Kagey

I’m not sure whether I’m disturbed or flattered to find that the US Department of Defense Network Information Center was my No.1 fan last month. Someone there liked my site so much they visited more pages and downloaded more images than anyone else. Unfortunately I’m unable to return the compliment as their site is strictly top secret.

All the same I kind of like the idea that there’s someone there in the military machine who likes trees and loves the environment, someone who cherishes the idea of non-violence. If you’re that person, welcome back, the world needs more of you guys.

When I become depressed by all the images of violence that the war on terror has unleashed upon us I can keep a warm feeling inside that at least one person within the security forces feels like I do. But hey maybe there’s a small clique of tree-huggers in there, dreaming of the forest behind the high fences and inside the secure zone.

I bet those people are really busy right now looking for a certain person … It’ll be 7 years this summer since President Bush declared, “Bin Laden, you can run but you can’t hide.”

Errm, just to let you know, he’s not in my address book in case you were looking.

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Postscript… On the day of their visit my email server was deluged with nearly 4000 emails disrupting my service.

The evidence that Bio-fuels are neither a magic bullet  solution to climate change or a sustainable energy alternative is already proven. That it is an environmental and human rights disaster is already clear.

Yet on 15th April, the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) will be introduced across the UK.  From that day, all forecourts will have to sell petrol and diesel with a 2.5% minimum blend of biofuels unless they choose to opt out at a penalty cost of 15 pence per litre.

The government has accepted that there is a problem and has ordered a study but rather than postpone its move to make Bio-fuels compulsory they are pressing ahead with the deeply flawed logic of turning food into fuel and rainforest into green deserts of bio crop.

Every day indigenous people are being forced from their homelands to make way for plantations, often by violent means.

From next month we will be forced to be complicit in the destruction of the rainforest and it’s teeming diversity because this government cannot accept it got it wrong.

Join the campaign to halt Bio-fuels

 

Boris Johnson jokingly said that he was in favour of Sharia law to deal with bicycle thieves after getting his nicked.

Extreme as it seemed even in jest, cutting off the hands of bike snatchers didn’t even stir the ex-Synod members, retired Generals and Brigadiers, the likes of whom who called for the sacking of the Arch Bishop of Canterbury for even discussing something altogether milder.

These last weeks I’ve been wondering if Boris is as enthusiastic about Sharia Law as he was having been caught hiding over a Quarter of a Million in donations received from wealthy individuals to his campaign coffers. That and taking a rent free office from a property developer needing help with a local planning issue in Westminster.

As a candidate for Mayor of London this guy is a joke. It pretty much sums up the state of politics that he is the best man the Conservatives can field for the job of running the Capital. Ken must be quaking in his boots!

While the London Evening Standard does it’s best to trash Livingstone’s hopes, Boris does a pretty good job on himself.  You should check out some of his gaffs on You Tube, I especially liked the football tackle. What a prat!

On the bicycle affair, Paul Merton put it beautifully, “If he can’t look after his bike what chance has he of looking after London!”

Of late there’s been much talk about our ‘broken society’ from the likes of David Cameron and the Arch Bishop of Canterbury. According to them the glue that binds society is breaking down and our sense of community is in decline.

I would agree that we are becoming disconnected from one another and our true nature but if anything is broken it is our political system. It’s a system broke of ideas. It’s one that trots out the same agenda election after election regardless of party. So homogenised that it hardly seems worth voting.

If society is disconnected its no surprise when parliament is inhabited by a bunch of schizophrenics. Climate change is now regarded as our biggest threat and yet while piloting a bill through parliament to control emissions this government plans for more runways, roads and coal fired power stations.

This week members of parliament were indignant that one of their own should be bugged while talking to a constituent in prison. However the following day Gordon Brown found it appropriate to make it easier for the security services to bug the rest of us.

And while just about every week a politician is embroiled in one kind of a fiddle or another the government launches a benefit fraud campaign. It invites the general public to shop their neighbours with a confidential hot-line. If there’s one thing that divides people its fear and suspicion. So while the politicians talk of the need to mend society; to build bridges it turns neighbours into snoopers. Catching fraudsters should be police business.

Crime and Justice will no doubt be high on the agenda in the forthcoming election campaign. Governments love prisons and and while they’re busy building more they hardly seem to question why they don’t work as a deterrent or deliver reform. They love long sentences too, as long as it doesn’t apply to them.

Having been grassed up for paying his son money for work he was less than entitled to, Conservative MP Derek Conway is hardly repentant. His penalty is hardly draconian either; he will have to pay back just £13,000 of the £40,000 he scammed from his bit of HP Benefit Fraud. It doesn’t look like he’s going to do time other than a ten day ban from the Houses of Parliament, hardly porridge. Meanwhile a single mother-of-four has been jailed for eight months for illegally claiming half that. The council spooks caught her living a ‘high life’ on Burger King money while claiming benefit.

While politicians live in their disconnected world the policies they put forward will continue to miss the point. To be pointless and without benefit… Benefit Fraud

Going nuclear is the wrong decision for all the wrong reasons.

If you care to see my thoughts on the subject search this blog on ‘Nuclear’ but for now my best response to this lunacy is to simply don’t buy it!

