I am well aware that Osborne has been redistributing money to the rich in his budget. I am also stunned by the idea that the state should see its role not as reducing regional inequality of wealth, but as reinforcing it through regional public sector pay rates.
But my days at the moment are like this. I get up at 7.30 am and after a very frugal breakfast I take a local taxi to the disastrously neglected and underfunded National Archive of India. I spend eleven hours there hastily transcribing from an enormous wealth of documents on Alexander Burnes – really beyond my wildest hopes – and then at 8.00pm the security guards kick me out, the curators having left some time ago. I get back to my budget hotel, take a light supper of imodium and activated charcoal, chat with Nadira, and then fall asleep exhausted.
No, but seriously –
Counterpunch picked up on this, this week. Strangely, no-one else at all did.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=262543
The right of re-return, you might say. The bill passed, unanimously, by the way.
For the rest of the world, the only direct way of getting to settle in the US is to be extradited there, of course.
Sorry mary
I was trying to be ironic
As usual no news on zbc
The love boat
I compared the
I
sraelies to the over indulgent 70s
Tv program.
Materialistic
Two sites are currently covering Earth Day in Gaza. DEBKA File, the well known comedy channel for wannabe Mossad employees, and Der Algemeiner Journal (circ 23,000, New York Jewish organ – not to be confused with the Allegemeiner Zeitung in Frankfurt) Both are predicting rivers of blood, and presenting the March as a joint Iranian/Lebanese/Syrian/generally antisemitic plot.
Komodo
“Is required for spambots Remedial English”.
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Nicking a certain cretin tinted pair of glasses:
Huh, if they cannot “speaky English” they shouldn’t be allowed to come to our blog in England, and take all the electrons, and goodness knows what other benefits from our electricity, whilst feeling and tickling the keyboards of our women folk. This government ought to pass a law against these spam bots it should!!!!!!!
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I am glad you liked the link that I put up, others not so happy best start reading the stuff before passing judgment, perhaps never judge a book by its cover could hold true.
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Gorgeous George winning will piss off a whole load of charlatans, the anti war, PressTV presenter, kicking the butts of the troughers whose sense of entitlement has been slighted.
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May I congratulate Bradford for starting a spring in UK, and may I take this opportunity to wish George a very happy term and many more terms to come. Well done George, go get them!
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Towards a instantiation of an anti war, and responsible mode of governance: of the people, by the people, for the people, at the exclusion of the plutocrats, and their toadies. There is no room for worry, these have enough lawyers to keep maintain and preserve their comforts they are so accustomed to.
Recent developments: the IDF shot Mustafa Bargouti in the head with a tear gas canister. Given the accuracy of that kind of projectile, he was probably aiming for someone else, it must be admitted.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11826792-palestinians-marks-the-anniversary-of-earth-day-and-global-march-to-jerusalem
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Oh, and access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is blocked.
Mary posted this interesting link yesterday. The more fascinating since the print edition today is somewhat shorter.
Deleted bits in italic:
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“http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/29/adam-werritty-liam-fox-pargav?newsfeed=true
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“Most of the money came from high-profile Tory donors, some of whom had been directly petitioned for donations by Fox.”
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“The Guardian revealed that Werritty handed out business cards that described him as “advisor to the Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP” and used his quasi-official role to met a string of world leaders, including the president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa.”
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“…The accounts add that Werritty owed the company an additional £11,381. Werritty’s debts to the company dragged it £5,125 into the red.”
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“Pargav, which received £147,000 of funds from four high-profile Tory-donating businessmen and an international investigation company…”
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“One of the donors, Jon Moulton, a Tory donor and multimillionaire venture capitalist, has provided the police with documents that he claims proves he was duped into handing over £35,000. Moulton, whose private equity company Better Capital owns Reader’s Digest UK, said Werritty “wasted” the money and spent it in a way that “bore absolutely no resemblance” to written assurances Werritty provided.
