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.
“How do you know if I sent a complaint to the BBC or not?”
__________________
Because, my dear Mary, you send many letters of complaint off to different bodies and usually proudly tell us about it and I have no reason to believe that you acted any differently this time.
But I sense a diffident reaching out in your reply and so shall ask you : did you complaon to the BBC?
OBN of the day:
“I have always admired your tenacity on this blog Macky.”
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Absolutely so, Mary! Which is presumably why Macky threw his toys out of the pram several months ago after getting reproached by Craig and others and swore never to return.
But lonely exile on Squonk proved unsatisfying….
It’s a tenacious dog that returns to his vomit.
Pip, pip!
I repeat Macky that I admire your tenacity on this blog.
I am NOT the troll’s ‘dear Mary’ and he should mind his own business as to the recipients of my correspondence.
PS Who or what are the Semotoc?
“Spirit of Gordon”
Encrypted Communique 4395444xge567
Mackey. 4 46pm
Focus! 🙂
Could you come aboard and take a look at our improbability drive. Your dismantling talent could be put to good use. We can do the transport.
…
Re the whole consent manipulation machine… “It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but what is perceived to be true.” Henry Kissinger
…
Ba’al Zevul (Chimp Assassin)
8 Jul, 2014 – 4:18 pm
“… until you release the magnetic restraint and let me off this bulkhead.”
Ok. I’m a fair-minded and generous captain so I’ll allow you choose between the security and unstimulating demands of your present position on this ship, and the, all of a sudden, mysteriously vacant post of Assistant Sub Undermanager of the Sewage Lagoon.
No wait a moment, here’s a better idea, here’s a XXX*7 suit and a spanner. See if you can just unbolt the whole recycling unit and give it a nudge. That’s bound to solve it and we can print another one in a couple of weeks if we can start that 3D printer.
Breaking news, as some pn jhere would say:
Lady Justice Butler-Sloss is named to head the paedophilia inquiry.
I think all would agree that this is an excellent choice because she was an excellent judge. No whitewashes to be expected.
12 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28206556
Current posts on Medialens on the situation
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/
Guardian : Israel approves 40,000 reservists as strikes from air and sea pound GAZA… – alquds43 Today, 5:39 pm
COMPARE & CONTRAST : Israel steps up deadly GAZA offensive… – alquds43 Today, 5:24 pm
BBC WHISPERING SERVICE:Israel ‘ready for escalation’ of GAZA conflict – alquds43 Today, 5:08 pm
Adam Withnall in The Independent on Israel and Palestine…how’s this for an opening line? – Ed Today, 4:24 pm
“..and he should mind his own business as to the recipients of my correspondence.”
__________________
Well, Mary my dear, with most people I WOULD, but you have gone public so often about your correspondence that you have to some extent forfeited the right to privacy here, haven’t you.
It’s a bit like those celebrities who reveal much of their private lives and then complain when the press writes about their private lives.
Semotoc was merely a typo for Semitic, as you well know 🙂
“I repeat Macky that I admire your tenacity on this blog.”
__________________
And I repeat, Mary, that you have earned this week’s OBN and that Macky threw his toys out of the pram several months ago after getting reproached by Craig and others and swore never to return.
But lonely exile on Squonk proved unsatisfying….
It’s a tenacious dog that returns to his vomit. Woof, woof, Macky.
“..as strikes from air and sea pound GAZA… – alquds43 Today, 5:39 pm”
________________
Ah, that verb “to pound”. Shivers run up our spines as we think of previous poundings: Leningrad, Stalingrad, Warsaw……which resulted in thousands of deaths.
And then we read, in the same post from Mary :
“12 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.”
There’s no doubt about it – the Germans have nothing to teach the Israelis when it comes to poundings.
“Macky threw his toys out of the pram several months ago after getting reproached by Craig and others and swore never to return”
It’s obvious that you missed me, and that you are so desperate for me to respond to you, that you have started blantently lying again; for the record, I stated that I couldn’t bring by myself to respond to Craig’s beyond the pale comments iro the Odessa massacre, that’s all; I not only stopped commenting here for a while, but for an equal time at Squonk; I’m posting here again, for now, but the difference being that I don’t have any more illusions about Craig, and in the knowledge that this Blog is moderated to protect both his perjudices, and his pets, chiefly yourself.
