Boreno is Burning

From NASA Earth Observatory.

Natural Hazards: Fires on Borneo
The fires occur annually in the dry season (August-October), caused mainly by land-clearing and other agricultural fires. Fires escape control and burn into forests and peat-swamp areas. Fires in peat—thick layers of dead, but un-decayed vegetation—are extremely smoky and difficult to put out

This is another contributing factor to the acid rain cloud over Asia, along with increased car pollution. It is also a problem of desertification. Now withthese fires in Borneo another area faces desertification thanks to international agribusiness. This is not the frist time fires have gotten out of control in the Indonesian islands. Nor will it be the last.

The agricultural burning is a by product of palm oil production which is the major commdity export business in Indonesia dominated by agribusiness cartels like Cargill.

As I wrote back in 1997;

"In the fall of 1997 the islands of Sumatra and Borneo caught fire, and burned through out the fall and winter. The devastation and resulting air pollution covered not only Indonesia but its neighbours in Thailand and Malaysia. The government and corporations at first blamed peasants for the fires, saying it was caused by slash and burn agriculture.

In reality it was the slash and burn policies of the Indonesian government and its corporate partners like Cargill, which created the conditions which led to this ecological disaster. News reports reveal that the fires were started to clear land for palm oil planatations!"

There is nothing natural at all about these fires, they are the result of deliberate slash and burn policies of the palm oil industry.

The illegal brush fires were started by farmers or agricultural companies on Borneo and Sumatra islands as a cheap way of clearing the land.

See:

Agribusiness

Desertification

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A Counter Challenge

Olaf over at Prairie Wrangler which describes itself as blog by "Repentant freethinkers, with tips on how to rope rookies, blowhards and chumps from across the political spectrum..." usually keeps the rope handy for those on the left and progressive end of the political spectrum.

Repeating oft said arguments around the rights current bugaboos, Status of Women, abortion, etc. he is upset that no-one talks to him. Well perhaps if he would take up an argument that actually posits some debate that would not be limited to stereotypical attacks on straw-men and charactures of the left he would get some response.

He like many others on the right make the falacious argument that we lefties and progressives are all in lock step. That we don't disagree, that our arguments are warmed over Michael Moore...none of them of course have heard of Chomsky, just kidding of course they have, they atttak him for being a rich guy...any ways it's a stereotype lefty they attack. So here is a real lefty challenge for Olaf.

Here is his opportunity. As he has been so kind as to link me as a Best Mouthpiece,I will challenge him to prove I am a lock step lefty on these issues;

1. Smoking

2. The Seal Hunt

3. Tax cuts

4. Wages for Housework

5. Free Trade

6. Kyoto




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Help RAW

In Canada we have socialized medicine so this kind of crap would not occur. Even if we have waiting times. Robert Anton Wilson is dying and is broke so his friends are appealing for help. Who is RAW? Well he is a member of the Illuminati, but they kicked him out. Actually he is an iconaclastic anarchist author a fellow heretic of the first water.

Boing Boing has publicized his plight. Though he has money for this months rent, the man is dying. And is broke. In America. Where of course they don't have no state socialist medicare. So if you can help out....

Monthly contributions of $50.00 or more will be greatly appreciated. All monies will go directly to Robert and can be sent to his PayPal address olgaceline@gmail.com. You can also send a check to RAW c/o Futique Trust, P.O. Box 3561, Santa Cruz, Ca 95063. Link


I had the privilege in the eighties of bringing RAW to Edmonton at the height of the Keegstra Affair and its ensuing conspiracy theories. He spent a week here, that he said was the best week of his book tour. I would encourage all his fans to help him out in his last days. America should be ashamed. Ric Dophin did a two page spread in Alberta Report on Bob, and gave him fair and balanced coverage, which was surprizing.

Note from Robert's friend, Denis Berry: Sadly, we have to report that wizard-author-intelligence increase agent is in trouble with his life, home and his finances. Robert is dying at his home from post polio syndrome. He has enough money for next months rent and after that, will be unable to pay. He cannot walk, has a hard time talking and swallowing, is extremely frail and needs full time care that is being provided by several friends-fans-volunteers and family. We appeal to you to help financially for the next few months to let him die at his home in peace.

