May The Scales Fall From Their Eyes

To the distracted masses, apostolic minions and all evangelicals who worship at the altar of The Beast:

Repent.

Romney Was Right from chip franklin on Vimeo.

Canada Stands Indicted

While I most assuredly cannot claim any virtue when it comes to climate-change mitigation (I still fly, probably the greatest environmental sin one can commit), I do understand the gravity of what the world faces; to say I am pessimistic about our future is a massive understatement. That pessimism has been given new impetus by a piece Bill McKibben has written in The Guardian.

Despite having elected a government purporting to take climate-change seriously, it is likely we will approve a new tars sands project that will add countless megatonnes of greenhouse gases to the world's atmosphere:

The Teck mine would be the biggest tar sands mine yet: 113 square miles of petroleum mining, located just 16 miles from the border of Wood Buffalo national park. A federal panel approved the mine despite conceding that it would likely be harmful to the environment and to the land culture of Indigenous people... Canadian authorities ruled that the mine was nonetheless in the “public interest”.

To put things into perspective,

Canada, which is 0.5% of the planet’s population, plans to use up nearly a third of the planet’s remaining carbon budget [emphasis added]. Ottawa hides all this behind a series of pledges about “net-zero emissions by 2050” and so on, but they are empty promises.

Despite the worldwide evidence that we are witnessing the beginnings of runaway climate-change, we just can't seem to help ourselves.

... the Teck Frontier proposal is predicated on the idea that we’ll still need vast quantities of oil in 2066, when Greta Thunberg is about to hit retirement age. If an alcoholic assured you he was taking his condition very seriously, but also laying in a 40-year store of bourbon, you’d be entitled to doubt his sincerity, or at least to note his confusion.

Canada is far from unique in its addiction to, and advocacy for, more fossil-fuel development. What perhaps differentiates us from the world's other bad-actors in this domain is our pious avowals that we are enacting measures that will address the problem

As Bill McKibben points out, nothing could be further from the truth.

They Are Not The Exclusive Domain Of Republicans

They being intolerance and homophobia, as this exchange at the Iowa Democratic caucus makes clear:

Death Of An Icon

Dear Friends:

There is no easy way to say this: Mr. Peanut is no more. The first video below depicts the circumstances of his demise, while the second is a loving retrospective of his long life.

Looking for the silver lining of this shocking news, however, one must consider the possibility that his death was for the best; stories have abounded for years of his sad decline, many saying that he was a mere shell of his former self.

Composting has already taken place.

All Things Considered

All Things Considered is a show on NPR...good radio. Republicans don't listen cause they already have a show on FOX called "Lick Trump's Balls." https://t.co/i17FfR2vAx @TheRickWilson @gtconway3d @McFaul @Rosie @janemarielynch @girlsreallyrule @RepSwalwell @FrankFigliuzzi1 @NPR pic.twitter.com/oKx0lb7rC9

— Chip Franklin (@chipfranklin) January 30, 2020

The Living, Beating Heart Of Canada

Having visited St. John's last summer, I found that the stories of Newfoundlanders' boundless generosity and graciousness are absolutely true. Therefore, the following resonates deeply with me:

.@markcritch’s ode to the Newfoundland blizzard. #nlstorm2020 #nlblizzard2020 #nlwx pic.twitter.com/ksZEcH0EQe

— CBC News: The National (@CBCTheNational) January 21, 2020

Lev Parnas, International Man Of Mystery

Is he a hybrid of Zelig and Forrest Gump? Is he a grifter trying to make his mark on the American psyche? Is he, as suggested by Trump's impeachment defence lawyer Patricia Bondi, simply a publicity seeker?

Or is Rudi Guiliani associate Lev (Trump: I-don't-know-the-man) Parnas telling the truth when he says he was intimately involved in the Ukrainian scandal, facilitating the search for dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter?

You decide, but pay special attention to the pictorial evidence of his associations included in the following report: