While here, between accomplishing some outside chores in the 90+F (32+C) heat and matching humidity, I dash in to the air-conditioned comfort of the house for a break periodically. I flip the TV on to check on the local news, weather, etc. Typically, the ads on TV here are mainly promoting the wonder drug du jour to fix your restless leg, fungus-infected toe nail or limp penis. To my surprise (?) the past couple of days the local television station has been running nearly non-stop advertisements for the "Gun and Knife Show"that is to be held this weekend. Please note how they cater to the "ladies."
Meanwhile, back in the American heartland, in the shining city on a hill, there is good news as the the latest minimum wage increase kicked in last week. The federal minimum wage is now $7.25 per hour (about $15,000 a year based on a 40 hr week) Of course some states don't even have minimum wage laws. About 13 percent of the population of the United States lives below the poverty line (set in 2001 at $18,000/year for a family of four).
There are about 45 million americans without health insurance of any kind and millions more with wholly inadequate insurance. Kids are dying of toothache because their family doesn't have the money to take them to a doctor. The current health care proposal in front of congress now is estimated to cost $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion over the next ten years and some people oppose it because it would be funded by a one percent increase in income taxes for people making more than $200,000 a year. That's in addition to the roughly 3% income tax hike Obama already has proposed for the top tax bracket, bringing their tax rate to 38%.
Handing over 38% of your taxable income to the government sounds like a lot until I see stories like this:
Nine banks that received government aid money paid out bonuses of nearly $33 billion last year -- including more than $1 million apiece to nearly 5,000 employees -- despite huge losses that plunged the U.S. into economic turmoil. (snip) Wall Street has shown little sign of slowing down the pay train this year. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley recently disclosed that they have set aside $11 billion and $6 billion in compensation and benefits, respectively, for their employees so far this year. Goldman's second quarter was among its best ever. Morgan Stanley lost money for its third straight quarter.Goldman and Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the report.Meanwhile, some big banks that received government bailouts, including Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp., are offering handsome pay packages to lure stars. Citigroup -- which received about 25% of the aid going to the nine banks -- has the No. 1 pay recipient. Andrew Hall, who heads Citigroup's energy-trading unit Phibro LLC, received $98.9 million in 2008, according to a government official. Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, by comparison, received more than $38 million last year."
Poor Vikram, he's the CEO and he has to struggle along on a paltry $38 million a year.
The U.S. government in the past year has spent about $1.8 trillion on bailing out and proping up the banking industry: $31.1 billion on bank takeovers, $117.9 billion on bailing out AIG, $1.4 trillion on Fed financial rescue efforts including the Bear Stearns bailout effort, $40 on the capital investment in Citigroup and Bank of America, $20.4 billion on the Capital Purchase Program to bail out banks, and another $5 billion in assest guarantees for BoA and Citi. This is money spent, not just money committed or earmarked for bailout programs - those numbers are even higher. And it doesn't include the more than $1 trillion spent on the GM bailout or the stimulus plan or the money spent on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and mortage relief for homeowner facing foreclose. Nope, that $1.8 trillion is just what has been forked over to shore up the banking industry. (figures from here)
People often wonder why the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution were so brutal. How could ordinary French peasants and townsfolk cheer to see people they formerly respected as their "social betters" being marched to guillotine? How could the Bolsheviks be so hardhearted as to machine-gun to death the Tsar and his family, even the young children?
The idea that we could produce self-sufficiency in hydro-electric power gets whacked?
Stunning.
Except, as our own Alison explains, it had diddly squat to do with self-sufficiency.
Oh yes, you thought "run-of-river" hydro power was a little flume-stock on a creek. Not likely. This is a major dam, on a major river, and if they don't get the water they need, they hold it back.
The graphic above is a run-of-river project. Omigod! That looks like a dam!
Petey "Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates" MacKay was making bold with his announcement of 50, that's right count 'em, fifty ships to be built in Canada by the Canadian shipbuilding industry.
Canada's shipbuilders have agreed to a radical change in the way contracts will be doled out by the federal government.
Good. Because the current system, the one streamlined by the Harper government, quite frankly, sucks. The Harper government has cancelled or shelved every single ship procurement contract on the books and have seriously jeopardized the frigate mid-life modernization.
The government plans to spend $40 billion over the next 30 years to build as many as 50 large ships, in addition to 70 ships under 1,000 tonnes that have been earmarked for revamps.
Let's start with the "50 large" number. On the shelf are naval requirements for three Joint Support Ships and six to eight Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessels. That's it. The former project was cancelled and the latter is on hold after being seriously watered down. (Let's not play the eight number. If these things ever materialize, six will be the maximum number.)
There are no other actual new construction projects in play - not even on hold.
The Coast Guard Mid-Shore Patrol Vessel project and Off-Shore Fisheries Research Vessel project were both dropped at the same time as the Navy's JSS project. You might not have heard it because it was mumbled out of the side of some boffin's mouth. Whether these are included in the "50" raises a question. The proposed size of the MSPV (37 - 42) meters sounds very much like an under-1000 tonner to me. It doesn't qualify under MacKay's announcement. And nobody really knows if the OFRV was larger or just another version of the MSPV. Let's pretend that it was intended to be over 1000 tonnes.
That makes 11 total possible ships with project status, even though the Harper government dropped all of them. (After big, loud promises to build them and, yes, even more!)
Now let's look at another number. The "30" years.
That presumes that the same government will be in power for the next 30 years because, as anyone in the ship procurement business can tell you, when governments change, so do plans.
The Harper Conservatives have a best-before-date that won't give them 30 more weeks without having to go to the voters and the shipbuilders know that.
"There is going to be enough work with 50 ships on order for every shipyard in the country to be going full steam, and that's good news in terms of the economy," said Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
I'm calling bullshit on MacKay. There will never be 50 ships on order. MacKay is playing with words and numbers that would make a dishonest accountant blush. Notice, the absence of "over 30 years" in his pronouncement.
... a new process that theoretically will allow the government to pick and choose in a more direct way which Canadian shipyards will build which ships. The agreement is meant to end the often intense bickering that has killed some government contracts.
Which is hardly the "conservative" way. What happened to the good old conservative maxim of "let the market reign"? This sounds like government controlled, government subsidized shipyards.
The agreement itself still requires scores of questions to be answered and many details to be ironed out.
Bingo! And one of the details is, what happens Peter, old boy, when you get turfed out of office and the "50" number changes? What happens if over 30 years requirements change?
Enact legislation making it mandatory? Give it a try.
Alan Williams, former head of procurement for the Defence Department, called the deal historic.
"I think the notion for revisiting the government's shipbuilding policy makes good sense," he said.
However, he added that if the program is not managed properly it could become a disaster. He said the government needs to make the process transparent to ensure that tax dollars are spent wisely.
That seals the fate of any deal with Harper's hillbilly government. I shouldn't have to say this, but if I were a shipbuilding company or a head of procurement basing a decision on the need for good management, one look at the Harper government track record would send shivers down the spine of any rational individual.
It would be too limiting to call this announcement nothing but smoke and mirrors. It is, in actual fact, complete bullshit and MacKay is an empty shirt.
THE NEW YORK TIMES has a very interesting article by Benedict Carey, "In Battle, Hunches Prove to Be Valuable". It's a look at the experiences of the U.S. Army and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how a small segment of them are much more adept at finding and avoiding IED's and ambushes.
The United States military has spent billions on hardware, like signal jamming technology, to detect and destroy what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, the roadside bombs that have proved to be the greatest threat in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, where Sergeant Tierney is training soldiers to foil bomb attacks.
Still, high-tech gear, while helping to reduce casualties, remains a mere supplement to the most sensitive detection system of all — the human brain. Troops on the ground, using only their senses and experience, are responsible for foiling many I.E.D. attacks, and, like Sergeant Tierney, they often cite a gut feeling or a hunch as their first clue.
So, now, they're trying to find out more:
Everyone has hunches — about friends’ motives, about the stock market, about when to fold a hand of poker and when to hold it. But United States troops are now at the center of a large effort to understand how it is that in a life-or-death situation, some people’s brains can sense danger and act on it well before others’ do.
Experience matters, of course: if you have seen something before, you are more likely to anticipate it the next time. And yet, recent research suggests that something else is at work, too.
Small differences in how the brain processes images, how well it reads emotions and how it manages surges in stress hormones help explain why some people sense imminent danger before most others do.
• • • • •
The men and women who performed best in the Army’s I.E.D. detection study had the sort of knowledge gained through experience, according to a preliminary analysis of the results; but many also had superb depth perception and a keen ability to sustain intense focus for long periods. The ability to pick odd shapes masked in complex backgrounds — a “Where’s Waldo” type of skill that some call anomaly detection — also predicted performance on some of the roadside bomb simulations.
As reports of gratuitous TASER™ abuse by police pile up daily, here at The Beav we are pleased to provide this handy template to the media for all future TASER™ stories :
Officers who used a Taser on a ___ in a ___ found out only later he was ____ and didn't understand ____, police said Tuesday. A spokesman for the Police Department said the officers' actions were justified because the man was armed with a potential weapon -- a ____
In this story the blanks featured "man", "store bathroom where he worked", "deaf and mentally disabled", "what they wanted him to do" and "umbrella".
Previous options have included : Blank A : new immigrant, young woman, 83 year old man, fare dodger, handcuffed child. Blank B : airport, wedding party, hospital bed, Skytrain, jail cell Blank C : distraught, pregnant, ill with pneumonia, mentally disabled, terrified Blank D : English, what was being asked of them, ditto, ditto, ditto Blank E : stapler, nothing, 3" knife, nothing, nothing.
There is apparently almost no situation that can't be further fucked up by a little escalation of farce. At Taser International's annual bunfest this month, CEO Rick Smith explained:
"We are the new technology – it's splashy because of the electricity, you can make it scary."
Somehow?! Stewart did it with maneouvre and exceptional skill. Kristol was, as usual, totally unarmed and unable to defend his ridiculous position.
Ridiculous? Yeah. Because if any American believes, based on the ruminations of the likes of a highly priviledged William Kristol, that single-payer health care doesn't deliver is listening to the wrong people.
Stewart didn't go where others had gone and attempt to defend the eleven different systems that exist under the Canadian scheme of health care. No, he took a road closer to home and pointed at the US, government-operated, military health care system. He dangled it in front of Kristol who was only too happy bite... until he realized there was a gigantic barbed hook attached and Stewart was ripping his gill plates out.
“So no public option, even though that’s good enough for the military — not good enough for the people of America?” Stewart asked.
“They do not deserve the same quality of health care the soldiers fighting deserve, and they [the soldiers] need all kinds of things we don’t need,” Kristol said.
“Are you saying that the American public shouldn’t have access to the same quality of health care that we give to our better citizens?” Stewart asked.
“To our soldiers? Yes, absolutely,” Kristol responded, to a chorus of boos from the audience.
An incredulous Stewart asked: “Really?”
Moments later, Kristol added that “one of the ways we make it up” to soldiers that they receive relatively low pay is by “giving them first class health care. The rest of us can go out and buy insurance.”
That’s when Stewart struck.
“Bill Kristol just said … that the government can run a first-class health care system and a government-run health care system is better than the private health care system.”
“You trapped me somehow,” a visibly uncomfortable Kristol responded.
Little Kory sees an election being triggered this Fall. He's looked at the polling numbers and the "best scenario" stuff. He's been the front-man for a series of attack ads which have put this country into an endless election campaign. Canadians see the Conservatives as a pack of mean-spirited, lying, pricks who are unable to restrain themselves - even on the international stage.
Kory figures, one way or the other, he's going to lose his job before Christmas.
Better to tell lies for the ethanol producers and the oil industry.
Right now, in British Columbia, it's hotter than the right element of my barbeque. When the temperature difference in Victoria is a mere 2 degrees C lower than a typically hot Kamloops, things are cooking. In fact, inland Vancouver Island is actually hotter at the time of writing than the BC southern interior.
Not that such a thing indicates anything truly abnormal. Meteorologically, this is a spot condition brought on by the existence of a strong high pressure ridge. Using this "heat wave" (by definition it doesn't yet qualify) as evidence of anything except a short term met anomaly would be wrong and, more extensively, dishonest.
If I were to engage in the typical head-in-the-sand, dumb-ass Rex Murphy approach, I could blast away that the ability to grease the sidewalk and fry an egg, in a place where that would usually be impossible, is proof of global warming. It isn't.
Meteorology differs from climatology in a number of different ways but, since I am rather involved in both, an easy demonstration is to look at the length of forecast.
To a meteorologist five days is a long time and the sustainability of a long-range forecast is difficult. Too much changes too fast to achieve a high level of accuracy over that "long term".
To a climatologist, three months is a very short time. Too short a time, in fact, on which to base any assumptions or arrive at any conclusions. Three years is better and a solid gauge is three centuries of data from which one might be able to forecast the next 20 years. That would be an ideal situation - if we could afford the time. The truth is, in terms of good data and verification of climate models, we have about 20 years worth of model hindcasting with which to make forecasts.
Stupidity enters the picture when some climate denier (self-labelled "skeptics") puts a finger on any given point of a climate model result and says "That didn't happen." True enough, but that's a "user" view of a weather forecast. Take a step back and look at the longer model result and the accuracy is remarkable. Further, when one of these clowns points at a model forecast "spike" event which occured either later or sooner than forecast they commit a heinous sin - they ignore the obvious trend which is a consistent rise in global temperature and the fact that, while the model might have gotten the precise date wrong, the event actually did occur.
This video, produced by Peter Sinclair provides information on the how and when of one particular model.
The problem of the swatting off of climate deniers is further exacerbated by their pointing at one portion of a larger event. The latest one being that "Arctic ice is increasing; not decreasing". That's cherry-picking of the highest order. The truth is quite different and the scientists explain.
Things become even more egregious when complete knobs like Mark Steyn enter the debate. Instead of anything resembling research or, for that matter, the lay reading of the research of others, Steyn offers this bit of dross.
Lowell Ponte (who I believe is an expert climatologist and, therefore, should have been heeded) wrote his bestseller, The Cooling: Has the new ice age already begun? Can we survive?
Yeah, well, as Paul Wells will happily point out, Steyn is "fact challenged" on almost any subject you want to name. But to suggest Lowell Ponte is an "expert climatologist" is a demonstration of where Steyn belongs when it comes to discussions on anthropogenic induced global warming: back in school. Lowell Ponte has never published anything scientific in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Anything. That's because he's not a scientist. His formal education is in English and Journalism with an equivalent in International Relations. For Steyn to suggest otherwise is either just plain dishonest or, (and I tend towards this), he's just plain too stupid and too lazy to actually check facts.
Steyn then goes on to quote University of Adelaide professor, Ian Pilmer. That's nice. I like Pilmer, in an abstract sort of way. He's probably an excellent geologist. His contribution to climate change research is considerably less collaborative than those closer to the coal face and his criticism of climate models brought a sharp rebuke from the scientific community at large. His suggestion that natural forces were not included in models is quite frankly not true. The first video above demonstrates that.
Enough of Steyn though. The prince of the deniers is Anthony Watts who created his surfacestations survey. What Watt's never tells you is that his supposedly damning survey actually has climate collection data from surface stations falling within the NOAA margin of error. A video was produced which essentially annihilated Watts' digital-camera theory and lo-and-behold, Watts executes a DMCA take-down.
Well, the video must have been really on target -- it stung Anthony Watts so badly that he initiated a DMCA "takedown" action and got the "Watts Up With Watts" video removed from youtube.com!
That's an assumption, but one can see how it is easily made.
So, no, this little spell of hot weather doesn't prove anything... except that it's hot at the moment. This, however, is something I watch closely. And despite the warped station data mythology issued by the likes of Watts, the data collection is carried out by satellites and ocean buoys. (I'm sure someone will produce a picture of an air conditioner exhausting onto a few of those eventually.)
Still, it should be fun to sit in the local Tim Horton's and listen to all the ball-cap and mullet festooned idiots who were pointing at last winter's snowfall as proof of global cooling attempt to explain why, on the northwest sea coast, the air conditioning can't keep up with the heat.
A little point: All these journalists and out-of-field contributors to the community of vocal deniers of scientific research need to get a definition straight. They are climate deniers - not skeptics. I am a skeptic. I expect several points of proof before I will allow myself to be sent down a road, and I always accept that I may encounter a dead end - when another bona fide researcher produces it. Attempting to gentrify your position only serves to strengthen mine given that you think denying the effects of global warming is somehow shameful. Wear it with pride and continue to believe - even if your heroes knew better and were intentionally lying to you.
When the Border Commissions of Cyril Radcliffe decided on the border between Pakistan and India in 1947, he and his group of lawyers proceeded in true British colonial fashion - without a thought or care for the actual outcome.
The commission was comprised of lawyers, not boundary experts; the commission took no consultation from any previous boundary exercise; the commission had no survey information on which to base their final decision. Radcliffe had never even been to India before and, after finding the climate a bit tough, rushed to a decision in order to scurry back to England. Before he left, he destroyed all papers which might have provided a historical look into the considerations (if there were any) which led to the final lines drawn on the map.
In the end, one border crossing existed between Pakistan and India, at Wagah. The Grand Trunk Road passes through the village which is split by the border and is the only road crossing between the two countries.
Hostilities exist between India and Pakistan today. There are frequent border skirmishes and incessant nuclear sabre-rattling.
And there is a ceremony at Wagah. Something which demonstrates the animosity... right until the end, when a small bit of humanity creeps in.
It's a great book with a look at US militarism and global monetary manipulation and their repercussions both at home and abroad. The author's explanation and history of the Pentagon's influence on US government policies is eye-opening for the those not familiar in the ways of Washington. Written in 2004, some of his references are uncanny in their relevance today.
Some excerpts follow as a teaser for you:
After the 1992 election, Cheney left the Defense Department, and between 1995 and 2000 he was the chief executive officer of Halliburton. Under his leadership, Brown & Root took in $2.3 billion in government contracts, almost double the $1.2 billion it earned from the government in the five years before Cheney arrived. Halliburton rebuilt Saddam Hussein's war-damaged oil fields for some $23.8 million, even though Cheney, secretary of defense during the first Gulf War, had been instrumental in destroying them. By 1999, Halliburton had become the biggest nonunion employer in the United States, although Wal-Mart soon replaced it. Cheney also appointed Dave Gibben, his chief of staff when he was at the Pentagon, as one of Halliburton's leading lobbyists. In 2001, Cheney returned to Washington as vice president, and Brown & Root continued to build, maintain, and protect bases from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf.
During Cheney's term as Halliburton's CEO, the company advanced from seventy-third to eighteenth on the Pentagon's list of top contractors. Its number of subsidiaries located in offshore tax havens also increased from nine to forty-four. As a result, Halliburton went from paying $302 million in company taxes in 1998 to getting an $85 million tax refund in 1999.
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In other words, feed at the taxpayer's trough, but never replenish it. Perish the thought, that would be un-American! “Profit=Good, Taxes=Bad” . . . .
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Dick Cheney, Bush Senior's secretary of defense and Bush Junior's vice president, helped broker the deal, while out of office, between Chevron and Kazakhstan as a member of Kazakhstan's Oil Advisory Board. James A. Baker III, former secretary of state, mastermind of the scheme to get the Supreme Court to appoint bush Junior president in 2001, and senior partner of the Houston and Washington law firm of Baker Botts, had a hand in the negotiations. Baker's firm maintains an office in Baku staffed by five attorneys. He is a member of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce's advisory council, as is Cheney. During the 1990s the council's cochairman was Richard Armitage, a veteran administrator of the American-sponsored anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1980s and undersecretary of state in the second Bush administration. Brent Scowcroft, Rice's boss and mentor when he was Bush Senior's national security adviser, is a member of the board of Pennzoil, an active investor in the Caspian Sea oil consortia.
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Is anyone else seeing a pattern here? High government positions and multi-national contracts. Who woulda thunk it ? ? ? ?
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Clinton camouflaged his policies by carrying them out under the banner of “globalization.” this proved quite effective in maneuvering rich but gullible nations to do America's bidding – for example, Argentina – or in destabilizing potential rivals – for example, South Korea and Indonesia in the 1997 economic crisis – or in protecting domestic economic interests – for example, in maintaining the exorbitant prices of American pharmaceutical companies under cover of defending “intellectual property rights.” During the 1990s, the rationales of free trade and capitalist economics were used to disguise America's hegemonic power and make it seem benign or, at least, natural and unavoidable. The main agents of this imperialism were Clinton's secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin, and his deputy (today, president of Harvard University), Lawrence Summers. The United States ruled the world but did so in a carefully masked way that produced high degrees of acquiescence among the dominated nations.
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Now where have we heard those last two names? Oh yeah, I know: Rubin was also a former Goldman Sachs and Citigroup big wheel and advisor to the current US president on the economic crisis, and Summers is actually a member of the current administration. Great how this is working out so far . . . .
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Starting in approximately 1981, the United States introduced, under the cover of globalization, a new strategy intended to accomplish two major goals: first, to discredit state-assisted capitalism like Japan's and prevent its spread to any countries other than the East Asian NICs, which had already industrialized by following the Japanese model; and second, to weaken the sovereignty of Third world nations so that they would become even more dependent on the largesse of the advanced capitalist nations and unable to organize themselves as a power bloc to negotiate equitable with the rich countries.
The United States's chosen instruments for putting this strategy into effect were the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Bank and the IMF were created after World War II to manage the international economy and prevent a recurrence of the beggar-thy-neighbor policies of the 1930s. What has to be understood is that both the fund and the bank are actually surrogates for the U.S. Treasury. They are both located at 19th and H Streets, Northwest, in Washington, DC, and their voting rules ensure that they can do nothing without the approval of the secretary of the Treasury. The political scientist Thomas Ferguson compares the IMF to the famous dog in the RCA advertisements listening to “his master's voice” - the Treasury – on a Victrola.
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Appears to be a bit incestuous, don't you think? Probably not too much of a problem, though. These guys are trustworthy, or they wouldn't be in these positions, right ? ? ? ?
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Thus was born the weird phenomenon of “moral hazard,” meaning American bankers could make outrageously irresponsible loans without any risk of having to absorb the loss or make good the money they had mismanaged. Before it was over, the 1970s loan bonanza produced a disaster of exactly the sort Keynes and the reformers at the end of World War II had sought to avoid. Virtually every country in Africa and Latin America was deeply in debt. In August 1982, Jesus Silva Herzog, the Mexican minister of finance, announced that his country was bankrupt and would no longer be able to pay interest on any of its loans. Just as the bankers had assumed, the U.S. Government stepped in – not to save Mexico but to ensure that American banks did not collapse. At no time, then or later, did our government suggest that the people who made the bad loans bore some responsibility for the results.
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Well, golly gee whiz. Where have we heard that tune before? Perhaps during the end of the bush regime and now at the beginning of the new one? One would think that learning by past mistakes would be a no-brainer, but I guess not . . . .
(Remember this book was written in 2004, not 2009.)
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The United States was the architect of and main profiteer from these efforts. From 1991 to 1993, Lawrence Summers was the chief economist at the World Bank and the man who oversaw the tailoring of “austerity measures” to each country that needed a loan. He decided exactly what a country had that Washington wanted to open up. On December 12, 1991, Summers became notorious for a leaked memo to senior officials of the bank encouraging polluting industries in the rich nations to relocate to the less developed countries. He wrote, “I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage countries is impeccable and we should face up to that.” Brazil's secretary of environment, Jose Lutzenburger replied, “The best thing that could happen would be for the Bank to disappear.”
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There's that Summers guy's name again. What's he doing nowadays? Oh yeah, he's currently the Director of the White House's National Economic Council. This oughta work out just great . . . .
As my friends hear me say on a semi-regular basis:
“We're doomed! Doomed!”
Get the book or check it out at your local library like I did.
ONCE UPON A TIME, starting in the mid 30's, five Cambridge students were recruited by the NKVD: H.A.R. (Kim) Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, John Cairncross and Anthony Blunt. They were amazing, unique characters living in an amazing, unique era, when "isms were wasms", and loyalties were passionate, and they came to be known, once their treason had been discovered as The Cambridge Five.
It is now 25 years since Anthony Blunt's death, and the British Library has released a 30,000 word memoir, written by Blunt as a somewhat evasive apology.
Blunt wrote the 30,000-word document after former prime minister Margaret Thatcher exposed his treachery in 1979.
The revelations had led to a man who had worked as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures being stripped of his knighthood.
His version of events was given to the library in 1984, the year after his death, on condition that it was not displayed for 25 years.
In it, he describes his recruitment by Moscow: "I found that Cambridge had been hit by Marxism and that most of my friends among my junior contemporaries - including Guy Burgess - had either joined the Communist Party or were at least very close to it politically."
The most interesting thing to my mind, is the complete lack of detail on his WW2 activities, both in his memoir, and in the literature about the Cambridge Five. Why? Some sources have stated that in May-June 1945, immediately after the German capitulation, Blunt went into Germany at the behest of the Royal family to obtain "documents" that would confirm Eddie the 8th's (and Wallie's) treasonous dealings with the Nazis, after his abdication, when they moved to France, and later, Portugal.
Thus, some contend, as a result of pulling the Windsors' chestnuts out of the fire, the Intelligence establishment refrained from any punitive action, when his treason came to their attention, probably in the late 50's, as a follow-up to inquiries about Burgess, Maclean and Philby.
Will we ever know? Probably not. Some interesting Cabinet papers do exist in the UK, but they have "Do Not Open Until" — dates vary, like 2020+. Oh well, we've got CSIS (Can't See Intelligent Solutions) to keep us entertained, so time will pass.
Give everyone a 30 leave and wait for summer to cool. Then come back and start over.
Last week a French Foreign Legion unit stationed at Carpaigne near the southern French port of Marseille was conducting a live-fire exercise and let loose a few tracer rounds into a forested area around the camp. The problem was, the forest fire hazard level was "extreme".
French soldiers have been branded "imbeciles" for firing shells into parched woodland - and sparking a massive forest blaze that threatened up to 1000 homes.
The Foreign Legion unit started one of the worst fires in recent years when it blasted tracer ammunition into tinder dry trees at their base near Marseille.
At about the same time, the Russian Navy was preparing to celebrate Navy Day in the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok. Things didn't go quite as well as hoped.
A missile fired from a military vessel during a Navy Day parade rehearsal has hit an apartment block in the Far Eastern city of Vladivistok, Russia.
News agencies said the missile hit a nine-storey block of flats in Leonova Street, but that noone was injured. Other reports said the missile fell a meter short of the building, leaving a wide crater on the ground and breaking the windows of the ground floor apartments.
In the profession of arms, shit happens. Usually because someone executed a really stupid idea.
A group of eminent economists has written to the Queen explaining why no one foresaw the timing, extent and severity of the recession.
The three-page missive, which blames "a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people", was sent after the Queen asked, during a visit to the London School of Economics, why no one had predicted the credit crunch.
Signed by LSE professor Tim Besley, a member of the Bank of England monetary policy committee, and the eminent historian of government Peter Hennessy, the letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Observer, tells of the "psychology of denial" that gripped the financial and political world in the run-up to the crisis.
Hmm, while she's at it perhaps HRH could ask her Canadian ministers (through a court if necessary) why they appear to be going out of their way to violate the Charter rights and endanger the lives and wellbeing of her brown-skinned Canadian subjects abroad.
Dr. Dawg asks, "who is Lawrence Cannon?", wondering if 'Mr. Cannon' is really a Canadian and not some sort of imposter.
The question has bugged me since I read it. I keep thinking that I've seen that face somewhere before. Only I think the lips the lips and hair are a little different. Still, they might want to double check that guy in The Hague.
RCMP spokesman Sgt. Tim Shields said it's too early to say whether the RCMP will comply with the Heed's directive to adopt Braidwood's recommendations immediately. "Although the RCMP is B.C.'s provincial police service, it's also Canada's national police service. Recommendations that are sweeping, involving training and policy, will also affect RCMP right across the country," Shields said. That non-committal approach was echoed by federal Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan in Ottawa.
"I am asking [You're ASKING?!?! You mean like giving them the option of refusing? Jesus.] the RCMP to review the findings and recommendations... with the objective of improving upon current RCMP policies and procedures with respect to Taser use," Van Loan said following the release of the first Braidwood report. B.C.'s contract with the RCMP is up in 2012, and Braidwood wants the province to require the federal force to comply with provincial guidelines before renewing the agreement.
Heed said it's premature to start talking about consequences if it doesn't. "We're operating from the position that we will get some kind of agreement with respect to that and we will try to enshrine it in the contract," Heed said.
Perhaps it's time BC fired the RCMP and got its own provincial force. Maybe the rest of the provinces too. Let the RCMP stick to something harmless like riding horses in circles. As for the Conservatives, can't they do anything without a court order? Useless, the lot of them.
