Everybody Loves Marineland!

I don't have many grievances with Ontario but Marineland is a huge exception.   For some reason the ads run all summer out here on the coast.    They highlight two things that obviously go together, orca and roller coasters.   Whenever the ad runs my blood boils a little bit as I ask what kind of asshole thinks southern Ontario a fit place to house captive orca and other marine life.

I saw captive orca a couple of times back when they used to keep one or two at the Vancouver Aquariam.   That was early on in the killer whale craze and, to their credit, they came to their senses many years ago and stopped keeping orca in captivity.   And remember, those whales were kept to very high standards.

Orca are intelligent, communal creatures that belong in only one place - in the wild with their pods.  We have no business keeping them for public amusement and profit in what are, in reality, display toilets.   Christ, can't you teach Rob Ford to broach on cue?

Now it turns out, as I long suspected, that the marine life at Marineland are mistreated, neglected and, in some cases, consigned to miserable death.  Read this and see what's going on in your own back yard.   Is it really too much for Ontario to do the right thing and stop this monstrosity?

Climate Change Denialism Hits 2% Among Canadians

Only two per cent of Canadians believe climate change is not happening.   Two per cent, just one-in-fifty.

The findings are in a survey conducted by Insightrix Research, Inc. for IPAC-CO2 Research Inc., a Regina-based centre that studies carbon capture and storage.

The online poll of 1,550 people was done between May 29 and June 11. The results were to be released on Wednesday.

"Our survey indicates that Canadians from coast to coast overwhelmingly believe climate change is real and is occurring, at least in part due to human activity," said centre CEO Carmen Dybwad.

Respondents were asked where they stood on the issue of climate change.

Almost one-third -- 32 per cent -- said they believe climate change is happening because of human activity, while 54 per cent said they believe it's because of human activity and partially due to natural climate variation. Nine per cent believe climate change is occurring due to natural climate variation.

Two per cent said they don't believe climate change is occurring at all.

Not surprisingly, the prairie region had the highest rate of denialism.    Ontario, Quebec and B.C. were on the far end of the spectrum.

The survey found 44 per cent of Quebec respondents, 34 per cent of Atlantic Canadian respondents and 32 per cent of those surveyed in British Columbia are likely to believe climate change is occurring due to human activity. Alberta and Saskatchewan came in at 21 per cent while Manitoba was at 24 per cent.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/poll-most-canadians-believe-climate-change-is-happening-1.914755#ixzz23cwAXf4S

Another Outrage for Coastal British Columbians

This is what you're up against when Ottawa, Alberta, Big Oil and Enbridge come to play.   The pipeline operator, gaming an already rigged system for clearance to build the Northern Gateway pipeline/Kitimat supertanker operation has released a video on its web site in which it shows the Douglas Channel these tankers will have to ply to make their way into the even more treacherous Hecate Strait.   This is how Enbridge wants you to see it.

For the purposes of public relations, however, Enbridge's depiction sweeps the Douglas Channel clean.   It removes Coste Island, Dorothy Island; Kitsaway, Gribbell and Gill Islands; Loretta, Maitland and Hawksbury Islands; Promise, Hinton and Farrant Islands;  Fin, Campania and Ashdown Islands;  South Moresby Island and Grenville Channel.   And, naturally, the Enbridge depiction shows nothing of the threacherous currents and tides that race through these narrow passages nor any of the innumerable rock features that lie just below the surface lying in wait for a passing tanker gone slightly astray.

To Enbridge, the route out of Kitimat is all clear sailing which, given the way Harper's environmental assessment process has been rigged, is probably a safe bet.   What's not safe, with the "Keystone Kops" of bitumen trafficking, is the British Columbia coast.

Note- if you compare the Enbridge screen shot of Douglas Channel with the actual map you'll see the tanker shown in black appears to have run aground on Gribbell Island.  Quelle surprise!

Julian Assange Granted Asylum

The Guardian reports that Ecuador has granted Julian Assange political asylum.   Given that the WikiLeaks founder remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, it's unclear whether asylum will mean he gets to stay there indefinitely.

"Ecuador will grant asylum to Julian Assange," said an official in the Ecuadorean capital Quito, who is familiar with the government discussions.
.
..it remains unclear if giving Assange asylum will allow him to leave Britain and fly to Ecuador, or amounts to little more than a symbolic gesture. At the moment he faces the prospect of arrest as soon as he leaves the embassy for breaching his bail conditions.

"For Mr Assange to leave England, he should have a safe pass from the British [government]. Will that be possible? That's an issue we have to take into account," Patino told Reuters on Tuesday.

Government sources in Quito confirmed that despite the outstanding legal issues Correa would grant Assange asylum – a move which would annoy Britain, the US and Sweden. They added that the offer was made to Assange several months ago, well before he sought refuge in the embassy, and following confidential negotiations with senior London embassy staff.

...Ecuadorean diplomats believe Assange is at risk of being extradited from Sweden to the US, where he could face the death penalty. Assange's supporters claim the US has already secretly indicted him following WikiLeaks' release in 2010 of US diplomatic cables, as well as classified Afghan and Iraq war logs.

Correa and Patiño have both said that Ecuador will take a sovereign decision regarding Assange. They say they view his case as a humanitarian act, and are seeking to protect Assange's right to life and freedom. On Monday the state-run newspaper El Telégrafo confirmed a decision had been made, although the paper did not specify what that decision was. It said that senior officials had been meeting in the past few days to iron out the last legal details.

Summer Funnies

Ah, takes you back to those great childhood years

Another Glimpse Into the Warfare State

Further evidence that America is being transformed into a genuine "warfare state" comes from a report in Wired magazine that the Pentagon is planning to unleash SEAL teams to attack and kill drug lords south of the U.S. border.

"According to anonymous Mexican and U.S. military sources cited by Proceso magazine (translated from Spanish), the plan involves sending Navy SEALs by helicopter after the Sinaloa Cartel kingpin, who is rumored to be hiding in the mountains of the western Mexican states of Sinaloa and Durango. The SEALs would be divided into two teams — one would land and attack, and the other would stay airborne — assisted by three unmanned drones packing missiles.
"After locating El Chapo, the SEALs would “eliminate any of Chapo’s security on the spot … as they did with the ‘Bin Laden’ operation,” according to Proceso. If El Chapo is killed, the SEALs would take the kingpin’s body with them. The plan is reported to have been ordered by the Pentagon and Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which oversees military operations in North America. If enacted, U.S. officials would observe from the White House and NORTHCOM headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. The plan is also reported to be U.S.-only, excluding the Mexican military.

"...According to Proceso, outgoing President Felipe Calderón was reportedly keen to the idea, but faced objections from the Mexican army and navy. The Mexican navy — which includes Mexico’s marines — is one of the main strike forces against the cartels. An American strike would also blatantly violate Mexican law, which prohibits foreign military and law enforcement agencies from operating on Mexican soil, except under tightly controlled conditions and never armed.
"There’s also the risk of inflaming sentiment against the United States. Although there’s a growing minority of Mexican citizens who support greater U.S. involvement, including intervention, the Mexican public is largely opposed to the idea. In 2011, worsening drug violence and discussions of a greater U.S. intervention helped contribute to a nadir in U.S.-Mexico relations. The Wall Street Journal reported that Mexican officials were “enraged” by the suggestion of sending U.S. troops. For criticizing the effectiveness of the Mexican military, the former U.S. ambassador, Carlos Pascual, was thrown out of the country. The $1.6 billion Merida Initiative, which provides U.S. aid for Mexico’s military, has more political support but has faced intense opposition from academics, journalists and human rights activists."

The possibilities for unanticipated blowback from this sort of thing are considerable.   America once ruled the roost over the OAS countries.   The Monroe Doctrine established the U.S. as hegemon in South and Central America.   Now those same countries are breaking free from what many see as generations of American control.   The region's trade is now stronger with China than with the United States.   The days where America could, with impunity, unleash unilateral, blatantly illegal military violence upon Latin America may be over and something like this could hasten that end.

Northern Gateway Hearings a Stacked Deck

Those who suspect that Steve Harper has "fixed" the environmental assessment of the Northern Gateway pipeline initiative won't be surprised to learn the board reviewing the proposal has ruled the U.S. Transportation Safety Board report into the Enbridge pipeline fiasco on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan won't be admitted into evidence.

"...the board's report won't be viewed as reliable evidence and won't be considered in the panel's final ruling, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Annie Roy, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, said the board's reports can only be used as "an aid to cross-examination" during the oral questioning period.

"An aid to cross-examination is generally not considered evidence and cannot be relied on for the truth of its content," Roy said in an email.

"[The TSB Kalamazoo report] will not typically be included on the public registry and will not be considered by the panel when making its recommendations. The panel will however consider the answers provided to questions using the aid."

In other words, Enbridge gets to spin this any way it likes and that will be accepted by Harper's rigged jury.

In Saudia Arabia, This is Progress?

Saudi women are being given a portal to industry, sort of.   The government is building what sounds like a glorified industrial park that will be exclusively women-only.

The city, to be built in the Eastern Province city of Hofuf, is set to be the first of several planned for the Gulf kingdom. The aim is to allow more women to work and achieve greater financial independence, but to maintain the gender segregation, according to reports.

Segregation of the sexes is applied in Saudi Arabia, where Wahabi sharia law and tribal customs combine to create an ultra-conservative society that still does not allow women to drive. Saudi women are said to make up about 15% of the workforce, with most in female-only work places.

The proposals follow government instructions to create more job openings for women to enable them to have a more important role in the country's development.

I think I've heard of this idea before.   Oh yeah but back then they were called "plantations."

Obama, Spender in Least

Not that it matters much in a society utterly detached from reality, but Forbes has analyzed government spending growth by president since Ronald Reagan and, contrary to the outright lies the Radical Right (GOP) and the Tea Party love to spin and gullible Americans love to swallow, Barack Obama has a hands-down claim to first place when it comes to spending restraint.

Not Like We Weren't Warned

"When planning a military expedition into Pashtun tribal areas, the first thing you must plan is your retreat. All expeditions into this area sooner or later end in retreat under fire.”

So wrote British general, Andrew Skeen, in the early 1900s in his guide to military operations in the Pashtun tribal belt. I guess some things never change.

This time it looks as though the Afghans aren't waiting until we actually hit the road.   One week, five "green on blue" attacks by Afghan army and police officers against Western forces.

A recent rash of "green-on-blue" attacks, in which Afghan security forces or attackers wearing their uniforms turn their guns on the coalition troops training them, has raised worries about a deterioration of trust between the two sides as well as the quality of the Afghan police and soldiers who will take over full security responsibility for fighting the Taliban when most international troops leave by the end of 2014. It also raises renewed worry that insurgents may be infiltrating the Afghan army and police despite heightened screening.

Ya think?

Taking the Fight to Them

It's time to do what they fear most - connect the dots.   That means linking bitumen trafficking to the plight being inflicted on the poorest and most vulnerable peoples on Earth due to global warming.  It's a link that is irrefutable.

We know that the climate change the world is now enduring is anthropogenic, man-made.   We know that the rapidly changing climate results from warming of the atmosphere, global warming, through burning fossil fuels which generates atmospheric carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.

We know that all fossil fuels are not created equal.   Some, such as natural gas, are less carbon-intensive than others.   Others, such as coal and bitumen, are highly carbon intensive and, as such, contribute proportionately far more to anthropogenic global warming.

We know that talk of carbon capture and sequestration remains, after decades of rambling, just that - talk, empty promises.   We know that, despite industry's abject failure to deliver on its carbon capture promise, the federal and Alberta governments are determined to facilitate the rapid and massive expansion of production and export of Athabasca bitumen, one of the world's very worst carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

We know that around the world the poor and vulnerable are being beset by climate change impacts, particularly floods and drought, that bring famine, pestilence, armed conflict, displacement and, to some, death.   And we know this is just beginning.   This is suffering of a degree and on a scale we cannot imagine.

We know that already known fossil fuel reserves exceed the amount remaining that can perhaps be safely burned by a factor of five to one.   In other words, if our civilization is to survive this century - our children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, eighty per cent of those fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground.   This utterly discredits anyone promoting the exploitation and consumption of the worst, most carbon intensive fossil fuels.   The planet has more than adequate stocks of relatively clean, conventional fossil fuels.   There is no moral case for exploiting high-carbon intensive unconventional fossil fuels.

We know that the fossil fuel industry behaves as any other corporate entity.  It serves the interests of its investors and shareholders.   It does not serve those interests by voluntarily incurring expenses that are not mandated.   Hence, until carbon capture is mandated and industry is compelled to act, it will not act.  The promise of carbon capture, advanced by industry and our governments, is a shameless hoax.

We must accept that all of this knowledge supports certain, unavoidable conclusions.   Those who promote, enable, extract, produce and transport the most carbon-intensive, filthy fossil fuels are directly responsible for the disproportionate losses and suffering these unconventional fuels create even in distant corners of the world.    It is an immoral trade from which the riches we reap are paid for by those already impoverished and imperilled elsewhere.

Afghan heroin trafficking or Colombian cocaine trafficking inflicts social and economic devastation elsewhere.   It ruins families and destroys lives and we properly condemn it.   Canadian bitumen trafficking also ruins families and destroys lives elsewhere yet we pretend not to notice even as we move to massively ramp up production and export.

To date most opposition to Tar Sands exploitation has been focused on local outcomes - tailing ponds, destruction of the boreal forest, pipeline spills, tanker catastrophes - with scant attention to what Canada is doing to the rest of the world.   It's time that changed and time that the bitumen boosters in Ottawa, Alberta and elsewhere by tied tightly to the suffering they are causing and intend to continue to inflict.   They have to be held accountable.

The Bain of Mitt Romney's Existence

The folks of Freeport, Illinois know what it's like when Bain Capital comes to town and, pretty soon, so will most Americans.   Whether he likes to admit it or not, Mitt Romney is getting ever richer sucking the  blood out of towns like Freeport.

For decades Freeport had an industrial plant operated by a company, Sensata.   Even to the end, Sensata was both profitable and competitive - an American success story - until Bain Capital came to town.

Now Bain has gutted Sensata, sold the manufacturing assets to the Chinese and, to add insult to economic catastrophe, it's been forcing Sensata workers to train their Chinese replacements.

"...for Bonnie Borman – and 170 other men and women in Freeport, Illinois – there is a brutal twist to the torture. Borman, 52, and the other workers of a soon-to-be-shuttered car parts plant are personally training the Chinese workers who will replace them.

It's a surreal experience, they say. For months they have watched their plant being dismantled and shipped to China, piece by piece, as they show teams of Chinese workers how to do the jobs they have dedicated their lives to.

"It's not easy to get up in the morning, training them to do your job so that you can be made unemployed," said Borman, pictured, a mother of three who has worked for 23 years at the Sensata auto sensors plant.

Borman knows her eventual fate in the stricken economy that surrounds Freeport. "I am going to be competing for minimum wage jobs with my own daughter," she said.

...Bain has declined to comment. But it has made a lot of money from owning Sensata, quadrupling its initial 2006 investment. In business circles that focus on the bottom line is all that matters. But, not surprisingly, it cuts less ice in Illinois.

...Romney, who [supposedly] left Bain in 1999, has defended his long career there, saying Bain ends up generating economic growth and spurring job creation. Far from profiting from layoffs, Romney has portrayed Bain as a model for the American future.

That argument stuns Illinois governor Pat Quinn. "If he thinks that is the model for American economic growth then he is barking up the wrong tree," Quinn told The Guardian.

Of course, no one at the Romney campaign wants to be linked with the Freeport plant closure. "Governor Romney is not familiar with this issue and has not been involved in the management of Bain since 1999," said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg."

Unless the Dems totally screw this up, Sensata should be their postal child for Romney's corporatist cannibalism of the American middle class.   All they need to do is hang this around Mitt's neck.

Taking Out the Trash

You can tell when the Radical Right, University of Calgary Bitumen-Boosters go into meltdown.  It's when their august leaders, like Prof. Barry Cooper, write stuff like this in the Calgary Herald:

British Columbia is full of “sybaritic scatterbrains,” Cooper wrote, “soft consumers and rent collectors, drinking lattes in the rain. Many believe in spirit bears and water sprites and require grief counselling when trees blow down in Stanley Park.”

What Cooper is exhibiting many will recognize as the second stage of grief in the classical model - anger.   That means he's already passed through climate change denial, seen the writing on the wall.  What remains to be endured by the poor sod will be bargaining, depression and acceptance and then he'll come back to the real world.

Cooper, of course, is the guy who some say "laundered" half a million bucks in charitable donations through the University of Calgary trust accounts to fund climate science denialists like the discredited Friends of Science bunch.

The onset of global warming is tough enough on those who bother to peruse the science and notice the impacts now setting in around the world - the storms, the floods, the droughts, the heatwaves, the displaced, the destitute, and yes, the dead.   We expected these things, sure, but not for twenty, thirty or fifty years down the road.   As James Hansen recently admitted, he got it wrong, he was much too optimistic in his predictions.

So what must it be like for an old hack like Barry Cooper whose reputation is so deeply invested in the voodoo science of climate change denialism in defence of the Tar Sands?   That atrophied lump of grey matter inside his head will now have to endure the remaining stages of the grief process even as he is progressively discredited for his chicanery.   Oh, but it's a road he won't have to travel alone. He'll have plenty of company from the faculty of the University of Calgary and the boardroom of the Fraser Institute and the club chairs of the Calgary Petroleum Club lounge.

And finally these old hucksters will reach the acceptance stage and will reconcile themselves to the world as it is instead of the world as they said it was.   Maybe they'll find the decency to recognize the damage and havoc they sought to create.   Maybe they'll even discern the connection between what they did and the suffering and death around the world.   Or maybe they'll just chew their soft, bland food and call the nurse to fetch a fresh diaper.

BC Court Won't Allow Harper to "Sacrifice" Gloria Taylor

The Harper regime has lost its first attempt to thwart Gloria Taylor's right to die.

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge two months ago struck down the ban on physician assisted suicide, granting Ms. Taylor an exemption from the law while giving Parliament time to deal with the offending law.

Harper, of course, religiously bound not to allow someone to die painlessly when they otherwise could face a prolonged, excruciating death, raced off to the B.C. Court of Appeal - which is where he ran headlong into Madam Justice Prowse.    The judge said the federal government's interests in assuring an agonizing death for Ms. Taylor were outweighed by the irreparable harm she would incur and said she wasn't to be sacrificed for the government's idea of the "greater good."

ExtremeHeat Canada Goes Online

McMaster University, in conjunction with Health Canada, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Clean Air Partnership, has created www.extremeheat.ca. 

The site, available in both English and French, provides advice for the public and an accredited training program for health-care workers on how to help people manage in blistering hot weather.
Extremeheat.ca includes information on young children, seniors and physically active adults -- the groups most likely to suffer adverse health effects during a heat wave.

The City of Windsor, meanwhile, has published its own heatwave adaptation plan.   The municipality is warning residents that the number of 30C+ days the area will be experience is expected to double, possibly triple in the near future.

And, with every supertanker of bitumen we'll sail to Asia, we'll just make everything a little bit worse.

More Green on Blue

"Green on Blue" has become the term for Afghan security officials - police or army - turning on and gunning down Western forces in their country.

The latest incident cost the lives of three U.S. Special Forces soldiers who had been invited by an Afghan police commander to discuss security matters over dinner.   As the American soldiers were having dinner the commander and his men shot them dead and took off.

The commander was the head of Afghan Police for Sangin district, a real honcho.

When the Afghan army and police service have been so thoroughly infiltrated by the insurgency what is the point of staying on one day longer than necessary?   Why train and arm people, some of whom we know will then use what they've been given, what they've learned to turn on us?

It's time to get out of Dodge.

Civilization At the Crossroads. What If We Make the Right Choice?

While the future of human civilization looks gloomy, mankind might actually make it through this century repositioned to face a wonderful future.   It all depends on whether we can muster the courage to choose life - for all.   If not, we may be condemning ourselves to life for just about none.

I've just finished Tim Flannery's book, "Here on Earth."   It's the follow up to his "The Weather Makers" which is basically a primer on the many aspects of global warming.

Flannery's final chapter focuses on the super-organism he labels mankind.   He contends that the behaviour of our super-organism over the next few decades will seal our fate one way or the other.

He doesn't advocate rule by one world government but, rather, the same arrangement of governments we have today only all of them accepting, abiding by and enforcing the common rules we'll need if we're to get by.

"The immediate challenge is fundamental - to manage our atmospheric and oceanic global commons - and the unavoidable cost of success in this is that nations must cede real authority, as they do whenever they agree to act in common to secure the welfare of all.

...When profiteering at [the Earth's] expense is regarded and punished as the gravest of crimes - both because it represents a theft from the whole world, present and future, and because it may not remain theft but, as its consequences ramify, may become murder or genocide as well - then a sustainable future will be ours.  Such a moment, if it ever comes, will close a chapter in human history - that of the frontier - which has characterized our species for fifty thousand years.  In early 2010 we edged a fraction closer with the commencement of a campaign to have the UN's International Criminal Court recognize 'ecocide' (the heedless or deliberate destruction of the environment0 as a fifth 'crime against peace.'"

