You (and Harper) already blew it!!

Harper knob polisher, Michael Den Tandt offers up the results of gazing at the Conservative crystal ball with a set of 2014 predictions on what to expect from (missing in action) Harper. It's actually quite stunning. Den Tandt pines away for the "Charm Offensive" he has oft predicted from Harper but which has never happened. It seems to escape Den Tandt that Harper doesn't have it in him and if it's scripted for him, that fact becomes obvious. More on that in a minute.

... Harper in 2014 will make a visible effort to re-engage – likely through more frequent speeches, perhaps even more frequent press conferences. He will do so not by choice, but by necessity.

Really?! Because, the gods forbid, when he was handed a late 2013 opportunity to "re-engage" he refused to come out of his hole. If, at any point, he had wanted to appear to be a leader in any way, shape or form, all he had to do was actually show up. But that ice-storm was a natural, short-notice event - not something scripted well in advance by the short-pantsers running the PMO. Re-engagement, as Den Tandt is suggesting will happen, requires long, detailed preparation. No rehearsal - no show.

The Wright-Duffy mess, the sheer scale of the venality and dishonesty exposed within his own office, among people he appointed, has shaken his personal standing. The only practical remedy is to shore up his positives, namely his reputation for competence and intelligence. He can only do so by communicating.

Competence and intelligence in a leader would suggest being able to read the character and qualities of individuals appointed to positions of prominence and influence. We haven't seen any of that and Den Tandt says so before he makes the impossible leap in the other direction. I question Harper's intelligence at times but his competence is not up for debate. This is one of the least competent prime ministers Canada has ever endured. Owen has more to offer on that along with this very poignant observation:

For a man who doesn't like people, Harper has chosen a curious profession.

Which is why when hundreds of thousands of Canadians are without heat in the middle sub-zero temperatures at the darkest time of the year the "re-engagement" comes in the form of a solitary 14-word Twitter offering. 

The spirit of man . . .

WINTER SOLSTICE, and the cycle of life continues: we celebrate the end of one year and the beginnings of our future and the re-birth of the world around us. That future belongs to the young, and some of them are up to the task. 

Consider 19-year-old Zack Kopplin; according to io9's article by George Dvorsky, “How 19-year-old activist Zack Kopplin is making life hell for Louisiana's creationists”, Zack's leading the battle against Christian ignorance in Louisiana. Way to go, Zackster!

Conniving CONs . . .

THE SENATE HOO-HA'S origins, as seen by my friend Scanner, who I believe has created an accurate account of how things came to be. I wish the RCMP every success, good luck and good weasel-hunting.

I have written this before but in light of SJH's unequivocal answer to the question whether he was aware at the time of a plan to have the Conservative party reimburse Mike Duffy for his questionable expenses, this is what I believe happened.

At some point two or more years ago, SJH and members of his closest clique came up with a scheme to increase Conservative fundraising while making the taxpayers of Canada pay for it. 

They schemed to recruit media stars like Mike Duffy to travel all over Canada attending Conservative fundraisers, but by making them Members of the Senate, have their expenses paid by the Senate. 

The PMO and the Privy Council were fully aware that the eligibility of Duffy and Wailin and others was questionable a best but since this has never been a problem before, did not even consider this.

These recruits were told to just expense what they needed to, that no-one ever questioned Senate expense reports and to get out there and start raising money.

I believe the PMO and SJH expected some level of discretion on the part of these flacks but made no attempt to monitor them. I bet Wallin's travel costs were a surprise even to SJH who has never tried to curb his own expenses.

Now they are caught in an ever expanding ring of lies to cover up the real crime - that the Prime Minister, The members of the PMO, the Privy Council and the Conservative Party of Canada colluded in a scheme to enrich the coffers of the CPoC by defrauding the people of Canada.

To cover this up, SJH is willing to lie at every turn and to destroy anyone near and loyal to himself and the Conservative Party. If the real facts come out they may all face prison. I hope they do. If you can't face the time, don't do the crime.

Y'know all those "made in BC" jobs Christy Clark promised ...

Well, the actual contract hasn't even been inked yet and Seaspan is looking offshore to fill the positions necessary for the vessels they will (supposedly) build.

Seaspan is a Canadian shipbuilding firm which has recently been given a contract to build 17 ships for the Canadian Navy.
Now they need skilled workers to move to Vancouver and help build the vessels – and they have got their eye on Portsmouth workers.

The real hairball will get coughed up if the Canadian public finally wakes up to the fact that Harper's ship procurement fairy-tale is actually way off the rails, seriously under-funded and probably won't happen in anything like what is being advertised by the Harper Hillbilly Government.

At least, according to Christy Clark, BC is "family friendly" and the unicorns sprinkle sugar everywhere.

Added: To enhance clarity, Portsmouth is in England, Hampshire County, UK. 

And you think you have it rough ...

Journalist Michelle Stewart can probably put those feelings to rest.