Here’s what you do, call your energy supplier and tell them you won’t be buying your electricty from them while a percentage of their supply comes from Nuclear. Then change to Ecotricity an energy company which generates all of its energy from wind.

For once we have an alternative. Lets show them exactly what we think of their toxic nonsense! Don’t buy it!

I’ve been in India for the last month so I appologise for the lack of posting. However I’ve got some things to show and tell so come back soon!

Keep smiling!

 

I’ve started seeing more DVLA ’don’t pay your tax you don’t use your car’ wheel clamps on the street.  There doesn’t seem to have been much of an outcry at this rather draconian response to non-payment of road fund licence. Surprising since following a clamping the DVLA move fairly quickly to crushing the vehicle.

The motoring organisations seem to support this heavy handed approach taring all non payers as criminals who need to be removed from the roads and or society. In days gone by I can imagine being in the situation of being without the cash to tax a vehicle but having to use it till the money comes in. An offence perhaps but does this kind of poverty warrant the seizure and destruction of a vehicle and further impoverishment?

And what is the natural progession of this kind of ‘name and shame’ justice? How about non payment of council tax, will offenders return home to find themselves barred from their home? Will they have days to find the cash or see their home auctioned to pay back tax and charges? It seems possible.

Mostly the people who clamour for such measures are the least likely in society to ever find themselves prey to the attention of a ballif. If they only knew!

Not so long ago I rented my home to someone who should have paid the council tax as part of the agreement, but he missed a couple of payments. He paid the arears but it was too late, the debt had been placed into the hands of the council’s debt collection agency. I became involved in an attempt to resolve the situation but I quickly realised that I was actually dealing with licenced extortionists. A £300 bill quickly became a £500 bill and rising! The baliff was little more than a bad mouthed thug with the legal right to enter my home and remove anything of value and all the time the bill got bigger. He made his point very forcefully that unless he received money he would be back to seize goods whoever they belonged to. It was a nightmare.

Thankfully I identified a legal error in their proceedings and was able to stop them in their tracks but it was a close run thing.  And as there was no outstanding monies the case was closed.

It was an education in just how frightening debt can be and how unjust the system is for people who find themselves rightly or wrongly in the ‘recovery’ system. It’s also an example of how errors are made and how devastating the consequences can be.

It made me realise just how without compassion we have become for those who cannot afford to keep up the payments.

Benefit Culture live, just like you want it …Regular!

We’ve teamed up with The Sanctuary Cella to bring you a shot of our favourite mix every month. Starting Next Month we’ll be at our favourite venue delivering nights that have become our trademark. Great music to change lives. Starting Sunday 21st October with further dates on 23rd November and a special Eve of the Eve date on Sunday 23rd December.

Check out the line-ups soon!

Latest – Every last Sunday in the month for 2008. From Sunday January 27th Benefit Culture Sundays will be the Last Sunday of every month so it’s going to very easy to remember!

But actually quite a giant leap for for at least 3 people!

It was a brilliant night and a fantastic birthday present. The money we raised will buy an equally amazing gift for three lucky people with help from The Cambodia Trust. For every £100 we raise buys life changing treatment like a prosthetic limb for a landmine victim or treatment for polio.

And there’ll be more… On Saturday the 27th October together with our friends that have become the force behind Benefit Culture we’ll be delivering a biggie in the shape of Voices for the Forest Check it out!

And coming very soon a new monthly gig called Benefit Culture ‘Friends,’ the very essence of where we started in the place we started, The Sanctuary Cella. Watch out for dates!

And if you feel like making it more amazing stick your dosh in here!

Arctic Energy Summit – Anchorage, Alaska

Next month they’ll be meeting with glee to pick over the carcass.  It’s not quite dead yet but once it is there’ll be plenty for the hyenas to squabble over.

Despite the fact that it’s demise is a dire warning of their own mortality they seem completely enthralled by the prospect of more. More. The body in question is the Artic and the cause for excitement is it’s melting. Beneath its once impervious skin is the flesh they desire, oil, once elusive but now just a few degrees away. Somehow it seems to have escaped them that it’s this thirst for oil that is melting the ice that will drown the Gulf Stream and flood the powerhouses of their commerce and our well-being; to create chaos.

Yet for all the dire warnings of continued fossil fuel use the addicts in denial want another fix. They’ve brought in their favourite experts who continue to tell them that all the fuss is hoax, experts who it’s seems are addicted to a different kind of hit; attention and perhaps hard cash.

The usual pushers the oil and gas moguls will be there, splashing the cash and pressing the flesh. British Petroleum within months of spilling oil over the Alaskan coastline are there to promote sustainability, safeguarding the environment and protecting rural communities.

The inhabitants of Alaska are themselves at the sharp end of climate change and experiencing rapid changes which, are decimating its forests and undermining much of what it sits on, permafrost. Permafrost the frozen store of methane which if released will further push the climate towards an irreversible tipping point.

Still if you fancy a trip to Alaska before ice turns black then the Artic Energy Summit are offering Early Birds discounts till September. Best beat the Polar Oil Dogs!