The Long and Continuous Emergency

Things are Heating up Worldwide

Ms James says this kind of attack is becoming worryingly frequent - washing machines have even been dropped from tower blocks on official vehicles.
-BBC reporting inside the Paris suburbs

- and more from the Independent
French ministers in crisis talks after latest bus attack

OAXACA, Mexico, Oct. 30 — As the federal riot police hunkered down in Oaxaca’s main square on Monday, protesters sought to protect their not-so-secret weapon in their five-month siege of the city: the pilfered radio transmitter they use to mobilize the population. -New York Times

At the Mexican Consolate in New York yesterday, there was a protest to draw attention to the death of NY actvist Brad Will, who was murdered by the Mexican paramilitary in Oaxaca this weekend.

Is it ethical to want to slash SUV drivers?

Short Answer? YES
Long Answer? YES, because motorists greatly underestimate the damage they do to the environment, and to humans, and to non humans, every single time they turn on their engines.

Is it ethical to fight a guy who is trying to dump garbage on your property?

Read Will Duguid at the Guardian
All we have to do, as responsible citizens, is creep out at night. What else is left? They don't care about the money. Or the planet.

The End of Suburbia

The creators of this essential documentary have made their film available for free on You Tube.

MASS Ecosystem collapse

by 2050? that's what this new report says - via the Guardian

George Monbiot Knows Exactly What To Do

Listen to George Monbiot's superb lecture on Climate Change and how we can reach the needed reduction in CO2 by 2030. This is meat and potatoes people.

CBS News at 11

Please read this story if you plan on videotaping the NYPD.

"(CBS) NEW YORK Eileen Clancy of has been investigating police reactions to citizens using video cameras in the city.

What she has found has been a troubling pattern of behavior:
Cops threatening citizens with arrest and confiscating cameras, especially over the last eight months."
-read the transcript HERE

And in related news, the NYPD are trying to pass thair new rules again - they want to arrest cyclists without later losing in court.

Read the proposed rule changes HERE.

And complain to your council woman HERE.

Russo's Freedom to Fascism on Google

This is the "Director's Cut" of Aaron Russo's documentary, America: Freedom To Fascism. Tell all your friends to watch!

They are Fighting Back

The natural world is keeping it real. And how about those elephants?

Don't Read This Blog

"We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet," Chertoff said on the sidelines of a meeting of International Association of the Chiefs of Police.

Imagine the Earth Without People

The instant humans vanish from the Earth - pollutants will cease spewing from automobile tailpipes and the smokestacks and waste outlets of our factories. What happens next will depend on the chemistry of each particular pollutant. A few, such as oxides of nitrogen and sulphur and ozone (the ground-level pollutant, not the protective layer high in the stratosphere), will wash out of the atmosphere in a matter of a few weeks. Others, such as chlorofluorocarbons, dioxins and the pesticide DDT, take longer to break down. Some will last a few decades.
- the New Scientist

Worst Citizens on Earth - That Means You and Me!

- 19.8 US carbon dioxide emissions per head, in metric tonnes
- 3.9 World's carbon dioxide emissions per head, in metric tonnes
- 1.8 Developing world's carbon dioxide emissions per head, metric in tonnes

- 678lbs US annual paper consumption per head
- 115lbs The corresponding figure for the world
- 44lbs The figure for the developing world

- 7,921 US energy consumption per capita, 2001, expressed in kilograms of oil
- 1,631 World's energy consumption per capita, in kilograms of oil
- 828 Corresponding figure for the developing world

By 2050 - U.S. citizens will have to reduce their carbon emissions by 90% of today's levels.
That is more than 2 percent per year - what are you doing about it?
Flying less?
Driving less?
90 % less?

Words to Live By.

BUY NOTHING.
And if you cannot buy nothing, then
BUY LOCAL.
And if you cannot buy local, then
BUY REGIONAL.
And if you cannot buy regional, then
BUY NATIONAL.
And if you cannot buy national, then
BUY INTERNATIONAL.
And if some crazy reason you cannot
buy any of the above, then go ahead
BUY A CORPORATE BRAND

Congestion Charging in NYC?

Great story by Aaron Naparstek at Streetsblog.

Came across this today...

Beyond Hope
Derrick Jenson, Orion Online, May|June 2006

THE MOST COMMON WORDS I hear spoken by any environmentalists anywhere are - We’re fucked. Most of these environmentalists are fighting desperately, using whatever tools they have—or rather whatever legal tools they have, which means whatever tools those in power grant them the right to use, which means whatever tools will be ultimately ineffective—to try to protect some piece of ground, to try to stop the manufacture or release of poisons, to try to stop civilized humans from tormenting some group of plants or animals. Sometimes they’re reduced to trying to protect just one tree.

Here’s how John Osborn, an extraordinary activist and friend, sums up his reasons for doing the work: “As things become increasingly chaotic, I want to make sure some doors remain open. If grizzly bears are still alive in twenty, thirty, and forty years, they may still be alive in fifty. If they’re gone in twenty, they’ll be gone forever.”

But no matter what environmentalists do, our best efforts are insufficient. We’re losing badly, on every front. Those in power are hell-bent on destroying the planet, and most people don’t care.

Frankly, I don’t have much hope. But I think that’s a good thing. Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth. . . .