Just so you know, the British Columbia Government is not only OK with tankers full of tar sands sludge coming down the coast of BC, but they are also just dandy with offshore drilling. They have to be tossed out.

This email arrived from Alexandra Morton this morning. One has to step out this time.

Here is the email in full:

Hello All

I apologize for the numerous emails, but the wild salmon movement is at such a crucial moment that I want make sure everyone knows what they can do to make sure we fix this situation.

Two hundred and fifty people greeted us in Campbell River the heart of the Norwegian salmon farming industry.  Hundreds of people honked and waved as we walked the 25 km south on the old Island highway.

However, this is not going to be enough. As a friend walking with me today said, "If you want to be represented, you will have to represent yourself." 

 If you want to see BC's coast produce wild salmon again you need to show up wherever possible, so I am listing the dates of where the Get Out Migration will be, more information is at www.salmonaresacred.org

April 29 Thursday  we will be on the highway heading south into Courtenay, We will arrive around 2:30-3:00 at the Exhibition Grounds please walk with us to Simms Park, in the evening we will be at the Komox Native Band Hall 600pm.

April 30 Friday Walking from Courtenay to Fanny Bay 3pm Cowie Creek to Fanny Bay, 4pm Fanny Bay Hall

May 1 Saturday Fanny Bay to Big Qualicum 5-9pm celebration at Big Qualicum River Campground live entertainment

May 2 Sunday 11 am Town of Qualicum Beach 2pm luncheon at Pheasant Glen Golf Course

May 3 Monday arrive Saw-Nas-Aw campground Lantzville

May 4 Tuesday Lantzville Road from Saw-Nas-Aw campground at 7 am to Costco Parking lot at lunch time then walk to Maffeo Sutton Park for a Rally then take the 5:55 Ferry to Gabriola evening presentation at Agi Hall

May 5 Wednesday walk through Gabriola

May 6 Thursday walking into Duncan evening event at 5 - 7pm City Square

May 7 Friday walking Duncan to Mill Bay ferry for 4:10 ferry, 7:30 presentation at Mary Winspear Centre

May 8 Saturday - Walking Sidney to Victoria meeting at Centennial Square at 3pm then onto the Legislature at 4 pm!!! This is the grand finale and the most important part of this effort.  MP Fin Donnelly and our west coast Fisheries Critic will meet us there. 

It is vital that everyone show up for these events if possible. Ottawa is not going to inconvenience this industry without enormous public participation.

Alexandra  

Nimpkish to Sayward, Day2-Day4 of the Wild Migration from Alexandra Morton on Vimeo.

If you cannot attend, call someone on Vancouver Island or BC to attend on your behalf. Just a thought. Or, check the Salmon Are Sacred site for other ways to help out. Thank you.

Here is the latest email from Alexandra Morton, who is with other supporters of wild salmon and west coastal marine ecology. The great migration of humans is underway.

From Alexandra Morton:

Hello

We have completed the first leg of the journey from Sointula to Sayward! The send off from Sointula was very warm, hundreds of people walked with us the 10km from Port McNeill across the Nimpkish River.  There was beautiful and powerful send off celebration by the Namgis with children dancing in regalia. We were given salmon to sustain us and they sang and performed a ceremony in the river.

After a nourishing lunch we walked on into the mountains.  About 15 of us walked through the mountains, friends and neighbours affected by the industry.  Hundreds of people honked and waved, people stopped and walked with us for a few hours.  People from Hope Town stopped in and joined us at our campfire in Eve River.  People have given us food, foot rubs, donations and sang as we walked. As we walked into Sayward local people joined us and walked with us into the campground. We spent last night there in a raging storm, I so thankful for the people wit me on this. A hot fire roared and there was good food and laughter.  

It has been an amazing start.  This has become a people's movement. If enough people walk with us through their towns and again in Victoria we will change this industry and save our communities.  I feel very strongly that government must take good care of the people who are now dependent on the Norwegian salmon farm industry for an income. There are not that many of them and they do not need to suffer due to government’s mistake in letting this Norwegian industry into BC’s most valuable wild salmon migration corridors.  We need to take the salmon farm leases and place covenants on them as the salmon farmers have control now of the locations of greatest natural fish productivity, they are lodged in the vital organs of this coast. In Broughton they are sited where government promised there would be none in the Coastal Interest Resource Study.  I don’t want to venture a guess how this was allowed, but it is wrong and must be corrected as soon as possible if we expect wild salmon to continue to feed us.  This places must be allowed to do what they do best – produce wild fish.

