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pandatank

Listed below are comments made by pandatank between Monday, 9th November 2009 and Tuesday, 17th November 2009.

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Social media focus 3:06pm on 17 Nov 2009 #7 - jon112uk wrote

"I remember the de menezes incident and the grossly incorrect initial reporting apparently based on people at the scene. Some of this was then not put right by the police, when they had the oportunity. But all sorts of nonsense about people being chased onto the platform came from people at the scene."

I also remember the De Menezes incident and the grossly incorrect (and slanderous to a dead man's reputation) reporting that went on right up until the Health and Safety prosecution.
Social media focus 2:58pm on 17 Nov 2009 #3 - Mutant Firend wrote

"I am also concerned at the number of times you repeat very short segments of amateur film taken during protests which appear to show police aggression, when in fact they have been under intensive and orchestrated provocation designed to capture that 5 second loop of an 'innocent' protester being pushed. Context is vital."

Context is indeed vital, there are hundreds of clips of different locations all appearing to show "police aggression" perhaps the intensive and orchestrated provocation was so extremely widespread that nearly everyone who attended also fell victim to this propoganda and so believed the Police to be "out of order" when in fact "kettling" is not an "intensive and orchestrated provocation designed to provoke a violent reaction" to be subsequently quelled by suitably equipped people in a pre-planned location.
I believe that Kettling is only successful as a strategy if you believe a riot is inevitable and that squashing 500 people into an area usually occupied by 20 and holding them there for 4 hours is justified by the fact that the subsequent riot is suitably contained.
Social media focus 2:41pm on 17 Nov 2009 #1 - As long as the tabloids continue to 'manufacture' stories, I don't think there's much chance of that
Afghanistan ifs and maybes 2:38pm on 17 Nov 2009 It definitely cannot be next year! With the Pakistan push into the Taleban heartlands in Swat etc. The last thing we can contemplate is leaving a vacuum in Afghanistan for them to fill. This would not support Pakistan (who have finally realised that appeasement doesn't work with Terrorists) and makes a mockery of the Pakistani public who bear the brunt of an Al-Quaeda/Taleban bombing campaign which they are only being subjected to because they are now active in a campaign against Terrorism.
Plotters, quitters and fighters 1:23pm on 17 Nov 2009 # 173. Andy C555 wrote"

"But I thought equality was important to you.

Surely you're not suggesting only intelligent chaps such as yourself should be given a vote? If they can't be trusted on the European treaty, do you trust them on economic models? foreign affairs?

I think we see where CPT is leading. A model on Plato's 'Republic' where wise philosphers (no doubt such as yourself) rule and the masses don't need to worry their dim little heads about things"

But what about the situation we have now where a Scientist/Expert's opinion backed up by a lifetimes worth of research and experience in that particular topic is given no more weight than any other voter and certainly less than the editor of a popular tabloid?

