Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

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The environmental movement is losing
The environmental movement is losing to a sophisticated network of right wing sceptics and deniers
A "sophisticated network of right-wing sceptics" sound remarkably like a "conspiracy theory" to me. Complete tosh, of course. The fiasco in Copenhagen had absolutely fuck all to do with right-wing pressure, denialism or sophisticated networks of powerful people. It was exactly the outcome any intelligent person would have expected from putting several thousand dopey civil servants from around the world into a big room and hoping for some kind of coherent outcome. Cock-up, not conspiracy. But a cock-up that quite a few people are perfectly happy about, nevertheless.

Of course, reading the papers this morning it's clear that China is being presented as the 'bad' guy in all this. Again, it's utter bollocks. As I said earlier, there was no way the US was going to sign up to anything that damaged US economic recovery.

And then he got elected...

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Obama's Big Sellout : Rolling Stone
What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

How could Obama let this happen? Is he just a rookie in the political big leagues, hoodwinked by Beltway old-timers? Or is the vacillating, ineffectual servant of banking interests we've been seeing on TV this fall who Obama really is?

Stupid boy!

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After the catastrophe in Copenhagen, it's up to us
http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/thumb-johann_hari2.gifEvery coal train should be ringed with people refusing to let it pass

Buried deep in our subconscious, there still lays the belief that our political leaders are collective Daddies and Mummies who will – in the last instance – guarantee our safety. Sure, they might screw us over when it comes to hospital waiting lists, or public transport, or taxing the rich, but when it comes to resisting a raw existential threat, they will keep us from harm. Last week in Copenhagen, the conviction was disproved.
Mummy! Mummy!  What a load of sad, pathetic twaddle from Johann Hari (9).

Global bollocks

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There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government
There is scope for debate – and innumerable newspaper quizzes – about who was the most influential public figure of the year, or which the most significant event. But there can be little doubt which word won the prize for most important adjective. 2009 was the year in which "global" swept the rest of the political lexicon into obscurity. There were "global crises" and "global challenges", the only possible resolution to which lay in "global solutions" necessitating "global agreements"...

Some of this was sheer hokum: when uttered by Gordon Brown, the word "global", as in "global economic crisis", meant: "It's not my fault". To the extent that the word had intelligible meaning, it also had political ramifications that were scarcely examined by those who bandied it about with such ponderous self-importance. The mere utterance of it was assumed to sweep away any consideration of what was once assumed to be the most basic principle of modern democracy: that elected national governments are responsible to their own people – that the right to govern derives from the consent of the electorate.

Damned with faint praise

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In praise of ... Sir Liam Donaldson

Appointed in 1998, he has played a major role in campaigns that are now playing a crucial part in improving the health of the nation.(sic) The ban on smoking in public places owed much to his energetic support against government opposition, and although he has been criticised for over-reacting to the swine flu threat, Britain's preparations for what might have been a lethal epidemic are internationally admired. His most spectacular failure was the attempt to introduce a new application system for junior doctors, but he has opened an important new front against alcohol abuse by demanding a minimum unit price – dismissed by Gordon Brown – and his proposal for presumed consent for organ transport remains the most persuasive way of meeting the shortage. His successor must match his independence and imagination.
Thank you, Sir Liam, and goodnight!

Buy a belt, dope!

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Killer Plunges to His Death After His Pants Fall Down
Estella Carrino, who manages a street-level bicycle store in the building, said she heard the body hit the ground. "He had no jacket on and his pants were down. He was very dead," she told the Daily News
Too bad it didn't happen BEFORE he killed three people. Still we must be grateful for small mercies. One less scumbag walks the earth tonight.

Eyes That See in the Dark?

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Stroke patient says Kenny Rogers helped brain recovery
Mike Pensom loves country and western music, particularly anything by Kenny Rogers. He hates hip hop and rap. But recently Mike found that his musical likes and dislikes also have a profound effect on his brain. Twenty years ago Mike had a stroke which caused problems with the left-hand side of his body and left him missing things in part of his field of vision. But when scientists played him his favourite tunes he has seen more - and when they played the stuff he did not like there was no change. "When they played Kenny Rogers for me I was able to spot things that I was not able to see before"

Socks and underpants, as usual. Love?

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Beware humans bearing gifts - New Scientist
You won't be surprised to be told that academics in cognitive psychology departments the world over are busy producing evidence about the power of reward and its connection to dopamine, because it's something we've all experienced directly - albeit without the technical description. To be rewarded with a gift is to be subtly told that someone loves you, and we love nothing better than to be loved. Even adults will be momentarily taken back to a warm, childlike feeling of deserving the treat that has been given.