A Few Good Men

Canada may be a Pacific Rim country just not, perhaps, to our corporate news media.  There's a lot happening in the South-Asia/East Asia arc involving China, India, the United States and, most recently, Australia.  Too bad Canadians hear so little of it.

Washington has now reached a deal with Canberra to deploy a permanent force of 2,500 US Marines to Australia.  The message is clear.

"...Obama said the US was "stepping up its commitment to the entire Asia-Pacific", not excluding China.

"The main message that I've said, not only publicly but also privately to China, is that with their rise comes increased responsibility," he said.

"It is important for them to play by the rules of the road."

China has issued its own ominous warning to Australia about the price it may have to pay.

"The Global Times, a newspaper produced by the Communist Party-controlled People's Daily group, has been much more bellicose, says the BBC's Damian Grammaticas in Beijing.

"An editorial warned it was "certain" that if "Australia uses its military bases to help the US harm Chinese interests, then Australia itself will be caught in the crossfire".

India, meanwhile, has been bumping shoulders with China in the South China Sea where India has joined with Vietnam to collaborate on a resource venture in territory that China claims as its own.  India's new "blue water" navy has already stated its goal of establishing sea control from the Bay of Bengal to the Kuril Islands which, quite coincidentally, blankets China's entire coastline.

The Chinese media has released new criticisms of India's military buildup.  The People's Daily says India's policy is three dimensional.

"One, India needs to exaggerate the ‘threat perception’ in order to justify its defence budget and arms purchases at a time when the economy is slowing. Two, India is adopting a ‘containment’ policy toward China. Three, India hopes to gain US’s military and political support. "


And, as if tensions with India weren't enough, now China is said to be facing a showdown with a joint US-Philippine resource venture in the South China Sea.


"Tensions over the oil-rich and strategically important South China Sea have escalated as Chinese state media accused the US and the Philippines of planning a ''grab'' for its resources.

"The South China Sea is a potential flashpoint between the US and China as the two powers seek to assert their diplomatic, economic and security interests in Asia, the fastest growing region in the world.

"The US has leapt on nervousness among smaller Asian nations about China's growing military might and bellicose diplomacy to reassert its long-standing role as an anchor of security in Asia, even as its economic importance wanes."

 

Did a Fanatic Fire on the White House?

There's a warrant out for Oscar Romero Ortega, suspected of firing a couple of shots at the White House Friday evening.  According to BBC News there is evidence one round hit a White House window and two bullet casings have been recovered on the grounds.

Evidence links Ortega as the possible shooter.  So who is this guy and what would drive him to grab an AK-47 and fire on the White House.   Here's his description:

"Mr Ortega is described as a white Hispanic male of medium build, with several distinguishing tattoos - including three dots on his right hand, his name across his back and the word Israel tattooed on his neck."

Update:

Police have arrested Oscar Romero Ortega-Hernandez near Indiana, Pa.  Secret Service agents in Pittsburgh were said to have tracked down the 21-year old Idaho man.

F-35 In Free Fall?

Look, It's a Turkey - Sitting in Front of a Turkey

The way things are going, the F-35 may save Canada from getting F-35'd.   Every couple of weeks I Google F-35 to harvest the latest litany of gaffes, setbacks and blunders surrounding Lockheed's vaunted Joint Strike Fighter.

The U.S. is watching potential foreign orders turn all wobbly.   The Pentagon is counting on those sales to keep its own unit costs for the F-35 in some manageable range.   Already the Pentagon has cut the number of F-35s it'll buy but that was in order to keep the overall cost from bursting through projected costs.   In other words, it will buy fewer airframes but at greater unit cost - standard Pentagon sleight of hand.

So, how desperate is the Pentagon to flog the F-35 overseas?  Plenty desperate as India recently discovered.  The US offered the fighter to the Indian Air Force.  The offer was said to reflect America's new defence partnership with India.   But, when Indian authorities looked into what was behind the unsolicited American offer they discovered the real reason was panic over collapsing overseas sales.  The Pentagon wanted Indian orders to bolster the programme.

"...the analysts' "discovery" is that the US has desperately sought Indian participation in the JSF's development as the program faces unaffordable rising costs, with a price tag estimated at $150 million per aircraft. In sum, the JSF has become a white elephant and, hopefully, cross breeding it with the Indian black elephant might just about make its uncertain progeny probably airworthy as a beast of burden. 
"The tragi-comic episode exposes an aspect of the US-India "partnership" hardly glimpsed by Indian pundits, namely, the desperate need for the US to conjure up an ideology-driven relationship that enables it in real terms to boost its exports to the Indian markets - the latter being one of the few world markets today enjoying growth prospects of around 7-8% in its gross domestic product (GDP)." 


Meanwhile The Guardian reports that the US Marine Corps, scheduled to be a big buyer of the F-35, has inked a deal to acquire all of Britain's now mothballed, second generation Harrier jump jets.

"Speaking to the NavyTimes, Rear Admiral Mark Heinrich, chief of the US Navy's supply corps, said buying the Harriers made sense because many of the jets had been recently upgraded, and the US already had pilots who could fly them.

"We're taking advantage of all the money the Brits have spent on them," he said. "It's like we're buying a car with maybe 15,000 miles on it. These are very good platforms."

But, fellas, if you buy those 74-Harriers from the Brits, how are you going to scrape up extra money for that brand new F-35?  It sure sounds as though "The Corps" isn't holding its breath waiting for Lockheed's wunderplane to show up in USMC hangars.

In Ottawa, the Harper government has shown its standard cavalier disregard of facts and still insists Canada will get the F-35 for between $70-80 million a copy even though the current estimated US and foreign price is pegged at $150-million.  Hey, what's 150 times 65?  Gee, that's only $250-million shy of a trillion dollars for an airplane that makes no sense whatsoever.  Then again we'll need that extra $250-mill to cover the costs of replacement aircraft for fighters lost in service.  So, let's just call it an even trillion bucks.  A TRILLION Freaking Dollars for an airplane that'll probably be obsolete by the time it finally shows up in Canadian Air Force hangars?  Really?

