Bin Laden Captured?

According to the Iranians, Osama bin Laden was captured "a long time ago."

Since the discovery that Saddam's capture in December was likely staged to look like an American triumph (click this link for a series of article links on the subject). It wouldn't surprise me to find the Americans have been keeping Osama under wraps until the right occasion. They especially wouldn't have wanted to "capture" him during the Oscars.

Stories like this, along with allegations over the American connection to the Haitian rebels, get little reported, or even investigated by most western press. But is it laziness or complicity on the part of the press?

Boob of the Week

While it is very tempting to give Paul Martin the nod yet again, I'm afraid this time the boob prize goes to George W. Bush. Yes, he's probably the boob of the century, even though we're only 4 years into it. And no this has nothing to do with Iraq, or even a malapropism. No Georgie-porgie announced this week his desire to crack open the American Constitution and make the first amendment to it that actually remove rights from a select group of individuals.

Good ol' George wants to make sure that homosexuals can't get married in the good ol' US of A. This is a repeat of the kind of behaviour we've seen from those on the social right before, because they seem to feel threatened by homosexuals for some reason. Hello, it isn't catching. Letting homosexuals marry won't mean the end of the human race as we know it. Look at the evidence, after decades of increasing rights for gays and lesbians it's fairly clear that society won't crumble by letting them live their lives comfortably with the same sort of rights that heterosexuals enjoy.

Marriage as an institution has never been on the most solid of ground at the best of times. Hell, look at Henry VIII. It's not really much of a stretch to imagine two adults who love each other should have the right to publicly declare that love, and have it recognized by society. It's only fair that two men or two women should be able to do it as easily and as fully as a man and a woman.

Now I'm not saying every or even any religion should be required by the state to marry homosexuals. Religious reformation should come from within, driven by the members of a religion, in the same way law reform should be driven by the members of the society whose laws are in question. Separation of church and state goes both ways in my opinion.

I certainly hope George gets hurt at the ballot box for this move. There apparently are a lot of right-wing homosexuals in the US who have been staunch Republicans. They'll be hurting over this, because Bush trying to force a constitutional amendment is being a lot harsher than simply saying he's against homosexual marriage. If the world is lucky that voting block of gay conservatives will either stay at home during the next election, or vote Democrat.

Alternative BC Budget

I'm a big believer in the idea that a there are certain minimums of infrastructure and social justice that need to be in place for democracy to work. But I also believe the government of a democracy shouldn't be striving simply to meet those minimums. It instead should strive to constantly improve the quality of all aspects of the public good. Those improvements go well beyond the need to create a positive environment for private business and investment, although that is a huge and vital part of the public good.

Unfortunately, in the name of deficit reduction, successive Canadian governments have ignored most of the public good in favour of the quick fixes for creating a better environment for business. Taking a creative approach in creating a positive investment environment is vital. Simply depending on supply side initiatives like broad based business tax cuts is foolish short term thinking. Instead, making an effort to encourage the growth of industries with real innovative futures, by providing tax credits, loans and grants, tends to have far better long term effect; especially in the area of sustainable environment technologies, and hi-tech in general (bio-tech, software development).

But the public good reaches far beyond the business environment. Investments in an effective public infrastructure have a magnifying effect on the economy, but more importantly, they greatly improve the quality of life of the citizens who enjoy its benefits. The former is important, but the latter is frequently lost in our society's current obsession with all things economic. Easy access to inexpensive or preferably free education, early child care, public transit, and a host of other infrastructure goods and services makes a society far more effective. But it is also the right thing to do. Government and the public have a responsibility in a democracy to improve the lot of all of its citizens, particularly those who have to struggle, whether by accident of birth, or some other obstacle making their lives more difficult to live. Moreover, public delivery of these services have proven to often be cheaper and more effective than attempting to privatize them.

The focus of privately run services is to make money, not serve the public. Private services only function effectively for the public when there is sufficient competition to choose from, and little need for massive infrastructure investment both to startup and maintain the service. There is also considerable danger to the society at large if a private service is vital to the society's function (such as public health or electrical power transmission). Any interruption in such vital services could have immensely destructive consequences. It is not in the public interest to place such trust in private hands. In fact, it can be downright dangerous, as private interests always look to their own needs and advancement first. We've seen this with blatant clarity repeatedly in the last decade, with the horrifying pollution of factory farms, failures in public health such as SARS, and massive electrical power transmission failures, to name only a few examples.

