A Canadian Muslim Speaks Out

Straight from enduring TorStar Rosie DiManno's stomach-churning screen on the terrorists in our midst, I came upon Toronto Muslim, Murtaza Hussain's insightful comments in The Guardian.

It is a curious experience to feel that the benign normality of your life is constantly held hostage to forces outside your ability to control. That effort of cultivating a positive image – building relationships, respecting the law, living honestly, giving charity, contributing to civil society – could potentially be degraded or wiped out by forces far beyond your scope of influence as an individual.

Today, many Americans live in fear of the random nihilistic violence of terrorists. A 2011 Gallup poll showed that roughly 36% of Americans worry about a potential terrorist attack killing them or one of their family members – down from post-9/11 highs but still very significant. While academic studies on the subject have shown that the actual risk of such an event occurring is extremely low, the heinous violence at the Boston Marathon this past week shows that even the rarest of "black swan events" do eventually come to pass.

However, to Muslim Americans and other ordinary Muslim citizens of western countries, the fear of being victimized by a terrorist attack is magnified many times. While, like their fellow citizens, the chance of them being personally harmed in such an attack is remote, they are haunted by the very real danger that in the aftermath they will be subjected to greater public scrutiny, abuse, suspicion and hostility. Besides the fear of governments targeting their communities and curtailing their individual freedom, there exists an even broader and more diffuse fear.

While hate crimes targeting Muslims tend to spike in the aftermath of terror attacks (as has sadly been evidenced in attacks against ordinary Muslim Americans in Boston and New York after the marathon bombing), these tend to be exceptional cases. The real damage done to the social fabric by such attacks is the erosion of trust and respect between society at large and its Muslim minorities.

Regardless of the actions of individual Muslims – the overwhelming majority of whom experience events such as terrorist attacks with just as much disbelief, trauma and helplessness as their co-citizens – they are nevertheless viewed as being somehow associated with them, simply due to their ethnic or religious background. In the aftermath of the Boston bombings, the unanimous feeling among my many Muslim friends, family and acquaintances was one of overwhelming fear and dread that the perpetrator might also be someone who professes to share our religious identity. 

For many Muslim citizens of western countries – especially among the young – where they live today is the only home they have ever known and the only place they have ever thoroughly understood or felt affection for. The anxiety that despite respecting society's rules, the welcome mat may still one day be pulled out from under you is very real and common. Given the statements of some politicians and popular media figures, these concerns do not seem such a stretch.

Contrary to some hyperbolic depictions of Muslim minorities as a nefarious fifth column within society, the average Muslim has about as much control of, or connection to, the vile actions of terrorists as the average white American does to school shootings or movie theater massacres. But based on the fact that there are violent individuals in the world who identify as Muslim, some completely deny that moderate Muslims even exist.

At present, the public discourse around terrorism and minority groups renders law-abiding, honest citizens unable to feel completely secure in society. However much we condemn such attacks, distance ourselves from them, identify with the victims, and offer our support to society, we are liable to be viewed with reflexive suspicion, as perennial "outsiders" in the national fabric.

Just What is a Weapon of Mass Destruction Anyway?

If a jury-rigged, pressure cooker bomb is a "weapon of mass destruction" what does that mean for our own, far more generous use of force against others?

This is no longer a moot question.  Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction, a capital offence.   Isn't just murder, four counts, and another couple of hundred counts of attempt, charge enough?

Weapon of Mass Destruction is an interesting term.   In just a decade past the mere allegation of possessing such things was deemed a casus belli, a case or justification for pre-emptive war.

But if we hold young Tsarnaev culpable of using WMDs what does that mean for our own forces dropping 500-pound, 1000-pound or 2000 pound high-explosive bombs, weapons that can pulp lungs and brains of anyone within a radius of several hundred feet?  These are the very type of munitions we've been known to use to take out entire wedding parties in Afghanistan.

We associate the use of WMDs with pure evil, butchery, mass slaughter, heinous barbarism, an affront to humanity itself.   Perhaps in the trial of Tsarnaev we'll be setting the bar for ourselves.

It's Time to Reinstate the Cucking Stool

Canada, for reasons obscure and probably troubled, has not just a tolerance but a positive fondness for professional scolds.  There is a gaggle of these haughty merchants of sanctimony and rebuke who inexplicably flourish at  our major newspapers.  They have names like Wente, Blatchford and, in the case of the Toronto Star, Rosie DiManno.

The common scold, or communis rixatrix, who vexes me today is the venerable DiManno who, from her bunker, has penned a screed about Muslim terror in our midst in which she castigates dim-witted Canadians for "whistling past the graveyard" as our neighbours practice the dark arts of terrorism.   She writes in trembling hand:

The other is us.

The other is in our midst.

The other lives in our neighbourhoods, attends our schools, prays in our mosques and temples, alongside a broader community that would be appalled if aware of what they were contemplating.

The other breathes our air but inhales as well the toxic messages spread so easily via the Internet.

The other is enthralled by alien causes.

They are still a mere few. Yet that’s all it takes, as we have seen in just the past week — a pair of hapless brothers with just enough tactical wherewithal to construct crude bombs aimed at the “soft target’’ of the Boston Marathon.

Apart from nuclear reactors, airports, government buildings considered prime targets — the White House, Parliament, military bases — everything is a soft target. The world is made up of soft targets and soft flesh.

What has Rosie so exorcised is the arrest of two guys apparently plotting to attack a train that runs between Toronto and Penn Station.   This event, she informs us, has finally shattered our "false sense of security."

At the very least, the bubble of immunity and inviolability under which too many Canadians have laboured since Sept. 11, lulled into a false sense of security, has been pierced. Al Qaeda has long tentacles, can reach out and bite into the bosom of even so peaceful and embracing a country as Canada.

Tell me now about root causes of terrorism, as if they can’t ever be nurtured here and, if so, might be averted by moral and religious intervention wisely applied.

Tell me now about an exaggerated and counterproductive “war on terrorism” unleashed by the U.S.

Tell me now that Al Qaeda is a diluted and degraded ideology, operationally incapable of even imaging an overseas strike.

Tell me again how we’re so different from London, Madrid, Bali, Moscow, Nairobi, Mumbai, Karachi . . .

Tell me again how Canada is so damn exceptional.

It sounds like somebody has been telling Rosie things, a good many things, that is unless she's been listening to those voices in her head again.  Then again it sounds like DiManno is indulging in hystrionics and fear-mongering, the stock in trade of the common scold.

In English common law a common scold was recognized as a public nuisance, the penalty for which was a ride on the cucking stool for a quick dunk in a cold river.

As for me I certainly don't whistle past the graveyard but I do place very deserved trust in our police agencies to keep terrorism and other threats under control.

And no, Rosie, I won't tell you how Canada is "so damn exceptional" because I know our history.  I know there were domestic terrorists among us during the War of 1812 and what of the Fenians?  Have we ever existed as a nation at a time when we were really immune from some form of terrorism, domestic or foreign?  How did we ever get by without Rosie DiManno? Then again I wonder who strikes more terror, more fear, in the heart of Canadians?  Is it these two characters turned in by Toronto's Muslim community and rounded up by police or is it DiManno's alarmism?

Rosie is no terrorist but she is a damned nuisance.

When Big Money Flows from Taps

"If you can find ways to invest in water,

 you will be extremely rich

 because we do have a serious water problem

 in many parts of the world

 like India, China, the southwestern part of the U.S.,

 and west of the Red Sea."

                                                    Jim Rogers, 18 April, 2013

Jim Rogers knows what he's talking about.  India's economy and its people are fast running out of water and much of what does remain is too contaminated, not just for human consumption but for agriculture and even industry.

India has 18 per cent of the world's population but barely 4 per cent of the world's water supply.   India is already the most water-stressed country of the G20 and it shares a border with another enormous, water-stressed country, China.  Both are dependent on rivers fed from the Himalayan watershed and both of them maintain disputed claims to that region.  Just this past weekend a force of Chinese soldiers marched ten kilometres into Indian territory and set up camp.  Both sides actively patrol the line of demarcation even to the point of having patrols shadowing the other side's patrols.

India's usable water is apportioned 80 per cent to agriculture with just 10 per cent available to industry.  It is estimated that, by 2030, Indian demand for clean water will exceed supply by 50 per cent.

It's a situation perfect for the form of disaster capitalism practised by the world's Water Barons - firms like Nestle, Vivendi and people like Jim Rogers.

Jim Rogers, the investor who foresaw the start of a commodity rally in 1999, said he is “extremely optimistic” about investing in water amid scarce supply in countries from India to the U.S.

“If you can find ways to invest in water, you will be extremely rich because we do have a serious water problem in many parts of the world like India, China, the southwestern part of the U.S., and west of the Red Sea,” Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, told reporters in Singapore on April 15.

Shares of water-treatment companies are beating those of gold and oil explorers as governments from China to India boost spending on basic infrastructure to avert shortages threatening economic growth and political stability.

The S&P Global Water Index (SPGTAQD) of 50 companies has surged 162 percent since Nov. 30, 2001, when Bloomberg began compiling the measure. In comparison, the S&P Global Oil Index (SPGOGUP) has risen 137 percent in the same period and the S&P/TSX Global Gold Sector Index (SPTSGD) has climbed about 40 percent.

