Sandra Finley

2013-05-01 Charbonneau Commission: Ex-political organizer details decades of vote-buying

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  No Responses »
May 022013
 

Canadians are well-qualified to instruct other countries in how to run elections. . . ha!   How low do we go?

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Charbonneau+Commission+political+organizer+details+decades+vote+buying/8315897/story.html

 

By Monique Muise, THE GAZETTE

Gilles Cloutier, an unassuming 73-year-old who has been heavily involved in elections across Quebec since 1956, stunned the inquiry on Tuesday morning with tales of backdoor financing, vote-buying and conspiracy.

 

MONTREAL – Six decades of political experience, an astonishingly sharp memory and nothing to hide.

On Tuesday, Gilles Cloutier proved that he is, in many ways, everything the Charbonneau Commission hopes for in a witness. For five hours, the now-retired political organizer held the inquiry spellbound with tales of backdoor financing, vote-buying and conspiracy that stretched back all the way to the era of Maurice Duplessis.

There was no hesitation and little prompting as a steady stream of names, dates and dollar amounts poured out of the soft-spoken 73-year-old.

Cloutier began at the beginning, describing how he handed over washer and dryer sets, colour televisions and even “four cows” in exchange for provincial Liberal votes in the 1950s and 1960s. He recalled the legislative crackdown of the late 1970s — when the premier at the time, René Lévesque, introduced new rules forbidding private companies from donating to political coffers. Within a year, Cloutier testified, the companies had found a way around the legislation, asking their employees to write donation cheques and then reimbursing them.

“It was easy” to find volunteers, he said, because they could claim the tax credit at the end of each fiscal year.

By the time the 2000s rolled around, Cloutier estimated that a mere five to 10 per cent of political donations at the municipal level in Quebec were being made legally.

The low percentage was mirrored at the provincial level, he said, with only 15 to 20 per cent of party financing coming from legitimate sources. The numbers backed up the June 2012 testimony of former anti-corruption crusader turned MNA Jacques Duchesneau, who claimed that more than 70 per cent of party financing in Quebec is done off the books.

The dirty money is used for everything from campaign signs to the $200 to $300 payments made to supposed “volunteers,” Cloutier said.

“For 20 years now, volunteers have wanted to be paid. There is no such thing as a volunteer anymore.”

Cloutier’s decades of experience in political warfare did not go unnoticed by the biggest players in Quebec’s construction industry. In 1995, the witness said, he was recruited by local engineering firm Roche, and began using his extensive networks of contacts to secure work for the company in Montreal and the surrounding municipalities.

When it came time for voters to head to the polls, Cloutier explained, he would meet with local mayoral candidates and offer them a deal: the engineering firm would guarantee an election victory, and in return, the winning party would ensure that the company was awarded lucrative city contracts.

“So you were able to promise victory?” asked Charbonneau Commission chief counsel Sonia LeBel.

“Yes, normally,” Cloutier replied. “Sometimes, I could even predict the margin of victory.”

The witness said Roche would “lend” him to the municipal campaigns for the duration of the race, and he would always start by recruiting high-quality candidates. He then ensured they had money to burn and kept the party organized from start to finish. Cloutier said he even instructed candidates on the finer points of door-to-door campaigning. (“You don’t walk on the lawn.”) The final steps involved putting in place a sophisticated communications strategy to carefully manage any campaign blunders, and then implementing a highly organized system for getting people out to the polls. Cloutier’s method worked like a charm in the small town of Ste-Julienne, he alleged, with current mayor Marcel Jetté winning both the 1997 and 2003 elections after striking a deal with Roche.

Documents showing how Cloutier managed two budgets during the so-called “turnkey” elections — one real and one designed to be presented to Elections Quebec — were entered into evidence on Tuesday.

Jetté remains mayor of Ste-Julienne to this day. A call to Jetté from The Gazette Tuesday was not returned.

Normally, only the mayoral candidate in the municipality was aware of Roche’s involvement, Cloutier said — at least until after the election. If the party already had an official agent at the helm of the campaign, he or she would step aside and hand the reins over to him.

Cloutier confirmed that between 1995 and 2009, he organized more than 60 turnkey campaigns on behalf of Roche and, in later years, their competitor Dessau. He lost just “five or six.”

“For an engineering firm, a man who excels at organization and at turnkey elections brings big returns,” Cloutier testified.

Cloutier was full of brief and shocking anecdotes on Tuesday, but the one that really raised eyebrows in the hearing room involved Quebec’s 1995 referendum campaign. Seemingly off-the-cuff, the witness mentioned that the “No” side didn’t follow the rules when it came to financing its ultimately successful campaign. As an organizer in the federalist camp, Cloutier said he used cash to rent huge billboards and to hire security guards to watch them overnight to make sure they weren’t vandalized. Those expenses, Cloutier said, were covered by “friends” and never reported in any official budgets.

He is expected to re-take the stand on Wednesday morning.

 

mmuise  AT  montrealgazette.com

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

2013-04-30 Irregularities widespread in Canadian elections, report finds

 Electronic voting, Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  No Responses »
May 022013
 
By Stephen Maher, Postmedia NewsApril 30, 2013

 

OTTAWA — More than 165,000 people seem to have voted improperly in the last election, a new Elections Canada report has found, and the system for voting needs to be overhauled, although there isn’t enough time to do that before the next election.

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand commissioned the report after irregularities in the Toronto riding of Etobicoke Centre led to a court challenge that went to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Former Elections Canada executive Harry Neufeld audited 1,000 polls from the last election as well as three recent byelections, and discovered systematic errors in the processing of the 15 per cent of voters who show up on election day without having been registered.

“Serious errors, of a type the courts consider ‘irregularities’ that can contribute to an election being overturned, were found to occur in 12 percent of all Election Day cases involving voter registration, and 42 percent of cases involving identity vouching.”

The auditors estimate that there were irregularities associated with 1.3 per cent of all votes cast in the 2011 election, many involving paperwork errors with the vouching process for voters who need to be sworn in.

Those kinds of errors led the Ontario Superior Court to overturn the election result in Etobicoke Centre, where Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj was defeated by Conservative Ted Opitz by 79 votes on election day in 2011. The Supreme Court overturned that case on appeal since there was no evidence of fraud.

Mistakes are happening in ridings across Canada, Neufeld concludes, because the hastily trained army of 200,000 single-day election workers fail to understand the complicated paperwork involved. Many also don’t want to tell voters, especially older voters, that they have to go to a different polling station when they turn up at the wrong place.

Neufeld recommends that Elections Canada improve its training and supervision of election workers before voters are expected to go to the polls in 2015, but introduce a new model for the next election, scheduled for 2019.

The agency wants to do away with the traditional “polling division” model and instead introduce a model based on New Brunswick provincial and municipal elections, where voters can go to any polling station, where their name is checked off a computer database.

