A nice little rainforest flower in a time of darkness
Friday, October 31, 2008
Leave a Comment » | 
Amazonia, rain forest, Rain Forest Flowers, Rio Napo | Tagged: amazon, Amazonia, dark times, flower, photo, rain forest flower, smile | 
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Posted by colono
Intrepid Ibex – Ubuntu 8.10: Released, installed, configured and running XMMS
Friday, October 31, 2008Colonos’ interface to cyberspace has been updated to Ubuntu 8.10 and here are the first impressions – with more to come.
So far most things look fine (the default wallpaper is surprisingly nice), lm-sensors configured painlessly, but getting my favourite music player, XMMS, to work proved a right hassle – basically you have to be Intrepid to get it compiled in the Ibex.
5 Comments | Free Software, ubuntu | Tagged: compile xmms, gnu/linux, intrepid, News, pidgin, resource use, stress test, ubuntu 8.10, ubuntu 8.10 screenshot, xmms in intrepid | Permalink
Posted by colono
Christiania evictions spark riots in Copenhagen: A Brave New World in the Duck Pond
Wednesday, October 29, 2008Christiania evictions spark riots in Copenhagen, is not a story by colonos, it just came in on the wire and is reproduced here with no comments, really, unless, that is, THAT THIS is typical of the racist, culturally cleansing Danish government and their coercive police force.
Christiania is a place that they just don’t like, because people are different there. Remember that this is the duck pond country of The Ugly Duckling, where if “you are not from around here” you better get out.
Since the current and far-right founded government began their cultural cleansings with their shocking win and alliance with the racist, anti-muslim, national social-democratic, far-right, Danish People’s Party, in 2001, there has been a war on christiania. Alongside Denmark’s participation in the war on the Afghan people the country has undergone a dramatic cultural turn for the worse. The people have responded eloquently to Prime Minister, Anders Fjogh Rasmussen:
The government in their first few weeks in office announced a cultural genocide when they listed 250 research institutions and projects to be shut down. That was just the beginning. Meanwhile there is a rise of extremist christians as well.
Violence and gang war is now on the daily agenda in a city that suddenly has to sustain a large cannabis market that was previously run by happy hippies in an unholy marriage with Hell’s Angels type bikers. This used to unfold in a fairly organised and mostly peaceful manner in Christiania’s Pusher Street, for all to see and observe and know about, but the market came up for grabs when it was pressurised, as part of the cultural war, out of the Free Town (Fristaden, as Christiania is also called). There was a culture similar to that of the Dutch coffee clubs, but in a lovely park by the water where many cafes and restaurants and social and ecological projects constinue to thrive, but nowadays with the ever present threat of raiding riot cops. Consequently, the cannabis market now unfolds around the city where rival gangs make neighbourhoods their own battlefields.
As violence has become everyday the authoritarian government, of course, has responded by investing more powers in the police, who have, with increasing force, introduced security zones in the inner city where civil liberties are routinely suspended in the form of stop and search interventions without probable cause or reasonable suspicion. The Brave New World has come to the Duck Pond. Of course it is very convenient to evict the cannabis market from Christiania, because the consequent warfare was obvious and serves as a perfect excuse to erode civil liberties and step up spending on policing in general.
In the 1970s Denmark’s social-democratic experiment was still a model and example, although it had many problems, it was certainly better than the extreme right-wing regime of today. It came to an end in 1982 when the country has its first round of the neoliberal waves of destruction that have brought the planet into a financial and ecological crisis. This is round two.
2 Comments | Capitalism, grass-roots, Politics | Tagged: business as usual, christiania, copenhagen, cultural war, denmark, duck pond, police brutality, riots, riots in christiania, ugly duckling | Permalink
Posted by colono
Another Dodgy, Right-Wing Politician: Osborne’s Downfall
Friday, October 24, 2008So he is a smart-ass, a loudmouth and a Tory pig with too much money and too little empathy – no news there either. So let tosser Osborne end our little list of dodgy, righ-wing politicians who couldn’t care less for other people. Some shit paper that deserves no link writes:
“George Osborne has been accused of behaving like a lout during the Corfu holiday on which he met Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska at billionaire Nat Rothschild’s villa.
Other holidaymakers said a motorboat carrying Osborne and his family swept through a stretch of water that was packed with swimming children.
Angry mum Candida Jones said the Osbornes seemed arrogantly oblivious to those around them as they headed towards a jetty.
She told the Guardian newspaper: “Surely no one would drive a boat through crowded water?
“Couldn’t those on board see that there was nowhere to moor as the pier was packed with children playing?
“Several parents, in several languages, complained loudly this was an inappropriate place to bring a motorboat.”
