Recent news stories
US starts to find its moral compass...
Earlier this week, unreported by the British media (dontcha just love election coverage, any excuse...), the US dropped 10 missiles from a drone in West Pakistan and killed at least 14 civilians.
Good news, if that's what you can call it, is that this managed to prompt a debate on breakfast tv in the US. See it here and believe it:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
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Join the Vegan Bake Sale
The Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale is up and running - see here for details. If you'd like to help out with the Oxford version, click Protected email address or contact the author for details.
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BBC Gets Something Right - a good read...
Radio 4 Start the Week had an interview today with Jonathan Balcombe. You would never guess from the write-up on the BBC website that he is vegan as well as an animal behaviourist. Listen again at the main link, and visit Balcombe's site here.
For years Jonathan Balcombe has studied animal behaviour. Formerly a Senior Research Scientist with Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, his latest book, Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals, argues animals are no less sentient than human beings, from the signature whistle of a dolphin to the empathy of higher moral feelings such as altruism, grief, trust, optimism, forethought and empathy. We may be the more powerful predator but Jonathan argues it is time for us to stop feeling superior and adopt instead a more humble, less oppressive relationship with animals.
Jonathan is giving a talk at the British Library on Monday 29 March and his book, Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals, is published by Palgrave Macmillan.
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Mel Broughton Conviction Overturned
Great news that Mel's conviction for possession of sparklers has been overturned. However, reflecting the way Animal Rights activists are treated in general, he remains in prison as they have ordered a retrial. The pharmaceutical companies and research communities spend millions each year on research involving animals, resulting in drugs that kill hundreds of people. Individual protestors such as Mel are villified by the establishment, have specific laws passed because of the perceived 'threat' (SOCA for example) and the greater harm to our lives is ignored. Also ignored is this news story, published below and first seen on Indymedia and (good grief, they managed to get something right, how long will it stay there) the BBC. So there will be a third trial for sparkler possession - must be some kind of record.
AN animal rights campaigner jailed for 10 years for plotting a fire bomb attack on Oxford University has had his conviction overturned.
Mel Broughton 48, of Semilong Road, Northampton, was jailed at Oxford Crown Court in February last year after he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson.
He appealed against his conviction earlier this year and, after taking more than a month to consider the verdict, Lord Justice Thomas returned to the Court of Appeal today to quash the conviction.
The judge, who heard the appeal with Mr Justice Kitchin and Sir Geoffrey Grigson, said an error in the way the trial judge summed up the evidence to the jury meant the conviction was "unsafe".
After an application by crown prosecutors, the judge ordered that Mr Broughton, who was not present in court, be retried on the allegation as soon as possible.
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(c) Hypgnosis and Pink Floyd
Pancreatic Cancer Linked to Dairy
H-Pylori in Milk Causes Stomach & Pancreatic Cancer
On February 24, 2010, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that the H. Pylori bacterium is associated with:
"...a three-fold increased risk of pancreatic cancer."
In early February, 2010, New Jersey's 86-year-old Senator, Frank Lautenberg was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Many scientists, researchers, and doctors accept the fact that the H. Pylori bacteria can infect the stomach and lead to ulcers and stomach cancer.
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So When are You Going to Make War on Israel, Gordon?
Great piece by Alan Hart. For those not in the know, Gordon Brown is an honorary patron of the Jewish National Fund, as are David Cameron and (still) Anthony Blair.
There could not be a more graphic illustration of the double-standard that drives Western foreign policy and has prevented a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict than Prime Minister Gordon Brown's explanation to the Chilcot Inquiry on why he, when he was Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer and wrote the cheques for it, backed the war on Iraq.
He said, "It was the right decision for the right reasons."
What were they?
Not 9/11 or the WMD assertions.
In an effort to distance himself from America's neo-cons and their soul-mate in London, Prime Minister (at the time) Tony Blair, Brown said: "I never subscribed to what you might call the neo-conservative proposition, that somehow, at the barrel of a gun, overnight liberty or democracy could be conjured up. What I believed was that the case for intervention was that international law had to be observed."
Putting some flesh on that bone, Brown said his view was that if the international community could not act together over Iraq, he feared that "the new world order we were trying to create would be put at risk."
Meaning?
"Aggressor states that refuse to obey the laws of the international community" have to be confronted. Iraq was a "serial violator of the rules of the international community."
