"Light Up" For Earth Hour On Saturday - Earth Hour Is A Fraud

The incandescent light bulb is abused by environmentalists – but the alternative will only raise energy consumption (costs associated with manufacture, etc.). More and more, compact fluorescent lamps are considered to be an interim technology, awaiting the arrival of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs). Image Credit: krisdedecker.typepad.com

"Light Up" For Earth Hour On Saturday - Earth Hour Is A Fraud

Earth Hour, a rolling grassroots movement aimed at tackling Global Warming (read that as the relabeled "climate change") is getting a bunch of press coverage on having governments and individuals turn off their lights to show support for a reduction in greenhouse gasses.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007 (as a reaction to Al Gore's over-reaching movie - An Inconvenient Truth) when Earth Hour founder Andy Ridley convinced 2.2 million people to switch off the lights in their homes, offices and businesses for 60 minutes to make a point about electricity consumption and carbon pollution.

Under the Earth Hour initiative, people and Governments are cowed to switch off their lights and electrical appliances from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm on March 26, 2011 in the name of Anthropogenic Global Warming (human caused climate change).

The major problem with this Earth Hour promotion is that it is an awareness program in favor of a world solution to a problem that is proving itself to be based upon fraudulent data, data that had been shaped or worse, cherry-picked and/or destroyed to prove a conclusion.

Climategate has shown that when one follows the money, power and influence exerted through and from the United Nations IPCC, that the Scientific Method and the personal freedom of individuals are victims to the powers of entities who wish to CONTROL the world through a socialist agenda.

Since proof of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) - human caused climate change - had become the coin of the rhelm with political progressives throughout the world upon which to create the justification to enact laws to tax and limit human activity (read that as to CONTROL all humans in their pursuit of rights and happiness), and that the proof of AGW had been held by only four datasets worldwide, leaves the political progressives with only one dataset upon which to promote their agenda.

LED's at Time Warner Center in New York. Image Credit: krisdedecker.typepad.com

This excerpted and edited from the LA Times -

Southern California landmarks to join in “Earth Hour” event
March 26, 2011 6:05 pm

Notable Southern California landmarks such as the glowing pylons at Los Angeles International Airport and the Queen Mary in Long Beach will go dark between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday night in observance of international "Earth Hour."

Millions of people from more than 100 countries and territories are expected to participate in the event by switching off lights and nonessential appliances in order to conserve energy and demonstrate an awareness of environmental conservation.

At LAX, the 100-foot-tall pylons will glow solid green an hour before the event and then go dark, according to airport officials. The color-changing LAX Gateway pylons were installed in August 2000. Five years later, airport workers installed a new system of LED fixtures that consume 75% less electricity than the previous lamps and burn for 75,000 to 100,000 hours, compared to 3,000 hours for the original lights, according to airport officials.

In Long Beach the Queen Mary's exterior lights will be turned off. The event will be accompanied by entertainment, such as the ship's captain answering historical questions and local competitive cyclists producing energy for a light display. Participants will also receive vendor giveaways. Hotel guests will be asked to turn off their nonessential stateroom lights.

In Santa Monica, the famous Pacific Wheel on the city's pier will go dark. The ferris wheel's emergency lights will remain on.

At the Home Depot Center in Carson, in partnership with Chivas USA of Major League Soccer, will turn off all nonessential lighting of the 27,000-seat soccer stadium, including all lighting in the venue's 42 luxury suites, according to AEG, the company that owns and operates the venue. The Chivas will be hosting the Colorado Rapids. Other AEG facilities throughout the state will also participate, including LA Live, the entertainment hub in downtown Los Angeles.

Earth Hour is organized by World Wide Fund, one of the world's largest independent conservation organizations.
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This year, Earth Hour is challenging people to go beyond the hour and think of other ways to make a difference after the lights go on. Reference Here>>

If you are among those who know about this fraud that is being perpetrated on governments of the world and do not want to be among the "millions kept in the dark" ... turn on every light for one hour from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm on March 26 as a revolt against Global Warming alarmists.

