Ethics and Principles

Lying awake in the night can be fertile ground.

Last night, for instance, lying awake, I found myself reflecting on the accelerating disappearance of ethics and principles in politics.

I realized that, in this age of the market, ethics and principles too are merely commodities to be bought, sold and traded.

Thus the ease with which Layton could sell decades of CCF and NDP principle as the cost of more seats in Parliament.

The squinty eyed comfort of MacKay selling out the Progressive Conservative Party and caucus in exchange for the soul destroying illusion of power.

The toothsome credulity of mini-Trudeau as he accedes to the proto-fascism of Bill C51 in exchange for what he and his silent henchmen perceive to be an electoral defence strategy.

All examples of ethics and principles being consumed as commodities.

I offer no examples of Harper because Harper has neither ethics nor principles of his own to trade or sell. All he is capable of is stealing the principles of others and then debasing them as though they were his own.

Eventually I slept again.

Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr.

I hope he can remain out of confinement. I hope the US justice system has returned sufficiently to it's senses that he doesn't have to be returned to a cell. I hope he can be free.

He's not free now of course, irrespective of the bigoted bleating of various Harperian asshats. Even irrespective of his own misapprehension of his state. One day but not yet.

What concerns me most about his immediate  future, and by extension, yours and mine, is that  Harper will simply instruct his state police to charge into his lawyers home in full military gear under cover of night and re-take or kill him and possibly anyone who witnesses their action. They may even have enough confidence in their invulnerability to do it in broad daylight. Paulson has given me no reason to think he wouldn't simply 'follow orders' mindlessly.

Between Harper's mindless idiot followers, the apathetic cud chewing majority of the Canadian herd  and the Harperian corporate press there probably wouldn't be much more than a 5 day wonder of a stink raised. The deeper shame would be that in certain circles of the Canadian elite and press the action would be praised.

Cynical? You bet I am.

Prime Minister Bigot

 “Mr. Harper is a bigot. Mr. Harper doesn't like Muslims. He wants to prove he’s tough on crime so who does he pick on? A 15-year-old boy.”

Omar Khadr's lawyer spoke these words outside an Edmonton courthouse shortly after Mr. Khadr was released on bail. 

Say it loud and say it often. 

Canada has a bigot for a Prime Minister, with a bigoted cabinet, supported by bigoted voters. 

Don't it make you, proud. 

Let the Whining Begin

"Left turn in Canada's oil-rich Alberta leaves investors reeling"

This is an actual Reuters headline this morning. 

And what does this "reeling" look like. 

Less than 1.5 percentage points. 

Normal fluctuation in other words. 

There will be lots of this kind of fear mongering in the coming days. Get used to it. 

The corporate media will do it's level best to have you believe that the NDP government is a worse business partner than the government of China and their petroleum arm Petro-China which already owns majority control of the province's oil fields. 

Every time some corporate toadie whinges at you about this disaster in Alberta ask them if they think Petro-China is afraid of Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP? Cause that's who owns the oil fields.

It's OK with them that non-Canadians own a majority of the oil sands production and that the lion's share of the profits go overseas but it's not OK with them that Canadians who live in Alberta have elected a government other than their preference. 

They can go fuck themselves. 

Alberta Liberation

Congratulations must be offered to Alberta's new Premier Designate Rachel Notley and her NDP colleagues for their astonishing landslide victory in my birth province.

For the first time in over 4 decades someone other than an Alberta Progressive Conservative politician is going to be able to see the books. Hhhhmmmmmmm....

Call me cynical but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there aren't more than a few politicians, former as well as current, along with some technocrats and bureaucrats who are thoughtfully fingering their passports this morning and wondering...wondering...wondering...

It will be fascinating to observe the coming months as we learn more about her and her caucus.

It will be equally fascinating to watch the corporate backlash begin. It will probably be very subtle, at least to begin with, because the mandate is so overwhelmingly clear. I expect the discussions about what the backlash would be and how it would be rolled out began several weeks ago and continued late into last night while the scotch flowed and the flop sweat stank.

Former Premier and Harper cabinet minister Jim Prentice resigned his leadership and his just won seat before the night was even over. His days in the public eye are now over for ever.