Without a responsible media and a decent education, Democracy becomes Idiocracy.
Plotters, quitters and fighters 12:00pm on 17 Nov 2009 I'm hoping that the fighters win the day, because I think the only way the electorate can truly "send a message" to Westminster is to return a party to power who haven't been given a go since before WW2. The Lib-Dems. Let's truly make this a 3 party democracy. After all, they can't really make the situation any worse and they've at least got some alternative ideas to Nu-Lab's "let's just out-Tory the Tories". We've had two runs of 3+term Governments Tory and Labour and they've both proved themselves to be sleazy, arrogant, unwilling to listen or think about improving democractic representation. Rather than voting for the BNP as a protest vote, why not try the 3rd party before condemning the Big 3? They seem to get all the stick without even getting a go at driving.
A balanced approach to climate change 12:53pm on 16 Nov 2009 Part of the issue is that many people think we are still discussing "Global Warming" rather than "Climate Change" and base their opinions on their own (localised) personal experience. This is especially so of the UK as we "bask" in the relative warmth of the Gulf Stream, any variation or fluctuation of which is likely to see massive drops in temperature. The natural cycle of this planet has seen extremes of temperature at both ends of the structure where life was almost extinguished from the planet. Volcanic activity also makes Mankinds contribution seem negligible. However, both of these arguments ignore the fact that what we're trying to preserve are the conditions to ensure Civilisation or at least survival of the human race. If we preserve our environment (or at least live harmoniously within it) there just might be enough of that environment left to afford survival in the event of near cataclysmic "natural" geological events, the sceptics use to "prove" Anthropogenic Climate Change doesn't exist.
It took the Germans and Scandinavian countries decades to prove (to UK sceptics) that their "Acid Rain" problems originated from the UK. We have used up whatever "safety margin" we have and we are overdue a change in geomagnetic polarity, fluctuating solar activity and unpredictable tectonic activity.
Our current levels of technology and the available resources could provide a decent living to everyone currently on the planet if we had fair & equitable distribution of wealth. This would correspondingly lead to a decrease in the population expansion rate, because the inbuilt reaction to a harsh environment with high infant mortality is to increase the breeding rate.
The other problem in the UK is the wholesale belief (strengthened by politicians and the media) that a "Scientific Opinion" is only equal to anyone else's opinion (that's Democracy, innit). This opinion is to be ignored when politically expedient,and ridiculed at every opportunity,e.g. "stating the bleeding obvious" University studies, labelling as "geeks", the belief that "Blue Sky Research" is a waste of money and that funding should only go to projects using already obsolete technology (i.e. The ones that "Business Interests" can see "profit" in.) On Dragons Den an engineer turned up with a gearbox he claimed was 100% more efficient than existing models. They turned him down because they didn't understand what he was offering, potentially Wind Farms with double the power output, 100mpg cars as standard, improvements in power generation generally. Rejected because of lack of "Commercial Viability" (as seen through Business eyes).
The 'Capitalists' and their army of Bean Counterstruly run the world now.
The real debate has scarcely begun 1:23pm on 11 Nov 2009 We can't pull out of Afghanistan until the push against Al-Qua'ida and the Talibasn in Pakistan has had a chance for its effects to be felt. Otherwise they'll just come over the border (again) and set up shop back in Afghanistan.
Ask any Afghani and they'll tell you that what we have to do to win the "Hearts & Minds" of the Afghanis is to make a clear distinction between our War on Terror and the War on Drugs. Afghans actually hate the Taliban, but at the moment they hate us more because we are burning their poppies (irony at this time of year?). There is a world shortage of dia-morphine, let's just buy their ONLY viable product, undercutting the drug funded warlords and also stopping the indirect recruitment to the Taliban of farmers without a market. We could then even offer this on prescription to registered addicts (who would then not have to turn to crime to feed their habit) in preference to Methadone (which just replaces one addiction with another far more powerful, whose only redeeming feature is that is medical grade and on prescption). Addicts are far more successful at quitting and rehab. with less chance of returning to drugs, when they do it through weaning themselves off Heroin direct. Substitution is not effective when the substitute is worse.
Nutt row deepens as more scientists quit 12:04pm on 11 Nov 2009 the problem is that the druggies try to make everyone else look stupid ...one in three crimes committed in this country are by drug users needing money to feed their habit.. it is the duty of government to ...protect the rest of us from the results of the misuse of drugs..not any one of us knows of the long term effects of any drug use but if alcohol is anything to go by then use of drugs will either severely restrict your length of life or the quality of life in later years

You've made yourself look stupid and prejudiced. By calling cannabis smokers "druggies" and then ascribing to them the crimes commited by physically addicted Class A users shows you're not even qualified to talk about drug use, never mind misuse (and the categories thereof). How does prohibition protect us from the results of misuse when the 'criminals' you are already punishing commit 1 in 3 crimes, and the Netherlands, Portugal and even our own temporary dabbling with Class C, show downturns in aqcuisitive crime figures?
There are plenty of long term studies of cannabis use. In fact the flawed links to "cannabis psychosis" are based on long term studies where the conclusions have been "pick & mixed" to be "on song" with the Govt. message. There has also been the censoring(in the US) of all Cannabis research data pre - 1984 (of which there are 1000's of papers, mostly proving its lack of harm) by disallowing it as evidence for constitutional and legal argument. (Note. post 1984 research has been funded by the "anti-cannabis lobby" using alcohol & tobacco money to 'prove harm'. Impartial or pro-cannabis studies are not funded or even illegal thanks to the more rcent "War on Drugs" legislation.
The A.M.A. actually tried (too late) to get the Anti-Marijuana Bill of the 30's repealed, on the grounds that they didn't realise that the "Marijuana" they were making illegal was actually the same as the Cannabis they were prescribing. This was media -inspired "knee jerk" legislation pushed through in response to a concerted media campaign by W.R.Hearst (who didn't want to pay his newly unionised mexican labour force the going rate)and funded by Du Pont whose patented processes for bleaching lumber pulp (paper) and their formula for nylon (Rope & textiles) were threatened by an established market using Hemp-based products.
Do you speak Race? 5:51pm on 09 Nov 2009 The simplest way out of the dilemna is simply to refer to "whites" (if I'm allowed to use that term)as "melanin challenged"

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