Wednesday February 15, 2012

grafton's past comments

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    grafton

    At no point is it mentioned that the extradition of a national to a foreign country plays a very large part in all this unrest. To get an American citizen extradited to anywhere else in the world needs a lot of very strong evidence. Which is right and good, however the US demands extraditions from other countries with little more than a warrant. Maybe this man is as guilty as he is said to be, but he is not an American and he is in his own country. If the US has got the evidence to prosecute then they must have all that they need to shut down his business activities in the US, for the sake of one man there is no need for them to bring a country to the brink of a civil war or are we now to expect a Panama style “rescue” of US citizens “trapped” in Kingston?

    Posted in: Gunbattles intensifying, spreading in Jamaica

  • 0

    grafton

    I haven’t enjoyed a conspiracy feeding frenzy like this for a long time, I think the only thing missing so far (so far) has been creatures from another planet, but there is still time. How anybody managed to get their logic twisted enough to find a place for Israel in all this is fantastic, what were they disguised as this time, Papal cardinals? Well we know the Vatican has a secret fleet of submarines so it is logical (to web surfers) isn’t it? One this that does seem to have been forgotten about by most posters is the SK people. They are the ones that will really suffer and their suffering is the real reason China isn’t going to cosy up to the US against NK. The one thing China can see on the cards is what will happen if NK goes to war or if their people start to really starve, there will be tens of thousands of refugees crossing into China and China has neither the means nor the interest in trying to deal with that. If anything that is a card SK and the US could play against China, push the issue to the very brink and force China to act against NK before gets out of hand. Given the history of China and NK it would be incredibly naïve to imagine that China hasn’t already got its friends in the NK military, rearranging who pulls the strings in NK really wouldn’t be that difficult. Added to which after 60 years of indoctrination China is the only country who could successfully occupy NK. So, maybe we are left with a possible conspiracy after all, maybe China sank the SK ship so as to open the door to deactivating NK and getting world credit for doing so. Granted I don’t believe this but it has to admitted that it is more likely than Israeli involvement.

    Posted in: Lee says N Korea must pay for torpedo attack on warship

  • 0

    grafton

    Venlo at 11:42 PM JST - 21st May

    “Bottom line, it's a discussion killer.”

    No, bottom line is that it is nonsense.

    Posted in: Would legalizing drugs drive the crime out of the business?

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    grafton

    The drug problem will not change just because the drugs become legal, and yes with social acceptance more will try the harder drugs and though social acceptance will mean (perhaps) better management of the users there will be an increase in users, the good being negated by the bad.

    As for this nonsense idea that growing a legal crop with add some benefit to the third world, get real, don’t you think that the third world is already in deep trouble producing cash crops to pay off IMF loans, are you really suggesting they get yet another cash crop that will give nothing to the people but use up more food producing land to produce yet another luxury product for rich counties?

    The Economist reasoning is utopian because it reasons that people and governments are good and will fall in line to the betterment of society, but that is never going to happen. Government by its very nature can never get something like this right, they simply will not provide the health care needed, just as we are seeing with cigarettes. Where is the health care commiserate to the levels of tobacco taxation, where are the programmes designed to get people off smoking? The money should be there but isn’t. As for handing over new drug manufacturing to pharmaceutical companies, wow! That sounds like someone has already been sampling the products, trust the pharmaceutical companies to do the right thing? Do you do so now, because not many people do.

    We have already seen most counties stop tobacco advertising because people are gullible enough to believe what they see and start smoking, in other words governments don’t trust people to know what is safe and what isn’t. But now we are to reason that even though the people were a bit thick when it came to tobacco they will suddenly get smart when it comes to heroin and cocaine?

    What every body seems to forget is that we are not talking about the well educated here, we are talking about those at the bottom of the heap who are not going to get all this wonderful education about drugs, primarily the same group that currently makes up the bulk of the perpetrators of drug related crime in our cites. For them nothing will change. This is utopian in the same way that we could argue that communism would be wonderful for all, in theory yes it would, the only problem is that when you add people to communism it all goes terribly wrong. Sorry, but people simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

    Posted in: Would legalizing drugs drive the crime out of the business?

