When I was a boy I sometimes used to dream about running away to sea. So the sight of that old sugar boat today, made me dream for a moment of sailing to some place far from Harperland. Because this tortured country is getting crazier by the day. And so is the monster who would destroy it.
Last night I told you how the Harper regime was creating a Royal Canadian Oil Police to make sure that nobody but NOBODY stops their planned pipeline to British Columbia.
Today they're setting up a Royal Canadian Mop and Pail Brigade to clean up this latest oil spill.
Up to 3,000 barrels of crude oil have spilled from a pipeline into a tributary of the Red Deer River in west-central Alberta.The area around Sundre is considered pristine wilderness by many in Alberta. It’s a common getaway area for people in Calgary and popular with anglers and hunters.
He's always been an oil pimp, but I thought I better give him a new costume eh?
Because these days that's ALL he ever talks about.
"When you look at the Iranians threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, I think that just illustrates how critical it is that supply for the United States be North American," he said.
When in fact the Iranians can't block the Strait of Hormuz, Americans only want our dirty oil so they can ship it to China. And the Enbridge pipeline is all about giving China our raw bitumen just like they took our forests.
When I look at a picture of our beautiful little blue planet, and I think of what the Cons have done, I feel so angry and so ashamed to be aCanadian.
We're a rich, advanced country that should be a leader. Yet we've failed the world on climate change. We let our aboriginal peoples live in tents with sick children in the middle of winter. We send cancer-causing asbestos to developing nations. What's wrong with us?
Especially since, as John Ibbitson points out, the Cons may have done the dirty deed, but in a way we're all responsible for the Kyoto debacle.
“Global warming peaked as an issue when Al Gore won his Academy Award in 2007, and has basically declined since,” he said Monday. “And when the economy went up the hit parade, the environment went down precipitously.”
To a degree I can understand why so many Canadians feel this way. Thanks to the Cons we've come to believe that our prosperity depends on dirty oil. And in a cold country like Canada the day of reckoning seems so far off.
But what if it wasn't? What if bubbles like these are already heralding the beginning of the Apocalypse?
Oh no. How embarrassing. I see Stephen Harper was doing the hula hula in Hawaii today, trying to get Obama to change his mind about the Keystone XL pipeline. Because he said it was a "no brainer" so now he looks like an IDIOT.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday that the delay may kill project and could add momentum to efforts to open up the Asian market for Canadian oil.
“It may mean that we may have to move quickly to ensure that we can export our oil to Asia through British Columbia,” Flaherty told Bloomberg.
Oh yeah. I'm sure that will work. BC would LOVE to have hundreds of Exxon tankers bobbing off its fragile coastline. And with all those native treaties...and the Rockies... to negotiate, how long does he think that might take before the window closes?
Gawd. Somebody find a tiny pipeline so we can give little Jimbo an oily enema.
There comes a time when you just have to say it eh? Stephen Harper's Cons are not just crass, brutish and incompetent. They're dangerous.
The hole covered two million square kilometres — about twice the size of Ontario — and allowed high levels of harmful ultraviolet radiation to hit large swaths of northern Canada, Europe and Russia this spring, the 29 scientists say.
The discovery of the “unprecedented” hole comes as the Canadian government is moving to cut its ozone monitoring network.
Environment Canada scientist David Tarasick, whose team played a key role in the report published Sunday in the journal Nature, is not being allowed to discuss the discovery with the media.
They destroyed the census for no sane reason. They're torching the planet. They're ignoring scientists and other experts. And going after invisible criminals.
Organize, unite, take to the streets. Try to limit the damage before the blessed day arrives when we can drive those Con crazies from power.
Before they turn us into some kind of Planet of the Apes.
But Adam Winnick, an animation student at Toronto's Sheridan College, made a little video, using the words of the great astronomer Carl Sagan reflecting on the Pale Blue Dot.
And I think it's awesome...
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
But still we would destroy it. Let Stephen Harper and his Dirty Oil pimps torch our planet. And shame us in the eyes of the world.
