British Columbia's beleaguered premier, perhaps the most unpopular pol in Canada, may be falling on his sword - at last. That bastion of reliable news, the National Post, says Gordon Campbell will be arriving in front of reporters just about now to make an announcement expected to be notice of his retirement.
We live in hope.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
UCS to Fight Back Against Republican Denialists
The Union of Concerned Scientists wasted no time in announcing they won't put up with the climate change denialism spreading through the Republican ranks. Here's a glimpse into what they're up against:
"With the possible exception of Tiger Woods, nothing has had a worse year than global warming. We have discovered that a good portion of the science used to justify "climate change" was a hoax perpetrated by leftist ideologues with an agenda."
—Todd Young, new congressperson from Indiana
"I absolutely do not believe that the science of man-caused climate change is proven. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it’s far more likely that it’s just sunspot activity or something just in the geologic eons of time where we have changes in the climate." —Ron Johnson, new senator from Wisconsin
"I think we ought to take a look at whatever the group is that measures all this, the IPCC, they don't even believe the crap." —Steve Pearce, new congressperson from New Mexico
"It's a bigger issue, we need to watch 'em. Not only because it may or may not be true, but they're making up their facts to fit their conclusions. They've already caught 'em doing this." —Rand Paul, new senator from Kentucky
"There isn't any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth." —Roy Blunt, new senator from Missouri.
The UCS says they'll work to expose climate change misinformation and the people and companies behind this well-funded effort.
"...when it comes right down to it, the public's confidence in science and scientists remains high. In fact, just last night in California we saw a tangible example of science trumping industry spin, when voters thwarted an aggressive attempt by out-of-state oil companies to kill the state's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act.
...The truth of the matter is that it's been difficult to move Congress for months. The people who are supposed to be representing our interests in the nation's capitol have been too busy carrying water for narrow corporate interests rather than coming together to make real, positive change."
There have been promising signs of a movement afoot to expose and challenge these miscreants, both in the United States and in Europe. Canada needs to do the same.
One particular example of made-in-Canada greenwash comes to mind. I suppose it's no surprise that it eminates from the Tar Sands. It shows a Tar Sands worker who says he's concerned about the environment and that's why his company is now using saltwater pumped out of deep aquifers for its bitumen processing. The pitch is they're sparing the environment by not using surface freshwater.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Until you ask "what then?" Saltwater is toxic to a freshwater environment. Among other things it sterilizes soil, renders it unusable (that's why the Romans used salt to leave Carthage uninhabitable). So they've pumped this saltwater to the surface and loaded it with Tar Sands tailings but what do they end up with beyond even more toxic tailing ponds? Just how are they going to recover and dispose of all that salt? It just greenwash for the gullible.
"With the possible exception of Tiger Woods, nothing has had a worse year than global warming. We have discovered that a good portion of the science used to justify "climate change" was a hoax perpetrated by leftist ideologues with an agenda."
—Todd Young, new congressperson from Indiana
"I absolutely do not believe that the science of man-caused climate change is proven. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it’s far more likely that it’s just sunspot activity or something just in the geologic eons of time where we have changes in the climate." —Ron Johnson, new senator from Wisconsin
"I think we ought to take a look at whatever the group is that measures all this, the IPCC, they don't even believe the crap." —Steve Pearce, new congressperson from New Mexico
"It's a bigger issue, we need to watch 'em. Not only because it may or may not be true, but they're making up their facts to fit their conclusions. They've already caught 'em doing this." —Rand Paul, new senator from Kentucky
"There isn't any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth." —Roy Blunt, new senator from Missouri.
The UCS says they'll work to expose climate change misinformation and the people and companies behind this well-funded effort.
"...when it comes right down to it, the public's confidence in science and scientists remains high. In fact, just last night in California we saw a tangible example of science trumping industry spin, when voters thwarted an aggressive attempt by out-of-state oil companies to kill the state's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act.
...The truth of the matter is that it's been difficult to move Congress for months. The people who are supposed to be representing our interests in the nation's capitol have been too busy carrying water for narrow corporate interests rather than coming together to make real, positive change."
There have been promising signs of a movement afoot to expose and challenge these miscreants, both in the United States and in Europe. Canada needs to do the same.
One particular example of made-in-Canada greenwash comes to mind. I suppose it's no surprise that it eminates from the Tar Sands. It shows a Tar Sands worker who says he's concerned about the environment and that's why his company is now using saltwater pumped out of deep aquifers for its bitumen processing. The pitch is they're sparing the environment by not using surface freshwater.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Until you ask "what then?" Saltwater is toxic to a freshwater environment. Among other things it sterilizes soil, renders it unusable (that's why the Romans used salt to leave Carthage uninhabitable). So they've pumped this saltwater to the surface and loaded it with Tar Sands tailings but what do they end up with beyond even more toxic tailing ponds? Just how are they going to recover and dispose of all that salt? It just greenwash for the gullible.
In Southern California - Better Dead Than Republican
Southern California voters last night re-elected a dead Democrat over a living, breathing Republican.
Democrat Jenny Oropeza swept a Southern California district in the race for Senate on Tuesday with 58% of the vote. Unfortunately, Jenny passed away two weeks ago but her name remained on the ballot.
The Repugs are naturally crying "foul" as though their candidate ought to have won by default. The Dems contend that the vote for dead Jenny merely means the voters have endorsed a special election with a new Democratic candidate in four months.
