Earth Hour

Just a reminder about Europe's contribution to Earth Day. Light a candle.

...more joy in heaven...

Just a quick postlet to mention that I shall be posting art stuff on

www.morejoyinheaven.blogspot.com

so as to keep throbgoblins uncluttered. I don't think Frank would approve of all the art-school tosh.

Gordon Brown, texture like sun...

The National Audit Office makes distinctions between Kyoto accounting and Treasury accounting of carbon figures - forgetting to take into account the Horesh*t accounting written into the equation from the start.
Meanwhile.... some analysts predict a 1930's style depression, and the rich of many lands cut and run to stash their booty in gold and oil - which both hit all time records - and the tax payers are pledged through National banking guarantees to bail out the failing free-markets for as long as it takes. Also...The wonderful British police want to start a DNA database of troublesome 5 year olds, and to monitor the travel habits of millions of commuters. If it aint securities, it's security!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3559767.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/16/youthjustice.children

Once upon a time in the middle east...

Who needs Nostrodamus when we have Orwell? Cut and paste the links below.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/iraq-teachers-told-to-rewrite-history-795711.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/14/tonyblair.climatechange

One I'd forgotten.

This was an ethical consumer toon I forgot to post. From January

BrownGreen

Nobody really expected any different, did they?

Guilt-edged

The Vatican declares a whole new bunch of sins - updating the statutes as the threat of actual rather than metaphorical catastrophe gets rather too close for earthly comfort. Meanwhile the UK government corruptly colludes with E.ON to put the fairy-dust, clean-coal omni-tech on hold until after the next election. The much-spun "Green Budget" is now being talked down as the spiralling costs of oil wars and pipeline policing prey on the chancellor's mind.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/back-to-black-return-to-coal-power-793703.html

Bad Science.

UK government colludes with Airline industry to help them stave off the threat to profits posed by oil price rises! Shock! Horror! etc etc. Meanwhile we veer towards the surreal in the ongoing tale of incompetence and woe that is Nuclear Reprocessing. Perhaps this habit of rigging the science and dismissing criticism may need looking at?
Cut and paste links below

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/dirty-bomb-threat-as-uk-ships-plutonium-to-france-793488.html

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3512218.ece

Move along now. Nothing to see here..!

I realise that it's actually down to thousands of women that this protest has been kept alive over the years, but Frank just pushed his way in!
The story can be found at the link below (copy and paste);
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/we-shall-not-overcome-nuclear-protest-survived-six-tory-governments-but-not-new-labour-793123.html

Stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap!

An excuse to drag Gort and Klaatu out again -
Gargantumarts are performing pincer movements on the few remaining local independents, and casting our car-reliance in stone. This 'toon was made for a Manchester FOE newsletter.

stupid profundity

New Gov't chief scientific advisor Professor John Beddington calls our current rainforest to biofuel reduction programme "profoundly stupid!", whilst observing that the pressing hunger of billions might require some of our collective attention. Meanwhile Hillary Benn (how far the apple falls from the tree) notes the 'Tremendous good news" of alleviated cash poverty worldwide - although money is actually worthless if it can't buy basic foodstuffs. To everyone's dumb-struck surprise it seems that THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH TO GO AROUND! Who'd have thought it? Never mind. A few global catastrophes and we'll be back under carrying capacity in no time.

...til the cows come home.

We should we used to being betrayed by our elected representatives by now, but maybe we get the elected representatives we deserve. After all, we insist on flying, driving and consuming like hormonally imbalanced teenagers, without ever inconveniencing ourselves by participating in the day to day of our democratic institutions. What with being too busy ladder-scrambling and splashing our ever more conspicuous wealth, we simply don't have time for the tedious constraints of planet husbandry.
So maybe stealing the corn from the poor and pouring half of it into our cars and the other half into our cows is the best way forward.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3492378.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/magnus_linklater/article3492123.ece

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-green-betrayal-791323.html

Cry God for Harry, England and St George?

In order to persuade Joe Public that History started 20 minutes ago and there is no other reason for opposing western power than pure unadulterated evil he must be persuaded that he lives in a perfect democracy and a natural free market and therefore shouldn't worry his silly little head about anything; just get behind "our boys".. Thus the use of a feudal aristocrat as a pawn in a massive state intervention. The invisible Jack Boot of the market. This supersized irony will be lost amidst the usual media spinelessness that places Harry-boy at the top of the news and the Shoa in Gaza after the weather and the skateboarding duck.