From Denis, who is managing Bob's care:

Just went to your boing boing site. Wowie Zowie Batman! What an amazing job you're doing with everything.

Anyway, this morning Bob's daughter showed up at his house in tears because she had checked his PayPal account and found money for next month's rent plus more. Bob called me to say that he couldn't believe people would care so much about him and as we talked (which isn't easy for him at this point) he was overcome with emotion more than once. He is so touched and RELIEVED at the possibility of staying in his home. He kept repeating to me his deep felt appreciation and disbelief that people would care so much about him. What a humble and sweet man.

A tip o' the blog to Disinformation for this.



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Foley=October Surpise

There are a variety of right whingnutbar blogs and MSM commentators that are pulling off a Clinton over the Foley Follies. They are crying conspiracy. The Democrats did it.

The tinfoil hats should be issued immediately to these rightwhingnutbar commentators.

Foleygate (Open) Must-Read List

Somehow the Democrats used microwave mind control to brainwash the GOP leadership into shooting themselves in the foot by mind wiping them so they couldn't remember anything about the Foley emails.

Come to think of it this is October. And the Foley expose was a surprise. Even to the Democrats. So I guess this is an October Surprise. Not a Democratic conspiracy but the incompetence and arrogance of those in power for too long.




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Black Holes Sing

Now this is interesting and fits with the Hindu/Vedic belief that Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva created the Universe with a single note the celestial OM.

Since Shiva is the destroyer/creator he seems an apt archtype for Black Holes.

A gigantic sonic boom and a periodic deep cacophony of sound emanated from a supermassive black hole, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. These noisy outbursts occur when material falls toward the black hole. While the black hole devours most of the material, some of it is violently ejected in jets from regions close to the black hole that push into the cluster's gas.These outbursts occur every few million years and prevent the gas from cooling and forming new stars, which is why M87 has retained its elliptical shape.

This gives credibility to the metaphyscial belief in celestial music and of Pythagoras therom of the music of the spheres; musica universalis .

Once again scientific evidence shows we are one with the universe.


The suggestion of using music to communicate with intelligence beyond Earth has a long history. As early as the 17th century, the European literary genre of the imaginary voyage provided a context for exploring a variety of proposals for universal language schemes. SPACE.com -- SETI: Celestial Music

See:

Space

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Nude Newz 10/06

Thanks to Global Warming this summer was so damn hot that teenagers will do anything to be cool...Nude Teens Raise Eyebrows in Vermont Town

Old fuddy duddies were outraged and wanted a bylaw outlawing public nudity....but cooler heads prevailed.Board puts off nudity decision

"There's not a movement in Brattleboro," he said. "It's just silliness that got out of control. It's cold here most of the time and I think we should forget about it."

Brattleboro was propelled into the international spotlight after local media coverage of young people disrobing in the Harmony Lot. The story was picked up by The Boston Globe, circulated around the Internet and published across the country and world.

Tuesday's debate on nudity was in response to resident Theresa Toney complaining at a previous Selectboard meeting about a woman in the Harmony Lot who walks around topless.

"I just think it's anarchy, because they won," she said Tuesday after the meeting. "It's inappropriate behavior for downtown. It has nothing to do with the weather. There's good behavior and there's bad behavior and that's bad behavior."

Adhi Palar, guilty of parading around in his birthday suit last month, spoke of upholding freedom and the value of the human body.

"Our acting in nudity is an act of celebration of this history and traditional values as a place where you're allowed to be nude," he said. "I find that important and I find that proud."

Here, Here it's all about Freedom and liberty which is anarchy!

As usual in America guys love to run around naked, this guy not only lost his girl, and his car but his clothes....

Nude runner faces felony charges

A Bridgton man was arrested in Naples early Thursday after police said he ran naked through the streets shouting, “Baby, help me.”According to investigators, Daigle and a female companion broke into a garage and stole a car sometime Wednesday night. They drove to a popular swimming hole. Daigle went swimming and lost both his companion and his clothes, Rhoads said.

