Barack Obama, faced with a Republican insurgency in Congress, may be giving up on the fight against global warming. Carol Browner, the White House coordinator on energy and climate change is stepping down and it's unclear whether she'll even be replaced.
Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners LLC in Washington, said the November elections results were a warning to Obama about his ambitious energy policy.
" The age of grand designs ended that day and the age of 'bite-sized chunks' began," Book said. " That doesn't leave a lot of maneuvering room for an environmentalist-in-chief."
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Can We Still Keep Backing Israel After This?
Can we still back Israel if it has no intention of ever accepting the creation of a Palestinian state? Can we support the state of Israel if we discover that it has been flying false flags about peace in the Middle East? Can we support an Israel whose actual policy is to perpetuate the notion of flexible, ever shifting borders and the permanent subjugation of the Palestinian people?
I think we can and, so long as the Libs remain under the current management, will do just that.
You don't hear much about it in our media but al Jazeera has blown the lid off the secret negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority going back to the Bush/Cheney years. The Arab news service has released confidential documents, now called the "Palestine Papers" showing the P.A. was willing to drop its pants and bend over to get any sort of statehood deal from Israel only to get the heave-ho.
Why won't Israel even consider handing Gaza and the West Bank over to a legitimate Palestinian state? One reason I've often repeated is that Israel will never permit the aquifer that lies beneath the West Bank to fall under Palestinian (i.e. "enemy") control. It is one of three aquifers that Israel sees as essential to its survival. There will always be an Israeli tank parked on top of it.
The second reason is best explained by Alistair Crooke. He contends we have heard but never understood what type of state the Israeli's want to create in their homeland.
It may be politically expedient, however disingenuous, for the current Liberal management to cling to fairy tale explanations of the Palestine/Israel roadblock but that does the party and its faithful no honour.
The documents are out. They speak for themselves. The Guardian has received a volume of them from al Jazeera and has had Palestinian officials privately confirm their authenticity even as the Palestinian Authority wants them to simply go away.
I think we can and, so long as the Libs remain under the current management, will do just that.
You don't hear much about it in our media but al Jazeera has blown the lid off the secret negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority going back to the Bush/Cheney years. The Arab news service has released confidential documents, now called the "Palestine Papers" showing the P.A. was willing to drop its pants and bend over to get any sort of statehood deal from Israel only to get the heave-ho.
Why won't Israel even consider handing Gaza and the West Bank over to a legitimate Palestinian state? One reason I've often repeated is that Israel will never permit the aquifer that lies beneath the West Bank to fall under Palestinian (i.e. "enemy") control. It is one of three aquifers that Israel sees as essential to its survival. There will always be an Israeli tank parked on top of it.
The second reason is best explained by Alistair Crooke. He contends we have heard but never understood what type of state the Israeli's want to create in their homeland.
It may be politically expedient, however disingenuous, for the current Liberal management to cling to fairy tale explanations of the Palestine/Israel roadblock but that does the party and its faithful no honour.
The documents are out. They speak for themselves. The Guardian has received a volume of them from al Jazeera and has had Palestinian officials privately confirm their authenticity even as the Palestinian Authority wants them to simply go away.
Monday, January 24, 2011
What I Want From Ottawa
As a lapsed Liberal I've spent the past couple of years in political limbo. The Harper government has been mediocre at best. The Liberals, first under Dion and then Ignatieff, have been duds. The NDP, well I still don't trust them, probably never will.
It finally dawned on me that rejecting the current offerings doesn't mean I have to limit myself to criticizing them. No, indeed, this is an opportunity to express what I want to hear from a party I'd be willing to support. What is important to me? What am I looking for? So, here goes. This is what I want in exchange for my vote.
1. I want a government that gives genuine priority to climate change. Every country is facing significant climate change impacts just from the emissions already in the atmosphere. We have to come to grips with that. Our government has to get a practical assessment of what's coming our way. It has to get that information out to local authorities and the public. It has to evaluate our options for adaptation and then engage the processes of planning and implementation.
2. I want a government that acknowledges that the wealth gap, the inequality between rich and poor, is a scourge to the country and its future that needs to be redressed. Inequality harms everybody save for the richest of the rich. It hobbles us and holds us back. It undermines the social cohesiveness we're going to need to meet the challenges coming our way this century.
3. I want a government dedicated to the restoration of a robust, vital and independent Canadian media. That would be a government willing to compel the dismemberment of the corporate media cabal that suffocates diversity and serves power interests instead of the public interest. I want more owners, not fewer, more reporters and columnists, not just the hacks who preside today.
4. I want a government resolved to restore Canada's place in the world. There is no shortage of combat soldiers in the world. Contributing a couple of thousand warriors here or there is a wee drop in a very deep bucket. Yet there is an enormous need for peacekeepers. The job may have become more violent today than it was in the 60's but that hardly determines its relevance. We don't need to become a brigade in America's Foreign Legion.
In short, I want a truly Progressive government, one willing to take long overdue bold stands needed to serve the people of Canada. I want a government with true vision, one that is able to look around the country, see what's happening and understand what's needed. I want a government willing to act with courage and principle, not the milquetoasts who want power but aren't willing to fight for it.
That's my wish list. What's yours?
It finally dawned on me that rejecting the current offerings doesn't mean I have to limit myself to criticizing them. No, indeed, this is an opportunity to express what I want to hear from a party I'd be willing to support. What is important to me? What am I looking for? So, here goes. This is what I want in exchange for my vote.
1. I want a government that gives genuine priority to climate change. Every country is facing significant climate change impacts just from the emissions already in the atmosphere. We have to come to grips with that. Our government has to get a practical assessment of what's coming our way. It has to get that information out to local authorities and the public. It has to evaluate our options for adaptation and then engage the processes of planning and implementation.
2. I want a government that acknowledges that the wealth gap, the inequality between rich and poor, is a scourge to the country and its future that needs to be redressed. Inequality harms everybody save for the richest of the rich. It hobbles us and holds us back. It undermines the social cohesiveness we're going to need to meet the challenges coming our way this century.
3. I want a government dedicated to the restoration of a robust, vital and independent Canadian media. That would be a government willing to compel the dismemberment of the corporate media cabal that suffocates diversity and serves power interests instead of the public interest. I want more owners, not fewer, more reporters and columnists, not just the hacks who preside today.
4. I want a government resolved to restore Canada's place in the world. There is no shortage of combat soldiers in the world. Contributing a couple of thousand warriors here or there is a wee drop in a very deep bucket. Yet there is an enormous need for peacekeepers. The job may have become more violent today than it was in the 60's but that hardly determines its relevance. We don't need to become a brigade in America's Foreign Legion.
In short, I want a truly Progressive government, one willing to take long overdue bold stands needed to serve the people of Canada. I want a government with true vision, one that is able to look around the country, see what's happening and understand what's needed. I want a government willing to act with courage and principle, not the milquetoasts who want power but aren't willing to fight for it.
That's my wish list. What's yours?
Corporatism Watch
Corporatism, more accurately described as corporate statism, has taken hold in the United States. It is inherently anti-democratic, concentrating power in the control of a political-economic elite. 21st century corporatism seems to be evolving differently than its predecessors in that it seeks to organize society not for the general welfare and betterment of society but to entrench the advantage of the privileged.
Keith Olbermann's abrupt consignment into obscurity has some of us mystified. AlterNet suggests if you want to know what happened to Olbermann, you should ask GE, General Electric, the corporate owner of MSNBC. It contends that KO was just too progressive for the corporatist media:
Keith Olbermann's abrupt consignment into obscurity has some of us mystified. AlterNet suggests if you want to know what happened to Olbermann, you should ask GE, General Electric, the corporate owner of MSNBC. It contends that KO was just too progressive for the corporatist media:
Now, with Olbermann’s permanent departure on Friday, the remainder of MSNBC’s liberal evening line-up, which also includes Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell (who will fill Olbermann’s 8 p.m. slot), must face the reality that any sustained friction with management could mean the bum’s rush for them, too.
The liberal hosts also must remember that MSNBC experimented with liberal-oriented programming only after all other programming strategies, including trying to out-Fox Fox, had failed – and only after it became clear that President George W. Bush’s popularity was slipping.
Media corporatism, of the variety now comfortably blanketing Canada's news outlets, is a vehicle of corporatist statism. Media, concentrated in the hands of but a few interests, is in a position to benefit in many ways by placing itself at the service of compatible political interests. There are subsidies to be had, regulations to be rewritten or scrapped entirely, all for promoting a partisan point of view to an often unwary public. The political beneficiary of this kindness need dispense nothing but the public interest in an independent, vibrant mass media.
What is beginning to happen in Canada is old hat in the US. Corporatist statism there has advanced by leaps and bounds ahead of its Canadian adherents. The forces of corporatism there not only have their "bought and paid for" Congress in their service but also the Supreme Court itself. The Citizens United decision in which the US Supreme Court invested corporations with political rights, ignoring the fact that corporate personality is a simple legal fiction, was the hallmark of the judicial branch's conversion to corporatist statism. Last week the progressive state of Vermont moved a resolution to reverse this decision, hoping it will lead to a groundswell of anti-corporatist outrage elsewhere, but we'll have a good wait before we see if that defies the odds to succeed.
Corporatist statism was manifest in the Bush/Cheney years. Imagine a government waging two, enormously expensive wars on money borrowed from foreign lenders also enacting tax cuts for the rich likewise funded by money borrowed from foreign lenders. It suffered a blow with the election of Obama and the Democratic capture of both houses of Congress but, aided by the corporatist media, the Republicans were quick to retake the House.
America stands as a warning of the perils of media corporatism and what it holds for Canada. We witnessed the sharp turn to the right in the Globe & Mail when it fell to Bell Globemedia. We saw the rise and fall of the blatantly partisan CanWest. Sun Media needs no elaboration. Now, in the West, we have the emergence of the new media monolith, Shaw Communications.
From a lowly cable TV company, Shaw has rapidly branched out into a regional, internet service provider and a telephone service provider. Recently it acquired the broadcast interests of CanWest, that now adds to its corporate structure the elements of broadcaster and TV content provider. It appears Shaw next intends to get into the cellular phone business. Have we unleashed a potential monster? Is this expansion truly in the public interest?
This is the very sort of problem I once would have expected the Liberal Party to address. I keep waiting to hear today's Liberals speak out on the entrenchment of concentration of media ownership and media cross ownership in Canada. I wait forlornly for Liberal advocacy for the restoration of independent, robust and vibrant media in Canada. Yet all I hear is silence.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Five Lost Years. No Land In Sight.
