South America Backs Ecuador on Assange Asylum

This takes everything to a whole new level.   The 12-foreign ministers of the Union of South American Nations have joined in support of a resolution backing Ecuador in granting asylum to Julian Assange and calling for a negotiated settlement.

"We reiterate the right of states to grant political and diplomatic asylum," the bloc's joint statement read.

Ministers at the UNASUR meeting ...were also critical of Britain's role in the diplomatic conflict, expressing "solidarity with and support for the government of Ecuador in the face of threats against its embassy in Britain."

Oh my, my.  It's curious to see so many South American countries showing this degree of solidarity and defiance of their Western "betters."   This is not the way we brought them up to behave.

Pussy Riot Needles Putin

They're off for two years in the slam for mocking Russia's thug-in-chief, Vlad Putin, but Pussy Riot left a parting gift - a video entitled "Putin Lights Up the Fires."


                   
                   
                   




A good stretch from the Delta Blues I prefer but it does make its point.              

"Legitimate Rape"

Missouri Republican senate candidate Todd Akin is against abortion - under any circumstances - and that includes what he calls "legitimate rape."   According to Akin, victims of legitimate rape have some internal switch that prevents the woman from conceiving.

                 
                   
                   
 
It turns out Akins didn't come to his perverted views all on his own.  He's actually a follower of the radical Christian pastor D. James Kennedy.

Kennedy, who the Anti-Defamation League has termed a “Christian supremacist,” repeatedly railed against legalized abortion, calling it the “American Holocaust” and suggesting that it would lead inevitably to genocide in the United States. But Kennedy’s discussions of rape and abortion in particular betray extraordinarily disturbing views about rape victims: 

Kennedy believed that rape victims who chose abortion are “hysterical.” In “Abortion: Myths and Realities,” Kennedy labels victims of rape who chose unsafe abortions when safer procedures are illegal “hysterical,” saying “We are told by some of the radical feminists that the women will become hysterical, that they will abort themselves with coat hanger.” Abortion rates are, in fact, higher in nations where the procedure is criminalized, and men describing women whose choices they disapprove of as “hysterical” has a storied sexist history.

Kennedy suggests rape victims can be responsible for being raped. In “Life: An Inalienable Right,” Kennedy expresses concern that rape victims who chose to get an abortion are occasionally responsible for their own rape, saying that “Even if they want to say the woman had some part in it—which in most cases they probably don’t—surely the baby did nothing wrong, so the only innocent party is killed and the rapist often goes free.” He doesn’t elaborate on how this might be true, but another Kennedy sermon says “the immodest woman is contributing to the lust of other people” by wearing revealing clothing.

Kennedy thought husbands should determine if their wives can have abortions. Though not specifically addressing rape, Kennedy approvingly cited a Roman prohibition on abortion motivated by the husbands should have control over women’s reproductive choice, saying “That newly created life is as much the husband’s as it is the wife’s. Historically, it is interesting to note that when the Roman Empire did away with laws that allowed abortion, it was done not because of the woman or the harm that abortions were doing to women (and indeed they do vastly more harm than most people are aware of), but because the husband was being defrauded of his progeny.” Interestingly, Akin has worried that criminalizing marital rape provides women “a legal weapon to beat up on the husband.”

This is a nation gone utterly mad.

                 

The Treacherous Prime Minister

Douglas Channel

Steve Harper's environmental assessment of the Northern Gateway bitumen pipeline proposal is an utter sham.   Steve says the fate of the pipeline will be decided by science but, after so many years, anyone who puts stock in what Steve says is, well, let's say cognitively impaired.

The fact is that the Harper regime is doing everything in its power to ensure that science doesn't intrude on the assessment travesty.   It wouldn't do to thwart its pre-ordained conclusion.

Documents filed with the National Energy Board show the environmental review panel studying the Northern Gateway project asked Fisheries and Oceans Canada for risk assessments for the bodies of water the proposed pipeline will cross. The pipeline is to traverse nearly 1,000 streams and rivers in the upper Fraser, Skeena and Kitimat watersheds.