For more Nude Guys stories in the News see:

• EXTRA: Nude man in drive-through attack
• EXTRA: Nude burglar in video cock-up
• EXTRA: Nude burglar goes horse pestering
• EXTRA: Nude wet meat soil bandit caught
• EXTRA: Nude car thief in Taser shocker

In Canada motorcyclists must wear the proper helmet for protection or else......

Nude motorcyclist ticketed for wearing wrong helmet

Guelph Mercury (subscription), Canada - 4 Oct 2006
A motorcyclist wearing nothing but a football helmet was ticketed Monday evening after Guelph Police received several calls about the nude ride

You would think these guys had never heard of nudist clubs, where you can safely and legally remove your clothes.

Meanwhile in Australia where global warming has a very real impact with consecutive years of drought folks 'almost' take their clothes off and other folks get upset. What ever happened to scientific objectivity?

Striptease heats up global warming

Rebecca Gale, who led dancers from Miss Kitka's House of Burlesque, says she's puzzled why some delegates got upset at the climate forum dinner in Canberra

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A saloon-style striptease, complete with corsets and balloons, at an Australian government-sponsored conference on global warming left some scientists hot and bothered and the organizers in boiling water.

The show was cut short and organizers issued an apology after some delegates at the Australia and New Zealand Climate Forum's dinner in Canberra walked out in disgust at what was intended as a lighthearted break from the weighty business of rising temperatures.

Rebecca Gale, who led the team of dancers from Miss Kitka's House of Burlesque, said the performance was in reasonably good taste and she didn't understand what the fuss was about.

Gale said she emerged into the function room during dinner wearing a heavy corset, black fishnet stockings and at least a dozen balloons, which she invited delegates to pop as she danced to Peggy Lee's sultry 1958 hit "Fever."

"The most that any of the girls get down to is vintage lingerie, which is corsetry and stockings," Gale told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Friday. "It's not like we were doing full nudity and simulating sexual acts or anything like that.

"There was not even a midriff on display."

Well that is hardly naked or nude.....when you are all dressed up.....

For all their bluster it really does seem folks Down Under have a problem with nudity....even when it's for a good cause....

What nude photograph?

The NRL has distanced itself from a provocative fund-raising calendar that reveals a glimpse of Penrith winger Nick Youngquest's genitals.

The Naked Rugby League calendar was released in Sydney today, with sales to help raise funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation

Some of the NRL's biggest stars, including Australian Test representatives Johnathan Thurston and Justin Hodges, are photographed nude in the publication, which is being marketed as the "most provocative calendar ever released by an Australian football code".

In New Zealand there is outrage over another footballer posing nude....one would think that is natural for a hooker....oh sorry he is not that kind of hooker.....

Oliver's nude modeling upsets All Blacks' legend

New Zealand rugby, which prefers its top players to be stoic and reserved, has been shaken by news former All Blacks captain Anton Oliver has posed nude for an oil portrait. Oliver, 31, a hooker and member of the New Zealand squad preparing for next year's World Cup, confirmed on Tuesday he had posed for Dunedin artist Simon Richardson, but only after assurances the resulting work would be tasteful.

Whereas in Jolly old England footballers get naked for a jolly romp they hope will put them on sports TV...unfortunately it appears male nudity is still too controversial even for YouTube....

The six players stripped off in March

One of the friends seen on a website playing a naked football game in a stadium admitted it was a bit of "fun".

Matthew Wintle from Port Talbot was one of the six naked players who kicked a ball around the town's Remax Stadium.

One of the group filmed the others after they had been out in Swansea celebrating an 18th birthday.

They were hoping to send the 47-second clip to a TV programme but after it was turned down, the naked game was posted onto the YouTube website.

After first approaching Sky Sports' Soccer Am programme, Mr Wintle said one of the group posted the footage on YouTube, where it was viewed thousands of times before being removed. A note on YouTube said: "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation".

In Chicago the home of prohibition...they solve the problem of mixing alcohol and nudity by prohibiting the mixing of both....