We're still resisting the idea that we live in a finite world that must be shared.   Instead we wrestle to either hold on to or increase our share of that finite existence. We still see the world in the construct of 18th century economics, 19th century industrialism and 20th century geopolitics.    We cling to those notions even though they are of rapidly declining utility and increasingly threaten our way forward.

Is War With China Actually Possible? Is War of Some Sort Inevitable?

Is China on the verge of war?  War with whom?

There are factors building that suggest China faces the sort of instability that could force war on China and some other country.

For the past few decades, Russia and China have been closely allied but their relationship since the end of WWII has been at times turbulent.

Russia is now speaking openly about a perceived threat from China to Siberia and other Russian territory in the east.   President Dmitry Medvedev has announced a build up of Russia's naval power in the Pacific.   Meanwhile some prominent Chinese are promoting the idea of a Chinese military presence in the Arctic.

America is training for a first-strike air war on China.   That led to a complex air war exercise in Alaska called Operation Chimichanga.  The Pentagon is also developing what they call the Air Sea Battle strategy that has been criticized as a dangerous and potentially disastrous provocation of China.

Then we have the controversial F-35 joint strike fighter, in reality a stealth first-strike, light attack bomber.   The United States and all its key allies are signing on to buy this monstrously expensive warplane even as defence planners now openly admit its stealth technology is "perishable" and probably will be obsolete within five to ten years.

Why would so many countries buy a warplane with a dwindling "best before" date unless they foresee some potential need for it before then?   Are we buying the F-35 with the intent of flying it on combat sorties into Chinese airspace?

The question becomes what else would we do with it?   It lacks dual engine reliability.  It doesn't have the fuel capacity for long range patrol and interception.   It doesn't carry the sort of payload needed for ground support or the sort of missions we flew over Libya.  And it's a sub-par fighter, deficient in speed, climb rate and maneuverability.  We're signing on to buy a very expensive bomb truck.   Why?

But why would China, on the verge of economic superpowerdom, go to war?   The simple answer is that China is a country facing powerful environmental, social, resource and population challenges that may already be beyond its control.

China has a serious problem with desertification.   It is losing overworked, exhausted farmland that is being transformed into useless desert.   And roughly 40% of what arable farmland remains is beset with airborne contaminants, arsenic and heavy metals from industry, that render crops unsafe for consumption.   While the situation continues to worsen, it already leads to the ruin of 12-billion kilograms of foodstocks per year.  

Much of China's fresh water resources are seriously contaminated.  Worse yet, China is already facing rapid depletion of its groundwater resources, its aquifers.   The shrinking supply of groundwater for irrigation has Chinese officials calling for the country to step up food imports.   Meanwhile the government's failure to crack down on criminal contamination of food supplies is generating unrest.

Some African countries are suspicious of China's benevolence and fear that it may be looking to them as a repository of between 300 and 500-million surplus Chinese.    The Africans believe China has become so environmentally and resource degraded that it can no longer support a population of more than 700-million and that assessment may not be far off the mark.

Another problem is the disparity in wealth in China.   While the country now has some billionaires, it has vastly more thousandaires.   Yes, the masses may be somewhat better off than they were prior to China's economic "miracle" but it's a marginal improvement at best.   And if China has to go to already hard hit world markets to get food for its people, their share of the miracle will evaporate very suddenly.   The rich can easily weather high food prices, the masses can't.   A Chinese journalist recently wrote, "For thousands of years the power of China's rulers hinged on their ability to feed the people. Revolutions aren't caused by political differences, they're caused by a lack of bread."

China's dilemma is unprecedented.   The world has never known a country that had hundreds of millions, perhaps a half-billion more people than it could support.   That's a nation, a people and a government that face almost unimaginable threats to their stability and their survival.   By any measure China seems to have outgrown its boundaries.   It needs lebensraum.

Relocating half a billion Chinese to Africa is the stuff of fantastic nightmares.   It simply can't be done.   Even if China could find some means of conveying that population, Africa, backed by the rest of the world wouldn't abide it.

So, short of a mass extermination of its own people, what is the Chinese government to do with them?   I think Dmitry Medvedev has an idea of what might be in store.   China has to find a big chunk of unoccupied or lightly occupied territory to house its overflow.   That it shares a 4,300-kilometre border with the largest nation on earth that itself has a declining population not much more than a tenth of China's might seem divinely fortuitous to Beijing.  The Russian president is already speaking out about Russia's perceived threat of a Chinese takeover.

America now views China as its greatest threat and takes it seriously enough to trigger a major pivot of its forces from the Middle East to South and East Asia.  China, especially its military leaders, are showing serious hostility toward the West and America in particular.  They're said to be looking for revenge for a "century of humiliation."

The United States appears content to build up its military presence in China's backyard and wait.   But, as Operation Chimichanga revealed, America is also preparing for a massive aerial first strike to take down China's air defences should the need arise.   The only real glitch is the delay in fielding the F-35.

The White House and the Pentagon aren't looking for a war with China but they must fear that China has become a human time bomb that, in one way or another, is likely to blow.   Russia will have to try to contain the blast from the north and northwest, India will try to hold the west while America and her allies police China's southern flank, prepared to intervene should the need arise.

Modern China is caught in the throes of the toxic manipulations of Mao Tse Tung.   As Tim Flannery explains in "Here on Earth":

"...perhaps the most enduring environmental legacy was Mao's encouragement of population growth.  At the beginning of his time in power China had around five hundred million people, and was widely believed by experts to be on the verge of dangerous overpopulation.   Yet Mao made contraceptives hard to get and exhorted women to have large families.   As one Chinese census on Mao has direct responsibility for the population problem.   As Party Chairman, policy depended upon him.   When he said "With Many People, Strength is Great" that was the last word on the subject."

- note - every major point in this post is accurately sourced and linked.   most links here are to earlier posts that are, in turn, linked to original source materials.

update - since posting this piece I stumbled across a report of a study by Jianguo "Jack" Liu, director of Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability on China's water woes.

China's crisis is daunting, though not unique: Two-thirds of China's 669 cities have water shortages, more than 40 percent of its rivers are severely polluted, 80 percent of its lakes suffer from eutrophication -- an over abundance of nutrients -- and about 300 million rural residents lack access to safe drinking water.

Liu says China's approach to its water crisis as an engineering problem won't is short-sighted.



"There is an inescapable complexity with water," Liu said. "When you generate energy, you need water; when you produce food, you need water. However, to provide more water, more energy and more land are needed, thus creating more challenges for energy and food production, which in turn use more water and pollute more water.

"In the end, goals are often contradictory to each other. Everybody wants something, but doesn't take a systems approach that is essential for us to see the whole picture."

Naomi Wolf Slams America's "Ignorance Industry"

Activist/writer Naomi Wolf has about had it with her homeland's "stasis of stupidity"  blocking any meaningful action to respond to man-made climate change.