Unfortunately experience has shown that when the private sector transforms water into a commodity, money talks.  The weakest and the poorest become vulnerable to high prices and market fluctuations.

And if you want an idea of what the titans of the world water cartel really think, the CEO of Nestle lays it out in very chilling terms.  To him the notion of water as a human right is NGO extremism.  Water is a "foodstuff" and his company intends to own it.

What is often overlooked is that these Water Barons are careful to say that they're really just wanting to manage national water assets yet once they're in place their management takes on all the characteristics of ownership and they act accordingly.

h/t Edstock/TheGalloping Beaver

Did Joe Oliver Just Declare War on British Columbia?

A solid and steadily growing majority of British Columbians want nothing to do with Alberta's bitumen pipelines crossing our province to our coast.  Fewer of us still want bitumen-laden supertankers plying our pristine northern coastal waters or Vancouver's inner harbour.

According to our federal government's reptilian industry minister, Joe Oliver, our firmly held opposition to this bitumen trafficking makes us, the great majority of British Columbians, "inimical to Canadian national interests." 

Now "inimical" is a loaded word.  It connotes hostility, and a willingness to harm, malevolence and, according to merriamwebster.com, "having the disposition of an enemy."

And any doubt that Joe sees British Columbians as enemies of his authoritarian state were put to rest when he told a gaggle of tarheads in Calgary, "We are in a battle for the future of Canada."

So, let's get this straight.  In Joe's mind (and obviously his master's too), the people of British Columbia are Canada's enemy and Joe's army is "in a battle" against us to defend the future of Canada from our malevolence.

Wow, this seems a lot like the War of 1812 all over again only it's Joe's side telling British Columbians to surrender or be enslaved.  It's the people of British Columbia who are on the defensive, trying to protect their homeland, and the federal government that is waging a war of conquest.

Joe Oliver's Blowjob

Joe Oliver got a freebie from Claudia Cattaneo in the pages of the Financial Post.

In an extraordinary puff piece, 'A Battle of Canada's Future: How Joe Oliver has become Canada's energy pitchman,' Cattaneo praises ol' Joe for firmly standing up to those whom Joe finds are "inimical to Canadian national interests."  It's a truly amazing piece of garbage journalism.

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi discussed the current penchant for Cattaneo's sort of blowjob journalism in an article about Paula Broadwell's "slobberific" Petraeus biography, "All In".

Then it hit me – it was an interesting book, after all! Because if you read All In carefully, the book's tone will remind you of pretty much any other authorized bio of any major figure in business or politics (particularly in business), and it will most particularly remind you of almost any Time or Newsweek famous-statesperson profile.


Which means: it's impossible to tell the difference between the tone of a reporter who we now know was literally sucking the dick of her subject and the tone of just about any other modern American reporter who is given access to a powerful person for a biography or feature-length profile.

Decades ago, when people like Sy Hersh were the go-to-profilers of influential people, journalists reflexively distrusted power, and any reporter, male or female, who wrote a blowjob profile (that's what we call them) of a politician or tycoon was looked down upon as a hack and a traitor. But these days, you can't tell the difference between your average profile of a Senator or CEO or a four-star general and an ESPN feature about a day in the life of Lebron James. We're supposed to make heroes out of sports stars, but what's everyone else's excuse? At least Broadwell did it for love. Well, maybe it wasn't even that . .



Notice:  Nothing in this post should be construed to suggest that Ms. Cattaneo has ever had any actual physical contact with Joe Oliver, of any nature whatsoever, either in the preparation of her odious article or at any other time.

Don't Sugar Coat It, Maggie

Ah, Margaret Thatcher, the giggles just go on and on.

There were not many people in this world that Maggie liked and a good many that she despised, among them the Irish.  She even toyed with the idea of cleansing Northern Ireland of its Catholic population.

Did Margaret Thatcher have a problem with the Irish? It seems a fair question after Peter Mandelson’s odd revelation the other day about meeting her after he had just been appointed Northern Ireland Secretary in 1999:

She came up to me and she said ‘I've got one thing to say to you, my boy’. She said, ‘you can't trust the Irish they're all liars’, she said, ‘liars, and that's what you have to remember so just don't forget it.’

With that she waltzed off and that was my only personal exposure to her he added.

This vignette is of a piece with what we know to be her attitude to Northern Ireland and Irish affairs more broadly; mistrustful, simplistic and, well, a wee bit bigoted.

