Religion - In Perspective.

One of the best rants I have heard in ages about religion. Funny and important!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42p2SO5wQag

Fascist Russia

There is another victim of fascist Russia, this time an eco-protestor;

Ilya Borodaenko you will never be forgotten RIP. This just shows how important it is to do something, fight back, do what you can, for the animals, the environment or each other.

Yesterday, a group of Russian nazi's launched an unprovoked attack on a completely non-violent anti-nuclear eco-camp in Angarsk in Siberia. The campers knew of the attack in advance, and so posted people to try and guard the entrances over night whilst the rest slept. But when the Nazi's arrived, early in the morning of the 21st July, they completely outnumbered and overwhelmed the people at the entrances, and attacked the rest of the campers, in their sleep with iron bars, knives, and air guns, and set tents on fire.

A 21 year old guy named Ilya Borodaenko, was the first guy to greet the Nazi's. He was brutally beaten, and later died in hospital. One of the activists suffered serious head fracturing, another had both their legs broken, and nine others are also seriously injured.

Below is the website of the organisers of the camp:
http://baikalwave.eu.org/Eng/index-e.html

Ilya Borodaenko r.i.p.



From a statement by the organisers of the camp:

"...we will forget nothing and we won't forgive Ilya Borodaenko's death to his murderers (irrespective of successes or failures of the official repressive system investigating the crime). We won't stop activity of our environmental protest camp, we won't stop our struggle against fascist plague and nuclear mafia, against authoritative ideas and racist dregs, against all that destroys both the nature and human life and dignity. Today we grieve. Tomorrow we will continue our struggle."


For more info, see:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/07/376699.html


Solidarity

Please repost

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?