Tony Blair closes RSA 2012, denounces WikiLeaks Former British Prime Minister Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was RSA's pick to close out their annual security conference in San Francisco, and he took the opportunity to bash WikiLeaks as "disgraceful." Blair took time out from his busy official role of bringing peace to the Middle East to pad his pockets speak for an …
"Please, spare a moment for the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis."
That is at least 1 million and probably as many as 1.5 million - NOT including the maimed, bereaved, and homeless, stateless refugees (who number 4-5 million or more).
Please note that 1.5 million is exactly quarter of the number (6 million) usually associated with The Holocaust. (See, for example, http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=120 which was only up until 2007). Yet no one has been hanged yet.
Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that in our glorious free democracy, no one can even be indicted of a crime without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Who never agrees to bring charges against "people like us".
I err on the side of caution because the BMA stats were shown to be erroneous, and because I like to have an irrefutable dataset when thinking of capital punishment! However, I'll be happy to see the full set produced in court, with Jeb and Tone sitting next to one another, holding hands and praying to their god.
The comparison with the holocaust is apt, and I note that the Jews are one of the 5 Semitic tribes, one of which was in Babylon IIRC. Always worth remembering.
Otherwise I apologise for the surge of anger in my post. The sight of that smug, sh*t eating grin with its massive bank balance is sometimes more than the honest man in me can bear. No wait. I've just thought of something... ...actually, no. I've just exercised restraint and cut my comments about using my ex military skills as a marksman on a drop forged, bolt action rifle. That would never do. Unless passed into law of course.
" Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that in our glorious free democracy, no one can even be indicted of a crime without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Who never agrees to bring charges against "people like us" "
Perhaps we can change and emulate Iceland;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17254544
How I wish, fervently. The things done by to our country by these experimenters were very badly wrong. They had no right.
That of course is *not* an apology for all of the grossly intrusive *lifetime* surveillance polices (ANPR is 5 yrs and growing, and how is DNA retention changing? They may have cut the Forensic Science Service yet that still seems get funding, either in house or "outsourced")
Just that he does not understand it and (of course) relied on his "advisers"
Who knew they would be a collection of senior civil servants with a data fetish and a group of suppliers looking to make serious money on the contracts?
History tends to judge leaders. So far the *only* long term achievement of the whole Labor govt they should be proud of would be the setting of a minimum wage, which IIRC was done at Browns prompting.
So did attendees think they got their money's worth with him for the keynote? You did pay it.
Traditionally you could sum up each major party in 1 word, which was basically your choice at elections; Tories=Corruption, Labour=Incompetence, Liberals=Clueless.
"New" labour stole the tory corruption element, whereas with the current Tories in power it's the other way round.
Britain needs another prime Minister who lies to start wars for his own personal financial gain.
Britain needs another Chancellor who is happy to send soldiers out to die in some desert for a pointless cause, and to make sure this happens refuses to pay to equip them.
Britain needs another Home Secretary who fiddles their porn.
Britain needs another Borders and Immigration minister who fiddles his tampons.
Britain needs another Childrens Minister who fiddles his poppies at remembrance ceremonies,
And Britain certainly needs another Prime Minister who promises, on the day he is elected, to "not only be whiter than white, but to be seen to be whiter than white". So, how did that work out for you then, Tony?
Also on the day he was elected he announced a jihad against unmarried mothers...that portion of the population who have least time and money to defend themselves and who had most cause to expect support from a "Labour" government. I knew things weren't going to go well then; but he still managed to surpass my lowest expectations.
"Traditionally you could sum up each major party in 1 word, which was basically your choice at elections; Tories=Corruption, Labour=Incompetence, Liberals=Clueless."
Historically Conservatives caused sex scandals, Labor called corruption scandals.
"Was he born evil, or did the absolute power corrupt him absolutely?"
I suspect that a study of people who actually *become* politicians will show they have certain genetic "pre-dispositions." Like the alcoholism gene.
In their cases it will be a collection of behaviors, some of which will make alcoholism seem *trivial*. In Blair's case it looks like a pronounced mis trust in ordinary people grossly *disproportionate* to the threat they present, coupled with a messianic belief he is right.
They're all just bleeding into one another ; I don't perceive any major differences between them now.
Watching the Conservatives lambast Labour for continuing with the PFI schemes that the Conservatives themselves introduced, particularly when you know that they too will continue with them, is the soul of irony.
At least with the fire and brimstone socialists you knew what they stood for. All the current lot will kiss your baby and shake your hand while promising eminently reasonable dreams to the public, while either quaking in their Gucci shoes or salivating internally at the thought of their corporate masters.
And the corporates fear and hate the internet (at the same time as they love it), because it gives the commoners the means to organise and communicate. Hence we have the BBC publishing "opinion pieces" that we should tear it all down and start again with something that can be controlled. They propose legislation that mandates tracking all email, phone, and social media communications. We have computer systems (predominantly phones, for now) designed to ignore the commands of their users and do the bidding of their corporate masters.
