So What's Our Excuse?

Amnesty International is urging Britain's Cameron government to stop arms shipments to Saudi Arabia.  Amnesty claims the weapons are being used to deliberately slaughter civilians in Houthi-rebel controlled parts of Yemen.

Amnesty said it found a pattern of “appalling disregard” for civilian lives by the Saudi-led coalition in an investigation of 13 air strikes in north-eastern Saada governorate during May, June and July: these killed some 100 civilians – including 59 children and 22 women and injured a further 56, including 18 children.

Since last March coalition air strikes have hit homes, schools, markets and other civilian infrastructure, as well as miltiary objectives. Saada, a Houthi stronghold, has been badly hit. Thousands who remain in the governorate “live in constant fear of the airstrikes and dire humanitarian conditions”, Amnesty says.

Canada is also on the Saudi weapons of indiscriminate destruction/war crimes gravy train with Harper having inked a $15-billion deal for the sale of light armoured fighting vehicles (light tanks) presumably for democracy suppression patrols. The deal supposedly gags Harper from discussing (having to explain) the sale but seemingly leaves him quite free to excuse it on the basis that, if we didn't sell Saudis its instruments of carnage then some other nation would.

For the radical Sunni Muslim House of Saud, being a Shiite Muslim is enough to qualify you for live-fire target practice.  Fortunately, that exempts the devoutly Sunni al Qaeda, al Nusra and ISIS terrorists/insurgents from Saudi bloodlust. Yemen's Houthi rebels daily fight ISIS and al Qaeda forces while the Saudis, with the active support of Canada, Britain and the US, wage a ground and air war against the Houthis.

If you're interested in this curious murderous mess, check out this episode of VICE TV. The Houthi segment begins at the 17:00 minute mark. It's an eye-opener.



Keeping with the theme of "So What's Our Excuse?" let's talk bitumen and the armada of supertankers that may soon ply British Columbia's coast.  Roger Annis has written an important report, "The Canadian Election and the Global Climate Crisis," for CounterPunch that should be required reading for every British Columbian before they vote in the federal election.  The only party that's even partly standing up for this province and our incredibly fragile ecosystems is Elizabeth May's Green Party and even May is a bit wobbly on bitumen trafficking.

Which brings us to the first segment of the VICE TV episode above concerning the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and how BP used a highly toxic chemical, Corexit, that, instead of dispersing the oil as promised simply made it far more lethal and sank it to contaminate the bottom and the marine life that is found there. Watch it. It's a genuine call to arms.

h/t Northern PoV

That Cold Lake Bitumen Spill - It Just Keeps Rollin' Along

The 10-week old Cold Lake bitumen spill is expected to stop - basically whenever it stops itself.   The company, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., says there's nothing it can do to staunch the leak other than collect whatever bitumen it can from the surface and haul out the dead animals.

On Wednesday morning, the company said in a conference call that it had identified a few older, inactive wells—one of which dates back to 1997—as probable culprits. At least one of the suspect wells were drilled by a prior operator, the company said. When a well casing failed, according to the company, oil started seeping out through the surrounding ground, eventually impacting a 50-acre swath.

...the company said that bitumen—the heavy tar that bitumen - the heavy tar that can be processed into oil - migrated up from an old, compromised wellbore, eventually bubbling up at four different sites.  According to the company, it's similar to a 2009 incident at the same site, when the casing of a well failed and bitumen started seeping to the surface. 

A well-casing failed?  What a fluke.  Not.  Well casings can deteriorate long after they're capped.  Most times they're out of sight and out of mind.  That goes for fracked gas wells - in spades.  As mentioned yesterday, between 5 to 7% of new oil and gas wells leak, a number that grows to 30 to 50% as those wells age.  Oh dear.

Everything You Need to Know About DilBit

Confused about diluted bitumen, the stuff Ottawa and Alberta are so determined to push through British Columbia?  It's not easy to find balanced information on dilbit so it was great to find a "Dilbit Primer" published by Inside Climate News. 

The primer doesn't answer every question and is remarkably candid about issues that remain uncertain.   Yet it's more than enough to show that we need some answers to some pretty tough questions before leaping headlong into bitumen pipelines to the west coast.