Good piece in today's Indy by Johann Hari: .

As his last sentence says: "When we pulp books out of fear of fundamentalism, we are decapitating the most precious freedom we have."

Perfect topic for a studio discussion.

QUID PRO QUO NOT TU QUOQUE??

and but who believes that the Jewish/Zionist Entity will go it alone against Iran? .

Whilst tu quoque as an ad hominem is a logical fallacy it happens more often than not because we're rarely rational when it comes to politics, love, and much else it would appear. Kids' stuff.

GENERAL COWARDICE LEADS THE RETREAT

I feel Islaam-cowardice is just a branch of the broader cowardice engendered by political correctness. For example: just one aspect of homosexual expression is responsible for most of the reaction from church and laity alike; it is almost never mentioned in the media. Another: 'female genital mutilation' is a regular topic but circumcision, whether 'why not' or from a religious imperative, is never called 'male genital mutilation'. (The hygiene argument 'doesn't wash'!)

Human cultural baggage (including religions) is all part of our incompetence (see#1) and will continue to behave weirdly until broad competence is achieved. . .

CAESAR SICK IN OMNIBUS BRUTUS SICK IN TRAM

I wish I could do the Latin JJ but good to see we are parallel on general nuttiness.
And all within a minute!

Are you clocking this 'general consensus' Newsnight? Take you cue and investigate THE HUMAN CONDITION; it underlies all the ills of the world. If you must have a political angle: enlightenment will show you why the 'Blair-glottal' has become a 'meme' (Dawkins) and infected Miliband, Hilarious- Benn et al.

(Kids' stuff indeed JJ. They are kids and we are stuffed.)

#6 barriesingleton

Quite true. A sensible discussion on political correctness would be pretty hard to moderate but undoubtedly worth a try.

#3 thegangofone - there was , submitted from Rustavi, a town just south of the BTC pibeline (on this just under the green BTC line; more visible south-east of Tiblisi but without pipelines) - see also Paul Mason's blog.

McElroy's piece reads like an eyewitness account. So if we are to accept the Russian version that they didn't bomb the pipeline, what did McElroy see? Is the police officer's quote fictional? Who else would have bombed the area, why, how and what would have been their target?

As for the overall picture, yes of course Georgia 'started it'.. However, there is also a principle of . While I'm certain that the US/British combo is biased, I'm straining to see how recent Russian military and Russian-supported para-military activities could be justified given the apparent randomness of their actions, their targeting of civilians and civilian property, and the disarray in the Georgian military since Monday afternoon.

DEMOCRACY ISN'T WORKING

Below is the government's response to a petition requiring them to take the Irish 'no' as 'no' . The last sentence is priceless (for everything else - there's plastic debt).

"The Irish government has made it clear that they need time to analyse the result and its implications, and to consult widely at home and abroad. At the European Council on 19/20 June, EU Heads of State and Government agreed with the Irish Government’s proposal that they should reflect on the result of the referendum and then submit a report to the European Council in October. In the meantime the Council, including Ireland, has noted that the ratification processes are continuing in all of the other Member States."

This is the best that juvenile wannabe/gottabe politicians will ever achieve. That final veil-less threat reminds me of my schooldays. Just how pathetic can the honourable be? Let's get to grips with 'weakness and evil' in mankind, as Joseph Rowntree implored. Let's investigate US!

FOE CLOE - STRAIN NO MORE (TO UNDERSTAND)

DOGS OF WAR

As war’s abrasion strips his fine veneer
man’s inhumanity his ilk defines.
Bi-pedal dog, scent-primed, unleashed, packed off
he brings a licking to some wrong-tongued foe.
While back in civvy-street, his leaders rise
short-slept from tasting civilized excess
this day newborn in sinless rectitude
to move their boarded pawns with gifted guess.
In blinkered ignorance of Conqueror’s Creed
that sets all free from hypocritic bond
war-leaders mire mere men in conflict’s slough
so deep Geneva’s spires are over-topped.
Unheeding they send mortal men to war
yet heed the call when time comes to deplore.

I do wish that some part of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ might start following this outrageous story:




It involves VERY strage allegations concerning the USA at Bagram and a female neuroscientist who "disappeared" for five years, etc., etc.

WORDS FOR THE WISE

It's OK to knock the aristocracy and elitism, and it's more than OK to knock the nanny state and Christianity, it's also OK to knock sex-role differentiation and especially racism, but most of all, it's OK to knock Islam as this, more than anything else, threatens to thwart all of the above efforts to divide and conquer.