Elections Canada would like to set up a similar system, with “real time access to a national computerized voters list, utilizing Internet data communications. This capability would allow for ‘live’ voter registrations and updates, and automated list ‘strike-off’ processing in all locations.”

Neufeld suggests that system will likely only serve as a short-term step, since the agency is likely to eventually end up running Internet elections.

“Current internet voting systems carry with them serious, valid concerns about system security, user authentication, adequate procedural transparency, and preserving the secrecy of the vote,” he writes. “However, evolving technology and societal expectations seem very likely to modify this equation in coming years.”

 

smaher  AT   postmedia.com

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

2013-04-30 Analysis Identifies Shocking Problems with Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered Corn, Mercola

 Food, Genetically Modified, Health  No Responses »
Apr 302013
 

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/30/monsanto-gmo-corn.aspx?e_cid=20130430_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20130430

Recommend:  go to the link where there are links to related info.

 

By Dr. Mercola

I’ve warned you of the potential dangers of genetically engineered (GE) foods for many years now, pointing out that such crops might have wholly unforeseen consequences. In recent years, such suspicions have increasingly proven correct.

 

One of the latest pieces of evidence supporting the suspicion that GE crops are in no way, shape or form comparable to their natural counterparts is a nutritional analysis that shows just how different they really are.

 

Inherent differences are essentially implied by the fact that GE crop seeds can be patented in the first place. And in many ways, I believe Monsanto is slowly but surely inching its way toward patenting nature itself, in the same way others are fighting to maintain patent rights for human DNA.1

 

These companies are trying to patent “life,” and they likely will unless they’re stopped by the courts. But it’s quite clear that humans cannot outsmart nature.

 

The latest nutritional analysis of GE corn couldn’t be more relevant as the recently passed Agricultural Appropriations Bill (HR9332) included a hotly detested provision (Section 735) that places Monsanto above the law. As noted by the featured article:3

 

 

“With the recent passing of the Monsanto Protection Act, there is no question that mega corporations like Monsanto are able to wield enough power to even surpass that of the United States government.

 

 

The new legislation provides Monsanto with a legal safeguard against federal courts striking down any pending review of dangerous genetically modified crops. It is ironic to see the passing of such a bill in the face of continuous releases of GMO dangers.”

 

At present, the only way to avoid GMOs is to ditch processed foods from your grocery list, and revert back to whole foods grown according to organic standards.

 

Analysis Finds Monsanto’s GE Corn Nutritionally Inferior and High in Toxins

 

 

A report given to MomsAcrossAmerica4 by an employee of De Dell Seed Company (Canada’s only non-GMO corn seed company) offers a stunning picture of the nutritional differences between genetically engineered (GE) and non-GE corn. Clearly, the former is NOT equivalent to the latter, which is the very premise by which genetically engineered crops were approved in the first place.

 

Here’s a small sampling of the nutritional differences found in this 2012 nutritional analysis:

•Calcium: GMO corn = 14 ppm / Non-GMO corn = 6,130 ppm (437 times more)

•Magnesium: GMO corn = 2 ppm / Non-GMO corn = 113 ppm (56 times more)

•Manganese: GMO corn = 2 ppm / Non-GMO corn = 14 ppm (7 times more)

 

GMO corn was also found to contain 13 ppm of glyphosate, compared to zero in non-GMO corn. This is quite significant and well worth remembering.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “safe” level for glyphosate in American water supplies is 0.7 ppm. In Europe, the maximum allowable level in water is 0.2 ppm. Organ damage in animals has occurred at levels as low as 0.1 ppm… At 13 ppm, GMO corn contains more than 18 times the “safe” level of glyphosate set by the EPA.

 

This is truly disturbing when you consider the fact that in countries like Argentina, glyphosate is blamed for the dramatic increase in devastating birth defects as well as cancer. Sterility and miscarriages are also increasing. This may be due to its similarity to DDT, which is well-known to cause reproductive problems, among other things.

 

Another health hazard associated with glyphosate is its effect on gut bacteria. Not only does it promote the growth of more virulent pathogens, it also kills off beneficial bacteria that might keep such pathogens in check—both in the soil, and in the gut of animals or humans that ingest the contaminated crop.

 

It’s important to understand that the glyphosate actually becomes systemic throughout the plant, so it cannot be washed off. It’s inside the plant. And once you eat it, it ends up in your gut where it can wreak total havoc with your health, considering the fact that 80 percent of your immune system resides there and is dependent on a healthy ratio of good and bad bacteria.

 

An additional disturbing piece of information is that GMO corn contained extremely high levels of formaldehyde. According to Dr. Huber, at least one study found that 0.97 ppm of ingested formaldehyde was toxic to animals. GMO corn contains a staggering 200 times that amount! Perhaps it’s no wonder that animals, when given a choice, avoid genetically engineered feed.

 

Next Up: Genetically Engineered Apples, Using New GE Technique

 

 

Besides so-called Roundup Ready crops, genetically engineered to resist otherwise lethal doses of glyphosate, there are other types of GE food crops. Another equally troublesome one is Bt crops, engineered in such a way as to contain a toxic protein within the plant itself. These were created by inserting a foreign gene into the plant in question.

 

Now we’re looking at yet another type of genetic engineering technology: RNA interference (RNAi), also known as post transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS).

 

According to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA),5 apples modified using this technique are slated for approval by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) sometime this year. The apple will not require approval by the FDA, which is responsible for human food and animal feed. It only needs approval by the USDA, which is responsible for protecting agriculture from pests and plant diseases.

 

The new GMO Arctic® Apple does not turn brown when sliced or bitten into. For the cosmetic “advantage” of these genetically engineered apples, you get to be a test subject for yet another untested genetic modification technology. How’s that for a bargain?

 

According to OCA, non-organic apples are already among the most pesticide-laden foods sold. In the Pesticide Action Network’s analysis of the most recent USDA data, apples tested positive for 42 different pesticides, including two endocrine disrupting pesticides (organophosphate and pyrethroid). The additional risk of untested tinkering with the RNA is not a step in the right direction if we want safer, healthier foods. The OCA writes:6

 

 

“[U]nlike the case with GMO corn or salmon, scientists aren’t injecting pesticides or genes from foreign plants or animals into the genes of apples to create the Frankenapple. While most existing genetically engineered plants are designed to make new proteins, the Arctic Apple is engineered to produce a form of genetic information called double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). The new dsRNA alters the way genes are expressed. The result, in the Arctic Apple’s case, is a new double strand of RNA that genetically ‘silences’ the apple’s ability to produce polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that causes the apple to turn brown when it’s exposed to oxygen.