UPDATE: Cathie coins a term: "Police Entitlement Syndrome" or PES. Known to afflict police, politicians and the general public, symptoms include but are not limited to victim blaming, uniform fetishism, machine fetishism, weapon fetishism, state sanctioned violence, lying, cover-up, and cognitive dissonance. Provisional treatments include radical institutional reform aimed at securing substantive civilian oversight and redress procedures, as well as internal police organisational culture change. These treatments, however, are in short supple due to a significant dearth of democracy resulting from socially and politically entrenched power inequalities and hegemonic ideologies.
Abousfian Abdelrazik spoke out this morning about his exile, his torture, the false charges against him, the harrassment of his dying Canadian wife and her family by CSIS before he returned to Sudan to care for his ailing mother in 2003. . He could identify by sight, he told us, the Canadian agents who questioned him while he was in captivity in Sudan, including the one who told him "Sudan will be your Guantanamo" and that he was never coming home. He describes being interrogated in Sudan in 2008 by Foreign Affairs parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai, who questioned him about Osama bin Laden and what he thought of Israel. . I watched it on tv. Paul Koring, Dr. Dawg, and Kady were there. .
There's a sense in which this case is more important than that of Maher Arar in terms of how Canadians, at least Muslim Canadians, can expect to be treated by our government, and whether CSIS can legitimately be said to be under anyone's control any more. There was no US middleman here, no wiggle room in which Canadian intelligence agencies could claim to have been overpowered or misled or shut out of the proceedings by US security forces. This one is all ours. . In the meantime, Abdelrazik is still on that 1267 UN blacklist : he cannot work, he cannot receive money or medical attention, he cannot fly, he cannot receive gifts. He is currently an exile in Canada. .
UPDATE : "NDP foreign-affairs critic Paul Dewar called on the government to launch a public inquiry even more far reaching than the judicial probe into the imprisonment and torture in Syria of Maher Arar. ... there was no middle man," Dewar said.
Riding home from work, I was listening to the lawyer of alleged disgraced moneyjuggler Earl Jones, discussing how Jones has been in Canada for 10 days, how he is suicidal, depressed, and afraid of being attacked or killed.
What I did not hear was anyone else stating, much less proving, that Jones is in fact in Canada, or even alive. I found the horrible denouement of the Hammett novel "The Thin Man" rising in my consciousness like a body out of a lake.
So, I will listen with interest to what happens next, hoping no-one has to dig up the cellar floor.
Tobacco Smoke Enema (1750s-1810s) The tobacco enema was used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient’s rectum for various medical purposes, primarily the resuscitation of drowning victims. A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke towards the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase “blow smoke up one’s ass.”
Police say they used the Taser on Ronald Mitchell, 36, when he ran at them carrying a container of petrol and a cigarette lighter.
They said that Mr Mitchell, who lives in a remote Aboriginal community, had been sniffing petrol. They suggested the cigarette lighter started the fire.
Mr Mitchell is in a critical condition in hospital with third degree burns. ...
Mr Mitchell's sister told The Australian newspaper that her brother had been sniffing petrol.
"He must have put petrol on his face, then the policeman shot him with the Taser, that's when the flames happened," she said.
Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said Mr Mitchell was a known violent offender, and defended the police officers' deployment of the Taser.
He told reporters: "The only other choice they would have had is to use a police-issue firearm, and the consequences would almost certainly have been far more grave."
He said the police internal affairs department would investigate the incident, saying there was "a very strong possibility that the fire was caused by the lighter in the hand of the offender".
Taking a page from our four horsemen, I'm sure. Word of advice to the Western Aussie cops: Try not to blame the victim from the start, it'll only make it worse later.
(h/t RT) Supporting the troops, US wingnut style (and this, from one their own!):
Wow. Let's unpack this: Retired US Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, citing unverifiable hearsay gossip has essentially disowned and advocated the murder of Private Bergdahl because by the enemy 1) the soldier a p p a r e n t l y just wandered off base and this somehow equates to desertion, 2) got his weak self captured, 3) didn't follow a Hollywood script of defiance or the standard name-rank-service number-DoB when he found himself before a Taliban camera, and 4) was probably some sort of commie pinko queer anyway. Further, I can't seem to find anything that suggests Peters has ever seen a shot fired in anger, let alone spent times in the custody of a wartime enemy. However, I'm sure his armchair must feel like Colditz some days, so he clearly knows what life is like as a prisoner.
A bit of googling finds this man is something a violence afficionado and logic pretzler:
The paradox is that our humane approach to warfare results in unnecessary bloodshed. Had we been ruthless in the use of our overwhelming power in the early days of conflict in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the ultimate human toll—on all sides—would have been far lower. In warfare of every kind, there is an immutable law: If you are unwilling to pay the butcher’s bill up front, you will pay it with compound interest in the end. Iraq was not hard; we made it so.
Hmm, I thought that whole "shock and awe" thing was about "overwhelming power"... Anyway, moving along, Peters' likes lots of violence against the enemy real quick like, got that. He even takes this thinking beyond the realm of the battlefield, and feels the military should also attack domestic media:
Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.
So I guess it is no surprise he feels, it seems through his somewhat paradoxic and twisted logic, that the enemy should be used to cull friendly soldiers who fall into their hands because these troops are too weak and/or stupid and their loss will only harden the rest of the army who must then go on to smash that same enemy with as much violence and blood as possible. Perhaps here is a good spot to introduce this juicy little morsel:
After graduating from Penn State University, he enlisted, at age 23, as a private with two flat feet, curved spine, and intermittent asthma. "The military was so desperate in 1976, that's why I got in."
I'll let the psychologists in the audience do the sums here.
Of course the lighter- than-air-colonel Peters, is being entirely consistent with the mission of what I can only assume is some form of Wingnut Internationale. I mean, if you look at the behaviour of our governing sadists up here, if you get yourself in trouble, they'll just make it worse, or if you aren't in trouble already but happen to belong to a cohort they don't like for political reasons, personal life-philosophy, or just plain old bigotry, they'll find some trouble for you.
And just so we're clear, if there is any doubt about the utter bollocks of Fox/Ralph Peters' sick, twisted, macho shitpumping, identical situations occurred in the first Gulf War with captured British and American aircrew and a completely different (ie "normal" or "sane") reaction from the media - watch the footage below:
AFTERTHOUGHT: As I mentioned at JJ's deserting in a theatre like Afghanistan sems a bit like deciding to exit an airliner in flight. The notion is absurd. However, if not deserting in a combat zone on the other side of the planet might be more of a sign of mental health or deeper contextual problems.
Once upon a time I had a late evening date with the official security forces of an otherwise beautiful South East Asian country. Canada has no consular representation in that country, so the Australian embassy handles Canadians needing assistance.
After dressing my wounds, and locating my terrified travelling companion, I headed to the Australian embassy. Their assistance and advice proved to be invaluable in both advising me of the best course of action and securing replacement cash. The key piece of advice they gave me was to not, under any circumstances, approach the local police about this as I would likely be disappeared.
Now, after reading two posts this morning at Dr. Dawg's, (here and here), I am left seriously wondering if had the embassy been Canadian, whether I would have been turned over to local authorities and vanished. If my skin were a little darker than my northwest European ancestory allows, I don't think there would be any doubt about my fate.
The policy standard emerging from Conservative government is to side with the local authorities (no matter how diabolical) under all circumstances. Indeed, it seems to go farther than that, where the policy is now to actively or passively assist local authorities in their efforts against Canadian citizens in trouble. This goes beyond any measure of objective statecraft. Senior members of DFAIT up to and including the minister are now taking a personal and active extra-judicial role in the fate of individual Canadians.
I've picked a lot of apples. Fuji apples are susceptible to a particular form ofcore rotwhere they look healthy and feel firm on the outside, but cut one open and the inside is a slimy rotten pulp. An experienced picker can detect a hollowness in the fruit through his or her fingers indicating this condition. These must be dropped to the ground or otherwise discarded as they are unfit for human consumption.
The report of the inquiry into the listeriosis outbreak last year is slowly working its way to the streets. The way the initial "leak" is being reported by CTV it would give you the impression that food inspection had always been deficient in Canada.
That impression would be wrong.
Food inspection and the safety of the food supply was a responsibility of the federal government which was dumped as a part of the ideological shift imposed by the Harper government. Those who died or became ill were the collateral damage of the Harper push to get rid of government.
In order to understand that, you need some context. Right here.
THE WASHINGTON POST has a disturbing article by Blaine Harden on the giant Gulag system that has been operating for some fifty years in Socialist Wonderland.
A distillation of testimony from survivors and former guards, newly published by the Korean Bar Association, details the daily lives of 200,000 political prisoners estimated to be in the camps: Eating a diet of mostly corn and salt, they lose their teeth, their gums turn black, their bones weaken and, as they age, they hunch over at the waist. Most work 12- to 15-hour days until they die of malnutrition-related illnesses, usually around the age of 50. Allowed just one set of clothes, they live and die in rags, without soap, socks, underclothes or sanitary napkins.
The camps have never been visited by outsiders, so these accounts cannot be independently verified. But high-resolution satellite photographs, now accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, reveal vast labor camps in the mountains of North Korea. The photographs corroborate survivors' stories, showing entrances to mines where former prisoners said they worked as slaves, in-camp detention centers where former guards said uncooperative prisoners were tortured to death and parade grounds where former prisoners said they were forced to watch executions. Guard towers and electrified fences surround the camps, photographs show.
A difference (there are many), dear Conrad, between "tired lefties"and common thieves is that one group tends to end up in prison (or worse) for their political thinking, and the other for taking that to which they are not entitled. Further, theprison writing by old leftists tends to be anything but tired, and is apparently of much greater calibre than name calling squeals by fancified fascist fraudsters.
If this were a real emergency, it would look more like a nail gun.
Basically, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), under the US Department of Homeland Security, will be carrying out a top level national exercise (now known as a tier 1 exercise) to test intelligence and information sharing among various federal, state, county and other agencies, presumably right down to publicly employed dog-catchers.
As big a deal as this may appear, these things are paper exercises with an operational function added. In short, local command centres will be activated to see if they... you know... work. Once it's over, all the stuff goes back into the container until the batteries die in the portable radios and the emergency water bottles go dry.
NLE 09 will be an operations-based exercise to include: activities taking place at command posts, emergency operation centers, intelligence centers and potential field locations to include federal headquarters facilities in the Washington D.C. area, and in federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in FEMA Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
Note: Of the areas included, neither Arizona nor Alaska are involved. Those states are in FEMA regions IX and X respectively. This exercise is taking place in region IV.
That little fact, however, didn't stop the wingnuts from crawling out of their sandholes. The Arizona Citizens Militia gives this exercise in paper shuffling and "can you hear me now" production the Michelle Malkin treatment - along with a suprising connection.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has announced that she will leave office on 26 July 2009, one day before the start of the FEMA National Level Exercise 2009
Because, according to this group of "concerned" citizens, she knows what is going to happen. According to the group, which offers Alphie Omega training (no shit!), Palin knows that she was going to be rounded up and put into a concentration camp with all the other wingnuts on 27 July.
It gets better.
Canada, having an obvious surfeit of combat troops laying around doing nothing except dreaming about their next rotation to sunny Afghanistan, is apparently involved.
The Obamunist White House has directed that armed Canadian, Australian, British, and mexican troops will be on our streets.
Do we need passports, or will an enhanced driver's licence do the trick? And really... Mexico is capitalized; so is Mexican.
Apparently the Arizona Citizens Militia will upgrade to "ribbon" status right after work this coming Friday. That should give them enough time to down a half-dozen chili beers before the spouses start lighting up the cell-phone system with advice that "Dinner is now being kept warm in the oven. And dinner was a green salad."
The wealth of fun at the ACM site is almost too much to handle. The Yosemite Sam quote did me in. And I've got a busy week ahead.
You may have read it here first, but I read it at Jesus' General.
Once again, Bill Moyers of PBS puts current events in their respective places.
His essay this weekwas on the winners and losers in the debate over US health care "reform."
If anyone has doubts that there will be substantial "reform" I'm with 'ya. There is WAY too much $$ involved on the corporate side to allow it. That $$ funnelled to elected "representative's" political campaign funds was and is not $$ wasted. Politicians know it, lobbyists know it, political "talking heads" know it and the for-profit health industry knows it.
So why does the MSM continue to report the story like there is actually a snowball's chance in hell of "reform"? Probably the same reason they:
Insisted there were meaningful debates during the presidential campaign; Had wall to wall coverage of Michael Jackson's death; Cover Britney Spears' lastest breakdown ad nauseum; Convince everyone to run for cover from swine flu H1N1; Warn that professional sports is coming to an end due to steroid use by the athletes; Blah, blah, blah, blah blah.*
It all boils down to ratings/commercial ad rates which - as is the case with the for-profit health industy - means profit$.
They're all playin' for the same team.
Wanna know who the losers are gonna be in this "debate"?
Look around. Unless you're in the corporate boardroom, you are . . . .
*(As a side note, can you imagineWalter Crokitereporting on MJ's funeral or BS' breakdowns in any way, shape or form? Nah, me neither . . . . )
Frankly I think the Onion headline understates it.
40 years ago, June 20, 1969, humans walked on the Moon. The MOON. Maybe you've seen it? Big yellow thing in the sky? said to hit your eye like a big pizza pie? Yeah, that thing. As a species, we've been there and done that. We went to The Moon.
In the history of human endevour, that is still the big one, our greatest technological achievement. Seriously, the Pyramids - mere sandcastles. The artificial heart - a bit of biomechanical clockwork. Splitting the atom - okay, impressive and dangerous, but also some pretty nasty side effects. The computer and the internet - yeah, just like the human brain, 90% of it is used for porn. Cracking the code and mapping human DNA is going to be a bigger and bigger deal as time goes by, but if you told DaVinci or Newton or Galileo about it, they wouldn't know what you were talking about. If you told them "Len, Issac, Gal - we went to the moon" they would be all "no way! that's fucking amazing! Holy crap, wait until we tell the Pope - he'll freak out!"
I don't mean to disparage the early astronauts: Guys like Yuri Gagarin and the Right Stuff boys were beyond brave - early space travel was a dicey business that involved getting shot into the sky in a box built by the lowest bidders - or the astronauts currently living in the International Space Station, who are still a long way from home. Manned satellites are going to become more and more common and the zero gravity/vacuum enviroment has enormous industrial and scientific potential. But we're talking about the difference between sailing up and down the coast and sailing across the ocean. In orbit, you go round and round the Earth, the Apollo 11 boys actually went someplace. I feel sorrier for Michael Collins than just about anyone - imagine going all that way and having to wait in the car.
