What do a portly French farmer, some of the fattest families you've ever seen, a bunch of hippies, and a crew flying a pirate flag have in common?
They've all had really good eco-news.
And so have we.
The first good news is that Jose has resumed eating solid food.
After he made Power do what he told them to do.
Fortunately, Jose is not in his terrible twos.
But Jose is L'enfant terrible to the chemical "food" megacorps on both sides of the fast food checkout counter.
And - in the era of globalization - to the megacorps on both sides of the Atlantic.
He started speaking the truth to MickeyD's, outraged that American "shitfood" (he later changed the term to "malbouffe") was displacing French food - and hence, French culture. After letting a bulldozer do his talking for him - right over a McDonald's in his hometown of Millau - he spent a bit of time in gaol and emerged triumphant.
Bove went on to defend the people and tables of France and the world from Frankenfoods - genetically mutated crops with genes from alien species - by destroying GMO crops in 2001 (Brazil) and 2003. His continued defense against GMO crops earned him criminal prosecution for a 2005 GMO crop destruction. For that act of civil disobedience and property destrucitons, he was first sentenced to four months, and the sentence was later reduced to a fine. Which was convenient, seeing how he was running for President of France and all.
[Of course here he'd be labelled a terrorist and targeted by the AETA or similar repressive laws....but then France is a civilized nation where law making is not wholly controlled by the largest corporations.]
With the campaign behind his ample frame, Bove continued his solidarity with French palates by threatening the French government:
drop approval for GMO corn, or I'll go on an all-liquid diet.
And - rather than sending out Homeland Security in their SUV's (our Fatherland Homeland's "security" services' Black Moriah du jour) to kidnap him, stick him in Gitmo, and torture him...
...the French government -
...The Conservative French goverment under Sarkozy -
...The Conservative French government that ran on "law and order" -
That same Conservative goverment caved - and ordered Monsanto's MON810 maize (corn) off the market in France.
Which just happens to be the only GMO crop to have been authorized in France.
The same Monsanto MON810 corn grown all over the US.
Bon Appetit!
Now - what does all this have to do with whales?
Non-violent direct action got the goods. Without hurting any person, Bove and all the GMO crop-pullers have fought Monsanto and the whole global Frankenfood scam to a painful halt.
Just as non-violent direct action has driven commercial whaling out of nearly every nation save Japan.
Tonight the Japanese whalng fleet in the Antarctic are fleeing Greenpeace's Esperanza.
Tonight the Sea Shepherds' Steve Irwin is closing on Greenpeace and the Japanese whalers.
Greenpeace use the wholly non-violent tactic of placing their Zodiacs - and bodies - between the harpoons and the whales.
The Sea Shepherd Society - under Captain Paul Watson - are more direct: they've rammed whaling vessels, though they plan not to use that tactic this trip.
And - to add to the drama - Captain Watson used to be with Greenpeace...and left to pursue tactics Greenpeace eschews.
I know good folks who have crewed both vessels (and was happy to have been asked to be ship's doc), and I observe both groups play well with each other when the bosses aren't around.
And both groups will defend the whales at the cost of their own lives.
And - in keeping with the Law of the Sea - Capt Watson states he would rescue any whalers if need be - which is more than the whalers have done for Sea Shepherd crew.
So - I'm not certain if ramming whalers is non-violent - but between Capt. Watson's crew and Greenpeace's crew, I'm hoping all the humans (protectors and whalers) come home safe and all the whales stay home and live.
And I'm hoping Americans always use all the powers available to them by law to protect the living creatures in our own lives from the megacorps and greedballs that would destroy them for profit.
And on news days like this, I can just believe that we may.
Bon appetit!
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Orca-straight it!
And have a whale of a good time.
I was thinking about you a couple of days ago..happy to see you back with you threads.
Well, we remain in an incredible drought but the greywater system I built to use tub and washing machine water is illegal here in Georgia. That’s great huh? Something about public health.
The Farley Mowat is no more, the Robert Hunter was renamed the Steve Irwin in honor of the late croc hunter. It is the Sea Shepherd ship in question.
Ecological good news? Well maybe..Dr. James Lovelock predicts that the World population of Humans will be 500 million by 2100.
Woo, woo!!!
Popcorneveryone!!! Nevermind *g*whales !!
That’s a lot of dying in 92 years.
thanks folks - and thanks nonplussed
i’ve non-Farley’d
tee-hee
yes - all of us
collective progressive action is no fluke
Man the barricades and breach the gaps!
Yea but we’ll flounder without unity.
thanks Steve-AR
and Raven - congrats on the greywater system - and a big fat blowhole spout to the regulators who haven’t figured out the point of regulations is to keep us alive.
And a shared porpoise.
Hey Kirk, a double dose! And this post is good medicine :)
Nothing fishy about that.
~6.5 billion reduction in population. Dr. Lovelock is the originator of the “Gaia” concept of global ecology. He has a different perspective but is not a wacko.
I’m not taking any position with regard to whaling, or whether violent action is justified, but there is absolutely no question that ramming whaling vessels is violent.
That’s some scarey stuff, Steve.
James Lovelock
I love the folks at Grenpeace how many decades..50 years. What great people fighting for something worthwhile… our planet. Kudos to my heroes.
To the war mongers and profiteers a hearty fuck you. I cuss when I am really really pissed. Compare our coast lines with the 1930s.
Crap, is my popcorn Mansanto?
Way OT but an FYI to piss you off:
kos
Monsanto?
Well Captain Ahad: I’ll take a position…whaling is unecessary and sucks. It is cruelty. We don’t need all those perfumes or blubber. Get over it and let the Oceans heal. They give us oxygen and rain water. And thousands of other things. It is an eco system that cannot be devided. Let us revere it not some imaginery up god person who lets us phantacise. Thes awesome bodies of water are a source of life. Not some imaginary god. I’ll take on the theocrats any day and they will not prevail.
Developed by researchers at Whattsammatta U.
Did one of the whales swallow Jonah??
In the past, I did Acoustic Intelligence Collection. IN that capacity I recorded many hours of whale sounds and there was enough repetition of the same sounds in the same order to convince me that it was more than mere happenstance. Call me a fool, but I equate the killing of these creatures with murder, for I have no doubt that they are sentient beings.
Defending the life of another by whatever means required would seem to be justified. No one has been harmed by Watson’s methods thus far. The Japanese persist in hunting the whales only out of nationalistic pride.
prolly
Obviously at the extreme of predictions for global warming, but the reality is out running the climate prediction models. Two years, two scientists were ridiculed for saying that the arctic Ocean would be ice free during the Summer in 40 years. After the Arctic ice melt this summer, the prediction is now 5 years. The “tipping” point for significant climate change was probably 25 years ago.
I heard one of those whales…it said “I am coming tew yew…you will…”
Nevermind.
Land of the Free, don’t ya know? This gets more surreal daily…
Beautiful comment.
By the way our planet and the oceans, rivers and mountains are the love of my life. Sunrise sunset and stars in the sky.
Not to mention a another great post by Kirk and Ian. Always a pleasure. Thankyou both. Health of the planet and ALL it creatures.
I’ll fight for my mother any day she is so awesome. That’s a fight worth having.
Greenpeace isn’t all confrontation, they just announced they captured recordings of rare humpback whale songs.
You can even listen :)
Nah man, I wasn’t even stoned!
OK, popcorn’s in the trash. Should have been buying organic anyway.
Hi folks - just knocked off-line…nothing like cats and dial-up…and cords in the dark
Before the flying feline squad, I wanted to make clear:
FDL doesn’t advocate breaking the law.
I’m not advocating breaking the law.
I also want to help define legal “direct action” as I understand it.
From Teh Wiki (hey, if this survived anarchists’ endless rewrites, its de facto consensus..if anarchists are allowed to have consensus.) - focusing on legal direct action.
So posting freeway signs, wearing organge for Gitmo, providing free food to the homeless - these can all be direct actions.
We all can’t go with Greenpeace or the Sea Shepherd folk - even if we all wanted to.
But I bring up the powerful results from non-violent action for change because most all of us can take direct action to protect our living world. What solutions do pups have to share?
Whales are smarter than that. Would you swallow a loaded diaper?
Orville= Monsanto????
Damn liberal-fascist whales…!!
Funny.
may Orville RIP
Orville does indeed work for Monsanto!
Jeebus flippin cans…
The administrators’ credo:
form over content
order over meaning
Jonah as Ahab?
Nice upcoming lawsuit.
Probly teh Iranian whale…you know, the one that attacked us on 9/11…that one.
ConAgra Foods
form over content
order over meaning
Now that is really fun
the one in the speedboat?
Ah yes the “Iranian Whaler” threatening the mighty U.S.N.
LS, if I had nothing but time on my hands, I could sit around and plan my arrests for [protected] speech so well as to have a (modest) steady income stream from the lawsuits.
However, the pipeline is slow. Last month I saw one of my friends who was arrested along with a few hundred folks in a large open space in Seattle…on December 1, 1999.
Yep - almost nine years.
OTOH - that means only five years ’til I might see a check from being illegally denied bail (and held on toxic waste coated floors) at the 2004 RNC convention.
nonplussed - thank you. I share your beliefs.
I’ve read that in some whale species “songs” are specific to certain local groups of whales. Hunt the local group’s elders, and the “songs” die.
Have you “heard” (through your reading) anything about that?
Dayem…that sucks!!
Here you can explore a cool blue whale.
It’s nice just to listen to.
LS, I gotta admit - for a second I was realllly wondering about my content.
That comment got the adrenals working. ;)
OK, that is cool.
Just to be clear, when I stated that I wasn’t taking a position on whaling, it wasn’t because I don’t have one. I do. I think it’s absolutely indefensible.
I just didn’t want to get into whaling per se, and only wanted to make the point that intentionally ramming your vessle into another–whaleboat or any other vessel–is undoubtedly an act of violence.
Of course they are sentient beings.
There is an interesting study also about elephants and their gut sounds that communicate for miles and miles….
I believe whales, porpoises, elephants, and horses, etc., all use very sophisticated sounds for elaborate communication…some things we can hear and somethings we are not equipped to hear. I have a couple of horses that put their muzzles up to my ear and “click”…it’s strange but true.
I am laughing so hard I am almost in tears:
why is he called tweety?
*dissolves in giggles again*
Here’s the Organic Seed Alliance for real food. Hope that James Lovelock is wrong, WangDangDoodle. Dang.
Perhaps like this. The disclaimer has been added in the last year or so, undoubtedly at the Governments behest. I have always liked this article. The good Doctor has moved, Susan and Jeff are still here and are active in our local Peace movement.
off topic but interesting
john eliot is on the radio right now, points out that oboma won the polls before the election, he won the exit polls and he lost the election
he points out that debold was used for the vote
I am with him, as I mentioned before it simply flies in the face of reason that edwards remained a consistant 16-17 percent through the entire election
I am not buying the nh primarie result for one second
hey, I got to do it with several thousand of my closest friends :).
the delayed bail sucked - but the pens on a disused pier were great for bonding and theatre.
sadly, really, really toxic. we protesters just shuttled through…the NYPD line cops were there for shift after shift.
most of them openly despised the rethugs and the convention and the time they spent ordered to “pretend you people are threats” as one bored officer said.
so again, they got hosed cause New York elects proto-fascist mayors.
And remember that the animals knew the Tsunami was coming and moved to high ground. There are levels of consciousness that we know little about. . . but the FDL’ers knew dat!
Here’s another piece of good news: China moves to ban plastic bags.
Yesterday, San Francisco. Today, China. Tomorrow, ?
Shoulda been in Miami in 72!
Recount next Wednesday.
Most NYPD are good people.
I failed to state I was replying to Kirk’s 37, so perhaps now my cryptic 62 will make a little sense. It is a great methosd of nonviolent resistance, if one is willing to take the heat.
Kirk! thanks for the good news … it’s so wonderful to see people stepping up and putting themselves on the line.
Thanks, Elliot! Really cool. (I didn’t realize that the blue whale had bags under her eyes too.)
Tomorrow the world!
DrKirk, exciting to see two posts from you today. The issues you address need to be kept in the spotlight.
Here is another tweety quote from “Your Right Hand Thief”
Does Chris Matthews have a problem with women?
Hell yes.
This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
what good is a recount when there’s dbold machines?
Picayune, MS!
in addition, one of the callers on the john eliot show points out there is a big differance between the results of the hand votes and the electronic votes
if that’s true, this is really bad
I don’t think the results will chang one bit nor will there be any reason to challenge the result. A knock-down, drag-out over a few thousand votes in NH is not good for the party. It’s a few delegates. Move on. There are gobs of delegates up for grabs. Not to say any voting machine problems should be ignored, but deal with it later. The perenial democratic candidate (and loser) for Congress in my district is a guy who every two years runs on the platform of “I was cheated. The machines were fixed.” for his efforts, he has lost every time to one of the most corupt scumbags in Congress and is derided by the liberals as a tin foil hat goofball. Watch pushing this voting machine stuff without evidence.
got to go, see all later
Not to call John Elliott a liar (whomever he is) but it is my understanding that the exit polls pretty much matched the stated results.
if what I just heard is true,this is really really bad
according to a caller, the hand ballots show a completely differant percentage of preferances then the evotes
and as I said before, john eliot claims the exit polls did not indicate the results
I have total faith in exit polls
electronic voting?…not so much
Tweety and The View
that’s what I heard after the votes also, I hope you’re right, I trust exit polls
ok, off to bed
Ha, Mrs Greenspan haters should like this piece about Miami 72
By the last day of the convention, when Nixon was to accept his nomination and bring on Maryland’s Spiro Agnew as his running mate, the demonstrators knew this was their last chance to make a statement, If trashing downtown Miami Beach had not been enough, the VVAW group began soaking paper in gasoline, preparing to light vehicles on fire. They had even brought their own gas masks with them, perhaps having learned their lesson from the 1968 fiasco. Demonstrators surrounded cars, busses, delegates or anyone else they found objectionable and began to hurl abuse their way. This abuse consisted of foul language, rocks, pipes, saliva or pretty much anything they could find to cause a general disturbance. By this time, Beach cops had had enough and let the gas loose.