Moulton said Fox had solicited the donation from him after he gave funds to the former defence secretary’s “back office” while Fox was in opposition. “Liam [Fox] asked me to put some money in the same general direction. I was at great pains to get written assurances as to what it was used for, which bore absolutely no resemblance to what it was used for,” he told BBC Newsnight in November. “I can definitely say that I was mugged. In fact, if you look at the dictionary, the definition of ‘foxed’ is discoloured with yellowish-brown staining, and I fear it might be reasonably appropriate.”” (all of that – K)
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“A City of London police ‘s economic crime unit confirmed its investigation into claims that the donations were solicited or used fraudulently. A spokesman said on Monday: “The City of London…”
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“Until the filing of Pargav’s accounts, Werritty had not been named in the company’s official records. The identification of Werritty as a “shadow director” raises further questions about the management of the company. “It should be remembered that acting as a shadow director is not an offence in itself,” HMRC states on its website. “But the existence of a shadow director is a risk indicator. It raises the suspicion that the shadow director is attempting to conceal something by managing the company but not being listed as one of its directors.”
Pargav’s only named director was Oliver Hylton, who was working as aide and charity adviser to Michael Hintze, the billionaire chief executive of hedge fund CQS. Hylton, who left CQS’s employment in the wake of the scandal, also provided Werritty with free office space in CQS’s plush offices over looking Buckingham Palace.
Hintze, who has donated £1.5m to the Tory party and was this week revealed as one of the leading Conservative donors invited to dine privately with David Cameron following the 2010 general election, was also a funder of Fox’s now-defunct Atlantic Bridge charity, which was run by Werritty.
Pargav was created days before the charity commission suspended Atlantic Bridge, which had been paying for Werritty’s flights around the world.
Also listed among Pargav donors were Mick Davis, the boss of the FTSE 100-registered mining company Xstrata, financier Michael Lewis, a real estate company owned by arms tycoon Poju Zabludowicz, G3, an international investigation company run by former MI6 officers, and defence lobbyist Stephen Crouch’s IRG Ltd. Davis, Lewis and Zabludowicz are all big donors to the Tory party.” (And all of that – K)
To clarify -The last section above was deleted completely – something went wrong with the italics.
Thanks Komodo and sorry Jay. Need an ironic detector implant obviously. A sleepless night followed by the loud dawn chorus at just gone 4 am. I love birds and their singing but not so much this morning!
We have just had the case of mismanagement and fraud (allegedly) at A4E, contracted by the DWP to find employment for the long term unemployed. Now this is what happens when services are outsourced in the NHS. More of the same to follow no doubt.
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http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back&
Another ‘you could not make it up’ went on in today’s proceedings at the pre-inquest hearing for the late Gareth Williams. Proceedings were closed to the public later on.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17562112
PS I have never heard of a pre-inquest hearing. ?? Anyone
Komodo, can you check that Guardian article again? Does it still have deleted parts, or has it been restored?
The usual names. Cruel psychopaths Bliar, Campbell, Powell, Evans etc all prosituting themselves round a cruel dictator for more shekels. Note the connection of HM’s third child to Kazakstan.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/8857689/Oil-rich-dictator-of-Kazakhstan-recruits-Tony-Blair-to-help-win-Nobel-peace-prize.html
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Do they do boiling alive as in Uzbekistan?
yep – quite amazing that many people are still going on about Galloway’s meeting with Saddam as if it was worse than arming and funding Saddam as he committed genocide – and Blair can be praised for overthrowing one brutal dictator while working as a PR man for another in Kazakhstan and having claimed Mubarak was a wonderful man as he had unarmed protesters shot and tortured.
Cameron and Clegg approving arming the Saudi and Bahraini and Yemeni military and police as they kill and torture protesters is also fine apparently
Just the beginning.
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30 March 2012
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Virgin Care to run Surrey community health services
Unison said it had concerns about privatisation of services accessed through GPs
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Community health services in two areas of Surrey are to be run by a private company in a £500m deal.
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NHS Surrey said the contract signed with Virgin Care also included some county-wide services such as prison healthcare and sexual health services.
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Virgin is to manage community services in south west and north west Surrey.
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Anne Walker, chief executive of NHS Surrey, said it was “excellent news” but Unison said it had concerns about NHS privatisation.
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The deal, signed on Friday, became possible after the Health and Social Care Bill received approval from the House of Lords.
