Sceptical Scientist Confirms Climate Change is Real, Climate Deniers Go Mental

I've been a bit busy of late and so not been able to blog as much as I'd like here. However this news was just too fun to miss! The background to the story is that a group of independent climate sceptics embarked on a project called 'Berkeley Earth' to re-analyse all of the temperature data so provide conclusive proof either way of global warming. The project lead, a physicist Dr. Muller, has in the past made sceptical noises about climate change and the temperature data so naturally the deniers liked him and were supportive of his work. Here's what popular deniliart climate blogger Anthony Watts had to say:

And, I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. I’m taking this bold step because the method has promise. So let’s not pay attention to the little yippers who want to tear it down before they even see the results. I haven’t seen the global result, nobody has, not even the home team, but the method isn’t the madness that we’ve seen from NOAA, NCDC, GISS, and CRU, and, there aren’t any monetary strings attached to the result that I can tell. If the project was terminated tomorrow, nobody loses jobs, no large government programs get shut down, and no dependent programs crash either.

He even provided them with data from his own non-peer reviewed analysis of surface temperature. Other deniers offer support too. The denier funding oil-magnate, Koch, threw them cash for the project (but so did climate realists funding groups too). Then the denier politicians invited Dr. Muller to testify before congress. It was all looking sweeeeeeeet. Problem was, this is what Muller said at the hearings:

"The Berkeley Earth agreement with the prior analysis surprised us, since our preliminary results don't yet address many of the known biases. When they do, it is possible that the corrections could bring our agreement into disagreement."

Yes, the results they prodiced agreed with the results climate sciencets prodiced. There earth is warming. Here's what it looks like:



Ooops for denialists! So how did Watts respond to the confirmation of climate change? Did he accept whatever result they produced, even if it proved his premise wrong? Did he fuck!

With his testimony, Dr. Muller has totally destroyed any credibility he might have had with me.

Denial in a nutshell! (Also see here, here and here) Now the wolves of climate denial have rounded on Dr. Muller as they mount 'Operation Shoot the Messenger'.

Top 10 Anti-Christian Acts of 2010? Get a Grip...

Jebus H Mice. Some American Christian's are sooo self-obsessed and obsessed with homosexuality. Here is their take on how persecuted they are... about 9 examples of 17-odd supposed examples of 'anti-Christian' acts seem to be about gay sex. Guess what is not on the list? The evisceration of Iraq's Christian community. Yes, Iraq has churches that date from the 7th Century and yet the Christian community being killed and exiled in the waves of violence and fundamentalism unleashed by the botched US-led invasion. An invasion the US Christian Right cheerled for.

Iraq's defence ministry has said that the army will be on high alert this Christmas. It said it had received intelligence indicating Christians could be attacked. On Wednesday, two people were killed when a bomb exploded outside a church in the northern city of Mosul, one of the latest in a series of attacks against Christians there in recent months. According to some estimates, half of Iraq's Christian minority have left their homes since the American-led invasion in 2003.

Should that not be on the list? I'll let them know... see if it makes it.

(Hat-tip to RationalWiki)

Government harassing and intimidating Wikileaks Supporters

Typical. Back to the dark Bu$h days and so much for free speech...

In July of this year, U.S. citizen Jacob Appelbaum, a researcher and spokesman for WikiLeaks, was detained for several hours at the Newark airport after returning from a trip to Holland, and had his laptop, cellphones and other electronic products seized -- all without a search warrant, without being charged with a crime, and without even being under investigation, at least to his knowledge. He was interrogated at length about WikiLeaks, and was told by the detaining agents that he could expect to be subjected to the same treatment every time he left the country and attempted to return to the U.S. Days later, two FBI agents approached him at a computer conference he was attending in New York and asked to speak with him again. To date, he has never been charged with any crime or even told he's under investigation for anything; this was clearly a thuggish attempt by federal officials to intimidate any American citizen involved with or supporting WikiLeaks.