In the name of providing more socially responsible public management, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative regularly provides alternative budgets for federal and provincial governments. The alternatives they present take into consideration both fiscal health and social justice, attempting to balance the two. It is in this spirit that they've presented their latest alternative budget for British Columbia (after the recent announcement of the real provincial budget). In light of the coming Olympic Winter games, they present an interesting and effective case for greater public sector investment; to improve our image to the world, to grow the economy and to provide a measure of social justice.

A Fiendish Disregard for Truth Makes Tongues Wag

BBC commentators had just finished saying that the UK government dropping of charges against Katharine Gun for violating the official secrets act, might encourage others to take similar actions. Wouldn't you know it none other than Clare Short leaps to the mike to let Tony Blair have it with both barrels.

Some may argue that spying and eavesdropping is so ubiquitous that it shouldn't come as any surprise. People should be used to it. There is an argument in the case of criminal or terrorist investigations that spying may very well be vital to fight those scourges. But what gets lost in the latter affirmation, is the fact that people have a right to privacy. Especially when they are trying to make difficult decisions about events that will have enormous consequences.

The spying that allegedly went on at the UN wasn't simply about trying to understand the position of the various world leaders and diplomats. The intelligence arms of the US and UK were undoubtedly fishing for dirt they could "use" to pressure the various sides. Simply arguing the case for war wasn't enough, they had to try to rig the outcome. That kind of underhanded behavior bespeaks the essence of the attitude among the US and UK governments during the lead up to the Iraq War. They wanted the war and were prepared to go to illegal lengths to get others onside. While dressing themselves in truth and honesty, both Bush and Blair soiled themselves with lies and deception.

That there were people in the know brave enough to speak out, despite the likelihood jail, is remarkable. I applaud Katherine Gun and others like her who truly do act with conscience and ethics at great personal risk.

It's Time for a Reinvestment in Canada

Canadians are starting to get pissed off at elected government. They're beginning to realize that politicians are regularly making a mess of things. They may even be beginning to realize that the '90s neo-liberal, free market movement to smaller government has started causing disasters of incompetence. Events like SARS, are beginning to take a enough of a toll that relatively minor transgressions (if only from a dollar figure point of view) like the federal Liberal sponsorship scandal generate enormous outrage. Particularly in light of the sacrifices most Canadians have had to endure for the past decade.

Even the thick and largely corporate mainstream Canadian press is beginning to pick up on the attitude with an uncharacteristic focus on idiotic blabber by the elected.

For example, Mr. Privatization, Ralph Klein, apparently wants his medicine with his medicine. In his push to create two-tier health services, Klein quoted a man who received a hip replacement in England:

"By way of example, the premier said he recently spoke to a man who went to England to get a new "Birmingham hip" -- a replacement considered superior to a standard hip replacement. The man told Klein that for an extra charge, the hospital provided him with a hotel-like suite. "He said, 'I had absolute comfort and quiet,' and he said, 'I could even order room service and a bottle of wine.' "
Klein said he is now asking whether that could be done in Alberta."

I guess we shouldn't be too surprised considering Klein's fondness for imbibing. But what it has to do with better healthcare is beyond me unless you're rich or an alcoholic. But I think this article helps signal a shift in Canadian thinking. It underlines the boorishness of Canadian politicians given birth to in the '90s.

Klein is one of the Canadian leaders promoting the ideology of "me, myself and I" politics, along with the former Ontario Tory premier Ed Harris, and our current PM Paul Martin. I'd include my own BC premier Gordon Campbell, but he's largely been a failure at just about everything he tried to do here.

All these leaders have in common the personality trait that the bottom line is all about money. Now in business that may very well be true. But these guys are in government. The overriding principle of democratic government is, or damn well should be, the public good. Instead, for most of the '90s, Canadians have been forced to swallow a very bitter pill of massive government cutbacks, sugar coated with the argument of deficit elimination and debt reduction.

Supporting the '90s refrain of smaller government has been borne largely by the middle class in Canada (the poor have never been well treated). Massive cuts to social services, which we still pay for, have led to shorter Employment Insurance eligibility, longer waiting lists for important medical services, and nation wide decay of public infrastructure. But all that pain wasn't simply to pay for the elimination of the deficit, that was accomplished way back in 1995. We also repeatedly had to pay for Paul Martin's personal aggrandizment in the form of budget surpluses. Paul Martin built his reputation and his Liberal leadership bid on those surpluses, money that in hindsight was clearly "invested" for his own rather than Canada's purposes.

