What's That Between Steve's Shoulder Blades? Oh, That's a Knife.

The Tories have a rich history of backstabbing.   Dalton Camp did in John Diefenbaker and was never forgiven.   Brian Mulroney shoved Joe Clark out of the way and into a ditch.   Could it be possible that the knives are coming out for Steve Harper in the finest Conservative tradition?

Trying to make sense of what's been happening this week isn't easy.  On the surface, nothing seems to add up.  It has the confused improbability of palace intrigue.

Someone or some group on the inside is playing a high stakes game in which Stephen Harper may be the intended target.  Sure they're going through two of his most prominent Senate appointments, Mike Duffy and Pam Wallin, but that doesn't mean either of them are necessarily the target.   They could just be the means to a less obvious end.

The way Harper handled the Duffy problem suggests he saw himself as personally exposed.   Duffy was caught, sure, but he already had financing arranged through The Royal Bank.  Harper, however, had reason to bring that problem "in house."

He wanted it dealt with quickly and cleanly.   He wanted the problem to go away.  Perhaps, for reasons yet to emerge, Steve genuinely needed the problem to go away.  Forget about Duffy borrowing the money, give it to him with only a couple of strings attached.  He had to repay every dime in question and he had to stay clear of the auditors and remain silent.   The whole business was to be kept private, including the money trail.   That explains the personal cheque.

Those targeting Harper countered by feeding their media boy copies of Duffy's e-mails and details of the secret, private payment.  Duffy and Wright were forced to come clean and admit the curious transaction.

One other key element that was also leaked was that Duffy was promised that the senate inquiry would "go easy on" him.  There's a hell of a promise to someone you're already bailing out with free cash.  Why?   So, when Duffy and the PMO said "debt repaid, nothing to see here"  Harper's foes released the original Senate committee report to show how the final report had been laundered just as Duffy said he had been promised.

Difficult as it may be to feel sympathy for Mike Duffy, it would seem that he has been used by Harper's dissidents and by Harper himself and both have simply worsened the Cavendish Cottager's position.

So far all of the points have been scored by Harper's adversaries.  They have used a succession of well-timed leaks of e-mails, documents and information to keep Harper constantly on the defensive.   They have forced two key Harper senate appointees  out of caucus.   Best of all, they have forced Harper's most critical adviser, his powerful and brilliant Chief of Staff to resign in disgrace, leaving Harper isolated, vulnerable and under a very dark cloud.   Now a criminal investigation looms and it could go right to the top tier of the PMO.

This is a terrible position for a guy like Steve Harper to be in.  He's been an autocratic party leader.   He's not beloved, he's not even well liked.  There are plainly well positioned people who have been biding their time, waiting to get back at him.   A lot of his own people do not like how he has ruled the country, what Canada has become under the Harper regime.   Many of them were "progressive" Conservatives before Harper lurched to the hard right.

Could we be staring at a possible fracturing of the Alliance/PC entente?   Have the old school ProgCons had enough?   Are they preparing to move in for the kill?

All eyes should be squarely on Steve Harper in the coming weeks as he struggles to recapture his hold on power and vanquish these unnamed dissidents.   Will he fight back or will he sue for peace?

Is it just coincidental or does this growing tempest have anything to do with Harper's move last month to gag the RCMP?

The Rats in Uncle Steve's Pantry

Stephen Harper knows he's got rats in the Conservative pantry and it must be giving him fits trying to figure out just who they are.

Somebody is leaking a steady stream of information, documents and e-mails to Bob Fife of CTV about Mike Duffy, Pam Wallin and Nigel Wright and who knows what or whom might be still to come.

Mike Duffy has taken refuge in his Cavendish cottage in P.E.I. and is quick to summon the police to clear off nosy journalists.   Harper is apparently in Peru although he's expected back to face down the Tory caucus on Tuesday morning.

This sounds like a settling of scores, a nascent civil war within the Tory senate caucus.  Perhaps it is the old guard, Progressive Conservatives, taking their revenge on the Harper upstarts, the new guard.   After all, when you look at the casualties so far - Brazeau, Duffy and Wallin, not to mention Nigel Wright - they were all handpicked by the prime minister.

The Perfidious Peter Kent

This is too important to miss.  Read Miranda Holmes revealing look at Harper EnviroShill Peter Kent and his close personal ties to Canada's fossil fuelers.

This is eerily like the appointments during the Bush era.

Harper's Dilemma - Rash and Hazardous Speculation

It has always been my suspicion that Stephen Harper wanted to govern at least until he pushed through the Northern Gateway to get Athabasca bitumen flowing to Asia.

With no small degree of help from the New Democrats and Liberals, Harper has already achieved his overarching goal of moving Canada's political centre permanently to the right but it's the Northern Gateway he sees as his legacy.

To see that through Harper needs to cut some quick deal with Christy Clark, give the environmental review process a laxative, and move to steamroller the pipeline opposition, no matter the cost.  People in a rush expedite.   Foot hard on the pedal and a firm grip on the wheel.

Now there are troubling signs of bad road ahead.   That might well explain the bizarre goings on in Ottawa lately.   Steve Harper can't be distracted by troubles within his own caucus.   He needs them to go away, fast and at almost any cost.

Brazeau he could have handled.  Ditch the guy.  He wasn't an asset anyway.   Wallin?  Hard to say but, in any case, safe as in "non-threatening."   Duffy?  Different story entirely.

Some say Duffy was the hardest-working Tory senator, at least in his exertions on behalf of the Conservative Party.  He was in permanent campaign mode, criss-crossing Canada to star at fundraisers and campaign rallies.  He was a senator from Prince Edward Island in name only, doing what cottagers do, spending the summer recesses at his cottage there.  It was a residency bubble that was easily burst.

When the fit hit the shan, Sideshow Steve responded true to form trying to distance himself, using his closest aides to make it go away, ever ready and willing to throw human sacrifices under the political bus.

Duffy, accepting his fate, went off to The Royal Bank to negotiate a loan to repay his housing expenses.   For reasons that may only be known to Harper and his former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, a decision was taken to keep Duffy's financial situation "in house."  With that, Wright wrote Duffy a personal cheque to cover all the "expenses."   Apparently the cheque came with a direction for Duffy to dummy up and under no circumstances cooperate with the senate-appointed auditors.   None of this was ever to surface in public or even in private and nobody, Duffy or Wright, was to report any of the details to anyone no matter what was required.  The Mafia has a word for it, "omerta."

But somebody talked and began feeding Duffy's e-mails to CTV where Old Duff had burned his bridges on taking his senate appointment.  Another mystery.   Who so had it in for Duffy who was also privy to the senator's e-mails might have ratted him out to Bob Fife?


Some are pointing fingers at "old guard" Tories unhappy that Duffy, a lifelong Liberal turned Latter Day Tory, eclipsed them and stole so much credit for Harper's majority win in the last election.  Old Duff certainly hasn't been reluctant to throw his considerable weight around.  He might have made enemies inside as easily as he accumulated them outside.

This might have been where Harper stepped in to help out the guy who had worked so tirelessly for his success and rescue him from the backstabbers in his own upper chamber.  "Nigel, get Duffy a cheque.  Make it a gift.  Yeah, for the whole amount.   Make this all go away. And make sure no one's the wiser."

