Clipmarks | rentstrike's clips

Bush Regime Freezes Solar Energy

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:17:01 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: We've got less than 10 years to make a significant shift over to renewable energy sources. Now, presumably at the behest of the oilmen to whom GWB is beholden, the Bush regime has announced a go-slow policy on solar energy.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

Go Veganic

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:31:12 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: Veganic farming is finally catching on in the USA. It's caught on more quickly in Canada, Europe, and the UK. Elsewhere, farmers in "developing" countries are increasingly rejecting the "Green Revolution" fertilizers and pesticides pressed on them via neo-colonialism and returning to traditional practices, many of which turn out to be veganic.

Clip Source: www.examiner.com

Much like certified organic farmers, veganic farmers use no synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or genetically modified ingredients. Veganic farmers take it to another level by not using any manures or slaughterhouse byproducts. They don't even use organically approved pesticides.

Salmonella and e-coli are bacteria that live in the intestines of livestock and are present in their waste. Livestock waste, or manure, can be used to fertilize fields, potentially contaminating crops with the disease-causing bacteria.

Crops can also be contaminated by contact with infected animals or their byproducts, including bone meal and blood meal, which are used as fertilizer as well.

Veganic farmers use crop rotations and composted plant matter - or "green manure" - to fertilize their crops.

Stephane Groleau, co-founder of the Veganic Agriculture Network based in Quebec, Canada, said he's aware of only a dozen veganic farms or gardeners in the U.S.

Truth vs Sincerity

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:14:55 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: Quote from the 1961 Iris Murdoch essay, "Against Dryness," which is about varieties of fiction but includes this provocative philosophical assertion.

Clip Source: www.thevalve.org

A simple-minded faith in science, together with the assumption that we are all rational and totally free, engenders a dangerous lack of curiosity about the real world, a failure to appreciate the difficulties of knowing it. We need to return from the self-centred concept of sincerity to the other-centred concept of truth. We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy.

Dolphin Rescues Stranded Whales

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:17:41 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

A dolphin swam up to two distressed whales that appeared headed for death in a beach stranding in New Zealand and guided them to safety, witnesses said Wednesday.

Rescuers worked for more than one hour to get the whales back into the water, only to see them strand themselves four times on a sandbar slightly out to sea. It looked likely the whales would have to be euthanized to prevent them suffering a prolonged death, Smith said

"Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales," Juanita Symes, another rescuer, told The Associated Press. "She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience. The best day of my life."

Smith speculated that Moko responded after hearing the whales' distress calls.

"It was looking like it was going to be a bad outcome for the whales ... then Moko just came along and fixed it,"

After the rescue, Moko returned to the beach and joined in games with local residents

The Other Kind of Climate Change

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:31:55 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: In "Weather Warfare," published by the reputable UK magazine The Ecologist late last year, Michel Chossudovsky exposes U.S. military experiments in climatic warfare. You can find the article in pdf here and an archive of research articles on weather warfare here

Clip Source: www.globalresearch.ca

The US military has developed advanced capabilities that enable it selectively to alter weather patterns. The technology, which is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), is an appendage of the Strategic Defense Initiative – ‘Star Wars’. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, operating from the outer atmosphere and capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems around the world.

An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications and electric power systems as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions. Weather manipulation is the pre-emptive weapon par excellence. It can be directed against enemy countries or ‘friendly nations’ without their knowledge, used to destabilise economies, ecosystems and agriculture. It can also trigger havoc in financial and commodity markets.

Exporting Trauma

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 02:02:35 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: In "America's Top Exports: Grief, Sorrow, and Loss," vegan lefty Micky Z is sparked by his own recent bereavement to reflect upon the trauma that US actions visit on people around the world.

Clip Source: www.countercurrents.org

My mother passed away on January 12, after a long illness. She was nearly 72 and had been very ill since mid-2005.

Despite having almost three years to "prepare" for this reality, her death is teaching me previously unimaginable lessons about grief, sorrow, and loss. My heart is broken, shattered in a million pieces.

Amidst my mourning, I can't help but visualize the feelings of grief, sorrow, and loss being experienced in places directly and indirectly impacted by US policies. Imagine if you will, a mother in Iraq.

And it's not just military murders. Every two seconds, somewhere on the planet, a child starves to death. More grief, sorrow, and loss. More anger and frustration, too.

Remember: every two seconds, somewhere on the planet, a child starves to death. Meanwhile, the US spends one million dollars per minute on war.

We often hear the question: "Why do they hate us?"

We give them an excellent reason every 2 seconds and a million more reasons every single minute.