 

 

Harmless? The biotech industry, OSF and some scientists say yes. But others, including Professor Jack Heinemann (University of Canterbury, New Zealand), Sarah Agapito-Tenfen (from Santa Catarina University in Brazil) and Judy Carman (Flinders University in South Australia), say that dsRNA manipulation is untested, and therefore inherently risky.

 

 

Recent research has shown that dsRNAs can transfer from plants to humans and other animals through food. The biotech industry has always claimed that genetically engineered DNA or RNA is destroyed by human digestion, eliminating the danger of these mutant organisms damaging human genes or human health. But many biotech scientists say otherwise. They point to evidence that the manipulated RNA finds its way into our digestive systems and bloodstreams, potentially damaging or silencing vital human genes.”

 

OCA also points out the indirect health consequences. The chemical compound used in the RNA manipulation process is one that also combats plant pests. So what might conceivably happen when you compromise the fruit’s ability to fend off insects? As noted by OCA, most likely, growers will have to start using more pesticides—on a fruit that’s already among the most heavily sprayed. In the end, all those pesticides end up in your body and, certainly, avoiding toxic exposures is important if you want to protect your health.

 

Despite What You Are Told GE Crops Are NOT the ‘Most Tested’ Product in the World

 

 

It’s important to realize that genetically engineered (GE) foods have never been proven safe for human consumption over a lifetime, let alone over generations. Monsanto and its advocates claim genetically engineered crops are “the most-tested food product that the world has ever seen.” What they don’t tell you is that:

a.Industry-funded research predictably affects the outcome of the trial. This has been verified by dozens of scientific reviews comparing funding with the findings of the study. When industry funds the research, it’s virtually guaranteed to be positive. Therefore, independent studies must be done to replicate and thus verify results

b.The longest industry-funded animal feeding study was 90 days, which recent research has confirmed is FAR too short. In the world’s first independently funded lifetime feeding study, massive health problems set in during and after the 13th month, including organ damage and cancer

c.Companies like Monsanto and Syngenta rarely if ever allow independent researchers access to their patented seeds, citing the legal protection these seeds have under patent laws. Hence, independent research is extremely difficult or nearly impossible to conduct. If these scientists get seeds from a farmer, they sue them into oblivion as one of their favorite tactics is to use the legal system to their advantage. Additionally, virtually all academic agricultural research is controlled by Monsanto as they are the primary supporters of these departments and none will risk losing their funding from them

d.There is no safety monitoring. Meaning, once the GE item in question has been approved, not a single country on earth is actively monitoring and tracking reports of potential health effects

 

Middle School Student’s Brilliant Experiment

 

 

Speaking of research; while there’s no research to support the long-term safety of GMOs, studies do show that organic foods are safer than their conventional counterparts in terms of toxic exposure, and likely far more nutritious as well.

 

Three years ago, middle school student Ria Chhabra created a science fair project to help settle a debate between her parents, revolving around whether or not organic foods have merit. Now 16 and a sophomore at Clark High School in Plano, Texas, Ria’s continued research into the effect of organic food on fruit flies has earned her top honors in a national science competition, and her work was recently published in the respected scientific journal, PloS One.7 As reported by the New York Times:8

 

 

“The research, titled Organically Grown Food Provides Health Benefits to Drosophila Melanogaster, tracked the effects of organic and conventional diets on the health of fruit flies. By nearly every measure, including fertility, stress resistance and longevity, flies that fed on organic bananas and potatoes fared better than those who dined on conventionally raised produce.

 

 

While the results can’t be directly extrapolated to human health, the research nonetheless paves the way for additional studies on the relative health benefits of organic versus conventionally grown food…

 

 

The difference in outcomes among the flies fed different diets could be due to the effects of pesticide and fungicide residue from conventionally raised foods. Or it could be that the organic-fed flies thrived because of a higher level of nutrients in the organic produce. One intriguing idea raises the question of whether organically raised plants produce more natural compounds to ward off pests and fungi, and whether those compounds offer additional health benefits to flies, animals and humans who consume organic foods.”

 

While the scientific merit of organic food continues to be studied and debated among scientists and laypeople alike, the issue has been settled in the Chhabra household. According to Ria, all the fresh produce the family buys is now organic.

 

 

 

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods

 

 

 

 

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people’s initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:

 

 

“Calorie and nutritional information were not always required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin labeling wasn’t required until 2002. The trans fat content of foods didn’t have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.

 

 

Doesn’t it make sense that genetically engineered foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The research we have is raising serious questions about the impact to human health and the environment.

 

 

I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522 will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or consumers.”

 

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn’t have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let’s not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you live in.

•No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.

•If you live in Washington State, please sign the I-522 petition. You can also volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.

•For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

•Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

2013-04-29 The Counter-Enlightenment, How government science advisers misrepresent science. Guardian, Monbiot. (Bees, EU neo nic ban)

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Health, Propaganda, Sustainability  1 Response »
Apr 302013
 

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/04/29/2662/

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 30th April 2013

 

What happens to people when they become government science advisers? Are their children taken hostage? Is a dossier of compromising photographs kept, ready to send to the Sun if they step out of line?

I ask because, in too many cases, they soon begin to sound less like scientists than industrial lobbyists. The mad cow crisis 20 years ago was exacerbated by the failure of government scientists accurately to present the evidence. The chief medical officer wrongly claimed that there was “no risk associated with eating British beef”. The chief veterinary officer wrongly dismissed the research suggesting that BSE could jump from one species to another(1).

The current chief scientist at the UK’s environment department, Ian Boyd, is so desperate to justify the impending badger cull – which defies the recommendations of the £49m study the department funded(2) – that he now claims that eliminating badgers “may actually be positive to biodiversity”, on the grounds that badgers sometimes eat baby birds(3). That badgers are a component of our biodiversity, and play an important role in regulating the populations of other species, appears to have eluded him.

But the worst example in the past 10 years was the concatenation of gibberish published by the British government’s new chief scientist on Friday. In the Financial Times, Sir Mark Walport denounced the proposal for a temporary European ban on the pesticides blamed for killing bees and other pollinators(4). He claimed that “the consequences of such a moratorium could be harmful to the continent’s crop production, farming communities and consumers.” This also happens to be the position of the UK government, to which he is supposed to provide disinterested advice.

Walport’s article was timed to influence Monday’s vote by European member states, to suspend the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides. The UK, fighting valiantly on behalf of the manufacturers Syngenta and Bayer(5,6), did all it could to thwart the nations supporting this partial ban, but failed. Here’s how he justified his position.

First he maintained that “there is no measurable harm to bee colonies … when these pesticides have been applied on farms following official guidelines.” This statement is misleading and unscientific. The research required to support it does not exist.