@Mary, if you believe in & argue your pov in good faith, being “tenacity” is inherently automactic ! 😉
Like the weather, I wish you would dry up.
Al Quds is a commenter on Medialens. He was repeating today’s Guardian headline fyi.
Israel approves 40,000 reservists as strikes from air and sea pound Gaza – live
•At least 15 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, officials say
•Israel troops ordered to ‘prepare for escalation’
•Operation follows increase in rocket attacks from Gaza
•White House ‘strongly condemns continuing rocket fire’
•Read the latest summary
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/08/israel-steps-up-offensive-against-gaza-live-updates
~~~~
My comment above obviously not to you Macky!
That was obvious Mary; unlike some, I know when I’m actually being addressed ! 😀
https://squonk.tk/blog/2014/01/20/the-general-discussion-thread/comment-page-18/#comment-7305
Why a statue of Gandhi? Does that aid Gideon’s trade mission? The ubiquitous Mr Vaz approves.
We all wanted a statue of Brian Haw. Even the Times suggested it this morning I am told.
http://www.demotix.com/news/4731367/michael-culver-shows-statue-brian-haw-sculptor-amanda-ward#media-4728224
“We all wanted a statue of Brian Haw.”
____________________
Speak for yourself, Mary, I certainly wanted no such thing. The man was a demented, obsessive leech. Good riddance (geographically speaking, of course).
“Like the weather, I wish you would dry up.
Al Quds is a commenter on Medialens. He was repeating today’s Guardian headline fyi.”
______________________
It’s one of Mary’s famous Russians dolls: on the “pounding” of Gaza, Mary repeats Al Quds who repeated a Guardian headline.
The Guardian headline is probably also a repeat from God knows whom, but hey, who cares. What’s one more repeat between (original) friends?
Macky
Surely you are not denying that you were reproached – several times – by Craig and others, as a result of which you went into exile?
Anyway, I do hope that exile has taught you a little humility and given you the opportunity to re-evaluate your beliefs and the often unfortunate manner in which you attempt to express them.
Welcome back.
LOL
“Surely you are not denying that you were reproached – several times – by Craig and others, as a result of which you went into exile?”
You are both a blatant liar & a deluded fantasist.
I challenge you to substantiate any of these alleged “reproachments”, and to provide the mythical comment where I “swore never to return” 😀
Off you go, and try to have the self respect not to address me again until you bring back the evidence or “proofs” 😀 😀
Mary
7 Jul, 2014 – 3:57 pm
“There was not much take up on 38 Degrees for action on TTIP. I think that people are not aware of the implications of TTIP.”
The neo-lib media are not fulfilling their duty to inform (as ever).
This goes further than the NHS and other public services. This is an assault on democracy itself and we know that democracy and neo-liberal capitalism don’t mix.
What are the members of parliament doing about it? Not a lot.
http://nhap.org/cameron-makes-light-of-ttip/
Do not sully the name of a decent and brave human. You are well out of his league.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/07/doune-the-rabbit-hole-2/comment-page-2/#comment-465305
UK manufacturing output in surprise fall
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/28209578
Sterling plunges after manufacturing output surprises everyone by shrinking
http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/go/news/article/1302558/sterling-plunges-manufacturing-output-surprises-everyone-shrinking/
M&S general merchandise sales fall 1.5% ahead of AGM
Here we go! Marks & Spencer has suffered another fall in general merchandise sales, as the travails with its new website continue to hit turnover.
Hours before its annual meeting, M&S has told the City that clothing, footwear and homeware sales slumped by 1.5% on a like-for-like basis in the last three months. That means they’ve been falling steadily for the last 3 years.
And clothing sales are also down again, falling 0.6% (if you strip out the impact of new stores.
But the big shock is on the web site – sales at M&S.com have tumbled by 8.1%!
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jul/08/marks-and-spencer-results-clothing-sales-agm-business-live
LOL
Recovery? What recovery?