In Washington, DefSec Panetta is warning Congress that the F-35 programme could well be on the block if the supercommittee opts for across-the-board budget cuts that hit the US military.  Congress may not get it but it sure  sounds as though the US Marine Corps has seen the writing on the wall.  Semper Fi.

Guardian Exposes Harper's War on the Environment

Steve Harper said he'd put Canada on the map and he has, in spades.  Harper has drawn plenty of world attention to Canada.   Regrettably,  it's uniformly bad.

The Guardian has chronicled Harper's devious schemes to gut environmentalism in Canada, beginning with extensive spending cuts.  It would be one thing if that Born Again bastard was man enough to admit what he's doing and defend his actions.   But the lard-assed authoritarian with his beach blanket bingo hairdo simply lies about what he's up to behind the backs of the Canadian people.

As the newspaper points out, Harper is slashing budgets at Environment Canada even as he's determined to squander $30-billion on dodgy fighter aircraft.

"Among the first acts of the Harper government was to cut our funding to zero," said Hannah McKinnon of the Climate Action Network Canada(CAN Canada), an environmental NGO that used to get some government funding prior to the 2006 election.

CAN Canada has obtained some funding from its more than 80 member civil society organisations. It acts as the coordinator on climate issues, and once worked with government to improve programmes and policies for the benefit of all Canadians. Now has become the de facto watchdog on government promises and actions to tackle climate change.

 Instead of actions, the Harper government makes promises and pushes propaganda that the economy is more important and that protecting the environment comes at too high a cost, she said. The only action being taken is at the local and provincial level, McKinnon added.

"If there is a need to reduce the federal budget deficit, why is Canada continuing to give the oil and gas industry 1.4 billion dollars (1.3 billion U.S.) in subsidies every year?" she asked.

Harper promised to end these government subsidies in 2009. The International Monetary Fund, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations and many others have called for an end to such subsidies to the world's most profitable industry.

"Canada can't afford to pay scientists but we can line the pockets of big oil? That is totally backwards," McKinnon said.

How America's Greatest War Correspondent Remembered

From Chris Hedges' "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"


"When Ernie Pyle, the American war correspondent in World War II, was killed on the Pacific island of Ie Shima in 1945, a rough draft of a column was found on his body. He was preparing it for release upon the end of the war in Europe. He had done much to promote the myth of the warrior and the heroism of soldiering, but by the end he seemed to tire of it all:

"But there are many of the living who have burned

into their brains forever the unnatural sight of cold dead men

scattered over the hillsides and in the ditches along the high rows 

of hedge throughout the world.

Dead men by mass production - in one country after another -

month after month and year after year. Dead men in

winter and dead men in summer.

Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they

become monotonous.

Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come to

almost hate them. These are the things that you at home need

not even try to understand. To you at home they are columns

of figures, or he is a near one who went away and just

didn't come back. You didn't see him lying so grotesque

and pasty beside the gravel road in France.

We saw him, saw him by the multiple thousands.

That's the difference.

A Couple of Thoughts on Remembrance Day

On this day I sometimes thumb through my dog-eared copy of Barry Broadfoot's "Six War Years, Memories of Cahadians at Home and Abroad (1974)."   Broadfoot used the same technique as he did for his earlier Depression-era work, "Ten Lost Years."  He traveled the country with a tape recorder and sat down with hundreds of people to get their memories before they were lost forever.

One thing that comes through with real clarity is that not a lot of these men and women signed on with the altruism we venerate at our cenotaphs.  One young guy said he joined the army to get a pair of real boots.  Others joined because that seemed to be the "thing to do" at the time.  Some just wanted employment or the chance to go to sea or to learn to fly.  Others wanted the adventure of war fighting.  Some enlisted just to get away from the old lady and the kids.

On Remembrance Day we omit all these people.  We cherish those who answered the call to defend Canada or to defend democracy or to fight fascism.  But they were just a subset of the masses who signed on, a slice of a Venn diagram.   Why don't we equally recognize all the others?  Were their deaths or mutilation any less deserving of our appreciation because their motives for joining were less than altruistic, anything but patriotic or even as petty as wanting a pair of boots?

To me, it cheapens Remembrance Day when we portray the dead as something many were not.  Worse yet, when we reconfigure the dead to suit a deceptive narrative we both demean them and  romanticize war.  Enough.

Atmospheric Rivers

That's right, high level rivers of moisture crossing the globe.   Some are thought to carry more water than the Amazon.  A report in New Scientist claims it was an Atmospheric River (AR) that caused the UK's worst floods.

"Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are giant ribbons of moist air, at least 2000 kilometres long and several hundred kilometres across, which move water across the mid-latitudes. They flow in the lower troposphere, where winds with speeds in excess of 12.5 metres per second can carry as much water as the Amazon river. At any given time, four or five ARs carry nearly 90 per cent of the moisture that is moving towards the poles."

Cop Who Infiltrated Occupy Oakland Denounces Police Violence

Meet Oakland police officer Fred Shavies who infiltrated the Occupy Oakland movement.  He says the police violence against the Occupy protesters could be their "Birmingham moment."  It's a rambling commentary but you can skip forward to 4:30.


OPD Officer Discusses Viral Copwatch Video from Justin Warren on Vimeo.

Hilarious (or Scary) Anti-EPA Campaign Video

Bette Grande, a North Dakota Republican running for Congress, says she'll "padlock the doors" of America's Environmental Protection Agency.  Watch her bizarre campaign video:

Is John McCain Turning Progressive - Again?

If you want to know which way the political winds are blowing, watch John McCain.  He was noticeably moderate, even a tad progressive, when he first ran against George w. Bush for the Republican nomination.  Then he turned hard right when he finally got his chance to take on Obama and seemed to be fixed as a grumpy old geezer in the wake of his loss.

