WIP

In case I miss the next round of "nothing to worry about rising CO2" posts, here is the other reason why allowing carbon dioxide levels to rise will be catastrophic for life on earth: Are we causing a mass extinction in our oceans? Research shows that many areas of today's oceans have conditions that parallel those of 250 million years ago, when 95 percent of marine species quickly died out. Human beings created these problems, largely in the two centuries since the Industrial Revolution, but for some researchers, they bring to mind the ancient past. The Earth has seen several mass extinctions, including five that annihilated more than half the planet's species. Experts now believe Earth is in the midst of a sixth event, the first one caused by humans. "Today the synergistic effects of human impacts are laying the groundwork for a comparably great Anthropocene mass extinction in the oceans, with unknown ecological and evolutionary consequences," Jeremy Jackson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, wrote in a 2008 article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Frightening parallel When it comes to the oceans, research shows a parallel to the Permian-Triassic extinction — also known as the Great Dying — which eradicated 95 percent of marine species when the oceans lost their oxygen about 250 million years ago. The same phenomenon is taking place in many areas of today's oceans. The entry of fertilizers into rivers and subsequently oceans is eating up the oceans' oxygen — that runoff is the primary source of the Gulf of Mexico's 3,000-square-mile (7,770-square-kilometer) dead zone. Around the world, the number of dead zones, some of which are naturally occurring, increased from 149 in 2003 to more than 200 in 2006, according to a 2008 report by the United Nations Environmental Program........................ What's more, the ocean surface is warming, driven by the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. This keeps the deeper waters, which are rich in nutrients but low in oxygen, from mixing with the oxygenated surface. According to a 2007 report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global surface temperatures increased by 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) throughout the 21st century, and, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this decade is the warmest since record-keeping began in 1880........................ The parallel in ocean chemistry between the past and present isn't limited to oxygen depletion. The Permian ocean became more acidic as the climate changed, just as the modern ocean is doing. The ocean has absorbed about 30 percent of human-produced carbon dioxide to date, and as a result, its waters have experienced a 30 percent increase in acidity, according to Richard Feely, a senior scientist with NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. If trends continue, ocean acidity will increase by up to 150 percent by the end of this century, he said. Increased carbon dioxide and ocean acidity played a role in all of the Big Five mass extinctions, but in those cases the change in acidity was tens to hundreds of times slower than what's happening now. When changes happen quickly, "the ocean system itself doesn't have time to adapt," Feely said.

And biofuels should be subtracted from that number for alternative energy, because it includes stupid strategies like growing corn for ethanol, which are based on oil consumption to begin with. Better to replace carbon-producing biofuels with nuclear energy than switching from regular diesel to biodiesel. The Green Agenda pales in comparison to the money and political influence of the oil agenda. But there is yet another difference: if the Green Agenda was forcing environmental policy, the world would still benefit from reduced energy consumption and reduced CO2 emissions; what are the ecological benefits of tar sands and deep sea oil?

I would like to know why the warhawks here want to direct all focus on whether the lives of collaborators are in danger because of the leaks, and attempt to divert our attention from the fact that the docs add further evidence that the war is a lost cause, and more lives are put in danger by prolonging the war than from having revealing information about the scheming that is going on there at the ground level. The reason why the Afghanistan documents and the Iraq video of targeting civilians is out there in the first place is because there are thousands of American personal with security clearances that have access to this information....and apparently some of them have either lost confidence in the war policy, or want to make sure evidence for war crimes isn't completely covered up. Wikileaks is merely exposing a major security flaw in information control that already exists; and what is the Whitehouse trying to do about it, besides the usual attempts at a cover up? The documents dump I want to see is one from Pentagon and Whitehouse sources, that reveal the decisions going on up the chain of command.

You and your paranoid friends can interpret the significance of choosing "Cordoba" as a symbolic harbinger of Muslim invasion, or you can go by the track record of the organizers who view Cordoba as symbolizing the high point of enlightenment in the Muslim World, and represent a modern opportunity for improving dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews. You'll find exactly what you're looking for.

It appears that the Council has voted down the request to make the Burlington Coat Factory Building an historic landmark, as well it should! If you look at a few of the pictures of this building, it's an ugly piece of crap, no different than any other institutional building from the last century. Even if it was fixed up it would still be an eyesore! Of all of the excuses and objections to the construction of Cordoba House, this was the lamest of the lot!

Has the Pentagon or the Whitehouse produced any names or numbers of informants, collaborators, U.S. forces etc. that they claim have been killed because of the leaks? They and their puppets in the mainstream media claim that nothing new has been learned from wikileaks document-dump, and yet lives are in danger! Anyone else smell bullshit here? And how about when those we are helping are also working with the Taliban....should we be kept in the dark about that too? Quick question: a few months back, an unconfirmed source quotes Gen. McCrystal saying that we will lose the war if he doesn't get more money, more war toys and more troops; didn't that leak imply that the present war strategy of the Obama Whitehouse is a lost cause? And doesn't the fact that the general in charge was deliberately leaking info that U.S. and allied forces would have to leave, also put collaborators in danger, not to mention cause potential allies against the Taliban to be more reluctant to cooperate with U.S. forces? And why wasn't there any attempt to discover the source of that leak, which was as deadly as anything in the documents dump?

Thank you Gordon Gekko! Well, I might have been inclined to cut this sort of disaster capitalism some slack, if lived in a world with abundant resources for the next few centuries....but we don't! A new way of thinking, and a new way of economics has to come about before we doom future generations to extinction. We are like the voracious bacteria colony in a petrie dish that keeps eating and dividing...making more and more bacteria, until the limits to growth are reached, and the colony collapses. As it stands now, the human colony is almost at the edge of that precipice where it can grow no further, and time is running out. Glorifying consumption and greed has to become a thing of the past. But guess what! Greed pays decreasing dividends when you accumulate more and more crap anyway. Becoming super rich doesn't even do squat to increase your personal happiness. A little food for thought from Jonah Lehrer in Wired Magazine: Once we escape the trap of poverty, levels of wealth have an extremely modest impact on levels of happiness, especially in developed countries. Even worse, it appears that the richest nation in history – 21st century America – is slowly getting less pleased with life. (Or as the economists behind this recent analysis concluded: “In the United States, the [psychological] well-being of successive birth-cohorts has gradually fallen through time.”) Needless to say, this data contradicts one of the central assumptions of modern society, which is that more money equals more pleasure. That’s why we work hard, fret about the stock market and save up for that expensive dinner/watch/phone/car/condo. We’ve been led to believe that dollars are delight in a fungible form. Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/happiness-and-money-2/#ixzz0vW2gOrcQ

How well is the average, small shareholder represented by the board of directors of the average corporation? Not too well judging by the exponential growth in CEO salaries. They look out for their own, not the average shareholder. They don't move to places like China and Indonesia because of taxes; they go there to take advantage of rockbottom wages that are driving down manufacturing wages all over the world. They have to pay bribes and kickbacks to Communist Party officials in China; how does that stack up against paperwork? And what happened to Ireland? The fickle finger of globalization seems to have left them the most indebted nation in Europe with the highest unemployment. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/26/ireland-economic-collapse According to Business Week, the average CEO of a major corporation made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay in 1980. By 1990 that had almost doubled to 85 times. In 2000, the average CEO salary reached an unbelievable 531 times that of the average hourly worker. http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/CEOsOverpaid.htm So what did chief executives do that increased their value 12 fold? They got richer even in cases where their companies stagnated and went into decline.

More nonsense as expected! You make arguments that Cordoba House should not be built because this eyesore may qualify as an historic landmark, and some debris hit the building -- making it part of a future 9/11 holy site I presume, and you say that extremists may be there -- making it some sort of terrorist threat -- and yet you're not willing to try to stop it from being built!

And how does that oil get to markets in Europe, Asia, and North America? In the future, government oil companies like China's, may be major players in the oil trade, but they will act no differently than Exxon, BP or Chevron -- it will still be about getting the most money out of stored sunshine, and attempting to prevent alternatives to the oil business until the last drop of oil is used.

Kenora doesn't connect with King street. You have a police station on King, just across Centennial Parkway on the other side of your downtown; isn't that close enough? They could do foot patrols of downtown Stoney Creek without taking the cruiser out of the station. I never said I was a supporter of amalgamation. Most of Ontario, outside of Hamilton and Toronto, still have regional government. That was supposed to help even out the costs and prevent the hollowing out of major cities as happened to many U.S. cities. Maybe it helped a little, I don't know.

Well, at some point we are going to have to call their bluff! Many of these moves have already been made; how many banks and major corporations moved their official HQ to the Cayman Islands for example? It needs to be stressed that lower tax rates on corporations and investment income was sold to us on the claim that it would increase prosperity for all by creating an increase in investment that would provide jobs for all. Supply-siders claimed that wealth would trickle down to the rest of us and we would not increase the gaps in wealth and income....history over the last 30 years has proved otherwise! As long as the money is really being used for actual charitable purposes, there's nothing wrong with diverting some of his billions to the foundation. ---- Isn't it strange how the middle class started shrinking after free trade and generous reductions on corporate and investment income started taking effect! Back in the 60's, there seemed to be enough incentives for building factories, but for some reason the top 1% of income earners don't feel they have enough incentives anymore, in spite of the fact that they are the only ones who's incomes have risen significantly.

I think the most important related issue to wikileaks is how it is highlighting the failure of the mainstream media. Back in the days of the Vietnam War, the media was more centralized and limited than it is today, but the major journalists and TV newsmen were not completely in the tank, and taking orders from the Administration, as they are doing now. When Cronkite had enough of the excuses from McNamara and others, he said so. The reporters in the field were not spokesmen for the generals, as they seem to be now. Maybe it's because they start suffering from Stockholm Syndrome after being embedded for too long, but in all honesty, what can you learn from some twit like Lara Logan that you can't learn from the Pentagon or Whitehouse official spokesman? Her rant against Rolling Stone regarding the publishing of McCrystal's real thoughts on the war and the Obama Administration, was all based on how important having access is for her kind of journalism. No surprise that she and other MSM reporters are panicked about a new technique like wikileaks that doesn't need them to get the information out.

Why not have the courage to just say you want a ban, like right wing talkers and even some politicians are doing? You bolster their arguments while trying to shield yourself from criticism of bias with that lame statement that they should assume collective guilt voluntarily.

And again, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about, but that doesn't stop you from prattling on and on. Weeks ago, I realized that the outrage of a "ground zero mosque" was a fraud as soon as I checked the background info and discovered that it wasn't a mosque, and it's not even at ground zero! But being a cultural center and two city blocks away from the WTC doesn't stop vile propagandists like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, whom you provide aid and comfort for by parroting their misleading and fraudulent claims. This is what it says on the front page of the Cordoba House website: Cordoba House is a Muslim-led project which will build a world-class facility that promotes tolerance, reflecting the rich diversity of New York City. The center will be community-driven, serving as a platform for inter-community gatherings and cooperation at all levels, providing a space for all New Yorkers to enjoy. This proposed project is about promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture. Cordoba House will provide a place where individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, will find a center of learning, art and culture; and most importantly, a center guided by Islamic values in their truest form - compassion, generosity, and respect for all. http://www.cordobainitiative.org/?q=content/cordoba-house-new-york-city "Muslim-led" that's not exactly Muslim-only like some of the right wing opportunists are trying to convey. A platform for "inter-community gatherings" now that's what they have at a Taliban or Hamas cultural center I presume. From what I have been able to find about the man in charge -- Imam Rauf, he's a Sufi Muslim cleric....that alone would cause him to be charged as an apostate in the hardline Muslim circles. Which is why I consider those such as yourself, who claim to be moderates or liberals of some sort to by hypocrites. As mentioned many times previously, if as a hypothetical, a church wanted to build a Christian community center near where the Oklahoma Federal Building used to stand, would the fact that it had also suffered some blast damage disqualify a Christian organization from building on the site? Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were Christians...or at least they considered themselves to be Christians....same difference! And if it was, that would disqualify the site from being used to build a Y! Yeah, that's clear as mud! As it turns out, the 92nd Street Y is a YMHA, not a YMCA, so I guess it does turn out to be a Jewish enclave, and a plot to sucker gentiles into learning more about Judaism! I'm a YMCA member btw, and although the Y doesn't have as strong a Christian connection as it used to, our local Y has a chapel and is affiliated with area churches. But anyone can join regardless of religious beliefs or non-belief. I could just join a private gym (I rarely use the pool or other facilities), but it doesn't bother me that there is a slight religious bias because it still performs an important role in the downtown community.

Bingo! I saved that quote box because it contains the most significant addition to everything connected with crime -- the War On Drugs has been a long bad experiment in behaviour modification, similar to the Prohibition Era a couple of generations ago. If it wasn't for the general inability to deal with drug consumption and addiction in a mature way, there would be no Mexican drug cartels, and drug related crimes -- which are at the root of violent crime, prostitution and everything from burglary to armed robbery....since drug addicts will use any means possible to get their drugs at inflated prohibition prices. If Harper was really serious about reducing crime, including violent crime, he would tell the U.S. that Canada was declaring an end to this war and changing policy to treat narcotics as a health issue, not a law enforcement issue. And speaking of Mexico, we should also acknowledge that they have suffered far worse because of U.S. drug policies. Mexico has never been able to attract significant investment that was promised with NAFTA, largely because of the violence and corruption created by the cartels. They ended up with the worst of both worlds from NAFTA -- millions of farmers forced off the land by agribusiness, and no new industry to provide alternatives......and ultimately it ends up treated as a race issue by the right.

We are not far off the American Experience, especially when we have a government that wants to copy everything they do. A few shocking headlines are frequently used to convey the impression that we don't have a criminal justice system. It's about raising the fear level to buy votes and build more prisons.....likely new for-profit privately run prisons that are sprouting up everywhere in the U.S.

Unless I'm mistaken, didn't we get amalgamation because of a conservative government? Everybody's got an axe to grind! The people who lived near the old police station on Kenilworth weren't happy when it got moved to Stoney Creek, so stop your whining!

You have identified part of the problem, but before you get to politicians taking kickbacks from oil companies, you have to address the fact that Big Oil has decided to double down on going after the last oil reserves. There is just too much money to be made here for them to waste their time on diversifying into other industries....that is btw how Tony Hayward got himself in charge of BP. He knocked off the previous CEO who came up with the Beyond Petroleum strategy. These companies are ruthless operators on the world stage, so trying to focus the attention on their political stooges is a distraction from the big problem.

Since you live in Stoney Creek, have you ever taken a walk in downtown Hamilton? I didn't grow up here, so I can't speak for how it was 30 or 40 years ago; but there are police on foot patrols downtown now, so where are you getting this idea they don't patrol the streets anymore?

I am suspicious over whether there is any honest attempt to make the "tough on crime" strategies work. We only have to look south and see how ineffective and counterproductive U.S. policies like bringing back the death penalty and the Three Strikes policy have been at dealing with violent crime in U.S. cities. The cities with the harshest laws and the highest rates of incarceration, still have the highest murder rates. This whole tough-on-crime plank is intended to win support from people looking for some form of revenge or retribution. Sometimes these motives lead to worse consequences for everyone.

You find that an outrageous suggestion, when the U.S. itself is outsourcing their security to private contractors? What I said is that they should have to pay the costs directly, and then we would see how cheap the oil is coming to us from Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and Nigeria. Speaking of Nigeria, since we are learning that BP and other oil companies want to focus their deep water drilling on these sorts of banana republics, that have no labour or environmental laws....and dictators that can easily be bought off, there should also be an international body, with teeth, to monitor offshore oil developments in these countries, so that they are not subject to Gulf-type disasters. The Shah that was installed on behalf of BP, is the primary reason why Iran ended up run by the Ayatollahs....so that's a bad example to use. It actually strengthens the case many economists and other educated critics of globalization have regarding attempts to turn them into little americas.

I have to admit, even I was shocked by the extent over the faux outrage about the "Ground Zero Mosque," especially considering that it isn't a mosque, it's a full service cultural center and it's not at Ground Zero! According to New Yorkers in the know, a YMCA nearby at 92nd Street has a synagogue in the facilities, but that facility doesn't get labeled as a Jewish enclave. Nevertheless, that does not stop the Right when they have an opportunity to instill more fear and hostility among their little white suburban plebes. Over the last almost ten years since 9/11, the worst reactionary tendencies were kept in check by Republicans in power. The crazies were marginalized by being cut off from access to Republican leaders. With no commanding voice of authority over an authoritarian movement with fascist tendencies, the ones who talk the loudest and most vitriolic, get the most attention. There have been a handful of sane conservative voices like David Frum and Reihan Salam, expressing concern lately over the hysteria against Blacks, Muslims and Mexicans of late, but any talk of moderation...or sanity for that matter, gets drowned out by the next crazy statement from Glenn Beck or Tea Party leaders....or they get refudiated by Queen Wingnut Sarah. In opposition, the Republican leaders have a vested interest in encouraging the worst from their supporters, especially when they have a Black President to focus their rage upon. Of late, we are learning that the big money is leaving the Democrats and going back to their natural home in the Republican Party. And that includes the astroturf organizations, such as the one founded by Karl Rove, which gets virtually all of its money from four billionaires.....money talks! Now, when the time comes for the Corporate Party to retake power from the Corporate Lite Party, the new rightwing leadership will try to tamp down the rhetoric again by reconnecting rightwing media access to keeping their rhetoric under control and following the Republican line. In the Bush Age, this strategy worked on lapdogs like Sean Hannity and Rush, but not on the crazies like Glenn Beck and Michael Savage. If the Repubs get their new Reagan, we'll see if he is able to get them all back in line again. My suspicions are that the times are too volatile for the next Republican president in 2012 or 2016 to get everybody back on message.

Yay Shirley! I've heard there is at least one former ACORN employee going after Breitbart and those two pissants that created the fraudulently edited video that caused his dismissal. Let's see if any of Breitbart's billionaire backers will fork out the money to keep his slimey career going, or if they cut bait and look for other rightwing attack dogs to support.

I grew up in the 60's too...well, late 60's - early 70's to be exact, and I would have thought the same thing....that things were safer back then than they are now; but, the numbers don't lie! Our anecdotes about our youth are coloured by the fact that you don't worry about danger as much when you're 18 as you do when you are in your 50's. And I don't think it's just a matter of us getting older either. I've had suspicions for many years that police departments and the media have too much of a vested interest in ramping up our concerns about crime. Every year when it's budget negotiation time, you can count on the police chiefs and subordinates dumping quotes that are generously repeated by their favourite media insiders.....look at this way, if it wasn't for crime, what the hell else would Roy Green have done to earn a living all these years! And now, we can add to this pile a Conservative Prime Minister, who is well aware that his target supporters are older, and easy to motivate with promises of fighting crime and making the streets safer....a pox on all of their houses!