The government carried out field trials which, it claimed, showed that “effects on bees do not occur under normal circumstances”(7). They showed nothing of the kind. As Professor Dave Goulson, one of the UK’s leading experts, explained to me, the experiment was hopelessly contaminated. The nests of bumblebees which were meant to function as a pesticide-free control group were exposed to similar levels of neonicotinoids as those in the experimental group. The government “might have been wise to abandon the trial. However, instead they chose to ‘publish’ it by putting it on the internet – not by sending it to a peer-reviewed journal. This is not how science proceeds.”(8)

What this illustrates is that these trials have taken place far too late: after the toxins have already been widely deployed. The use of neonicotinoids across Europe was approved before we knew what their impacts might be.

Experiments in laboratory or “semi-field” conditions, free from contamination, suggest that these toxins could be a reason for the rapid reduction in bee populations(9,10,11,12,13,14,15). We still know almost nothing about their impacts on other insect pollinators, such as hoverflies, butterflies, moths, beetles and midges, many of which are also declining swiftly.

Walport went on to suggest that the proposed ban would cause “severe reductions in yields to struggling European farmers and economies.” Again, this is simply incorrect: in its exhaustive investigation, published last month, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee concluded that “neonicotinoid pesticides are not fundamental to the general economic or agricultural viability of UK farming.”(16) In fact they can prevent a more precise and rational use of pesticides, known as integrated pest management. The committee reports that all the rape seed on sale in this country, for example, is pre-treated with neonicotinoids, so farmers have no choice but to use them, whether or not they are required(17).

He then deployed the kind of groundless moral blackmail frequently used by industry-funded astroturf campaigns. “The control of malaria, dengue and other important diseases also depends on the control of insect vectors.” Yes, it does in many cases, but this has nothing to do with the issue he was discussing: a partial ban on neonicotinoids in European crops. This old canard (if you don’t approve this pesticide for growing oilseed rape in Europe, children in Mozambique will die of malaria) reminds us that those opposed to measures which protect the natural world are often far worse scaremongers than environmentalists can be. How often have you heard people claim that “if the greens get their way, we’ll go back to living in caves” or “if carbon taxes are approved, the economy will collapse”?

But perhaps most revealing is Walport’s misunderstanding of the precautionary principle. This, he says, “just means working out and balancing in advance all the risks and benefits of action or inaction, and to make a proportionate response.” No it doesn’t. The Rio declaration, signed by the UK and 171 other states, defines it as follows: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”(18) This, as it happens, is the opposite of what his article sought to do. Yet an understanding of the precautionary principle is fundamental to Walport’s role.

Among the official duties of the chief scientist is “to ensure that the scientific method, risk and uncertainty are understood by the public.”(19) Less than a month into the job, Sir Mark Walport has misinformed the public about the scientific method, risk and uncertainty. He has made groundless, unscientific and emotionally manipulative claims. He has indulged in scaremongering and wild exaggeration in support of the government’s position.

In defending science against political pressure, he is, in other words, as much use as a suit of paper armour. For this reason, he will doubtless remain in post, and end his career with a peerage. The rest of us will carry the cost of his preferment.

 

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/oct/27/bse1

2. John Bourne et al, June 2007. Bovine TB: The Scientific Evidence. Final Report of the  Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB. http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/isg/report/final_report.pdf

3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/10015391/Badger-culls-could-help-songbirds.html

4. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9045f86e-ab51-11e2-8c63-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2RYjCpCUI

5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/28/europe-insecticides-ban-save-bees

6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2013/apr/04/bees-pesticides-neonicotinoid-europe-ban

7. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, March 2013. An assessment of key evidence about Neonicotinoids and bees.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181841/pb13937-neonicotinoid-bees-20130326.pdf.pdf

8. Dave Goulson, pers comm, 26th April 2013.

9. eg Penelope R. Whitehorn et al, 29th March 2012. Neonicotinoid Pesticide Reduces Bumble Bee Colony Growth and Queen Production. Science Vol. 336 no. 6079, pp. 351-352. doi: 10.1126/science.1215025

10. Mickaël Henry et al, 29th March 2012. A Common Pesticide Decreases Foraging Success and Survival in Honey Bees. Science Vol. 336 no. 6079, pp. 348-350. doi: 10.1126/science.1215039

11. Mary J. Palmer et al, 27 March 2013. Cholinergic pesticides cause mushroom body neuronal inactivation in honeybees. Nature Communications Vol. 4, no.1634.

doi:10.1038/ncomms2648

12. Richard J. Gill et al, 1st November 2012. Combined pesticide exposure severely affects individual- and colony-level traits in bees. Nature Vol.491, pp.105–108. doi:10.1038/nature11585

13. Christof W. Schneider et al, 11th January 2012. RFID Tracking of Sublethal Effects of Two Neonicotinoid Insecticides on the Foraging Behavior of Apis mellifera. PLoS ONE 7(1): e30023. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030023

14. J. Bernal et al, December 2010. Overview of Pesticide Residues in Stored Pollen and Their Potential Effect on Bee Colony (Apis mellifera) Losses in Spain.

Journal of Economic Entomology, Vol. 103, no. 6, pp.1964-1971.

15. Sally M. Williamson and Geraldine A. Wright, 7th February 2013. Exposure to multiple cholinergic pesticides impairs olfactory learning and memory in honeybees. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 1477-9145. doi:10.1242/jeb.083931

16. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 25th March 2013. Pollinators and Pesticides. Seventh Report of Session 2012–13, Volume I.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/668/668.pdf

17. As above.

18. Principle 15. http://www.unep.org/documents.multilingual/default.asp?documentid=78&articleid=1163

19. http://www.bis.gov.uk/go-science/chief-scientific-adviser

2013-04-29 A win! Bee-harming pesticides banned in Europe, The Guardian

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Food, Health, Sustainability  1 Response »
Apr 292013
 

NOTE:   There are PROTESTS against the chemical-biotech corporations AROUND THE WORLD,  on Saturday, May 25th.    Find or organize one in your area.

Google `March against Monsanto“.    Al Jazeera posting 6 days ago is informative –http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201304232041-0022698   You`ll see where Hawaii is one of the hotspots.   Make your own place another!!

I will be sending out more info.

 

NOW – back to   A win!  Bee-harming pesticides banned in Europe!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/29/bee-harming-pesticides-banned-europe

Note:

–    The video assumes that viewers know about SmartStax Corn.  I appended a note in case you don’t (EIGHT different biocides are engineered into the DNA of SmartStax corn).

–     A listing of brand names under which the neo nic pesticides are sold is on the video.

 

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By Damian Carrington

EU member states vote ushers in continent-wide suspension of neonicotinoid pesticides

A bee collects pollen from a sunflower in Utrecht

A bee collects pollen from a sunflower in Utrecht, the Netherlands. EU states have voted in favour of a proposal to restrict the use of pesticides linked to serious harm in bees.  Photograph: Michael Kooren/Reuters

 

Europe will enforce the world’s first continent-wide ban on widely used insecticides alleged to cause serious harm to bees, after a European commission vote on Monday.