Stephen Harper quite understandably gloats this weekend at five years in power.
Five years.
Those have been five lost years for the Liberal Party. Five years squandered, adrift, no land in sight.
Harper is as he ever was - comfortably ahead of any Liberal rival. Sure he remains in a minority but he's become quite adept at playing inept opposition leaders in order to get his way. If he stays leader long enough, if the Liberals stay in the hole they've carved out for themselves, he might just get a majority - eventually.
Who knows? Maybe the Liberals are content to keep Mr. Harper or a successor in power for the next five years, maybe even five years after that. God knows they've done bugger all to unseat him.
Maybe a Harper majority is the only way to get Liberals to act liberal again. Maybe a big Tory win would force the Liberal hierarchy to pull their thumbs out of their asses, restore progressivism to the party and present badly needed policies that would resonate with the electorate.
Maybe the worst thing for the Liberal party would be more Conservative minority governments. The Liberal brand clings to life but it isn't what it was five years ago and it's nothing like what it was ten years back. It's in serious decline and another five years of flailing about uselessly will only bring it closer to irrelevance in the public mind.
You Libs have had five years of management by schoolboys. Isn't it time you found somebody with teeth and fists who's not afraid to use them?
Five years.
Those have been five lost years for the Liberal Party. Five years squandered, adrift, no land in sight.
Harper is as he ever was - comfortably ahead of any Liberal rival. Sure he remains in a minority but he's become quite adept at playing inept opposition leaders in order to get his way. If he stays leader long enough, if the Liberals stay in the hole they've carved out for themselves, he might just get a majority - eventually.
Who knows? Maybe the Liberals are content to keep Mr. Harper or a successor in power for the next five years, maybe even five years after that. God knows they've done bugger all to unseat him.
Maybe a Harper majority is the only way to get Liberals to act liberal again. Maybe a big Tory win would force the Liberal hierarchy to pull their thumbs out of their asses, restore progressivism to the party and present badly needed policies that would resonate with the electorate.
Maybe the worst thing for the Liberal party would be more Conservative minority governments. The Liberal brand clings to life but it isn't what it was five years ago and it's nothing like what it was ten years back. It's in serious decline and another five years of flailing about uselessly will only bring it closer to irrelevance in the public mind.
You Libs have had five years of management by schoolboys. Isn't it time you found somebody with teeth and fists who's not afraid to use them?
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Tucson Wasn't an Aberration. Arizona Is a Nuthouse.
Top to bottom, Arizona exemplifies the disease that has afflicted the American psyche. It's the state with the lowest per capita debt and yet it's one of the most insolvent. They even flogged off their state legislature building to raise a few bucks.
Arizona, home to that angry old geezer, John McCain, introduced draconian anti-immigrant laws. Then there was that bizarre mid-term election with lunatic candidates making preposterous claims. Hot on the heels of that came the Tucson shootings by a guy who demonstrated that, in Arizona, the deranged have no trouble arming themselves to the teeth.
Now it's the state's attorney general, Tom Horne, showing the world the true face of Arizona. The Horne dog has ordered Tucson-area schools to drop classes in Mexican-American history and social studies. Horne claims these classes are "propagandising and brainwashing" students into overthrowing the constitutional government and hating white people.
Horne wrote a law barring Arizona schools from holding classes that breached any of four prohibitions: promoting the overthrow of the government, creating resentment toward a race or class of people, focusing on students of one ethnic group or promoting ethnic solidarity.
Of course deciding what class or textbook "creates resentment toward a race" is a pretty subjective matter unless, of course, you see it in the context of how non-whites might perceive whites. Then it's easy as hell.
It's a phase they're going through in the American southwest. White majorities are threatened by burgeoning Latino populations. Soon it'll be Mexican-Americans who are in the majority. Maybe rubbing their noses in the dirt just before they get majority status isn't such a bright thing.
Arizona, home to that angry old geezer, John McCain, introduced draconian anti-immigrant laws. Then there was that bizarre mid-term election with lunatic candidates making preposterous claims. Hot on the heels of that came the Tucson shootings by a guy who demonstrated that, in Arizona, the deranged have no trouble arming themselves to the teeth.
Now it's the state's attorney general, Tom Horne, showing the world the true face of Arizona. The Horne dog has ordered Tucson-area schools to drop classes in Mexican-American history and social studies. Horne claims these classes are "propagandising and brainwashing" students into overthrowing the constitutional government and hating white people.
Horne wrote a law barring Arizona schools from holding classes that breached any of four prohibitions: promoting the overthrow of the government, creating resentment toward a race or class of people, focusing on students of one ethnic group or promoting ethnic solidarity.
Of course deciding what class or textbook "creates resentment toward a race" is a pretty subjective matter unless, of course, you see it in the context of how non-whites might perceive whites. Then it's easy as hell.
It's a phase they're going through in the American southwest. White majorities are threatened by burgeoning Latino populations. Soon it'll be Mexican-Americans who are in the majority. Maybe rubbing their noses in the dirt just before they get majority status isn't such a bright thing.
If We Can't Get a Global Warming Treaty, How About a Global Population Treaty?
We've been warned to set 9-billion places at the table by 2050. We're expected to hit 7-billion this October which means another 2-billion in the following four decades. (This makes me feel old. When I was born we were still in the low-two billions, itself a record).
In recent weeks I've read a number of articles about how we can feed nine-billion human beings. The expert consensus is that we can indeed meet the challenge. Yes we can, but it's not a question of "can" but of "will." Do we have the will to accept the sacrifices, the compromises without which nine billion cannot be fed?
It's conservatively estimated that we'll have to increase global food production another 70%. Some believe we'll have to double it. And then we'll have to ensure that we distribute everything properly so we no longer lose food to spoilage. We're going to have to scrap our fancy notions of "best before" dates and be willing to eat stuff that, by today's standards, has gone a bit off. But the big challenge is that we in the affluent world are going to have to cut our food intake back, way back.
I think it's quite possible that we can do these things but I don't believe it's in our nature, the human nature, that we will do them. Try to imagine how intensely ordered the world will have to become to pull this off. It would be a world unlike anything we have ever known.
The Guardian warned yesterday that the era of cheap food is about over. From here on in food will get much more expensive. Presumably that's the supply and demand function at work. Yet those extra two billion won't be born with silver spoons in their mouths. Most of them will be born to poor parents in poor nations. Just how are they going to be able to buy expensive food? How will they manage to pay to have it shipped vast distances to their markets? How many middle men will stand between them and the calories they need to subsist? How many thugs?
If food is elevated to the status of a strategic weapon, something that can be used to bring a nation living at subsistence levels to collapse, how will we prevent that nightmare from happening?
Surely what these projections tell us is that we cannot have another two billion people added to the roster. We're just not capable or good enough to manage that extra burden. We can't even figure out how we're going to cope with the impacts of anthropogenic global warming that are supposed to begin arriving, in force, at the same time we bring aboard those extra two billion.
Maybe it's time for a showdown. Perhaps it is time we resolved that 7-billion is enough and that mankind has to draw the line there. Africa and Asia have to put the brakes on, arrest their burgeoning population growth. They've simply got to stop. They have to take responsibility for their population levels.
We all must recognize that the good times have rolled. We're in for a century marked by droughts, floods, severe weather events and rising sea levels with associated inundation and salination threats. Even the more advantaged countries, like the United States, will be hard pressed to meet domestic troubles including loss of agricultural capacity and internally displaced citizens.
It's hard to imagine the affluent, northern countries bending low to help regions that chose to add two billion people while knowing full well where the world was heading. For ultimately what is being hinted at is rationing. We'll have to consume less so that ever more can consume a little. That's not something we do terribly well. Worse yet, if we accept some sort of de facto food rationing, we'll also be facing pressures for other types of rationing/sharing - water, energy, natural resources. That's simply not going to happen.
There's nothing we can do any longer to avert the baseline impacts of global warming, the changes that are coming even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases entirely as of today. It remains entirely in our power to defuse the global population explosion. That's a matter of choice. It's a life or death choice.
In recent weeks I've read a number of articles about how we can feed nine-billion human beings. The expert consensus is that we can indeed meet the challenge. Yes we can, but it's not a question of "can" but of "will." Do we have the will to accept the sacrifices, the compromises without which nine billion cannot be fed?
It's conservatively estimated that we'll have to increase global food production another 70%. Some believe we'll have to double it. And then we'll have to ensure that we distribute everything properly so we no longer lose food to spoilage. We're going to have to scrap our fancy notions of "best before" dates and be willing to eat stuff that, by today's standards, has gone a bit off. But the big challenge is that we in the affluent world are going to have to cut our food intake back, way back.
I think it's quite possible that we can do these things but I don't believe it's in our nature, the human nature, that we will do them. Try to imagine how intensely ordered the world will have to become to pull this off. It would be a world unlike anything we have ever known.
The Guardian warned yesterday that the era of cheap food is about over. From here on in food will get much more expensive. Presumably that's the supply and demand function at work. Yet those extra two billion won't be born with silver spoons in their mouths. Most of them will be born to poor parents in poor nations. Just how are they going to be able to buy expensive food? How will they manage to pay to have it shipped vast distances to their markets? How many middle men will stand between them and the calories they need to subsist? How many thugs?
If food is elevated to the status of a strategic weapon, something that can be used to bring a nation living at subsistence levels to collapse, how will we prevent that nightmare from happening?
Surely what these projections tell us is that we cannot have another two billion people added to the roster. We're just not capable or good enough to manage that extra burden. We can't even figure out how we're going to cope with the impacts of anthropogenic global warming that are supposed to begin arriving, in force, at the same time we bring aboard those extra two billion.
Maybe it's time for a showdown. Perhaps it is time we resolved that 7-billion is enough and that mankind has to draw the line there. Africa and Asia have to put the brakes on, arrest their burgeoning population growth. They've simply got to stop. They have to take responsibility for their population levels.
We all must recognize that the good times have rolled. We're in for a century marked by droughts, floods, severe weather events and rising sea levels with associated inundation and salination threats. Even the more advantaged countries, like the United States, will be hard pressed to meet domestic troubles including loss of agricultural capacity and internally displaced citizens.
It's hard to imagine the affluent, northern countries bending low to help regions that chose to add two billion people while knowing full well where the world was heading. For ultimately what is being hinted at is rationing. We'll have to consume less so that ever more can consume a little. That's not something we do terribly well. Worse yet, if we accept some sort of de facto food rationing, we'll also be facing pressures for other types of rationing/sharing - water, energy, natural resources. That's simply not going to happen.
