New bat species discovered in Madagascar

From LiveScience:

Newfound Bats are Real Suckers

By Sara Goudarzi

LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 05 January 2007

In the world of bats, there was only one known sucker-foot. Now there are two.

Scientists have discovered a second species of bat with adhesive organs, or suckers, attached to its thumbs and hind feet, allowing the creatures to climb and cling upright to smooth tree leaves.

The new species, Myzopoda schliemanni, discovered in the dry western forests of Madagascar, belongs to a family of bats, Myzopoda, found in Madagascar and nowhere else in the world.

Previously, scientists knew only of a sister species, Myzopoda aurita, which lives only in the humid eastern forests of Madagascar.

Both species are spotted where broad-leafed plants, especially the Travelers’ Palm, are plentiful. The bats often roost in the slick greens during the day.

Up to now, sucker-footed bats were considered endangered because there was only one known species in the family and because of their limited distribution worldwide.

But the finding of the second sucker-footed species means their range is broader than previously thought.

And given the discovery of the new bat in a dry forest, members of the sucker-footed bat family could survive even if tropical forests are lost to deforestation, a huge issue in Madagascar where less than 10 percent of the country’s original forest cover remains.

See also here.

And here.

‘Monastic’ bat mystifies experts – As yet no female sucker-footed bats of Madagascar have been discovered: here.

Fossa in Madagascar: here.

Teyler’s museum in Haarlem

From the Google cache.

Teyler’s museum in Haarlem

Date: 8/28/05 at 11:16PM

Mood: Looking Playing: I’m a little dinosaur, by Jonathan Richman

Teyler’s museum in Haarlem is the oldest museum in The Netherlands accessible to the public; and one of the oldest in the world.

For instance, the Louvre in Paris became a museum later, on 8 november 1793.

Though the Louvre building has an earlier history as a royal palace.

The first museum in China is from 1905.

The Peshawar museum in Pakistan is from 1906.

Many exhibits at Teyler’s museum are still as they were originally in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; so giving visitors an idea not just of fossils or ancient Dutch, Italian, etc. paintings; but of how in the history of museums these used to be exhibited as well.

It was founded in the eighteenth century by Pieter Teyler van der Hulst.

He was a rich textile merchant. Originally, his family name had been Taylor: he was of Scottish ancestry.

Teyler and people around him belonged to a minority Protestant church: the Doopsgezinden (Anabaptist, Mennonite, or Baptist); which meant they were excluded from political office.

They were part of the Dutch Enlightenment movement of the eighteenth century.

They thought religious truth should not be based on the authority of the pope of Rome; or of the synod of the Dutch Calvinist Reformed established church; but on research in science and artists’ work.

Today still, there are statues of figures representing both Science and Art on the museum’s roof; and both art and science are represented in its collections.

The museum was expanded in the nineteenth century by an Austrian classicist architect; so it looks somewhat like museums in Vienna.

Fossils and creationists

As one enters, the theme of the first halls is fossils.

They include plants; a plesiosaur; an ichthyosaur; a mesosaur; and a mammoth.

Perhaps the most famous fossil of Teyler’s museum is Andrias scheuchzeri.

It was first described in the early eighteenth century by Swiss physician Johann Jacob Scheuchzer.

Scheuchzer believed in the literal truth of the Bible.

He presumed he had found the skeleton of a human, drowned by God for his sins in the Great Flood described in the Bible; thus disproving beginning skepticism on the historical truth of that Flood.

Scheuchzer’s supporters were called Diluvians.

The fossil inspired a poem, in a 1731 book by Scheuchzer:

Sad bony remains of an old sinner;
Melt rock, and hearts of the new children of evil!

However, the paradox of Scheuchzer and the Diluvians was that they ultimately inspired skepticism.

More and more people doubted whether the Andrias scheuchzeri fossil skeleton in Teyler’s museum was really human.

In 1811, the leading palaeontologist of that time, Georges Cuvier, dug deeper at Teyler’s exhibit, proving it was a salamander. Also about Cuvier: here.

A some millions year old giant salamander, related to present giant salamanders of East Asia, and more distantly, to the hellbender of North America.

Andrias scheuchzeri lived in Germany till about three million years ago.

This way, Cuvier dealt a death-blow to the Diluvians’ belief in the literal truth of the Bible (Cuvier, however, opposed pre Darwin evolution theories with a not very tenable “catastrophe theory”).

One may compare Scheuchzer’s Diluvians to the creationists of today.

However, eighteenth century Diluvians can at least be said to have stimulated the study of the then new subject of fossils; while today’s creationists are anti science.

More fossils

Among the fossil collection at Teyler’s is a copy of the infamous Piltdown man falsification.

It was made, and believed to be authentic, in an England jealous of Neanderthal and other fossil human finds of Germany and elsewhere, while not having found human fossils of its own.

Another fossil in Teyler’s is the earliest find of Archaeopteryx, world’s earliest fossil bird from the Jurassic.

Only in 1970 the museum found out that their exhibit, misidentified earlier as a flying reptile, was an Archaeopteryx; as its feathers were not imprinted clearly and somewhat difficult to see.

Crystals, volcanoes, and art

The museum also has the biggest antimonite crystal in the world: 72 cm high, originally from Japan.

