An article in the latest Tyee that you’re bound to find exciting, inspirational or utterly depressing. It concerns advances being made by a Richmond, B.C. firm in “M2M” or machine-to-machine communications. The only thing missing is you. “We’re right on the forefront of this,” [Sierra Wireless VP Larry] Zibrik says
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The Disaffected Lib: Making Peace with Trayvon Martin
As far as I’m concerned, George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin. The evidence wasn’t there to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt and so he walked. The U.S. Justice Department is exploring whether Zimmerman can face a civil rights charge but don’t hold your breath. But Trayvon Martin still deserves justice.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Living With Nature
It’s something most people have never seen and, for those who have, it’s uncommon. Yesterday, however, I was treated to another display of a Bald Eagle death spiral. I’ve witnessed this a few times before but usually in remote inlets up the coast. This time it happened just a mile
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Global Warming Metrics, New Sea Level Rise Projections
We’re finally getting a handle on climate change impacts. We’ve just learned that it takes roughly a million years for most species to evolve as needed to adapt to a 1C change in global temperatures. That’s not a good thing in a world that’s expected to heat up 4C in
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Evolution Takes Time. Evolutionary Adaptation Takes Far More Time Than Climate Change Allows.
Many species of plants and animals will face extinction because they cannot evolve in time to adapt to the rapid onslaught of climate change. The pace of current global warming is simply too quick for natural or evolutionary adaptation. A study by researchers at the University of Arizona finds that
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Racism, California Style
Oakland television station KTVU and the National Transportation Safety Board are apologizing for a racist stunt that got on the air concerning the July 6th Asiana Airlines crash at San Fransisco airport. Someone, either an intern at the station or a staffer at the National Transportation Safety Board, came up
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: How Well Do You Remember the 70s?
Unless you’re already well into your 50s, chances are you don’t remember much if anything of the 1970s. And that’s too bad for you because, as you’ll discover in the decades to come, a lot of what’s happening to our world, our nation, mankind and your own way of life
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Do Toronto, Calgary and Angkor Wat Have in Common?
What do Toronto and Calgary have to do with the mysterious Cambodian city of Angkor Wat? More, perhaps, than we would care to imagine. The city of Angkor Wat, Cambodia, was a vibrant, growing metropolis in the late 17th century. Angkor was the New York, Paris or Rome of its
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: An Honest Look at Afghanistan – Sarah Chayes
When it comes to Afghanistan, honesty is a rare and elusive commodity. The Karzai government doesn’t understand the term. It’s something of an inconvenient notion to western military leaders and our political leadership is just as bad, often worse. That’s why, a dozen years later, the place is still just
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Look At Our Bizarre Border
About that 49th Parallel Thing Courtesy of C.G.P. Grey
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: And They Haven’t Made a Movie About This Guy?
It’s being called “the most interesting opening paragraph Wikipedia has ever published.” It opens an entry about British army officer Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart. “Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart[1] VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963), was a British Army officer
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: If Only We Weren’t Lashed Tightly to Fossil Fuels, We Might Save the World
What would you give for a chance to reverse global warming? Think on that for a minute. What would you be willing to sacrifice to avert climate change tipping points, irreversible runaway global warming? Is such a thing even possible? A team of experts from the Chalmers University of Technology
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Flying Commercial Might Get a Bit More Troubling
We’re regaled with horror stories of intrusive security measures that greet the flying public these days. Things might just be about to get a lot worse. Welcome the era of the underwear bomb. That’s right, high-explosive skivvies said to be able to defeat current scanning technologies. Fortunately the guy chosen
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Canada Wins! First Human-Powered Helicopter Flight
Congratulations to the team from AeroVelo on winning the American Helicopter Society Sikorsky Prize for human-powered helicopter flight. The contest required a full minute of flight achieving at least 3 metres in altitude and staying within a 10 metre square area. The Canadian team’s Atlas quad-copter is shown above.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Arms Race Update – China’s New Missile Subs
They’re called “Boomers,” submarines capable of launching nuclear armed ballistic missiles. The Americans and the Russians have had them for decades, the French, Brits and Chinese too. Western navies used to spend massively on anti-submarine warfare ships and aircraft designed to detect enemy subs before they could get into position
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: How Much Of a Third World Country is Okay for Canada?
We’ve been given a price tag for adapting Canada’s essential infrastructure to climate change – one trillion dollars, give or take a few billion. I’m pretty sure that’s an American trillion – one thousand billion – not the British trillion – one million billion. So let’s say we spread that
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: HSBC Chief Economist Warns of Youth Uprising Across Europe
Stephen King (no, not that Stephen King), HSBC Chief Economist sees the same conditions emerging in today’s Europe that triggered the 1831 peasants’ uprising against the British aristocracy. In King’s scenario it won’t be the peasants but youth and the aristocracy will be today’s Baby Boomers. Then, the country had
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Is Fortress Harper Crumbling?
Thud, thud, thud – that’s the sound of mortally wounded Tories falling from the battlements of Fortress Harper. Duffy, Wallin, Tkachuk, Lebreton, Wright, Perrin, Toews and, by some accounts, they’re just for starters. The King, it is said, has retreated to the castle keep with his trusty valet (now chief
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Decent Interval
The Taliban know it. Kabul knows it. So does Islamabad. What U.S. negotiators want from the Talibs is “a decent interval.” We want to leave Afghanistan without losing face, without appearing to have been run out of Dodge with our tails between our legs. We’re prepared to accept defeat so
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Minister of Family Values Quits
No one exemplifies the mean-spirited, in your face nature of the Harper regime than Vic Toews. That’s about to change. The Serial Diddler is taking his Wild West moustache and heading back to Provencher, Manitoba. Goodbye, you worthless piece of shit.
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