The department didn't have them.

The department doesn't have them and there's no chance in hell it will have them by the short-fuze deadline Harper has imposed on the hearing process.

Earlier this month, Harper told reporters in Vancouver that "decisions on these kinds of projects are made through an independent evaluation conducted by scientists into the economic costs and risks that are associated with the project, and that's how we conduct our business."

...But the federal government recently sent letters to 92 habitat staff members within Fisheries and Oceans in B.C., telling them that their positions will be cut. Thirty-two of them will be laid off outright.

The cuts will mean the department in B.C. has half the habitat staff it had a decade ago.

All but five of the province's fisheries field offices will be cut as part of a $79 million — 5.8 per cent — cut to the department's operational budget, including the offices in Prince George and Smithers that would have had the lead in monitoring pipeline effects.

The marine contaminant group that would have been involved in a spill in B.C. has been disbanded and the fisheries and environmental legislation gutted, said Otto Langer, a retired fisheries department scientist.

"He (Harper) says the science will make the decision. Well he's basically disembowelled the science," said Langer. "It's a cruel hoax that they're pulling over on the public."

Harper, the grand corrupter, has obviously done a job on the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.  Even though the DFO hasn't done the studies necessary for the Northern Gateway assessment, it has nonetheless given the project the "all clear."

 "Fisheries and Oceans Canada has provided its assessment and is of the view that the risk posed by the project to fish and fish habitat in the freshwater and marine environments can be managed by the proponent through appropriate mitigation and compensation measures," said the email, which echoed the response sent to the panel.

"The Department notes in its submission that the proponent has conducted a reasonable ecological risk assessment and provided useful information on the risks that an oil spill (in either marine or freshwater) would pose to fisheries resources."

Some experts smell a rat.

"It (the response from Fisheries to the panel) implies that the request to the joint review panel will not be answerable until after a decision has been made, until after the project has been approved," said Jeffrey Hutchings, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University.

"This seems, from a science perspective, a rather indefensible position in so far as a key part of the environmental review process is to evaluate the degree to which the pipeline will affect fish habitat."

..."Well, how can you make that judgment when you have not yet conducted a complete review of all proposed crossings?" he said. "Again, from a science perspective, I don't see how it's possible to be able to draw that conclusion."

This is treachery and nothing but treachery that begins in Ottawa in the prime minister's office and reaches all the way to Kitimat, the Douglas Channel, the Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance.   But Harper's Potemkin Village environmental assessment isn't fooling the people of British Columbia and we're a force the Great Fixer can't begin to reckon with.

Enbridge Treachery

The pipeline operator is working overtime to turn its Northern Gateway initiative into some abstract debate on resource wealth and opportunity (for some).   It even produces animated video that greets viewers with totally misleading images.   Here's what Enbridge, Alberta, and Ottawa  don't want you thinking about.

*This is not an Enbridge animation from Shortt and Epic Productions on Vimeo.

Update - a week+ later.   Now we're learning that veteran Conservative ministers are sensing that Harper is losing control of  bitumen trafficking in British Columbia.   They see Harper, in a "best case" scenario, left clinging to some bare minority should he lose BC in trying to sacrifice her to Alberta and Big Oil.

As a proud denizen of the coast I can tell you that most of us were less influenced by what Harper might do to us for opposing than what failing to stand up for British Columbia could mean to our grandkids.   We began with the premise that this has to be stopped.   What remains to be seen is how disastrously we can clog up Harper's penal/criminal justice system and for how many generations that will transform this province into electoral scorched earth for the Cons.

Brace Yourself

Many Canadian municipalities are starting to come to grips with what climate change will mean to their cities and what they need to do, now, to adapt.   This item from TorStar is a pretty graphic depiction of what Toronto is facing even as its beached whale of a first magistrate remains oblivious or at least indifferent to the future.   It's worth  read because it addresses changes that most of you will live long enough to experience.