Remember Bush's minion, John Ashcroft, also lost a Senate election to a dead man? After that resounding vote of confidence, Bush brought Ashcroft into his cabinet. Oh well.
Democrat Jenny Oropeza swept a Southern California district in the race for Senate on Tuesday with 58% of the vote. Unfortunately, Jenny passed away two weeks ago but her name remained on the ballot.
The Repugs are naturally crying "foul" as though their candidate ought to have won by default. The Dems contend that the vote for dead Jenny merely means the voters have endorsed a special election with a new Democratic candidate in four months.
Remember Bush's minion, John Ashcroft, also lost a Senate election to a dead man? After that resounding vote of confidence, Bush brought Ashcroft into his cabinet. Oh well.
Imagine a Future In Balance
Like it or not, you're about to get a lot smaller. We all are. The question is whether our civilization accepts the fact in time to control our shrinkage or we do nothing and wait until it lands on us with a thud.
It's inescapable. We have built a way of life, a lifestyle that is unsustainable. Think "overshoot." Earth Overshoot Day now falls on August 21. That's the day on which mankind consumes an entire year's supply of renewables. As of today, humankind has already consumed 131 per cent of our planet's capacity to produce renewable resources (and you've still got 51 shopping days til Christmas). Beginning on August 22, we become dependent on consuming nature's accumulated reserves. It's estimated that in twenty years we'll be consuming renewables at twice their renewal rate if we can find enough reserves to keep going that long.
How can that be? It's easy and you can see it, you can feel it, you can measure it. It is manifest. The evidence of it is seen in things that no longer are:
Deforestation. Satellite imagery will show the spreading regions where trees are being felled faster than they regrow. These vast forests are sometimes called the "lungs of the planet."
Desertification. In order to produce agricultural products to feed an unsustainable level of demand, we're working arable soil to exhaustion. China is a perfect example of that and the evidence is in those dramatic photos of dust storms sweeping into Chinese cities or the dust plumes that at times stretch all the way across the Pacific.
Fisheries collapse. You don't get to see that because (a) the surviving fish are underwater and (b) you probably don't spend a lot of time with the industrial fishing fleets and (c) we're still rich enough that we can stock our shelves while Third World countries - those that actually depend on fish for protein - go without. The proof of these collapses is in those empty shelves in the poorest countries and the fact that we continue to "fish down the food chain," pursuing less desirable stocks (stuff we used to reject) as we exhaust the more desirable species.
And then there's the hellspawn of them all, the freshwater crisis. Even the rich can't dodge this one. Around the world rivers are becoming contaminated, unusable. Worse yet is the rate at which we consume freshwater stocks. Once mighty rivers like the Colorado no longer flow to the sea. Their waters are consumed long before they get near the sea. And we've run this agricultural Ponzi scheme, the vaunted Green Revolution, on groundwater. To do that we pumped massive quantities of freshwater from our aquifers ignoring the rate at which nature could refill them. Take a full water bottle and put two straws in it. One feeds water into that bottle at X ounces a minute. You drink through the other straw, drawing 10X ounces per minute out of the bottle. You're headed for the bottom, aren't you?
These are some of the problems we're facing. There are others (think Peak Oil for example). These aren't future problems, they're here now (remember I told you, we can see them from satellites) and they're getting worse. Three years ago Earth Overshoot Day was in October. Now it's moved up to August. It's accelerating as it must and it doesn't end well. Yet we can't even come up with a meaningful way to arrest global warming.
So what are the answers? First we have to accept that these are global problems that threaten all of mankind, our very civilization. Second, we have to accept that we all must commit to the sacrifices needed to come into balance with our biosphere, the only one we've got, Earth. This is going to be tough because the impacts are arriving in different places at varying rates and differing severity. It's natural to say, "I don't have to worry about it, I've got water," but all you're really saying is, "I don't care, you go first." Because what is happening already to the most vulnerable regions will reach you in due course. It may arrive in a somewhat different form. It could be war instead of famine, for example. But it will arrive on your doorstep in some form, eventually.
You have to reject supposed leaders who won't even mention overshoot or what that means for you and your family. We, as a people, give them our collective power specifically to deal with this very sort of threat. It's not their right to ignore issues this fundamental, of this magnitude, because it may be politically inconvenient.
Oh yes, there's one other option. You can stick your head in the sand and get blue in the face with indignation over census forms or gun registries. We'll probably all pay dearly for that in twenty or thirty years but you can certainly dodge the problem altogether - until it's too late.
It's inescapable. We have built a way of life, a lifestyle that is unsustainable. Think "overshoot." Earth Overshoot Day now falls on August 21. That's the day on which mankind consumes an entire year's supply of renewables. As of today, humankind has already consumed 131 per cent of our planet's capacity to produce renewable resources (and you've still got 51 shopping days til Christmas). Beginning on August 22, we become dependent on consuming nature's accumulated reserves. It's estimated that in twenty years we'll be consuming renewables at twice their renewal rate if we can find enough reserves to keep going that long.
How can that be? It's easy and you can see it, you can feel it, you can measure it. It is manifest. The evidence of it is seen in things that no longer are:
Deforestation. Satellite imagery will show the spreading regions where trees are being felled faster than they regrow. These vast forests are sometimes called the "lungs of the planet."
Desertification. In order to produce agricultural products to feed an unsustainable level of demand, we're working arable soil to exhaustion. China is a perfect example of that and the evidence is in those dramatic photos of dust storms sweeping into Chinese cities or the dust plumes that at times stretch all the way across the Pacific.
