alanjjohnstone
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Crazy American law
A woman from Alabama who was shot in the abdomen FIVE times while pregnant – with the bullets killing the fetus – has been charged with manslaughter while the woman who shot her walks free.
The UK should keep building large-scale nuclear plants and “mini-nuke” reactors to help reach a net zero carbon target by 2050, according to a letter to the business secretary, Greg Clark, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)
Yet even on the Left we have living fossils such as Douglass raising conspiracy theories and demanding business as usual.
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1256/letters/
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48746137
“At a meeting in Bonn, Saudi Arabia has continued to object to a key IPCC scientific report that urges drastic cuts in carbon emissions.
Added to that, the EU has so far failed to agree to a long term net zero emissions target.
Thirdly, a draft text from the G20 summit in Japan later this week waters down commitments to tackle warming.
One attendee in Bonn said that, taken together, the moves represented a fierce backlash from countries with strong fossil fuel interests.”As we always said, countries will protect their national economic interests.
An article of interest
Sanders’s Speech Presents a Conundrum for New Left’s Socialist Strategy
G20 nations have almost tripled the subsidies they give to coal-fired power plants in recent years, despite the urgent need to cut the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis. The bloc of major economies pledged a decade ago to phase out all fossil fuel subsidies.
China and India give the biggest subsidies to coal, with Japan third, followed by South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia and the US. While the UK frequently runs its own electricity grid without any coal power at all, a parliamentary report in June criticised the billions of pounds used to help to build fossil fuel power plants overseas.
If I recall the virus Stuxnet was originally designed to infect Iran’s computers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
But I don’t think it was a similar sort of cyber attack. But what do I know…others may be better informed
I would also imagine they now have a sophisticated computer department countering such threats
As you say, no proof such a thing occurred and Iran denies it…but they would, wouldn’t they…could all be made-up propaganda to appease some war-hawkish US public opinion.
Let us remember it was a vote in the Commons that deterred Cameron from escalating the UK’s intervention in the Syrian civil war. Nothing is 100% pre-determined.
I am not challenging what you say about the severity of sanctions, Dave. But things could have (and may well still become a lot worse) if Trump had followed the advice of his closest advisors.
Not just militarily but as Marcos mentioned, economically….the spark for the next big global recession…and we know they too just like sanctions will have collateral damage to the wider population, as recent falls in life expectancy shows when austerity is implemented
As for the cyber-attack on Iran’s defence computer system, I am still baffled. As the attack did not take place, Iran can now re-programme its systems knowing exactly how it was done and what parts of its network was affected. So next time any cyber attack will be less effective. Maybe the more computer literate can explain how it can be applied again in the future.
Our opposition also see an opportunity for growth
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/23/communist-party-usa-chicago-cpusa-convention
One thing to always remember…even if Iraq had possessed WMDs, we would still have opposed the war.
Even if Iran is proven to be conducting sabotage actions against oil tankers, and is covertly building nuclear weapons, we would still be opposing any US attack.
UN approval or non-approval is irrelevant to us
But let us be magnanimous and give credit where credit is due, regardless of his real motives, it appears that Trump, always the maverick, went against the recommendations of his vice-president, Pence and two secretary of states, Pompeo and Bolton.
Why? I have no idea, who can read into Trump’s irrational mind, …but at least for now war has been averted or postponed.
But something that struck me and that has been the total silence of Netanyahu, unlike the very vocal Saudi belligerence. Because of Mossad involvement, or merely not seeking to muddy the waters with a Zionist diversion, or not to provoke a proxy war with Hezbollah, I don’t know, but in the end it is also another small thing to be grateful for.
On the news I keep seeing how US air superiority is unassailable but where did the drone take off from…the UAE. Where is the US 5th fleet based, Bahrain, with a strong presence of Sh-ites who are already discontented. Along with Saudi Arabia targets I believe all within range of Iranian rockets…the war would spread.
High Profits
Could Facebook money be the first steps on the slippery road back to company script and truck-shops?
My theology is weak but the difference between monks and priests is something about sacraments and masses, isn’t it?
But I see married priests may well be on the return
I think they are already allowed when a C of E vicar switches to the Catholic church
From my personal blog some time ago, a brief history of celibacy and why it was introduced.
“As Socialists, not cultists, are we not able to have many interests…A Socialist can, and should, have many personal interests: in science, philosophy, history, and yes, religions and the study of them.”
And following particular capitalist businesses such as being certain football teams fanatical supporters. 😉
Cherry-picking canon from any religion presents a false representation of them and as materialists we witness how religions evolve and change with conditions and how the spiritual apply themselves to temporal earthly practices.
I’m well acquainted with village wats and the superstitious rituals that Buddhist monks indulge in such as house blessings and funeral rites, for donations. There are poor and there are wealthy temples, very much a hierarchy reflecting class society itself and the parasitical aspects of it on the communities that support them.
Some may recall an article I wrote in the SS.
I do hold the jaded view of mainstream and everyday Buddhism but I am sure there are positive elements such as Dhammic socialism and eco-dharma – just as sufism may be a more enlightened form of mohammedism, something I know zero about but just threw in.
I also have a very jaded view of Hinduism with its practical detrimental divisiveness of the caste system. I always await the WSP (India) to give it a full explanation.