All the best, Michelle. All any of us can do is hope this is a Christmas that brings you some joy. You deserve it.

Airshow MacKay rolls out more of that "Compassionate Conservatism"

First it was James Moore, telling us he was fine with Canadian children starving; then it was that nasty little shit, Flaherty, making it clear that the elderly can continue to eat cat food.

Next up? None other than Elmer MacKay's entitled brat, Peter "Airshow" MacKay.

MacKay said poor offenders could pay the fine back over time or consider selling some of their belongings to pay off the debt.

Selling off their belongings? Most of them don't have any belongings. It's one of the reasons they're standing in front of a judge. And one judge had something to say about it.

“You have to understand these people have nothing. That’s the tragedy,” said Waterloo region Ontario Court Justice Colin Westman, one of many judges in Ontario who have found ways to minimize the mandatory penalty by doling out small fines that reduce the victim surcharge to as little as 30 cents.
“I’m not trying to be a smart-alec here but I think someone has to remind the minister there are broken people here who don’t have anything to give. It’s a bully mentality. It’s kicking people while they are down,” said Westman Tuesday. “The people we are dealing with, believe me, a high portion of them are just broken souls.”

The judge also recommended that MacKay actually spend some time in a courtroom. What a novel idea ... a Canadian justice minister actually having a clue what actually constitutes the parade of accused in a Canadian courtroom.

It's amazing isn't it? At this time of year when we actually think of the characters in a Charles Dickens novel, the ministers of Harper's government actually associate best with the worst of them.

What ever law school conferred a law degree on this self-absorbed, self-entitled shit-head should seriously consider finding a way to disown him.

The Stevie Claus . . .

Thank-you, Radio 3.

“Is it my job to feed my neighbour’s child? I don’t think so.” UPDATED

That, from Harper Industry Minister and Harper MP for Port Moody, James Moore when questioned on the embarrassing levels of child poverty in British Columbia. 

The only words that don't fail me are, Fucking selfish ... greedy ... scumbag. Typical bloody-minded right-wing puke. Charles Dickens wrote books about people like James Moore.

UPDATE: Moore is now claiming he was taken out of context. Sara Norman, who was interviewing him at the time, has something different to say about Moore's rushing to his own defence. So ... you need to hear it for yourself. Off to The Gazeteer with you where you'll hear the whole context and understand that my description of Harper government minister, James Moore need not be altered. 

Moore would watch Canadian children starve in the street.

A Christmas message from BC's biggest liar

CON control . . .

SETTLER TREATY CARD: a fine concept from the folks at Briarpatch. Click on the link to see a giant-size version, 'cause the fine-print ‘some conditions apply’ is worth reading.

We Own You ...

At least that is the tacit message that comes from the excerpted emails from the PMO (Nigel Wright) to the Conservative house leader in the senate. Although not subordinate in any way to the frat boys in the PMO, senators are taking orders from Nigel Wright.


Now, I didn't do the heavy lifting so I will send you off to Creekside, where Alison has done just that.

So a guy who has never played a team sport writes a book about hockey ...

... And we're supposed to believe that anything in it is in the slightest bit accurate? Because Stephen Harper is such a renowned historian ... on anything?

Stephen Harper has not provided a single satisfactory answer to any question about his involvement in the alleged attempt to subvert a senator and commit a fraud. Not one. And the thing just keeps getting bigger.

And we've got a line-up that's getting bigger by the day.

Where is Canada's newest hockey "expert"?

Hiding. It's what the coward does best.

Peter MacKay either lied or is too lazy to read his own bill

MacKay in his usual "Airshow" bluster told the House of Commons that even if internet service providers were voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement by retaining and sharing YOUR personal information that a warrant would still be required.

Just like Vic Toews before him, it appears MacKay has not read and does not understand the clear wording of the proposed legislation he tabled.

Michael Geist has the details.

Can you hear me now? I only have one bar left.

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

Aung San Suu Kyi*

Freedom From Fear

  

Can you hear me now? 

Go read Creekside ... then read Northern Reflections.  

*Aung San Suu Kyi is a renowned Burmese opposition leader. She has spent a long portion of her adult life under house arrest imposed by the Myanmar military junta. In 2007, she was made an honourary Canadian citizen.  

Paget Brewster and Paul F. Tompkins "Here's To Us"

If Noel Coward didn't write this, he should have. I think it might be by Eban Scheltter.

Paget and Paul are best heard as Frank and Sadie Doyle: The Toast of the Upper Crust and Headliners on the Society Pages…and oh, yes!…………They see ghosts!

Also, their capacity for liquor is Beyond Belief.

Mealy-mouthed, scum-sucking, self-absorbed, egotistical ...

“My difficulty with the prime minister at this point, Peter, is that I don’t think he’s been forthcoming and honest on fairly simple questions when there appear to be contradictions," he said. "My instinct is when someone doesn’t answer questions, even simple and fairly innocuous questions in a straightforward manner, there may be something else.”