Oh no. He's done it again. Stephen Harper has crazy glued on his Tom Jones Mr Nice Guy mask, and started playing the piano.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper took the stage at the Conservative caucus Christmas party in Ottawa on Wednesday night, playing the piano and belting out a number of rock hits.
Harper performed a five-song set list that included Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, the Guess Who's Share the Land and the Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash.
OMG. You know what that means? I'm surprised he didn't hum "I'm Dreaming of an Early Election."
And can you believe he actually had the nerve to sing Jumpin' Jack Flash. *Gasp*
Last year his version of Let it Be was unbearable. If John Lennon had been alive he would have ordered Yoko to scream at him. But this is BLASPHEMY !!!!!!! Keith where are you ??????
Although now that I think about it...when Mick sings that song it's a pretty neat weird tune.
I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag,
I was schooled with a strap right across my back,
But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas!
But it's all right, I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash,
It's a Gas! Gas! Gas!
But when Harper sings it it sounds even more disturbing...and an ad for Big Oil.
Which reminds me eh? Now can we call him NERO. For playing the piano while the planet burns.
Canada's Environment Minister John Baird, who has been criticized at the conference for not delivering on a pledge in 2007 to regulate the industry, declined an interview request because he had a long and delayed flight from Canada into the Mexican resort.
And John Baird goes to the beach...
Forget the oil sands. Pass me the suntan oil. Honey.
Oh boy. Can you believe those Cons? One moment they're pretending to be nice guys, the next moment they are eco-criminals, deranged theocons, and human rights abusers.
But of course they can't fool me eh?
I remember the last carefully staged performance all too well. How they faked the official photo.
How they hoped it would give Great PrettyNice Ugly Leader the majority he craves so much.
By making him look all sweet and cuddly.
Like this little kitten....
Awwwwwwwww.
And how it almost worked. Until Harper ate the kitten AND the teddy bear.
And the mask fell off....
Gawd. How spooky. It all looks so familiar. And of course my lyrics haven't changed either eh?
As Stephen Harper and his Con cabinet continue their extravagant pre-election junket ,photo shoot, vote buying Parade of the North.
Hoping to fool Canadians into thinking that Great Angry Leader is a warrior who will lead us to victory over the Russians. Political aides travelling with the prime minister were thrilled with the series of photo opportunities they had arranged.
Some told reporters privately that, ahead of a fall political season that could see yet another federal election, they felt the images of Harper amidst a display of military vigour would help boost his popularity among voters. Instead of a bitter deranged nerd who is leading us all to disaster. A man who couldn't give a damn about improving the lives of the people of the north. Local politicians in Nunavut, for example, told reporters earlier this week that while they appreciated the prime minister's enthusiasm for the North, they remain hopeful federal funding will materialize for projects such as drug and alcohol abuse treatment centres in the territory. A Con with only two missions: to try to fool Canadians into giving him the majority he craves so much. And to make sure that the oil and gas pimps in Calgary are protected as they drill the Arctic DRY.The pimps who walk him like a poodle, and have supported his criminal crusade against Kyoto. Even as global warming kills the north .... and the planet. "If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of megatonnes of methane a year - equivalent to 5-10% of the total amount released globally by natural sources, could be released into the ocean."
They're killing the north. They're killing our country and its values. They're killing the planet. And now they're holding a PARADE? Because they think it can help them win an election. Could there be anything more obscene? Could there be anything more RIDICULOUS?
You know they really shouldn't have called him a nerd when he was young....and he wanted to play Stalin.
Because it made Stephen Harper really crazy. And now we're ALL going to pay for it...
Well in a few hours it will Earth Hour. And I'm not quite sure what to make of it. On the one hand it's just a big and short publicity stunt. On the other hand I'll take ANY excuse to put out the lights and party on a Saturday night. Billions of people can't be wrong eh? And it does remind us all, if only for a moment, how much we depend on electricity. How much we take it for granted. And what would happen if the lights went out. And stayed out. Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.