It is fairly well-known what has been behind that climate change denial in America: vast sums pumped into an ignorance industry by the oil and gas lobbies. Entire thinktanks to obfuscate manmade climate change have been funded by these interests, as have individual congressmen and women. Entirely typical, for instance, is Louisiana Representative John Fleming, whose campaigns,    according to blogger John Henry, accept about $200,000 a year from oil and gas lobbyists, and who uses his social media pages to deny global warming.

It is weird to live inside that US denial about climate change. Last year, for example, as tropical storm Irene approached New York, we duly boarded up windows, put in emergency supplies, and heard endless alarming bulletins from the mayor's office about which neighborhoods were likely to be submerged if the tides surged – without ever hearing from local officials or the media a word connecting rising sea levels with manmade global warming. All the more weird because New Yorkers weren't writing off portions of their downtown neighborhoods to overflowing seawater a century ago.

It is weird, too, to watch the leaves turn red earlier and earlier in the fall in the American northeast and have absolutely everyone say, "the weather is strange" – yet never see mainstream media reflect any interest in the connection between human industrial activity and that strangeness. And this weather map shows how widespread and extensive that extreme weather is in the US.

Wolf contends that political deadlock and media indecisiveness present an obstacle the American public cannot overcome, preventing them from engaging with the global warming reality.

Ry Cooder's Mutt Romney Blues

American guitarist, composer and songwriter, Ry Cooder, doesn't think much of Mitt Romney.   He dislikes Romney so much, he's even written a song about the guy, the Mutt Romney Blues.



"Romney is as bad as anyone can be. He's a dangerous man. He's a cruel man. He's a perfect creation for what the Republican party is all about. And that is to say, a rapacious capitalist. Anyone who ran Bain Capital is not your friend. All they're going to do is rape and pillage the land. That's what he did at Bain Capital and that's what he's going to continue to do. Plus he can go around and in this guise of being a good buisnessman, which he's not .... and this face – with the big grin and everything – is jovial, but hollow. And it's outrageous if you analyse what he's saying, because he'll say one thing and do the opposite. And the media gives him a lot of attention. You know the story of the Olympics at Salt Lake City? Then he goes over to Great Britain and bad mouths the Olympics over there ... But he's carrying an entourage of donors and he's putting on a dog and pony show for them.It takes a bit of study. People are so desperate over here now. They don't have the time to research and go back over the history of this guy. And everybody knows that. So what I'm trying to do with these little songs I write is say: let's look at this a different way. I don't write books and give speeches but with a four-minute song you can use allegory and other means to suggest a different point of view."

And Cooder warns that Americans shouldn't be duped by the apparent buffoons that populate the GOP, people like Bachmann and Palin.

They're too insanely dangerous. Look, what did Gore Vidal say recently? The interviewer asked him what he thought of the Republican party and he said it's not a party any more, it's a Hitler Youth mindset and they're out to destroy the country, and he was 110% right. So in case anybody thinks Michele Bachman or Sarah Palin are clowns because they misspeak or don't know their history or they say silly things: that's just an act, and it's a useful act. Everything is a distraction from the core truths which are, first of all, that corporations have taken over the country.

This right now is the time of decision in this country. There's no other way to look at it. This is it. This is the most critical time in the history of the country, for chrissakes.

 

"This is Absolutely NOT a P.R. Exercise" - Yeah, Right

Brenda Kenny has got a pair.  That much you have to give her.   The president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association plans to counter a string of public relations disasters by announcing an “Integrity First” strategy to improve pipeline safety and the industry’s “social performance.”

"Kenny told reporters [in Ottawa] that Calgary-based CEPA is taking a “much more aggressive and organized” approach under the Integrity First banner to convince Canadians pipelines are crucial to Canada’s economy and safer than other forms of energy transportation.

"She provided no specific details on new safety measures, though Kenny did say CEPA will launch specific new measures to educate the public.

"Kenney acknowledged that some Canadians might view the effort with a cynical eye, given growing controversy over major spills involving Enbridge, proponent of the $6 billion oilsands pipeline to the B.C. coast.

“I’m concerned…some people will think that, and we can’t change their mind today,” she said.
“We can be above board and straight-shooting and I hope that if there are cynics with this announcement today they will be proven wrong."

Brenda, can I talk to you for a minute?   The problem isn't "a string of public relations disasters."   The problem is a string of pipeline failures and the catastrophes they left behind.   We don't need convincing, we can read the reports from the investigations and hearings.   You can't be "above board and straight shooting" when you start from such a blatantly dishonest premise.

And, Brenda, the issue isn't the relative safety of oil pipelines.   The question is whether they're safe enough to string across mountainous and seismically active British Columbia wilderness and whether Enbridge with its considerable track record should be allowed to build and operate these pipelines.   And the question is why anyone in his right mind would be content to see supertankers laden with dilbit ply the treacherous waters of the British Columbia coast.   Those are the questions that matter, Brenda, and it speaks volumes they're not the ones you're addressing.   So, please, don't tell us this isn't another greasy P.R. exercise when you make it so plain that's exactly what it is.   So, if integrity is supposed to come first, why do you have it pegged dead last?

Check This Out. No, Seriously, Check It Out

This link takes you to an amazing video clip from the thunderstorm that hit Vancouver yesterday.   The young guy is recording the storm when, at the 6 second mark, a bolt of lightning hits a neighbour's tree 150 feet away.

If you tinker a bit with the pause button you can freeze the lightning bolt and see it and the plasma very clearly.   It's really amazing.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Amazing+Video+Massive+lightning+strikes+tree+Metro+Vancouver/7059053/story.html#ooid=J2ZzNsNTq_jVRbOI1XVYIonOoZtpVOKz

Somebody Is Going to be Very Unhappy With Their New TV

A customer in Washington, D.C., ordered a 39-inch television from Amazon.com.   This is what arrived on his doorstep instead.

When the UPS package arrived at Seth Horovitz's home, he thought it must be an accessory for the TV he ordered. The package was too small to be a TV, but it was addressed to him. Instead, Horovitz, who was expecting dinner guests any minute, "reached into the box and felt the weapon’s pistol grip and trigger." It was the first time he had ever touched a gun.

“I definitely knew it was a mistake,” Horovitz told the Post. “But I was confused as to how that kind of mix-up could happen. Especially given the recent events, the recent shootings. It surprised me to see how easy it would be for a gun to show up on someone’s doorstep — not just a gun, but an assault weapon.”

Horovitz called the cops who took the gun away.   Apparently he's still waiting for that TV.

Should BC Take a Page from Harper's Own Book?

Remember Steve Harper's "Alberta Firewall" letter, the one where he advocated the Wild Rose state should ditch the RCMP, implement its own healthcare regime independent of Ottawa and even collect and withhold income taxes?

Well Elizabeth May, writing in our very own Island Tides newspaper thinks B.C. should give Harper's ideas a try.

The letter was co-signed by Harper’s mentor from the University of Alberta, TomFlanagan, Ted Morton (at the time describedas Alberta Senator-elect), the head of theCanadian Taxpayers Federation, and otherAlberta luminaries including KenBoessenkool (described in the letter as formeradvisor to ‘Stockwell Day, Treasurer of Alberta’), who is currently none other than Premier Christy Clark’s Chief of Staff. Stephen Harper, who claimed top spot in the list of signatories, was at the time President of the National Citizens’ Coalition.

