Posts from our progressive community

.... people showing such contempt for my intelligence really inflames me:

A senior PMO official told Fife that Duffy couldn’t afford to repay the $90,000 and did not want to borrow money from a bank, fearing that his wife would be stuck with the large debt if he died suddenly from a heart attack. Duffy has battled cardiac problems over the years.

Jennifer Ditchburn and Steve Rennie present an alternative view of The Puffster's finances here.

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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?

We are relaxing recuperating in our room in the Hotel Molinas in Granada, in the south of Spain. File this day under all's well that ends well.

Our last night in Barcelona, we had a tapas dinner at El Bixto, where we had gone two nights earlier. We got caught in the pouring rain on the way home, the first bad weather we've seen on the whole trip.

In the morning we took the metro to pick up our rental car, then braved a minor nightmare making it back to the hotel, what with poorly signed roundabouts, one-way streets, no parking, and Allan re-learning how to drive a stick shift. (It now seems amusing to call this a nightmare, given the major driving nightmare that would bookend the day.) We packed up the car and I navigated us out of Barcelona and onto the highway. I don't drive a stick shift, so on any of our European trips, all the driving falls to Allan.

Barcelona to Grenada is about 860 kilometres (535 miles). It's the longest drive of the trip, the only one of this kind of distance. Once we were on the highway, it was very easy going. There were vistas of the Mediterranean, rolling farmland, some foothills and mountain tunnels. Easy, pleasant driving. But, I think, a lot for one person. So as the day wears on, Allan is getting tired. We are both ready to get into town.

We had a bit of a surprise when the toll road turned out to be 30 euros! We stopped at a rest stop for lunch, serving all manner of freshly prepared food, and picked up some cookies and chips... which turned out to be dinner.

The last few hours of the drive wound through dramatic country. First we drove through thousands of acres of vineyards, an area of Spain that produces standard table wine, and lots of it. Eventually this gave way to orchards on both sides of the highway, more orchards than I have ever seen, including in California. We were driving through a valley, and the orchards went up steep hills, into the foothills of mountains. It seemed like every bit of land that was not completely mountainous rock was planted, including on dramatic steep hillsides. The orchards didn't stop until the mountain went straight up. We were both amazed at such steeply hilly country being completely planted. I don't know what was growing, although we also passed a processing plant of some type and the air was rich with the smell of olives.

By the time we reached Granada it was growing dark. There's a huge amount of suburban sprawl, which surprised us. We had no idea the area was so populous. We turned off the highway, following directions to the hotel... which quickly did not correspond to reality. Before we knew it, we were driving on tiny, narrow streets, pedestrians overflowing from the sidewalks, intersections not marked, and absolutely no idea where we were or what direction to go.

This is absolutely not a town to drive in - and in fact the streets in the oldest part of town are closed to traffic (except taxis and buses) until 10:00 pm - but many tourists have no choice. We were hopelessly lost. I couldn't even call the hotel, because we lacked any point of reference to tell them where we were. At one point we found ourselves on a ring road heading up into the hills, out of town, in the pitch dark.

Poor Allan was exhausted. He had already driven 9 hours, and now he's bumping down impossibly narrow streets, motorcycles cutting us off, taxis honking behind us, people walking in front of the car with no warning. It was a nightmare. I was debating whether we should just stop at any hotel and try to get a room, but it was after 10:00 pm and that can be an even more frustrating experience. We had booked our Granada room online while in Barcelona. It was a great deal, they were holding the room for us, but I was starting to wonder if we'd ever find them, and if we did, would the room still be available.

Allan spotted a large hotel with a brightly lit sign, and we pulled into their check-in/unloading area. I took a chance, called our hotel and said we were lost. A very nice young man gave me verbal directions, which I wrote down, but they were like gibberish. We needed a map.

Then I went inside, and another very nice young man saved the day. He knew the hotel we were looking for, and said it was all but impossible to find. I felt a bit vindicated when he said that folks with GPS get especially lost! He took out a map, and gave me detailed directions, both written and verbal, then went over the whole thing again. While there, I also asked if his hotel had a vacancy... it did not.

It worked. The directions were perfect and we found the hotel. The young man at the desk (who I had spoken to earlier) could not have been nicer. He showed us to our room in an adjacent building, met us at the parking garage around the corner, and booked our tickets for the Alhambra for the next day. We were so tired we could have cried.

The hotel itself is hip and stylish, the room bright and roomy - and crazy cheap. Our room in Paris was 200 euros per night, much more than we usually spend, but I wanted to stay in a nice neighbourhood, and many of the better discount hotels were fully booked. Our room in Barcelona was 80 euros a night, a terrific deal in a nice neighbourhood. And this room in Granada is 55 euros a night! And it's really nice. It will be interesting to see what transpires from now on.