It isn't likely that this surge presages a similar phenomenon come the next federal election. Provincial results and federal results are almost never reflections of one another - they're mirror images more often.

But then again a month ago no one would have believed the NDP would be elected to an overwhelming majority in Alberta while reducing the party of Lougheed and Klein to a third place rump.

All bets may be off. We'll just have to wait and see.

On a related note - I'm sure the pollsters are relieved they're not throwing up in the bathroom again.

Canada's Terrorist Government

Justice Myra Bielby of the Alberta Court of Appeal has postponed her decision till Thursday on whether to release Omar Khadr . 

She needs to weigh the threats made against her family. 

By the Harper government. 

The Academe Enigma

OK, now that the pleasantries are out of the way...

What's the deal with 20th century post-secondary educational institutions?

How likely is it the masters of the universe who brought us the 2008 global financial crisis were all uneducated? Or that they were ignorant of the possible consequences of their deceitful machinations? Or that they had been required to attend and pass courses on ethics while they gathered the credits they needed to be granted a licence to lie, cheat and steal?

Even more problematically, how probable might it be that entire cohorts of science and engineering graduates were never once exposed to the science of anthropogenic climate change? It would appear that thousands upon thousands of them were not. They're plugging away for the petroleum industry. Do you think they're not aware that they're ushering in a global catastrophe? Or perhaps the engineering school they went to taught them that the results of their work should not be included in their considerations.

There certainly seems to be something amiss when the biosphere of earth is facing near term devastation, perhaps total, while the most highly educated human population the world has ever seen are in charge.

Perhaps it's specialization and compartmentalization that's the problem. Perhaps humanity is simply devolving into a species of sociopaths or perhaps advanced educational institutions are by their nature themselves sociopathic and thus their progeny are as well.

I don't know. I'm just throwing stuff at the wall.

But it does seem contradictory that we're racing toward the cliff's edge at the urging of the most highly educated people the world has ever produced. Sure there are also those who are urging us to slow down, step back, stop the self destructive cycle - and they're effectively drowned out by the others. We're actually gaining momentum in our rush to oblivion.

Does anyone know if higher academia is trying to address this conundrum. I think they ought to be. It's their graduates who are leading us to our doom.

A pleasant thought for a sunny Monday on a hot planet.

So here it is, all these years later, and I'm blogging on The Beav again.

How many years you say?

Seven years, I respond.

It felt like a waste of time then. Harper was the new saviour, the wise men and women of the right were seemingly everywhere ascendant.

The country was going to be the great bastion of neo-conservatism and be a beacon unto the world.

Canada was going to be, as before, the war fighting world power we once were and this time with the added oomph and zowieness of being a world leader in petroleum production too.

The future was nothing but roses.

Except for the part that was shit. Which was the greater part and completely overwhelmed the scent of the roses, which weren't really there at all.

So now where are we?

We're fucked is where we are. The Mulcair Party and the Trudeau Party are both led by narcissistic demagogues more alike than different than the demagogue leading the Harperian Party. The leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, makes too much sense so there will have to be a concerted effort to exclude her from all events involving the other three - disregard the toothsome bleating of the haircut candidate, it's just that he opens his mouth and stuff comes out. As hard as his handlers work to try and fix it or ameliorate it it remains a feature of the boy who would be king. Mulcair at least has the capacity to think and plan and execute. Somewhat like Tony Blair, in that way, although Tony's been able to do a lot more executin' than has our Tom o' Bedlam.

And Harper? Well...that diet of raw kitten Laureen has the family on has really worked out for him.

Back on September 25, 2008 this was one of my last posts on The Beav. I'm just going to copy and paste. I don't feel any different today than I did then, when I stopped blogging regularly.

But now I'm back and I'm still mad as hell.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Pissed Off. Oh Yes!

How many of you will be pissed off at me if I remind you what I said back onSeptember 9 ?

All of you?

OK. Fine with me. I didn't set out ten years ago to make anybody like me.

I want you to imagine what Canada is going to look like in four years.

If imagination is a faculty you still have and if four years isn't too long a time period for your attention span.

That's right, good for you, that's contempt speaking.

It's difficult for me to accept that so many Canadians I've been reading and listening to over the last five or six years have so little appreciation of what's at stake that they're willing to cocoon themselves within their habitual, comfortable partisan zones and completely ignore the larger stakes.