What to do, what to do....
*that* king was tryin to demonstrate that no one was above god. So I think you aretty much spot on with the corrected spelling name.
I remeber watching V for vendetta and thinking John Hurt looked just like blair
ironic really tha a labour leader was the 2nd comming of thatcher, even to the point of having a wek leader follow to try and ssave face when their party was defeated on the next eletion.
in «tech know-nothing» to describe our beloved Anthony Charles Lynton Blair ? Was it in order to preserve that other qualifier «self-confessed» ? The most pressing current problem with Mr Blair is that he is not «confessing» to the mulititudinous crimes against the peace and other war crimes for which he - and his bosom cronies like Willian Jefferson Clinton and George Walker Bush - are responsible (I almost wrote «bear responsibility», but of course, none of these people have ever borne - and it is unfortunately unlikely that they will ever be forced to bear - responsibility for their actions) before a tribunal at Den Haag (or elsewhere). The idea of the despicable Mr Blair referring to something other than himself as «disgraceful» would be ineffable, were it not for the fact that he has made a career of it. Note that the RSA is allowed to deduct the no doubt considerable fee paid to Mr Blair for his mouthings as a «business expense» - see there, a tax loophole that can and should immediate be closed to help bring the US federal budget into balance !...
Henri
All post war Prime Ministers under Queen Elizabeth II have either been created at Knight of the Garter or given a peerage. Tony & Gordon have received nothing.
Order of the Garter is the most prestigious order of knighthood in the UK and its award is the personal prerogative of the Queen. The order is restricted to a membership of 24 knights. Two new knights were appointed in 2011 so there were posts available if the Queen wished to appoint them.
This is probably the the only way the Queen has of giving these two bar stewards that time honoured English salute.
Plenty of Proxy Foxy Recharging White Knights always available to fill that position, .... of that you can be sure. Garters are earnt, not rewards with Right Royal Access to Ancient Treats and such Presumptions. Flights of Fabulous Fantasy in Streams of Virtual Reality.
Capiche, AIRenegade?
It's those people in life who do no good, are seen as lazy, tell lies to go up the ladder, lick the arses of the people they should respect and then kick them down when they're above them.
This TB guy is just one of those bull$*itters in life. Selfish little mongrel of a human being. All I'll remember him for is bursting the UKs financial stability by letting an incompetent man called Brown make it burst after he left (when he knew the ship was sinking).
Dear El Reg,
As a site I trust to bring me entertaining and sometimes informative technology stories, I find myself troubled by the fact that you're giving space to a lying, deceitful, bag of shit who brought politics in this country into disrepute. Please revert to giving us space to have pointless arguments about operating systems.
Yours,
Not anonymous because when the black helicopters some for me I want the Reg to be here to cover it.
Francis Bacon's essay of the same title starts off:
DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit, and a strong heart, to know when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics, that are the great dissemblers.
http://www.authorama.com/essays-of-francis-bacon-7.html
Besides still being a relevant observation on the value of privacy (rendered as "closeness, reservation, and secrecy"), it's also telling as an indictment of Bush and Blair. All politicians lie, and we expect them to "dissemble" (pretend not to be what they are) and "simulate" (pretend to be what they are not) to some degree of another, and as appropriate to the circumstances. However, these men have taken simulation and dissimulation to such a level that one wonders if they are the only ones who cannot see their lies as anything but transparent falsehoods. Such people are beyond being merely immoral---they are outright dangerous.
This "Tony Blair" thing is completely corrupt, a blatant liar and part of the corrosive corporatist traffic which goes to and fro between government and crony-capitalist corporations; to put is bluntly, he is an enemy of progress, an enemy of freedom, an enemy of genuine capitalism, and an enemy of the human race, like many in the political class!
The sooner this parasite disappears from perception _permanently_ the better!
that Blair only feels that way about democracy now. If we'd had democracy in '03 then one man wouldn't have been able to take the country to war against the wishes of the vast majority of the population*. That's right - I'm looking at you T.
* A little side note for our American cousins. This shouldn't be news to you by now, but please remember that the people of the UK were an unwilling party to the coalition of the willing.
It amazes me the speed with which Blair has become an irrelevance and indeed an embarrassment. Ex PMs usually pop up from time to time after they are out of office, but apart from the few paid gigs he does its remarkable how little interest any media outlet has in what Blair has to say (for which I am eternally grateful and note this also extends to his chum Bush). In that sense he's a bit like the OTT night in the pub that got a bit out of hand and is best forgotten by all concerned, only minus the wit and alcohol but with a far worse hangover.
Perhaps El Reg should do the Right Thing and ignore him entirely as it only encourages him.
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