On the way here, I was fascinated to see highway signs in both Spanish and Arabic. Is there still an Arabic community in southern Spain, or do Muslims make pilgrimages to see these ancient holy sites? Either way, it's wonderful. We're seeing the Alhambra late in the day, just relaxing and hanging out until then. We'll also book our next couple of nights, and maybe book ahead in Madrid.

The DSM-5 is out, and it’s a 1000-page whopper. Shrinks have discovered a plethora of new mental illnesses—such as grieving the death of a loved one—and no doubt they have a pill and other “therapies” ready and waiting for anyone... Dr.Dawg http://drdawgsblawg.ca/

Who knows? With a little modification, Robertson's advice to the wife who has been cheated on might offer a new spin direction for the Harper regime, especially in its current troubles.

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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 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.

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.

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

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.

Or y'know, not. I'm not one of those people who's afraid of hitting 30. Today is my 29th birthday and as I look back on my 20s I realize that it was probably the best, and hopefully worst, decade so far. Forget my teens, the teens suck. 20 to 29 is where it's at, and I figure now that I've got myself sorted out (mostly), my 30s should be pure gold. Hopefully my 40s will be even better, and so on and so forth until I hit 100 and am basically a god. You never know, my grandma P lived until she was 92. I could do it.

It's been a big year; two moves, a baby and a close call with death, learning and loving to be a mom again, falling for a new part of the island, strengthening and deepening my relationship with Ryan, and as always Figuring Things Out. Truly life is the journey, not the destination.

What am I doing for my birthday today? Tidying up and getting some things ready for our trip back to the Sault next week (so no posts unless something amazing happens), another nap hopefully, and that's about it. With all our friends back up in Nanaimo and all the family in Ontario there wont be dinner or a party or anything, and that's ok. I kinda feel like garbage today anyway. Kat, who finally has her first tooth, has been up a lot at night again and is scooting all over the place, so I'm feeling pretty beat. Wall to wall excitement, I know. 

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?

If your going to protest, have the guts to show your face.Pretty brave behind the mask. @deniscoderre good on you for ignoring it.— David Wilks (@DavidJohnWilks) May 16, 2013 I have no idea what this is even about, except that... Mandos http://politblogo.typepad.com/

The high-living Daniel Caron, a man with no qualifications whatsoever in library science or archival studies, is stepping down as the head of Library and Archives Canada. But not really for the right reasons. His blithering incompetence wasn’t an issue... Dr.Dawg http://drdawgsblawg.ca/

Middle Schools Closed In Cowichan Valley, School Bus Fees Implemented

CP  |  By The Canadian PressPosted: 05/16/2013 10:48 am EDT  |  Updated: 05/16/2013 11:14 am EDT (found  in Huffington Post)

 

And this action was  signed off on instantaneously,  about 2 seconds after the results of the dismal election were announced…viva the People’s Republic of Vancouver Island! If ever we needed to separate and form our own Province, this should make it obvious…. and  watch those  ’environmental impact’ studies get fast-tracked for a pipeline through our Province..let’s get ready for the fight if our lives, folks,for our beautiful interior and  coastline…because nothing else will stop the corporate greedbags now..

And I’d like to wish a fond farewell to those  members of   former Cowichan School Board, democratically elected by the people ( who knew in advance of the election that these progressive school board trustees would  vote against the government imposed budget reductions) and unceremoniously dumped  for doing what they said they would…

‘Cowichan’ comes from the local First Nations word for ‘Warmland’ and I get  the distinct feeling it’s gonna get a lot warmer here, after this announcement…

So much for democracy, and thanks again to all those BCers who didn’t bother to vote (only 48% did) …your pathetic  lack of interest in your own future  leads me to  revisit the idea of  a mandatory  vote, but then, you’d probably just pay the fine rather than get off your butts, or actually think…..

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.

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Duncan Cameron is the latest to weigh in on the Cons' distorted sense of priorities in directing public research money toward private profits:
Publicly available research is important. Since no one knows where discoveries or advances in knowledge will lead, the entire scientific community needs access to new research. There is no other way to maximize potential societal benefits. Learning is cumulative, innovative thinking flows from research building on public research.

Now with the privatization of research findings, discoveries and knowledge become industrial secrets, unavailable to Canadians who have paid for it, and lost to other scientists.
...

Conservative distrust of scientific knowledge was evident under Mulroney who abolished the Science Council of Canada (along with a series of other research bodies like the Economic Council of Canada, and the Institute on Peace and Security).

Harper's science policy is to continue cutbacks to grants for basic science, and the new NRC mandate is to vacate the field, yet Canada ranks fourth in the world in publishing basic science findings in peer-reviewed publications (science starts with peer review).

The Harper government punishes its winners because it claims Canada performs poorly when it comes to registering scientific patents. The so-called solution is to wind down basic science, and hand over scientific resources to companies.

