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#121 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,996
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It's probably not even in the top ten. As an aside, there was recently (within the last six months) a BBC radio programme (either World Service or Radio4) about the history of Soviet and Russian assassinations from Trotsky onwards, and the liking for exotic poisons. My google-fu is weak though ETA: did any of the other UK posters hear this? |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#122 | |||
Good of the Fods
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 2,508
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I don't recall a radio program on this but I did watch this a few weeks back.
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#123 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Bristol UK
Posts: 3,315
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I agree that people like Beria in Stalin's time, and the Russian Mafia, have been known for a long time to have bumped people off. It seems an unusual and sensational way to me to have used radioactive and nerve agent substances. What about good old-fashioned arsenic or cyanide? To my mind it's a bit like MI6 trying to bump off Kim Philby, or Princess Diana, or the Americans disposing of Edward Snowden in Moscow.
What is a fact, and which I firmly believe, is that there have been false flags in the past used in wartime, and peacetime, which have been used in the past by Britain and America and Israel, and probably Turkey, and they may now wish to discredit Putin. It's not just the Russians who use subversive propaganda. Polite firmness is not much use. You need to take a firm line. There is a bit of waffle about this sort of thing in a book called The Russian Outlook by Lieutenant-General Sir Giffard Martel in 1947:
Quote:
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#124 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,495
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The daughter lives in Moscow and came to visit her father only a few days before they were stricken.
Investigators are checking out a cemetery where his wife (and son also?) is buried. This is because dad and daughter visited with flowers. They are checking if there is contamination at the gravesite. There is also mention of an interest in "a present" that she brought from Moscow which I think is at the house or was there. |
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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#125 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,495
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It doesn't seem like he was angry at his daughter...
Originally Posted by BBC News
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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#126 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,495
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Insider tells Daily Mail that the flowers at the gravesite are possibly the source...
Originally Posted by DailyMail
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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#127 |
Ewige Blumenkraft
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Ivory Tower
Posts: 16,264
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Apparently Ambrosia, despite feeding us wrong "local" information earlier, doesn't feel like informing us about what those local news were, so I checked and found the Salisbury Journal which has reported at least four times that they heard from "emergency services" that fentanyl might have been involved, as you can see in the four top linked articles of the search on their site I linked. Interestingly enough, the fifth link goes to an article from a month ago which is about a local who has been selling the stuff on the darkweb and has apparently been sentenced to eight years in prison for it, something I suspect will have been talk of the day on the "soporific" streets of that town. |
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#128 |
Good of the Fods
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 2,508
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Reading comprehension is not one of your stronger suits.
I said in reply to your earlier post "if that's what the local media are saying they are as guilty of making **** up" if CNN quoted the local rag as saying that "fentanyl may have been involved" then you can be pretty sure that that's what the local rag said. Our local paper, the Salisbury Journal, wrote early on, quoting an unamed emergency service source as saying that "fentanyl may have been involved" It's a major incident in a tiny English city, something that our local journalists have never had to deal with, everyone and their dog is running round in circles interviewing random people and putting out any old stories they can to sell copy. It doesn't mean that there is any truth to it. Hence my "making **** up" comment which goes as much for CNN as it does for our local press. They know what the poison used was, they aren't telling us, aside from it being a rare nerve agent. That rules out fentanyl which is the current opiate drug du jour, as it's not a nerve agent. It's an opioid. One that you can buy from pretty much any decent sized town or city in the UK if you know the right people. They don't roll out specialist army units, cordon off businesses and whole areas of a city for opiate contamination. |
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#129 |
Safely Ignored
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 9,255
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I don't think there's any mystery or anything suspicious about someone in the emergency services initially telling their local paper's journalist that the symptoms of a couple of people found collapsed in the street looked like fentonyl. Events have moved on. It wasn't that. Today, everyone who visited the pub or restaurant are being advised to wash their clothes and clean their possessions as a precaution. This was something outside the experience of the average ambulance crew.
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#130 |
Hyperthetical
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: A pocket paradise between the sewage treatment plant and the railroad
Posts: 14,477
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Or as the old joke goes, for Russian expats Putin dislikes, they died of natural causes.
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A zřmbie once bit my sister... |
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#131 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,996
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#132 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
Posts: 47,377
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If I were an evil regime (and I'm not), I'd want people to figure out it was me killing off traitors. So they'd be properly scared, realizing that nowhere was safe from my vengeance, no amount of time or distance would enable them to escape. It's not just about eliminating spies after they've already spilled their secrets, it's about keeping your other spies in line. I definitely wouldn't want my current spies to think if they betrayed me they could expect a cushy retirement in another country, then die from an accident or health issue.
