Despite Stevie Boy's prison fetish, crime in Canada has fallen to the lowest level since 1972.
Homicides, crimes against children and marijuana offences were up. Imagine what the numbers might look like if Canada decriminalized marijuana possession? All you would be left with are peds, gangstas and gun nuts.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
A Click Away From 41,000 Rounds of Assault Rifle Ammo
The Guardian took a stroll down Ammunition Lane, the online world of American ammo sales. If you're fixing to start a war, all it takes is a credit card and a click of your mouse.
Spend just a few minutes browsing the internet and it becomes clear how James Holmes was able to stockpile 6,000 rounds of ammunition without any alarms sounding. Huge amounts of ammunition can be purchased online in a matter of minutes and can be shipped straight to customers' doors, no questions asked.
Yet those familiar with gun ownership in the US are unlikely to have been surprised.
BulkAmmo.com is one of many websites which allow for the purchase of lots of rounds at knockdown prices. On the website one can buy 1,000 .223, 62grain TulAmmo rounds, which can be fired by an AR15 assault rifle, for just $250, or 25 cents a round.
Customers can essentially buy as much ammunition as they like. BulkAmmo.com had 18 cases of 1,000 .223 TulAmmo rounds "ready to ship". The Guardian selected all 18 – 18,000 rounds – and was just a healthy credit card away from completing the transaction. It is illegal to ship ammunition to New York City, where our office is based, so we entered the address of a hotel in Aurora and were promptly told that in return for $4,737.30 (including a $327.30 shipping and handling fee) the 18,000 rounds could be delivered within days.
Luckgunner.com stocks Fiocchi .223 remington rounds in boxes of 1,000, described as "perfect for your AR-15!". When the Guardian perused the website on Monday there were 41 boxes in stock. Again, we were able to follow the purchasing procedure through – potentially getting 41,000 rounds delivered within three days, for $17,428.39.
So, all you need is a credit card and a buddy to loan you his automatic assault rifle (better yet, buy one out the back door at the next gun show in your neighbourhood), a bucket of popcorn and a can of pop and you're ready for the movies!
Monday, July 23, 2012
The Conservative Armed Forces of Canada
Once again the Canadian Forces have been caught playing partisan politics, shilling for the Conservative government.
A program to educate parliamentarians about the work being done by the Canadian military has been shut down months after it was revealed officers were using such visits to collect information on Defence Minister Peter MacKay's political opponents.
The parliamentary outreach program allowed MPs and senators to visit military units and bases to improve their knowledge of the Canadian Forces.
But the visits became controversial earlier this year when it was revealed officers gathered information on MacKay's political opponents in an effort to help out the beleaguered defence minister.
Caught out, the military actually sought to defend its perfidy.
The Canadian Forces later defended its decision to collect such information and turn it over to MacKay's office, saying the process was no different than its efforts to gather facts for the public and news media.
But some MPs said the military's practice jeopardized the parliamentary outreach program. Former military officers also warned such activities, which prompted allegations about Canadian Forces personnel digging up dirt on the minister's political enemies, crossed the line and jeopardized the long-standing political neutrality of the military.
This is another sign of a military in decay. They're in lockstep with their Big Brothers from the States in trying to be political players, to influence if not dictate policy. In the United States it is the Pentagon today that often prevails over the State Department in the foreign policy realm, a major contributing factor to that country's post 9/11 hyper-militarism. This is seriously wrong and we need to cull the officer class to rid it of those who presume to act this way.
This is how military professionalism dies. The Canadian Forces exist to serve Canada. They are not a partisan agency for a favoured political party, even if that party is in power. Remember that three out of five Canadians who bothered to vote in the last election did not vote Conservative. The armed forces leadership needs to be ever mindful that they represent the three out of five just as much as the other two out of five. They take the King's shilling but neither Harper nor MacKay wears a crown... not just yet.
A program to educate parliamentarians about the work being done by the Canadian military has been shut down months after it was revealed officers were using such visits to collect information on Defence Minister Peter MacKay's political opponents.
The parliamentary outreach program allowed MPs and senators to visit military units and bases to improve their knowledge of the Canadian Forces.
But the visits became controversial earlier this year when it was revealed officers gathered information on MacKay's political opponents in an effort to help out the beleaguered defence minister.
Caught out, the military actually sought to defend its perfidy.