There is, of course, some truth in that, but not nearly as much truth as in the statement that for 62 years the Zionist state of Israel has been, and continues to be, the biggest single violator of international law. No state on Planet Earth has been allowed to get away with defying UN resolutions for so long. And, I say, no state poses a bigger threat to the peace of the region and the world than Israel on its present course.
As I have previously written, the double-standard which allows Israel to behave as it likes with impunity was effectively put into place when the major powers, all of them, refused to condemn Israel as the aggressor in 1967 and demand that it withdraw from occupied territories without preconditions.
If Mr. Brown means what he says, and if by chance he remains prime minister after Britain's imminent election, logic suggests that he will take the lead with President Obama in putting together a coalition to require Israel, by war if necessary, to comply with "the rules of the international community."
Of course he won't because logic, like truth and reality, has no place in politics, domestic or international.
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(c) Hypgnosis and Pink Floyd
Breast Cancer - Just Stop Drinking Milk!
Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them."
- Linus Pauling
Another great post, as usual, by our friend the NotMilkMan. Some information to get you wanting more and then the research that has found evidence backing a non-dairy diet to prevent cancer.
A February 16, 2009 visit to the Susan Komen website reveals that YOPLAIT YOGURT is a member of Komen's "Million Dollar Council Elite" and the "National Presenting Sponsor" of the Komen organization.
YOPLAIT is there at every Susan Komen walk and event to distribute complimentary portions of breast cancer fuel (yogurt) for those women who ignorantly donate their time and dollars to a self perpetuating organization of doom.
Faced with scientific evidence linking dairy consumption to breast cancer, who in their right mind would purchase yogurt to prevent breast cancer? American women, that's who.
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Alan Dershowitz Defends Israel, Attacks Student 'Extremists'
Delighted to link across to an anti-Israeli Apartheid Week post (sorry, make that selective propagandist rant) on the Huffington Post. Read all about it here, and watch this space for an article to come deconstructing pretty much every word. If Oxford only knew it was being described like this...
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Other News
Headlines
- BBC Gets Something Right - a good read...
- Mel Broughton Conviction Overturned
- Pancreatic Cancer Linked to Dairy
- So When are You Going to Make War on Israel, Gordon?
- Breast Cancer - Just Stop Drinking Milk!
- Alan Dershowitz Defends Israel, Attacks Student 'Extremists'
- Dairy - is that why you're depressed?
- Israeli Apartheid Week
- Obama promotes Milk to stop Obesity?
- If you're not vegan, you're not vegetarian...
- Fair Pensions Tar Sands Campaign
- The attack on climate-change science
Also in the news
News from ActiVeg
- GCSE class come up with a tasty vegan menu
- Eat less meat or buy local?
- Cows with Guns - a must-see classic video
- Harvard says 'Calcium is important. But milk isn’t the only, or even best, source'
- BunnyGo on line veggie guide - recommend new places
- Vegan face painters, photographers and artists
- How We Teach Children a Separate Morality for Food Animals
- Eating Meat Linked To Disease, Report Says
- A Climate Hazard, Medium Rare, Please
- Artificial meat could slice emissions, say scientists
- Veggie walking holiday - Navigation Training weekend, Lake District 2-3 July 2011 25% off or 2 places for the price of one.
- Japanese Make "Delicious", Nourishing Steaks From Human Feces Jason Mick (Blog) - June 17, 2011 10:51 AM
- New strain of MRSA superbug found in cows
- Study: Limit Meat to Help Prevent Colon Cancer
- Welsh Markets' Biosecurity Scandal Exposed by Viva!
- Animal groups call for end of the 'boar war'
- Norwich woman opens vegan bakery
- Probiotic Yogurt No Help for Kids' Constipation
- Backstreet Boys go vegetarian for their latest tour
- Jim Paice branded ‘the worst Animal Welfare Minister in living memory’
- Judi Dench joins animal testing for products petition
- Urge East Riding Council to Reject Application for New Beagle Breeding Unit
- IFW World: Gervais is not amused
- Urge Government to Rethink Decision Not to Ban Wild Animals in Circuses
- Ultramarathoner Jurek talks habits, diet and moving to Boulder
- Dulwich vegans win pram race
- Vote for your favourite vegan stuff
- Badger petition
- A guide to the pop-up and alternative dining scenes in Glasgow and Edinburgh
- Mosco: Herbivore heaven
News categories
- Climate Change Protests (8)
- Dairy propaganda! (1)
- Human Rights (4)
- Our Events (1)
- Oxford Animal Lab (1)
- Why dairy is *so* bad (5)
- World Animal Rights/Dissidence (5)