US baseball fans boo Bush

This video from the USA is called Bush booed at 2008 Nationals home opener.

From Crooks and Liars in the USA:

Bush gets loudly booed at Nationals home opener

By: SilentPatriot on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 6:56 PM – PDT

Or maybe they were yelling “Boooooosh!”?? We report, you decide.

video_wmv Download | Play video_mov Download | Play (h/t Scarce)

Cheney got a similar greeting in 2006.

See also here.

Film about baseball: here.

The roots of baseball’s crisis lie not with the moral failings of individual players but the greed of the owners: here.

George Monbiot book on capitalism today

This is a video of a George Monbiot speech on climate change.

From British daily The Morning Star:

Capitalist crisis

(Sunday 30 March 2008)

Bring on the Apocalypse – Six Arguments For Global Justice by George Monbiot
(Atlantic Books, £11.99)

JOHN GREEN is impressed by Monbiot’s take on the state of the world.

DESPITE its title, this book is far from being a fatalistic or cynical tract. George Monbiot refuses to become demoralised or jaded, despite being forced to adopt a quixotic role by the ruling elite.

He is a unique treasure – invariably writing good sense, using sane arguments in a fluent and engaging prose. He is supremely knowledgeable and passionate without becoming overemotional or hysterical.

We couldn’t have a more capable pugilist fighting our corner against those who seem bent on destroying the planet.

The tragedy is that he is kept out of the ring, obliged to shout advice, warnings and good counsel from the back row of the gallery, whereas he should be there within the echelons of power as a top government adviser or elected leader.

In this selection of essays written between 1998 and 2007, we have a distillation of his advocacy. In them, he covers not just environmental but a whole gamut of political, philosophic and social issues.

Monbiot attacks writers such as Jonathan Freedland and Tristram Hunt for arguing that a new sense of patriotism is needed in the face of the so-called terrorist threat. He demolishes such a narrow vision.

“I don’t hate Britain,” he writes, “and I am not ashamed of my nationality, but I have no idea why I should love this country more than any other. The world will be a happier and safer place when we stop putting our own countries first.”

From issues of patriotism, he moves smoothly on to investigate the insidious role of big business, global politics and the idiocies of religious fundamentalism.

US Treasury plan shields Wall Street speculators: here.

The latest and hopefully the final nail has been driven in that old-time favorite myth against all forms of communal ownership, the Tragedy of the Commons. Elinor Ostrom has just received the Nobel Prize Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics in Memory of Alfred Nobel for her extensive work in debunking the Tragedy of the Commons myth: here.

The Shroud of Turin fake

This video is called The radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin.

From Kris’s Archaeology Blog in the USA:

Experimental Archaeology and the Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is really a neat artifact. Seriously. The ‘shroud’ (as if you didn’t already know) is a sheet of linen cloth impressed with the three-dimensional front and back image of a six-foot tall man in red stains. The shroud was first exhibited in public in the 14th century AD by the French knight Geoffrey de Charny; it was also denounced as a forgery that same year, by Bishop Pierre d’Arcis of Troyes.

Some people are of the steadfast belief that the shroud represents the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of the Christian church; but all radiocarbon dates and scientific testing to date have returned medieval dates. The theory of most scientists and historians is that the shroud was created by an artist in the 14th century using a model who was coated in a combination of red ochre and vermilion, a paint combination commonly used in the middle ages. Whether the original intention was a work of secular art, a hoax meant to fool people, or a thoughtful religious relic made by a follower of Jesus, isn’t really available to us today.

The discovery that all five radiocarbon dates were in the 14th century was a setback for those who believe in its direct association with Jesus; and some have argued that the dates were affected by a fire which added carbon monoxide to the fabric. John Jackson, director of the Turin Shroud Center of Colorado and the University of Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit conducted additional work in an attempt to identify if carbon monoxide might have been a factor in the dates. What they did was experimental archaeology–Dr. Jackson’s center subjected modern linen cloth to very high levels of carbon monoxide; and the ORAU monitored the effects.

The results–that exposure to even the highest carbon monoxide levels does not affect modern linen at all–were communicated in a BBC2 documentary this past week.

Dutch Jews condemn anti Muslim hysteria

This is a video of an anti racism demonstration in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 22 March 2008.

By Cnaan Liphshiz, in Israeli daily Haaretz:

The newly-released anti-Islam film by right-wing Dutch legislator Geert Wilders drew condemnations from the Netherlands’ Central Jewish Board, which Friday called the film’s focus on anti-Jewish preachings by Muslims “counterproductive” and “generalizing.” …

In a statement following the film’s online release, the board said that Wilders – the leader of the Party for Freedom – was guilty of serious generalizations. “Wilders presented demographics on the increase of Muslims in Europe with pictures from scenes of terrorist attacks, suggesting all Muslims are potential terrorists,” head of the Hague-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, Dr. Ronny Naftaniel, Saturday told Haaretz.

While the anti-Semitic material Wilders compiled “demonstrates some Muslims have terrible ideas about Jews,” the way Fitna portrays reality serves to “polarize Dutch society,” the board said, adding this was counterproductive to the fight against extremism.

See also here. And here.

Several Muslim parties will participate in Dutch municipal elections on March 3. But in spite of a sizable Muslim electorate, they have so far been unable to garner many votes: here.

This video, ‘Stop the clash of civilizations’, was voted Best political YouTube video.

GORDON PARSONS finds a senior CIA veteran demanding a more brutal assault on Islam: here.

Abuse of Leftist songs by US Rightist politicians

This music video is of Woody Guthrie, This land is your land.

By Nicole Colson in the USA:

Sing a song of hypocrisy

March 28, 2008

DO THE political candidates pick the songs that fit them? …

Some are, of course, very fine songs in their own right. But you have to wonder if the candidates have ever bothered to actually listen to them. Whose “country,” for example, does John McCain think famously left-leaning rocker John Mellencamp is referring to in “Our Country”?

“That poverty could be just another ugly thing/And bigotry would be seen only as obscene/And the ones that run this land help the poor and common man/This is our country” run the lyrics–hardly in step with the campaign of a man who, in the course of recent months, has backed George W. Bush’s veto of a bill outlawing torture of detainees and said that the U.S. might stay in Iraq for the next “100 or 1,000 or 10,000 years.”

To his credit, Mellencamp pulled the plug on McCain‘s use of his music in February. As Mellencamp’s spokesperson, Bob Merlis, commented to the Associated Press, “You know, here’s a guy running around saying, ‘I’m a true conservative.’ Well, if you’re such a true conservative, why are you playing songs that have a very populist pro-labor message written by a guy who would find no argument if you characterized him as left of center?”

In a similar incident, guitarist Tom Scholz of the band Boston told Mike Huckabee to cease and desist using “More Than a Feeling.” Scholz wrote that “Boston has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything Boston stands for…I think I’ve been ripped off, dude!”

McCain is hardly the first Republican to appropriate the work of left-wing musicians in an attempt to add luster to his campaign. George Bush Sr., for example, was somehow able to get away with using “This Land Is Your Land“–a searing indictment of inequality in America penned by socialist Woody Guthrie–as his campaign song in 1988.

It’s a good bet that Bush left out the verse that goes: “In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people/By the relief office I seen my people/As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking/Is this land made for you and me?”

Ex Clash bass guitarist Simonon now a painter

This music video is called The Clash - “The Guns of Brixton” [written by Paul Simonon] (Live).

From British weekly The Observer:

When the Clash parted company in 1986, bassist Paul Simonon went back to his first love: art. …

When the London punk scene began in 1976, Simonon was a fledgling painter, fresh from Byam Shaw art college which, back then, was just up the road in Notting Hill. In the spirit of the times, he bought a bass guitar which he drip-painted in the style of Jackson Pollock and learned how to play by writing out the chords and sticking them on to the instrument’s neck.