 

The suspension is a landmark victory for millions of environmental campaigners, backed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), concerned about a dramatic decline in the bee population. The vote also represents a serious setback for the chemical producers who make billions each year from the products and also UK ministers, who voted against the ban. Both had argued the ban would harm food production.

 

Although the vote by the 27 EU member states on whether to suspend the insect nerve agents was supported by 15 nations, but did not reach the required majority under voting rules. The hung vote hands the final decision to the European commission, which will implement the ban.

 

Tonio Borg, health and consumer commissioner, said: “Our proposal is based on a number of risks to bee health identified by the EFSA, [so] the European commission will go ahead with its plan in coming weeks.”

 

Friends of the Earth’s head of campaigns, Andrew Pendleton, said: “This decision is a significant victory for common sense and our beleaguered bee populations. Restricting the use of these pesticides could be an historic milestone on the road to recovery for these crucial pollinators.”

 

The UK, which abstained in a previous vote, was heavily criticised for switching to a “no” vote on Monday.

 

Joan Walley MP, chair of parliament’s green watchdog, the environmental audit committee, whose investigation had backed a ban and accused ministers of “extraordinary complacency”, said the vote was a real step in the right direction, but added: “A full Commons debate where ministers can be held to account is more pressing than ever.”

 

Greenpeace’s chief scientist, Doug Parr, said: “By not supporting the ban, environment secretary, Owen Paterson, has exposed the UK government as being in the pocket of big chemical companies and the industrial farming lobby.”

 

On Sunday, the Observer revealed the intense secret lobbying by Paterson and Syngenta.

 

The environment minister, Lord de Mauley, countered, saying: “Having a healthy bee population is a top priority for us but we did not support the proposal because our scientific evidence doesn’t support it. We will now work with farmers to cope with the consequences as a ban will carry significant costs for them.”

 

Syngenta, which makes one of the three neonicotinoids that have been suspended, said: “The proposal ignores a wealth of evidence from the field that these pesticides do not damage the health of bees. The EC should [instead] address the real reasons for bee health decline: disease, viruses and loss of habitat.”

 

Bees and other insects are vital for global food production as they pollinate three-quarters of all crops. The plummeting numbers of pollinators in recent years has been blamed on disease, loss of habitat and, increasingly, the near ubiquitous use of neonicotinoid pesticides.

 

A series of high-profile scientific studies has linked neonicotinoids – the world’s most widely used insecticides – to huge losses in the number of queen bees produced and big rises in the numbers of “disappeared” bees – those that fail to return from foraging trips.

 

The commission proposed the suspension after the EFSA concluded in January that three neonicotinoids – thiamethoxam, clothianidin and imidacloprid – posed an unnacceptable risk to bees. The three will be banned from use for two years on flowering crops such as corn, oilseed rape and sunflowers, upon which bees feed.

 

A spokesman for Bayer Cropscience said: “Bayer remains convinced neonicotinoids are safe for bees, when used responsibly and properly … clear scientific evidence has taken a back-seat in the decision-making process.”

 

Prof Simon Potts, a bee expert at the University of Reading, said: “The ban is excellent news for pollinators. The weight of evidence from researchers clearly points to the need to have a phased ban of neonicotinoids. There are several alternatives to using neonicotinoids and farmers will benefit from healthy pollinator populations as they provide substantial economic benefits to crop pollination.”

 

Neonicotinoids have been widely used for more than decade and are less harmful than some of the sprays they replaced, but scientific studies have increasingly linked them to poor bee health.

 

Many observers, including the National Farmers’ Union, accept that EU regulation is inadequate, as it only tests on honeybees and not the wild pollinators that service 90% of plants. The regulatory testing also only considers short-term effects and does not consider the combined effects of multiple pesticides. The chemical industry has warned that a ban on neonicotinoids would lead to the return of older, more harmful pesticides and crop losses but campaigners point out this has not happened during temporary suspensions in France, Italy and Germany and that the use of natural pest predators and crop rotation can tackle problems.

 

“It is imperative that any alternative chemicals to be used in their place must first pass the same tests failed by the neonicotinoids,” said Dr Christopher Connolly, a bee expert at the University of Dundee. “The recent findings have highlighted an urgent need for more rigorous safety testing protocols.”

 

In Brussels, the countries that voted against the ban were: the UK, Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Austria and Portugal. Ireland, Lithuania, Finland and Greece abstained. Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, France, Cyprus, Germany, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden voted in favour.

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ABOUT “STARTSTAX” CORN,  from

2011-01-10 Enviro-Pig = pig genes + E. coli genes + mouse DNA. Seriously. Coming to your favourite restaurant and you will never know the difference!

EXCERPT:

There is no way of tracking the health impacts of pork produced from “enviro-pigs” with their E. coli and mouse DNA, themselves raised on a diet of GM corn and soy because the Government regulatory system bowed to industry demands to require no labeling.

Remember: corn and soybeans are two of the largest bioteched crops. People may remember GM “smartstax” corn: inserted into it is material related to EIGHT different biocides to produce resistance to various chemical applications for “weeds”, insects, fungi, etc. Yes, the problems are created because the animals are being fed materials they have not evolved to eat. The same is happening with cattle in intensive livestock operations, as with pigs.

You think that we have an epidemic of childhood obesity, diabetes and cancer? Wait until the full effects of the introduction of GM meat are experienced. But it will be impossible to establish cause-and-effect because the interactions are complex, and because there is no labeling.  (in North America)

 

2013-03-26 The Slow and Painful Death of Freedom in Canada, Adam Kingsmith, Huffington Post

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  No Responses »
Apr 282013
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/adam-kingsmith/the-slow-and-painful-deat_b_2946418.html

 

Less than a generation ago, Canada was a world leader when it came to the fundamental democratic freedoms of assembly, speech and information.

In 1982, Canada adopted the Access to Information Act — making it one of the first countries to pass legislation recognizing the right of citizens to access information held by government, and as recently as 2002, Canada ranked among the top 5 most open and transparent countries when it came to respect for freedom of the press.

Fast-forward a decade, and we’ve become a true north suppressed and disparate — where unregistered civic demonstrations are inhibited and repressed, rebellious Internet activities are scrutinised and supervised, government scientists are hushed and muzzled, and public information is stalled and mired by bureaucratic firewalls.

In the 2013 World Press Freedom Index — an evaluation done by Reporters Without Borders on the autonomy of a country’s media environment, Canada came in at a paltry 20th, putting us behind liberal-democratic powerhouses such as Namibia, Costa Rica, and the Western Hemisphere’s new champion of free media — Jamaica.

 

So what the devil is going on?

According to page 8 of the report, this uneasy drop “was due to obstruction of journalists during the so-called ‘Maple Spring’ student movement and to continuing threats to the confidentiality of journalists’ sources and Internet users’ personal data, in particular, from the C-30 bill on cyber-crime.”

Yet perhaps more distressing than the consistent during Quebec’s Maple Spring has been the abrupt confiscation of the right of citizens in the province to spontaneously demonstrate and protest in public spaces — seen recently at the totalitarian debacle known as the Anti-Police Brutality Protest, where over 250 people were arrested for failing to register with authorities before assembling.

Passed last May by the National Assembly of Quebec in the midst of the student upheaval, Bill 78 requires organisers of assemblies involving 50 or more people to register the details of any demonstration with the police at least eight hours before it begins. Anyone who does not comply with the law faces a fine from $1000 up to $125,000 depending on his or her involvement and leadership in the protest.

Not to be outdone by Quebec’s anti-demonstration legislation however, the federal government decided to continue the trend with Bill C-309 — criminalising the act of covering one’s face during any sort of display of civil disobedience. And as opposed to the customary fine, the bill carries with it a penalty of up to five years in prison.

But don’t worry — it’s for our protection.

Speaking of our “protection,” Bill C-30, or the Lawful Access Act — proposed by the Harper government in February of last year, attempted to grant authorities the power to monitor and track the digital activities of all Canadians in real-time.

This internationally-condemned Orwellian “cyber-crime legislation” planned to force service providers to log and surrender browsing information about their customers upon government request as well as permit the remote access to any personal computer in the country — all without the need of any sort of warrant.

And while Bill C-30 has been tabled for the time being, Bill C-12 — which similarly authorises the warrantless acquisition of customer information from ISPs, email hosts, and social media sites on a voluntary basis, looks poised to creep in and achieve many of Bill C-30’s initial objectives by reducing the need for warrants, and gradually circumnavigating safeguards that protect our personal information online.

Of course we’ve all had the rhetoric jammed down our throats — these adjustments to a citizen’s right to public assembly, defiant anonymity, and digital privacy are the necessary sacrifices we must be willing to make in order to shelter ourselves from half-heartedly articulated illusory threats such as “terrorism” or “extremism”.

But the undemocratic stifling doesn’t stop here either. Even our taxpayer-funded government scientists — the last line of defense against ignorance and uncritical thinking, are increasingly coerced into suppressing unwelcome findings.

According to a report by researchers at the University of Victoria titled Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy, “the federal government has recently made concerted efforts to prevent the media – and through them, the general public – from speaking to government scientists, and this, in turn, impoverishes the public debate on issues of significant national concern.”

When Canadian scientists are permitted by their handlers to speak to journalists or international colleagues, they are forced to regurgitate pre-approved party findings that rest neatly within the confines of official government policies — regardless of what the yields of their research and expert opinions may actually be telling them.

What’s even more concerning is that in a recent study by the Center for Law and Democracy — which classifies the strength and effectiveness of access to information laws in 93 countries, Canada ranked an utterly humiliating 55th, thanks in large part to the bureaucratic red tape that smothers requests for access to public records.

So perhaps it is time for us Canadians to wake up and smell the suppression — no longer are censorships solely the purview of tin-pot dictators in far away regimes.

These seemingly gradual erosions to the freedoms of assembly, expression and information in Canada are all very real — just last week, Parliament actually struck down a bill claiming that “public science, basic research and the free and open exchange of scientific information are essential to evidence-based policy-making.”

And I have the sinking suspicion that whichever party is in power, these rights will continue to decompose unless the citizenry is willing to vocalise this as a major election issue. After all, even in democracy new governments seldom willingly return rights and freedoms back to the people once in office — power can be just too enticing.

One day it’s the right to spontaneously demonstrate, next it’s the right to wear a mask well doing so, then Internet privacy, scientific inquiry, public records, and so on as the vice compressing freedom and civil disobedience slowly tightens on us all.

 

But then again, this is Canada. That sort of thing could never happen here, right?

2013-10-29 Oil servitude and the new Canadian petrostate: An interview with Andrew Nikiforuk. Rabble.ca

 Energy, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  No Responses »
Apr 282013
 

http://rabble.ca/news/2012/10/oil-servitude-and-new-canadian-petrostate-interview-andrew-nikiforuk#.UWxxnW7EXUg.facebook

 

Andrew Nikiforuk is an Albertan journalist and author of several books, including the acclaimed Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent. Lori Theresa Waller interviewed him late last month on the eve of a talk he gave in Ottawa for the launch of his latest book, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude. What follows is an excerpt of their conversation. Part II of this interview will be published later this week.

 

Lori Theresa Waller: You write, “When it comes to oil, there are only masters, traders and slaves.” Which category would you put Canada in?

Andrew Nikiforuk: We’re all three, right now. Canada has almost become a plantation economy where all conversations are about the production and export of oil. If you’re opposed to that agenda, you’re a radical and unpatriotic. That’s the kind of low-level conversation you have in petrostates. But we’re also a slave to oil in the sense that half the country is dependent on foreign oil from the Middle East and the North Sea. We are not an energy independent country at all.

LTW: This concept of a petrostate is one you discuss at length. What are the defining characteristics of a petrostate?

AN: The person who’s done the most work on this is Terry Lynn Carl, an extraordinary political scientist from Stanford University. Americans pioneered oil, and now we have an American who’s pioneered the study of how oil impacts states and governments. Technically a petrostate is any jurisdiction where approximately 20 per cent of its income is coming from hydrocarbons. Alberta was there a long time ago. The first thing that petrostates do is they dismantle the relationship between representation and taxation. They say, “We’re gonna make you all feel warm and fuzzy about oil production by lowering your taxes.” They don’t add the next part, which is “Oh, and by the way, if we’re not taxing you, we’re not going to represent you.”

Petrostates first and foremost represent the developers of the oil resources. The next thing that happens is that you have so much easy money flowing into a petrostate that all statecraft disappears. Whether you’re looking at Russia or Saudi Arabia or Iran or Nigeria, or Alberta, or Louisiana, Alaska, and Texas, you’re struck by the lack of innovation, the lack of smart public policy. Any and every problem is resolved by pouring petro-dollars on it.

Then the third thing is secrecy. Petrostates are not very transparent because there are so many issues about the money — who’s getting the money, who’s watching the money, and is any of the money being saved? That information is very hard to come by. In Alberta, there is a whole fog that surrounds any royalty issues. In fact the government actively discourages any discussion of royalties or corporate taxes.

The fourth characteristic would simply be hubris. When they’re sitting on top of all these hydrocarbons, governments act as though they’ve suddenly become wiser and nobler than the rest of mankind. Venezuela was going to have a grand experiment, Mexico was going to have its miracle, and Iran was going to create a new civilization. Alberta had the “new advantage,” and Canada is now going to be the “new energy superpower.” Oil and bullshit go together.

