david cameron: twitter tory "twat"

David Cameron is worried that twittering might make him a "Twat", but he should not worry, because he already is one. Camercon is always twittering with his shallow sound bites. This serial spammer will do anything to get followers.

big green gathering "festival banned" conspiracy story is a lie

Above: traffic jams at the Big Green Gathering 2007. It was chaos.

ONE thing is for sure, we have not got the full story on the reasons why the Big Green Gathering has been cancelled, especially from the greens.

At the moment they are pushing the "festival banned" conspiracy theory; namely that this is all an evil plot by the government to screw up the Climate Camp activists and Plane Stupid.

Avon & Somerset police and Mendip District Council have a very different story of course.

Medip District Council issued a statement today:

The failure of the organisers to address a number of serious public safety issues meant that they had no other option but to cancel it themselves. The fact is that organisers chose to surrender the licence before an application was made to the High Court. The final decision to prepare legal papers for a High Court hearing was made on Friday evening (July 24), but a court application was not expected to be made until yesterday (Monday, July 27). In addition to the several months of help and advice they had been given by both us and emergency services, the weekend provided even more opportunity for the organisers to fulfil their licence obligations. However, they handed their licence back to us on Sunday morning (July 26). Many hours of council time have been committed to help make this event happen, but the lack of assurances from the organisers about the safety of their event were continually causing concern for the council and emergency services. There has been an apparent lack of coordination in managing and meeting the obligations of the licence, and now the cancellation of this event creates many more issues and a heavier workload for the council and emergency services than if it had gone ahead safely. Mendip is a council which is recognised nationally with its partners for licensing large events. The bottom line is we know about licensing festivals, and therefore would not have taken a decision to consider legal action lightly. Preparing for legal action is a last resort.

"We won’t ever let something like this happen to us again." said an early statement on the Big Green Gathering website which has since been deleted. Seems like they were admitting the cancellation was ultimately their own fault, at least for a bit.

Like most paranoid conspiracy theories the "festival banned" story is utter tosh. Why would the government need to go to such lengths against the Climate Change Camp and their hysterical hangers on? This very small group of people have totally succeeded in marginalising themselves and losing public support by their sanctimonious and plain stupid antics. They are not a threat to the government, although in their self important dream world they would love to be.

The plain truth is probably something like this. While there are some good people involved, the Big Green Gathering management is sadly infested with the worst type of 'radical' green types; people who have very little connection to reality, and are utterly incompetent when it comes to anything to do with organisation and keeping financial affairs in order.

These are the people who have held back the green movement and the Green Party for years, keeping it marginalised and putting off mass support where ever they go. Thankfully the Green Party seems to have finally brought these 'idiots within' under control, but the Big Green Gathering obviously has not.

Dozens of other festivals have managed to deal with difficult and expensive security and health and safety issues, but not these "activists". Their incompetence is the main reason the festival has been stopped.

I have had dealings with some of these green liars in the past. That is why I suspect the other reason the Green Gathering was stopped is that they are rude, irresponsible and have a major problem with dealing with authority.

They say they are 'anti-capitalist', but in their midst are the meanest and most exploitative, dishonest bunch of hypocrites and fools I have ever come across.

Hopefully the Big Green Gathering will survive. For a start they need to throw out both the dodgy 'radical green activists', and the dodgy right wing American billionaire. With people like that involved it is no wonder the event had to be cancelled; it was obviously dangerous.

• Seems like a lot of Big Green Gathering refugees might be going to the Isle of White to support the Vegas Wind turbine factory occupation which is trying to save 600 eco jobs. That sounds like a Green Gathering worth supporting. Full 'Vfestival' details here.

• There is a new conspiracy story being spread that Facebook has shut down the Big Green Gathering group. I do not trust Facebook an inch, but this is another lie.