Try as I might I can't tune out the contempt I've come to feel for you hard and fast partisans of the Liberals, NDP or Green. You know who you are. Oh, yes you do.

I want you to know, I mean I really, really want you to get it in the acid of your disintegrating gut, that I hold you in just as much contempt as I hold Conservatives. I will be blaming you just as much as I will be blaming Harper and his gang for what is going to happen to this country over the next four to eight years.

Don't bother to try and defend yourselves, to explain your reasons, yourcommitments, your histories.

I don't care.

I only care about Canada.

You don't.

I repeat, you don't care about Canada.

You care about your partisan affiliation and you identify that partisanship as being the same as caring about Canada.

But it's not the same thing. I think deep down you know that too.

I believe you don't have effective boundary definitions any more. You simply don't know that Canada is a larger phenomenon that your party of choice.

It's a derangement syndrome.

You're in need of assistance.

But you won't be getting it from me.

From me you'll only be getting contempt.

So shut up and revel in what you've wrought.

I trust each ox Harper gores will be your special pet and your guts will twist in the wind with each thrust.

I hope I've pissed you off.

Outright Liars

Jason Kenney is a liar. So is his puppy, James Bezan. So says the commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2.

Kenney and Bezan are claiming a close encounter between HMCS Fredericton and Russian surface combatants and aircraft. Supposedly, they got that information from the commanding officer of Fredericton.

Not bloody likely.

There is a near zero chance that the captain of Fredericton sent anything but a factual report of a distant visual sighting of Russian ships and aircraft. To do otherwise would prompt Rear Admiral Brad Williamson, commander SNMG2, to boot HMCS Fredericton to a safe area, well away from any activity. Excitable frigate captains who embellish contact reports are not an asset in such situations - they are an extreme liability.

The fact that HMCS Fredericton remains on station with SNMG2 is solid evidence that the ship is performing and reporting in accordance with the well-practiced doctrine established by the officer in tactical command.

That makes Kenney, Bezan and anybody who repeats their words, liars.

At the going down of the sun...

With respect and condolences to the family and friends of Sergeant Andrew Joseph Doiron, Canadian Special Operations Regiment, Petawawa, Ontario.


Audeamus

Canadian Sniper

Just in time for the Oscars!

The intellectual power of a dead tree stump ... and a wide open net.

Whoa! What's this?!
Watch and listen very closely ...



I n t e r e s t i n g !!!

Here's the thing ... I agree with him ... completely. The anti-vaccine movement is a crowd of dangerous, self-absorbed, selfish, dilettantes who, devoid of any scientific training or knowledge, have positioned themselves as "experts". They are no such thing and Murphy is quite correct in pointing that out.

In fact, Murphy is so right on this one that he just shot off his own foot. Murphy regularly spouts off as one of the leaders of the climate-change denial faction. To use the same facetious tone as Murphy himself employed, whenever people seek climate science guidance from the likes of Murphy or his fellow geo-scientists in media punditry, they've confessed to having the intellectual power of a dead tree stump.

Murphy couldn't complete the first line of a climate formula. He has a degree in English. We don't need Murphy's stamp of approval to determine which science to accept and which to ignore. Murphy represents a movement of dangerous, self-absorbed, dilettantes, devoid of any scientific training or knowledge, who have positioned themselves as "experts".

Murphy needs to heed his own words and start taking his own advice.

First round for ranging .... Battery! .... SHOOT!!!

Ohhh ... look at this ...



On target. Repeat!!

Harper goes full on North Korean ...

Jeremy Nuttall describes the Friday noontime fiasco when Harper gathered Ottawa-bureau reporters in one place, had them sign an embargo on information and then cut them off, preventing them filing stories on the Harper anti-terrorist legislation.

Good read!

And, this is just the beginning. We all know Harper finds democracy an inconvenient obstacle to his hold on power. Expect more, a lot more, in the coming months. Harper is a desperate individual. Desperate people do despicable things.

Added:  Highlighting the desperation of this odious psychopath is an article from Heather Mallick underscoring his need to broadcast his penis size without, you know, actually having to show it, by producing warrior-centric propaganda ... with your money.