  • 0

    grafton

    I have never read so many naïve posts on one thread before. Alcohol and cigarettes are legal but are both drugs and in the case of cigarettes there is currently a world wide drive to reduce smoking because of the harm that it is said to do. Nicotine is extremely addictive but on the other hand it does not disable the user from being an active member of society. They can still function, which is more than can be said for heroin and cocaine users. Most illegal drugs have a gradual disabling effect reaching the point where the user can no longer work to earn the money to buy his or her drug of choice, at which point they can only turn to crime to support their continued use and do so. Manufacturers, smugglers and dealers are only criminals because the system has made drugs illegal but they do also use extreme methods to protect their business, like killing other dealers and anybody else that gets in the way.

    The happy hippy dope smoker is a thing of the long gone past; the granny smoking for medical reasons is a tiny minority. Drugs used to cure or aid in treatments of one kind or another are administered by professionals who know how much to use and when not to use. Which is the reason we need a doctor to prescribe most drugs.

    This child like reason that we can legalise and then educate is fantastic, we are talking about the human race here, they are for the most part cretins. Haven’t most governments been trying to educate them against drugs for years and getting nowhere? Why would the drugs being legal make any difference?

    We all (I think) agree that cannabis is not as dangerous as nicotine, but how many of you know many long term users? They have become self deluding and useless, they operate at a very low level, nice people maybe. I have many, many friends that I have known for many years and I love them dearly, but they are useless do nothing dope heads. Unless they are in bands and then they do accomplish something. Think about it, would you want you doctor, bus or train driver out of his head on dope? Not that it would happen because they would forget to go to work.

    In the past heroin addicts where said to have a monkey on their back and in a sense that is true, and it is that monkey that turns them into criminals, it is that monkey that demands and demands and legal or illegal that demand will still be made. Legalising drugs will not change the nature of the drug nor will it change the nature of people. Drugs are a cancer in society however they find their way into that society and it is simplistic nonsense to imagine we can hide from the crimes of drugs by legalisation.

    Somebody above by the way needs to look up what “stigmata” really means.

    Posted in: Would legalizing drugs drive the crime out of the business?

  • 0

    grafton

    My, my but what a very sensitive portrait of a beautiful young lady we have been provided with for our picture of the day.

    Posted in: At your convenience

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    grafton

    Decriminalise cannabis perhaps, but legalise no. We all know what would happen once government got involved, high tax and rubbish product after making it less unhealthy. I would be quite happy to see an automatic death penalty for dealers of hard drugs and extremely long sentences for dealers of soft drugs. Not because the drugs in them selves are that dangerous to the individual taking them, but because of the disabling knock on effect they have on society as a whole. There will of course always be some junky type criminals out there, but removing the drugs we currently have on the streets would reduce crime enormously. And we all do pay a price for the drugs that are out there now, insurance premium, police, extra security and what ever else adds up to a lot of money we just wouldn’t need to spend if the threat of crime was reduced.

    Posted in: Would legalizing drugs drive the crime out of the business?

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    grafton

    I treat the mobile much the same way I do meeting people in the street, I don’t ignore them even if they are not the person I would most wish to meet. If there is a delay in my own life and I need to tell somebody I will be late I can. I’m simply not interested by all the extra junk that phone companies have added to the mobile, it is a phone as far as I’m concerned and nothing more. As for the people above who seem to hate them, why such extreme thinking? Switch it on and off as YOU need, do you answer you door or house phone lie a robot? The mobile is only addictive if YOU let it be, you bought it you control it, it is you that are your own problem, not the mobile.

    Posted in: Could you go a day without using your cell phone?

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    grafton

    I wonder how many times poor Susumu Terajima gets killed in this film.

