In the United States, angry old white folks are the backbone of the Tea Party. In Canada, they’re Harper Conservatives. In Britain, angry old white people have the UKIP movement. Here’s the sort of Britain Ukippers crave: • Merge income tax and national insurance into a flat 31% for all
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The Disaffected Lib: I Don’t Have to Visit Japan – It’s Coming to Me!
America (you know, the country that hasn’t outlawed science) is finding some curious critters that have been carried across the Pacific on Japanese tsunami debris now arriving on our shores. Invasive species are hitchhiking to the west coast of North America on debris from the March 2011 Japanese tsunami and
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Emissions Heading in Wrong Direction – Fast
2012 saw the second greatest annual increase in greenhouse gas emissions, bested (or worsted) by 1998. Carbon dioxide levels measured at at Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii jumped by 2.67 parts per million (ppm) in 2012 to 395ppm, said Pieter Tans, who leads the greenhouse gas measurement team for the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Disaster Capitalism + Climate Change = Wealth Beyond Imagination
The company is called Water Asset Management. Surely the name speaks for itself. It has to be about water, right? Or the management of water surely. Well, in reality, it’s a hedge fund. From Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Drought is helping spur business at Water Asset Management. The New York hedge fund,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Canada’s Massive Glacier Melt
70-billion tonnes a year and accelerating. That is the amount of ice Canada’s Arctic glaciers are reported to be losing annually. A peer-reviewed report, Irreversible Mass Loss of Canadian Arctic Archipelago Glaciers, published in GRL, Geophysical Research Letters, found that the world’s third largest ice field, after Antarctica and Greenland,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: About that Blind Spot. Don’t Worry, Be Happy.
Lockheed’s troubled F-35 is attracting criticism due to pilot complaints that they can’t see what’s behind them. They can’t “check their six” man, bummer. Who cares? If you’re piloting an F-35 and there is something behind you that’s a mortal threat, being able to see it isn’t going to be
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Australia’s "Angry Summer"
It might have a lot to do with pre-emptive politics but Australian government climate scientists have issued a report directly linking their nation’s summer of extreme weather events to climate change. The report, aptly titled “The Angry Summer”, ties both extreme heat and extreme floods Australians have endured to the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Vermont Voters Say "No" to Athabasca Bitumen
The people of Vermont want nothing to do with Athabasca bitumen being piped through their state. 29 towns, including Montpelier and Burlington, have passed resolutions opposing the proposed transport of bitumen. The main purpose of this effort was to challenge proposed changes to an aging oil pipeline that could have a
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Pentagon Report Slams F-35
U.S. defence officials are beginning to have disquieting thoughts about the F-35 light attack bomber that include its survivability in air combat. A 68-page report dated 15 February, 2013, addresses a number of performance deficiencies in the F-35 and its systems. It includes stunning pilot comments about the aircraft’s survivability
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: This Is About as Blunt a Warning As We Can Get
It comes via The Royal Society, a scientific body that has been around since the 1600s and is considered about the most prestigious on our planet, you know, Earth. It’s a warning about our very real prospects of global civilization collapse in what may be mankind’s final century. What is
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Why Has the Arab Spring Failed to Bring Peace?
Unrest continues throughout the North African countries supposedly liberated in the “Arab Spring.” Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed writes that there is no peace because these uprisings have failed to address the environmental, energy and economic crises that sparked them. We now know that the fundamental triggers for the Arab spring were
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Did Washington Create Iraq’s Death Squads?
The carnage in the wake of the American conquest of Iraq was horrific. Iraqis were being murdered at rates of over 3,000 a month. A documentary from The Guardian now suggests a good deal of the massacre was the handiwork of an American, a retired colonel named James Steele. The
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When It Comes to Steve, There Is No Bottom
Our mendacious prime minister, Sideshow Steve Harper, was practically bursting with glee yesterday over the death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Harper, true to his vile form, issued a statement. “At this key juncture, I hope the people of Venezuela can now build for themselves a better, brighter future based
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Hugo Chavez Has Left the Building
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is dead, age 58.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Somebody is Making Money, Just Not the People Who Work to Create It
For the second straight day, the Dow Jones hit an all-time record high. Happy days are here again provided you’re one of the rentier class for whom happy days never really went away. Working stiffs, blue and white collar? Well they’re not getting a seat at the fiscal banquet table.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Fresh Concerns About Harper’s Dilbit
It seems there’s dilbit and there’s dilbit and nobody, including the federal and Alberta governments, Big Oil and the pipeline companies really knows much about it. Diluted bitumen, the tar sands slurry that Harper, the Alberta government and Big Fossil are in an insane rush to transport across British Columbia
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Christy Clark’s Stealth Government Exposed
And I was hoping she’d survive long enough to run the B.C. Libs on the rocks in the May elections. Having thrown most of her closest advisers under a good many buses, B.C.’s unelected, unelectable and outgoing premier, Christy Clark, is now pretty much on her own. Even her caucus
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Elementary, Doctor Watson
Gwynne Dyer explains the Chinese government’s announcement of plans to introduce carbon taxes. The motivation is the most powerful of all, fear. Under the direction of the World Bank’s top climate scientist, Sir Robert Watson, studies have been commissioned into how reaching 2 degrees Celsius of warming would impact agriculture
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Wringing More Life Out of Canada’s CF-18s
The Harper government has decided to upgrade Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18s to buy a little time while it tries to sort out its blunder over the F-35. Sources said the changes in the eligible options make it easier for manufacturers to propose a “mixed fleet” of upgraded CF-18s and
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What George Carlin Knew
George Carlin knew plenty when it came to lances and tigers and he made that plain in the opening of his final concert before he died in 2008.
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