Where Do People Stand In The Harper Hierarchy?

The answer would seem to be, "Nowhere near the top." As discussed in yesterday's post on CETA, leaked documents confirm that Canadian sovereignty, something all citizens should have a right to expect, will continue the erosion that began under NAFTA. Specifically, the dispute-settlement mechanism that enables investors to sue governments when they pass legislation that impairs their ability to make profits (as in environmental regulations, drug regulation, etc.) will be a centre-piece. As well, Canadian governments on every level will see their efforts to locally source good and services severely curtailed.

The corporate state has clearly arrived.

But its arrival affects other areas of our lives, not the least of which is public safety. Industry self-regulation has accelerated under the Harper regime, in part a response to trade liberalization but also a reflection of an ideology which believes government involvement in the affairs of state and commerce should be minimal. Hence the disasters of Walkerton, Maple Leaf Foods, etc. Air disasters, god forbid, seem likely in the future as well due to changes at Transport Canada.

Then of course, there was the entirely preventable tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, which recently observed the one-year anniversary of the deaths of 47 people and the destruction of a significant portion of the town.

Despite those grievous losses, third-party proprietary rights are being invoked as the reason we Canadians cannot know the specifics of that massive failure of safety. As reported in today's Toronto Star, the paper's access-to-information requests resulted in only some information being released:

Safety inspections of the rail company implicated in the Lac-Mégantic train disaster found defective equipment, problems with locomotives, and sections of rail lines so rundown trains could not exceed speeds of 10 miles per hour.

But Transport Canada is blocking the release of information detailing the majority of the problems and their severity, saying the inspection reports cannot be provided in full because the information is “third-party” — confidential, and belonging to the rail company — or was prepared or obtained in the course of an investigation.

[T]he majority of the more than 1,000-page compilation of inspection documents was withheld or heavily censored.

These inspections, by the way, were not performed by Transport Canada, but by the railway company's own crews.

The unredacted portion received by The Star is damning enough:

- employees told investigators the company was using poorly maintained locomotives, and that instead of repairing worn train tracks, ... the company just lowered the speed limit.

- the company performed minimal maintenance on locomotives, and said locomotive 5017 (the one that caused the disaster) was in particularly poor condition.

- Transport Canada repeatedly flagged safety concerns and non-compliance with rail standards by the now-defunct company

Equally disturbing is the fact that the rail companies establish their own safety management protocols:

The arrangement allows rail companies to draft and enforce their own safety regimes, which are then audited by Transport Canada. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is considered third-party proprietary information, and hence the embargo on truth about the disaster.

All Canadians should be outraged by yet another failure on the part of the Harper regime to protect its citizens while simultaneously extolling and elevating the world's corporate denizens.

A Public Service Announcement From The Conservative Party Of Canada

Given the Harper regime's new-found zeal for warning all of us about the dangers of marijuana, and, coincidentally, the equally dangerous potential of a Justin Trudeau-led government, perhaps the following will help them to bring home the dangers of both:



H/t Patrick Clarke

Praising Stephen Harper

Now that I have your attention, let me assure that I am not the source of that praise. No, a site called Breaking Israel News is. Drawing heavily upon a piece written by the Ottawa Citizen's Mark Kennedy, it offers the following effusive approval of Stephen Harper:

The support he has shown for Israel has been absolute and unwavering for the entirety of Harper’s career, so much so that it has spread to many others within the political and social hierarchy of Canada.

For his support, Harper became the only foreign dignitary to have received the Key to the Knesset and who was termed as a true friend of Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kennedy accurately explained that Harper stressed that conservatives understood “the notion that moral rules form a chain of right and duty, and that politics is a moral affair,” unlike the “modern left” — which had adopted a position of “moral neutrality”.

Harper fully believes that it is in Canada’s and the rest of the western world’s best interest to support Israel and to do what is morally right. After all, the only state in the Middle East that shares the same fundamental values which Canada’s conservative party stands for is Israel. And as Harper said in 2003, “Conservatives must take the moral stand, with our allies, in favour of the fundamental values of our society, including democracy, free enterprise and individual freedom.”

There is a comments section at the end of this propaganda exercise. The majority are along the following lines:

Praise God for Prime Minister Harper that has the integrity, character and guts to stick by Israel and the Jewish People. Prime Minister Harper is a man of strong faith and is acting on the Bible/Torah where is says I will bless those who bless thee, which speaks about Israel and the Jewish!!!

Thank you Prime Minister Harper for taking a stand and remaining steadfast no matter what is flung at you. And I say Amen to that!

Proud of my Prime Minister.

However, some Canadians have tried to set the record straight about our domestic martinet:

I am sure to be dismissed but as a Canadian, who converted to Judaism long ago, I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with Harper's opinion and staunch support of those who run Israel currently. Zealotry is not appealing in anyway, racism and fascism should not be supported nor condoned.

The current climate and tolerance demonstrated by Israel in no way represents democracy nor freedom. If one were to remove the country of origin from the stories and have them read, there would be few who would support or even justify the actions of the Israeli leaders currently.

Since fair and balanced commentary is always desirable, perhaps some of you might also like to weigh in with your assessment of Mr. Harper. I already have.

And This Is A Good Deal Because?

Despite the best efforts of the ever-secretive Harper cabal, details about the CETA deal are finally emerging thanks to leaked portions of the text. And as has been long-predicted, those details are not encouraging when it comes to Canadian sovereignty in general, and local sourcing of construction contracts, goods and services in particular.

While government websites, replete with encomiums from business entities, crow about what this deal will accomplish, more critical sources offer much to suggest the need for grave misgivings.

Take, for example, the matter of investor rights. Chapter 11, the investor-dispute mechanism under NAFTA, has resulted in numerous suits against the government from companies claiming loss of earnings due to legislation or judicial rulings. One such case involved Eli Lily suing Canada for $500 million over patent rights to two of its drugs. Another involved Lone Pine Resources, which is suing the federal government for $250 million due to Quebec’s moratorium on oil and gas fracking beneath the St. Lawrence River.

Yet the Harper government, in its apparent zeal to cede even more authority to multinational corporations, seems undaunted by these and many other ongoing suits.

With apparently almost identical provisions under CETA, perhaps the direness of the situation is best summed up by Scott Sinclair of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:

"The outcome of the deal is that corporations win and citizens on both sides of the Atlantic lose."

Equally disturbing is the provision about procurement rights:

The main benefit for Europe is easy to name: Canada opens its public procurements to European corporations. European companies are much stronger when it comes to public tenders because there aren't as many Canadian companies willing to bid in European public procurements.

Today's Star offers more details of the public procurement provisions, and gives this bleak assessment:

The ability of provincial governments and cities like Toronto to boost their economies by favouring local companies on major goods and services contracts will be sharply curtailed under the terms of Canada’s free-trade pact with Europe, leaked details of the agreement confirm.

Specifically, provincial agencies and ministries will have to open up bidding to businesses from EU countries on goods and services contracts worth approximately $300,000 or more.

The threshold is higher for construction contracts: about $7.9 million.

Essentially, the same rules will apply to school boards, [p]ublic agencies or utilities that operate airports, rail or bus transport, marine ports, electricity distribution, drinking water provision or the production of gas and heat.

