Category Archives: Humor

Are terrorists targeting forests?

Note: The only forest terrorists we need to worry about are the corporate terrorists like ArborGen, International Paper and other industrial timber companies who have been wreaking havoc on forest ecosystems for decades.  And, of course, the immense threat of climate change, and false solutions like REDD and California’s new domestic forest carbon trading scheme

-The GJEP Team

By Joe Hanel, April 26, 2013. Source: The Durango Herald

DENVER – As if 4 million acres of dead, standing timber and an ongoing drought weren’t enough to worry about as Colorado enters the wildfire season, a few Republican senators say it’s past time to prepare for terrorist attacks in the forests.

They’re making the argument to convince colleagues to pay for the state’s own fleet of aerial firefighting tankers. If terrorists ignited several fires at once, the small federal fleet would be overwhelmed, the state senators say.

Sen. Steve King, R-Grand Junction – the sponsor of the air tanker bill – said he is worried that large fires in the Colorado River Basin could clog reservoirs and cause a water supply “catastrophe” across the whole American Southwest.

“That is why that is a priority or could be a priority for those who wish us ill will, and those who would like to change the United States and the Western United States,” King said at a hearing for his bill.

Terrorist attacks in the forests have already happened, King’s allies said.
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Filed under Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Forests and Climate Change, Humor, REDD

Happy Earth Day, Monsanto. With love, the Mud People

Note: Orin Langelle is co-founder and Board Chair of Global Justice Ecology Project.  Please visit his new project, Langelle Photography.

-The GJEP Team

By Orin Langelle. Source: Langelle Photography

Photo: Orin Langelle

Photo: Orin Langelle

Big River Earth First! and “mud people” demonstrate against Monsanto’s corporate sponsorship of Earth Day 1990.  The person standing behind the over-sized check was questioned by a reporter from a NBC TV affiliate in St.  Louis.  The mud person interviewed replied in “mud language” which was translated into English by one of the protesters. The segment aired that evening as the lead story on the local NBC TV news.  Monsanto did not comment.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Humor, Industrial agriculture

BBC faces dilemma as anti-Thatcher song tops charts

Note: Rest in Peace, Iron Lady.  And please, please don’t come back.  We have a hard enough time trying to bury the lasting impacts of your policies and pursuits.

-The GJEP Team

By Raphael Satter, Associated Press, April 12, 2013.  Source: ABC News

Britain Obit ThatcherThe BBC is in a bind after opponents of Margaret Thatcher pushed the song “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead” to the top of the British charts in a posthumous protest over her divisive policies.

The online campaign to drive the “Wizard of Oz” song to the No. 1 spot on the U.K. singles chart was launched by Thatcher critics shortly after the former prime minister died Monday of a stroke at age 87.

As of Friday, the song was No. 1 on British iTunes.

Still, many people say the campaign — which aims to see the song played this weekend on the BBC’s Official Chart Show — is in bad taste. Some have called on the BBC to promise it won’t broadcast the song.
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Earth First!, Bank of America partner to offer EarthMother credit card

April 1, 2013. Source: Earth First! Newswire

Introducing EarthMother SmartPoints, the first card that  automatically spreads your purchases into direct action, non-violent civil disobedience or good old fashioned eco-sabotage. Now you can shop for designer brands and pummel the earth brutalizing capitalism machine.

ef_credit_card

 

  • 0% Intro APR on Balance Transfers and Purchases for 18 months. After that, the variable APR will be 12.99% – 21.99% based on your creditworthiness and willingness to put your body on the line in defense of corporate funded wilderness mitigation areas.
  • Click “APPLY HERE” to apply online or call 561-320-3840
  • There is a balance transfer fee of either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater.
  • No late fees, no penalty rate and no annual fee – ever, or until industrial civilization collapses
  • Save time when you call with fast, personal help, 24 hours a day.
  • .02% of all fees and interest collected will proceed the Earth Liberation Front
  • April 1, 2013 is the only date this card will be offered you fool.

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Filed under Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Greenwashing, Humor

Video–Santa: Stuck in the smoke hole of our Tipi

Note: A little light-hearted fun for those of you reeling from the holidaze…

–The GJEP Team

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Filed under Climate Change, Humor, Indigenous Peoples, Videos

On the 12th day of Christmas…your gift will just be junk

By George Monibot, December 10, 2012.  Source: The Guardian

Every year we splurge on pointless, planet-trashing products, most of which are not wanted. Why not just bake them a cake?

