Dear Kitty. Some blog

Why did the US Democrats in Congress give in to George W. Bush on the Iraq war?

Cartoon by Jen Sorensen from the USA.

See also here.

World Bank and Iraq: here.

From Good Animal News:

A RARE songbird has tripled in number in 13 years and returned to Wales, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said yesterday.

But the Dartford warbler’s population increase can only be sustained and improved if the Government protects the birds’ natural habitat, the RSPB said.

The UK population of Dartford warblers increased from 1,890 pairs in 1994 to an estimated 3,208 pairs, according to a recent survey.

The bird has returned to Wales, the Midlands and East Anglia, and there are 85 pairs in the Channel Islands.

The population growth is a massive jump from 1963, when just 11 pairs were counted.

Milder winters and the availability of heathland have helped numbers increase, according to the RSPB.

The bird has also adapted to new habitats.

The Dartford warbler – or Sylvia undata – is distinguished by its short, rattling warble, and its distinctive buzzing call.

And here.

This video is a message to the British troops serving in Iraq from Scottish peace campaigner Rose Gentle, who lost her son Gordon in Basra, July 2004.

In it she talks of her campaign for better equipment for the protection of troops and for British forces to be withdrawn from Iraq.

Rose makes an appeal for serving soldiers and their families to sign our Troops Out petition and to get in contact with her directly via her mobile number: 07951 767 530 or email: rose@mfaw.org.uk

Petition: here.

From Military families Against the War in Britain:

Wave Tony Blair goodbye as he leaves office!

Thursday, 31 May 2007

“On the 27th of June I will be in London to say bye bye to Tony Blair.

If any military families can come please let me know - and bring the biggest photo you have of your loved one.

The more military families we have the more our next prime minister will see we are not happy.

Let our photos be the last thing Blair sees when he leaves number 10.”

Rose Gentle

Wednesday 27th June London Outside No. 10

All military families are invited to attend with a picture of your loved ones.

You don’t have to have anyone serving at present, just being part of a military family is fine.

If you can attend please do so and bring someone with you if you can.

The more we have there the stronger we’ll be and hopefully TB won’t be leaving on a high!

If you would like to attend contact: blair@mfaw.org.uk

This is a video of a common moorhen, feeding its chicks.

Sad news today.

The two adult white storks are still at their nest.

However, their two young have died.

In the castle pond of the nature reserve, two adult moorhens.

Their chick walks on the leaves of water lilies.

Every now and then, they retire into their nest: a basket on poles standing in the water; probably intended as an artificial duck’s nest, but now a moorhen’s nest.

I don’t see the red-eared slider turtle now which I saw last week here.

Neither did Professor Sevenster who lives here; so I was lucky last week.

Two red admiral butterflies on a tree.

A jay.

In the meadow: oystercatchers, northern lapwings.

Shelducks, a redshank, barn swallows flying.

Egyptian goose. Wood pigeon. Grey heron. Lesser black-backed gull.

Back to the castle pond: damselflies. Male and female tufted duck. Great crested grebe. Coots nesting.

From British daily The Independent:

African unions call for Olympics to ban ‘racist’ security firm

By Kim Sengupta

Published: 31 May 2007

A British security company which is also the largest multinational employer in Africa has been accused of paying staff in the continent “poverty” wages and subjecting them to racism.

Union leaders from several African countries are to meet London mayor, Ken Livingstone, this week to complain about the actions of Group 4 Securicor (G4S) which is said to be considering bidding for the contract to provide security for 2012 Olympics.

A new report, prepared by the charity War on Want, claims that some of the company’s black employees in South Africa have been forced to use different toilets to their white employees and that white supervisors have referred to them as “kaffirs” and “monkeys”.

The dossier goes on to claim that G4S pay so little to workers in Malawi - about £13 a month - that their daily meal consists of just bread and they live at homes without power or running water.

G4S guards in Mozambique receive £31 a month.

But this is said to represent “just half a living wage” in their country.

This video shows the European beaver (Castor fiber) eating bark.

Filmed in the beginning of the evening, when beavers get active.

From Belgian daily Het Volk:

The beaver is back in [the Belgian province] Limburg.

It is estimated that there are at least six beaver families now.

A success story, as the animal had been extinct for decades, until it came back a few years ago from the Netherlands.

Belgian Limburg seems to be fit for the animal to live.

Fossil giant beavers: here.

This is a video of rafting on the White Nile near Bujagali Falls in Uganda.

From British daily The Guardian:

White water torrent to die as nation gambles on huge Nile dam project

Climate change fears dampen hopes of power from tourist attraction

Xan Rice in Bujagali Falls

Thursday May 31, 2007

Six miles north of Lake Victoria, the Nile awakens, exploding into a cauldron of white water known as the Bujagali Falls.

Offering some of the world’s most spectacular rafting, it is one of Uganda’s top attractions.

Soon it will be destroyed.

After 13 years of seeing plans delayed by corruption allegations, financial strife, obdurate spirits and opposition from environmental groups, Uganda last week authorised an international consortium to begin a 30-metre-high dam across the Nile just below Bujagali Falls.

The $800m (£400m) hydropower project - the biggest-ever foreign investment in east Africa - will flood the rapids and, according to critics, leave the country dangerously exposed to an energy crisis if predictions of global warming are realised.

But the government and the World Bank, which is backing the project with $360m in loans and guarantees, insist that it is crucial to the country’s development.

Waki river in Uganda: here.

From The Smirking Chimp in the USA:

Rep. John Conyers Backs Impeachment

by David Swanson

May 30 2007 - 9:37am

Advocates for impeachment can take some measure of encouragement not just from the 85 cities and towns and 14 state Democratic parties that have passed impeachment resolutions, or the 11 state legislatures that have introduced them (Maine was #11 on Tuesday), but also from comments made Tuesday evening in Detroit by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers.

For about a year now there have been two Congressmen Conyers, the defender of our Constitution and the follower of Nancy Pelosi in her ban on impeachment.

Citizens in Detroit organized a town hall forum on impeachment and invited the Congressman.

Both John Conyerses came on Tuesday, and they both left partway through the event.

But, judging by the Associated Press story, Conyers the impeachment advocate was winning the internal battle.

And here.

Soldiers and political propaganda: here.

Cindy Sheehan on impeachment: here.

Impeachment supporter arrested: here.

This video is Attack of the Dimetrodon, from the BBC TV series Walking with Monsters.

Dimetrodon were carnivores, the biggest reptiles of the early Permian; related to later primitive mammals.

The cranial osteology of Belebey vegrandis (Parareptilia: Bolosauridae), from the Middle Permian of Russia, and its bearing on reptilian evolution: here.

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