Once more, Canadian citizens must sit on the sidelines in government-imposed ignorance, thanks in large part to the most secretive government that has ever existed in Canada, Tony Clement's recent hilarious declarations about government transparency notwithstanding.

While it is highly unlikely the CETA deal will be finalized before the next election, given the millimeters of difference that exist between the major parties on most issues, holding an unsanctioned 'faint-hope' clause in our collective psyche may be all we can realistically aspire to.

Responses To My Previous Post

I am always grateful when people take the time to respond to my posts. Engaging in discussions, exchanging points of view are part of what makes this blog worthwhile. On occasion I like to reproduce comments as separate posts, aware of the fact that often those comments will be missed by readers who generally don't return to read them. In that spirit I offer these responses from Scotian and Simon to my previous post on Justin Trudeau. Both reflect a point of view shared by many of us, that the first priority has to be to get rid of Harper, and that Trudeau's timidity is in part a reflection of the LPC's desire not to provide any ammunition to the Conservatives who, time and time again, have shown their willingness to stoop to any dirty trick to try to sully those who oppose them.

Scotian:

Not that I am wanting to be defending this, as I've already said here I disagree profoundly with this choice of his on this issue, but how much of this is because he knows he cannot afford to give the Harper machine any chance to portray him especially on foreign policy grounds as unserious. Remember the comment I made that you chose to post on your blog? Those forces are no doubt watching Trudeau like a Hawk hoping for just the slightest chance to tear at him so as to let them keep their preferred man Harper in the PMO. So it is possible what we are seeing is as you said bobbing and weaving like in that boxing match, but remember, that serves a real purpose, to stay in the fight until you can deliver your hard punches to win.

I'm not saying I'm happy with this, because I am not. I am though also not going to pretend that as ugly and horrific as things are with Israel and the Palestinians that I am going to make my political domestic judgments in the current reality on them either. I do not know that my view is correct, that Trudeau is saying what he needs to to be able to stay in the fight to beat Harper, and if he is it is something I never like seeing political leaders do, but I won't pretend that there isn't real reason for a leader with Trudeaus limited record to do it on an issue as charged and with as powerful a lobby on one side as we have here.

Even if I am wrong though and he truly believes what he is saying, I am still not going to change my view that letting him become the next PM is still the best choice among the three actually viable options, because while Mulcair may have more experience as a leader the way he operates is not a whole lot better than Harper in my eyes, granted for less destructive purposes. I don't trust those in his team for competence to run a government, I do trust in the institutional experience within the Liberal party though, and that is why I can still support a Lib leader who comes in with as limited experience as Trudeau, especially since he clearly knows how to find quality competent people around him and makes them get the job done. Look at how much he has been able to rebuild the Lib party itself for proof of that.

He is clearly not his father in intellect, but then how many of us are? Is he as developed as I would prefer, no but then I think he himself would say that. He didn't after all, initially want to run for leader this soon, he wanted to build up more experience, the problem was the 2011 results left him with a stark choice, either run now or there quite possibly wouldn't be a Lib party for him to lead when he did have that experience. So I understand your concerns Lorne, and even to a degree share them, but I also keep the context we have in mind too, and I do not believe that Trudeau is so able a leader to run and win his leadership with a 80% first ballot win, then rebuild his party machinery from the ground up, fundraising machinery overhauled as it has been, and not understand that he needs to put out more serious substance, I'm hoping he is biding his time. Too soon as we know what the Harper CPC will do, we've seen that movie already after all. Just ask Dion.

If we were in typical times I could not support a first time leader such as Trudeau, but these are anything but, and I refuse to allow myself to be diverted from the most important short term goal, the removal of Harper and the CPC, and hopefully with enough force to send them to third party status hopefully allowing the Red Tories to take over the CPC and turn it into something sane.

Simon:

I went to see JT in London last year and before the Party nomination precisely because I didn't believe the hype. I was impressed with his poise and knowledge and ultimately decided that he is the real deal. I too, however, feel vaguely disappointed with his public position re: Zion and Gaza.

I fairness though, he is still only a PM in waiting. He is young and inexperienced and has already suffered several beatings at the hands of the CPC bullys precisely for taking firm positions (pro-choice, pot). Since he still has to *win* popular support (and the next election), I think it is reasonable for him to be somewhat more coy about extremely divisive issues.

His head and heart are in the right place. He is a proud Canadian and a champion of this great country and its liberal values. This is the diametric opposite of Harper's Alberta-centric, corporate oil pandering, science-denying, climate-change ignoring, anti-woman, opaque, unaccountable, controversial subterfuge.

I want this young man to lead this country. He'll find his feet.

Cheers, Simon

I replied:

Thanks to both Scotian and Simon for your well-considered comments. I hope you won't mind if I publish both in a separate blog entry, as they provide incisive counter-balances to the views I expressed above.

While I do believe that you are quite right about the dangers being forthright would pose at the hands of the Harper henchmen, I do think there are ways to be fair to both the Gazans and Israelis without alienating the supporters of either side. I wish Trudeau would opt for one of those ways.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

To which Scotian responded:

I've got no problems with it, if I did why would I write comments in the first place? LOL

Seriously, it is not like I disagree with you on the preference, but I am also mindful of the fact that Trudeau has only one chance to win here, the moment he makes those "in over his head" ads look credible on any serious issue, however fairly or unfairly, is the moment his and the Lib chances take a serious hit and all that CPC voter support he and the Libs have been pulling away risks returning to Harper. It is not likely they will go to Mulcair and the NDP, they didn't for Layton in 2011 after all. Remember, it is not just he Harper henchmen I fear on this issue, indeed in some ways they would be the pick-up follow-through to the ones I truly fear, who would also give a dangerous credibility to that attack from the Harperites. It is not in the interests of the pro-Israel-at-all-costs lobby to lose Harper, who clearly is the most committed to their POV of all our leaders, and it is they I fear would do the initial damage which then the Harperites could and would exploit.

I think that the political team around Trudeau can see that at least as easily as I can, so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt despite my clear distaste for what is said and for the fact that if I am right we have a leader saying one thing while believing another, something I never like seeing in politics from anyone. That said though, we cannot really make any difference in Gaza, especially with Harper as PM, but we CAN make a difference in who is our PM, so that is where I believe our focus must stay, even when we see such ugliness as we have seen over the past several weeks, both in the ME and in our domestic discourse about it.

The hard and ugly truth is Trudeau because of his inexperience as a leader cannot afford to take risks like the one you wished he would, not yet. Once he gains the gravitas as a PM he can, and I would hope will, but for now he needs to keep the foreign policy arena as neutral a space as possible in terms of the difference between him and Harper so as to prevent it being used to undercut his and the Lib chances, and especially so on this issue given the outside/third party lobby interest already referred to.

Believe me Lorne, it turns my stomach to be writing/saying such things, but the last 8 years has been doing that too, and worse. Before anything else can be changed we MUST be rid of Harper and his CPC, and hopefully forcefully enough that his faction loses their grip on the party and the old time Red Tories can take it over and return it to something that actually cares about traditional Canadian values, indeed typical Canadian Conservative values at that.