There's nothing we can do any longer to avert the baseline impacts of global warming, the changes that are coming even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases entirely as of today. It remains entirely in our power to defuse the global population explosion. That's a matter of choice. It's a life or death choice.
Glenn's Kampf
Revolution? Civil War? "Shoot them in the head?"
I think the Left is much too quick to lambaste the Right as akin to Nazis but this sounds like something straight out of a Munich bierkellar
I think the Left is much too quick to lambaste the Right as akin to Nazis but this sounds like something straight out of a Munich bierkellar
Friday, January 21, 2011
Enormous Softwood Victory! No, Not Really.
Yippee! Okay, we lost - BUT not as badly as we could have lost.
Canada has been ordered to impose an additional $60-million in special export levies on softwood producers in Quebec and Ontario. Trademin van Loan says it could have been oh so much worse. The Yanks were after $2-billion in extra tariffs.
But the surly Gringos aren't done with us yet, not hardly. They're after half a billion bucks claiming that British Columbia is flogging lumber at rock bottom prices in the province's interior. The Americans haven't figured out all that cheap lumber is the result of huge tracts of trees killed by mountain pine beetle infestations.
A Toronto trade lawyer is quoted by CTV as saying, "This is the cost of the deal we reached with the United States." He's referring, of course, to the deal the Harper government made with the US.
Canada has been ordered to impose an additional $60-million in special export levies on softwood producers in Quebec and Ontario. Trademin van Loan says it could have been oh so much worse. The Yanks were after $2-billion in extra tariffs.
But the surly Gringos aren't done with us yet, not hardly. They're after half a billion bucks claiming that British Columbia is flogging lumber at rock bottom prices in the province's interior. The Americans haven't figured out all that cheap lumber is the result of huge tracts of trees killed by mountain pine beetle infestations.
A Toronto trade lawyer is quoted by CTV as saying, "This is the cost of the deal we reached with the United States." He's referring, of course, to the deal the Harper government made with the US.
Give Nukes a Chance
Many ordinary environmentalists have been conditioned to recoil at the mere mention of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the bombs - pretty powerful stuff indeed.
Unfortunately our minds were locked up long ago. The Chernobyl disaster in 1989 was the icing on the cake.
Fortunately the public's wariness of nuclear power failed to prevent the development of third and fourth generation nuclear technology, the "fast reactors." Let's put it this way, they're not your father's nuclear reactors. In fact they may be your best hope of arresting global warming before we reach tipping points.
The common complaints I hear about nuclear energy are that it's dangerous, can be used in the process of creating weapons grade material and leaves all those spent fuel rods that have to be stored for countless thousands of years. Those were all good points, emphasis on "were."
Australian professor Barry Brook has a blog, Brave New Climate at www.bravenewclimate.com. If you're not current with developments in nuclear technology it's a good place to catch up.
Brook explains why the latest generation of reactors are so much better than their predecessors. The main reason is that previous nuclear plants were based on technologies developed for military purposes.
All of those fuel cycles were derived from technologies developed to meet special military needs: naval propulsion, uranium enrichment, weapons-plutonium production, and plutonium separation. Waste disposal has been approached as “someone else’s problem.” The IFR concept is directed strictly to meeting the needs of civilian power generation. It is an integrated, weapons-incompatible, proliferation-resistant cycle that is “closed”—it encompasses the entire fuel cycle, including fuel production and fabrication, power generation, reprocessing and waste management.
“Fuel cycle” refers to all the steps involving nuclear fuel that are needed to generate electricity: mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor operation, reprocessing and waste management. Depending on the fuel cycle, some of those steps might not be needed. The three major fuel cycles of current interest are: thermal without reprocessing (“once-through,” or “throw-away”), thermal with reprocessing and IFR. The IFR will eliminate the need for mining (for centuries), and milling and enrichment (forever).
Whereas early generation reactors generate plutonium and those never really spent fuel rods that have to be safely and expensively stored forever and ever, amen, IFRs actually eat that stuff. The can consume it as fuel. They can also turn weapons grade material into fuel. It's sort of like turning nuclear swords into electrical ploughshares.
I have only a layman's knowledge of nuclear energy and, until recently, harboured the same biases against it that are common today. It was only when James Lovelock came out as a strong advocate of nuclear power that I started to take a second look. I was frankly surprised at how civilian-oriented, nuclear technology has evolved.
It may just be time we gave nuclear power, the fast reactor kind, a chance.
Unfortunately our minds were locked up long ago. The Chernobyl disaster in 1989 was the icing on the cake.
Fortunately the public's wariness of nuclear power failed to prevent the development of third and fourth generation nuclear technology, the "fast reactors." Let's put it this way, they're not your father's nuclear reactors. In fact they may be your best hope of arresting global warming before we reach tipping points.
The common complaints I hear about nuclear energy are that it's dangerous, can be used in the process of creating weapons grade material and leaves all those spent fuel rods that have to be stored for countless thousands of years. Those were all good points, emphasis on "were."
Australian professor Barry Brook has a blog, Brave New Climate at www.bravenewclimate.com. If you're not current with developments in nuclear technology it's a good place to catch up.
Brook explains why the latest generation of reactors are so much better than their predecessors. The main reason is that previous nuclear plants were based on technologies developed for military purposes.
All of those fuel cycles were derived from technologies developed to meet special military needs: naval propulsion, uranium enrichment, weapons-plutonium production, and plutonium separation. Waste disposal has been approached as “someone else’s problem.” The IFR concept is directed strictly to meeting the needs of civilian power generation. It is an integrated, weapons-incompatible, proliferation-resistant cycle that is “closed”—it encompasses the entire fuel cycle, including fuel production and fabrication, power generation, reprocessing and waste management.
“Fuel cycle” refers to all the steps involving nuclear fuel that are needed to generate electricity: mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor operation, reprocessing and waste management. Depending on the fuel cycle, some of those steps might not be needed. The three major fuel cycles of current interest are: thermal without reprocessing (“once-through,” or “throw-away”), thermal with reprocessing and IFR. The IFR will eliminate the need for mining (for centuries), and milling and enrichment (forever).
Whereas early generation reactors generate plutonium and those never really spent fuel rods that have to be safely and expensively stored forever and ever, amen, IFRs actually eat that stuff. The can consume it as fuel. They can also turn weapons grade material into fuel. It's sort of like turning nuclear swords into electrical ploughshares.
I have only a layman's knowledge of nuclear energy and, until recently, harboured the same biases against it that are common today. It was only when James Lovelock came out as a strong advocate of nuclear power that I started to take a second look. I was frankly surprised at how civilian-oriented, nuclear technology has evolved.
It may just be time we gave nuclear power, the fast reactor kind, a chance.
Why Are Our Conservatives Dumber Than Theirs?
There's something that distinguishes North American conservatives from their conservative counterparts elsewhere. Our cons refuse to accept the need for immediate action to curb carbon emissions. To them the theory of global warming is about as appealing as parsnips to a spoiled 6-year old. They don't like it and they're not going to have it.
Elsewhere on the planet, conservatives do get it. Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady herself, was onto global warming back when Reagan could still remember where he lived. Angela Merkel gets it. So do other conservatives the other side of the Atlantic and Pacific. Ours reject global warming, not based on science but out of preference. That's because they're not really conservative at all. Edmund Burke, their patron saint, would have faced the global warming challenge very conservatively. He would have done whatever was possible to "conserve" his country and his world.
Canada's Conservatives hide behind America's "bought and paid for" Congress, confident that their Republican colleagues will throw a monkey wrench into any meaningful attempt to act on global warming. And now, having regained control of the House, Republicans are gearing up to do just that. McClatchey Newspapers reports that House Republicans are about to start pushing hard to derail carbon emission regulations.
The Environmental Protection Agency in December said it would draw up performance standards that would help cut heat-trapping gases produced by refineries and coal-fired power plants. The EPA hasn't proposed the specifics yet, and existing plants wouldn't be affected until the later years of the decade, but opponents of regulation aren't waiting.
The new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said he'd have hearings about the impact of the EPA's emission reduction plan on jobs.
" Standing up for American workers and addressing EPA's rampant regulations is a top priority, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said Thursday. " We will be active and aggressive using every tool in the toolbox to protect American jobs and our economy by rolling back the job-destroying (greenhouse gas) regulations."
"In 2030, fossil fuels remain the predominant energy source, accounting for nearly 80% of demand. Oil still leads, but natural gas moves into second place on very strong growth of 1.8% a year on average, particularly because of its position as a favoured fuel for power generation.
" Other energy types – particularly nuclear, wind, solar and biofuels – will grow sharply, albeit from a smaller base. Nuclear and renewable fuels will see strong growth, particularly in the power-generation sector. By 2030, about 40% of the world's electricity will be generated by nuclear and renewable fuels."
The company does not say what it expects global oil output to be in 2030, but suggests that US demand will be roughly at 1960 levels, suggesting that the US will have reduced its dependency on foreign oil considerably.
Instead, it says that growth in CO2 emissions in the future will be dominated by China, India and other developing, or non-OECD countries.
Elsewhere on the planet, conservatives do get it. Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady herself, was onto global warming back when Reagan could still remember where he lived. Angela Merkel gets it. So do other conservatives the other side of the Atlantic and Pacific. Ours reject global warming, not based on science but out of preference. That's because they're not really conservative at all. Edmund Burke, their patron saint, would have faced the global warming challenge very conservatively. He would have done whatever was possible to "conserve" his country and his world.
Canada's Conservatives hide behind America's "bought and paid for" Congress, confident that their Republican colleagues will throw a monkey wrench into any meaningful attempt to act on global warming. And now, having regained control of the House, Republicans are gearing up to do just that. McClatchey Newspapers reports that House Republicans are about to start pushing hard to derail carbon emission regulations.
The Environmental Protection Agency in December said it would draw up performance standards that would help cut heat-trapping gases produced by refineries and coal-fired power plants. The EPA hasn't proposed the specifics yet, and existing plants wouldn't be affected until the later years of the decade, but opponents of regulation aren't waiting.
The new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said he'd have hearings about the impact of the EPA's emission reduction plan on jobs.
" Standing up for American workers and addressing EPA's rampant regulations is a top priority, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said Thursday. " We will be active and aggressive using every tool in the toolbox to protect American jobs and our economy by rolling back the job-destroying (greenhouse gas) regulations."
"In 2030, fossil fuels remain the predominant energy source, accounting for nearly 80% of demand. Oil still leads, but natural gas moves into second place on very strong growth of 1.8% a year on average, particularly because of its position as a favoured fuel for power generation.
