WIP

Back 20 years ago, when Bill Maher was banging her and made her a celebrity by featuring her as the almost permanent rightwinger on his old Politically Incorrect show, she was pretty damn good looking! The problem is that she is either a vampire or doesn't look in mirrors, to realize that she is too old to be running around in black miniskirts....I find varicose veins a turnoff also.

Back in the day, when Dief was leading the Conservatives, they refused to accept the new flag and were still flying their Red Ensigns with the Union Jacks in the top left corner...can't get much more British colonial than that! I remember the old Eatons Store in Niagara Falls also refused to fly the Maple Leaf in front of their stores, and still had the old Ensign...but they soon went out of business anyway, and closed that store by 1970! Because it was British, so cut the bullshit! I grew up in an empire loyalist family, and we knew damn well it was all about maintaining colonial ties with England, because back then the loyalists were even more anti-American than they were anti-French! It wasn't until the old Tories realized they were losing the fight against bilingualism and growing French influence both inside and outside Quebec, that they started toning down the anti-American rhetoric. And Quebec is still here and not going anywhere, and today's Canada - which has pretty much become an American satellite, is still floundering to find some sort of national identity to do some chest thumping about. Now that we have a federal government that is being run by Alberta, for the benefits of what Albertans (at least wealthy Albertans) want, maybe it's time for all of the Albertans to stop the "West Wants In" bullshit! Maybe if we were smart, we would accept our tepid nationalism as it is, instead of trying to imitate the U.S., now that the appeals to patriotism and nationalism are destroying the American Empire.

I was 9, going on 10 at the time, and that Centennial Mapleleaf was all over the place. We had all of these Centennial songs we had to learn in grade 4, which disappeared after all of the celebrations were over.....I always hated singing anyway! One of my favourite memories from the summer of 67, was when the Centennial Train pulled in to the train station in Niagara Falls. We had to wait in line at least an hour before having our chance to walk through the traveling exhibition. I can't remember much about the insides or even how many cars were attached to the train, but it seemed like a big deal at the time!

And when they are paying both sides, that means there is essentially a one party state, rather than a two party system. One of the behind the scenes stories is that the money men specifically targeted weaker Republican legislators, like James Alesi of Rochester, that were anti-gay marriage, and threatened to cut off their donations if they voted against Cuomo's bill. Now, I'm personally in favour of marriage equality, but the implications of this case are that the Bankers prefer having Cuomo as Governor, because he is pretty much doing their bidding -- and the fact that he is a Democrat means that it is much more difficult for unions and others on the left to organize demonstrations against him, as happens in Wisconsin or Indiana. If you recall the name "Alan Grayson," from the last election cycle - a Florida attorney who decided to run for Congress as a Democrat in a gentrified Republican district during the last election cycle...and lost to a heavily funded Republican in 2010 - Grayson informs us during an interview with OP ED News founder - Rob Kall, that as soon as he got settled in to his new congressional office, he was approached by lobbyists who informed him of how they wanted him to vote on health care reform and other issues. They told him basically that they were putting X amount of campaign cash for his district; if he followed their guidelines, he would get the money; but if he did not, the money was still going to his Florida district, but would support his next Republican opponent. So, keeping this in mind, are liberals in the Democratic Party delusional or just plain stupid when they expect that Barack Obama, or prominent Democratic governors like Cuomo, Jerry Brown or Ed Rendell will do anything of significance, after stabbing them in the back and carrying out the corporate agenda...while just tossing them a few crumbs like letting them have their gay marriage bills!

And that's what really concerns me over here! Even Wisconsin's protests look tepid and timid in comparison to what's happening in Greece, Spain, England and Iceland, where leaders have attempted to pay off bankers at the expense of the citizenry. Maybe they still have access to real information, which Americans haven't seen for years, after the steady growth in concentration of media ownership and the decline in newspapers and public broadcasting. Which reminds me -- we will be in the same boat in a few years after CBC is privatized, and Suntv becomes our flagship news network. The latest economic numbers show a continued decline in Canadian manufacturing and increasing dependence on resource...especially oil industries to keep the economy going. I'd like to be optimistic, but I'm expecting that Canadians will be passive and clueless, rather than take to the streets over austerity measures. I'm convinced that the reasons have a lot to do with our nearing natural or biospheric limits that are not factored into typical economic theorizing. We do know that there has not been significant real economic growth in most of the world; and the places where economies are growing (like China and India) are realizing that their growth is coming at great, if not catastrophic ecological costs. Joseph Stiglitz believes the lack of real return on investment is what has created all of these crazy derivative investment schemes during the last 10 years. The only way to get the big returns was to create ponzi schemes on top of existing investment strategies, or to use debt as leverage to raid the public assets of smaller nations -- as in the Greece example.

This game is being played all over the world -- drive a nation into bankruptcy through offering political leaders easy lines of credit, and then start leveraging the complete takeover of their economy by the large multinational corporations. Hidden among the stories on riots and currency issues, we find disaster capitalism at work: a fire sale of public utilities, telecommunications and even tourist resort islands to foreign investors. The world bankers have learned how to invade and colonize nations without firing a shot! Armies are only needed to enforce debt collection and the security of foreign businessmen. http://www.americablog.com/2011/06/hidden-greek-bailout-50-billion.html

And these libertarians base their notions of individual success on the fallacy of the "self-made man"...as if they achieved all of their success on their own, and owe nothing to the society that they live in. The crazy, psychotic despots have always been sources of calamity and widespread misery and suffering, but they are an even greater problem today if we have any hope of dealing with global problems like climate change in a rational, responsible manner.

I don't know how the public pension system works in Greece (and I'm willing to bet, neither do you), but employees who pay into government or company pension plans do not have a choice regarding contributions, or a say in how the pension funds are managed. In both cases we're now seeing many examples of employers showing us empty pockets and telling us that the money just isn't there, and benefits will have to be cut back...as in the example of Stelco. In Stelco's example, it boils down to the employer owing over a billion to the plan, while expecting that enough retirees would die early enough to maintain the plan's solvency....and they lost the bet...so someone has to pay, and it should be the former owners, the present owners who assumed this liability, but it should not be the steel workers who expect a promise made to be a promise kept....same thing goes for Greece...at some point in the past, the governments made these promises, and now they need to answer to their people why it's okay for to short change them, but not the international bankers!

Yeah, I mentioned about Obama's collections from top hedge fund managers when he first entered the 2008 Democratic Primaries awhile back. It explains more about his so called "moderation" than the excuses made by top liberals that Obama was "playing three dimensional chess"...in case anyone's heard that one before. Republicans get the lion's share of the cash from the Chamber of Commerce and the big oil companies; but the story isn't who gets what, it's about how much leverage corporations have over the political process. When they're telling Republicans to back off and let Andrew Cuomo get a win on gay marriage (an issue that wins him cred with liberals, but has no impact on business), I'm sure the religious right segment isn't happy about it, but they have to put that aside because they have to answer to the people who bring them the money....just as the Democrats have to stop or alter their wish list to accommodate the demands of their financiers.

This is what Naomi Klein calls "Disaster Capitalism." Big profits can be made by destroying entire economies. Right from the start, the intentions of international bankers is to use public debt owed as leverage to gain more and more control of a society. This is how, for all intents and purposes the Colonial Era never ended in much of the third world. The only difference is that they have a puppet government who gets payed by foreign interests and has no concern for, or even much ability to do anything for his own people...if he really wanted to.

Here's another reason how they become rich, and still want more money and more power: We are ruled by psychopaths! The worst people in society are the ones who are most likely to ruthlessly cut down others for their own benefit. They cut corners on risky schemes like deep water oil drilling and design and operation of nuclear power stations, and they aggressively maintain the oil energy economy because they really don't give a shit about consequences. The psychopaths are the cream that rises to the top in business, and in the world of politics, where sentiment could also get in the way of a ruthlessly advantageous political strategy. And here's another example of how ruthless they are with their greed: Wikileaks cables revealed U.S. textile manufacturers and diplomats, forced the Haitian Government to back down on a proposal to increase the minimum wage to $5.00 per day....that's five F!@#$%%^ dollars a day...not even per hour! How much goddammed money do these assholes need? Well, thanks to the Columbia School of Journalism Review, they have given us a breakdown of how much Hanes was able to save by suppressing Haiti's minimum wage: Commenting on the revelations, the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) calculates exactly how little it would’ve cost the clothing companies to comply with the new $5 a day wages. “Haiti has about 25,000 garment workers. If you paid each of them $2 a day more, it would cost their employers $50,000 per working day, or about $12.5 million a year.” CJR notes that if Hanes had to comply with the new law, it would cost them about $1.6 million a year — yet it made $211 million in profit last year. Yet unfortunately for the people of Haiti, Hanes’ greed was too great to sacrifice so little to help so many. http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/06/08/239144/wikileaks-cables-haiti-wage/

Who gives a shit? I never claimed expertise on this subject in the first place. You are just using your insider perspective to try to browbeat any criticism from outside. From my pov, the modern Israeli experiment looks like an attempt to set up camp in a wooded location surrounded by hornets nests. I've heard arguments batted around from all sides about who has and who doesn't have the right to the land, and I'll be the first to admit total confusion...although some of the claims, like no Arabs were forced out of Palestine during the runup to creating Israel to be totally ludicrous. The question for me, as someone who has other concerns than the Middle East, is why guaranteeing the State Of Israel should be my responsibility through the decisions of my elected leaders? And I'm sure a lot of Americans are asking this question now more than ever! I thought we were supposed to be involved for the purpose of providing support for a possible peaceful solution; now we are stuck supporting whatever Israel decides to do, whether it's blockading civilian populations or shooting demonstrators. Now I know why most people avoid discussing anything with you! Anyone who offers criticism is a subject for personal attacks. If the stories I've glanced over about the increasing power of orthodox, and the corresponding decline of secular Jews is mistaken, so be it. The overall impression is that Israel looks increasingly aggressive and theocratic as the time goes on.....which reminds me, I've never had the chance to answer the thread question can "a Jewish state" be a democracy? Well, looks to me like the answer is NO...since true democracy requires equality of all citizens, not dividing into separate classes of Jews, Israeli Palestinians and Palestinians under occupation. As time has gone on, the paradox of being Jewish and being a modern democratic state have become untenable with the rise in numbers of non-Jews. Who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin? Let's step into the wayback machine and see if the Israeli Government was really confident that their soldiers wouldn't be shot, stabbed or blown up by rightwing orthodox zealots who came in to stop their removal: At first, many officials advised against raiding the hotel at this stage, preferring to leave it alone until all the other Gaza settlements have been evacuated. They argued that it was better for most of the extremists to congregate at one venue, thereby making it harder for them to provoke radical activity in other areas. But developments in the past week have changed that analysis. Several hotel residents assaulted and opened fire on a group of Palestinians from the neighboring Muasi area, wounding four of them, on Saturday. The security establishment also has learned that the hotel residents are collecting weapons there, with most of the men armed, and have come up with several plans to oppose the disengagement. The official reason for raiding the hotel before the disengagement is that several of the residents suspected of Saturday's attack are wanted for questioning. The residents' opposition to the raid is expected to lead to a number of arrests and closure of the site. Many people who live in the Gush Katif settlement bloc have reservations about the hotel, saying its residents are making all settlers appear radical and violent. http://www.haaretz.com/news/idf-police-preparing-to-raid-gush-katif-hotel-housing-extremists-1.162092

Oh, and how do you explain America's race to the bottom? We know where budget cuts and low taxes for the rich leads over here; you're just taking advantage of a situation that is remote and unknown to most of us over here to follow the conservative/neoliberal strategy of trickle up economics.

Bingo! The real story here is that SunTV is Foxnews North -- a media mouthpiece in the business of advancing conservative propaganda. So now we know that one of their hobby horses will be to condemn arts programs, and public funding to help support them. It's okay if money is doled out for things conservatives like: military, foreign wars, subsidizing resource industries like the tar sands etc.

This might be old news for some....but not likely very many, since Citigroup has spent the last five years trying to scrub this report off the internet. I just happened to hear about it when I followed a link to a video clip from Bill Moyer's PBS show. from the transcript Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon. Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side. By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly "bang the drum on plutonomy." And bang they did, with an "equity strategy" for their investors, entitled, "Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer." Here are some excerpts: "Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper...[and] take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years..." "...the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the US-- the plutonomists in our parlance-- have benefited disproportionately from the recent productivity surge in the US...[and] from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor." "...[and they] are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. [because] the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact." And so they were, before the great collapse of 2008. And so they are, today, after the fall. While millions of people have lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings, the plutonomists are doing just fine. In some cases, even better, thanks to our bailout of the big banks which meant record profits and record bonuses for Wall Street. Now why is this? Because over the past 30 years the plutocrats, or plutonomists — choose your poison — have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. Remember that Citigroup reference to "market-friendly governments" on their side? It hasn't mattered which party has been in power — government has done Wall Street's bidding. So! It's called Plutonomy...and it didn't just happen by accident. And making the rest of us poorer was also intended since, as many conservative economists have noted - a prosperous and comfortable working class is increasingly difficult to control. Putting the middle class on a downward spiral makes them less trouble for employers to manage; so at some point in the latter half of the 20th Century, many, if not most of the major corporations realized it was more beneficial for them to work collectively for their common interests, than fight against each other for market share.

Well, how about James Hansen of NASA for one. Hansen has spoken out repeatedly in favour of taxing carbon, and criticized caps and trading schemes as too easy to corrupt or subvert to effectively change energy use and shift from fossil fuels to renewables. Weather Underground2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816? It's all just a coincidence! NO! That would only be the case if there was no tangible evidence for climate change. The case to do something, especially to take actions that cause economic loss for some (such as taxing the externalized costs of burning fossil fuels), is already made because we have unfortunately already hit the point where the increasing amount of moisture and energy available for causing storms is costing more than the costs of doing nothing.

There are a lot of Americans outside of that Christian Zionist bubble in the Republican Party who have the same beef....because they thought their Nation's MiddleEast Policy was to support Israel, but to push towards some sort of peace settlement. And then they woke up to find that their presidents, whether George Bush or Barack Obama, are taking orders from Netanyahu.

And the fact that you consider yourself superior to Arabs, and don't consider them worthy of basic human rights, tells me everything I need to know about you! And the fact that your friend responds to the analogy with Apartheid South Africa by implying that the blacks were better off being ruled by a white thug than a black thug tells me everything I need to know about him! And the fact that Israeli soldiers respond to unarmed intruders on the Syrian border by shooting them dead, tells me everything I need to know about your government! Yes, I recall your excuses and stickhandling of this story when it was in the news, and it still isn't worth shit! You know as well as anyone else that they could have dealt with the incursion without causing death...but, they didn't want to, because they wanted to make an example of them...just like that Turkish ship trying to break the Gaza Blockade...I expect the same thing will happen if the next attempt is made! I remember video of other Israeli demonstrations, such as the removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza, and yet the IDF didn't have to kill anyone to remove them...and they were an angry mob throwing stones also. There is an obvious and growing hardening and radicalization of the population in Israel. I've read numerous stories about the growing influence of Orthodox zealots on the Government and society at large....can't help to notice that on the other side, I don't hear much from Peace Now or other liberal groups. I assume that most Israelis really think like you do and are not interested in any sort of realistic peace process. That's your choice, and I wouldn't be very concerned about Israel's fight-em-to-the-bitter-end strategy, except that, thanks to our latest Prime Minister, it is our fight too, like it or not! YOur laughing because you have such a low regard for their lives! The "they do it too" excuse doesn't exactly cut it here. What's the next step? The growth settlements, walls and fences on the West Bank, for all intents and purposes looks just like a slow moving policy of ethnic cleansing. Fine, if your grandfathers and great grandfathers decided it was time to leave Europe for the Holy Land, and kick out anyone who moved in during the last 2000 years -- it's your war to fight -- my objection is being drawn into supporting this policy by my Government.

They call it "Vertical Farming," and I've come across a few stories about this strategy which this group is dedicated towards developing. I note that one of the problems which they already anticipate, is that vertical farming will not produce food cheap enough for most of the world's population without being subsidized. Another thing I don't see mentioned here, but which will be a significant factor is such large scale greenhouse systems is the spread of fungus, plant diseases, harmful insects....all problems I can recall from working in greenhouses many years ago that were much smaller operations. The section of one greenhouse that was growing citrus and other tropical plants for public display, had to be sprayed so frequently, that the fruit was toxic and would cause serious harm to anyone who attempted to eat them. The vertical farming systems might point a possible way out....it's not like we have an alternative choice since, as the vertical farming site notes - 80% of the Earth's land that is suitable for agriculture, is already in use!

I make no apologies for my verdict on modern neoliberal capitalism, which you obviously consider more important than the survival of the next generations.

Here we go with the Al Gore Strawman again! Did you notice that even this rightwing report notes the fact that Gore's latest interview in Rolling Stone is in the back pages, and not featured as a cover story? So what does that tell you? Perhaps that Al Gore is not taken seriously by real environmentalists, who realize that more drastic action has to be taken to stop increasing greenhouse gas levels! If Al Gore's green plan is too radical and too inconvenient for mr. moneybags here, he wouldn't want to hear from those of us who want carbon taxes applied to carbon intensive industries and products. Surviving climate change is going to be costly whether we take decisive action or continue to do nothing. I noticed that this clown seems to be sweating a bit about the extreme weather of late that has done billions of dollars in damage: Despite terrible weather, despite tornadoes, droughts, food crises and high oil prices, the world conversation has moved on. The question is why. Yeah, he's moving on like that clown climate change denier Steve King is moving on: ‘Unprecedented’ Flood Of Missouri River ‘Couldn’t Have Been Anticipated’ Well, as Thinkprogress notes, scientists have been trying to warn the public that we would start feeling the impact of a changing climate for years now, it's only a surprise to these idiots who were living in denial! Storm Warnings: Extreme Weather Is a Product of Climate Change More violent and frequent storms, once merely a prediction of climate models, are now a matter of observation. Part 1 of a three-part series Surprise! It's here and hitting us in the pocketbook already, while you guys were bitching about how much it would cost to phase out oil and coal.

