New Zealand – Australia’s Climate Change Lifeboat
Australia is somewhat ahead of the global average for climate change temperature rise. The country just passed the 1C mark. There’s obviously plenty more heat on the way in the…
The Mound of Sound
She Looks At a World Reeling from Extreme Weather and Sees a Silver Lining
Record-breaking heat waves and droughts, flooding and the Polar Vortex have pummeled most of the Earth in recent years and, we’re told, this is a glimpse of even more extreme…
No, This Can’t Be Possible. Could Japan Actually Rescind Its Apology to Wartime ‘Comfort Women’?
One of several dark stains on the honour of Japan was its practice, during WWII, of impressing foreign women, mainly Korean, into sex slavery to serve Japanese soldiers. They were…
A Cold War of Washington’s Own Making
It’s refreshing to see that, this time, we’re not all falling for the official line, the Washington line that lays the blame for the Ukrainian fiasco at Moscow’s feet. Washington…
Is This How the Senate Whitewash Begins?
Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau turfed out in disgrace by a gaggle of Tory senators who had expense skeletons in their own closets to conceal. Word from Ottawa is that there…
First Nations Man the Front Trench in Our Fight For Canada
We should all be immensely proud and grateful for the intervention of Canada’s First Nations in the fight to defend our country from environmental degradation, even catastrophe. They’re leading our…
It’s Not Just Woolly Mammoths Surfacing from Climate Change
The retreat of glaciers has been turning up all sorts of stuff such as the remains of woolly mammoth that have been preserved in ice for thousands of years. Turns…
Could Putin Snap?
Now this is worrisome. It is a transcript compiled from verbatim notes of a meeting between Russia’s Vlad Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel that led Merkel to conclude her…
Is Passive Resistance Putin’s Achilles Heel?
Vlad Putin is strutting about Crimea with a huge chip on his shoulder just waiting for some Ukrainian hot head to knock it off. He’s got bases surrounded, soldiers and…
More Defections to Crimea
A gaggle of Ukrainian military leaders based in the Crimea have defected. The oath of allegiance to the people of Crimea has been taken by Pyotr Zima, head of the…
Karzai Says – We Were Only In It For Ourselves
I don’t like Hamid Karzai but he might have a point when he complains that our Afghan War wasn’t waged on behalf of Afghanistan but for our interests, not his…
Aghhh. My Head Is Going to Explode!
“You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interest.” That pearl of wisdom yesterday from the secretary of state of the United States of…
How to Explain Climate Change to Your Cranky Old Uncle
Relax, the hard work has been done for you. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, in conjunction with Britain’s equally prestigious Royal Society, have reduced the science to a handy…
Climate Change is a Civilization Wrecker
There’s been a lot of discussion in recent months about how climate change now setting in might trigger another mass extinction of life on Earth and it might. Long before…
Range Wars, 21st Century-Style
It’s a classic theme of the ‘wild west’ – range wars where free-range cattle ranchers clashed with farmers whose fenced fields blocked their way. Today it’s a struggle between farmers…
WWCD? What Would China Do?
We’ve been getting this manicured image of Russia, isolated, standing alone against the world over its occupation of eastern Ukraine and, especially, Crimea. Then again, we do tend to see…
Is This Where Ukraine’s Revolution Ends?
Simmering beneath the rise of the pro-E.U. Ukrainian government in Kiev and the pro-Russia faction of the Crimea has been the question of the loyalty of Ukraine’s armed forces. With…
We Stand on the Brink of Global Instability and There’s No Running from It
Maybe we should rethink our rush to extract and export as much of Canada’s fossil fuel reserves as possible. Maybe we should give some thought to the domestic needs of…
Duffy’s Shadow Looms Over Harper’s Future
We won’t have long to wait for the release of the tell-all book on Mike Duffy, penned by his old journalism colleague, Dan Leger. The book, Duffy: Stardom to Senate…
The Cult of Living Large
2015, we’re told, is the year the developed world (that’s us) and the emerging economies (China, India, etc., etc., etc.) will close ranks to formulate an effective plan of action…