Right now, there is an exhibition on volcanoes. In Teyler’s style, they have not only scientists on volcanoes. Also artists, like Japanese Hokusai’s works on Fuji-san volcano.

On 6 October, a new exhibition will start: drawings by Michelangelo.

The museum today also contributes to international conservation of old masters’ works.

Many old drawings, from the eighth to the twentieth century, were made with gaul nut ink, or iron-gallus ink.

These ultimately destroy paper and the drawings on it.

The museum is working at a method to fight this.

An eminent 18th century physician in Germany was embarrassed by colleagues who sought to discredit him through a hoax. Read more at Suite101: Professional Jealousy Leads to Fake Fossils: here.

Related articles

• Audubon’s Birds of America, other old books, online (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Sabre-tooth cat discovery near Las Vegas (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Paleontologists to the Regency – Part one of three (angelynschmid.com)
• Piltdown Man Enigma Solved (socyberty.com)
• Saber Toothed Tiger Fossil Found in North Las Vegas Hills (z6mag.com)
• Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (mindfuldrawing.com)
• The Piltdown Hoax at 100 (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
• History’s Biggest Scientific Fraud Goes Under the Microscope (livescience.com)
• Solving a 100-year-old scientific hoax (msnbc.msn.com)

Neo-Conservative Paul Wolfowitz Running World Bank

From the Google cache.

Neo-Conservative Paul Wolfowitz To Run World Bank

Date: 3/16/05 at 11:48PM

Indymedia Bay Area (USA) reports:

Neo-Conservative Paul Wolfowitz To Run World Bank

03/16/2005 PENTAGON HAWK PAUL WOLFOWITZ TO RUN WORLD BANK

On Wednesday March 16th, Bush nominated Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank.

“Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, the current Deputy Secretary of Defense (and assistant to Dick Cheney), is considered to be one of the most prominent and “hawkish” (neo-conservatives).

He is the principal author of the “Wolfowitz doctrine”, also known as the Bush doctrine.

He is a long time member of the Project for the New American Century think tank and was one of the signers of the January 26, 1998 PNAC letter sent to President Clinton.

Wolfowitz used to be US ambassador to Indonesia; then ruled by dictator General Suharto, who killed an estimated 1-2 million people.

As Tim Shorrock writes:

During the Reagan years, there was no greater champion of Suharto than Wolfowitz, whose career is a textbook example of Cold War politics that focused for nearly 50 years on the care and feeding of dictators like Suharto, Chun Doo-hwan in South Korea, and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.

So much for Wolfowitz’s claims of “democratizing” Iraq, the Middle East, or the world.

The Spokesman-Review:

Almost every rosy prediction made by the Iraq war’s architect has fallen flat. …

Wolfowitz’s high-stakes bungling and erroneous forecasts have helped sacrifice more precious commodities: thousands of lives, billions of taxpayer dollars and much of the global goodwill America enjoyed after Sept. 11. …

Blunder No. 4: Ahmed Chalabi. Wolfowitz pushed the Bush administration to position — and fund — Chalabi, an Iraqi exile, convicted embezzler and peddler of false intelligence about WMDs [and Iranian double agent], to lead the newly freed country.

And Wolfowitz’s fingerprints are all over Iraq’s new group of “benevolent rulers” known to locals as “Ahmed Chalabi and the 20 Thieves.”

It was Chalabi who famously declared that Iraqis would welcome the American invaders with sweets and flowers.

Wolfowitz echoed that, saying we would be greeted as liberators.

Instead, we got rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs and mutilation.

Media like The Economist refer to Wolfowitz as “the velociraptor”.

Walid Jumblatt, Lebanese opposition leader now praised as paragon of democracy by some Bush supporters, said, after rockets aimed at a Baghdad hotel, just missed Wolfowitz:

“We hope that next time the rockets will be more accurate and effective in getting rid of this virus, and his like, who wreak corruption in the Arab land of Iraq and in Palestine,” Jumblatt said.

Like a true chickenhawk, Mr Wolfowitz will now get a cushy job in banking about which he knows nothing, supposed to benefit poor people about whom he knows less than nothing, rather than go to the luxury hotel in Baghdad which was fired at during his stay, for a second time … let alone join the army in Iraq …

See also here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

War on Iran? here.

Dinosaurs in the museum

Dinosaurs in the museum

Date: 4/9/05 at 12:32PM

Mood: Thinking Playing: I’m a little dinosaur, by Jonathan Richman

Today, a lecture about dinosaurs in the museum.

They have an Edmontosaurus annectens there. Almost all of its original skeleton.

This species, a hadrosaur or “duckbill dinosaur”, lived in what is now the USA and Canada, not very long before all dinosaurs became extinct.

Its size was about 13 m.

It is often referred to as the cow of the Cretaceous.

Some skulls measure nearly 2 feet long with almost 2000 teeth within the jaws.

Fossils, more common than for many other dinosaur species, were found in Alberta, Colorado, Montana, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Wyoming.

It is named after Edmonton city in Canada.

Also in this museum, also from the United States, also plant eating, but much bigger (in reality, not in this picture) and older: Camarasaurus supremus.

60% of the skeleton are original fossil bones; the rest is reconstruction.

100.000 in Brussels for peace and workers’ rights

From the Google cache.