The letter set out what the signatories believed to be Constitutionally allowed steps that Alberta should take, including: withdrawal from the Canada Pension Plan,ending the provincial contract with the

RCMP, a provincial take-over of health care decisionmaking, and collecting revenue for the province from income tax.  The aim of this bullish use of provincial powers was "to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach on legitimate provincial jurisdiction." Ms. May puts the situation bluntly:

Has Stephen Harper abandoned the idea that provinces have rights?  Is he prepared to ride roughshod over the wishes of the vast majority of British Columbians?   Has he reversed himself or is it merely a case that provinces only have rights when they seek to promote fossil fuel expansionism?

What they're saying is that if Alberta, Ottawa and the rest of the provinces are prepared to see this pipeline and tanker business rammed down British Columbia's throat, maybe our place in Canada isn't really worth it.   We didn't sign onto Confederation for that.

PostMedia Paper Calls Harper a Liar

The centre-right Victoria Times Colonist more than doubts Steve Harper's claim that he'll leave it up to science to evaluate the "costs and risks" of the Northern Gateway pipeline.   Here's how the paper's editors reacted:

"...when [Harper] says an independent panel will decide the issue based on scientific evidence, pardon us for thinking of the stereotypical Old West judge telling the accused: 'We'll give you a fair trial before an impartial jury, and then we'll hang you.'"

Jeebus, Steve, even PostMedia is calling you a liar.

"It seems odd that the prime minister is prepared to place his faith in an independent panel when in April, his government took away the National Energy Board's ability to kill a project with a negative ruling.

"It seems odd that Harper is looking to science to resolve the issue when his government has gutted environmental regulations and has muzzled federal scientists.

"Science (other than the science of accounting) didn't reign when the federal government decided to close the Deaprtment of Fisheries and Oceans marine pollution program, including two research scientists, a chemist and six support staff at the Institute for Ocean Sciences in North Saanich.

As for Steve's unquestionable ability to spin science, the editors observe, "As William Shakespeare wrote: 'The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.'"

I guess "liar" wasn't enough, Steve.   Now you're Lucifer himself. 

When Nukes Just Weren't Enough

Those of us who lived through the Cold War were painfully aware that the Soviet Union was prepared to thoroughly devastate the West with nuclear weapons.   We didn't know they had something else in mind also, a second strike to wipe out the survivors of a nuclear attack.

In the Soviet playbook for all-out war with the United States, the wasting of US cities by nuclear bombs was to be followed by something equally horrifying: waves of plagues to kill any survivors.

Soviet scientists spent decades preparing for the second attack, concocting new kinds of biological weapons more lethal than any ever invented.

None of these weapons were used during the Cold War, but a new book suggests the dangers posed by the program never completely abated. The authors reveal new details about the deadly achievements of Soviet weapons scientists - from multiple-drug resistant anthrax to ''stealth'' bugs that elude detection - and they say the strains probably still exist inside the freezers of military laboratories inside Russia.

The book also suggests that US intelligence operatives may have inadvertently fuelled the Soviets' experimentation with germ warfare, in part by spreading false stories that convinced communist leaders the US was also secretly making such weapons after its program was officially halted in 1969.

 

Russia Reacts to Perceived Chinese Threat

Russia is growing concerned about Chinese designs on Russian territory and resources.   Russian president Dimitry Medvedev said it was essential to defend it's eastern territories against "excessive expansion by bordering states".

Speaking days after Russia's first deputy defence minister said two new nuclear submarines would be sent to the Pacific Fleet, Medvedev also said it was "important not to allow negative manifestations ... including the formation of enclaves made up of foreign citizens."

His comments, some of the strongest on the subject yet, underlined the Kremlin's suspicions that a steady influx of Chinese migrants may ultimately pose a threat to Russian hegemony in the remote and sparsely populated territories of Siberia and the Far East.

Russia and China enjoy strong diplomatic and trade relations and have joined forces in the United Nations Security Council to block proposed sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. But growing Chinese influence in Russia's Far East - where street signs are often in both Russian and Chinese - has long been a source of tension.

Resource-rich Russia is the world's largest country by territory, but has seen its population of 143 million people fall in recent years, while resource-hungry China, situated immediately to the south, has a rising population of over 1.3 billion people.

Russia is busy rebuilding its once powerful navy.   Current plans call for the construction of six new submarines and one aircraft carrier annually.

German Banks Take Food Off Commodities Exchange

Do banks actually have a conscience?   A few German banks apparently do.

Germany's Commerzbank, the country's second-largest, has removed agricultural products (food) from its commodities index fund, following similar moves by two other German banks including the country's largest, Deutsche Bank.


Germany's second-largest bank declined to give details about the reason for its decision to remove agricultural commodities from an exchange-traded fund (ETF), but German lobby group Foodwatch said the decision was because of ethical concerns.

"Commerzbank is reacting to the debate about a series of studies which show that investment in this type of commodity fund pushes food prices upwards and so contributes to the hunger crisis in many parts of the world," Foodwatch said.

Agriculture has been removed from the ComStage ETF CB Commodity EW Index TR, a Commerzbank spokeswoman said, declining to elaborate.

The fund, which has assets of $145.1 million, was restructured on July 30 and now contains 12 metals and energy commodities, Commerzbank said on its website.

"I think that more and more investors are sensitive to banks' exposure to agriculture. In the last 12 months there's been lots of discussion about ethical investment," said David Bicchetti, economics affairs officer at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

In March, Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, said it would not issue new investment products in agricultural commodities this year while it researches the impact of investment in commodities on food prices.

The food commodities desk is said to be the largest operated by Goldman Sachs.

Arctic Sea Ice Isn't Just for Polar Bears

The Arctic is about more than ice and polar bears.  Much, much more.

Most of us by now have become familiar with El Nino or his ugly stepsister, La Nina, that are lumped together as something called ENSO, the "southern oscillation."   They each bring droughts and floods only in different places.  But they originate in the south Pacific Ocean.

Now, thanks to man-made global warming, we have created something similar in the Arctic.   The loss of sea ice warms the waters of the Arctic Ocean and that, in turn, warms the atmosphere in the Arctic region enough to produce some powerful effects in other parts of the northern hemisphere.

Do you remember Britain went through a period of sustained drought that appeared to be endless until the recent bout of flooding hit?   Rivers were drying up.   The entire place was looking at water rationing throughout this summer.   Soggy old Britain was going bone dry.   That just doesn't happen.   And so the Brits' Hadley climate research centre went looking for answers - and found just what it was looking for.

The Arctic is usually a low pressure zone in winter.   Not so much anymore.   With the ice melt and the warming Arctic Ocean, it's now capable of building a powerful high pressure zone in winter.  That Arctic high pressure was what gave Britain its winter drought and what brought unseasonably mild winter conditions to eastern and central North America this year.

Now Brits are being warned that their "damp days" are probably over.

