Getting it.

Stephen Hume gets it. Better yet though, via Alison, Carol Off gets it.

In short, people (who should have been paying closer attention all along) are starting to see through the hypocrisy and dirty politics of the likes of Harper and the minister his extremist frat boys sent out to face the mob, Joe Oliver.

Be afraid . . .

BE VERY, VERY AFRAID. WIRED has a disturbing report: "India Reports Completely Drug-Resistant TB". Not good. TB is difficult to treat at the best of times.

Over the past 48 hours, news has broken in India of the existence of at least 12 patients infected with tuberculosis that has become resistant to all the drugs used against the disease. Physicians in Mumbai are calling the strain TDR, for Totally Drug-Resistant. In other words, it is untreatable as far as they know.

Total drug resistance. Nothing works. Untreatable. Marvelous. It's the ideal Republican/Conservative Party disease: it primarily afflicts the poor, and it kills.

A mellifluous note . . .

IN CONTRAST TO the political foulness below, here's a bright piece of humanity. According to the Star, "Video for Burlington band Walk off the Earth goes viral". Almost five million hits. Wonderful. Dedicate this song to Stevie. Enjoy.

What's the matter with Kansas, you ask?

Well, the Speaker of the Kansas state legislature is a festering racist who, if the US Secret Service is on the ball, should end up being seriously grilled under some seriously hot lights.

Then, Charles P. Pierce, (who's on the road with the Republican clown act), points out the obvious. It's the entire conservative "movement":

I think, maybe, it's time for the nation to rise up and point out to the Republican party that, root and branch, it is a racist embarrassment to democracy and a blight on this nation that all the world can see. Whether it's N. Leroy Gingrich's chirping about how all the black people are on food stamps, or Rick Santorum's talking about the mysterious Blah People, or this clown whom the other clowns in the Kansas House elected to lead them, there is a steady, noxious river of bile flowing through the entire Republican party, and through the conservative "movement" that empowers it. It should marginalize the party to whatever back lot of hell it is in which a crosseyed James Earl Ray attempts to shoot an apple off the head of Byron De La Beckwith for all eternity.
No, I don't accept your apology, you ignorant old fart. No, Rick, I don't believe for a moment you meant to say something else and it came out "Blah people," you Bible-banging coward. Nobody's talking in code any more. It's right out front there, for all the world to see. How dare these people? How dare their evil souls?

Yup.

There's nothing "ethical" about it

Since when did oil companies give a red rat's ass about the "ethical" behaviour of the governments of lands from which they sucked oil out of the ground?

The truth is, oil companies are some of the least ethical corporations on the planet. Being harboured in Canada doesn't increase their ethical behaviour. It simply masks what they are and have been all along.

Now go read Norm, then go read Ian.

Update: Go Alison!! And check out Holly Stick's links in the comments.

Interesting ... Some people, depending on where they are, cannot access Ian Reid's blog. No one knows why. So ... Norm has reprinted it.

Happy Birthday

STEPHEN HAWKING IS 70 today. Our foremost living theoretical physicist, his work is given thoughtful appraisal by Luboš Motl, who ponders things astrophysical from Pilsen, in the Czech Republic, on his site, the reference frame. 

What made Hawking somewhat special was that he was very good not only in quantum field theory as understood by particle physicists: he was doing lots of important research in general relativity, too. This pretty unusual combination has predestined him to become the first person who usefully merges these two mostly incompatible pillars of fundamental physics, namely QFT and GR.

The Stevie Burger?

ACCORDING TO IO9, the "French fast food chain offers Darth Vader burger with black Dark Side bun". Looks like a Stevieburger, to me, fried in VX for an extra tasty, crispy flavor.

Alternatives . . .

The Canada Party: The sanity alternative.

The legend lives on . . .

GM HQ, aka "The Tubes"

JIMMY HOFFA. How Jimmy Hoffa Was Buried Under GM’s World Headquarters. Really. Rather inspirational. Now, are there any big building sites in Ottawa? Do Conservatives mix well with Portland?

Conservative poster boy

Mike Adams is, beyond doubt, one nasty piece of work.

In his latest Conservative outing he tells the tale of one Allison, a depressed white girl who, despite her wisdom and energy found herself in the clutches of a black lad. Her life ruined and her virginity gone forever she realizes the folly of her liberal ways and becomes a Conservative talking head whore.

Cool story for the Blogging wankers ... and total bullshit.