GASSING ANDREA MITCHELL
image
As all hell broke loose on South Beach, pepper gas began to fill the air. The media was not immune from the gassing, as Andrea Mitchell, now of MSNBC, got the full effect at her first convention and was sprayed in the eyes. Hunter S. Thompson was not immune from the gas either, as he spent the better part of the last day blinded by the effects. Thompson notes in his book that the Miami Beach police saw him staggering around searching for some water to wash out his eyes, and seemed grateful they had not taken that opportunity to beat him to a pulp. “That was the difference between Chicago and Miami,” he said. “If the cops in Chicago had found me crawling around in somebody’s front yard, wearing a ‘press’ tag and blind from too much gas, they’d have broken half my ribs and hauled me away in handcuffs for ‘resisting arrest.’” I’m not sure what Beach cops Hunter here is talking about, but it is apparent to me that he never made the mistake of getting smart with a bouncer at Opium.
Thanks siun and ndfg!
and Laura, thanks for the immensely good news about China. wow.
I understand that is true.
What?
I know too many pollsters to have complete faith in exit polls.
How did you choose the people to do the polling?
How do you select which voters to question as they leave?
How do people decide if they want to answer your questions?
How did you phrase your questions?
How did you select your precincts?
Polling is not as precise as some people would like to believe.
go to bradblog, it shows the statistic of evotes vs debold votes
I also trust the bradblog, I don’t have time to go and see what he says about the exit polls or the evotes vs hand votes but it’s supposed to be interesting
www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocea.....cNov03.htm
The wide growing trash floating across the Pacific is a killer. Check it out if you don’t already know.
IIRC the CNN exit, posted @~1:58 showed HRC slightly ahead. I think the optical scanning system is pretty good..it can be hacked but there is a paper ballot. Fast report with back up. IIRC, it was Bob Ney, who is now in prison, blocked the paper trail for electronic voting machines.
This quote from Thich Nhat Hanh helped me break my plastic bag habit:
“Throwing away the plastic bag, I am aware I am throwing away the plastic bag.”
(No, this is not a joke. I dare you to say it out loud each time you perform the act. Ooosh. Shivers.)
When he was asked “Are you from the north or the south”? He said, “I’m from the middle”!
Professional pollsters know that there are many factors that can screw up their oh-so-scientific polls. See Pollster.com for a rundown of the possibilities, including bradblog’s theories. Brad’s ideas are not the only explanations for the NH confusion — and other explanations are far more plausible.
I hope to see him in person some day. I always keep a calendar of his quotes above my computer monitor, to help keep me mindful.
And I was stunned to learn as much as 25% of air pollutants over California/Oregon are from China…(depending on the day).
PS: My point isn’t that China is “the bad country”: China is merely the place to which global capital has shifted the industries with the greatest externalizable costs.
We buy consumer crap from China, and we “export” the labor exploitation and ecological damage required to maket he crap so cheaply.
IF the US wrote codes for international trade that took labor/enviro protection as seriously as the US takes tradig with Cuba, the problem would be over.
It’s weird. Where I grew up, the only voting machines I remember from th etime I was a kid and used to go vote with my father right uo to when I was voting, where the big machines with the big red handle you pull to close the curtain and thewn you flip the switch type thing next to tyhe candidate you want. There was never any problem with them, really, was there?
Nice to hear about someone who cares so deeply about what he believes in- but stay the fuck out of my vegetable garden–OK Jose!
If the U.S. loved the golden rule, instead of the rule of gold….
He is amazing
rw, why are you planting Frankenseeds in your veggie garden?
;)
If the hard votes cast were reversed and BO came in ahead of HRC, it would have the same result as current which is both got the same number of delegates which is the point of the exercise.
I understand the concerns about Diebold machines with secret source code, no audit trail for the touch screen and such. But we’re talking about optical scan machines where there IS an audit trail of the original ballots.
To implement a “conspiracy” of the magnitude that would be entailed by this is just not feasible in NH. Way too many people would have to be involved, cost way too much money for way too little benefit. It makes no sense.
Michigan primary comin up fast- if The Mitter loses- could be a swan song. He’s the guy the money goopers want to bribe- so there’ll be a tough fight.
Kirk
Don’t know—I haven’t planted it yet- but if I decide to- I don’t want some whached out Frankennut tearin em out. They’d be MY fuckin Franken Veggies Damn It!