EPA Throws In The Towel In Florida
Halfway between Orlando and Tampa lies Lakeland, Florida, site of a radioactive dump left over from a local phosphate mine. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has wanted to get it…
The Mound of Sound
America’s Private Sector Achilles’ Heel
What if there are dozens of Edward Snowdens inside today’s American security apparatus only they’re working for America’s enemies? It’s been said that the easiest way to get a mole…
My Dad Never Told Me That
According to the new head of Japan’s state broadcaster, during WWII, every country had “comfort women” – a nice Japanese term for kidnapped foreign women forced into sexual slavery to…
Rough Waters Ahead for Harper’s Supertanker Armada?
There’s a glimmer of hope that, finally, somebody may torpedo Stephen Harper’s fetish to run an armada of supertankers through British Columbia’s coastal waters. That “somebody” would be the Americans…
Robert Reich Asks – Where’s the Revolution?
Former Clinton labour secretary and UC Berkley prof and film maker Robert Reich ponders why in hell middle class Americans haven’t taken to the streets with pitchforks and torches. Middle…
If You’re Gonna Be a Cowboy, Lay Off the Marlboros
For some odd reason, Marlboro cigarettes seem to be lethal to cowboys. Marlboro Man Wayne McLaren succumbed to lung cancer in 1992 Marlboro Man David McLean was felled by emphysema…
The Next Step in the Indo-Chinese Arms Race – India Fears It’s Losing.
With the emergence of economic superpowerdom comes a perceived need to bolster one’s military capabilities. When you’ve got two, nuclear-armed, resource hungry, environmentally stressed and massively overpopulated, mutually suspicious, emerging…
China, Is This Really Too Much to Ask?
I don’t know if this is going to sound racist. Truth is, I really don’t care. Is it really too much to demand that China implement health and agricultural regulatory…
Your Smart Phone Apps May Be Ratting You Out
Lots of people have smartphones and those that do usually load at least some of the thousands of free or cheap apps that can run on them. Did you ever…
For You Foreign Policy Wonks
Obama is about to deliver his State of the Union address. The folks at the Brookings Institute have prepared a very interesting assembly of memos for their president, “Big Bets…
Rampage of the Right
It’s ongoing in Canada. It’s happening in Australia. It’s well underway in Britain. In the Conservative ruled Anglosphere, governments are busy dismantling environmental protections. The focus, at the moment, is…
Yep, That’s the Face of Fascism All Right.
To Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, fascism was the merger of political and corporate power. Now brace yourself for this, Canada. There’s probably nothing that says fascism more than the seamless…
Krugman Dissects America’s Rich
Paul Krugman concludes that the richest of the rich think differently than the rest of us, see themselves differently than the rest of us see them and inhabit an alternate…
Submarine Soup
For some reason, Canada, with the world’s largest coastline bordering three of the most important oceans on Earth, is fielding a fleet of four, 28-year old submarines purchased second-hand from…
The Republican Hamster Wheel – Arizona GOP Censures John McCain’s "Liberal" Record
Better Times? Apparently being all for bombing just about any place, anywhere, any time for damned near any reason isn’t enough to earn Republican street cred these days. Arizona’s GOP…
Peering Through Inequality to Discern the Spark of Revolution
To Canadians, revolution is something that other people do. We really have no history of great, national revolt. That can blind us to the fact of how commonplace revolution has…
Britain’s Buggered-Up Banks
When I moved to London in the 60s, I brought a hefty stack of American Express traveller’s cheques (yes, kids, we did that back when ships were made of oak…
Democracies Do Not Operate This Way.
One of the saddest parts of contemporary Canada is that we have a government that doesn’t hesitate to use the power vested in it by the Canadian people against them.…
How Dry Is It? The Wet Coast is Parched.
Forest fire warnings in Oregon in January, are you kidding me? July, August, yeah. January? Hell no. In January, Oregon, always a rainy place, is supposed to be smack in…
Arms Race Update – China Goes All Hyper
There’s a dangerous tendency in the West to take a condescending view of Chinese technology. We tend to think of it as it was twenty or thirty years ago –…