This photo of Amy Winehouse and the guitarist from Babyshambles should be enough to convince any wavering teenager than studying physics is a waaaay better choice than picking up the old electric axe. Sheesh!

Just top-posting a link taken from a comment on a earlier post, Thanks Metin, who wrote “The 11.th Flying Broom Women’s Film Festival to take place in Ankara between 8-15 May, is hoping to contribute to Ms. Bacca’s peace project with films that promote peace over war.”

The Flying Broom Women’s film festival

Following on from earlier, here is the Avaaz.org petition to stop the arms shipment from China to Zimbabwe. Go there. Now.

36 shootings, 9 homicides reported in Chicago over weekend.

Wasn’t the war meant to be in Iraq/Colombia/Chechnya/Gaza?

Send him arms. Yep, China is delivering a 70-tonne shipment of arms to Zimbabwe, ordered 3 days after the elections of three weeks ago (the results of which have yet to be released). This is such blatant repression and election stealing but no one in the international community does anything about it. China’s stance is that Zimbabwe’s political problems are it’s own affair and that anything outsiders do is interference. That’s like listening to your neighbour beat his wife or child and saying it’s a family problem and there’s nothing you can do.

While we westerners righty browbeat ourselves about our goverments’ terrrible track records of supplying arms to nutcases (see Iraq, Colombia, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Israel) China merrily backs regional hatred by blithely selling arms to various ‘rogue’ states (ie: the ones we don’t see arms to). In Sudan they send in arms and take out oil. Watch this program from Vice TV about Chinese oil installations in southern Sudan.

This stuff drives me crazy! For years I’ve been saying “if you want world peace, stop making guns”. God, it’s so depressing. I mean, here we are preaching about democracy, respect for human rights, progress and meanwhile we’re selling arms to dictators. At least China is honest about its corruption and carelessness. They don’t hide their trade and they don’t care what anyone says about it.

Shudder. Health Canada is calling bisphenol A a dangerous substance, making it the first regulatory body in the world to reach such a determination and taking the initial step toward measures to control exposures to it.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is one of the most widely used synthetic chemicals in modern industry. It is the basic building block for polycarbonate, the see-through, shatter-proof plastic that resembles glass, and is also used to make the epoxy resins lining the insides of most tin cans, along with some dental sealants, sports helmets, and compact discs….Bisphenol A (BPA) is a compound that mimics estrogen, which can disrupt the endocrine system and could induce adverse hormonal responses. Studied effects on animals give rise to fear that low-level exposure might cause similar effects in human beings.

Yep, we’re back on the eating less meat tip. Did we ever leave? The venerable International Herald Tribune ran an article today about the possible benefits of reduced meat consumption.

Livestock occupy nearly a third of the land on earth. Agricultural grenhouse gases are about 22 percent of all emissions around the world…A huge problem in wealthy nations is that even when people cut down or give up meat for health reasons, they often substitute increasingly endangered fish near the top of the oceanic food chain such as swordfish, tuna or shark or create a demand for shrimp and salmon that overwhelms the environments they are being raised in.

Isn’t that too true? In Canada, my country, the cod fisheries of the Atlantic coast collapsed in the 1990’s. There simply were no adult fish left…or not enough to allow the population to reproduce itself while the fishermen continued work. Here on the Costa Blanca, people eat a lot of fish. The pueblo was orginally a fishing village and there are still many who earn their living from the sea. There is a fish factory about 1km from shore where they raise certain types of fish, but there are also plenty of working boats. I know it’s a tough living and that they deserve respect, but when they’re pulling udersized fish out of protected waters on a daily basis, I lose my respect. Here are a few articles about illegal fishing in Alicante

La falta de vigilancia permite la pesca ilegal en la reserva marina del Cabo de San Antonio

Inmovilizado en el Puerto de Alicante un cargamento ilegal de pez espada que podría alcanzar las 180 toneladas

…eat less meat. I’ve been veggie for over 20 years and it’s my enduring contribution to this planet that I choose not to eat animal protein. Harkening back to whether or not to boycott Chinese goods, I don’t boycott them. My political action is more mundane and I practise it every day…no cow, no pig, no chicken, no fish. George Monbiot makes an ever lucid argument on this topic here.

to Pia! Great talking to you babe…no more accents I promise! Leave me a comment to let me know you’re reading…ciao!

Hmmm…looks like the Brits, French and Americans kicked up the biggest stink about the Olympic torch relay. Um, I would also put those countries among the top buyers of Chinese goods. Isn’t it a little sad to destroy something that is meant to be beautiful and uniting (the torch relay) in the name of protest. Wouldn’t it be better to buy then physically destroy some of the cheap, shit, plastic crap that is sold in the average Chinese variety store? Wouldn’t it be better to boycott Chineses goods rather than extinguish the symbol of sportsmanship and hope? Are we attacking the little guy (the torch-bearers) because the big guy (China) is too awesome and strong?