All the reasons people invariably give for opposing space exploration - it's too expensive, it's a "waste" of resources, more pressing problems on the ground - are all reasons to go to space. Space exploration costs a fraction of what is spent on the military. The money spent in Iraq probably would have bankrolled a Mars colony. This rock we live on is eventually going to run out of resources, no matter how careful we are. We will eventually use up all the oil, all the iron, all the water - you name it we will run out of it sooner or later, including real estate and elbow room- so we better get out there and find some more. A lot of those more pressing problems are likely to be solved by technological development driven by space exploration and colonization - and if they can't be, it might be nice if humanity had a lifeboat.
40 years ago, we finally proved we didn't need to keep all of humanity's eggs in one increasingly fragile basket. Why no further progress has really been made is anyone's guess. Financial costs have a lot to do with it, but NASA is the rare government effort that has actually made money (You think all those communication satellites were put in orbit for free?). The only reason we don't have permanent manned bases on the moon, launching manned missions to Mars is a lack of political will. We could have done it by the mid 80s or at least the mid 90s if we as a species hadn't been busy squandering money on ways to exterminate ourselves via the nuclear arms race.
So we went to the Moon and all we got was this lousy, soon-to-be-shut-down space shuttle program and the nobody seems that interested in going back at the moment except the Indians and Chinese. We left behind some probes and a couple of golf balls and and worst of all, a plaque with Richard Nixon's name on it. We should at least go back to clean up that kind of embarrasing shit.
There are even people out there whacked out enough to think that Capricorn One was based on a true story and that we never landed on the moon. Their tiny minds just can't handle the idea that his is something humans could have done. I think Buzz "the second man on the moon" Aldrin deals with such critics in the most appropriate way.
Toronto Star Public Editor, Kathy English, presented us with a non-apology yesterday in a convoluted attempt to "clarify" the waters which she muddied when she dutifully obeyed the instructions of others and publicly disciplined Antonia Zerbisias in a drive-by hit for a comment left on Broadsides.
English got a virtual earful, from all sides, in response.
English, to put it mildly, has simply highlighted her own lack of understanding of the network medium she is unsuccessfully attempting to control and defends her position by continuing to suggest her initial shot was correct.
English, as you can see from reading the above postings, clearly doesn't get it. She had the fall of shot called on her first column and everybody called it way off target.
I don't need to add much to that, except to say that her "tone" in the latest offering suggests a high level of keyboard rage and makes clear her disdain for anybody smithing words without the benefit of a paycheck and particularly those who have not earned their stripes in the "Toronto School".
I could fire back with two words, which English would dismiss as evidence supporting her current view. So, I'll say this: We are your readers, Ms. English.
The "new media" and the bloggers English decided to castigate are the same people that used to sit around the kitchen table bitching about things read in newspapers and whose only recourse was to submit a letter to the very organ and editor with whom they took issue.
It was a one-sided arrangement that left communicative readers at the mercy of "edited for brevity" or without a voice at all. What English doesn't like is that we like this process a whole lot better. Further, because of the "new media" we are able to communicate directly with the principle subjects of stories and columns - and do. I'm sure that sends chills down the spines of newspaper editors because their worst nightmare has come true: continuous and unrelenting scrutiny, and continuous and unrelenting criticism - some of it accompanied by the language spoken around the kitchen table.
In that context, I'll add to the return fire offered by the bloggers above.
English, in defending her ambush of Zerb, said: (emphasis mine)
Here's the fuller context that explains why she wrote this: Zerbisias had seen Farber marching in the Pride parade wearing a T-shirt that said, "Nobody knows I'm gay." She didn't include that information in her blog so readers didn't know that context. Nor did she tell me that when I showed her my column before publication.
In complaining to the Star, neither did Farber think to tell me that he, along with dozens of others who marched with the Kulanu group, had worn a T-shirt that made its own ironic quip. That's context I sure wish I had known.
She didn't know that?! How much time would it have taken to find out? Within minutes of publishing her initial column, all of us were provided with the context.
Who's confusing readers now? English has admitted that her column was a knee-jerk reaction to the complaint of Canadian Jewish Congress head Bernie Farber and, instead of gathering every fact she could, she went with Farber's version of things.
She and John Cruickshank were manipulated by Farber.
As I said in an earlier post, Farber didn't like what Zerb had written in her initial post and wanted a way in. He found it; he trolled it; English and Cruickshank took the bait.
Readers deserve an apology for that. Not some doughy reproof for writing what's been said around the kitchen table.
WHEREVER HE IS, Hyman Rickover must be pleased. Admiral Rickover, U.S.N., is regarded as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy", which as of July 2007 had produced 200 nuclear-powered submarines, and 23 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and cruisers, though many of these U.S. vessels are now decommissioned and others under construction. With his leadership, the USN developed reliable and safe nuclear propulsion for water-craft — especially compared to Russian efforts.
Well, the tradition for innovation appears to continue. The USN has been quietly funding the Energy Matter Conversion Corporation, aka EMC2, which was started by the inventor of the Wiffle Ball or Polywell fusion process, the late Dr. Robert Bussard.
Why should you care?
Well, CO2 production concerns means that like it or not, fission reactors are going to pop up around the world like never before, and they are going to produce thousands of tons of highly radioactive spent fuel.
Scientists have been chasing the holy grail of fusion power for around 50 years, without much success. Currently, Big Science, Big Government is backing a derivative of the Russian Tokamak technology, called ITER. It is the epitome of the "We Need a Bigger Hammer" approach that is the essence of big-budget physics, like CERN.
The Polywell approach is at the other end of the fusion rainbow, for energy requirements. It also offers an inherently easier way of getting usable power out of the fusion reaction, produces way less dangerous radiation — and it seems to work, which is why the USN has signed on for Version 8 of the Polywell design.
It appears that other techies are getting behind the concept. Check out Talk-Polywell.org, which is a discussion forum for Polywell fusion. There are sections on history, theory and design. Also, check out IEC Fusion Technology blog-site that also follows Polywell developments.
Why should you care (2)?
IMHO, fission reactors are a dead-end, and the ITER fusion approach is a dead-end. Canada needs clean electrical power. Compared to what AECL has spent on CANDU, we could bring the Wiffle Ball to Canada for a fraction of the cost. You may not like technology, you may not like nuclear power, but all those electric vehicles in our bright shiny happy future have to get their power from somewhere — and that's just one area of demand for electricity. Polywell devices could also allow the use of hydro rights-of-way for other uses, as a lot of power transmission lines just won't be needed.
Atheists sue to keep 'In God We Trust' off Capitol Visitor Center Rob Hotakainen | McClatchy NewspapersPosted: July 18, 2009 WASHINGTON — A California Republican congressman wants to do a little writing on the walls of Washington's newest federal building. If Rep. Dan Lungren gets his way, Congress will spend nearly $100,000 to engrave the words "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance in prominent spots at the Capitol Visitor Center.
Lungren's proposal drew only a whimper of opposition last week when the House of Representatives voted 410-8 to approve it. Now, however, Lungren finds himself tussling with a national atheists and agnostics group.
The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc. sued this week to stop the engraving, accusing Lungren of trying to force his religious beliefs on as many as 15 percent of all U.S. adults. That comprises "atheists, agnostics, skeptics and freethinkers, none of whom possess a belief in a god," according to the lawsuit.
"It really is a Judeo-Christian endorsement by our government, and so Lungren is wrong," said Dan Barker of Madison, Wis., a co-president of the foundation. "Lungren and others are pro-religious, and they want to actually use the machinery of government to promote their particular private religious views. That is unconstitutional, and that's what we're asking the court to decide."
_______________
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has 13,500 members, sued in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin. It alleges that Congress is trying to make belief in God synonymous with citizenship and "discouraging nonbelief" among Americans, a contention that Lungren rejects.
Lungren said that the phrase "In God We Trust" had a long history and was consistent with the beliefs of America's founding fathers. He also said that the Declaration of Independence referred to rights given by a creator.
_______________
Barker said the foundation had been waiting for the right case to challenge "In God We Trust." He said government actions could be challenged on state-church grounds if they had specific religious agendas. In this case, he said, backers of Lungren's plan have provided "the smoking guns" by giving specific, overt religious reasons for doing the engraving.
Barker said that atheists regarded the phrase "In God We Trust" as rude, uncivil and un-American.
"Tens of millions of really good Americans don't believe in God," he said. "In fact, there's many more nonbelievers than there are Jews, and we wouldn't think of offending Jews on our national monuments. . . . Why is it wrong to offend a Jewish minority but it's not wrong to offend those of us who serve in the military and sit on juries but we don't believe in God?"
THE ATLANTIC has an article worthy of your consideration, by Jamais Cascio, called "Get Smarter", wherein the author postulates that mankind has been under environmental pressure to get smarter, for a long, long time. 74,000 years ago a volcano blew up in Sumatra that made Mt. St. Helens seem like a fart in a phone-booth, and just about resulted in the extinction of h. sapiens (and neanderthalis). From this, Jamais concludes
The Mount Toba incident, although unprecedented in magnitude, was part of a broad pattern. For a period of 2 million years, ending with the last ice age around 10,000 B.C., the Earth experienced a series of convulsive glacial events. This rapid-fire climate change meant that humans couldn’t rely on consistent patterns to know which animals to hunt, which plants to gather, or even which predators might be waiting around the corner. How did we cope? By getting smarter. The neurophysiologist William Calvin argues persuasively that modern human cognition—including sophisticated language and the capacity to plan ahead—evolved in response to the demands of this long age of turbulence. According to Calvin, the reason we survived is that our brains changed to meet the challenge: we transformed the ability to target a moving animal with a thrown rock into a capability for foresight and long-term planning. In the process, we may have developed syntax and formal structure from our simple language.
So, that was then, and this is now, and why should you care? Jamais believes
Our present century may not be quite as perilous for the human race as an ice age in the aftermath of a super-volcano eruption, but the next few decades will pose enormous hurdles that go beyond the climate crisis. The end of the fossil-fuel era, the fragility of the global food web, growing population density, and the spread of pandemics, as well as the emergence of radically transformative bio- and nanotechnologies—each of these threatens us with broad disruption or even devastation. And as good as our brains have become at planning ahead, we’re still biased toward looking for near-term, simple threats. Subtle, long-term risks, particularly those involving complex, global processes, remain devilishly hard for us to manage. But here’s an optimistic scenario for you: if the next several decades are as bad as some of us fear they could be, we can respond, and survive, the way our species has done time and again: by getting smarter. But this time, we don’t have to rely solely on natural evolutionary processes to boost our intelligence. We can do it ourselves.
The process has been going on for thousands of years, but now, for the first time, we have the ability to actively guide this process.
Most people don’t realize that this process is already under way. In fact, it’s happening all around us, across the full spectrum of how we understand intelligence. It’s visible in the hive mind of the Internet, in the powerful tools for simulation and visualization that are jump-starting new scientific disciplines, and in the development of drugs that some people (myself included) have discovered let them study harder, focus better, and stay awake longer with full clarity. So far, these augmentations have largely been outside of our bodies, but they’re very much part of who we are today: they’re physically separate from us, but we and they are becoming cognitively inseparable. And advances over the next few decades, driven by breakthroughs in genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, will make today’s technologies seem primitive. The nascent jargon of the field describes this as “ intelligence augmentation.” I prefer to think of it as “You+.”
In February, Bernie Farber CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, and 10 other Canadian parliamentarians attended the London Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism.
"Of all the strategies and tactics reviewed, one stood out for broader emulation. It was the development of all-party enquiries into the state of anti-Semitism in individual countries. Such a committee establishes a clear focus and accountabilities, a specific timeline for co-ordinated action by government ministries, agencies and law enforcement groups and a political check against any attempts at appeasement.
It ensures that the fight against anti-Semitism becomes validated by all parties, and avoids anti-Semitism serving as a wedge issue among politicians. It puts the onus for leadership of the battle on non-Jews who have the most credibility in pushing this agenda within civil society. "
The coalition will conduct a national inquiry into antisemitism in Canada. Today’s announcement is intended to signal that in this country, legislators of all parties are deeply concerned about what seems to be a rising international tide of renewed antisemitism, on a scale not seen in my lifetime.
There will be hearings. There will be witnesses. You can make a submission by July 31.
The FAQs page assures us this is not an attempt to muzzle criticism of Israel.
Yet even as Farber noted in his column "the rise of new forms of anti-Semitism" such as "the linkage of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism", he informs us, apparently without irony or noticing the significance himself (italics mine):
"The U.K. Community Security Trust (CST), which co-hosted the London conference, has developed one of the leading evidentiary methodologies for tracking and understanding anti-Semitic incidents. Last week, it noted that a decrease in anti-Semitic incidents in 2008 (for the second year running) was totally overshadowed by an unprecedented rise during and after the Gaza operations."
Odd coincidence, that.
You know, if some of you guys would knock off conflating criticism of Israel's carnage in Gaza with anti-Semitism yourselves, like this recent nonsense concocted by Farber to punish Zerbisias, Jason Kenney's success in barring George Galloway from entering Canada, and Steve going all Godwin on us last year :
Some of the criticism brewing in Canada against the state of Israel, including from some members of Parliament, is similar to the attitude of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned yesterday.
"I guess my fear is what I see happening in some circles is (an) anti-Israeli sentiment, really just as a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism, which I think is completely unacceptable," Harper said in an interview with CJAD radio.
... it would go some distance towards striking a blow against the actual anti-Semitism that really does need combating.
.
Critics of Israel's policies know anti-Semitism exists and we support legitimate attempts to combat it.
What we do not support is the weasely conflation of anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism/criticism of Israel by Israel's defenders in the underhanded attempt to muzzle any criticism of the policies of the State of Israel by calling all of it, in Steve's happy phrase, "good old-fashioned anti-Semitism".
Unfortunately I fear that whatever McCarthyite machinations are being brewed up in this parliamentary committee of Farber and Kenney's will only serve to further blur that line. .
Via Global Guerrillas we learn the USAF will train more drone, sorry, "unmanned aerial system" operators this year than those old school pilots who actually leave the ground with their aircraft. As an article in the Christian Science Monitor points out, this new breed of Nintendo player Top Gun flies combat missions over Pakistan Afghanistan without leaving the couch Las Vegas.