Candida, whose three-year-old daughter was playing on the jetty, said once Osborne’s boat had moored the family left the nanny to struggle along with the bulk of their luggage. She added: “It wasn’t very Greek at all. Indeed it was extremely English in that old imperial way.”
Other witnesses said there was “no backward glance, no apology, no hint of embarrassment” from Osborne.
Surely no one would drive a boat through crowded water?”
Yes, someone who is helpless like a rich man’s child – a politician of the righteous – he would. Of course, who cares about people?
Leave a Comment » | Politics | Tagged: dodgy politician, motorboat danger, osborne | Permalink
Posted by colono
One Not To Miss: Jörg Haider, May He At Least Rest In Peace
Thursday, October 23, 2008While we’re at it – dodgy politicians that is – then it seems appropriate to bring an obituary, finally the end of Jörg Haider’s (pseudo-)neo-nazism.
“The successor to the Austrian rightwing populist Jörg Haider, Stefan Petzner, has shocked the staunchly conservative country by revealing in a tearful interview that they shared a “special relationship”. Petzner said: “We had a relationship that went far beyond friendship. Jörg and I were connected by something really special. He was the man of my life.”
The news stunned Austria, which has been coming to terms with the death of the anti-immigrant politician. Haider, who voted against a parliamentary motion to lower the age of consent for homosexuals, had presented himself as a family man who drank sparingly. But after the car crash it was revealed that he had been driving at twice the speed limit, his blood alcohol level had been four times the legal limit, and he had spent his final hours in a gay bar in Klagenfurt, the capital of the southern state where he was governor. There has been further speculation that the crash happened after Haider and Petzner argued at a party.
Petzner said that Claudia, Haider’s wife of 32 years and the mother of his two daughters, had not objected to their relationship.But in an interview published in an Austrian women’s magazine, Petzner’s sister Christiane seemed to suggest otherwise. “Claudia was sometimes jealous of him because he spent more time with her husband than she did,” she said.
Or is it really the end of his legacy, or does it only just begin? Someone of the same awful nazi persuasion writes in a comment to a video of Haider in a disco on YouTube:
“Jorg Haider stood up to the Zionists so they eliminated him. I would bet that millions of people around the world have never heard of Jorg Haider but they have now and the Jews have brought attention to themselves and their disgusting behavior. Everyday they are losing support and we are gaining support. Don’t let Haider die in vain, pick up where he left off.”
This idea is also proposed in this video.
So did his lovers’ quarrel produce a martyr for a bunch of degenerate whites with few prospects? What is really happening on the far right of politics? Who is with who?
Maybe Haider was simply a renegade populist – a loose canon. An idiot in the true sense of the word, but there is no doubt that Haider wasn’t a very popular guy in the ranks of the bankers and wankers, who currently struggle to keep hold of world power – these were some of his last words (and you just don’t say that kind of thing on TV):
“This video was aired on 25. Sept. 2008. Shortly before the Rightist groups surged to a combined 30% of the vote in parliamentary elections last month, with Haider’s smaller Alliance for Austria’s Future tripling its support to about 12%. 16 days before he crashed his Phaeton and died.”
Leave a Comment » | Politics | Tagged: dodgy politician, haider on banks, Jörg Haider, nazi, News, obituary, racist | Permalink
Posted by colono
Sarah Palin’s Vindictive Hot Air for Piano: UnTrue Minimalism?
Thursday, October 23, 2008It has been brought into plain view on various occasions, Sarah Palin is an ultra-right wing bigot, racist, a homophobe, a lier, a vindictive, vengeful polar bear killing character who abuses her public office’s powers and who together with her family over the last two months have acquired clothes, shoes, makeup etc. worth US$150.000, paid for by the Republican Party (that’s the coffee club of racist, anti-social rich people and stupefied low-paid white trash).
That’s no news, however, many -if not all – politicians are like that — the big difference in this case is that she also appears rather stupid (although politically clever in her stupidity), since she has nothing sensible to say and always only blurps out generalisations so basic and contentless that she is probably only right in one thing: she represents the All-American citizen. Here she goes again, to music by Henry Fey (from The Rest Is Noise):
3 Comments | Politics | Tagged: alex ross, evil woman, palin is a racist, polar bear killer, sarah palin, the rest is noise | Permalink
Posted by colono
Meetings with Remarkable Trees: On A Smaller Scale
Wednesday, October 22, 2008Meetings with remarkable trees – even if not as extraordinary as Thomas Pakenham’s and even if these photos are not really very good – these trees, like most other (older) trees – are quite remarkable. When did you last hug your local tree?
Embracing the Future
Holding the Past
Leave a Comment » | England, Life | Tagged: forest, lancashire, meetings with remarkable trees, photo, tree, Tree Hugging, trees | Permalink
Posted by colono
Anal Data Rentention: No Thank You!