Court: Ban on nude dancing where alcohol served OK

The city law that bars nude dancing at establishments that serve alcohol does not violate the U.S. Constitution, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday. While nude dancing can sometimes constitute free expression protected by the 1st Amendment, the city has the right to address the social ills that can result from allowing nude dancing where alcohol is served, Justice Lloyd Karmeier wrote for the majority.

And in Utah they can demand that Strippers cover up at the American Bush....The Supreme Court has better things to rule on apparently......Perhaps they wolud like to rule polgamy illegal...oh they did that already....the message just didn't sink in....

The U.S. Supreme Court won't consider a lawsuit brought by several Utah exotic dancers required by city ordinance to wear G-strings and pasties, passing on the case Monday.
By refusing to hear the case, the court left intact a South Salt Lake city ordinance passed in 2001 that prohibits nudity in sexually oriented businesses, preventing dancers at American Bush and other South Salt Lake clubs from taking it all off.

More moral outrage over nudity ... in this case over a child seeing a nude statue in a museum during a school field trip...the result the teacher is suspended.....Hello what about all those naked Michalengalo statures in the Vatican......

The subtle difference between nude and naked

Back in April, Sydney McGee, an art teacher with 28 years of experience, took students from her fifth-grade class at Wilma Fisher Elementary School in Frisco, Texas, to the Dallas Museum of Art on a field trip. According to The Dallas Morning News, McGee spoke with museum staff before the trip and toured the galleries to ensure that all the works included in the excursion were fifth-grader friendly.

While at the museum, one of McGee's students saw a piece of nude art. The student returned home and relayed to the parents the fact that he/she had seen an "offensive" image, prompting the student's parents to speak up in outrage. Since then, legal battles have ensued between McGee and the Frisco Independent School District.

Two weeks ago, on Sept. 22, McGee was suspended from teaching within the district and was let off with pay.

The notion of McGee losing her job because a student happened to see a nude figure in an art museum is preposterous.

That's like attributing the entire foundation of Italian tourism to the pornography of the David, to Botticelli's very naked Venus and to a nude Jesus who just can't seem to keep his fig leaf on in public.

It is one thing for parents to oppose the children's exposure to sexually explicit images in the media or even pornography.

It is an entirely separate entity to put a nude painting or nude sculpture on the same level as pornography and not be OK with a child seeing the art. Nudity in artwork is not intended to be offensive and should not be taken as such.

Unfortunately in the Land of Funadmentalism and George W. Bush the teacher was fired for her transgression...

Kids need look no further than adults to learn art of stupidity

Texas board’s reasons for firing art teacher have no clothes

In Paris of course they are more enlightened and children mix with tittering tourists to see Art which includes nudes......very expressive nudes...

Sex, c'est la vie

THE French primary school groups and foreign tourists intermingle politely, their attention concentrated on the wonderful paintings of the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

Here's a room of Van Goghs. The Degas works spill over six rooms. Monet has three.

It's no wonder this museum of the fine arts between 1848 and 1914 attracts crowds from all over the world, as well as lucky Parisian children.

In Room 7, however, many of the noticeably English-speaking tourists stop with a jolt in front of Gustave Courbet's Origin of the World, a graphic picture of a reclining nude woman, her legs splayed.

And if even after all these years that painting can still shock imagine the new Saatchi show....

It is being billed as Charles Saatchi's most controversial show yet.
USA Today features paintings of an erect penis and a young girl performing oral sex, and a series of highly political artworks criticising George Bush and the war on terror.

Of course you expect nudes in Museums and art galleries....but somehow after all
these years they still manage to be controversial....in Charlotte, North Carolina....luckily it is a 'private' gallery or else it would have its Arts funding cut by fundamentalists.

13 artists interpret the nude

But Lassiter does not remember a private gallery in Charlotte devoting a show exclusively to the nude figure during her time here. And she knows nudity in the arts has been controversial. In 1996, nudity in a local production of "Angels in America" caused a ruckus and a temporary halt of some public funding for the arts. Lassiter said her gallery is not in the same "arena and therefore I don't see that I would be subject to that level of controversy."

Of course one would expect such prudish reactions to nude art in authoritarian regimes, not in the Land O Liberty....but then again what's that they say about everything changed after 9/11...