Fisheries collapse. You don't get to see that because (a) the surviving fish are underwater and (b) you probably don't spend a lot of time with the industrial fishing fleets and (c) we're still rich enough that we can stock our shelves while Third World countries - those that actually depend on fish for protein - go without. The proof of these collapses is in those empty shelves in the poorest countries and the fact that we continue to "fish down the food chain," pursuing less desirable stocks (stuff we used to reject) as we exhaust the more desirable species.
And then there's the hellspawn of them all, the freshwater crisis. Even the rich can't dodge this one. Around the world rivers are becoming contaminated, unusable. Worse yet is the rate at which we consume freshwater stocks. Once mighty rivers like the Colorado no longer flow to the sea. Their waters are consumed long before they get near the sea. And we've run this agricultural Ponzi scheme, the vaunted Green Revolution, on groundwater. To do that we pumped massive quantities of freshwater from our aquifers ignoring the rate at which nature could refill them. Take a full water bottle and put two straws in it. One feeds water into that bottle at X ounces a minute. You drink through the other straw, drawing 10X ounces per minute out of the bottle. You're headed for the bottom, aren't you?
These are some of the problems we're facing. There are others (think Peak Oil for example). These aren't future problems, they're here now (remember I told you, we can see them from satellites) and they're getting worse. Three years ago Earth Overshoot Day was in October. Now it's moved up to August. It's accelerating as it must and it doesn't end well. Yet we can't even come up with a meaningful way to arrest global warming.
So what are the answers? First we have to accept that these are global problems that threaten all of mankind, our very civilization. Second, we have to accept that we all must commit to the sacrifices needed to come into balance with our biosphere, the only one we've got, Earth. This is going to be tough because the impacts are arriving in different places at varying rates and differing severity. It's natural to say, "I don't have to worry about it, I've got water," but all you're really saying is, "I don't care, you go first." Because what is happening already to the most vulnerable regions will reach you in due course. It may arrive in a somewhat different form. It could be war instead of famine, for example. But it will arrive on your doorstep in some form, eventually.
You have to reject supposed leaders who won't even mention overshoot or what that means for you and your family. We, as a people, give them our collective power specifically to deal with this very sort of threat. It's not their right to ignore issues this fundamental, of this magnitude, because it may be politically inconvenient.
Oh yes, there's one other option. You can stick your head in the sand and get blue in the face with indignation over census forms or gun registries. We'll probably all pay dearly for that in twenty or thirty years but you can certainly dodge the problem altogether - until it's too late.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
A Question In Need of an Answer
Is climate change disinformation a crime against humanity? That question is posed in today's Guardian. It's not as unreasonable as it may at first sound.
If you're in a crowded, dark theatre and suddenly yell "fire" causing a stampede for the exits in which people are trampled to death, you're criminally responsible for killing them. The stampede and the deaths are the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your act. You don't have to actually intend to kill those people but it was foreseeable that it could well happen. You are deemed to intend the logical and foreseeable consequences of your act.
So what of those who deliberately sow falsehoods about global warming? We know global warming is going to kill people, it already is. We know if it's not effectively dealt with it could cause scores of millions to die. That is reasonably foreseeable.
Donald Brown, an associate professor in environmental ethics, science and law at Penn State University argues that climate change disinformation deserves to be punished:
Although there is an important role for scepticism in science, for almost 30 years some corporations have supported a disinformation campaign about climate change science.
While it may be reasonable to be somewhat sceptical about climate change models, these untruths are not based upon reasonable scepticism but outright falsification and distortions of climate change science.
These claims have included assertions that the science of climate change has been completely "debunked" and that there is no evidence of human causation of recent observed warming. There are numerous lines of evidence that point to human causation even if it is not a completely settled matter. Reasonable scepticism cannot claim that there is no evidence of causation and some other claims frequently being made by the well-financed climate change disinformation campaign, and they amount to an utter distortion of a body of evidence that the world needs to understand to protect itself from huge potential harms.
Threats from climate change include deaths and danger from droughts, floods, heat, storm-related damages, rising oceans, heat impacts on agriculture, loss of animals that are dependent upon for substance purposes, social disputes caused by diminishing resources, sickness from a variety of diseases, the inability to rely upon traditional sources of food, the inability to use property that people depend upon to conduct their life including houses or sleds in cold places, the destruction of water supplies, and the inability to live where has lived to sustain life. The very existence of some small island nations is threatened by climate change.
As long as there is any chance that climate change could create this type of destruction, even assuming, for the sake of argument, that these dangers are not yet fully proven, disinformation about the state of climate change science is extraordinarily morally reprehensible if it leads to non-action in reducing climate change's threat. In fact, how to deal with uncertainty in climate change science is an ethical issue, not only a scientific matter, because the consequences of delay could be so severe and the poorest people in the world as some of the most vulnerable.
Brown's argument is focused on those who deliberately or recklessly spread climate change disinformation. That is distinct from those who are merely skeptics and have some genuine basis for challenging the scientific consensus.
This is a difficult question to answer but I'll bet in 20-years the answer will be at our fingertips.
If you're in a crowded, dark theatre and suddenly yell "fire" causing a stampede for the exits in which people are trampled to death, you're criminally responsible for killing them. The stampede and the deaths are the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your act. You don't have to actually intend to kill those people but it was foreseeable that it could well happen. You are deemed to intend the logical and foreseeable consequences of your act.
