I shall again be running the bar – the Whistleblower’s Arms – at the Doune the Rabbit Hole Festival from 22 to 24 August at Cardross, Port of Menteith.
I find this festival, which is very much a lifestyle event and features mostly new talent, an extremely life-affirming experience. Last year it brought me back from a very dark place. Some of this blogs most active commenters and helpers have been among the volunteers over the last couple of years, keeping the event going. Personally for me the festival is necessarily centred around Williams Bros and Thistly Cross, but there is a tremendous variety of music:
The event is very family friendly, and also an amazing place to meet new friends. It does not have any specific political orientation, but I might fairly say that the vibe is very much in line with the kind of unconstrained intellectual space promoted on this blog. On top of which Cardross is an extraordinarily beautiful place. The variety of local food on site, ranging from vegan to game, is one of the things I really enjoyed. It is a not for profit event and nobody gets a salary.
Tickets are not expensive by festival standards, and certainly cheaper than a weekend break in a hotel. But there is also the alternative of working your passage – the festival still needs plenty of volunteers.
I am genuinely looking forward to it enormously. Hope to see you there.
The child being beaten by the IDF. His jaw is broken. The sadistic cruelty displayed in the videos is unbearable to watch.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-holds-us-boy-without-charge-after-police-nearly-beat-him-death
PEACEWISHER I think that anti austerity YT might have been got at. When I clicked on I got the most awful screeching sound. Could not get out of it and had to switch off my computer. Thankfully it was OK when I rebooted.
Are we regressing back to our ape ancestry?
‘Paedophilia is natural and normal for males’
How some university academics make the case for paedophiles at summer conferences http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10948796/Paedophilia-is-natural-and-normal-for-males.html
Even Andrew Gilligan’s title gives the practice some credence and acceptability on first sight.
@Mary: Sound like your computer crashed. This has happened to me with youtube videoes. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, what did you make of Franscesca?
BrianFujisan
Great – fill out the volunteer form on the festival website if you don’t mind.
Thanks for the great offer Craig, would have loved to jump doune the rabbit hole. I’m working at present finding some Saxon sunken feature buildings in Norfolk and I have my son come down from Edinburgh.
Would have loved to shake my booty to the peatbog fairies and have a jar with you. There will always be another tim e and my September date in Lochgoilhead is soon upon us.
Maybe by then the clear up on site has finished and Jamie has time for a jar/coffee in Glasgow.
Love to see the residential painting team again.
Who knows, everything might change by August…..;) I would love to come up and do a stint of stewarding with Brian, tell a tale, we both could beef up the bar/security crew or help with potato peeling….
and some gentle ale tasting, whats the ale on offer this year?
@Peacewisher, thank you for the Francesca Martinez clip; a remarkable lady, and her “”You know what, F**k Profit !” could be the best slogan I’ve heard in ages 😀
Having been handcuffed to a bed with his ankles also handcuffed to it, the injured boy is now under house arrest. And America’s Psaki makes a feeble protest to the Israelis.
This treatment of a child by the Israelis is an outrage.
http://news.sky.com/story/1296023/boy-in-beating-video-row-faces-house-arrest
Mary; “This treatment of a child by the Israelis is an outrage”
It’s yet another abomination from an abomination that calls itself a State.
From Mary’s link:
“Palestinians believe Mohammed was killed by Israeli extremists in a revenge attack after three Israeli youths were found dead.”
And so it goes on.
Mary : “This treatment of a child by the Israelis is an outrage.”
Proving that Mary is part of the problem, not the solution , as she has nothing to say about Palestinian violence towards Israelis, except perhaps to excuse it.
“”You know what, F**k Profit !” could be the best slogan I’ve heard in ages”
Only in the mind of a child, Macky.
Phil – if you’re interested in the intentionally well-concealed economics of private finance in public services, probably better to look at instances for yourself. You might start here:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/05/pfi-contracts-list
And note that the process distributes taxpayers’ money not only to contractors, but to the ultimate financial backers such as hedge funds.