As it scrambles to meet an exploding appetite for real-time video surveillance of the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force is undergoing a seismic cultural shift, adapting to the needs of warfare today while pondering what it might look like tomorrow.
Bob, who asked that his full name not be used because of the sensitivity of his job, has for now turned in his G-suit to be a desk jockey with a joystick. His days are spent, not pulling Gs, but inside an air-conditioned trailer an hour from the Las Vegas strip.
From here, he flies a remote-controlled airplane over Afghanistan or Iraq to produce video feeds of those wars a world away. The images are fed immediately to troops on the ground to track the enemy, spot someone planting a roadside bomb, or monitor other insurgent activity.
Unfortunately, unlike some successes in medicine, the results of this new form of surgical warfare suggest it has more in common with certain methods of lobotomy than anything strategically beneficial or just fucking humane.
I mean, I think if I were a denizen of Pakistan or Afghanistan who learned their family was slaughtered in the worst way imaginable because some kid on the other side of the planet who probably never left the CONUS thought they looked funny on TV, I'd go utterly insane. Stop for a minute and just try to imagine (if you can!), the chasm between a village or hard scrabble field in a remote part of Asia and the air-conditioned video-game trailer outside the zoo of Western vices and weirdness that is Las Vegas. The contrast between people inhabiting these spaces could not be greater. Young Americans, virtually all of whom I would guess have never set foot in an Afghan or Pakistani village or field, nor experienced anything comparable to the lives of the people they watch on TV screens; instead growing up with all the toys and joys of life in the US. Young Americans commanding life and death over people on video camera.
On the other hand, Pakistani or Afghan residents going about their lives, while being watched from above by for movement or actions that would appear suspcious enough to these young Americans to warrant their summary execution. How do you function knowing that carrying a shovel down the road or meeting up with your friends could randomly cost you your life?
This is Foucault's disciplining panopticon gone beyond measure.
There is no control, no interrogation about where the use of these drones might lead. The first ones were unarmed surveillance organs. Then of course, like everything else the military industrial complex does, it figured out how to arm them and then found means of using them. The CIA assinated terrorist leaders in their cars with them. Fairish enough. Blowing up a car on a road in Yemen suggests a long and careful intelligence operation before the tool was used.
But today things are different. Versions now patrol the US side of the Canadian border outside of the three dozen the US acknowledges are in service supporting their global adventuring. Almost twice that by next year they say. They're training kids to use them and make decisions about dropping bombs not through careful intelligence gathering about location and people, but through intrepretting a video image of a place their feet have not tread, beamed across half a planet. No doubt of course we'll get gallons of bafflegab about how highly trained and professional these "pilots" are, but the fact will remain they'll still be making errors in a highly trained and professional manor. Errors that will then get discounted from the calculus used to determine the viability of such a wonderful new weapon system that does not "risk [operators'] lives".
Expanding on Marx, anthropologist Alf Hornborg calls this blind adoption, development, and diffusion of technology "machine fetishism" and declares it ubiquitous in modern society. Our solutions to problems tend to the technical and technological. We'll invent a gadget to solve the problem of aerial reconnaissance and casualties for troops in theatre by using remote control planes equipped with missiles and video cameras. Or we'll create problems for our gadgets to solve (this is at the core of the military-industrial complext, I think). Oh look, they work (never mind the occassional wedding massacres), so we'll blanket the world with them. And we'll make them stealth so no territory will be beyond our reach and no state air force can defend against them. People will obey because we can now kill them at will with our buzzing insects. Fear and obey or die.
A terrifying combination is this mix of a universal surveillence and machine fetishism, particularly those who happen to be innocent members of populations which happen to run afoul of the great gaoler's whims.
Really. If you haven't been following this, you've been missing out on a ton of fun.
If you took a break to listen to Jian Ghomeshi with John Cleese, well, fair enough. But the continuing saga of Major Cook and Orly Taitz is better than reality TV.
It's not as though the "Birthers" conspiracy hasn't already been torn to ribbons as less than the most ridiculous bullshit ever to arise from a U.S. election, but it's quite likely that US Army Reserve Major, Stefan Fredrick Cook, a combat engineering officer from Florida, will face disciplinary action, possibly up to a general court-martial, for his antics.
Although the US Army is onto Cook's little game and have removed him from the picture in such a way that Cook doesn't get to squirt his conspiracy theory all over a Georgia courtroom, I expect Major Cook will indeed find himself in court in the not too distant future - as the defendant.
And before somebody comes haulin' in saying they can't do that to a reservist not on active duty... oh. yes. they. fucking. can.
The latest example of that was provided yesterday during an "industry day" for potential bidders on replacement search and rescue fixed-wing aircraft, a day described by many in the aerospace industry as a disaster. (Emphasis mine)
A $3-billion project to buy new search-and-rescue aircraft opened Tuesday in Ottawa amid complaints from aerospace-industry officials that government representatives can't even say how many planes will be purchased or when.
The industry day, signifying the start of the much-delayed program, left aerospace representatives puzzled and at times frustrated.
Government representatives who called the meeting couldn't answer questions on how many planes would be bought, when they would be purchased, whether they would be equipped with sensors or how they would be maintained.
Several participants described the event, put on by the Defence Department, Public Works and Industry Canada, as a disaster.
Even the presentation, which was limited to 90 minutes, failed.
The audio-visual presentation that was to outline details of the program did not work and the microphones for the main speakers and audience members failed.
That, however embarrassing it might have been, isn't that uncommon. However, given that this is Harper's world-stage® government at play, you'd think they could have sorted out a power-point presentation and audio systems before they actually got started.
The real kicker, however, is this one.
At the last minute, the Harper government shut down an invitation for the media to listen to the presentations, leading to a bizarre situation where government employees refused to even confirm they were government employees.
And just in case you think someone in a uniform made that decision without authority, let's look a little closer.
The Defence Department had approved the Citizen's request to be allowed to listen to the search-and-rescue presentation by Brig.-Gen. Greg Matte, but at the last minute that invitation was cancelled on orders from "higher up" in the Harper government, according to various officials.
A supervisor at the Government Teleconferencing Service, which was involved in broadcasting the meeting, said the order to ban the media "just came down" Tuesday morning. "We're doing what we're told," said the supervisor who declined to provide his name. "They've said to disclose nothing further."
He also declined to provide his name, confirm whether he was a public servant or discuss who "they" were.
Ah, more jiggery-pokery from the upper suite. Mackay and the spin merchants in the Langevin Block.
Secrecy around equipment programs and how the Defence Department spends tax dollars has grown significantly under the Conservatives.
In May, Defence Minister Peter MacKay pleaded with industry representatives to get the word out that military purchases were good for the Canadian economy. But industry officials note that it is often MacKay's office and other government representatives, such as the Privy Council Office, preventing firms from discussing projects.
In this case however, the Harper crowd may really be trying to hide more than their own gross incompetence. Defence and aerospace industry insiders are suspicious that the SAR aircraft "competition" simply isn't and that the process has been rigged. That makes even more sense when you consider the ass-backwards methodology that has been used to proceed with this equipment purchase.
MacKay announced in December 2008 that he would be going to cabinet asking for up to $3 billion for SAR aircraft replacement and that he had the proposal in front of him. Given that this procurement is now five years behind schedule (all deliverables were to have been in the hands of the Canadian Forces by 2009) this has become a pure off-the-shelf purchase. No new airplane will emerge from this. That would suggest that whatever specifications were issued to and approved by MacKay (and cabinet), they already exist in at least one specific aircraft at an estimated cost of which the Harper government is fully aware.
In short, yesterday's half-assed dog and pony show was a smoke screen for one of two things:
Either the Harper government has no actual idea of what they want from industry in terms of a fixed-wing SAR aircraft, or;
The Harper government has already made their choice and this Request For Proposals or "competition" is simply a theatrical performance to mollify the well-founded suspicions of the Canadian aerospace industry.
On thing is clear however: The Harper Conservatives, usually dancing around the podium whenever they announce a big-buck purchase, are trying to hide something, as evidenced when they shut the media out of yesterday's "briefing".
Incompetence or duplicity. Spin the wheel. Those are the choices.
It looks like we have a winner in West Point, Georgia! Yes... Jesus always wanted the United States to have Korean car manufacturers. Honest... it's a miracle.
Until some of the the locals take umbrage with the proliferation of Kim chi restaurants.
The revelations that Dick Cheney allegedly ordered the CIA not to report a super-secret Special Access Program (SAP) to congress is... unremarkable. If you didn't believe Cheney was running his own show then you still believe Heinrich Himmler wasn't trying to establish a government within a government with his SS.
The suggestion that the SAP which Cheney was supposedly running was a CIA-operated internationally deployed army of assassination squads has the ring of bullshit to it. While the CIA, in the not-so-distant past was always leery of assassinating public political figures they certainly possessed the mechanisms and the will to assassinate operators and opposition outside the public spotlight. That suggestion is a blind alley leading to blank wall.
The essence of what has been said so far is that Inspectors-General of the various intelligence branches of the US government have reported that Bush's warrantless wiretapping activity was only one aspect of a much wider domestic program. An illegal one, therefore, very, very secret.
Most people, despite their political hue or squeamishness about the idea, would likely accept the concept of CIA-conducted hits on prominent al Qaeda figures. In fact, most have already done it, so to suggest such a program needed to be withheld from Congress to avoid a possible leak is like offering to galvanize a rubber tire to prevent it from rusting.
There was a time when anyone suggesting Cheney was so evil that he would develop lists of personal and political enemies, based on their constitutionally guaranteed right to speak freely and offer an opinion which differed from the direction of Cheney's government, would have been called paranoid. To suggest that those named on such a list were targets for "special treatment" would have earned you a tin-foil hat.
And apparently supreme ruler, Stevie Harper only believes in death.
You know, there's two schools in economics on this. One is that there are some good taxes and the other is that no taxes are good taxes. I'm in the latter category. I don't believe that any taxes are good taxes.
Harper
10 July, 2009
Yeah... there's black and white. Pure neo-con bullshit.
This assertion, from an interview the Prime Minister gave The Globe and Mail after the G8 summit in Italy, is one of the most stunning, revealing and, frankly, ignorant statements ever made by a prime minister, let alone one who keeps purporting to be an economist, despite doing so many things that economists deplore.
Think about it: The prime minister of a country is saying, “I don't believe that any taxes are good taxes.”
There is no “school,” to use Stephen Harper's word, anywhere in economics that says “no taxes are good taxes.” Not even Milton Friedman and the Chicago school think that. Nor do Mr. Harper's former mentors at the University of Calgary.
Dan explains that killing taxes starts at home - Harper's home. (I would completely agree to selling off 24 Sussex Drive and forcing the prime minister to find his/her own accommodation. The PM is more than amply compensated. We taxpayers provide an office - provide your own friggin' house.)
By the way, when the Conservatives favourite ambulance chaser-turned-finance minister did a review of assets and announced that so many of them were now surplus, how come the various PM's residences didn't go to the chopping block?
It has been infuriating to watch the CBC being infiltrated with right-wing stupidity over the past year or so. It's not the conservative part that bothers me, but the lies, disproved memes and bafflegab being presented as sober commentary.
That's during discussion and lectures. But here it is, rising like a mushroom from the news, whose writers should dang well know better. I wrote to them today regarding the coverage of the Sotomayor hearings.
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Why are you presenting the "wise Latina: meme in conformance with the American right wing's take on the topic?
If you read the original speech, here for instance --
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html (go to page five of this article)
-- you will see that she is not presenting herself as better than the white males, though in view of the behaviour of the US Republicans one might think so.
No, she said this:
"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.
"Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown..."
Please don't help malignant people spread their twisted logic, no matter where it may occur. The CBC is, or ought to be, far better than that.
"Some things never cease to amaze me. Yesterday, the blog "Hello Kitty Hell" posted a picture of a pink TASER C2 with “Hello Kitty” and the kitty’s face emblazoned on the side. Just so the record is clear, TASER International does NOT produce nor sell a Hello Kitty TASER C2. It must be someone’s idea of cute, though that is open for debate."
Speaking of TASER™ and "cute", we learn via Wired that the new TASER™X3 due to be launched July 27th has its own facebook page ... and it twitters :
Check out my color screen. Like a Tele-Tubby … only a little more intense!
Cartridge just got off the shaker table… 2 hrs of intense vibration, no quarters required.
Roses are red, violets are blue, tell me the numbers on my display to win a hat for you.
Exponential Effect: If something happens 20% of the time. Chances of it happening 3 times in a row = 0.2 * 0.2 * 0.2 = .8%
Nothing on TASER™ twitter about your chances if it happens five times in a row however.
... Something in the naval gunnery game which, when the ground observer is calling the fall of shot from a gunfire supporting ship off shore, creates a thing called "ping pong effect"*. It is considered a sin by ships' gunnery officers because it gives the opposition an advantage since the erronious gun aiming adjustments provided by the ground observer cause bullets to miss the target entirely. It elevates to "heinous crime" when the observer's expanding errors cause high-explosive ammunition to fall amongst friendly troops. It is usually caused by either inexperience or panic on the part of the observer, or a combination of both.
So, when Kathy English, Public Editor for the Toronto Star issued a column in which she, and publisher John Cruickshank apparently disciplined Broadsides author Antonia Zerbisias for her Canada Day post, English totally missed the point of the original post and focused instead on an issued which bubbled up out of the "comments" five days later.
First, this column is intended to address publicly the valid concerns of the Canadian Jewish Congress, whose chief executive officer, Bernie Farber, was the subject of a Zerbisias blog post that was tasteless and fell short of the Star'sstandards of fairness, accuracy and civility. That's a view shared by publisher John Cruickshank.
At this point I will send you off to Alison at Creekside to get the whole story done in a finer style. We'll be here when you get back.
As you can see, English and Cruickshank have corrected a well-off-target round as though it was the issue - the ironic behaviour of Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber participating in the Toronto Gay Pride Parade, (and wearing a T-shirt), which he had previously criticized (for including groups which were criticizing the state of Israel).
The point Zerb was making in her post was, as you know from reading Alison, completely valid in that she questioned the continued interference in journalistic freedom by Zionist lobby groups.
Freedom of Expression: Excuse me but since when did the interests of Zionist lobby groups determine who or what Canadians can see and hear?
And then went on to explain why she was raising that question.
English, after receiving a complaining letter from Farber about something which emerged in the "comments" to that original post, decided that the issue was about Teh Gay and whether Farber was or wasn't, and whether Zerb had actually said whether he was or wasn't.
