The Disaffected Lib

Are You Better Off Today Than When Stephen Harper Became Prime Minister?

2009-11-24T08:34:00.000-08:00

SHarper has been Canada's top dog since January, 2006. That's long enough to ask whether we're better off today than when he took over? The answer is "no, not by a long shot."

A report by Dale Orr Economic Insight shows that the average Canadian standard of living is off 4.3% compared to 2007.

From The Globe & Mail:

The report released Tuesday by Dale Orr Economic Insight shows Canadians have been on a downward spiral in terms of their standard of living since 2007.

The report estimates Canadians have seen a 4.3-per-cent falloff in their standard of living since 2007, in terms of real gross domestic product per capita.

And individuals living in most of the larger provinces, with the exception of Quebec, have fared worse.

The report estimates Albertans' standard of living has fallen 6.2 per cent since 2007, and Ontarians' by 5.8 per cent.

Steve promised that he'd change the face of Canada. I just didn't imagine it'd be this way.

Gore Slams Tar Sands, Michael Are You Listening?

2009-11-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

Former vice president turned global warming guru Al Gore isn't pulling any punches when it comes to the Athabasca Tar Sands. That much was clear when he told the Toronto Star that the Tar Sands threaten the survival of our species:

"Gas from the tar sands gives a Prius the same carbon footprint as a Hummer," the former U.S. vice-president told the Star in an interview prior to a Toronto speaking engagement scheduled for Tuesday evening.

"I know that doesn't make me popular in Alberta," said the jet-hopping environmental activist, best known for the movie and book An Inconvenient Truth.

"But it's simply a fact. A lot of money is at stake, but a lot of lives and the future of human civilization are also at stake."

Gee, ya think? Of course, Al Gore is merely focusing on the massive carbon emissions problem created by Tar Sands energy. He's not even touching on the enormous waste of natural gas, the regional water and groundwater contamination and the spread of carcinogens associated with Alberta's dream megaproject.

I wonder if Michael Ignatieff has anything to add? He who declares the Tar Sands the engine of Canada's economy for the 21st century and bitumen the key to national unity for this century also.

Obama's "Play It By Ear" Afghanistan Strategy

2009-11-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

Trust McClatchey Newspapers to get the story first. The news service is reporting that Obama has decided on a very conditional plan that could see as many as 34,000 more American forces sent to bolster the existing army in Afghanistan.

The committment comes with strings attached, apparently plenty of them:

The administration's plan contains "off-ramps," points starting next June at which Obama could decide to continue the flow of troops, halt the deployments and adopt a more limited strategy or "begin looking very quickly at exiting" the country, depending on political and military progress, one defense official said.
"We have to start showing progress within six months on the political side or military side or that's it," the U.S. defense official said.

It's "not just how we get people there, but what's the strategy for getting them out," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday.

The approach is driven in part by concerns that Afghan President Hamid Karzai won't keep his promises to root out corruption and support political reforms, and in part by growing domestic opposition to the war, the U.S. officials said.

Obama's plan seems to address all three of his potential threats - the Taliban, Karzai and his own military. Of the three, the Pentagon brass might just be the most troublesome.

You can sort of tell when American generals have figured out they're caught in a losing proposition. That's when their focus shifts from defeating the enemy to setting somebody up to take the fall for their failure. They did it in Vietnam and they're doing it in Afghanistan.

The unmistakeable warning sign when US Army types carefully leaked General McChrystal's report to Obama. That established the set up - give me another 40,000 troops or you can be on the hook for the loss of the AfPak war.

The American public may be fed up with the AfPak war but that doesn't mean they won't be looking for a scapegoat to tag with the failure. Bush/Cheney hopelessly screwed up this war but, when the music stops, it'll be Obama who won't have a chair.

Obama could have taken the easy way out - given in to McChrystal but that would have meant a committment to keep the war going until he, in turn, could dump it off on his successor. Rather than capitulate, Obama seems intent on doing what has rarely happened before - making his generals take responsibility for producing results.

These days it almost seems somehow unfair to tell your generals you expect them to win. It's that thinking that's produced such a mediocre bunch of generals in so many NATO countries, ours included. They fall all over each other to get a chance at command but then they just put in their time, get their ticket punched, and then hand off to the next guy in time for their hasty retirement.

It's no accident that General McChrystal is being hauled back to Washington this week to testify before the Senate. It's "put up or shut up" time for Stan. It should be fun to watch him duck and weave.

I just hope Obama's "off ramps" don't include on that would get his forces out before we can get ours safely home.

Good Thing We've Got a Real "Law & Order" Prime Minister

2009-11-20T16:35:00.000-08:00

Prime minister Stephen Harper can't stand crime. He can't stand it when white collar folks do it. He can't stand it when blue collar types do it. He really can't stand it when little kids do it. Makes no difference, Steve is going to see that all scofflaws get exactly what's coming to them.