In 2001 it came to light that Thatcher had suggested to a senior diplomat who was negotiating with the Irish government over the landmark Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985 that Catholics living in Northern Ireland could be moved to live in southern Ireland instead. She made the suggestion to Sir David Goodall during a late night conversation at Chequers. He explained:

She said, if the northern [Catholic] population want to be in the south, well why don't they move over there? After all, there was a big movement of population in Ireland, wasn't there?

Nobody could think what it was. So finally I said, are you talking about Cromwell, prime minister? She said, that's right, Cromwell.

Cromwell’s policy of ‘To Hell or to Connaught’, forced Catholics to the less fertile lands on Ireland’s western-most province, forfeiting the land in the north and central parts of the country at the point of a sword in what we would now recognise as ethnic cleansing. Cromwell was also, in modern parlance, a war criminal too; butchering thousands of men, women and children as his forces cut a bloody swathe across the country.

That Margaret Thatcher - a million laughs!

Sphincter of the Week - Surprise, He's a Brit; No Surprise, He's a Tory

Our Sphincter of the Week award goes to Midhurst county councillor, John Cherry, a Tory of course, for his opposition to a proposal by Brixton's Durand Academy to expand to a disused school building in Stedham, West Sussex.  I'll let councillor Cherry take it from here:

"Ninety-seven per cent of pupils will be black or Asian. It depends what type of Asian. If they’re Chinese they’ll rise to the top. If they’re Indian they’ll rise to the top. If they’re Pakistani they won’t.

 "There are certain nationalities where hard work is highly valued. There are certain nationalities where they are uncertain what this hard work is all about.

 "If the children are not allowed out of the site then it will make them want to escape into the forest – it will be a sexual volcano.

 "Stockwell is a coloured area – I have no problem with that. To be honest, I would far rather Durand took over a secondary school in London rather than shoving everybody here."

No word yet on whether the good councillor John Cherry shares any common lineage with our own outspoken Cherry.

American Taxpayers Paying the Price of Climate Change

Their Congressional representatives may dispute it, call it a hoax even, but the U.S. government is doling out big money in relief for those hit by climate change impacts.

According to environmental corporate watchdog, Ceres, crop insurance payouts for last year's drought cost every American man, woman and child $51.

“Climate change is fundamentally changing the United States, and American taxpayers are paying a huge price for it,” said Ceres president Mindy Lubber. “The cost of withered crops, submerged streets, hurricane damage and wildfires eventually comes out of our own wallets. Crop insurance losses from last year’s drought alone cost every person in America $51.”
Ceres compiled data showing rising costs to three federal programs, as well as growing financial exposure for state taxpayers in hurricane-prone states. Among the findings:

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is staggering under massive losses after Hurricane Sandy, which triggered more than 115,000 new claims in just the first two weeks after the storm. Although NFIP collects about $3.5 billion a year in premiums, the amount of claims the agency has paid out has exceeded the amount of premiums collected in four of the past eight years. Last year's losses in Sandy's wake are expected to approach $8 billion.

“That’s $25 for every American, and that figure doesn’t even include the $50 billion of disaster relief that Congress approved in January for Sandy-impacted states,” Lubber said.

Extreme weather, influenced by climate change, creates other taxpayer risks. State governments are increasingly liable for hurricane damages as private insurers pull out, leaving state taxpayers subsidizing insurance loss claims for homes and businesses.
The state insurer in Florida, for example, is carrying the burden of more than one million homeowners’ policies — a financial catastrophe just waiting for state taxpayers the next time a major hurricane hits Florida. State government-loss exposure in hurricane-prone states (such as Florida, Texas and Massachusetts) now exceeds $885 billion, a 16-fold jump from 1990.
“As Americans pay their taxes on April 15, let’s consider what our political leaders — in Washington and our state capitals — are doing to address climate change,” Lubber added. “Let's hope, for our wallets’ sakes, they're tackling the issue head-on.”

Americans recoil at the notion of big government and the imagined straight-to-hell evils of socialism except when they want or need it and then lofty principle flies straight out the window.  Insurers, the private sector, wants no part of these losses and that's when the people of the devastated areas, mainly the rightwing south, expect the government to spread their losses to the people elsewhere.  Hypocritical?   As Sarah Palin would say, "you betcha."

Big Story - British Columbians Speak Out

RCMP in suburban White Rock foiled an apparent burglary/home invasion after receiving reports of two males trying to break into a home.   The suspects took off but inside the officers found - wait for it - 8,000 pot cookies.

And here are some of the comments from the CBC web site:

I'll take 3 dozen!...oh wait...I'll take 6 dozen!
Haven't had one of those since the 60's!

If you got any gluten free ones, I'll take them all!

Arrest anyone with a milk moustache.

Oreos are a gateway cookie.

It's a vicious cycle to break: Eat a cookie, get high, get the munchies, eat a cookie.....