Instead of promoting research and development the government solution encourages corporations to outsource it to NRC. Not only does basic science lose, applied industrial research by private companies is transferred to the NRC instead of being done in-house.- CTV reports on the news that Nigel Wright, chief of staff to Stephen Harper, personally gifted Mike Duffy the money used to repay wrongly-claimed accommodation and travel expenses. Jennifer Ditchburn traces Duffy's patchy record of expense claims and find that he was billing the public for supposed Senate business while campaigning for the Cons. Andrew Coyne and Thomas Walkom call on Duffy to resign, while the Toronto Star and Ottawa Citizen note that the PMO needs to provide far more explanation as well.

- Marilla Stephenson writes about the damage being done to Atlantic Canada by the Cons' push to end seasonal employment. Erin Trafford reports on the abuse of foreign workers in Halifax, as cleaning workers were paid as little as $3 per hour while facing potential deportation if they dared to speak out. And Campbell Clark notes that while the Cons continue to push for a flow of dollars and jobs across borders, they're looking to keep roadblocks in the way of refugees and workers.

- Finally, Erin Weir adds to my previous observations by pointing out just how ill-advised the Sask Party's plan to privatize ISC actually is. And once again, I've managed to err on the side of being overly generous to the Wall government:
Last year, ISC generated $20 million of profit for the provincial treasury. Losing 60 per cent of this profit, $12 million, every year is a very costly way to get $120 million of one-time cash. That deal would be equivalent to borrowing in perpetuity at an interest rate of 10 per cent.

If the shares of ISC were to fetch less than $120 million, this rate would be even higher. By comparison, the Saskatchewan government could finance infrastructure at an interest rate of three per cent by issuing provincial bonds.

Don McMorris, the minister responsible for privatizing ISC, suggests that corporate taxes change this equation. On April 16, he told the legislative assembly: "The government will retain about 40 per cent of the shares of ISC ... not to mention the corporate tax that the other 60 per cent will be paying back into the coffers of the province of Saskatchewan."

But most corporate tax is paid to Ottawa rather than to the provincial treasury. The Saskatchewan government is promising to cut the provincial corporate tax rate to 10 per cent, compared to a federal rate of 15 per cent.

As a Crown corporation, ISC is exempt from both taxes. A privatized ISC with $20 million of profit would pay $2 million of provincial corporate tax and $3 million of federal corporate tax, leaving after-tax profits of $15 million. Of that, 60 per cent, or $9 million, would go to private shareholders.

Between that and federal corporate tax, Saskatchewan would lose $12 million of annual revenue. [Edit: fixed title.]

In Act 5 Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Macbeth, when the overthrow of the ruthless, power-drunk politician/king is nigh, Angus speaks these words about him:

Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands.
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach.
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

Despite the fact that English literature is dismissed by many of our current 'masters of the universe' as something of a frill, with nothing to offer the practical, results-driven mentality of our times, perhaps the likes of Stephen Harper, Senator Duff, Nigel Wright et al should have paid more attention to the classics during their formative years. They then might not be facing what I hope is soon a 'palace' revolt against corruption by their former enablers:

GLOBE EDITORIAL
A strange, $90,000 gift to the undeserving Senator Duffy

PENNY COLLENETTE
Mike Duffy scandal finds the Tories in a moral maze without a compass

ANDREW COYNE:
The only right thing left for Mike Duffy to do now is resign

MATT GURNEY:
How can the Tories keep Mike Duffy on now?

JENNIFER DITCHBURN
Duffy claimed Senate expenses while campaigning in 2011 election

STEVEN CHASE, KIM MACKRAEL AND BILL CURRY
Ethics watchdog to review Harper aide's $90,000 gift to Duffy

GLORIA GALLOWAY
RCMP probes payments to senators Duffy, Brazeau, Harb

Then there is this from the always-reliable Toronto Star:

LES WHITTINGTON
Questions and answers on the $90,000 payment to Mike Duffy

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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.

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 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 crime 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.   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.

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 Rideau for a while.

Here, on how a narrow focus on pursuing a seemingly safe path to a bare majority government may have contributed to the B.C. NDP's stunning election defeat this week.

Needless to say, there's no lack of other commentary on the election, with Alice Funke, Sixth Estate, Michael Stewart, Paul Ramsey and Thomas Walkom all reaching conclusions relatively similar to my own. And while not a lot of observers can claim to have identified the problem in B.C., Dan Tan and Leftdog look to have earned at least partial credit.

[Update: Let's add David Climenhaga's take to the mix.]

But I will take issue with Chantal Hebert's theory as to the effect of the B.C. election on federal politics. While the NDP surely wants to build its reputation as a governing party, I don't see the provincial election as substantially weakening the case for federal office in 2015 - and indeed voter remorse under another term of Christy Clark may well play to the party's advantage.