I thought this is fascinating. The utterly disastrous banking career of the seventh earl of Verulam especially. http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-gold-plated-grassroots/#more-58194
Am I the only one that noticed that idiot trolls disappearance from this blog coincided with Leon Brittan’s going to ground over the missing dossier? It all fits; the sometimes female sometimes not identity, the fine handmade Italian leather jackboots; the boastful bloated Eurocrat leanings, recalling those days when the vacuous ex-Tory student Clegg was his fresh-faced factotum serving the oily Knight in all capacities.
‘It’ has certainly gone into overdrive, posting frenetically as Israel goes on another of its murderous sprees amidst the Arab ghettoes. Meanwhile our glorious TV news gives us quaking Israelis ‘sheltering’ in their luxurious bunkers from the onslaught of fireworks set off by their own people outside whilst Israel’s death squads bombard defenceless crowded Gaza with every conceivable barbaric weapon they dare without tipping worldwide revulsion into irresistible demands for a united response in kind. Holding back the mounting vomit is not recommended. This is the time when some mainstream TV newsreader should and must be prepared to say on air “I’m not putting up with disseminating these vicious streams of lies any longer” or similar and lets rip over this particular outright and disgusting Israeli fraud, eliciting sympathy and claiming victimhood, as always – a complete inversion of reality – whilst perpetrating another despicable mass killing and terrorising of half-starved and penned-in Palestinians.
I only know Brian Haw by reputation, and what I saw in the film War Matters. I wondered about his personal life, so I looked him up in Wikipedia.
“Haw worked with troubled youngsters in Redditch, Worcestershire, where he lived with his wife Kay and their seven children until he left them in 2001 to begin his Parliament Square protest”
Does anyone know what happened to his seven children?
Long-term planning;
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/sep/27/uk.syria1?cat=politics&type=article
“Nearly 50 years before the war in Iraq, Britain and America sought a secretive “regime change” in another Arab country they accused of spreading terror and threatening the west’s oil supplies, by planning the invasion of Syria and the assassination of leading figures.
Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 Harold Macmillan and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria’s pro-western neighbours, and then to “eliminate” the most influential triumvirate in Damascus.
Message from Gaza from Dr Mona al-Farra. An eye witness account of the bombardment.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1404850980.html
I also received it today via Greta Berlin of Free Gaza who said:
Please share widely.
If you can, donate to MECA here: http://www.mecaforpeace.org/meca-projects They are a wonderful organization. Greta
“whilst perpetrating another despicable mass killing and terrorising of half-starved and penned-in Palestinians”
While our leaders give diplomatic cover & support, & hypocritically wring their hands in public, and the ghouls who act as Israeli apologists go into overdrive, using distracting tactics such as lying to start arguments, or besmirching Brian Haw.
@Anode
“Do you think it is a good thing when a person’s life is destroyed for disagreeing with the mainstream view. Can you cite any other example where a person’s honest disagreement on the interpretation of facts has been punished so harshly?”
No I don’t – but as has already been point it was Irving that started the libel action against a fellow historian who had made the point that not only was Irving’s interpretation of the facts re the Holocaust was wrong but so were his facts. The judgment in the case claimed that Irving deliberately distorted evidence that was proven to be true. Irving then continued to repeat the same “facts” and distortions for for many years after the case. The court case is freely available should you wish to search for it. Irving was trying to destroy Deborah Lipstadt and he got his comeuppance as a result.
The fact that he has also been a regular performer at neo Nazi events over the years also does enamour him to me very much. Perhaps Mary, given her father’s stance against Nazi’s might wish to explain why she felt necessary to give succour to Irving’s cause just so she could get in an attack on Lipstadt’s lawyer?
Mary’s headline:
“Sterling plunges after manufacturing output surprises everyone by shrinking
http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/go/news/article/1302558/sterling-plunges-manufacturing-output-surprises-everyone-shrinking/”
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And, in that link:
“As of 11.46am sterling was 0.09% down at $1.7114.”
Wow! Sterling down by all of 0,09%! A catastrophe and the end of civilisation – and the UK – as we know them!
Could Mary perhaps remind us of the sterling-USD exchange rate say 1 year ago, please?