And it just might have worked if Duffy's rivals hadn't got their hands on his e-mail.   Suddenly the e-mail forced admissions that put Wright in the crosshairs which threatened the guy crouching immediately behind Wright, Stephen Joseph Harper.   Fortunately, for Harper, Wright was willing to take the bullet, allowing Steve to retreat to his office to "behave strangely."

People like Nigel Wright know the importance of words and precision.  It's often more important what isn't said than what is.  Here is how he put the Duffy payment.   “I did not advise the Prime Minister of the means by which Sen. Duffy’s expenses were repaid, either before or after the fact.”

What he's saying is that he didn't tell Harper "the means" by which Duffy's expenses were covered but that doesn't mean that Harper didn't know, well in advance, that Duffy was to be paid somehow.  And it doesn't say that Wright did this of his own volition instead of at the direction of Stephen Harper.   All it says is that Wright didn't tell Steve he was writing a personal cheque to cover the funds.

So, where does this leave Duffy?   Some say he's got the goods on the Tory Senate establishment that stabbed him in the back.   So, while he may be out of the Tory Caucus, he's not inclined to go anywhere and they can't force him out either without falling on their own swords.

As for Harper, he seems to have lost control of the narrative, not to mention his unruly senate caucus.  It's rumoured Steve will prorogue Parliament in the coming weeks, perhaps to get a summer recess to let scandal die and to herd his senate cats back into their pen.

Some speculate Steve might go for the same play that took out Ignatieff - a long summer recess followed by a snap election.  Could be but he'd be risking the secure majority term he has remaining to push through Northern Gateway.  If he wound up with a minority, that pipeline could be in real jeopardy.

My guess is that Steve is going to play this one by ear.  He'll shut down Parliament as soon as the auditors' reports are made public and then figure out how to keep from becoming personally implicated in the Duffy/Wright scandal while taming his unruly senate caucus.  It's hard to see how he'll come back after Labour Day with the same, cohesive happy warriors who brought him his majority government.  And no one knows better than Steve the difference between calculated risk and reckless gamble.

Harper is vulnerable and he knows it.   He's not in control of the narrative this time and, for him, control is everything.

If you want more, read the transcript of the CBC's interview with retired  House of Commons law clerk Rob Walsh.   Here's how the Parliamentary veteran summed it up:

In my years on the Hill, there have been a number of huge controversies over the years, as you know. No two of them seem alike. This, to me, is unbelievable, frankly. It just simply is unbelievable.

Nigel Wright Falls on His Sword

Stephen Harper must feel isolated.   He's shed senators like a mangy dog loses fur.   And now his chief of staff, Nigel Wright, has packed it in, leaving the PMO under a very large, black cloud.

O.A.S. Drug Review a "Game Changer"

The Organization of American States has issued a report on global drugs policy that, some believe, could lead to the end of blanket prohibition.

Publication of the Organisation of American States (OAS) review, commissioned at last year's Cartagena Summit of the Americas attended by Barack Obama, reflects growing dissatisfaction among Latin American countries with the current global policy on illicit drugs. It spells out the effects of the policy on many countries and examines what the global drugs trade will look like if the status quo continues. It notes how rapidly countries' unilateral drugs policies are evolving, while at the same time there is a growing consensus over the human costs of the trade. "Growing media attention regarding this phenomenon in many countries, including on social media, reflects a world in which there is far greater awareness of the violence and suffering associated with the drug problem," José Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the OAS, says in a foreword to the review. "We also enjoy a much better grasp of the human and social costs not only of drug use but also of the production and transit of controlled substances."

Experts described the publication of the review as a historic moment. "This report represents the most high-level discussion about drug policy reform ever undertaken, and shows tremendous leadership from Latin America on the global debate," said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Open Society Foundation's Global Drug Policy Program, which has described its publication as a "game-changer".

"While leaders have talked about moving from criminalisation to public health in drug policy, punitive, abstinence-only approaches have still predominated, even in the health sphere," said Daniel Wolfe, director of the Open Society Foundation's International Harm Reduction Program. "These scenarios offer a chance for leaders to replace indiscriminate detention and rights' abuses with approaches that distinguish between users and traffickers, and offer the community-based health services that work best for those in need."

■ The open letter from the Global Commission on Drug Policy is signed by George P Shultz, the former US secretary of state; Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US federal reserve, and the former presidents of Mexico, Chile and Colombia

Athabasca Bitumen and the Koch Bros' Gift to Windsor, Ontario

This might be why Alberta isn't too crazy about refining Athabasca bitumen on site and why British Columbia should reject the proposal to refine it in Kitimat.

"This" is a 3-storey high, city block sized pile of bitumen coke steadily growing ever larger across the Detroit River from Windsor's waterfront Assumption Park.   The stuff belongs to Koch Carbon, one of David and Charlie's operations of course.  In terms of emissions, even Alberta won't touch it.   That's why Koch Carbon looks to peddle the stuff overseas.

How does all this garbage get from Athabasca to Detroit?  You guessed it, via a pipeline that delivers 28,000 barrels a day of diluted bitumen, or dilbit, to Marathon Petroleum's refinery in the Motor City.

That's the contaminated petroleum coke residue from 28,000 barrels a day of Athabasca bitumen.   Enbridge is looking to move 800,000 barrels a day to Kitimat.   Imagine the mountains of petroleum coke that would scar the coast if that garbage was to be refined in Kitimat.

Fom The New York Times:

An initial refining process known as coking, which releases the oil from the tarlike bitumen in the oil sands, also leaves the petroleum coke, of which Canada has 79.8 million tons stockpiled. Some is dumped in open-pit oil sands mines and tailing ponds in Alberta. Much is just piled up there.

Detroit’s pile will not be the only one. Canada’s efforts to sell more products derived from oil sands to the United States, which include transporting it through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, have pulled more coking south to American refineries, creating more waste product here.

“Here’s a little bit of Alberta,” said Brian Masse, one of Windsor’s Parliament members. “For those that thought they were immune from the oil sands and the consequences of them, we’re now seeing up front and center that we’re not.”

Coke, which is mainly carbon, is an essential ingredient in steelmaking as well as producing the electrical anodes used to make aluminum.

While there is high demand from both those industries, the small grains and high sulfur content of this petroleum coke make it largely unusable for those purposes, said Kerry Satterthwaite, a petroleum coke analyst at Roskill Information Services, a commodities analysis company based in London.

“It is worse than a byproduct,” Ms. Satterthwaite said.“It’s a waste byproduct that is costly and inconvenient to store, but effectively costs nothing to produce.”

Murray Gray, the scientific director for the Center for Oil Sands Innovation at the University of Alberta, said that about two years ago, Alberta backed away from plans to use the petroleum coke as a fuel source, partly over concerns about greenhouse-gas emissions. Some of it is burned there, however, to power coking plants.  

In a nutshell, when we export Athabasca bitumen part of the package includes super cheap and super dirty petroleum coke that can only be flogged to the sort of overseas buyers who don't have qualms about burning it.  And, naturally, it's got big appeal to Charlie and David Coke er, Koch. 

