If you ask anyone on the street, "what business is Google in?", they'll answer without hesitation, "they are in the search business." Google is seen primarily as a search company. It gives us, the public, internet search services for free, out of the generosity of its corporate heart. It also happen to give a us a whole pile of other great services: Gmail, YouTube, Gtalk, and the Android…

We know that smoking tar isn't very good for us, but what about extracting oil from it?

This is from the The Campaign for Greener Healthcare which is a dynamic, independent team working on the interface between health and sustainability to bring health messages into the centre of the climate change

agenda and to transform healthcare for a sustainable future.

An ace article on the also supremely brilliant Last Hours website.

Louise, a sabber from West yorkshire talks about The Hunt, class and gender via a personal tale of sabbing in the north.

If you needed something to kick you up the arse to get out onto your path of sabotage, this is it.

Councillor Richard Leese, who is also the leader of the council in Manchester, was arrested and cautioned after assaulting a female family member.

Councillor Mary Di Mauro challenged him after he made comments on his release from police custody stating "I don't think I've ever used the expression ‘zero tolerance'" in relation to the Council's approach to 'domestic' violence.

Councillor Di Maur…

QUEERUPTION is a free DIY radical queer gathering that has so far happened in London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Tel-Aviv, Sydney, Barcelona, Vancouver and Amsterdam. Every Queeruption is a little different from the last one, shaped by the people who plan it, the community that makes it happen, and the possibilities of each new location.

In some of its previous incarnations, QUEERUPTION ha…

Strictly speaking the Guardian hack is putting the boot into the American media circus, but many a true word is spoken in jest....

"Clearly these particular Americans have either gone insane or been seriously misled. Where are they getting their information?

"Sixty per cent said they learned it from the media. Which means it's time for the media to give up.

"Seriously, broadcasters, journalists…

On Dissident Island's third birthday the crew brought a nice mixed bag of happenings from the UK and beyond.

In the History corner this week we have Martyn Everett discussing the life and work of revolutionary Frechwoman Louise Michel.

We hear about the upcoming anniversary of Sean Rigg's death in police custody as well as some of the inspirational and defiant speeches from last week's vigi…

August 6th, 2010 - Episode 63:

On Dissident Island's third birthday the crew are bringing a nice mixed bag of happenings from the UK and beyond. We'll hear some of the inspirational and defiant speeches from last week's vigil for Ian Tomlinson, as well as a little bit about the upcoming anniversary of Sean Rigg's death in police custody.

In this History corner this week we have Martyn Everet…

This press release from the Medical Justice campaign describes a high-court victory in which it was found that removal of asylum seekers with less than 72 hours notice (so-called "dawn raids") are illegal, and must stop.

Although many people will feel that any forced removal of asylum seekers is wrong, the issue becomes particularly acute when people are snatched from their homes with no warning.…

Not sure if this is posted elsewhere here, but lifted off UK Indymedia. A call from Revolution Socialist Youth Movement to stop the EDL in Bradford. Having met these guys at the Leeds demo, they're a fairly militant bunch and in now way aligned with UAF. So if you want to publicise a group that will confornt the EDL by means other than 'peace rallies'.  Please print, get in touch, do whatever. 

A close reading of the text of Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume I.

Brilliantly animated in depth analysis by David Harvey.

Support Our Sabs! - Land Rover Appeal



With all the bad news for wildlife that comes with the recent election, we want to do something good. We're trying to raise around £5000 to buy a new Land Rover for our group.

For the last 3 years we've been piling our Sabs over to Sheffield every week.

Buying a Land Rover would double the number of Sabs we can get out in Yorkshire,

and make travelling a…

Dissident Island Radio show - EPISODE 62 - broadcast live on 16 July 2010 and now available for download - featuring:

• Words from Queer Invisible Academy about fighting homophobia in Hackney and the media
• 'How to' guide on car scrumping sent in from one of our listeners
• Present and future of the Radical London network, with voices from Action East End, Harringey Solidarity, and the Whitechape…

15th July 2010 saw the launch of "Beat the Boreholes"; a campaign of mass civil disobedience to stop Shell works in Mayo this Summer. At 7am in the morning campaigners entered the water in Broadhaven Bay in kayaks and a safety rib in a peaceful attempt to prevent Shell from bringing in a second borehole drilling platform.