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Virgin will manage services but lease premises from the NHS under the deal, which will run until 2017.
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NHS Surrey said patients would continue to be cared for by existing staff, who had been fully involved throughout the procurement process.
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‘Profit over care’
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Services involved include eight Surrey community hospitals, community nursing and dentistry, health visiting and physiotherapy, diabetes treatment and renal care.
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“This is excellent news for patients, carers and staff in Surrey,” said Ms Walker.
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“This contract signed with Virgin Care will bring best quality, safety and value for Surrey’s NHS patients, carers and taxpayers.”
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But public service union Unison said it had concerns over the privatisation of the NHS and fears of profit over care.
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“The services that Surrey’s million-plus population access through their GPs, including community nursing, therapies, end of life care and sexual health screening, will now be provided by a private company,” it said.
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Regional organiser Sarah Hayes said: “Both staff and the public do have fears over what this means for the future of the NHS.
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“Unison is keen to now work with Virgin Care to ensure that quality health services for all are maintained across Surrey and to support staff in continuing to provide care and a vital service for all patients.”
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-17567842
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Missing from Ms Walker’s statement is that is excellent news for Branson and his empire.
Gosh, Mary, does this mean that Ms. Walker, so it seems, has received excellent virgin health care services whilst being vined, dined and, ehem, entwined at Mr. Bransons annual garden pickles, his socially responsible way of looking after his groovy staff, fruitions galore, long lines of waiters in white suits, and, wait for it, tantatalising soirees?
Don’t you just love it, an olympic effort smoothing the acidic decline of a manifested icon, a hypocratic metaphor buried under boardroom belly laughs.
Duncan, bang on, all day we heard of cat licks and Rula Lenska, the BBC was falling over themselves allowing the worst comments of George Galloway to be aired, back pedalling allround, I wish I had £10 on this 33/1 outsider.
What George has made apparent and crystal clear is, that the next war is an issue, that it does move the younger generation who’s already against it, whatever their social background may be, and that party politcs and fraudulent management of consent, hallo BBC heee, has no trust, mainstream party politics has become transparable to the able and thinking, a generally healthy state of affairs that can only get better.
And yes, you can copy that on to your blog 😉
That said, George is a liar, he never was a boxer, he might have tried on some gloves; nor is he abstinent.
I had to do this, because on a rather dull day I finally got to read George Galloway’s comments to Sky News.
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“We don’t have the blood to spare and we certainly don’t have the treasure to spare in Britain to be going around the world occupying other people’s countries and having our young men come back in boxes. We’re spending hundreds of billions of pounds on setting fire to other people’s countries when we can’t keep our own pensioners warm in the winter time when we’re almost bankrupt,” Galloway said.
“So, I think one of the lessons of yesterday’s election result is that Britain wants out of Afghanistan and that’s of course one of the points I’ll be pressing when I return to the House of Commons,”
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George Galloway 30th March 2012
We have had CRUDdas. Now there is this other dodgy Tory donor dealer, Ed Staite. How many more will pop up out of the woodwork? A Ms Sarah Southern seems to be the common factor.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9177218/Ex-Tory-media-adviser-accused-of-offering-potential-donors-chance-to-form-policy.html
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Southern seems to be on a self made trajectory. She is a director of the British Aerican Project. I wonder if Atlantic Bridge and Fox Werritty came into her orbit.
{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9166225/Sarah-Southern-The-Young-Conservative-who-sold-access-to-the-Prime-Minister.html}
Morning
“Its only Money”
Money can`t buy you love and privatising the health service will not I think buy you wellness, love, compassion and mutual competiveness to be healthy back to our nation.
With our coming Olympics perhaps we should remember that the Greek civilisation and there schools of “gymnasium” resulting in mental and physical well being should be a trend that we should welcome for a national health wellbeing.
Call me a National Socialist but the idealogy of healthy individuals for the greater good would be beneficial to the greater good of our national and its wealth Service.
Saying all that Its `only money`
We have money in abundance (see ctrl>print) but cant buy you Love.
As a nation we have got to be high up in the unhealthy league which is Good for business.
If we had to pay for our health care we might look after ourselves better!