 And what about the leftover coke? The Environmental Protection Agency will no longer allow any new licenses permitting the burning of petroleum coke in the United States. But D. Mark Routt, a staff energy consultant at KBC Advanced Technologies in Houston, said that overseas companies saw it as a cheap alternative to low-grade coal. In China, it is used to generate electricity, adding to that country’s air-quality problems. There is also strong demand from India and Latin America for American petroleum coke, where it mainly fuels cement-making kilns.

“I’m not making a value statement, but it comes down to emission controls,” Mr. Routt said. “Other people don’t seem to have a problem, which is why it is going to Mexico, which is why it is going to China.”

Oh, Mr. Routt, you're making a statement all right, a clear statement about the people who are trafficking in petroleum coke and the petro-pols who would rather this little problem not be raised. 

Is the Senate Independent Auditor Independent?

The giant accounting firm, Deloitte, was retained to conduct a forensic audit of the expenses claimed by specific senators.   In three cases there were questions of whether the individuals were in fact entitled to the extra housing allowance the senate provides to members not from Ottawa and environs.

And then, because her travel expenses seemed out of line, they also looked into the spending/reiumbursement of senator Pam Wallin of Wadena, Saskatchewan.

Something happened yesterday that raises new questions - this time concerning the auditor, Deloitte, in its audit of Pam Wallin.

It began when Pam Wallin announced she was temporarily "recusing" herself from the Conservative caucus.  That fell apart when CTV reported that she didn't jump, she was pushed, by the Prime Minister's Office after Harper officials had reviewed the preliminary audit into Wallin's expenses.

That one little detail speaks volumes.  Just what was Deloitte doing feeding preliminary audit results directly to Information Control Central, the PMO, if, as the CTV report suggests, that's what actually happened?

This certainly raises the appearance that the audit process is being manipulated for spin control purposes - the prime minister gets to see the results and cull the herd long  before the public or the opposition gets a whiff of what's coming.   And if that is in fact what's going on, surely Deloitte has become co-opted into the partisan political process of the PMO which raises questions about the integrity of the audit itself and what else Deloitte has been up to in the course of its investigations.

Stephen Harper is renowned as a control freak and he's shown that he's obsessed with maintaining an iron grip on information in all aspects.

The public needs to know if Deloitte was independent of the government in these audits as claimed.

So many questions.  Did the independent auditor give the PMO a sneak preview of Mike Duffy's political urine test results too?  Did the auditor, deliberately or inadvertently, help the prime minister and his staff shape their now failed plans to simply slip Duffy a cheque to make this all go away?  Has Deloitte been an insider all along?

Wallin Walks Cap'n Harper's Plank

Earlier today, Harper-appointed senator Pam Wallin purported to "recuse" herself from the Conservative caucus pending the outcome of a forensic audit into her expenses.

Nice try, Pam.  According to CTV, Pam actually did the "PMO Perp Walk."   She didn't so much leave as she was shown the door after Harper's big guns got a gander at the preliminary audit report.

Nice of the "independent" auditors to give Harper the heads up, no?

"...a source told CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife that the audit has already raised serious questions about Wallin’s spending, which involves hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Insiders told Fife that Wallin repaid $25,000 before the forensic audit began. She has since returned about $15,000 more to taxpayers, but sources say she will likely have to give more money back.
As the controversy over senate expenses grows, Fife reported there’s word Prime Minister Stephen Harper may prorogue Parliament in early June.

Yes, of course, Steve.   When the going gets ugly shut down Parliament and lay low until the heat dies.

Wallin, the darling of her hometown of Wadena, Saskatchewan, gave yoeman service to Harper for a good while before she earned her berth in the upper bunk.   She seemed to get a taste for the high life when Jean Chretien had her appointed Canada's consul-general in the Big Apple.  It has been reported she maintains residences in Ottawa, New York, Toronto and, of course, Wasilla, er Wadena.

By the way, if you're cruising through Wadena, be sure to have your picture taken at the Pam Wallin Drive street sign.   You'll have no problem finding it.  Just look for the town stop sign.  You can't miss it.

And if you simply cannot get enough of the Senate Mardi Gras fete, Coyne has a dandy wrap up today.

Grizzly Versus Go-Pro

If you've spent any time in grizzly territory, chances are you have wondered at some point what it might be like if you found yourself face to face with the big brown bear.  Wonder no more.

Crews filming The Great Bear StakeOut had a Go-Pro camera attached to a rock, hoping to catch some grizzly video.   The bear, and her cub, thought it looked tasty.   So here, for your weekend amusement, is what you never, ever want to see in person.



Now it's been a real bitch of a week and so I think I'll take my leave.  Have a great holiday weekend everyone.  Next week is bound to be better.

The Permanent Warfare State Comes Clean, Are You Listening?

It's official.  The United States of America is a permanent warfare state.   Perhaps now the country should adopt the flag Mark Twain designed for this very occasion. 

At a Senate hearing this week, Michael Sheehan, assistant secretary of defense for special operations, testified that the American war on al Qaeda will go on for at least another 10 to 20-years, minimum.  That pretty much is what you call the "foreseeable future" and that then marks the explicit recognition of America as the world's one and only permanent warfare state.

Last October, senior Obama officials anonymously unveiled to the Washington Post their newly minted "disposition matrix", a complex computer system that will be used to determine how a terrorist suspect will be "disposed of": indefinite detention, prosecution in a real court, assassination-by-CIA-drones, etc. Their rationale for why this was needed now, a full 12 years after the 9/11 attack:

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaida continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight. . . . That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism."

This happily serves America's healthiest industry, its military/industrial/commercial warfighting complex.   This has to be music to their ears with the knowledge that al Qaeda-type groups will form a lovely bridge while they're waiting for a more direct and lucrative confrontation engagement with China.

...military historian Andrew Bacevich has spent years warning that US policy planners have adopted an explicit doctrine of "endless war". (Read more on Bacevich's warning on this blog here, and here, and here.) Obama officials, despite repeatedly boasting that they have delivered permanently crippling blows to al-Qaida, are now, as clearly as the English language permits, openly declaring this to be so.

Greenwald sums it up perfectly.  Heed his warning and those of Bacevich linked above because Canada is going to get sucked into this, especially on China.


It is hard to resist the conclusion that this war has no purpose other than its own eternal perpetuation. This war is not a means to any end but rather is the end in itself. Not only is it the end itself, but it is also its own fuel: it is precisely this endless war - justified in the name of stopping the threat of terrorism - that is the single greatest cause of that threat.

...the "war on terror" cannot and will not end on its own for two reasons: (1) it is designed by its very terms to be permanent, incapable of ending, since the war itself ironically ensures that there will never come a time when people stop wanting to bring violence back to the US (the operational definition of "terrorism"), and (2) the nation's most powerful political and economic factions reap a bonanza of benefits from its continuation. 

Though rarely visible, the costs are nonetheless gargantuan. Just in financial terms, as Americans are told they must sacrifice Social Security and Medicare benefits and place their children in a crumbling educational system, the Pentagon remains the world's largest employer and continues to militarily outspend the rest of the world by a significant margin.