Today, some of us will go by boat to support the people of the Discovery Islands who want Grieg, Cermaq and Marine Harvest to close their farms on the Fraser River sockeye migration route. Only the Fraser sockeye that passed through the Discovery Islands vanished, the other run did very well last year.  Others in our dedicated team of volunteers, people of this coast, will continue walking towards Campbell River

Thank you for all your support!  You can see us as we progress at www.salmonaresacred.org in short video blogs being posted there.

We can do this, we can peacefully regain control of our wild salmon and the prosperity of our towns, but it will take every single person who wants wild salmon and thriving towns to stand up and make themselves visible to Ottawa

Thank you,

Alexandra

Okay. Your odd yet charming scribe will forego the blather and merely offer photos of today's Earthwalk in Victoria BC. Worth mentioning is that among the variety of wonderful people attending were Jane Sterk, Leader of the British Columbia Green Party, and Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada as well as being the Green candidate for the Federal Riding of Saanich and the Gulf Islands.

This is Jane.

Here's Elizabeth with Ben who is from the Saanich Green Party HQ. The short, four-legged one is Elizabeth's friend, but I didn't catch his/her name. Next time.

Finally, here's a shot of your strange yet mysterious scribe. Click on his face and you will be taken to a truly magnificent photo gallery of today's Earthwalk. Zowie!

Join the Get Out Migration For Wild Salmon.

Get Out for Wild Salmon from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.

Spread the news. Sign the petition. Raise hell—with love of course. Share the madness. Love and respect wild salmon and marine habitats.

Thanks Alexandra!!!!

peace out, bill

The billblog stands fully in support of Dr. Andrew Weaver, renowned climate scientist at the University of Victoria, Victoria BC — he is suing the National Post newspaper.

You can find more details HERE & HERE. Of course, thanks to DeSmogBlog.com for twigging me to this story.

Allegedly, the National Post printed untruths with regards to Dr. Weaver and failed to recant or make corrections when asked to do so.

In a country championing freedom of opinion, is it okay for media to use an incorrect set of facts to argue a position? If the reason for using incorrect information is sloppy journalism, propagandism, or the desire to bullshit on behalf of vested interests, are they not required by a just society to be held accountable?

One doesn't hear of scientists taking media to court. This is the first I have heard of such a thing. And yet, the media has hammered the bejeezus out of science and scientists with impunity and with growing intensity and frequency. The so-called climate debates show this all too clearly even though there's actually no debate in mainstream climate science about man-made global warming and climate change. They are unquestionably happening. Check this recent article from the Huffington Post.

Bob McDonald, host of CBC's Radio's science program, Quirks & Quarks wrote a fine article on the subject of the unrestrained bludgeoning of science back in December 2009. The title was this: "350 years of science now under siege". The billblog recommends it.

Back during the days of the Copenhagen Summit, I grew frustrated with the media's focus on a climate debate that didn't really exist in the science. I expected more of CBC quite frankly. I even wrote to Bob McDonald virtually pleading with him to petition Peter Mansbridge to put more real scientists on the news. I don't know if my pestering helped but Peter M. did do a Mansbridge One On One show with Dr. David Barber of the University of Manitoba. Check it out HERE. Dr. David Barber, for your info, is a scientist who has been going to the arctic ice for 25 years and measuring it in every possible way. When he says there's a problem with the diminishing multi-year ice pack, listen. He's the guy that does house-calls to the ice packs. Check out the interview HERE.

The public needs to hear from the folks measuring the atmosphere, the ice, the oceans and actually doing the science. I wish the public would demand of the media that they hear more often from the scientists who pass the rigors of the peer-review process.

It's insane to think that there's some kind of worldwide conspiracy of scientists to promote global warming. Jeez. Ever tried to fly a poorly thought out bit of idea-flotsam past a scientist? Those folks by nature challenge one another, confront, pick apart and dissect each other's arguments. No way for a group like that to conspire. Ridiculous notion.

So now we have Dr. Andrew Weaver standing up, saying enough already and joining with some legal folks to help him say so. The billblog supports Dr. Weaver in print and also, if it is necessary, will ask readers to contribute actual dollars to the cause. We have a scientist standing up and fighting back in an age of unrestrained vested interest bullshit. Even our government gags its own climate scientists. This is it. All aboard.

That this legal action is being undertaken by a Nobel Laureate climate scientist is a fantastic thing. It's the right thing to do. It's awesomeness in a world specializing in lameness. We must support Dr. Andrew Weaver.

I will be seeing Dr. Weaver and Elizabeth May speak tomorrow evening.

Stay tuned.

Stand back. Or better yet, run. Or maybe, stay where you are for the next 35 minutes. Why not?

