It’s been three weeks since Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC as an act of protest against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Photo of short haired man in red shirt and blue pants kneeling down and petting a white and gray cat

CrimethInc. : Memories of Aaron Bushnell : As Recounted by His Friends


Climate activists across Europe block access to North Sea oil infrastructure | The Guardian

Climate activists in four countries are blocking access to North Sea oil infrastructure as part of a coordinated pan-European civil disobedience protest….

The protest comes in the same week a report found none of the big fossil fuel producing countries in the region had plans to stop drilling soon enough to meet the 1.5C (2.7F) global heating target set by the Paris climate accords.


Rachel Corrie Gave Her Life for Palestine

This day in 2003, the IDF killed American activist Rachel Corrie as she defended homes in Rafah from destruction. As Israel threatens to invade the city, a volunteer who stood alongside Rachel writes on her legacy — a call for steadfast solidarity with Gazans.


Donated!

World Central Kitchen | Operation Safeena: WCK aid boat offloads in Gaza

World Central Kitchen’s team in Gaza is offloading 200 tons of desperately needed food that arrived on our first maritime aid shipment to the region. Carried on the Open Arms vessel, the cargo is part of Operation Safeena, our effort to bring as much aid as possible to Palestinians by sea. We have provided more than 37 million meals to families in war-torn Gaza by land and air since first responding to the conflict.


Mehdi Hasan Debunks 7 Israeli Myths About UNRWA - YouTube

As Israel launches a propaganda campaign against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), millions of Palestinians continue to rely on the agency’s critical support when it comes to healthcare, education, and food. In this latest DEBUNKED!, Mehdi Hasan refutes the top 7 Israeli lies about UNRWA.


A review/check-in after 19 months of hosting on Micro.blog: It's a mixed bag

After many years of using WordPress for my blogs I decided to transition to Micro.blog in late 2022. I'd grown frustrated with what felt like overly complex posting and feature bloat in WP. Whether using the website or the WP app, it just felt increasingly complicated. Posting from iA Writer was my usual choice but it would often time out, forcing me to go to the website or app fairly often and I dreaded it. Blogging with WP always felt like a chore.

Micro.blog was simpler. I'd been using and participating in the community timeline off and on since the early days of the service so I decided to try moving my blog there. After a month or two I decided to move my domain over and really settle in. It's been 19 months since I started hosting here and it's time for a check-in/review.

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Love in the time of genocide | Israel War on Gaza | Al Jazeera

For weeks in southern Gaza during a recent visit, I collected stories of women admitted to hospital, each of them there to recover from what they call “war wounds”. But it’s not a war, because only one side has an actual army. Only one side is a state with full military wares.

These victims were mothers, wives and babies, whose slight bodies were pierced, torn, broken and burned. Their deeper injuries aren’t visible, until they open up about their lives over the past five months.

#gaza


Human-caused climate change fuels hottest February on record, all-time high ocean warming | CBC News

Chart showing daily sea surface temperatures smashing previous records for nearly an entire year from April 2023 to March 2024.

For the ninth straight month, Earth has obliterated global heat records — with February, the winter as a whole and the world’s oceans setting new high-temperature marks, according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus.

The latest record-breaking in this climate change-fuelled global hot streak includes sea surface temperatures that weren’t just the hottest for February, but eclipsed any month on record, soaring past August 2023’s mark and still rising at the end of the month.


Moving in the wrong direction on climate.

Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power - The Washington Post

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.


20 albums that stuck

Lou Plummer: List 10 albums that have stayed with you over the years in some way.

A fun question but impossible. For example, R.E.M - well, I could just as easily list any of their first 10 albums: Life’s Rich Pageant, yes please. Reckoning. Uh huh. Document? Sure. But for the moment, I’ll choose Green.

But I could say the same for many of the others on the list. And no, I’m not stopping at 10.

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A perfect afternoon visiting the bees as they collected pollen from a flowering plum tree.

A honeybee collecting pollen from a white flower. in the background a branch of blurred flowers is on the right side of the image and a bright blue sky behind the bee and flower.
A honeybee is collecting pollen from white plum flowers.
A honeybee is collecting pollen from white plum flowers. A bright blue sky is visible in the background.

#nature #bees #spring #flowers


A variety of bees, flys and butterflies were busy pollinating the plum trees today - the western honey bees especially!

A closeup of two honeybees, one is flying above white flowers, the other is resting on a flower as it collects pollen
A honey bee gathering pollen from white flowers set against a blue sky
A macro image of a furry honeybee collecting pollen from white flowers

Famine in Gaza

Is there famine in Gaza? | Reuters

The United Nations said in February that more than a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were “estimated to be facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.” It said without action widespread famine could be “almost inevitable.”

The IPC is due to release a new analysis of the situation in Gaza by mid-March.

…as U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said: “Once a famine is declared, it is too late for too many people.”

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Pro-Palestinian protesters block roads leading to Oscars

Love to see it:

Pro-Palestinian protesters chanting “Cease fire now” blocked roads leading to the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, delaying the start of the Oscars. Some ceremony attendees in formalwear shoved past protesters.


A male relative today made a sexist, stupid comment, not for the first time.

My reply, not for the first time: Your sexism isn’t funny and it’s never acceptable. Stop.

I know that he won’t stop. I get the same from most of the other males in the family.

Patriarchy has deep roots.


See the USA in your Chevrolet!

www.youtube.com/watch


4 women in dark green uniforms standing on a rock peak with mountains in the background. The women each hold a lit torch with the fourth woman holding her torch up as it is being lit by another

YJA Star (Free Women’s Troops) Central Headquarters Command made a written statement on the occasion of March 8, International Working Women’s Day.

Our uninterrupted struggle for women's freedom, from Saras to Zîlans, from Bêrîtans to Doğa Viyans, created great gains for women and became the expression that a society whose women are free will also be free. In this sense, women transforming the areas they are in into positions of resistance means the end of the rapist masculine mentality. The way to do this is to organize strongly. Where a single woman remains unorganized, women will continue to be subjected to violence, rape, oppression and exploitation.


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Linked: Climate Emergency

This chart of ocean temperatures should really scare you

If you were to dip your toes into the middle of the North Atlantic — say, somewhere between South Carolina and Spain — the water would feel frigid. You definitely wouldn’t want to swim. It’s winter.

Yet that water would, in fact, be very warm, relatively speaking. Right now, the North Atlantic ocean is, on average, warmer than any other time on record, running about 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the average temperature over the last three decades.

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An 11 minute clip that clearly explains the current crisis in Gaza, Biden and his loss of support among progressives

Uncommitted vote in Michigan ‘doing Biden a favor’ by sounding alarm on Gaza policy

“Uncommitted” earned 100,000 votes in the Michigan Democratic primary Tuesday, raising flags to the Biden administration that its policy on Gaza could lose him crucial swing state voters. SiriusXM’s Dean Obeidallah and Jewish Current’s Peter Beinart say the effort reflects a need for urgency in resolving the war in Gaza.