Then there are the threats to Americans' security. Having their government spend decades proudly touting itself as "A Nation at War" and bringing horrific violence to the world is certain to prompt more and more people to want to attack Americans 

And then there's the most intangible yet most significant cost: each year of endless war that passes further normalizes the endless rights erosions justified in its name. The second term of the Bush administration and first five years of the Obama presidency have been devoted to codifying and institutionalizing the vast and unchecked powers that are typically vested in leaders in the name of war. Those powers of secrecy, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and due-process-free assassination are not going anywhere. They are now permanent fixtures not only in the US political system but, worse, in American political culture. 

Greenwald, Bacevich, Chalmers Johnson, Chomsky and many others have microscopically dissected this madness and revealed it to be a self-fulfilling prophesy not of conflict and triumph but of self-inflicted defeat, democratic collapse and economic ruin (except for the few running this fiendish plan).  This is also where fascism is birthed and nurtured and muscled.   We have to stop believing this couldn't happen to us.  It already is.

Another Harper Black Eye for Canada

In today's Guardian, another look at the lengths the Harper regime goes to crush dissent, especially informed dissent, in Canada.  Another shameful black mark on Canada's international reputation, courtesy of our prime ministerial bully and his thuggish minions.

This story is about enviro-artist Franke James and how she was targeted by the Harper machine - even as far away as Croatia - because of her views on climate change and outspoken opposition to the Tar Sands.

I won't go through the disgusting details.   Follow the link if you want to read it for yourself.

When You Suck at Opposition, You Betray the Public

It's not just the government that owes a duty to the country, the opposition also owes a solemn duty to the public.  That's the lesson that's inescapable from the past couple of federal elections and this week's devastating electoral debacle here in British Columbia.

When you run in an election, you're obviously in it to win.   But, if you don't make it, you're seeking to serve as the opposition.  It's not some consolation prize, your reward for losing, it's that other job you were seeking, just in case. You're promising to serve the public as a foil to government, to work on policy and organization and to rally in time for the next election to give the incumbents the greatest challenge possible.   You have to be a legitimate contender.  It's your job to make yourself a better choice for the electorate and you've got to be willing to fight because politics is a blood sport and your opponent knows it.

Looking back on the opposition under Stephane Dion or Michael Ignatieff, the stomach doesn't churn but merely curdles.   Both of them were hapless but, of the two, Dion at least worked the job.

That Ignatieff was a mere poseur was evident when, at the onset of the great global collapse of 2008 and Harper, in desperation, shut down Parliament, Iggy took it as an extended holiday and went home to finish a book about his mother's family, the Grants.   Canada faced a moment of crisis, the minority government was on the ropes, and Ignatieff took a nap.

The last two provincial NDP leaders in British Columbia, Carole James and Adrian Dix, were also simply wrong for the job.  James was arrogant and high-handed and generally disliked by the public.  Dix was inoffensive but, more than anything else, ineffective bordering on hapless.   For British Columbians looking to get rid of a horribly corrupt, scandal-riddled and dishonest government,  James and Dix were, like Dion and Ignatieff, stomach curdlers.

When you look at your best hope, your opposition leader, and your heart sinks and you ask, "that's it?" you've got a problem.

You don't have to like them to know the type you need, the operators.   People like Chretien, Layton even Preston Manning, political scrappers every one.   Some times it's good to look for people who show up in Ottawa with a little bit of blood already under their fingernails.   That would be a reasonably apt description of Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien or any of their bunch.

We can write volumes of our experience in how to do opposition wrong and the price paid for it.   Maybe it's time we realized how to do the job right because things aren't going to change for the better until we do.

Do You Trust the RCMP to Investigate the Duffy Scandal?

So we're going to let the RCMP get to the bottom of this senate expense scandal that now extends straight to the top of the Prime Minister's Office.

I wish that gave me hope.  It doesn't.

Ever since former and subsequently disgraced Commissioner Zaccardelli conjured up notions in mid-election of a phantom investigation that helped Steve Harper sweep the Martin government out of power, the RCMP appeared decidedly bent.

That worsened when Harper appointed the first civilian Commissioner of the force, a veteran Tory operative, Bill Elliott, who made a complete hash of the job until he too had to go.

From Zac to Elliott, we come to today's Commish, Bob Paulson who was supposedly put in charge to clean up the force - just like his predecessors.   It will be Paulson's RCMP that gets to the bottom of the current scandal.  At this point it's time for a collective, "oh dear."

Paulson, you see, served notice that the RCMP was and remains the Royal Conservative Mounted Police.   He did this by circulating a directive to his top officers putting them on notice that just like the Harper armed forces and the Harper public service, the Harper national police agency is to consider itself sequestered.

In an email dated March 22 from Paulson to more than 50 chief superintendents, assistant commissioners and deputy commissioners, the commissioner said that meetings or lunches with parliamentarians "can have unintended and/or negative consequences for the organization and the government. Therefore, should you or your staff receive such requests, I am directing that you advise my office and the chief strategic policy and planning officer."

And we're supposed to trust this outfit - that won't let even its senior officers communicate freely with our elected representatives lest that have "negative consequences" for the Harper government - to get to the bottom of this scandal?   With a predisposition like this, I don't think so.

Duffy Out of Conservative Caucus. He Wants to Do the Right Thing.

Mike Duffy has departed the Conservative caucus.

"...the Prime Minister’s Office appears to have been blindsided by Duffy’s claims that he had arranged his own loan with Royal Bank of Canada to cover the repayment.

“There are a growing number of questions about Mr. Duffy’s conduct that don’t have answers. Mr. Duffy will have to answer as an independent senator,” a government official said Thursday night.

Duffy’s claim that he had secured a bank loan was a complete surprise to senior government officials and appears to have sparked his departure from the Conservative caucus.

Senator Marjory LeBreton, the government house leader in the Senate, confirmed he was out of caucus.

“Senator Duffy has informed me that he has resigned from caucus to sit as an independent senator,” LeBreton said in a statement.

Duffy said in a statement the controversy around his repayment had become a “significant distraction to my caucus colleagues, and to the government.”

And then this curious statement from senator Mike who refused to cooperate with auditors, refused to hand over bank statements and other records, and claims to have been ordered by the Prime Minister's Office to dummy up:

“Throughout this entire situation I have sought only to do the right thing. I look forward to all relevant facts being made clear in due course, at which point I am hopeful I will be able to rejoin the Conservative caucus,” he said. 

Mike, the auditors were asking you to make the "relevant facts" clear and you wanted no part of it.   You gave them the slip.   Sorry, Duff, but you've been marooned.

49:1 Is Not 50:50

Forty-Nine to One is not Fifty-Fifty.   Climate change denialists like to spread it on thick and claim there's some fierce debate over the reality of anthropogenic global warming and there are a good many disinformed, misinformed and simply delusional types who think there is no consensus and it's a toss up.

That's simply garbage served up by people who manufacture garbage for people willing to consume garbage.

Yet another peer-reviewed study into the great body of climate change research studies finds 97.1% endorse the consensus view while a miserably underwhelming 1.9% reject the consensus.

That is the finding of a University of Queensland-led study that surveyed the abstracts of almost 12,000 scientific papers from 1991-2011 and claims to be the largest peer-reviewed study of its kind.

 

The report's lead author, John Cook, a fellow at the University of Queensland's Global Change Institute and founder of the website skepticalscience.com, said the scientific consensus was overwhelming, growing and had been around since the early 1990s.

 

He said that while the number of papers rejecting the consensus was "vanishingly small", his research suggested the public was under the impression the debate was split 50-50.

