Global climate change impacts us all but as with everything some will benefit and some will be harmed. The argument can be made that those who will be most harmed are a) more numerous and b) almost wholly not responsible for its cause. The happy isles of Oceania and the Indian Ocean may in fact simply disappear under ocean waves. The Islamic Republic of the Maldives’ new President Mohammed Nasheed recently announced the formation of a one billion USD sovereign fund to buy land in other parts of the globe to resettle Maldivians whose atolls disappear. Tuvalu, formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is making plans to evacuate the entire population of the country to New Zealand should the Pacific consume the low-lying country. Today in the United Kingdom, scientists announced a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events and now experts believe that this might open the door for lawsuits from the adversely-affected.

From the UK Guardian:

People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said.

Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade.

He said: “We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected by climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses. This is going to be hugely important.”

Allen’s team has used the new technique to work out whether global warming worsened the UK floods in autumn 2000, which inundated 10,000 properties, disrupted power supplies and led to train services being cancelled, motorways closed and 11,000 people evacuated from their homes – at a total cost of £1bn.

He would not comment on the results before publication, but said people affected by floods could “potentially” use a positive finding to begin legal action.

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The Republic Windows and Doors factory closed abruptly last week after the company’s financing was canceled. Since then, laid-off workers have taken turns occupying the factory and demanding assurances of severance and accrued vacation pay. More from the New York Times:

The layoff of 250 workers last week at Republic Windows and Doors on the North Side with only three days’ warning and without pay the workers say is owed to them had, by Monday, drawn the attention of nearly every politician with a connection to this city, numerous union and workers’ rights groups and scores of ordinary people, who arrived at the plant offering families toys, food and money.

Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, who met with the workers Monday morning, said the State of Illinois was suspending its business with the Bank of America, Republic Windows’ lenders, and that the Illinois Department of Labor was poised to file a complaint over the plant closing if need be. Political leaders on the Chicago City Council and in Cook County threatened similar actions. Representative Luis V. Gutierrez said he was encouraging the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice to investigate. “Families are already struggling to keep afloat,” Mr. Blagojevich said.

Workers here say they blame the operators of Republic Windows and Doors, a manufacturing company that was founded in 1965, for giving them just three days’ notice before closing last Friday, with no earlier hints to the employees that orders for vinyl windows and sliding doors had fallen off.

Late Monday, the company released a statement that indicated that it had known since at least mid-October that it intended to close the factory by January. The statement suggested that it had gone back and forth with Bank of America for more than a month, but that the bank had rejected several of its “wind down” plans as well as the company’s request for financing to pay workers’ owed vacation.

The statement also revealed that the family of Richard Gillman, once a minority shareholder who in 2006 and 2007 bought out Republic, last month formed a new window business — Echo Windows LLC. All along, workers here said they feared the owners were shutting down to reopen a cheaper operation somewhere else. A trade publication reported last week that Echo had recently bought a window manufacturing plant in Red Oak, Iowa. No one from Republic could be reached for comment.

“It is looking like reopening is exactly what happened,” said Tara Taffera, the editor and publisher of the publication, Door and Window Manufacturing magazine.

The company’s statement said it had been placed, “in the impossible position of not having the ability to further reduce fixed costs, coupled with severe constrictions in the capital debt markets and an unwillingness of the current debt holder to continue funding the operations.”

The workers here also blamed Bank of America for preventing the owners from paying its workers for already-earned vacation time and severance. Workers here said the owners told them last week that Bank of America had cut off the company’s credit line and would not allow payments.

To be honest, I find this the most significant development in American labor history since Ronald Reagan broke the back of air controllers’ union. In this case, the workers seem to stand a better chance of getting a fairer deal. To see the march of an Illinois who’s who of politicians is rather remarkable. Yet one, so far, seems to be missing. Get thee to the North Side, Barack.

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It’s taken fifty years but it seems that Ghana has come of age. Ghana was the first African state to break away from British colonial rule and its course has largely been like that of most of Africa, one harsh dictatorship after another. But this will mark Ghana’s fifth consecutive competitive election. Africa is capable of democracy and across the continent there are vibrant examples of what is possible — Botswana, Mali, the Comoros, Senegal, Zambia, South Africa, Rwanda, and Ghana stand testament to a new Africa.

The results from yesterday’s election won’t be fully available for another three days but it appears that Ghana’s ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has edged ahead as results from across the West African nation trickled in. Early results from 18 constituencies showed that Nana Akufo-Addo of the NPP has around 53 percent of the vote, compared to 44 percent for his main opponent, John Evans Atta Mills of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). The other six candidates were, as expected, out of the race.

However, only a small percentage of the votes have been counted. Full results were expected within the next 60 hours. Most analysts say the race to replace John Kufuor, who must step down in January after serving two terms, is too close to call and will go to a run-off on December 28.

