A Tipping Point of Amazonian Proportions
It’s the largest and wealthiest city in South America. With a population of 12-million, Sao Paulo, Brazil, came to be known as “Cidade da Garoa” or the city of drizzle.…
The Mound of Sound
What’s Your Little Jihadi Doing for Halloween?
Apparently WalMart has that covered. $39.95 gets little Johnny a full Pashtun costume complete with beard. IED not included.
If It’s Cold War You Want, It’s Cold War You’ll Get
Wasn’t one enough? Really? For almost a half century we, the West, and the Russians/Soviets poured mountains of money down the drain preparing for a war none of us would…
Seriously, From Here on In, This Might Be as Good as It Gets. But, on the Other Hand. It’s Something Else.
My all-time band, from the very first time I heard “Satisfaction” to today and, almost certainly, forever. The Rolling Stones with former, albeit briefly, band member, Mick Taylor. Oh yeah,…
Climate Change Fatigue or Eco-Depression?
I got an e-mail recently from a woman who said she was weaning herself off from environmental activism. She was burned out. The fight had just taken too heavy a…
The Reluctant Revolution
For most of my life, the first sixty years of it, I could not imagine the idea of Canada in revolt. That has changed over the past three or four…
In Case You Missed It, Toronto
John Oliver last night delivered what might just be the best endorsement mayoralty candidate Doug Ford received throughout the campaign
It’s All We Know
I wonder if the ancient Mesopotamians, or the Mayans or the Easter Islanders had their “it’s all we know” moment before their civilizations faltered? The Mesopotamians, for example, are widely…
Irreversible Harm – As in No Going Back, Forget About It.
Okay, brace yourself. A soon to be released UN report warns that climate change may have “serious, pervasive and irreversible” effects on societies and nature unless governments act quickly to…
Keep Calm and Carry On, Canada
Harvard prof Stephen Walt says Canada’s MPs are delusional if they think doubling down on counterterrorism will make the country one bit safer. In a Foreign Policy op-ed, “Keep Calm…
A Divided World that Pits Fact Against Fantasy
It’s the battle line between conservatives and everyone else. It’s incredibly divisive and it is powerfully corrosive of social cohesion. It’s a high-stakes war to control the national narrative between…
Another Glimmer of Hope, This Time From the European Union.
Whilst I, by looking on praise of them, see riot and dishonour stain the brow of my own country. Sincere apologies to William Shakespeare and Kings Henry IV and V.…
An Unlikely War Pits the Pentagon Against the GOP
Over the past decade, America’s military has raised the climate change threat level until today it stands at a screaming, howlin’ red. The Pentagon’s position inflicts a certain degree of…
Will the Opposition Capitulate to Harper’s Police State?
Steve Harper is taking a page, maybe a chapter, out of Dick Cheney’s neocon playbook to exploit a couple of relatively minor incidents to plunge Canada into a deeper form…
Russell Brand Calls Out Stephen Harper
h/t reader Ron Wilton
It’s What Fascists Do. Harper Comes Gunning for Our Rights and Freedoms.
Just as the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were exploited to transform the United States into a place ruled by fear and suspicion, the ultimate surveillance state where even indefinite and…
This, From Elizabeth May, On the Week’s Murderous Events
Green party leader Elizabeth May wrote a helpful e-mail to party members while she and her staff were still in lockdown yesterday. Here is the conclusion of her missive: …while…
Why Does Stephen Harper Hate Renewable Energy?
Born into an oil company family, Stephen Harper’s rise to petro-politics has been uninterrupted from his days in the Calgary mailroom of Imperial Oil all the way to his arrival…
A Glimmer of Hope
It’s not much and it’s not nearly enough but there’s a rare glimmer of hope in the report that China’s coal consumption has fallen for the first time this century.…