So what of those who deliberately sow falsehoods about global warming? We know global warming is going to kill people, it already is. We know if it's not effectively dealt with it could cause scores of millions to die. That is reasonably foreseeable.
Donald Brown, an associate professor in environmental ethics, science and law at Penn State University argues that climate change disinformation deserves to be punished:
Although there is an important role for scepticism in science, for almost 30 years some corporations have supported a disinformation campaign about climate change science.
While it may be reasonable to be somewhat sceptical about climate change models, these untruths are not based upon reasonable scepticism but outright falsification and distortions of climate change science.
These claims have included assertions that the science of climate change has been completely "debunked" and that there is no evidence of human causation of recent observed warming. There are numerous lines of evidence that point to human causation even if it is not a completely settled matter. Reasonable scepticism cannot claim that there is no evidence of causation and some other claims frequently being made by the well-financed climate change disinformation campaign, and they amount to an utter distortion of a body of evidence that the world needs to understand to protect itself from huge potential harms.
Threats from climate change include deaths and danger from droughts, floods, heat, storm-related damages, rising oceans, heat impacts on agriculture, loss of animals that are dependent upon for substance purposes, social disputes caused by diminishing resources, sickness from a variety of diseases, the inability to rely upon traditional sources of food, the inability to use property that people depend upon to conduct their life including houses or sleds in cold places, the destruction of water supplies, and the inability to live where has lived to sustain life. The very existence of some small island nations is threatened by climate change.
As long as there is any chance that climate change could create this type of destruction, even assuming, for the sake of argument, that these dangers are not yet fully proven, disinformation about the state of climate change science is extraordinarily morally reprehensible if it leads to non-action in reducing climate change's threat. In fact, how to deal with uncertainty in climate change science is an ethical issue, not only a scientific matter, because the consequences of delay could be so severe and the poorest people in the world as some of the most vulnerable.
Brown's argument is focused on those who deliberately or recklessly spread climate change disinformation. That is distinct from those who are merely skeptics and have some genuine basis for challenging the scientific consensus.
This is a difficult question to answer but I'll bet in 20-years the answer will be at our fingertips.
India, Land of Destabilizing Extremes
India is a land of extremes. It has an extremely high percentage of its extremely large population living in extreme poverty. It also has an extremely small percentage of extremely wealthy living in extreme luxury.
First and foremost of India's elite is Mukesh Ambani, India's wealthiest man, who has just moved into a new home along with his mother, wife and their three children. The 'home', pegged at a cost between $1-2 billion, comprises 27-overheight stories that bring it to the size of a 60-story tower. The house, called "Antilla," comes complete with 600-servants. At 37,000 square meters, it's larger than Versailles. Asia Times reports that Ambani's new digs are raising a few eyebrows:
Ambani's castle in the sky has generated heated debate in India and outside. While some have gushed about its "post-modern" look or praised it as an iconic home that will inspire others to aspire for more, others have dismissed it as "obscenely lavish" and a "visual eyesore." Indeed, from the outside it does look like a tall pile of books of varying sizes.
More damning are the ethical questions being raised. How can Ambani live in a billion dollar home when the vast majority of people in this country live in conditions of abject poverty? Around 37,000 square meters of floor space for a family of six, in a country where it is normal for a family of that size to live in a single room and share a single toilet with hundreds of others in the neighborhood, seems not just excessive but obscene.
It's hard to see how India will negotiate its economic ascendancy without seismic social upheaval. In a nation almost entirely in the "definitely have-not" category it won't be hard for some firebrand to mobilize the public against the ostentatious wealth of the very few. People like Ambani with his genuinely stupid house are practically begging to be scapegoated. In a land of such extremes, Antilla is a profoundly extreme provocation.
Harper Cons Counting on Repugs to Dodge Carbon Emissions Initiatives
Canada's laughing stock environment minister, Jumpin Jim Prentice, figures a Republican victory in today's mid-term elections will put a North American cap-and-trade plan safely on the back burner.
Baghdad, Mexico
In October, the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez logged 352 murders. Those numbers are reminiscent of the bad old days of Baghdad in 2006 to 2007. Baghdad has a population of roughly 7.4-million. Juarez, Mexico's fifth largest city, has approximately 2-million residents.
14-young people, age 13 to 30, were gunned down at a birthday party. Overall, 48 of the dead were women - housewives, police officers, students, young girls. The year to date has claimed 272 female victims.
While October sets a record for Juarez, it's a record that's been steadily climbing all year. Juarez is situated just across the border from El Paso, Texas astride one of the major drug-smuggling routes into the U.S.
How is it we're quite content to spend a decade banging away at Afghans on the other side of the world but we can't make the same effort for a neighbouring country beset by drug cartel violence?
14-young people, age 13 to 30, were gunned down at a birthday party. Overall, 48 of the dead were women - housewives, police officers, students, young girls. The year to date has claimed 272 female victims.
While October sets a record for Juarez, it's a record that's been steadily climbing all year. Juarez is situated just across the border from El Paso, Texas astride one of the major drug-smuggling routes into the U.S.
How is it we're quite content to spend a decade banging away at Afghans on the other side of the world but we can't make the same effort for a neighbouring country beset by drug cartel violence?