The Canadian Forces later defended its decision to collect such information and turn it over to MacKay's office, saying the process was no different than its efforts to gather facts for the public and news media.
But some MPs said the military's practice jeopardized the parliamentary outreach program. Former military officers also warned such activities, which prompted allegations about Canadian Forces personnel digging up dirt on the minister's political enemies, crossed the line and jeopardized the long-standing political neutrality of the military.
This is another sign of a military in decay. They're in lockstep with their Big Brothers from the States in trying to be political players, to influence if not dictate policy. In the United States it is the Pentagon today that often prevails over the State Department in the foreign policy realm, a major contributing factor to that country's post 9/11 hyper-militarism. This is seriously wrong and we need to cull the officer class to rid it of those who presume to act this way.
This is how military professionalism dies. The Canadian Forces exist to serve Canada. They are not a partisan agency for a favoured political party, even if that party is in power. Remember that three out of five Canadians who bothered to vote in the last election did not vote Conservative. The armed forces leadership needs to be ever mindful that they represent the three out of five just as much as the other two out of five. They take the King's shilling but neither Harper nor MacKay wears a crown... not just yet.
When We Leave Afghanistan, We Leave It to Monsters
The guys we're leaving in charge in Afghanistan are liberally peppered with butchers and mass-murderers. An 800-page report from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission lists some 180-mass graves and the warlords responsible for the thousands of dead they contain.
Among them are First Vice President Fahim, a Tajik from the Jamiat Islami Party, and Second Vice President Karim Khalili, a Hazara leader from the Wahdat Party; Gen. Atta Mohammed Noor, a Tajik from the Jamiat Islami Party and now the governor of the important northern province of Balkh, of which Mazar-i-Sharif is capital; and Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former Uzbek warlord from the Jumbush Party who holds the honorary title of chief of staff to the supreme commander of the Afghan Armed Forces, among many others.
Among them are First Vice President Fahim, a Tajik from the Jamiat Islami Party, and Second Vice President Karim Khalili, a Hazara leader from the Wahdat Party; Gen. Atta Mohammed Noor, a Tajik from the Jamiat Islami Party and now the governor of the important northern province of Balkh, of which Mazar-i-Sharif is capital; and Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former Uzbek warlord from the Jumbush Party who holds the honorary title of chief of staff to the supreme commander of the Afghan Armed Forces, among many others.
Those men gave no response to verbal and written requests for comment about their naming in the report.
In all, the researchers said, more than 500 Afghans are named in the report as responsible for mass killings, including the country’s revered national martyr, Ahmed Shah Massoud, one of the last militia leaders to hold out against the Taliban sweep to power and who was assassinated by Al Qaeda just before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The report also investigates killings of civilians and prisoners said to be carried out by the Taliban and other insurgents, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-i-Islami insurgents.
The report, delivered to Hamid Karzai, has not been released and his office has not even acknowledged it exists. It did, however, cause Karzai's notorious vice-president and seasoned monster Fahim to pressure Karzai into sacking the commission head, Ahmad Nader Nadery.
At a meeting on Dec. 21, including Mr. Karzai and other top officials, Marshal Fahim argued that dismissing Mr. Nadery would actually be too mild a punishment. “We should just shoot 30 holes in his face,” he said, according to one of those present. He later apologized to other officials for the remark, saying it was not meant in earnest.
Some contend the report should be published and the mass-murderers cited made to stand trial for their crimes. Otherwise, civil war is bound to ensue. Yet Afghanistan, the country we are leaving supposedly in good shape, is nothing if not a nest of warlord vipers. It is these brutal sociopaths who hold the reins of power who stand testament to what little we truly achieved in a decade of war against the Taliban.
The 1318 That Control the World Economy
The Occupy Movement always contended it existed but now there's proof. An analysis of 43,000 transnational companies has revealed a core group of 1,318 - mainly banks - that literally controls the world economy.
Feudalism, anyone?
The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).
"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."
Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.
The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.
The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships. Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.
When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.
John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability.
Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates."
How Drought 2012 Swept America
Here's an interesting animated graphic from N.O.A.A. that shows how drought swept through the United States this year.
Talking to Ottawa a Waste of Breath
Canadian environmental leaders are shifting their focus away from Ottawa and the Petro-Parliament and instead toward provincial premiers.