Why were the surpluses such a waste? Well let's take a page from most investment advisors, seeing as we're also in the middle of RRSP season. While saving money can be a useful activity, any investment advisor will tell you large sums of spare cash should be invested, as you will likely receive a far greater return down the road. Paying down debt has some uses, but not if the investment opportunities that present themselves offer greater long term advantages.

Paying down the principal of Canada's national debt has some limited uses, but as long as the economy is growing strongly, without adding new debt, the proportion of our debt in relation to the national economy will shrink all on its own. Under circumstances such as those, prudent investments are a far wiser choice.

But what should democratic governments invest in? Given that they're the representatives of the people the easy answer is the public good. It's long been know that prudent investments in infrastructure and social services provide a magnified return as the public take advantage of them to add their own contribution to the national economy. This leads to stronger economic growth. Throughout the '90's most of our governments, in many cases to the detriment of the public, made it easier for large corporations in the form of lower corporate taxes, lax safety and pollution enforcement, and increased patent and copyright protection.

During the '90s, the bugaboo of the debt, Paul Martin's quest for the Prime Minister's Office, and the triumph of free market globalization ideology, with it's low tax, factory farm, greed is good, marketplace as God thinking, blinded most Canadians to the need for investment in those things that make a democracy possible. SARS, BSE, Walkerton, Chicken Flu, increasing homelessness, the Ontario blackout, all of these things are signs of a crumbling public infrastructure and failing public services. And replacing them with private solutions hasn't worked. We're well past due to begin reinvesting in the national public good.

It's time to throw the bums, the drunks and the embezzlers out of office. They've already stolen, and mismanaged enough of our money.

Subtle Bigotry in Canada?

The past few weeks of furor over the sponsorship scandal has seen an almost reflexive re-emergence of anti-Quebec bigotry. I have to question much of the press coverage, particularly overemphasis on the scandal having taken place in Quebec. There are plenty of other money payouts, and shady dealings across Canada; such as the membership scandal involving the federal Liberals in British Columbia; and the new hints of a Tory payoff scandal in Ontario. But I have yet to hear the press characterize either scandal as something endemic to the politics of British Columbians or Ontarians.

The sponsorship program in Quebec was simply used as a vehicle for payouts to federal Liberal cronies. The fact that the sponsorship program was used to promote Canada in Quebec is beside the point. What is important? The loose purse strings given to the program should receive some attention. Jean Chretien should have had a more organized policy in place to deal with the questions surrounding Quebec's place in Canada, instead of panicking and throwing money at the problem after a close referendum. But what is most important is the culture of corruption that appears to have been fostered in the federal Liberal party. The mistakes were made by the federal Liberals, not by French Canadian Quebecers. The sponsorship scandal is something Quebecers are pissed about too. According the article (linked in this paragraph) Quebec is well ahead of the rest of the nation in separating corporate interests from those of government:

"In Quebec, the activities of professional lobbyists are closely monitored. Corporations have not been allowed to contribute to political parties since 1977, thanks to a law passed by the Parti Québécois government of René Lévesque, an example that Jean Chrétien followed belatedly this past autumn. "

From my point of view that would indicate an attention to ethics in Quebec that the rest of Canada apparently doesn't share. Who looks bad now?

Haiti Crisis: Anarchy or Yet Another Plot Against Democracy?

Haiti appears to be falling apart. The mainstream press, particularly that of the United States, appears to be taking the US State Department line that the Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide has become a corrupt demagogue. They frequently quote the line that the Haitian elections in 2000 were flawed, but they fail to provide the details surrounding the so-called flaw.

According to Ira Kurzban, an American lawyer representing Haiti in the United States, the Organization of American States declared the May 2000 Haitian elections largely free and fair. The flaw mentioned repeatedly in the mainstream American press had to do with OAS concern over vote counting methodologies for seven senate seats. Kurzban emphasized that the OAS did not feel that this "flaw" impacted the approximately 7500 other elected positions being determined during the election. Moreover, the OAS declared Aristide's re-election, which occurred later in November of 2000, to be free and fair, with no hint of flaws. Clearly democracy at work.