Stephen Harper 2005

He knows nothing ...

Over to Cathie's with you. She picked up on the thought I was having this morning. The late John Banner's character, Hauptfeldwebel Hans Georg Schultz, became synonymous with seeing nothing and knowing nothing in the TV sitcom Hogan's Heroes.

As Cathie points out:

We're supposed to believe that not only did Harper know nothing about Wright's $90,000 cheque to Duffy, he also knew nothing about the previous plan to get the Conservative Party to pay Duffy's expenses and he knew nothing about the phone call to the auditors to try to stop the Duffy audit.

Do come back so you can hit this link to Buckdog, who directs us to today's PMO load of garbage.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper had no idea his staff had asked the Conservative Party to pay Sen. Mike Duffy’s ineligible expenses, his spokesperson said Sunday.

 Right. He saw nothing. He heard nothing. He knew ... nothing.

Another connection, and this is relevant for any number of reasons. The Cadman affair. You can get more of that one over at Creekside, and do pay close attention to the names.

In short, Harper has a history of being in the centre of bribery attempts and ... knowing nothing.

Why Is Peter MacKay's Anti-Cyber-Bullying Bill ... (updated)

... so goddamned big?

Because, it's simply a reworded regurgitation of the repulsive Vic Toews Internet Surveillance Bill. You know, the one that got killed because the public was outraged at the idea of giving the police and government the power to spy on your internet activity. Now they want the meta-data out of your smart-phone too.

Michael Geist breaks it down for you.

You just knew the Harperites wouldn't leave alone the idea of spying on ... just everyone. After all, if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Right? Except that a complaining email to your Conservative MP could land you in jail.

And you're being called to the barricades again.


UPDATE: Just on time, Sir Tim Berners-Lee weighs in with his world-view. And who, (I know you are asking), is Tim Berners-Lee?

Good question.

I can guarantee you the frat-boys from the PMO, as they consume hours of streaming data in the Mayflower in Ottawa, and Peter MacKay wouldn't recognize his name if you created an app for their government issued smart-phones. THIS is Tim Berners-Lee.

Sublime . . .

JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME, an unusual human himself, has made a TV ad for Volvo trucks (not affiliated with Volvo cars, btw), part of which you see above. According to Jalopnik, in an article “Jean-Claude Van Damme's Split Between Two Moving Trucks Is No CGI” that's real, no CGI, J-C actually did that stunt.

Well, it inspired somebody to adapt it to the Rob Ford fiasco which Jalopnik kindly posted in an article, “This Bizarre Volvo Truck Parody Nails The Surreality Of Mayor Rob Ford”. Yup.

The secret sell-out . . .

STEVIE'S SECRET SELL-OUT: according to Sunny Freeman and Daniel Tencer at HUFFPOST BUSINESS, in an article “Trans-Pacific Partnership Chapter Released By WikiLeaks”, it's so secret it took WikiLeaks to get the details. And truly, the Devil is in the details.

A trade agreement Canada intends to sign will have “far-reaching implications for individual rights and civil liberties,” WikiLeaks says.

The group known around the world for publishing state secrets has released a draft chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal being negotiated under what it calls an “unprecedented level of secrecy.” Critics say the agreement favours corporate interests over consumers.

The leaked intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement proposes sweeping reforms including to pharmaceuticals, publishers, patents, copyrights, trademarks, civil liberties and liability of internet service providers.

“If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons,” WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, said in a press release.

There are 11 areas of concern. Click on the link to find out why you should get perturbed. Love liberty? Stop Stevie. It's that simple.

Marketing adaptation . . .

While Dubya scares the bejeezus out of you, ponder Puma’s new plus size logo… from The Meta Picture. I guess pouncing porky puddies are a possibility. 

You've always wondered ...

How could George W. Bush reconcile the financial destruction of his country over the invasion of Iraq?

The "weapons of mass destruction" myth has long been buried under mountains of proof of manipulated and invented "intelligence".

The conquest of an oil-state was pretty obvious. Think though. Is George W. Bush really smart enough to get his head around that concept?

We have always held in the greatest skepticism the possibility that it was a religious crusade. People shake in their boots when they consider such a thing could have happened in the 21st century. They give it a pass with a shrug because it's just too terrible to absorb.

And how did Tony Blair get sucked in? He didn't seem to have a constituent group of fundamentalist Christians driving him forward.

Until Blair was dumped from the political spectrum and he suddenly decloaked. Turns out Brother Tony is a tambourine-bashing fundamentalist Roman Catholic of the type that scares, well, other Roman Catholics. He was as much of a religious nut-ball as Bush.

Well, take a look at what George W. Bush is up to now.  Then take a quick read of Ophelia.

Absorb that.

Hellfire . . .

DEATH FROM ABOVE. GQ has an article by MatthewPower, “Confessions of a Drone Warrior” that is worth reading. “Drones” have been effective, but there's a human cost paid by the young folks who do the killing. They're good at that, and it gives them nightmares, and no wonder the Taliban have been freaking and using their political influence to get this curtailed.