" Other energy types – particularly nuclear, wind, solar and biofuels – will grow sharply, albeit from a smaller base. Nuclear and renewable fuels will see strong growth, particularly in the power-generation sector. By 2030, about 40% of the world's electricity will be generated by nuclear and renewable fuels."
The company does not say what it expects global oil output to be in 2030, but suggests that US demand will be roughly at 1960 levels, suggesting that the US will have reduced its dependency on foreign oil considerably.
Instead, it says that growth in CO2 emissions in the future will be dominated by China, India and other developing, or non-OECD countries.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Why Order a Guy to Get On the Ground After You've Killed Him?
Middle of the night. Guy hears a ruckus at his door. Grabs a golf club. Cops enter - bang, bang, bang. Guy drops, dead. Cops approach and order the corpse to "get on the ground."
Watch it yourself. Do you think all these cops with their helmets and all that ballistic body armour, well back from their victim, were even remotely in danger from the guy's golf club? Or do you think it's judicial murder?
Watch it yourself. Do you think all these cops with their helmets and all that ballistic body armour, well back from their victim, were even remotely in danger from the guy's golf club? Or do you think it's judicial murder?
South Korea Seeking US Go-Ahead to Build Ballistic Missiles
South Korea wants out of a deal it made with the US in 2001 that limits it to missiles with a top range of 186-miles and warheads no larger than 1,100 pounds.
Apparently fed up with threats from the North, the South Koreans want to build missiles capable of hitting targets anywhere in the North which means increasing the range limit to 1,000 kms. or 620-miles. South Korea already has an arsenal of cruise missiles able to strike anywhere in North Korea.
Washington has sought to limit South Korea's missile capability fearing expansion would trigger Pyongyang to expand its already considerable arsenal.
Apparently fed up with threats from the North, the South Koreans want to build missiles capable of hitting targets anywhere in the North which means increasing the range limit to 1,000 kms. or 620-miles. South Korea already has an arsenal of cruise missiles able to strike anywhere in North Korea.
Washington has sought to limit South Korea's missile capability fearing expansion would trigger Pyongyang to expand its already considerable arsenal.
He Who Forgets His History Is Doomed to Repeat It. He Who Never Knew It Is In For Surprises.
Those of us living in urban, western North America live in a relatively young society. Our kind just haven't been around that long. Because of that we're unfamiliar with what, in the long run, is "normal" for our locale. Oh we've heard about the giant quakes that strike every three or four-hundred years but our society is less than two hundred years old and has never experienced one. We will, one day, and then those of us who survive will duly enter it in the books. For now, however, it's the stuff of legend.
Consider the prairie. That has been settled mainly over the past hundred years or so. The settlers put the grasslands into agricultural production turning it into the breadbasket of our nation. That led to the establishment of railroads, highways, airports, towns and cities and all the infrastructure that goes with such things. But we did all this without regard to the history of the prairie. Only recently did we learn that this region is prone to megadroughts lasting 60-years or more. 60 years? The fact that, when we showed up, it was prairie grassland made up of some pretty drought-resistant species should have given us pause but didn't. What we didn't understand that the conditions when we arrived were not normal, not even close. Our arrival coincided with a century plus-long stretch of unduly wet conditions, perfect for large-scale agriculture. And so we built a society around that, on false assumptions.
The American southwest is in for its own surprises. It's running out of water and megadrought is just beginning to set in. The states in that area are already introducing drastic measures to curb water consumption and that will do a lot to ease the problem - temporarily. Eventually you reach a baseline threshhold and then you have to depopulate.
Now it's California that's getting a history lesson. 117-researchers got together last week to report that global warming could trigger "superstorms" capable of flooding California's key agricultural zone, the central valley.
A winter storm that brings warm South Pacific air over parts of California, creating an " atmospheric river" that could bring 10 feet of rain over 40 days, flooding large tracts of the state and bringing flood water to nearly a quarter of the state's homes.
Consider the prairie. That has been settled mainly over the past hundred years or so. The settlers put the grasslands into agricultural production turning it into the breadbasket of our nation. That led to the establishment of railroads, highways, airports, towns and cities and all the infrastructure that goes with such things. But we did all this without regard to the history of the prairie. Only recently did we learn that this region is prone to megadroughts lasting 60-years or more. 60 years? The fact that, when we showed up, it was prairie grassland made up of some pretty drought-resistant species should have given us pause but didn't. What we didn't understand that the conditions when we arrived were not normal, not even close. Our arrival coincided with a century plus-long stretch of unduly wet conditions, perfect for large-scale agriculture. And so we built a society around that, on false assumptions.
The American southwest is in for its own surprises. It's running out of water and megadrought is just beginning to set in. The states in that area are already introducing drastic measures to curb water consumption and that will do a lot to ease the problem - temporarily. Eventually you reach a baseline threshhold and then you have to depopulate.
Now it's California that's getting a history lesson. 117-researchers got together last week to report that global warming could trigger "superstorms" capable of flooding California's key agricultural zone, the central valley.
A winter storm that brings warm South Pacific air over parts of California, creating an " atmospheric river" that could bring 10 feet of rain over 40 days, flooding large tracts of the state and bringing flood water to nearly a quarter of the state's homes.
Such a storm could bring water into California at a rate equivalent to that of 50 Mississippi rivers, the climate model projected.
As sensational as that scenario sounds, researchers say it's based in historical reality: Such storms have hit California before, most notably in 1861 and 1862, when floods turned a 300-mile stretch of the Central Valley into a lake. The New York Times reports:
The storms lasted 45 days, creating lakes in parts of the Mojave Desert and, according to a survey account, “turning the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea, forcing the state capital to be moved from Sacramento to San Francisco for a time, and requiring Gov. Leland Stanford to take a rowboat to his inauguration.”
Today we're witnessing megafloods in Australia, Brazil and Sri Lanka. While they're triggered by the southern oscillation La Nina event the severity is being attributed, at least in part, to atmospheric warming.
The Greatest Race on Earth
If you're interested you can view the rest here.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Sean Hannity. America's Real Mental Affliction.
I credit FOX News with delivering an awful lot of the conditioning that has left so many Americans ignorant, befuddled, angry and volatile. Among the FOX celebrities, probably none is more odious than mouthpiece Sean Hannity. The following clip from Hannity's show pretty much sums up the guy:
Go in and take Kuwait's oil? Really? I suppose he maintains that Kuwait owes America for its liberation in Operation Desert Storm. Maybe Hannity is simply too stupid to recall that was the one war America fought on the cheap with countries like Japan and Germany covering almost all of America's costs.
As for Iraqis paying for their liberation, maybe Hannity could remind us who asked Bush/Cheney to invade and devastate Iraq? Whoever that is, why not send them the bill? Sean Hannity is such a total sphincter.
Go in and take Kuwait's oil? Really? I suppose he maintains that Kuwait owes America for its liberation in Operation Desert Storm. Maybe Hannity is simply too stupid to recall that was the one war America fought on the cheap with countries like Japan and Germany covering almost all of America's costs.
As for Iraqis paying for their liberation, maybe Hannity could remind us who asked Bush/Cheney to invade and devastate Iraq? Whoever that is, why not send them the bill? Sean Hannity is such a total sphincter.
That Explains a Lot. Reagan Had Alzheimers While President.
...Ron Reagan describes his growing sense of alarm over his father's mental condition, beginning as early as three years into his first term. He recalls the presidential debate with Walter Mondale on 7 October 1984.
" My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered," Ron Reagan writes.
Bring On the Alchemists
For centuries alchemy, the belief that common lead could be transformed into pure gold, was the preserve of nutters and dupes. The 21st century, however, could see a form of alchemy turned into reality.
Yesterday's Globe & Mail reported on a breakthrough that uses genetically modified bacteria (e-coli no less) to transform carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon fuels - gasoline, diesel, kerosene, you name it. Joule Unlimited says it has developed a technology that uses bacteria growing in waste water that consume CO2 and excrete liquid hydrocarbon fuels at a cost equivalent of $30-per barrel crude.
The Joule technology requires no “feedstock,” no corn, no wood, no garbage, no algae. Aside from hungry, gene-altered micro-organisms, it requires only carbon dioxide and sunshine to manufacture crude. And water: whether fresh, brackish or salt. With these “inputs,” it mimics photosynthesis, the process by which green leaves use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds. Indeed, the company describes its manufacture of fossil fuels as “artificial photosynthesis.”
I read the article with a good measure of skepticism for it sounds far too good to be true. That led me to take a look at Joule Unlimited and its key personnel. I was impressed. Joule is run by some very top-drawer scientists from the several fields one would expect would be involved in developing this technology. Yet, for all that, the story still sounded too good to be true. Now I'm pretty sure it is.
What's notable in the G&M story is the range of questions unanswered and apparently never asked by the reporter. These are the questions one needs to make any real sense of this story, questions that determine whether Joule's discovery is really an answer to our carbon emissions problems or Peak Oil.
A key issue is whether Joule's breakthrough is just a lab trick. We've done all manner of things, impossible things in labs recently. We've collided the smallest sub atomic particles. We've created anti-matter. We've even exceeded the speed of light. All these things were done in very controlled conditions. None of them will have any practical application probably not even within your grandkids lifetimes.
Is it scaleable? Is it truly suited to large-scale applications that would be needed to supplant conventional fossil fuels?
What are the waste or by-products of this technology? For example, desalination plants sound terrific until you begin to explore the contaminated brine effluent that is produced and released back into the environment. Joule's process uses waste water. What is the state of that waste water after processing?
Are there hidden energy inputs? For example, where does that carbon dioxide come from? Is it pressurized, liquified? How is it transported?
If it is scaleable and cheap and safe, what is the timeline for the construction of artificial liquid hydrocarbon plants that could realistically supplant conventional fossil fuels? This is a big one. Time is running out. Some of the best minds give us less than two decades to wean ourselves off conventional fossil fuels. If the Joule discovery is 30 or 40 years away from practical implementation it's value is greatly diminished.
And then we come to the real problems, the geopolitical issues. Surely a development like this would be of a magnitude of the first production of nuclear weapons. It would be a game changer. Whichever state held it would have a great advantage from independence from conventional fossil fuels. Something like this, closely held as a strategic asset, might just be enough to put America back on top. That would, of course, depend on America's rivals not getting their hands on the technology.
Would we finally be able to turn the lights off on the Middle East? Everything we've done there, every problem we've created and confronted, is at least partly if not entirely related to our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. With just a couple of exceptions, the world's petro-states are pretty nasty places whose influences we could do quite well without. If "eco-oil" could be had at $30-a barrel, you could be sure that conventional oil would be priced at a significant discount. The Persian Gulf? There goes the neighbourhood.