    Takeshi Kitano is the master of his own way of doing things, not sure that is as much of a compliment as I meant for it to be, but it is a compliment. I have liked most everything he has done but rate Dolls as his best work. Though that only really succeeded because of Hisaishi’s score. Change the music and that film would have failed horribly. “outraged” will be added to the collection and only after seeing will I make a judgement, the man can come up with surprises, better to wait until we have seen what is on offer.

    Posted in: Cannes Beat

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    grafton

    The worst of all possible accidents, but an accident none the less because no sane person could possibly imagine this police officer killed the child deliberately. As much as any of us might feel for the horrible loss that the family are now enduring I would hate to be in that police officers shoes, I cannot begin to imagine how bad he feels. So yes, I do feel sorry for him (her?) too. Keep something else in mind about this, the bad guy they were looking for was found in the same building and without some clear idea of the lay out of the building let’s not be too quick to judge the police. I might also add that the old lady might well be a granny but that does not mean she is some sweet old lady.

    Posted in: Detroit police say 7-year-old girl shot dead in home search

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    grafton

    Have had a mobile for a long time, 15 plus years, and have had the same number for the last 12 years (new phones while keeping the old number) so a great many people have that number. Granted I can never remember it because the phone is always with me and I have never had occasion to call myself, so forget the number. I can actually remember the last two occasions I forgot to take my phone out with me, because they are the only two occasions I have ever forgotten it. The only time I actually dislike having it with me is when I get a call outside the country and some fool wants to chat without realising that they are chatting at my expense because they only pay the national change, I get the international bit. Aside from that I really don’t understand all this fuss some people make about not wanting to be in contact, nobody puts a gun to your head, if you don’t like it don’t have a phone. There’s no need to turn it into some kind sociological drama.

    Posted in: Could you go a day without using your cell phone?

  • 0

    grafton

    whiskeysour at 07:01 AM JST - 15th May

    “nobody can't go to work.”

    I’m sorry but this really is asking far too much of us. This is a criminal misuse of the language.

    Posted in: Iceland's volcanic activity keeps Fuji-watchers on their toes

  • 0

    grafton

    It is incredibly sad that a 15 year old loses her life because of a stupid act, but it is near enough normal the world over that 15 year olds do things like this. As I am sure many of us on this site will have done, do try to remember how stupid we all were, it is part of growing up and learning what not to do. We do in fact have a 16 year old here on this site (though we perhaps shouldn’t have. Are there not rules about age here?) that seems to be making more sense that many of his elders when it comes to understanding this. What I find a little silly here are the people suggesting special barriers to protect people waiting for trains, a good idea no doubt but just how expensive would this make rail travel? And where else in the world does this? Like most people here I have travelled a great deal and nowhere in the world have I come across platform barriers on stations so why should Japan be singled out for being in extra special need of these things. As for the paranoids that fear being pushed in front of oncoming trains, try waiting for a rush hour train on the undergrounds of London, Paris, Madrid or Barcelona, if you think the Japanese traveller can get rude and dangerous try Europe for it’s lack of civilisation. This girls act was stupid and she has paid much more than enough, so too has her friend and family, nothing anybody here can say will add anything more to that, except to say that I am sorry she didn’t make it across.

    Posted in: 15-year-old girl killed by train while running across tracks in Osaka

  • 0

    grafton

    Get real. This is the same set up that Nixon used in 69, set conditions that cannot be met as an excuse for never getting anywhere and putting the responsibility on the other side. “We tried and they didn’t”. Sorry lady we have seen it all before. Haven’t the Whitehouse learned any new tricks?

    As for the poor women of Afghanistan they should start getting ready to be abandoned, because that too is on the cards.

    Posted in: Clinton to Afghan women: 'We will not abandon you'

  • 0

    grafton

    How guaranteed that “fixed 5 year term” really is I don’t know, it was created by consent and can doubtless be ended the same way. Today the clue holding this “government” together is fresh and everybody (bar Labour) are happy that something finally did come together. What we need to wait and see is just how long it takes until coalition of the desperate starts coming apart under the ideological strains of actual working government. I really can’t see this government lasting those five years.