Greenpeace is also placing its hopes in the premiers, saying Ottawa is working hand in hand with oil companies to aggressively expand oilsands activity and build pipelines that would only make sense in a world that takes no action on climate change.
“If the premiers go along with Harper’s plan, then Canada will miss out on the green energy revolution that is our best hope for a prosperous future,” said Keith Stewart, the climate campaign co-ordinator for Greenpeace Canada and the author of the report.
Using documents obtained through access-to-information, Stewart argues that Shell Canada and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have worked together to campaign against rules in California and Europe that could hamper the marketing of the oilsands.
The accusation that Harper's efforts betray an intention to take no action on climate change is borne out by recent studies that find the world can use (burn) only about 20% of known fossil fuel reserves if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming.
In January, a panel of prominent British financiers, scientists and politicians informed the Governor of the Bank of England that fossil fuel reserves carried on the books of Big Oil were effectively sub-prime and creating a potentially disastrous petroleum bubble on the London Stock Exchange.
If existing reserves, most of them of conventional, relatively clean crude oil, are in great surplus that can mean only one thing for the filthiest fossil fuel of them all, Athabasca bitumen. It's unnecessary and economically unjustifiable except in "a world that takes no action on climate change." That's what Steve Harper is counting on. That's the sort of world he wants to craft.
Greenpeace is also placing its hopes in the premiers, saying Ottawa is working hand in hand with oil companies to aggressively expand oilsands activity and build pipelines that would only make sense in a world that takes no action on climate change.
“If the premiers go along with Harper’s plan, then Canada will miss out on the green energy revolution that is our best hope for a prosperous future,” said Keith Stewart, the climate campaign co-ordinator for Greenpeace Canada and the author of the report.
Using documents obtained through access-to-information, Stewart argues that Shell Canada and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have worked together to campaign against rules in California and Europe that could hamper the marketing of the oilsands.
The accusation that Harper's efforts betray an intention to take no action on climate change is borne out by recent studies that find the world can use (burn) only about 20% of known fossil fuel reserves if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming.
In January, a panel of prominent British financiers, scientists and politicians informed the Governor of the Bank of England that fossil fuel reserves carried on the books of Big Oil were effectively sub-prime and creating a potentially disastrous petroleum bubble on the London Stock Exchange.
If existing reserves, most of them of conventional, relatively clean crude oil, are in great surplus that can mean only one thing for the filthiest fossil fuel of them all, Athabasca bitumen. It's unnecessary and economically unjustifiable except in "a world that takes no action on climate change." That's what Steve Harper is counting on. That's the sort of world he wants to craft.
The Impoverished States of America
Poverty in the United States is set to reach levels not seen since the 1960s.
Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.
Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.
The Mind of Steve
There was a time when conservatives considered themselves hard-headed realists and mocked liberals as dreamers and philosophers with fancy notions.
Old conservatives wanted facts, they wanted science, they demanded to see the math. But that was then, this is now and today, when the facts and the science and the math are laid out at their feet, conservatives look away. They recoil from facts, they recoil from science just as the mythical vampire recoils from the noonday sun.
Modern conservatives now prefer to find their "truth" in belief. Something is proven true because they believe it to be true. Contradictory facts or science, even logic itself, are rejected out of hand as offending the cardinal belief structure. Nothing can be allowed to offend cardinal belief, not even reality.
Steve Harper believes bitumen barges plying the British Columbia coast are a good thing. That's his cardinal belief around which all else must conform. How do you get a square peg into a round hole? Easy, you just whittle away all the corners. Harper has whittled away fisheries regulations and monitoring. Out of sight, out of mind. He's shutting down most of our Coast Guard stations. He'sgutting "streamlining" the environmental review process. His Environment Minister won't even read the U.S. Transportation Safety Board report condemning Enbridge for the Kalamazoo River bitumen catastrophe.
A good deal of the frustration and anger that Steve Harper evokes in so many Canadians is at least partly explained by our lack of understanding of how his mind works. We expect him to be reasonable, informed and deliberative but, like so many theocrats, Steve's reasoning more closely resembles that of an unruly 8-year old. He is impatient, impulsive and driven by gut instinct; traits that leave him with a narrow perspective that is closed to others' ideas. Steve is the consumate modern conservative, preferring to rule rather than govern, to shove rather than lead, to ignore consensus. Our country is in the hands of an ill-tempered child.