Thirty years on, he describes himself as ‘a painter who occasionally dabbles in music’. His most recent bout of dabbling, though, led to a number one album as part of the Damon Albarn-orchestrated supergroup, the Good, the Bad and the Queen. ‘It’s done and dusted,’ he says of that project, but later lets slip that the group are in negotiations to play a big benefit for the newly reignited Rock Against Racism campaign. The gig is scheduled for 27 April in Victoria Park, east London, where, 30 years ago, the Clash rocked against racism before 100,000 people.

‘I can dip in and out of music when I feel like it,’ says Simonon, ‘but it’s not my life any more. There was a point after the whole intensity of the Clash finally subsided when I just found that painting grounded me in a way that music didn’t.’ …

Paul Gustave Simonon was born in Brixton, south London in 1955, and grew up, as he puts it, ‘all over the place – Brixton, Ramsgate, Canterbury, Thornton Heath, Bury St Edmunds, Ladbroke Grove’. His mother was a librarian and he describes his father, Gustave, as ‘a Sunday painter. Literally.’ Simonon senior also seems to have been quite a character. He went AWOL from the army having served in Kenya during the time of the Mau Mau rebellion. ‘I think he saw some bad things,’ says Simonon, ‘and was haunted by them for a long time afterwards.’

How the Clash started: here.

Clash stars Mick Jones and Topper Headon have recorded together for the first time in 27 years in aid of an organisation which supplies musical instruments to prison inmates: here.

See also, by Tom Robinson, here.

RIP: Ray Lowry – Clash “War Artist”: here.

Sandinista by the Clash: here. And here.

Related articles

• The Stranglers on their new album and UK tour (scotsman.com)
• Top News: Joe Strummer to be honoured with square in Spanish city Granada (guardian.co.uk)
• Punk legend Joe Strummer is to be honoured in Spanish city of Granada with a square re-named after him (dailymail.co.uk)

Northern Rock scandal boss gets over 1.5 million dollars

This video from Britain is about the Northern Rock scandal.

From The Observer weekly in Britain:

Ex-Northern Rock boss gets £750,000

Chief at helm when bank almost crashed will also draw on £2.5m pension as shares plunge to 5p

Richard Wachman, city editor

Sunday March 30 2008

Northern Rock will ignite a storm of controversy tomorrow when it reveals that its former boss Adam Applegarth received a £750,000 [over 1,5 million US dollars] pay-off when he left last December.

Applegarth, who is 46, is also entitled to draw on a pension pot of £2.5m at the age of 55, built up since joining the bank as a graduate trainee almost 20 years ago. Experts say that could bring him retirement benefits of up to £200,000 a year.

Vince Cable, Treasury spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said it was ‘outrageous that someone who brought the bank to the brink of destruction and subjected taxpayers to liabilities worth billions of pounds should be rewarded for failure’.

So, a pension of £200,000 a year for Northern rock scandal boss Applegarth when he gets 55. While capitalists like Applegarth are pushing in all countries to get workers’ retirement ages up from 65 to 67 years or something.

$10 million for American Axle CEO: here.

Corruption in Britain: here.

Northern Rock update May 2008: here.

Update March 2009: here.

Banks are crashing while 140,000 repossessions loom at Northern Rock: here.

Bush’s Iraq offensive threatens trade unionists

This video from Ireland shows:

First half of footage from World Against War demonstration. 15th March 2008, Belfast.

From Monthly Review:

Naftana News Release: Basra Assault Threatens Trade Unionists

Press Release

28 March 2008

Basra Assault Confirms Presence of British forces a Threat to Political and Trade Union Rights in Iraq

In a series of telephone calls from Basra over the past 48 hours, Iraqi trade union activists appeal for solidarity and describe how the so-called ‘Security Plan’ started midnight 24 March with intense shelling and fire from all kind of weapons.

The attacking forces now besieging Basra stretched all the way to the city from Dhi Qar province. Two armoured divisions are deployed, in addition to thousands of policemen, backed by US and British planning and air cover.

They have cut off electricity supplies, food and water on the city of1.5 million people. Hundreds have been killed or injured in a savage, premeditated and unprovoked attack, now spreading to much of Iraq as the people protest and show solidarity with Basra’s beleaguered people.

They describe the attack as far worse than the invasion of 2003 and begun in the same barbaric manner that the criminal Saddam employed against Basra to crush the March 1991 people’s uprising. They remind us that the present puppet Iraqi government sentenced Saddam’s Defence Minister to death few months ago for similar crimes of waging war on civilians.

The assault is backed by the US and British occupation forces,particularly in providing air cover. US planes are also bombarding areas in Basra,several southern cities and Baghdad, where tens of thousands marched yesterday denouncing the “puppet regime”. It is now, along with many other cities, under a strict curfew enforced by regime and occupation forces.

Trade union leaders have asked us to inform the public in Britain that the government’s attack on Basra serves the occupation. The city is “steadfast” and the onslaught will end in “utter failure.” The city streets were free of the occupying forces before the assault and the regime’s attacks will make it even more dependent on the occupation forces, they stressed.

Naftana, the UK support committee for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions in the struggle for democratic trade unionism in Iraq, condemns British collusion in the preparation of the assault on Basra city and British participation in air strikes.Naftana urges all to join in calling for an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Iraq, ending the US-led occupation, and for the payment of reparations to Iraq.

In the absence of adequate media coverage of the nature and context of this savage onslaught, Naftana wants to set the record straight on UK involvement.

In December 2007, the Basra Development Commission (BDC) was formally announced after discussions between Gordon Brown and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. (1) Brown appointed a British businessman,Michael Wareing, Chief Executive of KPMG International as “Commissioner”, apparently heading the BDC.(2)

Wareing visited Basra in February and made outrageous comments, confirming his real interests to be those of predatory business rather than the security, development and well-being of Basra and its people. Wareing told The Observer: “If you look at many other economies in the world, particularly the oil-rich economies, many of these places are quite challenging countries in which to do business. . . . Frankly, if you can successfully operate in the Niger Delta, that is a very different benchmark from imagining that Basra needs to be like London or Paris.”(3)

Wareing’s appointment was welcomed by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a major advocate of the 2003 invasion and of privatisation.

On March 13 the British Defence Minister Des Browne met with Salih in Basra Airport. Browne promised to show new action on ‘security’ in Basra province and to bring Umm Qasr port up to ‘the highest international standards’.(4)

What this meant was made clear by Salih who threatened the Governor,people of Basra and port workers’ union of Umm Qasr saying ‘there must be a very strong military presence in Basra to eradicate these militias’.(5)

What Salih, himself a former militia leader, was concerned about were organised port workers who had earlier confronted the American SSA Marine corporation in Umm Qasr and the Danish Maersk corporation in Khoraz-Zubair in the two years after these companies were imposed by the occupying forces in 2003.(6)

The new plans involve privatisation measures opposed by the port workers, who are supported by other trade unions and port management. It is likely that the planned corporate takeover of the port is required in order to facilitate the activities of international oil companies. Nevertheless, the scale of what was afoot was not apparent, but the link between military action and breaking trade unionism was.

On March 17-18 the US Vice-President Dick Cheney was in Baghdad meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who presently heads the attack on Basra city.(7)

Top of the agenda was the oil law(8) and how to insure its passage. The oil law means that international oil majors will control Iraqi oil for many decades. Various reports reveal that the present carnage was coordinated and agreed with British and American leaders. Naftana believes they commanded it.

