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31 December 2019

This was what the year really was about




11 December 2019

Crikey! Bayer’s at it again!

Austria was about to become the first country in Europe to ban toxic glyphosate. That was before Bayer got its claws into the interim Austrian chancellor. With just three weeks before the ban was to come into effect, the chancellor is suddenly trying to block it on a technicality. Bayer, and the multi-billion dollar pesticide lobby, is likely behind this change of heart -- and now we have just three weeks to change the chancellor’s mind. Luckily, there’s a paper in Austria that every politician is afraid of looking bad in: the massively influential Kronen Zeitung.With your help, SumOfUs can get a front-page ad that every single politician in the country will see, exposing the chancellor for giving into the pesticide lobby -- instead of protecting her people’s health. But we have to act now or this historic ban could die.Will you protect this ban? Donating just takes a moment -- use Paypal or your card. Click here to protect Austria’s historic glyphosate ban.

Three weeks ago, everyone in Austria felt sure that the glyphosate ban would happen. It would be a worldwide boost to other countries trying to ban glyphosate. This week’s announcement is a shock to millions of people who were counting on the chancellor Brigitte Bierlein to do the right thing. With your help, we’ll make it clear how wildly unpopular axing the the glyphosate ban would be. Over two million people read the Kronen Zeitung every day. A front-page spotlight on how she’s going to continue to allow toxic glyphosate to be sprayed in Austria will force her to pay attention to her people’s demands -- not Bayer’s crafty lies.

1 December 2019

And so the madness has spread

At the end of each month, we induct something or someone into the Sick Phoque Club. November 2019’s induction is Black Friday. It starts right after the American Thanksgiving holiday and it’s the traditional beginning of the Christmas shopping season, and it has become notorious for shoppers fighting over the huge discounts. The ritual has begun to spread to New Zealand, where I have seen several retailers here getting in on the action (but fortunately none of the fighting) including a gun shop. That’s right, I saw a gun shop in Christchurch advertising Black Friday discounts. The gun shop in question was one called Gun City, which opened a second Christchurch location at the roundabout on the corner of Blenheim Road and Main South Road a few months ago. This is not the sort of thing that should be peddled so soon after a terrorist shooting. Having all those discounts on firearms in the name of “but everyone else is doing it” is totally disrespectful to the memory of those who died on March 15. And Black Friday in general is no better. It’s just another excuse for humanity to spend and consume itself to the brink of extinction. Christmas is already a time when capitalist and socialist causes alike are out to squeeze every last cent out of you.