9/30/2008

‘There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.'
So spoke Harry Anslinger, the US commissioner of narcotics, testifying to Congress on why marijuana should be made illegal, in 1937. The Marijuana Tax Act came into effect on 1 October 1937. Seventy years later, (...) -

1 October

Albert Einstein

‘I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.'

Law and Order stick (shtick)

by Dionne Brand

Conservatives and their satraps religiously haul out the ‘law and order’ stick each election. Fear not remedy is at the base of their deploying this trope. No one is against law and order, it would be like being against water, or against air or something; so the fake attacks about who is soft, and who hard, on crime are really just so much fear mongering and macho posturing.

Law and Order stick (shtick)

[analysis] Venezuelan State Oil Company's Growing Presence in Latin America

Central America, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and islands in the eastern Caribbean are receiving more and more oil from Venezuela, while major refineries are planned in South America -- at Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil, and at El Aromo, on Ecuador's Pacific coast. By Humberto Marquez - IPS

read more

Headfirst Slide to Base Faster, Say Physicists

...and now some important news

Scientists weigh in on baseball's headfirst versus feet-first slide question. Two physicists say physics shows that headfirst is faster. Previous studies showed no advantage or a slight disadvantage to headfirst sliding.
Wired.com

Headfirst Slide to Base Faster, Say Physicists

9/29/2008

How Can We Prevent The USA From Declining Too Quickly?

Did you ever imagine reading this?

Chinese academics discuss a framework for managing the waning of American power.

From Adbusters #79

How Can We Prevent The USA From Declining Too Quickly?

Canadian General Election 2008

What's your politics? Take the test at:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

The Conservative Party's move further towards the Bush-Reagan mix of free market economics with social conservatism makes the somewhat mercurial Liberals look more moderate, despite their own rightward drift. An emphasis on environmental issues has helped the Liberals downplay deep differences within the party on other key issues. The Greens, more fiscally conservative than most of their sister parties, also harbour significant left-right differences within their ranks. Similarly Bloc Québécois is united in its core cause, but considerably divided in other policy areas. In provinces where the NDP has governed in recent years, social spending cutbacks and other nods towards neoliberalism place the party today closer to where the Liberals were two decades ago.

During the campaign we'll be tweaking positions when necessary and hope to add some smaller parties as well.

From The Hook

Rare Woody Allen Interview

I received a comment on this post mentioning that Allen interviews are not that rare recently. If you're a Allen fan i would suggest checking out his blog at http://goodsmallfilms.blogspot.com/

Woody Allen interview in New York Magazine For its 40th anniversary New York Magazine scored an interview with one of the icons of American cinema, the filmmaker most associated with the city with the possible exception of Martin Scorsese

The King of Green Architecture

Architect William McDonough has spent his career on a single question: What if our buildings and the materials used to construct them could make the world a better place? Finding answers—including buildings that produce oxygen, power, and even food—has made him one of the world's foremost architects of the future.

The King of Green Architecture

9/28/2008

Damn it, she got married. Oh well...

End of Deregulation?

John Gray argues that the US financial crisis marks the end of the US/IMF model of "deregulation" economics, the end of US primacy, and the rise of economies that managed to avoid US/IMF strictures.

Ever since the end of the Cold War, successive American administrations have lectured other countries on the necessity of sound finance. Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina and several African states endured severe cuts in spending and deep recessions as the price of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which enforced the American orthodoxy. China in particular was hectored relentlessly on the weakness of its banking system. But China's success has been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is not Chinese banks that are currently going bust. How symbolic yesterday that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.

(Article via Murray Dobbin's mailing list)

Harper's Bunker: The State, Neoliberalism and the Election

by Bryan Evans and Greg Albo - September 25, 2008

The manner of governing of Stephen Harper's Conservative government might be characterized as a paradox with a purpose. A sharp centralization of authority over decision-making and political management in the executive branches of the state – particularly to augment policing, warmaking and market-enhancing administrative capacities – is accompanied by an equally focused policy agenda that seeks to hollow out the redistributive role of the Canadian federal state. This simultaneous centralization and decentralization is a key feature of the process of state restructuring under neoliberalism.

read more

Six Years in Guantanamo

More Fisk...