We Always Kill The Ones We Love
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Pesticides may be responsible for bee decline: studieshttp://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Pesticides+have+devastating+impact+bees+studies/6380560/story.html
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The headline is rather tentative I thought….’may be responsible’….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17535769
which is a more detailed piece on neoniconoids and the bee decline
There is no difference at all between political liars of Communist, Islamist or Neo-Con persuasions. Boniface Goncourt attracted attention earlier this week by drawing attention to the works of the Islamist political devil. I totally agree with him, that they are all the same, but what he identifies as wrong about Islam isn’t Islam.
Why are people not naive enough to be fooled by Obama, Blair Cameron eeeeetttttcccc…. but suddenly have to feign shocked rage that some devious people trample over Islam for their own power and gain? All politics is about the self, dressed up as goodwill to fellow human beings. The more devious, the more the coating of altruism.
The politicos don’t worry about the fleas biting because they are in it for power and gain, and the ordinary Muslims don’t worry about the fleas because they know that the things Mr Boniface ( altruistic name coating if ever there was one ) was complaining about Islam are untrue about Islam.
Political minds are all the same. It takes one to know one.
The BBC this morning proudly announced that an english NGO, not a political party, has managed to galvanise the European right in Aarhus Danemark, that they had meetings and are organising themselves.
Whopeedooo, what great news from the Haw Haw BBC, who seemingly likes rogues such a Netanyahu, Livni and Breivig, why bother with flaky lefties, Greens and anybody who has aprogressive plan for the country, leave it for the rightwing to sort out.
The BBC has to fall on to its own sword and it will, eventually.
I heard this ‘news’ twice before b*am, no doubt it will feature all day. Connections were made with Anders Breivig, whilst Melanie Phillips manifested blueprint for that terrorists did not get any mention at all, she must be sooo fed up not to get credit for her support for the IDF’s murder on the high seas.
How is it possible that these violent fascist plots are being amplified, taken as gospel by the BBC? Its nothing to do with the EDL sending them a press release, they get hundreds each day and its not that they cover every forlorn PR sent to them from Foe, or Greenpeace, or Mums net, so why these rightwing rebel rousing cowards?
I suspect that there are some very rightwing forces steering our media and managing consent, they are politically aligned to the worst of the worst and keep always in the background, not daring to put their head above the paraphet.
I’m sure that Anders B.’s freemason connections could have helped Norways police effort, it would have discouraged the Norwegian contingent, meeting this weekend to link up in Aarhus. Did the King of Norway consult and inform Prince Phillip of Anders urges and his plans? what did these freemasons know of this gun nut?
Next item, Jack Straw on Labours Angst, hastily dismissing that this could happen in Blackburn, talking of accredited movements and work in the local constituency and how this Bradford West result could not happen in Blackburn.
Well Jack, if the young generation is fed up about the tribal rules and has had enough of the election frauds committed at every election in Blackburn, your feeding of hundreds and the Patel mongering that has kept you in power for 33 years, you will find that what little you have done for Blackburn will not save your bacon, oops.
Why is it that Jack Straw, man of guile and cunning, is always the first to dismiss a Labour route? Is it because he’s feeling guilty about his own actions? always quick to dismiss that it could happen to him?
Mind you with such flaky electroate and people unwilling to engage in the electoral process, the main parties will get away with it, again and again and…
Clark – It was the print edition that had been subbed/redacted!
Its all too late folks, GEAB N°60
http://www.leap2020.eu/The-future-of-the-USA-2012-2016-An-insolvent-and-ungovernable-United-States-first-part_a9750.html
Has anyone heard from Craig and if so, is he OK?
From Persig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
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‘It’s completely natural,’ I say, ‘to think of Europeans who believed in ghosts or Indians who believed in ghosts as ignorant. The scientific point of view has wiped out every other view to a point where they all seem primitive, so that if a person today talks about ghosts or spirits he is considered ignorant or maybe nutty. It’s just all but completely impossible to imagine a world where ghosts can actually exist.’
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John nods affirmatively and I continue.
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‘My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn’t that superior. IQs aren’t that much different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within that context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quants are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know.’
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‘What?’