So if pot was legal and they sold 8000 cookies at let's say 10 bucks a cookie, that's $80,000. At 13% tax that would have been $10,400.00 tax in the government's coffers. Money that could have went to daycare spots, public transit...
But no, that's crazy talk - we'd rather build a casino in the middle of Toronto than legalize weed, because weed is bad, and gambling....is good? 

What was it again?
10,000 cookies have been found at the house…..
8,000 cookies delivered to the police station…..
6,000 cookies taken from the station vault to be delivered to the court (for evidence)
3,500 cookies are placed on the table in the court room
Recount… 3,495 left, with the judge smiling, looking all happy
Happy 4/20

Seriously, aren't laws and law enforcement supposed to protect us from each other, not to tell us what we can and can't do? Time to tell them to butt out on this issue. I'll bet the cops all bought a quart of milk after this bust.

I look forward to the day when this isn't considered news.

I read through the first hundred of the 218 comments to this story.  Not one saw these marijuana cookies as a danger to society.  Almost all of them were for decriminalization.   A great many of them were critical of the RCMP for raiding the house while two men the cops described as armed were allowed to get away.

  

  

On Climate Change, Money - Or Its Absence - Talks.

I can give you six hundred and seventy four billion reasons to believe the scientific consensus on climate change.

$674,000,000,000.00 - that's the amount the top 200 energy companies spent, just last year alone, on exploring for new fossil fuel reserves.   Gee, that sounds an awful lot like two-thirds of a trillion dollars, doesn't it?  Yes, yes it does.  Even in my world, that's serious money.

So, what does 674-billion dollars have to do with the scientific consensus on climate change?  In fact, just about everything.  It shows that, in the supposed dispute over whether climate change is even real, the fossil fuelers have the big bucks.

The scientific consensus is based on cumulative scientific research, an ever growing, multi-disciplinary body of knowledge.  That includes fields such as geology, biology, botany and zoology, medicine and especially epidemiology, chemistry, physics, atmospherics, hydrology, and more.   Each of those fields tests the theory and aspects of the theory against their own discipline.  They conduct experiments, do research, draw conclusions and put their data and conclusions in papers that are then reviewed by other scientists and, if approved, published.

All those reports, including the data and work-ups, are public.   Energy companies, the folks who have $674-billion to burn, could easily take a few hundred million, tops, to pick through those reports and do their own research debunking them if they're inaccurate or, worse, simply false.   Then they could take their scientific rebuttal research to their paid minions in Congress and blow the scientific consensus to smithereens in a matter of an afternoon at the outside.

They could do that.   They could but they haven't.  It's logical, given the trillions of dollars worth of carbon energy potentially at stake, to assume that they have paid their own scientists to try to poke holes in the consensus.  That's a safe bet but that's not what is important.   What matters is that, despite the open nature of the research and despite all the opportunity the fossil fuelers have had to refute it, they haven't presented any viable challenge to it.

When the energy majors have $674-billion to burn yet can't address the scientific consensus on climate change, that's about all you need to know.

Nuclear Fangs for the F-35 - Obama's Light Bomber

Don't Worry, This Will Only Hurt for a Second

The United States is refurbishing 200 nuclear bombs for use aboard the F-35 light attack bomber.

The old B-61 gravity bombs are being converted with new tail fin assemblies that will transform them into guided weapons.  They'll be kept at various bases in Europe from Belgium to Turkey.

Little Bundles of Instant Sunshine

"What will be going back to Europe will be a guided nuclear bomb," [Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of Nuclear Scientists]  said. "Especially when you combine it with F35 with stealth characteristics, that expands the targets you can hold at risk from Europe, because by placing the explosion closer to the target you can choose a lower explosive yield. That is very important as there is less radioactive fallout. For many people this is a great concern because it means making nuclear weapons more 'usable'."

The new B61 Mk12 will be a 50 kilotonne weapon, like most of the "tactical" nuclear bombs currently in Europe.  

There you go.  The F-35 has already received the mission it's probably best suited for - a tactical nuclear strike bomber.   Best of all, Turkey, where some of the upgraded B-61 nukes will likely wind up, shares a good stretch of common border with Iran which would put those F-35s within reasonable striking distance of Tehran.

Learning to Live Within Your Own Skin - Japan's Grand Experiment

The Japanese have become perhaps the greyest of the greying nations of the developed world.   This is discussed in The World Today, the public journal of Chatham House, perhaps the world's most venerable and certainly most prestigious think tank.

Everybody knows that Japan is ground zero for global ageing. The youngest of the developed countries as recently as the mid-1970s, it is now the oldest – and its age wave will continue to roll in for decades to come.