Who are never knocked with impunity?

KNOCK KNOCK

Whose there? Juergen. Juergen who?
Juergener get into serious trouble for hate- crime and Europhobia. And anyway - it wasn't his towel.

Suggested guests for discussion on Georgian etc situation? Anyone genned up on the Neo-Cons, who's agenda and influence have brought about this mess, and so many others; I'd suggest Stephen Sackur.

Re #4. Brownedov. Excellent idea IMO.

Thanx for the refs Bookhim, JJ.

Ditto Xie_Ming.

Anyone else find former Ambassador Hunter's attitude hilarious on last night's prog? Talk about whistling in the dark, and trying to look as if you're not panicing.

And Prezza!? A few months without seeing his ugly mug, and I'd forgotten just how blitheringly inept he is. He nearly turned purple. As his Diary Secretary might say.

Well, Barrie: never been dedicated a poem before. I'm almost speechless...

Thou hath shown me the light. I've read your teachings and shall stop straining, just as it befits silly little girly me. Dabbling in international relations, tsk! Should've known better: follow the Singleton Gospel and Happiness is in your reach, whatever you height. Else I'll retreat to my burrow of penitence and hang myself in shame of my ignorance. Never mind the towel, where's that old rope of mine...

ENTIRELY MY FAULT CLOE

I was actually confining my response, specifically to your words: "I'm straining to see how recent Russian military and Russian-supported para-military activities could be justified given the apparent randomness of their actions,"
My use of 'understand' was therefore confined to 'dogs of war' who, according to
Kate Aidie (inferred) are men.
I read your posts with interest and respect.
(And Kate, I have referred to before - on account of a very relevant comment she made about sweating and grunting - as the 'dangling man's crumpet'.)

PS Sorry about the foe pas! Pax?

BEYOND THE PALE

Brownedov (#4) I'm repeating myself, but Frattini wants 20m more S Asians/Africans into Europe because at root we're not reproducing ourselves above replacement level due to the secular, hedonistic, equalitarian way that we now live. If we encourage Muslims to become secular, not only will they (wisely) resist, but we'll continue to commit what amounts to slow self-genocide to the extent that they adopt our liberal ways.

Again, to whose benefit?

THE OXYGEN OF INCAPACITY (a question of benefit)

I cannot help wondering if our annoying big brain was an accidental result of some planetary trauma - my best guess being an oxygen crash. If emergent humans were suddenly subjected to a level of oxygen under which few live births occurred, and those that did were brain damaged, it is possible that survival to reproductive age was facilitated by excess brain material. (I can see the obvious counter to this.) We got a big brain by default and went on to tie it in knots.
Clearly, having got a possible explanation for our big brain, I had to tackle the next trick of diversity.
I have never seen the generation of the distinct sub-sets of the human race ever explained. Presumably relatively small, groups of humans became isolated in relatively different conditions for long enough to turn out distinctly coloured and shaped (plus other, less apparent, characteristics) yet for sufficiently SHORT a time not to lose cross-fertility. Not my field (is it ever?) but that sounds like a tall order to me. As has been pointed out, the only parallels we have are animal 'breeds' where higher control is critical in their emergence. (von Daniken lives!)
Anyway - all this rambling leads me to suggest that we might well be 'a synapse too far' and, regardless of designation, be of no benefit at all; either to ourselves or (manifestly) to the planet. I, personally, only address the solving of 'the problem of mankind' because, like Mount Everest' it is there and all that pain can't be right - can it?

#18 JadedJean

So you want a religious underclass?

#17 Barrie: can pax break out when there never was a war in the first place?

First the poem, now this.. that's twice in 24h that you've managed to send my eyebrows into pleasantly startled jig-dancing mode. I was not offended - it'd take much more sinister posts than a (good) poem about men at war - just thought it deserved a riposte.

Brownedov (#20) No, just an end to subversive differential/dysgenic fertility and Socialist Internationalism. Objectively, it's responsible, by commission or omission doesn't matter, which results in slow self-genocide (see the UK and USA demographic projections and skills data) and along the way, socio-economic/civil order decay.

It's equalities legislation, human rights legislation, open borders, universal suffrage and most insidiously and paradoxically, 'education, education, education' which will swell the underclass as I've spelled out elsewhere.