Now, however, John McCain is making progressive grumblings again.  He's talking about a seismic shift in US politics and the inevitability of a third party.

"Unless both parties change, then I think that it's an inevitability. We aren't doing anything for the people," McCain said in blunt remarks at the Reuters Washington Summit.

Americans, he said, are frustrated by sluggish economic growth that has depleted their incomes while corporate executives take in massive salary bonuses.

As for his own party, McCain expressed frustration that Republicans have not concentrated enough on the concerns of Americans struggling to make ends meet.

"The party, I think, has got to be a lot more responsive to the plight of the people," said McCain, who lost the presidential race to Barack Obama three years ago this month.

"I think we have to weigh in far more heavily on the side of things like reforming the tax code. If we reform the tax code, then many of these large corporations that paid no taxes last year ... maybe they would."

Could it be that America's self-defeating, hard-assed, hard-right nightmare is nearing its end?  We can only hope and pray.

Global Weirding Settles Into Oklahoma

It's been going on since January - record winds, an earthquake, floods, drought, tornadoes.  Call it "global weirding" Oklahoma style.

"Even for Oklahoma, this is crazy," said Rick Smith, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman. "Since January, we've been setting records. People are just kind of amazed and shocked."

State records set this year have ranged from the lowest temperature (31 degrees below zero in Nowata in northeast Oklahoma) to snowfall in a 24-hour period (27 inches, also in Nowata) to the largest hail stone (a spiky, six-inch piece recovered in Gotebo, in southwest Oklahoma).

This year also produced the state's highest-ever-recorded surface wind speed (151 miles per hour near El Reno, outside of Oklahoma City) and biggest known earthquake (5.6 magnitude, breaking the 1956 record).

On Wednesday, Governor Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency for 20 counties because of earthquakes, tornadoes and severe storms.

Is America Finally Coming to Its Senses?

According to Salon's David Sirota, America is coming to its senses.  He attributes it to a recent awareness of just two things - his country's burgeoning wealth gap and its collapsing social mobility.

When even the most local of television journalists are compelled to acknowledge this crushing emergency in a country whose media aggressively promotes American dream agitprop, it means the Occupy protesters have scored a monumental victory. You can almost imagine a Wall Street CEO turning to an aide and muttering a slightly altered riff off LBJ: “If we’ve lost Ron Burgundy, we’ve lost Middle America.”


"...the last three decades have invalidated our standing hypothesis. After the conservatives’ successful assault on the New Deal, America has lived a different reality — one perfectly summarized by a new Federal Reserve study revealing that today’s increasing inequality accompanies comparatively low social mobility.

“U.S. family income mobility has decreased over the 1969-2006 time span, and especially since the 1980s,” notes the Fed paper, adding that “a family’s position at (the) end of (the) 2000s was … more correlated with its start position than was the case 20 years earlier.”

Of course, some class mobility still exists. The trouble is that it’s primarily of the downward kind. As the Pew Charitable Trusts reports, roughly a third of those who grew up in the middle class have now fallen below that station in adulthood.

...this is why, among all the fights over economic policy, the debate about taxes is the most crucial of all.

As the Fed noted in a separate report, the federal tax code — which remains vaguely progressive — has been the one proven way to “mitigate income inequality.” But with congressional Republicans gradually flattening federal income tax rates and with already-regressive state tax rates in GOP bastions like Texas, Wyoming, Tennessee, South Dakota and Mississippi, the tax system has lately been preserving or exacerbating existing inequality.

But coming to their senses won't be enough.   The forces of what George w. Bush referred to as the "'haves and the have mores' - my base" aren't going to give up three decades of enormous advancement at the expense of the American people, at least not without a fight.   Yet it's a fight they're not going to win if only because they can't.

America's New Strategy for Fighting Iran and Everybody Else

It's called the "Air-Sea Battle" concept and the US military has established a separate agency to put it into operation.  Reading the Marine Corps concept summary the unmentioned name "Iran" leaps out at the reader, again and again.

"... In the aftermath of DESERT STORM, it was apparent to many potential adversaries that it would be inadvisable to oppose the U.S. in a force-on-force conflict, and they explored how to disrupt U.S. power projection through means designed to complicate both movement to and maneuver within an area of mutual interest. These two elements of an adversary's comprehensive warfare strategy are referred to as "anti-access" and "area denial" or "A2/AD".

"Over the past two decades, the development and proliferation of advanced weapons, targeting perceived U.S. vulnerabilities, have the potential to create an A2/AD environment that increasingly challenges U.S. military access to and freedom of action within potentially contested areas. These advanced systems encompass diverse capabilities that include ballistic and cruise missiles; sophisticated integrated air defense systems; anti-ship weapons ranging from high-tech missiles and submarines to low-tech mines and swarming  boats; guided rockets, missiles, and artillery, an increasing number of 4th generation fighters; low-observable manned and unmanned combat aircraft; as well as space and cyber warfare capabilities specifically designed to disrupt U.S. communications and intelligence systems. In combination, these advanced technologies have the potential to diminish the advantages the U.S. military enjoys in the air, maritime, land, space, and cyberspace domains today. If these advances continue and are not addressed effectively, U.S. forces could soon face increasing risk in deploying to and operating within previously secure forward areas--and over time in rear areas and sanctuaries--ultimately affecting our ability to respond effectively to coercion and crises that directly threaten the strategic interests of the U.S., our allies, and partners."

So there it is.   Iran has "ballistic and cruise missiles."  It has a "sophisticated air defense system."  It has "anti-ship weapons ranging from high-tech missiles and submarines to low-tech mines and swarming boats" that could readily shut down oil tanker traffic in the Persian Gulf.