By 2050, the proportion of Japanese who are 65 or older is on track to reach 39 per cent, up from 23 per cent in 2010 and only 9 per cent in 1980, when Japan Inc seemed poised to conquer the global economy. Japan’s total population, which is already contracting, will enter a precipitous decline, shrinking by over a half by the end of the century.

To those of us from economies addicted to the growth model, Japan sounds like a ticking time bomb.

Yet Japan enjoys a number of enviable advantages that may better position it to cope with its ageing population than many western countries – at least for a while.

To begin with, its welfare state is not especially generous. All told, government benefits account for just under 40 per cent of the total income of the average Japanese elder. In most European countries, 50, 60, or even 70 per cent of elderly income arrives in the form of a government cheque.

The relatively low dependence of the elderly on benefits, together with a cultural tradition that stresses consensus and shared sacrifice, makes it easier for Japan to rewrite the social contract than it is for most western countries. 

The Japanese also benefit from their family factor.

Then there is the extended family. In Japan, nearly half of old people live with their grown children. This custom not only allows relatively poor Japanese elders to live with their more affluent children, but allows poor young adults to live with their more affluent parents. Multigenerational living not only mitigates the burden of oldage dependency by providing an extra source of support for the old, but also by providing a source of ‘trickle down’ support for the young. While the rate of multigenerational living remains high in southern Europe, it is less than 15 per cent in most western countries. In the Netherlands it is less than 10 per cent and in Sweden it is less than 5 per cent.

Another solution for the Japanese is to up their birth rates.

If Japan is to prosper in the long run – indeed if Japan is to survive – it must raise its fertility rate. Doing so will require the radical transformation of workplace and family cultures. In today’s rich world, it is no longer true that more working women means fewer babies. In fact just the opposite is true. Those countries that facilitate a dual role for women get more of both crucial inputs – workers and babies. Those that do not, get fewer of both. It is no accident that Japan has both one of the very lowest fertility rates in the OECD and one of the very lowest female labour-force participation rates.

In early January, the United Nations University published an intriguing report, Japan as the New Normal: Living in a Constrained Economy. 

...conventional wisdom would suggest that after two decades of recessionary tendencies, Japan should be an economic and societal wreck. But quite the opposite is the case. In many respects Japan seems to be doing fine.

The author noted that, from a GDP perspective, Japan's plight looks far worse than it is.   Here we find the new economics, that goes beyond financial capital to include both natural and social capital.

...the findings of the 2012 Inclusive Wealth Report from the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP).  Set up as an alternative to gross domestic product (GDP), the Inclusive Wealth Index reflects the state of natural resources, the economy and ecological conditions, the population’s health and productive capacity, and measures whether or not national policies are sustainable.

In the years ahead we are likely also to see more reflection upon what Japan’s transition to the “new normal” might actually look like. And remember, this “new normal” will be the future path for most industrialized and industrializing countries.

But the reality is that the new normal may not be as stark as we might expect. There are some who suggest that Japan has not lost anything at all — echoing the findings of the Inclusive Wealth Report. According to financial journalist Anthony Hilton, “Japanese exports increased by 73 percent during the ‘lost decade’ and electricity usage — a key indicator of economic activity — increased by 30 percent. By 2006, Japan’s exports were three times what they were in 1989. As in The Wizard of Oz, being ‘lost’ might not be so bad after all.”

Over at the New York Times, Eamonn Fingleton argues that in recent decades “Japan has succeeded in delivering an increasingly affluent lifestyle to its people despite the financial crash. In the fullness of time, it is likely that this era will be viewed as an outstanding success story.”

One strong proponent of an alternative viewpoint on how Japan is faring is Junko Edahiro, who set up the Institute of Studies in Happiness, Economy and Society (ISHES) in 2011.  She argues that:  “We live not for economic growth. We live for happiness in our daily lives and we hope generations to come can enjoy their happiness. Economies and societies should do something to serve this purpose and should take on different forms and structures if they fail to meet their goals.”

This begs the question: if we are witnessing the end of economic growth, not only in Japan but globally, what are the new forms and structures of economic and societal behaviour that we should be searching for? Surely some of the answers can be found in Japan. Heinberg perhaps captures this best when he states:

“A few nations and communities are already moving in the direction of a steady-state economy. Sweden, Denmark, Japan, and Germany have arguably reached a situation in which they do not depend on high rates of growth to provide for their people. This is not to say these countries have only smooth sailing ahead (Japan in particular is facing a painful adjustment, given its very high levels of government debt), but they are likely to fare better than other nations that have high domestic levels of economic inequality and that have gotten used to high growth rates.”