Illustration by Daniel Pudles

Illustration by Daniel Pudles

There’s nothing they need, nothing they don’t own already, nothing they even want. So you buy them a solar-powered waving queen; a belly-button brush; a silver-plated ice cream tub-holder; a “hilarious” inflatable Zimmer frame; a confection of plastic and electronics called Terry the Swearing Turtle; or – and somehow I find this significant – a Scratch Off World Map.

They seem amusing on the first day of Christmas, daft on the second, embarrassing on the third. By the twelfth they’re in landfill. For 30 seconds of dubious entertainment, or a hedonic stimulus that lasts no longer than a nicotine hit, we commission the use of materials whose impacts will ramify for generations.

Researching her film The Story of StuffAnnie Leonard discovered that, of the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remain in use six months after sale. Even the goods we might have expected to hold on to are soon condemned to destruction through either planned obsolescence (wearing out or breaking quickly) or perceived obsolesence (becoming unfashionable).

But many of the products we buy, especially for Christmas, cannot become obsolescent. The term implies a loss of utility, but they had no utility in the first place. An electronic drum-machine T-shirt; a Darth Vader talking piggy bank; an ear-shaped iPhone case; an individual beer can chiller; an electronic wine breather; a sonic screwdriver remote control; bacon toothpaste; a dancing dog. No one is expected to use them, or even look at them, after Christmas day. They are designed to elicit thanks, perhaps a snigger or two, and then be thrown away.
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Filed under Humor, Oil, Waste

AGU scientist asks, ‘Is earth f**ked?’ Surprising answer: Resistance is NOT futile!

Note: We like this guy!

-The GJEP Team

By Joe Romm, December 9, 2012.  Source: Think Progress

Photo: Eli Kintisch

Photo: Eli Kintisch

Yes, geophysicist Brad Werner actually titled his talk at the huge American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting last week, “Is Earth F**ked?” The talk’s abstract (searchable here) appeared to offer a pessimistic answer:

In sum, the dynamics of the global coupled human-environmental system within the dominant culture precludes management for stable, sustainable pathways and promotes instability.

We have met the enemy and they are us! But Werner, who works at the Complex Systems Laboratory at UC San Diego, offers hope in the subtitle, “Dynamical Futility of Global Environmental Management and Possibilities for Sustainability via Direct Action Activism.”

Slate‘s Jonathan Mingle attended the talk and reports on the source of Werner’s pessimism and optimism in his piece, “Scientists Ask Blunt Question on Everyone’s Mind: Why Earth and atmospheric scientists are swearing up a storm and getting arrested.” Continue reading

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Humor, Politics

Video: UK and Canada win ‘Dodo’ award for blocking biodiversity talks

Note:  While the Dodo Awards were given out a week ago during the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 11), we think it is important to highlight them, especially considering recent events in Canada involving a scandal that violated an international moratorium on geoengineering experimentation.  You can read more about that catastrophe here.

-The GJEP Team

By Ed King, October 17, 2012.  Source: Responding to Climate Change

Canada and the UK have won the COP11 Dodo award for countries who have done most to obstruct the negotiations in Hyderabad.

Organisers the CBD Alliance said Canada was the “clear leader” for breaking UN rules on geoengineering and refusing to consider the impact of biofuels on food.

On Monday the Guardian revealed a Canadian businessman dumped 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean in July, a technique known as ocean fertilization. The Alliance say this was carried out with the knowledge of the Canadian government.

The UK is accused of blocking attempts in the EU and CBD to develop safeguards for synthetic biology, with the tacit support of the USA, who is not a signatory to the Convention.

Synthetic biology generally refers to the use of computer-assisted biological engineering to design devices and systems that do not exist in nature – and there are concerns that without regulation new organisms could contaminate the environment.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biodiversity, Humor, Oceans

More jobs on a dead planet? Bummer reports of pro-industry “protest” around the world

By Panagioti, September 26, 2012.  Source: Earth First! Newswire

As the Earth shows ever-increasing, irrefutable signs of overlapping global crises inbiodiversity lossclimate changeand human cancer rates, the work-vs-ecology debate continues to distract good people around the world and fuel the industrial death cult (what most politicians casually refer to as “the economy”).

For instance, The World-Herald Poll released a report today that more than half of Nebraskans can’t wait for the tar sands to plow through their farms, forests and water supply.

Meanwhile, in Northern Canada, where the tar sands currently originate, a crew of truckers and construction companies are protesting in favor of a new road,complaining about the environmental permits aimed at protecting wildlife such as fish and caribou in the regions of the Beaufort Sea, Mackenzie River delta, Yukon North Slope and western Canadian Arctic Islands…

And in Italy today, workers are occupying a dirty factory, some of them demanding the site remain in operation rather than close down temporarily for environmental upgrades.