Mike Adams, who positions himself as a 'thinking" Conservative ends his tale thus:

The story may be a simple one but that is okay. Liberalism is a simple way of viewing the world. It lacks the complexity and even the nuance of conservative thought. Although simple, this story is not actually true. It is an Ally-gory meant to show the depth of the divide between conservatives and liberals in America today. It is a divide so deep that it simply cannot be negotiated away. Barry can only get what he wants by forcing himself upon us all. Right-thinking people judge him according to his merits and not according to his race.

Only if you didn't write the preceding page and a half.

And he did. 

Lee Atwater would call him an amateur.

Canada's little ray of SUNshine

Canada's ethical snake-oil salesman and Glenn Beck wannabe Ezra Levant continues to keep it classy.  As far as I can tell, Ezra's objection isn't that Chiquita Banana keep paying right-wing death squads to murder labour activists in South America, but that they are denying that they are boycotting tarsand products as a PR dodge. How dare they obey free market principles, eh Ezra? I don't know how the mother of the Chiquita Banana exec feels about you suggesting her son should have carnal knowledge of her, but your mother must be so very proud of you.

Crossposted from The Woodshed

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From whence the power flows

DAMMIT JANET! is keeping a weather eye on the emerging pack of Conservative anti-choicers intent on imposing their authoritarian religious will on the women of this country. Go read and then return.

The article referred to in fern hill's post comes from the uber-propagandist, anti-woman, Lifesite. What makes it interesting is that it is not breaking news. Lifesite has simply regurgitated this older report from The Windsor Star in an apparent effort to keep up some momentum which would have been lost over the holidays.

What makes it more interesting is that this is now the fourth nutball Conservative to have yapped off in less than two weeks about "re-opening" the abortion debate.

To which Harper replies that it won't happen while he's prime minister.

There is absolutely no reason to believe him.

Harper's party is manufactured from an alliance of the worst of political outcasts. Refugees from former Ontario premier Mike Harris' "common sense revolution" to evolution-denying, thought-vacant, science-is-too-tough-so-it-can't-be-true christian freaks. Then Peter MacKay, after lying to his membership, folded the rotting corpse of the Mulroney-shredded Progressive Conservative party into the batter. From all of this, the Harper party built its base.

Charles P. Pierce recently described the current day Republican Party in the US thusly:

... nativist hooligans, anti-intellectual crackpots, Christomaniacs, and the sad detritus of American apartheid ...

A description which, with only the slightest adjustment, would serve to describe the alliance of refuse which makes up the Harper party. Lee Atwater*, if he were alive today, would be proud.

And now Harper has a problem. His alliance of feces-flinging knuckle draggers got him what he wanted and they're starting to call in some markers.

While the Harperites were stuck in a minority in parliament he could easily shut them up on the premise that such extremist ideological public statements, unpalatable to most Canadians, would not only deny them a future majority but might cost them their tenuous minority in any future election.

Now, Harper possessing the power he craved, and the position from which to expand it, will either have to deliver or pay an even greater price - division from within and a dilution of his personal hold on power. He can no longer silence the freaks with the threat of an electoral loss. Re-election doesn't come up for 36 months and the poo-chuckers have been sitting on their hands for six years. They are, if nothing else, an impatient lot who will demand the reward they were promised or think they were promised for giving Harper his dream.

Harper has already proven he is prepared to drive legislation with only ideology at the wheel. He's also demonstrated a keenness for jack-booting his legislative agenda into law.

Now, he's going to kick it up a notch and make sure you can't hold his party of rejects to account for their words. From Frances Russell:

When Parliament rose for the Christmas break, there were signals the Harperites were planning to go where no government has gone before and place all business conducted by parliamentary committees -- or at least all potentially embarrassing business -- behind closed doors.
...

The government is especially sensitive about discussions on social issues such as abortion, capital punishment and official languages, Comartin says. He warns that if the government is able to keep everything behind closed doors, it can, given its majority on each and every committee, ensure committee reports will be "totally opaque" so that the public will never know what was said or what specific action was taken.

The only reason you would want to hide all that away is because you've got something to hide. And the reason the government is so sensitive is because they know it won't wash with most Canadians.

Clearly, abortion is back on the table. Harper is feeding you the big lie.


* Lee Atwater was the repugnant individual who, when he wasn't smearing or generating outright lies about opposition candidates during US presidential campaigns, became known for building the base of the US Republican party with southern anti-black racists. His legacy in the US Republican party lives on. 

Nuts and flakes . . .