And that's exactly why America needs a real opposition party that represents the majority's wishes: end the wars, tax the rich, a public option for health insurance etc.. What they've got is two political parties that represent the money. Whoever visits their offices with cheques in hand, gets their attention. The only concern they have about the public is how to fool enough people to vote for them during the next election cycle. Democrats do it by pretending they're weak "reforms" are the best that can be achieved for the people; while Republicans do it by demagoging social issues. An interesting new wrinkle to add to the mix is having a Democrat like Andrew Cuomo play the social issues card from the opposite side....which is a fascinating enough story to start a new thread for: link

Gay rights activists and the professional liberal class are celebrating the ratification of a marriage equality bill by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The story reported in the N.Y. Times is misleadingly titled: "Behind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces"] Well, the only thing unlikely is that these hot shot Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers usually open their wallets for Republican politicians....and that's because they can usually count on the slavish devotion of Repubs. But, this time they were feeling generous and told their Republican henchmen and lackeys to back off....just this once, because Andrew Cuomo has been such a good boy and carried out most of their agenda since arriving in the Governor's Mansion. As Mother Jones put it back in March: In the midst of all this gross inequality, New York’s millionaires are getting a tax break, thanks to the state's new Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo. Son of liberal ex-governor Mario Cuomo, inheritor of some of the enthusiasm that once surrounded Eliot Spitzer’s campaign, and successor to the weak stand-in David Paterson, Cuomo was elected on a wave of optimism. He even ran on the line of the Working Families Party, an increasingly important progressive player in state politics. Yet Andrew Cuomo has turned out to be just another craven neoliberal. In his most meaningful action to date, he has embraced a budget that would make any Bushite salivate. In a deal this past weekend, the governor and legislative leaders agreed upon a $132.5 million budget that cuts state spending by 2 percent, largely on the backs of the poor and the sick, women, children, the elderly, and other beneficiaries of state services. It offers next to nothing to the struggling middle class. But for the well-heeled denizens of Wall Street and beyond, there's a promised end to the so-called millionaire's tax passed at the height of the recession. This privileged group has already received a massive boost from the federal government in the form of the financial industry bailout, followed by the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Now they'll receive an extra gift from the state. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/governor-cuomo-new-yorks-poor-and-middle-class-drop-dead So, Cuomo is trying to balance the budget on the backs of public employees and the poor, the sick, and the elderly.....sounds like your typical Republican governor! And that's what so nauseating about this dog and pony show. Somehow, for some reason, it's okay to be carrying out the big business agenda if your a Democrat -- even though it is essentially the same damn thing that Scott Walker and Chris Christie are doing....with the only notable difference is that they fight against marriage equality, while Democrats support it. That may be enough of a difference to impress the editors of the N.Y. Times and other professional liberals who are part of that top income bracket, but what about everyone else? The leftwing blogosphere has mostly repudiated these charades, and it will be interesting to see how much is left of that Democratic grassroots support that Obama rode to the Whitehouse three years ago in next years election. The expected billion dollar Obama Campaign is already framing itself as the only alternative to Republicans....I'm thinking that it's not going to be enough to bring many Obama voters back for 2012, and will set up a primary challenge and other third party alternatives who will remind voters that a lighter shade of Republican red isn't good enough!

Food production has been falling steadily all around the world, and there hasn't been anything new developed to increase crop yields since the green revolution. Now, even if someone does cook up something in a lab to pull a rabbit out of the hat, it has to be impressive enough to make up for increasing losses caused by topsoil loss and land degradation, and declining availability of water for irrigation....and of course this all has to be done to accommodate an increasing world population that will reach 7 billion sometime this fall -- so what are you basing your optimism on...besides ideology?

Those productivity gains are through the increased use of fertilizers, pesticides and GMO hybrids....there's the only example of something new...being used in third world nations. Productivity does not equal technological innovation, and the increased productivity in India and China has come at a very high cost - extensive land degradation and decline in available fresh water. link link