In a measure of things have changed in Ghana, here’s a report from France24 on the role of the web in Ghana’s elections.

And here’s an amazing Ghana blog:

Think Ghana

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“Once government admits one religious display or viewpoint onto public property, it may not discriminate against the content of other displays, including the viewpoints of non-believers.” The State of Washington in response to protests by the utterly delusional

Suddenly Olympia has become the frontlines of the cultural wars. Hundreds of demonstrators are demonstrating in front of the Washington state Capitol outraged over an atheist display inside to counter balance religious displays and true to their own hypocrisy even stealing signs. The atheist display, which went up a week ago today, stands next to a nativity scene. It has a sign that says:

“There are no Gods, no devils, no Angels, no Heaven or Hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

Into this fray steps Bill O’Reilly, the heir to prophets it seems, with more of his never-ending nonsense:

I found this a rather appropriate response:

It seems atheism is on the march.

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Worth a read is this weekend’s op-ed in the New York Times by Caitlin Flanaghan and Benjamin Schwarz entitled Showdown in the Big Tent. It highlights a growing tension between two core constituencies of the Democratic party, African-Americans and the LGBT community. As Flanaghan and Schwarz note:

Last month, Proposition 8 passed, making gay marriage illegal in California, and the demographic that lent insult to injury was the state’s African-American voters.

They came to the polls in record numbers to support Barack Obama, and they brought with them a fiercely held and enduring antipathy toward homosexuality: 7 in 10 blacks voted in support of traditional marriage. Whether that was the game-changer or not is a question for near-constant debate. Many gay activists have begun quietly to suggest that had Hillary Clinton been the Democratic nominee, Prop 8 would not have passed.

I, unfortunately, tend to agree. Had Clinton been the nominee, it’s probable that Prop 8 would have gone down to defeat. Still while it’s easy to blame African-Americans for the defeat, it’s not entirely fair. The real culprit is religion and the unholy alliance of the Mormon and Catholic churches that funded the Prop 8 cause. Secondary causes of the defeat was our own complacency and not fully mobilizing our own forces.

There is also little question that African-Americans and minorities generally display an antagonism, indeed a hatred, of gay men that is hard to understand. Last year here in my normally placid Castro, there were two stabbings of gay men. Both were by gangs from the heavily black Hunter’s Point area of San Francisco out on initiation rites. That’s right to be admitted into the gang, the rite of passage was stabbing a gay man.

At the very least, it seems clear that the LGBT community has to do more in reaching out to the African-American community and reflecting upon the legacy of Harvey Milk it would seem that the best course of action is a renewed commitment to a wider definition of what constitutes social justice. The national gay leadership seems to have forgotten the economic component of social justice. It’s time to focus more broadly on the economic hardships faced by both communities and perhaps by working together on these issues the African-American community might discover that we are not an abomination.

What’s Next?

I’m not sure what’s next but the Democratic party leadership should be aware that amongst the LGBT community there is a whole hell of anger right now. I’ve never been consumed by the fight for gay rights largely because I didn’t think it was possible to achieve much. I lived in fear for much too long. Not any longer, I suddenly have lost my fear.

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“We are experiencing moments of a great social revolution.” — Panagiotis Sotiris, 38, a spokesman for Uniting Anti-Capitalist Left

Full-scale rioting continues to ravage Greece for a third straight day as Greek youths vent their fury over the death of a 15 year old killed by police last week in Athens. Over the weekend, the rioting was largely limited to Athens but today it spread to other Greek cities.

While the riots were sparked over an incident of police brutality, they have quickly been taken on a broader political and social attack on Greece’s conservative government. It seems Greece finds itself once again reliving its struggles of the 1960s. More from the New York Times.

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Under intense pressure from India and the United States, Pakistani authorities staged raids in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and arrested about a dozen militants associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group believed by India and Western Intelligence to have masterminded the Mumbai terror attacks that left over 160 dead. More on the raids from the New York Times:

The operation appeared to be Pakistan’s first concrete response to the demands from India and the United States to take action against the militants suspected in the attacks, which have raised tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors to their heighest point in years.

The Pakistani authorities said that among those arrested was one of two men accused by Indan and Western invesitgators of having masterminded the attacks, an operational commander for Lashkar, Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, according to a State Department official in Washington.

American embassy officials could not verify the claim independently, he said. Neither would Pakistani officials in Islamabad.

A senior Pakistani security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said about a dozen people had been arrested in the raid, which took place in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. The official initially said that Mr. Lakhvi was among them, but later backed away from the assertion.

Pakistan aid packages may soon depend on their successes or failures in fighting terrorism, according to The New York Times.

Ahmad Kamal, former Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, speaks with Martin Savidge of World Focus on these developments.

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