Justin Trudeau Speaks

But, unfortunately, says nothing.

As I have noted elsewhere in this blog and in comments on others', I have grave misgivings about the Liberal Party under the leadership of Justin Trudeau. Despite the latest EKOS poll showing the party with a commanding lead while the Conservatives continue to sink under the heavy hand of Herr Harper, I cannot escape the notion that Trudeau is superficial, intellectually flaccid, and a political opportunist (the latter quality, of course, putting him in good company with so many others who hold elected office).

Earlier in the week I wrote a post entitled Thomas Mulcair Speaks which revolved around the fact that the NDP leader, likely due to political pressure from within his own party, moved beyond his usual platitudes in discussing the Israeli assault on Gaza that has killed about 2000 innocent Palestinians. In his strongest words yet, he called for an end to the Israeli occupation of Gaza.

Unfortunately, Trudeau has not been moved to make a similar gesture.

In today's Star, Haroon Siddiqui writes the following:

Liberal supporters wondered why Justin Trudeau issued a statement July 15 laying all the blame on Hamas but not calling on Israel to show any restraint. They were further outraged by a solidarity trip to Israel by two Toronto-area Liberal MPs, John McCallum and Carolyn Bennett — paid for by the pro-Israeli lobby group, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

Trudeau's response was to give an address Monday in Mississauga that began rather inauspiciously:

About 100 protesters waited for him at the Derry Rd. locale, carrying placards and shouting slogans for more than an hour — “Killing children is wrong,” “End the occupation,” “Occupation is a crime,” etc.

No longer quite the accessible and forthright politician he has been promoted as, Trudeau dodged them to enter the hall where he read a prepared speech.

The speech itself had little substance, his boldest declaration being, “There is no military solution to the crisis that continues to plague the Middle East . . . A safe and secure Israel can only exist when it exists next to a safe and secure Palestinian state.”

According to Siddiqui, the rest was a homily on Canadian diversity. No questions were taken from the floor.

After reading the column, I couldn't help but think of the boxing match in which Trudeau bested Patrick Brazeau. Doubtless there was much bobbing and weaving involved. Perhaps the leader of the Liberal Party has not yet learned that in the political arena, such a strategy will only take you so far.

For The Naive, This Sounds Impressive

For the seasoned political observer, it is Harper propaganda of the the worst kind.

Will The Harper Promise Of Tax Breaks Continue To Seduce Canadians?

Recently, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne called upon the Harper regime to commit $12 billion annually in infrastructure funding. This request takes on even greater urgency in light of the challenges we are and will be facing as we reap the consequences of climate change.

Fiance Minister Joe Oliver's response:

Wynne’s request is “divorced from fiscal reality.”

“We are not going to engage in a wild spending spree, which will create massive deficits and increase the debt. . . . We will also not jeopardize our top credit rating and we will not add to the intergenerational burden,” he said.

At the same time Herr Harper's henchman is preaching the virtues of fiscal discipline and ignoring the increasing costs of doing nothing in light of the above-stated peril, he is also pandering to our basest and most selfish instincts.

Yesterday, in a preview of the 2015 budget that will be designed to ensure the regime's re-election, 'Uncle Joe' offered this tease:

“I’m talking about reducing taxes for Canadian families and individuals”.

The words 'false economy' never escaped him ample lips.

In reference to a study done by the regime's ideological allies, The Fraser Institute, which just released a 'study' claiming we are grossly overtaxed and not getting good value in return, the finance minister had this to say:

Ottawa has reduced the federal tax burden and has urged other levels of government to reduce expenses and taxes.

It’s healthy for Canadians to understand the facts when it comes to taxes so the public can decide what’s fair and necessary.

So the Institute is just providing a public educational service, eh?

In that case, be sure to check out this piece, which points out some flaws in both the study's methodology and ideology.

After all, apparently Uncle Joe wants Canadians to be fully informed to decide 'what's fair and necessary.'

The final choice is up to us in 2015. Will we embrace the Harper ideology of selfishness and insularity and re-elect a corrupt and undemocratic government? Or will we rediscover our collectivist traditions and remember that our obligations are not only to ourselves but to each other?

Harper's Reign Of Terror: Targeted Charities Begin To Fight Back

It was with a certain pleasure that I read in Monday's Star that some international aid charities are banding together to challenge the Harper-directed CRA witch hunt into charities that promote views counter to government policy:

A dozen such groups conferred last week about a joint strategy to present to agency officials next month, a reversal from the last two years, when many charities refrained from speaking out for fear of aggravating the taxman.

The challenge by a dozen charities, many of which have been or currently are being subjected to CRA audits/witch hunts, is being conducted under the aegis of the Canadian Council For International Co-operation, which represents some 70 groups who funnel charity dollars abroad to alleviate poverty and defend human rights. They have elected to send a delegation to meet directly with senior Canada Revenue Agency officials.

Says Julia Sanchez, executive director of the council,

The political-activity audits are just one element of a deteriorating relationship with the Canada Revenue Agency. She cited the case of Oxfam Canada, which was required by CRA officials to alter its mission statement to no longer refer to the prevention of poverty, only its alleviation.
“That’s a narrow and outdated definition of what tackling poverty actually means”.

About the Cra's attack on CoDev, in which it demands the organization translate every Spanish document it receives from its partners in Latin America into French or English, even taxi receipts, Sanchez had this to say:

[I]nternational-aid charities work in more than 200 official languages overseas and that such a requirement applied broadly would be a “huge amount of work.”
“We’ve never done that before in our sector . . . All of a sudden this comes up”.

Only the guileless or the extraordinarily naive would give the benefit of the doubt to either the Harper regime or the CRA. Click here to see the pattern of harassment that has emerged. You will note that no right-wing cheerleader of the Harper agenda has been targeted for an audit.

For more on this development, check out The Star's editorial in today's paper.

Terrible News

Sometimes the world is almost too much to bear, but not to this point. Robin Williams has committed suicide.

Chris Hedges, Gaza Rally in NYC: God's Covenant in the Promised Land

Here is the note written by Leigha Cohen as an introduction to the following video on You Tube featuring Chris Hedges:

On August 9th, 2014 a rally supporting the people in Gaza took place at Columbus Circle in NYC. The rally lasted for 2 hours which was followed by a march to the United Nations.

Prior to the rally starting, I was approached by Chris Hedges who mentioned that he had written a 8 minute speech that he wanted to deliver to the thousands of people attending the rally. However, he was told that all of the speakers were being limited to 2 minutes speaking time at the rally.

This is that special speech that Chris Hedges wanted to deliver that day. He talked about the historical and religious background to what is the re-occurring violence in the area that the Israelis and Palestinians presently live in.



You can see a transcript of Hedges' speech here.

Thomas Mulcair Speaks

Noted recently is the widespread criticism that both Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair have earned by either their silence or their very timid comments about the slaughter in Gaza. While most Canadians have probably come to expect the reflexive uncritical endorsement of all things Israeli by the Harper regime, many have been disappointed to see that the opposition leaders, save for Elizabeth May, seem cut from the same cloth.