Make Earth Hour 2010 shine brightly for freedom of all peoples across the Earth ... for the freedom to pursue their lives with the rights given to them from GOD … not leaders of nations and control-freaks.

Climategate (which came to light in November 2009) has proven that AGW is a fraud so, unfortunately, since Earth Hour was based upon fraudulent data - put forward by the United Nations IPCC, the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, NOAA, and NASA - Earth Hour 2010, as it is intended, is a fraud (suggestion for Earth Hour 2011 - make the gesture for picking up after one's self, clean potable water, planting a tree near a ravaged rain forest, and the like).

So, we at MAXINE say, light up the sky for Earth Hour 2010 and prove that you know the truth ... AGW is a fraud and that climate change on the planet Earth is a normal function of the Earth and Earth processes (volcano eruptions, fires, deforestation, flatulence, chemical reactions of chemicals found on the surface, etc.) in association with the Sun and surrounding planets.

IRAN & A Weapon Of Mass Destruction

The fungal strain was named for its discovery in Uganda in 1999. - The disease spreads by wind-blown fungal spores. Planting highly resistant wheat varieties in the southern United States where stem rust fungus can survive winter could prevent the disease from taking hold in the South and then spreading to the rest of the country.Ug99 has overcome most of the stem rust resistance genes bred into wheat varieties during the past several decades. Last year, ARS Cereal Disease Laboratory (CDL) plant pathologist Yue Jin confirmed a new, even more virulent variant of Ug99 in Kenya. His colleague, geneticist Les Szabo, also at the CDL in St. Paul, Minn., leads the stem rust genome project. Caption & Image Credit: Haber7.com

IRAN & A Weapon Of Mass Destruction

It’s true and can be mentioned in the same breath. The fields in IRAN are producing a weapon of mass destruction and it is not what you think.

This weapon of mass destruction is aimed directly at IRAN itself and will effect countries that are located East, it is biological and it kills wheat crops on a massive basis.

The weapon is a fungal wheat stem “rust” that is carried upon the wind and attacks whole fields of wheat laying them to waste leading to food shortages and greatly increased food prices.

Up to 80 per cent of all Asian and African wheat varieties are susceptible to the fungus, and major wheat-producing nations to Iran’s east – such as Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan – should be on high alert, FAO warned. Image Credit: NewScientist

The wheat fungus [strain] first emerged in Uganda in 1999 and is therefore called Ug99. The Ug99 strain found in Yemen was already more virulent than the one found in East Africa. Ethiopia and Kenya had serious wheat rust epidemics in 2007 with considerable losses.

Harvesting wheat. Crop yeilds are expected to drop dramatically in Iran due to UG99 - a strain of virulent fungus that attacheds itself to the stems of growing wheat. Image Credit: Getty

This excerpted SeedQuest taken from a statement released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) –

First report of wheat stem rust, strain Ug99, in Iran
By SeedQuest – March 5, 2008

Wheat killer detected in Iran - dangerous fungus on the move from East Africa to the Middle East

A new and virulent wheat fungus, previously found in East Africa and Yemen, has moved to major wheat-growing areas in Iran, FAO reported today [5 Mar 2008]. The fungus is capable of wreaking havoc to wheat production by destroying entire fields. Countries east of Iran, like Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, all major wheat producers, are most threatened by the fungus and should be on high alert, FAO said.

Wheat is a major food crop in the world and sustains the majority of the world's population. Wheat fields occupy more of the earth's surface than do fields of any other food crop. Stem rust is one of the most important wheat diseases limiting production in many areas of the world. The disease has been important throughout the ages. The Romans, in order to please the rust god, Robigus, held a festival called Robigalia. Image Credit: USDA

It is estimated that as much as 80 percent of all wheat varieties planted in Asia and Africa are susceptible to wheat stem rust (_Puccinia graminis_). The spores of wheat rust are mostly carried by wind over long distances and across continents. "The detection of the wheat rust fungus [strain Ug99] in Iran is very worrisome," said Shivaji Pandey, director of FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division. "The fungus is spreading rapidly and could seriously lower wheat production in countries at direct risk. Affected countries and the international community have to ensure that the spread of the disease gets under control in order to reduce the risk to countries that are already hit by high food prices."