Like it or not, the growth paradigm is now dysfunctional.  Nations are gradually moving toward "steady state economics" marked by balance, not growth.   This Wiki summary is fairly apt:

The steady state economy is an entirely physical concept. Any non-physical components of an economy (e.g., knowledge) can grow indefinitely. But the physical components (e.g. supplies of natural resources, human populations, and stocks of human-built capital) are constrained and endogenously given. An economy could reach a steady state after a period of growth or after a period of downsizing or degrowth. The objective is to establish it at a sustainable scale that does not exceed ecological limits.

It is critical to realize that there's nothing radical about this concept of equilibrium.   It doesn't herald totalitarianism or any other form of mass servitude.   Indeed it is the final chapter in the theories of all the world's great economists from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill to Keynes.

John Stuart Mill, a pioneer of economics and one of the most gifted philosophers and scholars of the 19th century,^[8] anticipated the transition from economic growth to a "stationary state." In his magnum opus, Principles of Political Economy, he wrote:

...the increase of wealth is not boundless. The end of growth leads to a stationary state. The stationary state of capital and wealth… would be a very considerable improvement on our present condition.

and

...a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the art of living, and much more likelihood of it being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on."^[9]

John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century,^[10] also considered the day when society could focus on ends (happiness and wellbeing, for example) rather than means (economic growth and individual pursuit of profit). He wrote:

...that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is detestable… We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful.^[11]

and

The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.^[12]

 This is the path that Japan has embarked upon.  Eventually we Canadians too may find merit in living within our own skin.

Happy 420

It's 4/20, or 420 or 4:20 a day of celebration in downtown Vancouver at the Vancouver Art Gallery and other centres such as Haight-Ashbury, Parliament Hill and Major Hill's park in Ottawa.  It's the day when people gather and celebrate marijuana and the cannabis culture.  They sell it, they buy it, they smoke it, they eat it.

We don't have any 4:20 celebrations in my geriatric town.   We find it's not a good idea to let seniors have matches.

Bill Maher's Anti-Islam Smear

On his RealTime programme last night, Bill Maher couldn't wait to get into his shopworn, anti-Islam theme about the Muslim faith being unique in promoting violence.

As I listened to his diatribe I so wished I could ask him just one question.  Since the turn of this century, how many innocent Muslims have died at the hands of Christian forces and how many innocent Christians have perished at Muslim hands?

My guess is that the ratio would be at least several hundred to one and would utterly reduce Maher's endless rant.

The fact is we've been putting the boots to the Muslim world since the days of Napoleon.   We've carved up their territory without the slightest regard to their national, tribal, religious, linguistic and ethnic differences, dividing them up and herding them behind straight line borders to suit our convenience, creating instant minorities cut off from their own people to be set upon by the power structures we have also installed.

We have taken their wealth and ensured our domination by toppling any leader who stood against us while propping up the worst despots just so long as they were willing to do our bidding.  We have not hesitated to rain violence down upon them, to leave their women and children dead in countless numbers.   Winston Churchill even ordered the use of chemical weapons against unruly Kurdish tribesmen in villages in northern Iraq (1920) and castigated his critics for lacking a suitable appreciation of modern military technology.

All these things and more we have done to them, repeatedly, for two centuries and yet we seem mystified and enraged at their periodic, feeble attempts to strike back.

Had some other people - of alien ethnicity and religion, from an alien culture, speaking an alien language, wielding alien weapons against us punitively, taking control of our homelands, appointing and propping up brutal despots to oppress us and robbing us of our heritage and assets for generation upon generation upon generation, how would we react?   Would we not find those who struggle against those aliens truly noble?   Of course we would.  We make popular movies about that very premise.   We absolutely love it.

But, when we're the alien oppressor and they rise against us and dare to lash out, well - they're monsters, sub-humans, not worthy of being considered humans much less civilized.

Bill Maher lays this at the feet of Islam.   Would we need the Prophet Mohammed to fight back if we were on the receiving end?  I doubt it.

They Took Suspect 2 Alive - What a Relief

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in police custody, hours after his brother,  Tamerlan died following a gun battle with his pursuers.

I had feared the 19-year old Dzhokhar would either be brought down by police or take his own life which might have left many questions unanswered.   Now at least the authorities will have a slim chance to interrogate young Tsarnaev.

Given that this appears to have been a political act, Tsarnaev may be willing to make a statement.  Of course, given that he is a recent immigrant of the Muslim faith from central Asia coupled with the fact that today's America is a torture state, he might not be afforded the protections of the American criminal justice system.

Many Americans will be unable to accept the Boston Marathon bombings as acts of domestic terrorism given the religious and ethnic backgrounds of the brothers Tsarnaev.  We stand to learn a good deal more about America as this case progresses.