100.000 in Brussels for peace and workers’ rights

Linking: 39

Date: 3/20/05 at 1:07AM

Mood: Marching Playing: War, by Edwin Starr

100.000 demonstrate against war and anti worker policies in Brussels

Like to many other places elsewhere in Europe and the world, Saturday 19 March brought to Brussels, capital of Belgium, many demonstrators against the Iraq war, which started two years ago, continuing almost two years after George W. Bush declared it finished.

The demonstration was jointly with the European trade unions, emphasizing the link of peace with pro worker social and economic policies.

According to Belgian police, 90.000 people participated. Police estimates are notoriously too low, so very probably over 100.000 demonstrated.

From the organizers’ web site:

19 March 2005 Brussels European Demonstration

Together for another Europe

social – egalitarian – peaceful – in solidarity

Meeting point: Porte d’Anderlecht near « Gare du Midi » (southern railway station)

1.30 pm: special events – music – stands
3.00 pm: social movement’s demonstration departure

The Belgian peace movement said:

Join the peace movement on the demonstration (for the whole text go here).

19th March is the second anniversary of the start of the war against Iraq.

The peace movement will not remain silent, and refuses to let Iraq slip quietly out of sight, as some politicians would prefer.

We call for the peace movement to be visible in the demonstration.

*Our demands: *Stop the occupation – Stop the economic plundering – Stop the war machine – Disarm all weapons of mass destruction – No military spending in place of social spending

Already at 7.15 in the morning, I departed with one of many special trade union buses. Soon, I saw a male pheasant close to the road.

A little further, a white stork in a meadow.

In Rotterdam, a great cormorant flew over the bus.

Why are you demonstrating?

Why are you demonstrating, I asked my fellow passengers, the Van Poelgeest married couple sitting next to me.

Mr Van Poelgeest said he used to be a shipyard worker. The yard used to build patrol boats for the police, but had closed down.

“Though I am retired now, I have been a trade unionist all my life.

And I intend to stay active, as everything we have fought for is now under threat from Rightist government policies.”

Jolanda Sijbel, can you, the steward of our bus, please tell our Internet readers a bit more about yourself?

I am a trade union full timer, working at public sector union AbvaKabo. I am also a member of the services union FNV Bondgenoten.

The main reason why I demonstrate today is the proposal by ex European Union commissioner Bolkestein.

It would allow businesses to export bad labour situations from Poland or other East European countries to Western Europe and we shouldn’t have that.

That would destroy jobs and be a race to the bottom. It’d be better to help workers in Poland fighting for a better situation there.

Oh, is there an anti Bolkestein Internet site? Good that you tell me, I didn’t know yet.

Mr Van Poelgeest: When the East European countries joined the European union, more lax rules for businesses were imposed on them. Pro worker rules were not.

The main reason why I am here is to fight the cutbacks in social rights, in pensions, etc.

Last year, I was in Amsterdam as well, at the biggest trade union demonstration in Dutch history, of over 300.000 people.

What do you experience in your personal life of bad government and international policies?

We can’t afford the Internet

Well, we are very badly off financially.

We would like to have a Internet connection, but we can’t afford it. Like millions of people in The Netherlands and still more in other countries.

I would like to read on the Internet what those proposals for a new European Union constitution are about. But I haven’t.

So what should I vote at the referendum on June 1 in The Netherlands on these proposals?

Alex (a retired teacher, also on the bus): I know the proposals, and I will certainly vote no.

They propose economic policy like the Bolkestein proposal.

They also propose to have mandatory rising military expenses in the constitution (not any other expenses like for social security).

That should not be in a constitution at all. Say what you want about how US politicians twist the US constitution, but it doesn’t contain nonsense like that.

That way, Europe will become militarist like George W. Bush’s USA. They should have a completely opposite, peaceful, policy.

However, to get that, you have to break the big influence of the armaments industry in Europe first.

The constitutional proposals are also very bad for the environment.

It’s good that public opinions poll show that most voters in France will probably reject the constitution at their referendum, on May 29. That would be a good example for The Netherlands, two days later.

Martijn: I work in technical education for construction workers.

The proposals of Bolkestein and the EU constitution work towards prolonging the working week to 44, 50, or more hours.

In France, the legal working week is 35 hours; it should stay that way.

So, I oppose this EU constitution. Also as I am pro peace. Peace has always been linked to the workers’ movement.

When the bus stopped for some minutes, anti EU constitution flyers were distributed.

By the way, the constitutional proposals are by Right French politician Valery Giscard d’Estaing, previously mainly known for a corruption scandal with diamonds of Central African dictator who crowned hinmself emperor, Bokassa.

Suriname

Mrs Van Poelgeest, I heard from your husband how bad policies affect him. How do they affect you?

Mrs van Poelgeest: though I am 66 now, higher than the legal pension age of 65, I hardly get any old age pension.

That is because I was born in, and always worked in a hospital, in Surinam. I was a member of the hospital workers’ union there, part of the CLO trade union federation.

However, the Dutch government does not count all my working years in Surinam, just the fewer years I worked in The Netherlands since arriving there in the 1990s.

So, I get just a very small old age pension, and I have very few working hours at a lawyer’s office now. However, this does not add up to enough.

What a shame, Mrs Van Poelgeest, as millionaires who inherited their money and never worked a day in their life do get 100% old age pensions unlike you.

And much of the time when you worked in Suriname, it was a Dutch overseas territory.