Old conservatives wanted facts, they wanted science, they demanded to see the math. But that was then, this is now and today, when the facts and the science and the math are laid out at their feet, conservatives look away. They recoil from facts, they recoil from science just as the mythical vampire recoils from the noonday sun.
Modern conservatives now prefer to find their "truth" in belief. Something is proven true because they believe it to be true. Contradictory facts or science, even logic itself, are rejected out of hand as offending the cardinal belief structure. Nothing can be allowed to offend cardinal belief, not even reality.
Steve Harper believes bitumen barges plying the British Columbia coast are a good thing. That's his cardinal belief around which all else must conform. How do you get a square peg into a round hole? Easy, you just whittle away all the corners. Harper has whittled away fisheries regulations and monitoring. Out of sight, out of mind. He's shutting down most of our Coast Guard stations. He's
A good deal of the frustration and anger that Steve Harper evokes in so many Canadians is at least partly explained by our lack of understanding of how his mind works. We expect him to be reasonable, informed and deliberative but, like so many theocrats, Steve's reasoning more closely resembles that of an unruly 8-year old. He is impatient, impulsive and driven by gut instinct; traits that leave him with a narrow perspective that is closed to others' ideas. Steve is the consumate modern conservative, preferring to rule rather than govern, to shove rather than lead, to ignore consensus. Our country is in the hands of an ill-tempered child.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
British Columbia's Political Ambiguity
Of late British Columbians have been plagued by the endless bleating of our unelected and unelectable, outgoing premier, Christie Clark, droning on about how hers is the "free enterprise" government. It's an old saw, one based on the idea that the public has to choose between raving socialists on the left and a grandiose version of the Chamber of Commerce on the right. It worked in the past for W.A.C. Bennett and a host of right-wingers who followed but it may have outworn its welcome.
Yet there are a good many of us in this province who spurn both extremes and have come to dread the left-right whipsaw politics. Yes, most of us will probably vote NDP this time around, but it will be negative voting. We'll be voting against the BL Libs, not for the NDP. That said, we'll be pleased enough to wake up the morning after and know that the Libs-in-name-only have been finally swept from power.
What British Columbia needs is a genuinely liberal Liberal Party. That, after all, is how the party was reborn out of the ashes of decades of tug of war between the right and left that ill-served the province and its people. Unfortunately the resurgent BC Liberal Party punched a hole in the bottom of the Social Credit ship causing its members to swim for it until they boarded the Liberal ship and made it their own. Any hope for liberalism was utterly and ruthlessly purged from the BC Libs before it ever could take hold.
Of course to give the Dippers their due, today they seem to have little interest in their old ways. The great causes have been neatly folded up and packed away. They have embraced liberalism and pragmatism instead. Maybe it's their socialism that is actually dead, put down at their own hands.
Perhaps getting wiped out at the polls will be a good thing for the BC Liberal Party. It will certainly be good for the BC Conservative Party if it clears the way for the Tories to reclaim the right. It will obviously be great for the NDP. What remains unclear is whether any of it will actually be much good for the people of British Columbia.
Yet there are a good many of us in this province who spurn both extremes and have come to dread the left-right whipsaw politics. Yes, most of us will probably vote NDP this time around, but it will be negative voting. We'll be voting against the BL Libs, not for the NDP. That said, we'll be pleased enough to wake up the morning after and know that the Libs-in-name-only have been finally swept from power.
What British Columbia needs is a genuinely liberal Liberal Party. That, after all, is how the party was reborn out of the ashes of decades of tug of war between the right and left that ill-served the province and its people. Unfortunately the resurgent BC Liberal Party punched a hole in the bottom of the Social Credit ship causing its members to swim for it until they boarded the Liberal ship and made it their own. Any hope for liberalism was utterly and ruthlessly purged from the BC Libs before it ever could take hold.
Of course to give the Dippers their due, today they seem to have little interest in their old ways. The great causes have been neatly folded up and packed away. They have embraced liberalism and pragmatism instead. Maybe it's their socialism that is actually dead, put down at their own hands.
Perhaps getting wiped out at the polls will be a good thing for the BC Liberal Party. It will certainly be good for the BC Conservative Party if it clears the way for the Tories to reclaim the right. It will obviously be great for the NDP. What remains unclear is whether any of it will actually be much good for the people of British Columbia.