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#133 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,996
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It's probably even better if it's like the archetypal Mafia hit, where everyone knows who was responsible, but there is nothing to tie them to it.
There are questions as to whether under Cold War "spy swap" etiquette, Skripal would have been considered to have paid his due: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...sergei-skripal Some people are saying this never really happened though. |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#134 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,495
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Some reports are saying that Officer Bailey did attend to the victims. Some say he was only at the house. Some say it was both. I can't figure out where exactly he was.
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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#135 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Besźel or Ul Qoma - not sure...
Posts: 8,815
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#136 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Besźel or Ul Qoma - not sure...
Posts: 8,815
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#138 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Bristol UK
Posts: 3,315
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Personally, I think Putin's policy to the Crimea and Ukraine and Syria is logical from a Russian perspective, and RT reports things which BBC Pravda will not touch. When he first came to power he acted drastically when financial weakness was plainly visible, and he cracked down on bank fraud. He dealt ruthlessly with Russian oligarchs who tried to interfere in Russian politics, and he seems to have sorted out the inherited Chechen mess. He does not want to interfere with international trade, or cut the supply of natural gas to Europe.
As I have said before, I don't understand why he would want to cause a public controversy with a nerve agent just months before the football World Cup in Russia, and risk a boycott by British allies. I suppose there is nowt so funny as folk. There seems to be a Russian Mafia and terrorists in Russia. Israel and Turkey have been known to bump people off in the past and they know about chemical warfare and nerve agents. There have also been unsolved murders in the past, and wrong assumptions, and faulty organisation in the police. |
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#139 |
Orthogonal Vector
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 45,144
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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#140 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,495
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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#141 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 8,346
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#142 |
Maledictorian
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 6,797
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Imagine that - a government that seriously tries to uncover Russian intervention in their country....
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Opinion is divided on the subject. All the others say it is; I say it isn’t. |
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#143 |
Ewige Blumenkraft
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Ivory Tower
Posts: 16,264
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#144 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 19,030
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Corbyn called out the Tories at PMQs today over their party funding and donations from Russian sources.
It didn't go down well with them. Corbyn: May I suggest that the Government not take foreign donations from a country that’s committed a terrorist attack on Britain. Tories/Labour MP’s: You disgraceful man, this a non Party political issue! |
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#145 |
Nasty Woman
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 71,529
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Press conference Suckabee could only say we stand with the UK and completely talked around the Rusher thing.
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Restore checks and balances no matter your party affiliation. |
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#146 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,252
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#147 |
Lackey
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: South East, UK
Posts: 84,754
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Should the UK attempt to retaliate in kind? We would have plenty of opportunities to carry such killings in the UK as London is somewhere that many of Putin's associates like to spend their time.
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I wish I knew how to quit you |
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#148 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 11,688
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Is the use of a nerve agent in these cases due to practical reasons or propaganda reasons?
I ask as presumably there are easier ways to assassinate than nerve agent? Is it deliberately used to shock the world and say 'dont mess with us'? |
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Man's material discoveries have outpaced his moral progress. - Clement Attlee, 1945 |
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#149 |
Nasty Woman
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 71,529
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Restore checks and balances no matter your party affiliation. |
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#150 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 1,399
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Key elements in the statement:
"Military grade nerve agents" - either you did it, or someone can get it from your stores; no chance that it was a mad scientist in a basement. "unlawful use of force" - ie breach of international law, so going after the Russian state, not just the individuals who carried out the attack. I'd expect to see pressure from the UK for a co-ordinated international response through NATO and the EU, but given Trump and Brexit, who knows. |
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#151 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 1,399
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#152 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,996
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#153 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Besźel or Ul Qoma - not sure...
Posts: 8,815
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#154 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Besźel or Ul Qoma - not sure...
Posts: 8,815
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#155 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,495
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__________________
Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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#156 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,996
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I will translate
Just because it uses Russian WMDs it's nothing to do with Putin. And they deserved it anyway, even if Putin had been responsible, which he hadn't. Or: I won't present an argument, I'll post a mocking meme to make it seem as though the idea is ridiculous, without explaining how: |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#157 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,996
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From Badscience
Originally Posted by woodchopper1
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#158 |
Ewige Blumenkraft
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Ivory Tower
Posts: 16,264
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The data provided in the "open thread" I posted is more useful than your post, because it adds the information on the big dubyas: where when who (why is missing so far, what is what you have provided). Of course what you said is true, but it is of lesser use for sharing with someone else in an argument about this topic. |
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#160 |
Safely Ignored
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 9,255
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