When Afghans Give Up Hope
She's been called the "bravest woman in Afghanistan" and now Malalai Joya is calling pretty much everything we've done in and to Afghanistan in the name of democracy an utter failure. From The Guardian:
The vast majority of Afghans have lost all hope in Karzai. For us his words and actions have no value, and that includes his latest "peace negotiations" and other measures. Including killers like Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the government is not about negotiating for peace, but completing the decades-old circle of warlordism and fundamentalism.
It's important to say that these so-called elections haven't damaged Afghanistan as much as the US and its Nato allies have, with their bombing and occupation. Wikileaks has exposed some of the truth about the civilian toll of this war against the Afghan and Iraqi peoples. Afghans hold the US and Nato, and their puppet Karzai, responsible for these war crimes. They claim to fight terrorism, but in fact they are the biggest terrorists in the eyes of our people because of their crimes and brutalities.
Unfortunately the Afghan people are not yet strong enough to drive out the US, overthrow the mafia government of Karzai and bring an end to the crimes of the Taliban and other fundamentalists. Our history proves that this resistance to occupation will continue until we have won our freedom. Until both the US and the fundamentalists – of both the Northern Alliance and Taliban brands – are driven out of power in Afghanistan, we cannot see a bright future. It is now more than five years since I was elected to the Afghan parliament. My experience of this "democratic process" was to see my microphone cut off, and to be threatened with death by other MPs – many of whom teamed up to remove me illegally from my seat. My case alone is enough to prove that women's rights in Afghanistan have not truly been safeguarded – our situation was just invoked to justify the war.
The vast majority of Afghans have lost all hope in Karzai. For us his words and actions have no value, and that includes his latest "peace negotiations" and other measures. Including killers like Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the government is not about negotiating for peace, but completing the decades-old circle of warlordism and fundamentalism.
It's important to say that these so-called elections haven't damaged Afghanistan as much as the US and its Nato allies have, with their bombing and occupation. Wikileaks has exposed some of the truth about the civilian toll of this war against the Afghan and Iraqi peoples. Afghans hold the US and Nato, and their puppet Karzai, responsible for these war crimes. They claim to fight terrorism, but in fact they are the biggest terrorists in the eyes of our people because of their crimes and brutalities.
Unfortunately the Afghan people are not yet strong enough to drive out the US, overthrow the mafia government of Karzai and bring an end to the crimes of the Taliban and other fundamentalists. Our history proves that this resistance to occupation will continue until we have won our freedom. Until both the US and the fundamentalists – of both the Northern Alliance and Taliban brands – are driven out of power in Afghanistan, we cannot see a bright future. It is now more than five years since I was elected to the Afghan parliament. My experience of this "democratic process" was to see my microphone cut off, and to be threatened with death by other MPs – many of whom teamed up to remove me illegally from my seat. My case alone is enough to prove that women's rights in Afghanistan have not truly been safeguarded – our situation was just invoked to justify the war.
What Teddy Roosevelt Would Say to American Voters Today
Americans entering polling booths today navigate through a nation beset by radical, rightwing manipulations and contrivances. There is a great delusion in that country afflicting public perception and blurring the public's memory. Many people find wisdom in utter nutjobs like Rand Paul or Sarah Palin and embrace the diet of lies they're spoonfed by the minions of special interest like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
It's lamentable that American voters don't becalm their anxieties by looking to the wisdom of their great leaders from the past. Exactly a century ago, Teddy Roosevelt delivered his "Square Deal" speech at Osawatomie, Kansas. It was a blockbuster for progressivism and it speaks quite powerfully to the plight of today's America - if only the people could hear it. What follows are some excerpts from Roosevelt's address:
"...this great Republic - means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.
...the man to whom we owe most is, of course, Lincoln. Part of our debt to him is because he forecast our present struggle and saw the way out. He said:
"I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind."
And again:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
If that remark was original with me, I should be even more strongly denounced as a Communist agitator than I shall be anyhow. It is Lincoln's. I am only quoting it; and that is one side; that is the side the capitalist should hear. Now, let the working man hear his side.
"Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.... Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; . . . property is desirable; is a positive good in the world."
In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.
At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth.
...our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.
every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make that promise good But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.
...The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.
There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains.
...The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows.
...No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered - not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective - a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.
The people of the United States suffer from periodical financial panics to a degree substantially unknown among the other nations which approach us in financial strength. There is no reason why we should suffer what they escape. It is of profound importance that our financial system should be promptly investigated, and so thoroughly and effectively revised as to make it certain that hereafter our currency will no longer fail at critical times to meet our needs.
...Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation.
...Now, with the water-power, with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face with the fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental reasons why the special interest should be driven out of politics. Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation.
...Nothing is more true than that excess of every kind is followed by reaction; a fact which should be pondered by reformer and reactionary alike. We are face to face with new conceptions of the relations of property to human welfare, chiefly because certain advocates of the rights of property as against the rights of men have been pushing their claims too far. The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.
...Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.
What Is Really At Stake Today
The face of America, both at home and abroad, will be decided today and everyone is going to have to live with the outcome for at least the next two years. The Republicans have made it clear they're not running to reinforce their position as official opposition but to get enough control in Congress to become the obstinate obstruction. Today's editorial from The New York Times reveals that rational Americans are very worried:
There are critically important decisions to be made about whether the country moves ahead with confidence or moves backward and becomes even more polarized.
Voting in Republican primaries and special elections showed what happens when moderate Americans stay home or react to the barrages of fear and intolerance. We end up with fringe candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharron Angle in Nevada. Establishment candidates then spout the same disturbing ideas. (Witness Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader, trying to act like an outsider after 18 years in the Washington power elite.)
