tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post7346850829479906540..comments2024-03-22T05:20:44.167-07:00Comments on The Disaffected Lib: What Are We Doing? A Shot in the Arm for the Tar Sands.The Mound of Soundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-87949974691273870802019-07-30T13:34:10.708-07:002019-07-30T13:34:10.708-07:00Glad you were able to read about this. AnyongGlad you were able to read about this. AnyongAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-63474351797228208472019-07-29T19:19:34.957-07:002019-07-29T19:19:34.957-07:00.. I saw & read the first announcement re the ..... I saw & read the first announcement re the Teck Tar Sands project.. it was in a mainstream website as I recall. Perhaps from a link on Twitter. I complained at the time, that Canadians had received no real details, but that its to be very near Wood Buffalo National Park. Ms McKenna was quoted as per your post. But the money mentioned - hyped was astonishing over the duration of the enterprise.. staggering. Unheard of billions into the federal and provincial treasuries. No business case, no fact about open pit or in situ, no mention of fresh water source, no mention of resulting toxic water storage or venting. (We should know and vote on feds and Alberta 'negotiating' how quickly & how much may be dumped into OUR water tables, rather than stockpiled) No mention of the subsidies, tax credits, not a mention of a verified buyer (what country) or pipeline shipping deal. <br /><br />Seemingly its a miracle. 'Unfairly Discounted' diluted bitumen goes in one end of a pipeline, presumably to Burnaby BC and pops out of a supertanker to somewhere as Brent Benchmark 'Oil' .. Jeebuz and the loaves & fishes go to Tidywater.. and soon after cometh The Bitumen Rapture ? And who is actually bankrolling this miracle.. well, that's you Mound, me, Michel Bernier, ms Rempel.. not Scheer or Trudeau.. we pay their expenses anyway.. Not a mention of Remediation (we will pay for that too, and every Albertan as well.. but not Jason Kenney) No mention of expected & understood emissions.. again, its an f'n miracle.. its the increasing of emissions that will lower emissions.. What th Fluck ? Is that 'known science' ?? Is that a new wave magic mushroom or peyote algorithm ? A new religious belief ? Someone is going to make a shiteload of $$ on our dime.. and the political collusion will be obvious and astonishing.. cue the dancing unicorns !! Calloo Kallay ! Hurray !!!!!the salamanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853337802990122289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-92074491536738707072019-07-29T19:18:06.399-07:002019-07-29T19:18:06.399-07:00Eventually the shale oil of the USA will disappear...Eventually the shale oil of the USA will disappear as the economics and the renewable competition heats up.<br />Tarsands has a long way to go before it becomes too expensive to mine.<br />Pressure will bear on the employees as mechanisation creeps in to it's production.<br />As for the political caste.<br />I do not know of one western country regardless of politics that has not succumbed to the oil lobby or any other resource extraction lobby!<br />We all know that the Conservatives succumb to easy pickings of big business but recent( last 20 years) governments right or left wing have towed the line and cow towed to the same.<br />I say this at this time as our NDP (quasi socialist government) ignores the plight of forestry workers and allows endless export of lumber and also ore and coal for use elsewhere.<br />At this point in time alternatives to the status quo, of government, do not exist.<br /><br />TBTrailblazerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08065775238162848249noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-52595179824625654102019-07-29T13:25:31.780-07:002019-07-29T13:25:31.780-07:00When I created my blog a dozen plus years ago I de...<br />When I created my blog a dozen plus years ago I dedicated it to "the restoration of progressive democracy." It wasn't long before I began delving into the issue of social cohesion and what might result if we failed to arrest its decline. We didn't arrest its retreat. There was no progressive restoration. We went the other way and that culminated in the rise of authoritarian hustlers like Trump, Johnson, Bernier and so many others.<br /><br />Now the wonks tell us that we've become divided into camps that don't communicate and, worse, despise each other. <br /><br />I'm too cynical to believe this social fracture is entirely inadvertent. After all it delivered Trump his "base" and Johnson his Brexiteer faction. <br /><br />Look at our own Canada where majority rule passes from Conservative to Liberal and back again on the strength of three or four per cent while more than three out of five voters are shut out.<br /><br />Then you have the neoliberal order by which majority governments elected with the support of fewer than two out of five voters still delegate incidents of sovereignty, through global trade agreements, to the private sector. What does that do but further weaken the bond between government and the public to accommodate the partnership of the political caste and the corporate sector?<br /><br />Under these conditions societies are beginning to delaminate, layers becoming factions that wind up fighting over scraps.<br /><br />When you're gifted a majority government on fewer than two out of five votes cast and then it turns out that false majority you won was based on empty promises, where does that government find its legitimacy except in technicalities and regulations? Is that democracy? It certainly isn't liberal democracy. Progressivism is all but extinguished. We turn on each other.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-55169325846676411222019-07-29T12:43:35.554-07:002019-07-29T12:43:35.554-07:00I read the Hedges'piece this morning as well, ...I read the Hedges'piece this morning as well, Mound. He clearly has this all figured out, but because the truth of what he writes is so inconvenient, it will be, as usual, ignored. I have no doubt we will continue on our present course.Lornehttps://politicsanditsdiscontents.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com