(Also posted to DailyKos)
OH MY GOD. IT’S THE BLIZZARD OF THE CENTURY. IT’LL BE THE WORST THING TO HAVE EVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF RECORDED HISTORY. HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS RUN FOR YOUR LIVES. THE WHITE DEATH IS COMING. LOOK AT THIS MODEL. THE MODEL SAYS A BAZILLION INCHES OF SNOW. OH MY GODDDDDD. LIKE AND SHARE TO SPREAD THE WORD.
There. Now you’ve seen all the hype you need to see about the impending nor’easter in New England. Now here are some facts.
Just a heads up about some news here in the UK which should give those campaigning for equal same sex marriage rights some hope. (I’ll quote from my impending Daily Beast piece and link when the whole thing is published early tomorrow)
By a resounding majority of 400 votes to 175 the House of Commons voted on Tuesday night for the second reading of a bill according equal rights same sex couples. The government sponsored bill represented an overwhelming victory for those campaigning for gay marriage – a victory many didn’t expect to see in their lifetime. But how did the UK, which often lags behind the US on civil liberties, manage to steal another march on gay rights?
On an icy day in January, a new President in the United States took the oath of office with soaring words of hope, idealism and courage. At a time of the worst global recession in living memory and a multitude of challenges, he did not shrink from reality but embraced the capacity to change it. Those who heard him were lifted.
Speaking to the millions in America, but heard by billions around the world, President Barack Obama said:
“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”
Obama spoke of America, but he could have been speaking of the world. We are everywhere in need of renewal and hope. None more so than on the climate challenge where we need fresh vision and a politics that looks forwards not backwards. The stakes are so high that anything less than an audacious, global effort to reconcile our differences and make peace with the planet will fail humanity. We will not regret it in our parochial nationalisms as Indians or Americans, but as humans – as a species that failed itself, and condemned the rest.
This is why 2009 matters and why this year’s UN Conference on Climate Change (COP15) in Copenhagen in December must not fail.