Our Shamelessly Anti-Canadian Government
It's pretty clear whose side the Harper government is on and it's equally clear that's not the side of Canadians.
Senator and featherbedding former media shill, Mike Duffy, dismisses his fellow countrymen who oppose the bitumen pipelines as "all anti-Canadians."
Resource minister Joe Oliver smears pipeline opponents and urges dissent be suppressed at environmental hearings.
Stephen Harper creating a Tar Sands pipeline anti-terrorism agency, bringing Canada's spy agency, CSIS, to bear on ordinary Canadians opposed to bitumen trafficking and, hence, deemed terrorism suspects. This same Harper wantonly exposing British Columbia to environmental devastation, placing the interests of the three CPCs (Conservative Party of Canada, the Communist Party of China and the Calgary Petroleum Club) at every turn ahead of the welfare and future of British Columbians. To grease the bitumen wheels, Harper guts fisheries protection regulations and eliminates entire fisheries departments.
Environment Minister, enviroshill Peter Kent, vouches for the Northern Gateway operator, Enbridge, despite the damning U.S. Transportation Safety Board report over the Enbridge pipeline bitumen spill in the Kalamazoo River, Michigan. Kent dismisses the report, admitting that he didn't even bother to read it.
And now the revelations about Health Minister, Leona Aglukkak, who has been busily subverting her own ministry's efforts to keep Canadians informed about health hazards in their food whether it be sodium levels or trans-fats in processed foods. Aglukkak has repeatedly overridden experts' recommendations that might inconvenience or even draw attention to errant food producers.
These are but a few examples of a government acting squarely against the interests of its people in fulfillment of a blatantly corporatist agenda. It is a government that has made a fetish of information control and secrecy to confuse and manipulate public opinion. Aided by a hapless opposition and a collaborative corporate media, it is, quite probably, the most anti-Canadian government in our nation's history.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Crispy Clark Turns Bitumen Basher - Too Little, Too Late
BC's unelected and unelectable premier, Christie Clark, is throwing "free enterprise" caution to the wind in a desperate bid to reverse her political fortunes.
After dummying-up for months about the provincial government's position on the Northern Gateway pipeline, Clark seems to have figured out that Enbridge is a very real millstone round her and her party's neck with an already tough election just a year away.
But Clark also showed she's not really onside with the majority of BC'ers who want the pipeline initiative scrapped. What she's really after is a better deal from Ottawa and Alberta. She wants them to sweeten the package, "in order for it to work for us."
Clark’s comments came the same day Enbridge promised to add $500 million in safety improvements to its proposal, which the company said is meant to address concerns raised by first nations and the public. First nations in northern B.C. were quick to say the additional safety measures would not alter their opposition to the 1,150-kilometre pipeline between the Alberta oilsands and Kitimat, however.
Clark spoke one day after she held extraordinary face-to-face meetings with the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan — as well as a phone call with Prime Minister Stephen Harper — giving all three a warning that her government will next week lay out its demands on the Gateway project.
“I was giving them the heads up on what we’re going to be talking about next week because I don’t want my colleagues, particularly our neighbours in Alberta and Saskatchewan, to be surprised,” Clark told The Vancouver Sun Friday.
Clark said that as early as Monday she will provide “a little bit more detail about what British Columbians need to see out of the proposal in order for it to work for us.”
“British Columbians want to have our environment protected and they want to know that we’re going to be looking out for their best interests when it comes to jobs and economic benefits,” she said.
Clark's weasel words are doublespeak for a political shakedown. The only way to protect the environment is to block the construction of the pipelines and derail the supertanker bitumen traffic. Clark may talk tough but she can be had for the right price.
Enbridge today made a half-trillion dollar gesture promising supposed safety improvements including thicker pipelines and permanent staffing of installations along the pipeline routes. Enbridge, it seems, knows the proposal is in trouble and has become a lightning rod for popular resistance in British Columbia. We don't want the damned thing. Full stop.
After dummying-up for months about the provincial government's position on the Northern Gateway pipeline, Clark seems to have figured out that Enbridge is a very real millstone round her and her party's neck with an already tough election just a year away.
But Clark also showed she's not really onside with the majority of BC'ers who want the pipeline initiative scrapped. What she's really after is a better deal from Ottawa and Alberta. She wants them to sweeten the package, "in order for it to work for us."
Clark’s comments came the same day Enbridge promised to add $500 million in safety improvements to its proposal, which the company said is meant to address concerns raised by first nations and the public. First nations in northern B.C. were quick to say the additional safety measures would not alter their opposition to the 1,150-kilometre pipeline between the Alberta oilsands and Kitimat, however.
Clark spoke one day after she held extraordinary face-to-face meetings with the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan — as well as a phone call with Prime Minister Stephen Harper — giving all three a warning that her government will next week lay out its demands on the Gateway project.
“I was giving them the heads up on what we’re going to be talking about next week because I don’t want my colleagues, particularly our neighbours in Alberta and Saskatchewan, to be surprised,” Clark told The Vancouver Sun Friday.
Clark said that as early as Monday she will provide “a little bit more detail about what British Columbians need to see out of the proposal in order for it to work for us.”
“British Columbians want to have our environment protected and they want to know that we’re going to be looking out for their best interests when it comes to jobs and economic benefits,” she said.
Clark's weasel words are doublespeak for a political shakedown. The only way to protect the environment is to block the construction of the pipelines and derail the supertanker bitumen traffic. Clark may talk tough but she can be had for the right price.
Enbridge today made a half-trillion dollar gesture promising supposed safety improvements including thicker pipelines and permanent staffing of installations along the pipeline routes. Enbridge, it seems, knows the proposal is in trouble and has become a lightning rod for popular resistance in British Columbia. We don't want the damned thing. Full stop.
U.S. Drought to Last All Summer
The U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center, in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is predicting that the devastating drought now sweeping most of the American bread basket will persist throughout the remainder of the summer.
The drought is expected to hang on in the Midwest and expand into western Pennsylvania, northwestern West Virginia and northern Michigan, as well as large parts of North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to a forecast Thursday from the U.S. Climate Prediction Center for July 19 to Oct. 31.
There may be improvement in Arizona and the Southwest as rains come in from the Pacific.
At least 72 per cent of the U.S. is abnormally dry or in some stage of drought, according to the Drought Monitor. Abnormally dry means drought may be developing, Smith said.
Hot, dry conditions have been caused in part by the jet stream’s retreat into Canada. Most of the rain the U.S. receives will have to come from brief and sporadic thunderstorms, which won’t be enough to make up deficits, said Michael Brewer, a physical scientist with the National Climatic Data Center.
Fortunately this has nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming which is, after all, a complete hoax perpetrated by a coven of world scientists to reap enormously lucrative research grants.
Because Helping Canadians Stay Healthy is No Business of the Minister of Health
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq seems strangely disinterested in keeping Canadians healthy. She has rejected the advice of her own advisory panel of food experts to renew monitoring of trans-fat levels in processed food. Food experts informed the minister that monitoring trans-fat levels would even be a net benefit to Canadian society worth about $9-billion.
In the finest Orwellian tradition, Aglukkaq's office justified ditching trans-fat monitoring as "a time-limited initiatve that ran its course." STFU! Say what? That's it? It "ran its course"?
It's actually the HealthMin herself who is simply running true to course. Last fall she withdrew her support for a joint federal-provincial sodium-reduction initiative to track industry progress on salt reduction. Aglukkaq objected to the idea of outing food companies failing to meet salt-reduction targets. Instead she had it kicked over to the Food Expert Advisory Committee, the very same panel she just threw under the bus on trans-fat monitoring.
Rest assured, Canadians. Your health is in the watchful hands of a shamelessly corporatist shill.
In the finest Orwellian tradition, Aglukkaq's office justified ditching trans-fat monitoring as "a time-limited initiatve that ran its course." STFU! Say what? That's it? It "ran its course"?
It's actually the HealthMin herself who is simply running true to course. Last fall she withdrew her support for a joint federal-provincial sodium-reduction initiative to track industry progress on salt reduction. Aglukkaq objected to the idea of outing food companies failing to meet salt-reduction targets. Instead she had it kicked over to the Food Expert Advisory Committee, the very same panel she just threw under the bus on trans-fat monitoring.
Rest assured, Canadians. Your health is in the watchful hands of a shamelessly corporatist shill.
The Giant Chip on Our Shoulder, The One You Supposedly Can't See
I wonder what the Chinese and the Russians must be making of our current obsession with stealth warplanes? My guess is that they view our focus on stealth as a terrific strategic advantage - for themselves.
Here's what I'm thinking they're thinking.
