And No means No! If its to the ratification of an EU treaty.

But Yes means Maybe and Unfair and Morally Invalid! If it furthers anything with a hint of federalism or harmonisation.

Yawn!! You can be a fundamentalist and neurotically obsessed about a lot of things these days.

But that still won’t stop us trying to ride the gravy train and stamp our feet if we’re not allowed to be candidates on a popular party’s ticket in EP elections.

It takes a (self-loathing)liliputian to be so anally-retentive.

duh!

[Daphne – Kevin, get the message: I’m not interested in YouTube videos about Evil America. I’m too busy with my Darth Vader comics.]

“It takes weeks of planning and days of wiring to bring down a skyscraper in a controlled demolition, so reason tells me that it couldn’t have been done in the few hours between the aerial attack on the Twin Towers and the collapse of Tower 7. Also, what exactly would have been the point?”

Of course it takes weeks to prepare – hello, anybody home?! (Here’s the then owner of the WTC Larry Silverstein saying they pulled it down – he later explained that by ‘pull it’ he meant ‘leave it’ : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBMa5bZFaRc)

Yes, the most obvious explanation is the correct one. Buildings don’t fall like that by fire, and steel does not melt uniformly for a gravity-speed free-fall – if it does melt, it would in fact melts at higher temperatures and not a dying black-smoke fire. And by the way, they spent zilch years studying the Tower 7 collapse and only lately did NIST come up with a soviet-style non-explanation.

If you don’t want to remain in the dark, watch this documentary (it’s in 9 parts): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YqET96OO0 This documentary was spearheaded by MEP Giulietto Chiesa (Liberals) and the people interviewed are experts in their field (just as you like it). It might make you think. I can assure you that this is just a synopsis and all they say is backed by more evidence – from scientists, not government apparatchiks, Daphne! Then, if you still hold doubts, do your own research into why the US government has become so evil, but you’ll have to switch off the polly-anna antennae.

As for the rest of what you wrote, I really never expected you to be so naive – really, sooo friggin naive! I don’t want to insult you, so I’ll stop here. You are right, I am wrong – please do carry on, Polly Anna, I will not poke you with reality again.

Pragmatist my foot!

[Daphne – Oh for god’s sake, Kevin. I remember having conversations like this when I was 19, and even then they bored me rigid. I actually remember actively avoiding young men (boys?) who thought and spoke like this with the same dedication that I gave to avoiding nerds. What a lot of wasted energy. Even if, for argument’s sake, the CIA blew up their own building, so friggin’ what, to use your preferred expletive? And if it was their own building they blew up, what interest does anyone have in pretending that it was due to ‘natural causes’? Now if they blew up their own building and blamed it on Islamic terrorists, that would be different. But they didn’t. Usually, when somebody inserts the term ‘evil America’ into a discussion, I switch off completely, so consider yourself privileged. I bet you read adult comics for fun.]

I agree with you 100 % on the tower conspiracy bull!

Not so sure about the Iraq war in that I was all for getting rid of Saddam Hussein by any means necessary (even though I still do not agree with executing him, no matter how much he deserved it), HOWEVER, I see a bit of hypocrisy in it in that there are several other cruel dictatorships and tyrants around the world but being that there is no economic interest in the region, nothing more than symbolic actions is taken against them)

[Daphne – I’m sorry, Chris, but I beg to differ (hugely) even though I really enjoyed reading your comment here. There is one big hole in the conspiracy theory argument, and it’s the most important question that we should ask when trying to assess a situation: why? Why would the CIA want to blow up its own headquarters? Your answer that this was done to avoid the risk of terrorists infiltrating the building is not quite up to the mark: there are cheaper and less less dramatic ways of preventing access to the building: cordoning it off, for example. Have you ever tried getting through a cordon put up by the US military? And seven hours – the lapse of time between the attack on the twin towers and the collapse of Tower 7 was plenty of time for people to go in and get whatever they want in any case. Another point that interests me is the way the conspiracy theorists get so het up about perceived conspiracies. My attitude is that if the CIA wants to blow up its own headquarters then it’s free to do so. It’s not as though it’s being blamed on anybody else. And here, too, there’s another gaping great hole in your reasoning: precisely because it is not being blamed on anybody else, and precisely because the CIA can legitimately blow up its own headquarters if there is a real security risk, the CIA and the US government had nothing to hide if it was a controlled demolition. Why would they lie? Come on, be realistic.]

It is typical of the efficient way in which the Americans think that they would look at all possibilities. One possible scenario they may have considered is that terrorists would infiltrate the CIA tower after the building is evacuated by staff because of an explosion in a nearby tower, and get their hands on important information.

So they may consider losing the whole tower rather than risk a leak of that sort.

