And We're Back!

Fell way behind in everything and had to temporarily abandon doing this blog which was essentially about American politics, international news and global warming science. I missed it and so I'm back to pick up where I left off. I'm still over at our Canadian blog most every day and at the radio station too. Check them out if you have time.

Starting with what should be a huge story so far as global warming is concerned but so far has received very little coverage in the media, Antarctic waters are warming and a citadel of ice is melting. It's completely remarkable when you consider that the fringes of the world's coldest continent are warming faster virtually than any place on earth. This represents what is essentially the first breech in an area that holds 90% of the world's ice. Steady warming has the potential to raise ocean sea levels many feet.
Here's a link to the indispensable Climate Progress's pretty thorough wrap on global warming and green energy news that includes stories about how the World Bank has been talking about focusing its support on clean energy projects, the UK is negotiating a central role for business at the Cancun climate summit next week, hybrid tugboats, an organic farming system geared for homeowners, schools, restaurants and commercial growers, optimizing wind farms, China hitting their energy efficiency and pollution targets and at the cost of one Tim Horton's donut per month Ontario's solar PV industry will have created 72,000 person-years of jobs.

The people at Motor Trend take on the hate-mongering, drug addicted blowhard Limbaugh over his uninformed stance on the new Chevy Volt and remind him that driving and Oxycontin don't mix!

Some insight from Harold Meyerson about how Germany got it right on the economy and why theirs is the strongest in the world with a trade balance second only to China's.

 So, on to the overseas wars, and it is notable that the US is shrugging off Afghan anger at civilian killings. They're just being ungrateful and have no appreciation for the freedom the US and NATO forces are bringing them. The US denies the allegation of such killings, but admitted that they don’t both the investigate the vast majority of the complaints because they assume them to be “Taliban propaganda.” The commander of the Marines is the district says that the Taliban are to blame for “every single instance” of a civilian casualty in the district. In direct contradiction to such claims by the US, airstrikes are the single largest cause of civilian deaths by foreign and Afghan government forces during the first half of 2010, accounting for 31 percent, said the U.N..

US envoys are being forced to apologize in advance of the upcoming WikiLeaks document dump that promises to be an embarrassment to the US and the Pentagon is being described as "hyperventilating over being held to account" for its actions. According to the Independent, "Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public." A thought to which I have a one word response, Good!

Of course as always the US is claiming that the release will put lives in danger -- I think it'll put politicians careers in danger. The US's unending war efforts are what puts lives in danger. Shining a light on what they're up to is merely holding the accountable for their actions. Something there needs to be more of.

Okay, that's enough for one post! Will do my best to come back and post on right-wing American wankery which will no doubt be just as long a post.

The question now, as humanity pours greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, is not whether Antarctica will begin to warm in earnest, but how rapidly.

War: What is it Good For?

Wednesdays down at the radio show once the Canadian headlines are all covered are now officially for the conflicts taking place around the globe so I ask you, who could resist using that title at least once? Certainly not me.



In Canada an anti-war ad made by the Federation des femmes du Quebec was edited to appease military parents who were upset that the ad referred to the soldiers as "cannon fodder." It looks like a free speech issue to me. The objecting parents have every right to be unhappy with the ad but it is within the rights of the anti-war protesters to say what they want say about how they feel about war and Canada's participation in the Afghan conflict. Cannon fodder or not, good Canadian kids have died for a war that serves who in Canada? What exactly does victory look like? Why are we still there? Seems as if these questions should be answered poste haste.

And the wars of occupation in the middle-east continue to go poorly -- civilian casualties it is being reported are soaring in Afghanistan (and NATO is lying about it) and the occupations and wars it only serve to feed terrorism around the globe studies prove. Glenn Greenwald writes, ...a new, comprehensive study from Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, substantiates what is (a) already bleedingly obvious and (b) known to the U.S. Government for many years:  namely, that the prime cause of suicide bombings is not Hatred of Our Freedoms or Inherent Violence in Islamic Culture or a Desire for Worldwide Sharia Rule by Caliphate, but rather.  . . . foreign military occupations.

Those oft mentioned peace talks with the Taliban have no momentum and would seem to offer little hope for peace in the near future.

As for Iraq, Juan Cole argues that the real victor of the Iraq election, albeit 7 months later has been Iran.

Earth Blues

And we're back! Seventeen minutes past the big hour and we've got lots of stories but rapidly running out of time here tonight.

Starting with a story that should be getting way more ink, Pakistani government officials admitted that they deliberately sabotaged secret peace talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban because they resented being excluded from those talks. And in some news from the middle-east that actually might be called good news, turns out the prospect of an alliance between the Iraqiya and Iraqi National Alliance (INA) blocs and the formation of a coalition government could be closer than anyone realized.

Sadly that's where the good news ends for Iraq, as the country has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life.  All brought about by the havoc the United States has wreaked in Iraq.