Vulture Capitalism is Alive and Well

For all the lofty reports lately of a capitalist reformation and new age economics that recognize natural and social capital in addition to financial capital, there's this.

In the U.S., five states are poised to begin actively poaching California companies.   What is the weakness they're lining up to exploit?   Why it's an insidious, voter-approved initiative to raise income taxes to finance education.

That's driven knowledge-based companies such as Google, Apple and SolarCity to make tracks for backward, low-tax states like Texas, Arizona, Virginia and Nevada.   They want highly-educated workers.   They just don't want to have to chip in to pay for educating them.

Texas, Arizona and Nevada smelled blood in the water and are all coordinating programs for California companies looking to expand or relocate.

A recent report by Thumbtack.com, a San Francisco-based website that links service providers with customers, zeroed in on small businesses. The company doled out letter grades for the most and least small business-friendy states and cities.
California got a "D." But hey, that's up from an "F" last year.
Locations were evaluated in 11 categories, including taxes, ease of hiring, regulation and ease of starting a new business. Overall small business friendliness was calculated with survey answers from more than 7,500 businesses to specific questions about how open the state or city seems to their companies.

Monckton Down Under

The Eyes Have It?

He holds an arts degree and a journalism diploma from the mid-70s.   He fantasizes himself being a member of Britain's House of Lords even though being ordered by the House to "cease and desist" making the utterly untrue claim.   Lately Britain's equivalent of a Thurlingian prince has descended upon New Zealand to expound on how international scientists and their professional bodies are absolutely wrong about, well, science, while he, the professional nutjob, is right.

Lord Christopher Monckton is being invited to address the Marlborough Federated Farmers branch to unveil the truth about the global climate change hoax.

Awatere Valley farmer David Dillon said it was a unique opportunity for people to hear the other side of the debate.

"We're all told the world is getting warmer, but we'd like people to come along and hear what a layman thinks of the subject and judge for themselves," he said.

 Because, after all, why would a scientist or even tens of thousands of them for that matter know more about science than a layman?  That's the sort of logic you can develop from mucking out too many barns barefooted.

Iceland Shills for Chinese Voice in Arctic Affairs

The timing must be entirely coincidental.   Iceland just became the first European country to conclude a free trade agreement with China.

The China-Iceland FTA covers trade in goods and services, investments, and various other areas. Specific provisions on investment, movability of citizens, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical trade barriers, rules of origin, customs procedures, competition policies and intellectual property are also included in the FTA. The parties also made commitments in service trade that are stricter than the WTO commitments.

And, in a remarkable fluke, Iceland's president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, has also come out proposing that China should have a say in developing the far north.

"It is a wrong scenario to think that this will only be of concern to those people living in the Arctic. It will be a concern to every nation," Grimsson said in an interview. "There is no country that will escape the consequences, either through rising sea levels or extreme weather patterns."

With that in mind, Grimsson argued that oil companies and countries as far away as China, India, Singapore and South Korea should have a voice in the future of the region. At present, only the eight countries of the Arctic Council have a say in setting policy in the region. "We realise that there are other nations in Asia and Europe that have legitimate concerns and enterprises in the Arctic and it's important to involve them in a co-operative effort," Grimsson said.

China already has stated some pretty aggressive views on its roles,  civilian and military, in the Arctic region.

Chinese researchers are publicly encouraging the government to actively prepare for the commercial and strategic oppor-tunities that a melting Arctic presents. Li Zhenfu of Dalian Maritime Uni-versity has, together with a team of specialists, assessed China’s advantages and disadvantages when the Arctic sea routes open up.  ‘Whoever has control over the Arctic route will control the new passage of world economics and international strategies’, writes Li, referring both to the shortened shipping routes between East Asia and Europe or North America and to the abundant oil, gas, mineral and fishery resources presumed to be in the Arctic.

...Li points out that the Arctic also ‘has significant military value, a fact recognized by other countries’. In a rare open-source article about the Arctic by an officer of the People’s Liberation Army, Senior Colonel Han Xudong warns that the possibility of use of force cannot be ruled out in the Arctic due to complex sovereignty disputes.

Extreme Weather Funnies - Chicago Sewer Geyser

Chicago was hit by a deluge, some say of apocalyptic proportions.  One of those "storm of the century" events that now seem to occur a couple of times a year to welcome us to our planet's new climate state.

The Chicago downpour was so intense it overwhelmed the city's storm and sanitary sewer systems.   A large volume of sanitary sewer overflow was jettisoned into Lake Michigan.   That's liquid poop by the way.

Elsewhere Chicagoans were greeted by free sewer geysers.



The event got locals coining new terms such as "upspout", "sewerspew" and "road barf".