And the Dutch businesses, and Dutch slave owners before them, making lots of profits in Suriname did not run into such trouble with the government as you do now.

Mrs Van Poelgeest: At government offices, they make you fill in endless forms, and then, they say to you: no, you can’t have anything. Meanwhile, prices rise.

Mr Van Poelgeest: in The Netherlands, petrol is more expensive than in Belgium or Germany. Yet one of the biggest oil corporations, Shell, is Dutch based.

Brussels

Our bus arrived in Brussels. Though it was hours before the official beginning of the demonstration, already thousands were present.

Technically, the march consisted of three parts. First, mainly Belgian youth organizations marched. Then, European trade unions.

Last, peace, environmental, and other organizations in the European Social Forum; and political parties.

As I wanted to be sure there would be a bus home for me, I stayed in the middle section, and didn’t see much of contingents, specially for peace organizations, or of youth organizations.

Among the slogans on signs and banners in the central, trade union, part of the demonstration: Bush, Blair, Balkenende [Dutch Prime Minister], war for oil is stupid.

Taxes for peace, not war. Working class: enough is enough!

There were mainly two sorts of peace flags in the demonstration. The rainbow flag, originally from Italy, with PACE or PEACE on it.

And the blue flag with white dove of peace, often with the name of the French peace movement Mouvement de la Paix on it; but also without letters among German demonstrators.

There were also blue flags of the Belgian Liberal trade union federation, one of few union federations of that tendency in Europe.

And Romanian flags of trade unionists from that country, red flags of the German DGB federation and the Italian CGIL, and flags of anarchists, of the Turkish’ workers’ federation, and Croats. And a big banner against occupation of Iraq.

There were very many international contacts, so that Dutch unionists whistled on (green) whistles of the Belgian Christian union federation and had Polish Solidarnosc jackets on.

While Moroccan Belgian children came to get Dutch FNV union flags.

Loudspeakers played Slave driver, by Bob Marley.

And Bella Ciao (an Italian song on a woman fighter against Mussolini and Hitler; lyrics and music here.

Before the march started, speakers addressed the crowd. A Italian woman union representative called to loud applause for foreign troops out of Iraq; and independent investigation to find out the truth about US troops firing at her compatriot Giuliana Sgrena, killing a Italian security agent.

She also recalled the violent death of Italian anti G7 demonstrator Carlo Giuliani in Genua.

Another Italian woman, from the executive of the international textile workers’ federation, emphasized the links between peace and workers’ movements.

German communists of the DKP had flags with portraits of Ernst Thälmann (communist killed in one of Hitler’s concentration camps) and of Ernesto Che Guevara.

There were also banners against German “Hartz 4″ social security cuts.

German anti-fascist, as well as other anti-racist, signs, were also in the march.

Behind the Germans, the Romanians marched. Then the Dutch. Officially, marching was supposed to take one hour, from the southern to the northern railway station.

We didn’t know yet it would take over two hours and a half, as there were many more demonstrators than expected.

More slogans: G7 (richest seven countries, meeting in Scotland): warmongers, neo-colonialists.

Wanted: George W. Bush, for aiding and abetting terrorism. Your (George W. Bush’s etc.) wars: our dead. No war for oil.

Against cutbacks, occupation [of Iraq], and capitalism. A real job; not a blowjob!

There were very many slogans against the Bolkestein proposal; including Bolkestein=Frankenstein. Luxembourg unionists had slogans: against the Europe of Chirac and Berlusconi.

Also very many urging to vote against the proposed EU constitution.

Many of those from the French CGT, the union federation with most marchers that day. The media often call the CGT (simplistically) the union of the French Communist Party. Simplistically, as many supporters of other parties or of no party are also members of this biggest French union federation.

Most CGT demonstrators were from northern France, between Paris and the Belgian border.

Some had travelled all the way from the Tarn or the Rhone in southern France. A CGT band played the Internationale.

A twentyish CGT woman led marchers in chants of Non! Non! Non! A la constitution {no to the proposed EU constitution)!

A sign said: the bosses will vote yes to the constitution; they have very good reasons for themselves.

I told an elderly CGT member that some opinion polls in The Netherlands predict a majority No vote to the proposal at the referendum, like some polls in France.

He immediately gave a thumbs up sign. A colleague of his said: France will vote Non!

There were also smaller contingents from France from the FEN (teachers, not affiliated to a union federation), and the smaller federation CFDT.

The CFDT, originally Christian, is more moderate than the CGT.

Though they too oppose the Bolkenstein proposals, their leaders say yes to the constitution proposals, which not all members are happy with.

As the marchers progressed slowly, because of the crowds, they saw signs reminding them of US wars since 1945: Guatemala, Haiti, Vietnam, etc. etc. …

Some windows along the march still had posters of Bush not welcome actions in Brussels in February.

One could hear songs like Chiffon rouge, Le temps des cerises, Bandera rossa (red flag; Italian)

I saw, besides “unorganized” young people, members of the Young Socialists, and Communists, from France; and from Belgium, of the Workers’ Party, and Catholic Workers’ Youth.

Belgian French language anarchist paper Le Libertaire was also present. So was the French speaking Belgian Ecolo party with their green flags.

Trade unionists had covered a high rise office building which we passed with anti Bolkestein banners.

As we came closer to the northern railway station, we passed members of the Iranian Social Forum. And of the Italian peace organization Women in Black.