But whether due to political opportunism, political expedience in reaction to that criticism, or a late blooming of a conscience, Thomas Mulcair has finally said something that sets him somewhat apart from Trudeau and Harper.

Although a modest foray into the world of principle, Mulcair's piece in today's Toronto Star, entitled Canadians want balanced and principled approach to Mideast conflict, tries to establish his party's bona fides in the following way:

When four children playing soccer on a Gaza beach were killed by Israeli shells, like so many other Canadians I was touched personally and thought of my own grandchildren. No child — Israeli or Palestinian — should have to live in fear of such violence.

As Canadians, we don’t want our country sitting on the international sidelines — unwilling to help and marginalized by Stephen Harper and the Conservatives’ one-sided approach.

Mulcair treads very carefully in his piece, working to provide a very balanced narrative:

During the current conflict in Gaza, we have criticized the indiscriminate rocket fire and breaking of ceasefires by Hamas — and have been clear that Israel, like all countries, has the right to defend itself from attacks.

Israel’s right to defend itself comes with the responsibility to protect civilian lives — and we have criticized the unacceptable number of Palestinian civilian casualties from Israeli Defense Force attacks during this conflict. The horrifying shelling of a United Nations facility sheltering refugees in Gaza was completely unacceptable and a clear violation of that responsibility.

Although not much in evidence in recent weeks, Mulcair talks about the party's beliefs:

As NDP leader, Jack Layton argued that Canada must engage partners for peace in the region and take a balanced and principled approach. This is a vision I share. New Democrats — committed to social justice — understand that we must actively work for peace, not simply talk about it.

New Democrats have long been committed to a policy of supporting peaceful coexistence in viable, independent states with agreed-upon borders, an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, and an end to violence targeting civilians.

So, take his words for what they are worth. A long-time political cynic, it will take more than an op-ed piece to convince me there is a genuine difference between the 'people's party' and the other two.

Scotian Responds To A Post

The other day I posted a video showing an Irish Senator and internationally recognized human rights activist, David Norris, speaking impassionately about the Israeli-Gazan situation, sparing no criticism of Israel's disproportionate response to Hamas's aggression that has cost so many lives. I wondered what things would be like if we had politicians with that kind of ferocious integrity.

Scotian made a heartfelt and well-considered comment that I think merits its own post. Here it it:

I think we have to also consider the difference in the efforts in NA by the pro-Israel-at-all-costs lobby to crucify anyone here who dares do what this Irish Senator did have had over the past few decades as opposed to his home environment. I'm not saying this to make excuses, because I agree this needs saying and the inability of any leader (and I do not just mean the federal party leaders either, but any major voice in our society) here to do so is a massive disappointment to me, but it is not like there is no reason for it, and I think to ignore the reason in this discussion is to enable it to an extent.

I stopped getting into discussions on this topic myself because I was tired of the unending abuse (and I *always* made a point of being clear I was talking about Israeli government policy specifically when I did, never anything else, and still was hounded for my "jew-hating"), and with my health issues I only have so much stamina to work with so I pick my battles instead of engaging on all fronts I care about as I used to in my younger and healthier days. Now, when these forces focus on someone as insignificant as I am to that extent and I see them focus on more prominent voices even more so then I am forced to always take their presence as a factor in my mind whenever I look at such failures as one of the reasons for that failure of discourse to happen. Last time I looked the EU and Ireland especially does not have anywhere near the same overwhelming pro-Israel-at-all-costs lobby presence that we in NA do, and I do think that is a factor which must never be forgotten about.

Our political dialogue on this issue has been massively distorted by that lobby's presence. It had been really bad in the USA for decades, but the past decade or two has gotten pretty ugly here as well, especially once the Harper regime came to power. I do wonder though how many Canadians are out there quietly watching the current dominance of this force and getting ever more frustrated by it, in the end it would not surprise me to see a massive backlash form against this force and Israel itself because of this blatant interfering in our domestic political affairs/conversations.

Our Politicians Serve Nothing But Their Own Ambitions

Given the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, many in Canada have been dismayed, not by the predictable and uncritical enthusiasm for all things Israeli from the Harper regime, but by the relative silence or complicity demonstrated by the two major opposition leaders, Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair; both have amply demonstrated that political expedience trumps principle in their cribbed set of values. By contrast, Green Party leader Elizabeth May has once more demonstrated that rareness of all qualities, integrity:

May denounced the three main federal parties for “parroting” Benjamin Netanyahu’s positions:

“It should be possible for all other political leaders to continue to press for a two-state solution, one that defends the right of the State of Israel to exist, but equally calls for a secure Palestinian state.

“It is simply not credible to take the stance of all three other leaders —Messrs. Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau — that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s siege of Gaza is legal and meets humanitarian standards. It does not. The death toll among Gaza’s civilians provokes the conscience of the world.

“Hamas is to blame for provocation, but to imagine that Israel is blameless is untenable. “

A Jewsih Canadian writer, Anthony Cantor, writes in today's Star about how such shameful compliance to a flawed Israeli narrative by people like Mulcair and Trudeau does the Jewish state no service because they conflate supporting Israel with endorsing the policy and strategic choices of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This leaves Canada’s pro-Israel, pro-peace constituency, among others, without political representation.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s refusal to push for a ceasefire is not unexpected. More concerning is the way that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and, to a lesser extent, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair have failed to counter the Harper government with a strong message that Israel’s best interests are not served by the assault on Gaza. As a member of the Liberal party, I am deeply disappointed that Trudeau resorts to platitudes rather than forcefully opposing a foreign policy that I and many other Liberals reject.

He suggests these 'leaders' should take some strength and inspiration from

other friends of Israel who recognize that the war in Gaza can only increase Israel’s international isolation and foster radicalization among Palestinians. President Barack Obama, for example, recently wrote an op-ed for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Obama correctly stressed that Israel’s Iron Dome can ensure temporary security, but only a comprehensive, negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can ensure Israel’s safety.

And yet Canadian leaders are silent as Netanyahu systematically undermines the possibility of a Palestinian state. Friends should not always tell each other what they want to hear. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, expansion of settlements and blockade of Gaza are major issues that drive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Resolving those issues would weaken the appeal of extremists such as Hamas.

Cantor writes a reasoned and convincing essay here. Unfortunately, the political cowardice of our current leaders means that in all likelihood, it will fall on deaf ears.

The Disaffected Lib Is Back!

For those many who have been following the Mound of Sounds' posts on my blog for the past while, good news: he has reactivated his blog, The Disaffected Lib. Mound tells me that he intends to pursue various topics related to climate change and sea level rise; given the depth of his research, scholarship and passion, that is very good news for all of us who care about the fate of both our country and our world.

Poilievre Declares War on "Radical Unions"

Posted by MoS, the Disaffected Lib:

Pierre Backpfeifengesicht Poilievre has declared Conservative war on Canada's "radical" unions and their electoral meddling. The Parliamentary Punk has sent out a letter asking for 5-dollar contributions to help the CPC fight back the union menace in the next general election.

Poilievre has singled out Sid Ryan and the Ontario Federation of Labour as the Tories' arch enemy. The beggar's bowl letter begins:


Friend,

I’ll be blunt – the stakes have never been higher.