And, finally, what lies in store for unconventional fossil fuels, the filthiest and most expensive of the lot? Yes, I'm talking about Athabasca and offshore wells. They would be the first to go and they would go down hard.
The Joule Unlimited announcement comes on the heels of a report out of CalTech where researchers have obtained a patent for another form of alternative transport fuel, liquid hydrogen, produced from solar-powered, cerium-oxide reactors. It seems that necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention. But is it all too little, too late? And what of the opposition that can be expected to run interference as it does with all alternative energy options? What of Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Gas and their incestuous bedding of America's "bought and paid for " Congress? Can any breakthrough decouple the US government from its fossil fuel benefactors?
So many questions, so few answers. Yet the questions themselves are oddly captivating, even mildly entertaining. This promises to be an era like none other.
Yesterday's Globe & Mail reported on a breakthrough that uses genetically modified bacteria (e-coli no less) to transform carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon fuels - gasoline, diesel, kerosene, you name it. Joule Unlimited says it has developed a technology that uses bacteria growing in waste water that consume CO2 and excrete liquid hydrocarbon fuels at a cost equivalent of $30-per barrel crude.
The Joule technology requires no “feedstock,” no corn, no wood, no garbage, no algae. Aside from hungry, gene-altered micro-organisms, it requires only carbon dioxide and sunshine to manufacture crude. And water: whether fresh, brackish or salt. With these “inputs,” it mimics photosynthesis, the process by which green leaves use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds. Indeed, the company describes its manufacture of fossil fuels as “artificial photosynthesis.”
I read the article with a good measure of skepticism for it sounds far too good to be true. That led me to take a look at Joule Unlimited and its key personnel. I was impressed. Joule is run by some very top-drawer scientists from the several fields one would expect would be involved in developing this technology. Yet, for all that, the story still sounded too good to be true. Now I'm pretty sure it is.
What's notable in the G&M story is the range of questions unanswered and apparently never asked by the reporter. These are the questions one needs to make any real sense of this story, questions that determine whether Joule's discovery is really an answer to our carbon emissions problems or Peak Oil.
A key issue is whether Joule's breakthrough is just a lab trick. We've done all manner of things, impossible things in labs recently. We've collided the smallest sub atomic particles. We've created anti-matter. We've even exceeded the speed of light. All these things were done in very controlled conditions. None of them will have any practical application probably not even within your grandkids lifetimes.
Is it scaleable? Is it truly suited to large-scale applications that would be needed to supplant conventional fossil fuels?
What are the waste or by-products of this technology? For example, desalination plants sound terrific until you begin to explore the contaminated brine effluent that is produced and released back into the environment. Joule's process uses waste water. What is the state of that waste water after processing?
Are there hidden energy inputs? For example, where does that carbon dioxide come from? Is it pressurized, liquified? How is it transported?
If it is scaleable and cheap and safe, what is the timeline for the construction of artificial liquid hydrocarbon plants that could realistically supplant conventional fossil fuels? This is a big one. Time is running out. Some of the best minds give us less than two decades to wean ourselves off conventional fossil fuels. If the Joule discovery is 30 or 40 years away from practical implementation it's value is greatly diminished.
And then we come to the real problems, the geopolitical issues. Surely a development like this would be of a magnitude of the first production of nuclear weapons. It would be a game changer. Whichever state held it would have a great advantage from independence from conventional fossil fuels. Something like this, closely held as a strategic asset, might just be enough to put America back on top. That would, of course, depend on America's rivals not getting their hands on the technology.
Would we finally be able to turn the lights off on the Middle East? Everything we've done there, every problem we've created and confronted, is at least partly if not entirely related to our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. With just a couple of exceptions, the world's petro-states are pretty nasty places whose influences we could do quite well without. If "eco-oil" could be had at $30-a barrel, you could be sure that conventional oil would be priced at a significant discount. The Persian Gulf? There goes the neighbourhood.
And, finally, what lies in store for unconventional fossil fuels, the filthiest and most expensive of the lot? Yes, I'm talking about Athabasca and offshore wells. They would be the first to go and they would go down hard.
The Joule Unlimited announcement comes on the heels of a report out of CalTech where researchers have obtained a patent for another form of alternative transport fuel, liquid hydrogen, produced from solar-powered, cerium-oxide reactors. It seems that necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention. But is it all too little, too late? And what of the opposition that can be expected to run interference as it does with all alternative energy options? What of Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Gas and their incestuous bedding of America's "bought and paid for " Congress? Can any breakthrough decouple the US government from its fossil fuel benefactors?
So many questions, so few answers. Yet the questions themselves are oddly captivating, even mildly entertaining. This promises to be an era like none other.
A Climate Change Tax? Australia Ponders Just That.
A levy could take the form of an addition to the 1.5 percent Medicare levy backing public health and hospitals, and which raises A$10 billion ($9.9 billion) a year, the Australian newspaper said, without naming sources.
Flooding blamed on rains triggered by a La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific has devastated huge areas of Australia's eastern seaboard, flooded parts of Brisbane, the nation's third-largest city, shut vital coal mines and rail lines, and destroyed crops.
Australia, like most countries in the developed world, has a debt and deficit problem on its hands at the moment. The government has a recovery plan but shelling out up to $20-billion or more in flood relief could toss that plan off the rails. So to try to keep its economic plan alive the government may have to hit up the public for additional taxes.
Now, think of another debt-saddled country. One that is vulnerable to severe weather events that are expected to increase in both frequency and severity. One where the insurance industry is already refusing to cover these climate change related risks. That's right, it's the United States of America.
Hurricane and tropical storm damage to the American south and its eastern seaboard and the spreading mega-drought to the south and southwest can be expected to trigger enormous, uninsurable losses. Insurers long ago ceased writing hurricane coverage as far north as New York state and well inland to boot. By 2030 America also faces the prospect of internally displaced people who find it necessary to move away from drought-stricken regions or coastal areas experiencing inundation. Washington may well have no alternative but to spread the costs of reconstruction and relocation onto the shoulders of its citizens through special levies. Can you hear the howling already, or is that gunfire?
Will Canada be spared these sorts of costs? Perhaps but don't count on it. Our own bread basket, southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, are within the severe drought projections for the early 21st century.
Monday, January 17, 2011
You Have to Choose - Will It Be Canada or Athabasca?
For the Liberal leadership, supporting the operation and expansion of the Athabasca Tar Sands involves a wobbly conjuring trick - pretending that the Tar Sands can somehow be made environmentally acceptable. I'm not excusing the other two parties, they're as bad or worse, but it's the Liberal Party that has always been my home team.
Making the Tar Sands palatable has entailed the idea that all those massive carbon emissions could be captured and then pumped into safe storage underground. It's telling that the other environmental devastation wreaked by the Tar Sands tends to go unmentioned, swept under the carpet.
Carbon Capture & Sequestration, CCS, or, as I sometimes think of it, Michael Ignatieff's Magic Wand. It's the stuff of charlatans, hucksters and swindlers. It doesn't work and, worse, it's lethal when it fails. To do it properly would render Athabasca's bitumen commercially unviable. No one's going to pick up that tab. Certainly Big Oil won't. Neither will Alberta or Ottawa. The best they're willing to do is pump the stuff underground and then look the other way.
A few days ago Andrew Nikiforuk, writing in The Tyee, blew the whistle on Canada's CCS showcase demonstration project in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. About a decade ago it was decided to pipe carbon dioxide from a coal gasification plant in North Dakota and pump it into the partially-empty Weyburn oilfield. So far about 17-million tonnes of CO2 have been pumped into the Weyburn reservoir. Government regulators have declared it safe but it's not. In fact that CO2 has begun leaking back to the surface as it was bound to do and has been detected in concentrations twice the level necessary to asphyxiate a person. Nikiforuk chronicles the leakage and a variety of other problems now facing residents in the Weyburn area.
In short, this CCS business is hogwash, potentially highly lethal hogwash. It's time the Liberal Party picked itself out of the petro-gutter and took the high ground on Athabasca. The Tar Sands are dirty, far dirtier than the Alberta or federal governments have been willing to admit. There is no Magic Wand solution to the Tar Sands and there never will be. A real Liberal leader would have the courage to say so.
Making the Tar Sands palatable has entailed the idea that all those massive carbon emissions could be captured and then pumped into safe storage underground. It's telling that the other environmental devastation wreaked by the Tar Sands tends to go unmentioned, swept under the carpet.
Carbon Capture & Sequestration, CCS, or, as I sometimes think of it, Michael Ignatieff's Magic Wand. It's the stuff of charlatans, hucksters and swindlers. It doesn't work and, worse, it's lethal when it fails. To do it properly would render Athabasca's bitumen commercially unviable. No one's going to pick up that tab. Certainly Big Oil won't. Neither will Alberta or Ottawa. The best they're willing to do is pump the stuff underground and then look the other way.
A few days ago Andrew Nikiforuk, writing in The Tyee, blew the whistle on Canada's CCS showcase demonstration project in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. About a decade ago it was decided to pipe carbon dioxide from a coal gasification plant in North Dakota and pump it into the partially-empty Weyburn oilfield. So far about 17-million tonnes of CO2 have been pumped into the Weyburn reservoir. Government regulators have declared it safe but it's not. In fact that CO2 has begun leaking back to the surface as it was bound to do and has been detected in concentrations twice the level necessary to asphyxiate a person. Nikiforuk chronicles the leakage and a variety of other problems now facing residents in the Weyburn area.
In short, this CCS business is hogwash, potentially highly lethal hogwash. It's time the Liberal Party picked itself out of the petro-gutter and took the high ground on Athabasca. The Tar Sands are dirty, far dirtier than the Alberta or federal governments have been willing to admit. There is no Magic Wand solution to the Tar Sands and there never will be. A real Liberal leader would have the courage to say so.
Jared Lee Loughner Finally Reaches America's Mental Health Care System
That's what constitutes mental health treatment today south of the line. You wait until the lunatic buys himself a gun (or a knife, or an axe, or a van full of explosive), whacks somebody or a lot of somebodies, then you send him for treatment, either for life or the full cure by death chamber needle.
Given the result of the Daily Kos poll that found 13 per cent of Tea Baggers believe violence against their government to be justified, maybe it's time that all American gun owners were put through some rigorous psychiatric assessment. All of them, every last one. Loughner showed that a complete nutjob has no trouble getting a Glock 19 with 30-round extended magazines.