• Posted on the UKhippy Forum:

Yes, over the years there has been opposition from Mendip, oiled by their Pilton millions. And there has been opposition from certain high ranking police officers, no doubt fuelled by orders from on high who are anti environmentalist events. But this is not new, it has been in place a number of years. The BGG went into the planning for 2009 with a deficit of six figures, accumulated over the years by an unwillingness amongst certain directors to face financial reality. They arranged a buy out with Stuart Galbraith and Kilimanjaro to the tune of 150K, but at the end of the day he only came up with 50. He then saw what a bunch of idealistic amateurs he was dealing with (from his perspective), stayed in until he could get his 50K back, and then did a runner, thus leaving the BGG in the cack. The police and Mendip looked at the sorry state of affairs and used the excuse of permits not being applied for within the proper time frame to close it down. Ths whole debacle is the primarily the result of a few directors being out of touch with the real world and still pretending that they were at Greenham or on Cruisewatch. If the BGG had gone into this year on a more organised financial footing, be sure that Mendip and the police would not have taken this step. How do I know this? Well, I was a director until this time last year, and I maintain regular contact with a number of company insiders. It was clear to me at the end of July last year that the writing was on the wall, but only myself and one other director (incidentally, the only two directors who were self employed and running successful businesses with good financial management, but ignored by the 'elder states people' on the board) stood up and said this. I was pooh poohed and ignored, so I walked. So yes, it was the police and Mendip, with the help of Stewarts security, but only because the whole thing was turning into a shambolic farce - IMHO.

gordon brown unplugged

Even if you don't agree with Gordon Brown on anything, I think this talk by him on TED gives a rare glimpse of the real Gordon and what makes him tick. What really stands out is Gordon Brown 'unplugged' from the constraints of the usual media sound bites he is not very good at. He covers a lot of ground, bringing in everything from the power of blogging and how to avoid being tracked by the authorities, to the desperate need to solve poverty, protect the environment and defend human rights .... and even Amy Winehouse. Relaxed and cracking a reasonable joke or two, Gordon Brown comes across as a passionate, intelligent and caring man; in fact exactly the sort of person we need as prime minister. People need to see more of this side of Gordon Brown, and he needs to stop hiding his true self. I am just worried we are going to be stuck with a shallow minded Tory snake-oil salesman for the next five years. David Cameron could never give a talk as straight from the heart as this obviously is.

gary mckinnon: dear barack

With last ditch attempts in Parliament to save Gary McKinnon sickeningly foiled by the government, a last last ditch attempt is being made to appeal for mercy by contacting Barack Obama directly. A letter is being written by the National Autistic Society, a leading charity, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Autism, a cross-party alliance of MPs and peers that lobbies for better support for sufferers.

Barack Obama has listened to schmoo advice in the past, hopefully he will now. Might as well try, just sent this to the main man:

Dear Barack, the Gary McKinnon case could be a lot more important to American interests than you may have been advised which is why I am contacting you direct. I know you are busy but this is important. Here is why, and it is all about the interests of the United States.

The guy is sick, it's true, he is honest, straight as a die, but the letter from the Autistic Society goes into all that. You may not realise how bad this is playing for US interests here in London. It just does not look good dragging off a sick guy for hacking, when most of the time the sites he accessed did not even have passwords, that's how slack their security was. This is not like those banker guys, they stole money right? Gary is not a criminal like them. If you drag him off it is going to play super bad. Every one is going to hate America that much more than they did already, which is often a fair bit, even with Bush gone. It will be an open sore for as long as you keep him. This could set you back, for what? To make an example? Why not catch some real hacker criminals? Then you would get most people's support, not most of a country up in arms. You do realise you will be personally blamed if the extradition goes ahead? You got a lot of personal support here right now, why blow even a bit on this?

If you listen to my advice and support Gary staying in the UK to face trial according to UK law, you will be glowing with Brit Love a bit like Nelson Mandela does. Mercy and forgiveness is political gold dust used right, you know that.

