I don’t think even Sideshow Steve Harper believes the fable of Canada’s energy superpowerdom any more. My guess is that he knows full well that the federal government is riding a tiger and Steve doesn’t want to be the prime minister who has to step off. I suspect bitumen is
Continue readingAuthor: The Mound of Sound
The Disaffected Lib: Those Damned Swedes and Their Affordable, High-Tech Airplanes
Sweden – less than 10-million people. Canada – just over 35-million. Sweden – GDP 538-billion. Canada – GDP 1.74-trillion. How is it that Sweden, with a population slightly smaller than Michigan’s, can build its own fighter aircraft and the engines to power them? And how do they do it under
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: China’s "Cancer Villages"
Chinese officials are now admitting the existence of “cancer villages” in areas where pollution and environmental degradation have resulted in cancer rates far above normal. According to Chinese business magazine Caijing, Chinese officials with the Ministry of Environment Protection confirmed the existence of cancer villages in a statement announcing plans
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Sequestration and the F-35. Kickin in China’s Door.
Oh those Americans and their silly budget showdowns. As some observers say, these confrontations have come to resemble kabuki theatre. Sequestration is scheduled to take effect on March 1, a mere week away. Budgets get cut about 10%. The effects may not be terminal overall but some government
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Harper’s Fundamentalist Fetish is Just Plain Wrong
It’s this simple. If you don’t have money to maintain our Coast Guard stations and our fisheries monitors, you don’t have money to squander on an Office of Religious Freedoms. Sideshow Steve Harper’s twisted, theocratic brain thinks depriving Canadians of their basic protections is a dandy cost-cutting measure especially when
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: U.S. States Jonesing for Drugs
Georgia is said to be rushing to put down condemned prisoners before it’s stock of execution drugs expires on March 1. Georgia is just one of several states that find the supply of drugs needed for lethal injections drying up. Some states are even said to be hitting the black
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Capitalism Exchanges Fire with France
Globalization has transferred a great deal of political power into corporate boardrooms. And, for some businessmen, it’s gone to their heads – guys like Maurice (Morry) “The Grizz” Taylor, CEO of U.S. tire company, Titan. Morry was in France to check out a faltering tire plant he thought Titan might
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Biden At Bat
Veep Joe Biden is carrying the White House campaign to rein in assault rifles. And, predictably, he’s shooting straight. He challenged the National Rifle Association’s arguments opposing Barack Obama’s plans, declaring: ”They say, ‘Well, it’s about our culture … The facts are, our culture’s not killing 25 people a day.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Hard Times Ahead For American Blacks?
Could the United States Supreme Court open the door for rolling back decades of progress for America’s black minority? When a black man won the White House in 2008, many in the commentariat declared the United States a “post-racial” society, no longer hamstrung by old hatreds, freed at last from
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Sex Could Solve Roman Catholicism’s Biggest Problems
The debate is open again as to whether Roman Catholic priests should have to be celibate. Britain’s top Catholic, Cardinal Keith O’Brien says the next Pope should re-open the issue of ecclesiastical celibacy. Britain’s most senior Catholic has suggested Catholic priests should be able to marry and have children, saying
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Cameron’s Austerity Wins Britain a Credit Downgrade
It’s not like Britain’s Conservatives weren’t warned their austerity platform would bludgeon their nation’s economy. Still, David Cameron didn’t have to boast that keeping Britain’s AAA credit rating intact would by the real test of his economic and political credibility. Oopsie. Britain’s credit rating has now been dropped from AAA
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Duffy to Cough Up Cash
Harper senator (just add water and stir) Mike Duffy has said he’ll repay the housing allowance he’s been pocketing for living in Ottawa while “resident” in Prince Edward Island. “What we’ve got here is a case where the rules aren’t clear,” Duffy offered by way of a blended excuse/apology. He
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Global Musical Chairs
There’s nothing like self-interest to shape one’s perspective. With the ascendancy of the emerging economies: – China, India, Brazil, Russia, Mexico and South Africa – those of us in the developed world face the prospect of possibly having to do with less as our rivals muscle us out of some
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Not Green, For Now
I had to resign my membership in the Green Party to do it, but now I’m a Liberal Supporter. I didn’t join the Liberal Party and I won’t unless something radical happens but I registered as a Liberal Supporter in order to vote for Joyce Murray as party leader. Murray
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Social Science of Climate Change
What does social science have to do with climate change? Quite a bit, actually. Climate change denialism has given social scientists rich pickings to scrutinize, pick apart and analyze. One finding they’ve reached is that the ranks of climate change denialists are heavily populated with conspiracy theorists. It’s a hoax,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Always Wanted to Visit "The Big Easy"?
Many of us have at one time or another wanted to visit New Orleans, The Big Easy. If you still want to go, you might want to go sooner rather than later. Louisiana, you see, is experiencing a major problem with sea-level rise, far more than state officials expected. Stunning
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Butcher’s Price of the War on Drugs
Mexico’s drug wars have been brutal. Upwards of 70,000 have been killed, often brutally, usually near the U.S. border. Now it’s emerging that another 27,000 have simply disappeared. Combined with the 70,000 dead acknowledged recently by the new administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who succeeded Calderon on Dec. 1,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: This Could Be a Smear, It Could Be a Conspiracy, or It Could Be a Clerical Tsunami – Gay Blackmail in the Vatican?
The Pope and the gay clergy scandal? The Rome daily La Repubblica reports that Pope Benny’s hasty departure from the Holy See could be linked to a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, some of whom were being blackmailed by outsiders. The paper said the pope had taken the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: China’s Water Woes
China does not seem able to come to grips with the pollution that is inexorably poisoning the country. While Beijing talks about green energy, including 5th generation reactor technology, it brings online a new coal-fired power plant almost daily. The country imports truly massive quantities of coal from the Pacific
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: 1.5C Enough to Unleash the Permafrost Greenhouse Gases
A team of researchers, led by Oxford University scientists, has concluded that global warming of just 1.5 degrees Celsius will trigger the melting of the world’s permafrost and, with it, the release of the CO2 and methane greenhouse gases it now holds safely trapped. The circumpolar permafrost belt that makes
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