Troops allegedly posed nude at Shelby

Members of a Kentucky National Guard unit accused of posing nude while training at Camp Shelby could face courts-martial.

U.S. Army officials are investigating allegations that some women in the 410th Quartermaster unit were photographed posing nude before the unit was deployed to Iraq on Aug. 26.

The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., was independently provided with a compact disc containing 232 photos of at least a half-dozen nude and seminude women in various poses, including kissing one another, posing suggestively with military rifles, and covering their breasts with American flag decals, the newspaper reported in Thursday's edition.

They are going to their deaths let em have some fun.


It looks like the Chinese, like their American counterparts, want to cover up the naked truth...

Nude lessons, anyone?

An art professor has caused a stir in China's art circles and Internet chat rooms for stripping in front of a class to make a point while lecturing. Mo Xiaoxin, an assistant professor of art at the Teachers' University of Technology in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, stunned 30 students by stripping naked. Mo's action stunned the students and has led to heated debate after being reported on Tuesday by a local newspaper, 'China Daily' reported.

The teacher said he wanted to emphasis the power of the body and "confront taboos."

Mo was teaching a class on physical art and humanity culture studies, the first course of its kind to be approved by the Ministry of Culture. It has been running for six years.

The Chinese are not alone in facing the biggest crisis in Art today....

Lack of nude models is the death of life-drawing classes

After the Foley incident one would think elected officials would learn not to leave incriminating photos, emails, instant messages at their computers at work....did I mention the nude photos were on his work computer....

Despite Revealing Photos, Senator to Run

CHARLESTON, W.Va. State Sen. Randy White said Wednesday he would continue his campaign for a second term, despite the embarrassment of revealing photos of him aired on a Charleston television station. The Webster County Democrat blamed a disgruntled former employee for stealing the photos from his computer. Some show him nude, while others show at least two men whose bodies were painted.

Too much for Japan even...nude Britney Spears ads for Harpers Bazzar...the land of soft core porn TV, sexually explicit anime, manga and a fetish for farting, and under age girls deems this ad too hot for Japanese youth....

An advertising poster showing the picture was banned from all Tokyo subways by the Metro authorities, then reversed at the last minute

At Canada's most popular nude beach they are warning people not to wade in the water....it is apparently full of effluent...Nude swimmers should be concerned

And wear would we be without the obligatory PETA nude protest story. And this one also has a Canadian connection....

According to New Kerala

Sadie Frost is going naked, 'turning her back on fur' and literally all other clothing in this ad campaign for PETA. Actress and 'fur-free' fashion designer debut for her nude portrait will launch in London's Covent Garden. Frost, a strict vegetarian, has teamed up with animal rights organization PETA, to bare all for a new anti-fur advert, photographed by rock legend and fellow vegetarian Bryan Adams.

Also See:

Nude

Naked

Sexuality

Gender


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Resign

Bev Oda the Minister in charge of the Status of Women should resign.

She has cut funding for the Womens programs based on advocacy, education, information and lobbying.They have dropped 'equality' from the funding mandate. And she has the audacity during Question Period in the House to say that she and the Conservatives speak for ALL women in Canada. I think she is confusing ALL Women with the right wing Christian lobby; REAL Women.

Critics slam Oda over funding cut to women's lobby groups.

She has listened to REAL Women and the right wing and included funding now for "spiritual" initiatives. Uh oh can you say seperation of Church and State.

This is the Conservatives backdoor way of funding the right wing Christian anti-union, anti-abortion, anti-feminist, anti-gay rights lobby. Like their day care funding it is faith based politics.

That is the Harper Hidden Agenda. Faith Based intiatives were never discussed by the Conservatives during the election and it ain't in their priorities.

They are using tax payers money to fund tax free church groups and the tax free religious political lobby.Make the bigots pay! Tax the Churches!

Of course there is another reason she should resign, her ties to the corporate Copywrite lobby from whom she took donations during the election.

For more information see the Progressive Bloggers Status Of Women Campaign

The Failure of Christianity

by Emma Goldman

Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it.

See:

Only Christians Are REAL Women

Feminism



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