"When people think scientists agree, they are more likely to support a carbon tax or general climate action," he said.

"But if they think scientists are still arguing about it, they don't want to do anything about it." Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are about 400 parts per million and rising – the highest in more than 3 million years.

Mr Cook said scientists now found less need to state their position on climate change in abstracts summarising their papers, "just as geographers find no reason to remind readers that the earth is round".

Science is a discipline that is not quick to embrace consensus which is one reason even phenomenon such as gravity are still treated as theories.  Therefore, when you hit 97% agreement, you truly are ringing all the bells.

Anybody Heard of the 'Government Telecommunications and Informatics Service?'

My Duffy post earlier today seems to have drawn the attention of some Ottawa outfit called the Government Telecommunications and Informatics Service.  Anyone know anything about them?

If We're Going To Do This With Drones, Why Does Anyone Need the F-35?

With the launch yesterday of the X-47B from the deck of the USS George HW Bush, the case for the F-35 just got a lot weaker.



The X-47B is a prototype of a U.S. Navy UCAV or unmanned combat air vehicle.  It's a stealth light bomber which is pretty much the same sort of aircraft as the F-35 only without the guy inside.

The X-47B is intended to penetrate hostile airspace, undetected, drop a couple of bombs on a heavily defended, high-value target and then try to get back out again.   The F-35 is intended to penetrate hostile airspace, undetected, drop a couple of bombs on a heavily defended, high-value target and then try to get back out again.   The big difference is that if the F-35 doesn't succeed, you're probably going to lose the airplane and the pilot.

But don't you need a pilot to bomb an enemy target deep inside the bad guy's territory?  Nope.  The Americans have been using air launched and submarine launched cruise missiles for many years that fly ground-hugging profiles and hit their targets with great precision.  All you have to do with the drone is programme it to find its way back out.  It's a lot like a reusable, two-way cruise missile.

Now the defence-guys at Wired.com are suggesting that the XB-47 might just be the best option of laying a God-fearing whipping on those godless Chinese that we all know we're going to be bombing sooner or later.

And wouldn't you know it?  Guess who also seems to be fielding something along the lines of the XB-17?  Why the Chinese, of course.

The picture caused Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman to quip, “What’s Chinese for, ‘Here we go again?’”

The Price of War

The folks at UpWorthy have published a photo-perspective showing the faces of soldiers taken before, during and after war.  Here's one example.   Follow the link above to see the rest.

Twitter Outs the Haters

Check this out.  It's a twitter-based map of racism in the United States.

 

A team of geographers from Humboldt State University has developed a map of the United States which plots the intensity of discriminatory speech in social media, including racism, homophobia and ableism.

The team -- headed up by Dr Monica Stephens -- used a database of geotagged tweets called DOLLY to scan the Twitter output in North America between June 2012 and April 2013. They were scanning for a list of words along with the sentiment attached to those words -- this was done manually, with undergraduate students Amelia Egle, Matthew Eiben and Miles Ross reading the tweets to deduce whether a word was being used in a positive, negative or neutral way.

I'm not sure about this.  Obviously the results are higher in regions with higher population density and appear lower or even non-existent in sparsely populated states.  It's an interesting example, however, of how social media can be used to profile regions and populations.  Big Bro is Watchin' You All.

Laws for a Country That Holds Itself Above the Law

America has increasingly been turning itself into an outlaw state.  It practices indefinite detention without charge or trial.  It resorts to torture.  It violates foreign sovereignty to kill as it sees fit.  It even kills its own citizens on executive whim.

It is within this context that we have to make sense out of the Obama administration's intentions about enacting a shield law to protect journalists from the intrusions of a torturing, murderous state that holds itself above its own constitution.

They're going to protect the privacy of journalists, really?  When they're just about to open the most massive electronic surveillance centre ever in Utah, a "black box" that will siphon up data by the yottabyte which, Wiki tells us is 10 to the 24th power or roughly this:

1 YB = 1000000000000000000000000bytes

They Have Re-Elected Their "Liberal" Lapdog - Now They're Coming For Our Coast

It will probably be sooner rather than later before we find out whether Christy Clark will become British Columbia's Judas Goat to the Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan pipeline/supertanker fiascos.

Steve Harper, Alison Redford and Enbridge just need to buy or coerce Clark's capitulation, make her sell-out  the province and people of British Columbia, and then ram those goddamned pipelines down our throats.   They've got plenty of markers to call in after her Hail Mary election win.

Clark will have to be ready to deal with unrest of a wide range from First Nations and other groups and individuals determined that our territory and coast be defended against Alberta and Ottawa.  She will have to be prepared to use force and the full power of her law to thwart the clear will of a solid and growing majority of the people of her province.   She will have to be willing to move on lifelong law-abiding grey hairs who stand against her and turn them into criminals.  Christy Clark will have to accept becoming the most reviled woman in the history of British Columbia, knowing that she will never be forgiven.

Those who stand up to Christy Clark, Enbridge, Harper, Redford and all their minions and enforcers and the secret police force Harper created for just this purpose will know that they stand on the wrong side of order and the law because that is the right thing, the thing that must be done.

They will draw the attention of the world and of the major markets down upon the federal and Alberta and British Columbia governments, their high-handed and rotten dealings with a totalitarian Communist government they so recently purported to condemn, and their willingness to sacrifice one of the world's last remaining great treasures, the British Columbia coast, for the benefit of foreign oil companies who can't even  pay proper compensation to the people of Alberta.

What's wrong with filling their damned jails if that is the cost of doing what's right, defending what's ours?   Nothing at all.  In fact, a criminal record for this would be a badge of high honour to be worn proudly.

And, look on the bright side.   Maybe this is where the Carbon Bubble bursts.   Could there be a better or more likely place for that bubble to burst?  It's already the highest-carbon, highest cost, least profitable petroleum on the planet.   A little granny insurrection could be all that's needed to tip the bitumen market straight into a ditch.

Because they may be able to buy Christy Clark but they can't buy us.

Could You Become a Victim of Car-Hacking?

It's not carjacking.  Nobody with a gun jumping into the driver's seat and speeding off with your ride.

It's car-hacking.   A cyber criminal hacking into a car's computer systems to wreak havoc.

Senate Commerce Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, said while he's excited about safety improvements through technology, he's concerned about new risks including cyber security.

"As our cars become more connected – to the internet, to wireless networks, with each other, and with our infrastructure – are they at risk of catastrophic cyber attacks?" Senator Rockefeller asked in his opening statement prepared for the hearing.

Cars are increasingly controlled electronically rather than mechanically, from acceleration and starting to rolling down the windows. Infotainment systems connect drivers to satellite and wireless networks.

Today's typical luxury car has more than 100 million lines of computer code, while software and electronics account for 40 per cent of the car's cost and half of warranty claims, said John D. Lee, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's industrial and systems engineering department.

Not exactly sure why someone would do this although imagine if terrorists could send vehicles careening out of control on busy highways?  In our automobile-dependent society what would happen if confidence in our essential conveyance was shattered?

Of Bitumen and Pirates

The Harper government never ceases playing up the terrorist threat that Canada faces.   They're here, they're there, they're everywhere.

Supertankers heavily laden with bitumen.   How vulnerable are they to terrorism and just how do you protect them?