By the spring of 2011, almost six years after he’d signed on, Senior Airman Brandon Bryant left the Air Force, turning down a $109,000 bonus to keep flying. He was presented with a sort of scorecard covering his squadron’s missions. “They gave me a list of achievements,” he says. “Enemies killed, enemies captured, high-value targets killed or captured, stuff like that.” He called it his diploma. He hadn’t lased the target or pulled the trigger on all of the deaths tallied, but by flying in the missions he felt he had enabled them. “The number,” he says, “made me sick to my stomach.”

Total enemies killed in action: 1,626.

Remembering the fallen. Part 2

In part 1 I offered the suggestion that people who were busy, uncomfortable or simply found it inconvenient to attend a Remembrance Day event should do what makes them feel comfortable. Certainly no thinking veteran will find fault in any decision along that line, keeping in mind that any and all are welcome at cenotaphs across the country.

I also included a sketched CV, so I won't bore you with it again.

This year, as in all years since 1919, a particular "class" of person will most certainly attend: politicians. (Please understand that I want to spit when I say or write that word).

The Canadian political class of the 21st century attends Remembrance Day services for one reason: optics. While there may be a numbered few who actually hold attendance at such an event a matter of sincere personal feeling, the majority, a huge majority, do not. They are there to be seen amongst the crowds, near the uniforms and to gain political traction. Too often they are offered a place of prominence or worse, a speaking part.

That has veterans rankled this year like no other year in the past. I have spent the past year communicating with thousands of my fellow veterans. I can count on one hand the number of those veterans who believe the political class of this country has any interest whatsoever in the welfare of veterans. When the question of the duty of the federal government to live up to its obligations to veterans is brought up there is one resounding answer: Failure.

The Harper government, for all its bellicose "support the troops" rhetoric, has been responsible for the worst treatment of veterans in the modern era. Denial of pensions, clawbacks of benefits and the perpetuation of lawsuits to quash legitimate claims by the wounded are just a few of the abuses heaped upon veterans by Stephen Harper and his ministers. Harper has publicly smeared veterans who attempted to voice their complaints, all the while making sure he gets a photo op amongst "the troops". And, if all that didn't make veterans mightily angry, Julian Fantino, the newly-minted minister of veteran's affairs, sealed the deal and generated pure rage when he tried to redefine a veteran to include himself.

Julian Fantino is not a veteran. Stephen Harper, who took it upon himself to lecture reporters on the conditions in the trenches at Vimy Ridge, has not one day of service. But you can make book on the fact that both of them will show up on Remembrance Day expecting a position of prominence and a speaking part.

There are approximately 900,000 living armed service and RCMP veterans in this country, a vast majority of whom find themselves enraged at the actions and words of Harper, Fantino and, to be completely frank, politicians generally. The current Veteran's Charter which is responsible for hacking disability benefits to veterans was introduced by the Liberals, supported by the NDP and implemented by the Harper Conservatives. No party is clean.

So, while I have heard a loud suggestion that politicians should stay away from Remembrance Day ceremonies and I understand the sentiment, I would disagree. No one should be refused attendance.

However, they should take great care as to how they appear. A place at the back of the crowd would be most appropriate but that's not likely. What is not appropriate though is a place in the front or on a podium. Given their abysmal treatment of veterans they would do well to keep a very low profile. If they intend to deliver a wreath they should do so in absolute silence.

And, if they think a speaking part is due them because of their high office they should be aware that a movement is in the works to have groups of angry veterans turn their backs on them.

Right now an elected school board trustee would have a tough time gaining political traction with veterans and it gets worse as one works up the political back-stabbing pole. Given the recent behaviour of prominent politicians most veterans have one wish for the Canadian political class: A plague on all your houses; you have broken faith with us. 




The print version is here.


Thanks to Alison for the video link.

Remembering the fallen. Part 1

Remembrance Day, when we are all expected to observe a time to pay our respect to the fallen of the wars past, is near upon us. As the 11th of November approaches some of you will be feeling the pressure to attend a ceremony at a local cenotaph. And, I know, some of you are feeling uncomfortable or maybe just inconvenienced about the thought of pulling yourself out into the bitterness of a Canadian November day to do that.

I understand. Before I go any further however, let me give you a sketch of a CV ... just so no one else misunderstands anything I'm about to tell you.

I am a long service veteran, now retired. I have served the same sovereign in three naval services. I have fought in two clearly definable wars, both of them much smaller in scale than either the Great War 1914 - 1918 or the 2nd World War 1939 - 1945. In fact, both were shorter in duration and the expenditure of resources than the Korean conflict. I have served on peacekeeping missions during which I saw some of the horrors humanity can serve upon itself when the distinction of power is reduced to possessing a bag or bags of UN distributed flour. I have been called upon to engage in "discrete" operations which were no less than close quarters combat engagements with an enemy intent on preventing me from completing the task I was attempting to undertake. I have had young men under my command killed in action and more wounded in action. I was wounded during an engagement. I have shared the post-combat depressions which plagued most of the people with whom I have served.