LTW: Do you see a danger of Canada overall becoming a petrostate?

AN: Absolutely. The governing party, its base largely comes from Alberta, and its financial backers are largely coming from the oil industry. Canada seems today to be only about one thing, and that is the production and export of oil — at any cost.

LTW: What are the essential changes that you’d like to see in the way Alberta and the federal government are managing the tar sands boom?

AN: Since 2008 when I wrote Tar Sands, I’ve advocated a set of principles that [former Alberta premier] Peter Lougheed outlined in 2006, when he was interviewed for Policy Optionsmagazine. The first was “we need to behave like owners” — we’re not. The second was “we need to collect our fair share.” In other words, control the pace and scale of development by imposing fair royalties and corporate taxes. Right now we’re giving away the resource; we have among the lowest royalties and taxes in the world.

His next principle was “we should be saving for a rainy day.” He was actually dealing with this whole issue of representation and taxation. He was saying the majority of this money should be saved for future generations; our government should be running on taxes, and not on these artificial oil revenue streams. Then the next one was “one project at a time, or go slow.”

His other principle was “add value.” We shouldn’t be exporting raw bitumen, any more than we should have been exporting raw logs and raw furs. We should add some value to this resource, because that’s where the real economic benefits come in terms of jobs — in the refining and upgrading of bitumen. Instead of peddling bitumen, we should be selling diesel, gasoline and petrochemicals.

His last point was that we should clean up the mess. You can’t develop a resource like this without adequate scientific monitoring, environmental regulation and enforcement. This is a program that has been entirely ignored in this country. It’s what we need to do.

LTW: At the federal level, a lot of the current policy approach was already in place when Chrétien and Martin were in power. Do you think a Liberal government in Ottawa would make much of a difference in terms of tar sands policy?

AN: No. The danger is that here’s this great pile of cash. Every political party’s going to look at this pile of cash and say, “Here’s an opportunity for us to push our political agenda.” Stephen Harper is using bitumen revenue the same way Margaret Thatcher used North Sea oil revenue to push her political revolution.

Only two parties have indicated they might do something differently: the Green Party and the New Democrats. It would take a courageous political party to say, “We’re not going to run on this revenue, we’re saving it for future generations.”

Lori Theresa Waller is a freelance writer and editor based in Ottawa. She has written for Briarpatch Magazine, The Dominion and The Ottawa Citizen.

Part II of this conversation will be published later this week.

2013-04-17 Julian Assange: “We thank the Icelandic people”. Important legal decision re VISA.

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, Arjen Kamphuis  No Responses »
Apr 282013
 

http://www.newsoficeland.com/home/business-economics/private-sector/item/1243-julian-assange-we-thank-the-icelandic-people

Wikileaks Press Release — Milestone Supreme Court Decision for WikiLeaks Case in Iceland — Today’s [April 24th] decision marked the most important victory to date against the unlawful and arbitrary economic blockade erected by US companies against WikiLeaks.

Iceland’s Supreme Court upheld the decision that Valitor (formerly VISA Iceland and current Visa subcontractor) had unlawfully terminated its contract with WikiLeaks donations processor DataCell. This strong judgement is an important milestone for WikiLeaks’ legal battle to end the economic blockade that has besieged the organisation since early December 2010. Despite the effects of the blockade having crippled WikiLeaks resources, the organisation is fighting the blockade on many fronts. It is a battle that concerns free speech and the future of the free press; it concerns fundamental civil rights; and it is a struggle for the rights of individuals to vote with their wallet and donate to the cause they believe in.

If the gateway to WikiLeaks donations is not re-opened within 15 days Visa’s Valitor will be fined 800,000 ISK ($6,830) per day.

WikiLeaks publisher, Julian Assange, said:

“This is a victory for free speech. This is a victory against the rise of economic censorship to crack down against journalists and publishers”

“We thank the Icelandic people for showing that they will not be bullied by powerful Washington backed financial services companies like Visa. And we send out a warning to the other companies involved in this blockade: you’re next.”

“We hope that the that the European Commission also acknowledges that the economic blockade against WikiLeaks is an unlawful and arbitrary censorship mechanism that threatens freedom of the press across Europe. If it fails to do so, the Commission must be regarded as failing to live up to the founding European principles of economic and political freedom.”

Today’s [April 24th] verdict strengthens other fronts in this battle. There is an active legal action in Denmark against a Danish sub-contractor for VISA, equivalent to Valitor. The decision will also buttress the pre-litigation work already under way in various jurisdictions against the international card companies and financial services companies – VISA and MasterCard, Western Union, PayPal and Bank of America, and other payment facilitators that teamed with these giants to form a concerted, and equally unlawful economic blockade against the organisation.

In November the European Parliament passed a resolution which included a clause drafted specifically in relation to the economic blockade against Wikileaks. The resolution called on the European Commission to draft regulations that will prevent online payment facilitators from arbitrarily denying services to companies or organisations, such as WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks has also launched a formal complaint to the European Commission on the basis that VISA and MasterCard, which together take up 95% of the European market, have unlawfully abused their dominant market position. The European Commission is still evaluating whether it will open a formal investigation but documents already submitted by the companies reveal that the credit card companies were in talks with powerful figures in the US Congress and Senate (Senator Lieberman and Congressman Peter T. King). http://wikileaks.org/European-Commission-enabling.html

Although it is still not possible to donate directly to WikiLeaks via credit card, freedom of press campaigners including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Elsberg, the actor John Cusack, and the Founder of the California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) John Perry Barlow, have set up the Freedom of the Press Foundation to collect money for WikiLeaks. It allows donors to make anonymous, tax-deductable donations. http://t.co/qpW57qquOf

2013-04-20 Surette: Harper on the skids, Justin or no Justin [Halifax Chronicle Herald]

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  No Responses »
Apr 222013
 

Janet writes:

 

The Halifax Herald Limited, owned and published by  the Dennis family of Halifax,  is one of the last independently-owned newspapers in Canada.

As a Nova Scotian I am grateful that the Herald provides space for Ralph Surrette’s weekly column – one  that provides astute and unabashed critical analysis of the  political and economic realities in Canada and Atlantic Canada.   And kudos to Ralph of course !

 

=============================

 

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1124311-surette-harper-on-the-skids-justin-or-no-justin

 

By RALPH SURETTE

 

Twice the same day recently I heard this, spoken in dismissive rage: “That idiot, Harper” and “that fool in Ottawa.”

 

In my decades watching politics, I’ve found that tone of voice is more indicative of political fortune than either polls or rational argument.

 

One speaker was a fisherman, angry at ham-fisted fishery management reforms, the other a guy who fixes houses for sale and had just been told by his bank manager that uncertainty over EI changes made an already catastrophic real estate market in Western Nova Scotia even worse.

