A Nation in the Grip of Psychosis

American myth has it that the U.S. is the "land of the free and the home of the brave."   That myth has been completely shredded over the last decade.  Americans have become not brave but fear-driven to the point where they've come to fear freedom itself.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts asks whether America's fear of Muslims has caused the country to lose its mind:

We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of America's mind.

It was last seen last month in Oklahoma. There, voters gave emphatic approval to a measure outlawing the use of Sharia law -- a strict and often brutal interpretation of Islamic religious strictures -- in state courts. Sharia is not known to be a problem in Oklahoma, or, for that matter, anywhere else in the United States, something even the bill's backers concede. But, said the initiative's sponsor, then-Republican state Rep. Rex Duncan, why wait?

Of course, by that reasoning, one can also justify laws regulating time travel, flying cars and pink unicorns pooping in public parks. Should we assume Oklahoma legislators are hard at work on laws to restrict these and other nonexistent troubles?

Probably not. After all, unlike other purely fictional problems, the Sharia ``issue'' allows a demagogue to exploit a tender spot in the American psyche: Our growing fear of all things Muslim.

...Americans of German descent were bullied and beset during the First World War in a nation that found it necessary to rename sauerkraut ``Liberty Cabbage.'' Americans of Japanese descent were imprisoned during the Second World War, many of them losing their homes and livelihoods.

You'd think that sordid history would make us wary of entreatments to blindly castigate our fellow Americans. And you would be mistaken.

To his credit, President George W. Bush explicitly rejected the reflexive fear of all things Muslim in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. But to its discredit, his party nonetheless chose to embrace that fear, to exploit and campaign on it throughout the decade.

Here, now, is the result. We move through a perilous time that demands serious consideration of serious issues -- airline security, energy dependence, the radicalization of American citizens -- but we, profoundly unserious people that we are, fret instead about saving Oklahoma from Sharia law, solving a problem we do not and will not have.

Thoughtful people ought to be alarmed.

The goal of terrorism, you see, is not to make a nation bleed but to make it fear. Oklahoma's nonsensical law suggests our enemies have been successful in that.

One recalls how Bush stood beneath a banner that crowed of a victory against terrorism. But to the degree Oklahoma accurately reflects our national mindset, it is the terrorists who deserve to hoist that banner. America is scared stupid.

Why does it feel that Pitts' is a voice in the wilderness?

FUBARistan

The WikiLeaks diplomatic communique scandal has revealed a stark picture of Afghanistan and our war there, one that our leaders have been working hard to conceal from their people back home.  We're being scammed and our soldiers are being fed into the grinder - for very little or nothing.

The colloquial term "FUBAR" comes to mind.  It's an acronym meaning F__ked Up Beyond Recognition.   For Afghanistan it could be tweaked to mean F__ked Up Beyond Redemption.  Hell, the country itself should be renamed FUBARistan.

Few of us were not aware that Afghanistan has a corruption problem.  We've heard about that ever since we showed up there.   We just didn't know that Afghan corruption has metastasized into a terminal disease.  It's incurable and it will be fatal to any but the most brutal regime conceivable which is what will quickly emerge from the civil war that will follow our departure.

We know the Afghans despise us as we do them.  Karzai's outbursts don't just happen when he's failed to balance his meds.  Poor old Hamid.  I figure he's already got his bags packed ready to scram in a real big hurry.   As Gwynne Dyer put it, Karzai has a date with a very short rope tied to the end of an elevated tank barrel if the rebels get their hands on him.

In The Guardian today we learn that both Karzai and the Americans freely ridicule Britain's effort in Helmand province.   The Americans feel the Brits haven't attained their own level of magnificence.   Karzai is pissed off because the British blocked his strenuous attempts to appoint a drug lord to become the governor of Helmand province.

We learn that Iran is bribing financing many top Afghan leaders and, supposedly, training Taliban fighters.  Karzai's VP caught in Dubai with a suitcase containing $52-million?   His money or Hamid's?  Apparently top level skimming is rampant and the Americans are powerless to stop it.   These are people who are not looking to a victorious outcome in their civil war with the Talibs.

And those wily mercenaries contractors, America's shadow army, are up to no good, hiring dancing boys dressed up like girls to entertain stoned Afghan cops.  Maybe we should just call that "bummage" on the monthly expenses report.

This is a good one.   The Karzai clan feared Hamid might have failed to rig the last elections successfully.   U.S. diplomats reported two of his brothers were planning to seek asylum in the States while other family members had kept themselves and their money safely out of the country pending the outcome.  Jeebus it's no wonder Hamid acts so paranoid - everybody is out to get him, not just the Talibs either.

Oh yeah, all that business we've heard about peace overtures to the Taliban, invitations for them to take their rightful place alongside their fellow Afghans in the central government?  Bullshit.  Karzai and the Americans utterly reject the idea of guys like Mullah Omar getting into their government.   The only thing they're extending to him is the opportunity to surrender - as it.   Karzai believes he's enough of a draw to get rank and file Talibs to desert Omar and come over to him.

Worse still is that Karzai has betrayed his non-Pashtun, ex-Northern Alliance warlords.   He needed their backing to win votes from their tribes but handpicked weak candidates to represent them who predictably lost shutting those tribes and their warlords out of power.   That is why there is so much unrest among the northern tribes and reports of a possible northern uprising against Karzai.

There's so much more and it's all rancid.   This hellhole is FUBARistan, beyond redemption.   No surprise there.   This is what happens in this sort of conflict.  You have to get in with overwhelming force, get the place secured and a legitimate government in place, and then just as quickly get out.   We didn't.  Karzai has become a warfare-welfare bum, an incompetent, corrupt and untrustworthy parasite on Tehran's payroll to boot.

What are we doing in Afghanistan?   Why are we staying there in any capacity?  This place is so bent it's beyond salvation.  Even our guys are rotten to the core and, in Afghanistan's time-honoured tradition of treachery, would turn on us in a Kabul minute.

The only justification for keeping Canadian forces in that failed state is NATO solidarity but, in the NATO context, we've already done far more than our fair share.  Ignatieff and Rae got this ball rolling and Harper, with great feigned reluctance, jumped on it.   I don't even understand how a Liberal could possibly support these supposed Liberals.

A Dark White Christmas

Some quirky people in Hayden, Idaho including the occupant of this house, a creep associated with the Aryan Nation, who built his own snowman complete with a KKK-style hat and a noose.   It's reported that the homeowner is a white separatist who handed out bullets at Halloween.  Apparently passersby knocked down the Klan hat and the occupant removed the noose after a visit from law enforcement officers.

I wonder what the guy thinks of Obama?

Is Dick Cheney a Wanted Man?

A report in Agence France Presse claims Nigerian authorities may charge Dick Cheney in connection with a bribery scandal from his Halliburton days.

Asked whether Cheney would be charged over the investigation into construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in southern Nigeria, [anti-graft agency spokesman] Femi Babafemi said, " it's true ... definitely."

The spokesman could not give details on the charges that he says are likely to be filed next week, but said   "  they are not unconnected to his role as the chief executive of Halliburton."

A prosecutor on the case said Cheney would be charged jointly along with the former and current leadership of Halliburton and others.

Officials from companies in a consortium involved in the LNG plant would also be included in the charges to be " placed before the court at the latest by Tuesday of next week,"  said Godwin Obla.

Cheney would face conspiracy charges and a Nigerian judge would be asked to issue an arrest warrant for him that would be transmitted to Interpol, said Obla.

Actually the old Dick looks pretty good in the hands up "I surrender" pose, no?