The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has informed FAO that the fungus has been detected in some localities in Broujerd and Hamedan in western Iran. Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the fungus. Iran said it will enhance its research capacity to face the new infection and develop new wheat varieties resistant to the disease.
Reference Here>>

We, at MAXINE, are always looking for the upside, so the question that begs to be asked is:

Does, or better, can this fungal "rust" be made to attach itself to Opium/Heroin Poppies like the fields grown in Afghanistan? Huhmmmmmmm!

The United Nations (& Al Gore) Are Bestowed The Nobel Prize

Former Vice President Al Gore [trying to look Japanese] waves to the media at the Japanese premiere of his documentary film 'An Inconvenient Truth' in Tokyo in this January 15, 2007 file picture. Gore and the U.N. climate panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on October 12, 2007, for raising awareness of the risks of climate change [while actually doing completely NOTHING for world peace]. Image Cerdit: Kiyoshi Ota/File/Reuters

The United Nations (& Al Gore) Are Bestowed The Nobel Prize

The Nobel prize committee makes marginal the importance of its charter, again, by awarding its once impeccable reputation with a stretch of a bestowment for its 2007 “Peace Prize.”

The esteemed inventor of Dynamite, Alfred Bernhard Nobel, must be rolling over in his grave.

Please educate us at MAXINE, what does bad climate science prediction have to do with the effort of reducing violent difference resolution between organized human beings around the world?

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, delivers a speech in front of Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt (L) during the opening ceremony of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Brussels, April 2, 2007. Pachauri, who chairs the U.N. panel on climate change that won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore, said on October 11, 2007, he was overwhelmed by the news. Picture taken April 2, 2007 REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File (BELGIUM)

We are not naive, we understand the European calculation and thinking behind this particular bestowment. We know they had to have trouble with just giving the award outright to Al Gore alone. After all, it was the same calculated thinking that gave Al Gore an Oscar for his now legally, and offically discredited quasi-documentary and PowerPoint Presentation, “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Elite Europeans and Hollywood have an inbred thought process as it relates to the freedoms the United States has for its citizens. From capitalism, to gun possession, to health care, the template is the same - Hate Freedom, Embrace Socialism ... at any price and level of discredit.

This item from the Associated Press via the International Tribune –

British judge says Al Gore's climate change film contains 9 scientific errors
The Associated Press - Published: October 11, 2007

LONDON: Al Gore's Oscar-winning environmental documentary contains nine scientific errors or omissions, a British judge said, ruling on a challenge from a school official who did not want the film shown to students.

High Court Judge Michael Burton said he had no doubt that the points raised in "An Inconvenient Truth" about the causes and likely effects of climate change were broadly accurate, but in a ruling published Wednesday he wrote that they were made in "the context of alarmism and exaggeration."

Gore's film "is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact," Burton said. "Albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political program."

The government's plan to show the film in English secondary schools violated laws banning the promotion of partisan political views in the classroom, Burton said. But he said the screenings could go ahead if they were bundled with written guidance to teachers designed to prevent Gore's views from being promoted uncritically to children.

The Former United States Senator & Vice-President, Oscar Winning, Nobel Laureate - Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. - Cartoon Credit: Gary Varvel

Burton's ruling follows a challenge from a part-time school official who complained that Gore's film was inaccurate, biased, and should not be shown to pupils.

Stewart Dimmock, who works part-time on a school governing board, said he was fighting to have his children educated in an environment "free from bias and political spin."