During all of this, I can't ever recall reminding myself how I had signed up to do these things for my country or your freedoms. That may have been a corollary effect, but believe that you were never on my mind - at least not in any guiding sense. My motivation came from pride in my fighting comrades, my ship, my commando or that larger organization which gave me the strength of an established unit. It came from a sense of belonging - belonging to something uniquely distinct from the mainstream of the society from which I had emerged. And there were occasions when my motivation was purely self-preservation.

So, Remembrance Day. What would I expect you to do?

How about, whatever makes you feel comfortable. If I choose to attend a ceremony and demonstrate remembrance for my fallen comrades does not mean I expect you to do the same. In fact, you can't. I can no more tell you what a trench in 1916 Ypres was like than you can tell me what it was like spending months away from home with my finger on the trigger during the Cold War. I spend more than a single day remembering the things that culminate in Remembrance Day. I would be close to accurate if I told you I think about my fallen mates every single day of my life. You can't possibly do that, nor should any rational person expect you to.

Do I expect you to stand there on a cold November day for me or my comrades' benefit? No, I do not.

A huge number of you wear a paper poppy. That little bit of time you took to pin it on and the contribution you made to get it is enough for me. To know that for a moment you participated in a small gesture and wear that little emblem demonstrates all that I need to know. You do understand and you're showing it.

Does this mean I don't want you to attend a Remembrance Day ceremony? Far from it. I would love to see huge crowds at every cenotaph in the country. If, however, you cannot do so, or feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced it's just fine if you don't attend. No one can force you and you should not feel pressured just because somebody else thinks it's "proper". Remembrance is a personal thing and you can do it any way you like. Sometimes that will be the thought you feel when you remove that paper poppy from your coat.

A group we can guarantee will attend Remembrance Day ceremonies will be the politicians. Unlike you, they participate for completely different reasons. While my words to you, in this post, are provided in absolute sincerity, Part 2 will address the cadre of politicians who are there to gain political traction.

Fallout. The result of Tony Clement's nuking of the federal public service.

I've watched in awe at the decade-long performance of Tony Clement. He's lied, he's laughed at the fatal results of a tainted food supply, he's misappropriated millions of taxpayer dollars to feather his own electoral riding with pagodas and pools, he's created the most inept "red-tape' elimination formula known in the developed world and then he was let loose to destroy the federal public service as only a freaked-out refugee from the Mike Harris "Common Sense Revolution" could - with no foresight and no thought of consequences. He creates wreckage with no plan beyond that which his single-firing synapse has developed over a five minute period. Clean-up, adjustment and adaptation? Not his problem. Anyway, it's just too hard for him. The perfect conservative.

So, if you haven't read Sooey Says today, you need to.

Harper's fishing partner. As grand as his senate appointees.

Always remember ...



Now head on over to Creekside. Once you've had a bit of Alison's humour you might not want to swallow that litre of bleach.

Take five . . .

CHILL WITH A QUADRACOPTER. Full-screen delight for the soul, nice soundtrack, called the In-Between by A New Normal. Way, way cool . . . Now, imagine the transistor had never been invented. What would it have taken to capture the same thing?

HT — Seboua, thank-you!

A sign of remembrance . . .

FOUND ON GOOGLE MAPS: a satellite photograph you see here. Do click on the link to find out more.

Something evil this way comes . . .

THERE ARE NASTY CRITTERS OUT THERE. BadBIOS is one of ‘em, according to Dan Goodwin at ArsTechnica, who has an article you should read, “Meet “badBIOS,” the mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps”. Jumps airgaps? This is truly dangerous.

"We had an air-gapped computer that just had its [firmware] BIOS reflashed, a fresh disk drive installed, and zero data on it, installed from a Windows system CD," Ruiu said. "At one point, we were editing some of the components and our registry editor got disabled. It was like: wait a minute, how can that happen? How can the machine react and attack the software that we're using to attack it? This is an air-gapped machine and all of a sudden the search function in the registry editor stopped working when we were using it to search for their keys."

It seems that even your speakers can pass on the nastiness:

For most of the three years that Ruiu has been wrestling with badBIOS, its infection mechanism remained a mystery. A month or two ago, after buying a new computer, he noticed that it was almost immediately infected as soon as he plugged one of his USB drives into it. He soon theorized that infected computers have the ability to contaminate USB devices and vice versa.

• • •

Ruiu said he arrived at the theory about badBIOS's high-frequency networking capability after observing encrypted data packets being sent to and from an infected laptop that had no obvious network connection with—but was in close proximity to—another badBIOS-infected computer. The packets were transmitted even when the laptop had its Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards removed. Ruiu also disconnected the machine's power cord so it ran only on battery to rule out the possibility that it was receiving signals over the electrical connection. Even then, forensic tools showed the packets continued to flow over the airgapped machine. Then, when Ruiu removed the internal speaker and microphone connected to the airgapped machine, the packets suddenly stopped.

Now, this is scary . . .

ACCORDING TO Bruce Wilson at AlterNet, “Almost Two-Thirds of 18-29 Year Olds Believe in "Demon Possession" What Is Happening to America?”. Just like in medieval times, superstition is probably eternal.

Over one half (63 percent, to be exact) of young Americans 18-29 years old now believe in the notion that invisible, non-corporeal entities called "demons" can take partial or total control of human beings, revealed an October 2012 Public Policy Polling survey that also showed this belief isn't declining among the American population generally; it's growing.

Kinda like the PMO . . .

Arctic speculation . . .

STEVIE'S STEALTH SNOWMOBILE: the Harper concept of the future of Arctic conflict. Now as we know, the CONs are not the sharpest tools in the drawer and the acquisition of equipment for promoting our Arctic presence has been a Stevie problem.

And with global warming opening the Arctic waters, the future could be very interesting. Annalee Newitz has a post at io9, “The war that comes after global warming will blow your mind in new novel Arctic Rising” that is worthy of your perusal. 

A lot of science fiction about the Earth's warmer future is dystopian, showing us drowned cities and people reduced to Road Warrior desperados. But Tobias Buckell's new novel, Arctic Rising, offers a far more complicated and realistic picture of what the world will look like when the poles melt. 

It's a breakneck eco-thriller about "Arctic Tiger" nations like Canada clashing with green mega-corporations over what to do about the Earth's climate. At every turn, Buckell will surprise you with plot twists that fly in the face of conventional wisdom about environmental issues, and with cool ideas about how people will adapt to life on the Arctic Rim.

Do check it out. S-F has a funny way of turning into reality. In 1963, as a teenager, I read John Berryman's “The Trouble with Telstar”, about an astronaut sent up to fix a satellite. Thirty years later, I get to watch a Shuttle crew repair the Hubble space telescope on the TV in my living room. Two years ago, WIRED featured the airship you see above, in a post, “Airships Could Prove a Lifeline in the Arctic”. They might even make an appearance next year. Somehow, Stevie's stealth snowmobile just ain't gonna cut it.

Airships may soon soar in the cold skies of northern Canada and Alaska, bringing supplies to remote mining communities where planes can’t always fly and roads are cost-prohibitive.

British airship manufacturer Hybrid Air Vehicles has announced a major contract with Canada’s Discovery Air Innovations to build airships capable of lifting as much as 50 tons, delivering freight at one-quarter the cost of other alternatives. Though various militaries have expressed interest in airships, this is HAV’s first commercial contract. The first ship is expected by 2014.

Reefer sanity . . .

A Uruguayan man smokes cannabis during
a demonstration in Montevideo in May.
A senate vote to legalise the drug
is expected in November.
Photograph: Pablo Porciuncula/AFP/Getty Images

Uruguay sets price
of legalised cannabis
at $1 a gram

Uruguay sets price of legalised cannabis at $1 a gram, according to The Guardian's article by Uki Goni, who reports that

Uruguay is set to become the first country in the world where the sale of cannabis will not only become legal and government-controlled, but at around $1 a gram probably also the one with the most affordable marijuana anywhere.

Jesse Staniforth brutally rips Rex Murphy a new one ...

And a very well-deserved one it is.

Rex Murphy's opinion piece isn't just ignorant, it's totally vacuous, the product of someone who literally seems to know nothing about the subject he's railing against.

But then, there's the rub. Murphy is educated in the art of the word; not the projection of knowledge. He is the perfect right-wing shill, bereft of information, ignorant of history and mortally afraid of scientific fact. Murphy's way of dealing with the discomfort of science and now, history, is to simply deny it and invent a simplistic, emotional and inaccurate cultural meme to fill the vacuum between the ears of the Harperite base which forms his constituency.

Not good . . .

OUT OF CONTROL: when the RCMP pepper spray unarmed elders. According to Cari-Lee Raven Veilifter, who can be found on Facebook at #‎ElsipogtogStandOff‬:

“the elder the RCMP are pepper spraying is our elder Doris Copage of Elsipogtog (short hair/gray jacket). Doris is one of the kindest and most helpful people I've ever met. She cooks for and looks out for everyone. Of course she was completely unarmed and only had her rosary beads in hand when this happened- so they had no reason to spray her.”

Ya gotta wonder where the Tasers were. PRESS CORE is concerned about all the heavy-duty firepower; it seems that some of it might not be the RCMP, like the dude below. Do check out the site for some interesting pictures.

Stevie and Brazil . . .

 — A protest in Vancouver over our mining operations in Tibet —

WHY WOULD STEVIE TARGET BRAZIL? According to Dave Dean at Vice, “75% of the World's Mining Companies Are Based in Canada”. Maybe that's why Stevie wants to know what the Brazilian Ministry of Mines is planning?

All over the world, companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and run out of lawyer’s offices on Bay Street or skyscrapers in downtown Vancouver (whose real financiers may live in Australia or Nevada) are handling the mining game at home, throughout parts of Asia, South America and surprisingly, even with all the talk of China’s investment in Africa, it turns out that it’s Canada, not China, who is quietly dominating and exploiting African mining. All told, almost 1,300 mining companies based out of Canada are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in over 100 countries around the world.

Well, well, time to do some rat removal. These are not nice people, and they do nasty things to people in their way.

In Central and South America, Canada’s reputation is being dragged through the dirt to the point where in some countries, it’s apparently better for travellers to say they’re American than Canadian, and it’s not hard to see why. Vancouver-based Pacific Rim is suing the government of El Salvador, a country with a GDP of $23 Billion (Canada’s is $1.7 trillion) for $315 million dollars because they didn’t let them follow through with a mine that threatened to pollute the Lempa River—a watershed that accounts for 60% of the country’s clean water.

As if that’s not enough, a region of Guatemala was militarized last month—and the right to protest or form meetings has been suspended by the president—following clashes between local protesters who are concerned for their drinking water and employees of Vancouver-based Tahoe Resources inc.

While most companies probably do operate ethically and to the best of their ability—while maintaining healthy and sustainable relationships with local cultures and their environments—unfortunately these few stories really are the tip of the iceberg as far as Canada’s mining reputation that is beginning to be noticed as the worst in the world.

Foil hat time . . .

BOOGITY-BOOGITY. “Adolf Hitler -- Agent of Zionism and Freemasonry”. Yup. Really. Must be true, it's on the web. 

A natural wonder . . .

The view from a small window in the wall
of the vast Niubizi Tian Keng in the Er Wang Dong
cave system, where clouds form inside the huge spaces.
Three tiny explorers can be seen negotiating
the heavily vegetated floor

“The cave so huge it has its own weather system: Explorers discover a lost world with thick cloud and fogs trapped inside” according to The Mail Online.

Maher muses . . .

Bag In — Bag Out

BILL MAHER socks it to the Goppers with a delightful post on RSN, “California: Tea Party Free Zone” where he contends that California will pull the Gopper states into the twenty-first century:

New Rule: Conservatives who love to brag about American exceptionalism must come here to California, and see it in person. And then they should be afraid -- very afraid. Because while the rest of the country is beset by stories of right-wing takeovers in places like North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, California is going in the opposite direction and creating the kind of modern, liberal nation the country as a whole can only dream about. And not only can't the rest of the country stop us -- we're going to drag you along with us.

And a good thing too, as Gopper country sure isn't a nice place to live:

I know, it sounds like some crazy science fiction story, but you see, here in California, we're not just gluten-free and soy-free and peanut-free, we're Tea Party free! Virginia could do it, too, but they're too busy forcing ultrasounds on women who want abortions. Texas could, but they don't because they're too busy putting Jesus in the science textbooks. Meanwhile their state is so broke they want to replace paved roads with gravel. I thought we had this road-paving thing licked in the 1930s, but not in Texas. But hey, in Dallas you can carry a rifle into a Chuck E. Cheese, cause that's freedom. Which is great, but it wasn't so great when that unregulated fertilizer plant in Waco blew up. In California, when things blow up, it's because we're making a Jason Statham movie.

Check out the rest of Bill's rant, and enjoy.

Something of value . . .

MONEY IS WHAT YOU BELIEVE IT IS. You believe that new plastic twenty is worth twenty dollars and so does the beer store. Properly, that twenty is termed Fiat money, its value is decreed by the issuing authority. There are lumps, but these currency systems work reasonably well world wide — for people with addresses and bank accounts. For the homeless especially and for a fair number on social assistance as well, a bank account and all the stuff that comes with it, like a debit card becomes unattainable.

Well, some of the homeless are trying to cope thanks to the appearance of cheap, used laptops and phones, free wi-fi, and Bitcoins.

Daniela Hernandez has a fascinating article in WIRED, “Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins” that shows how the creative deal with the bank account problem.

Jesse Angle is homeless, living on the streets of Pensacola, Florida. Sometimes he spends the night at a local church. Other nights, he sleeps behind a building in the heart of the city, underneath a carport that protects him from the rain.

Each morning, he wakes up, grabs some food, and makes his way to Martin Luther King Plaza, a downtown park built where the trolley tracks used to run. He likes this park because his friends hang out there too, and it’s a good place to pick up some spending money. But he doesn’t panhandle. He uses the internet.

The park offers free wireless access, and with his laptop, Angle watches YouTube videos in exchange for bitcoins, the world’s most popular digital currency

Bitcoins are the currency that these people work to acquire. They have a purely electronic existence created according to a formula created by an anonymous programmer or team of coders, nobody knows. And according to this formula, there are a finite number that can be created, but the system allows the creation of bitcoin fractions. The Bitcoins are traded through the Protocol of Bitcoin, which is the process by which value is validated. It's a new and different take on a value system, and it lives without any government fiat. Even Sandy McTire might like its frugal anti-inflationary philosophy and maybe we'll see CTC accept Bitcoins.

The bitcoin system could become an equalizer for the country’s homeless, a place where the stigma of living on the streets isn’t as pronounced. “Homeless people don’t like to raise their hands and say they’re different,” says Mark Horvath, an advocate for using the internet and social media to help end homelessness. “Nobody does.” In the bitcoin world, they don’t have to.

If you’re homeless, the great thing about bitcoin is that you can set up a wallet without an ID or a street address. And once you start filling this wallet, there are plenty of ways of converting bitcoins into cash and food and other goods, all without identification.

— Converting Bitcoins into a gift card for food —

Time to communicate . . .

CALL YOUR MP or write or e-mail, or do all three. According to Mike Hudema of Greenpeace Canada who has a post on TSS, aka TAR SANDS SOLUTIONS NETWORK you should check out, then get hold of your worthy MP. “Tar Sands spills – Over 1.5 million litres and still spilling!!” shows the callous inertia of the Alberta government and the Stevie chimps, especially as the Stevie chimps are doing everything they can to pipe the poison every direction but North. It's even got an active counter on the leakage — it gets worse while you watch and they're not doing anything about it, maybe hoping that winter will freeze everything, or that it'll be so cold there'll be nobody around to check.

Right now in Alberta, tar sands bitumen is spilling into the environment at four different sites, one directly underneath a lake. All four spills have been spilling for months and the Alberta and Canadian governments know all about it, they are just powerless to stop them.

Well, maybe the light of publicity might help. Your MP is only a couple of clicks away. Help make it happen.

Think about it . . .

Toxoplasma gondii

THE ATLANTIC has a fascinating article on how parasites can change how you think and react. No foolin’, they have found that infected people have more car accidents, for example. “How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy”, by Kathleen McAuliffe looks at the research of a Czech scientist, Jaroslav Flegr whose research on a single-cell parasite called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo for short) is now being validated, after years of obscurity, which is not surprising.

Starting in the early 1990s, he began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was messing with his mind, he reasoned, it was probably doing the same to others.

Take five, and give the article an appraisal, because it's not just Toxo doin’ it:

But T. gondii is just one of an untold number of infectious agents that prey on us. And if the rest of the animal kingdom is anything to go by, says Colorado State University’s Janice Moore, plenty of them may be capable of tinkering with our minds.

The most dangerous job in the world ...

Police officer in Afghanistan ... if you're a woman.

Doesn't concern Steve. He's too busy. Not drinking alcohol. Keeping dope away from your kids. Telling us that Syria's use of poison gas is "unprecedented" ... because he's never heard of the Great War or the Nazi gas chambers of the 2nd World War.

This man is in so far over his head.

Right under Pookie's upturned nose

Jeez, Christy! Maybe you can tell us from your waitress days how a major hotel, just a few feet away from you totally unnecessary, high-end, downtown, taxpayer-funded office (that is neither in the capital of the province nor anywhere near your riding), can even think of getting away with this.

An ad seeking unpaid interns to bus tables at Vancouver's Fairmont Waterfront Hotel has sparked a debate about whether unpaid internships take advantage of students.

The corporate carpetbaggers who run the Fairmont chain, particularly in British Columbia, need to have a good read of this.

An “internship” is on-the-job training offered by an employer to provide a person with practical experience. Often internships are offered to persons who have completed a diploma or degree program and are seeking employment. Completing an internship does not itself result in an academic certificate or diploma. If the duties performed by interns fall within the definition of  “work” contained in the Act, the intern falls within the definition of “employee”, and the agency using the services of an intern falls within the definition of “employer”, internships will be considered “work” for the purposes of the Act.
An apprentice is being trained while working for an employer and as such is performing work and must be paid wages.

 I expect now we'll hear all about Christy's days as a waitress. I do not expect we'll hear her tell us that she accurately declared all her tips to Revenue Canada.

Maher muses . . .

READER SUPPORTED NEWS has a fine post by Bill Maher, “The US: World's Policeman or Schoolyard Bully?”. Check it out.

New rule: 12 years after 9/11, and amidst yet another debate on whether to bomb yet another Muslim country, America must stop asking the question, "Why do they hate us?" Forget the debate on Syria, we need a debate on why we're always debating whether to bomb someone. Because we're starting to look not so much like the world's policeman, but more like George Zimmerman: itching to use force and then pretending it's because we had no choice.

• • •

And look, like I said, I'm no fan of Assad. And I say that openly: I don't care if it costs me jobs in Hollywood. I think he's the worst kind of sociopath - the kind who commits unspeakable acts, but who looks like a menswear salesman.

I'm just pointing out that in recent years, our foreign policy debates look like the Facebook page of a loner who shot up a McDonald's. We're the only country in the world that muses out loud about who we might bomb next.