Sally Ann Bells Banned - Has It Really Come to This?

Ever since I was a kid (a good, long time ago) Christmas has always been associated with the iconic Salvation Army Christmas kettle and a volunteer bell ringer.  Sleigh bells.  C'mon, it's Christmas.

Apparently some in Toronto see it differently.   CBC News reports that two of Toronto's largest malls, Eaton Centre and Fairview, are banning the Sally Ann bells, citing noise complaints.

Seriously, what are they doing?  Bursting eardrums?  Hardly.  Besides, it's not like all those merchants aren't cashing in big time on the whole Christmas thing.  It seems to me Christmas needs more Sally Ann, not less:

Monbiot Scolds Canada's Environmental Darth Vader

The Guardian's environmental guru, George Monbiot, has a bone to pick with British Columbia's Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace.  It's an interesting, albeit mildly troubling, piece.

Harper's Flaccid Stimulus

The Harper-Ignatieff stimulus budget was a flop.   Intended to create jobs in the face of an onrushing recession, it hardly made a dent according to Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page.

The survey by Phoenix Strategic Perspectives was done in the midst of the 2010 construction season and was commissioned by the Parliamentary Budget Office.

“It doesn’t score well on the employment side,” Mr. Page said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “You’re spending a lot of money and it’s not creating very much in terms of jobs.”

The survey found the program was largely viewed as well run, but a summary report concludes only 33.3 per cent said the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund had a beneficial impact on unemployment. Its impact on unemployment was assessed as neutral by 43.3 per cent and negative by 20.6 per cent.

The Globe & Mail, naturally, frames the survey as going to the validity of Keynesian theory that government intervention and deficits are required in recessionary times.   In my view, the Globe take is pathetically simplistic.  If you search "pinata" on this blog you'll see what I'm getting at.

Back even before Harper first prorogued Parliament we knew there was going to be some sort of stimulus package forthcoming.   It was then that I pointed out what Harper and his clone never understood - pumping money into the economy works but it has to be put to work very strategically.  It has to be "new" spending and that money has to go on actual new investments that will pay back the taxpayers in the long run.  To achieve that the government itself must not only provide the cash injection but also identify the areas in which it will be "invested."

The Harper-Iganatieff "Pinata Budget" failed at the outset because it simply threw money around without controlling it.   You could put a deck on the cottage that you might have been planning on doing anyway.  The only difference there was that the government gave you a tax deduction for no net benefit to the country.   Provincial and municipal authorities were able to do the same sleight of hand spending only on a greater scale.

I know the scam because I did it.   I was going to have some structural landscaping done and along comes the Pinata Budget so I'm suddenly able to deduct the cost on my taxes.   Nobody got hired who wasn't going to be hired.  Nothing got bought or spent that wasn't going to be bought or spent.  All that happened was that the federal government went into deficit to give me a tax break - for nothing, absolutely nothing.

They could have kept that borrowed money and used it to construct a high-speed rail line, or a new electricity grid, or a host of other projects that would have generated real returns to the taxpayers in the decades to come when those deficits will have to be paid off.   But they wouldn't do that.  Harper was too ideologically bound to take responsibility for the money he was shovelling out and Ignatieff, fresh from writing a wonderful book about his mother's family, had no alternative plan which left the Liberals no choice but to back the farce of a stimulus budget.  Oh yeah, they put Stephen Harper "on probation."  Gag.

It is utterly irrelevant that the plan was administered well.   What matters is not how the plan was administered but whether it was sound - and it wasn't.  It was a loser from the start and it is to the current Liberal management's shame that they were complicit in it.

Is Atheism Irreverant?

I read this headline in the Vancouver Sun:  "Christ meets Bigfoot, More Irreverent Atheist Ads Set to Hit Canadian Cities."   And then I thought, wait a second, isn't that taking sides?
A brief disclaimer.  I'm not an atheist nor am I a believer.  I'm agnostic.  It's not sitting on the fence but a firm conviction that, whether a deity exists is probably much beyond our limited human intellect.  I'm not sure that, in the universal scheme of things, we're all that much brighter than slugs.  It's sort of like how my dog can look at his food container and be perfectly correct in knowing there's food in it but totally unable to grasp how that food came to be there or even what it is.   I suppose you can say he takes it all on faith.
Back to my point.   Can an atheist be irreverent absent the existence of an actual god?   And so is not the newspaper predetermining the question without proferring the slightest evidence that god exists?  If the atheist is right he cannot possibly be irreverent.
Isn't it weird the piddly stuff that can get under our skin?

WikiLeaks? You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

The Guardian's executive investigations editor, David Leigh, says there are many powerful disclosures yet to be revealed from the WikiLeaks dump of U.S. diplomatic cables.



Meanwhile, Noam Chomsky says the leaked diplomatic messages reveal a "profound hatred of democracy on the part of [America's] political leadership."

The North Will Rise Again. Let's Hope Not.

Asia Times Online reports an insurrection is brewing in Afghanistan, one that could leave Western forces stuck in the midst of a full-blown civil war beyond our control.   This time it won't be the Pashtun Taliban in rebellion against Kabul but another rebellion by the northern tribes.

The ongoing insurgency in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan rightly commands attention, but it obscures a critical second conflict in the country. Long-standing antagonism between the non-Pashtun peoples of the north and the Pashtun people of the south are heading toward fissure. Paradoxically, settlement of the insurgency, through negotiation or force of arms, could exacerbate this divide. 


...The center of the demographic dispute is the size of the Pashtun peoples of the south and east, who, on only sparing evidence, purport to be about 52% to 55% of the population and have so claimed since the 19th century.

Other groups, however, disagree. They insist that the Pashtun are perhaps slightly more than 40% of the population, while disinterested assessments say Northerners constitute 45% to 50% of the population. The dispute is not merely a matter for demographers or even for the issue of moneys doled out from Kabul. It now centers on who will preside over Afghanistan - and indeed if there will be an Afghanistan as presently constituted.

For a century or more the question of Pashtun majority could sit on the back-burner as most Afghans had far more interest in local government than in events in faraway Kabul where figures reigned but dared not rule. But decades of war and inept or intolerable central governments have brought the matter to the fore.

Over the past nine years, however, northerners have seen their politicians pushed out of key ministries, especially the Ministry of Defense, which was once administered by the Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim. That portfolio is now in the hands of Abdul Wardak, a Pashtun who has used his office to reassert his people's predominance in key military commands and simultaneously vitiated the militias of northern warlords. Northerners have been reduced to the rank-and-file of the Afghan National Army and ceremonial positions such as the country's two vice presidencies.

Outsiders have criticized the presidential and parliamentary elections as fraudulent. Karzai is widely believed to have interfered with local polling stations and given himself and his supporters wide victory margins. Northerners certainly agree but insist that outsiders miss an important aspect of Karzai's fraudulence. He not only inflated the national support for himself and his supporters, he also suppressed evidence of non-Pashtun voters and their support for Tajik, Uzbek, and other peoples' candidates. Pashtun politicians counter by insisting that it is the northerners who are tampering with the ballot box to overstate their numbers.

It should have been obvious to anyone, and particularly to our political and military leadership, that since Western forces went into Afghanistan beginning in 2001, we were merely babysitting an unresolved civil war.  We virtually guaranteed this civil war would eventually reconstitute when we decided, out of expedience, to perpetuate, even embrace, the dual scourges of warlordism and tribalism.   No modern, viable Muslim state has ever arisen without first overcoming both warlordism and tribalism.   By ignoring that reality, we reduced our war in Afghanistan to merely banging away on Afghans for no lasting good.