    What the people of Britain did was try to vote Labour out but didn’t have any alternative party of worth to vote for, it wasn’t a matter of voting for a party it was a matter of not voting for a party. Over the last 10 plus years politics in Britain have become something most people are disgusted by but still need. Any new voting system needs to include the use of the “white vote” to show just how many people are don’t agree with anything that is being offered. Simply not voting tells us nothing.

    Posted in: David Cameron takes over as British prime minister

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    grafton

    What I am finding just a little ridiculous here is this nonsense idea that America is in Japan to protect Japan, they are not, they are in Japan only for America’s sake. Okinawa is a convenient place to be, so why move? The reality of today’s military is that they don’t need a base on the doorstep of a potential enemy, and Guam is near enough to Asia to do just find. But Guam lacks the entire infrastructure that a large number of single men need, bars, women and whatever, Okinawa provides that “service” but maybe isn’t too happy about doing so. Will Okinawa suffer if the bases leave, very probably, but why should that be an issue that Americas need worry themselves about, in fact why are so many Americans seemingly worried about China getting it’s hands on Okinawa after they leave? If the Americans here are anything to go be they are incredible ambivalent about the Japanese anyway, so why cling on so desperately to bases where the indigenous population want you to leave? What is good or bad for Okinawa obviously isn’t the issue here, it’s what the Americans want that seems to matter. Not that anybody is being up front about that. Maybe the people of Okinawa who are after all the ones that have to live with these bases and have the real experience of living with them are the ones we need to be listening to, even if we don’t like what they are saying and believe it to be a mistake it is still what they are saying and have a right to say. Maybe what is wanted is a referendum on Okinawa which both Tokyo and Washington will agree to abide by. Okinawa’s future would then be in their own hands and I don’t think any of us could argue against that, whatever we believed their future might end up being.

    Posted in: Anti-base ad

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    grafton

    usaexpat at 11:38 PM JST - 1st May

    “I think Anmerica needs to just go back to isolationism. Bring the troops home and refuse economic or military aid to anyone period. If we're not appreciated, then we'll go home and when you need us we won't be sending troops or aid.”

    Could you get Obama to put that in writing and sign it, please?

    Posted in: Anti-base ad

  • 0

    grafton

    By far the largest illegal immigrant racial group in Arizona is made up of Latinos so why not racially profile that group? What is so wrong with racial profiling given a situation that warrant it? As for boycotting businesses that just happen to be in Arizona as a means of blackmailing the state governor is that the way that democracies work? What’s next kidnapping? I have been a (legal) foreigner in one country or another most of my life and when asked to prove that I am entitled to be in the country I have provided whatever paperwork was required, that is what we do and I have no problem with that. Sorry if it sounds heartless but I have no sympathy at all with any illegal immigrant anywhere. They put themselves in that place. Why should the indigenous and legal immigrant population have to pay a social price for people who gave no thought for anybody but themselves?

    Posted in: After immigration law, Arizona faces boycot calls

  • 0

    grafton

    Molenir at 12:08 AM JST - 30th April

    “Spain is in a terrible state.”

    Agreed, but unlike the other counties on the edge Spain still has about half its economy operating in the black. What is seen on paper really represents only about 50% of what is actually happening in the country and that is me being conservative. Its social help programmes are draconian so even with high levels of unemployment government will not be paying out as much as, for example, the UK, besides a lot fewer of those “unemployed” are unemployed. The Spanish learned how to live under Franco, lessons that will keep them safer longer.

    Posted in: Europe debt crisis widens as Spain's credit rating lowered

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    grafton

    Sarge at 12:10 AM JST - 30th April

    “Could you get Mehsud for us?” Us? So you are an intelligence official? My my that is a surprise. Sorry I have to say “no” about getting your man for you, I still have that horrible head ache. Remind me next week and I will see what I can do for you.

    Posted in: Pakistan Taliban chief now believed to be still alive

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