Why? The tide of national public opinion has turned against long-term troop deployment in both the UK and the USA. If the war was fought for oil and total domination of Iraq, then those most closely associated to those interests must speed up their plans. The present onslaught aims to break popular resistance, especially from the Sadrist movement, to the passage of the oil law and to the occupation itself.

Beyond that, with local elections looming next autumn, it aims to destroy morally and physically the popular base which would otherwise be set to drive, first from local power, and subsequently from national power, the US/UK allies, Nouri al-Maliki (al-Dawa party), his main allies in the Supreme Islamic Council, led by Abdulaziz al-Hakim, and the Kurdish leaders, Talbani and Barzani.

Naftana calls on all who support democratic trade unionism to stand by the people of Iraq, with the port workers of Umm Qasr and the oil workers of Southern Iraq, with workers in Baghdad and many other cities who are in danger of physical elimination. Naftana

For further information on Naftana and IFOU:
Sabah Jawad — 07985 336886 sabah.jawad@googlemail.com
Kamil Mahdi — k.a.mahdi@exeter.ac.uk
Sami Ramadani — 07863 138748 sami.ramadani@londonmet.ac.uk

Notes for editors: Naftana (‘Our Oil’ in Arabic) is an independent UK-based committee supporting democratic trade unionism in Iraq. It works in solidarity with the IFOU.

It strives to publicise the union’s struggle for Iraqi social and economic rights and its stand against the privatisation of Iraqi oil demanded by the occupying powers.

For more information see the IFOU’s website.

Notes

1. “Invest Basra,” East of England Energy Group, http://www.eeegr.com/events/info.php?refnum=562&startnum=A0

2. “KPMG Leader appointed as Development Commissioner in Southern Iraq,” KPMG International, 1 January 2008, http://www.kpmg.com/Press/KPMGLeaderappointed.htm

3. David Smith, “Oil Giants Are Poised to Move into Basra,” Observer, 24 February 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/24/iraq.oil

4. “UK Commitment to Iraq ‘Absolute’,” BBC, 13 March 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7294144.stm

5. James Glanz, “Iraqi Troops May Move to Reclaim Basra’s Port,” New York Times, March 13, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/world/middleeast/13basra.html

6. Since 2003 the first shortened its name to SSA Marine. On UmmQasr, see: “SSA Marine Completes Port of Umm Qasr Management Contract,” AllBusiness, 30 June 2004, http://www.allbusiness.com/transportation/marine-transportation-ferries/5665051-1.html, and “Stevedoring Services of America,” Center for Public Integrity, http://www.publici.net/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=56. On Khor az-Zubair, see: Lotte Folke Kaarsholm, Charlotte Aagaard, and Osama Al-Habahbeh, “Iraqi Port Weathers Danish Storm,” CorpWatch, 31 January 2006, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13196; and Andy Critchlow, “IRAQ: A.P. Moeller Seeks Dismissal of Lawsuit Amid Security Threat,” Bloomberg, 14 July 2005, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12490.

7. John D. McKinnon, “On Iraq Tour, Cheney Seeks Security Pact,” Wall Street Journal, 20 March 2008.

8. AFP, “Cheney Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq,” 17 March 2008.

Juan Cole on the fighting in Basra etc.: here.

Repeated US air strikes in Basra and Baghdad: here.

Update 30 March 2008: here. 31 March 2008: here. 1 March 2008: here.

Britain: As Basra burns, Iraq inquiry call supported by just 12 Labour MPs: here.

Abuse in Iraqi jails: here.

Animals in the Iraq war: here.

US Iraq war veterans face joblessness and low wages

This video from the USA says about itself:

The Veterans Administration hospital in Albuquerque is turning away veterans looking for seasonal flu shots after running out of the vaccine.

By Alex Lantier:

US: Returning veterans face mounting joblessness and low wages

29 March 2008

On March 25, the Wall Street Journal published a brief summary of a US Veterans Affairs Department study on discharged veterans’ employment and wage prospects. The report, not yet publicly released and largely blacked out in the broader US media, paints a devastating picture of surging unemployment and low wages for returning veterans.