Here on the island, Victoria is being warned to prepare for wetter, more stormy winters but also hotter, dryer summer conditions.   But it's Vancouver that faces the greatest challenges from climate change.   The combination of heavy winter mountain snowpacks and early spring melt brings flooding to the rivers of the Lower Mainland.   That will be compounded by sea level rise and the likelihood of severe storm surges.   And, if that wasn't trouble enough, large parts of the low-lying communities (below sea level in fact) in the Lower Mainland are subsiding.   With a freshwater flooding problem and a sea water flooding problem, it's not a particularly good time to be sinking.

Quebeckers are also being warned to prepare for severe impacts from climate change.

“It is striking that over the last 10 to 15 years we didn’t have a single season colder than normal,” said Alain Bourque, director of climate change impacts and adaptation at Quebec’s climate change research institute Ouranos. “That is a clear indication that Canada’s climate is heating up beyond any reasonable doubt.”

While most Quebecers may cheer the warmer winters, Bourque warns it is already endangering coastlines, the northern communities that are built on permafrost and our forests, which probably will not be able to adapt fast enough to a warmer climate.

The prairie provinces see in climate change the risk for heatwaves coupled with severe and extended drought similar to what much of the United States is experiencing this year.   Climate change has been identified as causing shrinkage in the northern boreal forests of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.   All three provinces are worried about the security of their water supply.

 It may be that up to 98% of Canadians now accept the reality of man-made climate change but you would never know it from the Petro-Pols of Parliament Hill.   Harper, presumably, is desperate to avoid anything linking climate change and his bitumen trafficking.   That must be why he has chosen a true weasel to serve as his EnviroMin.  

There is much to do and time wasted may come at considerable cost.    As the TorStar article pointed out, a lot of Canada's infrastructure is vulnerable to climate change.   And the greatest threat will come from spikes - sudden extreme heatwaves or rainfall inundation triggering flash floods - the problems we're already seeing elsewhere.   The degraded eastern electricity grid is vulnerable to outages from these spikes.

Changes that just a few years ago we were expecting to arrive by 2020 or 2030 are already becoming reality.   Our optimistic outlooks, coupled by a monstrously successful denialist rear-guard action, have left us well behind events and will require far greater efforts to catch up. 

Not White Enough for Canada

The new $100 bill featured the image of a woman peering into a microscope.   That is until a focus group decided the woman looked, gasp, "Asian."   So, relax, you're not going to be having any yellow women on your hard-earned huns.  The Bank of Canada has laundered the bill, altering the image so the woman no longer looks evil, inscrutable, dangerous.   She's now genuine white bread.

America Has Wiped Out Its Middle Class. Time for Canada to Follow Suit?

That's likely the message Harper FinMin and garden gnome Jim Flaherty will get when he gets together with his future employers top Canadian CEOs for his annual summer "policy retreat."   Flaherty, it seems, wines and dines the Big Boys and they return his generosity in the form of legislative wish lists.   Here's what they dished up last year.

According to documents obtained by the Globe and Mail, at last year's sessions the minister was urged to adopt measures to reduce the pay of Canadian workers, limit union power by enacting U.S.-style right-to-work legislation, and allow two-tier health care.

Labour issues surface in several discussion categories, with the general view that Canadian workers are overpriced.

"Need to address wage differentials in labor market among countries; we are losing jobs to other countries," reads a point-form summary of one of the discussions.

"Right to Work legislation should be pondered as it creates inequities in productivity; US example was provided."

There were also calls for a higher retirement age and to open Canada's shipping, telecom and airline industries to more foreign competition.

The CEOs are certainly bold enough but they know that, in Flaherty and Harper, they're dealing with the most corporatist government in Canadian history.

That Limbaugh Stain is Hard to Get Out

The protest-driven advertiser revolt against Rush Limbaugh seems deeper than might have been expected.

Cumulus Media, a major affiliate of Rush Limbaugh's show reported millions of dollars in losses attributable Limbaugh's advertiser troubles.

