Newly extracted FBI documents show that, under Barack Obama, it’s business even worse than usual for the American security state. Chris Hedges, writing for TruthDig.com, warns that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have been unleashed on ordinary Americans, “to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of
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The Disaffected Lib: What Is It With Bubbles?
There’s something about bubbles we must find enormously comforting or somehow rewarding. Look at the Americans. They had the Savings & Loan fiasco. Then it was Enron and a gaggle of similar cooked companies. Who can forget the Dot.Com bubble where billions in notional wealth were conjured out of thin
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: It’s That Season Again. Might As Well Find the Humour
Vancouver and other parts of B.C. are falling victim to widespread norovirus. Plenty of Vancouverites are “down” with the highly infectious bug and they’re not alone. There’s plenty of it in the U.K. at the moment which led The Guardian’s Charlie Booker to offer up this not so whimsical take
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Another MacKay-Fantino Love Child?
They could’ve stuck with the ships Paul Martin had on the books when he left office, but nooooo. The ships, three of them, were to replace the navy’s 45-year old supply ships only they were to be supply ships and more. That deal was scrapped by the Tories. Now we’re
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Gwynne Dyer Also Gets Gassy
Wow, a week past just jam packed with reality. TruthDig came out with an explanation of how America has slipped into a fracked gas bubble in which bundled gas leases were substituted for bundled sub-prime mortgages and flogged by the usual suspects at wildly inflated prices. And Gwynne Dyer also
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When Rallies, Flyers and Public Forums Won’t Work
They call themselves Deep Green Resistance Vancouver. They’re a group of local environmental activists calling “for militant action – including sabotage – to defend the environment.” Although they emphasize that as an aboveground organization they’ll only engage in nonviolent actions, one of the group’s stated objectives is to “shift public
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, Sadly
Ah’m fixin to git me one of them thar assault rifles. Seriously, how did this guy, James Holmes, ever get his hands on an assault rifle? He’s the accused shooter who killed 12 and wounded 70 after opening up on a movie theater of people in Aurora, Colorado last July.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: U.S. Coast Guard Probes Ottawa-Beijing’s Tanker Scheme
The U.S. Coast Guard has been ordered to investigate and report on the implications of large scale bitumen supertanker trafficking out of Vancouver. A legislative amendment proposed by Washington state Sen. Maria Cantwell and signed into law by President Barack Obama a couple of weeks ago gives the U.S. marine
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Royal Society of Canada Tells Harper to Unshackle Our Scientists
The President of the Royal Society of Canada, Yolande Grise, warns that the relationship between public policy and science is broken within the Harper regime. Policy and science are in a mutual relationship based on the importance given by government to scientific advice in policy development, and the recognition by
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Americans’ Forever Blowing Bubbles, This Time It’s Gassy
Is America caught in a shale fracking bubble? An article from TruthDig.com claims it is and that it’s set up the same way as the last one only with bundled gas leases replacing subprime mortgage-based derivatives and peddled to hapless investors by the usual suspects for wildly inflated values. Although
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Unless We Act Soon, There’s Not Much Reason To Act At All.
We’re in the battle of our lives and we’re almost as indifferent to it as our adversary, the science of physics. Bill McKibben, writing at tomdispatch.com, says time is not on our side. We’re talking about a fight between human beings and physics. And physics is entirely uninterested in human
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Idle No More Probably Defies Convenient Definition
Idle No More doesn’t speak to a grievance. It doesn’t speak to two or three. What it speaks to is defined solely by how broadly and deeply it resonates both within the First Nations community and beyond into the greater society. That’s probably what most vexes our autocratic government. Despite
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When Is a Public Hearing Not a Public Hearing?
Can you call something a “public hearing” when you refuse admission to the sitting Member of Parliament for the area you’re holding your meeting? Newly-minted Victoria NDP MP Murray Rankin was left wondering just that after he was denied access to the Northern Gateway hearings now underway in Victoria. Rankin
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Recipe for a New, Healthy Canadian Economy for 2013
Ann Dale, Canada research chair in community sustainability at Royal Roads has formulated a recipe for a new and healthy Canadian economy for 2013. Among other things, Dale argues we need to break our fixation with constant growth in Gross Domestic Product and replace that with more meaningful goals. As
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Is Your Favourite State Best, or Worst, At?
Most Canadians have a favourite U.S. state, usually the best known to them or the one they feel most comfortable with. Yet you might be surprised to discover what your pet state is best (or worst) at: h/t BusinessPundit.com
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Here’s What We’re Up Against
There are a number of differences between the grounded Royal Dutch Shell oil drilling platform ship, Kulluk, and the sort of supertankers the Chinese are planning to run into and out of Kitimat. That said the Kulluk does provide a useful glimpse into what can go wrong in northern coastal
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Not Exactly a Confidence Builder
For reasons I don’t understand I often read the Times Colonist online before I go out to the front porch and pick up the morning’s print edition. This morning the online paper had this headline, “Tsunami warning for B.C. coast and Vancouver Island cancelled after 7.5 magnitude quake.” Once again
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Jack Knox It Straight Out of the Park
Victoria Times Colonist scribe Jack Knox has it right. It’s not eco-hippies who will stop Harper’s Northern Gateway pipeline, it’s the heart of middle-class Canada who will do that job. The panel reviewing Enbridge’s proposal to build a 1,150-kilometre pipeline from Alberta to a terminal at Kitimat will spend until
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: One Fish. One Point Seven Million Dollars. Adios, Blue Fin.
It’s a record. A 222kg blue fin tuna was sold for $1.7-million (155m yen) at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. High bids traditionally mark the year’s first auction at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. Even the buyer, sushi chain owner Kiyoshi Kimura, who also paid out the record price last year, said
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Fantino’s Foot-In-Mouthitis Flares Again
Harper loose cannon Julian Fantino is at it again. Now safely distanced from the F-35 fiasco, Fantino has been unleashed on the International Cooperation portfolio. His diplomatic prowess was demonstrated in La Presse where Fantino announced Canadian aid to Haiti was being frozen. It turns out that nobody notified the
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