Posted by MoS, the Disaffected Lib: It’s the latest term spawned by climate change – “nuisance flooding.” According to Insurance Journal, nuisance flooding is the periodic flooding being experienced due to rising sea levels. Eight of the top 10 U.S. cities that have seen an increase in nuisance flooding –
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Politics and its Discontents: A Stark Prediction of Sea Level Rise By 2040
Posted by MoS, the Disaffected Lib: There have been a number of reports over the past year or two that, taken collectively, seem to point to major changes underway in the Arctic. It’s not one thing but a number of changes that are synergistic, each building on the other. These
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: It’s Getting Worse, Fast, and We’re Not Getting Ready
“It” refers to severe storm events of the type that flooded Toronto and Calgary in 2013 and that deluged Burlington just days ago. Environment Canada’s senior climatologist David Phillips warns that governments need to plan for a lot more of these wild weather events. “These [once in] 50-year floods are
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Another F-35 Weakness Confirmed
It’s hard to get an accurate critique of the F-35’s shortcomings from its maker, Lockheed Martin, or from its key customer, the United States Air Force. They spare no effort to gloss over problems with this worrisome warplane but, bit by bit, information does emerge. Aviation Week reports that the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Tar Sands Refinery Cries "Uncle" on Climate Change – Seeks Taxpayer Bailout
The Delaware City Refining Company doesn’t just refine oil, it refines bitumen from the Tar Sands. The company, however, is intensely aware of the dangers of climate change, so much so in fact that it’s seeking tax dollars to protect its refinery from “tidal encroachment” – another way of saying
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Did They Get Yours?
A Russian criminal gang is said to have stolen internet credentials including 1.2-billion username and password combinations plus half a billion e-mail addresses. Milwaukee-based, Hold Security, says the data was hacked from some 420,000 web sites. The company says confidentiality agreements prevent it from disclosing the names of web sites
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Don’ Worry, Be Happy – It’s Only the Arctic So Who Cares?
You know when you’ve eaten something dodgy and you get that rumbling in your guts that tells you this is no time to go too far from the throne? Well, that’s sort of what may be going on in the Arctic right now. There’s a definite rumbling across the far
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: He’s So Much More Than Just a Prime Minister. He’s a Real Bastard
“This government — which swaggers around in fatigues, pretending to be a friend of the Canadian Forces — has a lot to answer for…” – Colin Kenny Stephen Harper is a well-rounded bastard. If bastardy was an Olympic sport, he’d be a decathlete. He’s a lying bastard. He’s a manipulative
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Canada’s Searing Moment of Clarity
I hope you didn’t miss it. The events of the past month in that distant corner of the world, the mid-east, shone a light of fierce brilliance on our own Canada that exposed an ugly side of our country for all to see who would not look the other way.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Wouldn’t Smothering Have Been More Humane?
America loves her capital punishment, she’s just not very good at it. In fact, the process of state sanctioned murder has a richly deserved reputation for being barbaric and routinely botched. As Joe Wood writhed on the executioner’s gurney, Arizona prison officials realized their lethal cocktail wasn’t performing as expected.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is the Washington Post Even Trying Anymore?
My brother sent me a link to a photo-essay in The Washington Post said to depict an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. It’s a nice story as these things go. The homeowner receives a friendly call from Israelis telling him to get out of the building immediately as it’s about to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Urban Camouflage for Canada’s Soldiers?
The past dozen or so years have left most of us familiar with the pixelated camouflage pattern, pioneered in Canada, and worn by many nations’ soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Americans are now going back to a more traditional camouflage for their combat uniforms. Canada, however, is not. We
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: U.S. Military Takes Steps to Ensure There’ll Never Be Another Disaster Like the F-35
As far as the US military is concerned, the F-35 has broken the bank. With the American people on the hook for what is estimated to be up to 1.5-trillion greenbacks for a warplane, a gimmicky bomb truck, that keeps failing to live up to expectations, the military is determined
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: I Felt A Chill As I Read This
A week ago came the report of a giant crater in the Siberian permafrost discovered by a Russian helicopter crew. Russian scientists concluded the crater, about 80-metres across, was not the result of a meteor strike but probably was caused by a sub-surface methane explosion. At the time I speculated
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: If All You Had Were Useless Rockets, Would You Be Firing Them?
A timely and invaluable reminder of what it means to be a Palestinian in Gaza under the yoke of the Israeli military. This is a report of a calculated and brutal murder of a 13-year old Palestinian girl by Israeli troops outside a refugee camp in 2004. As I recall,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: They’re Buzzards, But You’re Their Carrion.
We all know that average Americans have been reeling financially since the Great Recession. We know that the post-recession recovery has gone mainly to the richest of the rich and, this time, it’s pretty clear there’s been no ‘trickle down’ to the plebes. A new study by the Russell Sage
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Gaza – A Suggested Solution
Further to that piece Friday on how Israel’s radical rightwing shift is brutalizing Israeli society, I stumbled across this: http://forward.com/articles/202558/israeli-professor-suggests-rape-would-serve-as-ter/ And I found this insightful and well footnoted piece from The Nation on AlterNet debunking Israel’s (and our own) narrative on the Gaza invasion. http://www.alternet.org/world/five-israeli-talking-points-gaza-debunked?akid=12060.103986._jtkpX&rd=1&src=newsletter1013185&t=5 When an Israeli, of all
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Climate Change Debate Lives On
The science on the theory of climate change is not settled. There is a powerful, scientific consensus that anthropogenic or man-made climate change is real, here now and worsening. There is a powerful, scientific consensus that man-made climate change is already triggering natural feedback mechanisms that eventually can become “tipping
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: It Wasn’t Hamas – And Israel Knew That From the Get-Go.
We all know that Israel used the kidnapping/murder of three Israeli teens, that it blamed squarely on Hamas, to whip up support for its brutal invasion of Gaza. It’s been claimed that Israeli intelligence knew the teens had been killed shortly after they were kidnapped but withheld the information to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: End Prohibition – The New York Times
The editorial board of America’s “newspaper of record” has called for Washington to repeal federal laws prohibiting marijuana. The New York Times says it’s time to end America’s second prohibition: It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which
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