It found that the percentage of veterans not in the labor force—due to unemployment, having returned to school for further training, or having given up looking for work—had more than doubled between 2000 and 2005, jumping from 10 to 23 percent. Veterans aged 20-24 had an unemployment rate of 12 percent, 50 percent larger than the overall US unemployment rate for adults aged 20-24, which stands at 8 percent. On March 27, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, writing on the same report, noted that 18 percent of veterans reported being unemployed.

Many employed veterans earn salaries leaving them at constant risk of financial hardship. Twenty-five percent reported earning less than $21,840 a year. Half of those aged 20-24 earned less than $25,000 a year.

The report also exposed one of most commonly promoted claims of military recruiters: that recruits will gain valuable gain job skills for future civilian life. The Journal wrote: “The report found that most of the returning veterans were unable to find civilian jobs that matched their previous military occupations. The only exceptions were the veterans working for private security firms such as Blackwater or in the maintenance and repair fields.”

The Journal added: “The Veterans Affairs Department offers educational-assistance programs for young veterans, but the report said the initiatives had little impact on the employment status or salaries of the former military personnel.”

Several other sources noted difficulties facing veterans in looking for civilian jobs. Military.com, the veterans’ section of the online recruitment web site Monster.com, released a survey of veteran jobseekers and civilian employers in November 2007. The survey found that 81 percent of discharged veterans did not “feel fully prepared for the process of entering the job market,” with 71 percent unsure of how to negotiate salary and benefits and 76 percent reporting “an inability to effectively translate their military skills into civilian terms.”

The way these facts came to public attention—through the leaking of an internal report, which then went broadly ignored in the mainstream press—speaks volumes about the state of American political life and class relations.

As US fatalities reached 4,000 this past week, the death toll in the war and occupation of Iraq received a certain amount of coverage in the print and broadcast media. The number of wounded soldiers, however, is controversial and rarely discussed. And the difficulties facing returning veterans—the lack of jobs, financial insecurity, denial of health care, and homelessness—also receive little press coverage.

The problems of returning veterans are closely tied to the deteriorating situation of the broader American working class. They follow inevitably from the US military’s thrusting often traumatized veterans into a society marked by rising unemployment, deindustrialization, the destruction of high-paying jobs, and increasingly difficult access to health care, education, and housing.

As Ricky Singh of Black Veterans for Social Justice told OneWorld news service in November 2007, “What typically happens to young adults who go into the military at 17 or 18, when they return home, the same kind of economic conditions that forced them towards the military still exist or have gotten worse.”

Amy Goodman Questions Sen. Obama on Heeding Iraqis’ Call for Full US Withdrawal: here.

Light pollution threatens Malta shearwaters

This video is called The EU LIFE Yelkouan Shearwater Project.

From Wildlife Extra:

Malta has around 10% of the world’s population of Yelkouan (Levantine) Shearwaters, a seabird that nests in cliffs around the island. The findings of a new report show that light pollution on the islands is increasingly becoming a problem and has been driving the shearwaters out of their nesting sites.

The report was carried out by project partners Helen Raine (BirdLife Malta) and John J. Borg (Heritage Malta) and focused on assessing light pollution near the shearwater colonies in the cliffs, particularly at the project site of Rdum tal-Madonna, L-Ahrax tal-Mellieha. It also suggests simple, practical ways to reduce this modern scourge.

Bird slaughter in Malta: here. And here. And here.

Malta Conservation Volunteers Face Increasing Threats and Attacks: here.

Polarized Light Leads Animals Astray: ‘Ecological Traps’ Cause Animal Behaviors That Can Lead To Death: here. And here.

Light pollution is killing off Britain’s insect populations: here.

Street lighting is changing insect ecosystems in towns and cities, a study has found: here.