"...scientists at the Met Office's world-renowned Hadley research centre in Exeter, the question was not just how fast Greenland was melting, but something much trickier. They have been crunching through years of data from dozens of satellites, trying to establish whether the conditions in the Arctic circle are related to the record-breaking washout of a summer in the UK.
 "We will see lots more floods, droughts, such as we've had this year in the UK," says Peter Stott, leader of the climate change monitoring and attribution team at the Met Office. "Climate change is not a nice slow progression where the global climate warms by a few degrees. It means a much greater variability, far more extremes of weather."

...The impression that many Britons have had that summer weather has been getting worse in recent years is borne out by the data – five out of the last six years (2007-2012), have shown below-average sunshine from June to August, and in some cases well below average. All have had above-average rainfall – in some cases more than 50% above the long-term average. "It is not just a perception – we have had a run of relatively poor summers," says Stott.

This year has been the worst so far. April was the wettest on record, and so was the period from April to June. The sun was missing too – June was the second dullest recorded. Hopes that August might bring more settled weather were dashed when the first few days brought floods as far apart as Scotland and Somerset, forcing scores of people from their homes. The unseasonally wet and miserable summer may have failed to dampen the Olympic spirit but it has brought misery to thousands.

Nor has the UK been alone in suffering extreme weather. In the US, the eastern seaboard has been hit by heatwaves and storms but even worse has been the "dustbowl effect" in Texas and across much of the nation's agricultural heartland. India's monsoon failed to appear on schedule, leaving millions of farmers in the subcontinent facing destitution. Floods in Beijing, after the heaviest rainfall in 60 years, caused devastation to millions.

...Last month, the Met Office and NOAA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published a groundbreaking report that showed recent events could be attributed to human causes. Last year's unseasonally warm November in the UK – the second hottest since records began in 1659 – was shown to be at least 60 times more likely to have happened because of climate change than because of natural variations in the earth's weather systems.

 ...Earlier this year, two US scientists published a paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggesting that the meandering of the jet stream could be linked to the reduction in sea ice. Edward Hanna, reader in climate science at the University of Sheffield, who is taking part in similar research, explains: "The last six summers since 2007, while often rather cool and wet over the UK, have brought Greenland unusually high air pressure, mild southerly winds, record-breaking temperatures and melting of the land ice." The link, he believes, is that Arctic sea-ice losses and the release of heat over the Arctic Ocean have tended to weaken the jet stream and make it more meandering. This has brought more low pressures over Britain, less stable conditions, more cloud cover and rain-bearing weather systems from the Atlantic.

This year, the jet stream moved much more than usual, passing south of the UK. It also persisted in this position for an unusually long time. If this pushing of the jet stream southward is indeed linked to less sea ice over the Arctic circle, as Hanna suspects, then the signs are that we will see many more of these wet summers in future.

...The majority of the most valuable data we have amassed – including the images of Greenland's surface melting – comes from between 20 and 30 satellites that are now under threat. Ageing satellites are being removed from orbit and not replaced, while those that remain are at ever greater risk of buffeting from the debris that now litters space. "There is a severe danger of not being able to see so clearly [from space] in future with the fall-out of satellites, uncertain government funding and so on," says Kate Willett of the Hadley Centre.

Unless the satellite data continues to stream down, we will never know whether the UK is at risk of a new age of drizzly summers and dry winters, and drought alternating with flooding.
Meanwhile in Greenland, inhabitants have been basking in an almost unheard-of heat, regularly topping 20C, with a succession of dry sunny days dominating the weather over the past two months. "It's been lovely here, much warmer than usual – we've really been enjoying a nice summer," says Henrik Stendal from his offices in Nuuk, the capital. British staycationers can only shiver in envy."

You see, it's all connected.   The impacts of climate change in one place reverberate powerfully elsewhere.   These aren't distant predictions.  They're here now and they're here to stay.   Sure they'll grow and worsen over time and with every supertanker of bitumen we send to Asia we speed that process along just a little bit.

About That Other Shoe, The One That Just Dropped

There is an enormous amount of water stored underground in aquifers.   Or, at least, there used to be.  A lot of it is actually "fossil" water, H2O that's been trapped underground for, well, forever sort of.  But one of the things we became really good at during the 20th century was pumping that ancient water out of the depths, bringing it to the surface and using it for a lot of things but primarily crop irrigation.   With all that water we grew all sorts of food and with that food we grew all sorts of people and even tripled our numbers in less than one human lifetime.   Neat trick, eh?

Not so much.  We paid far too much attention on getting that groundwater to the surface and not nearly enough to just how it got into the ground in the first place.   Easy come, easy go... easy gone. 

Now, guess who's running out of groundwater?   The United States, check.   India, check.   China, check.  Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, check.

Canadian hydrologist Tom Gleeson put it bluntly. "Over a quarter of the world's population live in these regions where groundwater is being overused."

Many places are rapidly pumping out "fossil" water, or water that was laid down sometimes thousands of years ago and cannot be replaced on a human timescale.

Seeking a yardstick of sustainability, the study creates a measure called the groundwater footprint.

It calculates the area of land sustained by extracted water and compares this to the size of the aquifer beneath.

The global groundwater footprint is a whopping 3.5 times the size of the world's aquifers, the study found.

"Humans are over-exploiting groundwater in many large aquifers that are crucial to agriculture, especially in North America and Asia," said Gleeson.

"Irrigation for agriculture is largely causing the problem but it is already impacting in some regions the ability to use groundwater for irrigation, so it is almost like a self-reinforcing problem."

According to the UN report, extraction from aquifers has tripled in the past 50 years and now accounts for nearly half of all drinking water today.

Last month's issue of Harper's magazine  ran Wil Hylton's piece, "Broken Heartland, The Looming Collapse of Agriculture on the Great Plains."    It explored the looming collapse of America's once mighty Ogallala aquifer that lies beneath eight - count'em eight - of the states that comprise America's vaunted "bread basket."

"Ancient, epic, apparently endless, it is the largest subterranean water supply in the country, with an estimated capacity of a million-billion gallons, providing nearly a third of all American groundwater irrigation. If the aquifer were somehow raised to the surface, it would cover a larger area than any freshwater lake on Earth - by a factor of five."

"No one worried about the aquifer. To farmers it seemed a bottomless reserve, generating the same outlandish volume no matter how many straws went in. Soon there were hundreds of thousands of wells producing the same reliable flow, year after year, without any evident stress.

"Then, during the early 1990s, farmers throughout the Great Plains began to notice a decline in their wells. Irrigation systems from the Dakotas to Texas dipped, and, in some places, have been abandoned entirely."

About a third of the Ogallala is now down to less than 30-feet of water that's still being pumped out at about 5-feet a year.   By 2030, most of the rest of it will be in the same condition.  I think, I hope, you can see where this could be heading.

With the hydrological cycle we've enjoyed for millennia now broken, leaving most parts of the world to endure severe flooding or severe drought or both, that groundwater is needed now more than ever and yet, where it's needed most, it's nearing exhaustion.   

India, China, Pakistan all face surface water threats and groundwater exhaustion and they're all more reliant than ever on Himalayan headwaters and they're all armed with nuclear weapons.  And the United States is determined to get in on the South and East Asian tensions.