Vancouver's inner harbour might seem a terrorist's dream.  There are places where you could sink a tanker and block the harbour for who knows how long while the bitumen aboard wreaks havoc.

What if the bad guys just seized the bridge, commandeered the vessel and used it to attack the Lion's Gate or Second Narrow crossings?

Presumably we're going to need an alert force, ready response teams, helicopters and such, to safeguard both the Vancouver and the Kitimat tanker traffic.  On whose dime?

The closer you look at this fiasco in waiting the more it seems they're just winging it, saying what they think people want to hear, and crossing their fingers.

Follow the Piggy - He Might Lead You to Sussex Drive

So, let's run this scenario, Mound's favourite passtime.   How might the timeline of Mike Duffy's expense woes play out now that we know a few more details.

It begins (for our purposes) when senator Mike Duffy has a brown hemorrhage on realizing there is going to be a forensic audit of his expenses triggered by questions about the legitimacy of his housing allowance claims.  That sends him into a panic trying to get PEI to get him a health care card via Fed Ex Overnight, yada, yada, yada.  That doesn't work.

Duffy comes clean with the PMO (if they don't already know) that it's more than just the housing allowance.   There's also the expenses for a Florida vacation he had reimbursed out of the public purse.   But wait, there's more.   All that tireless work he did attending Conservative fundraisers and supporting Tory candidates on the campaign trail - yep, them too.

So, Mike Duffy, Stephen Harper's most productive little piggy, bares his soul... to Harper's Chief of Staff, Nigel Wright.   And this is where a small problem might just turn into a huge problem for those at the very top.

At this point, I want to tell you a fairy tale.  Chief of Staff Wright, on learning that Duffy has repeatedly raided the collection plate, absolutely does not go to the guy he works for and says, "Boss, we've got a huge problem here.  Duffy's been milking the public purse.   The auditors are hot on his heels."

But Nigel Wright doesn't do that although Wright would almost certainly have to do that so Steve could decide whether to hand Duffy a Tory blue pink slip.  No, not at all.   Wright, instead, makes sure Steve has no say in the matter and simply hands Duffy a cheque, drawn on his very own account, and a bag of magical dust to make it all go away.   And then Wright, knowing that the auditors are going to have plenty of questions about all of these "misunderstandings" orders Duffy to remain silent.   And Wright does this entirely of his own initiative without Harper knowing anything, nothing at all about any of it.

And they all lived happily ever after - not.   Because this isn't a fairy tale.   What it actually is isn't exactly clear but it is coming to look a lot like Harper's right hand man knew Duffy had misappropriated public money (call that what you will) and then conspired with Duffy to conceal it from the auditors and who knows who else might look into it, maybe the police?

At this point we get into books that deal with questions of "over five thousand dollars" or "under five thousand dollars."

Hmm, I wonder how many Blackberrys have ended up at the bottom of the Rideau river over this?  Just a silly thought.

And it all might have worked out just fine - if Duffy didn't spill all the details to his close buddies in Ottawa (a small phonebook's worth), one or more of whom sent Duffy's e-mails to CTV.

Which brings us to the real question:  was there a conspiracy to conceal evidence of a something untoward and was the PMO a party to it?  How could Nigel Wright have done something as high-risk as this without informing his boss?   Wright would have had to make tough calls that can only be made by a prime minister including whether Duffy should stay or had to go.   The details may have been Wright's work but it's almost inconceivable that he did it without the directing hand of the Boss, the biggest control freak in the realm.  Or might this be part fact, part figment of Duffy's fervid imagination?

So many questions, so few answers.   Maybe if we wait long enough Mike Duffy will spill the rest of this story but if I was him I'd stay a safe distance from the cliffs above the Ottawa river for a while.

Duffy Campaigned on Taxpayer's Dime

This could explain why the Prime Minister's Office told Duffy to refuse to cooperate with the forensic audit into his expenses.  Not only was Duffy pocketing tens of thousands of dollars in living expense allowances but he was also claiming expenses while on the campaign trail for the Conservatives.

The reason Sideshow Steve Harper appointed Duffy to the Senate, in addition as payment for services rendered during his last few years at CTV, was to serve as party pitchman at fundraisers from coast to coast.  A mutual friend used to regale me with details of how tirelessly Duffy worked, not for the country, not for the senate, but to improve Boss Harp's fortunes in the House of Commons.  The Senate job, it seems, was a handy vehicle to get Duffy onto the PMO payroll.  Apparently, "sober second thought" was optional.

Claiming reimbursement from the public purse for services rendered, not to the senate but to the Conservative Party of Canada, certainly does seem to cross a few lines, the sort of lines the RCMP would be interested in.  In times past that came under the heading of "pillaging the peasants."

I suppose ordering Duffy to stay silent was better than directing him to respond to auditors' questions by claiming the protection of the Canada Evidence Act - but only so long as he didn't blurt out the details to all his pals in Ottawa.

Duffy certainly was Steve Harper's invaluable little piggy at the trough.  But Steve, being Steve, doesn't do this sort of thing without cutouts, minions to fall on their swords, to preserve plausible deniability for the capo.

I wonder if Steve likes roast pork because Duffy set himself on fire and I think he's just about done.

The North Pole - It's a Moving Target

The north pole is on the move and, according to scientists, it's moving because of climate change and the loss of Arctic ice.

From 1982 to 2005, the pole drifted southeast toward northern Labrador, Canada, at a rate of about 2 milliarcseconds —or roughly 6 centimetres — per year. But in 2005, the pole changed course and began galloping east toward Greenland at a rate of more than 7 milliarcseconds per year.

...underlying the seasonal motion is a yearly motion that is thought to be driven in part by continental drift. It was the change in that motion that caught the attention of [U. Texas geophysicist Jianli] Chen and his colleagues, who used data collected by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to determine whether ice loss had shifted and accelerated the yearly polar drift.

GRACE’s twin probes measure changes in the Earth’s gravity field, which can be used to track shifts in the distribution of water and ice.  Chen’s team used GRACE data to model how melting icecaps affect Earth’s mass distribution. They found that recent accelerated ice loss and associated sea-level rise accounted for more than 90% of the post-2005 polar shift.

The results suggest that tracking polar shifts can serve as a check on current estimates of ice loss, says Erik Ivins, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. When mass is lost in one part of a spinning sphere, its spin axis will tilt directly toward the position of the loss, he says — exactly as Chen’s team observed for Greenland. “It’s a unique indicator of the point where the mass is lost,” says Ivins.

But, of course, we don't have to concern ourselves with this because it's about science and ice and stuff and that has nothing to do with pipelines and supertankers and bitumen and the things that matter.

Oh, To Be a Fly On the Wall

CBC's Kady O'Malley sums up the Duffy audit/expense controversy quite nicely.

Why did Stephen Harper's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, cut a personal cheque to repay Senator Mike Duffy's controversial living expenses? Are all the Senators implicated in this controversy being treated equally in the process – or are the cases of Duffy and Pamela Wallin being handled differently from those of Mac Harb and Patrick Brazeau (who have both left their party caucuses and are suing over the issue of their committee-ordered repayments)? Why are any legal opinions on the residency question still not public? And if there is real expense fraud happening here, what's with all the fudging around who's job it was to call in the Mounties?

I had forgotten all about Pam Wallin, had you?   According to CTV's Bob Fife, it sounds as though Duffy did himself in by blabbering to all and sundry in Ottawa that Nigel Wright had covered the repayment, that the Harper PMO ordered him to not cooperate with the Deloitte auditors and that he was promised the government would go easy on him.

Isn't it hilarious when you watch an arrogant, privileged, fat little shit set fire to himself?

On Rare Birds and New Democrats

BC NDP leader Adrian Dix is a rare bird.  Or at least he would have been a rare bird if he'd actually won last night.   For that would have been his party's fourth win in the 15-provincial elections staged since they were formed in 1960.   As things stand this morning that puts the NDP at an underwhelming 3 for 15 in win/loss.

In a three or four-way contest, one out of five isn't great but it wouldn't be devastating, not necessarily.   But in a two-way contest that means your opponent has won four times as often as you which is awfully close to one-party rule.   And when you look at the gang of sots, crooks, manipulators and outright liars who have led the other team to their 12 for 15 win record it becomes even more remarkable - for them - miserable for you.

Dave Barret, Mike Harcourt, Glenn Clark (with unelected stand-ins Dan Miller and Ujjal Dosanjh) - that's it.  All of them one-term wonders.   Then stack that up against the rogues gallery of sots, crooks and liars who have so repeatedly trounced them.  Wacky Bennet, son Bill, Bill Van der Zalm, Rita Johnson (unelected), Gordo "one for the road" Campbell and now Christy Clark. 
Wacky was in for almost 20-years, son Bill logged more than ten, ditto Gordo Campbell and there is now ample reason to believe Christy Clark might have a decade-long run herself.

To today's Degenerate Red-Meat Right, British Columbians may seem to be a bunch of looney-lefties which is obviously a reflection of just how far to the radical right modern Canadian conservatism has strayed.

Or is it just us, the voting public.  On that score, I can't do better than this observation from The Sixth Estate:

"...it’s worth noting that so called “centre-right” political parties have correctly judged that the vast majority of Canadians are simply not interested in voting for anything other than a promise of budget cuts, tax cuts, and job growth, basically at the cost of anything else, whether it’s social services or accountability or even a minimal level of integrity and honesty in politics or the environment or our international reputation or anything else. ...These people will be basically evenly split between those who don’t bother voting at all and those who vote for whatever party they have a vague hunch will move in those directions."

Now, eat your gruel, there are fields to tend. 

One Anonymous Might Not be Enough

Any politician knows that information is power.   Digital information is power on steroids at the speed of light.

Privacy is the best possible defence you have against enslavement and oppression.   America's founding fathers knew that all too well when they enacted the Fourth Amendment, the one against unreasonable search and seizure.   For when a government can freely enter you home or explore the most minute details of your life, your privacy is essentially gone.

The great British jurist, Sir Edward Coke, put it this way in 1604,  "The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose," in ruling the King and his agents were prohibited from warrantless search.

Today, of course, the King's men don't have to come into your house to sift through your papers.   They can go to your internet service provider or the telephone company or your bank or credit card company and lay bare your life, who you spend it with, what you buy, what you read and all your likes and dislikes.   In places like the United States with "total information awareness" phone calls and e-mails are automatically intercepted and computer monitored.

Today you can become a suspect not by your actions but by your profile built up, layer upon layer, from electronically recorded data then processed through computer software.   Who needs a long form census when you can electronically intercept all the good stuff anyway?

Information is not only power.  It's money.

The biggest mobile company, EE (for Orange and T-Mobile) has been selling on its 27m mobile subscribers, including calls made, location of use, downloads and sites visited. Quick off the mark, Ipsos Mori offered to sell on the acquired material to the Metropolitan Police. EE protested that its data was "aggregated and anonymised to protect its customers". Why then did the Met want to buy it? Everyone apologised.

Without a digital personality and a "verifiable" past, we will not be trusted by bank managers, employers, border guards, even spouses. Our teenage years will haunt us, perhaps rendering millions unemployable. Such people are Orwell's unpersons. When the internet, a sensational tool for living, crosses the frontier and becomes a life in itself, it risks destroying life.

Already the implied omniscience of the digital revolution is a gift to power. The American justice department was apparently angry with AP because it revealed details of a CIA operation in Yemen  without Washington's permission. In days of print – of Watergate and Spycatcher – power had to bow the knee to the media and the law. There is no such bowing now. The American government is about to open in Utah the greatest surveillance centre and storehouse on Earth, hoovering data from satellites and cables everywhere.

Government efforts to stamp on free information and opinion are usually a cloak to conceal executive embarrassment in "national security". It dusts secrecy with good intent: say a word and the dreaded al-Qaida will get to hear. Britain's Ripa dragnet, which the present home secretary still wants to extend, subjects the entire electronic realm to secretive state surveillance.

 Some of this intrusion may be useful – for example, in exposing tax evasion or paedophile websites. Every cloud can be found a silver lining. But two things are frightening in the Schmidt-Cohen futurology. One is the near total absence of accountability or redress – little beyond pleas for voluntary protocols and codes of corporate behaviour. Relying for personal privacy and security on corporate virtue – remember, the virtual world is entirely corporate – is like relying on Google to pay taxes.

Far worse is the boost the internet offers to state paranoia. The US justice department professes to decide for itself how to balance press freedom against national security. How does it come by this licence? As the security industry goads ministers to ever more purchases, the ratchet is always towards control and against freedom.

It can be no accident that the systematic destruction of the privacy of the individual parallels the ascendancy of the corporatist state and the relentless degradation of democracy.  What a wonderful tool to facilitate the restoration of both oligarchs and their essential companion, serfdom.   We not only invite them to steal our privacy but we permit them to commodify it.

There was a time that events and trends like this mattered.  We would argue endlessly about them among ourselves and they would be debated on the floors of our legislatures.  Ask yourself how that all fell silent?   Are we simply too busy spilling our guts on Facebook or to Amazon or Gmail to notice that we're spilling our guts to those who can find more than one handy use for our information, most of which may be against our individual and collective self-interest?

That's why I'm beginning to think one Anonymous might not be enough.   Somebody has to watch the watchers and show us what they're actually doing to us - to you and me - today and tomorrow.  They will not tell you and you will not know.   If governments wield great and dangerous powers that we haven't given them, they are not governing with our consent.   They have only two sources of powers - those that we have given them and those they have stolen from us when they thought we wouldn't catch on.

Britain Backs Bitumen

Sideshow Steve Harper and his British counterpart, Austerity Dave Cameron, may be widely disliked by their citizens, but they are taking care of business.

Cameron, according to documents leaked to The Guardian, is running interference for Steve with the same E.U. his party is constantly threatening to divorce.

The E.U. is contemplating restrictions on high-carbon transport fuels, which is code for Athabasca bitumen.   The European commission has proposed labelling Alberta heavy oil as "highly polluting" to deter countries importing it.   Cameron is moving to derail that initiative.

But of six options put to EU countries in April on how to implement the proposal, the UK chose the two that would make no differentiation between the carbon content of fuels.

"Based on the findings so far, it seems clear that [these two] seem to meet the policy aims of the directive with the least risks of unexpected consequences," the UK said in the documents. It firmly rejected others that allowed a difference.