WRONG.
English and Cruickshank have just allowed themselves to be had by Farber. He clearly didn't like what Zerb had written in her post, and was looking for a way in. He found it; he trolled it; and English and Cruickshank took the bait. This is the first mis-aimed bullet because the observer failed to concentrate on where the first shot was actually intended to land. What happened in Broadside "comments" is the equivalent of the round-to-round dispersion from a naval gun and the TorStar Public Editor allowed herself to believe that was a correctable round. Sin committed.
Now, I'll send you off to go read skdadl at Pogge where she illuminates the lack of sophistication and poor understanding of blogs demonstrated by both English and Cruickshank. Again, we'll be here when you get back.
Now, having read that, we have English and Cruickshank committing the "heinous crime" equivalent of "ping-pong effect"* in naval shore bombardment. Having already allowed themselves to be distracted by a stray bullet that was already well off the gun-target-line, they then call a correction which puts them even farther off target.
... the power of the Internet to make messages "go viral" means that numerous people from across Canada alerted Farber to this posting.
That line is analogous to the compounding error created by round-to-round dispersion and a situation where the observer calls a halt to gunfire support because now the rounds are landing in her/his position.
English and Cruickshank will soon become aware that "viral" is a mild definition. The so-called "new media" is networked in a way that newspapers like the Star could only have dreamed of in decades past. "Viral" is exactly the treatment that English's column is getting because the logic is so flawed and the purpose is so obvious that the network of watchers are making sure she and Cruickshank get called to account for it.
Either the TorStar Public Editor and Publisher caved to pressure from Farber and the CJC or both are unable to discern what was done to them. Either way, what they wrote still doesn't answer the original question asked in Broadsides. Which means the original target still hasn't been dealt with.
* Ping Pong Effect. Every time the observer calling in gunfire from a support ship corrects the ship's aim of a round which didn't go where it should have gone, it causes the next salvo to go even farther off target. This causes the observer to correct in the opposite directions using even wider adjustments resulting in exploding ordnance over a large area which will likely miss the intended target altogether. It makes the "target area" safe for the opposition and dangerous for everyone around them. And, yeah, I have loads of experience on both sides of that type of operation.
I used the particular analogy for two reasons: Zerb's blog is named Broadsides and English chose to use the term "Rules of Engagement".
"After all the arguments for subordinating women have been shown to be self-serving lies, what are misogynists left with? They have only one feeble argument that is still deferred to and shown undeserving respect across the world, even by people who should know better: "God told me to. I have to treat women as lesser beings, because it is inscribed in my Holy Book.”
Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom are the editors of Butterflies and Wheels, the best atheist site on the web. In Does God Hate Women? they forensically dismantle the last respectable misogyny. They argue: "What would otherwise look like stark bullying is very often made respectable and holy by a putative religious law or aphorism or scriptural quotation . . . They worship a God who is a male who gangs up with other males against women. They worship a thug."
Ok, but what about cultural differences? Isn't it racist or imperialist to oppose the practices of other cultures?
Hari :
"This merrily ignores how women within these cultures protest against their treatment – very loudly. They aren’t objecting to being imprisoned in their homes, or having their genitalia cut, or being stoned for having sex, because a white person told them to. Benson and Stangroom put it well: "Multiculturalism by definition makes a fetish of cultures, and it is almost impossible to do that without treating them as monolithic. As soon as you admit that all cultures have internal dissent and nonconformity, the whole idea of protecting or deferring to particular cultures breaks down into incoherence."
Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project By SCOTT SHANE | July 12, 2009
The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.
_______________
Efforts to reach Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.
Damn.
The past couple of months he's been hard to miss on the cable news networks.
Thanks to Google's masthead for the reminder (and my old friend Cubby), here's the WIKI on the man, who probably did more to shape the world we have than anybody since James Watt. Indeed, Tesla was credited as the man who brought us the "Second Industrial Revolution".
Here's a list of what the man worked on:
Various devices that use rotating magnetic fields (1882)
The Induction motor, rotary transformers, and "high" frequency alternators
The Tesla coil, his magnifying transmitter, and other means for increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations (including condenser discharge transformations and the Tesla oscillators)
Alternating current long-distance electrical transmission system (1888) and other methods and devices for power transmission Systems for wireless communication (prior art for the invention of radio) and radio frequency oscillators
Robotics and the "AND" logic gate
Electrotherapy Tesla currents
Wireless transfer of electricity and the Tesla effect
Tesla impedance phenonomena
Tesla electro-static field
Tesla principle
Bifilar coil
Telegeodynamics
Tesla insulation
Tesla impulses
Tesla frequencies
Tesla discharge
Forms of commutators and methods of regulating third brushes
Tesla turbines (eg., bladeless turbines) for water, steam and gas and the Tesla pumps
Tesla igniter
Corona discharge ozone generator
Tesla compressor
X-rays Tubes using the Bremsstrahlung process
Devices for ionized gases and "Hot Saint Elmo's Fire"
Devices for high field emission
Devices for charged particle beams
Phantom streaming devices
Arc light systems
Methods for providing extremely low level of resistance to the passage of electrical current (predecessor to superconductivity)
Voltage multiplication circuitry
Devices for high voltage discharges
Devices for lightning protection
VTOL aircraft
Dynamic theory of gravity
Concepts for electric vehicles
Polyphase systems
It terms of creativity, this is about as far from Stevie as you can get. Tesla's three-phase rotating magnetic field is shown below. The Conservative Blue arrows are probably indicative of something.
The United States is moving to develop its own source of medical isotopes as the lagging repair of a Canadian nuclear reactor leaves Americans “critically short” of the radioactive material.
Nuclear watchers in this country say the loss of Canada's biggest customer could doom the nuclear-research and medical-isotopes industry that was pioneered here a half century ago, prompting a brain drain and leaving Canadians dependent on the United States.
A senior official with the National Nuclear Security Administration said at a meeting of the National Academies in Washington yesterday that his organization is evaluating a broad spectrum of ways to convert reactors in the U.S. to produce a domestic supply of technetium.
The “current supply crisis has captured the attention of the White House” and other top U.S. agencies, Parrish Staples told the meeting. Dr. Staples estimated it will take $120-million to create a U.S. facility.
So what will eventually happen is this:
Canada's nuclear research reactors will go cold and a $4 billion industry which Canada has dominated for the better part of half a century will vanish. Forever.
Instead of selling the United States, with ten times our population, one-half of their demand for medical isotopes, we will purchase isotopes from wherever we can get them. Where Canadian requirements would appear on the list is open to question since we have less than one-tenth the demand.
Jean-Luc Urbain, president of the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine, said this country's abysmal handling of the isotope crisis has left the United States little choice.
“There's probably no better way to shoot yourself in the foot than to act as the Canadian government has been acting over the past 18 months,” Dr. Urbain said in an interview yesterday.
Exactly. Because the Harper government has done nothing to deal with the situation despite the fact that this is a glaring and obvious problem which required serious attention.
An expert panel set up by the federal government to explore ways of securing a long-term supply of medical isotopes plans to meet for the first time on July 16.
They might want to include the passport office on that panel. As the Harper crowd ships another industry off to the United States they'll also be looking at the backs of Canadian nuclear specialists trip across the border.
We, however, will continue to rape our northern landscape in an effort to sell melted-down goo. And that's all we'll do as we watch our balance of trade deficit balloon.
Harper's vision, if you can call it that, is to make Canada the "North American energy superpower". In fact, the actions and inactions of the Harper government are chewing away at our economic diversity and in areas where we possessed a significant lead. By the time he's finished ignoring real problems and shrugging off any endeavour he doesn't care about as a "sunset industry" we might be faced with the economic nightmare of having all our eggs in one basket - except it'll be worse. We'll have one egg - period.
When Michael Coren unloaded the contents of his mesozoic mind regarding the death of armoured corps trooper Karine Blais he unleashed a flood of criticism aimed at his sexist take on Blais' combat death. Worse though, Coren dismissed Blais' service in a frontline combat arms unit as "dressed up as a soldier" and then went on to insult every serving female by stating, "... there are few if any women who have the skills required to serve as a front-line combat trooper."
Coming from someone who possesses no combat training at all, it was viewed by any informed person as an incredibly stupid statement. It also isn't true, and the US Army and US Marine Corps are finding that women serving in combat positions are not only just as capable as men, but have frontline skills unique to their gender.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army and Marines found it useful to send a female soldier along on raids, as it was less disruptive to have a woman search the female civilians. There was no shortage of volunteers for this duty. The marines, as is their custom, saw more opportunities in this. Thus the marines began sending a team of women on such missions.
The US Marine Lioness teams were established to facilitate searches of women and children during security operations in Iraq, but it turns out the teams of 3 to 5 female marines have other significant results.
Iraqi women were surprised, and often awed, when they encountered these female soldiers and marines. The awe often turned into cooperation.
That, however, isn't as significant as this.
The marines also noticed that the female troops were better at picking up useful information in general. [...]
Iraqi men were also intimidated by female soldiers and marines. In the macho Arab world, an assertive female with an assault rifle is sort of a man's worst nightmare. So many otherwise reticent Iraqi men, opened up to the female troops, and provided information. Women also had an easier time detecting a lie.
So, the question from across the room is, "That's a no-brainer. What took them so long?"
Indeed. What is taking them so long? U.S. law still prohibits women from serving in the true combat arms occupations. Infantry, artillery and armour remain male-only military trades.
In Canada, as in many countries, however, no such restriction exists. Women can and do serve in any occupation offered by the Canadian Forces. Further, they do it well and with as much skill and dedication as any man. And there are times when women simply do the job better.
In the aftermath of the brutal Liberian civil war, India sent an all-female peacekeeping contingent. The success of their mission has brought a request from the UN to member states to increase their contingents of female soldiers in both peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions. Currently, of 90,000 personnel on UN police and military missions only 8 percent of police and 2 percent of the military are female.
The Corens of this world, having never served period, much less with women in a combat unit, don't get it. In Afghanistan, Iraq and the multitude of conflict areas of the world the combat involves insurgency and guerilla warfare. There is no head to head fight between massive organized forces. In such asymetrical warfare you take every advantage you can get. Intelligence has to be gathered, filtered and analyzed rapidly and effectively. Putting women into combat teams gives those teams an edge they would otherwise not have.
And my own experience serving with women in a combat unit is that they can handle themselves and the job extremely well. The only difficulty they endured was within the unit from males unable to accept the presence of women and who were willing to expend energy attempting to sabotage what they (those few men) viewed as some sort of social experiment. Some of them shrunk into their shells when, after an opposed boarding of a suspicious Honduran merchant ship, the boarding party returned cheering on a female leading seaman who had taken down two opposing sailors, with her feet, before the rest of the team could get to her.
The honest truth is, the gender of a soldier, sailor, marine or aircrew is meaningless as long as the task is being accomplished and the mission is going forward. Whether its putting ordnance on target, pacifying a village or gathering intelligence, the requirement is dedicated, focussed and properly trained people.
The US Army and Marine Corps are figuring that out, finally. The Corens of this world never will.
It seems aspirate is the word the month for me. It is a word of many meanings. I can mean inhaling air or something else into the lung as in "He nearly drowned after aspirating too much water." It can also mean, in medicine, the removal of liquid or gas from the body. Or, as aspire or aspiration, the desire to achieve or gain more of something.
Twelve or thirteen days ago, surgeons were discussing whether to aspirate my severely bloated abdomen after an appendectomy left my bladder and bowels dormant (painful).
Then earlier today, I read Impolitical's account of Jim Prentice's verbal aspiration regarding the current government's wait-just-a-minute-now-nobody-said-anything-about-actually-doing-something aspiration regarding G8 climate change resolutions.
And a few minutes ago I found myself reading JH Kunstler's current Eyesore of the Month photo-caption regarding Sarah Palin's Wasilla city hall, who nails the issue square-thusly:
In honor of soon-to-be-former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, we present her hometown's seat of government. Like many public buildings around small-town America these days, this one was built with next-to-zero thought or care. It expresses a notion of democracy as like unto a take-out hamburger -- and many of you may be thinking... yes, that is exactly what it has come to! Of course this leaves out one the more interesting parts of the American ethos: to aspire to something finer. And to express these aspirations in our buildings. One might conclude that we're fresh out of aspirations. Have a happy holiday everybody!
America, Canada, it doesn't matter, as we both seem to suffer from a lack of aspiration, inspiration and general interest regarding our futures. Kunstler sees this in the vernacular architecture of "nowhere", but it is also reflected in political leadership, more so here now than in the US. Obama, it must be said, has inspired aspiration among his constituents and seems bent on following through on at least a few things. What do we have here? Canada, the young country which, 70 years ago mobilised almost overnight to turn a skeletal and decrepit armed forces into the one of the world's largest and most potent to meet an existential challenge to a safe and free world. Now, another existential challenge, and the party of the day aspirates excuses like those they ascribe to that long maligned British PM their supporters are so fond of paradoxically blaming for failing to start WW2 earlier in order to stop it later.
That said, it's not like the other party we might elect would be much different - they just present better. Their last leader, who took climate change seriously, lost because he wasn't macho enough to win. This is sad. Not only because it suggests a macho facade, no matter how poorly orchestrated and shallow, still whispers 'leader' in the minds of many of the public as if contests of privilege are still decided with clubs and spears. 10 000 years and were 10 feet out of the cave. But also because it puts us on a path of choosing deeply conservative (in the literal sense) leaders beholden to obsolete social and economic orders at a time when we need the exact opposite.
So I guess were going to have to wait for the this shallow, aspirating and expiring modernity to drain away before we'll change. I hope we can hold it together enough to make the transition to a new world viable and orderly. It is sad because sometimes I see this world so pregnant with promise I think the water will break tomorrow. And then I see the news and watch all those macho Spartans throw promise against the mountainside and my heart sinks. But I don't give up. We know what happened to the Spartans.
I think people should be allowed to wear whatever idiotic shit they want to wear, even stuff like this that is calculated to offend.
But while my most offensive T-shirt merely mocks mass superstition and identifies me as a blasphemous non-believer with no respect for the deeply held beliefs of others (guilty!) this bit of warm weather fashion on the left puts forth the hi-larious notion that wearer enjoys taking shackled, helpless human beings and repeatedly almost drowning them just for shits and giggles. Ha ha ha!
