Archive for December, 2006
Lynching the scapegoat
I’m unmoved by Hussein’s hanging. It would mean something if it signalled a turn for the better in Iraq, but to me it simply indicates that the US has created such a catastrophe there that they still fear a vanquished and powerless enemy. Nevertheless, commentators around the world have been able to draw more valuable [...]
Living the decaf life…
Following a post by Robin Warner, a rant on decaf.
You see, I have a guiding principle which steers me away from decaf. It’s based on the idea that fun is temporary - nothing lasts forever and you can have too much of a good thing. So when you enjoy something, really enjoy it. Don’t be [...]
Washington Times financed by Rev. Sun Moon on behalf of GOP
Consortium News reports that the US Republican Party’s propaganda organ the Washington Times has been financed by the Rev. Sun Moon at a cost of $3 billion over the years.
One thousand words…
Karamoja district, Uganda, April 1980. Starving boy and a missionary. Mike Wells felt indignant that the same publication that sat on his picture for five months without publishing it, while people were dying, entered it into a competition. He was embarrassed to win as he never entered the competition himself, and was against winning prizes [...]
Plan to genetically engineer insects
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service today announced its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) to evaluate the use of genetically-engineered fruit flies and pink bollworm in certain plant pest programs. APHIS is inviting the general public to attend a series of public meetings aimed at soliciting comments [...]
Round up ready nation
A documentary about the dangers of GMO foods and the way the biotech industry has covered this up. Here is the trailer, and you can find more about the film at Roundup Ready Nation.
Weld valley logging protests
Huon Valley Environment Centre has made a video documenting the protest against logging in the Weld Valley, in Tasmania’s southern forests. It runs for an hour, and to watch it you’ll need at least 800kbps link speed and Quicktime 7.
More for more information about the campaign to save the Weld, see the Huon Valley Environment [...]
w00t!
Everywhere that desire throws off the heavy armor of lack and expresses its own joyful plenitude, it quickly finds itself captured as an image and offered back to itself as representation. Thus the strategy for any desire that would arm itself with its own self-unfolding is to create for itself a vector outside of commodification, [...]
Principles of freedom
Positive and negative freedom
Suppose a person is on their way to an appointment, and they reach an intersection where they can go left or right. There are several possible reasons why they might choose to go one way or the other, and these reasons relate to the person’s freedom:
If the road is open and the [...]
Science threatens the Emperor
The latest in a line of Bush administration censorship of science. US Geological Survey scientists must now submit work for screening before it can be published.
The famously oppressive Qing dynasty in China used secret police to crack down on any science which could possibly be construed to show that the Qing emperors were less than [...]
Genocidal crisis in Darfur intensifies
Eric Reeves:
The US attempts to bluff Khartoum’s génocidaires with “Plan Bâ€Â; Kofi Annan seeks to burnish his legacy after complicity in another genocide; the European Union and Canada offer nothing but more bluster; the Arab League continues its mendacious ways; the African Union is a shambles
Bodhichitta
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
 – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
When I was about six years old I received the essential bodhichitta teaching from an old woman sitting in the sun. I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved, and [...]
Globalization or slavery?
Capitalism is about choice, we’re told. The prevailing wisdom is that regulation of the market is a discredited idea, fallen with the old communist regimes. People have the opportunity to benefit from their hard work and innovation, so they have the incentive to be more productive. At the same time the Darwinian process of market [...]
Golf courses
Bristling Badger has some musings on the popular support for Chavez in comparison to Bush. He mentions in passing
The mayor of Venezuela’s capital Caracas says he plans to expropriate two exclusive golf courses and use the land for homes for the city’s poor.
Mayor Juan Barreto has said playing golf on lavish courses within sight [...]
Humanitarian assistance in Darfur collapses
Eric Reeves on Darfur and Eastern Chad:
“Humanitarian assistance is rapidly collapsing. Khartoum, having secured the security status quo in “negotiations†with the UN and African Union, has returned to its genocidal onslaught.”
Submission to the Tasmanian Human Rights Project
What follows is my submission to the Colin Brown Human Rights Project. This is a community consultation process carried out by the Law Reform Institute of Tasmania, at the behest of the Tasmanian State Government. The project is described here in more detail. It will culminate in a recommendation to Parliament for human rights legislation.
Introduction: [...]
This is what you shall do
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing [...]
“Privatise people” - Yes-men stunt
The Yes-men managed another wonderful stunt the other day:
At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for “full private stewardry of labor” for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa’s free trade [...]