The Air-Sea Battle agency is plainly designed to network and co-ordinate an early, perhaps initial if not pre-emptive, system to de-fang an adversaries defences before they can be deployed against US forces.  It sounds tailor-made for Iran.  After all, who else deploys "low-tech mines and swarming boat" defences?

Shutting Down the Tar Sands

We have no defensible choice but to end the development of the Athabasca Tar Sands.

The 'best case scenario' International Energy Agency analysis released a few days ago warns we're on course to exhaust our atmosphere's safe carbon-carrying capacity by 2017.   After that, the report maintains, we will have foreclosed our last hope of avoiding cataclysmic global warming-driven climate change.

So what's wrong with Canada's position on the Tar Sands?  Plenty.

We in the West are terrified of an emerging economic superpower such as India going full bore into fossil fuel energy, especially coal.  India's per capita carbon footprint is minuscule compared to any Western nation's, especially if they're North American.  An Indian carbon footprint approaching our own would unquestionably doom mankind.  So we can't be having any of that.  India will just have to forego its uppity aspirations.

The history of man-made atmospheric carbon contamination dates back to the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of cheap, abundant fossil fuel energy, primarily coal.   Cheap fossil fuel energy has, over two centuries, underwritten the West's transformation from agrarian states into enormously wealthy industrial behemoths.   During all but the past twenty years, little was understood of the link between industrial-scale carbon emissions and global warming, what is known as AGW or anthropogenic global warming.  In the process, the West consumed well more than half our atmosphere's total carbon-carrying capacity.

We can say we didn't know any better but that doesn't sell very well in the emerging economies.   They want the same opportunities or at least as much as they can achieve having arrived at the Prosperity Ballroom at last call.  We know and they know that they can't repeat our 200-year long fossil fuel bacchanal.   They're not northern countries like us.  Mostly they're in tropical or sub-tropical zones that stand to be particularly hard hit by climate change.

So, for the sake of the future of our civilization, we want the emerging economies to show restraint when, from their perspective, they're only just getting started.   This gives rise to an eminently sound argument that if the West wants them to show restraint, the West, which has had the benefits that flowed from creating this crisis, has to show even more restraint.  Fair is fair.   But how do we do that?  There's only one way.  We have to bring our carbon footprints into line with theirs.   And we can't do that without breaking our fossil fuel addiction and, according to the IEA warning, in less than six years.

What do we do to show our good faith, our willingness to mend our destructive ways?  We go to the tar pits to dig up bitumen, the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet.

Now remember the Prosperity Ballroom, fossil fuel 'last call' argument?   The emerging economies can't replicate the West's fossil fuel binge precisely because they showed up too late.   The genie is out of the bottle.  We know better now.   Sorry, at this late stage, that can't be done.

Yet Canada thinks it's exempt from the last call business.   Fossil fuel production, no matter how filthy the product, is somehow divorced from fossil fuel consumption.  Really?   What kind of twisted, sick mind can come up with that tortured logic?   Surely that is a distinction without a difference.  It's a gossamer-thin contrivance at best but, then again, it need only be enough to allow us to look the other way.  And so we have.

Back in the days when we "didn't know any better" bitumen extraction and processing might have made sense.  Only back then it couldn't compete in cost or quality with abundant reserves of conventional crude oil. Only now, at last call, is bitumen economically viable but only to those willing to write off its environmental costs.   This is something you can't afford to do at last call.

Now, for a little levity, here's the Denial Tango:

Thanks, But I'll Pass

That seems to be the attitude of the world's political leaders today in the face of warnings that our civilization's last best opportunity to avert devastating climate change is slipping through their fingers.  "Thanks but I'll pass."

The dire and blunt warning yesterday from the International Energy Agency that we have until 2015 to reverse our rapacious consumption of fossil fuels or totally forfeit our last chance to keep global warming within the 2C safety zone seems to have fallen on deaf ears in capitals around the world, including Canada's.

Why less than five years?  Because there's a limit to the quantity of carbon dioxide our atmosphere can absorb before we blow straight through that 2C threshold.  By the most optimistic projections, that's 450 parts per million.  Many, like NOAA's James Hansen, contend the safe limit is actually far lower, 350 ppm.  We're already at 390 ppm.

Understand, this is the best-case scenario.  The others are far worse.  The IEA analysis concludes that, the way global fossil fuel consumption is trending and without drastic government action, we're on track for long term temperature increases between 3.5C and 6C.

Using the best-case scenario figures, IEA chief economist Fatih Birol says we've already used up 80% of the maximum carbon budget and we're heading toward 90% by 2015.  At that rate, by 2017 we'll have consumed our planet's safe carbon carrying capacity and mankind's exit door will be closed forever.  And that's the optimistic calculation.

So, what's with the "thanks but I'll pass" attitude of the NDP and LPC?   This is what may be the final warning of an imminent existential threat to the future of our country.  Isn't that serious enough to drive this issue straight to the top of the priority pile of the opposition parties?   Shouldn't this be their prime focus in Parliament?  If not, why not?  Do they have some right to transform future generations of Canadians into Easter Islanders?   This is the greatest challenge, the greatest threat and the greatest opportunity of our lifetime and it is up to the opposition to rise to it when the government will not.   If they don't, they're complicit in Harper's deadly neglect.

Hey Guys, Is This Warning Clear Enough for You?

By "guys" I'm referring to the 'day late, dollar short' Liberals who seem intent on taking a well-deserved dirt nap.

It's a warning.   From the International Energy Agency.  It couldn't be clearer.

"The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

"Anything built from now on that produces carbon will do so for decades, and this "lock-in" effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world's foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.

'"The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. "I am very worried – if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever."'

Did you get that?   Five years.  That's it.  You claim to be concerned about the welfare of Canada's middle class.   This would be a perfect spot to begin proving it.

Just Say "No"

The Liberals seem to be scraping the barrel trying to build their membership numbers.   There's a sense of desperation to it.  E-mails from the national, provincial and riding offices in a steady stream over the past few weeks inviting, beseeching the wayward son to return to the fold.