The time we could have done some good for the Afghan people is long past.  It expired while those goddamned fools Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld failed Afghanistan in their blind rush to conquer Iraq.

All the King's Horses and all the King's Men...

Rolling the Dice - Geo-Engineering the Planet

Game On!  Quietly acknowledging we haven't got much hope of getting greenhouse gas emissions under control in time to prevent catastrophic as in runaway global warming, UN scientists will begin preparing an analysis of geo-engineering options to be presented at next year's UN climate summit.  From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Later this year IPCC ''expert groups'' will meet in Peru to discuss geo-engineering. Options include putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or covering Greenland in a massive ''blanket'' so it does not melt.

Sprinkling iron filings in the ocean ''fertilizes'' algae, which absorbs CO2 and ''seeding clouds'' means that sunlight is blocked. Other options include artificial ''trees'' that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, painting roofs white to reflect sunlight, and human-made volcanoes that spray sulphate particles high in the atmosphere to scatter the sun's rays back into space.

Okay, we're getting ready to roll the dice.   These are uncharted waters.  No one really knows if any of these things will work but that's not the main problem.  What's also unknown, perhaps unknowable before they're implemented, is whether they'll blow up in our faces producing side effects no one could contemplate.  Figuring out what something might do is a fairly direct problem.  Assuring yourself about everything it won't do is an order of magnitude more complex.  In other words, it's desperation time, the Hail Mary play.

What is or perhaps should be the greatest concern about geo-engineering solutions is that they increase our focus on global warming in isolation of the several other, potentially existential challenges facing mankind this century.  Geo-engineering solutions to stop warming won't resolve desertification, deforestation, air/soil/water contamination, ocean acidification, overpopulation, species extinction, resource depletion and exhaustion, the freshwater crisis that is already rapidly setting in, nuclear proliferation, terrorism or any other global security threat.

Geo-engineering global warming solutions may actually make these other threats even more intractable.  Geo-engineering will relieve us of having to address the fundamental flaws and imbalances in global economics, industrialism and geo-politics, the very toxic influences that underlie all the other threats that continue to imperil mankind.  Know that adage about being unable to see the forest for the trees?  Well, this is it.

Will American Hypocrisy Doom COP16, Cancun?

The United States appears to be playing tough guy at the UN Climate Summit in Cancun.  There's  speculation that America's "all or nothing" demands could see the US delegation simply walk out.

Basically, the US wants any agreement on adaptation finance, technology, deforestation, etc., to incorporate tough terms for emissions cuts by emerging economies (i.e. China and India) and a verifiable system of auditing those cuts.

That might sound reasonable if America's Congress was intent on cutting US emissions to acknowledge its per capita emissions imbalance, but it's not.  Anything but.   The Republican-majority House of Representatives is packed to the gunwales with climate change denialists and is openly planning on blocking any emissions reductions initiatives.

It's a repeat of the same stupid child's game that's been going on for some time.  America, whose per capita emissions are massive compared to the emerging economies, wants to mask that by focusing on overall emissions, country by country.   China and India, whose populations dwarf America's, want the per capita emissions factored in.  China also wants some recognition that a good deal of its overall emissions come from producing goods that are ordered for American store shelves.   They argue that the end-user shares responsibility for the emissions from the goods they consume no matter where they're manufactured.  Of course that would blow America's overall and per capita emissions right through the roof so there'll be no concessions on that approach.

The hard line – which some in Washington have seen as ritual diplomatic posturing – has fuelled speculation that the Obama administration could be prepared to walk out of the Cancún talks.

It is already under pressure for its green agenda from a new conservative Republican power bloc in Congress determined to block the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to act on greenhouse gases and other sources of pollution, and defund programmes dealing with climate change. There is next to no chance Congress would take up cap-and-trade legislation or ratify any UN treaty.

The administration's weak domestic position, in turn, has cast doubts on its ability to deliver even the very modest 17% cut on 2005 emissions Obama agreed at the Copenhagen summit last year.

But a walk-out would wreck any lingering hopes that small progress in Cancún might put the UN negotiations process back on track after the debacle of Copenhagen.

Mexico's Calderon hit the nail on the head when he said delegates have to stop approaching these talks from the perspective of their own governments and instead stand up for their countries' future generations.  He's right.   Once you shift that focus, the problem and the solutions become alarmingly obvious.

Uganada, Ghana, Now Kenya - Africa's War on Gays

Well it's "Mission Accomplished" for the Christo-Fascist evangelists who've worked so hard to convince Africans that homosexuals present a dire threat to their children and their societies.  Now it's Kenya where the Prime Minister Raila Odinga has ordered a nationwide crackdown on gays.

Addressing a rally in Nairobi on 28 November, Odinga ordered the police to arrest and bring criminal charges against anyone found engaging in sex with someone of the same gender. He added that the country’s constitution made it clear that homosexual activity was not tolerated.

...Homophobia is widespread in Kenya, but this is the first time such a senior political figure has openly called for legal action against homosexuals. In October, a cabinet minister who called for tolerance towards gays was urged to resign for promoting “un-African” culture.

Joseph Musili, a local pastor, said he fully backed the prime minister. “I am happy, but it took him too long; this is something he should have ordered a long time ago because you can’t allow things like homosexuality under the pretext of human rights and expect to have a moral society,” he said.

As reported here yesterday, U.S. evangelists have been instrumental in stoking the fires of homophobia in Africa where Uganda is proposing to make homosexuality a capital offence. 

Would a Fresh, Moderate Leader Give the Conservatives Their Majority?

The Canadian people have mumbled:  we don't trust Stephen Harper enough to give him a majority but we don't distrust him enough to return the Liberals to power either.

In a sense, weak Liberal leadership is the best thing Harper has going for him just as Stephen Harper's machinations keep the Liberals in the game.  It's a Mexican standoff.  But what if the Conservatives got smart and brought in a new gun, a moderate who could connect with the Canadian voter, someone in the mold of an old style "progressive" conservative?

My guess?  I'm pretty sure that'd be a slam dunk for the Tories.  They don't need to push a lot more buttons to get the five or six percentage swing needed to get into majority range.   God knows the Liberals haven't reached the disaffected vote and the Tories have certainly gotten in there before.  They know the way back.

I think the Canadian public is ready for a progressive conservative government - from the Tories, not the Liberals.  Iggy's journey into the centre-right really hasn't paid off for the party, has it?  C'mon, be realistic.  He may have no end of fine qualities and talents but, politically, he's a dud.

If Harper & Company open the door to a moderate successor I'd bet Liberal support will collapse.

Six NATO Troops Shot by Afghan Trainee

Six NATO instructors were shot and killed by a man wearing an Afghan Border Police uniform during a training exercise.

The incident appeared to be the latest in a string of recent attacks by “rogue” police and soldiers, underlining the pressure on NATO-led troops as they try to train Afghan forces rapidly to allow the handover of security responsibility from next year.


Afghan authorities said last year they were tightening vetting procedures for the police and army after a similar incident when a renegade soldier killed five British troops on Nov. 3, 2009.

The Nangarhar shooting was the worst casualty toll suffered by ISAF since eight troops were killed in five separate incidents on Oct. 14.

“An individual in an Afghan Border Police uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Forces during a training mission today, killing six servicemembers in eastern Afghanistan,” ISAF said in a statement.

The statement said the person who shot the troops was also killed. ISAF said the shooting was being investigated but it gave no other details, including the nationality of those killed.