When the Bush Administration took power, after the US experienced its own very flawed presidential elections in 2000, they used the "flaw" in Haiti's elections as a pretext to cut off all aid. Now we should be clear here. The aid cut off wasn't simply that of the US. The Bush Administration successfully pressured all international lending and aid agencies to restrict aid going to Haiti.

Now the Bush Administration may have had a tiny scrap of an argument that the "flaw" concerning the vote counting of the seven senators needed to be dealt with. But Aristide did deal with it. He convinced the seven senators to resign in February or March 2001. A return of aid, however, was not forthcoming.

Given the past history of the US in Haiti, the sudden concern over a "flaw" in their elections was clearly an excuse to stop aid desperately needed to bring a fragile democracy to a functioning level. During the reign of the viscous Haitian dictators Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier, the US pumped millions in aid into Haiti. In 1991, less than a year after Aristide was first elected president of Haiti, a military coup overthrew the government, and the military junta in place received millions in aid from the US. 1991 you may recall was during the presidency of Bush the first, George W. Bush's father. It wasn't until 1994 that the Clinton Administration invaded Haiti and reinstalled Aristide as the democratically elected president.

US involvement unfortunately does not end there. The opposition groups in Haiti are surprisingly well funded for such a poor country. In fact, one of the major members of the Haitian opposition, who has been giving speeches to the press, one Andre Apaid, is a wealthy American citizen, who owns a lot of property in Haiti. But perhaps more importantly, the rebels who now control the northern half of Haiti are a mix of criminals with ties to the Duvalier regimes and the military junta of 1991 to 1994. According to OneWorld.net's Jim Lobe, "Guy Philippe, Cap Haitien's police chief under military rule, and Jean Pierre Baptiste, alias "Jean Tatoune" who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his participation in a 1994 massacre that killed dozens of people in Raboteau." are among the leadership of the rebels. Both of whom had fled to the Dominican Republic after Aristide's return in 1994.

For a country as devastatingly poor as Haiti, the rebel forces are remarkably well equipped, many with uniforms and assault weapons. Some news reports have claimed the rebel's weapons came from caches apparently hidden in Haiti for almost a decade, after the fall of the military junta in 1994. But according to Ira Kurzban, the arms were likely provided to the Haitian rebels in the Dominican Republic, and came from part of a US military aid shipment of some 20,000 M-16 assault rifles.

One question is, why on earth would the Bush Administration seek the overthow of a democratically elected government? Well back in 1991, the first Bush Administration clearly supported the military junta that overthrew Aristide by providing aid. Moreover, the current Bush Administration has made it clear that democratically elected governments of a certain left-wing persuasion, such as Venezuela's, are an unwelcome presence in the Americas. Aristide, like Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, subscribes to a more leftist political orientation. Aristide has been very vocal and proactive in seeking reforms to redistribute wealth in Haitian society, although he has largely failed due to a complete lack of anything other than token support from the international community.

That the mainstream press in the US and Canada have failed to fully investigate the situation in Haiti is a disgusting reminder of the laziness and bias in our so-called press. They should be on the ground checking stories of American weapons getting into the hands of rebels, they should be following the money trails from the well funded Haitian opposition parties. Instead they're sounding like the PR arm of the Bush Administration's State Department.

It appears the US is attempting to repeat in Haiti what it failed to do to Chavez

Additional Information:
To download an interview with Haitian general council, Ira Kurzban click here.
In addition here are the impressions of
US Congresswoman Maxine Waters on Haiti.

Iraq, It's All in the Details

Unless there are some very serious and wholesale changes in the US approach to its occupation of Iraq, the country will be lost. It may already be too late.

The primary problem as I see it, is one of foundation. By foundation, I mean the bedrock of reasons war on Iraq was declared in the first place. Oil figures as a major element, but it goes far beyond that. The real root of the problem is what David Frum characterizes as the divide between soft and hard power (I'd include a link to Frum's recent book, co-authored with Richard Perle, but I don't want people to waste their money on crap). Hard power is essentially military force, and soft power is diplomatic and/or economic pressure.

Frum seems to believe that under certain circumstances hard power is an effective tool to topple oppressive regimes, and that it should be used to set the stage for democratization. Soft power on the other hand can only work in circumstances where change is already largely afoot in the nation in question.