 

Both probably voted for Harper last time, and neither thinks much about politics — the type of “Tim Horton’s crowd” voter the Conservatives target.

 

Now, however, the pileup of cuts, scandals, ideologically-driven “reforms” and assaults on democracy have little fires like this smouldering all over the Harper edifice, although the façade is still standing.

 

Yet even the façade has wear and tear. Harper supporters usually put it this way: He’s for self-reliance, smaller government and sound finances, so what’s wrong with that?

 

Up to a point, nothing. The problem is with the way he’s doing it. What Harper means by being self-reliant is having oil in the ground. People without are slackers, notably Maritimers. It’s simple neo-con theology: money is virtue.

 

As for smaller government, I agree with that, too, up to a point. We’ve been building up bureaucracy since the 1960s without really reflecting on it. The public service must deliver what we want as a society effectively and efficiently, and it’s necessary to make it do that. What Harper’s doing is the contrary: assaulting the public service in a spirit of vandalism, driven by party ideology.

 

And talking of oil, new discoveries of heavy oil in the U.S., plus conservation and a slack economy have got the Alberta oilsands on the skids. Since that’s the main pillar of the Harper view of the economy, and the basis of his claim to be a great fiscal manager, if they’re on the skids, so is he.

 

Plus the old black magic borrowed from the U.S. Republicans is arguably no longer working. The swift attack on new Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is, by all appearances, just alerting media and public of the Harperites’ nasty habits. Dirtbag advertising, I predict, will rebound to their discredit, making them the issue rather than the intended target.

 

Besides, the Liberals and NDP are wise to the tricks. Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, off balance, were easy prey.

 

The Conservatives haven’t attacked NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, in part because he bites back. During a recent trip to the U.S., where he criticized the Keystone pipeline, the Conservatives attacked him for badmouthing Canada. He merely pulled out old Stephen Harper quotes badmouthing Canada while in the U.S. and that ended that.

 

There’s a rich lore of Harper quotes ready to be thrown back at him from his less subtle days as a right-wing ideologue, and it’s time he got them back.

 

As for Justin Trudeau, I don’t much like the idea of a political royal family — it indicates that things are out of whack and that a society is desperate for someone to rally around — but I think the kid will get the benefit of the doubt until he finds his feet.

 

The only question in all this is how the Liberals and NDP will share the vote, which according to the latest polls, is 70 per cent between them.

 

The Conservative appeal in Ontario and beyond, through targeted tax cuts and giveaways to the politically half-conscious class, has been to put self-interest before country. I’ll make an act of faith and say that that’s changing.

 

As for Atlantic Canada, we wiped out both the Mulroney Conservatives and the Chretien Liberals in the 1990s when they were too annoying. Given Harper’s blatant contempt for the region, we’ll be pathetic indeed if we don’t do the same thing to him.

 

(rsurette   AT  herald. ca)

RALPH SURETTE

2013-04-21 B61 nuclear bombs would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers. (Obama accused of nuclear U-turn as guided weapons plan emerges).

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Apr 212013
 

Michael writes:

Here’s a charming story that caused me to choke on my muffin this morning:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/21/obama-accused-nuclear-guided-weapons-plan

(Sandra speaking:

  • Reader “Comments” at the above link are worthwhile.
  •  Also, the links to information within the news article.
  • The article (without the Comments) follows

F35 fighter-bomber

Nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers. Photograph: EPA

 

 

Obama accused of nuclear U-turn as guided weapons plan emerges

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor

Barack Obama has been accused of reneging on his disarmament pledges after it emerged the administration was planning to spend billions on upgrading nuclear bombs stored in Europe to make the weapons more reliable and accurate.

Under the plan, nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs stockpiled in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons that could be delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers.

“This will be a significant upgrade of the US nuclear capability in Europe,” said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of Nuclear Scientists. “It flies directly in the face of the pledges Obama made in 2010 that he would not deploy new weapons.”

In its Nuclear Posture Review in 2010, the US undertook to reduce the role and numbers of its nuclear weapons, in part by not developing new nuclear warheads, and pledging it would not “support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities”.

According to newly published budget figures, the US will spend about $10bn (£6.5bn) on a life extension programme for the B61 bombs, and another $1bn on adding controllable tail fins. Kristensen said the tail kit would give it a new mission and new capabilities, once some of the upgraded weapons were deployed as scheduled in Europe in 2019 or 2020.

“What will be going back to Europe will be a guided nuclear bomb,” he said. “Especially when you combine it with F35 with stealth characteristics, that expands the targets you can hold at risk from Europe, because by placing the explosion closer to the target you can choose a lower explosive yield. That is very important as there is less radioactive fallout. For many people this is a great concern because it means making nuclear weapons more ‘usable’.”

The new B61 Mk12 will be a 50 kilotonne weapon, like most of the “tactical” nuclear bombs currently in Europe. The bigger, strategic versions of the B61, stockpiled in the US, would be discontinued. Some European countries, led by Germany, have attempted to get the American B61 bombs withdrawn from Europe on the grounds they serve no military purpose following the end of the cold war and that they represent a security risk because of the possibility of their theft by terrorists. But some eastern European states have resisted their withdrawal, fearing it would show a weakening of US commitment to defend them against Russia.

US administration officials say the addition of tail fins to the bomb does not represent a significant change in its mission and therefore does not break the 2010 pledge. They insist that Obama remains committed to the disarmament agenda he outlined in a 2009 landmark speech in Prague, in which he promised to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

Since then, the US signed the new Start treaty with Russia, limiting both sides’ strategic arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads each. This spring, Obama was expected to make a speech outlining proposals to make further cuts to about 1,100 warheads. But US officials have said the crisis over North Korea and the time needed to install a second-term national security team have delayed the speech.

Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, went to Moscow earlier this month to deliver a message from the president to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, which included proposals to cut the two countries’ nuclear arsenals and finding a compromise in the long-running dispute over US plans for a missile defence system in Europe. Sources familiar with the talks described the Russian response as positive. Obama and Putin are to meet at the G8 meeting at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June, but it is unclear whether the new nuclear weapons cuts will be ready by then.

Joseph Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, an arms control pressure group, said the B61 modernisation plans were largely driven by domestic political considerations but risked sending mixed messages to Russia at a time when Washington and Moscow needed to strike a deal.

“I’m convinced the president wants to continue his efforts to reform US nuclear policy,” Cirincione said. “But the administration had a schizoid approach on this issue. They believe they have to buy off legislators with billions of dollars in expenditure in their states in order to get votes for arms control measures later.

“The billions of dollars we are lavishing on the B61 is criminal. This is billions of dollars spent on a weapon whose mission evaporated at the end of the cold war. It’s clearly aimed at buying senators’ votes.”

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