Chris Turner explains that Harper's behaviour is nothing short of that fake US patriotism we're all familiar with. He, along with thousands of others describes Harper's 3 minute propaganda piece as nothing but a cartoon and completely out of place in a country where duty, obligation and sacrifice do not involve beating your own chest and having band play martial music 24/7.

H/T Alison for the Chris Turner link.

funerals and politics

RIP RCMP Constable David Wynn

Constable Wynn was murdered while performing his duties as a sworn officer of the law and by all accounts was a pretty good guy who leaves behind a wife and children who will never see him again. He was a former paramedic who joined the Mounties and did a nasty, occasionally dangerous, often thankless, probably often frustrating job that the vast majority of us would not care to do and for that he is owed our gratitude. We mourn his passing and grieve for his loss and sympathize with his family.

I got into a bit of a discussion on Twitter tonight about the supposed politicization of Wynn's funeral by the prime minister and it may shock you to see me defend him, at least in part.   I don't think Stephen Harper politicized this funeral any more than any other. I emphatically do not wish to politicize Wynn's death. It is tragic and has little or nothing to do with political issues in Canada. I hope his family can be left to mourn without having to make any pronouncements on public policy or electoral politics.

Wynn was investigating a stolen vehicle when he walked into the wrong place at the wrong time and paid for it with his life. That can happen to police officers and no amount of training, equipment, backup or draconian throw-away-the-keys legal code will ever change that.

Unfortunately to my mind, we have reached the point in our culture where the death of any uniformed public servant requires politicians to respond. Wynn's funeral was attended by both the Prime Minister and the Premier of Alberta along with thousands of police officers from across the Canada and around the world. Such funerals get bigger and bigger as we attach more and more moral superiority to police officers. Wynn was murdered in the line of duty, but even funerals for police officers killed in traffic accidents bring out other officers en masse in a show of solidarity, which is in many ways admirable.

I am, however concerned about the question of politicization. The prime minister and the premier are important people, yes, but the prime minister is not the head of state, nor is the premier the highest official in Alberta. (Where the hell were the Governor General and Lt. Governor?) They attend either out of a sense of sincere solidarity or at the very least to show the voters how much they support law enforcement. The former does not require them to do anything but attend, the latter usually means speeches and crass politicking. To complain publicly about their presence at such an event in the absence of such speeches or politicking is rather like protesting the funeral of a soldier killed in combat because you oppose the war. In such a case, I emphatically do not condemn opposition to war, but I question the appropriateness of the time and place of the protest.

If such speeches are made, if politicians do what they do and try to curry favour by their presence, let them. Let the family mourn. Let the funeral proceed without any further distractions. I would compare it to having an estranged family member or ex-spouse or lover suddenly show up at the funeral of a loved one. Especially if they feel compelled to give their own eulogy about how the deceased wronged them. For me, it is simply pragmatic good manners not to raise a fuss there and then, not to scream and shout and make their unwelcome appearance the one thing that everyone remembers from the funeral. At the same time, there is every reason to show up at the unwelcome party's doorstep the next day and give them all the shit imaginable.

For political reasons, Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice had to attend Wynn's funeral. Their base, and probably their opponents, would never let them forget it if they hadn't. Whether they would have attended if they were not in politics is another, more personal question none of us can answer for them. That said, I do not think that they politicize the event by their simple presence. Whether they deserve to be vilified for their actions the next day depends on their actions. (though given the CPC's track record of issuing a plea for funds to help the Prime Minister fight the evil Muslim terrorists who would murder us all in our beds only hours after the Charlie Hebdo office attacks, one might just wonder about the purity of their motives in such a situation). The coverage I have seen has been limited and none of it mentioned speeches by either politician or any role played by them other than attending the funeral. Whether they attempt to make political hay out of it after the fact remains to be seen, though I have seen enough of this prime minister to have little doubt that he would gladly load Constable Wynn's corpse onto his political bandwagon and parade it through the land if he thought it would get him more than a handful of votes. I hope he proves me wrong, it would be a nice change.

The definition of "combat" ...

Is NOT the one provided by some pencil-necked, political, maggot out of the prime minister's office. Especially when that particular creature has never so much as stood in a recruiting office, much less actually been in armed conflict.

Let's get an item out of the way here. Anyone in any military theatre of operations coming under hostile fire has every right to return fire and every right to return that fire with full effect. (Yes, that means kill the person(s) shooting at you). That clean little white box is not up for debate.

Here's what the PMO's resident mouthpiece, Jason MacDonald, had to say:

A combat role is one in which our troops advance and themselves seek to engage the enemy physically, aggressively, and directly. That is not the case with this mission.

That definition has been flatly debunked by MGen (Ret'd) Lewis Mackenzie and Col (Ret'd) Pat Stogran, both of whom have extensive combat experience.

MacDonald suggests that Canadian special forces, on the ground in Iraq, providing targeting information and data to CF-18 (and allied forces) air strikes, does not constitute "combat". Worse, however, is that the Canadian Forces, in the form of Lt-Gen Johnathan Vance, provided cover for MacDonald by continuing to advance that ludicrous notion.

What's the issue here? Well, Harper told parliament and the country that Canada would not be involved in ground combat operations - at all. The SFOC troops sent to Iraq were provided as trainers. Which suggests he knew that was never the case and he lied.

The simple fact that Harper's mouthpiece has had to come out with a warped definition of "combat" highlights one very illuminating fact: Harper lied to Canada from the get-go about the nature of the Iraq mission and he knew he was lying.

What else is at issue is the behaviour of Lt-Gen Vance. He should have withdrawn from the discussion immediately by stating that Canadian ground troops were obeying the rules of engagement specified by the Government of Canada ... and then let the excrement land in the laps of the politicians. Vance is now party to a political fight in which he has no place and which erodes public trust in the Canadian Forces.

I have contributed to a lot of "After Action" reports, but in this instance one stands out. In referring to a particular action the report stated that:

"Elements of (unit) came into position where company-strength enemy activity was observed. (Unit) continued to provide situation reports without engaging the enemy. At (time) (unit commander) called for gunfire support from (ship) to neutralise enemy position. After (several hours) of continued bombardment (unit commander) reported that enemy was sufficiently incapacitated to allow (different unit) to advance on final objective. (Unit's) combat action successfully cleared the route to (objective)."

See that? The members of the "unit" did not fire a single shot from their position. It did however, provide targeting data and coordinates for the ship. Here's the thing: The guy calling the fire is the guy leading the fight. As each bullet left the ship's guns they became the combat multiplier of the ground unit and the combat action was attributed to both the ground unit and the ship.

If I'm on the ground providing targeting information to an air asset with a bomb, it's MY bomb. Nothing about it is not ground combat.

Harper lied and he knew he was lying. Now he's got others lying for him by trying to change the definition of "combat". It is reminiscent of another politician saying, "I did not have sex with that woman."



 

Pay no attention to the liar in the cupboard

Nothing demonstrates cowardice in a politician as much as attempting to sneak things, which should be completely public, past the citizenry in a clandestine fashion intended to hide the truth.
Boris laid the groundwork here.

Why is the coward bearing the title "prime minister" so hell-bent on sole-sourcing the F-35? BECAUSE HE'S MADE A DEAL HE HASN'T TOLD YOU ABOUT. He's hiding something - he always is!

A little more for you.

At the going down of the sun...

With condolences and respect to the family and friends of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's), Hamilton.

Albainn Gu Braith

At the going down of the sun...

With condolences and respect to the family and friends of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, 438 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force.

Going Down

Sic Itur ad Astra

Fin de siècle . . .

WEALTH ACCRUES UNEVENLY. Always has, probably always will, as history shows. But things can get distorted and then there's a market 're-adjustment'. Sometimes such a re-adjustment turns revolutionary. 

When I was a child, there were Rolls, Bentley, Mercedes Lincoln and Cadillac plus the rare Ferrari or Maserati or Aston or Bristol or Alvis, and that was about it. Today, there are around 200 cars that are more than $100,000.

Perhaps owning a carwash might be a good idea. Because with Fin de siècle we might get Louis XV's and Madame Pompadour's prediction, "après moi le déluge" . . .

How bad is the disparity in wealth? According to Autoblog, the average Bugatti owner has 84 cars, 3 jets, 1 yacht. I got an old Pontiac. Newer than Fred's, but gaining antiquity.