A prescient warning from The Observer’s John Naughton. Western democracies have been overwhelmed by a technology flood and have been transformed, willingly or otherwise, into true national security states. We have been caught unawares, taken to a place from which it may be extremely difficult to ever get back. Will
Continue readingAuthor: The Mound of Sound
The Disaffected Lib: Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson Speak Out on the NSA and PRISM Spy Project
We got to know them when they stood defiant against the Bush/Cheney/Scooter Libby cabal over their government’s cooked up claims about Saddam and his supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Joe Wilson was the former diplomat who exposed the “yellowcake” claim to be bogus. His wife, former CIA spy,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Alberta Warned – Stop Development on Flood Plains – Nobody Listened, as Usual.
My view of Alberta’s Conservative government were formed decades ago when the issue of mandatory infant car seats came up in the legislature. Car seats – for kids – huge controversy, really. Conservative members were quite outspoken. Alberta motorists didn’t need any more laws tying them down. Sure infant car
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Do You See Where This is Headed? Tennesseeans Warned Complaining May Be Terrorism.
Hats off to Sherwin Smith, deputy director of the Tennessee Division of Water Resources for warning his fellow citizens to watch what they say, especially when complaining about their water. “We take water quality very seriously. Very, very seriously. But you need to make sure that when you make water
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Sometimes It’s Art That Imitates Life
Remember Bobby de Niro’s performance in Goodfellas? You should, it’s being aired on various networks roughly three times every week – every week. In the movie, de Niro’s character was loosely based on “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, this guy: Jimmy’s New York home from those days is still in the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: On Owning Canadians – You Could Be Next
A friend sent this along and I thought it too good not to shareOn her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Coyne- Have Tories Lost Their Way or Have They Simply Lost Their Minds?
Andrew Coyne sums up what should be on the delegates’ minds at next week’s Conservative Party convention: Do they get it? Do the delegates understand what a fix the party is in, and why? And are they prepared to push the party to mend its ways? It has become a
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: June, Alaska, 96 Degrees
NASA apparently hit a nerve when it released a remarkable satellite photo of the state of Alaska taken June 17. What made the picture stand out is that there are almost no clouds in a state that has the cloudiest areas in the U.S. From SFGate.com: At first glance, it’s
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Pentagon Top Dog Admits F-35 Edge Lost to Hacking
When you’ve got a super-secret technology, it’s a good idea to keep it under wraps at least until you’re ready to deploy the device. It’s a really bad idea for you to let your prospective adversary steal your secrets, especially early in the game. “A lot of that is being
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Hey, It’s Not Even July, Yet Arctic Ice Levels are Nearing All-Time Record Lows.
Arctic sea ice is currently receding at about 100,000 sq. kms. a day. Because of it, we’ll not only be breaking a record for sea ice loss this year but we’ll be breaking it really soon, perhaps just next week. “Unless something really unusual happens we will see the record
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Why Won’t Alberta Do the Right Thing, Refine Their Bitumen There?
Why build two pipelines instead of just one? Why transport dangerous dilutent from the Pacific coast all the way to Athabasca just so it can be transported right back again? Why import dilutent only to then export it? Why run an oversize diluted bitumen pipeline from Athabasca to the Pacific
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Google’s Eye On the World.
Google Alerts is a fine source of news from around the world on almost any topic that interests you. Every day Google delivers to your inbox an array of linked headlines that you can then pore over at your leisure. Some of the topics I monitor through Google Alerts include
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Did Harper Deal BlackBerry a Body Blow?
Is there anything Stephen Harper won’t do to degrade his office? Time and again Harper reveals his chronic dark, gutter side. The man has the integrity and instincts of a pimp. I don’t know where Harper’s bottom line is. I don’t even know that he has such a thing. Perhaps
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Gandolfini, Dead at 51
HBO has confirmed that actor James Gandolfini has died. Gandolfini, best known for his role as gangster Tony Soprano, died while traveling in Italy. He was 51.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Buycott – A Smartphone App Whose Times Has Definitely Come
Tired of unwittingly lining the pockets of the same oligarchs who would happily sell you and your democracy down the river? Wish you could tell just who was really behind the products lining your store shelves? Well, there’s an App for that. It’s called Buycott, the handiwork of 26-year old
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Great Unwinding
Has America come undone or has it simply reverted to its natural state as the inner sanctum of social Darwinism? That’s the subject of George Packer’s new book, The Unwinding. Packer discusses the question of whether today’s America is the “real America” in an op-ed published in The Guardian. In
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Chomsky – Don’t Let the Commons Be Devoured by Private Interests
Noam Chomsky delivered some blunt warnings at the Global Media Forum in Bonn. One was that private capital is taking over everything, even the Global Commons. “The commons have been steadily dismantled by the principle that everything has to be privately owned.” These were the words of American political critic
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: So Who Will Defend Us from The Damned Martians Now?
Slim Whitman, he’s dead, age 90. His song, “Indian Love Call“, was all that saved mankind from maurading aliens in Mars Attacks.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Hamid Has Seen This Script Before
Washington is positively giddy at the prospect of engaging Taliban leaders in Qatar to work out some sort of peace deal for Afghanistan. Afghan leader Hamid Karzai doesn’t want any part of it and says he’s of half a mind to tell the Americans to clear out entirely next year.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Change, Change, Change
One of the blessings of living in a small, coastal town is being able to observe change. It doesn’t come often. We don’t have a forest of construction cranes obscuring our horizon. There are some two-storey buildings, a few, but that’s it. Anything higher than that is an apartment or
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