Missing from all of these pleas, every one, is any reason why someone who has grudgingly decided to leave should go back.  For old times sake?  Because they're other than Harper conservatives?  Is that it?

Here's the key thing that's keeping me out of the Liberal tent.   They're not fit to govern my country.  I am not going to let Harper's quality of government set the bar for the Liberal Party.   Slightly better than bloody awful isn't enough.

There are a great many serious challenges facing Canadians.   Not so much my generation, but certainly the under-40s and the generations to follow them.   The only path to meeting those challenges - and threats - is a progressive path.   The priorities surely are inequality and climate change.   Inequality of wealth, income and opportunity.  Climate change adaption and remediation.

Inequality and climate change are inseparably linked.   Inequality is by its very nature divisive and corrosive to society.  It is the path to oligarchy and puts the interests of the powerful few above society itself.

Climate change is actually a basket of changes and threats that require adaptation and remediation strategies and solutions.   The most essential tool to meet these challenges is a cohesive society that will pull together and sacrifice together.  Inequality undermines social cohesion and sharply narrows our options.   Hence, inequality and climate change are inseparable.

Canadian political leadership is failing on both these fronts.   The Liberals, like the Tories, have become a  solidly corporatist party.  Even the NDP is in trail.   Look back to Ignatieff's "thinkers' conference."  What thinkers?  The speakers' list was stacked to the gunwales with management consultants and CEOs each opining on the way ahead for their Canada.  Their Canada, not yours and certainly not your grandkids'.

I was struck last week by a remark Noam Chomsky made while addressing Occupy Boston.  He spoke of politics "dissolving" in his country, the distinctions between the Republicans and Democrats steadily narrowing.  Chomsky might as well have been talking about Canada.  The once clear divide between the PCs and the Liberals is pretty well dissolved even as the former PCs have transformed into Harper's far right Conservatives.  Is it any wonder that so many are disengaging from politics all together instead of merely changing parties?  A pox on all their houses.

It's not over for the Liberals.   They have a chance to re-invent themselves as something that cleaves more closely to their historic path.  But that means largely clearing out those who have steered the party so poorly over the past decade or two.  The current iteration of the LPC can't even address the challenges of the day much less propose effective policies to deal with them.  Nothing short of a reformation can again make the Liberal Party fit to govern Canada.   Until then, I'll just say "no."

The Incredible, Vanishing Berlusconi

According to Reuters, Silvio Berlusconi has announced he'll step down, resigning as Italy's prime minister as soon as a budget reform bill is passed.

"After the approval of this finance law, which has amendments for everything which Europe has asked of us and which the Eurogroup has requested, I will resign, to allow the head of state to open consultations," he told his own Canale 5 television.

Berlusconi has used his tenure as prime minister to forestall being prosecuted for corruption and other charges.   Resignation would seemingly leave him stripped of his temporary immunity and it's hard to imagine Silvio waiting around to spend years in the Greybar Hotel.  It's a safe bet that, unless he can negotiate some sort of amnesty deal, Silvio won't waste much time getting his overactive backside the hell out of Italy.

Mitt Romney Must Be Laughing His Ass Off at Herman Cain

It has been part of Mormon scripture that blacks embodied the "curse of Cain."  Early LDS leader, Brigham Young warned against "mingling" with blacks.

"The moment we consent to mingle with the seed of Cain, the Church must go to destruction--we should receive the curse which has been placed upon the seed of Cain, and never more be numbered with the children of Adam who are heirs to the Priesthood until that curse be removed."

Now Mitt Romney's greatest Republican obstacle in his quest for the White House is a black guy named, of all things, Cain.   I suppose that, to Romney, Herman Cain's women trouble must then be manna from Heaven.

Of course Romney has an ace up his sleeve when it comes to the like of Cain - Mormon Magic Underwear!



You can expect to hear more about curious Mormon beliefs as the campaign progresses.   They'll be used to try to split Romney from fundamentalist Christian supporters.

F-35, Yet Another Delay

The overdue, overbudget F-35 will, yawn, be another two years late.  A USAF general informed a congressional panel today that the long-delayed aircraft, most recently promised for 2016, won't be available until 2018.

What's that sound?  It's the noise of F-35 orders being cancelled around the world.   The longer it takes to get this winged dog to market the shorter the shelf-life of its questionable stealth advantage.  A two year delay means another two year loss of that dubious stealth magic.

Can Canada Escape Getting F-35'd?

One of the most worrisome aspects (there are several) of the Harper government's F-35 fetish is the paltry number of them we'll be able to afford.   This deal is already stretched so tight, and getting tighter with each passing week, that we'll have to make do with a miniscule fleet of aircraft that we could be stuck with for up to 30-years.   A Canadian air force study revealed that the 65-airframe deal won't even allow for attrition replacement.   Fighter jets crash.  It's in the nature of the beasts.  You're supposed to order the number you'll need and top that up with extra aircraft to replace those you'll lose in accidents.

It sounds as though Harper and his boy, MacKay, are setting Canada up to get F-35'd (think of another word that begins with "F") on this deal.  It wouldn't be the first time a Tory prime minister sold out our air force and our country for political expedience (think Bomarc missile).

But there might be a way not to get F-35'd.   Let's not get stuck with just one aircraft.   Cut the F-35 order down to, say, 24.   Two, 8-aircraft squadrons for active duty with another 8 ships sitting in reserve.  That actually makes good sense.   The F-35 is a high-tech ground attack or strike fighter designed for offensive missions against a high-tech air defence.   When we get into that sort of thing we'll probably be operating under American or NATO command because they have all the support aircraft and systems necessary to let the F-35 work its "magic."  So let's trim our sails to be realistic.  And, besides, most of the other captive "partner" nations are getting cold feet on the F-35 including the Brits so we won't stand out if we tailor our order to Canada's needs.

