Israel Threatens Iran, Tehran Says Thanks!

Here's the premise. One of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert's deputies announces that an Israeli strike on Iran might be "unavoidable" if Tehran continues to pursue its nuclear weapons programme, i.e. nuclear enrichment.

Haven't we seen this movie before?

Washington kick-started Iran's ascendancy in the Muslim world by going to war against Iraq. That allowed Iraq to fall under Shiite control, enormously boosting Iran's influence and prestige. Then Iran bankrolled Hezbollah and Hamas, extending its sphere of influence from the Persian Gulf all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.

Lately Iran has picked up a couple of new patrons - Russia and China. China wants a secure source of oil, an energy "leg up" over India and the U.S. Russia wants to manage the control of Iranian oil and natural gas to help it tighten its control over Europe's energy supplies. Both want to put a dent in American hegemony over the area. To this end, Russia has supplied Iran with some of its latest surface-to-air missile batteries while China has delivered what may be the most sophisticated and capable anti-ship cruise missiles on the planet.

Who would benefit from airstrikes against Iranian nuclear installations? Here's a clue - it's not Israel, it's not the United States, it's not the Sunni Arab states. The winner would be - Iran!

The Mullahs and Ayatollahs in Tehran face greater threats from within than from without. Iran's younger generation clamours for secular and democratic reforms. Yet these very same reformers warn anyone who'll listen that an attack on their homeland would drive them right behind the Tehran government in support of their country. Attacking Iran, in effect, could unify Iran, bolster solidarity for Tehran throughout the Muslim world and cause the Shia regions to coalesce ever more strongly behind it. That could play proper hell with American forces in a seemingly more tranquil Iraq and could also impact on the war in Afghanistan.

If Israel attacks it's a fair bet that Iran will retaliate against the West. It could withhold its own oil exports and block most other oil shipments through the Persian Gulf with its anti-ship missiles. That could be enough to collapse many Western economies. It could likewise drive a wedge between the Israeli/American coalition and Europe while simultaneously improving Russia's and China's hands in the region and elsewhere.

So, what's the answer? I don't know but it certainly isn't resort to airstrikes. That route is a temporary solution, at best, but fraught with so many downsides as to make it ludicrous. Do we really need Israel doing for Iran the same favour it did for Hezbollah in Lebanon?

The solution might just lie in taking Washington and Israel out of the equation altogether and entrusting the problem to more effective intermediaries, Russia perhaps, while contenting ourselves with sanctions and containment.

I only wish that the United States and Israel weren't, at this critical moment, saddled with two of their most inept leaders in history.

Another Harpie Heading for the Toolbox?

I never understood Jim Flaherty.

There was always something about the guy that didn't add up, that seemed somehow off. He wasn't what we've come to expect in a Finance Minister. He wasn't that essential bit reserved and considered. Instead he more closely resembled the beer hall brawler on a Saturday night at closing time.

Flaherty exuded a dull and brutish tone, presenting a character that seemed to constantly embrace a simmering belligerence. He always struck me as a tad unhinged. Come to think of it, that could equally well describe Harper's EnviroMin, John Baird. Maybe there's something in that flawed character profile that genuinely appeals to our Furious Leader. But I digress.

In the Toronto Star, Chantal Hebert ponders what may be, for Flaherty, the end of the road:

"In the week since Bernier's resignation, Flaherty's future as finance minister has become the focal point of the upcoming cabinet shuffle. One way or another, his fate will reveal more about Stephen Harper's mindset in the lead-up to a possible fall election than any other cabinet move.

Earlier this week Flaherty's cabinet future, rather than Bernier's romantic past, was the prime topic of speculation at Stéphane Dion's end-of-session garden party. Almost to a man and a woman, senior Liberals expect the Prime Minister to seize the pretext of an unexpected shuffle to replace Flaherty with the less abrasive Jim Prentice.

With cabinet fever running rampant within Conservative ranks and with at least a half-dozen ministers pining for new assignments, the impetus for a major shuffle has been gaining momentum daily on Parliament Hill.

But the finance minister is a central figure of the cabinet. His role is ultimately more pivotal than that of the foreign affairs minister; to replace Flaherty at this advanced stage in the life of the government would be a delicate operation.

On the other hand, if the Conservatives do want to run as the team best equipped to deal with a flagging economy in the next election, Harper has no interest in going into the campaign with his current finance minister.

Flaherty may not have been the only minister from Ontario to engage in a war of words with Queen's Park but it was his vocal part in the federal attacks on Dalton McGuinty that seemed to finally gel the province's public opinion and send Conservative popularity on a downward spin this spring.

With satisfaction with the government declining in tandem with public confidence in the economy, Flaherty's credentials as a former Mike Harris minister do little to dispel the perception that Harper's regime is short on sensitivity and compassion."

But we shouldn't be too hard on Jim Flaherty. There's no way he could have gotten away with his bellicosity toward Queens Park except with Stephen Harper's approval.

Maybe we should pity Flaherty. After all, he's coming out of this looking a bit like the loser in one of those internet street brawls where the rubbies beat the hell out of each other for a bottle of hooch.

The Madness of King George w.

The adage about the futility of trying to drive a square peg into a round hole may serve as a handy metaphor to describe Washington's bungling throughout the Middle East.

There's no region on earth where the Bush regime has squandered more American lives, treasure and prestige than the Middle East and no place on earth where it has consistently failed so miserably. But don't take my word for it.

Look at places like Lebanon, Gaza and Syria. There has been progress made lately in all three hotspots and in each there appears to be one common factor - the United States has been dealt out. From The New York Times:

"In the last few weeks, three long-frozen conflicts in the Middle East have displayed early signs of thawing. Israel and Hamas may be inching toward a cease-fire that would end attacks by both sides and, perhaps, loosen the siege imposed on the impoverished Gaza Strip. The factions in Lebanon, after a long period of institutional paralysis and a near civil war, have reached a tentative political agreement. And eight years after their last negotiations, Israel and Syria have announced the resumption of indirect peace talks.

The Gaza deal is being brokered by Egypt. Qatar mediated the Lebanese accord. Turkey is shepherding the Israeli-Syrian contacts. All three countries are close allies of the United States. Under normal circumstances, they would be loath to act on vital regional matters without America’s consent.

Yet in these cases they seem to have ignored Washington’s preferences. The negotiations either involved parties with whom the United States refuses to talk, initiated a process the United States opposes or produced an outcome harmful to its preferred local allies.

The region is in a mess, and Washington’s allies know it. They privately blame the United States and have given up waiting for the Bush administration to offer them a way out.

By acting as they did, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey gave the true measure of America’s dwindling credibility and leverage after American debacles in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. They are willing to take matters into their own hands and overlook American ambivalence about their doing so.

Intent on isolating its foes, the United States has instead ended up marginalizing itself. In one case after another, the Bush administration has wagered on the losing party or on a lost cause.
Israel wants to deal with Hamas because it — not America’s Palestinian partners — possesses what Israel most wants: the ability to end the violence and to release Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hamas. Israel has come around to dealing with Syria because Damascus — not America’s so-called moderate Arab allies — holds the crucial cards: Syria has a clear strategy of alliance with Iran; it supports the more powerful forces on the ground in Lebanon; and it provides refuge to opposition and Islamist forces in Palestine.

Likewise, America’s Lebanese friends had to give in to Hezbollah’s demands once it became clear that the support of the United States could not undo their country’s balance of power. Meanwhile, the process President Bush seems to care about most — that elusive Israeli-Palestinian track — is also the least likely to go anywhere.

The United States has cut itself off from the region on the dubious assumption that it can somehow maximize pressure on its foes by withholding contact, choosing to flaunt its might in the most primitive and costly of ways. It has pushed its local allies toward civil wars — arming Fatah against Hamas; financing some Lebanese forces against Hezbollah — they could not and did not win. And it has failed to understand that its partners could achieve more in alliance than in conflict with their opposition."

American efforts in all three cases have also fallen flat because Washington keeps trying to add one additional, vexing layer to them - Iran. The U.S. sees Iran's evil hand as the culprit behind each crisis instead of understanding that Iran is mainly supporting Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria just as the U.S. has been supporting the other players in each conflict. Trying to somehow undo Iran on the backs of the crises in Palestine, Lebanon and the Golan Heights is beyond America's or anyone's power.

Once the Egyptians, the Qataris and the Turks engage the principles without the hurdles poised by the Washington-Iran conflict, progress is suddenly possible.

Arms Race Update - Space Wars

Is this blunt enough for you? From Asia Times Online:

"Chinese military experts believe a confrontation in space, probably with the United States, is inevitable. What they haven't said is whether they expect to win."

China is concerned because of Bush's space doctrine that reserves to the United States the unilateral authority to decide which nations will be allowed to use space and, more importantly, the right to prevent others from placing satellites or other space craft into orbit. Sound a tad arrogant, belligerent even? It is and the Chinese know the nation that Bush is referring to but won't mention is theirs.

So the Chinese, it appears, will be gearing up to muscle their way into a region which, in reality, belongs to no one.

"...since they successfully shot down an obsolete weather satellite with a missile in an outer orbit in January 2007, the Chinese armed forces have been operating from a position of relative strength.

So powerful was the impact from the four-stage rocket, which was traveling at nearly 29,000 kilometers an hour when it struck the satellite, that it scattered debris halfway around the globe. A definite footprint of strategic intent.

No surprise then, that the Pentagon responded in February this year by shooting down one of its own wayward satellites over the Pacific Ocean with a rocket, thus shattering a 1980s undertaking not to conduct antisatellite (ASAT) tests.

Thirty-two countries are known to have a missile capability, including Asian foes India and Pakistan, South and North Korea, Israel, Syria, Taiwan, Iran, Vietnam, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Russia, China and the US. Any could technically wage a military campaign in space, even if it were limited to ground-to-air strikes.

Most of these countries are signatories to the Outer Space Treaty, an agreement approved by the United Nations in 1967 after tortuous negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union - though China is one of the few nations to fully accede to its provisions.

Core commitments are that signatories will not place "nuclear or any other weapons of mass destruction", military installations or fortifications in orbit around the Earth or on any celestial body, undertake testing of weapons there or conduct military maneuvers.

Conventional weapons based in space are totally legal. And there is no prohibition on the firing of ground-based missiles into space, as both the US and Soviet Union were developing intercontinental missiles and peaceful space programs when the treaty was signed.

Similarly, there is wide scope for interpreting "weapons of mass destruction"; as US defense officials have pointed out, practically anything that could be propelled into space could be used to ram a satellite without violating the treaty."

China has succeeded in getting American right-wingers apoplectic and suspicious to the point of paranoia.

Heritage Foundation vice president for foreign policy and defense studies, Larry M Wortzel, railed in a commentary, "China's strategy here is to blunt American military superiority by limiting and ultimately neutralizing its existing space-based defense assets, and to forestall deployment of new technology that many experts believe would provide the best protection from ballistic missile attack."

The Chinese are also in development of a new generation of stealthy, small, satellite killers:

"The Technology Research Academy has been working on an advanced ASAT weapon called a "piggyback satellite" that would attach itself to an enemy satellite, space station or space-based laser and jam communications or blow up the target.

A generation of mini satellites is being developed that would be so small they would be difficult to detect from the ground. They are said to be defensive, but would still be capable of surveillance, reconnaissance, communications and - theoretically - the destruction of other satellites."

Meanwhile U.S. sources revealed today that China is poised to beat the Americans to the moon. The US landing is scheduled for 2020 but the Chinese are expected to make it there by 2017 or earlier.

By the way, if the Chinese and Americans ever do get into a battle in space, prepare to return to the 1950's. Everything from cell phones to aerial navigation will go down if - make that when - the cascade of debris begins, rapidly taking down satellites until all that's left is debris. And, when that happens, don't count on anyone fixing the problem anytime soon. We'll just have to sit and wait about two generations before all that space debris falls back to earth before it'll be safe enough to put anything back up there again.

The Subjugation of Iraq

George w. Bush may have just handed victory to Barack Obama and a crushing defeat to John McCain.

The British newspaper The Independent reports it has obtained leaked details of the impending security agreement soon to be inked by the Maliki government in Baghdad:

"A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 – 10 000 more than when the military "surge" began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.

The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. "It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty," said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimise the government in Baghdad which will be seen as an American pawn.

The US has repeatedly denied it wants permanent bases in Iraq but one Iraqi source said: "This is just a tactical subterfuge." Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft and the right to pursue its "war on terror" in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation.

Mr Bush is determined to force the Iraqi government to sign the so-called "strategic alliance" without modifications, by the end of next month. But it is already being condemned by the Iranians and many Arabs as a continuing American attempt to dominate the region. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful and usually moderate Iranian leader, said yesterday that such a deal would create "a permanent occupation". He added: "The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans."


The newspaper reports that al-Maliki also doesn't like the agreement but feels he must sign it because his government cannot survive without American support.

John McCain's position that the war in Iraq needs to continue is based on his claim that the surge is working, that violence is waning in Iraq and al-Qaeda is on the run. This "status of forces" treaty, due to be inked next month, is bound to spark unrest - the sort of violence McCain claims is dying out. It will vindicate al Sadr's claim that Iraq is facing permanent occupation and it will cast Maliki's government as eerily similar to Petain's Vichy rule under Nazi occupation.

What Bush doesn't appear to have considered is how his successor is to come up with the forces necessary to keep this farce going. With some poor saps already on their fourth and fifth combat tours in the War Without End on Terror, a ground force that's nearly broken, a recruiting machine that is so desperate it's scraping the barrel and still coming up short, and a population at home simply fed up with Iraq - the only way they're going to be able to staff those 50-permanent bases is with fresh blood and that, in turn, means bringing back the draft.

Another little point. Who's going to pick up the tab for this infinite adventure? I don't think American voters, when presented with the cost they've already incurred in the form of government borrowing and the additional fortune it would cost to maintain the American legions in Mesopotamia, will accept that when they go to the polls in November.

Once this comes out in the open it can only reinforce al Sadr's demand for a referendum to let the Iraqi people decide whether American troops should go or stay.

I think this plan is an enormous blunder, even by the standards of the man whose entire administration has been a succession of blunders.

LIAR, LIAR

The US Senate Intelligence Committee has finally said it - George w. Bush and Dick Cheney deliberately made public statements to promote an invasion of Iraq that they knew at the time were not supported by available intelligence.

There's the verdict. They weren't mistaken. They weren't misled by faulty intelligence. It wasn't just an honest mistake. THEY LIED!

Yes Messrs. Bush and Cheney lied their assess off to deceive Congress and the American people into supporting their war of whim in Iraq. From McClatchey Newspapers' Washington Bureau:

“Before taking the country to war, this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” said committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D- W. Va.

It's long been known that the administration's claims in the runup to the Iraq war, from Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to al Qaida to whether Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, were incorrect, and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino suggested the problems were faulty intelligence.

"We had the intelligence that we had fully vetted, but it was wrong," she said. "We certainly regret that and we've taken measures to fix it."

But the Senate report, the first official examination of whether the president and vice president knew that their claims were incorrect at the time that they made them, reached a different conclusion.

“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate," Rockefeller said in a statement.

'Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information," the report concluded.

Among the reports conclusions:

Claims by President Bush that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership "were not substantiated by the intelligence."

The president and vice president misrepresented what was known about Iraq’s chemical weapons capabiliies.

Rumsfeld misrepresented what the intelligence community knew when he said Iraq's weapons productions facilities were buried deeply underground.

Cheney's claim that the intelligence community had confirmed that lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 was not true."

Looking for the High Crimes and Misdemeanours department? Look no further than the White House and its denizens. The committee report reads like an indictment for crimes that have directly taken the lives of tens, probably hundreds of thousands of innocents. Finally official Washington has said what a lot of us have known all along, this criminal regime deliberately and methodically betrayed its nation and lied the country into a war that has brought little but devastation and rebuke. If ever an executive belonged behind bars and high walls, this is it.

What's On O'Reilly's Mind? Man Rape, Of Course!

I wonder if Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and all the other uber-right loudmouths at Fox are getting their knickers in a twist at the prospect of a new broom arriving to clean out the filth at the White House? After all, like cockroaches everywhere, they've feasted royally on that very filth these past eight years and the idea of being sent scurrying in search of another dark, dirty hiding place must be daunting.

It certain seems to have gotten to O'Reilly who recently accused McClellan of holding Bush down while the left wing media ass raped George w. Bush. That's the sort of imagery that runs through a tortured mind like O'Reilly's. Then again, maybe Bill's just jealous.

Who Will DeThrone the President?

The most important, and critical, reason for impeachment of Bush and Cheney was to defend the Constitution against their excesses, their abuses and restore America's system of checks and balances. America will not long sustain a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" unless balance is restored which requires, in essence, removing powers wrongfully usurped by the executive and restoring to Congress its rightful powers.

There is a solid case for impeachment of the president and vice-president for "high crimes and misdemeanours" but, so far, it's been reduced to a plaything for constitutional scholars. Unfortunately, the American public has poorly understood the nature of the case and what's at stake if nothing is done. House and senate Republicans would have fought it out of fear of the damage it could cause their party in future elections. Democratic congressional leaders Reid and Pelosi likewise showed little stomach for a fight which surely must rank right up there as one of the most serious derelictions of duty by senior American congressional leaders since Bush was first appointed president.

Without impeachment, America's next best hope is for the incoming president to do the right thing and disavow the abuses of the Bush regime. Right now the prospects of that aren't great.

Republican nominee John McCain (yes, I know, he's the "presumptive" nominee) has already indicated that he'll retain the full powers of a "wartime president", basically embracing the abusive precedents set by George w. Bush and his henchman Cheney. Now McCain is quick to claim that no American president is above the law but he also maintains that the constitutional powers of a wartime president override laws such as the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

It sure sounds as though John McCain will be happy accepting the basketful of purloined powers filched by the Cheney administration these past eight years. More one-man rule.

Maybe Congress needs to address this forcefully. One way might require any president seeking to circumvent the Constitution and Bill of Rights to make a public declaration of a State of Emergency capped at, say, four to six months after which that president would be required to make a fresh declaration of a State of Emergency. Let the people clearly know and force the president to regularly remind them that he's placed every one of them and their constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms in suspension and then let them judge whether they're content with that.

I think that would put an end to this nonsense in short order. With congressional elections every two years, the American people would be able to respond forcefully to hand an abuser his hat at the polls and punish the president and his party by stripping them of their seats. In essence, it would be a popular call or endorsement for impeachment.

America has allowed its president and viceroy to get too comfortable atop their thrones these past few years. It's time that was put to an end.

The Big Dog Back In the Spotlight

I was wondering what got Mr. "I did not have sex with that woman" in such a rage the other day about an article coming out in Vanity Fair. Now I know.

Apparently the VF article alludes to a number of women Bill has been seen with ever since being rejuvenated through heart surgery in 2004. One of the women named was Gina Gershon. Her lawyers have written to publisher Graydon Carter demanding a full retraction. The magazine says that the article doesn't suggest that Gershon did anything untoward with Bill, just that they were reportedly seen together.

It seems the article was based on interviews with several unnamed Clinton staffers. Clinton referred to the writer, Todd Purdum, a "scumbag."

We probably won't have long to wait before the stories begin pouring in. I'll give Bill the benefit of the doubt, at least until then, but we've all been deceived by him before.

Wherrrrrres Johnny?

Legendary Johnny Carson sidekick and infomercial pitchman Ed McMahon is on the verge of getting booted out of his home.

Question. How does a guy at 85 still owe almost $5-million on his mortgage?

In any case McMahon has fallen into default on the $4.8-million he owes the mortgage company and is desperately trying to flog the property. A spokesman said Ed broke his neck 18-months ago and hasn't been able to work since, leaving him without an income to service the mortgage debt.

Okay, but. McMahon recently bagged a $7.2-million win against his insurance company for a claim that his house developed mold which led to the death of his dog Muffin and sickened Ed and Mrs. McMahon. Okay, $7.2-million minus $4.8 million ought to leave you with clear title to your $6.5 million dollar home and a tidy $2.4-million in spending money left over. Maybe it's not the Publishers Clearinghouse grand prize but it's still pretty decent.

Draco Reborn - Harpo's Copyright Law

I don't use the internet to download music or movies. I prefer to own the CD or DVD and keep it in my own collection but, then again, I pick and choose and can afford what I buy. So much for me.

What of those who do download and participate in file-sharing services? According to the National Spot, the Harperites are moving to stomp on them with both boots. It seems the government's updates to the Copyright Act will introduce a fine of $500 for each and every illegal file transferred online. 500 bucks a pop - if you're caught or if someone in the ranks of Harper's faceless political commissars wants you or your kid caught.

Get this. Those Reformatory stiffs are also going to make it illegal to "unlock" your cell phone! If you bought it from Rogers or Telus or Fido, so long as you have that phone you're a slave to Rogers or Telus or Fido. Get real. There are plenty of reasons to unlock a cell phone. If you're travelling abroad an unlocked phone lets you buy a local SIM card and take the benefit of local, long-distance rates instead of the usurious roaming charges Canadian cellular companies levy.

Here's a question. I just bought a cell phone on ebay and it's already unlocked. Is that going to make me some sort of outlaw when I go shopping for a Canadian carrier or if I decide to later switch? By the way, if you're looking for a cell phone do check ebay because you can often get one for a small fraction of the best price you'll get from a Canadian cellular provider even with a longterm plan.

There's yet another damned good reason to get rid of Harper and his punks. Harper may be content to bend over for the cellular providers so long as he gets a reacharound out of it but there's no reason the rest of us should tolerate their little lovefest.

China Dirties Up - Coal Liquefaction Underway

It's possible to extract a form of ersatz oil out of coal. It's an old technique but one that's fallen out of favour due to the large amounts of greenhouse gases created in the production process.

China's willingness to trash the global environment is a question of deeds, not words. The Chinese talk a good game but they're launching a major CTL, or coal-to-liquid, plant in Inner Mongolia.

The first plant will only produce about 20,000 barrels of oil a day, a drop in the bucket compared to China's 7.2 million barrel a day consumption. To reach this level of production, China will process 3.5 million tonnes of coal per year into 1 million tonnes of oil products such as diesel for cars.

But wait, there's more.

China is targeting on transforming half of Mongolia's coal production into oil by 2010. That would involve processing 135-million tonnes of coal per year.

And China may soon be joined by the United States which is believed to have the largest reserves of coal in the world. From ENN:

"DRKW Advanced Fuels plans to start construction on a plant in Wyoming next year in partnership with Arch Coal Inc and with technologies licensed by General Electric and Exxon Mobil. The defense department is experimenting with CTL in an effort to cut reliance on fuel from countries unfriendly to the United States.

But CTL is highly controversial. Experts say the whole lifecycle releases about twice as much carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas,

as fossil fuel. Liquefying coal also requires large amounts of energy and drains water supplies.
The fuel produced through this method has a shelf life of up to 15 years, unlike other motor fuels which is attractive to the military and to governments keen to ensure fuel security.

Though CTL technology was developed about 100 years ago, it has been little used, except in Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, which had difficulty accessing then-inexpensive oil.
Oil prices, which have more than quadrupled this decade to above $130 a barrel, have reignited interest in CTL.

The Oil and Gas Journal in April suggested it costs $67 to $82 a barrel to produce CTL fuel, based on the experiences of South Africa's Sansol. Exact prices would depend on a range of factors including coal and water prices and of course it is very expensive to build CTL plants.
Shenhua will be the first to use direct CTL technology on a large scale. It is different from indirect CTL, proven in Nazi Germany and by South Africa's Sasol, and converts coal directly into liquid fuel, skipping gasifying coal into syngas.

"CTL happened only twice in world history, and both times it's been in nations facing some kind of state of emergency with respect to energy. It should sound an alarm bell," said Gary Kendall, from the WWF conservation group."

Think the supposedly green yet lobbyist plagued John McCain will shut this down? Think again.

A Distinction Without a Difference?

We're once again embroiled in the thorny issue of providing sanctuary to American servicemen and women who don't want to serve in the endless US war in Iraq.

The logic used by Citizenship and Immigration spokesperson Danielle Norris is that those seeking sanctuary now cannot be compared to the kids we took in during Vietnam. "Those coming to Canada now volunteered for military service."

Yes, they are different but it's a fragile distinction. During Vietnam the US government wasn't able to deceive enough young people to fill its army with volunteers. Instead it had to rely on the draft, conscription. Young people were forced, often against their will, to serve and fight and die abroad.

Contrast that with Iraq. Here the US government was able to deceive enough young people to fill its army with volunteers. But it hasn't been able to deceive enough young people to keep that scam going. It can't find volunteers, and doesn't have the courage to re institute the draft, so its cowardly way out is to resort to impressment of those who they snagged at the outset, including a lot of reservists, and transform them into a "Stop Loss" hostage army that keeps getting sent back to fight a war, 15-months at a stretch, for three or four or even five tours - and we're still counting.

These poor buggers weren't drafted in to the US armed forces but they've surely been drafted when their enlistments were up and they expected to be going home to their families and jobs. If you're looking for distinctions, here's the most important one. Today's hostage soldiers are drafted forever, until America finally tires of losing in Iraq. Forty years ago, draftees were only required to fight for one year before being released.

So, the Harper government's rationale is that these people were dumb enough to believe they were signing on for just a couple of years and got tricked and that's their problem. As far as we're concerned, they're entitled to all the rights and freedoms of a Roman legionnaire which were pretty much to keep fighting until you were dead.

No, the Harper government hasn't got the spine to do the right thing even if it has the approval of Parliament. After all we just signed up our own soldiers to carry on America's mismanaged war in Afghanistan until 2011.

"It's Our Time"

"It's Our Time" may be the meme of the Democratic presidential runoff. Obama used it to powerful effect in his speech last night. Hillary supporters have been using it constantly to bolster their claim that Mrs. Clinton deserves the throne.

To all you rabid Hillary supporters - it's your time when your candidate wins and, please, make sure I'm the first to know just when that happens. Until your candidate wins, it's not your time. Obama didn't deserve to win because he's black anymore than Hillary deserved to win because she's female. So, cut the crap.

Here's another thought. No genuine feminist can also be a racist. Sexism is bigotry and so is racism. You can't fight one form of bigotry and freely embrace another. And there's plenty of bigotry to be found among Hillary supporters.

It's difficult to read too much into blog comments but I'll give you a few examples of what Hillary supporters have been saying:

"the little sooty tan man"

" it was our time little man, not a token black man"

"the flushing sound? thats your buddy husseins chances of becoming prez"

Hillary enjoyed the support of rank bigots of both genders but it was the depth of bigotry among women that took me by surprise. Now I'm not naive. I studied in the states and I've seen, first hand, more than enough racism among American women. What troubles me is how the feminist leaders didn't step forward to denounce this sort of thing during the nomination campaign. Certainly they ought to have been fighting misogyny but also speaking out against the tide of racism that surfaced from their own gender. Instead they sat on their hands.

Genuine feminism cannot tolerate racism. So, what happened?

That Zombie Named Hillary

The primaries are over and Obama has taken the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. He came from behind and bested not only the shoo-in favourite but also her popular ex-president husband.

So, where were we? Of course, Obama has won the delegates he needs to take the Democratic nomination so where is Hillary? Has she done what is demanded of any losing candidate and fallen behind Obama to support his fight against the Republicans? Of course not. This is a Clinton who believes that America's imperial age continues and that, no matter the result of the primaries, the nomination is still hers because - well, because she's a Clinton. How arrogant of that skinny little upstart to even run against her in the first place? Really.

The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is unquestionably an Obama supporter and has been throughout. Notwithstanding that, her take on Billary in today's paper is spot on:

"Whoever said that after denial comes acceptance hadn’t met the Clintons.
If Hillary could not have an acceptance speech, she wasn’t going to have acceptance.

“It’s never going to end,” sighed one Democrat who has been advising Hillary. “We’re just moving to a new phase.”

Barry has been trying to shake off Hillary and pivot for quite a long time now, but she has managed to keep her teeth in his ankle and raise serious doubts about his potency. Getting dragged across the finish line Tuesday night by Democrats who had had enough of the rapacious Clintons, who had decided, if it came to it, that they would rather lose with Obama than win with Hillary, the Illinois senator tried to celebrate at the St. Paul arena where Republicans will anoint John McCain in September.

...“What does Hillary want?” she mused, in her most self-aware moment in some time. “I will be making no decisions tonight,” she concluded, asking fans to go to her Web site to share their thoughts.

And, even though Democrats were no longer listening, Hillary’s camp radiated the message that Obama was a sucker who had played by the rules on Florida and Michigan, and then reached an appeasing compromise, and that such a weak sister could never handle Putin or I’m-A-Dinner-Jacket.

...Clintonologists know that Hillary is up to something, but they aren’t sure what. Theory No. 1 is that it’s the Cassandra “I told you so” gambit: She believes intensely that he’s too black, too weak and too elitist — with all his salmon and organic tea and steamed broccoli — to beat her pal John McCain. But she has to pretend she’ll do “whatever it takes,” even accept the vice presidency, a job she’s already had and doesn’t want again, so that nobody will blame her when he loses on Nov. 4. Then she can power on to 2012.

Theory No. 2 is that it’s a “Bad stuff happens” maneuver, exemplified in her gaffe about the R.F.K. assassination, that she figures that at least if she moves a few blocks from Embassy Row to the Naval Observatory, she’ll be a heartbeat away from the job she’s always wanted.

...For months, Hillary has been trying to emasculate Obama with the sort of words and themes she has chosen, stirring up feminist anger by promoting the idea that the men were unfairly taking it away from the women, and covering up her own campaign mistakes with cries of sexism. Even his ability to finally clinch the historic nomination did not stop her in that pursuit. She did not bat her eyelashes at him and proclaim him Rhett Butler instead of Ashley Wilkes."

Dear Barack:

I don't want to meddle, and congratulations by the way on cinching the Democratic nomination, but -

...but, when you're looking for a running mate maybe, just maybe you might look to someone who hasn't lately and repeatedly and quite openly mused on your hypothetical assassination a'la Bobby Kennedy.

You'll spend your entire term glancing over your shoulder and you'll have to constantly watch both of them. Why not do it the easy way? Just fill the tub, throw in the piranhas and jump in.

A Government of Liars

I sympathize with the American people for, while they've made some stupid mistakes these past eight years, I can't think of a time in the last six decades when the population of a Western nation has been so overwhelmed by such a malevolent pack of liars in office.

Word of caution here. I am NOT suggesting the Bush regime is on some sort of par with the Hitler administration, not at all, nothing of the sort. That said, I don't think that state propaganda has been brought to bear on a populace so powerfully and effectively as by the Bushies since Joseph Goebbels and, even then, he openly called himself a propagandist.

It's easy for us to judge and heap scorn on the American people but when have we ever been subjected to such a subversive onslaught of deceit, fear mongering and hate mongering from our own government? We haven't. Not to say there aren't those north of the 49th who wouldn't try but we haven't experienced the traumatic underpinning the Americans suffered on 9/11 to let them get away with it.

They lied their way into wars without end. They lied about their tax cuts and the prosperity it would bring to all. They lied about the danger of environmentalism. It's been one lie atop the next until lie has become indistinguishable from truth.

Now we learn - surprise, surprise - that political appointees (commissars) in NASA's public affairs office, "worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday."

From the Washington Post:

"James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are two of the government's lead agencies on climate change issues.

From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA's public affairs office "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public." It noted elsewhere that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution."

Lest we yield to the temptation to get smug about this, remember this is pretty much exactly what Harpo has done by gagging Environment Canada scientists and requiring their communications with the outside world to be subjected to his political commissar's censorship from the PMO.

"Kristin Scuderi, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in an e-mail that director John H. Marburger III "would not comment until he's reviewed the report, and he has not yet done so yet. Therefore, OSTP has no comment at this time."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), one of the senators who pressed for the investigation, said in a statement that the report showed that citizens had been denied access to critical scientific information that should inform public policy.

"Global warming is the most serious environmental threat we face - but this report is more evidence that the Bush Administration's appointees have put political ideology ahead of science," Lautenberg said. "Our government's response to global warming must be based on science, and the Bush Administration's manipulation of that information violates the public trust."

I suppose it must be some comfort to the White House to know that, even if John McCain loses in November, there'll still be an administration nearby to keep alive the Bush legacy of secrecy and deceit. That is until we send them packing and restore democracy to Canada.

I remember the day when we used to mock and ridicule the Soviet Union for just this sort of thing.

Will Obama's Assassin Be Named Hillary?

A strange story is circulating today that Hillary Clinton will acknowledge Barack Obama as her party's presidential nominee tonight - but she won't pull out of the nomination campaign. Instead, so the story goes, she'll wind up her enormously expensive campaign, send the workers home, but stay in the game to hector Obama on her pet policies.

Is Hillary the next Joe Lieberman? She's already endorsed John McCain over Obama as a suitable commander in chief to defend America, an endorsement that McCain will use to pummel the Democratic Party's nominee time and time again. Then there's Bill's line about how the election ought to be between, "two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country.” In other words, Hillary and McCain - again. Stuff like this you can't buy. The Republicans ought to be picking up the tab for Hillary's multi-million dollar campaign deficit.

I don't think she'll do it but what befalls Obama won't be foremost in her mind. If Hillary concedes the nomination, she'll look worse than stupid if she doesn't withdraw. In fact she'll position herself to be seen as dogging Obama, forcing him to split his energies between fending her off and fighting the party's opponent, John McCain.

At least Joe Lieberman waited to defect until after the 2000 election was taken away from Al Gore.

The Hate Vote

Americans have spent an enormous amount of time, energy and money over the past half century to convince themselves that they had finally left behind their nation's horrible racist history.

Even if Barack Obama should lose to McCain in November, he'll have done his country an invaluable service by exposing just how alive and well racism is in today's America, among Democrats as well as Republicans, even among some feminists who ought to be the last to tolerate much less embrace racial bigotry.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen calls it "A Campaign to Hate."

"Wherever I go -- from glittering dinner party to glittering dinner party -- the famous and powerful people I meet (for such is my life) tell me how lucky I am to be a journalist in this the greatest of all presidential contests. I tell them, for I am wont to please, that this campaign is indeed great when, as history will record, it is not. I have come to loathe the campaign.

I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought. I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black. I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race -- one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance. Those voters didn't even know enough to lie, which is what, if you look at the numbers, others probably did in other states. Such honesty ought to be commendable. It is, instead, frightening.

...So I see little to be happy about, little that pleases my jaundiced eye. Yes, voter participation is way up and in the end, the Democrats will choose a woman or an African American and, to invoke that tiresome phrase, history will be made. But this messy nominating process has eroded the standing of both candidates. It has highlighted the reality that racism still runs deep and that misogyny, although more imagined than real, is not yet a wholly spent force. This is an ugly porridge that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine days of Iowa only five months ago. We were, with apologies to Bob Dylan, so much younger then. "

The Terrible Tempered Mr. Bill Runs Out of Steam

Bill Clinton used to know how to keep his cool. His ability to maintain his composure no matter how many times he got caught lying his ass off, mainly about his chronic inability to keep it in his pants, was instrumental in helping him survive the Republican's attempted impeachment coup.

Let's remember, the Republicans paid dearly for going after Bill because they weren't able to make a fatal dent in his public support. That might've been much different had then president Clinton revealed the ugly temper he's shown so often during his wife's campaign for the Democratic nomination.

It's not that Bill doesn't have reason to be upset. This nomination, after all, was supposed to be hers in a cakewalk. She was so far ahead of all the other Democratic candidates combined that she was as unsinkable as the Titanic.

It's useful to recall that Hillary, not Obama, had the black vote sewn up. Black voters were devoted fans of Bill Clinton. Barack Obama didn't steal those votes, the Clinton camp drove them out with their repeated race-baiting stunts. That was an event of seismic proportions that shook the black community. Interestingly enough it was Bill, not Hillary, who began that blunder.

And the Clinton campaign just kept tripping over a string of blunders. When she realized that what she had wasn't selling, Hillary kept trying to re-invent herself and pandered shamelessly to one group after another. She downed boilermakers with the blue collar crowd in Pennsylvania and professed her love for hot peppers to the Latino voters in Texas and showed up wearing an Indian necklace to appeal to South Dakota natives who had already decided to back Obama. Then there was that miserable "3 a.m." phone call ad, her attempt to knife Obama in the back by saying only she and McCain were experienced enough to be commander in chief, her crack about "I think he's a Christian," the one about her exclusive affinitity to "hard working Americans, white Americans," the outright and oft-repeated lie about braving sniper fire, the Bobby Kennedy assassination ploy. All this and more and yet Mrs. William Clinton and her rabid supporters claim the nomination was stolen from her. That is a pathetic, bordering on sick, joke.

Yet Bill still contends that "she wuz robbed." Of course it's the media's fault, especially the black media, those disloyal, ungrateful darkies. This campaign has shown the ugly side of Bill Clinton.

The New York Times' own black columnist, Bob Herbert, plainly won't be sad to see the Big Dog depart from the campaign:

"The cry of “McCain in ’08!” at the Democratic rules committee meeting in Washington over the weekend came from a supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton.

It reminded me of Bill Clinton’s comment that “it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country.”

He was talking about Hillary Clinton and John McCain. The former president’s comment played right into the sustained effort by opponents of Barack Obama to portray the senator as some kind of alien figure, less than patriotic, not fully American, too strange by half to be handed the reins of government.

This was supposed to have been the Democrats’ year. But instead of marching to victory, the party has been at war with itself in some of the ugliest ways imaginable. There was a time, not that long ago, when Democratic voters were crowing about how happy they were with all (or almost all) of the potential nominees.

But the Clinton and Obama partisans spent months fighting bitterly on the toxic terrain of misogyny, racism and religion. It can only make you wonder about the vaunted Democratic claims of moral superiority when it comes to tolerance.

This should have been the year when the Democrats just hammered the Republicans over the economy, the war, energy policy, health care, appointments to the Supreme Court, the failure to rebuild New Orleans, and so on. The list of important issues on which the Republicans are vulnerable is endless.

There is no end of blame to be apportioned among the Democrats. The Clintons have behaved execrably. But weak-willed party leaders showed neither the courage nor the inclination to stop them from fracturing the party along gender and ethnic lines.

As for Senator Obama, he’s been mired in a series of problems of his own — problems that have done serious damage to the very idea that brought him to national prominence in the first place: that he was a new breed of political leader, a unifying candidate who could begin to narrow the partisan divides of race, class and even, to some extent, political persuasion."

At the end of the day it may be clear that Bill Clinton did no favours for anyone.

Finally - a Good Deficit

The federal government is running in the red and it should bring cheers from all of us.

Transport Canada's "clean car" rebate programme is running far over budget. The government earmarked $160-million for the two year programme. The department now expects to spend up to $145-million of that in the first year alone.

So, will the Harper Cons build on this success, one of the few they can boast about? Not likely.
Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon says the Reformatories have no intention of expanding the programme because it "served its purpose."

Way to go, you clowns.

Victoria to Fight Ottawa Over Insite?

The BC government has warned it may intervene to keep the Harper government from shutting Vancouver's safe injection clinic, Insite.

Last week a BC Supreme Court judge, Ian Pitfield, ruled that Insite is a health care facility for drug addicts and, as such, can stay open despite the wacko fundamentalist views of the Harpies. The Cons have announced they'll appeal that decision so they can shut down the clinic.

This is an issue that puts Harper squarely at odds with the people and government of British Columbia. The safe injection clinic where addicts are given clean needles and a place to use them under limited medical supervision is strongly supported in this province in part because it's also the one place where addicts can get counselling and access to rehabilitation programmes.

BC Health Minister George Abbott was unequivocal in expressing his government's support for Insite. "It is a very important case involving a health facility we believe is important in the continuum of care for people with addictions and for people with mental illness." Abbott suggested that what British Columbia needs isn't the end of Insite but more such clinics.

Most of this province isn't keen on Harper's social conservative ways, especially not in major population centres. BC is also more tolerant of drug use than other provinces which is reflected in relatively light sentencing in criminal cases.

But, if the Furious Leader wants a fight on this issue, he couldn't have picked a better place for it in my view. If he wants a fight, a fight he'll get and, next time, all the cameras will be on Lardo. He may suddenly find that he's the one who's really on trial out here. Welcome to Beautiful British Columbia, Steve, c'mon in!

Bo Diddley, Dead at 79

Legendary bluesman Bo Diddley will play no more. Diddley died today at his home in Florida at age 79.

Just Another Godawful Lie

It's the constant fallback line of the Bushies whenever anyone suggests they ginned up the intelligence about Iraq, Saddam and non-existant WMDs - why Washington only had the same intelligence every other country had. In other words, we all believed Iraq was awash in WMDs and ready to use them against us or hand them over to terrorists.

But being the consummate liars they are, the Bushies always skip over the little point that the reason all these other nations believed the same thing is because all these other nations got spoonfed the same propaganda packaged as intelligence by the same people - the Bushies themselves.

What they're saying is "we fooled everybody else, so we get a pass on this one." Yes, they fooled everybody else - or almost everybody. The White House was warned, well in advance, that the smoking gun intelligence they were getting from Iraqi dissident "Curveball" was dodgy at best. And, of course, they were told - again and again - by the UN's eyes on the ground in Iraq, Hans Blix and his teams of weapons inspectors, that there was no sign of such weapons even as they checked out one CIA lead after another.

Drop dead gorgeous Dana Perino, successor to former White House mouthpieces Tony Snow, Scott McLellan and Ari Fleischer, is perhaps the most blatant liar of them all. On the 5th anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier speech, Perino tried to turn history on its head by claiming the bold banner was actually about the carrier's completed cruise, not victory in Iraq. Now Deceitful Dana is dragging out the old intelligence scam to refute Australian Prime Minister John Rudd's allegation that the White House "abused" the intelligence to get its way.

"No-one else in the world, no other government, had different information and so we acted based on what was the threat that was presented to us. When the intelligence community presents you with their concerns, you'd better take them seriously," said Perino.

Yeah, Dana, that's right - no other government had different information and the White House saw to that. It's why, today, there are a lot fewer nations willing to take America's word about anything.

"Fool me once ...shame on ...shame on you ...fool me, you can't get fooled again."
Exactly George.

Bloodthirsty George, American Emperor

It was early in Bush's first term and we were all getting used to his malapropisms and other grammatical blunders. It seemed that, whenever the president of the United States opened his mouth (and wasn't reading from a speech), something goofy was almost sure to come out.

Some took that as a sign that Bush was genuinely moronic. Yet we keep getting assured that the guy is actually fairly bright, not that there have been many tangible signs of that.

But early on I read a report of an American linguistics prof who anaylyzed Bush's candid speech and came up with a startling finding. There was one circumstance in which Bush always spoke with total clarity and coherence - when the topic was death.

Death has played a prominent role in little George's life. He used his dad's influence to get a posting in the air national guard in order to dodge the prospect of death fighting in Vietnam. When he was governor of Texas, condemned prisoners were toast. It was said that Bush never saw a death warrant he didn't like and he signed them all as they came across his desk.

But death has never been as central to Bush's life as it has since 2001, beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan. It was the conquest of Iraq two years later, however, that saw the Bush legacy really steeped in blood as tens, probably hundreds of thousands, of innocents died in the aftermath of the botched occupation.

It turns out that there were times when Bush's blood lust was blatant, at least to those around him. US Army general Ricardo Sanchez recounts the bloodthirsty bent of his commander in chief in Sanchez' memoir, "Wiser in Battle," in which he relates what passed during a video conference call between Sanchez and Bremer in Baghdad and Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld in Washington during the reduction of the Sunni city of Falujah. From AlterNet:

According to Sanchez, Powell was talking tough that day: "We've got to smash somebody's ass quickly," the general reports him saying. "There has to be a total victory somewhere. We must have a brute demonstration of power." (And indeed, by the end of April, parts of Fallujah would be in ruins, as, by August, would expanses of the oldest parts of the holy Shiite city of Najaf. Sadr himself would, however, escape to fight another day; and, in order to declare Powell's "total victory," the U.S. military would have to return to Fallujah that November, after the U.S. presidential election, and reduce three-quarters of it to virtual rubble). Bush then turned to the subject of al-Sadr: "At the end of this campaign al-Sadr must be gone," he insisted to his top advisors. "At a minimum, he will be arrested. It is essential he be wiped out."

Not long after that, the President "launched" what an evidently bewildered Sanchez politely describes as "a kind of confused pep talk regarding both Fallujah and our upcoming southern campaign [against the Mahdi Army]." Here then is that "pep talk." While you read it, try to imagine anything like it coming out of the mouth of any other American president, or anything not like it coming out of the mouth of any evil enemy leader in the films of the President's -- and my -- childhood:

"'Kick ass!' [Bush] said, echoing Colin Powell's tough talk. 'If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.

"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!'"

The last six years have been one long John Wayne moment for George w. Bush and he's relished them to the full. What remains to be seen is how many more commander in chief moments will Bush try to cram in before he's given his eviction notice. Could he "do" Iran, even if just for the fun of it?

And what sort of world awaits Bush come January when he's back at the ranch in Crawford and there's no one left he can kill? Not even a stack of death warrants to sign. How's the guy going to cope in a strange, small world in which everyone lives?

Uncorking the Scientist In Each of Us

Up til now we've been content to view science as something for the geeks - essential, sure, but that's why we have geeks, right?

Whether we like it or not, our dismissive attitude may not work for us much longer. We're on the dawn of an age where holding well-informed scientific views is going to be essential to how we live and even how we vote.

Our parents' world, our grandparents' world is now much in the past. That world is gone, utterly gone, and it isn't coming back for centuries. When I was born the world's population had just set an all-time record of 2-billion people. Little more than half a century later and we've bumped that all-time record to 6.5-billion people which we expect to hit 9-billion before the next half-century is out. Just churn that over for a minute and digest it.

For all the thousands of years of our civilization, it wasn't until about 1814 that we first broke the billion-person mark. 140-years or so later than that, we'd doubled that record. Barely another 60-years yet, we'd gotten 6.5 times more populous than we were when the record was set in 1814. In another 50-years we're looking to be bigger by up to half again. This is something we really need to come to grips with in order to create the informed citizenry we're going to require in just a decade from now.

Here's something to chew on. There is a host of very important, social change decisions that will have to be taken, on a regular basis, fairly soon. What you need to bear in mind is that someone is going to be taking those decisions, one way or the other. If we don't recover our ability to make suitably important decisions in these critical times, we run the very real risk of that core power of our democracy becoming forfeit to others who believe they will make the decisions for us. Also bear in mind that those who usurp this power can't necessarily be trusted to make the best decisions in our interest.

Without wanting to sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist, there is a tendency today and has been for about two decades of dumbing down the public. People seem to be transforming into cogs, losing their intellectual and political robustness. This sort of thing needs to be reversed if we're not to let our political freedom slip through our fingers. A New York Times article by Columbia physics prof Brian Greene suggests the key may be in science:



A COUPLE of years ago I received a letter from an American soldier in Iraq. The letter began by saying that, as we’ve all become painfully aware, serving on the front lines is physically exhausting and emotionally debilitating. But the reason for his writing was to tell me that in that hostile and lonely environment, a book I’d written had become a kind of lifeline. As the book is about science — one that traces physicists’ search for nature’s deepest laws — the soldier’s letter might strike you as, well, odd.

But it’s not. Rather, it speaks to the powerful role science can play in giving life context and meaning. At the same time, the soldier’s letter emphasized something I’ve increasingly come to believe: our educational system fails to teach science in a way that allows students to integrate it into their lives.

Allow me a moment to explain.

When we consider the ubiquity of cellphones, iPods, personal computers and the Internet, it’s easy to see how science (and the technology to which it leads) is woven into the fabric of our day-to-day activities. When we benefit from CT scanners, M.R.I. devices, pacemakers and arterial stents, we can immediately appreciate how science affects the quality of our lives. When we assess the state of the world, and identify looming challenges like climate change, global pandemics, security threats and diminishing resources, we don’t hesitate in turning to science to gauge the problems and find solutions.

But here’s the thing. The reason science really matters runs deeper still. Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive and reliable — a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional. To be able to think through and grasp explanations — for everything from why the sky is blue to how life formed on earth — not because they are declared dogma but rather because they reveal patterns confirmed by experiment and observation, is one of the most precious of human experiences.

It’s striking that science is still widely viewed as merely a subject one studies in the classroom or an isolated body of largely esoteric knowledge that sometimes shows up in the “real” world in the form of technological or medical advances. In reality, science is a language of hope and inspiration, providing discoveries that fire the imagination and instill a sense of connection to our lives and our world.

Like a life without music, art or literature, a life without science is bereft of something that gives experience a rich and otherwise inaccessible dimension."



This isn't to say that we all need to become scientists, not at all. Fortunately our society's ability to quickly disseminate their discoveries in a form we can comprehend them via the internet and other media is advancing rapidly.

We've certainly reached a critical mass of the production, dissemination and access to credible, lay science. RJ Reynolds and Big Oil aren't gone yet, nor are their shills, but the world is changing, right in front of our eyes, day in and day out, and the list of unresolved challenges gets a bit longer every year.

They always knew their scam couldn't last forever but that wasn't what they've been after. They were there to buy time they otherwise wouldn't have had, an extension, a little more time for another round of their rapacious and highly profitable ways.

There are big changes looming and they'll bring big opportunities as well as big challenges. It would be naive to expect that we'll all rally to these challenges to seek the greater good. There will certainly be individuals and industries that move to exploit it, to set up their interests against ours. The less we understand what's happening the greater their prospects of prevailing against us.

That's why it's becoming important, vital even, that we re-open our minds to science.

Hillary's End Of The Road

The misery is almost over. Hillary Clinton swept the Puerto Rico primary today, for what that's worth. Now there are just two states left - South Dakota and Montana, both of which are expected to be wins for Barack Obama.

The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg wrote this touching obituary of the Clinton campaign:

"...A lifetime's worth of ambitions, 16 years of acquaintances in the Democratic party establishment, 16 grinding months of rallies and debates, and $215m (£108m) in campaign funds, all now are exhausted.

So too was Clinton. Her face as she took the stage at the Pine Ridge reservation was drained of colour. People took pictures anyway. Those old enough to remember are still talking about the late Robert F Kennedy's visit to this remote outpost during the 1968 campaign.

They were already talking about Clinton's campaign in the same way: history. "I'm just curious to see her in person," said Beverly Tuttle, a grandmother from nearby Porcupine. That was as far as it went. Tuttle was voting for Obama. "I'm looking at her more like a celebrity than candidate," she said.

Clinton still has ardent supporters, even in a remote location such as Kyle (population 1,000). They just have been swifter than she has in recognising defeat. "She should be vice-president," said Tangerine LeBeau, who is just 18 and will be voting for the very first time.

Strength and resolve can only carry Clinton so far. Obama has powerful backers in the west. Tom Daschle, a South Dakota native who was once Senate majority leader, was one of Obama's earliest supporters. Obama's deputy campaign manager is also from South Dakota.

Despite the courtship by the Clintons, Obama was endorsed by the entire tribal leadership of South Dakota, and was adopted as a son of the Crow tribe in Montana. Obama also has the money to pour resources into South Dakota and Montana. Clinton's coffers are beyond empty. Her campaign, now $20m in debt, has no money for the prime venues that she favoured in the early months of the campaign. Almost all of her campaign events are held outdoors despite unpredictable weather. At one rally, Clinton's only stage prop was a giant cottonwood tree.

She has little money to get voters to the polls - a huge liability on the reservations where poverty and long distances depress turnout. Clinton also has little money for advertising. Her first television ad in South Dakota went on air less than a week ago. The ad, despite her own insolvent campaign, attacks President George Bush for running up the national debt.

Her entourage on the campaign trail is similarly shrunk. Her assistant, Huma Abedin, once deemed so glamorous she was given a Vogue photospread, remains along with a couple of other aides. News outlets have scaled back their coverage. Camera crews once used to jostling for positions on risers now have yards of space to themselves.

But it's possible to forget all of that, even in a modest crowd. At the end of her big rally in South Dakota last week, Clinton worked the rope line long after people had dispersed, stretching out to every last hand, unwilling to let go."

Despite all the reasons Hillary has given her opponents to dislike her, distrust her, perhaps for some even despise her, it is both touching and sad to watch her play out these final days. It's also just a bit painful to have to observe the spectacle.

America's Prison Galleys

The Brits used them, so did the French. They were all the rage in the 18th century - prison galleys, ships (usually mere hulks) used for the long-term confinement and transportation of convicts.

Now it seems the Bush regime may have revived this quaint tradition. According to The Guardian, the United States is rumoured to be operating floating prisons to hold captives from the War (without end) on Terror.

According to the human rights group, Reprieve, the US has used a fleet of naval vessels as floating prisons since 2001:

"Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.

Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.

The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.

It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US.

According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.

Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans."

What's next, Devil's Island? Oh, sorry, I forgot, they renamed that Guantanimo.

Just Whose War Are We Fighting?

One reason (but just one of several) why we'll never "win" in Afghanistan is that there are too many wars going on. The Americans are waging one war in Afghanistan. NATO (ISAF) is waging another. Then there are the American military campaigns involving Iraq, Pakistan and - yes, Iran. Each of them constantly bounces off all the others.

Most of these wars are long past their "best before" date. They've dragged on inconsequentially too long. Stand in one place in the mud and eventually you'll sink down to your knees.

Now some senior American officers are musing about US forces being in Afghanistan for generations. From the Globe & Mail:

"Lest anyone think this is a soft or peaceful process, [US Navy] Cdr. Dwyer's base was rocked, every minute or so all day, by the terrifying shock of its line of 155-mm howitzers firing their village-destroying shells over the hills and into the Korengal Valley.

The building of mosques and roads is matched with absolutely ferocious fighting in places such as Korengal — the Americans are much more willing to use air strikes and heavy artillery, with the resulting heavy civilian casualties, than other militaries.

There are good reasons to be suspicious of this approach.

"We do not believe in counterinsurgency," a senior French commander tells me. "If you find yourself needing to use counterinsurgency, it means the entire population has become the subject of your war, and you either will have to stay there forever or you have lost."

The Americans obviously see it differently.

"We're trying to raise the opportunity cost of picking up a weapon or growing poppy," says Alison Blosser, a Pashto-speaking State Department official.

(The Americans, unlike Canadians or Brits, have a surprising level of co-operation between their foreign-affairs people and their military officers these days.)

"We want to get to the point where there's long-term sustainable employment that leads to economic growth. … If the insurgents do decide to come back, they will face a great wall of resistance from a population that has experienced economic development."

It sounds good. But I should mention that eastern Afghanistan is facing the highest military casualty rate in the war's history at the moment, and a British report has just concluded that their heavy-handed poppy-eradication strategy is creating hundreds more Taliban fighters.

I ask one officer how long it is going to take to make this new strategy bear fruit.

"Look," he says, "we're still in Germany and Japan 60 years after that war ended. That's how long it can take. I fully expect to have grandchildren who will be fighting out here."

The Globe Sets Itself Free

At last. The Globe & Mail has finally realized that trying to get people to pay for access to their online version isn't going to work. It's just not worth it.

Finally the paper has followed last year's lead by The New York Times and transformed its internet edition into a free paper.

The good news is that you'll now get unfettered access to the likes of Jeffrey Stevens, Lawrence Martin and John Ibbitson. The bad news is that you'll now get unfettered access to the likes of Christie Blatchford, Marcus Gee, Rex Murphy and Margaret Wente.

No Welcome Mat for Afrikom

It was conceived by Donald Rumsfeld and that alone might go some way to explaining why Arican nations have been stubbornly unwilling to allow American forces a toehold on their continent.

Afrikom (actually "AfriCom" or Africa Command) is a tribute to America's too little, too late attitude to Africa; Washington's foreign affairs disasters in the Middle East; and the dramatic spread of Chinese influence into many African countries. Africans now know that the kindly grandma with the big teeth really is a wolf after all.

Africa has become of great strategic interest to the United States. A quarter of America's imported oil comes from Nigeria and Angola. And the Chinese are going into overdrive to tie up Africa's vast natural resources. Suddenly Africa matters - a lot.

It's a tale of bungled diplomacy and an awfully bad reputation. From the Washington Post:

"With its headquarters on the continent, liaison groups of 20 to 30 military personnel
established in key countries and U.S. units brought in to help with development and relief tasks, the command was envisioned as an example to Africans of how their own armed forces and civilians could work together for the good of their nations.
The trouble was, no one consulted the Africans. "Very little was really known by the majority of people or countries in Africa who were supposed to know before such a move was made," said retired Kenyan army Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande. Worry swept the continent that the United States planned major new military installations in Africa.

"If you know the politics of Africa," said Opande, who has headed U.N. peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone and Liberia, "you know there are certain very powerful countries who said, no, we are not interested in having a headquarters here." South Africa and Nigeria were among them, and their resistance helped persuade others."

"I think everyone thought it would be widely greeted as something positive," the Africom officer said. "But you suddenly have wide publics that have no idea what we're talking about. . . . It was seen as a massive infusion of military might onto a continent that was quite proud of having removed foreign powers from its soil."

The United States "equates terrorism with Islam," senior Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat said, and few African governments wanted to be seen as inviting U.S. surveillance on their own people."

AfriKom is set to go into business on October 1st. For the foreseeable future it'll have to look on Africa from a distance, from its headquarters in Stuttgart.