Democrats have been far too timid to argue the case, but they, and President Obama, have done many important things in the last two years.
The Republicans have been rewriting history. They claim Mr. Obama’s economic policies are a failure and hope Americans will forget that it was President George W. Bush who turned big budget surpluses into huge deficits and whose contempt for regulation ultimately brought us to the brink of financial collapse. The Republicans want to go back to more tax cuts for the rich and more free passes for Wall Street and big corporations.
Tea Party candidates are particularly worrisome. Some want to privatize Social Security. Others want to eliminate Medicare. Betting on the Republican establishment to temper these excesses is a bad bet.
...We urge all Americans to think carefully and then vote, especially young voters who voted for the first time in 2008. Sitting on their hands is voting for Republicans, none of whom will protect these voters’ interests. There are clear choices to be made.
The editorial speaks for itself and for just how much is at stake today as Americans head to the polls. The United States does seem very much poised to move backward and become even more polarized, and we may all pay dearly for that.
There are critically important decisions to be made about whether the country moves ahead with confidence or moves backward and becomes even more polarized.
Voting in Republican primaries and special elections showed what happens when moderate Americans stay home or react to the barrages of fear and intolerance. We end up with fringe candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharron Angle in Nevada. Establishment candidates then spout the same disturbing ideas. (Witness Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader, trying to act like an outsider after 18 years in the Washington power elite.)
Democrats have been far too timid to argue the case, but they, and President Obama, have done many important things in the last two years.
The Republicans have been rewriting history. They claim Mr. Obama’s economic policies are a failure and hope Americans will forget that it was President George W. Bush who turned big budget surpluses into huge deficits and whose contempt for regulation ultimately brought us to the brink of financial collapse. The Republicans want to go back to more tax cuts for the rich and more free passes for Wall Street and big corporations.
Tea Party candidates are particularly worrisome. Some want to privatize Social Security. Others want to eliminate Medicare. Betting on the Republican establishment to temper these excesses is a bad bet.
...We urge all Americans to think carefully and then vote, especially young voters who voted for the first time in 2008. Sitting on their hands is voting for Republicans, none of whom will protect these voters’ interests. There are clear choices to be made.
The editorial speaks for itself and for just how much is at stake today as Americans head to the polls. The United States does seem very much poised to move backward and become even more polarized, and we may all pay dearly for that.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Republicans' Best Chance to Beat Obama? Destroy Palin.
It sounds as though Wednesday morning, Republican 2012 nomination candidates will be waging war - on Sarah Palin. According to Politico, Republican insiders worry that Palin could actually drum up enough support to win the Republican nomination and that would all but guarantee Barack Obama a second term in the White House.
Do Americans Deserve the Republicans?
It all sounds so insane. A country awash in debt extending tax cuts for the rich, cuts that have to be made up with even more money borrowed from foreign lenders. A country whose people's longevity and health are third rate wanting to scrap universal healthcare. A country where the white and blue collar classes are reeling from a market gone mad from deregulation now fiercely opposed to regulation. A country whose people believe that "socialism" means totalitarianism and state ownership of all property. A nation whose people believe, as pointed out by Andrew Bacevich, that liberty means affluence.
If it must be, then let it be. What can possibly be done with a people driven mad through the deliberate infliction of fear, frustration and anger? Better yet, what can possibly be done for them? Either way the answer is not very much. If they want to transform America into a Thelma & Louise act, the rest of us just have to make sure we don't jump into the back seat. If they want the Republican vision of America, the delusion, then they're going to deserve what they've got coming.
What about us? There are going to be problems. Our economy is slaved to theirs and, when they reach for that handle, we all get flushed.
Krugman predicts a Republican win will trigger at least a "double dip recession," perhaps even a full blown depression. It is widely assumed that America is charting a path to stagflation and a Japanese-style "lost decade." Except it won't be "Japanese-style" at all. Japan endured a decade of flat economic growth and deflation but - and it's a very big but - Japan was and remained a creditor nation. Japan still holds almost as much American debt as does China. America faces tumbling into its own lost decade still heavily reliant on foreign credit.
An unstable, even insolvent America presents foreign lenders with a bouquet of problems. It's one thing to lend a guy money but if you begin to suspect he's planning on paying you back just 60-cents on the dollar, the value of his business plummets. Japan and China each hold more than a trillion dollars of U.S. debt. One thing that's made that bearable for the United States is that this debt is in U.S. dollars. Today, not only is America heavily in hock to the Chinese but it is demanding the Chinese revalue their currency, the Yuan, the effect of which is to devalue the American debt China holds.
So if you're getting the shake down from the guy who still wants you to keep lending you're going to be very tempted to look for a more stable medium of exchange than the U.S. dollar. You might write new debt for another, more stable currency or basket of currencies. Dropping the greenback as the world's 'reserve currency' would be devastating for the United States. The confidence in the U.S. dollar would be undermined and the Americans would face the prospect of having to repay debt in other nations' currencies that might be very disadvantageous.
If America wasn't so heavily indebted and utterly dependent on foreign lenders, a devalued greenback might be a blessing. It would certainly make imports more expensive while making American exports more competitive. But America is heavily indebted and is dependent on foreign borrowings and there's no sign that the American people are willing to bear what changing that would mean. They truly believe they have the right to live beyond their means - in perpetuity. And once you're able to believe that, you're perfectly able to swallow everything else the Republicans are dishing up.
