Going to Pot

There was a discernible jolt in the wake of election night when the good people of Colorado and Washington voted to decriminalize possession and use of marijuana.

Some folks here on the Left Coast were wondering how that would impact on our number one agricultural crop, B.C. Bud.   Surely if the neighbours can simply grow their own they won't be needing the high priced stuff from the True North.

Yet it turns out that all is not lost.  A new study finds that British Columbians themselves buy half a billion dollars worth of pot annually.   That's 500-million dollars per year in untaxed retail transactions.    That's 500-million dollars, a good chunk of it in the form of uncollected income taxes.   When you pile income taxes atop sales taxes atop other business activity taxes, that's a whole lot of taxes going uncollected.

Bad as the loss of that tax revenue is, regard must also be had to all the nasty things those pot scofflaws do with their untaxed windfall.  Selling Bud is one thing. Using those proceeds to import other consumables from weapons to heroin, cocaine or meth is another thing altogether.

So let's do what the people of Washington and Colorado have just done; let's grow up.

Drifting Ever Faster Away from 350

The figures are out for 2011 and they're record-breaking.   Last year we managed to drive atmospheric CO2 levels to 390 ppm.

The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a record 390.9 parts per million (ppm) in 2011, according to a report released Tuesday by the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO). That's a 40 percent increase over levels in 1750, before humans began burning fossil fuels in earnest.

Although CO2 is still the most significant long-lived greenhouse gas, levels of other heat-trapping gases have also climbed to record levels, according to the report. Methane, for example hit 1813 parts per billion (ppb) in 2011, and nitrous oxide rose to 324.2 ppb. All told, the amount of excess heat prevented from escaping into outer space was 30 percent higher in 2011 than it was as recently as 1990.

And here's what we've accomplished over the past half-century.

But whether you're a Liberal, a Conservative or a New Democrat, you're going to go out and vote for somebody who will pat you on the head and pay lip service to getting this under control and will then get back to boosting Canada's bitumen trafficking.

We absolutely must lay down the law with those Chinese and those Indians and their massive carbon emissions.   Except that would be the pusher criticizing the addict for drug abuse.   And besides, our per capita emissions are still way higher than theirs.   And a lot of their greenhouse gas emissions result from stuff that we have them make to fill our shelves at Wal Mart and just about everywhere else.

There's Still a Chance

 Here's what you need to know.   Today there is 25 per cent more atmospheric CO2 than there was in 2000.

On the books right now are plans for the construction of 1,200 more coal-fired power plants that will create emissions equal to another China, today's greatest greenhouse gas emitter ahead even of the United States.

The world is straying further away from commitments to combat climate change, bringing the prospect of catastrophic global warming a step closer, a UN report said on Wednesday. The warning came as nearly 200 governments prepare to meet in Qatar for international climate negotiations starting next Monday.

The warning of increasing emissions came as fresh evidence was published showing the last decade was the warmest on record for Europe. The European Environment Agency (EEA) said all parts of the region had been affected, with higher rainfall in northern Europe and a drying out in the south, bringing flooding to northern countries including the UK, and droughts to the Mediterranean.

According to the United Nations report, drawing on research from more than 50 scientists, the widening gap between countries' plans and scientific estimates means that governments must step up their ambitions as a matter of urgency to avoid even worse effects from warming. "The transition to a low-carbon, inclusive green economy is happening far too slowly and the opportunity for meeting [scientific advice on emissions targets] is narrowing annually," said Achim Steiner, executive director of Unep.

This gap between the cuts needed and the cuts planned brings the prospect of dangerous levels of climate change - entailing more extreme weather including floods, droughts and fiercer storms, such as those witnessed this year - much closer.

Even if countries manage to change direction in time and meet the emissions-cutting targets they have committed to in the past three years, the gap will still be large - about 8 Gt by 2020. To meet scientific advice, countries would have to agree to much bigger curbs on emissions than they have yet done - and there is little chance of that happening at the next round of annual climate negotiations, which begin on Monday in Doha, Qatar. At the fortnight-long talks, ministers are expected to set out a few more details of how they will work towards their agreed plan of drawing up a new global climate change treaty by 2015, to come into effect from 2020.