I don't wear my sacrilegious shirt to churches or anything like that and I full expect to be called a heathen by any religious people I happen to run across - I deserve it. If you bring a bucket of KFC and wear snakeskin boots, leather pants and a mink coat to a PETA meeting, chances are pretty good that you'll get told off - that's kind of the point. Wearing a shirt that says "I'd rather be burning kittens" to an ASPCA fundraiser or an "Impeach Bush" shirt to a GOP rally is a provocative act. You do it to annoy cat fanciers or republicans and to identify yourself as someone who opposes what they stand for.
So conservatives, go ahead and order yourself a pile of "I'd rather be waterboarding" shirts - wear them everywhere you go! Let your pro-torture freak flag fly! Go right ahead and identify yourself as an enemy of the human race, it's bound to really piss off those pesky annoying people who dislike pointless cruelty.
Alternatively, you could just skip a step and have "I am an enormous douche bag" tattooed on your forehead, because that is what the rest of the world is going to see when you wear that shirt.
House Panel Adopts Amendment Allowing Guns in Public Housing By Karoun Demirjian, CQ Staff | July 9, 2009 – 11:40 a.m.
Gun rights advocates scored a victory Thursday as the House Financial Services Committee adopted an amendment to allow guns in public housing projects.
The amendment, offered by Tom Price , R-Ga., would bar any housing authority from restricting legal ownership of guns. It was adopted by 38-31, as the committee continued its markup of a housing bill (HR 3045) the panel is expected to approve next week.
While the Department of Housing and Urban Development does not have a specific policy concerning guns in public housing, several local agencies have banned them in an effort to reduce violent crime in housing projects. Major urban centers began to adopt gun bans in the 1990s, and advocates of such steps argued they have improved the safety of public housing.
“There was a time during the ’70s and ’80s when public housing developments were considered killing grounds,” said Emanuel Cleaver II , D-Mo., who grew up in public housing. “It is just foolhardy to place guns in developments of poor people, many of whom are unemployed, and place these guns around children. . . . Why would we try to put guns in the most densely populated areas in the urban core? It’s just unbelievable.”
Well, now that makes perfect sense, don't you think?
That's how long it took the Harper government to wreak complete and utter havoc on Canada's medical system.
When the Chalk River reactor was shut down in December, 2007, Harper and his gang of thugs had a choice. They could deal with the situation temporarily and get down to work developing viable alternatives to the aging Chalk River reactor and a looming medical isotope crisis, or they could stand around screaming their lungs out about how this is nothing but an attempt to make them look bad.
In short, the simple choice was to either govern on behalf of all Canadians or play politics on their own behalf.
The Harper crowd chose to play politics. (Original quote from the Globe and Mail, 13 Dec. 2007)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed yesterday that someone will be held to account for the shutdown of the reactor that produces half of the world's medical isotopes as his government searched for culprits to blame in its battle with the country's nuclear regulator.
"I can certainly assure the House that when this is all behind us, the government will carefully examine the role of all actors in this incident and make sure that accountability is appropriately restored," Mr. Harper said in the House of Commons.
Nothing about actually solving the problem; nothing about going into the future; nothing about actually governing.
There was a solution, perhaps even a number of them, but they were blinded by their warped ideology and their lust for blood. Typical of the type of hard-right, social conservative animal that populates the Harper party, they felt it important to present themselves as authoritarians.
They did the only thing they knew how to do and chose punishment over planning and progress. Harper fired the only person who had a clear view of the situation, claiming that Linda Keen was a Liberal appointee who was obviously trying to undermine Harper's authority.
It's worth examining for a moment the reason Harper and his circle-jerk of ministers believed Keen's motivation was anything but professional. It's because that's what they would do and they have proved it through an endless stream of advertising smearing anyone or anything that has the slightest appearance of political opposition.
Instead of spending 19 months putting together a comprehensive solution to a problem of which they were made fully aware, they ignored it and instead gave us oil-blots, crapping Puffins and criticism of anybody who actually possesses a world-view beyond their authoritarian bubble.
And now, today, we get this. (My emphasis)
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt issued a joint statement saying they are disappointed the repairs will be delayed. They said the shutdown will result in a significant shortage of medical isotopes in Canada and around the world this summer.
“I have directed AECL to give paramount priority to bringing the Chalk River reactor back to service as quickly and safely as possible and will hold AECL accountable to that end,” Ms. Raitt said in the statement.
Roger. Another splat of authoritarian garbage from yet another incompetent Harperite. No plan; no real effort; just a promise to do what the Harper sycophants do best - punish somebody.
Canadians are going to die of diseases having not been diagnosed in a timely manner because of an isotope shortage that the Harper government knew about 19 months ago. Between then and now they have produced nothing. No plan; no solutions; no action. Just threats of punishment.
This is supposed to be a group which understands how to do business and run corporations. The truth is, if they ran a large company the way they run this country the shareholders would tear their guts out at an annual general meeting.
This country is in desperate need of a government.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper should not have accepted communion at Roméo LeBlanc's state funeral in Memramcook, N.B., the archbishop of Moncton said Wednesday.
Msgr. André Richard said the church law is clear, but he is not looking for any apologies or explanations from Harper or the Prime Minister's Office.
Cameras were rolling when communion hosts were offered to people attending the funeral for the former governor general on July 3.
Harper, who is an evangelical Protestant, accepted the host but appeared to put it in his program or his pocket, according to some onlookers.
Big, hairy, fucking, deal. The Catholic church is in a position to ask anybody for an apology or an explanation, even if they don't expect one? They employ pedophiles!
Harper does not subscribe to the Roman Catholic religion. He has no clue as to their strange rites and superstitious ceremonies. Hell, I might have done exactly the same thing as he is being accused of. What the fuck do I do with this tasteless wafer... made in Italy?
Practically, he clearly didn't need the extra calories. Click on the picture for a WIDER view.
If I have a complaint it is with his office. A real PMO would have briefed the boss on protocol. But they didn't bother. They're too busy generating attack ads on the opposition. The duly elected opposition.
That, I care about.
I don't give a red rats ass what Harper did with a tasteless piece of bread with a superstitious meaning attached. That's not important. The man clearly wasn't hungry. Look at him ferchrissakes.
The kewl kids in the PMO would love to see everybody wrapped up in some ridiculous sanctity of the one true church controversy. It gives them room.
They don't deserve it.
Focus, people. And keep digging. Harper can fill his pockets with saltines for all I care (and apparently, he'll eventually eat them) but it's what he does when he's not at superstitioun-riddled events outside his bubble that counts.
Focus. This is a ridiculous blur.
PZ Myers, world famous cracker disposal expert, is on the case. The comments make a long stay worth every minute.
Ice arenas are as Canadian as Moosehead beer. Getting federal stimulus money out the door on a shovel-ready arena project shouldn't be a problem then when the local government involved has done all the planning, has committed local funds, has secured provincial funding and was approved for federal cash.
A decision to pull $15 million in federal funding has the Halifax Regional Municipality on thin ice.
Regional council found out Tuesday that it is no longer getting the money to help pay for a four-pad arena in Hammonds Plains — the municipality's top capital project.
Coun. Sue Uteck was shocked to learn the news at the closed-door session.
"We've spent close to $8 million on this piece of land with the assurances that this project was a go, that it qualifies [for] funding. And for no apparent reason they're telling us today that it doesn't," she told reporters after the meeting.
Council expected the money to come from the federal government's economic stimulus fund. The province approved its share based on that federal contribution. The municipality was planning to spend up to $10 million.
The reason given by the Harper feds? (Emphasis mine)
Uteck said council was told that the federal Conservative government has concerns that the four ice surfaces might not meet environmental tests.
Might not?! We're talking the government of the Tar Sands here. What environmental test do they require? In any case, environmental impact would be a provincial responsibility shared with the regional municipality. If the province has already approved its funding, it suggests provincial environmental standards in the construction plan have already been met.
But she suggests shady politics are at play, given Nova Scotians recently elected an NDP government.
"This project was a go before the election, and now that the election is over we were informed this [project] is not a go," Uteck said.
Yeah, well that too. But I would have a closer look at the broad political ground, Sue. Halifax Regional Municipality (which, by the way, I enjoyed living in) isn't exactly ripe Harper territory. Of the core federal electoral districts which encompass HRM, including the one in which Hammonds Plains resides, Harper vote buying doesn't look like it's getting much of the desired result.
Halifax West - MP Geoff Regan, Liberal.
Halifax - MP Megan Leslie, NDP.
Sackville-Eastern Shore - MP Peter Stoffer, NDP.
Dartmouth-Cole Harbour - MP Michael Savage, Liberal.
On the other hand, take a look at what's happening in Central Nova where nothing is being cancelled and Peter "Airshow" Mackay just keeps shovelling in money. And in the Harper-held riding of South Shore-St. Margaret's, Conservative MP Gerald Keddy, (Atlantic Accord sell-out artist), watched the provincial NDP carry out an electoral sweep which literally delivered a provincial NDP majority to Halifax. The most serious message to Keddy (and Harper) though was what happened in the provincial riding of Chester-St. Margaret's where Keddy's spouse, Judy Streatch, a high ranking cabinet minister in the NS Conservative government going into the provincial election, was thoroughly trounced by NDP Denise Peterson-Rafuse... in Chester, of all places. That was a Conservative stronghold! The message to Harper (and Keddy) is clear: No length of lifeline is going to save Keddy in the next election.
Now, if you were wandering around L'Aquila, Italy early today you heard Harper announce a $5 million contribution to a youth centre in L'Aquila. Keep in mind, L'Aquila was flattened by an earthquake and is still in the process of cleaning up, much less rebuilding.
Before entering the working lunch on the first day of meetings, Harper stood at the foot of a rubble-strewn street today and announced a modest contribution to the massive earthquake reconstruction job here. With a federal government building crumbling behind him, and nervous Italian civil security officials barking at reporters to keep back, Harper pledged $5 million for a youth centre in this university town at the heart of the Abruzzo province, 90 kilometres northeast of Rome. Harper is one of a parade of world leaders who would pledge funds here today for the rebuilding of L'Aquila, a project estimated to cost between $12-16 billion.
That funding was approved by all parties and, when compared to the overall cost associated with rebuilding L'Aquila, is mere peanuts. It does however, stick in the craw of places which have had their approved federal funding withdrawn for no apparent valid reason. Except that Harper, always the politician and never a statesman sees more value in presenting L'Aquila, Italy with 5 million bucks than he does giving Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia $15 million.
The Canadian prime minister toured the damaged city centre, stopping at a university residence where 13 students died in the collapse of their dormitory. "Your tears were our tears" Harper told a small gathering of local dignitaries including L'Aquila Mayor Massimo Cialente. Harper who attended the funding announcement. The Canadian contribution was welcomed by L'Aquila Mayor Massimo Cialente, who said the university is the "future of the city and at the same time the economic engine of the region."
In truth, the job appears overwhelming, even to several Italian Canadians who travelled here with Harper, but they insisted it was worth the effort, even in a zone still subject to tremors.
Not that L'Aquila shouldn't receive the Canadian contribution to its reconstruction, but the councillors of Halifax Regional Municipality must be able to recognize a possible voting block and the attempt to buy it.
It's just that after promising all that money to build an arena, the people of Halifax Region (and huge chunks of Nova Scotia) still aren't showing Harper what he considers to be the appropriate amount of gratitude. And if you really want to get a Conservative kick in the groin, try asking for federal Marquee Event Funding for this event.
AVIATION WEEKhas a report from Graham Warwick, "Canada Looks to Accelerate F-35 Decision; Lockheed Eyes Consortium Buy".
So, it appears that Stevie and the Gang are getting to the short strokes of the decision-making process:
"Canada is working to bring forward a decision on its new fighter to later this year, with the Lockheed Martin-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter facing ostensible competition from the Boeing F/A-18E/F, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen NG (Next Generation).
Canada was the first country to join the United States and the United Kingdom as a partner in development of the JSF, and its industry has significant participation on the program. The original plan was to replace all 80 CF-18s, but "65 is sufficient to do the job," says the official."
I know it's wildly impractical politically, but I'd love to see us acquire the latest Sukhoi 35, with Canuck avionics and engines. Might be cheaper and more reliable.
It seems the Reform wing of the Harper Party (which is the most heavily feathered segment) has emerged to toss some raw meat at their constituency of intolerant fundamentalists. Not happy with Goebbels-inspired propaganda smears of legitimate political opponents, they appear now to be deciding what constitutes "tourism" and events which would promote it.
Not that I have much use for Diane Ablonczy, but it seems that she's now getting the Röhm treatment from her own kind.
Why, Harper's inners are even using the same obfuscating tactics: Duck, dodge, weave, never-answer-the-question. At some point I'm pretty sure you'll hear the word "disloyal" or maybe even "treason".
And for a detailed description of who benefits, we'll make a stop right here.
Interesting treatment of a long-time Reform/Alliance/Harper Conservative loyalist. But then, loyalty to a bunch of hard right-wing ideologues comes with certain risks*.
More from Aaron Wherry who points out that Harper's own little oberführer,Minister für Kirchenfragen, the highly intolerant and unsavory Charles McVety, was passing judgment on Toronto's Gay Pride Parade and the Marquee Event funding as much as two weeks ago. Keep in mind, McVety, (who at some point was saluting himself as (cough!) Dr. McVety), has far too much influence with the Harper caucus and is quite likely the instigator behind what's happening now.
And, yes, we still need the matter of that "degree" of his cleared up.
And now, Ablonczy is referring questions about herself to the Industry minister's mouthpiece. I guess she hasn't figured out what the gun left on the table in her office represents.
With condolences and respect to the families and friends of Master Corporal Pat Audet, 430e Escadron tactique d'hélicoptères, and Corporal Martin Joannette, 3e Bataillon, Royal 22e Régiment. Killed in theatre during an aircraft crash on take-off.
Or, it's difficult to accept that a Roman Catholic would actually accept anything stated by the church of Henry VIII.
Geez, SUZANNE, the truth is, if you really wanted to be a man, with all the privileges your religion grants that gender, you could be. It is, after all, a choice. All you have to do is change and become one.
It's that easy.
There are some days when "Christians" really make me want to piss on their shoes.
So, you're flipping through the rag reading the Letters to the Editor. That's actually a good thing. It gives you a feel for those who actually want to add voice to their opinion. I've always read them and I've written them. Unfortunately, I was also sued for one I'd written. It didn't go anywhere, but it gave me a temporary scare.
So, those letters, in a public journal, are public and carry a level of jeopardy.
The Conservatives, in their penultimate wisdom, believe that a part of their "campaign without end" involves making sure that their operatives are... operative.