TAKES ALL KINDS TO MAKE A POLITY. And in Iran, nuts and flakes abound. There's an election coming at the beginning of March. I Need a Dinner Jacket's kinda worried about it, too, because Iranian politics have become more fractious, as the various factions try to work out the path to power held by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to Thomas Erdbrink at the Washington Post, in his article, "Establishment factions to face off in Iranian elections", it's a real free-for-all:

Iran has begun gearing up for elections that will represent a showdown between two factions that just three years ago formed a united establishment against the opposition Green Movement.

In parliamentary elections March 2, supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will face off against an alliance of hard-line clerics, Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders and bazaar merchants who had been instrumental in keeping Ahmadinejad in power before they turned against him.

Both groups are striving for a majority in a parliament that can either obstruct or speed up initiatives by Ahmadinejad’s government. While the two factions together had formed a hugely influential bloc, monopolizing all major centers of power, a disagreement over the firing of the country’s intelligence chief last spring caused a final breakup after months of tension. Now clerics and commanders are accusing Ahmadinejad’s advisers of plotting to push them from power and to reduce the role of Islam in the country.

Now, add the nuclear considerations and military egos . . . should be an interesting year.

Harpoonage:
Iranian naval ships take part in a naval parade
on the last day of the Velayat-90 war game
in the Sea of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.

Somewhere, not too far away, there's a Seawolf-class hunter-killer with targeting solutions for the Harpoons and the Mk 48's . . .  memo to Gen. Ataollah Salehi: do not obsess over the carriers.

And you thought I was "Over the top"

Well, you know what part of my anatomy you can kiss. Try not to get shit on your lips.

Read it again.

Yeah, this outfit really needs a tax cut

From CBC: (emphasis mine)

Electro-Motive Diesel, which makes diesel-electric locomotives and engines in London, Ont., has locked out almost 500 unionized workers after they failed to take a 50 per cent cut in wages and benefits.
 
The collective agreement between EMD and the Canadian Auto Workers Local 27 ran out at the end of 2011, and picket lines were set up at 6 p.m. Sunday.

EMD is owned by construction equipment maker Caterpillar through its Progress Rail subsidiary. Caterpillar has a reputation for being tough on unions and waiting out long strikes.

So, lets look at Caterpillar's condition. Is this a suffering corporation? From Caterpillar's 3rd quarter report of 2011: (emphasis mine)

"This was the best quarter for sales in our history, and our order backlog is at an all-time high. Excluding Bucyrus impacts, this was also our best profit quarter in history, and year-to-date operating profit as a percent of sales was higher than any full year in more than three decades. Machinery and Power Systems operating cash flow has also been very positive, with the first nine months of the year better than any full year in our history," said Caterpillar Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Doug Oberhelman.

The Bucyrus impacts refer to the Caterpillar acquisition of Bucyrus International, (a heavy mining equipment company), in 2010.

Even with the negative number from Bucyrus added to Caterpillar's year-end figures, the company is forecasting a $6.79 profit per share, a 63 percent increase over the previous year.

Again from CBC:

Union leaders fear Caterpillar will move production to a Progress Rail plant in Muncie, Ind., which was opened on Oct. 28 and also produces diesel-electric locomotives, media reports say. It could benefit from any Buy American policies that might affect purchasing in the U.S.

Union officials told the London Free Press that the final offer would cut wages to $16.50 from $35 an hour, though the CAW has made it clear it rejects wage cuts as long as Caterpillar enjoys record profits.

Unfortunately, here's a piece of reality no one is going to like.

The economic development arm of the state gave Progress Rail $3.5 million US in tax credits and $1 million in training credits, another $1 million for the region to build public works, and help to pursue a $1-million grant and $22.5 million in tax abatement over time, Roysdon said.
In return, Progress Rail was to invest in the shell of a manufacturing plant and employ as many as 650 workers by 2012.

But the hoped-for flood of new jobs has been less than overwhelming, and the company is keeping secret how many it's hired, Roysdon said.

In October, when the plant rolled out its first two locomotives for mass transit, three different public officials cited the number of employees and all three numbers were different, varying between 150 and 180.

"The workforce hasn't been as easy to find as they thought," Roysdon said.
Why that's the case is tough to determine, with Progress Rail reticent to speak. But two factors come to mind: low wages and training requirements.

In September, an employee told Roysdon that wages ranged between $12.50 and $14.50 an hour, a tough sell in a region where vanished manufacturing jobs once paid $25 and up an hour.
The other challenge has been finding employees with the requisite skills, a problem that drew the attention of the Economist.