Which is yet another reason for everyone to think a lot more about how to conserve electricity .... and clean up the environment all year long. Like my favourite hospital is doing. Because where do we think the Light of Life comes from? Our arses?
Damn. Now that's something EVERYONE can do....um....you know buy energy efficient light bulbs. And it does cheer me up. Now I know if the Great Darkness comes all I need is Ezra Levant .... or Kathy Shaidle.... as my BIG ARSE bicycle light. And I could RULE THE WORLD !!!!!!! Which would be almost worth the inconvenience of having to peddle my computer. And hunt humans for FOOD. Hey don't forget to have fun...AND save the planet eh?
One of the scariest things about this economic meltdown is that nobody is talking about global warming anymore. Even as the planetburns.
Swarms of the crop-munching insects are sweeping across drought- affected areas and feasting on grass and weeds sprouting at roadsides following the rain. In western New South Wales, near the country town of Condobolin, a swarm measuring four miles long by 560 feet wide was spotted last week.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology, meanwhile, is forecasting a swelteringly hot summer that will add to farmers' woes, as well as increasing the likelihood of bushfires and their ferocity. On the coast, amid rising ocean temperatures, record numbers of jellyfish have been recorded, along with giant schools of baby sharks.
And Canadian scientists have just discovered a new and potentially catastrophic source of greenhouse gases. Not in the sky or in the oceans, but in the ground.
Natural processes of decomposition of soil organic matter provide plants and microbes with the energy source and water they need to grow, and carbon is released into the atmosphere as a by-product of this process. Warming temperatures are expected to speed up this process which will increase the amount of CO2 that is transferred to the atmosphere.
Which could dramatically speed up the rate of global warming along with the methane bubbling out of the melting permafrost.
The effects of melting permafrost are not incorporated into any global climate models. Runaway warming in the Arctic alone could flip the entire planet into a new climatic state. The Middle Climate could collapse faster and sooner than the grimmest forecasts proposed.
And leads to the OBVIOUS question:
Do we want to be remembered as the generation that saved the banks and let the biosphere collapse?
But at this critical point in human history we are paralyzed. The economy is EVERYTHING. Cheap gas is good. Coal is clean.
As if we can simply ignore the problem and it will go away....instead of getting WORSE.
When in fact the puny forces of our economic house of cards are nothing compared to the awesome power of Nature aroused...
Isn't that amazing? And a reminder. The economy won't kill us.
The amazing things you see on TV. Like the abominable chimp George Bush criticizing China's human rights record. Yes. Really. Believe it or not.
As if any government that tortures people at Guantanamo and other secret prisons. Or locks them in small crates.Has the moral right to criticize ANYONE. There are, of course, a lot of reasons for the rest of us to criticize the Chinese government's heavy handed approach to just about everything.
But with only hours to go before the games open, I'm hoping for an Olympic truce. I think it's important to remember that China has come a long way in a short time. And that the Beijing Games don't just belong to the government. They are also a dream come true for millions of ordinary Chinese people.
... Beijing's Olympics will be a success because the majority of the population want them to be, not just because the government wants to use Olympic success to gain legitimacy. Xia Fengzhi, a 67-year-old retired worker and a volunteer, told me how happy and excited he is about the Games: 'I want foreigners to see what China has achieved. We were called the "sick man of Asia". Now we are strong and rich enough to hold such a major international event. I'd hate to see a billion dreams shattered. A confident, proud China is better than a humiliated and angry one.
So I'm hoping the Chinese people's big coming out party is a big success. Hoping we can forget about the grating sound of politics for a while. Here's to the real Olympic spirit. If it still exists.
May friendship RULE...
------------------------------------------- P.S. Did I mention I love fireworks?......and the Chinese INVENTED them.
Peace, friendship, sports AND fireworks? Bonus....
Isn't it amazing that we'll soon know more about Mars and whether there is life on the Red Planet....