Far fetched? Perhaps. The plot for a movie? Maybe. But not impossible.

After all 7 hours is enough time to link all the pieces of a prepared demolition plan together. Dangerous maybe, but then there are people trained for dangerous situations.

And what was the reason that the BBC reported the destruction of tower 7 12 minutes before it happened, apparently tipped off by a local reporter. A coincidental piece of rumour. or a tip-off from someone in the know to a journalist to get the hell out of there? We will probably never know. But i don’t necessarily buy the official report. After all, remember the Shipman story!

But please do clear the mystery – what are your thoughts, for example, on the US invasion of Iraq? Do you justify the lies that preceeded it? Do you justify the current lies against Iran and the US/UK/French build up in the Persian Gulf? Do you believe Russia bullied Georgia, or was it reacting to a US/Israeli-instigated act of genocide against a Russian population? Do you agree with the neo-con ‘islamo-fascist’ lie that supports the “war on terror”? Do you support the ‘war on terror’ in Europe? Are you preoccupied about the onslaught on civil liberties? Or are you not exactly aware of the rapid legislative changes in the US, UK and other European countries in their quest to set up police states? Or perhaps you believe their lies and think ‘islamo-fasists’ are everywhere plotting the fall of Western civilisation (I bet you believe Tower 7 fell in its own footprint due to sporadic fire).

And finally, have you any opinion on the Union’s military aspirations as stipulated in the Lisbon treaty? Does it matter to you whether your country is involved in these imperialist wars? Or would you rather stick to the Maltese polly-anna world, where Joseph rules over Tal-Laqx and Gonzi is saved by the Tal-Pepe, who are in fact god’s gift to the Maltese NeJxinn.

It’s your choice, of course, and you do a fine job within this choice, but if you ridicule others for their limitations… well, here’s your own medicine… but I’ll try and leave you lot in your peaceful slumber. After all, like Polly-Anna Daphne, I’m full of it.

[Daphne – For those who don’t know what Kevin means by ‘Tower 7’, herhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7485331.stme’s the most recent news. It’s between the conspiracy theorists who think that the tower was destroyed in a controlled demolition, and the scientists who studied the situation for seven years and decided that no such thing happened. Kevin, I am the diametric opposite of a conspiracy theorist, because I hold fast to the belief – usually proved right – that the most obvious explanation is almost certainly the correct one. It takes weeks of planning and days of wiring to bring down a skyscraper in a controlled demolition, so reason tells me that it couldn’t have been done in the few hours between the aerial attack on the Twin Towers and the collapse of Tower 7. Also, what exactly would have been the point?

The invasion of Iraq: I was all out in favour, and my reaction to the ‘lies about the weapons of mass destruction’ was so bleeding what? As long as they got rid of one of the most cruel and oppressive dictators of our time, whatever it took was fine by me. The unfortunate events that followed do not change that. They are two separate arguments. The strange thing is that it was the so-called liberals who argued most vociferously against the war, and by extension, for the hideous status quo to continue in Iraq. Liberals arguing in favour of a cruel tyrant…interesting.

Iran, Russia – what is it with you and tyrannical leaders? I’m not interested in what they claim is being done to them (more conspiracy theories) but in what they are doing to others, including their own people. I am horrified by the way people are forced to live in Iran – by their Iranian leaders, and not by America.

Assault on civil liberties? I don’t think as narrowly as you do. You have to put things in context. It’s a trade-off: I’d rather be checked a thousand times by airport security than blown up once by some maniac. I assume that you don’t complain about having to have a lock on your door and having to sleep with the windows closed because there are burglars out there. The same principle applies here, but apparently, you can’t see it.

The war on terror? Trust you to take a soundbite literally. Where exactly is this war? If you mean increased security, then yes, I’m for it. Unlimited freedom and unlimited danger go hand in hand, as epitomised in the pioneering days of the American West, and so many other historical real-life examples that you will come up with if you bothered to try. Society is organised around the principle that we give up some of our freedom in return for a safer life. It was ever thus, and people like it that way. The American pioneers had all the freedom they wanted, and that’s why most of them didn’t survive.

Unlike you, I view war as a necessary evil, which has fortunately been avoided in Europe for 60 years, thanks to the increased unity and homogeneity in Europe which you so despise. What would you have done in 1939 – let Hitler get on with it? I ask only because it’s you who seems to have a very narrow view of the world, seeing only the present reality and the latest ‘neo-con’ buzzword and refusing to put it all in the context of history and of basic human psychology. I’m a pragmatist, and so have little truck with nonsense theories and with people who expect real life to conform to them.

{Daphne – Excuse me? What on earth do the views of the MZPN have to do with mine?]