By Robert Fisk - September 28, 2008

Sami al-Haj walks with pain on his steel crutch; almost six years in the nightmare of Guantanamo have taken their toll on the Al Jazeera journalist and, now in the safety of a hotel in the small Norwegian town of Lillehammer, he is a figure of both dignity and shame. The Americans told him they were sorry when they eventually freed him this year - after the beatings he says he suffered, and the force-feeding, the humiliations and interrogations by British, American and Canadian intelligence officers...

read more

9/27/2008

A Flowering of Meaning

The international audience finds it's own media, free from western bias.

From Adbusters #79

A Flowering of Meaning

9/26/2008

Robert Fisk: ‘The Middle East Is Not a Complex Place’

My favourite journalist for honest reporting on anything Middle East, Fisk, has lived in and reported from there for 32 years. Eloquent and to the point. A video interview.

The acclaimed journalist stopped by our offices this week, where he told Truthdig editor Robert Scheer that the Middle East is a lot less puzzling than it’s made out to be: “It’s we who are there, not the other way round. ... It’s not our land. It’s not our religion. Our soldiers are in the Muslim world and they should not be there.”

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

9/25/2008

Bolivia's Water Fight by Daniel Aldana Cohen

Will violence in Bolivia deny water rights to its indigenous people?

Tough talk at the top of the world Shiny black hair tops AndrÃ©s Gonzales’s long, sturdy face. It catches the pale Sunday morning light as he stands to rebut an angry farmer in an asamblea...

Continue reading this article at http://www.walrusmagazine.com

globeandmail.com: To be creative is, in fact, Canadian

Margaret Atwood weighs in on Harper's condescending comments on the Canadian art world.

What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we?

globeandmail.com: To be creative is, in fact, Canadian

Arts cuts and & ordinary people

The YouTube Video above, an English-subtitled version of a French Quebec-made video about cuts to arts funding by the federal government, is closing on 100,000 views, and the original has been viewed more than 400,000 times.

Arts cuts and "ordinary people"

Bill Moyers Interviews Kevin Phillips

Straight from the hip prognosis on the U.S financial meltdown. Hang onto your hat- it's a ways to touchdown.

Via: PBS: Obama told me one time he read some of my books. So I would be very interested and impressed if he in January started to say something has really gone wrong in this country. And I’m not sure that I or anybody else can turn it around. But we borrowed so much money. We’ve let [...]

Bill Moyers Interviews Kevin Phillips

A dangerous obsession

Neo-conservatives and former Israeli diplomats are said to be behind the distribution of millions of copies of the controversial, allegedly Islamaphobic movie Obsession in swing states in the United States ahead of November's presidential elections. Now federal authorities have been asked to investigate the "hate propaganda" campaign. (Sep 25, '08)

A dangerous obsession

THE ROVING EYE : A bailout and a new world

Pepe Escobar in Asian Times.

While the US is trying to implement its US$700 billion financial bail-out plan, French President Nicolas Sarkozy talks of "rebuilding" capitalism. In the corridors of the United Nations, there is talk of another kind of rebuilding, of a new multipolar world that would get rid of imperialism and colonialism. Call it the revenge of the developing world. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 25, '08)

THE ROVING EYE : A bailout and a new world

9/24/2008

Dirty Business: The Tar Sands of Alberta and Toxic Waste

By Andrew Nikiforuk - September, 21 2008

Fred McDonald, a Métis trapper and storyteller extraordinaire, often questioned the reasoning and science behind the proliferation of toxic ponds and end-pit lakes. Before he died in 2007 of kidney failure, McDonald lived in Fort McKay, an Aboriginal community 72 kilometres north of Fort Saskatchewan. The stench of hydrocarbons from the surrounding mines often hangs heavily in the air there, and in 2006, an ammonia release from a Syncrude facility hospitalized more than 20 children...["]We are slowly losing everything."

read more

New Zealand Considers Allowing Satire and Parody

New Zealand is now considering an explicit provision in its copyright legislation to allow for satire and parody. This follows a recent amendments in Australia. Section 41(A) of the Australian Copyright Act as amended in 2006 provides that: A fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or with an adaptation of a literary, dramatic or

New Zealand Considers Allowing Satire and Parody

This persecution of Gypsies is now the shame of Europe

Italy's campaign against the Roma has ominous echoes of its fascist past, and the silence of our leaders is deafening

Seumas Milne: This persecution of Gypsies is now the shame of Europe

GPass Bypass Censorship and Restrictions

Censorship is a huge problem in many countries of the world but especially rampant in the Middle East and Asia. If websites and information are censored the local population has a hard time accessing them from within the country. This usually involves the use of proxy servers or vpn solutions to bypass the country’s restrictions.

GPass Bypass Censorship and Restrictions

Threat to Democracy in Latin America

Open letter published in the Guardian (UK) and signed by a variety of progressives, which calls on European governments to adopt a foreign policy independent of the Bush administration and in support of democracy in Latin America. By Various Authors

read more

Nazzal/Jamail story voted #1

“Iraq: Not our country to Return to” for Inter Press Service, by Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail, voted #1 most censored story of 2008 by Project Censored.

More information about the story:

#1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009

Nazzal/Jamail story voted #1

9/23/2008

The Harper Record

Lefty think-tank the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has just published "The Harper Record," a new book analyzing the record of the Conservative Government under Stephen Harper, just in time for the election. Even better for curious readers out there, the whole thing is available to download as a free PDF.

The CCPA swears up and down that the proximity of the publication date and the election are coincidental (books don't materialize overnight, after all). But "The Harper Record" provides campaign ammunition for Conservative opponents, and it pulls together a lot of information into one easy hymnbook for everyone to sing from.

In all, it contains 38 chapters on every aspect of the Conservatives' record, from their handling of manufacturing closures, conduct of the Afghan mission, biofuels, tarsands, nuclear energy, migrant workers, disability rights, child care, and so on.

Centre for Policy Alternatives has new book about Stephen Harper, good timing

[analysis] Gender In Venezuela

Michael Albert interviews the director of Venezuela's Women's Bank, Nora Castañeda, who talks about the changing gender relations and pro-women policies under the Chavez government. By Michael Albert - ZNet

read more

9/21/2008

The Collective Wisdom of Canadians - Vive

As polls show a softening support for Harper’s conservatives it may well be Canadians are once again resorting to our collective wisdom and we are heading toward another minority government. As one Globe and Mail reader commented “We cannot afford another minority government.” This reader is dead wrong as under the circumstances we have no other option.

OTTAWA -- The text from a speech made by Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, to a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing U.S. think tank, and taken from the council's website:

"First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States. "(Full text included in the article)

The Collective Wisdom of Canadians - Vive

In hard times, tent cities rise across the country - USNews.com: Nation and World: AP Article

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.

Then others appeared - people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" - an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

(more)

In hard times, tent cities rise across the country - USNews.com: Nation and World: AP Article

Its The Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie, AIG Had To Be Bailed Out

Now this is a head spinner! I'll have to read this 4 or 5 times. I hope that'll help.

By Ellen Brown
Why the extraordinary bailout measures for Fannie, Freddie and AIG? The answer may have less to do with saving the insurance business, the housing market, or the Chinese investors clamoring for a bailout than with the greatest Ponzi scheme in history, one that is holding up the entire private global banking system. What had to be saved at all costs was not housing or the dollar but the financial derivatives industry; and the precipice from which it had to be saved was an event of default that could have collapsed a quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble, a collapse that could take the entire global banking system down with it

Its The Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie, AIG Had To Be Bailed Out
Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:45:15 GMT

Ponzi scheme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A term that has been popping up lately.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves promising or paying abnormally high returns ("profits") to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi. (read on)

Ponzi scheme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

9/19/2008

Disaster in Afghanistan

By John W. Warnock - September 9, 2008

Contrary to the mainstream message, things are not going well...Over the past few weeks NATO forces have killed civilians in a number of incidents, and popular opposition to the western military effort is increasing...In Kabul hundreds blocked the main road out of town protesting the military practices of the international forces...However, the most important current issue in Afghanistan is the drought, the crop failure, and the prospect of famine.

read more

9/18/2008

Lost middle-class tribe's 'secret' eco-village in Wales spotted in aerial photograph taken by plane | Mail Online

For five happy years they enjoyed simple lives in their straw and mud huts.

Generating their own power and growing their own food, they strived for self-sufficiency and thrived in homes that looked more suited to the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings.

Then a survey plane chanced upon the 'lost tribe'... and they were plunged into a decade-long battle with officialdom.

Lost middle-class tribe's 'secret' eco-village in Wales spotted in aerial photograph taken by plane | Mail Online

Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA

This would have to be the most startling news of the day, especially coming at a time like this.

DOUG SAUNDERS

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

LONDON — Canadian and European officials say they plan to begin negotiating a massive agreement to integrate Canada's economy with the 27 nations of the European Union, with preliminary talks to be launched at an Oct. 17 summit in Montreal three days after the federal election.

globeandmail.com: Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA

Why aren't there more stories like this in the MSM?

An economics lesson for Stephen Harper (and everyone else, come to that), in which Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner gives Greg Mankiw a call. It's a clear and readable explanation of the economics of climate change policy, in 800 words or fewer. And all a journalist had to do was call an economist and ask a couple of questions.

See? It can be done.

The Machine Gun and The Meeting Table: Bolivian Crisis in a New South America

By Ben Dangl - September 17, 2008

The recent conflict in Bolivia and the subsequent meeting of [South American] presidents raise the questions: What led to this meltdown? Whose side is the Bolivian military on? And what does the Bolivian crisis and regional reaction tell us about the new power bloc of South American nations?

read more

Maps of Tar Sands Development

The purpose of these maps is to show all existing development related to tar sands throughout Alberta for the first time. Many of the maps also include approved and/or proposed industrial development. It is likely that no authorities want to see all of the proposed development gathered in one place for others to see, interpret and be able to react to accordingly. Consequently there are no such government provided map sources.

read more

The Canadian election and the Afghan War

Murray Dobbin: Canadian government is supporting an American policy that's against Canada's interests

The Canadian election and the Afghan War

Morgan Solar: Simple, Cheap, and Efficient Concentrated Solar Power, Part 2

A few weeks ago, I posted a brief introduction to Morgan Solar, a Toronto-based start-up that has invented a new method for building simple and cheap solar concentrators. Many of you asked for more details, so I asked Nicolas Morgan, the company’s Director of Business Development, some in-depth questions about Morgan Solar.

Read more of this story »

9/17/2008

Harper's unnerving confidence

Seemingly lots to blog about today. Might be just a case of blogitis.

Canadians will need more than a steady hand on the tiller to weather the financial crisis erupting in the United States.

Harper's unnerving confidence

Tar sands firms balk at wetlands policy

Two major industry associations representing oilsands producers are refusing to support key tenets of a long-awaited plan to protect Alberta's wetlands, citing concerns about rigid rules and restoration costs that could stretch to $1 billion and beyond.

Environmental groups say they have been blindsided by the decision.

read more

Happy Birthday!!!

Humanitarian Imperialism

By Noam Chomsky - September 16, 2008

Such notions as "humanitarian intervention" and "the responsibility to protect" [have come] to be salient features of Western discourse on policy, commonly described as establishing a "new norm" in international affairs...There are few basic changes in the guiding conceptions [of US imperialism] as we proceed to the Bush II doctrine, which elicited unusual mainstream protest, not because of its basic content, but because of its brazen style and arrogance...

read more

Counterfeit democracy

The US Trade Representative's officials say there is no reason to be worried: ACTA (a secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) won't require more than existing US free trade agreements, they say. Meanwhile, business groups are explicit that they believe ACTA should do far more than existing US free trade agreements. Are they having their way?

Counterfeit democracy
Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:30:54 GMT

THE CRIME OF THE CANADIAN BANKING SYSTEM

In a time when money, debt and chaos are on the minds of many, I'm brought back to Gerald Gratton McGeer. Never heard of him? Neither had I. It was through him that the Bank of Canada was created in the 30's. A national hero! Check out the 3 videos here (total: 30 minutes). I think it might be news to you.
Highly recommended. Would be interested in any comments.

December 24, 2006

Honorable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance

Re: The Bank of Canada and Why It was Created

The purpose of the Cowichan Citizens Coalition’s Duncan Initiative is to remind elected officials that:

1. The Canadian Constitution Act of 1867, article 97, gives the Government of Canada the "exclusive" right to create the nation’s money.

2. The statutes of the Bank of Canada Act of 1934, article 18(1)(c) and (j) spell out clearly how governments, federal, provincial, or municipal, borrow from the Bank of Canada for public projects and services with little or no added interest.

Sir, "money exists not by nature but by law" as Aristotle stated 2300 years ago. Article 14(2) places you, an elected official of Canada, as final authority for Bank of Canada policy. You hold all the shares of the BoC on our behalf. Your duty is to uphold that BoC law.

On September 30 you declared a [budget] surplus of $13B which you would use to pay down the debt. Why would you not borrow that $13B to pay down the debt from the Bank of Canada interest free, and use the $13B surplus to provide urgently needed social services like child care or housing for thousands of homeless Canadians?
read on...

THE CRIME OF THE CANADIAN BANKING SYSTEM

9/16/2008

Investors press for disclosure of tar sands’ climate risk

From the new web site Tar Sands Free B.C.

F&C Management, the UK’s oldest investment trust, has teamed up with a group of US and Canadian fund managers to halt Wall Street financial regulators softening the rules on tar sands, arguing that new rules should take account of the carbon impact of reserves disclosed by oil and gas companies.

Investors press for disclosure of tar sands’ climate risk

Shady employment agents prey on foreign workers

Shady employment agents prey on foreign workers
Seeking work, would-be immigrants are charged placement fees for jobs that don't exist
Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun // August 31, 2008

Antonio Navarro's story speaks of the uglier side of what is happening as B.C. targets the Philippines as a source of labour to ease its shortages.

read more

Iraq: Take Another Look at the Surge

By PATRICK COCKBURN - September 15, 2008

...[T]he Iraqi government and the US have launched a largely successful propaganda campaign to convince the rest of the world that “things are better” in Iraq and life is returning to normal...The surge only achieved the degree of success it did because Iran decided to back fully the government of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki...It [also] negotiated a ceasefire between the Iraqi government and the powerful movement of Muqtada al-Sadr...US security in Iraq is highly dependent on Iranian actions.

read more

The Crash of Western Capitalist Civilization?

Article by Richard Cook.

"Train-wreck" doesn't even begin to describe what is starting to happen to the U.S. today with the financial crisis, an onrushing depression, and the failure of George W. Bush's war policy as he is faced down by Iran and the Russian bear. But in an even broader sense, the West, as a civilization, after a century of world war and the utter failure of global finance capitalism, may have reached its limits. Those with a vested interest in the status quo dismiss any suggestion that something is wrong...

The Crash of Western Capitalist Civilization?

Uruguay: The Politics of Recent History

Today, as Uruguay finds itself governed by the first non-traditional party in its history, composed of parties once repressed by...

Uruguay: The Politics of Recent History

9/15/2008

A Matter of Morals, Not Morales: Respect Bolivia's Democracy!

Yet again, the United States appears to be siding with violent right-wing elements to undermine a Latin American democracy.

A Matter of Morals, Not Morales: Respect Bolivia's Democracy!
Olivia Burlingame Goumbri, AlterNet

This is the U.S. on White Privilege

I've decided to not 'do' internal U.S. issues in this blog but sometimes can not. ...An entertaining rant.

By Tim Wise - Znet Commentary

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

read more

A Blueprint for Dismantling Public Science

And for those who think that Harper's desire to privatizing government is a fantasy of the paranoids among us, check this out.

On June 6, 2008, the Treasury Board released the long-awaited report of the Independent Panel of Experts studying the transfer of federal government laboratories to academia and/or the private sector. Following up on the government's intentions outlined in the 2007 federal budget, the panel identified five "early candidates" for transfer. The first two will be Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Canadian Cereal Research and Innovation Laboratory in Winnipeg, and Natural Resources Canada's Geosciences Laboratory in Ottawa.

A Blueprint for Dismantling Public Science
Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:29:52 GMT

Worth repeating: An open letter to New Democrats, Greens, and progressive Liberals

Lorne Browne's article on proportional representation and strategic voting from our February 2007 issue, reproduced below, is as timely as ever.

By Lorne Brown Briarpatch Magazine February 2007 Selective co-operation among parties in several dozen constituencies could deny Stephen Harper control of the country in the next election. Much of what I am about to say would be unnecessary if Canada had a system of proportional representation like most countries claiming to be democracies.

Worth repeating: An open letter to New Democrats, Greens, and progressive Liberals

Noam Chomsky

‘Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S media.' Noam Chomsky

9/14/2008

What's the matter with Canada?

A take on the upcoming Canadian election as seen from the south in Slate Magazine.

Last Sunday, news came that Canada—sensible, quiet, some would even say boring Canada—will hold an election on Oct. 14, its third in four years. Those outside the country may wonder what the problem is; in Canada, after all, health care is free, the dollar is strong, same-sex marriage is legal, and the government had the good sense to stay out of Iraq. You might think of Canada as the un-America, where the only debate ought to be whether to spend the country's growing oil wealth on faster snowmobiles, bigger hockey rinks, or Anne Murray box sets.
[more ...]

Sarah Palin Stares Down the World

Pepe Escobar analyzes Palin's comments in her famous first interview. Chilling and surreal. So what else is new?

The Republican vice presidential nominee vows not to "blink" in the face of U.S. enemies. Watch TheRealNews.com's video. September 13, 2008

Sarah Palin Stares Down the World

9/13/2008

These Are the New Middle Ages, Not a New Order

We are entering -- for those keeping track -- the new new, new new world order. President George Bush Snr's world order of multilateral cooperation was embarrassed by Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. Pax Americana, rebranded as globalisation under Bill Clinton, was shattered by 9/11. For the past seven years we've been living under the "war on terror" world order paradigm, creating more cleavages than it has healed.

But this time the conditions are very different. The world has stopped waiting for the US - and its next president -- to declare its roadmap for the future. Instead, the other 96% of the planet has decided to move on… more

9/12/2008

Tell The Truth

The Elephant In The Room

Towards a Second Cold War?

Noem Chompsky opines in Counterpunch on the Georgia situation, the ironies therein and the larger context.

George Bush, Condoleezza Rica and other dignitaries solemnly invoked the sanctity of the United Nations, warning that Russia could be excluded from international institutions “by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with” their principles. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be rigorously honored, they intoned – “all nations,” that is, apart from those that the US chooses to attack: Iraq, Serbia, perhaps Iran, and a list of others too long and familiar to mention.

Noam Chomsky: Towards a Second Cold War?

9/11/2008

$490 Billion defense road map rollout, blacked out by media

You would think something like a detailed road map of ‘the modernization of the Canadian forces’, at the big fancy 8th Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDMA) would elicit some sort discussion or analysis from the Canadian media/ chattering class. At the conference, Peter Mackay began to spin links between the need to respond to ‘natural disasters’ and ‘security of the Olympics’ with armed security. The highlight of the conference was the release of Canada's 20-year, $490 billion “Canada First Defense Strategy,”

read more

Collider's launch may spell end to U.S. lead in science

With the most significant physics installation in the world now located here on the Swiss-French border, employing 9,000 of the world's top physicists, and with Washington having cancelled or scaled down its funding for many of its largest physics initiatives, it is widely felt that only Europe now has the mass of funding able to attract the best minds in the field.

9/08/2008

INVASION - A COMPARISON OF SOVIET AND WESTERN MEDIA PERFORMANCE - PART 1

The writer Simon Louvish once told the story of a group of Soviets touring the United States before the age of glasnost. After reading the newspapers and watching TV, they were amazed to find that, on the big issues, all the opinions were the same. "In our country," they said, "to get that result we have a dictatorship, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. So what's your secret? How do you do it?" (Quoted, John Pilger, Tell Me No Lies, Random House, 2004, p.9)
continue here:

INVASION - A COMPARISON OF SOVIET AND WESTERN MEDIA PERFORMANCE - PART 1

coincidence

25%

-The amount the world's energy the U.S. consumes

-The amount of the world's prisoners in U.S. prisons

9/07/2008

Symposium Calls For End Of Binary Discussion Of Rightsholders Versus Pirates

By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch LINZ, AUSTRIA - Copyright discussion has become a simplistic binary debate of "pirates that steal everything" versus "rightsholders that want to protect everything," warned Japanese entrepreneur, blogger and CEO of the Creative Commons Joichi Ito in his opening remarks for this year’s Ars Electronica ...

Symposium Calls For End Of Binary Discussion Of Rightsholders Versus Pirates

Your Mind, The Battlefield

I couldn't have said it better, or,...er, I couldn't have said it as well.

So the Presidential conventions are at an end. Now we just have to painfully sit through two months of media speculation and, of course, the debates, before we’re treated to a result.

Your Mind, The Battlefield
Matthew Good

Conservative Image Problem

A little video produced by "anonymous" . Harper mulls over reaction to cuts for cultural programs. Funny!

Conservative Image Problem: | The Dominion

isoHunt Sues the CRIA to Legalize BitTorrent Sites

isoHunt Sues the CRIA to Legalize BitTorrent Sites | TorrentFreak: "Following Demonoid and QuebecTorrent, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has threatened isoHunt with legal action. However, isoHunt has decided to launch a preemptive strike, as it turns the tables and sues the CRIA instead."

9/05/2008

Iraq, Iran, China: the emerging axis

The transfer of authority in Iraq's Anbar province from American to Iraqi security forces on 1 September 2008 is an index of confidence that the situation in Iraq is indeed improving. There are indeed signs of progress across much of the country, though some of these have to be qualified by noting the context in which they are emerging. It is also important to keep an eye on the larger strategic picture in Iraq and the region, where the United States is surrounded by both familiar and unexpected concerns.

Iraq, Iran, China: the emerging axis, Paul Rogers

Cuba: Composer of Guantanamera Born 100 Years Ago

Cuba's most recognized song “Guantanamera” was written by Joseíto Fernández, who was born 100 years ago and who wrote the song when he was 20 years old, writes VivirLatino.

No wonder the Harper government is against a carbon tax

After watching a video clip of Canada's Environment Minister trying to explain the ins-and-outs of a carbon tax policy, it is clear now why Harper government is so vehemently against a carbon tax policy in Canada - they don't know what it is.

Charlie Angus on Digital Issues and the Election

P2PNet.net publishes an editorial by NDP MP Charlie Angus on the election and key digital issues such as copyright and net neutrality.

Voltaire

‘Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.' Voltaire - The Word

9/04/2008

Snatching Food from the Mouths of the Poor

A new wave of food colonialism manufactures famine in Africa and Asia

By George Monbiot
The Guardian, August 26 2008

In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis tells the story of the famines that sucked the guts out of India in the 1870s. The hunger began when a drought, caused by El Nino, killed the crops on the Deccan plateau. As starvation bit, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat. While Lytton lived in imperial splendor and commissioned, among other extravagances, “the most colossal and expensive meal in world history,” between 12 and 29 million people died.[1] Only Stalin manufactured a comparable hunger.

Now a new Lord Lytton is seeking to engineer another brutal food grab. As Tony Blair’s favoured courtier, Peter Mandelson often created the impression that he would do anything to please his master. Today he is the European trade commissioner. From his sumptuous offices in Brussels and Strasbourg, he hopes to impose a treaty which will permit Europe to snatch food from the mouths of some of the world’s poorest people.

Snatching Food from the Mouths of the Poor

Seawater Greenhouse Project Could Make Deserts Fertile

Solar power—is there anything it can’t do? British scientists have found a new use for solar technology with the Sahara Forest Project, a proposed plan to combine greenhouses that use seawater to grow crops with solar power installations.

The greenhouse-solar power combination could potentially provide food, fresh water and energy to deserts.

According to the project’s designers, the technology works by having greenhouses use solar farms to power seawater evaporators. Cool air is pumped through the greenhouses, reducing the temperature by about 15 C compared to outside.

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Peace begins at home: Real alternatives for Canada in Afghanistan

By John W. Warnock Briarpatch Magazine September/October 2008

"No nation can donate liberation to another nation. Liberation should be achieved in a country by the people themselves."

Malalai Joya, Member, Afghan House of the People

The U.S. imperial project in Afghanistan has faltered. The government created by the United States lacks credibility and legitimacy. The vast majority of the people remain poor. The drug economy is dominant. Despite an increase in NATO military forces, the armed resistance led by the Taliban is increasing in strength. So what should Canada's response be?