See also http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org/content/beat-boreholes-l…

'Police record massive increase in domestic abuse calls after England World Cup exit'

An article from The Mule about the increase in violence after the world cup. Large sporting events increase the amount and level of violence in homes, and especially against women.

"Greater Manchester Police recorded 353 incidents of domestic abuse in the city following England's World Cup defeat against German…

If you want comprehensive coverage of the EDO trial Bristol Indymedia seems like the place to go.

Hoorah for the decommisioners!

On 3 and 4 of May, 2006, more than 2,500 state and federal Mexican police arrived at the small town of San Salvador Atenco, Mexico State, to repress members of a social movement (People´s Front in Defence of Land, FPDT) protesting in support of local flower sellers who had been displaced from their traditional place of work because the government was planning to build there a Wall Mart.

Dem…

Report and pictures of the Newcastle protest for the Freedom Flotilla at:

http://thegreymatter.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/newcastle-protest-for-freedom-flotilla/

A representative selection of video from protests in countries around the world regarding the Gaza Flotilla atrocities.

EPISODE 59 of Dissident Island Radio, broadcast live on June 4th 2010 featuring:



• an update from SmashEDOdecommissioners trial starting on 7 June;

• a few folks active in the the London social centre scene, rampART and 195 Mare Street, about the ins and outs of organising autonomous spaces in the capital of capital;

•  words from the brave cyclists nearing the end of the Merthyr to Mayo cycl…

In Yiddish it’s called Chutzpah, to have the nerve to say something outrageous, the perfect description—if what was said wasn’t so odious—by Israeli propagandists. I’m talking here about an Israeli spokeman on RT.com the other night, attempting to justify the murderous assault on the Gaza aid activists. Attack becomes “defence”, international waters become Israeli, or not as the case may be.…

delegitimize.com is a new media library project that plans to publish a series of both topic-specific and current event-focused archive websites, with the help of the pro-Palestinian community and beyond. Sites will be:

1. created on an as-needed basis, sometimes in immediate reaction to Israel’s actions or breaking news;
2. deployed in non-crisis periods to address obvious research gaps in line w…

Only really skim read this blog but was pretty amused with the whole idea of it, basically reading all the daily newspapers and analyzing some of the weird and wonderful claims they make. A really good critique of the mainstream press and how they fit their stories to sell things to their readers.

More pictures of the EDL march through Newcastle, the counter demos and the police presence are up at www.thegreymatter.wordpress.com

Soon to come: report on the Newcastle demonstration in solidarity with the Freedom Flotilla

The Grey Matter

Pictures of the EDL march in Newcastle, and the counter demos

Check out the latest Dissident Island Radio show, broadcast live and direct from the inaugural Red n Black club at the London Action Resource Centre, featuring:

• Latest news on the Middlesex Uni occupation;
• Social unrest in Greece according to Occupied London;
• A critical take on the EDL and ultranationalism;
• The Tories on their plans to save the world (cough);
• and on the decks, BPM griming i…

Late last year, the research journal Science published a surprising article called "Looming Global-Scale Failures and Missing Institutions" (9/11/09). In it, an international team of eminent biologists, climatologists, ecologists, and economists reviewed the long list of current global problems and came to an ominous conclusion: "Energy, food, and water crises; climate disruption; declining fisher…

Despite earlier denials, Google have now admitted that the street-view cars with cameras on top have been scanning wifi networks as they drive by. Not only have they been logging the SSIDs (name of your wireless network) and MACs (which identifies your hardware), they've also been sniffing the network traffic itself. "We have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-p…

Here's the disobey calendar giving details of events in Preston that people can get involved in, particularly the regular soup run by the looks of things

While we were doing soup run last week we came across stories of people being attacked by young thugs on our streets. Only last week an elderly man between 58 & 63 years old; who sleeps on Preston's streets was attacked from behind by two young thugs for money or anything else they could get.





The man was beaten around the face and head leaving him needing stitches and badly bruised. He to…