How many Jared Lee Loughners are wandering around, armed to the teeth, waiting to snap? Judging by the turnout at Tea Party rallies, there are probably a lot more than anyone wants to even think about.
European Union & UN Call for End to Forced Displacement of Palestinians
UN, Palestinian Authority and EU officials say East Jerusalem is occupied territory, requiring protection of the civilian population by international humanitarian law, a legal framework which prohibits population transfer into and out of the territory.
Israel says property transfers in East Jerusalem are private transactions governed by Israeli local municipal law. Today East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967, is governed by Israeli basic law.
Between 5 and 11 January the Israeli authorities demolished five Palestinian-owned structures in East Jerusalem because they did not have Israeli-issued building permits, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ( OCHA).
Because of inadequate zoning and planning for Palestinians, obtaining a building permit from the Israeli authorities in East Jerusalem is almost impossible, says OCHA. Restrictions prevent Palestinians from lawfully repairing or constructing homes, water systems and other necessary infrastructure. Meanwhile, there are at least 1,500 pending demolition orders in East Jerusalem, potentially affecting the livelihoods of thousands.
Remind me, is this the Israel that today's Liberal Party so staunchly supports?
Does the Tea Party Harbour Terrorists?
Last April, PBS reported that Tea Party supporters totaled 67,000. That would give the party some 8,700 members who consider violence against their government justified. I don't think the Taliban has 8,700 fighters inflicting violence against the Karzai government.
I don't know but it sure sounds to me like the Tea Party is a seditious, terrorist organization.
Climate Change - North Carolina Gets It
Several years ago I attended a wedding in BC. The groom's parents were a well-to-do couple from North Carolina. He was a retired university professor, his wife was similarly accomplished. As we chatted one of them mentioned their prized possession - a heritage home on the waterfront of one of their state's fabled coastal islands. I asked them what was being done in their community to prepare for the onslaught of climate change and I was surprised to learn they had heard nothing about it. It took them by surprise also.
Well, that was then, this is now. There aren't too many North Carolinians now who aren't very familiar with the ravages of sea level rise. According to the Charlotte Observer, coastal North Carolina is mobilizing for what is poised to be an increasingly costly struggle to hold the ocean at bay.
Water is rising three times faster on the N.C. coast than it did a century ago as warming oceans expand and land ice melts, recent research has found. It's the beginning of what a N.C. science panel expects will be a 1-meter increase by 2100.
Rising sea level is the clearest signal of climate change in North Carolina. Few places in the United States stand to be more transformed.
About 2,000 square miles of our low, flat coast ...is 1 meter (about 39 inches) or less above water.
At risk are more than 30,500 homes and other buildings, including some of the state's most expensive real estate. Economists say $6.9 billion in property, in just the four counties they studied, will be at risk from rising seas by late this century.
Climate models predict intensifying storms that could add billions of dollars more in losses to tourism, farming and other businesses.
While polls show growing public skepticism of global warming, the people paid to worry about the future - engineers, planners, insurance companies - are already bracing for a wetter world.
" Sea-level rise is happening now. This is not a projection of something that will happen in the future if climate continues to change," said geologist Rob Young of Western Carolina University, who studies developed shorelines.
...The Outer Banks, some scientists predict, could disintegrate into a string of high spots - Avon, Buxton, Ocracoke - reachable only by boat.
If storms punch new inlets through the islands, the brackish sounds and wetlands that serve as vital nurseries for Atlantic coast seafood species would turn into open saltwater. Predatory fish would pour into previously protected waters. Marshes would migrate inland or drown.
...It seems implausible that an almost imperceptible rise in the sea - about the thickness of two nickels a year - could cause such havoc.
But it took only an 8-inch global rise to threaten the iconic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which was 1,500 feet from the Atlantic when it was built in 1870. By 1999, when hydraulic jacks gingerly nudged the striped brick tower inland, waves crashed at its foundation.
Well, that was then, this is now. There aren't too many North Carolinians now who aren't very familiar with the ravages of sea level rise. According to the Charlotte Observer, coastal North Carolina is mobilizing for what is poised to be an increasingly costly struggle to hold the ocean at bay.
Water is rising three times faster on the N.C. coast than it did a century ago as warming oceans expand and land ice melts, recent research has found. It's the beginning of what a N.C. science panel expects will be a 1-meter increase by 2100.
Rising sea level is the clearest signal of climate change in North Carolina. Few places in the United States stand to be more transformed.
About 2,000 square miles of our low, flat coast ...is 1 meter (about 39 inches) or less above water.
At risk are more than 30,500 homes and other buildings, including some of the state's most expensive real estate. Economists say $6.9 billion in property, in just the four counties they studied, will be at risk from rising seas by late this century.
Climate models predict intensifying storms that could add billions of dollars more in losses to tourism, farming and other businesses.
While polls show growing public skepticism of global warming, the people paid to worry about the future - engineers, planners, insurance companies - are already bracing for a wetter world.
" Sea-level rise is happening now. This is not a projection of something that will happen in the future if climate continues to change," said geologist Rob Young of Western Carolina University, who studies developed shorelines.
...The Outer Banks, some scientists predict, could disintegrate into a string of high spots - Avon, Buxton, Ocracoke - reachable only by boat.
If storms punch new inlets through the islands, the brackish sounds and wetlands that serve as vital nurseries for Atlantic coast seafood species would turn into open saltwater. Predatory fish would pour into previously protected waters. Marshes would migrate inland or drown.
...It seems implausible that an almost imperceptible rise in the sea - about the thickness of two nickels a year - could cause such havoc.
But it took only an 8-inch global rise to threaten the iconic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which was 1,500 feet from the Atlantic when it was built in 1870. By 1999, when hydraulic jacks gingerly nudged the striped brick tower inland, waves crashed at its foundation.
The Mighty Greenback - "A Product of the Past"
On the eve of his visit to Washington, Chinese president Hu Jintao has criticized the international monetary order based on the US dollar as "a product of the past." Hu went further and said he's working to replace the greenback with the Yuan as the world's reserve currency.
It's the "Golden Rule" - he who (or should that be "Hu"?) has the gold, rules. The US has reaped enormous advantages by having its dollar the world's reserve currency. It allowed American monetary policy to influence world trade and commerce while also somewhat insulating America from the potential repercussions of its reliance on foreign lenders. An example of this was when the Federal Reserve recently put into circulation another 600-billion dollars, calling it a "quantitative easing," a term Paul Krugman explains thusly:
QE is basically expansionary monetary policy, no different in its effects (if it works) from reducing the policy interest rate. Yes, it tends to weaken the exchange rate; but it also increases domestic demand.
China is engaged in currency manipulation, that is, buying foreign currency to keep the yuan weak; meanwhile, it is actually moving to reduce domestic demand, among other things raising interest rates.
So the United States is moving to expand world demand, with a policy that may weaken the dollar; China is moving to reduce world demand, with a policy of deliberately weakening the yuan. America’s policy may annoy its trading partners, but they are not the target; China’s policy is predatory, pure and simple.
If Krugman's explanation is too confusing, you might prefer The Guardian's take on quantitative easing:
There are two ways of looking at quantitative easing. One way is to see it is as an unorthodox tool for loosening monetary policy by intervening in the bond market to hold down long-term interest rates. But that doesn't really do the process justice. A more useful way is to see it as the opening of a golden casket in which are housed billions of tiny money pixies who fly over financial markets sprinkling sparkly confidence dust. Invisible trader elves gather the dust and distribute it to institutional investors. They then take the dust in magic flying sleighs and stuff it down the chimneys of all the good citizens who go out and spend money and stimulate the economy. But it only works if people truly believe. If you don't believe, you won't get any confidence dust this Christmas and your economy will stay in the doldrums.
So yes, Dorothy, there is a currency war underway and China believes it holds all the aces. Hu's statements are his way of reminding Washington that China isn't giving up until Uncle Sam yells "uncle."
It's the "Golden Rule" - he who (or should that be "Hu"?) has the gold, rules. The US has reaped enormous advantages by having its dollar the world's reserve currency. It allowed American monetary policy to influence world trade and commerce while also somewhat insulating America from the potential repercussions of its reliance on foreign lenders. An example of this was when the Federal Reserve recently put into circulation another 600-billion dollars, calling it a "quantitative easing," a term Paul Krugman explains thusly:
QE is basically expansionary monetary policy, no different in its effects (if it works) from reducing the policy interest rate. Yes, it tends to weaken the exchange rate; but it also increases domestic demand.
China is engaged in currency manipulation, that is, buying foreign currency to keep the yuan weak; meanwhile, it is actually moving to reduce domestic demand, among other things raising interest rates.
So the United States is moving to expand world demand, with a policy that may weaken the dollar; China is moving to reduce world demand, with a policy of deliberately weakening the yuan. America’s policy may annoy its trading partners, but they are not the target; China’s policy is predatory, pure and simple.
If Krugman's explanation is too confusing, you might prefer The Guardian's take on quantitative easing:
There are two ways of looking at quantitative easing. One way is to see it is as an unorthodox tool for loosening monetary policy by intervening in the bond market to hold down long-term interest rates. But that doesn't really do the process justice. A more useful way is to see it as the opening of a golden casket in which are housed billions of tiny money pixies who fly over financial markets sprinkling sparkly confidence dust. Invisible trader elves gather the dust and distribute it to institutional investors. They then take the dust in magic flying sleighs and stuff it down the chimneys of all the good citizens who go out and spend money and stimulate the economy. But it only works if people truly believe. If you don't believe, you won't get any confidence dust this Christmas and your economy will stay in the doldrums.
So yes, Dorothy, there is a currency war underway and China believes it holds all the aces. Hu's statements are his way of reminding Washington that China isn't giving up until Uncle Sam yells "uncle."
Can You Learn to Love Uncertainty and Failure?
Most of us see uncertainty and failure as negative things, outcomes to be avoided wherever possible. Yet, according to an item in The Guardian, learning to accept, even love, uncertainty and failure could be instrumental in the public understanding of climate science.
Carlo Rovelli, a physicist at the University of Aix-Marseille, emphasised the uselessness of certainty. He said that the idea of something being "scientifically proven" was practically an oxymoron and that the very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt.
"A good scientist is never 'certain'. Lack of certainty is precisely what makes conclusions more reliable than the conclusions of those who are certain: because the good scientist will be ready to shift to a different point of view if better elements of evidence, or novel arguments emerge. Therefore certainty is not only something of no use, but is in fact damaging, if we value reliability."
The physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University agreed. " In the public parlance, uncertainty is a bad thing, implying a lack of rigour and predictability. The fact that global warming estimates are uncertain, for example, has been used by many to argue against any action at the present time," he said.