That must be why Steve is so determined to get to the bottom of this business about Afghan detainee torture, right? What's that you say? Steve doesn't want to get to the bottom of this? He doesn't even want to talk about it? His henchmen have spent years trying to ensure that no one else talks about it either? Sort of like, erase the tapes and all that? Just like Nixon?

But we've got experts now, law professors who specialize in this sort of thing, maintaining that the powers that be in Ottawa may have been party to serious war crimes. War crimes! Oh, oh never mind. I get it. Steve isn't interested in all crime and he's especially not interested in war crime, especially when it seems to involve his office and his underlings.

Don't hold your breath for prime minister Law'n Order, or should that be Lawn Odor, to beat the bushes over this Afghan business. They're all born liars those Afghans, haven't you heard? All of 'em, even the innocent civilians. Trained right from birth to screw with our minds! Why you can't believe a word that comes out of their mouths. And, for that matter, you can't believe a word that comes out of the mouth of the top diplomats Steve had enough confidence in to send to Afghanistan either. Those guys are just crazy, whacky. Goofy loons, every man jack of them.

Move along now. Nothing to see here.

See No Evil Hillier, Hear No Evil MacKay, Speak No Evil Harper

2009-11-20T09:37:00.000-08:00

To listen to the Three Chimps - Harper, Hillier and MacKay - it was all "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" when it came to Richard Colvin's reports of detainee torture in Afghanistan.

None of them, not even the absurd control freak we must call prime minister, knew anything about it. As far as they're concerned, there's no proof it ever happened even though there was enough of something to eventually get them off their overstuffed arses and implement changes in detainee handling by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

Now surely no one wants to admit to complicity in torture, an obvious war crime. So that sort of rules out admitting they knew all about it, that is if they don't want to get invited to show up before the International Court of Justice for a little judicial reckoning. It's also a good reason to fend off opposition demands for what's so plainly needed - a judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of who knew what and when and what they did about what they learned. You really might not want a judicial inquiry if you already know the answers to the questions that'll be asked.

The worst part of this is that you just can't find some stooge and throw him under the bus to make everything go away. That's because the one thing that you can't avoid - if you're Harper or Hillier or MacKay - is your responsibility to know what was going on, especially what was being reported from your senior officials in the field. This is one of those awkward situations where all the fingers are pointing in the same direction - straight up.

So there are electronic "paper trails" here, scads of them. It seems some of Colvin's e-mail warnings got to scores of people in Ottawa. That means we've got scores of people to talk with and they can tell us who they told and who they didn't tell and why. When this sort of information goes to scores of people it's pretty hard to accidentally shut off all the channels to the top. "Oh, I thought you were bringing the potato salad" simply doesn't work this time.

It's easy enough to tell who got what and, from them, where that information flowed. Let's hear from those people. I'm sure some of them have things we ought to know.

And what about the Tory benches? Hyperpartisan as they may be, surely some of those Conservatives remember their oath to faithfully serve this country. It wasn't to faithfully serve this country except when that wasn't in the interests of their Leader and his cabal. Isn't it time that these Tories showed that it's Canada first, not Stephen Harper, not Peter MacKay, not Gordon Hillier? Then again maybe they're just a gaggle of craven, cowed bastards, the sort of vermin that should never have been entrusted with the government of our country.

Maybe the US doesn't have to answer to the International Court of Justice. We do. If the Harper government won't investigate what happened, maybe the ICJ should step in.

Hillier "Didn't Hear" - Then Why Not?

2009-11-20T07:16:00.000-08:00

He was the major domo of Canada's mission to Afghanistan, the Big Cod, the hard-chargin' guy who left no doubt who was in command of this gig.

Now that evidence of the torture of detainees is breaking out, safely retired General Rick Hillier says he never heard a word about it. Hillier says he didn't see so much as one of the dozens of e-mail warnings sent to civilian and military staff in Ottawa by senior Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin. He never even met the guy.

Is Hillier being honest? Who knows? Maybe that's not really important. Because whether he saw Colvin's warnings, his denial isn't the end of it. Assuming Hillier is telling the truth he needs to explain why he didn't get those warnings, why he didn't read those e-mails, why he wasn't on the phone directly to Colvin. What was going on at DND that kept those warnings from reaching the top brass? Who decided there was no need to tell Hillier? Why was he not told? What did Hillier do or not do to control what news reached him from Afghanistan?

It seems to me if Hillier was running a defence department in which warnings of this magnitude were kept from him, he was doing a lousy job of running the place. We've made a national celebrity out of this guy and for the life of me I can't understand why.