Than we do about these humans in the heart of the Amazon Jungle ?
Who look like they want to meet us about as much as the Martians do.
And who can blame them? I figure the witchdoctor is having a hard time explaining that Big Buzzard in the sky. I wonder whether he's telling them it's a good omen. Or warning them it's the beginning of The End. Unless they bring him a whole pile of monkey meat.....AND six luscious virgins. Isn't religion ALWAYS like that?
Or are they just scared and confused? Like the rest of us on Planet Earth.....
I don't know. But after what we've done to THEIR jungle.
I think we'd better leave them alone. And take our chances with the Martians.... Have a great weekend everyone !
I watched the lights going off in the city last night. It wasn't as spectacular as I thought it would be. There were quite a few lights still on in some of the waterfront condos. The headlights from all the cars streaming into the city seemed unusually bright.
But the flashing coloured lights on the CN Tower were off. And the city was dark enough to make it almost magical.
Down by the lake couples were sitting quietly staring up at the stars. Some kids were playing with glow sticks. A woman in a fur coat beat a drum with a candle on it.
And back at the bunker I did my part for Earth Hour.
Just me and the dog. And one miserable tea candle....
I don't think Kerouac was too impressed.
Although I must admit it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I did miss the second period of the Canadiens-Leafs game. But I think if I had a crank expresso machine, and a pedal generator to power the TV and the computer .... as well as a solar powered shower like Jack Layton has... I could hold out for days.
Seriously though ... I know it's a just a small symbolic gesture. But the thought that millions of people all over the world were doing the same thing to show they care about the planet really lifted my spirits.
Imagine if we could do it EVERY day of the year?
I hear that some of the rabid Cons at the Blogging Tories were encouraging people to turn on ALL their lights. And that the oil pimp Stephen Harper snubbed it. Which just proves that whatever that neocon porker is he's definitely NOT a leader.
But what do you expect?
Harper and his Cons know that every time somebody flicked a switch it was like flipping those climate change deniers a bird. Or telling them to fuck off...or fade to black. Or just like laughing in their faces.
Global warming is a MYTH!!!! Flick. Flip. Muahahaha.
Which I guess is another reason I enjoyed Earth Hour so much. Really... how dum and crazy can these Cons be? What congenital mental incapacity blinds these climate change deniers to the fact that we're all in this one together? Or on it anyway...
And the party is almost over. At present, a race for the world's resources is underway that resembles the Great Game that was played in the decades leading up to the First World War. Now, as then, the most coveted prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest heats up it will not always be peaceful. In this round of the Great Game, energy shortage and global warming are reinforcing each another. The result can only be a growing risk of conflict. There were around 1.65 billion people in the world when the last round was played out. At the start of the 21st century, there are four times as many, struggling to secure their future in a world being changed out of recognition by climate change. Until people realize how desperate and dangerous the situation really is, we probably won't do enough to save ourselves and the planet. But in a world spinning out of control where hope is hard to find. I thought Earth Hour was a great idea. A little candle shining in the dark.
If we don't work together to save our beautiful blue planet. Who the fuck will? ----------------------------------------------------- P.S. If the party really is over somebody forgot to tell these guys...
Remember little Knut....the darling of the Berlin Zoo? How everybody went crazy over him until he grew up and suddenly he wasn't quite so cute. And then people stopped coming to see him ..... even though he missed them. So now they're calling him a psycho. "He is a problem bear, who will never mate and has become addicted to human company and their delighted applause.
"He howls and cries if there's no one out there to show off to [you can hear him from the zoo entrance], and as soon as spectators come, he calms down and starts performing. It's like a circus." Some of his former fans have turned against him. Anti-Knut graffiti started popping up on Berlin walls. An internet game was launched challenging players to compete for "Knut steaks" and earn 300 points every Knut they blasted with a shotgun. And it's not going to get any better. "He's still young and playful but it's already affecting him mentally and physically and soon he'll just pace about all day and the public won't like that quite so much." The zoo made a heap of money....the fans went crazy over him. And then deserted him. Now all we have is a poor sad bear.
Who still looks cute to me. And three obvious conclusions:
The road to hell ... for humans and bears...is sometimes paved with good intentions. Humans are a really fucked up species.
Ever since I began blogging I've been been desperately seeking a way to illustrate what could happen to Canada... and to decent Canadians ...if our sinister angry leader Stephen Harper ever won a majority. I've tried EVERYTHING.... stick drawings....crude photoshops....bad music videos. I even tried to make a short movie that takes place entirely in a morgue that doubles as a crematorium. On a busy day. But it wasn't HORRIBLE enough. But now I've think I've FINALLY found it.!!!!! Think of the nasty neocons as the Japanese Giant Hornets. And Canada as the beehive....
OK....so maybe the crazy Hornet Harper is too FAT to fly. But you get the idea. If we want to make sure OUR pupae have a future.
We've got to squish these Con bugs. Before they destroy the hive...
Uh oh...don't tell the crazy creationists...but the ugly argument over how humans happened just got even uglier....or hairier. A new study by a Canadian professor suggests that not only did humans evolve from monkeys .... they also evolved from neanderthals.
Modern humans may well have evolved from hardy Neanderthals who suffered through a dramatic cold spell that descended on Europe about 40,000 years ago, according to a new study that throws another coal into the already heated scientific debate about our origins.
But really is ANYONE surprised? First they tell us the neanderthals shared 99.5 % of our genes. But they were COMPLETELY different. Then we're told they couldn't talk.
And then that maybe they could. Neanderthals, an archaic human species that dominated Europe until the arrival of modern humans some 45,000 years ago, possessed a critical gene known to underlie speech, according to DNA evidence retrieved from two individuals excavated from El Sidron, a cave in northern Spain. Which makes me wonder when they told us the neanderthals were too dum to make clothes... so they all froze to death. Does than mean that now we should thank the hairy brutes for teaching us not only how to kill with a club ... but also how to SEW? And if you add it all up how DIFFERENT from us were they?
You know if this hairy love story continues.... I wouldn't be surprised if people stopped using the word neanderthal as an insult quite as much as they do. Or if men stopped shaving their chests. Or women stopped shaving their legs. Cave-a-bunga! Never mind the evolutionary implications. Wouldn't THAT be awesome? ------------------------------------------------------------ P.S. I STILL believe that the real reason humans sometimes act like brutes....and have so many sexual hangups.... is that our monkey ancestors went with the chimps instead of the bonobos.
I was glad to see that international pressure has forced the Japanese to suspend plans to kill humpback whales.
An international outcry led by Australia has forced Japan to backtrack on plans to kill 50 humpback whales as part of an annual 'scientific' whaling programme regarded as a sham by the rest of the world.
And eat Minke whale sushi instead. Now who is going to save THIS little fish?
"The fish in this thing does not look like it has very long to live and it can barely move...Even if it does live it's not a life worth living ... it's really just a torture box."
To me confining a little fish to a space as tiny as that just to look cool.... is as cruel as exploding a harpoon in the back of an intelligent sentient social creature when you don't need to eat it. But what do you expect from people too callous, greedy, and ignorant to understand that? Just like what do you expect from governments that can't even agree that global warming is a catastrophe that threatens us all? Even as the oceans turn to acid. The increasing acidity can eat away at the shells of crabs, oysters, clams and nearly microscopic organisms known as krill and pteropods. It also inhibits calcification, the process in which these animals rebuild their shells. Without shells, most of the animals probably would die. Which could mean NO fish in a world where as many as one billion people depend on it for survival.
And of course no whales either. Protect them now. Wipe them out later.
Oh boy. How can we save the other living creatures who share this planet with us... If we can't even save ourselves?
John Baird in Bali. "Our major economic competition is with the United States....You can have unilateral disarmament. Some might call it noble - but it's not necessarily smart." Michael Ignatieff in Question Period.
"Mr. Speaker, the government is going to Bali refusing to commit to any carbon pollution targets unless everyone signs on. That is like saying, “I won't recycle unless every one does. I won't pick up litter unless everyone does. I won't stop dumping garbage in the lake unless everyone does”. What kind of Canada have we become when that passes for international leadership?" David Suzuki on the crime against humanity. "Failure to act is an "intergenerational crime;" we are leaving a mess for our children and grandchildren who had nothing to do with making it, and we are creating a precarious world for the poorest and most vulnerable peoples who were not the cause of the current crisis." Stephen Harper in his own words. "We can debate whether or not... CO2 does or does not contribute to global warming. I think the jury is out." “Kyoto does virtually nothing to deal with pollution and to deal with the quality of the air that we breathe. Let’s forget about this unworkable treaty…. Kyoto’s never going to be passed.” These Cons must think we're really stupid. And maybe we are. How else to explain how a modern, civilized, and educated country could elect these climate change deniers and oil pimps to speak in OUR name? And shame us in the eyes of the world. It's bad enough that they are brutalizing and ruining the Canada we love. But if they help sabotage what could be the planet's last chance to avoid catastrophe. Future generations will NEVER forgive us. And the shame will go on and on...
When you stare at our beautiful, but small and fragile planet, it's not hard to imagine how life could be wiped out by an all-out nuclear war....or a collision with a giant asteroid. But what if the threat came out of the blue? What if the planet itself was able to exterminate life? What if it already had? New geochemical evidence is coming from the bands of stratified rock that delineate mass extinction events in the geologic record, including the exciting discovery of chemical residues, called organic biomarkers, produced by tiny life-forms that typically do not leave fossils. Together these data make it clear that cataclysmic impact as a cause of mass extinction was the exception, not the rule. In most cases, the earth itself appears to have become life's worst enemy in a previously unimagined way. And current human activities may be putting the biosphere at risk once again. The evidence suggests that as greenhouse gases released by huge volcanic eruptions raised global temperatures oxygen levels fell in the oceans. And that allowed a deep ocean bacteria to bloom and rise to the surface...releasing massive bubbles of toxic hydrogen sulphide gas that devastated life on earth. But could it happen again? The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end of the Triassic, CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around 385 ppm, it seems we are still safe. But with atmospheric carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century, and conditions that bring about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. But is that scenario too optimistic? The U.N.'s climate change panel has predicted that CO2 levels could reach 550 ppm by 2050. But what if carbon dioxide levels rose faster than that? And didn't just continue to rise steadily. But suddenly jumped. Because the oceans couldn't absorb enough carbon dioxide. Same thing for the rain forests which we continue to destroy. Studies now show that rising CO2 levels can inhibit not enhance plant growth...like we once thought. So they won't be able to absorb as much carbon dioxide either. What if almost ALL the carbon dioxide we produce went into the atmosphere? What if rising temperatures caused vast amounts of methane gas to escape from the melting permafrost of Canada and Siberia? The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. What if what we thought was a steady and predictable increase....turned into an unpredictable....and unstoppable.... chain reaction? I guess what I'm trying to say is when the world leaders meet in Bali to discuss how to stop global warming they better be super serious and VERY careful. Because here's the thing. The reason we didn't figure out sooner what really caused those mass extinctions....was that the tiny killers didn't leave a fossil record. We couldn't see them...so we didn't know what happened. Which makes me wonder what other hidden threats are lurking out there? What else don't we know? And should remind us all....to demand that our political leaders in Bali take immediate action NOW before it's too late. If only just in case. Because what we know is scary enough. But what we don't know could KILL us.... ------------------------------------------------------ P.S. If we want to help save Canada AND the planet.... " It would take more than one letter to explain what’s wrong with Kyoto, but here are a few facts about this so-called “Accord”: — It’s based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends. — It focuses on carbon dioxide, which is essential to life, rather than upon pollutants..." Stephen Harper 2002 First we gotta get rid of this crazy oil pimp....