And so that big, blue Thunderbird convertible just keeps racing for the cliff.
Our Oh So Addicted Governments
Who is addicted to alcohol? Lots of people but, also, most governments. There is a lot of tax revenue in alcohol sales and governments have become addicted to that cashflow. That's why the sale of booze is legal.
Sure it's a drug but it isn't dangerous like marijuana or cocaine or ecstasy, is it? Well, according to a new study from British scientists, when it comes to alcohol, there really is no more harmful, destructive drug. From Reuters:
...the scientists rated alcohol the most harmful overall and almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco.
According to the scale, devised by a group of scientists including Britain's Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and an expert adviser to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), heroin and crack cocaine rank as the second and third most harmful drugs.
Ecstasy is only an eighth as harmful as alcohol, according to the scientists' analysis.
..."It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed -- alcohol and tobacco -- score in the upper segment of the ranking scale, indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal substances," [Professor David] Nutt, who was formerly head of the influential British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said in a statement about the study.
In an effort to offer a guide to policy makers in health, policing, and social care, Nutt's team rated drugs using a technique called multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) which assessed damage according to nine criteria on harm to the user and seven criteria on harm to others.
Harms to the user included things such as drug-specific or drug-related death, damage to health, drug dependence and loss of relationships, while harms to others included crime, environmental damage, family conflict, international damage, economic cost, and damage to community cohesion.
Drugs were then scored out of 100, with 100 given to the most harmful drug and zero indicating no harm at all.
The scientists found alcohol was most harmful, with a score of 72, followed by heroin with 55 and crack with 54.
Among some of the other drugs assessed were crystal meth (33), cocaine (27), tobacco (26), amphetamine or speed (23), cannabis (20), benzodiazepines, such as Valium (15), ketamine (15), methadone (14), mephedrone (13), ecstasy (9), anabolic steroids (9), LSD (7) and magic mushrooms (5).
Sure it's a drug but it isn't dangerous like marijuana or cocaine or ecstasy, is it? Well, according to a new study from British scientists, when it comes to alcohol, there really is no more harmful, destructive drug. From Reuters:
...the scientists rated alcohol the most harmful overall and almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco.
According to the scale, devised by a group of scientists including Britain's Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and an expert adviser to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), heroin and crack cocaine rank as the second and third most harmful drugs.
Ecstasy is only an eighth as harmful as alcohol, according to the scientists' analysis.
..."It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed -- alcohol and tobacco -- score in the upper segment of the ranking scale, indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal substances," [Professor David] Nutt, who was formerly head of the influential British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said in a statement about the study.
In an effort to offer a guide to policy makers in health, policing, and social care, Nutt's team rated drugs using a technique called multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) which assessed damage according to nine criteria on harm to the user and seven criteria on harm to others.
Harms to the user included things such as drug-specific or drug-related death, damage to health, drug dependence and loss of relationships, while harms to others included crime, environmental damage, family conflict, international damage, economic cost, and damage to community cohesion.
Drugs were then scored out of 100, with 100 given to the most harmful drug and zero indicating no harm at all.
The scientists found alcohol was most harmful, with a score of 72, followed by heroin with 55 and crack with 54.
Among some of the other drugs assessed were crystal meth (33), cocaine (27), tobacco (26), amphetamine or speed (23), cannabis (20), benzodiazepines, such as Valium (15), ketamine (15), methadone (14), mephedrone (13), ecstasy (9), anabolic steroids (9), LSD (7) and magic mushrooms (5).
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Those Airplane Bombs - Something Doesn't Add Up
The story coming out about two bombs air freighted from Yemen, destination Chicago, doesn't make a lot of sense.
We're told the bombs were very sophisticated, even sniffer dogs couldn't detect the explosive charges. One was rigged with a cell phone detonator, the other a timer. Both bombs were supposedly to detonate while the aircraft was over the Atlantic.
It seems the bombs were detected, and disarmed, before the aircraft left Europe for the United States. The Brits were apparently onto the plot. Yet both aircraft were allowed to continue to the United States with the presumably disarmed bombs still aboard. That's hard to understand.
What about the Canadian F-18s sent up to escort the aircraft to the U.S. border? Why? Were officials afraid the flight crews of those freighters were up to no good?
But what really gets me is the description of the packages in which the al-Qaeda bombs were allegedly secreted. Printer cartridges. Printer cartridges being shipped, by air, from high-tech Yemen to the United States. Coals to Newcastle? Printer cartridges being shipped from Yemen, that hotbed of Islamist radicalism, addressed to synagogues in the States? Synagogues? Packages in Yemen addressed to American synagogues. Wow that won't draw any attention at all, will it?
Now I'm no terrorist but it strikes me that an Islamist terrorist wanting to air freight a bomb onto a jet freighter in Yemen would never, absolutely not ever, address the packages to a U.S. synagogue.
This just doesn't add up. What gives? What do you think?
We're told the bombs were very sophisticated, even sniffer dogs couldn't detect the explosive charges. One was rigged with a cell phone detonator, the other a timer. Both bombs were supposedly to detonate while the aircraft was over the Atlantic.
It seems the bombs were detected, and disarmed, before the aircraft left Europe for the United States. The Brits were apparently onto the plot. Yet both aircraft were allowed to continue to the United States with the presumably disarmed bombs still aboard. That's hard to understand.
What about the Canadian F-18s sent up to escort the aircraft to the U.S. border? Why? Were officials afraid the flight crews of those freighters were up to no good?