During a call with investors Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey acknowledged Limbaugh's "drag" on business while being careful not to mention Limbaugh by name.

...Dickey said that, though his profits were up in his latest quarter, his revenues were down thanks to ten out of the 570 stations he owns. These stations, he said, were mostly "news/talk" formats in major media markets.

Dickey chalked up the sluggish performance -- the top three stations cost him $5.5 million, he said -- in part to "some extraordinary issues," such as "the boycott that we saw from some remarks in a talk radio show." That, he said, had "impacted us." (emphasis added)

Someone Was Convicted of Murder, Just Not the Murderer

Someone was convicted of murdering British businessman Neill Heywood in Beijing, only it might not have been the accused, Gu Kailai, the wife of the disgraced politician Bo Xilai.   The Chinese court found Gu Kailai guilty of the crime only the woman in court was a stand-in, a double.

Reports have been coming out lately about how rich Chinese have a habit of hiring stand-ins to take their place in court - and, later, in prison.   The stand-ins do the time, usually for a handsome paycheque.

This is the real Gu Kailai

This is the woman tried as Gu Kailai

The scam has sparked outrage from the far left and the far right.  It does, however, explain how the trial ended the day it began with a quick admission of guilt.    Why waste money on courts and lawyers when the accused already has a stand-in ready to go to prison?

It Was True Then, It's Just as True Now

“You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.” Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1916-1939)

Will Britain Wage War on Ecuador to Deliver Assange to U.S.?

Ecuador has granted Julian Assange political asylum within its embassy in London.   The Brits claim they have some right to attack the Ecuadorian embassy to seize Assange, presumably to facilitate his delivery to the United States.

Is this really what it's come to?   Is this what it takes to shred the last vestige of international comity?  Can anybody else see where this road is heading?

Maybe this sort of thing doesn't even really matter any more.   Maybe we are headed toward a negation of the era of enlightenment.   I just don't know and almost everyone else simply doesn't care.  At my age, I'm out of here soon enough but a lot of you won't get out soon enough and you're going to have to live in the world they're carving out for you right now, like this and in so many other ways.   Are you really going to live this way?  I mean, I don't know.

Everybody Loves Marineland!

I don't have many grievances with Ontario but Marineland is a huge exception.   For some reason the ads run all summer out here on the coast.    They highlight two things that obviously go together, orca and roller coasters.   Whenever the ad runs my blood boils a little bit as I ask what kind of asshole thinks southern Ontario a fit place to house captive orca and other marine life.

I saw captive orca a couple of times back when they used to keep one or two at the Vancouver Aquariam.   That was early on in the killer whale craze and, to their credit, they came to their senses many years ago and stopped keeping orca in captivity.   And remember, those whales were kept to very high standards.

Orca are intelligent, communal creatures that belong in only one place - in the wild with their pods.  We have no business keeping them for public amusement and profit in what are, in reality, display toilets.   Christ, can't you teach Rob Ford to broach on cue?

Now it turns out, as I long suspected, that the marine life at Marineland are mistreated, neglected and, in some cases, consigned to miserable death.  Read this and see what's going on in your own back yard.   Is it really too much for Ontario to do the right thing and stop this monstrosity?

Climate Change Denialism Hits 2% Among Canadians

Only two per cent of Canadians believe climate change is not happening.   Two per cent, just one-in-fifty.

The findings are in a survey conducted by Insightrix Research, Inc. for IPAC-CO2 Research Inc., a Regina-based centre that studies carbon capture and storage.

The online poll of 1,550 people was done between May 29 and June 11. The results were to be released on Wednesday.

"Our survey indicates that Canadians from coast to coast overwhelmingly believe climate change is real and is occurring, at least in part due to human activity," said centre CEO Carmen Dybwad.

Respondents were asked where they stood on the issue of climate change.

Almost one-third -- 32 per cent -- said they believe climate change is happening because of human activity, while 54 per cent said they believe it's because of human activity and partially due to natural climate variation. Nine per cent believe climate change is occurring due to natural climate variation.