Thursday, October 16, 2008No Data Retention
We want to stop Data Retention of the type that is being imposed on us by the E.U. Directive 2006/24/EC because it is a preemptive surveillance of communication structures:
Imagine the postal services kept a record of everyone who sent a mail to you. When. Who. How. Where. This is exactly what is happening no with your email, your phone calls and other electronic communications.
We as providers are forced to store YOUR communication metadata this is forcing us to work as outsourced police forces. We don’t want this. We will pour as much sand into this machine of suspicion as we possibly can. And we encourage everyone else to do the same! Do not support this attack on privacy!
We will continue to fight against Data Retention in any way possible and we will support each other in our different efforts to fight it.
Leave a Comment » | anti-terror laws, dark forces | Tagged: data rentention, E.U. Directive 2006/24/EC, EU, orwellian, panopticon, surveillance, totalitarian, UK | Permalink
Posted by colono
Use Ogg – The Media Format of Freedom
Wednesday, October 15, 2008Increasingly proprietary evil software companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe are pushing video and audio formats that restrict access and restrict software developers, but there is an alternative that can be played on all computers without restriction — Ogg. Ogg provides professional grade multimedia formats. Ogg is used extensively by free software projects, artists and a growing number of music and video distributors.
2 Comments | Free Software | Tagged: alternative to mp3, free media, freedom, media format, ogg, ogg vorbis, professional | Permalink
Posted by colono
Jatun Sacha Foundation and Bioprivateering: Dodgy Business as Usual
Wednesday, October 15, 2008As a curious reader of the blog stats is has once again been brought to my attention that there is widespread interest for information about the Jatun Sacha Foundation’s involvement in what is sometimes wrongly called biopiracy. There was never anything privately owned in the first place, as was the case when pirates liberated goods from the capitalist (slave) ships, hence bioprivateering is more to the point.
Colonos have previously posted about Jatun Sacha twice (1/2) and when looking in the stats today I noticed that quite a few people were clicking on the external link to see some proofs of the allegations. So I thought I’d save people some clicking and reading and excavate with a bit of gimping some of the relevant paragraphs of the Rafi Communique, September-October 1995 for all to easily see:
from:
Biopiracy Update: A Global Pandemic
Download PDF (2 MB) – about 348 seconds on a 56k modem
Cases from Thailand, Gabon, Ecuador, and Peru
RAFI is now called www.etcgroup.org
Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, Capitalism, colonisation, dark forces, deception, ecological justice, Ecuador, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, grass-roots, Green Politics, human rights violation, jatun sacha, Life, Politics | Tagged: biopiracy, bioprivateering, business as usual, Ecuador, etc group, jatun sacha foundation, pfizer, rafi, tena, theft | Permalink
Posted by colono
Video: Jaguar Eating Ayahuasca: simply to purge?
Thursday, October 9, 2008A video, embedded below, is circulating the ayahuasca surfers’ realm. It shows, whether true or not, a jaguar feeding on the ayahuasca vine. The jaguar is a very centrally important figure in the cosmovision of many Amazonian ayahuasca cultures, the observations of which continue to spawn many speculations about the various practices and myths around the jaguar (and ayahuasca).
A very early observation states that:
“Ingestion of Ayahuasca usually induces nausea, dizziness, vomiting, and leads to either an euphoric or an aggressive state. Frequently the Indian sees overpowering attacks of huge snakes or jaguars. These animals often humiliate him because he is a mere man. The repetitiveness with which snakes and jaguars occur in Ayahuasca visions has intrigues psychologists. It is understandable that these animals play such a role, since they are the only beings respected and feared by the Indians of the tropical forest; because of their power and stealth, they have assumed a place of primacy in aboriginal religious beliefs.
In many tribes, the shaman becomes a feline during the intoxication, exercising his powers as a cat. Yekwana medicine men mimic the roars of jaguars. Tukano Ayahuasca-takers may experience nightmares of jaguar jaws swallowing them or huge snakes approaching and coiling around their bodies … shamans of the Conibo-Shipibo tribe acquire great snakes as personal possessions to defend themselves in supernatural battles against other powerful shamans.
The drug may be the shaman’s tool to diagnose illness or to ward off impending disaster, to guess the wiles of an enemy, to prophesy the future. But it is more than the shaman’s tool. It enters into almost all aspects of the life of the people who use it, to an extent equalled by hardly any other hallucinogen. Partakers, shamans or not, see all the gods, the first human beings, and animals, and come to understand the establishment of their social order.”
Did the shamans learn from the jaguars to use the plant? Is there a cosmic connection, therefore, through the ayahuasca between the jaguar and people that live with the cats and the ayahuasca plant?
4 Comments | Amazonia, Ayahuasca, capitalism is murder, climate change, colonisation, Ecuador, entheogenic, Environmentalism, grass-roots, Green Politics, Life, logging, nature, Psychedelic, Psychedelics, rain forest, shaman, South America | Tagged: Ayahuasca, climate change, drugs, jaguar, jaguar and ayahuasca, jaguar eating ayahuasca, knowledge, myth, practice, purge, reality, science, spirituality, traditional knowledge | Permalink
Posted by colono
The Forest of Bowland: a few glimpses of hedgehog territory
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
1 Comment | beauty, Life, nature, photo, Photography, Photos | Tagged: forest of bowland, hedgehog, lancashire, Life, nature, Photography, photos of hedgehog, wildlife | Permalink
Posted by colono
Photos from yet a rare encounter: Forest of Bowland Hedgehog
Wednesday, October 8, 2008On a previous occasion a dragonfly kept hanging around for a photo shooting session, a most unusual experience; then the other day we encountered a hedgehog in an unexpected place, on the top of a hill in the Forest of Bowland, and at an unusual time, namely of day:
(click on a photo to see it in full size)
It stayed around for a long time, bit the lense and the sleeve of my jacket twice, but it was unclear whether it was in jest or with intentions of harm. Cute little bugger – it was still roaming the hill when we left.
“All hedgehogs are primarily nocturnal, although different species can be more or less likely to come out in the daytime. The hedgehog sleeps for a large portion of the daytime either under cover of bush, grass, rock or in a hole in the ground. Again, different species can have slightly different habits, but in general hedgehogs dig out dens for shelter. All wild hedgehogs can hibernate, although not all do; hibernation depends on temperature, species, and abundance of food.“
1 Comment | photo, Photography, Photos | Tagged: autumn, England, forest of bowland, hedgehog, hedgehog photos, lancashire, nature, Photography, Photos, The North West, wildlife | Permalink
Posted by colono
The revolutionary struggle and social reform in Ecuador: an anarchist perspective
Wednesday, October 8, 2008This a reposting of an interview with a comrade from the Grupo Anarco-Comunista “15 de Noviembre” (originally in Castellano)
The following interview was made in July and August 2008 with a member of the “15th November” Anarchist Communist Group, a recently-formed libertarian group in Ecuador, which among other things publishes the magazine “Chasqui Anarquista” with other anarchists, of which two issues have so far come out. In this interview, we tried to find out a little about the origins of the libertarian movement in Ecuador and understand how anarchist communists feel about the social reforms being carried out by Rafael Correa’s government.
To begin with, comrades, can you tell us about the 15th November Group and how it was formed?
Leave a Comment » | Anarchism, Anti-capitalism, asamblea constituyente, capitalism is murder, colonisation, constitutent assembly, Ecuador, Politics, Rafael Correa, South America | Tagged: 15th November, Anarchism, anarchism in ecuador, anarchist perspective, constituent assembly, Ecuador, revolution | Permalink
Posted by colono
Drugs and ignorance: a rushed comment on “LSD on the rise”
Sunday, October 5, 2008Just came across an ignorant statement on LSD in a blog to which I left a rushed comment; however, given the backward, ignorant position of the blogger it is most unlikely that the comment will ever pass moderation, so I thought I’d stick it up here, even if very rushed; but first a quote from the post:
Ø LSD is a mind altering drug and the effects can last for up to 12 hours.
Ø A person on LSD never knows if they are going to have a good trip or a bad trip.
Ø LSD can cause hallucinations and loss of sense of direction and time. It can also cause thoughts of dying.
Ø There are reports of people who have never gotten over a bad trip and were impaired for many years after.
To which I quickly said:
This seems to me to be a rather superficial treatment of a highly complex substance – and does not add anything useful: kids want to try it because it is mind altering, – that’s the whole point of psychedelics.
There is no such thing as a good or bad trip – a proper psychedelic experience will most often include visions of the dark side. What’s so bad about looking into the painful, dark and sinister aspects or reality? Is it better to live in ignorant bliss and Homestore imagery?
Attaining hallucinations is also a key driving factor in taking hallucinogenic substances, obviously. The loss of sense of direction and time is yet another desirable effect. Any reflection on a deeper level ought to cause thoughts of dying: therein lies the revelatory potential to understand life (when juxtaposed with its only alternative).
The last point nails it: pure rhetoric! Did they “never” get over their bad trip, or were they “impaired for years”? Clearly a misleading statement based on lacking understanding.
More information and advice should be given to young people, no doubt about it, but “information” of this kind can only backfire, since any teenager who spends ten minutes googling the subject will realise that it is written in sheer ignorance and it will carry no sensible meaning for those who do so. It encourages unsafe use with the same level of understanding, or no understanding, really.
2 Comments | entheogenic, Life, myth | Tagged: backfire, drugs, ignorance, lsd, misleading, no news, nonsense, rhetoric | Permalink
Posted by colono
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