And then let's figure out what sort of aircraft we really need to defend Canada and use the money we save on a smaller F-35 order to buy them.   There are plenty out there.   We could have a competition.  We could solicit competitive bids.  We could dictate terms for cost-offset, industrial benefits.  We could do this right.

We could get what we need which is just another way of saying everything the F-35 is not.   An aircraft with twin-engine safety, high speed, long range, agility, high weapons payload - a next generation equivalent of the CF-18 chosen by the Trudeau government that has served Canada so well over the past three decades.   This way, when the F-35's brittle stealth technology is neutralized (and it will be in due course) and we're left with a hyper-expensive flying pig we can't take out in public, at least we'll have a fleet of relatively capable fighters to fill in as backup.

This might be the only way Canada can escape getting F-35'd.

Sarkozy to Obama, Netanyahu is a "Liar"

An unguarded moment.  They didn't think anyone could hear.  That was when French president Nicholas Sarkozy turned to Barack Obama and said exactly what he thinks of Benjamin Netanyahu, "I can't stand him any more, he's a liar."  To which Obama replied, "You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day."

Western reporters held the story for a couple of days but it came out in Israel.

Netanyahu a liar?   Really?   That's about as controversial as claiming the sun rises in the east in the morning.

Cain Accused of Messin' with White Woman

At least Clarence Thomas' accuser, Anita Hill,  was also black.  Now Herman Cain has a real problem.   His fourth accuser has come forward in the company of, wretch, attorney Gloria Allred, and she's white.

Sharon Bialek claims Cain took her out for dinner and then attempted to grope her in his car, putting his hand up her skirt.   She alleges Cain also tried to press her head into his lap.

Of course race shouldn't matter, even in the United States, but if there's one thing we've learned during the Obama presidency, it still does and big time.  The specter of  a wealthy, powerful black man groping poor white women is the last thing Herman Cain needs.  It's probably the best news Mitt Romney has had since Rick Perry went off the deep end last week.

The Cain campaign is doing the only thing left to it at this point, outright denial.   The problem is that there are a few points in Bialek's narrative that can be fairly easily confirmed if they're true.

Bill Moyers on What America Used to Mean

Bill Moyers looks back to his roots to find the greatness that was his United States of America:

Henry and Ruby Moyers were “common laboring people.” My father dropped out of the fourth grade and never returned to school because his family needed him to pick cotton to help make ends meet. Mother managed to finish the eighth grade before she followed him into the fields. They were tenant farmers when the Great Depression knocked them down and almost out. The year I was born my father was making $2 a day working on the highway to Oklahoma City. He never took home more than $100 a week in his working life, and he made that only when he joined the union in the last job he held. I was one of the poorest white kids in town, but in many respects I was the equal of my friend who was the daughter of the richest man in town. I went to good public schools, had the use of a good public library, played sandlot baseball in a good public park and traveled far on good public roads with good public facilities to a good public university. Because these public goods were there for us, I never thought of myself as poor. When I began to piece the story together years later, I came to realize that people like the Moyerses had been included in the American deal. “We, the People” included us.

F-35, Canada's Maginot Line?

The Maginot Line.  It was a massive, intricate, costly and high-tech line of fortifications the French built along the German border to defend themselves after WWI.  The line consisted of fortifications, bunkers, trenches, tank obstacles, artillery casements and machine gun posts to forever secure France from another German invasion.

The Maginot Line was indeed a formidable obstacle, so formidable that when, in 1940, the Germans decided to conquer France, they simply went around it, sweeping into France through Belgium and the Ardennes.

As pointed out by Wiki, the Maginot Line, "had state-of-the-art living conditions for garrisoned troops, including air conditioning, comfortable eating areas and underground railways. However, it proved costly to keep, consumed a vast amount of money and subsequently led to other parts of the French armed forces being underfunded."

In other words, the French thought a massive, high-tech but unresponsive and inflexible defense would solve all their problems.   Sound familiar?   The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is Canada's $30-billion Maginot Line.  It sounds great, at least according to the brochures, but it leaves us entirely dependent upon and vulnerable to a defence system that's inadequate and readily circumvented by any of the credible adversaries it's intended to thwart.

The second largest country in the world being defended by 65-mediocre performance fighters?   Holland, roughly the size of Vancouver Island, is planning to buy 85 of these and it is surrounded by friendly air forces.  Ah, but wait.  The other shoe has dropped.  Now that the air force has got the ring securely through the Harper government's nose, it's doing what should have been anticipated - it's whining for more aircraft.   Having pulled the number 65 out of its blue serge arse and force-fed it down the throats of a gullible and ideologically bent DefMin and his boss, Harper, the air force planners now say that 65-won't be enough.

“Canada is the only country that did not account (for) attrition aircraft” in its proposal, said an undated capability-and-sustainment briefing given to senior officers late last year.

The F-35s are replacing roughly 77 CF-18s — just over half the original number of 138 purchased almost 30 years ago.

...Air force planners began to sweat after crunching attrition numbers for the new stealth jet last fall. They looked at the CF-18’s accident rate per 100,000 hours of flying time and determined the F-35 might be able to evade radar, but it can’t escape fate.

“Canada will lose aircraft; not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when,’” said a Sept. 14, 2010, report.
On the upside, the planners believe that the highly automated F-35s will likely lead to fewer human-error — or “pilot-distraction” — crashes.

...The concern has been flagged to the attention of the Harper government, which “will consider the acquisition of replacement attrition aircraft,” said the briefing.

So, the 65-aircraft buy is a load of bunk and Harper knows it?   Like a devious teenager the Born Again bastard has just been lying his ass off to the Canadian public to mislead them about this entire miserable venture.    And isn't it amazing that, while other prospective buyers, including Britain and even the US itself, are already talking about trimming their F-35 commitments (which will even further drive up the unit costs), Canada will be left having to substantially increase our order and probably prepare for getting yet another aircraft 15 to 20-years down the road.