Two per cent said they don't believe climate change is occurring at all.

Not surprisingly, the prairie region had the highest rate of denialism.    Ontario, Quebec and B.C. were on the far end of the spectrum.

The survey found 44 per cent of Quebec respondents, 34 per cent of Atlantic Canadian respondents and 32 per cent of those surveyed in British Columbia are likely to believe climate change is occurring due to human activity. Alberta and Saskatchewan came in at 21 per cent while Manitoba was at 24 per cent.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/poll-most-canadians-believe-climate-change-is-happening-1.914755#ixzz23cwAXf4S

Another Outrage for Coastal British Columbians

This is what you're up against when Ottawa, Alberta, Big Oil and Enbridge come to play.   The pipeline operator, gaming an already rigged system for clearance to build the Northern Gateway pipeline/Kitimat supertanker operation has released a video on its web site in which it shows the Douglas Channel these tankers will have to ply to make their way into the even more treacherous Hecate Strait.   This is how Enbridge wants you to see it.

For the purposes of public relations, however, Enbridge's depiction sweeps the Douglas Channel clean.   It removes Coste Island, Dorothy Island; Kitsaway, Gribbell and Gill Islands; Loretta, Maitland and Hawksbury Islands; Promise, Hinton and Farrant Islands;  Fin, Campania and Ashdown Islands;  South Moresby Island and Grenville Channel.   And, naturally, the Enbridge depiction shows nothing of the threacherous currents and tides that race through these narrow passages nor any of the innumerable rock features that lie just below the surface lying in wait for a passing tanker gone slightly astray.

To Enbridge, the route out of Kitimat is all clear sailing which, given the way Harper's environmental assessment process has been rigged, is probably a safe bet.   What's not safe, with the "Keystone Kops" of bitumen trafficking, is the British Columbia coast.

Note- if you compare the Enbridge screen shot of Douglas Channel with the actual map you'll see the tanker shown in black appears to have run aground on Gribbell Island.  Quelle surprise!

Julian Assange Granted Asylum

The Guardian reports that Ecuador has granted Julian Assange political asylum.   Given that the WikiLeaks founder remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, it's unclear whether asylum will mean he gets to stay there indefinitely.

"Ecuador will grant asylum to Julian Assange," said an official in the Ecuadorean capital Quito, who is familiar with the government discussions.
.
..it remains unclear if giving Assange asylum will allow him to leave Britain and fly to Ecuador, or amounts to little more than a symbolic gesture. At the moment he faces the prospect of arrest as soon as he leaves the embassy for breaching his bail conditions.

"For Mr Assange to leave England, he should have a safe pass from the British [government]. Will that be possible? That's an issue we have to take into account," Patino told Reuters on Tuesday.

Government sources in Quito confirmed that despite the outstanding legal issues Correa would grant Assange asylum – a move which would annoy Britain, the US and Sweden. They added that the offer was made to Assange several months ago, well before he sought refuge in the embassy, and following confidential negotiations with senior London embassy staff.

...Ecuadorean diplomats believe Assange is at risk of being extradited from Sweden to the US, where he could face the death penalty. Assange's supporters claim the US has already secretly indicted him following WikiLeaks' release in 2010 of US diplomatic cables, as well as classified Afghan and Iraq war logs.

Correa and Patiño have both said that Ecuador will take a sovereign decision regarding Assange. They say they view his case as a humanitarian act, and are seeking to protect Assange's right to life and freedom. On Monday the state-run newspaper El Telégrafo confirmed a decision had been made, although the paper did not specify what that decision was. It said that senior officials had been meeting in the past few days to iron out the last legal details.

Summer Funnies

Ah, takes you back to those great childhood years

Another Glimpse Into the Warfare State

Further evidence that America is being transformed into a genuine "warfare state" comes from a report in Wired magazine that the Pentagon is planning to unleash SEAL teams to attack and kill drug lords south of the U.S. border.