I’m only just getting to grips with the scale of this myself.
Anon; “Only in the mind of a child, Macky”
Yes, it’s difficult for a brainwashed adult mind not to believe that everything has to generate a financial profit.
“F**k Profit !” would appear would appear to suggest that nothing should.
Anon; “would appear to suggest that nothing should”
Perhaps you should actually watch the clip Peacewisher provided, for the missing anti-austerity context.
Ba’al and Phil.
More useful homework for your research into private finance in public services. Here a FOI document which gives you some idea of the colossal amounts of public money involved. The web page will want to open as a .doc from http://www.justice.gov.uk.
How horrible and dangerous can a state become towards its children and how stupid can the emperor watchers on here get by not seeing the obvious, i.e that Netanyahu wears no cloth. Every time he opens his mouth blod is spilled.
Israel is desperate and the zionistst are nbehaving like this to keep its increasingly loud and critical jewish population on their side. Nothing would stop them.
I suppose we can now expect Anon to apologise for suspecting Hamas of kidnapping the three teenagers, on behalf of his fellow trolls here and his/their beloved Zionistan.
Tickets are not expensive…..
Bwahahahahah!
You’re so out of touch with reality! Could you please tell your reader how much money you have been paid over the years by the taxpayers (the workers)?
Treat this as an FoI request.
No? Thought not.
Interview with Jesselyn Raddack, Snowden and Drakes representative lawyer, over the extend of NSA spying and the cult status national security has aquired since the modern information age made it possible to spy without vengance.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-nsa-experts-on-us-spying-in-germany-a-979215.html
Well it is official “Jewish Extremists” as per the zionistani authorities kidnapped the fifteen year old Palestinian boy and burned him alive. Not content with the murder however the zionistani uniformed thugs (Jewish Extremists with a license) have been videoed beating up another nearly fifteen year old boy whom happens to be the cousin of the roasted alive victim (of course everyone will realise the deliberate way the boy was lying unconscious and hurting the knuckles of those beating up on him, and it is all edited out of the video!!!!!) .
Needless to point out that, the only reason this beating has come to the attention of the world, is because the boy happens to be a US national (why is there no law against stopping these interlopers becoming nationals of the west???) . Not forgetting the best friendship between the US and its best friend zionistan is not sitting well with the Yanks, that one of theirs is getting the treatment. Hence the immediate release of the “sand nigger/pally/subhuman Arab”.
Meanwhile Liam has been pulled out of the cupboard to pontificate about Taayyyyyrrrrrreeeer$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$T£ (bawhawwww watch behind the screen there is a Muslim ready to get you any minute). All the while the mejdia are airing the concerns of the terror industry stakeholders; “Britons are not taking the terror threat seriously”! Did I say Britten? Reminds me about how quietly little Leon has been interviewed for rape, although the stenographers are at pain to point out the girl was above the age of 18!!!!
No worries about the dossier getting covered up because as Lord Tebbit (do you recollect the good old Norman, and his bicycle advice?) to explain; those days people just did not talk about that kind of thing!!!!! (which fucking universe is this fossil residing in?)
Obviously the toxic situation is so far gone down the shitter that none of the luminaries dare to pontificate other than the old has been and over with luminaries of yesteryear whom are prepared to put their head above the parapet. These airing their briefed views; this exercise in flying various balloons with the aid of the bygone era actors is an obvious desperate clawing around for a narrative that can explain away the cover-up that has let the culprits get on with their pastime whilst raining crap on the world, at the behest of their handlers.
Finally anyone who has read the Wealth of Nations past the first sixteen pages at around 350 and over will find the positively lefty Adam Smith talking about the insolence of aristocracy and futility of oppression, whilst questioning the validity of profit in the face of mother suckling her baby and young men being asked to defend their country at war.