Shit, oh dear.

Harper's Dodgy Deal with Blackwater

From 2006 to 2008 the Harper government maintained an apparently illegal contract with Blackwater for the training of special forces troops and police officers.   Blackwater was supposed to disclose the deal and seek U.S. State Department approvals which it didn't.

Blackwater, now known as Academi LLC, is trying to fend off prosecution for illegally arming and training foreign forces.

Even for Harper, This is Perverse

The people of the African Sahel are in a bad way.   You might even say that they're the poster boy for global warming.   Make that anthropogenic, or man-made, global warming which as the deluge of scientific research reports steadily confirms is largely the result of our profligate burning of fossil fuels.

Among fossil fuels, Canadian bitumen is one of the filthiest, most carbon intensive of all.   So our rush to extract bitumen and get it onto the market actually enhances greenhouse gas emissions of the sort that are cooking the poor folk of the Sahel.   But wait, Harper has an idea!   He thinks you ought to send a few bucks to the Sahel victims and Ottawa will match your contribution, presumably out of bitumen royalties - or your taxes.

Ottawa has established a relief fund for the troubled Sahel region, International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino said, adding that Canadians themselves will dictate how much money comes out of the federal coffers.

The government will match Canadians' donations to registered charities supporting the Sahel region between Aug. 7 and Sept.

30, Fantino said. Ottawa has already made an initial $10 million contribution to the matching fund.

"Right now, millions of women, men and children in the Sahel are suffering from hunger and severe malnutrition," Fantino said in a statement. "This is absolutely unacceptable. With generosity from Canadians, we can do more to respond to this crisis and support people in dire need."

The hypocrisy of this government in flatly ignoring the contributory role its energy policy plays in the plight of the Sahel and other regions impacted by climate change is breathtaking.   No, it's more than that.   It's simply perverse.

Blackwater Buys Time

Academi LLC, better known by its earlier name, Blackwater, has forked over $7.5-million to buy a "Deferred Prosecution Agreement" from the U.S. government.

The case focuses on allegations that Blackwater misled the U.S. government about arming and training foreign governments.

The company isn't off the hook.  Blackwater Academi has bought a 36-month reprieve during which it can  try to persuade the Justice Department that any bad stuff was done by the previous management/owners, not the Academi crew.

The company has, however, stipulated to a bunch of bad stuff that did happen under the previous management, most of which is detailed here.

"Academi has the next three years to essentially prove to the Justice Department that all of this is a relic of the firm’s bad old days, before it came under new ownership and hired legal compliance officers. It may not have an easy case to make. Two employees who worked for Academi under its current management are suing the company for wrongful termination after they blew the whistle on a third employee’s attempts to fake the results of a gun test for Afghan security forces. The Justice Department may not be done with Academi/Blackwater yet."

Gearing Up For War With China?

An Australian defence expert says America is playing a dangerous and potentially disastrous game with China.

The American plan, known in Washington as Air-Sea Battle, is strategically flawed, Australia's foremost regional defence expert, Hugh White, said, and risks escalating a US-China struggle to the level of nuclear strikes. It is also known to have angered the Chinese military, and the confirmation is likely to be viewed with displeasure in Beijing.

The confirmation was provided by Admiral Dennis Blair, a straight-talking Asia expert who until 2010 was Mr Obama's director of national intelligence. Before that he led the US Pacific Command, which represents about a fifth of the US military machine.

 When asked about Air-Sea Battle and whether it directly related to China, Admiral Blair said: ''I'm not in the Pentagon any more, so I can't say [what] that [is] in particular, but it doesn't take any classified piece of information to let you know that countries like Iran and China … have taken advantage of technology in terms of submarines and missiles to be able to keep US maritime and air forces at a distance.''

As a result, he said, it was the job of US military commanders to ''figure out ways that we can send our forces to conduct military operations despite these sorts of threats''.

''I don't doubt for a moment … that the real target of the Air-Sea Battle is China,'' said Professor White, the author of a just-published book on the US-China relationship, The China Choice.

Professor White is also a strong critic of Air-Sea Battle, which he says has three fundamental problems. ''Firstly, I don't think it will work; second, even if it does work operationally it won't achieve its strategic aims; and thirdly it runs a very strong sense of escalating to a nuclear war.''

Professor White said the battle plan was also an old 20th century concept that is being repackaged for a 21st century enemy.

''The US has always done sea control in the Pacific, but what's changed? The enemy has changed. And he has a boat, as they say,'' Professor White said.

Last May, Wired magazine published an account of Operation  Chimichanga, an exercise conducted in Alaska that simulated a stealth, first-strike on China.

"China is steadily improving its air defenses. To make sure the bombers can get through, the Air Force plans to send fully-stealthy warplanes in first. The Northrop Grumman B-2 stealth bomber is the ideal trailblazer, as it proved over Libya when three B-2s knocked out the bulk of Libya’s radars, missiles and airfields in a single pass. But the Air Force possesses just 20 B-2s, only a handful of which are combat-ready at any moment."

Not only does the USAF have just 20 B-2s, it is crippled in having just 150 F-22s of limited operational reliability.   The warplane America is banking on for its Air-Sea Battle with China is the one Canada is so determined to buy, the F-35 stealth light attack bomber.   And, given the fact that the 35's stealth technology is admittedly "perishable" it would seem to argue that someone intends to use it sooner rather than later.   And there you have the best possible reason Canada should steer clear of Lockheed's first-strike light bomber.

Mr. Harper, If It's Science That You Really Want

The Prince of Darkness says he'll let "science" determine the fate of the Northern Gateway and, presumably, Kinder-Morgan bitumen trafficking proposals.

Harper insisted Tuesday a decision on major projects such as the Northern Gateway will be made independently by scientists examining the “economic costs and risks” associated with the project.

Science, what science?   The science of economic costs?

The Northern Gateway could invite a great deal of scientific scrutiny.   He might begin by looking at bitumen trafficking from a climate science perspective.   What are the scientific implications of piping dil-bit to the coast, transporting however much of it isn't lost to tanker catastrophes to China, refining it into a usable product in China and then burning it in some end use.   Hydrographers, oceanographers and marine biologists might have some insights into the probable consequences of a supertanker disaster in Vancouver harbour or out in the Hecate Strait or Dixon Entrance.

Who is to explore the economic costs to the climate ravaged corners of the world from the hefty carbon emissions associated with the filthiest fossil fuel on the planet?   What science will examine the risks of a pipeline operated by Enbridge?   Isn't that something best left to professional gamblers, seasoned odds-makers?

And, about these scientists.   Will they be gagged as you have gagged all government scientists since you came to office?   Will they be assigned minders, handlers if you will, in keeping with your Stalinist ways?   Will your Commissars be unleashed to "tell" the public what these scientists supposedly conclude?

Steve, you promised Canada so much - honesty, accountability, transparency.   You promised that explicitly.   And then you delivered dishonesty, unaccountability, ironclad secrecy instead.   And, having shown yourself to be, hands down, the least democratic prime minister in Canadian history, you want us to believe some fanciful tale about scientists making the call on the Northern Gateway and similar projects?   The last thing you're going to want is honest science.