In today's Toronto Star, Chantal Hebert is drawing the same conclusions about Stephen Harper and Peter Mackay.

The Parliamentary Rot Called Today's Conservative Party of Canada

2009-11-19T22:48:00.000-08:00

Kudos to the CBC's Don Newman for taking off the gloves to denounce the whole Reform/Alliance/Conservative movement as the cancer on effective national government in Canada.

"...Reformers came to Ottawa with the argument that everything in the Nation's Capital was corrupt. In fact, Reform MPs were ordered at one point not to stay in Ottawa over the weekends in case they became corrupted by this latter day Babylon.

If you remember, Manning wasn't going to sit on the front bench but lead from the middle row.

He also said the Official Opposition leader should not live in Stornoway, the government residence provided for the leader of the party with the second largest number of seats in the House.

And Reform MPs were not to take the supposedly fat-cat pensions that all members were entitled to.

...Well, Manning was soon sitting on the front bench and, when he became the Official Opposition leader, he moved into Stornoway instead of turning it into a bingo hall, as he had once threatened.

Today, even those Conservative MPs who were once Reformers are all enrolled in the parliamentary pension plan.

Manning, of course, is long gone. Replaced first by Stockwell Day, then by one of the original Reformers, Stephen Harper, the current prime minister.

But while Harper lives at 24 Sussex and seems to enjoy all the trappings of the prime minister's office, as indeed he should, he seems to maintain the Reformer's deep suspicion of Ottawa and all other political parties.

In the first Conservative minority from 2006 to 2008, rather than looking for ways to make Parliament work, the Harper government prepared a document telling Conservative committee chairman how to make sure their committees didn't function — in order to bolster their plea for a majority mandate in the next campaign."

Overall, Newman's piece is thoughtful, insightful and probative. There is a disease that's choking the arteries of Parliament Hill, infecting the nation and threatening our unity. It's malignant. It's the Harper Conservative movement.

Michael, It's Time To Prove You're a Liberal

2009-11-19T11:31:00.000-08:00

Before I'm willing to support the Liberal Party again, I want proof that the party's leader doesn't share Stephen Harper's indifference to torture. I want to know that Michael Ignatieff, the man who endorsed judicially-sanctioned 'coercive' interrogation, has completely purged himself of his past notions that torture is acceptable. Michael Ignatieff needs to convince me (and, I hope, the Canadian public) that he has abandoned his neo-conservative instincts.

It's useful - hell, it's essential - that we all remember precisely what the Michael Ignatieff of just a few years ago really said, what he really advocated. If you're a little fuzzy on that Michael Ignatieff, you really should read this. It's a very thoughtful and meticulous critique of Mr. Ignatieff posted at OpenDemocracy.net in July, 2005.

Is it really a coincidence that Bob Rae is leading the Liberal caucus on the revelations of apparent Tory complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees? Please tell me we don't have a Liberal leader who has disqualified himself from fiercely attacking the government on this.

CTV's Lowest Moment?

2009-11-19T06:59:00.000-08:00

If you're short of stomach-curdling experiences, visit CTV's website and watch the video of the Bob Fife/Lloyd Robertson banter on the Afghan torture story. You may come away convinced that FauxNews is alive and well in Canada.

The story of course, like all news stories, comprises a few key points:

- Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan knew that Afghan detainees handed over to Afghan security forces by Canadian soldiers were being tortured almost as a matter of course.

- This was reported to both diplomatic and military channels in Canada.

- Our second ranked diplomat in Afghanistan in 2006-7, Richard Colvin, repeatedly warned officials in Ottawa of this.

- Among those notified by Colvin were the "Big Cod", retired General Rick Hillier, and one David Mulroney, Harper's personal advisor on Afghanistan, more formerly known as deputy minister of the Afghanistan Task Force in the Privy Council Office.

- Ottawa's response to Colvin's warnings was that Canadian diplomats were ordered not to keep written records of any discussions of torture.

In other words, the detainees handed over (including a lot of innocents) were being tortured as a matter of course, we were notified they were being tortured, we did nothing to stop them being tortured, we took steps to conceal or eliminate evidence of being informed of the torture of our detainees, and then our political and military leaders publicly and repeatedly denied any knowledge of it.

Overall there is a strong suggestion that: A), they knew our force in Afghanistan was (likely unintentionally) complicit in the torture of detainees handed over to Afghan security forces; B) being presented with the imperative of promptly rectifying the situation they instead chose to enable its continuation, thus presumably making themselves complicit in the commission of war crimes; C) as evidence these decision-makers were truly aware of their complicity in war crimes, they ordered their subordinates to keep no written accounts of torture; and D) when the issue became public and despite prior knowledge they saw the problem as sufficiently troublesome as to publicly and persistently disavow any knowledge of it.

Those facts, if substantiated, raise a strong suggestion of very serious criminal conduct going straight up to the top echelons of the Department of National Defence and even the Prime Minister's Office. The allegations are that the powers that be condoned the torture of Afghan detainees, thereby rendering themselves complicit in the commission of very serious war crimes.

When I watched the Fife/Robertson dog and pony show it was another lesson in how much CTV has been transformed into the Conservative Television Network in the best traditions of FoxNews. They couldn't ignore the story so they handled it the very same way FoxNews would handle it - they carefully shaved the facts, added a full measure of Tory spin and kneaded the mixture into a putty of blandness.

Case in point. The role played in this saga by David Mulroney is critical to this story. Fife gave him but passing mention as a "senior bureaucrat" avoiding the direct link between Mulroney and Harper. Mulroney's relevance to this whole story is his role as Harper's personal advisor on Afghanistan.

Robertson added his dismissive footnote, pointing out that, after all, this is Afghanistan. Now I suppose you could take that more than one way but, to me, it came across as Robertson dismissing the gravity of the torture aspect by noting these people are barely better than animals anyway. In fairness, he didn't say that, but that's certainly the impression I was left with from what he did say.

The Tories, meanwhile, are acting predictably. MinDef parliamentary secretary, Laurie Hawn, dismissed the reports pointing out that the Afghan people are "trained to lie." These people are a disgrace to Canada.

Afghanistan Cracks Down on Corruption. Really?

2009-11-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

In a lightning stroke, the Afghan government has cracked down on corruption. Effective this morning, president Hamid Karzai, both his vice presidents, the Karzai cabinet, all but two members of the national legislature, the entire cast and crew of the Afghan National Police and roughly half of the Afghan National Army (the half that actually exists), all low-level, medium-level and high-level bureaucrats, the Afghan judiciary and all provincial governors placed each other under arrest for various high crimes and misdemeanours.

Pending imminent acquittal, the accused all returned to their employment following a brief adjournment for sweet tea and hashish.

Trials were convened shortly after a delightful lunch but the Afghan prosecutors, being defendants themselves, were unable to call any evidence thus leading to the dismissal of all charges. President Karzai hailed the proceedings as proof that, in his homeland, the Rule of Law shall always prevail.

Not a Government, a Round Table

2009-11-17T07:22:00.000-08:00

British foreign minister David Miliband foresees a future Afghan government, one in which senior Taliban commanders have a place at the table.

What's wrong with this picture?

It's pretty obvious that what the British minister is describing isn't a government of any form that we would recognize but a council of warlords, a round table if you will, that's almost guaranteed to condemn the Afghan people to fundamentalist Islamic feudalism forever.

But that's what we're up against. We never made any effort to rid the country of the warlords on our side. That leaves the default option of having to invite in the warlords of the other side, the Taliban. Brilliant. Now, can we leave?

Mr. Chalk River Wants Nuclear Trade With India?

2009-11-17T07:12:00.000-08:00

Sneaky Steve is in New Delhi hoping to persuade Indian officials to buy Canadian nuclear technology.

The guy who sat by as our own Chalk River reactor fell into ruin seems to think that India, not Canada, urgently needs nuclear technology. No matter how you look at it, the man is a sphincter.

A Matter of Trust - Betrayed

2009-11-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

Stephen Harper intends to do whatever he can to scuttle any meaningful agreement to fight global warming.

Harper made that clear in his dissembling pronouncements on the need for a climate change pact at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-Operation summit underway in Singapore. Here is Harper's thinly coded message from Canadian Press:

While acknowledging there are "significant differences" among the APEC members over how to tackle climate change, Harper said all leaders recognize it's an issue that must be addressed.

Emerging economies, including China and Indonesia at the APEC summit, already contribute close to half of all global emissions, Harper said at a media availability, and that proportion will rise to two thirds in the future.

"If we don't control those, whatever we do in the developed world will have no impact on climate change."

Harper's other argument for full global participation is purely economic.

"If everyone is not included, you set up the possible risk that certain countries will gain economic advantage from being included or not included," he said.

"If some contribute, or some contribute disproportionately, then the economic risks for others become enormous."

So, what's wrong with Harper's message? Lots. He's setting up a position that's inherently inequitable and sufficiently unacceptable to the Second and Third World to ensure there'll be no meaningful, mandatory and enforceable pact.

Harper wants a "one size fits all" deal. Everybody should cut their emissions by this percentage or that by this date or that. What's wrong with that? From our economic perspective, nothing, especially as our continued support for the expansion of the Tar Sands shows we're not genuine about even that anyway. But, from the rest of the world's perspective, everything is wrong with Harper's pitch - and Steve knows it.

Steve's con game totally ignores population and income disparities. He sure as hell won't accept equality on a per capita basis. No way Jose. In fact, he wants to preserve the West's priority to the remaining carbon carrying capacity of our atmosphere. He wants that frozen right now - entirely in our favour.

What this is all about is which nations are going to have the right to use up the remaining carbon emission carrying capacity of the atmosphere. It's finite, we know that and we now have reasonably accurate data on how much remains. Bonus points if you guessed "not enough." If you need help grasping the nuances of this core problem, I dealt with it at length the other day in the post "Whose Atmosphere Is It Anyway?". That's just two posts down. Check it out.

Most of the world wants what Steve dreads most. They want the atmosphere to be recognized as a common resource. You, me and every other human being has an equal entitlement to it - sort of the way Steve's God meant it to be. Now, in a world of 6.7-billion (or six thousand, seven hundred million) human beings, Canada's share, based on our roughly 36-million people is miniscule. That means we would have to almost entirely decarbonize our economy in less than a generation. Despite how Steve's God might smile favourably on that idea, Steve won't be having any of that. No, this is the guy who wants to set "intensity based" emission reduction targets on the Tar Sands. He's looking for emissions to go up, way up, not down.

The prime minister of Canada is a lying, duplicitous, manipulative scoundrel and the only people who don't know that are right here in Canada - right where, for Steve anyway, it matters.

The people of Canada through their government made the commitment, and it needs to honoured somehow or other, or it needs to be dealt with," the Australian climate-change expert told The Canadian Press.

The UN negotiations in Copenhagen put Canada in "a really difficult position," he said.
"Canada is by far the biggest defaulter on its Kyoto obligations on a tonnage basis. And as a result of that there is a lack of trust."

Flannery had just participated in an APEC media forum on climate change and the economy, where he joined several experts in warning that investment and co-operation, rather than "punitive" trade and tax measures, are the most efficient way to reduce emissions.

Canada's oilsands are in particular danger of becoming a target for tariff censure, Flannery said in an interview, and the government needs to be acting aggressively now to reduce the carbon intensity of their development.

"As we go into Copenhagen and beyond I think there is a real danger that unless we achieve enough as countries we could potentially face border tariffs on carbon, for example."

He said such policies would be a "catastrophe."

What's really disappointing is that Canada's failure on this most important problem can't be laid at the Tory's feet entirely. The Liberals have nothing to boast about on this issue. When he speaks of it at all, Iggy makes hollow, contradictory pronouncements on what to do about Canada's carbon emissions revealing that he, like his predecessor, doesn't have what it takes to take a stand on this issue.l

Uncommon Sense on Afghanistan

2009-11-11T18:42:00.000-08:00

America's ambassador to Afghanistan is standing up to the Pentagon's demands for more troops to fight the AfPak war.

Karl W. Eikenberry is urging his president to hold off on sending more troops until the wobbly government of Hamid Karzai demonstrates there's something worth salvaging in that country. Eikenberry's logic is that the corruption and mismanagement of the hapless government we've spent the past eight years propping up is undercutting our efforts, fueling the Taliban resurgence. In other words we're losing the fight with the Taliban while Karzai and his cabal of crooked warlords are busy stabbing us in the back. Ya think?

A statement released by the White House this afternoon suggests Obama is hearing Eikenberry's message:

"The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended. After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time."

Eikenberry is a retired four-star general who commanded forces in Afghanistan in 2006-7.

It's hard to imagine how Karzai is going to rid his government of corruption given that his government is built on corruption. He owes his very presidency to the warlords who rigged the last election in his favour.

Sorry Mr. Obama but Mr. Karzai is already bought and paid for and there's nothing that General Stanley McChrystal or even bigger General David Petraeus can or will do to set that straight. Going after Karzai & Company atop the Taliban and other rebel factions would put us at war with about 80% of the country.

Whose Atmosphere Is It Anyway?

2009-11-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

That's the question, the issue, the argument that's going to bedevil and quite likely scuttle any meaningful pact to fight global warming.

Whose atmosphere is it anyway? Well, if you look at those nations that have been dumping massive greenhouse gas emissions there for the past two centuries, you might think that the earth's atmosphere is the preserve of the industrialized and industrializing nations. First and foremost, think Europe and North America. Then add in countries like India, China, Russia and Brazil now vying for their dumping place at our atmospheric Love Canal.

Why is this question so important? Because the way it's answered will largely decide whether we have any hope of reaching the consensus without which we have no hope of preventing catastrophic climate change.

We used to talk about cutting greenhouse gas emissions by this percentage or that based on this year's or that year's threshold through emission reductions and carbon-trading. Nonsense, all of it utter nonsense. It's nonsense because it has endless wiggle room. The fine print alone renders it dysfunctional.

But there is another approach. Science has quantified both the amount of carbon dioxide emissions currently in the atmosphere and the amount of additional emissions the atmosphere can hold before we reach the 2 degree Celsius global heating point that's expected to trigger catastrophic climate change.

So, if we have an accurate idea of how many more billions of tonnes of CO2 emissions can be dumped into the atmosphere - for centuries, possibly millenia - the question becomes just who gets how much of that limited quota? This is where it gets tricky. You see there are some, an awful lot of "somes" in fact, who think that we in the West have already had our fair share of the atmosphere's carbon carrying capacity. It's hard to argue with that but their next argument is a real bitch.

What they're saying is that, "We'll spot you all the carbon emissions you've dumped into the atmosphere over the past two centuries in making yourself so fat and sassy but, from here on in, we should all share the remaining capacity equally." Gee, doesn't that sound fair and equitable? We treat the atmosphere as though it belongs to everyone and to no one so that we share it equally. Count the legs and divide by two sort of thing.

What's the alternative? Who has the right to say, "I claim that atmosphere as my own carbon emissions dumping ground because my economy relies on that so you can't have it"? Can you imagine? Going around to the people of sub-Saharan Africa or Central and South America and telling them we have priority rights to their atmosphere and we can use it to visit upon them the very worst scourges of global warming? Maybe we can torture logic enough to come up with a basis for atmospheric lebensraum.

To accept that the atmosphere belongs to everyone equally is to pass capital judgment on our carbon-based economy. It is to virtually outlaw fossil-fuels and commit us all to alternative-fuel rehab. There is no other way. If you can't understand that, read this.

But you say, won't that hurt the Canadian economy? Won't that affect our standard of living? Perhaps but even so the arguments are compelling. Do you think the climate change we've already triggered isn't already having a crushing impact on the economy and the standard of living of others, typically the least fortunate in the most vulnerable corners of the world? Isn't it grand that we can protest so vehemently about tweaks to our standard of living when others don't have the luxury of fretting about 'standards' because they're fully engaged with the struggle of merely living at all? It would be one thing if they caused their misfortune but they didn't, we did.

And Now a Word From Our German Friends

2009-11-11T09:28:00.000-08:00

They're called the WGBU which, translates into English as the German Advisory Council on Climate Change. They work for that stalwart conservative Angela Merkel and they're pooping panzers in amazement that the rightwing on this side of the Atlantic is so profoundly retarded when it comes to global warming.

The WBGU, or WISSENSCHAFTLICHER BEIRAT GLOBALE UMWELTVERÄNDERUNGEN WBGU as I like to call them, has just issued a global warming fact sheet in which it explains the magic of 2 degrees Celsius and the four essential bases of the problem:

　
• It is scientifically proven that rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere cause global warming.

• The consequences include rising sea levels, an increase in extreme weather events, accelerated loss of species and ecosystems, and acidification of the oceans. Tipping events in the climate system, such as the abrupt cessation of ocean currents, may have catastrophic and irreversible ecological results.

• Climate change can jeopardize the water supply and food production; it poses health risks, may accelerate migration and can lead to security problems. It thus has the potential to trigger major social and economic crises.

• Global warming of more than 2°C would pose unprecedented challenges for our civilization and therefore represents ‘dangerous interference with the climate system’. To prevent this, cumulative CO2 emissions to 2050 need to be capped at 750 Gt.

Chancellor Merkel and her WBGU aren't pulling any punches on global warming. These people have the courage totally absent from the North American political scene to sound the alarms now, while there's still time. They know that time is not on our side in this, possibly the greatest threat our species and our world have faced in the entirety of mankind's existence.

You can download the latest WBGU fact sheets here and here or you can order free copies of any of its publications directly from their website: www.wbgu.de/wbgu_home_engl.html

Stephen Harper is doing a magnificent job of keeping a lid on this sort of information and he has the NDP and Liberal leadership to thank for their complicity in letting him get away with that.

Africa's Line In the Sand or Calling Harper Out

2009-11-03T10:33:00.000-08:00

African nations are demanding that the West show that it's serious about fighting climate change. At negotiations underway in Spain, the African representatives want a show of good faith from the developed countries at the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month.

What they want is a binding committment to a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels.

Harper's target, posted on an EnviroCan website is a 20% cut from 2006 levels by 2020. That is a small fraction of what the African states will recognize as "good faith."

Climate Change Is the Issue of the Far-Right - Just Not Quite Yet

2009-11-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

Despite the remarkable success of the denialist hucksters as George Monbiot laments, the science of anthropogenic global warmings is plainly "in" and the evidence of man-made global warming is now on a par with the evidence for Darwinian evolution or the link between smoking and lung cancer.

The denialist community has been wildly successful at sowing doubt to undermine public acceptance of the urgent need to do what must be done to adapt to the change that's already coming and to slash carbon emissions to curb even greater, more lethal change in the future.

The denialists may have lost the fight when they shilled for Big Tobacco but that merely allowed them to hone their skills and bring their A Game to the climate change battle. But wait, if climate change is real then the denialists will clearly lose eventually, right? Yes, but not before they've accomplished their objective, not before they've won.

Won what exactly? The obvious answer to that is they will have won what they can, the most benefit possible for those on whose behalf they toil. They can't wish climate change away but they can control the political aspects of it.

Whichever side owns the climate change issue is bound to have an enormous political advantage for decades to come. This one issue is set to reverberate through just about every facet of our economic, political, even military structures in the short and mid-range future.

If there was one thing we learned from Cheney-Bush it was that just about anything, even war-fighting could be transformed into a political wedge issue out of which those in power were able to channel vast wealth to select companies and individuals. If you don't grasp that, try to say "black-wa-ter" or "hall-i-burt-on" until you can say them really fast.

If there was that much wealth to be mined out of something as ridiculous as their "War on Terror," what vast treasures and nearly unlimited power can lie in store for the side that gets to control the climate change issue? Take a minute and let that really sink in.

Remember when Harper rebuked the climate change issue, calling it a socialist plot to effect an enormous transfer of wealth? Well which side has a proven, clearly demonstrated skill at enormous transfers of wealth? Which side has engineered the demise of the middle class, the multi-decadal stagnation in real wages and the vast expansion of the gap between rich and poor? If you're looking for an "enormous transfer of wealth" it already lies at your feet. Hiding behind a smokescreen of cheap money, the "shiny thing," these hucksters have been furiously transferring wealth while patting our heads and telling us fairy tales about "trickle down" economics. They have pillaged our governments, emptied our national treasuries and left in their wake mountains of debt behind which to make good their escape.

If the Right runs true to form, it already knows it has everything to gain and almost nothing to lose by sabotaging the efforts of centrists and the centre-left to tackle the climate change threat. Think Naomi Klein, think "Disaster Capitalism."

Writing in today's Guardian, Peter Preston ponders the climate change end game as it may play out if we're lulled into complacency by the denialists;

...it is, indeed, desperately late already to begin wondering openly whether democracy, in its rhetorical aspirations and covert calculations, in its consensual stumblings and murmured frailties, can cope with the upheaval that science tells us is necessary.

...We're used to the awful prophesies of cities submerged, continents parched, millions left to perish. But we're not used to thinking through what these things will mean for the systems we live by, the norms we embrace. Take the sum of all fears, when it's (almost) too late. Take the realisation, at last, that something has to be done. Take the sudden, alarmed perception that bickering politicians have been the problem all these years, not the solution. Then take the greatest care.
See what a relatively few terrorist strikes have wrought by way of corners cut, liberties eroded. Imagine how a savage mix of floods and droughts will devastate old assumptions. Enter a strong man, or a series of strong men, promising extraordinary action. Exit a generation of failed leaders without, it is said, the strength to lead.

If our climate changes, then much else must change with it. If Copenhagen sets a time scale for action, then every second counts. If public fear cries at last for sacrifice rather than temporising, then there will be no time for those we chose to lead us in an environment where debate and delay never ceases. That's democracy, of course. Our way, our belief. But, put to the test on current performance, it doesn't sound much like survival – unless the political classes know it's their survival at stake, too.

I think the seismic social upheaval envisioned by Preston is less a certainty than he suggests. What he overlooks is the inherent, almost unimaginable value in catastrophic climate change to be mined by the unscrupulous. It is a matter of political and economic treasures previously unknown, waiting to be plucked by the shrewd opportunist.

We, you and me, will wind up the worse off for it but, since the political malignancy of Ronald Reagan metastasized, we've become accustomed to that.

September 12, 2001

2009-11-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble,
along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time,
in the United States or any other country.

Make no mistake about it: We are at War now -
with somebody - and we will stay At War with that mysterious
Enemy for the rest of our lives.

It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad,
fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics
on both sides.

It will be guerrilla warfare on a
global cale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy.

We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who
or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say.
Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan, or Iraq, or possibly all three
at once. Who knows?

This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory
is not guaranteed - for anyone, and certainly not for anyone
as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that
his father started the war a long time ago, and that he,
the goofy child-President, has been chosen by
Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now.

He will declare a National Security Emergency
and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter
where they live or why. If the guilty won't hold up their hands
and confess, he and the Generals will ferret themn out by force.

The lid is on. Loose Lips Sink Ships. Don't say anything
that might give aid to The Enemy.

Hunter S. Thompson - 9/12/01

Even Republicans Are Sick of Republicans

2009-11-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

Dede Scozzafava was the Republican candidate for a US House seat from New York to be decided Tuesday but she is candidate Scozzafava no more.

The moderate Republican, her party's nominee, was squeezed out by an uber-right Republican running as a Conservative Party candidate. Creatures of the ilk of Sarah Palin were instrumental in the coup, blasting Scozzafava as a "RINO" - Republican in name only.

Seeing the writing on the wall and angry that her supporters were being pressured to abandon her by the neocon camp, Scozzafava withdrew from the election but not before throwing her support to her Democratic opponent.

Radical politics, radical religion - just what the world, and especially America, needs most today.

Who Owns America?

2009-11-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

Let's put it this way, it isn't Americans.

The United States government has about $3.5-trillion in IOUs issued by the Treasury in the form of bonds and notes.

Of this China, of course, holds just under $800-billion. Japan is a close second at $731-billion. The Brits are a distant third at a measly $225-billion. Canada? Well, we're way down the list. At $22.4 billion, we rank just behind Norway but still comfortably ahead of Egypt.

Now 3.5-trillion dollars in markers is a lot. Fortunately the American economy still runs at just over 12-trillion annually. Still, when that nation's overall debt obligations are factored in, it's a struggle to carry it. America does seem to be burning this candle at both ends.

America's Climate Change Kiln

2009-10-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

America's farmers and their representatives are rallying to fiercely oppose the climate and energy bill now before Congress. McClatchey Newspapers reports that farmers fear the legislation will undermine their bottom line by raising prices on electricity, gasoline and natural-gas based fertilizers.

It's no small irony that the states that stand to be most severely impacted by global warming include most of America's key agricultural zones. The news service published this graphic of the changes to come - with or without major emissions cuts - and it's not good news for the south and midwest.

National Post's National Lampoon Moment

2009-10-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

That 21st century media farce known as CanWest warns the bankruptcy court that it'll shut down The National Post if it's not allowed to roll the paper in with its other er, cough, newspapers. In other words, you play ball judge or you'll be throwing 280 people out of work.

Wait a second. Those of us old enough to remember have smelled this scam before. Why, yes, it was The National Lampoon that did the very same thing 36-years ago.

Bring CSIS Back to Earth

2009-10-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

Canada's intelligence service is in trouble if its boss, Dick Fadden, is any indication. In a speech at a security-intelligence conference, the new CSIS director revealed that he has a strange, even bizarre grasp of the Canadian people.

Fadden, reports The Globe & Mail, has it firmly in his pointy little bureaucrat's head that the Canadian public readily embraces terrorists as "folk heroes." Apparently having spent far too little time in the real world, Fadden fantasizes about a "loose partnership" of non-governmental organizations, advocacy journalists and lawyers having warped the Canadian public's sanity about terrorists.

Herr Direktor Fadden asked why those accused of terrorists offences are so often portrayed in our media as 'quasi folk heroes'? Say what?

I don't know about you or your community or your news outlets but I'm not aware of anybody in my little world who casts terrorism suspects in the light of folk heroes. I think Mr. Fadden would do well to get his medications reviewed.

We Need To Talk

2009-10-29T08:40:00.001-07:00

While we can hope that the departure of Ian Davey as Ignatieff chief of staff will somehow lift the LPC leader's sagging fortunes, there's a real risk that it's too little, too late. lt's good that the leader has gone for an experienced hand but I'm not sure that Donolo has ever had the challenge he's now facing. He never had to rescue Jean Chretien from Jean Chretien. His former boss was a political veteran, a skilled campaigner.

I think one of the first things Donolo should do is teach the Liberal leader to talk. Mr. Ignatieff needs to speak to the Canadian people, to present them an array of ideas and policies they can support. Day care, arts funding... blah, blah, blah. I'm sure they're all wonderful and deserving but they hardly rank among the existential crises facing Canada and the world.

Just because Harper doesn't want to talk about the serious stuff - and he doesn't if only because that would mean he might have to do something - doesn't mean the Liberal leader should follow suit.

I think the Canadian public realizes that bad stuff happens, that it is happening and that no one in Ottawa is even talking about that much less dealing with it. If the future of Canada and the fate of future generations of Canadians is a political potato too hot to handle, why have a national government at all?

We need to talk about things that matter to the Canadian public - things such as the security of our healthcare system, the rapidly growing gap between rich and poor, Canada's position and role in the world and every aspect of the global warming problem. Those are just for starters. We have to discuss these and, in the process, remind everyone of what liberalism is supposed to mean.

This isn't about polls or electoral tactics. It's about the heart and soul of the Liberal Party. It's about deciding whether the LPC is going to cleave to its liberal roots or content itself with being transformed into centre-right Democrats to the Tory's far-right Republicans.

Michael, let's talk.