But, bear in mind, the F-35 buy has always been a political decision.  The backroom boys in blue at DND are looking to score brownie points with their big brothers at the Pentagon.  Harper is likewise looking to look good with his big brothers in Washington.  When you're that eager to please, clear thinking can be tossed straight out the window.  That's why some, including former Globe editor, Geoffrey Stevens, say it's a good bet when the dust settles that the F-35 won't be joining the Royal Canadian Air Force.

What in Odin's name is wrong with us?

Emerging Economies Will Read the Riot Act to Developed West

When it comes to carbon emissions the emerging economic powers - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - have pretty bold expectations of the industrialized West.  They're not interested in major cuts in our carbon emissions.  They want us to become major carbon absorbers - negative emitters - in the first half of this century at least according to a position paper seen by BBC.

Working from the standpoint that western nations have a heavy responsibility for climate change because they industrialised first through fossil fuel burning, the experts reviewed various studies on what a fair and equitable allocation of future emissions might look like.

The analysis, seen by BBC News, is that industrialised countries should become net absorbers of CO2 rather than net emitters.

In the first half of this century, it concludes, the developed world should absorb 239-474 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide while developing countries continue to emit. That, the experts say, would be fair and equitable.

Analysts say it is not clear how far the BASIC bloc will push this line in negotiations.

Although the West's historical role is acknowledged in the UN climate convention, demands that Western countries become net carbon absorbers would not be countenanced.

So How Are We Doing?

Action, not words.   That might be the long overdue message our leaders need to hear on climate change.  The US Energy Department reports that recent greenhouse gas emissions have increased by a record amount, exceeding even the "worst case" scenario posited by climate scientists four years ago.

The world pumped about 564m more tons (512m metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009, an increase of 6%. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries, China, the US and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases.

It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate department of energy figures in the past.

Extra pollution in China and the US account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said.

Noam Chomsky, Occupy = A Decent Future

Noam Chomsky delivered this year's Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture to Occupy Boston.  He stressed that the Occupy movement may be our last, best hope for a decent future and that it's vital the movement grow within the United States and around the world.   He contrasted America today with the situation in the Great Depression.


"...although the situation was objectively much harsher than it is today, the spirit was quite different. There was a sense that we're going to get out of it, even among unemployed people. It'll get better. There was a militant labor movement organizing, CIO was organizing. It was getting to the point of sit-down strikes, which are very frightening to the business world.

...It’s quite different now. Now there’s kind of a pervasive sense of hopeless, or, I think, despair. I think it’s quite new in American history and it has an objective basis. In the 1930s unemployed “working people” could anticipate realistically that the jobs are going to come back. If you’re a worker in manufacturing today -- and the unemployment level in manufacturing today is approximately like the Depression -- if current tendencies persist, then those jobs aren’t going to come back.

America radically transformed beginning in the 70's.  "We turned to a process of deindustrialization and de-development. Of course, manufacturing production continued, but overseas (it’s very profitable, but no good for the workforce). Along with that came a significant shift of the economy from productive enterprise, producing things people need, to financial manipulation.

 The 1970s set off a kind of a vicious cycle that led to a concentration of wealth increasingly in the hands of the financial sector, which doesn’t benefit the economy. Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power, which, in turn, arrives to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle. The physical policies such as tax changes, rules of corporate governance, deregulation were essentially bipartisan. Alongside of this began a very sharp rise in the costs of elections, which drives the political parties even deeper than before into the pockets of the corporate sector.

A couple years later started a different process. The parties dissolved, essentially. [Does that sound familiar?] It used to be if you were a person in Congress and hoped for a position of committee chair or a position of responsibility, you got it mainly through seniority and service. Within a couple of years, you started to have to put money into the party coffers in order to get ahead. That just drove the whole system even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector and increasingly the financial sector--a tremendous concentration of wealth, mainly in the literally top 1/10th of 1 percent of the population.

Meanwhile, for the general population it began an open period of pretty much stagnation, or decline for the majority. People got by through pretty artificial means -- like borrowing, so a lot of debt. Longer working hours for many. There was a period of stagnation and a higher concentration of wealth. The political system began to dissolve. There’s always been a gap between public policy and the public will, but it just grew kind of astronomically. You can see it right now, in fact.

Take a look at what’s happening right now. The big topic in Washington that everyone concentrates on is the deficit. For the public, correctly, the deficit is not much of an issue. The issue is joblessness, not a deficit. Now there’s a deficit commission but no joblessness commission.

...For the general population -- the 99 percent in the imagery of the Occupy movement --it’s really harsh and it could get worse. This could be a period of irreversible decline. For the 1 percent, or furthermore 1/10th of 1 percent, it’s just fine. They’re at the top, richer and more powerful than ever in controlling the political system and disregarding the public, and if it can continue, then sure why not?

...A couple of years ago [Citibank] came out with a brochure for investors. They urged investors to put their money in what they call the “plutonomy index.” The world is dividing into a plutonomy, the rich and so on. That’s where the action is. They said their plutonomy index is way outperforming the stock market, so put your money into it. And as for the rest? We set them adrift. We don’t really care about them and we don’t need them. They have to be around to provide a powerful state to protect us and bail us out when we get into trouble, but they essentially have no function. It’s sometimes called these days the “precariat,” people who live a precarious existence at the periphery of society. It’s not the periphery anymore...

...when Alan Greenspan was still “St. Alan,” hailed by the economics profession as one of the greatest economists of all time (this is before the crash for which he is substantially responsible for), he was testifying to Congress in the Clinton years explaining the wonders of the great economy. He said much of this economy was based on what he called “growing worker insecurity.” If working people are insecure, if they’re “precariat” and living precarious existences, then they’re not going to make demands, they won’t make wages, they won’t get benefits and we can kick them out if we don’t like them, and that’s good for the health of the economy.