Sex Trafficking and the Taste for the "Exotic"

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:15:21 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: At least a million children are enslaved in brothels in Asia, to which men from the US and Europe travel specifically for the purpose of unrestricted "sex" with unfree women and children who literally can't say no, lest they be beaten or killed for doing so. But exploitation of enslaved Asian women isn't limited to Asia. For those men who can't afford to be sex tourists but still crave the "exotic" and passive Asian woman of their stereotyped fantasies, enslaved women are trafficked into the USA. China, Thailand, and Korea are among the top countries from which women are trafficked into the USA for purposes of prostitution. Here are some quotes from an important story about the women enslaved in the Korean "massage parlors" found in many cities. Click on the link for the full story.

Clip Source: www.infoshop.org

Korean massage parlors are a common presence in most major U.S. cities – so much that those in the know refer to them with the acronym of KMPs. It is also widely known that these venues offer more than a massage – they function essentially as brothels, where South Korean women work as prostitutes controlled by a wide-reaching, shadowy and highly profitable network of traffickers and pimps.

The U.S. government estimates that about 17,500 foreigners are trafficked into the U.S. annually, though some NGOs put the number much higher. Sex trafficking is considered to make up about 80 percent of cases, with trafficking for domestic, agricultural, food service and other types of labor making up the rest.

South Korea ranks third as the point of origin for trafficking cases

at least 10,000 Korean women are doing sex work in the U.S.

Polaris Project co-coordinator Kaitlyn Lim attributed this to a web of factors, including Americans’ demand for “exotic” Asian women

"We put the meat on the pole, not on the plate"

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:00:55 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: The latest in the ongoing saga of treating women like meat as a misguided means of trying to get people to quit eating meat. The owner's comment says more than I ever could about the ways that sex workers are seen by the men who make money by peddling their flesh.

Clip Source: www.kptv.com

Customers Find All Skin, No Meat At Vegan Strip Club

PORTLAND, Ore. -- You won’t find any meat at a new spot in Portland, but you will find a whole lot of flesh.

Casa Diablo claims to be the world’s first vegan strip club -- there's no meat, eggs or dairy on the menu.

The club reflects the ideals of its owner, Johnny Diablo.

“(It’s) vixens, not veal, and sizzle, not steak,” Diablo said. “We put the meat on the pole, not on the plate.”

"Bats dropping like flies"

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:04:56 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: This is alarming.

Clip Source: www.theglobeandmail.com

Bats are dying off by the thousands as they hibernate in caves and mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to find the cause of mysterious condition dubbed “white nose syndrome.”

Alan Hicks, a bat specialist with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, called the quick-spreading disorder the “gravest threat” to bats he had ever seen. Up to 11,000 bats were found dead last winter and many more are showing signs illness this winter. One hard-hit cave went from more than 15,000 bats two years ago to 1,500 now

Bats are considered particularly vulnerable when they hibernate, a time when they can hang together tightly by the thousands.

The bat die-off has some eerie similarities with “colony collapse disorder,” the baffling affliction that began decimating honeybee colonies years ago. Scientists last fall said they suspected a virus previously unknown in the United States.

Swarm Intelligence

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:49:20 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike

Clip Source: ngm.nationalgeographic.com

"Ants aren't smart," Gordon says. "Ant colonies are."

A colony can solve problems unthinkable for individual ants, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, allocating workers to different tasks, or defending a territory from neighbors.

One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one's in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers.

Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all—at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.

Orthodox Erasures

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:08:26 GMT

clipped by: rentstrike
clipper's remarks: I found this comment in a book review of Mbah & Igariwey's <i>African Anarchism</i>, which I recently finished reading. White leftists often use the same specious argument against veganism and animal liberationism, thereby erasing the existence and experiences of people of color while purporting to be taking an antiracist position. That's one of many reasons I'm so eagerly awaiting the publication of the Sistah Vegan anthology. I'm also less than thrilled by the common conflation of "white" and "middle class," which not only erases poor and working class white folks but also colludes in the racist conflation of "poor" and "of color."

Clip Source: library.nothingness.org

Opponents of anarchism, especially opponents on the orthodox left, often reject anarchist thought, activism and history with the critique that anarchism is a white middle class movement. This is a very problematic assumption. It is a straw-person fallacy, sometimes resorted to in lieu of insightful argument. Moreover the insistence that anarchism is adhered to by privileged Euro-descendant constituents denies unappologetically, the experience of those folks that are anarchist and of neither privileged group. Black, Asian and Amerindian experience and identification with anarchism becomes abrogation.