That campaign of intimidation is now clearly spreading to supporters of Bradley Manning. Last Wednesday, November 3, David House, a 23-year-old researcher who works at MIT, was returning to the U.S. from a short vacation with his girlfriend in Mexico, and was subjected to similar and even worse treatment. House's crime: he did work in helping set up the Bradley Manning Support Network, an organization created to raise money for Manning's legal defense fund, and he has now visited Manning three times in Quantico, Virginia, where the accused WikiLeaks leaker is currently being detained (all those visits are fully monitored by government agents). Like Appelbaum, House has never been accused of any crime, never been advised that he's under investigation, and was never told by any federal agents that he's suspected of any wrongdoing at all.

Wikileaks: Iraq is a deeper blood bath than we knew

Thanks god for Wikileaks. They are exposing the massive, massive, criminal, violent and messy bloodbath that is Iraq. One we paid for in taxes and the Iraqi people paid for in blood. It's is gobsmacking how low, how deep the void of horror this conflict has opened, is:

...one case in which he claimed a British rifleman had shot dead an eight-year-old girl who was playing in the street in Basra.

"For some reason the tank stopped at the end of the street, she's there in her yellow dress, a rifleman pops up and blows her away."

It's not just that: It turns out they did do body counts; and the majority of those dying in the coalitions own figures, are civilians. Given that I'm sure soldiers sometimes lie about who they had killed to cover-up mistakes - this is still a staggering figure..

Leaked Pentagon files obtained by the Guardian contain details of more than 100,000 people killed in Iraq following the US-led invasion, including more than 15,000 deaths that were previously unrecorded.

British ministers have repeatedly refused to concede the existence of any official statistics on Iraqi deaths. US General Tommy Franks claimed in 2002: "We don't do body counts."

The mass of leaked documents provides the first detailed tally by the US military of Iraqi fatalities. Troops on the ground filed secret field reports over six years of the occupation, purporting to tot up every casualty, military and civilian.

The ignoring of torture - and remember that Bliar and Bush took us into Iraq to stop the torture of Saddam - and they turn out to be almost as bad. With us paying the tax bill... and the Iraqi's paying the butchers bill:

This is the impact of Frago 242. A frago is a "fragmentary order" which summarises a complex requirement. This one, issued in June 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, orders coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, "only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ".

Frago 242 appears to have been issued as part of the wider political effort to pass the management of security from the coalition to Iraqi hands. In effect, it means that the regime has been forced to change its political constitution but allowed to retain its use of torture.

I've run out of outrage words to describe all this....

Fighting for God - Fighting Evil (eeek!!!)

So what does this image show?



A religious nutter with holy book and gun.

So what does this image show?



Religious nutters with holy books and guns.

Not much difference between the two - one Muslim and one Christain, both convinced that in the battle of good vs evil they are on the side of good along with thier version of God.

Scary.

And here's a scary story where soldiers in the US military opposing the Christianisation of it, get death threats - including ones aimed at their kids. Prince of peace? Hmmmm.

More Climate Creationism

Even more linkages between the voodoo cult of anti-evolution and the bat-shit crazy of climate change denial. Here's the new Texas Republican Party Platform on science teaching:

Realizing that conflict and debate is a proven learning tool in classrooms, we support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories, including evolution, Intelligent Design, global warming, political philosophies, and others. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as challengeable scientific theory subject to change as new data is produced, not scientific law. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.

Yeah - teach the debate: teach the science debate as to if the earth was formed by cooling gases and space debris or in fact created by the giant Mbombo. No science teacher should be in trouble for teaching the Mbombo theory as fact.

Fucking idiots; yes, teach this stuff in cultural studies, literature, history and/or religion classes but science? Mbombo says no.

In Science a Scientific Law comes from repeated observations that the same thing happens over and over and over. That's why it's a law and not a trend or tendency. If there was new data showing that what we thought happened under a law, did not happen over and over and over - then it ceases to be a law and becomes a a trend or tendency. I think the Texas Republican Party are confusing legal laws with the Scientific laws. Somebody who can't understand the difference between legal laws and Scientific laws should not be writing science policy.

I think the Texas Republican Party are confusing logic with dogma.

But then this is the Texas Republicans - and you don't mess with the Texas Republicans - even if they are bat-shit crazy ('cos they're armed).

They are also a nasty bunch of homophobic pricks too. Climate change deniers; with friends like there...

Wikileaks Under Attack

Please read...as the first casualty of war is not truth - that's always a casualty - but open information... WikiLeaks reporting the sad killing of civilians via US botched airstrikes - and rather than trying to find out what happened - the US is trying to shoot the messenger - Wikileaks:

One of our alleged sources, a young US intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, has been detained and shipped to a US military prison in Kuwait, where he is being held without trail. Mr. Manning is alleged to have acted according to his conscious and leaked to us the Collateral Murder video and the video of a massacre that took place in Afghanistan last year at Garani.

The Garani massacre, which we are still working on, killed over 100 people, mostly children.

Mr. Manning allegedly also sent us 260,000 classified US Department cables, reporting on the actions of US Embassy's engaging in abusive actions all over the world. We have denied the allegation, but the US government is acting as if the allegation is true and we do have a lot of other material that exposes human rights abuses by the United States government.

Mr. Manning was allegedly exposed after talking to an unrelated "journalist" who then worked with the US government to detain him.

Some background on the Manning case:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/06/11/transcript-daniel-ellsberg-says-he-fears-us-might-assasinate-wikileaks-founder/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-chat/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/state-department-anxious/
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/06/143011.htm

[ note that there are some questions about the Wired reportage, see: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/13/video-wikileaks-foun.html#comment-809677 ]

WikiLeaks a small organization going through enormous growth and operating in an adverserial, high-security environment which can make communication time consuming and the acquisition of new staff and volunteers, also difficult since they require high levels of trust.

To try and deal with our growth and the current difficult situation, we want to get you to work together with our other supporters to set up a "Friends of WikiLeaks" group in your area. We have multiple supporters in most countries and would like to see them be a strong and independent force.

Please write to friends@sunshinepress.org if you are interested in helping with Friends of WikiLeaks in your area. You will receive further instructions.

We also have significant unexpected legal costs (for example flying a legal team to Kuwait, video production. Collateral Murder production costs were $50,000 all up).

Any financial contributions will be of IMMEDIATE assistance.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Support

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Donate if you can!

Who Should Buy Blackwater?

Notorious mercenary firm Blackwater is reportedly up for sale. Wired has got a poll going suggesting who might buy 'em...

There are some fun suggestions...

British Petroleum
by Anonymous
Somebody is gonna have to keep all those sunbathers away from the beach.

Salvation Army
by ajl
They haven't been doing enough real fighting.

Cyberdyne Systems
by Adam Rawnsley
Face it, T-1000s are expensive -- you can only buy so many. So who's going to protect Skynet's Ambassadors from human insurgents when there's a shortage of endoskeletons? And with a corporate culture dominated by remorseless killing machines, it should make for an easy transition.

Church of Scientology
by Soy Jism
Talk smack about Xenu? It's on.

The RIAA
by S Nicewarner
Are you SURE you want to download that song?

Greenpeace
by Anonymous
Think of how many whaling ships they could sink with their own air force! Give peace a chance...or else!

Climate and the Media

Climate Change is a major issue; it does get covered in the media/blogs etc, but either as a controversy where scientists argue with one another (the media likes controversy) or as just another thing we need to worry about (like scary immigrants or the weather) as if it's something not under our control or influence or as a myth created by communists socialists anarchists environmentalists the NWO evil scientists to increase taxes keep the US economy down implement world government scam research grants.

In practice this manifests itself in a number of interesting ways. First of by over-reporting the 'controversies' and under reporting when those controversies turn out to be bunkum. Here's how much there is on the reporting of the accusations against climate scientists and the exonerations of the same climate scientists:



As can be clearly seen; over-reporting the 'controversies' and under reporting when those controversies turn out to be bunkum. This is also an interesting story; Fox news refusing to run an ad campaign to end US dependency on fossil fuels because it is 'too confusing'. Nice.

Afpak: The Eternal War

Here we are, almost 10 years on and the Afghanistan War drags on and on. No wonder it is known as the 'Graveyard of Empires'. So how's the war against the Taliban going? Not good, Not well:

"[The Taliban's] abilities are expanding and its operations are increasing in sophistication, despite recent major offensives by U.S. forces in the militants' heartland. The report… portrays an insurgency with deep roots and broad reach, able to withstand repeated U.S. onslaughts and to re-establish its influence, while discrediting and undermining the country's western-backed government."

In such circumstances there is little point in the Taliban negotiating - but also little point in fighting too hard. In fact the right thing to do from the movement’s standpoint is to avoid most conflict with Isaf troops, and remain ready to escalate their efforts and influence when the time comes. For that reason alone, there may actually be very little fighting in Kandahar later in 2010, after the initial spurt of combat. This might in turn fuel a politically convenient presumption of success in Washington that makes the military withdrawal even more palatable; but the realities on the ground would favour a later resurgence of Taliban power.

Classic insurgent stuff: they don't need to win, all they need to do is not loose. A draw is a win for the insurgent - especially when the cost of each occupation solider from the US in country is a staggering $1 Million per year. Yup - for a single solider.

And the fallout of the war is hitting Pakistan and the US too.

Putting the 'Bias' into Bias Media

Still, at least it is more visible now the media has to hawk for cash more. Here's a polluting industry sponsoring a political news website...

The Washington Post this week launched a new politics homepage, PostPolitics.com, with a helping hand from the dirty coal industry.

According to the press release announcing the launch,
“The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is the Washington Post's exclusive launch sponsor of PostPolitics.com.”

While PostPolitics.com itself is an exciting new tool for fans of political news, it is unfortunate that the Post had to partner with coal polluters to fund the launch.

Wonder how good their coverage of climate change politics will be? I'd guess shit - but then it is anyway. This way it's shit with dirty clean coal banner ads.

The Corporate Cops of Apple

There is an interesting technology story doing the rounds: an Apple guy leaves a new prototype iphone in a bar. Somebody finds it and sells it to an online technology blog, Gizmondo, who report all the new gadgets that it has. Blah blah. Except that Apple goes mental and gets the cops - who bust this bloggers door in like they were raiding the house of some right-wing terror cell. OTT to say the least. But that's not the most disturbing part of it...

So, what happened? This week, Chen's house was raided by officers from California's Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT), a special task force of police officers and federal agents created to combat computer-related crimes -- and which just happens to have Apple on its steering committee. The cops took all of Chen's computer equipment.

Meanwhile, the San Mateo County district attorney is considering whether to bring charges against Chen. It all hinges around whether California's journalist shield law covers bloggers. Well, speaking as someone who was an investigative reporter for one of the nation's top 10 newspapers: Of course it does.

This is appalling. As Instapundit uber-blogger Glenn Reynolds has rightly noted, this is basically "gangland politics," with one side getting to use to the police as its muscle. He's also correct in noting that neither the police nor Apple would ever have tried this against, say, the San Jose Mercury-News (I know because I worked there).

As for Apple, it has been unquestionably the most important and exciting technology company of the last dreary decade in tech, and bless it for that. But big companies are inherently totalitarian (which should give pause to boosters of the current administration's corporatist leanings) and none more so than Apple.

Welcome to the era of state paid, but corporate rule, policing.

Radical Right, Radical Islam... Same Ideas

'Tis often said that the radical right of politics and the militant version of Islam have a lot in common - despite the claims by both groups to be at war with one another over vales. In reality they are quite similar - both hate homosexuality, both like capitalism and both see a strong role for religion in society.