And one might think that some hard-palmed worker had simply lost his silence and fired off a letter.
Thank gawd for KNB who rooted out the identity of the letter writer and identified him as a Conservative Party staffer of Royal Galipeau, Conservative Party MP for Ottawa-Orleans.
Interestingly, whenever I wrote a letter to the editor, there was a check back to see if I had any affiliation which might lend authority to my words or, perhaps, suggest there was a motivation which exceeded my personal beliefs (ie. Career objectives).
Frankly, (Harper style conversation), the editorial page editors are not doing their job properly. They are not only enabling Conservative Party astro-turfing; they are promoting it.
I'm a little behind in my podcast listening, so it was only this morning on the way to work that I heard the wonderful Canada Day edition of CBC Radio's "As It Happens" and their feature interview with Jowi Taylor. When Quebec was about to hold its last referendum, a whole lot of us across the country got on buses and went to Montreal for a big outpouring of "Baby-Please-Don't-Go-ism" and I guess, to some degree, it worked since Quebec is still part of the country and all. But the demonstration and the way the whole referrendum was portrayed in the press as a blue vs red, English vs French, Quebec vs Ottawa issue sort of irked Taylor and he got to thinking about the rich history of Canada and the whole cultural mosiac that makes Canada what it is. And then he got an idea. An incredible idea.
It took him about a dozen years, but with the help of luthier George Rizanyi, Taylor got the thing built and it made its debut at the Canada Day concert on Parliament Hill in 2006 in the extremely able hands of Stephen Fearing.
There is metaphor and symbolism and just plain mojo in everything I guess. Everything we touch comes from somewhere and has been part of some other life. There is the Muddywood guitar and back in the early 90s I remember a lot of art that featured bits of the Berlin Wall, but this is like something out of a fantasy novel or a fairy tale. The guitar is built from bits and pieces of wood, bone and metal that come from across Canada: A scrap from Rocket Richard's Stanley Cup ring, a bit of a sideboard that held the booze in Sir John A. MacDonald's office, a slab of the sacred Haida Gwaii Golden Spruce, part of Paul Henderson's hockey stick from The Goal, a chunk of Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddle, a bit of mammoth ivory from the NWT- the case even incorporates a piece of Don Cherry's pants and Karen Kain's tutu.
And its been played by anyone and everyone - Stompin' Tom has played it in his home, Gordon Lightfoot played it on his 70th birthday, and Taylor has been touring the country letting the whole population get its strum on.
You'll be seeing stuff about the guitar in all the papers this week as Taylor has just published a book about its creation. My question is this: What song would you play on it and why?
RAN ACROSS THIS LITTLE GEM yesterday: The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies. If you are a veteran graphics type, this will bring back memories. Hundreds of items, most no longer used, like the waxer, at the bottom.
The new head of MI6 has been left exposed by a major personal security breach after his wife published intimate photographs and family details on the Facebook website.
Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all Britain's spying operations abroad.
And just to make sure...
On the day his appointment was announced, she wrote: 'Congrats on the new job, already dubbed Sir Uncle "C" by nephews in the know!'
There are those in the British government who held strong reservations about Sawers' appointment. Although he started out his career with MI6 he has spent most of his life as a diplomat. He currently represents Britain on the UN Security Council.
I somehow think he was hoping nobody would take to writing on his wall.
With condolences and respect to the family and friends of Master Corporal Charles-Philippe Michaud, 2e Batallion, Royal 22e Régiment. Succumbed to wounds suffered as a result of enemy action 23 June, 2009.
THE LA TIMES HAS A SAD REPORT ON THE RETURN OF JUCHE in North Korea, as the prime economic goal of the psychopaths that run the country. The report, written by Barbara Demick, details how the regime has banned imports from China and everywhere else.
In the markets of Kilju, a city of 100,000 near North Korea's eastern seacoast, the ruling Korean Workers' Party has ordered the removal of Chinese-made cookies, candies and pharmaceuticals.
Even soybeans, many articles of clothing and shoes are now forbidden.
It is all part of a great leap backward taking place in the secretive autocracy. North Koreans interviewed in China in recent weeks say that the regime of Kim Jong Il has made a concerted effort to roll back reforms that had over the last decade liberalized the most strictly controlled economy in the world.
Why should you care?
The economic restrictions reflect the rising power of the hard-liners within the staunchly communist regime and go hand in hand with the belligerent mood that led to North Korea's May 25 nuclear test. Those jostling for power in the scramble created by the failing health of 68-year-old North Korean leader Kim Jong Il are raising the banner of juche, the term coined by his father, Kim Il Sung, the country's founder, for an ideology emphasizing self-sufficiency.
North Korea has in effect scuttled dialogue with the United States, South Korea and Japan, shut down South Korean business interests within its borders and evicted many humanitarian aid operations.
AP HAS A REPORT on the latest missile tests, with an interesting statistic:
The North has about 600 Scuds, plus 200 Rodong-1 missiles -- which could reach Tokyo.
Dangerous people, folks. ASIA TIMES has an article with a good over-view of the history of the North Korean missile efforts. When you look at the chart below, the staggering cost of developing all these missiles becomes apparent: that's a lot of engineering and expensive fabrication. No wonder the poor North Koreans can't get enough to eat.
With condolences and respect to the family and friends of Corporal Nicholas Bulger, 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. Killed due to enemy action.
As Cathie says, the excuses provided for Sarah Palin's sudden and unexpected departure from the governor's chair in Alaska stinks like a three-day-old Alaska King Crab.
Apparently Palin was simply bugged by "bloggers and activists".
Hmmm. What were they blogging about?
Ohhh! They went a little farther than calling her Cariboo Barbie. They might actually have some heavy duty dirt.
The prime minister of Canada is not the head of state. That position belongs to the Queen of Canada.
The prime minister of Canada is not the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. That duty rests with the Governor General of Canada.
The prime minister of Canada, as head of government, is entitled to a 19-gun salute, to a maximum of once per year, when at an established saluting station, as an honour gained at having been appointed by the Governor General. Canadian Forces Administrative Order 61-8 leaves no part of that in question. (It apparently has not been re-issued as a DAOD).
The prime minister of Canada is not entitled to a Canadian Guard of Honour. Ever. Heritage minister James Moore is wrong. But then, that's hardly surprising. The Conservatives simply took a matter of national military ceremonial intended for visiting foreign dignitaries and twisted the meaning to include their fat-assed, lense-loving, megalomaniac. Josef Stalin would be proud.
Harper stood there, in all his magnificent corpulence, having never crossed the threshold of a CF recruiting office door, because he missed that part of his life, with nary a decoration to his name and took a salute from the Governor General's Foot Guards... in a blatant and intentional breach of protocol.
If Harper wants a salute, he should visit me. I'll give him exactly what any mealy-mouthed politician is entitled to. I'll even tell him what to wear:
"Harper managed to get the military to give him a salute that's normally reserved for the Governor-General. As Heritage Minister James Moore explains in the video, this was something that the Prime Minister apparently wanted."
.
Really? How very presidential of him.
.
The Governor General is the Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces – not the Prime Minister - but I guess since she allowed him to suspend parliament and declare himself head-of-state back in December, she may as well let him play with her honour guard as well..
I've been living in Japan for a dozen years and I've only been home to Ontario a handful of times, so obviously I don't miss my home and native land that much right?
Wrong. Tonight I have a lump of homesickness that is sitting in my gut like a double order of congealed poutine.
Homesickness comes and goes, especially at the holidays, but Canada Day is always a tough one.
You see, one of my earliest jobs in the newspaper biz was at a little local weekly on the shores of Lake Erie - the Port Dover Maple Leaf - a nice little family owned and operated paper, which last I heard was being operated by the third generation of the Morris family. I was the only reporter for the paper - I actually lived over the Main Street office two blocks from the beach - and pretty much ate, slept and especially drank Port Dover 24/7/365.
(A brief digression: There is one good thing about being the only reporter for the only newspaper in town and that is that everyone in town knows you. There is one bad thing about being the only reporter for the only newspaper in town and that is that everyone in town knows you. The hour are very long and no matter how generous your boss is, he can't afford to pay you much wages. I didn't do these kinds of jobs for eight years across Southern Ontario because I was getting rich. 'Nuff said)
Port Dover, Ontario, perched (no pun intended) on the edge of Lake Erie, about an hour up the highway from Hamilton, is a summer town. It was, back in 1990 when I was there, the largest freshwater fishing port in the world. (See Stan Rogers "Tiny Fishes for Japan") and the fish they caught was the perch. The perch is not exactly a great sport fish. They don't get very big or put up much of a fight or require a tremendous amount of skill to catch with a rod and reel once you find them -- but cleaned, battered and deep fried when fresh out of the lake they are about the tastiest thing that swims as far as I'm concerned and I ate my share of them in Port Dover.
Aside from the fish, the town is a tourist trap. Back in the 20s and 30s it had been a big deal and all the steel barons from Hamilton and the rich folks from Toronto used to have summer homes there. Al Capone owned a mansion there during prohibition with a secret tunnel that led down to the lake for running rum across to the U.S. side. There were regular ferries from Erie Pa. and a big pier with a dance hall that was still a going concern when my parents were teenagers in nearby Brantford in the 5os an even into the 60s. There's a decent beach, a little hotel, a couple of bars and restaurants, a bunch of cheesy souvenir shops. Back when I was living in town, there was a great summer theatre too, and cherry blossoms in the spring, but the big attractions were the Friday the 13th Biker summits and CANADA DAY.
Friday the 13th promised excitement and noise and drunken partying and a sense of danger. I could sit in my front window and watch the fights in the parking lot of the Commercial Tavern across the street and see the bikes roar up and down the main street.
Canada Day promised local musical favorite Doug Feaver at the Norfolk Tavern, the Lions Club fish fry and beer garden and a huge parade right outside my front window. I entertained a lot in those days, with friends coming down summer weekends to drink beer, eat perch and hang out at the beach but Canada Day was the best. I'd have to shoot photos all day and night for the newspaper, but on a day like that people are glad to see the man with the camera and the notebook and just want to make sure their names are spelled right in the caption. Between the floats sponsored by local businesses, service clubs, church groups and politicians and the marching bands and the clowns and the school kids and the 4H kids and so on half the town marched in the parade and the other half - and thousands of tourists- lined the streets to watch them. Short of an isolated island in Algonquin Park with a bottle of Canadian Club and a few guitar-playing, canoe-paddling kindred spirits, it is by far the best place to spend Canada Day that I know.
Do I miss it? Would I swap working at the world's largest newspaper amid the bright lights of one of the world's greatest cities for covering planning council meetings in a hick, one-horse, backwater, struggling resort town in the middle of the South Ontario countryside?
This is not a good day to ask me that.
Let me ask you something - I've been gone from Canada longer thanAbousfian Abdelrazik - so long that Canada's New Government has changed the law to say that I can't vote in Canadian elections without moving back to the Great White North. I don't own any property in Canada. I don't even have a Canadian bank account. Am I still Canadian?
Let me tell you something:
I still remind American co-workers why the White House is white. I am the go to guy in my Tokyo office if you have a question about French (though I barely scraped through high school French). I know my way around a canoe. I have a visceral loathing of American beer. My Japan-born-and-raised kids say "eh" when speaking English and blueberry pancakes with maple syrup is their favorite breakfast. I get cravings for peameal bacon and still call french fries "chips". I got drunk and argued politics one night at the Norfolk Tavern in Port Dover with Stompin' Tom Connors - my shoulder and left arm were even in the TV commercial for his "A Proud Canadian" album that they shot in Port Dover. I grew up playing hockey in Sault Ste. Marie when native sons Phil and Tony Esposito were huge stars and Wayne Gretzky spent a year at my high school while playing Jr. A for the Sault Greyhounds just before he turned pro and while the holy Montreal Canadiens were winning the Stanley Cup every year. I remember the windstorm that blew our neighbour's chimney down the night the the Edmund Fitzgerald sank a couple dozen miles away on Lake Superior. I've polka'd to Walter Ostenak live at Oktoberfest in Kitchener. I spent my 17th summer planting trees and clearing canoe portages northwest of Kenora for $10 a day. I cook tortiere at New Years from my aunt's recipie. I've seen bears at the dump. I spent a couple of St. Patrick's Days getting hammered and singing Stan Rogers songs with cadets from RMC at the Wellington in Kingston. I was once the editor of the oldest community newspaper in Canada. I've eaten moose and seen them up close in the wild. I've seen the Habs at the Forum and eaten smoked meat at Schwartz's, Ben's and Dunn's. I've slept under a beached canoe after watching the Northern Lights on a late summer evening in the middle of the bush in Northern Ontario 100 miles from anywhere. I've made maple syrup. I've eaten lobster bought right off the dock in Peggy's Cove. I've played hockey with my grandfather on a frozen pond. I've chased raccoons and skunks out of my garbage. I've eaten fresh smoke salmon in B.C. and salted dried cod in the fortress of Louisbourg. I am one (very small) part Mohawk. I've had my pipes freeze. I've called in sick to work because I've been snowed in. I've had beers with old soldiers at the Legion on Rememberance Day. I've heated my home with a woodstove. I've seen Neil Young at the Ex and Gordon Lightfoot and Bruce Cockburn at Hamilton Place and the Cowboy Junkies and Murray McLaughlin at the Festival of Friends and once met the Tragically Hip in a boozecan in Kingston. I've been rained on in Vancouver. I've jumped off the roof of my house into snow deeper than I was tall. I've been told to evacuate a provincial park in BC because there was a forest fire coming over the hill a mile away and closing, hell, I once fought a forest fire. I was in Montreal for the big "please don't separate" march before the last Quebec referendum. I was once a member of the Montreal Expos Battery Bleachers Fan Club when they still played at Jerry Park. I had a subscription to the original Captain Canuk comic book. I've been ice fishing. I own both and audio and a video cassette of the last Morningside with Peter Gzowski. Pierre Elliot Fucking Trudeau once asked me if I wanted to be Prime Minister when I grew up. I have tears flowing into my glass of Crown Royal and Canada Dry as I write this, but goddamn it Canada - There is a town in North Ontario with dream comfort memory to spare and Icould drink a case of you and how I wish I was in Sherbrooke now.
Oh, Canada....
(a special tip of the touque to Rina for telling me I must move back immediately last night and to all the other expats who are pining for home this week)
So why does the MSM continue to report the story like there is actually a snowball's chance in hell of "reform"? Probably the same reason they:
