Trading Hookers for Whales?

The Sunday Times has unveiled the lengths the Japanese government goes to in order to bribe small countries to help it break the world whaling ban. Everything from aid to cash-stuffed envelopes to hookers come into play:

Japan denies buying the votes of IWC members. However, The Sunday Times filmed officials from pro-whaling governments admitting:

- They voted with the whalers because of the large amounts of aid from Japan. One said he was not sure if his country had any whales in its territorial waters. Others are landlocked.

— They receive cash payments in envelopes at IWC meetings from Japanese officials who pay their travel and hotel bills.

- One disclosed that call girls were offered when fisheries ministers and civil servants visited Japan for meetings.

Barry Gardiner, an MP and former Labour biodiversity minister, said the investigation revealed “disgraceful, shady practice”, which is “effectively buying votes”.

The reporters, posing as representatives of a billionaire conservationist, approached officials from pro-whaling countries and offered them an aid package to change their vote.

The governments of St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Republic of Guinea and Ivory Coast all entered negotiations to sell their votes in return for aid.

The top fisheries official for Guinea said Japan usually gave his minister a “minimum” of $1,000 a day spending money in cash during IWC and other fisheries meetings.

He said three Japanese organisations were used to channel the payments to his country: the fisheries agency, the aid agency and the Overseas Fisheries Co-operation Foundation.

Isn't it time for the G20 leaders, Harpo included, to put an end to this seedy Japanese farce?

How America Stumbled Upon Afghanistan's Mineral Treasure Trove

The US has revealed that Afghanistan is sitting on at least a trillion dollars worth of precious minerals from copper to gold to lithium.


How did America make this amazing discovery? Turns out they stumbled upon it in overlooked data from Russian geologists during the Soviet occupation in the 1980's. From the Sydney Morning Herald:


...In 2004 American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learnt that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.

During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil war and later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologists protected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to the Geological Survey's library only after the American invasion and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.

''There were maps, but the development did not take place, because you had 30 to 35 years of war,'' said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer who worked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.


I wonder if Cheney had plans to get this wealth into American hands? We'll probably never know.

There's Definitely a Book In This - The FBI File on Ted Kennedy

The Washington Post has the first of what is bound to be a cornucopia of stories bursting out of 2,200 pages of recently uncovered FBI documents on the late Senator Ted Kennedy. First up is an account of how Kennedy lived under constant death threats. Read more here.

Not surprisingly, the gnarled hand of J. Edgar Hoover, is prominent in these documents. The FBI even suspected Kennedy of involvement with communist radicals in Central America.

The paper notes that, among the documents, are 77-pages dealing with the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

Canadian Commander - The Taliban Will Simply Evaporate

I think Canada should introduce a new military medal for generals spinning really tall tales.

In upholding the Rick Hillier tradition, we've been treated to about six years of endless and truly rank bullshit from these characters. Now the current Top Dude, Brigadier John Vance assures us that, if NATO's counterinsurgency drive succeeds this summer, the Taliban will eventually wither away into irrelevancy.

Vance told reporters, ""It is absolutely not an effort that will have a cataclysmic effect on the insurgency. ...The insurgency will succumb to this over time. Insurgencies are rarely broken. They dissolve."

I guess the general is right on one point, insurgencies do eventually dissolve, but what he overlooks is that often happens after they succeed. This spinmeister seems to think insurgency isn't the national sport of nations beset by the double whammy of warlordism and tribalism.

The Conservative Television Network credits the general for having taken a more nunaced view of the Taliban from the past vision of "breaking the back" of the insurgency.

Christ, with commanders like Canada's general Vance, is it any wonder that Karzai has given up on Western forces? He doesn't see the Taliban magically dissolving but, then again, he'll be left holding the bag once we're safely gone from that hellhole.

Could Europe Tip the World Into Depression?

First Bush and then Obama fought America's economic meltdown by pouring money into the US economy. Most now believe they succeeded in downgrading a potential depression into a major recession as America begins the decadal challenge of tackling fiscal imbalances.

The European Union also got swept up in what became a global meltdown and, like the US, most European states went the financial "junk shot" route of pumping money into their economies. It wasn't enough, however, to salvage the weaker, more profligate EU members notably Greece (with Spain, Portugal and Ireland still waiting in the wings). Greece couldn't spend its way out of the mess, it simply couldn't raise the money, and so it teetered between being bailed out by the IMF or the European Union. Faced with the havoc an IMF bailout could cause the Euro, the EU reluctantly took on the burden of aiding Athens.

The Greek fiasco sent a shockwave throughout the capitals of Europe and a tide change in attitudes of how to respond to their financial problems. Now, instead of stimulus spending, Britain, Germany and others are reversing course and opting for austerity. Europe seems poised to repeat Japan's lost decade. From The Guardian:

...We're entering a long period of economic stagnation," said Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who leads the Liberal caucus in the European parliament. "That will be the main problem for years. Europe is the new Japan."
To an extent it is the speed and suddenness of change in their governments' approach, as well as the effects on their pockets and job security, that has most worried Europeans.

Just a few months ago, before they had fully digested the implications of the Greek crisis, Europe's G20 nations remained, for the most part, wedded to Keynesian stimuli (maintaining government spending) as the way to nurture their economies back to growth. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, admitted last Monday, at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg, that the turnaround had been very abrupt
.
"One can feel the change of tone in the G20 from fiscal stimulus to fiscal exit, and our policies are an example of this," he said.

In [the UK], also, political leaders have changed tack with extraordinary speed as Gordon Brown has ceded control of policy to the Cameron-Clegg coalition. Before the election on 6 May, Brown regularly taunted Cameron, saying he was the only politician in Europe calling for cuts at this stage of the economic cycle. At his spring conference in March, Nick Clegg declared: "We think that merrily slashing now is an act of economic masochism. If anyone had to rely on our support, and we were involved in government, of course we would say no."

Now, citing Greece as the reason why everything has changed, Clegg is fully signed up to the Tory-Lib Dem coalition's initial £6.2bn of cuts for this year and embryonic plans for far worse to come. On Monday, when Cameron warned that the economy was in a far worse state than he had imagined, he felt able to say that he was now part of the international economic mainstream. "Almost every major country in the world is focusing on the need to cut their deficits," the prime minister said.

But to suggest there is international consensus is way wide of the mark. Across the Atlantic there is, in some quarters, dismay that EU governments are now taking action in direct contradiction to the approach that the G20 settled upon at the height of the global economic crisis.

Last week the message from the US Treasury department was clear: too much austerity, too fast, could damage the word's fragile economic recovery.

...The wrong message on deficits", thundered an editorial in the New York Times. The piece went on to point out: "The sudden fierce enthusiasm for fiscal austerity, especially among stronger economies, is likely to backfire, condemning Europe to years of stagnation or worse." The New York Times top columnist, Paul Krugman, who has won a Nobel prize for economics, took the same line. He has been a trenchant critic of a rush to austerity, believing that only government stimulus to boost consumer demand will pull the American – and global – economies out of the mire.

Krugman took to his blog to ram home the point. "The right thing, overwhelmingly, is to do things that will reduce spending and/or raise revenue after the economy has recovered – specifically, wait until after the economy is strong enough that monetary policy can offset the contractionary effects of fiscal austerity. But no: the deficit hawks want their cuts while unemployment rates are still at near-record highs... not because the markets are currently demanding it, not because it will make any noticeable difference to their long-run fiscal prospects, but because we think that the markets might demand it (even though they shouldn't) some time in the future. Utter folly posing as wisdom. Incredible."

And what of Canada? Is Harper going to be our homegrown Angela Merkel, Canada's Swabian Housewife? Harper seems poised to sound the economic "all clear" and treat Canadians to the lash of austerity just like the panicked Europeans. Are we really immune to the global dimensions of what the Euros do? I doubt it. This may not be the time for deficit fighting in Canada. Then again, our "economist in chief" has bungled virtually every call since he slithered into power. Remember that the Prince of Darkness wasted no time slashing government revenues, defunding the government and leaving it vulnerable to global economic upheaval. This same guy didn't even see the meltdown coming until it was right on top of us. This clown prince then responded with a blatantly stupid "Pinata Budget" (supported, of course, by the Conservative-Lites) that squandered rather than invested government stimulus funds ensuring we'll be left with a massive debt and no commensurate returns when it comes time to pay it all back. So why would anyone assume that Wrong-Way Corrigan of 24 Sussex Drive has the remotest clue of how to bring Canada out of this recession? All this jerk knows how to do is drive us straight into the ditch.

Losing the Battle to Hold the Sea at Bay

The "Birthplace of Civilization", the "fertile crescent" of Mesopotamia where the Trigris meets the Euphrates is turning into a fetid ditch. Events have conspired to devastate these legendary rivers to the point that the Shatt al Arab can no longer hold back the sea.

Water is a precious resource in this region and, with the onset of global warming, it's in decline. The headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates lie in Turkey, Syria and Iran. These states have been damming the rivers to safeguard their own supply but this comes at the expense of Iraq. From The New York Times:

The salt water of the gulf now pushes up the Faw peninsula. Last year, for the first time in memory, it extended beyond Basra, Iraq’s biggest port city, and even Qurna, where the two rivers meet. It has ravaged fresh-water fisheries, livestock, crops and groves of date palms that once made the area famous, forcing the migration of tens of thousands of farmers.

In a land of hardship and resignation and deep faith, the disaster along the Shatt al Arab appears to some as the work of a higher power. “We can’t control what God does,” said Rashid Thajil Mutashar, the deputy director of water resources in Basra.

But man has had a hand in the river’s decline. Turkey, Syria and Iran have all harnessed the headwaters that flow into the Tigris and Euphrates and ultimately into the Shatt al Arab, leaving Iraqi officials with little to do but plead for them to release more from their modern networks of dams.

The environment problem became particularly acute last year when Iran cut the flow entirely from the Karun River, which meets the Shatt south of Basra, for 10 months. The flow resumed after the winter rains, but at a fraction of earlier levels.

...In Basra and in the villages that cling to the Iraqi shore of the Shatt, the impact of the disaster has been profound. The fresh waters that once flushed the canals of Basra — the Venice of the Middle East, it was called, though long ago — are fetid and filled with garbage.
The encroaching salt has so polluted supplies of drinking water that the government has scrambled to dig canals from the north that bypass the Shatt — Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki inaugurated one ahead of this year’s national election — and to truck in fresh water to much of the region. Anyone who can afford it avoids tap water, which is salty enough to leave spots on a glass when it dries.

Mr. Mutashar said that Iraq’s acceptable level of salt in the Shatt’s fresh water was 1,500 parts per million; last year the level reached 12,000.

This isn't the first time these problems have plagued this region. It's believed a similar salination destroyed ancient Mesopotamia. This first civilization developed thanks to intensive agriculture in the fertile crescent. That, in turn, depended on irrigation from the Shatt al Arab. But there was just enough salt in those waters to accumulate in trace amounts in the soil. Over several centuries that salt built up until, in a relatively short span, it reached a tipping point that turned the farmland sterile.

This sort of salination presents an enormous problem and not just for Iraq. As freshwater flows decline and sea levels rise, salination is becoming a genuine threat to Egypt's breadbasket, the Nile delta, as well as parts of Asia, including Bangladesh. And it's not going to get any better in my lifetime or yours.

The Case For Ditching Fossil Fuel Our Leaders Struggle to Ignore

What is most remarkable about Canada's mainstream political parties is their tireless ability to avoid doing anything meaningful about obvious threats to our country. Each does it in its own way. The Conservatives turn their heads. The Conservative-Lites act like a deer caught in the headlights. The Dippers simply whistle past the graveyard. At least that's how they react to the need to decarbonize the Canadian economy and Canadian society. The Conservatives and their political wannabees, the none-too oppositional Loyal Opposition, are in fact avowed Fossil Fuelers or, as TorStar columnist Walkom would politely put it, "on the same page" when it comes to the filthiest energy project on the planet, the Athabasca Tar Sands.

Rather than decoupling from oil, "The Twins" as I'll call them, actually want to lash our future to bitumen. Meanwhile Layton hunkers down in the corner, grinning sheepishly and munching on a stale crust while chanting "no carbon tax, no carbon tax, no carbon tax." This is what passes for leadership in our country and it's damned thin gruel to be sure.

In yesterday's Observer, the British government's chief science advisor (2000-2007), Sir David King, explains why our leaders, the lot of'em, are steering Canada down a dead end road:

Conventional oil production has a limited capacity. Most additional demand must be met by unconventional sources, which are abundant. But the capacity for production depends on the effective management of environmental, social and technical challenges that unconventional sources pose. The current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a clear indicator of how these boundaries are being pushed.

The most significant concern is transport; while there are many other ways to provide heat, light and electricity, liquid transportation fuels would be hard to come by if oil supply dried up.

The International Energy Authority (IEA) predicts that over the next 20 years there will be a steady increase in demand for liquid fuels, most of which will come from China and India. It also predicts that the supply of oil from fields that are currently in production will plummet over the same time frame.

There will be additional sources of oil to help fill this gap – from fields that have been found but not yet exploited, from those yet to be found, and from unconventional sources such as Canada's Tar Sands (though this is costly and particularly damaging from the point of view of climate). There is also the possibility of converting natural gas to liquid fuels. However, even adding all these into the mix, the IEA notes that there will still be a significant shortfall between demand and supply.

King warns of a looming, global oil shortage that will provide great wealth for oil producing nations but at the cost of destabilizing poorer states and damaging the economies of even larger, oil dependent countries. By the way, don't think for a minute that Canada's sitting pretty. Yes Athabasca generates wealth but ask yourself for whom? With Alberta's tragi-comedic royalty rates, that wealth doesn't stay in Canada. When oil hits $130 a barrel, you and I will be in the very same position as anyone from a non-producing country. Sir David says that our societies are going to change whether we like it or not:

To achieve this necessary change, we will need every weapon at our disposal. Improving the energy efficiency of our transportation will be crucial – by reducing air friction, improving engines and running smaller, lighter vehicles. Alternative fuels will also be important, moving from petrol to new generations of biofuels, hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles.
But we will also need to go beyond the designs of the vehicles and fuels themselves and look at changing urban design, building and improving mass transportation systems and changing the ways that people drive.

This, of course, is independent of the additional, but pressing imperative to reduce carbon emissions and prevent dangerous climate change. Put the two together and the case for change becomes overwhelming.

Something that King understandably doesn't mention but that I've begun to notice in international commentary lately is a not too subtle and growing hostility or resentment of the oil states. It's part envy for the windfall wealth they enjoy and part anger for the fallout that oil wealth spreads through the poorest parts of the world. The impacts of global warming are already setting in and they're bound to worsen significantly in the next two decades. In what light will that cast the petro-powers with their burgeoning wealth reaped from making the world sick? One thing George w. Bush was right about was that it's an addiction and the oil producers, us in particular, are the environmental meth lab that keeps that addiction fed.

Afghanistan - It's Suddenly Rich!

The New York Times reports that the U.S. has discovered upwards of a trillion dollars worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan:

...The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.

The wealth in these deposits represents roughly 80-years of Afghanistan's current GDP. In a hellhole beset by warlordism and tribalism, preyed upon by corrupt officials and institutional criminal classes and surrounded by hostile and avaricious neighbours, it should be a rockin' time in Kabul's henhouse.

Of course there's always the Chinese. Afghanistan has huge copper reserves and, while we've been dying and bleeding our treasuries to defend Karzai from the Taliban, China has quietly snapped up the rights to all that copper. They're even constructing a state of the art rail line into Afghanistan to haul out the ore.

Come to think on it, Afghanistan really doesn't need Western forces any more. With that kind of wealth they can easily afford to hire all the muscle they need from outfits like Blackwater, KBR and Halliburton. Can we come home now? Think the Chinese don't have an appetite for iron, cobalt, gold and lithium?

Why the Obama Surge is Doomed to Failure

Think of it this way. If you have a project that requires a thousand bricks but you have just one hundred, adding another thirty or forty really isn't going to help. Now consider that an analogy for the West's bungled 8+ years in Afghanistan. We went in with a force a small fraction of what was required and the Obama/McChrystal surge is the extra 30-bricks. Just what did we expect?

Word is leaking out that "the surge" isn't working. The Americans believed it would work but that's because they childishly believe it has worked in Iraq. It didn't? No, it didn't. There were real improvements in sectarian violence in Iraq but that resulted from several reasons that had little or nothing to do with the Petraeus surge. In any case, not one of the major flashpoint issues that have plagued Iraq since Saddam danced at the end of a rope has been resolved - not the fate of Kirkuk, not the Kurdish mini-state, not what to do with the Sunni minority, not what role the Shiite majority will choose in forging Iraq's relationship with Iran. All of these things have been put on hold until the Americans di di mau.

The Obama Surge was even less likely to work. Afghanistan is even more of a failed state than Iraq. Afghanistan is like a patient with a variety of cancers, each of them lethal. It is afflicted with a terminal mix of tribalism, warlordism, corruption, weakness and criminality. You can't ignore those realities and somehow imagine throwing in an extra 20 or 30-thousand troops to fight a rebel force is going to make any difference. It won't ...and it isn't.

This ambitious business kicked off in February when a record force of 15,000 US, Afghan, Canadian, British and French soldiers were sent in to clear the Taliban out of the city of Marja in Helmand province. Marjah (also spelled Marja) was supposed to be the main Taliban stronghold in Helmand believed to harbour a thousand Talib fighters.

Marjah was supposed to showcase the new "clear, hold and build" approach to counter-insurgency warfare in Afghanistan. The military forces did manage eventually to clear the place, at least somewhat, but Kabul was a dismal failure at the hold and build part. Last month, General McChrystal referred to Marjah as a "bleeding ulcer."

The Taliban know they have one weapon we don't - time. It's their greatest strength and our Achilles' Heel. They have essentially got us tied down in their backyard. Not only are they draining our treasuries and killing our soldiers but they're preventing us from doing anything else with those resources. And the passage of time without clear result is utterly corrosive of public support at home.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told the Western coalition last week that we're running out of time:

"The one thing none of the [alliance's] publics ... including the American public, will tolerate is the perception of stalemate in which we're losing young men. All of us, for our publics, are going to have to show by the end of the year that our strategy is on the track, making some headway."

How long can the insurgent/rebels hold out, how long can they fight us? The safe answer is as long as it takes. The Chinese occupied Vietnam for ten centuries without ever consolidating their hold on the place. Nationalist insurgencies persisted until the final war (that lasted almost a century) sent the Chinese packing. After the Chinese came the French followed by the Japanese, the French again and then the Americans. Each in turn was uprooted and dispatched.

A lot of our leaders - political and military - like to frame the Afghan war in misleadingly simplistic terms. They posit it as a struggle between Western forces and the Taliban. In reality, that war is simply one facet of much larger, more complex struggles underway in this region. You cannot take the measure of the Afghan war without taking into account the interests and rivalries of Iran, Pakistan, India, China and even Russia. There's no making sense of the Afghan war without factoring in the reality of Pipelinestan and the Caspian Basin fossil fuel resources. Every one of these externalites bears on and complicates the Afghan war and, together, they may have the decisive role in shaping the outcome.

Here's another thing to chew on. If the Afghan war was winnable this year or next year or the year after that, do you believe Harper wouldn't jump at the chance to see it through and don the victor's laurel wreath?

Time for Iggy to Fish or Cut Bait

What began as a few voices of discontent is today a cacophany. It's time for Michael Ignatieff to do something - anything. This apprenticeship should have been over a year ago. He should have fielded policies that would at least unify the Liberal ranks even if they weren't entirely palatable to the voting public. It's going to take more than policies to recapture public support at this point. It's going to take a revitalized, re-energized Liberal Party that looks and acts like it's ready to govern Canada, something that, for years, has been lacking.

What is a Liberal any more? I'm damned if I know. Whatever it is today to me is certainly unrecognizable as what I understood Liberal to be these past forty years.

Now there's talk about mergers and coalitions. The centre-right Ignatieff Liberals have become so lame that the Toronto Star's Tom Walkom says that they should consider a coalition - with the Harper Conservatives:

"...surely the only coalition that makes sense is one that joins the Liberals and Conservatives.

This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Rhetoric aside, the Liberals under Michael Ignatieff are far closer to the Conservatives than they are to Jack Layton’s New Democrats.

The governing and official opposition parties may quibble over details. But in broad terms, they are on the same page."

Walkom's right - the IgLibs and the Harper Conservatives are very much on the same page. We're sort of drifting into American politics. Harper has long wanted to transform the Conservatives into northern Republicans while Ignatieff seems intent on following suit to give the Libs a makeover into northern Democrats. Those are pretty stomach-churning ideas, aren't they?

If you can't believe this, Walkom has an interesting analysis to back up his point. Read it here.

An editorial in the same paper argues that it's time that Ignatieff actually did something.

...the Liberal/NDP merger talk may just be a smokescreen for a move to oust Ignatieff.

That would be premature. Ignatieff is the party’s third leader in just four years. The Liberals can’t keep changing leaders the way Cito Gaston summons pitchers from the bullpen.

But there is no question that Ignatieff needs to raise his game. His 18 months as party leader have been marked by more gaffes than gains. After an initial upward swing under Ignatieff, the polls show the Liberals slumping back into the 20s, or Stéphane Dion territory. The polls also show the public doesn’t see Ignatieff as prime ministerial.

"The public doesn't see Ignatieff as prime ministerial." That's an understatement. He's not. So why then are so many Liberals happy to follow him to the right, to Harper country? What gives Ignatieff the right to so warp the Liberal Party of Canada, to render it toxic to its traditional progressive component? He's forfeiting far more at the centre/centre-left than he can ever hope to steal from Harper on the right. He's misreading his party and the Canadian people. Liberal leaders past at least tried to be attuned to the Canadian voting public. Not this guy.

I think the Toronto Star is wrong in claiming the Libs can't change leaders at this point. In fact I think that's exactly what they should be doing only this time vet the candidates properly. If the right person isn't already within the active Liberal ranks, start looking outside. It's not that the Liberals can't afford another leader as much as that they can't afford another Dion or another Ignatieff. The public has sampled those offerings and said a resounding "No." They won't have it.

Another factor arguing for a leadership change as soon as practicable is that someone has to reverse Ignatieff's reckless turn to the right. The right doesn't need a second party, it already has the Harper Conservatives. The right is a place where the Liberal Party of Canada can only go to die. If the party belonged there you would see a different result in the polls and we've seen countless polls over the past twelve months that this point cannot be in doubt.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Ignatieff can still pull something out of his hat. Well this is his last chance to do just that. If he's got a progressive gene in his DNA, this is the time to show it. If not he ought to see if he can get his old job back at Harvard.

It Ain't Over Til It's Over - Global Meltdown v. 2.0

Don't you hate it when the air raid siren goes and then the "all clear" goes and then, just when you get out of the bunker, the air raid siren goes again? Well that might just be the story of the global recession, the culmination of Reagan's "Age of Ruin."

The European Union has recently been warning its members to brace themselves for a possible "double dip" recession, a message that's now reverberating through the United States to boot. Robert Reich warns America may already be in the opening throes of another bout of recession:

...Retail sales in May took their biggest nose-dive in eight months, according to today's report from the Commerce Department. Remember: Consumers account for 70 percent of the nation's economic activity.
American Corporations are sitting on huge piles of cash but they're not investing, and they're creating only a measly number of new jobs. And they won't invest and create jobs until they know there are customers out there to buy what they sell.

For three decades, starting in the late 1970s, the biggest economic problem America faced on an ongoing basis was inflation. Demand always seemed to be on the verge of outrunning the productive capacity of the nation. The Fed had to be ready to raise interest rates to stop the party, as it did on several occasions.

During this era of inflation economics, it appeared that John Maynard Keynes - and his Depression-era concern about chronically inadequate demand — was dead. So-called "supply siders" told policy makers that if they cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, they'd unleash a torrent of investment and innovation - thereby increasing the productive capacity of the nation. The benefits would trickle down to everyone else.

But the pendulum may now be swinging back to the earlier era in which demand always seems on the verge of trailing the nation's productive capacity. The biggest ongoing threats are chronic recession or even deflation, because consumers don't have enough money to what the economy is capable of selling at full or near-full employment. Despite gains in productivity, little has trickled down to America's middle class.

...Keynes prescribed two remedies - both of which are now necessary: Government spending to "prime the pump" and get businesses to invest and hire once again. And, as Keynes wrote, "measures for the redistribution of incomes in a way likely to raise the propensity to consume." Translated: Instead of big tax cuts for corporations and the rich, tax cuts and income supplements for the middle class.

Reich is absolutely right. The key to a successful, developed country lies in a healthy, robust middle class. A big, expansive middle class that embodies everyone from the trades to the professions and everyone in between. A strong middle class is the backbone of progressive democracy, national unity, a sound economy and social mobility. It is a strong middle class that keeps the door open to the less advantaged while also keeping open the door to the so-called "upper classes." And what happens when you shred the middle class? You wind up with today's United States of America.

First Casualty of Campbell's HST Gambit

"...an idea by government that forgot to bring the public along"

BC's minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources, Blair Lestrom, has felt the sting of his constituents' fury over the provincial Libs implementation of the HST, harmonized sales tax. Today Lestrom resigned from cabinet and from the Liberal caucus.

People out here are outraged and, worse, those who seem most upset are the traditional core supporters of the right of centre "liberal" government. My MLA, another Liberal, knows that all too well. He knows that a lot of those who voted him in won't repeat the favour the next time around and, while he won't openly criticize Gordon Campbell, he freely admits the HST initiative was horribly bungled.

What irks opponents most is the hamfisted way premier Campbell sprung it on the public. Campbell didn't even mention it until just a few days after winning his third term in May, 2009 when he announced the BC government was pursuing negotiations with Ottawa.

Are there merits to the HST? Of course there are, some at least. Are there provisions made to offset the impact to the most vulnerable? Sure, sort of. So what's the big fuss? It was keeping the public in the dark about this during the election and then, days later, introducing it as something of a done deal closed to discussion.

BC has a law allowing the public to present a petition calling on the government to reconsider an unpopular bill. It requires 10% of the voters in each of the province's 85-riding to sign up. The anti-HST campaigners say they've got at least 15% in each riding.

The government isn't bound to scrap the HST law but waiting in the wings is British Columbia's recall legislation. The G&M has listed eight BC Liberal MLA's said to be most vulnerable to recall. Depending on how badly Campbell plays his hand, eight could be just the beginning.

Truth In Advertising

An actual BP ad from 1999

Big Oil's Ponzi Scheme - George Monbiot

British eco-journalist George Monbiot is warning that the enormous profits Big Oil distributes to its shareholders as dividends may actually be, "externalised costs the company has failed to pay, and which the rest of society must carry."

"...Pollution has been defined as a resource in the wrong place. That’s also a pretty good description of the company’s profits. The great plumes of money that have been bursting out of the company’s accounts every year are not BP’s to give away. They consist, in part or in whole, of the externalised costs the company has failed to pay, and which the rest of society must carry.

Does this sound familiar? In the ten years preceding the crash, the banks posted and disposed of stupendous profits. When their risky ventures failed, they discovered that they hadn’t made sufficient provision against future costs, and had to go begging from the state. They had classified their annual surplus as profit and given it to their investors and staff long before it was safe to do so.

...The full costs imposed by the oil companies ...cannot be accounted. But even if they could, you shouldn’t expect the companies to carry them. They might be incapable of capping their leaks; they are adept at capping their liabilities. The Deepwater Horizon rig, which is owned by Transocean, is registered in the Marshall Islands. Most oil companies pull the same trick: they register their rigs and ships in small countries with weak governments and no international reach. These nations are, in other words, incapable of regulating them
.
Flags of convenience signify more than the place of registration: they’re an unmistakable sign that responsibilities are being offloaded. If powerful governments were serious about tackling pollution, the first thing they would do would be to force oil companies to register their property in the places where their major interests lie.

Arms Race Update - A World Wedded to War

An interesting item in The Christian Science Monitor that reveals how the worldwide military/industrial,warfighting complex is thriving today despite the global economic troubles. The link takes you to a CSM review of the top 10 militarized countries ranked according to defence expenditures.

There are a few surprises. Italy, for example, comes in at number 10. Italy? I can see Britain, France and Germany, sure, but Italy? The article offers up a few other juicy bits. Did you know that America's current military expenditures come out at roughly $2,000 per year for every American man, woman and child? That's an $8,000 a year tax burden for the average family of four. China comes in second place but with total expenditures just one-sixth of America's. France edges out Britain for third place spending $63-billion to the UK's $58-billion.

Mmm... IceCream Good - No, Bad?

You know we're hooped when credible researchers claim that, if mankind is to survive, we have to give up meat and dairy and, instead, turn vegan en masse.

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.

It says: "Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."

Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said: "Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels."

The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern, former adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.

No meat, no dairy? Hell, that's so depressing I think I need a lovely cheeseburger.

More here.

The Ugly Face of Big Oil

There's a lot of money in oil but, for those raking in the bounty, it's never enough. That leads Big Oil to act in curious ways including waging war on whistle blowers. Greg Palast explores BP's sordid history in Alaska. It's definitely worth a read here.

A Hilarious BP Parody

Enjoy

Republican Leadership Wants US Taxpayers to Chip In For BP Cleanup in Gulf

The Republicans are feeling mighty confident in the runup to November's congressional mid-term elections. So confident that they're openly talking about American taxpayers picking up part of BP's tab for the Deepwater Horizon fiasco.

Talking Point Memo DC queried house minority leader John Boehner at his weekly press conference this morning and got this:

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there."

...So today I asked Boehner, "Do you agree with Tom Donohue of the Chamber that the government and taxpayers should pitch in to clean up the oil spill?" The shorter answer is yes.

The Chamber is extremely influential in Republican politics, so on that level it's not particularly surprising that Boehner has Donohue's back on this one. But the politics of asking the federal government (i.e. taxpayers) to help cover the multi-billion dollar cleanup and rescue efforts are deadly. Look for Democrats to jump all over this one.

Read more here

American Neo-Cons Turn on Turkey

The usual suspects from the Iraq debacle - Richard Perle, John Bolton, James Woolsey - have crawled out of their cave to slam Turkey which they see as the key supporter to the recent Gaza humanitarian aid flotilla.

...Outraged by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's repeated denunciations of the May 31 Israeli raid, as well as his co-sponsorship with Brazil of an agreement with Iran designed to promote renewed negotiations with the West on Tehran's nuclear program, some neo-conservatives are even demanding that the US try to expel Ankara from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as one of several suggested actions aimed at punishing Erdogan's AKP (Justice and Development Party) government.

"Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran," noted the latest report by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a hard-line neo-conservative group that promotes US-Israeli military ties and has historically cultivated close ties to Turkey's military, as well.

"If Turkey finds its best friends to be Iran, Hamas, Syria and Brazil (look for Venezuela in the future) the security of that information (and Western technology in weapons in Turkey's arsenal) is suspect. The United States should seriously consider suspending military cooperation with Turkey as a prelude to removing it from the organization," suggested the group.

The attack is being led by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a hard-line neo-conservative group that promotes US-Israeli military ties. Perle, Woolsey and Bolton sit on JINSA's board of advisors. What these jokers persistently fail to recognize is that America's influence (hegemony) in the Middle East has faltered thanks, in no small part, to their adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia and China are positioning themselves to pick up what America drops along the way. Turning on Turkey is a great way to start.

Read more here.

When Leaders Lose Touch with Reality

It's becoming a recurring theme - top political leaders seriously out of touch with reality. They simply lack the courage to go beyond their established comfort zones and that translates into the enormous disaffection of the voting public with their political leadership.

What party able to wield political clout (sorry Greens) has anything remotely approaching an effective policy to combat global warming? Here's a hint: if they support the expansion of the Athabasca Tar Sands, their eco-chants are just so much greenwash. Imagine our own Canada refusing to become a leader in the fight to save mankind, our civilization and our planet from environmental catastrophe. It's positively mind boggling.

Across the pond, Britain's former chief scientist, Sir David King, has attacked politicians and industry experts for having "their heads in the sand" over the reality of declining oil supplies. From The Guardian:

...King said governments, including the UK's, were too eager to believe the optimistic predictions of economists who tell them that "oil will be squeezed out of the ground pretty much forever".

King, the government's chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, is now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford.

He said: "That's what governments want to hear and that's what they do hear, and I think the British government as much as many others."

...He said oil demand would overtake production capacity as soon as 2015, which would drive up the price further.

...While transport is seen as the most difficult sector to decarbonise, action needs to be taken immediately to keep people and goods moving while reducing reliance on fossil fuels, he said.

"I can't overemphasise the importance of persuading governments to focus attention on what's going to be a very significant issue as we move into the next decade.

"It is down to government to steer us towards a defossilised economy using the regulatory and financial incentives available.

If you're not convinced Canada's political leadership is out of touch with reality, read Marsden's book, "Stupid to The Last Drop." It's a telling look at Alberta's looming environmental catastrophe at the hands of Big Oil and an indictment of the political leadership, provincial and federal, doing Big Oil's bidding. Once read, you'll be under no illusions about those who proclaim themselves fit to guide our country. Canada, like every other industrialized nation, needs to be working toward decarbonizing our economy and our society even as our political leadership reveal themselves to be devout Fossil Fuellers.

How GreenPeacers See BP

Greenpeace is holding a contest for creative types to re-design the BP logo. Here are a few of the leading entries:

See more here.

The Myth of Israeli Security & Gaza

Israel defends its blockade of Gaza as a necessary evil to ensure its security by preventing arms being smuggled to Palestinian radicals. That's the line Israel has fabricated for public consumption in the West. The only thing wrong with it is that it's not true.

McClatchey Newspapers has obtained, "an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory."

Last week, after Israeli commandos killed nine volunteers on a Turkish-organized Gaza aid flotilla, Israel again said its aim was to stop the flow of terrorist arms into Gaza.

However, in response to a lawsuit by Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, the Israeli government explained the blockade as an exercise of the right of economic warfare.
"A country has the right to decide that it chooses not to engage in economic relations or to give economic assistance to the other party to the conflict, or that it wishes to operate using 'economic warfare,'" the government said.

The Israeli document reveals that the Gaza blockade is not the defensive necessity as claimed publicly by Israel but an offensive campaign to use deprivation of the Palestinian people to undermine support for Hamas. Quelle surprise!

The Silliness of Carbon Footprinting

When we think of reducing one's carbon footprint, riding a bicycle might come to mind. Surely, when it comes to carbon emissions, riding a bike is better than taking a car, isn't it? Well, according to an item in today's Guardian that might depend on what fuel is in the bicycle tank:


...however you ride, the energy has to come from the food you eat and that in turn has a carbon footprint. The good news is that the lower-carbon options are also the ones that make the best cycling fuel. Bananas are brilliant, largely because they are grown in natural sunlight (no hot-housing required) and because they keep well, which means that although they may be grown thousands of miles from the end consumer, they are transported by boats, which is a hundred times better in terms of emissions than air-freighting. As a bonus there is hardly any packaging, if any, because bananas provide their own.


Breakfast cereal is pretty good (let down slightly by the milk). The bacon comes in at around 200g CO2e for a 25g rasher with only enough calories for a mile and a quarter of riding. Two people cycling along using energy from cheeseburgers is equivalent to those same people sharing a ride in an efficient car. At the ridiculous high end of the scale, however, is getting your cycling calories by piling up your plate with asparagus that has been flown by air from the other side of the world. At 2.8kg per mile this is like driving a car that does six miles to the gallon (a shade over a mile per litre). You'd be better off in a Hummer.

Merger? I Don't Think So.

There's some talk about the Libs and the NDP merging to defeat the Harper Cons. As a Disaffected Lib who went into exile because of Ignatieff and his bungled attempt to shift the LPC to the right in harmony with Harper's shift of the Conservatives to the far right, I suppose I should be keen on the idea - but I'm not. In fact, I think a merger of the parties would be an admission of failure by both.


Let's take stock. Power was never the Layton NDP's to be had. Much as I respect them in some ways, the NDP have been and will for the foreseeable future remain a rump party. The idea of them ascending to power on the Liberals' coattails will unsettle a lot of people. The whole will be lesser than the sum of its parts. Maybe it could be enough to displace Harper with a stronger left-of-centre minority, but for how long? If anything I think this could work to the Conservatives' advantage in the medium and long-term.


On the other side of the ledger we have Ignatieff but just what is that? It's a leader with great academic credentials who has utterly failed at presenting a coherent policy platform that resonated with the voting public. Should Ignatieff's personal failure be just cause to drive the Libs into the NDP's arms? What Ignatieff has shown is that he is a man of the right of centre. Assuming he would expect to lead the merged entity, just how would he consolidate the support of the left? While I've steadfastly opposed the IgLibs drift to the right, Ignatieff is what he is and that rules out him leading a determined, centre-left party.


Having spent enough time looking in from the outside, I'm convinced the Liberals' problem is, fortuitously, at the top. I really don't believe there's all that much wrong with the Party beyond having strayed from its traditional place in Canadian politics. That the Party insiders happened to choose two, fatally flawed leaders in a row surely is more a reflection on the failure of those insiders and the individuals they chose than on the party of Laurier, Pearson and Trudeau.


How many people are capable of leading a rejuvenated, truly progressive Liberal Party? I can think of a couple and I'm sure there are vastly more. It's not going to be easy staging a comeback. It'll take a powerful, insightful and courageous person - another Trudeau (only Pierre, not Justin). I happen to know just the person to fit the bill - Louise Arbour - but I'm sure there are others. You've got to discard the Volpes and the Manleys, the whole not-quite-good-enough Old Guard.


Canada is on the threshold today of enormous, multi-generational and even existential challenges. There's more than enough meat on them bones to formulate a powerful Liberal platform instead of the thin gruel we've offered up these past few years. But you can't formulate that without vision that can be embraced by the voting public. Truth be told, I never believed Michael Ignatieff wasn't capable of that vision. I remain convinced, however, that he's not willing to trust ordinary Canadians with his vision, that he doesn't believe we as a people are capable of rallying to face great challenges. I truly believe Michael Ignatieff doesn't offer enough to this country to deserve leading our nation whether as a minority prime minister, a coalition head or the leader of a merged "Liberal-Democrat" party. He's staked out his turf and he's going to have to live there.

Canada needs and deserves a truly centrist party just as it needs and deserves another party to anchor the left of the Canadian political spectrum. That has benefited us in many ways I think we fail to appreciate. By standing on principle, serving as the conscience of parliament, the NDP has operated as an effective check preventing the Libs from drifting too far to the right. Reduce English Canada to a two-party state and, before long, you're apt to wind up with a Lib-Dem party resembling Tony Blair's Labour and a corporatist political structure closely resembling America's Democrats and Republicans. Who could wish that on our Canada?

The Tide Change in the Middle East - Return of the Ottomans

According to many, the most important player in the Middle East today isn't Israel or Egypt or Saudi Arabia. It's Turkey, the region's sole NATO member and, until recently, the West's toehold in the Arab world. That's now changing, thanks in large part to the Israelis.

Asia Times claims Turkey's emerging leadership role in the Arab Middle East was a factor in Israel's storming of the Gaza aid flotilla:

A key Israeli motive to attack the humanitarian flotilla was to send a "signal" to Turkey about the Brazil and Turkey-mediated Iran nuclear fuel-swap deal - as its success pre-empted Israel's pleas for a military strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities. Israel wants conflict between Washington and Tehran - and that means using the Israel lobby in Washington to sabotage US President Barack Obama's half-hearted attempts at finding any sort of agreement with Tehran over its uranium-enrichment program. Israel wants a weak Turkey - out of the loop both in the Middle East and the European Union.

Turkey is an emerging regional power now with good, stable relations with its neighbors. Turkey is key for the US: 70% of all supplies for US troops in Iraq go through the Incirlik base in Turkey. Turkey has troops fighting the US war in Afghanistan. Not to mention that Turkey - in Obama's own terms - represents the key bridge between the West and the Muslim world.

...As much as Israel wants Turkey immersed in deep trouble with both Syria and Greece, and fighting a nasty internal Kurdish problem, Ankara is not exactly trembling because of Israel's "message". In terms of conventional military strength, Turkey is ahead of Israel itself; and moreover it is a very important US NATO ally.

... this has led to the ultimate Israeli nightmare. The new key axis in the Middle East is Turkey, Iran and Syria. It used to be only Iran and Syria. Its historical legitimacy simply cannot be questioned, as it unites Shi'ite Iran, secular Syria and post-Ottoman Sunni Turkey.

There are many fascinating side-effects of this cross-fertilization - such as more than a million Iraqis, many of them very well educated, finding a new life in Syria. But the most remarkable effect of this axis is that it has smashed the same old divide-and-rule logic Western colonialism has been imposing on the Middle East for more than a century. Turkey's destiny may not be firmly attached to a fearful Europe that really does not want to embrace it after all; Turkey is to become once again a leader of the Muslim world.

This warning of an emergent Turkey, slipping the bonds of the West, is echoed in today's New York Times:

For decades, Turkey was one of the United States’ most pliable allies, a strategic border state on the edge of the Middle East that reliably followed American policy. But recently, it has asserted a new approach in the region, its words and methods as likely to provoke Washington as to advance its own interests.

... Turkey is seen increasingly in Washington as “running around the region doing things that are at cross-purposes to what the big powers in the region want,” said Steven A. Cook, a scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations. The question being asked, he said, is “How do we keep the Turks in their lane?”

From Turkey’s perspective, however, it is simply finding its footing in its own backyard, a troubled region that has been in turmoil for years, in part as a result of American policy making. Turkey has also been frustrated in its longstanding desire to join the European Union.
“The Americans, no matter what they say, cannot get used to a new world where regional powers want to have a say in regional and global politics,” said Soli Ozel, a professor of international relations at Bilgi University in Istanbul. “This is our neighborhood, and we don’t want trouble. The Americans create havoc, and we are left holding the bag.”

...for years Mr. Erdogan encouraged closer ties with Israel, even taking a planeload of businessmen to Tel Aviv in 2005. While the relationship has deteriorated badly in recent years — with Mr. Erdogan lambasting Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, over the Israeli military’s tactics in the Gaza campaign — Jewish leaders in Istanbul say that it is more about Mr. Erdogan’s dislike of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than his view of Israel.

Did you notice the complaint that Turkey is running around the Middle East doing things at cross purposes to what "the major powers in the region" want? What major powers? Why Washington, of course. Is it any wonder the Arab world recoils at such arrogance?

Asia Times notes that Turkey has been successful at building the Turkey/Syria/Iran axis in part thanks to the support of Russia.

...A new Middle East is being born - and there seems to be only one place for Israel: isolation.

Israel's "mad dog" strategy - conceived by former military leader Moshe Dayan - is not exactly an exercise in fitting in. Even centrist Middle East analyst Anthony Cordesman, an establishment icon at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote an essay under the title "Israel as a Strategic Liability?"

Big Brother Washington may be - forever - blind to it; but if you are a state and your strategy is to configure yourself as South Africa at the twilight of apartheid - ...method is the last thing to be found in your madness.

Playing For Time

If nothing else, the past ten years have painted a rich tableau of the seismic changes underway in our world. The depletion of non-renewable resources; the exhaustion of renewables; global warming and associated severe weather events; species extinctions and migration; deforestation; desertification; air, soil and water contamination; floods and droughts; the unstoppable migration of pests and diseases; nuclear proliferation and the spread of terrorism; regional arms races; climate migration and overpopulation; and the multi-directional onslaught of global freshwater stocks. Over the past decade how many of these have we fixed? How many have we solved? How many have worsened and how many have improved?

Now consider the next ten years. How many of these issues that confront, sometimes even threaten mankind, are we preparing to remedy? How many of them will we fix or solve by 2020? How many will worsen over the next decade and how many will improve?

And then the clincher. What will our world and our civilization look like with a further decade of erosion on these critical fronts? Will we become a less cohesive, more fractured civilization rent along regional lines staring angrily at each other over a widening chasm that divides the "haves" from the "have nots"? Will mankind's abilities, our strength atrophy as these threats grow ever more powerful? Does anyone seriously believe that mankind is going to be stronger ten years from now than it is today?

The fact is, we in the most advantaged, most affluent West are the key and yet we're still not willing to look beyond our blind faith in growth and prosperity to catch a glimpse of what lies just on the other side. Our leaders, those we've traditionally looked to for vision and guidance? Well they're not leaders, not really. They've long since learned it's far easier to manipulate an electorate with fear, anger and outright deception than to motivate them with vision and guidance.

So what they're doing is playing for time. Why do you think all these religious fanatics have arrived on the political scene today, these "end of times" nutjobs? They see the same world you do only in the context of Armageddon and "The Rapture" when their god sweeps them up into his arms. Their perverse zealotry sees these looming threats as harbingers of divinely better times just ahead and, coming from that perspective, who would want to change anything?

Then there are the weak and feckless secularists, people like Michael Ignatieff. Every now and then they might be able to screw up their courage and blurt out the words "global warming" before morphing into advocates for the Athabasca Tar Sands. Do you think this variety of sickly leadership is going to face up to any of these environmental threats and challenges? If you do, you're only fooling yourself.

No, sorry but these guys are just playing for time. Harper, cozy in his fundie cocoon, doesn't believe there's any need to act and Ignatieff can't muster the courage and vision to do any better.

I'd love to hear one of these ersatz leaders read the opening paragraph of this piece and then respond to the listed questions. These are existential challenges to our civilization, to mankind itself. Don't you think anyone claiming himself fit to lead our country should be able to acknowledge these problems and show us how we should be responding to them? I sure do.

At some point we're not going to be able to duck these problems. They'll overtake us or land unexpectedly on our doorstep, peaceably or otherwise. Are we preparing ourselves to deal with them when that day arrives? No, of course not. But it's not entirely our leaders' fault. It's ours too. We sit by and allow them to just bury their heads in the sand. That suits us too. We're all just playing for time.

Afghanistan Overtakes Vietnam as America's Longest War

As of yesterday, June 7, the Afghan war entered its 104th month, overtaking the eternity the United States endured waging war in Vietnam. In many minds the war in Afghanistan, the war that counts, is already lost. That's the political war, the war that determines the ultimate success or defeat of the insurgency. The other war, the military war, continues apace but to what conceivable end? Grim as it may be to contemplate, it's common for our war, the military war, to run on inconclusively for years after the decisive war, the political war is determined. That's because we cannot be defeated militarily just as we cannot win a war like Afghanistan militarily. We can, however, keep blasting away for a good, long time after killing becomes irrelevant.




But how to get out of Afghanistan? Last year wasn't a good year to leave, neither is this year. Next year? No, probably not then either. It's the classic trap Western forces encounter, a mental trap. As Vietnam whistle-blower Daniel Elsberg put it back then, "It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam."

Should Ours Be The Last Generation?

To beget, or not to beget.

I have often thought that, had I known 25-years ago what is known today about environmental degradation, overpopulation and the existential challenges that will beset the young throughout this 21st century, I would have had second thoughts about bringing children into this world. I have pondered this many times but I have rarely mentioned it because it never seemed to be on the radar of the younger, educated, affluent types having children today and it is such a personal question.

That said, I was relieved to see this very subject, posed as a philisophical question, in yesterday's New York Times. Here are a few excerpts but I urge you to read the entire piece here:

"Have you ever thought about whether to have a child? If so, what factors entered into your decision? Was it whether having children would be good for you, your partner and others close to the possible child, such as children you may already have, or perhaps your parents? For most people contemplating reproduction, those are the dominant questions. Some may also think about the desirability of adding to the strain that the nearly seven billion people already here are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself. Most of those who consider that question probably do so because they have some reason to fear that the child’s life would be especially difficult — for example, if they have a family history of a devastating illness, physical or mental, that cannot yet be detected prenatally.

All this suggests that we think it is wrong to bring into the world a child whose prospects for a happy, healthy life are poor, but we don’t usually think the fact that a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life is a reason for bringing the child into existence. This has come to be known among philosophers as “the asymmetry” and it is not easy to justify. But rather than go into the explanations usually proffered — and why they fail — I want to raise a related problem. How good does life have to be, to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world? Is the standard of life experienced by most people in developed nations today good enough to make this decision unproblematic, in the absence of specific knowledge that the child will have a severe genetic disease or other problem?

UN Finally Clears Willie Pete from Gaza

The United Nations Mine Action Team (UNMAT) in Gaza has just finished clearing out Israeli white phosphorus warheads left over from Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli assault on Gaza a year and a half ago. From the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office:

“The most common unexploded ordnance [UXOs] found in Gaza are mortars, rockets, bombs, white phosphorus canisters and mines, such as M-15 anti-tank mines,” Sheila Black, UNMAT’s support specialist, told IRIN in Gaza City. For more than a year, UNMAT has assessed the contamination threat in Gaza’s 1,642, mostly residential, sites, Black said. Since the end of the Israeli operation, more than 44 casualties - including 10 deaths - were believed to be UXO-related.

UNMAT uncovered 355 UXOs, including 71 M-15 anti-tank mines and 63 fragments of white phosphorus, as well as 2,100 rounds of small-arms ammunition. Additional white phosphorus munitions were handed over by the local authorities.

White phosphorus reacts with oxygen and “once in contact with air, it burns very hot, very quickly and very deeply on any substance it touches, including the human body”, said Mark Russell, UNMAT’s operations officer. Commonly used in smoke, tracer and illumination munitions, it can also cause serious burns or death.

Saturday Night

This - and really fast motorcycles - is what sometimes matters:

Living With the Tar Sands. You Don't Have a Choice.

Any hopes of Canada being able to chart its own course through the 21st century are effectively crushed by the Athabasca Tar Sands and the craven nature of Ottawa and Edmonton.

No matter how obvious it becomes that Athabasca is an environmental catastrophe that, for the benefit of the people of the MacKenzie basin, for the benefit of Canada and for the benefit of the world, needs to be shut down completely, that's not going to happen. The reason for that dismal projection is simple - the only people who could shut down Athabasca are the Americans and, when it comes to oil, they're the addicts and Athabasca is their crack pipe. And so, the filthiest fossil fuel project on the planet will continue and grow and grow and grow unless and until the Americans go off the "oil standard." Don't hold your breath.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if Ottawa and Edmonton could deliver on their fairy tale promise of carbon capture & sequestration and remediation of the environmental devastation of the Athabasca region - but they can't and they won't. CCS capture on the scale necessary for the Tar Sands is a farce and the powers that be know it. Besides, who is going to pay for it? The Americans? Not bloody likely. Ottawa? Well we've already heard rumblings of just that from Ignatieff but the political repercussions of that could be even more toxic than the great Athabascan tailing ponds. Athabasca's ersatz crude is the most expensive on the planet and nobody is interested in shouldering the considerable extra expense that CCS (even if it could be made to work) would entail.

Ever wonder why nobody in Alberta or in Ottawa dares tie Tar Sands production and growth to clear CCS and site remediation requirements? And I thought conservatives were all about "user pays." The users - the oil companies - pay up front to sequester the CO2 they generate before it gets pumped into the atmosphere. You can't sequester it after it's slipped away. But that would mean tying operation approvals to the construction of viable CCS systems. The Tar Sanders would actually have to construct their CCS plants and prove them ready and able to fulfil their lofty promises. Put your money where your mouth is, fellas. But the spineless legislative denizens of Wellington St., Ottawa and 97 Avenue, Edmonton haven't got the guts to lower that lumber on the Tar Sanders and, until they do, it ain't gonna happen.

Ignatieff can stupidly follow Harper's lead and proclaim Canada's grand future as an "energy superpower" but don't eat that stuff, Charlie - it's horseshit. Fossil Fuel Super Errand Boy is a much more apt description. Superpowers have clout. We don't have any clout. If we did there'd be a huge CCS operation and site remediation programme already underway in Athabasca. If we don't have enough clout to safeguard our own territory, our own people, then we're anything but a superpower of any description. And the end users? They've already got their fangs and their claws deeply planted in our backs and they have no intention of letting go. With China now muscling in on what Americans have long seen as their preserve it shouldn't be long before Washington moves to cement American dominion over this grimy, slimy patch of the Great White North.

Only in America, "The Rebirth of a Nation"

Racism has been restored to its pride of place in today's America with its less than white president. Call it "freedom of speech" I guess but the most vile, rank racism is even found on America's airwaves coming from scum like Republican mouth hero, Rush Limbaugh and others.

In case you missed it, here's one from South Carolina Republican state senator Jake Knotts on his party's leading gubernatorial candidate, Nikki Haley.

"We already got one raghead in the White House,

we don't need a raghead in the governor’s mansion."

Haley was born in India and came to the US as a child. She converted to Methodism, from Sikhism.

There was a time, however brief, when Americans would find the likes of Jake Knotts shameful, even repugnant. At least in America's Cracker south that times seems to have passed.

Israel Attacks NATO

Remember Article 5 of the NATO charter, the reason we're still bogged down in Afghanistan, the "attack on one is an attack on all" trigger?

So, Israel committed an act of war by attacking a NATO member-flagged ship in international waters, an attack to which the entire alliance - Canada and the US included - is obliged to treat as an attack on all.

So, what's it going to be? Air strikes, cruise missiles, unmanned drones to target the Israeli leadership, a land invasion to oust a criminal regime? We've got quite a menu of options and plenty of recent experience in how to use them.

(h/t consortiumblog.com)

Harper's Maniacal Methods Outed - by Flanagan

At one time they were the closest of allies - Stephen Harper and his former campaign director, Tom Flanagan. That was then, this is now. The University of Calgary's professor Tom is now ratting out Steve for ruling today's Conservatives with an iron hand and structuring the party to ensure that dissent has no place to take hold. From the Toronto Star:

...Flanagan writes that Harper took many lessons from Preston Manning, who was a manipulative leader, saying he learned how to control a populist movement.

“He used to grumble privately about Manning’s manipulations, but he was absorbing the lessons. Indeed, he ultimately ended up with a view of leadership far more aggressive than Manning’s, after he saw the Canadian Alliance experience of how populism could get out of control.”

Once Harper decided the route to electoral victory was to merge the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties, writes Flanagan, he aggressively set out to meld the two, win the leadership, and structure the party’s fundraising, policy development and executive bodies so that he was the ultimate decision-maker.

Flanagan writes that Harper’s shaping of the party structures and determination not to allow “intermediate” groupings such as youth wings, or separate political entities for regional, ethnic, aboriginal or other different groups under the party’s umbrella means that “there are no points of refuge in which opposition to the leadership could coalesce."

...Federal politicians, he writes, “are like child soldiers in a war-torn African country: all they know how to do is to fire their AK-47s.”

Harper’s government controls its cabinet ministers, MPs, Conservative staffers, and party operatives through rigid message discipline. Staffers are instructed never to talk to the press and risk losing their jobs if they do. MPs must adhere to official talking points, he adds.

“Just as chronic warfare produces a garrison state, permanent campaigning has caused the Conservative Party to merge with the campaign team, producing a garrison party. The party is today, for all intents and purposes, a campaign organization focused on being ready for and winning the next election, whenever it may come.”

Gee Tom, Harper an undemocratic, control freak? A real, live Fuhrer figure? Who could've known?

A Nuclear Option for the Gulf Oil Leak?

According to The New York Times, some oil experts have been giving serious thought to using nuclear devices to seal off the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.

"...The idea has gained fans with each failed attempt to stem the leak and each new setback — on Wednesday, the latest rescue effort stalled when a wire saw being used to slice through the riser pipe got stuck.

“Probably the only thing we can do is create a weapon system and send it down 18,000 feet and detonate it, hopefully encasing the oil,” Matt Simmons, a Houston energy expert and investment banker, told Bloomberg News on Friday, attributing the nuclear idea to “all the best scientists.”

Or as the CNN reporter John Roberts suggested last week, “Drill a hole, drop a nuke in and seal up the well.”

Sounds pretty wild, doesn't it? It might sound a little less bizarre to those who realize that nuclear oil mining was once considered a serious prospect for the Athabasca Tar Sands. In fact, at one point, the US government had a deal with the then Ritchfield Oil Company to produce and deliver a nuclear device for testing at the Tar Sands. They had even decided to fly it to northern Alberta claiming the risk of a mishap causing an accidental surface detonation was acceptable.

The history of nuclear oil mining plans for the Tar Sands is detailed in William Marsden's book, "Stupid to the Last Drop" Random House Canada, 2007. The idea was dropped in the 60's not because of environmental concerns but thanks to the development of cheaper oil drilling projects in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. In 1973, the US Navy Secretary obtained Canadian patent 933087 for a "Nuclear Explosive Method of Stimulating Hydrocarbon Production from Ptroliferous Formations (tar sands)."

BP to Shell Out $10-Billion in Shareholder Dividends

Tony Haywire has decided to poke Washington in the eye with a sharp stick by forking out billions to BP shareholders. The oil giant's CEO is caught between American fury and plummeting share prices. Haywire, the munchkin now best known for spinning the most godawful nonsense about the Deepwater Horizon fiasco, intends to tell BP shareholders that he's sure the company can afford both the dividend and the fiscal whipping it faces in the US, estimated in the $20-60 billion dollar range. $60-billion? That might just be the sound of Haywire whistling past the graveyard.

According to The Guardian, BP and its dividends are simply too important to the "City" to pass up:

...BP's dividend is of crucial importance to the City and to the pensions of millions who depend on payouts from profitable companies to boost their retirement funds. Together with rival Shell, BP accounted for 25% of the total dividends of £50bn paid in the UK market last year. Any cut in the dividend could result in investors selling BP shares, further weakening the company, which has lost nearly 30% of its value since the disaster began.

The newspaper reports that British bookie, Paddy Power, is now offering even odds that Haywire will be gone from BP by the new year.

Anger at Britain's largest corporation is heating up in the United States with calls for the government to seize BP's American assets and some commentators predicting the company could face an operating ban in the US. There is a lot of speculation from many corners that BP may not survive the Deepwater Horizon debacle and is already a takeover target.

Egypt to Israel - "Screw You"

Riled up by the Israeli attack on the international aid flotilla to deliver humanitarian assistance to Gaza (i.e. with Cairo's hand forced by Netanyahu), Egypt is opening its border to Gaza.

President Hosni Mubarak ordered security at the Rafah border crossing to allow aid to enter Gaza, and to let Gazans in need of medical treatment to leave.

The move follows Israel's violent interception Monday of 10,000 tons of supplies bound for Gaza aboard an international aid flotilla.

Egypt, for the most part, has kept its border with the Palestinian territory closed since Hamas militants came to power in 2007. - Voice of America news.

Harper's Canada Now Israel's "Best Friend"

Canada is getting recognized on the world stage again. This time, according to this item from Al Jazeera, we're Israel's new "best friend."

Well, so long as we've got an uber-rightwing, fundamentalist gang running the place, what else could we expect?

BP Denies Subsurface Oil Plumes

BP must sense it's facing a fight for its very survival. How else to explain the company's curious campaign of denial and deception about the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster?

The oil company's CEO, Tony Hayward (make that "Haywire"), has become notable for his off the wall remarks such as, "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." Yes, Mrs. Lincoln, but other than that, how did you like the play?

Hayward is now denying the reported presence of massive, subsurface oil plumes said to be spreading through the well area. That's a tough sell for those of us who've seen video of the plumes and watched Phillipe Cousteau swim through the murk.





Hayward claims that all the oil disgorged by the well is on the surface. I suspect what he's really saying is that all the oil for which BP can be fined is on the surface. Every barrel it can treat to sink is a freebie.

For a fun look at Tony Haywire, check this out: http://twitpic.com/1pck5t