By popular demand the billblog once again hosts the video story of the infamous encounter of your odd yet loveable scribe with Tibetans from the 11th Century, or thereabouts. The actual experience occurred in late 1995. It was subsequently reviewed by those knowledgeable in the field of modern psychiatry. By them, this moutaintop of experiences was re-defined and pathologized as a "manic break". As far as I am concerned, that elevated the so-called "manic break" from the pathological to the existentially awesome.

I've had several manic breaks. This one was the best. What you are about to see is a mere shadow of it. That's the best I can do in performance.

You can look up the literature on mania, manic states and all that jazz, but I promise you, almost all of it sucks. In this performance I publicly refused classification and took a valiant stand for the upside of what is called mania [inside joke]. Like, who really knows what existence is all about? Seriously, who knows?

I wrote down the bare bones of this incredible experience as a story and performed it in November 2002. By coincidence and luck, I was, er, "hypomanic" at the time of the performance and teetering into the good stuff.

Here's to an open mind!

Just click on the image below.


peace out,
bill

There's been an increase in atmospheric CO2 of 2.29 ppm from Mar2009-Mar2010.

Anyone else see a problem in this trend? Harper? Prentice? You there? How about you Ignatieff??

We are winning the war against tankers full of oil sands sludge coming down the BC coast. The climate is a bigger issue. We have people around the globe working on climate. Join. We can win. We're on the same side.

On April 14 the Canadian House of Commons will vote on Bill C-311, otherwise known as "The Climate Change Accountability Act". The crooked path this legislation has taken can be found HERE, and that's just the bare bones.

It is without question that the PM and the Conservative Party will vote against the bill. Apparently all but a handful of the Libs plan to vote it down as well.

Therefore, Michael Ignatieff and his motley band are key. The Conservative Party being a functioning dictatorship is a lost cause, but the LIberals may be moved. Therefore kindly consider emailing, phoning and faxing the LIberals and Michael Ignatieff. April 14th is almost upon us.

Do what research you need to do to understand what is at stake. Please. Don't take my word for it. But hurry up, eh. Time is of the essence.

Here's Iggy's phone number: Tel: (613) 995-9364

Here are the phone numbers, addresses and email addresses for Members of Parliament. Pick up that phone. Say your piece. Call a Liberal today. Vote with your phone often.


Have a nice weekend.

peace out,
bill

Wikileaks.com today released a video of the murder of civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The video is embedded below. There is explanatory text at the beginning of the video so there is some time before the murders are shown. There is annotation in the video and the voices, though English, are subtitled.

The camera in a helicopter machine gun records the audio and the video. The field of the video has a crosshairs in its centre.

This video has been kept from the public. The incident in which two Reuters staff and several other Iraqis citizens were murdered was investigated by US Forces and US Forces were found to be operating within rules of war. Rules of war. Jeez, what a sick thing.

The events in the video are different from the description of events in the conclusion of the investigation.

I call it murder and coverup.

The information now says that the photographers arrived to hang out with the Iraqis, shoot some photos and get some stories. Certainly the video shows a relaxed group of people — relaxed even with a military helicopter buzzing around overhead. That is not suspicious behaviour.

At one point, a van arrives. Men load bodies into the van. I cannot understand why this van is then fired upon. Two badly injured children are later taken from the van. I don't get it.

Could we accept a helicopter gunship circling over our cities and shooting allegedly, but not necessarily, nasty people? Could we accept a drone over, say, Oakville, Brandon, Saskatoon or Nanaimo to bomb a child's birthday party in order to murder one person thought to be in the house?

Every action has a consequence. What kind of collective consequences do we want to shape the future of our people, our children, the nature kingdoms? The consequences of our collective actions, including our wars, is the world as we know it.

I have put this video on this blog because it is unsanitary as is war. Don't look at it if you don't want to.



For further information go HERE.

Here's the New York Times article from 2007 with its information mistakes.

Here is the report by the US Military about the murders.

Further information in this video:




War is terrorism.

And finally this interview:

I am so jealous of my sister Leslie. Here is a photo of her in Ojo de Liebre lagoon, Baja California Sur. The boat is not running — it's the law!

This lagoon is a breeding area and nursery for a large number of Grey Whales. The Grey Whale Baby is checking Leslie out.  Leslie took off her sunglasses and then had repeated eye contact with Mom and Baby. 

Leslie told me that they would have taken more photos but it interfered with the communion with the whales. Oh my ...



Here's another shot, this one of the Mother. Both Mother and Baby Grey Whales came close enough to be touched as well as to look at Leslie. Seems that taking off her sunglasses was crucial to the interaction. I think they might have tuned in to each other's vibes as well. Think so?