Steiner put on his optimistic face and said "there's still a chance" that world governments could prevent the worst but only if governments avoid becoming "locked in" to high-carbon infrastructure (can you say Tar Sands?).

And what are Canadian leaders going to do with our remaining "chance"?   Well, from Mulcair to Trudeau to Harper, they're all going to support the expansion of the Athabasca Tar Sands production several times over.   They're all on the very same page when it comes to ensuring Canada is indeed "locked in" to a high-carbon economy.

Here's a Dandy Idea

 We have a number of more-or-less progressive blog aggregators.  It is possible that these bloggers, collectively, play some role in progressive politics, shed some useful light on progressive issues.

From time to time some of us send letters, e-mails or other communications to our supposedly progressive legislators and leaders raising what are often important questions and inviting responses.  It seems, however, that almost invariably, these queries go without response.

Here's an idea that may spur those who aspire to leadership positions to actually respond.

Whether it's LibLogs or Liberals Online or Progressive Bloggers or Canadian Progressives or Rabble or whatever, we need a registry where these communications (provided they're not merely frivolous or vexations) - and whatever responses they elicit, if any - can be logged and thereby shared.

Post the communication, post the response.   Let's see what these would-be leaders of our country have to say for themselves.  Let's see where they truly stand on issues of the day.  Let them show us the country they want to lead and create.

One thing is clear.   If we, the real progressives, had that sort of registry, they would ignore us at their peril.   We are a core communication base for the progressive movement, a lot of us put a great amount of time and effort into this,  and we're entitled to be heard and to be answered.

So I would invite all of these aggregators to get together and create this type of registry - or explain why they won't.

My (Now Open) Letter to Trudeau the Lesser

Here is the text of an e-mail I sent today to Justin Trudeau, MP.

I am troubled by your support of the bitumen industry, generally, and the Nexxen deal in particular. Are you aware that, if we are to have any hope of staying within the 2C warming limit, fully 80% of known fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground? It’s your own children’s future that hangs in the balance. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report yesterday that made a chilling point. Anyone 27 and under has never experienced a month in which global temperatures were below normal. That is 332 consecutive months without a single below-normal temperature month. 27 consecutive years, 332 consecutive months.

The World Bank yesterday reported on the damage global warming has inflicted and will inflict on the Third World without rapid decarbonization of our economies and societies.

Your father, toward the end of his political career, was greatly concerned that we weren’t doing enough for the poorer, more vulnerable nations. Yet you, by contrast, seem relatively unconcerned about what we’re doing to those same poor, vulnerable nations.

This is a sad period in the history of the once great Liberal Party.

I will, of course, post any response I receive, in this case from the youth candidate, Justin Trudeau. 

Maybe Time Does Heal All Wounds

There may be hope that the current younger generation can clean up a lot of messes that have bedeviled their elders and will otherwise be dropped in their laps.

For example, it is hoped that young Republicans, who grew up never really knowing Ronald Reagan as a demi-god, will ditch the corporatism of the radical Right and the Tea Party lunacy and restore moderate conservatism to the GOP.

And, in Gaza, there are signs that a youth movement is surfacing that is fed up with both sides, Israeli and Hamas, that have plagued their lives and their future.

Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change is an extraordinary, impassioned cyber-scream in which young men and women from Gaza – where more than half the 1.5 million population is under 18 – make it clear that they've had enough. "Fuck Hamas..." begins the text. "Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!"

It goes on to detail the daily humiliations and frustrations that constitute everyday life in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian slice of land that Israel and Egypt have virtually sealed off from the world since Hamas was elected to power in 2006.

"Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed," reads the extraordinary document. 

"We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even can't think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!"

Yes, yes, and yes.  I am convinced that today's youth, globally, have been left no choice but to throw over the order of their parents and grandparents who cannot bring themselves to genuinely address the needs and aspirations of future generations.   This is nothing more than the just due of those who have scorned posterity for the sole purpose of bettering their own bloated existence.