1. They know the F-35 is insanely expensive and that America and its minion states will be shelling out enormous amounts to equip their air forces with the stealth light bomber.
2. They know we'll be in so deep when we buy the F-35 that we'll be stuck with it for at least three decades, maybe half a century.
3. They know, hell everyone knows, that, stealth aside, the F-35 is a very mediocre warplane with very limited range and payload that can't outrun, out climb or out turn even existing Russian fighters.
4. They know that, once stripped of its supposed invisibility, the F-35 is aerial dead meat.
5. They know that the F-35's stealth is a very brittle technology that embodies its own serious vulnerabilities and can probably be defeated which renders the entire aircraft obsolete.
Overall, I can't think of a single reason why Russia and China and their proxies wouldn't want us saddled with a warplane like the F-35. It plays straight into their hands. They've already got some quite feasible counter-measures and, with the stealth secrets they'll be gleaning from the Lockheed RQ-170 stealth drone Iran captured just before Christmas, they'll have a dandy window into the latest and greatest advances in stealth design, materials and electronics - free of charge.
The F-35 may be the greatest military acquisition blunder in Canadian history. And I'm guessing the Russians and Chinese couldn't be happier.
Here's what I'm thinking they're thinking.
1. They know the F-35 is insanely expensive and that America and its minion states will be shelling out enormous amounts to equip their air forces with the stealth light bomber.
2. They know we'll be in so deep when we buy the F-35 that we'll be stuck with it for at least three decades, maybe half a century.
3. They know, hell everyone knows, that, stealth aside, the F-35 is a very mediocre warplane with very limited range and payload that can't outrun, out climb or out turn even existing Russian fighters.
4. They know that, once stripped of its supposed invisibility, the F-35 is aerial dead meat.
5. They know that the F-35's stealth is a very brittle technology that embodies its own serious vulnerabilities and can probably be defeated which renders the entire aircraft obsolete.
Overall, I can't think of a single reason why Russia and China and their proxies wouldn't want us saddled with a warplane like the F-35. It plays straight into their hands. They've already got some quite feasible counter-measures and, with the stealth secrets they'll be gleaning from the Lockheed RQ-170 stealth drone Iran captured just before Christmas, they'll have a dandy window into the latest and greatest advances in stealth design, materials and electronics - free of charge.
The F-35 may be the greatest military acquisition blunder in Canadian history. And I'm guessing the Russians and Chinese couldn't be happier.
Zimmerman Blames God for Shooting Trayvon Martin
Hell, he was only fulfilling "God's plan" when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. And, because it was God's will, what's not to like?
IMF Calls Bullshit on Brit Tory Austerity Farce
David Cameron's boneheaded austerity fetish isn't working. Even the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, says that much is plain. The Guardian's Jonathan Portes has this take on the IMF report.
A non-technical summary of Thursday's International Monetary Fund report on the UK economy would be that we are up the creek – "recovery has stalled" – and that we should use any available paddle to head as fast as possible in the opposite direction. "Demand support is needed. Additional monetary stimulus … credit easing measures … increased government spending on public investment." Stop pretending we're on track, and throw the kitchen sink at the economy.
There are, however, two much more interesting parts to the IMF report. The first is its demolition of the government's argument that this pain was necessary and the alternative would have been worse – that, as George Osborne says, without accelerated fiscal consolidation we would have had higher interest rates and maybe even a debt crisis. This is nonsense: low interest rates reflect not economic confidence but its opposite, and the IMF says so: "Bond yields have been driven more by growth expectations than fears of a sovereign crisis."
But even more important is the IMF's analysis of the consequences of this policy failure: not just low growth now (they estimate fiscal consolidation has so far knocked about 2.5% off output) but permanent economic and social damage. This is primarily because unemployment – especially long-term and youth unemployment – has "scarring" effects; someone who is unemployed now because of recession is more likely to be out of work later in life, even after economic recovery.
...the basic point is spot on. In other words, what the government is offering is not pain today for a better economic future tomorrow. It's pain today for more pain tomorrow. As many of us have long argued, the reason for changing course is not because of the short-term boost to growth, but because of the longer-term impacts.
A non-technical summary of Thursday's International Monetary Fund report on the UK economy would be that we are up the creek – "recovery has stalled" – and that we should use any available paddle to head as fast as possible in the opposite direction. "Demand support is needed. Additional monetary stimulus … credit easing measures … increased government spending on public investment." Stop pretending we're on track, and throw the kitchen sink at the economy.