Hey! We are losing a hero a day in Afghanistan, plus many more serious casualties, and support is still strong, but it is not easy. You need to help keep that support if you can, and what does this cost you? I know you can't do everything and have to conserve your political capital and all that, but to save Gary you don't have to spend a cent; everyone will be winners except for a few lawyers. Any remaining doubts about you being one special dude will evaporate. This is an emotional thing, just press the buttons on your Blackberry for Gary, and all the glow goes your way. Yes You Can. I'll bet approval ratings of you and the United States in general go up 10% and continue upwards the moment you act. That has to be in the interests of the United States. Ok, it's your call, the buck stops with you, stay cool, schmoo in london x

pagan police could leave crooks spell bound

Usually the news about the police is bad; they are always being blamed in the press for murder, assault, fraud, drug dealing, torture and so on.

So the unusual good news that there could be up to 500 pagan police people practicing witchcraft is very welcome. The Home Office has even recognised a newly formed Pagan Police Officers Association and a Pagan Police Group UK website is currently under construction.

Hopefully we will now see more police on broom sticks which would be a lot quieter than the helicopters the normal unpagen police use to hover over the safehouse at 3am. Also interrogation techniques using the power of witch craft could leave crooks spell bound, and avoid the need to use handcuffs and expensive tazor guns on violent drunkard idiots. Over crowding in police cells could be avoided by using the famous pagan miniaturisation spell as used in 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids'.

It is especially sweet that the pagan police are being given the right to take the Summer Solstice off, and even Halloween. This will greatly annoy the evil Salvation Army who campaign every year to ban Halloween because they think it encourages children to become Satanists. However it might be better to have pagan police protecting the Summer Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge rather than Christian ones. Because of their strange twisted beliefs Christians are apt to turn evil, like they did at the Battle of the Beanfield where they violently attacked the innocent pagans without mercy.

• Here at the safehouse we support the police unreservedly which is not always as easy as they make it sound in the Daily Mail, but we manage. Britain has got a great police force, there just should be more of them, especially on the streets, and they always need better equipment and should be paid more and given more medals, better pensions and more holidays.

• Our favourite police blog Sheepdogs & Wolves has closed down mostly thanks to the Times revealing the identity of NightJack another excellent police blogger whose career has been ruined. NightJack lost an important High Court test case in which it was ruled that bloggers do not have the right to remain anonymous. Damn! Ironic how it all started with NightJack winning the Orwell Prize which is meant to encourage political writing.

homeopathic swine flu vaccine

Disclaimer: schmoo on the run accepts no responsibility for telling you about the availability of a homeopathic swine flu vaccine from Ainsworths which may or may not work, though it is more likely to work if you believe in it, on the other hand you could be just kidding yourself, but it could all be true and we don't want to be responsible for undermining the power of faith healing, so all we best say is that it is probably safer than the official vaccine, but then so is a good healthy medicinal cannabis spliff and a cup of tea.

• Ainsworths website has this disclaimer: "Ainsworths homeopathic products are without approved therapeutic indications."

postal strike: royal mail under attack

The people who decided to change the 'Royal Mail' into 'Consignia' at vast expense, only to be forced by the obvious to go back to the original, should be rotting in the Tower of London along with all their relatives and close friends. Instead they are probably enjoying a nice pension.

The management of the Royal Mail has been absolutely appalling, but managing a business with a union of morons like the Communication Workers Union (CWU) must be very difficult.

While the Royal Mail, one of the foundations of our civilization, struggles to survive, hobbled by government restrictions which allow multinational corporations with horrible anti royalist names like DHL or TNT to steal all the most profitable business, the CWU union seem hell bent on making everything worse with a series of stupid and destructive strikes. The latest 24 hour strike today could delay mail for a week or more, and there is still a back log from the last strike. Is the CWU really in the pay of DHL and TNT, or what?

The obvious solution is to require an intelligence test for all postal workers including management to weed out all the fools. About 50% of them (mostly management) will have to be offered more suitable employment; for example washing dishes, although close supervision will still be required even for that.