The simple and incontrovertible fact is they cannot live out their lives in anything resembling our comfort and security without accelerating, by whatever means necessary, the generational transfer of power.

Public Works Canada Placed on Probation?

How does the federal government, in the form of Public Works Canada, get put on probation?

Public Works and Government Services Canada has pleaded guilty under the Canada Labour Code in the gruesome, October 19 death of 51 year old Peter Kennedy.

Kennedy, an engineer at the Ottawa River, Cliff Central Heating & Cooling Plant, was trying to fire up a boiler than had undergone asbestos removal.  It exploded, engulfing him in steam and hot gasses.  He later died.

PWGSC pleaded guilty to counts under the Canada Labour Code including failing to have a health and safety policy and provide necessary training and supervision about the use of boilers, not adequately training managers and not having a hazard prevention program.

Prosecutor Andrejs Berzins said he’ll be asking a judge to put the department on probation.

Probation?   Just who exactly gets put on probation?   Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada?   Her representative, the Governor General?   The minister of Public Works?  Canada?   And what do we do if they breach probation?   Toss the public service in the Greybar Hotel?

Sorry but I can't recall the federal Crown ever pleading guilty in a wrongful death case before.

Christian Right Lawyer Nailed for Kiddie Porn

On her Facebook page, Lisa Biron describes herself as a "torch bearer of religious freedom."   She's also known for being an attorney for the Christian Right law firm, the Alliance Defence Fund, an anti-gay outfit that considers itself an anti-ACLU.

But right now Lisa may be about to add child pornographer to her C.V.

A Manchester lawyer took a teenage girl to Canada, had her engage in sexual activity and convinced her to let it be filmed, according to federal indictments.

FBI agents swiftly arrested Lisa Biron yesterday morning as she awaited a hearing on child pornography charges at Manchester’s district court. About 9 a.m. FBI agents entered the courtroom, told Biron to leave her belongings and took her into an adjoining conference room where she remained for several minutes before coming out in handcuffs.

So, Lisa was out on bail on earlier kiddie porn charges when she supposedly drove this young girl to Canada to make even more kiddie porn.

Casting Canadian Values to the Trade Winds

CBC News has obtained a draft blueprint for a new Canadian foreign policy that focuses upon trade ties as the Harper government's paramount priority.

"Now the Harper government wants to focus Canada's international efforts primarily on one goal: forging new trade deals and business opportunities in the rapidly expanding markets of Asia and South America.

"The document makes scant mention of Canada's traditional roles as peacemakers in war zones like Afghanistan, foreign aid providers in disasters such as Haiti, and everywhere represented by a highly respected diplomatic corps.

"It also drops any pretense of using trade deals to pressure countries such as China on human rights and other matters of democratic principle.

"On the contrary: "To succeed we will need to pursue political relationships in tandem with economic interests even where political interests or values may not align."

"Instead, the draft doctrine is mainly about money, recasting Canada's international role from aiding the world's needy to reaping its riches."

How Harper has changed his tune:

"'I think Canadians want us to promote our trade relations worldwide and we do that," the prime minister said in November, 2006. "But I don't think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values, our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights. They don't want to sell that out to the almighty dollar."

"Six years later, almost every aspect of the Harper government's international plan casts foreign policy as a tool to give Canada either direct economic benefit or access to China and other emerging markets."

Now, to the uninitiated, that might sound pretty hypocritical, perhaps even cynical.   But that's only if you ever believed that Steve meant what he said in 2006 or, for that matter, ever.  Old LardAss is the consummate huckster and, like any good sociopath, what he means depends on what he wants and how he thinks he can get it on any given day.

What Your Doctor Doesn't Know

A humourous look into why you shouldn't buy everything you're told

We've Got Law of the Sea. Is It Time for Law of the River?

One of the great successes of the international community was the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea hammered out following negotiations that lasted from 1973 until 1982.

Now we are facing similar, perhaps even greater challenges with rivers and relations among the nations they pass through.   A classic case is the Nile where the upstream countries are constructing dams that could threaten Egypt's access to freshwater for irrigation needed to support the country's agriculture.

