This week:

1. North Pole Freakout
2. Global Warming Greening the Planet
3. Obama’s strip tease
4. Dick Branson’s Plan B
5. Steward Brant’s Mutant Future
6. Tepco nukes the Pacific
7. Frack Off!
8. Stink bombs for miners
9. You can’t drink money
10. Di Nigunim
11. The Endgame of the Tar Sands

Utah Canyon Country Action Camp.

The action camp call was simple, a camp to come and learn the skills in nonviolent direct action(NVDA) to shut down the first tar sands mine in the United States. The camp did as it set out to do. The action stopped all work on the mine site . It was so successful that US Oil Sands, the company pushing to develop the mining site, reported a 13% loss of their stock price on the day of the action. People laid their bodies in front of the machinery to prevent them from carving out the Earth. The action itself was the culmination of trainings performed at the action camp that went above and beyond blockade trainings.

The buildup started at the Utah Canyon Country Action Camp. The nearest town to the camp (pop 863) was famous for its melons, Green River’s esteem for these melons is so high that the town holds an annual event to celebrate them. The camp was stationed at a desert cut open by the Green River. The terrain of sand, heat, and rock formations is so breathtaking that every local mentioned it to us.

As I am about to post this blog piece, I just got a call from a man named Garvard Good Plume at Pine Ridge telling me that Wounded Knee is being auctioned off RIGHT NOW.  I feel sick.  Meanwhile, here's what I wrote earlier today....

I am sitting in a cafe in Rapid City, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation, early for my interview with Charmaine White Face.  I watched the riveting, heartbreaking and informative film "Red Cry" for the second time last night to prepare for this interview.  I also studied the very specific and helpful directives about how non-indigenous people can support indigenous people at www.lakotagrandmothers.org.  

Corporate-Approved State Bills Kick Low-Wage Workers While They’re Down

WS – You didn’t really think Obama would raise the minimum wage without  giving Big Businesses a few loopholes and more profits off the low wage workers sweat. Get ready for the big spin folks. 

President Obama called for a modest raise in the federal minimum wage to $9 in his State of the Union Address, and several Democratic legislators have upped his bid with a proposed increase to $10.10.

But an insidious effort to lower the wage floor is already underway much closer to the ground—in the state legislatures where right-wing lobbyists have been greasing the skids for years for an onslaught of anti-worker policies.

An extensive analysis recently published by labor advocacy organization the National Employment Law Project tracks more than 100 bills introduced in 31 states since January 2011 that “aim to repeal or weaken core wage standards at the state or local level.” Each bears the fingerprint of notorious super-lobbying organization the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which acts as a forum for “private sector leaders” to advise public officials. Most of the anti-worker bills were proposed by lawmakers directly linked to ALEC and include language that echoes that of “model legislation” developed by ALEC. Among the proposals are measures to undercut minimum wages for teenage workers, restrict overtime pay and repeal or ban local laws to improve working conditions.

Marine toxicologist, Riki Ott explains the FAQs about Corexit and other oil dispersants in regard to their use in oil spill clean up and the associated health risks to humans, animal and plants.  A part of the "Making it Right for Real: Working together to Ban Dispersants and Make Democracy Work!" event on Feb 23rd.

http://www.rikiott.com
http://www.ultimatecivics.org

Revisiting a dark chapter in Canada’s history-Our Men In Iran?-Man charged with disorderly conduct for whistling too loudly-Israel ‘secretly deports’ 1,000 Sudanese who may face persecution at home-Two fiery protests in as many days, Tibetan self-immolator passes away

Two fiery protests in as many days, Tibetan self-immolator passes away
WS – When compared to the Tibetan Monks; My activism is “no match”.
In more alarming reports coming out of Tibet, another Tibetan, who is a close relative of a Tibetan self-immolator, set himself on fire today protesting China’s continued occupation of Tibet.

Tsezung Kyab, 27, torched himself in front of the main prayer hall of the Shitsang Monastery in Luchu region of eastern Tibet at around 1:30 pm (local time). He passed away at his protest site, the same place where his cousin Pema Dorjee, 23, passed away in his self-immolation protest on December 8, 2012.

At the time of filing this report, additional details on today’s protest are awaited.

This is the second self-immolation protest in Tibet in as many days. Yesterday, Phagmo Dhondup, a Tibetan in his 20’s set himself ablaze near the Jhakhyung Monastery in Palung region of eastern Tibet. His condition and whereabouts are not known. More…

Today is “National Pistachio Day”  - What makes them more special than Cashews? This is just “Nuts”!

Click to view Slide Shows

US sees ‘biggest-ever’ climate protest over Keystone XL pipeline
Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Washington, DC, on Sunday to protest the controversial Keystone XL project, which would see an oil pipeline run across the US Midwest.

­The march’s organizers, environmental movement 350.org, estimated that 40,000 people from 30 states took part in the ‘Forward on Climate’ rally, described as the biggest climate march in US history; police have not yet provided an official estimate.

Protesters chanted "Keystone pipeline? Shut it down," as they marched around the White House, calling on President Obama to reject the Keystone proposal and follow through on climate pledges made during his inaugural

Idle No More - Sacramento - Departure Song 1/26/2013

~ Earth First Presentation at NAASN

• Panagioti, “No System but the Ecosystem: Earth First! and Anarchism”
• Moderator: Jeff Brite

Panel Presentation from the North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference
experience is the best teacher

In 1980, Keith and seven friends started the first Food Not Bombs chapter in Cambridge, Massachusets. At first more of a street performance than a protest, the group provided entertainment and vegetarian meals in Harvard Square and the Boston Commons after making deliveries of uncooked food to most of the housing projects and shelters in the area. After eight years of serving free food in New England, Keith moved to San Francisco where he started a second Food Not Bombs group. He was one of nine volunteers arrested for sharing food and literature at Golden Gate Park on August 15, 1988. In the following years, Keith was arrested over 100 times for serving free food in city parks and spent over 500 nights in jail. He faced 25 years to life in prison under the California Three Strikes Law but in 1995, Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Commission brought about his release.

• Keith McHenry “The Anarchist Response to Sandy, Katrina, and the Global Economic Crisis”
• Moderator: Sean Walsh

Panel Presentation from the North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference

Sethness-Castro, Javier. “For an Ecological Anarcho-Communism” (via SKYPE)

Due to Technical Difficulties the End of Javier's and the beginning of Gabriel's presentation were lost to fluctuating bandwidth from the livestream. 
Below, in text, is the missing part of Gabriel's presentation.  
Below that is the remainder of the panel.

Piser, Gabriel. “Frack and Friction: The Contested Futures of Development in Appalachia”
Engel-Di Mauro, Salvatore. “Anarchism and Environmental Degradation” 
Moderator: John Clark

Weaving Together Ungovernable Flesh: The Activist Threat of State Legibility