The real weakness in Frum's approach has two branches. The first is that hard power, by it's very nature murders people. To use murder as a means of control is dastardly. It is an instrument that needs both clear justification, and carefully planned reparation for the people subject to it. We do not live in ancient Rome. Human life has intrinsic value, and to destroy it, must be acknowledged for the horror that it is. To engage in it with merely the trappings of hope for a better future, and no clear and detailed plan, is clearly a crime.

And of course as in all cases of murder, the friends and family of those murdered frequently develop a very deep and personal hatred toward those they see as responsible. This can easily radicalize an otherwise friendly or neutral population to extreme violence. Slaking that thirst for revenge requires both a demonstration of strength and temperance by the occupiers in their day to day control of the country. But they must also show visible progress in improving the lives of those harmed by the occupier's use of hard power.

The other branch of weakness, however, is Frum's apparent misunderstanding of what hard power is. To think the exercise of hard power is merely the use of force to topple a regime is sadly mistaken. In fact, toppling an oppressive regime is merely the beginning of the use of hard power. To effectively control something the size of a nation like Iraq, the hard power used must be extended into an overwhelming presence. The population must believe control can be exerted on a city by city, neighbourhood, by neighbourhood, street by street level. In the case of Iraq, this would require a far, far greater troop presence than what is currently there. And unfortunately exerting that control requires fairly brutal measures, especially initially. Looters for example, must be dispersed, arrested or shot. Curfews must be stringently enforced. The population must be disarmed. But that control must also be exerted on the occupation troops and their collaborators. For example, if American troops loot, or kill civilians indiscriminately, justice must be seen to be done, and the perpetrators must be publicly punished. Otherwise continued criminal behaviour on the part of the occupiers is encouraged, and the local population will lose all confidence in the so-called security being provided. In all likelihood they will begin planning and implementing violent resistance.

Unfortunately, none of the most vital uses of hard power have been used in Iraq. Wholescale looting wasn't just allowed, but it was initially encouraged. Donald Rumsfeld even joked about it at one point after images started appearing repeatedly in the press. American and British troops appear to be routinely looting, beating and killing Iraqi civilians with little or no consequences. Iraqis are armed to the teeth because they must provide their own security, as the occupation forces do not have the numbers of ground troops to do the job. And after initially disbanding all Iraqi military and police services, the occupation forces have made half-hearted attempts at reorganizing them. Although it appears more to use the Iraqis as human shields against the depredations of both homegrown Iraqi resistance, and foreign Muslim militants flocking to Iraq to fight the infidel.

But another major flaw in Frum's arguments is his failure to recognize that even a properly executed use of hard power is not enough. A detailed plan of reconstruction must be ready to be implemented as soon as the regime is toppled. Moreover, the vast majority involved in that reconstruction must be Iraqis themselves, particularly those with previous employment in the areas being reconstructed. The reasons for this are numerous. Iraqis would be most familiar with existing infrastructure, and what needs to be repaired. Iraqis would be most familiar with the needs of Iraqis. But perhaps most important of all, unemployed Iraqis would be unable to provide for their families. Unemployment would likely lead them into criminal activities to provide for themselves and their families, and possibly active violent resistance.

Again few of the needs for reconstruction seem to have been met. The first few months of the occupation the US seemed to have absolutely no plan. Looting was widespread, in fact many government buildings were burned. The Americans seemed paralyzed by the lack of rejoicing and flower throwing by the bulk of Iraqis after the fall of Saddam.

Gigantic contracts have been going to American companies but little money has been going to Iraqis. Estimates of Iraqi unemployment are as high as 70% in the mainstream US press, which is likely a gross underestimate of the true numbers. The occupation forces seem more concerned with giving plumb contracts to their corporate sponsors who then vastly overcharge for incompetent work. Reestablishing water, sewer and electrical services, without which a modern society cannot function, has been largely a failure.

The United States is no stranger to occupation and reconstruction. Two examples of just how good a job can be done to rebuild a former enemy power can be found in post-World War II West Germany and Japan. Admittedly the Americans and their allies adopted the Marshall Plan primarily as a defense against the Soviets. But their efforts in those two nations were spectacularly successful.