And now it looks like terrorists have been shooting at the Post Office on Camden High St (pictured above, click to enlarge), or maybe their target was actually the Bank of Ireland 'black hole of debt' dispensing machine.

thermometer shortage hits swine flu britain

Boots and Superdrug are making a killing thanks to swine flu; they have both sold out of thermometers. Thanks to a well intended campaign to phase out mercury thermometers which silly young children love to crunch and cost as little as £1.10 now on the high street you have to spend £7.82 at Superdrug and over £8 at Boots for a digital thermometer, just to see if you might have swine flu. But the really weird twist to this story is that the proposed new vaccine against swine flu contains mercury and could be more dangerous than swine flu itself.

israel and us practice for war with iran

• Two Israeli missile class warships have sailed through the Suez Canal ten days after a submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile strike, in preparation for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

• In a few days, the Israeli anti-missile Arrow system will face the first real test, weather permitting, of its ability to knock out an Iranian Shehab-3 or Sejil II ballistic missile at the outset of its flight toward Israel. The test will take place off central California's Pacific coast.

swine flu spread by holy water

Members of the mad religious cult known as Christianity have been spreading swine flu through 'Holy' water.

Cult members often put their fingers into a communal bowl of 'holy' water, make the sign of the cross and for strange superstitious reasons either touch their foreheads or even kiss their fingers, which could be the kiss of death.

Now a senior member of the cult, the Bishop of Chelmsford, has spoken out and warned of the serious heath risks associated with holy water. He says holy water should be banned.

Apparently 'holy' wine is also a risk. Members of the cult often go to residential nursing homes where they engage in a weird ritual with residents involving sharing 'holy' wine from one glass.

The whistle blowing Bishop says that if anyone has flu-like symptoms "the priest alone should drink wine from the chalice".

• 100,000 cases a day expected = 500 deaths a day?

• six young healthy australians fighting for their lives. Head of intensive care services Dr Robert Herkes stated "This is not an ordinary flu. It is hitting young, otherwise healthy people...they start with a sore throat, develop shortness of breath and within 12 to 24 hours have rapidly developed respiratory failure and are being ventilated."

• Obese people are especially at risk from swine flu (H1N1). Nine out of ten people in a US study were obese and had multiple organ failure, which can be seen in influenza, but five had blood clots in the lungs, and six had kidney failure. Three died and none have completely recovered. One third of Americans are obese.

great news of the world: dirty digger is top hacker

Exposed! Rupert Murdock's expenses included thousands of payments for illegal taps on mobile phones belonging to people all over Britain. The police are investigating.

The news of the world just gets better and better as first the criminal banks, then the corrupted (by themselves) mp's and now perhaps the vilest of them all, the Tory Porn Press, are exposed as low life criminals, cheats, and perverters of truth and justice.

This is going to be a source of excellent good news as the Porn Press eats itself. Hopefully this will also drag the likes of Tory communications chief liar Andy Coulson, and many many others, through the putrefying excrement, which in truth is these peoples natural habitat.

Already comes the good news that David Cameron is not going to immediately sack Coulson and call the police. This is excellent news as it will prolong the public shame, before the inevitable exit from public life, hopefully in handcuffs.

There could be even more good news soon as further massive corruption in the media is exposed and proves to be so all pervading and insidious that it makes the whole country revolted.

•UPDATE - Wikileaks comments: The News of the did not go far enough. Having slagged off the porn press, it is hard not to agree with Wikileaks that "the Guardian, in seeing an opportunity to attack a journalistic and a class rival, has been doing its level best to castrate British Journalism by tut-tuting in article after article about the News' alleged sourcing improprieties; A tabloid newspaper doing investigative journalism! Journalists skirting the law to expose the truth! The long suffering of British billionaires—and the Royalty! And did we mention that the News' is owned by Rupert Murdoch?— so, um.. you know, the enemy of my enemy and all that! The Guardian's coverage is disproportionate. It is moral opportunism. It is the worst kind of snobbery. It is an excuse to mention tabloid stories in a broadsheet. And it is dangerous. The result will be a publishing climate and probably legislation aimed at keeping the British public in the dark. The implicit lionization of nanny journalism by the Guardian is shameful. "