There are, however, two much more interesting parts to the IMF report. The first is its demolition of the government's argument that this pain was necessary and the alternative would have been worse – that, as George Osborne says, without accelerated fiscal consolidation we would have had higher interest rates and maybe even a debt crisis. This is nonsense: low interest rates reflect not economic confidence but its opposite, and the IMF says so: "Bond yields have been driven more by growth expectations than fears of a sovereign crisis."
But even more important is the IMF's analysis of the consequences of this policy failure: not just low growth now (they estimate fiscal consolidation has so far knocked about 2.5% off output) but permanent economic and social damage. This is primarily because unemployment – especially long-term and youth unemployment – has "scarring" effects; someone who is unemployed now because of recession is more likely to be out of work later in life, even after economic recovery.
...the basic point is spot on. In other words, what the government is offering is not pain today for a better economic future tomorrow. It's pain today for more pain tomorrow. As many of us have long argued, the reason for changing course is not because of the short-term boost to growth, but because of the longer-term impacts.
A Brit Rallies Support for Canadian Science
Harper's war on science is the subject of an op-ed piece in today's Guardian calling for international support for Canadian scientists and warning Harper's funding cuts could have global impacts.
[Protesting Canadian scientists] were sticking up for the right to ask difficult questions and provide uncomfortable knowledge, in particular when it comes to the Arctic. They were sticking up for the things they research as well as the right to keep doing their research. They were sticking up for the planet.
...In May, many were shocked to hear the Canadian government had cancelled its funding for the Experimental Lakes Area, a laboratory complex over 58 remote lakes in north-west Ontario that has been running since the 1960s. As one scientist told Nature magazine, it's like turning off the world's best telescope.
...Canada's natural resources minister might complain about foreign campaigners and "jet-setting celebrities" trying to hijack their country with their opposition to local environmental policy, but there are reasons why there was international outcry about the Experimental Lakes Area. Scientists from all over the world studied there for generations: it's where the first evidence for acid rain came from. There are also reasons Canada won Fossil of the Year at the Durban talks last December, why the Daily Mail mentions Canadian people appealing to the Queen over Alberta oil sands and why, despite having passed an austerity budget in April, the Canadian government still found money to invest in Arctic drones. We can't pretend Canadian science is simply a Canadian matter any more than we can pretend we can separate the natural world from our political decisions.
...It's easy to see scientists as dogmatic, passing on rarefied expertise from on high. Some are. But at its best, scientific evidence can play a liberating role in political discourse and is worth standing up for. Yesterday's message of "No science, no truth, no evidence, no democracy" is an idealistic view of science in society, but if it really is said in thoughtful co-operation with the public at large, it's a beautiful thing to behold.
[Protesting Canadian scientists] were sticking up for the right to ask difficult questions and provide uncomfortable knowledge, in particular when it comes to the Arctic. They were sticking up for the things they research as well as the right to keep doing their research. They were sticking up for the planet.
...In May, many were shocked to hear the Canadian government had cancelled its funding for the Experimental Lakes Area, a laboratory complex over 58 remote lakes in north-west Ontario that has been running since the 1960s. As one scientist told Nature magazine, it's like turning off the world's best telescope.
...Canada's natural resources minister might complain about foreign campaigners and "jet-setting celebrities" trying to hijack their country with their opposition to local environmental policy, but there are reasons why there was international outcry about the Experimental Lakes Area. Scientists from all over the world studied there for generations: it's where the first evidence for acid rain came from. There are also reasons Canada won Fossil of the Year at the Durban talks last December, why the Daily Mail mentions Canadian people appealing to the Queen over Alberta oil sands and why, despite having passed an austerity budget in April, the Canadian government still found money to invest in Arctic drones. We can't pretend Canadian science is simply a Canadian matter any more than we can pretend we can separate the natural world from our political decisions.
...It's easy to see scientists as dogmatic, passing on rarefied expertise from on high. Some are. But at its best, scientific evidence can play a liberating role in political discourse and is worth standing up for. Yesterday's message of "No science, no truth, no evidence, no democracy" is an idealistic view of science in society, but if it really is said in thoughtful co-operation with the public at large, it's a beautiful thing to behold.
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