They were successful not simply because they focused on defanging West Germany's and Japan's military capacity, but because they invested a massive amount of money and resources into rebuilding their infrastructure and economies. They created protected structures for fragile industries, an anathema to the free market thinking of the Bush Administration. They gave control of much of the reconstruction to the local population, instead of giving it in the form of pork-barrel contracts to military service providers like Haliburton. And they had clear plans in place to hand democratic government power over to the local population.

The complexity of Iraq should have given the Bush Administration pause. The project of toppling a regime, and rebuilding a country, is not a corporate hostile take over. It is war. It demands immense sacrifice of blood and national treasure. It requires a commitment of decades of effort. Instead the Bush Administration approached Iraq with the same set of beliefs that they approach free market enterprise. They believe markets take care of themselves. The invisible hand of the market magically adjusts to the whipsaw of events, and the efforts of enterprising individuals provides all the ingenuity needed. Who else but a bunch of pampered elites, whose power and wealth was provided by familial connections and inherited money, could believe things could be so easy?

Afghanistan Offensive

The primary reason I was against the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq was because of the bungle the Bush Administration made of Afghanistan. Bush and his think tank lackeys had previously demonstrated that they had neither the intelligence nor the imagination needed for the project they espoused for Iraq; specifically the creation of a democracy in a largely tyrant ruled middle east.

The post-9/11 war in Afghanistan has been lauded by many in the neo-conservative press as a success, because of the rapid collapse of the Taliban. But that lauding came far too early, and it clearly ignored the facts on the ground. Close to three years after the war, Afghanistan is a country largely ruled by drug dealing warlords, with small enclaves of western troops providing very limited protection for urban populations in a few of the larger cities. To depict the results of the war in Afghanistan as any kind of success is a baldfaced lie.

Moreover, it appears things could take a turn for the worse as the spring nears. As the
Asia Times details in an article on a possible spring offensive in Afghanistan.

What galls me is not only the Bush Administration's clear lack of interest in keeping any of it's promises about truly reconstructing and democratizing Afghanistan, but their utter incompetence at failing to recognize a unique historic opportunity. 9/11 presented the US with an opportunity to rally the world to the cause of creating a democracy from a failed state. But that state was Afghanistan, not Iraq. The Taliban harboured a group of vicious killers, and the rest of the world was eager to help the Americans with their cause of ridding the world of a horribly repressive regime.

The Bush Administration should have concentrated its efforts on rebuilding Afghanistan, by pouring more money into reconstructing it than into dropping bombs on it. The Afghani population would have been far more receptive than Iraqis, after decades of unending war and extreme poverty. The US could have helped create the Muslim state the neo-conservatives so desire. A shining beacon of democracy that could have served as a model to the rest of the Muslim world as an example of what the west, and the US in particular, is capable of when it is willing to truly help a people.

The Americans have done it before in post-WWII West Germany and Japan. But due to stupidity, hubris and greed the Bush Administration ignored the lessons of history, and embarked on an Iraq project billed first as the elimination of a brutal threat to world saftey, and later as a liberation from tyranny. But in truth it was, and is, a project ultimately tainted by delusions of American hegemony.

Boob of the Week

The weekly boob is a little short, as I've been working on other things. A Liberal again gets the nod, but this time it's Gordon Campell, leader of the BC Liberal party and premier of the province.

It seems Gordo just can't help himself. The BC Liberals have been plagued by one corruption scandal after another in the past few months. Now we can add accusations of rigging who the CEO will be for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games organizing committee.

What is it about pro-corporate goverment, and their desire to line the pockets of their buddies? "Public service" are a very easy pair of words to understand. Well at least you'd think they were.

One partial solution for antibiotic resistance

Given the industrial uses of antibiotics, particularly in the raising of factory farmed meat animals, antibiotic resistance is on the rise. Solutions to prevent this are fairly commonsensical, like engaging in sustainable farming and just plain outlawing the use of antibiotics for the purposes of factory farming (which would have the added benefit of killing the factory farming industry). But there are other ways to treat health problems that for the past 50 years have been the domain of antibiotics.

Prior to the development of widespread antibiotic use, preventing infection in gaping wounds was often the job of, believe it or not, maggots. These lovely little creepy crawlies are exceptional at devouring dead flesh, and killing bacteria. They are, however, incapable of consuming living tissue.

While using maggots, raised in sterile conditions, to clean infections from wounds could certainly replace or augment the use of antibiotics, they wouldn't be able to help in the case of internal infection. So antibiotic resistance is still a very serious issue.