Charlie Kronick, senior climate campaigner at Greenpeace, said: "Labelling oil from tar sands as highly polluting would strongly discourage tar sands imports into the Europe and possibly other markets. It could also discourage planned tar sands extraction projects in other parts of the world, such as Madagascar.

"If you're not serious about keeping tar sands oil out of Europe, then you're not serious about climate change."

What Does Tonight's Disaster Say About the NDP?

It was the New Dems' election to lose and that's just what they did.  They lost to a government that was roundly despised with a record rich in corruption, scandal, manipulation and dishonesty.

Tonight the public's distrust of the NDP trumped its disgust for the Liberals.   Tonight the NDP showed just how soft and unreliable its support can be and how easily even a rotten rival can pry those voters out of its hands.

Adrian Dix wasn't some firebrand socialist.   He was genuinely moderate and woefully lacking in the killer instinct of the blood sport of politics.   Dix foolishly took the high road and refused to engage, blow for blow, with Christy Clark's negative campaigning.

He needed to remind people every day all the reasons they had to loathe this woefully corrupt government but he wouldn't and didn't and his party, not to mention our province, paid the price for that.

I think something else we learned tonight is that New Democrat support is soft and unreliable.  It's a lesson that Tommy Mulcair and the federal Dippers should heed.  Jack Layton brought the NDP to official opposition on a groundswell of voter support in Quebec.  Where is that support today?  It's evaporating.

Well at least the night wasn't a total write-off.   My party, the Greens, won their first seat in B.C. provincial politics.    And what a win that was.   Andrew Weaver, U. Vic. professor and world renowned environmental scientist, will now replace the inept New Dems as the government's opposition on climate change and the security of our coast.

WIPEOUT

Really?

Canada learned a lesson tonight on how fiercely negative campaigning can salvage the electoral fortunes of even a dishonest and corrupt government.

The British Columbia NDP, by everyone's assessment, was to win a strong majority government tonight.   The governing BC Liberals were to be left with a weak minority.

Upset.   Despite having been 20 points down in the polls at the beginning of the election campaign, the Liberals pulled out one of the most amazing upsets in Canadian politics, not only winning another majority but picking up an extra three to four seats.  Those seats were lost by the NDP.

This resets the clock on British Columbia politics.   Adrian Dix chose to take the high road in this campaign.  That was a colossal blunder.

Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You - "Rumsfeld's Rules"

He's back.  Donald Rumsfeld has written a leadership guide entitled Rumsfeld's Rules that is being released today.  Wired has a review.

Who better to impart life lessons than the only defense secretary in U.S. history to screw up two wars at once? True to confident form, that’s what Donald Rumsfeld attempts in his new book on leadership, Rumsfeld’s Rules. He actually has good advice — so much that you really wish he would have taken some of it at the Pentagon. 

“If you expect people to be in on the landing, include them in the takeoff” is good advice. “When negotiating, never feel that you are the one who must fill every silence” is great advice. “We cannot ensure success, but we can deserve it” isn’t exactly advice, but it’s the kind of thing that gets you fired up to ace that meeting or take that hill, which is probably why George Washington said it in the first place.

But then there’s the onslaught of irony that comes from any advice book written by a man whose name has become synonymous in defense circles with Epic Fail. “Those who think that they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge” is a pull quote in Rumsfeld’s Rules attributed to Margaret Thatcher. It’s also a serviceable epitaph for Rumsfeld’s tenure at the Pentagon during a time when the Bush administration elected to invade Iraq based on (to be charitable) mistaken premises, diverting resources from the war against al-Qaida, ignoring an incubating insurgency in Afghanistan, and ultimately mismanaging all three efforts.

When dealing with the press, Rumsfeld cautions, never put out misleading information. “During the Bush administration, we took care that the information we put out was accurate,” except apparently if it was about Saddam Hussein allying with al-Qaida or coming on the verge of a nuclear bomb or possessing stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

I don't see myself buying Rummy's Rules any time soon.  If, however, you do, please pass along some more of his bon mots.

It's No Wonder the Beijing Politburo and our Harper Parliament are Best Friends Forever

It turns out that the Chinese Communist leadership and the Canadian Conservative leadership believe in a lot of the same stuff.

They both want economic liberalism but political conformity and suppression of dissent.

China's leadership has now sent out a notice to crack down on the introduction and spread of dangerous Western values.

The Chinese government has confronted demands for democratic reform from activists emboldened by Mr Xi's vows to respect the law. In recent days, some activists have cited rumours that the party issued a warning against seven ideas that are considered anathema, including media freedom and judicial independence. But the official summaries did not include such language.

Officials must "fully understand the dangers posed by views and theories advocated by the West," said the account from Chongqing, which said they must "cut off at the source channels for disseminating erroneous currents of thought".

"Strengthen management of the internet, enhance guidance of opinion, purify the environment on the internet, give no opportunities that lawless elements can seize on," it said.
Reports on other local party committee websites in north-east and south-west China also described the directive, although in less detail.

The demands for ideological conformity show that Mr Xi and other leaders want to inoculate the public from any expectations of major political liberalisation, even as they explore loosening some state controls over the economy, several analysts said.

 

Do you think we don't have elements of these same pursuits within our government?  Both governments seek to advance ideological conformity.  That's the whole purpose behind Harper's secrecy and information control.  It is precisely why he has severed communications between the public and their public and armed services.  It is why he has transformed all branches of the government into his partisan political agencies.  It is why the Harper government hides in silence.

Harper's instincts are to control the internet, to curb media freedom and to undermine judicial independence.  Perhaps if he had his way, Harper would prefer to preside over Beijing on the Rideau.

Today's Global Outrages

There doesn't seem to be a day that passes anymore that doesn't bring some but today we have two outrages to pass along courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald.

First up is the mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto.   Hashi, in a moment of splendid Japanese cultural sensitivity, chose to deliver his views on the "comfort women" who were kidnapped by the Japanese army and forced to work in brothels serving Japanese soldiers.

Mr Hashimoto told reporters in Osaka on Monday that the comfort women served a useful purpose. "When soldiers are risking their lives by running through storms of bullets, and you want to give these emotionally charged soldiers a rest somewhere, it's clear that you need a comfort women system."

Mr Hashimoto is the co-leader of the Japan Restoration Association, a populist party with 57 lawmakers in Parliament. His comments follow those of a string of Japanese politicians who have recently challenged what they say is a distorted view of Japan's wartime history. Last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seemed to question whether Japan was the aggressor during the war, saying that the definition of "invasion" was relative.

Now let's travel across the Pacific Ocean to the Central American tropical paradise of Belize.   A construction company there used backhoes and bulldozers to destroy one of the country's largest Mayan pyramids.  They wanted the stone for road construction.

Photos from the scene showed backhoes clawing away at the pyramid's sloping sides, leaving an isolated core of limestone cobbles at the centre, with what appears to be a narrow Mayan chamber dangling above one clawed-out section.

"To think that today we have modern equipment, that you can go and excavate in a quarry anywhere, but that this company would completely disregard that and completely destroyed this building. Why can't these people just go and quarry somewhere that has no cultural significance? It's mind-boggling."

Okay, that's it.   You can go shake your head now.