Global Warming Slam Dunk

The global warming denialists are not a happy bunch. They have a few of memes they like to push and push:

First that the planet is not really warming -it's cooling.
Second that you can't trust the IPCC or climate scientists.

Now Associated Press has messed with their conspiracy theories and sent four expert independent statisticians the NOAA's year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics. Result?

Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.

So that means:

First that the planet is really warning...
Second independent experts have confirmed it.

It's a bummer to be a denialist.

Goatlab Radio October 2009

Myself, Anakissed and Parasite do the radio thing!

Tracklisting:

1. Unuramenura - Savage Moon (Insecticide MIX)
2. The Wicker Man Soundtrack - Fire Leap (Trunk Records)
3. Scott D. Davis - Master Of Puppets (Metallica cover)
4. Prince Kong - Load It (Thug) ft. Jah Balance, Problem PG & Anthony Que (!Kaboogie)
5. The Wicker Man Soundtrack - Maypole Song (Trunk Records)
6. Trozminster Krapowski - DJ Mix (excerpt)
7. FFF - Your Time is Up (Sozialistischer Plattenbau)
8. The Wicker Man Soundtrack - Willow’s Song (Trunk Records)
9. Hot Chip & Peter Gabriel - Cape Code Kwassa Kwassa (Vampire Weekend cover)
10. Maladroit - Leonard Cohen As The Demiurge (Hard 2B Core Records EXCLUSIVE!)
11. Enter Shikari Original / Enter Shikari Remix
12. BD1982 - Space Boots [Slugabed Remix] (Seclusiasis)

Check it out.

Death Threat to Student

In my inbox is an urgent call for help. A student organiser from Colombia, descendent of Maroon fighters against slavery, who has been involved in positive organizing among youth in his community. He is a member of a popular hip-hop band creating positive lyrics well-received by black Colombian youth. So naturally, the right-wing reactionary forces view organising and rapping as a threat and used the email account agente926@gmail.com to email him the following:

(I hope get it subversive son of bitch)

Good Day Mr _______, or better [nickname used here] as you choose, bad news I am afraid. For some time now we have been investigating you. The result of this investigation has helped us to deduce that you are a person attempting against the sovereignty and the economical growth of the people, bringing about the possibility of unleashing an era [this word era was wrongly spelled: “hera” is actually “era” in Spanish as well] of violence, bloodshed and terror for many people.

We know that at the moment you are organizing a subversive movement, which is growing fast, your recent connections with terrorists make you a deserver of this communicate. This administrative community orders you to desist of this terrorist idea, otherwise you will have to be exterminated for every ones well-being.

We want to clarify that this IS NOT a threat, neither a friends’ game, we know everything about you for example: which are the places you frequently go to, we know you have an account number with movistar (telephone company) N [number given here] with the line number [other number given], your email address is ___________ you are also part of a music group called _________, we know you have a double identity [the fact that he is in the university is one of the identities from what I can make out – translator’s note], you study in the university __________ currently doing 5 semester of foreign languages degree, we know that you have a long list of telephone calls registered to your account, including to members of the organization abroad, you have been going out of the country to meet them, a trip to Jamaica (ticket bought in London), and in the last two weeks you HAVE traveled with Avianca company to Medellin and Bogota Colombia to meet with new members and plan moves for this guerrilla organization. [Note: this was actually performance travel with his band.]

As you can see, we know more about you than you about us.

If you want to continue to be at the side of those you love and don’t want to get to know the other world that you think you can get. Mr. _____________ WITH CODE [this might be his id number] _________ This administrative community orders you to desist of this terrorist idea, otherwise you will have to be exterminated for everyone well-being.

THIS IS NOT A GAME DON’T TRY TO ESCAPE THROUGH THE ALLEY BEHIND YOUR HOUSE.

BECAUSE WE GOT AN EYE ON YOU.

Scary stuff. This is trying to silence people though fear; aka terrorism. You can email the Colombian Embassy to ask what they are doing to investigate - mail at colombianembassy.co.uk and send messages of solidarity to www.peoplesorganizing.org.

The American Right Goes Mentalist

Right-wing crying woowoo Glen Beck reviews the book 'the Coming Insurrection';



And goes on and on about the 'extreme left' and its push for violence. Not a surprise; you find violent elements in any political and/or religious movement. But his denial that the right has any violence in it - is laughable. In the video below, a right-wing bonehead talks of his plan for a coup;



And there is shit-loads more gun-waving here.

The Evolution of Global Warming Denial

The science of global warming has been advancing over the last few decades considerably. The mass of evidence, data and analysis now not only includes models, weather data, satellite measurements and ice-core samples; they stuff you associate with climate science. But we have also seen data coming from biology, ecology, chemistry, physics and other disciplines that is backing-up and building on the existing knowledge. This is a daunting issue for those intending to deny global warming because they not only have to overturn the climate data but also explain the changes in migration and growth patterns, rainfall and other such associated effects.

Like it's cousin, creationism, the denial of global warming has been fragmenting and evolving as it tries to find a way around the complete lack of any credible evidence for it's position. A decade ago most of the denial was focused around the science; but as the door has closed on this the movement has fragmented into various factions;

-those who think the scientists are mistaken and it is not happening ('flat-earth' denialists)

- those who think it is a conspiracy run by the NWO/communiststs/league of evil scientists/anarchists/environmentalists etc ('alien abduction' denailists)

- those who think God's law means it is nothing for humans to bother with (climate-creationists)

- those who think it is happening but humans are not causing it ('sun-spot-volcano-ice-age' denailists)

- those who think it is happening and humans are causing it but we should not change (the economic school of climate denial)

Now a new faction has emerged; the 'post-structuralist denialist'; these are people who raise vague philosophical arguments to reality in an attempt to avoid reality. It's a bit like a first-year philosophy student who goes around stating that 'nobody can prove anything' and quoting René Descartes (wrongly) at you in a drunken haze. This is fun stuff for late night discussions over alcohol but abstract to the max. Here's a recent example of a post-structuralist denialist in action:

Until AGW believers can honestly look at the people of this world as a resource instead of a threat, AGW as a political argument is doomed to repeated defeat .... Al Gore, James Hansen, George Monbiot of the Guardian, all the premier advocates of drastic change to combat global warming, have some kind of deafness--a deafness of the heart. It's why they are getting their posteriors kicked in public debate and policy discussions.

Did you see what he did there; yes he's using the tired of denialist label of 'believer' which is to imply that global warming is not a fact, but a 'faith' and yet he offers no proof of the position; yet castigates those who are proven to be right on the science for some vague philosophical notion of 'how they view the world' - which allows him to neatly side-step the insinuations of the fact that he offers zero evidence for his position. Yup; this is a debate based around 'nobody can prove anything' where the denailists are right because they 'view the world right'.

It is a bit sad that this is what they are reduced to; metaphorical card-tricks - but they have no choice because the postlude-science they have hitched tier wagons too has collapsed and died and Jedi-mind tricks is all they have left.

Anti-Nazi Resistance Hero Dies

From the Hope Not Hate blog...

The world lost one of the heroes of the anti-Nazi resistance yesterday with the death of Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Marek was one of 200 Jews who battled German troops for a month in 1943 before the Ghetto was razed to the ground. It was the single largest revolt during the Holocaust.

The Warsaw Ghetto was set up by the Nazis in 1940, as part of a wider operation to round up Jews across occupied Eastern Europe. Between 300,000 and 400,000 people were crowded into the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest of its kind in Europe.

In the summer of 1942 the Nazis began the forcible transportation of Jews from the Ghetto to the Treblinka death camp, in an operation codenamed Grossaktion Warschau.

In mid-January 1943, the Germans began their second wave of deportation, but this time it was met by an armed insurgency within the ghetto. While Jewish families hid in their "bunkers", Jewish Military League (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy, ŻZW) fighters, joined by elements of the Jewish Combat Organisation (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB) engaged the Germans in two direct clashes. Hundreds of people took up small arms to fight the Nazis. They took control of much of the Ghetto, built defences and executed collaborators.

The Death of the Post-Apartheid Dream

A shocking news story...

If you have not heard Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shack dwellers movement of which I spoke often at Crotoff, has been attacked in the Kennedy Road settlement by an armed mob chanting ethnic slogans and backed, fully, by the ANC. Many were beaten and two were killed. As the community defended itself spontaneously two of the attackers were also killed - with their own weapons. The police refused to intervene and then arrested eight of the local Abahlali leaders in the settlement on murder charges. Most of these who were arrested were in fact at a dance performance in another part of the city at the time. The others, including S'bu Zikode who some of you know something about, had their homes destroyed and had to flee the settlement. ANC politicians and the police were present while the houses were destroyed. The settlement is now controlled by an armed pro ANC group who have the full backing of the police and the party. Abahlali are banned from the settlement, which they were elected to lead, on the pain of death. At least a thousand people have fled and many are sleeping rough.

This will all be terribly familiar to those of you who know something about the struggles of popular movements in places like Brazil, Mexico or Nigeria. For us this is very familiar from the 1980s when the apartheid state employed these tactics but none of us expected to see this in South Africa after apartheid. It came out of the blue. We are totally shocked and really don't have the resources to deal with it - we are struggling with basic things like accommodation and food for the displaced. We are also struggling with the organised propoganda from the state. The media has been told that the settlement has been 'liberated from criminals'. The ANC are openly celebrating the 'liberation' of Kennedy Road and are threatening to arrest S'bu Zikode too. They are calling the movement 'criminals' and, at the same time, saying that the human rights entrenched in the post-apartheid order are giving criminals a free ride and that police need to be given permission to shoot to kill. Our criminals are your terrorists - people who are defined as being outside of the protection given to those that count.

Please have a look at the Abahlali website - http://www.abahlali.org - and share the information there widely. There is a particularly strong statement from Bishop Phillip - who struggled with Steven Biko and who has, in the face of this attack, decided to cross the river into open opposition to the state once more.