#22 JadedJean

Still don't get it. Are you in favour of compulsory religious education? established churches in England and Scotland?

If you don't like "universal suffrage" do you reject all suffrage or how do you propose the electorate should be chosen?

BEWARE OF BEARING GIFTS

Brownedov (#23) It has very little to do with what I personally am in favour of. What I'm trying to explicate is a major problem with Miliband et. al's 'Worker's Democracy' as widely sold by the S.I. to electorates all over the 'free' world today (see the MDC in Zimbabwe, PPP in Pakistan for extreme examples given their populations' mean cognitive ability).

The fact that individuals are not equal, that long separated (by physical gene-barriers) groups are not equal, and that the sexes are not equal (in mean cognitive ability), has very important implications for the viability of the above type of democracy. Without careful population management (cf. China's constitution and 1995 law), this leads to dysgenesis because of diversity (self-control/impulsivity and how this relates to memory and 'g' essentially). Over 5 generations, before 'education, education, education' one might expect a drop of 60% at +2SD above the mean and inflation of 60% -2SD above the mean. I've spelled out how and why when I've covered the modus operandi of differential fertility and the heritability (80%) of 'g'.

#24 JadedJean

Sorry, you've lost me again. Either you're happy to have an official imaginary friend or you're not. Either you think UK citizens should have universal suffrage or you don't. Either you think that the 1872 plurality voting system is perfect or you don't. It's not rocket science.

It's hard enough to get democracy in the UK and useless worrying about it abroad until we do.

'THE PERFECT STORM'

Brownedov (#25) You don't appear to be working through this, please look back through the NN archives. China practices democracy (and supports democratic-centralism in Zimbabwe), it's just not liberal-democracy. My point was that countries like Zimbabwe (and others with mean IQs -2SD below average EU countries, remember Kenya?) show that encouragement of, or export of, liberal-democracy and universal suffrage nothing short of cynical exploitation/imperialism/despotism. Once this is understood for countries, the implications for European populations with higher literacy levels but dysgenic/diffrential fertility and massive immigration should become clearer.

Our SI politicians will, I predict, try to change the GCE qualifications in an effort to disguise long-term dysgenesis, or they'll look incompetent (as PISA recently has already shown). Hence the new vocational 'A levels' and possibly this See ETS (USA) 'America's Perfect Storm' and The Leitch Report, and OECD PISA.

#26 JadedJean

Sorry. Charity begins at home. If you're unwilling to share your UK and EU policies then I'm not interested in the rest.

Goodnight.

Brownedov (#27) I've posted on Lisbon.

To better appreciate our domestic situation I think one has to look further afield.

Similarly, I don't think one can appreciate diversity/human genomics without looking into the diversity or HAPMAP projects.

Comparative analysis is always good for the soul.

I was astounded to hear that people aren't allowed to practice Christianity, freely, in China (well, kind of knew, but thought things had changed recently: they haven't).

How can China get away with Tibet, lack of complete freedom of worship, and all the other things that take place under its non-democratic dictatorship?

I think that people should enjoy the Olympic Games to the full (the Games belong to everyone, the Chinese are just hosting it). Most of all because of all the time and effort athletes put into it.

But when the games are over, it is time to challenge the Chinese, again, over the issues mentioned above. They cannot expect to be 'respectable' in the world community (in order to advance their economic plan) whilst at same time denying basic human rights to its own people.

Hopefully, Newsnight will do some (more) programmes on the general topic of China and its abuses.

POLITICOCENTRICISM

patrickfowke (#29) "How can China get away with Tibet, lack of complete freedom of worship, and all the other things that take place under its non-democratic dictatorship?"

Because it has a different ?

Provocatively speaking, as a heuristic exercise, consider your politcocentric question as being a little akin to asking why they don't speak English. People self-righteously rail against racism, but not against politicocentrism. As yourself why? Why does most of the world live under non-Liberal-Democratic regimes? Why are the populations of Liberal-Democracies shrinking? Is this not evidence that they are biologically unfit?

China's democracy is Democratic-Centralist, which is not the same thing as it being a non-democratic dicataorship, although some 'Human Rights' NGOs would have one think otherwise in order to pressure the PRC into adopting their own favoured, Liberal-Democratic (anarchistic) form of Worker's Democracy/Free-market de-regulated capitalism.

Note the timely pro SI (PPP) regime change in Pakistan on the Eastern bordr of Iran.