Burton outlined nine errors — including Gore's claim that sea level rises of 7 meters (23 feet) might occur in the immediate future — something Burton characterized as "distinctly alarmist." Other errors, he said, included the claim that Hurricane Katrina, the evaporation of most of Lake Chad and the melting of the snows of the Kilimanjaro were all the result of global warming. Burton said there was insufficient evidence to back his claims.

While "An Inconvenient Truth" will still be shown in English schools, the judge said teachers will have to be careful not to endorse Gore's political views when they present it to pupils.
Reference Here>>

By the way, Al Gore donates the Nobel Peace Prize money to a non-profit organization - HIS NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION!

Let the persistent accolades begin - "I can't think of anyone who deserves it more ... due to his sacrifices ... than Al Gore!"

We can't wait.

Truth? Fiction? A Sense Or Nonsense Film Premier

“An Inconvenient Truth ... Or Convenient Fiction?” is an entertaining, fact-based look at the climate change issue featuring Dr. Steven Hayward, PRI Director of Environmental Studies and F.K. Weyerhauser, Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Image Credit: Pacific Research Institute

Truth? Fiction? A Sense Or Nonsense Film Premier

Today, the film premier of "An Inconvenient Truth … Or Convenient Fiction?" is being presented by the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco at the Embarcadero Center Cinema - 1 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111.

The film will be premiered at NO COST with the Reception to start at 7:00 pm, with the Screening to begin at 7:30 pm.

Further, two more movie premieres are scheduled for:

April 18, 2007 Movie screening – Washington, D.C.

April 24, 2007 Movie screening – New York City

The movie is the work of Dr. Steven Hayward, PRI Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, American Enterprise Institute F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow. Image Credit: Pacific Research Institute

To provide an additional insight to the work of Dr. Steven Hayward, here is an assay about the alarmist focus being brought to the issue of climate change, and more specifically, the hysteria that is intention of Al Gore's recent Oscar winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth".

This from an opinion essay posted at the Pacific Research Institute -

Gore on the Rocks
by Steven F. Hayward - March 21, 2007

Consensus is reached: Gore’s global-warming alarmism is overblown.

As international celebrity and film star Al Gore prepared to testify about global warming on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, it was already apparent that the hot air may be leaking out of the global-warming balloon.

After a year of concentrated effort that includes a multimillion-dollar p.r. campaign on top of An Inconvenient Truth and slavish media coverage parroting the climate-alarmist line, recent polls show that public opinion has barely budged. Only about a third of Americans, according to a recent Gallup survey, are agitated about climate change, and even people who say the environment is their most important issue rank climate change behind air and water quality in importance.

Meanwhile a backlash in the scientific community has begun. Last week, New York Times veteran science reporter William Broad filed a devastating article about scientists who are “alarmed” at Gore’s alarmism; Gore’s account of global warming goes far beyond the evidence. The dissents from Gore’s extremism, Broad explained, “come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists” who have “no political ax to grind.” It appears Gore refused to be interviewed directly for the article; he responded to e-mail questions only.

This backlash has been quietly building for a while. In November, Mike Hulme, director of Britain’s Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, expressed his unease about climate alarmism to the BBC:

I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric. It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the [catastrophe] skeptics. How the wheel turns. Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging which surrounds science’s predictions? To state that climate change will be ‘catastrophic’ hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science.

Then in December, Kevin Vranes of the University of Colorado, by no means a climate skeptic, commented on a widely read science blog about his sense of the mood of the most recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union, where Gore had made his standard climate presentation. “To sum the state of the climate science world in one word, as I see it right now, it is this: tension,” Vranes wrote. “What I am starting to hear is internal backlash. . . None of this is to say that the risk of climate change is being questioned or downplayed by our community; it’s not. It is to say that I think some people feel that we’ve created a monster by limiting the ability of people in our community to question results that say ‘climate change is right here!’”