" In fact, however, uncertainty is a central component of what makes science successful. Being able to quantify uncertainty, and incorporate it into models, is what makes science quantitative, rather than qualitative. Indeed, no number, no measurement, no observable in science is exact. Quoting numbers without attaching an uncertainty to them implies they have, in essence, no meaning."
The Guardian report was based on an article from Edge which asked what scientific concepts would best improve everybody's cognitive skillset? 158 scientists, artists and philosophers weighed in. They concluded we need a more discerning public, one capable of grasping the essential value in failure as fundamental to success and uncertainty as far more worthwhile than any supposed certainty. They want a public able to understand the distinction between "average family income" and the "income of the average family." What they want seems utopian - a far more sophisticated public awareness. Unfortunately, public cognition appears to be trending in the opposite direction.
To those who reject the science of global warming as uncertain, they should remember this. Global warming is a theory, but so is gravity.
Carlo Rovelli, a physicist at the University of Aix-Marseille, emphasised the uselessness of certainty. He said that the idea of something being "scientifically proven" was practically an oxymoron and that the very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt.
"A good scientist is never 'certain'. Lack of certainty is precisely what makes conclusions more reliable than the conclusions of those who are certain: because the good scientist will be ready to shift to a different point of view if better elements of evidence, or novel arguments emerge. Therefore certainty is not only something of no use, but is in fact damaging, if we value reliability."
The physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University agreed. " In the public parlance, uncertainty is a bad thing, implying a lack of rigour and predictability. The fact that global warming estimates are uncertain, for example, has been used by many to argue against any action at the present time," he said.
" In fact, however, uncertainty is a central component of what makes science successful. Being able to quantify uncertainty, and incorporate it into models, is what makes science quantitative, rather than qualitative. Indeed, no number, no measurement, no observable in science is exact. Quoting numbers without attaching an uncertainty to them implies they have, in essence, no meaning."
The Guardian report was based on an article from Edge which asked what scientific concepts would best improve everybody's cognitive skillset? 158 scientists, artists and philosophers weighed in. They concluded we need a more discerning public, one capable of grasping the essential value in failure as fundamental to success and uncertainty as far more worthwhile than any supposed certainty. They want a public able to understand the distinction between "average family income" and the "income of the average family." What they want seems utopian - a far more sophisticated public awareness. Unfortunately, public cognition appears to be trending in the opposite direction.
To those who reject the science of global warming as uncertain, they should remember this. Global warming is a theory, but so is gravity.
Is There a Wiki "Tipping Point"?
All of us, to some extent, absorbed the revelations from the first disclosure of American diplomatic dispatches. There weren't that many surprises in the stuff. The documents mainly served to corroborate what we already believed or at least suspected. A couple of diplomatic postings had to be shuffled, a few power types had to eat humble pie, but there didn't seem to be any seismic impacts from the leaks other than, perhaps, in Tunisia.
But is all of that about to change? Maybe so. WikiLeaks is still in business despite the almost rabid legal pursuit of its founder, Julian Assange. And it's not just governments who are after him. Today he disclosed that he's had more legal threats from banks than from any other organization.
Banks, Assange, WikiLeaks, what gives? Possibly a great deal, enough to make the diplomatic leaks seem like schoolyard tales. This could just be WikiLeaks' tipping point, the moment when it fights back hard.
It's been known for a while that WikiLeaks is planning to release a tsunami of documents aimed at Bank of America and its executives. BofA has responded with apparent panic. Last month the bank even began buying hundreds of internet domain names that could be used to attack its executives, registering names such as "BrianMoynihanSucks.com" to protect its CEO. Too bad they didn't get onto that earlier as BankofAmericaSucks.com is already up and running for disgruntled bank customers.
But wait, there's more. At a press conference today, Assange took delivery of two CDs from renegade former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer. The CDs are rumoured to contain a load of Swiss banking data that could threaten some very wealthy tax dodgers, particularly from Europe and the United States, and expose how Swiss bankers colluded with them. In an era when the mega-rich appear to focus most of their energies on keeping their wealth out of sight and out of the reach of their government authorities, this information could have ramifications far greater than the diplomatic leaks.
I suspect Julian Assange is in a high-stakes race to get the Swiss bank and Bank of America documents into the hands of major media outlets before the Americans can get their hands on him. Right now, my money is on Assange. We'll have to wait and see how Western governments move to suppress the disclosure of this information.
Most Americans have yet to realize it but Ronald Reagan, probably unwittingly, launched a class war in which working Americans have been on the losing side for the past 30-years. As a result of the seamless union of government, corporate and media power, a great many Americans have been conditioned to act to their own detriment and to embrace the best interests of those who have manipulated them. Economic and political power have quietly passed from the hands of the many into the hands of the few.
I have often wondered what will happen when these Americans wake up and realize what has been done to them? What happens when the rich and powerful lose control of the narrative? It is possible that WikiLeaks could be the first crack in the dam, the one that assures its eventual collapse? I think there are some Western governments who might share that view and find it alarming.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Why Can You Never Find a Cop When You Need One?
It seems every time a cop gets charged with beating up or killing a civilian, it's always after some bystander's video surfaces. Why is that? Is it just coincidence or does it speak of something much darker, more sinister?
What troubles me is that in an awful lot of these situations there were eye-witnesses - other cops. Now you would think that a cop being a cop, a trained observer with at least a rudimentary grasp of criminal law, wouldn't have any difficulty recognizing a crime committed right in front of him by another cop.
Instead of relieving the culprit of his sidearm and delivering him to the lockup, they seem to look the other way, often denying everything - until some inconvenient video materializes.
These videos tend to show us who did what to whom but they also tell us who did not. Surely a cop who sits by and later covers up for a criminal is himself an accessory to the crime. And if he just remains mute, dummies up, isn't that dereliction of duty?
Sad experience shows us we can't rely on cops to arrest criminals when the criminal is one of their own. Isn't it time we put an end to that? Until we do the only thing a cop has to fear is getting caught on video.
What troubles me is that in an awful lot of these situations there were eye-witnesses - other cops. Now you would think that a cop being a cop, a trained observer with at least a rudimentary grasp of criminal law, wouldn't have any difficulty recognizing a crime committed right in front of him by another cop.
Instead of relieving the culprit of his sidearm and delivering him to the lockup, they seem to look the other way, often denying everything - until some inconvenient video materializes.
These videos tend to show us who did what to whom but they also tell us who did not. Surely a cop who sits by and later covers up for a criminal is himself an accessory to the crime. And if he just remains mute, dummies up, isn't that dereliction of duty?
Sad experience shows us we can't rely on cops to arrest criminals when the criminal is one of their own. Isn't it time we put an end to that? Until we do the only thing a cop has to fear is getting caught on video.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Wivenhoe Dam and Other Invaluable Lessons From the Australian Floods
Australia's third largest city has suffered massive flooding in recent days. The city centre was inundated. Several thousand homes were submerged by rising floodwaters. What makes Brisbane important is not that it was flooded. It's that the relevant political leadership had timely warnings of what was coming, could have acted early to minimize the impacts but waited until it was too late thereby making everything far worse.
Germaine Greer, writing in The Guardian, explains how it all went so wrong:
...Six months ago the meteorologists thought it was worthwhile to warn people to " get ready for a wet, late winter and a soaked spring and summer." So what did the people do? Nothing. They said, " She'll be right, mate". She wasn't.
It takes La Niña to bring rain to the inland, in such quantities that it can hardly be managed. Manage it Australians must. The Wivenhoe Dam on the Brisbane river was built to protect the city of Brisbane from another flood like the one of 1974. For years it has been at 10% of capacity, so when it filled this year nobody wanted to let any of the precious water out. It eventually became clear that the dam had filled to 190% of its capacity, and the authorities realised with sinking hearts not only that the floodgates would have to be opened, but that the opening would coincide with a king tide in Moreton Bay. The question nobody has been heard to ask is whether or not the level of water in the dam should have been reduced gradually, beginning weeks ago. The mayor of Brisbane, aware that a disaster was about to occur on his watch, made a hysterical attack on the opponents of dam building, but what the succeeding events prove is that dams are no substitute for a coherent water strategy.
Greer's account goes on to chronicle how a lackadaisical attitude by Australian authorities was mirrored by broad public indifference to clear and timely warnings of what was to come.
The rest of the world might well be scratching its head. Though the rise of the Brisbane river had been predicted for many days, owners left their boats on the river, some of them moored to pontoons, which were themselves ripped from their moorings. Literally hundreds of pontoons went careering down the river, crashing into unmanned powerboats that were already cannoning into each other. A long section of the riverside walkway broke away and became a waterborne missile. A floating restaurant was sucked under a bridge. Some idiots went racing around in the brown surge on jetskis, unmindful of the half-submerged debris that could have smashed them and their jetskis to smithereens. People who insisted on staying in their apartments appear not to have understood that the electricity company would turn off the current, that their refrigerators would not be working, that they couldn't get to a supermarket and that the supermarkets that weren't flooded had no food left. They are the only people who don't know, unless they have a battery-powered radio, what's going on. It could be weeks before the water drains from Brisbane streets, so even these die-hards may have to ask for help from the emergency services.
The Australian floods show that the public will be lulled into inaction absent effective political leadership. It is the responsibility of the political class, at all levels, to educate the public about environmental changes and threats, both imminent and distant, and to see that they're prepared for it. Whether it's an earthquake, a tsunami, floods, landslides, wildfires, you name it - preparation and planning can greatly minimize loss of life and destruction of property. The corollary to that is that political inaction costs lives and multiplies destruction, often many fold.
So what sort of planning and preparation do we get in Canada? Pretty much bugger all. How invested is our political leadership in addressing the very real environmental threats we face? Virtually not at all would be a fair assessment. They've got no end of time for squabbling over long or short census forms but no time to debate emergency preparedness or environmental awareness. It's pathetic. Australia has given us an invaluable lesson and a powerful wake up call but will it be for naught?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Beijing Disses Washington, Again.
The Chinese have asked for assurances that their financial assets within the United States are safe.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai dropped the bomb this way. "Regarding the security of China's assets in the United States, if the U.S. side can offer a positive statement on that then of course we'd welcome that, and it's an issue we're paying attention to."
The jibe comes in advance of Chinese president Hu Jintao's visit to Washington next week. The Chinese seem to get a kick out of publicly speculating whether their trillion dollar plus holdings in the US are at risk.