The right has the brothers David and Charles Koch, heirs to the oil and chemical conglomerate Koch Industries the Koch family to orchestrate not only the Tea Party movement, but much of the modern right-wing infrastructure. They have founded or funded dozens of conservative or libertarian publications, think tanks, and attack groups. Grass roots my ass! The New Yorker goes further in exposing the Koch brothers.

The Koch brothers delight in misleading and muddying the waters about the nature of climate change -- they are not alone in this endeavor and there are a myriad of ways to do so. To paraphrase a song I heard, you don't believe in climate change, you understand it or you don't. The above link from Skeptical Science, in an article entitled How Climate Skeptics Mislead, looks at some of things that help us understand climate change. The point to signs of warming that are found all over the globe:

•From space and the Earth’s surface, we see more heat being trapped by carbon dioxide

•Nights are warming faster than days
•The upper atmosphere is cooling while the lower atmosphere is warming
•Ice sheets are melting
•Sea levels are rising
•Biological changes in tens of thousands of species
•Glaciers are retreating
•Seasons are shifting
•Species are becoming extinct

Also from Skeptical Science, in an article about Arctic sea ice volume, they ask the question why do skeptics only think in two dimensions?

To close out on some troubling environmentally related stories, starting with a story from Julia Whitty over at Mother Jones, the IWC (International Whaling Commission) has granted Greenland an aboriginal quota to kill 27 humpback whales starting in October. But (maddeningly) the hunters aren't waiting for the season to start.

From Science Daily, A previously undefined expanse of the western North Atlantic has been found to contain high concentrations of plastic debris, comparable to those observed in the region of the Pacific commonly referred to as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

And from Nigeria, what happens when sweet crude turns sour.

Late Night Blogging

On Friday morning, the radio show featured a week's news about the war in Afghanistan. The link is from our sister site and it's pretty much a collection of links to  mostly alarming reports about course of the war for the NATO allies. For example, from the Washington Post: With most Afghan and NATO troops stationed in the country's south and east, villagers in the path of the Taliban advance into the once-peaceful north say they are powerless and terrified, confused by the government's inability to prevail -- and ready to side with the insurgents to save their own lives. Go read at the whole post and don't be surprised when the realization that in spite of all that you may have read previously, things are deteriorating for the NATO allies in the Afghanistan war.

In Pakistan, floods have not just devastated the lives of millions of people, they now present an unparalleled national security challenge for the country, the region and the international community. Lest anyone under-estimate the scale of the disaster, all four of Pakistan's wars with India combined did not cause such damage.

And there are a myriad of other problems that have been created: Millions of acres of crops have been destroyed and villages washed away. Joblessness and helplessness will lead to more young men joining the militants ...and the floods have not stopped the rampant violence in the country. The Pakistani Taliban continue to carry out suicide bombings and assassinations and have vowed to wipe out the Awami National Party which governs KP province. The Taliban are now threatening to prevent Pakistani non-governmental organisations from carrying out relief work.


There's also the scourge of water-borne diseases and the risk of an epidemic:

Afghan Army Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

In A bold move the Afghan army started an ambitious strike against the Taliban without the aid of the Nato forces. On August 3rd a force of 300 soldiers began the operation against the Taliban in Kunar province. According to a Afghan Ministry of Defence the plan was betrayed and the Taliban was able to ambush the Afghan army. In the insuing confusing army commoners lost contact with the battalion. The Taliban was able to inflict heavy damage before Nato forces could aid the besieged Afghans.

An old vid from some four years ago but it's always good to see a Democrat bashing Fox news. Heard there were lots of fancy canvas shelters at Chelsea's wedding, you know how Bill loves his tents.

A Day's Roundup

Since everyone seems to give the overseas wars short shrift, I start there.

General McChrystal seems to be stalling for time so that coming offensive in Kandahar will be extra awesome - because war always is. An attack so brutish that the Taliban doesn't claim credit, but then they're murderous liars. Hamid Karzai has lost faith in US ability to defeat Taliban - turning to Pakistan. It's been a pretty bad month for Nato allies in Afghanistan and it's only 1/3 done.

Obama got his sanctions against Iran but no one actually believes they'll accomplish much.

On to the volcano of oil spewing into the Gulf, and the numbers are not good. The numbers have been revised upwards by the government and the uppermost estimates are frightening: 20 to 40 thousand barrels per day, and maybe even as high as 50 thousand, or 2.1 million gallons!

The right are trying to blame environmentalists for the oil spill - their fault for being right about the risks of off-shore drilling. John Boehner, minority House leader suggesting taxpayers should pay for the oil spill cleanup. BP still denying the existence of large oil plumes underneath the ocean waters. Aaaaand they couldn't be bothered to attend hearings on the oil disaster.

A couple of articles on how Dick Cheney and GWB jr. helped create a culture of corruption and deregulation that led to the BP disaster. Obama and his administration, especially Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, deserve to shoulder their fair share of the blame while we're doling it out. There really is no excuse for not doing more to change the culture and dynamics at the MMS.

The last five months have easily been the warmest on record. The Obama administration have been complacent about acting on global warming issues too.