But it's nice to see old tech solutions that are effective and unpatentable make something of a comeback. I mean heck can't you just see it, little bottles of squirming bugs sold in pharmacies beside bottles of disinfectant? I think the biggest obstacle for most people would be the thought of dropping maggots into a wound, although I suspect that concern would lessen as people experience the benefits of faster healing.

American Double-Standards on Democracy

You would think, for all the Bush Administration's crowing about the importance of democracy, that democratically elected governments of other nations would have their mandates supported or at least respected by Bush and his gang. Unfortunately, such is not the case, particularly where Latin America is concerned.

The current democratically elected government of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has already survived one American supported military coup. The coup didn't work, largely because the majority of the Venezuelan population, and the bulk of the lower military ranks supported Chavez. The coup was engineered largely by Venezuelan elites and the Bush Administration. For a very detailed step-by-step account of the first coup, check out this account at GNN, which contains many of its own links.

The Bush Administration's primary problem with Chavez appears to be his leftist political orientation. Chavez has been very vocal and proactive in seeking reforms to redistribute wealth in Venezuelan society. That wealth has traditionally been controlled by a relatively small privileged elite. Any trend threatening the wealthy, could possibly leak to other nations in Latin America and perhaps even the US itself. Given the Bush Administration's clear pro-elite bias, Chavez is likely seen as a threat to that core constituency. It is after all American elites who provide the bulk of Bush's campaign contributions, not to mention prime corporate positions once top administration officials' "public" service ends. One only has to take a brief look at the history of Dick Cheney and Haliburton to see how thorough the connections are (for a more complete list of Bush Administration corporate connections see this article on Opensecrets.org).

It appears, despite initial failures, that the Bush Administration is still intent on subverting democracy in Venezuela by providing money to groups opposed to Chavez. Clearly Americans are of two minds when it comes to outside interference in the affairs of democratically elected governments by foreign powers. When those outside powers are not American, all hell breaks loose, as the reactions in the conservative press to allegations of China's involvement in contributing to Clinton's campaign attest. But when America is the foreign power in question, the interference is billed as a legitimate support of democracy.

Canada a Hotbed for Bad Guys

Isn't this cute. According to the Library of Congress in the US, Canada is a hotbed of terrorism because we have, "A generous social-welfare system, lax immigration laws, infrequent prosecutions, light sentencing, and long borders and coastlines offer many points and methods of entry that facilitate movement to and from various countries, particularly to the United States,". In other words we should axe social welfare, imprison immigrants, prosecute everyone for every infraction and sentence them to nice long prison terms or kill them off, wall up our borders and razorwire every inch of our coastlines. Let's become a police state so Americans can sleep comfy in their beds, drive their SUVs, and run roughshod over everyone else's freedoms.

Interestingly on the heels of this little gem, comes this news report. Someone trying to enter Canada from the US with explosives? But...but...I thought Canada was the hotbed for terrorists. Actually the details of the story are that a women from Houston, Texas, who's husband is in the US military, got lost. She was supposed to go to Vancouver, WA; not Vancouver, Canada. Apparently she or perhaps her husband left a grenade in the glove box. Yikes, could you possibly find a story that pandered to more American stereotypes? A geographically-challenged American who casually carries around deadly weaponry comes to Canada. It sounds like something from "This Hour Has 22 Minutes"

But back to the Library of Congress. I think if the US government paid a little more attention to being less heavy-handed around the world, like not bombing people to "democratize" them, maybe just maybe the US would create a lot less hatred. There's little better than watching friends and family turned into a fine mist by a cluster bomb to make someone feel murderous toward the bombers.

Toronto Just Can't Catch a Break

It's hard to feel sorry for the centre of the universe. But Toronto has had a hard time of it. What with the SARS outbreak, caused more by a poorly organized public health system due to massive Tory cuts; and the blackout, caused by Americans, but overall by a total lack of investment in power transmission infrastructure. Then there's the Walkerton water scandal, and the appalling homelessness problem on Toronto's streets. All of these incidents can be directly linked back to the desire to shrink government, and to replace the public services it traditionally provides with private sector solutions. The fact that it obviously hasn't worked is apparently beside the point.