We’re not just fighting Thomas Mulcair’s NDP and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

This time, we’re also fighting a radical union agenda.

,,,What does this mean? It means that they will spend millions of dollars attacking our Conservative government – and to reverse all the progress we’ve made together.

...Please chip in $5 and help us prepare to fight off the big union attacks. Everything we’ve fought for is at risk.

An Old Rumour Resurfaces. Will Charest Step Up When Harper Stands Down?

Posted by MoS, the Disaffected Lib:

An old friend of mine from Ottawa is a veteran Tory with roots going back to the Stanfield years. A couple of years ago my friend mentioned Jean Charest as a possible successor to Stephen Harper. I've heard that rumour off and on since then but nothing ever came of it - until now.

The Montreal Gazette's Don McPherson is now exploring whether Charest could succeed Harper.

Gone, at least for now, but not wanting to be forgotten, Jean Charest raised some eyebrows this week by encouraging us to keep him in mind for political leadership openings that might come up in the next few years.

'“Never say never,” the former Liberal premier said twice to CBC Daybreak host Mike Finnerty on Thursday, about returning to politics, and about running for the federal Conservative party in particular.

At 56, Charest is not too old to consider resuming the political career to which he has devoted most of his adult life.

In terms of election results as a leader, he was generally successful at both the federal and provincial levels.

In his only federal general election as a leader, he brought back the federal Progressive Conservative party from the brink of extinction. In Quebec provincial politics, he was the first leader since Maurice Duplessis in the 1950s to lead his party to victory in three consecutive general elections, although his Liberals were held to a minority in the middle one.

And he was hardly driven from office in disgrace, with the Liberals only narrowly losing the 2012 election after more than nine years in office and an especially difficult last term.

What I've been hearing all along is that Charest is the only likely successor who has had an active organization to springboard a leadership campaign. We'll see.

I Believe In Multiculturalism But...

As far as I'm concerned, this goes far beyond anything that most people would deem reasonable accommodation:

Imagine If Our Politicians Had This Kind Of Honesty And Integrity

The Irish Senator and internationally recognized human rights activist, David Norris, delivered an eminently powerful speech concerning Gaza in the Irish Parliament on, July, 31st. In his speech Norris criticizes human rights violations of Israel carried out with the support of the United States and complacency of the international community.

Said Norris:

“I am not anti-Israeli, I am not anti-Semitic. I supported the state of Israel. In the forty years I have known the state of Israel and sometimes had a home there I’ve seen it completely changed. It changed from a left-wing socially directed country, to an extreme right-wing regime, that is behaving in the most criminal fashion and defying the world. Using – unscrupulously using – the Holocaust to justify what they are doing and it is time that rag was torn away from them.”

The video of his speech follows. Can you imagine any of our politicians speaking so forthrightly and with such impassioned integrity?



H/t Addictinginfo

A Good Start

Posted by MoS, the Disaffected Lib:

Major European countries are proposing a UN mission to Gaza aimed at lifting the siege of Gaza while dismantling Hamas' tunnel network and rocket arsenals. From Foreign Policy:

It remains unclear whether the European plan has the support of Hamas, Israel, or the United States. It does, however, include several elements the Obama administration believes are essential, including the need to ease Gazans' plight, strengthen the role of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and ensure the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

The plan -- described in a so-called non-paper titled "Gaza: Supporting a Sustainable Ceasefire" -- envisions the creation of a U.N.-mandated "monitoring and verification" mission, possibly drawing peacekeepers from the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which has monitored a series of Israeli-Arab truces in the region since the late 1940s. The mission "should cover military and security aspects, such as the dismantling of tunnels between Gaza and Israel, and the lifting of restrictions on movement and access," according to the document. "It could have a role in monitoring imports of construction and dual use materials allowed in the Gaza Strip, and the re-introduction of the Palestinian Authority."

The key aim of the initiative is to help the Palestinian Authority gradually assume military, and political, control over Gaza, which has been administered by the militant group Hamas since 2007. The paper -- which was drafted by Britain, France, and Germany -- could serve as the basis for a U.N. Security Council resolution.

It sounds like a good plan, provided it leads to the restoration of the West Bank to Palestinian control and a return to Israel's pre-1967 borders.

It's Called "Nuisance Flooding"

Posted by MoS, the Disaffected Lib:

It's the latest term spawned by climate change - "nuisance flooding." According to Insurance Journal, nuisance flooding is the periodic flooding being experienced due to rising sea levels.

Eight of the top 10 U.S. cities that have seen an increase in nuisance flooding - which causes such public inconveniences as frequent road closures, overwhelmed storm drains and compromised infrastructure - are on the East Coast, according to a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report.

This nuisance flooding, caused by rising sea levels, has increased on all three U.S. coasts between 300 and 925 percent since the 1960s, the report says.

Annapolis and Baltimore, Maryland, top the list along with Atlantic City, New Jersey; Philadelphia and Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Other cities include Charleston, South Carolina; Washington, D.C.; and Norfolk Virginia.

What is a nuisance today could become something far more destructive in the not too distant future as sea level rise accelerates. At least one analysis suggests we could see up to 2.5 metres of sea level rise by 2040 which would mean a rapid increase beginning over the next few years.

For the most part, sea level rise is a problem we don't seem to talk about. Coastal residents should ask themselves when was the last time they recall sea level rise being discussed by their municipal, provincial or federal representatives? When was it debated on the floor of the House of Commons? What planning is underway? What funding has been allocated to deal with this threat? How much sea level rise do they foresee by when? What do they mean to defend, what do they expect to abandon to the rising sea?

The American example is disturbing. There we find little political will to even acknowledge the problem. Miami, for example, already sustains far worse than nuisance flooding on a regular basis. It cannot be defended and yet municipal and state authorities are doing nothing to rein in new development. Former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, did commit the city to a major flood protection programme but even that may prove inadequate.

How will coastal Canada cope? I haven't got a clue and neither, apparently, do our elected officials. From documents I've read, low-lying municipalities in the Vancouver suburbs (much of Richmond is already well below sea level) are planning little more than raising their sea walls a metre or two. What do they do when high tides swell the Fraser River to overflow its banks?

Why aren't we talking about this? The answer is easy and powerful. Talking about sea level rise leads to any number of questions that can have immediate ramifications. What's the value of a multi-million dollar waterfront property that may well be submerged in two or three decades hence? What will be the toll on urban and suburban infrastructure? How do we decide what we will attempt to defend, what we will abandon? Who wins, who loses? Who pays, who collects? Decisions, decisions. Oh dear.

Power Of The Press?

Recently, I wrote a post about Salma Abuzaiter, the eight-year-old girl whose family moved to Canada from Gaza and became Canadian citizens five years ago. Having accompanied her father, a physician, back to Gaza this summer so he could render medical assistance while she visited with her cousins and grandparents, Salma became trapped there after the latest outbreak of hostilities with Israel. Despite requests for some small logistical assistance from the Canadian government, her mother, in Brantford, initially received no response, later being told by Canadian officials in Ramallah that they were too busy to help.

As reported in the Toronto Star, they recommended Salma board a bus for a five-hour ride from Gaza City to Jordan, part of an “assisted departure” arranged by the Canadian government for its citizens. But Abuzaiter feared the bus plan would be unsafe for a young girl travelling alone.

But things changed, and the story appears headed toward a happy ending, without doubt due to the unpleasant light cast on indifferent Canadian officials by the press. Salma's mother reports:

During a recent break in the violence, ... Salma was escorted by her father, a doctor working in the country, to the Israeli border to meet with two female Canadian government officials, who helped her board a plane in Amman, Jordan, to Toronto.

“I never asked the government for financial help, just logistical help,” said Abuzaiter, who is paying all of the girl’s rescue expenses.

“When they told me they could take care of Salma and send representatives to her, I couldn’t stop crying.”

Sometimes, just sometimes, there is a light that is able to dispel the seemingly perpetual darkness enwreathing our government under the current regime.

A Stark Prediction of Sea Level Rise By 2040

Posted by MoS, the Disaffected Lib:

There have been a number of reports over the past year or two that, taken collectively, seem to point to major changes underway in the Arctic. It's not one thing but a number of changes that are synergistic, each building on the other. These include the rapidly warming Arctic atmosphere and the creation of the more powerful polar jet stream; the loss of Arctic sea ice at rates that were not contemplated even a few years ago; the warming of Arctic Ocean waters, sea level rise and the recent observation of big waves where before there were none; the thawing and burning of the tundra; the exposure and melting of the permafrost beneath; the major increase in wildfires in the northern boreal forests; the spread of black and brown soot from these wildfires and the resultant accelerating deglaciation of the Greenland ice sheet.

We know that the polar jet stream is already playing havoc with us in the temperate zone. It manifests in Rossby waves - deep, slow-moving waves - that can alternately pull warm, southern air into the high northern latitudes and then send cold, Arctic air plunging far into the south. These waves can also leave severe storm events "parked" over certain locations leading to flash flooding of the sort seen in recent years.

What is beginning to emerge from recent observations is that we may have grossly underestimated sea level rise this century especially in the short- and mid-term. By one calculation, all these phenomena playing out today in the Arctic could lead to sea level rise of 2.5-metres by 2040.



I won't explore this forecast in detail. Follow the link, spend an hour or two, and you can come to your own conclusions. Whether 2.5-metres by 2040 is likely, I don't know. What I do know is that we should have very clear answers within 10-years at the outside. We will know by 2025 if this is in store for us by 2040. We might even know by 2020.

What this means is that, by 2020, we may know if we have crossed or are at the tipping point where natural feedback mechanisms, such as those listed above, have carried us into runaway global warming of some extent.

2.5-metres of sea level rise by 2040 wouldn't be the end of Canada or the end of the United States. It would be the end of various low-lying nations. For us, however, it would mean economic upheaval and major social dislocation. It would be an economic body blow. There are a lot of North Americans who live close enough to the sea that 2.5-metres of sea level rise, coupled with the impacts of storm surges, would necessitate retreat from the coast. There are some North American cities such as Miami or New Orleans that cannot survive that sort of rise and would have to be abandoned. The Jersey Shore? Fuggetaboutit.

NOAA has an interactive graphic depicting the impacts of sea level rise up to 2-metres on the United States. It stops at the Canadian border but you can roughly extrapolate from the U.S. picture.

John Oakley Hosts Harper Clone

Many thanks to The Salamander, who, in his response to a post from last evening, sent along this link to the John Oakley Show. On the show, the Reverend Charles McVetey, as unhinged and extreme an evangelical you are ever likely to encounter, explains the evangelical Christian validation for Stephen Harper's need to support Israel.

While the clip is long, even listening to five or ten minutes of it will offer great insight not only into the mentality of Dear Leader, but also the trait of absolutist thinking both he and people like McVeety share. And at about the 10-minute mark, listen how a caller's criticism of Israeli behaviour immediately earns an accusation of extreme anti-Semitism from McVeety.

It's Getting Worse, Fast, and We're Not Getting Ready

"It" refers to severe storm events of the type that flooded Toronto and Calgary in 2013 and that deluged Burlington just days ago. Environment Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips warns that governments need to plan for a lot more of these wild weather events.

"These [once in] 50-year floods are occurring every 10 years, because our climate has changed," he said.

Phillips added that planning for weather based on the past 100 years "masks" recent events that have dramatically changed how much rain falls. He said in the aftermath of the Toronto floods of August 2013, a look into the last 25 years of rainfall showed that there were three 100-year storms, and six 50-year storms.

Phillips said that in the past few decades, precipitation across Canada has increased 12 per cent, and the "predictable" storms of the past, which used to sweep across southern Ontario, have transformed into "little cells that affect a neighbourhood, a small area."

"It's like these are bull's-eyes," Phillips said. "The reality is that our infrastructure is aging, it's breaking down.… We need to take into consideration the new climate," Phillips said.

Canada is burdened with federal politicians who show no interest in preparing our nation for what's already here and what is yet to come. There's not one, save for Elizabeth May, even willing to have the conversation our government needs to have with the Canadian people. When it comes to this enormous threat looming over our heads, they're a pack of shirkers and shrinkers. Whether it's the Conservatives, the Liberals or the New Democrats in power, we're on our own and good luck with that.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

Clearly, There Is No Depth The Harper Regime Won't Plumb

I believe this is ample testament to my heading.

Happily, many readers have seen through a cheap, demagogic ruse that once more demonstrates the unfitness of the Harper regime to hold public office:

Wow, Harper and his cronies really are getting scared. This is the best you can do huh?

It's obvious the Conservative's accusations are outrageous at best but I'll give them thanks for putting Justin Trudeau's name in the headlines while making themselves look like fools at the same time. :))

The Cons are out to lunch on this, they must be running scared. I was not sure if I was going to vote Liberal, but I am now.

More muck raking from the gutter party....The smell of fear emanating from the Conservatives is a like a breath of fresh air for the other %70 of Canadians.

A Glaring Contrast

It is refreshing to see that, unlike in Canada where government scientists cannot speak about climate change, American government employees are not afraid to draw some harsh correlations between it and environmental destruction.

Another F-35 Weakness Confirmed

It's hard to get an accurate critique of the F-35's shortcomings from its maker, Lockheed Martin, or from its key customer, the United States Air Force. They spare no effort to gloss over problems with this worrisome warplane but, bit by bit, information does emerge.

Aviation Week reports that the USAF, which is still years away from going operational with the F-35, is already looking to trim spending to free up money for the 35's replacement. Why? Well, there are plenty of reasons but the latest to emerge is the admission that Lockheed's stealth bomb truck is short where it matters - on its payload capacity.

[Air Combat Command chief, General Mike] Hostage acknowledges that the “magazine” for today’s fifth-generation fighters-—the F-22 and, eventually, the F-35—is shallow. Each can carry only a maximum of eight ground-attack Small-Diameter Bombs. Physics limits magazine options for these aircraft, as the stealthy design requires small internal weapons bays.

It sounds as though Lockheed's vaunted "Fifth Generation" F-35 might face an unexpectedly truncated lifespan. It's successor will be designed to field much more firepower and, presumably, the sort of counter-stealth technology the Russians and Chinese have under development.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

Tar Sands Refinery Cries "Uncle" on Climate Change - Seeks Taxpayer Bailout

The Delaware City Refining Company doesn't just refine oil, it refines bitumen from the Tar Sands. The company, however, is intensely aware of the dangers of climate change, so much so in fact that it's seeking tax dollars to protect its refinery from "tidal encroachment" - another way of saying sea level rise.

The Delaware City Refinery is one of the first refineries to shift its crude oil supply to rail and is refining tar sands -- one of the most carbon-intensive fuels known to man.

To add insult to injury, the sea level rise preparations the Delaware City Refining Company is proposing could negatively affect the community by directing more storm surge toward the town of Delaware City, the small coastal community near where the refinery is located. But who could be surprised by an oil company with such a poor sense of irony acting with no regard for the people around it?

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

Part 2- "They Didn't Get Back To Me"

Yesterday I wrote about the plight of Salma Abuelaish, the eight-year-old girl whose family moved to Canada from Gaza and became Canadian citizens five years ago. Having accompanied her father, a physician, back to Gaza this summer so he could render medical assistance and she could visit with her cousins and grandparents, she became trapped there after the latest outbreak of hostilities with Israel. The Canadian government has thus far ignored a plea for some slight assistance from Salma's mother, who resides in Brantford. This reaction seems wholly consistent with its apparent aversion to those of Arabic descent, and uncritical acceptance of all actions that Israel undertakes, whether or not they violate international law or ethical standards.

I refuse to believe that the Harper regime represents the values of most Canadians, and part of that refusal is rooted in our traditions of compassion and acceptance. More immediately, it is informed by my regular go-to people whenever I need a morale boost, Toronto Star letter-writers, and, in this case, surprisingly, the Ontario government.

On July 31, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish wrote an impassioned plea for Canada to take in for treatment 100 of the Gaza children most seriously wounded from the fighting:

In coming to Canada I found my faith and belief strengthened in a nation historically known as a peacemaker and peacekeeper, a country whose values are not just rhetorical, but are embodied in our actions. By accepting these children, by caring for the young of another, even for a short time, we will demonstrate to the world our hospitality and generosity, and teach an important lesson: that people can peacefully share land, resources and love. That bound by our shared humanity, we can together find solutions to our challenges and give dignity to all people.

Abuelaish speaks with great moral authority, as a post from almost four years ago makes clear. He is a Palestinian physician and the author of I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey, a memoir about the loss of his three daughters, Bessan, Mayar and Aya, and their cousin Noor to Israeli shelling in 2009.

The Ontario government has responded positively to his plea. Yesterday Eric Hoskins, the Health Minister, made this announcement:

“We received a formal request from Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish to make the necessary resources available to allow our hospitals to support kids who need medical attention due (to) the conflict”

Nobody is waiting to get on a plane here just yet, Hoskins said in an interview. “Part of my reason for my coming out today … is to sort of lend our moral support to the initiative and to encourage other partners who will be needed to realize this initiative, to get them to participate,” he said.

So he has, at least, started the ball rolling, one that could be impeded, of course, by the brick wall of Harper regime intransigence.

Now to The Star letters that respond to Dr. Abuelaish's plea and offer a stark contrast to the indifference, even malice, that I pointed out in yesterday's post:

In 2009, when Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish moved here, vestiges of the Canada he praises could still be found. Our reputation as a humanitarian peacekeeping nation was not yet in tatters. After only 38 months of Conservative rule, that country no longer exists.

Like most Canadians, I applaud Dr. Abuelaish’s compassionate initiative to bring 100 Palestinian children here for medical aid. However, I fear that he will wait in vain for our federal government to allow even one child to come, no matter how much support hospitals and provincial governments offer.

First, the children are Palestinian and, therefore, of no consequence to the Harperites.

Second, this government has made it clear that it opposes providing medical treatment to any refugees – to the point of appealing a federal court ruling that called the federal health-care policy “cruel and unusual treatment.”

In 2006, Stephen Harper famously said, “You won’t recognize Canada when I’m through with it.”

We already don’t recognize it, and he’s not done yet. He has another 14 months to destroy what little could still be salvaged of this once respectable country.

Patricia Wilmot, Toronto

I totally support Dr. Abuelaish’s proposal to invite 100 Gazan children to Canada for medical treatment. For me, the distance of the conflict is close at hand, having read his powerful book I Shall Not Hate, relating the agonizing oppression of daily life in Gaza.

Yes, Canadians can “mount a purely humanitarian effort” to help the physical and emotional healing of these young souls and their families. Ultimately, we all succeed with hope in our lives knowing that others care.

Shari Baker, Toronto

Finally, we can do something to help the people of Gaza. This is something all Canadians can get behind.

The most immediate challenge will be whether Stephen Harper and John Baird will take their extremist support for Israel so far as to deny visas to seriously injured Palestinian children.

Eileen Watson, Toronto

Thank you to Dr. Abuelaish’s letter appealing to Canadians to help Gaza’s wounded children. I echo his appeal and hope Toronto’s hospitals take this on.

It would be a great humanitarian gesture if the Mount Sinai Hospital led the charge. And for Jewish leaders to call on the prime minister to open the doors to Canada for this children. He will listen to you.

Alberto Sarthou, Toronto

Did They Get Yours?

A Russian criminal gang is said to have stolen internet credentials including 1.2-billion username and password combinations plus half a billion e-mail addresses. Milwaukee-based, Hold Security, says the data was hacked from some 420,000 web sites. The company says confidentiality agreements prevent it from disclosing the names of web sites that were hacked but allowed The New York Times to have its own experts verify the data.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

Don' Worry, Be Happy - It's Only the Arctic So Who Cares?

You know when you've eaten something dodgy and you get that rumbling in your guts that tells you this is no time to go too far from the throne? Well, that's sort of what may be going on in the Arctic right now. There's a definite rumbling across the far North that portends potentially explosive outcomes in the near future. From Scientific American


It's not just craters purportedly dug by aliens in Russia, it's also megaslumps, ice that burns and drunken trees. The ongoing meltdown of the permanently frozen ground that covers nearly a quarter of land in the Northern Hemisphere has caused a host of surprising arctic phenomena.


...The most likely explanation for the newly discovered craters in Russia is an accumulation of methane over centuries or more that then burst out of the thawing ground sometime in the last few years. "High pressure built up and [the ground] literally popped open," explains biogeochemist Kevin Schaefer of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. "If it is indeed caused by melting methane ice, we should expect to see more."

These craters will then become lakes, which further thaw the permafrost around and beneath them as the water traps yet more heat from the sun. Similar new lakes are forming in depressions in the newly thawing lumpy landscape across the Arctic known as thermokarst. Such thermokarst lakes and surrounding marshes create the muddy conditions favoring microbes that break dead plant material down into methane. That methane then bubbles out of the lakes and ground and, where concentrated, can even be lit on fire, leading to cases of flames dancing above the ice.


Even more widespread than blast craters or burning ice are drunken trees. When permafrost thaws, soil that was once as solid as concrete becomes mud, due to the fact that ice makes up as much as 80 percent of the ground in some parts of the Arctic. And because ice takes up more space than water, the ground subsides, causing trees that grew upright to lean as the ground liquefies beneath them. Whole forests have listed like an army of drunkards as a result. This is also bad news for modern infrastructure in the Arctic as well: Roads, pipelines and building foundations sink into mud and crack or entire landscapes subside. "Long term, there are huge economic and social impacts to permafrost degrading," Schaefer notes.


Where the ground slopes, even worse can occur: slumps, which are like slow-moving mudslides that can undermine areas of 40 hectares or more and stretch more than a kilometer across. The largest megaslumps can eat into the landscape at rates of a kilometer per decade and seem to show no signs of stopping. One slump in Russia that has mystified scientists extends more than 70 meters deep into the permafrost and is still growing after starting in the 1970s.


Perhaps the biggest concern of thawing permafrost is a massive and sudden release of methane from the Arctic Ocean and/or permafrost. Methane traps at least eight times more heat than carbon dioxide over decades, driving global warming even faster. The bad news on the belch front are noticeable upticks in the amount of methane produced in the Arctic—an increase of roughly 8 percent over 30 years at the Canada’s Alert Station in the Northwest Territories. And ocean expeditions have observed methane bubbling out of methane ice at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.


By mid-century, computer simulations predict that as much as a third of the permafrost area in Alaska could thaw, at least at the surface, with similar amounts in Canada and Siberia. Once the melt has kicked in—and the frozen dead plants that make up the top three meters or so of the permafrost become food for microbes that release CO2—the process is irreversible. "You can't refreeze it," Schaefer says. "Once the decay turns on you can't turn it off, and it persists for centuries."

The permafrost already holds vast stores of carbon, as much as 1.7 trillion metric tons according to estimates—or more than twice as much as is currently in the atmosphere today. Not all of that will thaw in the near future—some areas of permafrost extend 700 meters deep—but as much as 120 billion metric tons could be released by 2100. That's enough to raise global average temperatures by nearly a third of a degree Celsius. "These are big numbers," Schaefer notes. But "they are in fact small when compared to those projected from burning coal and oil and natural gas. Those emissions are just immense."


MoS, the Disaffected Lib

He's So Much More Than Just a Prime Minister. He's a Real Bastard

"This government — which swaggers around in fatigues, pretending to be a friend of the Canadian Forces — has a lot to answer for..." - Colin Kenny

Stephen Harper is a well-rounded bastard. If bastardy was an Olympic sport, he'd be a decathlete. He's a lying bastard. He's a manipulative bastard. He's a sneaky bastard. He's a mean old bastard. He's a rotten bastard, rotten to the core. He's a stubborn bastard. He's a selfish bastard. He's an incompetent bastard. He's an arrogant bastard. He's a thoroughly nasty bastard. Did I mention he's a bully and a blowhard?

Liberal senator Colin Kenny shows how Harper fits the bill on bastardy in his outrageous and hypocritical treatment of the Canadian Armed Forces and Canada’s “muscular” foreign policy.

Canada’s defence budget as a percentage of GDP peaked at two per cent under the Trudeau government. It went into steady decline under the Chrétien Liberals, looked like it would expand long-term when the Harper government came to power, then plummeted.

According the World Bank, it dropped from 1.4 per cent in 2009 to one per cent in 2013. Based on indications that the government is going to continue to tighten military spending, that downward spiral is likely to continue.

Canadians don’t expect their governments to spend as much on their armed forces as countries such as Russia (4.2 per cent of GDP) or the U.S. (3.8 per cent). But when non-combative countries such as Norway (1.4 per cent), Denmark (1.4 per cent) and Sweden (1.2 per cent) are spending more, you know you have a government that’s putting the squeeze on our military.

...Canadians already have a small military — and it just keeps shrinking. Not in numbers, because the government knows the optics of reducing personnel, juxtaposed with repeated failures to replace essential equipment, would confirm that the government isn’t much interested in the military at all.

But when you maintain personnel numbers while ordering cuts of 20 per cent in operations and maintenance expenditures, you’re creating a dysfunctional organization that can’t do what it is supposed to do.

Never has a government talked such big talk about investing in its military while allowing it to erode so dramatically.

Canada’s navy, for instance, is going to be without a lot of essential ships after this government has left the scene.

The same applies to key aircraft for the air force.

It’s nice to hear strong words condemning Putin’s perfidy in Ukraine. But they ring a bit hollow when they mask not-so-nice weakness in this country’s capacity to back them up.

Sideshow Steve Harper is a goddamned liar. Everybody knows it, none better than those closest to him. Back before his fall from grace, back when he was one of Steve’s BFFs, Harper mentor Tom Flanagan told a gathering of Saltspring Islanders that it was standard operating procedure for this prime minister to say whatever he figures people want to hear, assure them his government is doing or will do this or that, and then do nothing or sometimes do just the opposite. That’s a lying bastard the likes of which we’ve never seen reigning over Parliament Hill.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

The Obscenity Called Gaza

The New York Times' columnist, Richard Cohen, offers some brilliant insights into the Gaza conundrum, a place he calls, "an open-air prison for 1.8-million people."

"...more than 300 children are dead, killed in a month-long Israeli bombardment. Each of those children has a name, a family. Several were killed in a recent shelling of a United Nations school, an act that the United States called 'disgraceful.' The many civilian casualties in Gaza cannot be waived away as 'human shields' of Hamas. They were not human shields. They were human beings."

Cohen doesn't spare Hamas of its responsibility either. He condemns Hamas for manipulating and subjugating the Palestinians it governs as it goads Israel into attacking through its endless, if ineffective, rocket campaign all in pursuit of a fantasy of wiping Israel from the face of the Earth.

Cohen also offers a scathing rebuke for the global community for failing to enact UN resolution 181 that calls for the creation of two nations in the Holy Land, one Jewish, the other Arab. Since 1947 just one of those nations has been created. The other has been ignored. The job stands unfinished.

"Without two states, Israel will lurch from one self-inflicted wound to the next, growing ever angrier with its neighbors and a restive world from which it feels alienated."

In other words, Israel's legitimacy is inexorably tied to the creation of the Palestinian state envisioned by the UN in 1947 when it created Israel. The state of Israel is a creature of the United Nations, not some supposed deity, something it has for too long ignored.

The international community has failed the Palestinians by failing to create their state, the companion of Israel. We know where that state was intended to exist. We know the borders that were established in creating Israel. Unpopular as it would be with the Knesset, it's time the community of nations went back in to complete their obligations under UN resolution 181.

“Netanyahu has fought Palestinian statehood all his life. But it is the only way out of his labyrinth. In the end his sound bites yield to reality. That reality is bitter indeed.”

We need to go back into the Palestinian homeland. We need to clean up the mess and restore the borders between Israel and the Palestinian state envisioned by Resolution 181. That will probably take muscle, plenty of it, not only to restore the borders but to establish and occupy a suitable buffer zone for a substantial period (40-years perhaps) to enable the creation of a viable, democratic and peaceful Palestine capable of engaging its neighbour, Israel, in normal relations.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib