North Korea's aid rejection

North Korea recently rejected food aid from the United States and have, i think, began to reject all other aid from other countries as well. I honestly find this so sad. I can't even hear the voices of the people over there. They've all been silenced under the egotistical and willfully ignorant dictatorship of Kim Jong-Il. Things will only become increasingly worst since they have chronic food shortages and are incredibly reliant on aid to help with these food shortages.
Also, North Korea has announced that it is going to launch a satelite, but it seems as though it is a cover for a long-range missile test (or so Obama and the rest of Oriental Asia is concerned).
Why can't Kim Jong-Il just get his ass out of nucler advancement? Hostile states, right? Beacuse someone would like to bomb economic failure North Korea. I just wish he used it to focus on the people, and actually, i think he'd find why people are so hostile to "him" rather than "North Korea". I just really wished we could do something.
Also, can't believe Mugabe ain't assasinated yet.

The Day I Nearly Joined Greenpeace

yes you read that right
i got attacked on the street by a very friendly lady from greenpeace and (without really knowing what i was signing up for)
i started an application to join greenpeace cause i was like yeah be a member and not do nything! woo!
but then she found out i was under 18 and she was all like NOOOOOO you cant join!
cause apparently you cant just be a member of greenpeace, you have to donate to them to be a member
which is extremely silly. but i guess they just want money
i mentioned to her that i was part of an activism group at school and she gave me a high 5

but the point of this post was to say i know that we are not that into envronmental stuff in the AC but i wanted to highlight some of the things greenpeace is doing

did you know that (actually you probably do im just telling you what the lady told me)
that the earth is on a tipping point
basically that means that soon even if we turn around and embrace mother earth..nothing will change
we will have killed the planet

so what can we do?
greenpeace says:
We want you to take part in an energy revolution. To go from a world powered by nuclear and fossil fuels to one running on renewable energy.
Our Energy [R]evolution outlines a global plan for a sustainable renewable economic future. It shows us how we can get from where we are now, to where we need to be to avoid a climate change disaster. It was developed with specialists from the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and more than 30 scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and the renewable energy industry around the world.


so you can check out greenpeaces website for more information...

lotsa love

Don't Corrupt Aid

Many non-Government organisations like Amnesty International, Oxfam and Christian World Service are spearheading a new campaign called Don't Corrupt Aid. This campaign stems from recent comments from new foreign affairs minister (aka FAIL minister) Murray McCully, who, well, I'll let them explain it.

www.dontcorruptaid.org.nz is a campaign to keep New Zealand’s international aid focussed on addressing poverty.

We think aid should be spent on meeting the needs of people in developing countries, not advancing the interests of the government of the day. Aid should not be used as a political football.

This campaign results from comments made by New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully stating that New Zealand’s aid should change from ‘poverty elimination’ to a broader focus on economic development. Additionally, Mr. McCully wants New Zealand’s aid agency NZAID to lose its status as a semi-autonomous body.

The Minister has instigated two reviews into NZAID which may result in the responsibility for aid being absorbed into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Our concerns:

• 
  Aid will become a tool of foreign policy − the focus will shift from meeting the needs of people in developing countries to whatever suits the political agenda of the government of the day
• 
  An 'economic development' focus will lead to money going to projects in the interest of wealthy elites, ignoring the needs of the poor
• 
  The reviews are being conducted hastily, with no public consultation or parliamentary scrutiny and without advice from development experts
• 
  NZAID will lose the skills which make it a world leader in effective aid delivery
• 
  This is an unjustified reorganisation, with no evidence that it will increase aid effectiveness or deliver better value for money

Our aims:

• 
  To keep NZAID as a semi-autonomous agency that delivers effective aid
• 
  To ensure that any reviews of NZAID are open to public debate, parliamentary scrutiny and independent expert advice
• 
  To ensure that New Zealand’s aid targets the needs of poor and vulnerable people in developing countries, and is not used to reward ‘obedient’ governments.
• 
  In short: Don’t Corrupt Aid!

So folks, I know the AC is an advocate of long term economic solutions to poverty, not the 'band aid' methods like the 40-Hour Famine or child sponsorship, but the fact is, countries do need aid from governments until the long term solution is found.

And, as my auntie works for MFAT, I can safely say it has an entirely different role than an aid agency would. Their work is political, and aid needs to be neutral so it can be implemented effectively with countries that may not have stable governments (often the cause for the need of aid). Look at the situation in Fiji, for example. The New Zealand High Commissioner was removed from her post because of the hostile relationship between the Fiji and New Zealand governments. If MFAT also offered aid in Fiji, what would happen?

If you agree with the campaign then they have options for you to take action here.

Mind Game concept; "Free-will"

Against the concept of Free-will- "Buridian's Ass" (which for better sounding sake, i changed the example to a horse...Buridian originally used a starving dog image though...)

Say, a horse is placed between, in equal distant, from two identical bundles of hay. The horse, with no basis to decide on one over the other will end up starving to death. Humans in initially inclined to do/choose that which his reason/ethics tells her/him is the greater good, but, humans may delay making that choice until her/his reason has had sufficient time to gather all the information it needs to in order to exact this final decision or enforce or reinforce his reason. And the information comes from?

The ZINE!

So,  you may have heard  a rumour that the active collective is gonna have a ZINE!  Ain't that exciting?  Now, slightly worryingly, Lily has put me in charge of editing the written content.  So, I'm here to recruit you. We need some articles for the first issue, which we want to get out as soon as possible. So, if you have an idea for a blog formulating in your mind, an issue which you think needs to be addressed, why not hand a copy to one of the Zine Team - me, Romana, Sharmila & Emily Reid (our very important children's section editor).  You don't have to be in the active collective elective to contribute to our socially conscious media.