Across Canada, provincial and local governments have achieved great things in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the Harper government has grabbed as much undeserved credit for that as possible. Yet Harper and his slackjawed EnviroShill, Peter Kent, can’t hide the impacts of their bitumen-peddling policies, no matter how much credit
Continue readingAuthor: The Mound of Sound
The Disaffected Lib: Okay, Radical Islaam May Factor Into Boston Marathon Bombing
One bomber is dead following a shootout with Boston police. The other is on the run with police in hot pursuit. Both men are implicated in an earlier shooting that left a M.I.T. police officer dead. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in hospital, apparently of gunshot wounds. 19-year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Capitalist Reformation? Not Holding Breath, Not Holding Breath.
Even dedicated capitalists are beginning to realize they’re in a hole to nowhere and they have to stop digging. Just as classical economic models are being recognized as obsolete and of waning utility in a finite world heading toward a population of nine-billion, so too is capitalism coming under self-scrutiny.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: 20-Years Later, Canada’s Cod May Be Gone For Good
We’ve waited two decades for east coast cod stocks to rebound. Now researchers say they haven’t and they’re not going to. “Here we are more than 20 years after the cod was effectively depleted, and according to our analysis, the recovery of the cod stocks is highly improbable,” says fisheries
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Gordion Knot of Modern Industrialism – Pricing Natural Capital
“Natural capital” comprises things from nature that belong to no one and to everyone – things like the atmosphere. Other types of natural capital are considered national assets, like a country’s groundwater. Natural capital is what allows us to go for lovely walks through the forest or camping in
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Chris Hadfield’s High School Science Experiment in Space
The Canadian commanding the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield, took a science experiment request from two high school girls from Nova Scotia. It’s a lot of fun.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Nick Stern’s Carbon Bubble Warning
Nick Stern is the latest voice to warn of the Carbon Bubble that threatens to plunge world markets into yet another financial crisis. The former World Bank chief economist, currently I.G. Patel professor of economics at the London School of Economics, has joined with the Carbon Tracker thinktank to release
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Were America’s Founding Fathers Thinking?
Why this, of course.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When the Middle Class Finally Revolts
Across the western world, our political classes are oblivious to the powder keg of revolt they’re sitting on. So warns Polish philosopher, Marcin Krol. Notwithstanding received ideas to the contrary, the poor and downtrodden have never been the driving force behind western revolutions. They have always been instigated by the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Who Is Actually Dividing Our Society?
The United States and, to a lesser extent Canada, have fallen victim to wedge politics. We become victims when our society is fractured, made suspicious of and hostile to each other. This malevolence is Stephen Harper’s weapon of choice. This isn’t natural any more than it is accidental. Frequently
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Still Islamophic States of America
The the greater scheme of things the Boston Marathon bombing was a fart in a hurricane. Except, of course, it happened in Boston during a notable footrace run mainly by white people. But the bombing was all it took to get America’s Islamophobia stoked for all to see. The New
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Greens Outpolling Liberals on Vancouver Island
If the polls hold for the next four weeks, the governing B.C. Liberals will be handed a third place, as in last place, finish on Vancouver Island when voters get their say. The NDP has a commanding lead in island ridings with the Greens in second place two to three
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Even the IMF Thinks Tory Austerity Has Gone Too Far
Britain’s Tory Cameron government has been nothing if not resolute in rejecting criticism of its austerity fetish. To Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, it doesn’t matter a whit that their slash and burn budgeting is harming the country. It is irrelevant that their policies are failing to generate the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Only Hope Is to Depose the King
And the King is still coal. The head of the International Energy Agency warns that the drive to renewables and alternative energy has stalled. “The drive to clean up the world’s energy system has stalled,” said Maria van der Hoeven, the IEA’s executive director, at the launch of the agency’s
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Elizabeth May’s Pipeline Warning to You Eastern Canadians.
Her e-mail is self-explanatory. When it comes to Stephen Harper and bitumen pipelines, you can keep your opinions to yourself. Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline runs straight through major Canadian cities, including Sarnia, the GTA and Montreal, passing 9.1 million people, and nearly 100 towns and cities.Installed in the mid-1970s, this
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Boston Marathon Murders were Probably Domestic Terrorism
I’m pretty sure that American authorities are trying to hunt down whoever detonated Claymore mines at the finish-line of the Boston Marathon yesterday. One Indian paper had an account yesterday from an Indo-American special forces vet who ran the race and was at the scene shortly after the bombs/mines went
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The American People and Conservative Republicans Agree – Legalizing Pot Is a State Right
Some of the most conservative Republicans in Congress are leading the charge to end their federal government’s war on pot. They introduced a bill, the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, in the House last week. The legislation would mean the feds would have to accept state laws that legalize or
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Putting Bieber in Perspective
Justin Bieber is prudently laying low after leaving a boneheaded remark in the guestbook of the Anne Frank house proving that kids do really stupid things and so he does. The kid’s stupid remark has been a feast for critics around the world but, of the lot, the best must
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: At Least One Person Thinks Highly of George w. Bush – Of Course It’s George w. Bush
Former president George w. Bush isn’t plagued with regrets over his bungled years in the White House. On the 10th anniversary of his spectacular failed war in Iraq and with Afghanistan heading in the same direction, Bushie says, “I’m comfortable with what I did.” Breaking a silence that he maintained
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: America’s Enemy-Industrial Complex
You can own all the locomotives and all the rolling stock in the world but they’re useless without tracks. The same logic holds true for the world’s largest, most fearsome military. What good is it without an ample supply of enemies? Just as General Motors needs people to buy Chevys,
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