But the links go deeper - and deeper. A radical Muslim group who issued death-threats to the creators of South Park over showing images of Muhammad, have these images on their site:



Note the left-bar - Obama as Hitler. Now the radical right...



Who'd have thunk it... peas in a pod...

Turning Rebellion into Money

One of my favourite Conflict records is a double LP of live stuff called 'Turning Rebellion Into Money' and on the back of the sleeve it takes the idea full circle declaring 'Turning Money Into Rebellion.' The first part of that is what sprung to mind reading about the cash rake-in of Sarah Palin;

Over the past year, Palin has amassed a $12 million fortune and shows no sign of slowing down. Her memoir has so far sold more than 2.2 million copies, and Palin is planning a second book with HarperCollins. This January, she signed a three-year contributor deal with Fox News worth $1 million a year, according to people familiar with the deal. In March, Palin and Burnett sold her cable show to TLC for a reported $1 million per episode, of which Palin is said to take in about $250,000 for each of the eight installments.

Woah - there's a lot of profit in pointing out how communist America has becomes. This right-wing rebellion is a whole eco-system of cashing making that anyone who's been to a festival would recognise...

A young woman named Bethany Owens was sitting at a small table, pulling bills from a leather satchel. The 20-year-old daughter of black conservative entrepreneurs William and Selena Owens, Bethany had spent the morning at her parents’ booth selling books and CDs, like her mother’s title The Power Within a Conservative Woman ($9.95) and her dad’s motivational CD Answers Beyond the Rhetoric ($19.95). Bethany began stacking up bills, doling them out like a Vegas dealer. “One hundred, two hundred, three, four, five hundred,” she counted. “Ugh! I gotta start over.”

“Five, six, seven, eight, nine hundred. Okay, that’s $3,300,” she said, piling bills into neat rows.

“Are there corn dogs here, somebody?” yelled Melanie Morgan, a blonde conservative talk-radio host sitting nearby. Just then, Russo informed her that he’d heard Palin had agreed to speak alongside Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh at Morgan’s upcoming charity event for the troops, which would mean more care packages. “Oh my God! This is fabulous. Sal, brilliant. I could cry I’m so happy,” she said. “That’s gonna be so many hundreds of thousands of dollars more.”

Except, there is no hypocrisy here people - yes I suspect some in the tea party movement might wince at the profiteering from what is supposed to be a principled fight for America's soul rather than a big money-fest, but this is what they preach - profit is good, greed is good, the individual making cash above all is good.

Simples.

However, this does kind of throw a spanner in the works of the idea that people like Palin are the same folk are the rank-and-file. Palin won't have problems with healthcare with $12 million in the bank. Ever.

US based Exxon Mobil - 2009 reported $45.2 billion profit - taxes paid? $0.

That's right denial funding oil giant Exxon Mobil used complex tax schemes of avoid paying any US income tax on it's $45.2 billion profit:

Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS. ... Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas

But Exxon ends up looking like a tax angel next to the makers of everything from media, to guns to car, General Electric;

Most egregious...is General Electric, which generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.

Wow. Nice.
-
I'm speechless. Greedy bastards.

Wikileaks Video of US Army Killing Civilains

This is a really sad and shocking video; a US gunship shoots at a group of people killing them - the group includes 2 journalists - then when a passing van stops to take a wounded man off to hospital - decided the shoot the shit out of that too; the van has 2 kids in it. The gunner and his mate a quite nonchalant about it all declaring that it is the parents fault for taking their child into a war zone; but the whole fucking country is a warzone. What choice did they have?

This is pure and simple murder. And the US military has been busy lying and covering up the murder. I found this video on PZ Myers's blog and his comments are sobering:

They shot journalists and children, all the while laughing and congratulating themselves on the 'nice' pile of bodies they had produced. And when they see soldiers on the ground rushing injured children to aid, they say, "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."

I am ashamed. We are the storm troopers, the murderous invaders, the butchers of children, the laughing barbarians. We aren't in Iraq to help those people, our troops are there to oppress them…when we aren't gunning them down outright.

Oh, and go ahead, turn on your TV news. The top stories on CNN are the iPad, Jessica Alba planning to adopt a baby, and Tiger Woods. Doesn't that fill you with confidence?

In war the first casualty may be truth, but sadly the second seems to be kids.

Israel's intransigence to make peace is now becoming a wider US strategic problem

A comment on the Israel/Palestine thing which seems to be flaring up of late. Sadly people are dying again. My comment is about what is driving the current hardening of US words to Israel?

Could it be the US military has had enough of it's client state? Here is the testimony of uber-US general, the aptly named Patreaus;

The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens thelegitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.

In summary; Israel's intransigence around to make peace is now becoming a wider US strategic problem...

Troops Charity in Costs Scam

Charity is important. It's a basic form of mutual aid and cooperation. Giving to help others/a cause with no gain is recognised as a valuable human trait, and with good reason. But when you give to an organisation that is a charity, you want to know that it is doing what it claims and not spending the money on other stuff. Now some costs going on administration, running costs, further fund-raising is inevitable; it would be impossible to expect 100% of the money to go to the cause. So what is a good percentage that goes to the front line of the cause? Some say that 75% of donations going to the front-line is a good figure, and if this drops below about 65% then the charities in question, "...are simply not living up to their missions." Another source says 60% is the minimum but agrees that 75% or more going to the cause is an efficient charity.

So square that with the 'Freedom Alliance' which is managing to give between 20% and 4% (just just fucking 4%!!!) of donations to the cause;

In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the [US Right-wing Celebrity, Sean] Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes. Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.

Sean Hanity is a right-wing dick-nut and it seems has an ego much bigger than the charity he supports. Check this;

Of course, as the [Fox news informant] tells it, there’d be a lot more money every concert to go to the cause if Hannity didn’t demand–and get–use of a Gulfstream 5 plane to fly him and his family/entourage to the concerts; a “fleet” (that’s the word the guy used) of either Cadillac or Lincoln SUVs for him and his family/entourage; and several suites at really expensive hotels for him and his family/entourage. The promoter apparently values Hannity’s star demands at well over $200,000 per event. The source says he heard that Oliver North pulled Hannity aside at one of the concerts and told him that this had to stop.

Fuck me - when you are being pulled up regarding your personal ethics by Oliver North - a guy who smuggled drugs to fund hit squads - you know you're down the moral black-hole.

Updates on this story here and here.

Give us Liberty or Give us Death (unless it's too hot)

This post on a blog made me chuckle. It's about a group of fundamentalists preachers getting together..

The National Patriot Pastors’ T.E.A. Party will meet on the Plaza of the Alamo where 180 courageous “Texicans” made the ultimate sacrifice to confront tyranny and to gain their freedom. The Alamo holds profound symbolism for all Pastors and Christians in America. We too, must be willing lay it all on the line for Christ and for revival.

The rally will take place in the morning before heat is a problem...

It's that last bit that made me laugh; bigging-up the Alamo and saying; "We too, must be willing lay it all on the line for Christ and for revival." Which clearly implies that they should be willing to die for god/jesus/whatever and then in the next line looking to the creature comforts of the participants. If you are not willing to get hot, how willing will you be to die, people? Get it together...

The War on the Poor

I was listening to some tunezzz today and I came across this quote by the lead singer of the great band Fugazi:

"I want to talk to you about the war, I want to talk to you about the war, not the war in the middle east. The war in the middle city, the inner city, the war against the poor... Washington DC over 700 people were killed last year. This is a war worth fighting."

The war in the middle east was not the current Iraq war or proxy wars in Gaza or Iran. This was spoken in 1990 and the war was the first gulf war under the first Bu$h. But as time passes, sadly little changes: the more unequal society is, the more the poor suffer, the more all suffer. (Out of interest there is a book on this 'The Spirit Level' who's authors are up for a prize in Bristol, there are some other good books in the list, but this is best IMHO.)

Here's the video too: