SURELY SOME MISTAKE?
EPISTEMICS RHETORIC REALPOLITIK

Thursday 23 June 2011

Spurious Retraction: Goldstone

This is overdue; I'd been planning a longish post analysing the Goldstone 'retraction' which Israel and allies have of course accepted at face value - face value, that is, if you're not reading too closely and stick to the headline message.

But I think Ha'aretz pretty well has the essentials covered, and even provides an explanation for the spurious retraction.

8 comments:

  1. Good to see Ha'aretz drawing attention to this.
    I strongly recommend Norman Finkelstein's new book(let) 'Goldstone Recants' - which decisively deomonstrates that Goldstone's 'recantation' could not have been based on any plausible 'new evidence' (incl. the official Israeli report). The book can be purchased through OR books.

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  2. Hi Tim,
    this is well O/T but didn't know how otherwise to bring it to your attention.

    On Monday 20th Richard Gage of A&E for 9/11Truth gave a presentation at RIBA in Portland Place.

    David Aaronovitch was there in order to find material in which he could later write a piece employing his new best friend, the word "bonkers".

    Here are some of his comments:

    David Aaronovitch, Times columnist and author of Voodoo Histories: the Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, was at the event.
    He said: “Zionists, Israelis and the Saudis were blamed for doing this, that or the other” by audience members.


    He was advisably careful to ascribe those comments only to the audience rather than Gage himself who only deals with forensic engineering and physics details and not who did it.

    “It was every bit as bonkers as you’d expect it to be,” he told BD. “What they mean is that George Bush and the Zionists brought down the towers.

    Here Aaronvitch reveals himself to be bonkers or a paid liar for the otherside by attributing meanings to things rather than commentating on the evidence presented by Gage.

    In fact one could take Arseholovitch's avoidance of comment on Gage's presentation itself as being peer review by default.

    Here is a link to an article in Building Design on the matter.
    You might be heartened to find the posters are running 99% against Specimen A.

    goodkurtz

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  3. Sorry forgot the link:

    RIBA comes under fire for hosting "bonkers" 9/11 talk
    http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/riba-comes-under-fire-for-hosting-%E2%80%98bonkers%E2%80%99-9/11-talk/5020382.article?PageNo=1&SortOrder=dateadded&PageSize=10#comments

    goodkurtz

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  4. Hi Tim,

    Strangely a post of mine before the above appears to have gone missing.

    I wont repeat it. Suffice it to say it was a posting about a sighting of the Great Bastard Aaronvitch bird poking its head up in the reed covered marsh of public debate and issuing its common cry of, "bonkers, bonkers, bonkers."

    Sir,
    I do believe that summer must therefore have arrived.

    goodkurtz

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  5. Have extricated your first from the spam-trap.

    I got hold of a copy of an email circular from the organisers summarising the RIBA event. I report it on the rebuttable presumption that it's probably substantially accurate:

    .When question time began, quick on his feet and first to the microphone was David Aaronovitch, Times columnist and self-styled expert on ‘conspiracy theories’.

    Charlie Skelton a freelancer who writes for The Guardian observed that of all Aaronovitch's four points, presented as questions like ‘what happened to the passengers on the planes?’, none addressed the subject matter of the presentation. Gage's bald answer to each was essentially: ‘I don’t know. I’m not an expert on conspiracies but on building design.’

    When Aaronovitch complained that the meeting was biased against the official story of 9/11, he was challenged to take part in a balanced debate with Richard Gage. Two hundred people heard him say yes, but one organiser predicted that he never would.

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  6. The spam detection algorithm is opaque and non-negotiable btw. I don't know what triggered it, exactly. I'd have to ask Google, or I suppose try a series of experiments.

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  7. Tim,
    from your circular:

    Charlie Skelton a freelancer who writes for The Guardian observed that of all Aaronovitch's four points, presented as questions like
    ‘what happened to the passengers on the planes?’


    Aaronvitch put it like this in an article in Jewish Chronicle:

    "Gage's lecture over, I got up to ask him some questions, none of which he felt qualified to answer."

    (Yeah, you could put it like that Arseholovitch, you could put it like that.)

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  8. Hi Tim,

    A&E for 9/11Truth have posted an interview with Professor Lyn Margulis world renown evolutionary biologist and first wife of Carl Sagan who wrote books on sceptical thinking and the scientific method.

    While not as eloquent as Arsoholovitch, Professor Margulis is of course absolutely sound on the methods of analysis of phenomenon.

    In spite of that were the loathsome specimen A to see this vid he would no doubt issue his now well known cracked cuckoo clock clarion call,
    "Bonkers! Bonkers! Bonkers!"

    Lynn Margulis, Phd Scientist
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0fkDmi78Og&NR=1

    goodkurtz.

    ReplyDelete