As ever the neocons hope no one ever reads the stuff so they make it up as they go along, perverting all concepts they have touched. Schumpeter in his worst nightmares never would have thought his “creative destruction” could be hijacked to promote the very antithesis of his ideas.
Anon You have often heard me say ‘NO child shall be harmed’.
~~~
The Israelis have arrested six people described as nationalists for the murder of Mohammad. Assume that means settlers.
“Finally anyone who has read the Wealth of Nations past the first sixteen pages…”
They read with cherry-picking spectacles, just like many read the Bible/Koran in the Great Cafeteria of Ideology.
They read Saul Alinsky with the same kind of eyeballs.
Children seem always to suffer the most. If they’re not taking fire they’re forced to give it.
http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/07/un-human-rights-abuses-against-children-continuing-with-impunity.php
“recruitment of child soldiers by seven national armies and 50 armed groups fighting wars in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Syria and in 11 other countries. Zerrougui was especially critical of Syria [JURIST backgrounder], calling the country “one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child,””
On the profiteering from PFIs I put this up recently.
Northumbria NHS trust saves £67m by freeing itself from PFI …
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/northumbria-nhs-trust-saves-67m-by-freeing-itself-from-pfi-deal-9517844.html
Critics of the controversial private-finance initiative (PFI) programme have called for a full independent inquiry after an NHS trust saved nearly … 9 Jun 2014
Exclusive: How private firms make quick killing from PFI – UK …4 Jun 2014 – The Independent’s findings shine a new light on how private … Balfour Beatty is the biggest beneficiary of its PFI deals, making profits of £188.9m (Getty) … NHS experts said that, in the case of the hospitals, the profit from …
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-how-private-firms-make-quick-killing-from-pfi-9488351.html
~~~
I have posted that Guardian spreadsheet before. The extent of it is staggering. Your grandchildren will still be paying out in decades to come.
Major set it going, BLair let it rip and this lot in power csrried on.
eg
Surrey County Council let out a PFI to Skanska for street lighting replacement and maintenance over a period.
See how it’s framed in a press release…. ‘government money’ given to Surrey residents!!
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/street-lights-bring-cost-environmental-4821498
A £30m hospital extension is currently being built for a Surrey mental health trust.
A relation was an architect on this large PFI project.
https://www.laingorourke.com/our-work/all-projects/tunbridge-wells-hospital.aspx
The Zionist Kevin Connolly the BBC’s ME correspondent writes:
‘the killing of 3 Israelis worse than “waves of violence” in Middle East’
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/bbc-killing-3-israelis-worse-waves-violence-middle-east
The approach of the BBC’s John Humphreys is also discussed on http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1404630394.html
In other news….. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/rebels-flee-slovyansk-as-ukrainian-forces-recapture-key-city/2014/07/05/eb44fc8e-0437-11e4-8fd0-3a663dfa68ac_story.html
Because….RUSSIANS.
They claim this regardless, in order to scare the inhabitants. The Ukies are here, the American equivalent of the Guardian spook mouthpiece says so, flee for your lives. I think the script is running ahead of the facts on the ground and the WaPo bosses and editors just got another charge on their war crimes indictment.
Well WaPo is another Guardian of the Snowden revelations.
Nearly half are Americans, but I note this phrasing……..
“Among the most valuable contents — which The Post will not describe in detail, to avoid interfering with ongoing operations — are fresh revelations about a secret overseas nuclear project, double-dealing by an ostensible ally, a military calamity that befell an unfriendly power, and the identities of aggressive intruders into U.S. computer networks.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-nsa-intercepted-data-those-not-targeted-far-outnumber-the-foreigners-who-are/2014/07/05/8139adf8-045a-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html
Drip, drip drip…..
As the psycho bestrides the world, he now demands that Maliki changes or goes.
Tony Blair calls on Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki to change or quit
Former Prime Minister unrepentant over 2003 Iraqi invasion as he criticises Maliki regime
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10949891/Tony-Blair-calls-on-Iraqi-PM-Nouri-al-Maliki-to-change-or-quit.html