Iraq is another country facing imminent and potentially devastating problems by the interception of upstream waters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers by Turkey and Syria.

The greatest and potentially most dangerously volatile riverine threat relates to the Himalayan headwaters of the great rivers upon which nuclear-armed Pakistan, India and China are totally dependent.   Any guesses why China invaded, conquered and insists on controlling Tibet?

Even the United States is having serious internal problems, particularly in the southwest, concerning sharing of river waters among competing states.

"More than 40 percent of the world’s people live in 263 river basins that straddle international borders. The Danube, Rhine, Congo, Nile, Niger, and Zambezi rivers all pass through nine or more countries. Transboundary rivers contain 60 percent of the world’s river flows — for two-thirds of them, there are no agreements on water sharing.

"This is dangerous. Guinea threatens to barricade the River Niger, which could dry out the inner Niger delta, a wetland jewel on the edge of the Sahara in neighboring Mali. In September, Vladimir Putin visited the mountain states of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, where he announced financial backing for more dams on the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers to generate hydropower in those countries. But he ignored opposition from downstream Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan who fear the dams will deprive them of summer flows to irrigate their cotton crops.

"Water is today the most important global resource that does not have any international agreement, says World Bank lawyer Salman M.A. Salman. Abstractions of water from rivers have tripled in the past 50 years, mostly for irrigation. The entire flows of some rivers are now being taken for human use. And the natural flows of many others are disrupted by hydroelectric dams that only allow water to pass when the dam owners want electricity.

"Back in 1997, the UN adopted the Convention on the Non-Navigable Uses of International Watercourses. It did not lay down hard and fast rules for sharing waters, but it was a statement of principle that nations should

In refusing to sign a UN treaty, China asserted its sovereignty over waterways flowing through its territory.

ensure the “sustainable and equitable use of shared rivers.”

"Only three countries voted against: China, Turkey and Burundi — all of them upstream countries on major rivers. China is the water tower of Asia. Its Tibetan plateau is the source of the Indus, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween, and Mekong rivers. But in refusing to sign the treaty, China asserted that it had “indisputable territorial sovereignty over those parts of international watercourses that flow through its territory.”

"To come into force, the treaty required 35 nations to ratify it in their legislatures. To date only 28 countries have done so. Other refuseniks include the U.S. and Britain, an original sponsor of the treaty. But the momentum for ratification is picking up. Eight of the 28 ratifiers did so in the last three years. France has become a cheerleader for the convention.
 
"Meanwhile the treaty has a counterpart: the Helsinki convention. This began as a 1992 deal on river cooperation between European nations under the UN Economic Commission for Europe. But at a meeting in Rome set for Nov. 28-30, its members are likely to vote to allow any nation to join. Early potential signatories include Iraq and Tunisia.

"France’s Thebault says the two treaties could complement each other. For while the 1992 treaty is a statement of principle about water sharing, the Helsinki convention is “bolder,” with formal arrangements for drawing up deals.

Also on the agenda for the Rome meeting of the Helsinki Convention is the devilish problem of sharing groundwater resources.   This is a powerful issue that, barring international pressure, could prevent Israel from ever yielding the West Bank to the Palestinian people.

One of the most potentially devastating impacts of climate change is the wild alteration of our planet's hydrological cycle.   A warming atmosphere carries more water vapour, and the energy that goes with it.   That results in more storms of greater intensity and destructiveness and radically altered precipitation patterns leading to more droughts in some places and more floods in others.

This is already well progressed which means we need to talk quickly and to find an equitable way for sharing the Earth's water resources.    And, yes, that's going to mean what the radical Right loathes - the notion of treating a fundamental natural resource as a Commons.   And, yes, that could well set a precedent for treating other resources and assets as Commons.   And, yes, we may not be able to survive without it.

Aaaaah! Is This Is How Civilization Ends?

Google Maps used to be a great aid to navigate your way to destinations.   That was then, this is now.  Enter Google Indoor Maps, the app that helps you navigate shopping malls and even individual retail stores.