Gore and other climate extremists have been hammering away at “consensus” science for years now — especially the assessments produced by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). So it is a highly inconvenient truth that the latest IPCC scientific assessment undermines many of Gore’s most spectacular claims. The IPCC says the worst-case sea-level rise this century would be 23 inches; Gore portrays 20 feet or more in his horror film. Ditto for Gore’s claims about hurricanes and melting ice caps; the new IPCC fails to bolster Gore’s alarmism. Already climate alarmists are starting to mutter under their breath that the IPCC is now “too conservative,” but having built up the IPCC as the gold standard of “consensus” science, the alarmists are in the awkward position of being hoist by their own petard. It could be an inconvenient moment for Gore on Wednesday if someone asks him why he is so far outside the scientific consensus on so many aspects of the issue.

A new anti-alarmist documentary from Britain’s iconoclastic Channel Four, The Great Global Warming Swindle, is attracting Internet viewers by the millions. And the most significant blow to climate alarmism came last week in New York, where in a formal debate MIT’s Richard Lindzen and author Michael Crichton decisively defeated the alarmists in an audience vote. You know there is something fundamentally weak about the case for climate catastrophe when you see an alarmist attributing the skeptics’ victory to Crichton’s height rather than the substance of the arguments.

The biggest blow to the climate catastrophists is not any scientific problem, but the hypocrisy of Gore and his Hollywood cheering section, whose profligate energy use cannot be mitigated in the popular mind through “carbon offsets,” even if such offsets worked as advertised. Liberals in the 1960s and 1970s never comprehended how damaging “limousine liberalism” was to their cause. They seem even more oblivious to the self-inflicted wounds of “Gulfstream liberalism.” Whatever the intricacies of climate science, middle-class citizens understand that Gore wants them to use less energy and pay more for it, while he and his Hollywood pals use as much as they want and buy their way out of guilt, like a medieval indulgence. In the companion book to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore writes that “a good way to reduce the amount of energy you use is simply to buy less. Before making a purchase, ask yourself if you really need it.” Gore decided that he does need it — for all four of his homes and his pool house.

The ultimate sign that climate change is more about politics than science is the repeated “go-slow” statements of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders. If climate change is really the greatest threat in mankind’s history, with the catastrophic tipping point less than 10 years away, why go slow in crafting legislation to save the planet? Perhaps Pelosi and other congressional Democrats have paid attention to the overwhelming consensus of economists — one climate consensus that Gore resolutely ignores — that serious greenhouse-gas emission cuts fail every conceivable cost-benefit test. Faced with the climate-policy equivalent of HillaryCare, Pelosi would prefer to save her majority rather than save the planet.
Reference Here>>

We are told at MAXINE, that DVD's and clips of the movie will be made available at the Pacific Research Institute website and that it is expected to be posted on YouTube. When it becomes available at YouTube ... it will be posted here.

UPDATE: Video
(ht: Power Line)

The "Jumbo Jet" Currency Of Human Trafficking

Freedom Day Announcement Banner - The date is significant in the UK as it marks the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, but we are encouraging everyone around the world to use this day as a focus for awareness on people trafficking, whether or not the date has any historic significance for you. Caption & Image Credit: STOP THE TRAFFIK

The "Jumbo Jet" Currency Of Human Trafficking
(an awareness of FREEDOM DAY, a day to begin the end of Human Trafficking - slavery)

Slavery costs five (5) Jumbo Jets full of people their freedom each day seven days a week and, really, no one is aware (based on a Boeing 747 capacity of about 400 seats). If a Jumbo Jet crashes and it wipes out all who are on board, everyone in the world knows it happened - investigations take place and answers are sought.

Slavery has NOT been abolished in this world. Slavery is a major business enterprise worldwide. Slavery is even a bigger business in overall dollars & cents than that of the software giant, Microsoft.

Frankly, this problem of Slavery/Human Trafficking is a larger problem than the war on terror. The United Nations, and major leadership countries of the civilized world seem powerless to do anything to stop it. Their (our) eyes are NOT on the ball.

We at MAXINE were made aware of the issue of Human Trafficking this last Sunday through a Christian based presentation delivered by Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis Trust and a UK Baptist minister.

The recent release of the movie "Amazing Grace" highlighted the decades long struggle to win the hearts and minds of the people who benefited from the Trans-Atlantic slave trade out of Africa that ended just 200 years ago ... but the job is not done ... not by any stretch of the imagination.

Excerpts from the Stop The Traffik website -

The scale of human trafficking
By STOP THE TRAFFIK.ORG

Men, women and children are trafficked within their own countries and across international borders. Trafficking affects every continent and most countries.

Due to the hidden and illegal nature of human trafficking, gathering statistics on the scale of the problem is a complex and difficult task. There are no reliable national or international estimates as to the extent of trafficking. Figures are usually counted in the countries that people are trafficked into and often fail to include those who are trafficked within their own national borders.

The following statistics may represent an underestimation of trafficking, but are the most credible and frequently quoted.

At least 12.3 million people are victims of forced labour worldwide. Of these 2.4 million are as a result of human trafficking. A global alliance against forced labor, International Labour Organisation, 2005

600,000-800,000 men, women and children trafficked across international borders each year. Approximately 80 per cent are women and girls. Up to 50% are minors. US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2005

An estimated 1.2 million children trafficked each year. UNICEF UK Child Trafficking Information sheet, January 2003

The majority of trafficked victims arguably come from the poorest countries and poorest strata of the national population. A global alliance against forced labor, International Labour Organisation, 2005

Trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are caught in the trap of slavery. Anti-Slavery

Human trafficking is the third largest source of income for organised crime, exceeded only by arms and drugs trafficking. UN office on drugs and crime

It is the fastest growing form of international crime, already generating 7 billion dollars per year in criminal proceeds. There are even reports that some trafficking groups are switching their cargo from drugs to human beings, in a search of high profits at lower risk. UN office on drugs and crime

People are trafficked into prostitution, begging, forced labour, military service, domestic service, forced illegal adoption, forced marriage etc.

Types of recruitment; include abduction, false agreement with parents, sold by parents, runaways, travel with family, orphans sold from street or institutions.
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What is trafficking?

A definition:

“Trafficking in human beings” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
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On 25th March 2007 the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade will be remembered in many countries around the world. STOP THE TRAFFIK will use this anniversary as a catalyst for a initiative whose goal is to cry for freedom for every human caught in trafficking around the world, with a particular focus on children and young people. The conviction that freedom is a human right drove both black and white abolitionists in the 18th and 19th centuries. That same conviction drives the STOP THE TRAFFIK coalition in the 21st century.

200 years ago, William Wilberforce realised the shocking news - Britain’s slave trade was a growth industry, and the backbone of Britain’s economy at that time. A man whose convictions compelled him to act. That same spirit that whispered in his ear to end the slave trade whispers in our ears today. On March 25th 2007 there will a worldwide shout for change – we will raise our voices so that everyone may hear - we will shout with joy to celebrate the traffic that has already been stopped, and shout the call for the release of every trafficked. We will fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.

William Wilberforce was one man who mobilised a swell of voices to speak out against injustice and make a difference that impacted the world. You can be a voice that influences others and get the group or organisation that you belong to to become a member of STOP THE TRAFFIK.

The abolition of the Slave Trade Act (1807) was achieved by a mass movement made up of those who were enslaved, anti-slavery campaigners and ordinary members of the public, black, white, male and female. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/, http://www.wikipedia.org/, http://www.setallfree.net/ are excellent websites detailing biographies of a broad range of abolitionists.
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CASE STUDIES

Premila from India
It was Premila’s 18th birthday in her small village in rural Bihar. Her parents, desperate to escape their impoverished plight, signed their daughter over to a nightmare. For the paltry sum of 800 rupees (US $18), she was sold to a man living in faraway Punjab state. He claimed there were no “good women” in his village and therefore he was forced to buy a wife. “Wife” is a term used very loosely. There was no marriage ceremony. She was raped by her “husband” and his male relatives for a few years.

Eventually, a new investment opportunity presented itself and Premila was sold to a well-known prostitution ring in the nation’s capital, New Delhi. The sex trafficking trade runs rampant in Delhi and Premila brought a relatively good price: 5,000 rupees (US $109). She joined thousands of other women who exist in impoverished, disease-ridden, dangerous conditions.

Premila was sold yet again to the streets of Mumbai for 35,000 rupees (US $762). It was here in Mumbai that she was finally rescued. Returned to her hometown of Khathiar, Bihar, she was a broken woman. She will never re-marry. She will likely die young.
Source: Dalit Freedom Network

Sokha, Cambodia
Tourist guides call Poipet the ‘Wild West’ of South-East Asia, on account of its roaring sex trade and gambling scene. People also come here to buy or abduct children. Girls as young as five are trafficked over the border into Thailand.

Sokha* and Makara* were sold to a trafficker who promised good jobs for the girls in Thailand. Sokha explains that her mother was ill with a liver complaint. The family needed money to pay for drugs to treat her, and they also hoped to buy some land to build a home. But, reality turned out to be very different.

There were no ‘good jobs’ for the girls, Sokha’s mother died within a year, and the family couldn’t afford to buy land. Sokha, now 17, says, ‘I felt cheated. The traffickers used us for slave jobs, and whilst they earned lots of money we only got enough to feed ourselves each day.’

She explains how she and Makara, 16, were given jobs selling fruit, but it did not pay enough. Soon their bosses forced them into sleeping with men to pay their way. When they were sold they were 14 and 15 years old.

A Tearfund partner provides young girls with sewing skills, counselling and the loving support of a local church. The girls’ parents met staff from Tearfund partner, Cambodian Hope Organisation (CHO), and gave them photos to pass on to an organisation in Thailand that rescues girls from prostitution.

They found – and duly rescued – Sokha and Makara. By then, the girls’ ordeal had been going on for nearly a year. Sokha says, ‘It’s good to be home. We are grateful to CHO who have brought us back to our home, provided us with counselling, taught us the skill of sewing, and brought us into the church.’ When asked what they hope for in the future, Sokha says she hopes to set up her own sewing business and employ and help girls in her situation. ‘We were scared all the time in Thailand,’ she says. ‘Now I’m happy, getting support, living with my family and free to work when I want.’
SOURCE: Tearfund

Mary, Mexico
Mary a 19-year old female came into the United States from Mexico. She was referred to the Salvation Army by a domestic violence shelter where she presently resides with her 11-month-old son.

Mary was persuaded to come to the US with the promise that she would have a better life and be provided a job. Mary was verbally abused and raped several times by her perpetrator - which was the source of her son's conception.

Mary reported that she previously had a miscarriage due to the abuse and at times was not allowed to seek medical attention. She was escorted to her job in a factory where she packaged vegetables, but was never paid for her employment. She reports that she was given a white powder (which was suspected to be cocaine), and only later she determined to be drugs. Mary was not allowed to leave the apartment in which she was staying unless she was going to work. The perpetrator threatened her saying that if she attempted to escape she would be deported or hurt by the immigration department.

Mary is currently being provided shelter, therapeutic counselling, clothing, food and legal advocacy services. Although the authorities have determined Mary to be a victim of human trafficking, the US Attorney's Office has decided not to prosecute the case. She was therefore denied the expedient route to obtaining legal status and is now applying for a visa, which would allow her to stay in the country for up to 3 years after which she could apply for permanent residency.
SOURCE: Salvation Army

Prjua and Ajay, India
Prjua, aged 9 and her brother Ajay, a boy aged 7, lived on Thane train station in Mumbai, India with their parents who were both alcoholics. Prjua and Ajay were regular attendees of the Asha Deep Day Centre, run by Oasis India, where they learnt to read and write and were given the opportunity to play. After attending daily for 3-months they disappeared. The project staff went to look for them. Prjua and Ajay’s father told how a man had come and offered money for them and that he had sold them for the equivalent of $30. That was the last the father and the staff of Asha Deep Day Centre heard of them. In that area of Mumbai every 2-3 months children disappeared, kidnapped or sold into prostitution, forced labour, adoption or child sacrifice.
SOURCE: Oasis India
Read All>>

This last case study is really eye opening. It appears as just a small mention at the end of the study but child sacrifice is STILL a very important ritual performed by some tribes in India.

We in the western world do not want to believe that this sacrifice ritual happens in this world anymore, but as Steve Chalke elaborated during his presentation on Sunday, buildings will not get built in the major cities in India without the labor of members in tribes that continue to believe that a human has to be sacrificed in order to appease their GODS for placing the buildings (modern technology) on the land. A blind eye is turned so that modern development can progress. Unwittingly, outsource projects from the West end up killing children in India.

This is beyond shocking to the average Western mind. An "Apocalypto" world still exists and human child sacrifice is still practiced and facilitated through human trafficking in the world's largest (most populous) democracy - India.

This one story almost pales in comparison to what is happening within the enterprise of producing chocolate.

Most of the cocoa fields that produce nearly half the world's chocolate are located in the Cote D'Ivoire, Africa. 12,000 children have been trafficked (slavery) into cocoa farms in Cote D'Ivoire.

When we buy chocolate ... we are being forced to be oppressors ourselves as we have no guarantee that the chocolate we eat is 'traffik free'!

Our only option is the responsibility of consumer choice - just as with the Tuna industry's response to dolphins being caught and slaughtered on a wholesale level ... "Dolphin Free" labeling - request that major chocolate producers label their products when the products are produced with cocoa sourced from "Traffik Free" fields!

At MAXINE, we say get educated and involved. This activity against Human Trafficking will do more for humanity and the world than most any other effort. Find or sponsor a Freedom Day in your area. Use this organizer's pack as a guide.

Equality Shows Itself In Many Forms

"What are you lookin'at?" --- The Arctic habitat of polar bears is under threat as climate change - [thank GOD this caption did not go with the less provable phrase, Global Warming, which has a politically monied connotation and edge to it]- causes ice to melt. Image Credit: Joseph Napaaqtuq Sage/AP

Equality Shows Itself In Many Forms

Here is an item that might warm your heart and cause the brain cells to spin.

The following story goes into detail as to how some scientists are offered "cash" to dispute the United Nations supported climate study.

At MAXINE, the first thing that leaps to mind is an educational system infrastructure where scientists and educators are awarded grants to "study" the cause and effect of climate and change by bureaucracies and politicians who are able to use government monies to influence and sustain the power they naturally have. Government money is collected, lobbied for by interested parties, assigned to niche programs, and fed to educational research and study programs.

So what is wrong with a little "equal" time and influence in the development of a study or message ... after all, who pays the scientists at the capitalist system-hating United Nations and what is in "IT" for them? The ego, prestige, and political control exerted through international agreements like --- Kyoto, do ya' think?

Fair & Balanced is what we like to see at MAXINE!

Excerpts from The Guardian (UK) –

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study
Ian Sample, science correspondent - The Guardian - Friday February 2, 2007

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.
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"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."
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Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.
Read All>>

So there you have it, the authoritative and balanced voice of Greenpeace states "The AEI ... functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

At this moment, the UN has lost on the debate as to who isn't on the take!

Have we (the world) already forgotten the unimaginable torts and betrayal found in the "Oil-For-Food" program negotiated and managed by the United Nations over this last decade?

Isn't the funding by the UN of a scientific report, that promotes an international agreement, that the United Nations would be tasked in managing, just a little suspect?

At MAXINE, we are just askin' questions.

Additional background information about Kyoto and a reaction from China about the report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).