McClatchey Newspapers reports that the annual trade gap between the US and China widened by 26% in 2010 to $181-billion.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai dropped the bomb this way. "Regarding the security of China's assets in the United States, if the U.S. side can offer a positive statement on that then of course we'd welcome that, and it's an issue we're paying attention to."
The jibe comes in advance of Chinese president Hu Jintao's visit to Washington next week. The Chinese seem to get a kick out of publicly speculating whether their trillion dollar plus holdings in the US are at risk.
McClatchey Newspapers reports that the annual trade gap between the US and China widened by 26% in 2010 to $181-billion.
Sarah Palin Clutches Hunting Knife, Slices Own Throat
In the United States pundits and the public alike have been waiting in anticipation for Sarah Palin's response to the Tucson shootings. Prominent Repugs have urged her to wait a few days and then come out with a personal statement well larded with compassion, even if it is faux.
So what does the Lizard Queen do? She comes out with (apologies in advance) both guns blazing! Palin lambasted the media, accusing them of "blood libel" and inciting, "the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn."
Palin shrugged off the shootings as solely the work of Jared Lee Loughner, saying, "acts of monstrosity stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them."
So, let's get this straight. It's all the media's fault. They're fomenting the rabid hatred and violence oozing from the Right. It has nothing to do with the Wasilla Swamp Pig or her exhortations to "reload" or her electoral map showing Ms. Gifford's head framed in rifle crosshairs.
Palin's support for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination was faltering before the Tucson tragedy. The shooting of Representative Gifford further damaged Palin's prospects. Her arrogant outburst in response might just have cemented her fate. On the other hand that might just have been a Wasilla concession speech.
That should just about do it.
Footnote. The phrase Palin used, "blood libel," is a very loaded term. It refers to the anti-Semitic slurs once leveled at Jews, claiming that they used the blood of murdered gentile children in their religious rituals.
So what does the Lizard Queen do? She comes out with (apologies in advance) both guns blazing! Palin lambasted the media, accusing them of "blood libel" and inciting, "the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn."
Palin shrugged off the shootings as solely the work of Jared Lee Loughner, saying, "acts of monstrosity stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them."
So, let's get this straight. It's all the media's fault. They're fomenting the rabid hatred and violence oozing from the Right. It has nothing to do with the Wasilla Swamp Pig or her exhortations to "reload" or her electoral map showing Ms. Gifford's head framed in rifle crosshairs.
Palin's support for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination was faltering before the Tucson tragedy. The shooting of Representative Gifford further damaged Palin's prospects. Her arrogant outburst in response might just have cemented her fate. On the other hand that might just have been a Wasilla concession speech.
That should just about do it.
Footnote. The phrase Palin used, "blood libel," is a very loaded term. It refers to the anti-Semitic slurs once leveled at Jews, claiming that they used the blood of murdered gentile children in their religious rituals.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Three Years in the Slammer for "The Hammer"
How the mighty have fallen. Former Republican congressional powerhouse Tom "The Hammer" Delay has been sentenced to three years imprisonment after a jury found him guilty of money laundering and conspiracy.
Maybe Terrible Tom will soon find himself dancing with a new cast of stars.
Maybe Terrible Tom will soon find himself dancing with a new cast of stars.
Amerika's Killing Kulture
How does this end? What happens when so many Americans come to realize how they've been manipulated and conditioned to fear and reject so much of what is actually in their best interests even as they rabidly defend so much that is not.
When I look at America's rabid Right, it's easy to see them as round-eyed North Koreans. Both do blatantly irrational things. Both have a thirst for the blood of their enemies, even if only metaphorically. Both embrace what is unquestionably extremist and magical thinking.
America's "killing kulture" also resembles North Korea's. And, like North Korea's, it is embedded from the bottom straight to the top.
US environmentalists complain of receiving death threats. When the former Democratic governor of West Virginia marries the gun culture with anti-environmentalism in his successful bid for the US Senate, is that any wonder?
So long as it is carefully and skilfully controlled, modern US-style conditioning has a genuine utility but surely the Tea Party movement illustrates what happens when control is lost. What is the Tea Party but the culmination of the anti-tax fetish introduced by the leadership of the hard Right? The CBC's Neil Macdonald has this fascinating look at what happens when America's tax phobia runs amok.
America's ruinous spiral isn't the result of structural or institutional failures but of mental collapse. FOX News only sounds plausible to troubled minds. People who can be brought to believe that the solution to government debt is to just keep slashing tax revenues are in a state of a genuine psychosis. It's like half the population has crowded into a prayer tent to place their country's salvation in the hands of a crackpot faith healer.
This simply cannot go on and it almost certainly won't. A recent report on 60 Minutes showed that 2011 is the year in which a great many American states will confront their insolvency, the direct legacy of three decades of Ronald Reagan's Age of Ruin. It's crunch time and it's going to be ugly and possibly bloody to boot. Lord knows America is primed for bloodshed, by the bucketful.
When I look at America's rabid Right, it's easy to see them as round-eyed North Koreans. Both do blatantly irrational things. Both have a thirst for the blood of their enemies, even if only metaphorically. Both embrace what is unquestionably extremist and magical thinking.
America's "killing kulture" also resembles North Korea's. And, like North Korea's, it is embedded from the bottom straight to the top.
US environmentalists complain of receiving death threats. When the former Democratic governor of West Virginia marries the gun culture with anti-environmentalism in his successful bid for the US Senate, is that any wonder?
So long as it is carefully and skilfully controlled, modern US-style conditioning has a genuine utility but surely the Tea Party movement illustrates what happens when control is lost. What is the Tea Party but the culmination of the anti-tax fetish introduced by the leadership of the hard Right? The CBC's Neil Macdonald has this fascinating look at what happens when America's tax phobia runs amok.
America's ruinous spiral isn't the result of structural or institutional failures but of mental collapse. FOX News only sounds plausible to troubled minds. People who can be brought to believe that the solution to government debt is to just keep slashing tax revenues are in a state of a genuine psychosis. It's like half the population has crowded into a prayer tent to place their country's salvation in the hands of a crackpot faith healer.
This simply cannot go on and it almost certainly won't. A recent report on 60 Minutes showed that 2011 is the year in which a great many American states will confront their insolvency, the direct legacy of three decades of Ronald Reagan's Age of Ruin. It's crunch time and it's going to be ugly and possibly bloody to boot. Lord knows America is primed for bloodshed, by the bucketful.
China's Stealth Coincidence
China has just conducted the first test flight of its J-20 stealth fighter. The flight coincided with the visit of US defense secretary Robert Gates who is in Beijing seeking improved military ties between the two countries.
" I asked President Hu about it directly, and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a pre-planned test," Gates told reporters.
Now that everybody we might ever need the F-35 to attack is busy "stealthing up" what does this mean to the supposed value of the invisibility factor of the joint strike fighter we're on the hook to buy? Maybe, when it comes to defending Canadian airspace, the advantage will go to the plane that can see the other guy, not the one that tries to hide. In sticking to the F-35 we're giving up just about every conceivable advantage in performance for the sake of stealth qualities that may turn out to be very short-lived benefits.
Who Knew? They Care, They Really Care!
The Afghan government has announced it is cracking down on - wait for it - plastic bags. Afghanistan's Ministry of Health is warning citizens that plastic bags pose health and environmental risks.
“A group of experts has been tasked with studying the harm caused by plastic bags,” said a 10 January Health Ministry statement.
“A group of experts has been tasked with studying the harm caused by plastic bags,” said a 10 January Health Ministry statement.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Trouble Making Sense of Arizona Atrocity? Let Paul Krugman Put It in Perspective.
New York Times' columnist Paul Krugman has written what, to me at least, seems the most coherent explanation of the Arizona shootings and America's "Climate of Hate." Here are the guts of it:
there’s not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.
It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.
The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.
And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.
Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.
And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.
there’s not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.
It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.
The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.
And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.
Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.
And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.
Finishing Reagan's Work
Can you even get your head around the idea that, within a decade or two, the Yuan could well replace the US greenback as the world's reserve currency? Oil priced in Yuan, debt written in Yuan?
At an annual conference of leading American economists now underway in Denver, optimism is in short supply. Reuters reports that the buzz this year is America's decline and China's ascent.
Leading thinkers in the dismal science speaking at an annual convention offered varying visions of U.S. economic decline, in the short, medium and long term. This year, the recovery may bog down as government stimulus measures dry up.
In the long run, the United States must face up to inevitably being overtaken by China as the world's largest economy. And it may have missed a chance to rein in its largest financial institutions, many of whom remain too big to fail and are getting bigger.
...Harvard's Martin Feldstein said he believes the outlook for U.S. economic growth in 2011 is less sanguine than many believe.
First, the boost to growth from government spending will be drying up this year, he said. Renewal of expiring tax cuts is no more than a decision not to raise taxes, and the impact of one-year payroll tax cut is likely modest, he said.
...On the other hand, there is the race with China and the dynamic Asian economies, including India. Most estimates put the size of the Chinese economy on par with the United States by the early 2020s, said Dale Jorgenson, also of Harvard.
...The United States will need to come to terms with the fact that its prevalence in the world is fated to come to an end, Jorgenson said. This will be difficult for many Americans to swallow and the United States should brace for social unrest amid blame over who was responsible for squandering global primacy, he said.
MIT's Simon Johnson put it more bluntly, saying the damage from the financial crisis and its aftermath have dealt U.S. prominence a permanent blow.
" The age of American predominance is over," he told a panel. " The (Chinese) Yuan will be the world's reserve currency within two decades."
There you have it in a nutshell. America's collapse into recession was bad but not bad enough for a "bought and paid for" Congress to act decisively and reform America's toxic financial institutions. To the contrary, congressional Republicans with the full backing of Tea Partiers and a few conservative Democrats are intent on further deregulating the financial sector and entrenching tax cuts their nation simply cannot afford. These are the political class intent on finishing Reagan's work.
And, rather than salvaging and reforming America's economy, at the end of the day it will come down to finger pointing as each side blames the other for "squandering (America's) global primacy."
As a footnote I'd like to point out that these assessments, like so many political, economic and military evaluations, leave out one critical factor - the fallout from climate change and associated environmental challenges that, within 20-years, will be impacting and likely destabilizing China, India and the United States.
A second footnote. Deutsche Welle reports that China isn't alone in wanting to drop the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. French president Nick Sarkozy, whose country will host this year's G8 and G20 summits also wants a new reserve currency that reflects today's reality:
" The system put in place in 1945 is for a world that doesn't exist anymore," the French president told the nation [in a New Year's Eve address].
He suggested that the current model which uses the US dollar as the primary reserve currency was " unstable" and " makes part of the world dependent on American monetary policy."
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