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‘Oh, the laws of physics and of logic — the number system — the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.
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‘They seem real to me,’ John says.
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‘I don’t get it,’ says Chris.
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So I go on. ‘For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity.’
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‘Of course.’
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‘So when did this law start? Has it always existed?’
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John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at.
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‘What I’m driving at,’ I say, ‘is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed.’
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‘Sure.’
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‘Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone’s mind because there wasn’t anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere…this law of gravity still existed?’
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Now John seems not so sure.
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‘If that law of gravity existed,’ I say, ‘I honestly don’t know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that that law of gravity didn’t have. Or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. And yet it is still `common sense’ to believe that it existed.’
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John says, ‘I guess I’d have to think about it.’
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‘Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.
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‘And what that means,’ I say before he can interrupt, ‘and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people’s heads! It’s a ghost! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other people’s ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own.’
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‘Why does everybody believe in the law of gravity then?’
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‘Mass hypnosis. In a very orthodox form known as `education.”
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‘You mean the teacher is hypnotizing the kids into believing the law of gravity?’
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‘Sure.’
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‘That’s absurd.’
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‘You’ve heard of the importance of eye contact in the classroom? Every educationist emphasizes it. No educationist explains it.’
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John shakes his head and pours me another drink. He puts his hand over his mouth and in a mock aside says to Sylvia, ‘You know, most of the time he seems like such a normal guy.’
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I counter, ‘That’s the first normal thing I’ve said in weeks. The rest of the time I’m feigning twentieth-century lunacy just like you are. So as not to draw attention to myself.
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‘But I’ll repeat it for you,’ I say. ‘We believe the disembodied words of Sir Isaac Newton were sitting in the middle of nowhere billions of years before he was born and that magically he discovered these words. They were always there, even when they applied to nothing. Gradually the world came into being and then they applied to it. In fact, those words themselves were what formed the world. That, John, is ridiculous.
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‘The problem, the contradiction the scientists are stuck with, is that of mind. Mind has no matter or energy but they can’t escape its predominance over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. Numbers exist only in the mind. I don’t get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind. It’s that only that gets me. Science is only in your mind too, it’s just that that doesn’t make it bad. Or ghosts either.’
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They are just looking at me so I continue: ‘Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn’t a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It’s all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It’s run by ghosts. We see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living.’
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John looks too much in thought to speak. But Sylvia is excited. ‘Where do you get all these ideas?’ she asks.
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I am about to answer them but then do not. I have a feeling of having already pushed it to the limit, maybe beyond, and it is time to drop it.
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After a while John says, ‘It’ll be good to see the mountains again.’
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‘Yes, it will,’ I agree. ‘one last drink to that!’
Ok, I’ll bite. While Newton’s Law of Gravity did not exist before Newton, it can be demonstrated that what we refer to as gravity now has been a dominant feature of the universe for oooh…say 13 billion years (there weren’t any years before 4.8 Bn years ago, of course, but what we think of as time was still working). Our perceptions are maya – illusion, but that does not mean the mechanisms they describe are.
Long time since I read and enjoyed the first half of ZATAOMM, Clark – the second half was pretty damn pointless IMO – byt Terry Pratchett is a deeper thinker by far. (discuss)
Hello Clark! How are you? I’ll bite too (have worked hard with facts all day!) …The ‘law of gravity’ is no such thing: just an attempt on the part of a human (followed by a lot of other humans) to give a name and form to something which exists (exactly, Komodo). Just as the number 28 is our attempt to impose an order on a pre-existing selection. It was there before we called it ’28’ (or, hey, 32, if you wish) A friend of mine pointed this out to me, btw, not my original idea, and I was v grateful.
Re ghosts: not many people have experienced what we call ghosts, though all of us have experienced what we call gravity. It pulls you down!
So yes, I conclude that Terry Pratchett (because he tends to lift you up) is a great thinker (not sure if greater or deeper: all relative)
So disagree with Persig that ‘the world has no existence whatsoever’ (the Dalai Lama pinches himself whenever he gets that feeling, apparently) but if he wants to think that, hey.
Mali
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2012/03/27/mali-coup-a-new-step-towards-global-resources-grab.html