The holiday shopping season is upon us. Your favorite retail stores are already playing holiday tunes, promoting sales, and decking out their displays in red and green. But if flashbacks of people rushing all around you frantically trying to find gifts for everyone on their lists are giving you anxiety, fret not. This year you can use indoor Google Maps on your Android device to stay cool, calm, collected and most of all, one step ahead of the crowd.

On Black Friday and throughout this holiday season, simply zoom in to a participating store on Google Maps to devise your shopping game plan. An indoor floor plan with helpful labels will automatically appear, and the familiar “blue dot” icon will help you figure out the fastest way to the accessories department, the food court when you need to refuel, and the closest restroom or ATM when you need a break from your marathon shopping session. For many locations, you can even get indoor walking directions to find the best route from one store to the next. 

I've got an idea.   How about lithium ion battery powered roller skates slaved via Bluetooth to an Android device running Google Indoor Maps.   You just step inside the mall, cursor over to the potato chip section at Wal Mart and, voila, you're there!

Are Republicans Finally Willing to Bury Reagan?

Ronald Reagan's nearly 30-year romp, or rampage, through Republican ideology, launched by a sitting president already in the throes of early stage Alzheimer's, may be over.

Reagan was, quite possibly, the greatest and most destructive bullshitter in American presidential history.    He fed his party and most of the American people a diet of raw bullshit by the shovel full and they lapped it up and made him a demi-god for it.

The Gipper was remembered for what he said, something that meant suppressing all recollection of what he actually did.   For example, when he came to power in 1981, America was the biggest creditor nation on Earth.   When he cleared out eight years later, America had fallen so far that it stood as the biggest debtor nation on the planet.

Reagan ushered in the era of Voodoo Economics featuring the utterly deranged "trickle down" theory that held cutting taxes for the rich created wealth that flowed downward to the working classes.   Even the author of that, David Stockman, now admits it was rank bullshit from the start.   Yet it's been the marching anthem of Republicans ever since and that includes one of its grandest Poster Boys, Mitch Romney hisself.   Even today the Republican Congress is well stocked with true believers aghast at the idea that the Bush tax cuts for the rich might be allowed to lapse.

Here's a little fact that most Americans overlook.   From the end of WWII until the Carter presidency, every president, Republican and Democrat, managed to reduce America's debt as a percentage of GDP.   Every one, including Johnson and Nixon during Viet Nam.

Reagan turned that on its head, swelling America's debt to GDP ratio, something continued by Bush the Elder and Bush the Minor, until America's debt-bloated economy imploded just in time for Barack Obama to arrive to clean up.

Now, having lost five of the past six elections, moderate Republicans are girding to attempt to take back the GOP from the far right radicals and Tea Party lunatics.  The New York Times' often mealy-mouthed conservative journo, David Brooks, describes a gaggle of Paleoconservatives, Soft Libertarians, Lower-Middle Reformists and Burkean Revivalists rallying to purge the Temple of the Reagan-inspired and fueled radicals.

"By and large, these diverse writers did not grow up in the age of Reagan and are not trying to recapture it. They disdain what you might call Donor Base Republicanism. Most important, they matured intellectually within a far-reaching Web-based conversation. In contrast to many members of the conservative political-entertainment complex, they are data-driven, empirical and low-key in tone."

Oh, we can only live in hope.

Another 1,000+ Coal Plants in the Works

Actually, the number may be closer to 1,200 new coal-fueled electricity plants about three-quarters of them planned for China and India.

Coal plants are the most polluting of all power stations and the World Resources Institute (WRI) identified 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India. The capacity of the new plants add up to 1,400GW to global greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of adding another China – the world's biggest emitter. India is planning 455 new plants compared to 363 in China, which is seeing a slowdown in its coal investments after a vast building programme in the past decade.