On a more upbeat note, in a neighboring country, Greece, workers and anarchists fought police in the streets during yet another General Strike. While the US reports on the reason for the riot were vague, they usually tend to at least be anti-capitalist… Let’s hope the anti-industrial, anti-speciesist tendencies in Greece where present to counter-balance the pro-industry commies.

Yes, we know its easy to despair about this shit. But rest assured, people are fighting back all over as well. And they may need your support to continue doing so… What are you waiting for, shut off the internet and get out to East Texas, where they celebrate day 3 of blockading the Keystone pipeline construction.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Green Economy, Humor, Independent Media

Cartoon Car-Jacker Gives $1 Million to Romney PAC

by Greg Palast, 10 September 2012.  Source: Gregpalast.com

Charles Manson can’t vote, but Manson Inc., al-Qaeda LLC, and Putin & Co. can run negative campaign ads on the Fox network.

And maybe they have.
In ancient times, before the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United, the maximum amount you could give a candidate for president, legally, was two thousand dollars. And, until 2010, to legally donate to a candidate, you had to 1) have a first and last name, 2) be a citizen of the United States, and 3) breathe oxygen.

Then, in 2010, the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision (followed by a lower-court decision, SpeechNow v. FEC) blew the doors off the limit on secret political campaign contributions. “Unnatural” persons—headless, heartless creatures called corporations—could now spend in election campaigns. And, unlike us mere mortals, these corporate creatures are not limited to two thousand dollars.

As soon as Citizens came down, billionaires pulled out their debit cards and went on a shopping spree. 
In 2012, Paul “The Vulture” Singer, a billionaire, gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the super-PAC behind Mitt Romney. So did The Vulture’s buddies John Paulson (also a billionaire), Julian Robertson (billionaire) and Bill Koch (billionaire). Half a dozen other rich guys also ponied up millions to Restore Our Future—including, of course, The Ice Man.

And a million bucks came into Restore Our Future from something called “F8 LLC.” Records indicate that F8 has an estimated annual revenue of only $87,000 a year. So that $1 million donation must have been a real sacrifice. The “principal” of F8 is listed as Mr. Diego Villasenor. No photo, so I looked up the F8 man in Google image search and found this:

You may recognize Mr. Villasenor, a well-known assassin. But luckily, as a cartoon, he only kills other cartoons. However, he does have a million in real cash money to blow on making Governor Romney our president.

Whether this is the real Mr. Villasenor, or if there is a real Don Diego, or if he’s a Quechua Indian in Peru who believes photos will steal his soul, or if he has a soul at all, well, that just doesn’t matter. What matters is the “LLC,” which stands for Limited Liability Corporation. And under Citizens, the letters LLC mean F8 LLC can donate unlimited millions for political advertisements—and F8’s owner’s name, whether it really is Diego, his nationality, or even if he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, is none of your damn business.

And what is Restore Our Future? Well, it is a kind of campaign Death Star that can and does emit crushing blasts of money to mutilate and destroy candidates who would oppose the electoral will of Paul “Vulture” Singer, F8, Bill Koch ($2 million donation), and the other billionaires.

In just the first couple months of 2012, Restore Our Future ran about $56 million through its cash colon to crap all over the opponents of Romney’s presidential bid. (Official records showed 87.4 percent of the super- PAC’s spending went into hate messages, i.e., negative ads and telephone calls.)

But why play? What do they want? And as Butch said to Sundance, “Who are these guys?”

Well, despite the name “Citizens United,” not all those united are citizens. Less noted in the hubbub about corporate personhood was that the Citizens and SpeechNow decisions OK’d political spending by foreigners. Look forward to candidates funded by Zeta Gang Inc PAC. And while Charles Manson has lost his citizenship and right to vote, Citizens has restored his right to form Manson & Company Super-PAC.

The Chinese military is already positioned to support its Manchurian candidates. In fact, the Peoples Liberation Army is already incorporated in the US via its clothing line sold at WalMart called, “New Order.” I kid you not.

And maybe they have. Senator John McCain has disappeared from TV screens since letting the cat out of the bag that the largest contribution to “Restore,” the Romney super-PAC, likely came from China via the Sands Casino Corporation. It’s been a long time since Sinatra played the Sands in Vegas. Today, its entire income comes from casino operations in Macau, China, an operation created in partnership with Communist Party apparatchiks.

But there’s no sense asking about it. Mr. Villasenor isn’t taking questions.

… Read the rest in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps.

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