Lies, Lies, Lies Video

Another great video - this time it shows the lies of the U$ politicians over the war in Iraq. At the end there is some great footage of the same politicians getting angry responses from the public - something you don't often see in the news media!



Link to YouTube page is here.

Draft College Republicans

A great video! The same people who advocate fighting on the front lines of the war of terror do not want to be the same people to have to do it. Nice. Worth watching:

In conversations with at least twenty College Republicans about the war in Iraq, I listened as they lip-synched discredited cant about "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." Many of the young GOP cadres I met described the so-called "war on terror" as nothing less than the cause of their time.

Yet when I asked these College Repulicans why they were not participating in this historical cause, they immediately went into contortions. Asthma. Bad knees from playing catcher in high school. "Medical reasons." "It's not for me." These were some of the excuses College Republicans offered for why they could not fight them "over there." Like the current Republican leaders who skipped out on Vietnam, the GOP's next generation would rather cheerlead from the sidelines for the war in Iraq while other, less privileged young men and women fight and die.

Local Flooding, Global Warming

Two friends of mine, who were due to spend a couple of days in London returned from Bristol Temple Meads Station a couple of hours later, their travel plans in ruins due to the flooding. Another friend has just spent hours on the roads, most of it trapped in the chaos that is the M5. The news from the Glade festival (where lots of Bristolian's have gone) is also bleak with the closure of the Overkill stage and problems for other parts of the event. (The organisers are hoping to re-open the stage) This following the weather assault on Glastonbury and Ashton Court and weeks of weird and erratic weather. Mother nature truly is a powerful force, and she dominates the headlines of todays papers. I guess this does lead to the question of global warming – is this weather linked? The bastion of business values, the FT suggests so;

Erratic weather has been held up as evidence of global warming. Growing incidence of floods is meanwhile changing attitudes to property in low-lying areas. An estate agent’s blurb promising “river views” is only alluring so long as the homebuyer’s chances of seeing the river lapping around his three-piece suite are low. Planning authorities are starting to take a more critical view of developments that increase flooding risk by building on fields.

In it's own coded language I would suggest the FT is hedging its bets that, yes, the erratic weather and global warming are linked – else why else would planning rules need to be re-visited unless the weather was changing? They are not the only media outlet to consider the weather as a portent of things to come, the Times ran a piece entitled 'Ten predictions about climate change that have come true' while the Scotsman's farming writer, in a piece entitled 'How my scepticism on global warming took a real battering' noted at the end of June;

“Good riddance to flaming June and welcome to what we hope might just be a more pleasant July. I have to admit to a degree of scepticism on global warming, but those doubts are now increasingly in reverse gear. April was just about as wonderful as anyone, especially farmers, could wish, then along came May which was strictly average, but June proved to be a real horror.”

As we now know, July was not the respite that this writer was hoping for - far from it. It would seem to me that the climate-skeptic view has been dealt a double whammy, first by the flooding and the evidence of our every-day lives and second by the scientific research demolishing their favorite 'solar warming' theory, the final volley of which was a reply by Professor Mike Lockwood;

"Because I am a solar physicist, it would make me very happy indeed were the sun to be the cause of current climate change, partly because it would make my studies more relevant and important but mainly because I understand that solar activity will almost certainly decline in years to come. This would mean that the greatest threat to mankind's continued prosperity and wellbeing, namely climate change, would also decline. Sadly for me, and for all of us, you cannot wish or spin away a scientific reality."

(original article, reply and counter reply)

At a climate protest some years ago I listened to a Young Republican, who, as part of a group of 20 or so zealot students who had flown over to tour European protests to rubbish the Kyoto agreement. He outlined the climate-septic view of the worse case scenario, “You know of the chaos of the European economies after the second world war?” He asked us, we nodded yes, “If you implement Kyoto then that chaos would be like a picnic, it would be like a worse version of the great depression – any of you have a job?” He asked the five or so listeners, all of us responded that we did, “Well if you sign this, you can kiss that goodbye.”

Now while the science behind global warming is not 100% (more like 95%), the science of the septic is even shakier – so which view would you rather hedge your bets with – that by trying to save energy and reduce consumption we may trigger a huge economic depression, or the worse case predictions of the 'global warming is real' view; we risk the lives a millions of people, the destruction of hundreds of species and eco-systems and much more. I know where I hedge my bets.

It is time to bury the sceptic view - they had ther chance, failed and it was drowned in the 'summer' of '07 - now to the important question - what are we going to do about it?

More Meeja News: The Beeb and Mail in Rows

Recently the major newspaper have been all huff-and-puff in attacking the BBC and the gaffs over the Queen and phone-in competitions. Make we wonder if the people up in the BBC's Whiteladies's Road office are feeling under siege? While I have my own bone's to pick with the BBC's very pro-establishment view of things, in this case I feel sorry for them given the fact that most of the papers arguing against them have a vested business interest in the removal or privatization of the BBC. For example if you go to The Sun website, it's full of articles attacking the BBC, but search it for 'Murdoch' and you find nothing, when I think that fact that he and Bliar had six phone conversations on eve of war says more about the power of media that the declining institution of the Queen being revealed to be human:

"Tony Blair spoke to Rupert Murdoch three times in nine days in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, it emerged yesterday, after the government caved in to a four-year campaign for the release of details of their conversations and meetings.....In all Mr Blair held six formal conversations with the media baron between March 2003 and October 2004. The first three took place on March 11, 13 and 19; military action against Iraq began early on March 20. A broadcasting row involving the BBC and BSkyB was also taking place."

On the subject, the owners of Venue, the Evening Post, Metro, GWR etc, the Daily Mail and Trust have also been attacked for 'Incredible hypocrisy' over gambling;

"Just days after [The Daily Mail] trumpeted its role in killing off the introduction to Britain of Vegas-style supercasinos as a 'Very Moral Victory', The Observer has discovered that the paper's MailBingo.com website, where punters can seemingly sign up with minimum security checks to play internet poker, roulette and slot-machine games, failed to adhere to guidelines set out by GamCare and Responsibility in Gambling Trust, organisations which offer help and advice to addicts."

Nice.

Justice in the Middle East

A great anaylsis of the Palestine issue;

Israeli leaders insist that negotiations with the organization are impossible. Hamas, after all, has waged a terror war against Israel and adamantly refuses to recognize the Jewish state. Few now remember that Israel used the same argument to avoid talking to Arafat's Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah, too, had engaged in terrorism against Israelis (and still does occasionally) and refused to revise its charter to recognize Israel until 1998, five years after Arafat and Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin had their historic handshake on the White House lawn.

Worth a read!