The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association used its clout with the sleazy government of Sideshow Steve Harper to modify the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Greenpeace used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover the truth. The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association met with senior government officials in the fall of 2011, urging
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The Disaffected Lib: Breaking Harper’s Siege on Science
Could the courts force Sideshow Steve Harper to take his gags off federal government scientists? Democracy Watch and the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Clinic may soon test the legality of Harper’s abuse of democracy. The Information Commissioner of Canada is being asked to investigate whether “federal government policy forcing
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: About Those Keystone XL Jobs
Keystone pipeline boosters have argued the project will create jobs, lots of jobs. US Chamber of Commerce president, Tom Donohue, has estimated the pipeline will create 20,000 jobs immediately and upwards of 250,000 over the lifetime of the project. Later Donohue actually upped the ante: “In fact, by knocking down
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: How Dick Cheney Buried the Truth of His Iraq War
Dick Cheney has buried the truth of America’s conquest of Iraq so deep that he will himself be long dead and buried before the facts are ever exhumed. It might have something to do with the annoying fact that the invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression waged on
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Legislative Brain Freeze – 951 Days and Counting
Brace yourself. If you’re hoping, praying for a progressive advance in America’s Congress, The Atlantic has a sobering reality check for you. The last time a major policy bill made it through the U.S. Senate was 951-days ago. It was back on July 15, 2010 that the Senate passed the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: How Much Is That Politician In the Window?
As if America’s corporatist politicians weren’t already bought and sold the United States Supreme Court may be about to open the doors to total and absolute political corruption in American politics. The top court is being asked to strike down caps on individual donations to U.S. politicians. Team Koch –
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: White Flight? London? Who Knew?
Demographic change has really swept over the City of London where the white population now makes up just 45% of residents. It’s estimated that 620,000 white Londoners have left since the turn of the century.The movement of the white British is often characterised as white flight – the indigenous population
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Better Way to Buy Meat
Much of Europe is reeling from the discovery that many beef products have been adulterated by the substitution of horse meat. Cases tend to be mainly ground beef and processed or packaged foods containing meat such as frozen pasta dishes. The scandal has drawn attention to alternate means of sourcing
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Living in Automated Times
We are steadily, inexorably it seems, leaving the world of manual labour. Even the Chinese are beginning to turn to robotics to replace low-wage workers. So, how do entire societies live when machines have taken their work? An interesting problem that invites interesting solutions. During the Industrial Revolution, working hours
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Displaced Fear
Conservatives are fear-driven. Their minds work differently than ours, or at least they work differently than progressives’ minds. Brain scan research has found that rightwingers process information via the right amygdala, the centre of the brain’s threat response system. Lefties perform the same process using the insula, a small part
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Brit P.M. a Wanker
On 13 April, 1919, a crowd assembled in Amritsar’s public garden in defiance of British general Reginald Dyer’s ban on all meetings. It’s believed that upwards of 10,000 Indian men, women and children gathered in the park. Dyer called our his troops, ordered them to open fire on the crowd,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Most Expensive Weapon Ever Built
Time magazine has published an informative evaluation of the F-35 as it stands today. The F-35, designed as the U.S. military’s lethal hunter for 21st century skies, has become the hunted, a poster child for Pentagon profligacy in a new era of tightening budgets. Instead of the stars and stripes
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Just How Small Are You, Really?
On a clear, moonless summer night I like to sit out in the backyard and gaze up into the heavens. I realize that the lights I am seeing come from a time so far past that it’s beyond our ability to really make sense of it. And I know that
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: How Harper Was Conned
Who says you can’t bullshit a bullshitter? Don’t tell that to the procurement wizards at our Department of National Defence. They’ve been pulling the wool over the eyes of our gullible prime minister almost since he took office. Michael Byers and Stewart Webb chronicle how hapless Harper got fleeced: In
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: America’s Dangerous Hyper-Nationalism
We’re Number One, We’re Number One! No you’re bloody well not, no you’re bloody well not! The United States is many things but it’s not the greatest country in the world. It has a chequered past and a chequered present. Yet from mainstreet Hicksville, Arkansas to Capital Hill, Washington,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Unit 61398 – China’s Computer Commandos
It’s possibly the most successful unit in China’s Peoples Liberation Army. Unit 61398 is believed to have hacked hundreds of terabytes of data from targets in Canada, the U.S. and Britain. The report, by [U.S. security company] Mandiant, identified the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Tortured Road to Energy Transition. Who Said It Was Going to Be Easy?
Decarbonizing our economies and our societies, breaking our dependency on fossil fuels, is going to be vastly harder than you may have imagined. The Tyee’s Andrew Nikiforuk offers a sobering assessment of the hurdles and hardship that stand in our path. The basic global energy picture is what Nobel laureate
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Harper’s Religious Freedom Boondoggle
It’s probably no surprise that Sideshow Steve Harper, immersed in the magical thinking of fundamentalist evangelism, would say “screw austerity, let’s create an Office of Religious Freedom. Now, find me an Ambassador.“ In the Toronto Star, Natalie Brender has an interesting look into what Steve has in ever curious mind.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Comrade Steve is a Real Bastard, Harper PMO Compared to KGB
Scientific research is supposed to be peer reviewed. For federal government scientists, however, their research is politically reviewed first to make sure it conforms to Comrade Harper’s rancid ideology. U Vic professor and climate scientist Andrew Weaver denounces Harper government policies cracking down on scientists at the Department of Fisheries
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: UN Pleads for Arctic Protection
The United Nations Environment Programme warns that the Arctic is about to get gang raped and it’s going to be ugly. The Arctic needs to be better protected from a rush for natural resources as melting ice makes mineral and energy exploration easier, the United Nations’ Environment Programme (UNEP) said.
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