Close to the speaker’s rostrum for the final meeting hang a big poster, asking: how can one condemn the 9/11 atrocity in New York City by Bin Laden, while remaining silent on the dead in Iraq?

The number of death civilians in Iraq on the poster was 9.000, crossed out by someone substituting 20.000, then crossed out again with the 100.000 estimate of the British Medical Journal.

A woman from the CGT executive said from the stage: ten years ago, unions were not strong enough to stop anti worker European Union measures. However, now there is that possibility!

The official meeting was over. A band played Lady Marmelade, by Labelle. The demonstrators tried to find their buses back home.

Which wasn’t that simple, as Brussels police made a last minute decision that as the city was so overcrowded, buses had to depart further from the meeting than expected.

Well, at last our bus could go away, while two fiftyish ladies with signs “Bush wanted for terrorism” waved us goodbye.

Peace demonstrations in 2006: here.

Strasbourg demonstration, against Bolkestein plan, 14 February 2006: here.

UK: pro peace protests against Condoleezza Rice

From the Google cache.

UK: pro peace protests against Condoleezza Rice

Date: 3/30/06 at 2:11PM

Mood: Looking Playing: War, by Edwin Starr

George W Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is not welcome in England.

The British Broadcasting Corporation reported:

Demonstrators shouted “Condoleezza Rice go home” as she entered the school through a side entrance with the Foreign Secretary.

Outside the school, mother of five Rabiya Adam, 33, said the US Secretary of State was not welcome in her home town.

“When I found out she was coming here to speak to our children, I didn’t want her to preach what she did in Iraq.”

Arif Waghat, 47, a retail manager, said his 15-year-old daughter and son, 14, were at the maths and computing college today.

He said: “I’m not going to let a couple of warmongers deprive my children of their education.

My opposition is to the war. I’m basically a pacifist.”

Inside the school Ms Rice met pupils including 16-year-old Jabbar Khan.

He said she had told him she was not enjoying the cold and cloudy English weather.

As Ms Rice left the school police prevented protesters following her.

Hanif Dudhuala, a member of the community forum at Pleckgate, said: “We have been told that Ms Rice has said that she would like to talk to protesters.

“If that’s true, I would ask Ms Rice to turn her words into actions so we can raise our concerns with her.”

From ABC (USA):

One demonstrator held a yellow hand-lettered sign that read “How Many Lives Per Gallon?”

A reference to Ms Rice’s, and the Bush administration’s, links to Big Oil corporations.

See also here.

US officer: Why I disagree with Bush’s war for oil.

French voters celebrate No victory in referendum

From the Google cache.

French voters celebrate No victory in referendum

Linking: 62 Comments: 24

Date: 5/29/05 at 8:39PM

Mood: Thinking Playing: La Carmagnole

French TV says thousands of people go to the Bastille in Paris, the starting point of the 1789 French revolution. They celebrate the victory of the No vote.

An orator at the Bastille shouted: Down with [European Commissioner] Barroso! Down with Blair! Down with Raffarin [French Prime Minister, who may resign soon now [update: has resigned] due to his referendum defeat]!

Someone in the audience advised Dutch voters to vote no as well, as the people should decide, not the professional politicians.

Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende kept calling on Dutch voters to vote Yes. Suddenly, in anti French Dutch nationalist tones.

While, before the French no, he had kept saying The Netherlands as a small country should not isolate themselves from big countries like France who would probably say yes … What rank hypocrisy.

Yesterday, there was the Dunya music festival in Rotterdam. Dutch Government Minister Ms Agnes van Ardenne (ab-)used the occasion for a Vote yes speech.

When Mr Willem Bos, chair of the Vote no committee, tried to say what counter arguments were, police arrested him and kept him in jail for over an hour. This says something about the quality of democracy which the Yes supporters want.

In his concession speech, French President Chirac, who had campaigned for a Yes vote, had to admit the French people had expressed themselves democratically.

French TV said that 56%, even more than the 55% of the exit poll, had voted No. 60% of Green Party voters had voted No, contrary to their party leaders. Similarly with Socialist Party voters.

The proposed EU constitution proved to be a social class issue as well. In France, 80% of blue-collar workers voted no. While the majority of well off people voted yes.

In The Netherlands, the leader of VNO-NCW, the big business association, claimed there were 1500 bosses present at his organization’s meeting and that each and every one of those would vote yes on 1 June.

There were No majorities all over France. With some exceptions, like Strassburg where many jobs depend on the European parliament: there, 62% voted Yes. Even this was a lot lower than the 72% Yes vote there for the Maastricht treaty referendum in the 1990s, narrowly won nationally by the Yes vote.

The Dutch Socialist Party, who advocate a No vote for Wednesday in The Netherlands put a picture of fireworks on their site to celebrate the French victory: here.

Stay tuned, as this blog reported later news, especially on the day of the Dutch referendum, Wednesday evening 1 June, after 9 Central European Time: there was live blogging again.

See on the results and consequences of the French No vote also here.

Update on constitution plans in January 2007: here.

Update March 2008 here.

Comments:

RE: French voters celebrate No victory in referendum
Posted by:
critical

Date: 05/30/05 at 4:55 AM
Backbone is broken! Now it’s up to the Dutch to remove the oxygen tube!

=================
CRITICALLY yours::::::LG
=================

RE: French voters celebrate No victory in referendum
Posted by:
dearkitty

Date: 05/30/05 at 7:43 AM
Yes, still three days to go … I added something on Dutch Balkenende here above. Thanks for your comment!

RE: French voters celebrate No victory in referendum
Posted by:
dearkitty

Date: 05/30/05 at 8:40 AM
I smelled a rat when I heard CNN repeatedly blabbing on about how important it is for the French to support the EU constitution—and you proved it. Bankers seldom put democracy first!

CS
Taipei, Taiwan
25 May 2005

* * *
Again, thank you for a very relevant and pertinent article. A colleague in France has kept me in touch with the feelings behind a “no” vote, naturally marginalized by our “free” media in America and Britain. A British news report of celebrities such as Johnny Hallyday, Francoise Hardy and Gerard Depardieu attempting to whip up a frenzy for a “yes” vote highly amused me.

As you know, these are very bad times, and you are one of the few valuable news agencies which report the real issues. At the moment, I have just finished writing three letters to Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, Representative Mike Madigan, and another politician against a proposed change in the state retirement budget which will leave employees 29 percent worse off if it goes through. Our worthy Democratic Governor has a billion dollar deficit, but instead of raising taxes on the wealthy he now intends to attack the less well-off as well as support riverboat gambling with its mob associations and devastation of the life of local communities as a means to raise revenue.

Why am I raising these Illinois issues? It is because two of my colleagues in France are planning to retire before their state pensions become cannibalized in the same way. They have also become very concerned by the rise of the Blair ideology in France as well as the increasing racism developing under this new version of neo-conservative liberalism. A “yes” vote will mean further attacks on gradually eroding benefits as in the USA with France returning to the era of Napoleon III while we go “back to the future” of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

Keep up the good work of Enlightenment, an 18th century tradition now under attack in an America swiftly returning to the Dark Ages of capitalist oppression and puritan repressiveness.

TW
25 May 2005

Source: http://wsws.org/arti…y2005/corr-m30.shtml

RE: French voters celebrate No victory in referendum. UK reaction
Posted by:
dearkitty

Date: 05/30/05 at 8:53 AM (1y4M ago)
Lack of principle
(Monday 30 May 2005)

THE interview which European commissioner Peter Mandelson gave yesterday will have been greeted by many on the left with mixed feelings – fury at the arrogant and insulting way that this insufferable man calmly suggested dismissing democracy if it didn’t produce the result that he wanted, mixed with a certain amount of relief that this discredited and thrice-disgraced apology for a politician is no longer active in domestic politics.

Whatever the result of the French referendum on the EU constitution, this unprincipled man will carry on ploughing his own lonely furrow regardless of the will of the people of France, Britain and whatever other country chooses to assert its right to its own democratic principles in defiance of his and other Euro bureaucrats’ opinions.

http://www.morningst…nt/lack_of_principle

RE: French voters celebrate No victory in referendum
Posted by:
dearkitty

Date: 05/30/05 at 9:35 AM (1y4M ago)
See also http://americablog.b…titution-go-now.html

RE: French voters celebrate No victory in referendum
Posted by: Republic of Palau (View Website)
Date: 05/30/05 at 12:39 PM
Nice article: I’ve linked to it on Progressive Gold. http://progressivegoldbeta.blogspot.com/2005/05/non-non-and-thrice-non-dear-kitty.html

RE: French voters celebrate No victory in referendum
Posted by:
dearkitty

Date: 05/30/05 at 6:07 PM
Thanks, Republic of Palau!

RE: No victory in referendum worries US military industrial complex
Posted by:
dearkitty

Date: 05/30/05 at 7:04 PM (1y4M ago)
US defence industry concerned by possible French No
27.05.2005 – 15:46 CET | By Filipe Rufino

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – A possible French “no” to the European Constitution referendum is causing some US defence industry chiefs concern.

“I am worried about the repercussions in European Foreign and Security Policy if the French vote no on Sunday”, said Robert Bell, a former NATO and White House official turned defence industry executive.

Speaking on Thursday (26 May) at a conference organized by the New Defence Agenda, a pro-defence industry forum, Mr Bell added that the EU needs more defence integration and needs to be up to the challenge of stabilizing the situation in Kosovo, “which could re-ignite at any moment”, he added.

http://www.euobserve…om/?sid=13&aid=19181

RE: Dutch and French voters No victory in referendum?
Posted by:
dearkitty

Date: 05/30/05 at 11:24 PM (1y4M ago)
NEWS LINE lead article: Tuesday May 31 2005

DUTCH TO FOLLOW FRENCH EXAMPLE

Dutch workers are ready to deal another blow to the bosses and bankers’ EU by following the example of the French and voting ‘NO’ to the proposed EU Constitution in tomorrow’s referendum.

Leading ‘No’ campaigner Harry van Bommel, of the Dutch Socialist Party, said yesterday he expected the ‘No’ campaign to get an even higher majority than expected after the French vote.

Bommel said: ‘The Dutch prime minister has always said that we would look a fool in Europe if we were the only ones who voted “No”.
‘Everyone now has a greater freedom to say “No”.’

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he was disappointed with the outcome of the French vote, but renewed his appeal for voters to back the treaty.

‘The process of ratification continues and the result gives the Dutch one more reason to vote “Yes”,’ he said.

A rattled Economic Affairs Minister Jan Brinkhorst said voting ‘No’ ‘would be a very short-sighted vision’, adding ‘we are not a province of France, we are not a province of Europe, we are an independent country’.

Dutch opinion polls have been predicting a resounding ‘No’ vote with the latest, for Dutch TV on Saturday, suggesting that 57 per cent were opposed to the constitutional treaty and 43 per cent were in favour.

The Netherlands is one of the EU’s founding members.

Meanwhile in Britain yesterday, Prime Minister Blair and his Foreign Secretary Straw were left shocked and unsure by the French vote.
Both men said ‘it is time for reflection’.

Straw said: ‘This decision by such a wide margin by the French electorate, is profound, does change things.’

He admitted that the Dutch vote ‘will obviously be significant’.

But he added: ‘We don’t need to make a decision just now, so we’re not going to.’

A shaken Blair interrupted his holiday in Italy to make a short statement.

He said: ‘Having this time for reflection is sensible because of the French vote.

‘If there still is a constitution to vote on we will have a vote in Britain before ratifying it.’

Blair added: ‘What is important now is having a time for reflection with the Dutch referendum in a couple of days’ time and the European council in the middle of June where the leaders will discuss the implications of the votes that have taken place.’

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said: ‘Without the acquiescence of the French, you can’t really make meaningful progress on this constitution.’

In France, government ministers were furious over the working class vote.

Not only was the vote 55 per cent against, and 45 per cent for, it was all the more significant for the high 70 per cent turnout, reflecting the intensity of the national debate.

Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie called the vote ‘a defeat for France and a defeat for Europe’.

Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said: ‘This is an ordeal, a real disappointment.’

The French employers’ federation, Medef, has reacted to the ‘No’ vote by calling for urgent ‘reforms’ to boost the economy.

Medef president Ernest-Antoine Seilliere said the vote ‘weakens the French economy, France and Europe’.

RE: French voters celebrate No victory in referendum
Posted by:
dearkitty

Date: 05/30/05 at 11:29 PM
News Line : Editorial
Editorial: Tuesday May 31 2005
French revolution stuns EU bosses and political leaders

THE 55 per cent vote, by the working class and the rural population of France against the European Constitution, is a body blow to the plans of the bosses, bankers and bourgeois politicians of Europe to establish a European capitalist state, powerful enough to smash the European workers and challenge the US and Japan for the world’s markets.

The blow delivered has been so devastating that it has even reduced Blair and Straw, and their spin-masters to a ‘period of reflection’, while they try and cobble together a policy to deal with this crisis.

This crisis is, in fact, an expression of the historical crisis of the European capitalist states, which were out of date and rotten-ripe for socialism and socialist reorganisation decades ago.

The French working class has exposed this crisis by its revolutionary action in putting its own class interests, and those of the rural poor, before the interests of the capitalists and bankers of Europe.

It has decisively rejected their EU state, and its plans to attack jobs, wages, the ‘welfare state’, state-owned industries and basic rights.

The French example will be contagious.

It will be followed by the Dutch in their referendum tomorrow and may well lead to other states rejecting the constitution, and in states like Germany, where the decision was taken by the parliament, to workers demanding a referendum.

The bourgeoisie of Europe has simply been caught out trying to do by political means and blackmail, what Hitler had sought to do by force of arms – organise a European capitalist state.

The EU leaders thought that it could be achieved by imposition.

The tactic was, where the demands of the European Commission were rejected in referenda – as they were in Ireland and Denmark – simply to have the referendum again, after lecturing the population as to the terrible things that would happen to their countries if they dared vote ‘no’ again.

This cannot be done to France and the French workers.

The Marxist movement has had a clear position on the prospects for a bourgeois European state for many years. In 1915 Leon Trotsky wrote the following:

‘A more or less complete economic unification of Europe accomplished from above through an agreement between capitalist governments is a utopia.

‘Along this road matters cannot proceed beyond partial compromises and half measures.

‘But this alone, an economic unification of Europe, such as would entail colossal advantages both to the producer and the consumer and to the development of culture in general is becoming a revolutionary task of the European proletariat in its struggle against imperialist protectionism and its instrument – militarism’ – (The Peace Programme by Leon Trotsky).

What has now been made clear, is what was crystal clear then, that a capitalist united states of Europe will have to be forced onto the working class by force of arms, that is by ruling class violence.

Already, the French bosses are demanding that the gloves come off and that radical measures are taken at once to put the French economy into order.

Their German counterparts are screaming a similar message.

Immediately, we can expect a split among the EU governments as they blame each other for the catastrophe that has befallen them.

This will be secondary to the remorseless sharpening of the class struggle that is taking place throughout Europe.The French workers have once again led the way, as they have done so many times before, and there is no doubt that the British, German, Dutch and other workers will follow their example in rejecting a bankers’ and bosses’ Europe based on their super-exploitation.

Update September 2007: EU draft ‘reform treaty‘: here.

New UK moth discovered at Wicken Fen

From Wildlife Extra:

New UK moth record at Wicken Fen

December 2006. A moth has been found for the first time in the UK at the National Trust’s Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.

Moth expert Jeff Higgott discovered the small plume moth, known as Emmelina argoteles, with its tiny 18mm wingspan in 2005 and proved it to be breeding on the nature reserve in 2006.

This newly discovered moth is a member of the ‘plume’ moth family and is usually found in mainland Europe.

Plume moths have wings consisting of five or more parts each and the moths put the parts over one another, so creating a very small wing.

Stuart Warrington, the National Trust’s Regional Nature Conservation Adviser for the East of England, says, ‘The circumstances of the moth’s presence at Wicken Fen remain unknown but it could have been blown across to Wicken Fen from mainland Europe, moved northwards because of climate change or it might even have been living at Wicken Fen for many years.’

Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire is one of the most important nature reserves in Britain, as it is one of just four surviving fragments of the once extensive fenland that stretched from Cambridge to the Wash.

The National Trust has been looking after Wicken Fen since 1899, when it bought its first 2 acres. …

The reserve is known to support a staggering 7,000 species, which includes 1,800 flies and 1,400 beetles and 1,000 species of moths.

Wildlife in Wicken Fen photos: here.

Bamby broad in Suffolk: here.

Broadlands wildlife here.

Nunnery Lakes Nature Reserve: here.

Moth count in Britain: here.

Hawaii: Lead Paint Poisoning Thousands of Midway Albatrosses

This is a Laysan albatross video.

From Wildlife Extra:

LAYSAN ALBATROSSES BEING POISONNED BY LEAD PAINT

Lead Paint Poisoning Thousands of Albatrosses

Government Funds Not Available for Cleanup on Midway Atoll

December 2006. Lead poisoning is killing thousands of Laysan Albatrosses every year on Midway Atoll, part of the recently created North-western Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument.

The Laysan albatross, thousands of which are now nesting on Midway, is globally listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union.

‘Laysan chicks raised in nests close to buildings left behind by the Navy are ingesting lead-based paint chips.

This is causing very high lead concentrations in their blood, leading to severe neurological disorders, and eventual death,’ said George Fenwick, President of American Bird Conservancy (ABC).

‘Federal funds are urgently needed to cleanup this toxic mess to protect the Laysan Albatross as well as future visitors to the new Marine National Monument.’

Scientific studies have shown that Laysan Albatross chicks are eating lead-based paint chips peeling off of 95 aging buildings on the island, and that as many as 10,000 chicks (5% of hatched chicks) may die from exposure to lead-based paint.

So, as bad as on Vieques island near Puerto Rico.

But … well, according to the Bush administration, lead is supposed to be not poisonous …

And there is no climate change …

And the Iraq war is a cakewalk …

And pigs fly …

And Midway albatrosses do not fly …

Well, if Bush ‘stays the course‘ on them, they may soon stop flying.

2009 update: here.

Hawaii bird habitats threatened: here.

Pollution harms North Pacific albatrosses: here.

Laysan ducks: here.

London: Bush cartoons exhibition

From the Google cache.

London: Bush cartoons exhibition

Date: 1/28/06 at 1:03AM

From Associated Press:

Cartoonists’ visions of Bush revealed

By Jill Lawless

LONDON: Pictures in a new exhibition depict US President George W. Bush as a crocodile, a spider and a dimwitted cowboy.

And those are the polite ones.

“Misunderestimating the President Through Cartoons” looks back on the years since Bush’s 2000 election victory through political caricature — and highlights the gap between the relative restraint of US cartoonists and a far more savage British style.

The show, which opened on Thursday at London’s Political Cartoon Gallery, features artists from Europe and the United States, including Martyn Turner of the Irish Times and longtime Baltimore Sun cartoonist Kevin Kallaugher.

But most of the work comes from British cartoonists, who revel in the grotesque and in bawdy, toilet humour.

Steve Bell, the Guardian newspaper’s veteran cartoonist, said US colleagues “are not as visually visceral as we are.”

The trans-Atlantic contrast is striking.

Kallaugher shows Bush as a pusher plying Uncle Sam with cheap oil, or getting Willy Wonka to sugarcoat the Iraq war.

Bell, Britain’s highest-profile editorial cartoonist, usually depicts the president as a chimpanzee, with simian features and hairy limbs — often accompanied by lapdog Tony Blair.

“He has got chimp-like features,” said Bell. “There’s no getting away from it.”

Martin Rowson, who works for the Guardian and other publications, is equally grotesque. …

The exhibition also contains a veritable menagerie of animal images.

Bell pictures Bush as a crocodile in the toxic waters of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.

Another cartoon, entitled ‘Iraqnophobia’, depicts him as a spider. …

His satire is robustly nonpartisan.

Bell portrays Prime Minister Tony Blair – when not a lapdog or a turkey – as a crazed zealot with a mad, staring left eye.

He usually drew Conservative former Prime Minister John Major clad in giant underpants.

Editorial cartoonists face an uncertain future.

An increasing number of newspapers in the United States have decided to do without in-house cartoonists.

Kallaugher left the Baltimore Sun this month after 17 years.

The Los Angeles Times laid off Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Ramirez late last year and said it would not replace him.

But Bell says political cartoonists fulfill as essential a role as reporters.

“We’re all in the truth game, I hope,” he said.

“Politics is so much about image.

Politicians like to control every aspect of their image.

What we do is get underneath the imagery.”

“Misunderestimating the President Through Cartoons” runs through March 18 at the Political Cartoon Gallery in London, its only stop.

Bush and De Tocqueville: here.