"This is definitely not in line with a safe climate scenario – it would put us on a really dangerous trajectory," said the WRI's Ailun Yang, who compiled the report, considered to be the most comprehensive in the public domain. But she said new emissions limits proposed in the US and a voluntary cap on coal use in China could begin to turn the tide. "These policies would give really strong signals about the risks to the future financial performance of coal of climate policies."

With the United States currently reeling in a petro-bacchanal  from the bounty of fracking that promises to make America the leading oil producer in the world and the emerging super-economies forging ahead with coal, it's hard to see how we're going to win this.

Money Talks? We'll See

Together they manage 22.5-trillion dollars in assets.  Collectively, they're calling for governments to implement what they term, "investment grade climate policy."

The group is calling for a dialogue between investors and governments on seven points.

1.   Identify policies that promote low-carbon investment and discourage high-carbon investment;

2.   Reinforce reliability and predictability in climate and clean energy policy;

3.    Identify steps governments can take to improve climate policies, focusing on investment in greenhouse gas emissions mitigation;

4.    Find ways to bolster the effectiveness and spread of carbon markets;

5.    Work toward stronger international agreements on emissions reductions;

6.     Focus public and private sector collaboration on deployment of private capital on climate solutions, and;

7.    Phase out subsidies for fossil fuels that remain six times greater than subsidies for alternative, clean energy.

Money talks.   Maybe.

Why the Fear?

Why do the Liberals and NDP still act as though there was something remotely controversial about anthropogenic global warming or the threat to our society from growing inequality of incomes, wealth and opportunity?

These are two enormous threats to the Canadian people, today and for generations to come, and both require progressive solutions.

As a major, per capita emitter, Canada is among the handful of nations under the greatest moral duty to act to arrest climate change.   We are full members in a select club of major emitters who have an obligation to lead the world in decarbonizing our economies and our societies.   Yet there doesn't appear to be even one of those currently in party leadership positions or vying for a leadership spot who will stand on the principle of what Canada, already a well-deserved pariah state, must do.

And then there's the social cancer that threatens to consume our middle class, inequality.   It seems to be conventional political wisdom that Canada's economy is so integrated with America's that attacking inequality is too dangerous, fraught with enormous consequences for the Canadian economy. 

Are we really doomed to fly wingman to America as it spins out of control?   In several respects America is on its way down and on its way out.   It has become the corporatist state sans pareil, the most powerful permanent warfare state perhaps since Rome and a boiling cauldron of spreading inequality and ascendant oligarchy.   Must we tie ourselves to that?   Can we not imagine something better for our people than what they would inflict on theirs?   Are we really that fearful of a better future?

There was a time when the New Democrats would be demanding these very things for the Canadian people.   There was a time when they would be standing and loudly shaming the government of the day for this sort of thing.   Now they stand mute, silenced, seeking to become what they for so long reviled.   The duct tape across their mouths is their own.

Murray Dobbins Urges New Dems to Save Their Souls

The Tyee's Murray Dobbins says the New Dems are heading in the wrong direction and only the Libs and Tories will benefit from it.  Dobbins says Mulcair has it all wrong.

A couple of polls showing the federal NDP losing support to the Liberals pose some pretty fundamental questions for the party and its small 'l' liberal leader Thomas Mulcair. Does the party follow the narrow political path of the two big business parties or does it reinvent itself as a movement party and tap into the deep dissatisfaction of Canadians about the state of politics and governance in this country?

...Thomas Mulcair and the NDP decided ...to listen to the polls showing the Liberals (read Justin "He doesn't really want the job" Trudeau) gaining ground at their expense. The result? A complete about-face on so-called "free trade" deals. Instead of highlighting three incredibly destructive investment agreements currently in the news they panicked -- ending their commitment to get out of NAFTA, calling on the WTO to re-launch global trade talks and urging Harper to sign deals with India, Brazil and South Africa.
Here was a chance for the NDP to stake out ground that distinguished them from all other parties. Mulcair (who unfortunately does support "free trade") could have used these deals (FIPA, CETA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership) to lambast their potential destructive impact on the country and argue against more such agreements. None of them have anything to do with trade -- they are all about corporate rights, just like NAFTA and the WTO. 