Progress Rail even paid retirees from London to help - something that raised the ire of the Canadian Auto Workers, the union for the London factory's workers.

So, Progress Diesel went to where the corporate welfare was and made big promises into their lapels. Not that such behaviour will bother the Governor of Indiana. He's cut from the same rotting cloth as Stephen Harper.

The Republican governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, has made it a priority to pass legislation that would make his state less hospitable to unions, so-called right-to-work laws ...

Yes, well right-to-work legislation has done wonders for the U.S. It attracted German auto manufacturers to position themselves in the right-to-work states because they consider the U.S. a low wage country. Even the German car makers admit that the only reason they pay such low wages is because they can get away with it.

Welcome to Stephen Harper's Canada. Tax cuts for corporations which are exploiting employees and reaping more profits. Higher unemployment insurance premiums for employees on an already reduced wage.

Right. When you only have one tool in the box it becomes a race to the bottom.

Perspective and circumstance . . .

The Laetoli footprints of Tanzania date back to approximately 3.5 million years: the original Mall-crawl.

EVERYWHERE AND EVERYWHEN, people have tried to cope, tried to "get ahead", tried to prevail. Different times and different scenery produce different challenges and different perspectives from common-sense survival to the sophistry of delusional abstraction.

Venkatesh Rao, has a post on his RIBBONFARM site that is worthy of pondering, "The Evolution of the American Dream". 

Remember the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm and their sloganeering? In the beginning of the story, when they overthrow the humans, they lead with the chant, “four legs good, two legs bad!” By the end, they’ve become human-corrupt, and lead the chant, “four legs good, two legs better!”

Just one word changed, and the new and old words both begin with b, bolstering the illusion of continuity and natural evolution.

Let’s call such a slowly shifting narrative, simple enough to be captured in a slogan, and designed to help a small predatory class dominate a larger prey class, a Pig Narrative. The American Dream is a Pig Narrative.

Venkatesh seems to have a point here. A Pig Narrative, indeed. But that's not the reason I'm posting this. The reason is that Venkatesh presents an interesting list of generations in the evolution of the U.S. as a country, below:

You can compare Pig Narratives on the basis of the degree of prey liberty (or conversely, predator control) they represent, allowing you to plot the evolution over time. If you plot the course of the American Dream through its many rewrites (9 so far by my count, each associated with a major coming-of-age event that defined a generation), you get something like the picture above.

Now, IMHO, this is where the perspectives become fascinating:

1. Civil War generation (1870s):
   If I Go West as a Young Man, and work hard, I have as good a chance as anyone else of making it (gold miner, wildcatter)
2. Gilded Age generation (1890s):
   If I work hard, I can make it (Horatio-Alger-inspired young people working for Robber Barons)
3. Gatsby generation (1920s):
   Anybody can make it (Gatsby type easy money)
4. New Deal generation (1930s):
   Together, we can make it* (worker building Hoover Dam)
5. GI Bill generation (1940s):
   Any American can make it if he fights hard (WW II veteran, college-educated and starting high-responsibility job white collar job with young, growing American post-war companies)
6. Organization Man generation (Silents, 1950s):
   I already have it; if I don’t screw it up, I can keep it (employee of mature, wealthy post-war company)
7. Peace Corps generation (Boomers, 1960s):
   Americans already have it; we should share it (progressive, generous child of Cold War prosperity)
8. Deregulation generation (X, 1980s):
   We’re losing it. If I keep my head down and step around the falling rubble smartly, I may escape (entering workforce among layoffs and uncertainty in manufacturing)
9. Net generation (Y, late 1990s):
   We’re losing it. I don’t know what to do, I’ll go Occupy Wall Street (this generation lived through a boom and a bust and 9/11 while coming of age, turning the pig narrative into garbage at the starting gate, leaving a harsh, anomic landscape)
10. Next generation (coming of age right now ):
    If I Go East as a Young Person, and work hard, I have as good a chance as anyone else of making it (lifestyle entrepreneur in Asia or Eastern Europe — this script will likely take shape with the 2016 election, when the generation is first courted by politicians).

And so, are we approaching the closing stages of the Monopoly game?

Perspectives . . .

FROM THE ISS. In spite of humanity's foibles, it's a beautiful world, even if some parts of it suffer from too many Stevie portraits. Have a fortunate 2012.

Northern Aurora

Nile Delta

Historical failure . . .

ONCE UPON A TIME, THE USAAF got a bright idea for a bespoke night fighter, which resulted in the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. Not one of John Northrop's successes. Over-weight, overly complex, the USAAF European theater generals wanted the de Havilland Mosquito, instead, but they got the P-61 because that's what the procurement process had produced. Mind you, it was not a Brewster Buffalo failure, the P-61 did OK, but it was an unnecessary redundancy and economic waste. For what it's worth, the USAF isn't the only beneficiary; the Navy and Army get their opportunities, too. A classic case is the expensive frustration of the M247 Sergeant York self-propelled antiaircraft vehicle.

Well, according to Dina Rasor at TRUTHOUT, the tradition is alive and well. Her article, "F-35 Fighter Is Latest in Long Line of Wasteful Weapon Failures", describes the stumbling to date.

There has been a flurry of articles in the defense press Tuesday about an internal Department of Defense (DoD) report on how the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon's newest attempt to buy a fighter jet, is skating toward potential mechanical and monetary disaster. The DoD top civilian weapons buyer put together a team to do a quick look at how the fighter was doing in its journey to become the next main fighter in the DoD arsenal. The report has the usual DoD hedge wording and qualifiers, but the answer is: not too good.

• • •

Now, the newest fighter is falling under its own bloated procurement weight. Is the system, which has given us generation after generation of overpriced and technically dubious fighters, tanks, and other weapons finally succumbing to its own folly? 

• • •

To understand why this keeps happening to our weapons acquisitions and to try to change it, you have to know some history on how the system works and what has happened in the past. It is a sad tale of déjà vu all over again.

Ernest Fitzgerald, the well-known Pentagon whistleblower who fought the bureaucracy in hand-to-hand combat for better weapons and realistically priced weapons from the 1960s to 2006, came up with a simple law of why this sordid history keeps repeating itself. Fitzgerald's first law of weapons procurement is: "First it is too early to tell, second, it is too late to do anything about it." I have found that this is the way that the DoD, the military services and the defense contractors squeeze every last dime out of the procurement budget and then even more, while making sure that their weapon doesn't get so obviously gross as to go on the rare weapons' chopping block.

It's like watching a slow-motion train-wreck, and thanks to Stevie and Airshow, we're paying for a ring-side seat. Think of it as a solid gold plank in the gallows that is being built for the Conservative Party.

Times are tough, and friends are few?

The R.A.N.'s the place for you!

That would be the Royal Australian Navy which, in case you hadn't been approached by some digger with a funny looking cap, is making some interesting offers.

Apparently the Aussies are feeling a bit pinched.

As it competes with industry for skilled personnel, the ADF has focused its recruitment effort in Britain, which is cutting back heavily on defence as part of a government-wide austerity drive.

However, Australian navy chief Ray Griggs has given an undertaking to his British counterpart, First Sea Lord Admiral Mark Stanhope, that Australia will not recruit personnel the British need to maintain their capabilities.

And to find enough trained personnel to crew its submarines and the fleet of new warships now being built, the navy is also recruiting from the US, Canada and New Zealand.

 Their own sailors are heading for the Never Never to cash in.

The RAN is facing tough competition for engineers from the booming resources industry.

It is preparing to provide crews for a new fleet that will include potent Air Warfare Destroyers and giant 28,000-tonne landing ships, bigger than Australia's past aircraft carriers.

But many comprehensively trained naval engineers deployed to submarines based at HMAS Stirling, south of Perth, have found themselves quickly moving on up to the Pilbara mines after being offered big pay rises and less arduous working conditions.

 To sweeten the offer, there's this:

Applicants must apply for a permanent resident visa before coming to Australia.
They must also give a written undertaking that they will apply for Australian citizenship as soon as they are eligible. This is normally two years after permanent residence is granted, but an exception will be made for these service personnel, who will become eligible after three months' service.

The army is asking for a rather specific lot:

The army is looking for bomb-disposal experts and is also particularly keen to recruit Catholic chaplains.

Odd mix, that, but you're a figjam bombo with a rosary and you haven't got a brass razoo to you're name, well it might be time to go walkabout.

Or, you could just bypass the whole uniform thing and apply for double the pay.

Still, the Oz navy looks like a bonzer go, what with their own TV series and all.

(Not to mention we had a hand in training some of their officers).

Those of you who are dashing about packing a tucker and booking a Qantas flight should practice this.

How much crap do you need?

CONSUMERISM. You look at the Boxing Day ads, ya gotta wonder, doesn't everybody have a flat-screen TV? Like the song goes, buy, buy . . .