...Well, now the world is indeed splitting into a plutonomy and a precariat, again in the imagery of the Occupy movement, the 1 percent and the 99 percent. The plutonomy is where the action is. It could continue like this, and if it does, then this historic reversal that began in the 1970s could become irreversible. That’s where we’re heading. The Occupy movements are the first major popular reaction which could avert this. It’s going to be necessary to face the fact that it’s a long hard struggle. You don’t win victories tomorrow. You have to go on and form structures that will be sustained through hard times and can win major victories.

...There are very dangerous developments in the international arena, including two of them which are kind of a shadow that hangs over almost everything we discuss. There are, for the first time to human history, real threats to peace and survival of the species. One has been hanging around since 1945 and it’s kind of a miracle we’ve escaped it and that’s the threat of nuclear weapons. That’s a threat that’s being escalated by the administration and its allies. Something has to be done about that or we’re in real trouble. The other, of course, is environmental catastrophe. Every country in the world is taking at least halting steps toward trying to do something about it. The US is also taking steps, namely to accelerate the threat. The US is now the only country that’s not only not doing something constructive…it’s not climbing on the train. It’s pulling it backwards.

Congress is right now reversing legislation instituted by the Nixon administration. (Nixon was really the last liberal president of the United States, and literally, this shows you what’s been going on!) They’re dismantling the limited measures the Nixon administration took to try to do something about

what’s a growing and emerging catastrophe. This is connected with a huge propaganda system, perfectly openly declared by the business world, that it’s all just a liberal hoax. Why pay attention to these scientists? We’re really regressing back to the Medieval period. It’s not a joke. If that’s happening to the most powerful and richest country in history then this crisis is not going to be averted and all of this we’re talking about won’t matter in a generation or two. All of that’s going on right now and something has to be done about it very soon and in a dedicated and sustained way. It’s not going to be easy to succeed. There are going to be barriers, hardships and failures along the way. Unless the process that’s taking place here and around the world, unless that continues to grow and kind of becomes a major social force in the world, the chances for a decent future are not very high. 

Chomsky makes a convincing argument for the expansion of the Occupy Movement everywhere, including Canada.  It's easy to watch a couple of very selective clips on a corporate news station and dismiss it as so much street theatre staged by whiny kids looking for handouts.  That's exactly what the rich and powerful, who now pretty much have a complete lock on the mass media, want you to think.

Sure, some of these young protesters may come from relatively affluent homes but that's irrelevant.  What matters is what lies ahead for them in the future, a promise that's rapidly collapsing.  At least they're turning out to demand an end to inequality - of wealth, incomes and opportunity.

Chomsky said  it, twice, politics is dissolving.  That process extends to Canada.  Ignatieff steered the Liberals to the right, transforming the party into a Conservative-Lite travesty.  Parliament itself has devolved into a gaggle of petro-pols on both sides of the aisle quite happy to see Canada turned into a hapless, corrupt petro-state.  Here's a hint - they can't work for you and be indentured servants of Big Oil.  The gap between public policy and public will is widening rapidly under Harper.  This has to be stopped and the Liberals and any other party can go to Hell if they won't stand up for Canada.

He Said What?

Poor Hamid Karzai.  The old bugger has to run the assassins' gauntlet until 2014 when he can step down and di di mau his sorry ass and his loot the hell out of Afghanistan.   In the meantime he'll need plenty of protection, as much as he can get, and US forces are vital to Hamid's continued well being.  So why does Karzai keep saying really stupid things?

The latest gaffe was a remark Karzai made during an interview when he said that, if there was ever a war between Pakistan and the US, Afghanistan would side with Pakistan.

"If conflict breaks out between Pakistan and the US, we will be beside with Pakistan."

Afghan government officials quickly backtracked, arguing the remark was taken out of context.

Making Global Warming Official

There has been a lot of reluctance to link global warming to the spate of severe weather events our world has experienced in recent years.   Nobody wants to tie specific weather events to climate change because, well because they're weather events, not climate events.   That may be about to change.

The UN's IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, is working its way through a "phonebook size" draft of its next report that is said to conclude "that man-made climate change has boosted the frequency or intensity of heat waves, wildfires, floods and cyclones and that such disasters are likely to increase in the future.

"The document being discussed by the world's Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists says the severity of the impacts vary, and some regions are more vulnerable than others.

"...AFP obtained a copy of the draft report's 20-page Summary for Policymakers, which is subject to revision by governments before release on November 18.

"Its publication coincides with a series of natural catastrophes around the world that have boosted the need to determine whether such events are freaks of the weather or part of a long-term shift in climate.

"In 2010, record temperatures fuelled devastating forest fires across Siberia, while parts of Pakistan and India reeled from unprecedented flooding.

"This year, the United States has suffered from a record number of billion-dollar disasters ranging from flooding in the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to Hurricane Irene to the ongoing Texas drought.

Large swathes of China are suffering from intense drought as well, even as central America and Thailand count their dead from recent diluvian rains.

"Most of these events match predicted impacts of manmade global warming, which has raised temperatures, increased the amount of water in the atmosphere and warmed ocean surface temperatures -- all drivers of extreme weather.

"But teasing apart the role of natural fluctuations in the weather and rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has proven devilishly difficult for scientists."

The report breaks down its findings according to degree of scientific certainty.  For example, the finding that temperature extremes will continue to increase through this century is given a 99-100% "virtual certainty."   The prediction of ongoing heat events of increasing duration, intensity and frequency is rated a 90-100% "very likely" conclusion.

The IPCC research confirms that, for at least the balance of this century, mankind faces what The Guardian terms "global weirding."  Some regions will be extraordinarily dry and hot.  Other regions face extraordinary flooding.   Most of the planet will get hotter but some parts will see colder conditions.

It promises to be fascinating watching what efforts will be made to derail this report.  It's sure to get a rough ride from denialist governments including Canada's.