"According to anonymous Mexican and U.S. military sources cited by Proceso magazine (translated from Spanish), the plan involves sending Navy SEALs by helicopter after the Sinaloa Cartel kingpin, who is rumored to be hiding in the mountains of the western Mexican states of Sinaloa and Durango. The SEALs would be divided into two teams — one would land and attack, and the other would stay airborne — assisted by three unmanned drones packing missiles.
"After locating El Chapo, the SEALs would “eliminate any of Chapo’s security on the spot … as they did with the ‘Bin Laden’ operation,” according to Proceso. If El Chapo is killed, the SEALs would take the kingpin’s body with them. The plan is reported to have been ordered by the Pentagon and Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which oversees military operations in North America. If enacted, U.S. officials would observe from the White House and NORTHCOM headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. The plan is also reported to be U.S.-only, excluding the Mexican military.

"...According to Proceso, outgoing President Felipe Calderón was reportedly keen to the idea, but faced objections from the Mexican army and navy. The Mexican navy — which includes Mexico’s marines — is one of the main strike forces against the cartels. An American strike would also blatantly violate Mexican law, which prohibits foreign military and law enforcement agencies from operating on Mexican soil, except under tightly controlled conditions and never armed.
"There’s also the risk of inflaming sentiment against the United States. Although there’s a growing minority of Mexican citizens who support greater U.S. involvement, including intervention, the Mexican public is largely opposed to the idea. In 2011, worsening drug violence and discussions of a greater U.S. intervention helped contribute to a nadir in U.S.-Mexico relations. The Wall Street Journal reported that Mexican officials were “enraged” by the suggestion of sending U.S. troops. For criticizing the effectiveness of the Mexican military, the former U.S. ambassador, Carlos Pascual, was thrown out of the country. The $1.6 billion Merida Initiative, which provides U.S. aid for Mexico’s military, has more political support but has faced intense opposition from academics, journalists and human rights activists."

The possibilities for unanticipated blowback from this sort of thing are considerable.   America once ruled the roost over the OAS countries.   The Monroe Doctrine established the U.S. as hegemon in South and Central America.   Now those same countries are breaking free from what many see as generations of American control.   The region's trade is now stronger with China than with the United States.   The days where America could, with impunity, unleash unilateral, blatantly illegal military violence upon Latin America may be over and something like this could hasten that end.

Northern Gateway Hearings a Stacked Deck

Those who suspect that Steve Harper has "fixed" the environmental assessment of the Northern Gateway pipeline initiative won't be surprised to learn the board reviewing the proposal has ruled the U.S. Transportation Safety Board report into the Enbridge pipeline fiasco on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan won't be admitted into evidence.

"...the board's report won't be viewed as reliable evidence and won't be considered in the panel's final ruling, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Annie Roy, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, said the board's reports can only be used as "an aid to cross-examination" during the oral questioning period.

"An aid to cross-examination is generally not considered evidence and cannot be relied on for the truth of its content," Roy said in an email.

"[The TSB Kalamazoo report] will not typically be included on the public registry and will not be considered by the panel when making its recommendations. The panel will however consider the answers provided to questions using the aid."

In other words, Enbridge gets to spin this any way it likes and that will be accepted by Harper's rigged jury.

In Saudia Arabia, This is Progress?

Saudi women are being given a portal to industry, sort of.   The government is building what sounds like a glorified industrial park that will be exclusively women-only.

The city, to be built in the Eastern Province city of Hofuf, is set to be the first of several planned for the Gulf kingdom. The aim is to allow more women to work and achieve greater financial independence, but to maintain the gender segregation, according to reports.

Segregation of the sexes is applied in Saudi Arabia, where Wahabi sharia law and tribal customs combine to create an ultra-conservative society that still does not allow women to drive. Saudi women are said to make up about 15% of the workforce, with most in female-only work places.

The proposals follow government instructions to create more job openings for women to enable them to have a more important role in the country's development.

I think I've heard of this idea before.   Oh yeah but back then they were called "plantations."