...That Mulcair would back off the NDP's historic position on these odious corporate rights deals demonstrates how vulnerable the party is to feeling obliged to move in the direction of being a second Liberal Party. Ironically, it is their historic 100 plus seats that has made them more cautious (reminiscent of their increased caution in 1988 when they were running second in the polls). But the more they back off from who they are, the more people will go to the real thing. And it's not mostly about policies, it's mostly about trust. Harper has managed to create a new political and government culture in which the default position of most citizens is distrust. If Mulcair wants Canadians to trust the NDP he has to take the party forward and not backward.

...The NDP's future success depends on increasing people's expectations of what is possible -- not further decreasing them.

Dobbins has nailed it on Mulcair's balding head.   Just as Ignatieff dragged the Liberals to a place where there was nothing for them, so too is Mulcair, even if he is carrying on Jack Layton's plan.   This obsessively centrist political compression is toxic for the New Democrats.   If Canadians want a liberal party, as Dobbins puts it, they'll go for the real thing, not the Layton/Mulcair Latter Day Liberals.

F-35 Enters USMC Service - Sort Of

The United States Marine Corps has accepted delivery of its very first F-35 stealth light bomber - or some of it anyway.

"The Lockheed Martin-built plane’s computerized logistical system, flight software and special helmet still aren’t ready — and it lacks weapons."

But, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?

“This aircraft will be used to conduct a full spectrum of aviation operations in support of combat missions and maritime readiness worldwide,” the Pentagon boasted about its new frontline JSF.

Sure, eventually. And only after more testing, more design changes and potentially millions of dollars in modifications each to this jet and others like it. The Marines anticipate VMFA-121 being war-ready with 16 fully equipped F-35s no earlier than 2015, a slip of one year compared to the 2011 plan. In the meantime, the squadron will oversee some pilot and ground-crew training, complementing the main instructional effort in Florida and testing in California.

BF-19 is part of the Pentagon’s Low-Rate Initial Production of the stealthy JSF, meaning it was expensive — no less than $200 million — and assembled while Lockheed and the military were still working out the plane’s precise configuration. In April the Defense Department paid Lockheed $65 million to fix identified problems on dozens of F-35s it had already manufactured, presumably including BF-19.

JSF flight testing began in 2006 but is only 25 percent complete. As such, the list of things the F-35 still doesn’t have is a long one.

Now Tell Me Why We Need to Push Bitumen on the World?

"Twenty-seven or younger? Then you’ve never experienced a month in which the global temperature has been colder than average, according to the latest data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

That little bon mot courtesy of Wired.com.

Here's the dandy graphic to go with that:

In NOAA’s monthly “State of the Climate” analysis, the agency reported: “The average temperature across land and ocean surfaces during October was 14.63°C. This is 0.63°C above the 20th century average and ties with 2008 as the fifth warmest October on record. This is the 332nd consecutive month with an above-average temperature.”

This is global data, of course, and the pattern is rather more complex at a local level. In fact, the average monthly temperature in Britain in October was 1.3 degrees Celsius below average, making it the coldest October since 2003. Scotland had its coldest October since records began in 1910.

Now here's a fun game for you readers.   Why don't you subtract 27-years from your own age and remember your own life  332-months ago.   Try to visualize what you've gone through, all the things you've accomplished, over this interval while the Earth steadily warmed.

                                                 

World Bank - Says What Everybody Knows, We're in Trouble

A World Bank report released today warns the world is heading for 4C of warming this century and that means trouble for everybody but especially if you're one of the nobodies from the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

There it is, the whole report boiled down to one sentence.   Not too hard to follow, is it?   Doesn't sound like the sort of world we want for our grandkids does it?  Yet it sounds every bit like the world we're determined to bequeath them.

Certainly gives you something to think about when you're trying to pick which petro-pol should govern Canada - Mulcair, some Lib or Harper.   Fact is, when it comes to the greatest threat facing Canada and the world this century there's damned little to choose from among this lot.   They're all vying for the centre control position in our rapidly emerging, pariah petro-state.

Vote Green.