I expect the rebels will be stepping up their efforts to infiltrate ISAF training operations over the coming year.  They do it because of the message it sends to the people at home in the West.

Deep Integration With the US? Consider Spain and Then Think Again

Paul Krugman's column today is on the financial squeeze hitting Spain.  He explores how much of Spain's suffering actually results from monetary union, the Euro.  It's an apt warning for those who think deep integration with the United States would be great for Canada.

Christian Evangelists Refine the Art of Witch Burning

It's all the rage in backward African countries where American evangelists have plied their magic - homicidal homophobia.

It begins by a couple of cracker shamans (like Scott Lively, author of "The Pink Swastika") staging rallies at which they convince the locals that the homosexuals in their midst pose a dire threat to their children and their society.  Once the idea sets in, the rest pretty much takes care of itself.

Their biggest success so far has been in Uganda.   But this weekend in Ghana five attackers, one of whom was an evangelist pastor, seized 72-year old Ama Hemmah, tortured her into confessing she was a witch, and then doused her in kerosene and set her alight.

This video gives you a look into these odious Christianists:


Transforming Uganda / low resolution from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo.

If you're looking for more information on evangelical savagery you can begin here, and here, here and here.

Yeah, But at Least They Like the Idea of Bombing Iran

Oh, those wacky Saudis!  Guess what?   According to a leaked U.S. diplomatic communique, the Saudis are the biggest financial backer of al Qaeda.  Still Numero Uno.  I guess they're just not able to kick the habit.

Imagine that, the Sauds and al Qaeda.  That's a strange combination isn't it?  We're talking America's main Arab ally in the war on terror.    Whats that?   Those Arabs on 9/11 who hijacked those airplanes?  Almost all them Saudis?  Really?  But what about that Saddam guy?  Wasn't he the link?  No?  You sure?

So let me get this straight.   In 2002/2003, the United States staged its army in Saudi Arabia to invade Iraq.   Why didn't they just stay there and topple the Saudis?  I don't get it.

Fascism On the March in the U.S.A.

Mark Ruffalo knows about America's merger of political and corporate power.  It's what landed him on a terrorist list.

AlterNet reports that the Pennsylvania Department of Home Security has placed Ruffalo on its terrorism watch list.  Why?   How has Ruffalo become a terror threat to the United States?   By promoting the film GasLand, a documentary about gas fracking and the dangers that poses to his country's groundwater supplies.

The marriage of government and corporatism.  It would have made Mussolini proud.

Reagan Budget Director Turns Heretic - Attacks Republican Tax Cut Theology

Ronald Reagan's budget director says the Republicans have it all wrong on tax cuts and they've been wrong for thirty years.   The man who created the notion of "supply side economics" and "trickle down tax cuts" attacks today's Republicans for destroying the last vestige of GOP fiscal prudence.

Leslie Nielsen, Dead at 84

It's being reported that Canadian great, Leslie Nielsen, has died in Florida at the age of 84.  Apparently the actor died of pneumonia.  Nielsen was the brother of former Progressive Conservative stalwart, Eric.

How to Drive America's Christian Fundamentalists Utterly Crazy

Leave it to the Hindu American Foundation.  It has launched a "Take Back Yoga" campaign "to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism." 

According to an article in The New York Times, the group says it isn't trying to convert Americans to Hinduism but merely wants to acquaint yoga practitioners to its roots in their faith's ancient traditions.   The following video shows how yoga is seen by some American fundamentalists.   Sort of like Reefer Madness:

 

The Harpies Balk at Implementing U.S. Emissions Cuts

If you want to know what a lying dirtbag looks like, take a gander at the mug of Stephen Harper or John Baird.

The lie is that they're just waiting for American action to curb carbon emissions so Canada can do the same.  They're not and they won't. 

In January new rules come into effect south of the border to curb GHG emissions of big polluters.   The Harper government has decided Canada needs something much better than that, something far more comprehensive than a dumb American policy that, if applied in Canada, would directly target the Athabasca Tar Sands.

So just go home and sit and wait for "something much better" or, better yet, just forget about it entirely.  Lying bastards.

America's Government Has Surrendered to Corporatism

If some America's radical right politicians sound eerily fascist that's probably because that's the trend in the United States today.   Even Mussolini knew that fascism is really the marriage of state and corporate power, something that is now well established in the permanent warfare state we know as 21st century U.S.A.

As Frank Rich writes in the weekend New York Times in an op-ed entitled, "Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy,"   American lawmakers now respond only to those who still have all the cash:

"... When it was reported just days before our election that Iran was protecting its political interests in Afghanistan’s presidential palace by giving bags of money to Hamid Karzai’s closest aide, Americans could hardly bring themselves to be outraged. At least with Karzai’s government, unlike our own, we could know for certain whose cash was in the bag."

In Cancun, Four Is The New Two

This may be what the Cancun climate summit will be remembered for - abandoning our focus on limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and, instead, accepting that we can no longer stop warming of at least 4 degrees.

The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has sponsored a report "Four Degrees and Beyond" that will be circulated to Cancun delegates tomorrow.  The report outlines the world we can expect to face.   From The Guardian:

"... . a billion people face losing their homes in the next 90 years because of failures to agree curbs on carbon emissions.

Up to three billion people could lose access to clean water supplies because global temperatures cannot now be stopped from rising by 4C.

"  The main message is that the closer we get to a four-degree rise, the harder it will be to deal with the consequences,"  said Dr Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford University, who organised a recent conference entitled " Four Degrees and Beyond"  on behalf of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

A key feature of these papers is that they assume that even if global carbon emission curbs were to be agreed in the future, these would be insufficient to limit global temperature rises to 2C this century – the maximum temperature rise agreed by politicians as acceptable. " To have a realistic chance of doing that, the world would have to get carbon emissions to peak within 15 years and then follow this up with a massive decarbonisation of society,"  said Dr Chris Huntingford, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxfordshire.

Few experts believe this is a remotely practical proposition, particularly in the wake of the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks last December – a point stressed by Bob Watson, former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and now chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As he put it: " Two degrees is now a wishful dream."

Researchers such as Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office, calculate that a 4C rise could occur in less than 50 years, with melting of ice sheets and rising sea levels.

If you're 40 or under you have a pretty good chance of being around to see this played out.   The rest of us will still manage to catch the first two or three acts of this production and that'll probably be plenty.   Our kids and our grandkids - this is going to dominate their lives.

A billion people without homes or three billion without fresh water - those aren't outcomes, they're triggers.  They set off a chain of events that lead to one or more outcomes that are typically not addressed in reports like the Tyndall Centre's.   They are, however, amply addressed in research studies by the Pentagon, the British Ministry of Defence and even Gwynne Dyer in his book, "Climate Wars."

Put it this way, four degrees Celsius is a civilization changer and nothing less.  Fasten your seat belt, it's going to be a wild ride.

It's Time to Bypass Karzai Altogether

Is that it?  Just the one cheque?

No army will be able to defend, for very long at least, a government as weak and corrupt as Hamid Karzai's.  It didn't work in Vietnam and it has even less chance of working in Afghanistan.

That's the view of the International Crisis Group too.   This is how they put it:

" U.S. plans to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by 2014 would lead to a collapse of the government in Kabul and serious security risks for the region.

U.S. military operations are now entering their tenth year and policymakers in Washington are looking for a way out. But the key to fighting the insurgency and bringing about the conditions for a political settlement in Afghanistan lies in improving security, justice and governance. 

" The exit strategy sounds fairly simple: try to pound the Taliban, build support by protecting civilians, lure disillusioned Taliban over to the government and create resilient security forces”, says Candace Rondeaux, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for Afghanistan. “The problem is that none of this is working”. 

...An alluring narrative of a successful counter-insurgency campaign has begun to take shape, but the storyline does not match facts on the ground. While success is being measured in numbers of insurgents killed or captured, there is little proof that the operations have disrupted the insurgency’s momentum or increased stability. The Taliban are more active than ever and they still enjoy sanctuary and support in Pakistan.

...The neglect of governance, an anaemic legal system and weak rule of law lie at the root of these problems. Too little effort has been made to develop political institutions, local government and a functioning judiciary. Insurgents and criminal elements within the political elite have as a result been allowed to fill the vacuum left by the weak Afghan state.


That last line is telling.  We say we want the Taliban to take a place within the Afghan government but they're already there.   The bad guys are part of Afghanistan's political elite and that is doing nothing to stop the fighting.

The ICG is almost certainly right that the Afghan government we have crafted both in Kabul and in the provinces has a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving our departure.   What should also be obvious is that, without a viable, legitimate and honest government, the Afghan National Army really has nothing worth fighting to defend.

The problem is we can't start all over from scratch.  We have accepted the legitimacy of Karzai's government.  Karzai added an insurance policy by cutting deals with some particularly horrible warlords/drug lords.   The only force that could depose Karzai is our own but that would  put us at war with every side in Afghanistan.  We'd be fighting the Islamist fundamentalists in the south and the bandit warlords/drug lords everywhere else.   Unless America wants to bring back the draft and open a massive new line of credit with her foreign lenders, that isn't going to happen.

The worst part is, this is a mess of our own making.  Or rather it's a mess of the Bush administration's making.   They ran the Islamists out, at least as far as the Pakistan border and then they plopped Karzai in as top dog while wasting no time making preparations to move on down the road to topple Iraq.

I guess we can blame both Bushes for creating this mess.   When the Soviets quit Afghanistan in 1989, George H. W. Bush was the newly minted president.  Over the next four years he sat indifferent as Afhganistan descended into a vicious civil war among the victorious Afghan warlords.  By 1994 the Taliban established themselves as a major force by taking Kandahar with the backing of the Pakistani intelligence service.

Bush I turned his back, allowing Afghanistan to collapse into a radical Islamist tyranny where al Qaeda could flourish.   Bush II set out to topple the fundamentalist Taliban government and destroy al Qaeda and then, without finishing either job, like his father turned his back on Afghanistan.   That leaves us in 2010 facing the Herculean chore of undoing the damage caused by the Bush administration in 2003.   That would've been tough in 2003, it's nearly impossible in 2010.

Perhaps the only exit strategy that remains open to us now is in direct negotiations with the Taliban.  We'll never get a straight deal going through Karzai and he's shown us that again and again.  Perhaps if Karzai & Company realized we were willing to deal with the Talibs directly and cut them out they would finally see it in their own immediate, even urgent, interest to reform their rotten state.   However if we're not prepared to go that route, we'll probably be having this same discussion three years from now.   What would be the point of that?

We're looking for the exit but Hamid Karzai is blocking that door.

Is the U.S. In League with Terrorists?

Wikileaks is planning a truly massive dump of U.S. government documents this weekend that could show Washington in league with terrorists.   The documents are said to show the U.S. has been supporting Turkey's Kurdish separatists, the PKK.   This is the same PKK that Washington officially lists as a terrorist group.

A report in The Jerusalem Post said the US military documents referred to the PKK as ''warriors for freedom and Turkish citizens'' and said the US had set free arrested PKK members in Iraq.

The documents also say US forces in Iraq have given weapons to the PKK.

But, then again, if America is supporting them they're not terrorists, they're freedom fighters.  Washington's perfidy will likely drive once secular Turkey even more firmly into the Islamist camp which will also probably eliminate what had been Israel's best friend in the Muslim world.

Holding Humanity Hostage

Those of us from the industrialized nations can have a pretty skewed notion of our place in the world.  We've had it so good for so long we've come to believe the continuation of that imbalance our right.  We are entitled to keep pursuing affluence regardless that others may be bearing the end costs of it.

We're being watched.  The developing nations and the Third World are keeping a close eye on us and they don't like what they see.  Now with the Cancun climate summit a week off, they're accusing the rich countries of "holding humanity hostage."  From The Guardian:

"
Tonight the first shots were fired in what are likely to be serious diplomatic clashes at the talks. In an interview with the Guardian, Bolivia's ambassador to the UN accused rich countries of "holding humanity hostage"  and undermining the UN. " [Their] deliberate attempts to sideline democracy and justice in the climate debate will be viewed as reckless and immoral by future generations,"  he said. " I feel that Cancún will become a new Copenhagen if there is no shift in the next few days."

" There is deep frustration among the least developed countries", said Bruno Sikoli, the spokesman for the 54-strong group of mainly African countries. " "We feel there has been far too much talking. If the rich countries put nothing new on the table, then it will be very serious. Climate change is affecting our countries hard now. It is most urgent."

If we think we've got a terrorism problem now in radical Islam just wait to see what will come out of a devastated Third World that squarely blames us for their plight.

Brilliant. Gerald Caplan Explores How Canada Has Jumped Aboard America's Permanent War

This should make the Liberal faithful cringe - a lot.   Gerald Caplan explains how our leaders enlisted Canada into service of the most warlike nation ever, the United States.  As Caplan so rightly points out, we are joining America on the path to permanent war.  That's probably understandable from the radical Right but it's an abomination coming from someone who purports to lead the Liberal Party.

Read Caplan's piece and then ask yourself if the Liberal Party or Canada has anything to gain from this sort of leadership.  Caplan notes the passing last week of the American Chalmers Johnson.   Here's what the late Mr. Johnson thought about your Liberal Leader:

During the post-9/11 period of American enthusiasm for imperialism, one of its most influential proselytizers was Michael Ignatieff, a harvard professor and self-appointed spokesman for  "humanitaian imperialism,"  also known as " Empire Lite."   As the demand for his cheerleading faded in light of the Iraq war, Ignatieff decided to return to his native Canada and become a politician.  Back in Toronto, he acknowledged to a journalist that his many essays and op-eds had all been written as if he were an American, and he apologized for having use " we" and " us" some forty-three times throughout his essay entitled " Lesser Evils," which is a defense of official torture.

In the New York Times Magazine of January 5, 2003, Ignatieff proudly asserts, 'Ever since George Washington warned his countrymen against foreign entanglements, empire abroad has been seen as the republic's permanent temptation and its potential nemesis.  Yet what word but 'empire' describes the awesome thing that America is becoming?  It is the only nation that polices the world through five global military commands; maintains more than a million men and women at arms on four continents; deploys carrier battle groups on watch in every ocean; guarantees the survival of countries from Israel to South Korea; drives the wheels of global trade and commerce; and fills the hearts and minds of an entire planet with its dreams and desires.'


In numerous one-liners, Ignatieff sings the praises of American imperialism: 'Multilateral solutions to the world's problems are all very well, but they have no teeth unless America bares its fangs...  Regime change is an imperial task par excellence, since it assumes the empire's interest has a right to trump the sovereignty fo a state...  The question, then, is not whether America is too powerful but whether it is powerful enough.'


Michael Neumann, a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, compares Ignatieff's epistles to the Americans to 'a sprig of cilantro on the nouveau-imperialist bucket of KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), transforming Bush's blunderings into a treat for liberal white folks the world over.'

 Oh, I know, I know.   That was the American Michael Ignatieff, not the Canadian Michael Ignatieff who came to restore the Liberal Party to its former greatness.  Really?  Well guess what?  It's up to Michael Ignatieff to explain how someone claiming to be fit to lead the Liberal Party could have so recently and so persistently embraced the American warfare state.  How can a highly educated person simply ditch such boldly stated and repugnant views simply by returning to Canada?  On this, Mr. Ignatieff does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.  The burden of proving - and explaining - his transformation lies squarely with Mr. Ignatieff himself.  We're waiting.

Afghanistan, Now They Figure It Out

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

Canada went to fight a war barely prepared to fight a skirmish.

The force that now safely retired general Rick "The Big Cod" Hillier assembled for the combat mission to Kandahar comprised 2,500 soldiers (1,500 supporting a battle group of just 1,000) equipped with laughable vehicles like the Itlis, a Volkswagen mini-jeep designed to navigate the densely treed European forests.

That little jeep was used to take shots at former Liberal governments for supposedly under-funding our military.   Apparently Hillier thought that, back when Chretien/Martin were at the controls, trying to pull Canada out of the fiscal nosedive they inherited from Mulroney, the armed forces should have been exempt from cuts.  Anyway, Hillier and Harper gave each other lap dances on that one.  And besides it gave our brilliant civilian and military leaders the chance to make it all right - they bought a bigger and equally defenseless, German SUV, the G-Wagon.  That was indicative of how poorly our military and civilian leadership grasped what they our soldiers were up against in Kandahar.  And that was just the beginning.

When Hillier assembled the Kandahar force, he figured 2,500 would be enough for the job which he described as a mission to "kill scumbags" that he assured reporters numbered just "a few dozen" in strength.  Hillier committed the ultimate error that has marked countless failed military leaders throughout history - he underestimated the enemy he was sending those soldiers to fight.  He underestimated their numbers, he underestimated their capabilities and, worst of all, he underestimated by light years the size of the force needed to secure a province such as Kandahar.

Current American counterinsurgency doctrine prescribes the need for one counter-insurgent (rifleman) for every 25 to 50 civilians in the area to be secured.  In Kandahar that meant a minimum combat force of 20,000 to 25,000 soldiers.   So many troops are required so that they can defend every village, day and night, to deny the insurgents access to and control of the population.   If you pass through a village two hours every day, you leave the locals subject to the whim of your enemy twenty-two hours a day.  If they want to survive guess who they'll be siding with?

For Afghanistan we needed a force equivalent to the combat force we sent to Korea but we opted to wage war on the cheap.  Even back then Petraeus was warning that counterinsurgency is the most labour-intensive form of warfare bar none.   He was pretty blunt that it was "go big or go home."   He also noted that foreign armies have to get the job done quickly because, in a short time, they can go in the minds of the locals from liberator/defender to occupier/oppressor.   The mission Hillier crafted broke every rule in the book with entirely predictable results.

Now that it's probably too late (the political war has been decided and not in our favour), conditions have changed in Kandahar province.  Now, only now, NATO and the US are beginning to field an adequate force.   A report from Reuters has an anonymous Canadian officer praising the improvements:

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has about 25,000 troops in Kandahar province, a big increase from when 2,800 Canadian soldiers tried to control the province's 54,000 sq km (20,000 sq miles) on their own in recent years.

 About 10,000 Afghan soldiers also are in the province.

The sprawling ISAF base centered on Kandahar city's airport rumbles almost constantly from fighters and helicopters taking off or landing and from the noise of new construction.

The greater troop strength means that Canadians and other NATO forces can better protect residents from the Taliban, a key element of the counterinsurgency strategy laid out by U.S. and NATO commander General David Petraeus, the officer said.

 "Before, we were chasing ghosts. We were never able to say, 'We're here to stay and defend you', and then actually do it. It all comes down to boots on the ground,"  he said.

Now they figure it out.   Now they flood Kandahar with an adequate force.   Now it's probably too late to make much difference.  Stephen Harper got his war on the cheap and Hillier and his generals ran cover when they should have resigned in protest.   They sent our troops to a war zone to tread water and troll for IEDs.  


We had clearly defined objectives when we went to war.   We were there to defeat the insurgents and to help craft a secular, democratic, modern government to run a viable state in which the rights of everyone, especially women and children, would be upheld.   One by one, we lost our objectives.   The insurgency morphed back into a classic civil war, insurgents transformed into rebels.  We were so understrength we had no option but to embrace the doubly toxic culture of warlordism and tribalism that poisoned any chance of establishing a viable central government.  We allowed Afghanistan to become one of the most corrupt "failed states" in the world and a narco-state at that.


Every one of those sad happenings was a defeat for us and an outright, albeit unearned victory for our enemy who wants nothing more than to revert to the civil war that existed before we drove the Taliban out in 2001.   A hopelessly corrupt and predatory government works entirely to the rebels' advantage.


But we, our civilian and military leadership that is, masked their defeats by routinely moving the goal posts.  Now our objective is to simply train an Afghan army that can supposedly step into our shoes to fight the Taliban.  That's it and any way you cut it, that's an admission of defeat.   We've lost.

Whatever Happened to 2 Weeks Notice? Danny Williams Quits

Newfoundland & Labrador premier Danny Williams is cleaning out his desk.  Williams will retire - on December 3.  Yeah, next week.  He's certainly been a high profile premier more than ready to stand up to Ottawa when that was needed and I'm sure he'll be missed by many people at the far end of this country and quite a few in between.

How come Newfoundland gets all the luck?  They've got a good premier.  He resigns - on his own terms - and promptly vacates the office.   Here on the Left Coast, we've got a jackass of a premier.  He gets run out of office in disgrace (think pitchforks and torches) and yet hangs on to the very job no one wants him in for months.   I guess that says a lot about the difference between a Williams and a Campbell.

The Law Catches Up with DeLay

Former Republican House leader, Tom "The Hammer" DeLay has been convicted of money-laundering.  A jury of six men and six women deliberated 19-hours to reach their guilty verdict.

DeLay faces between 5 and 99-years on the charge but he is, after all, a prominent Republican and this is Texas.  Watch the judge go for a probation deal instead.  To circumvent Texas law prohibiting corporate contributions to political candidates, DeLay accepted the money and laundered it through a co-operative Republican National Committee.  The RNC accepted the DeLay money and then wrote cheques according to a list of candidates and amounts each was to receive.

The Hammer says he'll appeal his conviction.

Chalmers Johnson, Dead at 79

Well before America was rocked by the attacks of 9/11, Chalmers Johnson's prophetic book Blowback was published in which he warned that America's secret operations abroad would inevitably exact a terrible price at home.   His subsequent books Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic; and The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic came to comprise what was known as the Blowback Trilogy.

This year Chalmers published his final work, Dismantling the Empire, America's Last Best Hope.   All of these save The Sorrows of Empire are reviewed on this site.   The New York Review of Books aptly said this of the man, "Johnson wants the scales to fall from American eyes so that the nation can see the truth about its role in the world.  His is a patriot's passion: his motive is to save the American republic he loves."

A latter day Cassandra, Chalmers Johnson, together with others such as Andrew Bacevich, see their country caught in a death spiral of militarism.  His death certainly is America's loss.

In This Sort of World, Sarah Palin Could Be President

Any remotely sentient being could not imagine the American people electing Sarah Palin their president.   Rachel Maddow explains how the US Right has seen to it that they actually could vote Palin into the White House - a culture of mutually-reinforcing lies:

A Better Way to Vote?

There was a discernible sense of relief across British Columbia when premier Gordon Campbell announced he was finally resigning.  But what should have been a really joyous event fizzled for a lot of us quite quickly when Campbell's departure reminded us of the province's 'other' political leader and candidate for the premiership, Carole James of the NDP.  Oh dear.

Call it the curse of living in a bi-polar province.  The NDP has its staunch supporters on the Left.  The BC Libs, despite their misleading name, have plenty of their own staunch supporters on the Right.   But the key to power lies in capturing the centre.   Most of us in the centre really don't much care for the Left or the Right which leads to a lot of negative voting.  We figure out which one of these clowns we like the least then hold our noses, vote for the other one and brace for the aftermath.

What if there was a second option available on the ballot?  What if, instead of having to vote for someone, you could vote against the candidate you least liked?  I mean we always complain about low voter turnout when that's probably in fact the result of high voter turnoff.  If you can't stand either of the choices, why bother? Just stay home.  But if you knew you could go to the polls and know your vote could be deducted from the candidate you most didn't want it'd certainly be worth the trip.   And wouldn't the results be interesting on the evening news?  "Out of 26,000 votes cast in the riding, Ms. Maple won with a net 2,000, trouncing incumbent Mr. Oak who received just a net 600."  No bragging rights there, no false "mandate" either.

The disaffected vote could actually decide elections and wouldn't that be a wake-up call for the establishment Right and the doctrinaire Left?   Just being the better of two evils might not cut it any more.  I think that's about the only way to get the Left and the Right to be more attentive, even dutiful to the centre where most of us live, the liberal centre.

There's something truly perverse in the current arrangement.   Even though you go to the polls intending to vote against a party or candidate, the only way you can do that is by voting in support of another candidate you may not consider worthy of your support.  That's giving a vote to somebody who doesn't deserve it.  It's like saying "you can only express your opinion by supporting one of these two jackasses."  If you don't think either one of them is fit for the job, why can't you express that in a ballot by having a vote deducted from the worst of them while, at the same time, not giving a vote of approval to the other one either?  Surely that's genuine participatory democracy.

Who needs proportional representation when you can take your scimitar with you into the ballot box?  Regardless of the outcome, your vote will count.

It Takes More than Burning a Uniform

Canadian Forces officers have collected and burned the uniforms and kit of convicted serial killer, Colonel Russel Williams.

Canadian Forces spokesperson Cmdr. Hubert Genest said in an interview that the idea to burn the uniforms had emerged “from the bottom up and been endorsed by the chain of command.”

“We did what we felt was necessary,” said Cmdr. Genest. “It feels right.”

...Military historians called the burning of his kit unprecedented. “I’ve never heard anything like that,” said Jack Granatstein, director general of the Canadian War Museum. “I guess it’s embarrassment as much as anything...to erase the shame and stigma” of Mr. Williams’ association with the Forces. “It’s an exorcism. We are exorcising the memory of Russell Williams.”

An exorcism?  Say what?  Is that how our military washes its hands of Russell Williams?  I don't think so.  Maybe the Canadian Forces should man up and show enough respect to the victims to delve into how a guy this bent could rise to the top ranks of the military.  Was there something they should have noticed?  I mean let's face it, the ranks of the most successful in any field tend to have a solid percentage of sociopathic personalities.   Officer candidates go through a bit of psychological testing on their way in along with plenty of physical testing.   During their careers they have to go through regular physical testing.   Maybe should they also get a little bit of ongoing psychological assessment too?

I think we should know that the people we put in charge of our most lethal weapons haven't come unhinged.  

Defeated Republican Congressman Slams Climate Change Deniers In His Own Party

South Carolina's Bob Inglis lost his party's nomination to a Tea Bagger and he's now packing up to get out of Washington.  But he's taking time on his way out to slam the climate change denialists in the Republican ranks and to warn climate scientists of what they're facing over the next two years.

Unburdened by the prospect of another campaign, Inglis, in this final hearing, spared no scorn for climate change deniers in his own party and beyond, suggesting that they continue to ignore global warming at their own peril. "I would also suggest to my free enterprise colleagues – especially conservatives here—whether you think it's all a bunch of hooey, what we've talked about in this committee, the Chinese don't," the South Carolina Republican said in his opening remarks. "And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century."

" There are people who make a lot of money on talk radio and talk TV saying a lot of things. They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and they're experts on climate change. They substitute their judgment for people who have Ph.D.s and work tirelessly."

 " I'd encourage scientists who are listening out there to get ready for the hearings that are coming up in the next Congress. Those will be difficult hearings for climate scientists. But, I would encourage you to welcome those as fabulous opportunities to teach. Don't come here defensively."

Iggy, Let's Cut the Crap. Israel Will Never Tolerate a Palestinian State

Never, as in not ever, Iggy and its time you came clean on Israel.  So long as Israel exists it will never tolerate a Palestinian state.

Why not?  Because Israel cannot get by without controlling the aquifer that lies beneath the West Bank.

Listen to former and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  This is what he told the Likud Party and it just doesn't get any clearer than this:

"A Palestinian state would control the aquifer, which gives us 30 percent of our water. Yes to a Palestinian state means no to a Jewish state, and yes to a Jewish state means no to a Palestinian State."
So let's cut the bullshit about Israel wanting to live peacefully beside the Palestinians.  That is a rancid fantasy.  There's a reason why the Israeli army of occupation in the West Bank bulldozes Palestinian orchards and refuses Palestinians permission to drill wells in their own land.  That water is Israel's even if it does belong to the Palestinians.  If the Palestinian shoe was on your foot Iggy, how would you react?

Palin Slams Obamas as Unpatriotic and Racist

Unbelievable.  The Weasel of Wassila, Sarah Palin, is about to release a new book in which she slams Barack and Michelle Obama.   From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Sarah Palin has accused Barack and Michelle Obama of being unpatriotic and has suggested they are racist.
 
In leaked extracts of her new book, America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate argues that the first black US president is among those who regarded the Tea Party movement as racially prejudiced and who thinks ''America is a fundamentally unjust and unequal country''.

As proof, she quoted a 2008 campaign speech in which Mrs Obama said ''for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country''. Mrs Palin went on: ''I guess this shouldn't surprise us, since both of them spent almost two decades in the pews of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church listening to his rants against America and white people.''

Mrs Palin's second book is regarded as a launch pad for a bid for the 2012 Republican nomination, which she admitted this week she was ''seriously considering''.

The book criticises talent show contestants and the ''cult of self-esteem'', which she blames partly on Mr Obama: ''No one they have encountered in their lives - from their parents to their teachers to their president - wanted them to feel bad by hearing the truth. So they grew up convinced that they could become big pop stars like Michael Jackson.''

Mrs Palin has begun a reality show in which she talks about her family life and home state of Alaska.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden was asked what he thought of Palin's claim that she could defeat Barack Obama:

The Tacs Stay - Bring On the F-35s

The Cold War in Europe is a thing of history but the deadliest weapons developed to fight it are still there.  Hundreds of B-61 nuclear bombs will remain in Europe, stored at supposedly secure bunkers at NATO and US airbases, mainly in Germany.

The B-61 (shown above) is a really versatile weapon.  It can withstand speeds of up to Mach 2, it can be dropped from as low as 50-feet, and it can be configured to deliver a nuclear blast of between 1 and 340-kilotons.  There's even a 'bunker busting' version that might be just dandy for vaporizing some less-than-friendly country's underground nuclear installations.

This bomb was developed in the 60's but, thanks to the Americans' Operation Enduring Stockpile (no, I didn't make that up) they're still going strong.  The Pentagon even has a planned 2-billion dollar update planned for the remaining stocks.  But wait, there's more!   The B-61 is also being modified to make it compatible with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the very ship we've signed on to buy.

Marry a nuclear bomb to the F-35's stealth technology and you've got quite a package - an intruder aircraft capable of getting into the enemy's backyard undetected to nuke the hell out of something before the other side even knows it's there.

You see, all this nonsense about the F-35 defending Canadian airspace is pablum for the gullible.   As the Australians discovered, the F-35 is all but worthless as an air defence fighter.  One mission and it's gone.   BUT - as a bomb sled using stealth to penetrate the other guy's air defences, it seems to have some utility.

Is there some reason nobody on Parliament Hill is asking these questions.

Oh Yeah, About Leaving Afghanistan in 2014?

The Brits say they're definitely, positively, absolutely out of Afghanistan in 2014 and, I suppose, we'll just wait and see.   But I know another country that isn't planning on leaving for years, possibly decades to come.  That would be the United States, the country that has now grown quite comfortable with permanent war, the world's one and only Warfare State.

This one-for-all, all-for-one pap NATO and our own scurrilous pols have been feeding us this past decade is just that.  It's nonsense.  There have always been two players in this, the United States and everyone else.  Call it Washington's NATO Foreign Legion.  America has a bevy of geo-political interests in this hotspot that the rest of us don't share.  It's a focal point for rivals China, India and Russia.  Add to those three another nuclear power - Pakistan.   America, China, India, Russia, Pakistan - those guys have the lion's share of all the nukes in the world and now they're in this hellhole jockeying for position.

I'm not just pulling this out of my backside.  We didn't hear much about it but the U.S. awarded a big contract in early November.  It went to B.L. Harbert, a Birmingham, Ala., contractor who got the nod to construct the new U.S. Embassy compound in Islamabad, Pakistan.  Like its sister embassy in Baghdad, it'll be a Vatican City sized compound including chancery buildings, an ambassador's residence, apartment buildings, recreation facilities and support, maintenance and security buildings and infrastructure.  The contract is for a whopping $734-million greenbacks.   Like the Baghdad embassy it'll be a heavily defended, walled complex which will come in handy because it will be attacked, probably with some frequency.

So, here's the deal.   You don't decide in November, 2010 to build a billion dollar mega-Alamo in a dirt poor country if you even think you might scram in 2014.  No, building the second biggest embassy on the planet is a pretty good indication you've just bought another stack of chips.

Easy Meat

This is scary.  I just took a Pew current affairs quiz on America and I scored higher than 99% of Americans.  There were only 12 questions and mainly softballs at that.  Apparently just one in a hundred respondents got them all correct.

According to AlterNet, Americans quizzed averaged just five right.  That's five out of twelve, meaning seven wrong answers.   Less than half of Americans knew the Republicans took the House in the midterms.

If this is an accurate depiction of Americans' awareness of what's happening in their own country, it explains everything.  Everything.  Suddenly Sarah Palin, Rand Paul and the Tea Party make sense.  I get it.  At last I get it.

Gay Marriage in Canadian Airspace???

Don't they need a licence?  AlterNet is reporting that the captain of a Virgin Airways flight from San Francisco to New York, briefly diverted into Canadian airspace so he could quickly marry two gay passengers.

One passenger told this to MSNBC:

  " The head flight attendant made the announcement on the P.A. " While you were sleeping, we had a little wedding in the galley. The captain diverted us over Canadian airspace so he could marry two gentlemen." The flight attendants on Virgin are very playful and really good at conversation, so we weren't sure if they were having fun with us. But we could tell at the end he was being genuine. I was traveling with two other co-workers and we had to sort out what happened. We were like, is that a service they offer?"

A Virgin America spokesperson had few details about the nuptials, but confirmed that this wasn't the first time Virgin has obliged passengers' wedding needs at 30,000 feet. Three years ago, a wedding was performed on a flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas -- officiated by Sir Richard Branson himself.

Putting Ireland's Problems in Perspective

Metro Toronto has about 5.6 million people.   The Irish Republic has just 4.6 million citizens.  Ireland's bank debt is estimated at well over 100-billion Euros.  In 2008, the Irish government sought to save the country's banks by giving guarantees of 400-billion Euros, money they never had.

This is a very small country drowning in a tsunami of debt.  The ancient Greeks warned that Nemesis always follows Hubris.   How did we come to forget that?

Clueless in Kandahar

As Western forces slog through their 10th year of combat in Afghanistan, a sign of just how poorly they've gotten through to the locals is how few Afghans have any idea of the events of 9/11 and what caused our intervention in their country.  

The International Council on Security and Development reports that fully 92 per cent of the population in the key provinces of Helmand and Kandahar know nothing of the airliner hijackings and attacks of September 11, 2001.   These are the Pashtun provinces where the heaviest fighting has raged for the past decade and the locals still have almost no idea why we're there at all.

ICOS  President Norine MacDonald suggests we should be explaining to the Afghan people just why we've been stomping their villages and countryside for the past decade.  I guess that just never dawned on our astonishingly mediocre military leadership in Afghanistan.   Probably for the cost of just one or two airstrikes they could have papered Helmand and Kandahar with some leaflets explaining the whole business.

Gambling on the Misery of Others

It was called champerty and it used to be a crime.   Now Wall Street is all over it, investing in other peoples' lawsuits.  The Center for Public Integrity warns that investors have begun flocking to lawsuits, even divorce and medical malpractice cases, in search of easy pickings:

Large banks, hedge funds and private investors hungry for new and lucrative opportunities are bankrolling other people’s lawsuits, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into medical malpractice claims, divorce battles and class actions against corporations — all in the hope of sharing in the potential winnings.

...Most investments are in the smaller cases that fill court dockets. Ardec Funding, a New York lender backed by a hedge fund, lent $45,000 in June to a Manhattan lawyer hired by the parents of a baby brain-damaged at birth. The lawyer hired two doctors, a physical therapist and an economist to testify at a July trial. The jury awarded the baby $510,000. Ardec is collecting interest at an annual rate of 24 percent, or $900 a month, until the award is paid.

Champerty was widely decriminalized during the 20th century but it can still fetch you up to seven years inside in Hong Kong.  In the U.S., however, it seems anything goes.... but not without problems.

the review shows that borrowed money also is fueling abuses, including cases initiated and controlled by investors. A Florida judge in December ordered an investment banker who orchestrated a shareholder lawsuit against Fresh Del Monte Produce to repay the company’s legal expenses, ruling that the case should not have reached trial.
 
Such financing also drains money from plaintiffs. Interest rates on lawsuit loans generally exceed 15 percent a year, and most states allow lawyers that borrow to bill clients for the interest payments. The cost can exceed the benefits of winning. A woman injured in a 1995 car accident outside Philadelphia borrowed money for a suit, as did her lawyer. By the time she won $169,125 in 2003, the lenders were owed $221,000.

Lawyers are not required to tell clients that they have borrowed money, so the client may be unaware that there is financial pressure to resolve cases quickly. Lenders also seek detailed information about cases, which can jeopardize client confidentiality. A federal judge in Delaware ruled in June that a company suing Facebook for patent infringement had to show Facebook documents that its lawyer had shared with a lender.

When large banks and hedge funds eye lawsuits as a lucrative investment opportunity, it's their money that can do the talking, not the litigant.