But what really gets me is the description of the packages in which the al-Qaeda bombs were allegedly secreted. Printer cartridges. Printer cartridges being shipped, by air, from high-tech Yemen to the United States. Coals to Newcastle? Printer cartridges being shipped from Yemen, that hotbed of Islamist radicalism, addressed to synagogues in the States? Synagogues? Packages in Yemen addressed to American synagogues. Wow that won't draw any attention at all, will it?
Now I'm no terrorist but it strikes me that an Islamist terrorist wanting to air freight a bomb onto a jet freighter in Yemen would never, absolutely not ever, address the packages to a U.S. synagogue.
This just doesn't add up. What gives? What do you think?
Ashley Smith "Bored" Herself to Death In Her Cell
Ashley Smith was in solitary confinement. The 19-year old was being held on suicide watch. In October, 2007 she strangled herself with a piece of cloth.
A psychiatrist hired by Corrections Canada claims Ms. Smith's use of ligatures - while on suicide watch - was not evidence of suicide. Dr. Margo Rivera claims Smith's binding behaviour was probably done out of boredom.
This horrendous story began when Smith got into trouble at age 15 for throwing apples at a postal worker. She never got out. Instead she kept getting into trouble that extended her sentence. At 18 she went into the adult system and then into federal penitentiary. Later it was determined Ashley Smith was mentally ill.
A psychiatrist hired by Corrections Canada claims Ms. Smith's use of ligatures - while on suicide watch - was not evidence of suicide. Dr. Margo Rivera claims Smith's binding behaviour was probably done out of boredom.
This horrendous story began when Smith got into trouble at age 15 for throwing apples at a postal worker. She never got out. Instead she kept getting into trouble that extended her sentence. At 18 she went into the adult system and then into federal penitentiary. Later it was determined Ashley Smith was mentally ill.
Conrad Black - Close, But No Cigar
Conrad Black scored a Pyrrhic victory yesterday after a U.S. appeals court reversed two of this three fraud convictions. The two convictions were set aside on technicalities, meaning prosecutors can retry Black on those charges.
Unfortunately for Connie, the pecuniary fraud charge was affirmed which guts his argument that, on the fourth charge, there was no obstruction of justice because there had been no previous crime.
Depending on the trial judge, Conrad Black could be back at the Greybar Hotel in time for Christmas. I'm actually sympathetic toward the old goat. He's done enough time, the important point - his fraud conviction - stands, now let him go.
Surveillance Society - Remote Cameras That Sense Anger
A British firm is hawking software that will allow surveillance cameras to listen in, analyze the pitch, tone and intonation of noises and determine whether they reveal some type of threat. The idea is that the monitors will be able to tell if you're being aggressive or attacked and then alert authorities.
Not only is Big Brother going to be constantly watching you, now he'll be listening to boot. Who knows just how far this fledgling listening technology can and will evolve? From BBC News:
"A lot of incidents just can't be picked up by video only systems," said Chris Mitchell, Audio Analytic's boss, on BBC World Service's Digital Planet.
"For example in a hospital where somebody, or a nurse, is being threatened early hours in the morning - that's a very difficult thing for CCTV guards who monitor hundreds of channels worth of video signals on 20 screens or so to pick up."
The software goes beyond simply placing microphones onto cameras and listening in. By feeding hundreds of sample sounds into the system, the software can distinguish different threats from various sounds - and not just based on volume.
As always it's not the technology that's really the problem but rather the manner in which it can be abused, the improper ends to which it can be turned. I'm sure it would be great, say at hospital parking lots where nurses coming off shift in the middle of the night can be at increased risk. But, as always, quis custodiet ipsos custodes, who watches the watchers?
Upping the Ante in Afghanistan
A joint Russian-US drug raid in his own backyard has Afghan president Hamid Karzai almost apoplectic.
The raids destroyed four drug labs and seized about a tonne of heroin and morphine, a quarter billion dollars worth.
The drug lords aren't going to be happy and I assume a hunk of the loss will be coming out of Karzai's cut. The Afghan government and bureaucracy are widely believed to be in league with the country's narcotics establishment, a contributing factor in Afghanistan being rated one of the five most corrupt nations on the planet.
Karzai is routinely criticized for protecting drug lords. It's been apparent in that not one key drug kingpin has been prosecuted since Karzai was popped into office after the Talibs were sent packing.
The wisdom of going after the narcotics industry at this point in the campaign is perplexing. Our side is already having little luck tackling the Taliban. At this point do we really need more enemies? Don't forget some of the drug lords are also warlords who have been sitting on the fence. This could stir them up and create additional headaches for NATO troops.
The raids destroyed four drug labs and seized about a tonne of heroin and morphine, a quarter billion dollars worth.
The drug lords aren't going to be happy and I assume a hunk of the loss will be coming out of Karzai's cut. The Afghan government and bureaucracy are widely believed to be in league with the country's narcotics establishment, a contributing factor in Afghanistan being rated one of the five most corrupt nations on the planet.
Karzai is routinely criticized for protecting drug lords. It's been apparent in that not one key drug kingpin has been prosecuted since Karzai was popped into office after the Talibs were sent packing.
The wisdom of going after the narcotics industry at this point in the campaign is perplexing. Our side is already having little luck tackling the Taliban. At this point do we really need more enemies? Don't forget some of the drug lords are also warlords who have been sitting on the fence. This could stir them up and create additional headaches for NATO troops.
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