Yes, the Guardian really are a bunch of creeps, and bugging or phone tapping by the press should be done as much as possible if it is truly in the public interest, but not fishing trips to pick up tardy gossip or track some insignificant celeb for the Paparazzi.

michael jackson spotted in camden

• If Michael Jackson had stuck with weed he would probably still be alive: The King of Drugs Is Dead

7/7 memorial photographs

Above: The 7/7 memorial to the victims of the 7/7 London bombings opened today with a touching ceremony celebrating love and peace. The memorial is in Hyde Park, between Park Lane and Lovers Lane. Nearest tube Marble Arch.

gunantanamo london

Above: Harmondsworth Removals Center in West London, recently taken over by GEO, the same company that runs Guantanamo Bay.

Way back in 2006, Harmondswroth Removals Centre near Heathrow Airport, West London, was dubbed "Britain's Answer to Guantanamo Bay" by Peter Tatchell on Harry's Place.

The allusion to Guantanamo Bay was way over the top. Harmonsworth has been run like a 3 star tourist hostel in Cuba, complete with censored Internet access and bugged phones in every room, rather than a torture center or anything close.

However on 29 June Harmonsworth Removals Center became a lot more like Guantanamo Bay. Management of the facility was taken over by the private prison and concentration camp corporation GEO; the evil people who run Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

How this atrocity has been allowed to happen on British soil is a mystery, but neither the staff or the detainees at Harmonsworth are impressed by the style of the American torture company so far:

• GEO's arrival was heralded by the removal of hot/cold water machines in the detainees dining room and the staff office. "By Order". No tea for breakfast! Don't they know this is London? Plus no cold water on what was a very hot day. The six vending machines disappeared like protesters in Iran, along with their free cold water spouts.

• Then some items in the prisoner's shop doubled their price overnight. This is a form of torture by capitalism obviously used by GEO to get round the Geneva Convention.

• Then they claimed their first GBH victim. An Indian law student was brutally beaten during an illegal deportation attempt. They came for him at night and told him he had a flight. He still had an ongoing case, but they refused to listen. So he, as was his right, struggled. He was beaten so badly that the pilot of the plane refused to take him. He came back and spent the night in hospital.

GEO's record is not good. It is not bad. "Bad" is much too light a word.

Dickens County Correctional Center in Texas is run by GEO. The prison was described last year as "the worst facility I have even seen" in a report by the Idaho Department of Correction's Health Director. And that is not a light honour. Not just bad. "Worst". And worst in a country where you really have to work hard to be worst.

Prediction: protests by detainees, possibly supported by the staff, against GEO management at Harmonsworth can be expected in the near future. One thing that may well spark it all off is the use of dogs against Muslim prisoners in Harmonsworth. This GEO did last Tuesday, and again on Wednesday.

If the Devil had enough cash, GEO would turn the whole planet into a private prison.

• Yarl's Wood IRC, London: Mothers & Fathers on Hunger Strike

sunday hymns at the safehouse

Above: 'Songs of Praise' live at the safehouse church today. Best played loud on Sundays and other holy shopping days, the summer solstice, fake anarchist meetings, michael jackson's funeral (much as we love him) etc etc

• This inspirational holy hymn is not by Saint Frank Zappa, although obviously influenced by him. It is by Steve Vai who played with Zappa and is on his Flex-Able Leftovers album. Zappa never did acid and only smoked ten joints, but you'd never believe it watching Montana, his crazy-genius dental floss song. A very sweet Zappa piece is 'Watermelon In Easter Hay'. His main ambition musically was to write orchestral music.

• The ground breaking 1979 animation for Frank Zappa's 'City of Tiny Lights' was way before 'claymation' became popular with dental floss advertisers.