Sadly, the efforts at repairing Toronto's damaged image have focused on marketing initiatives. A big concert featuring the Rolling Stones, and most recently hiring Conan O'Brien to host his show in Hogtown. The former was something of a success, although there were grumblings over the money going to the Stones for a "benefits" concert. Conan also seemed to be having a positive effect. Well positive until he managed to live up to his first name, and come across like a true American barbarian. I'm of course referring to O'Brien and his lackey Triumph the Insult Dog, and their attempt to derive some shock humour by making fun of French Canadians.

The problem with what O'Brien did isn't the desire to have some fun at someone else's expense. Making fun of odd behaviour can definitely be funny. But using humour to attack a group of people for their cultural identity is a precarious business. First because the excuse of humour can be used as a convenient shield for disguised hatred. There is after all a a very fine line between funny and being viscously unfair. And the flavour of shock humour that O'Brien subscribes to has no hint of self-deprecation. They make it very clear that they are the superior ones, pointing out what they see to be the flaws in the behaviour of their targets. O'Brien and Triumph made fun of French Canadians for their language and they targeted people who didn't have sufficient grasp of English to understand or respond to what was being said about them. Moreover, they exploited the long standing tension between Canada's two primary linguistic identities, and took the very apparent side of English Canadians. It gave the whole sequence a feeling of boorishness, helped along by a large dose of American ignorance of the Canadian reality. But to give a sense of how wrong this was for those who perhaps don't understand why I have such a problem with it; imagine if the target of O'Brien's and Triumph's humour were Latinos from LA. Imagine they were making fun of them for the Spanish they spoke. I doubt many Americans would find that kind of humour innocuous.

But what this incident points to, is the major flaw with this whole effort to promote Toronto. Using a whack of public cash to parachute in entertainment mercenaries who won't provide any kind of a lasting fix for what really ails the region. In fact, it avoids focusing on the real roots of Toronto's and Ontario's problems: the crumbling foundation of their civic society and public infrastructure, along with a profound lack of money for desperately needed social services.

Boob of the Week

Wow, it has been a fun week here in Canada. Watching a prime minister, anointed as a financial god only mere weeks ago, explode on prime time is entertaining stuff. I was going to make the federal Liberal party the Boob of the Week, but Martin and his spinster crew have done such a god-awful job of handling the fallout from the auditor general's report that they just have to get the nod.

The Martin spin machine is out of control. After this week Martin and his handlers could write a chapter in "Canadian Federal Politics for Dummies". "How to Torpedo a Sure Thing" could be the title. I'm amazed at the heavy handed blathering on the part of the prime minister, all the while trying to duck completely out of blame. Where George W. Bush gets all disoriented and nonsensical when pinned by difficult questions, Martin comes a cross like a furious school boy. You know the kid, the one who wants desperately to become student president, but has a tantrum when he gets caught tearing down the posters of his opponents.

The Martin crew can't quite decide how to react or who to blame for the auditor general's findings. First Martin said it was a cabal of senior bureaucrats. But when that didn't fly, he started to blame Chretien, well blame without naming names, not yet anyway. Strangely Martin's fury has a feel far more akin to being pissed that his former boss hasn't had to face the music. The simple fact is that Martin was finance minister during the height of the corruption. He may not have known the extent of the problem, but if he was totally ignorant of it he's definitely incompetent, or he's lying.

I think Martin's tendency to like hardball tactics is really starting to backfire. He was guaranteed the federal Liberal leadership nomination, but he had to squeeze Chretien out sooner. He had to try and humiliate him. Then his house cleaning of the federal cabinet, which included a freeze-out of Chretien loyalists, seemed more spiteful than intelligent. The announcement of an inquiry into the accounting scandal, while something I welcome, is truly a stupid move. And the reason it's stupid is because of how it looks like Martin is preparing to handle it. He is going to try and find people to crucify, but all he will succeed in doing by taking that tack is tearing a great gaping hole in the federal Liberal party. You can be sure those in Martin's sights, namely Chretien and his loyalists, will fight back. And there's no one better in a street fight like that than Chretien.

Speaking of Chretien, I had a lot of problems with the way he ran the country, and I was always intensely frustrated by his ability to escape deserved criticism. But clearly Chretien and his staff were geniuses at handling political controversy. Fortunately, Martin and his crew are not. I certainly hope this leads to a long overdue shake-up in Canadian politics. While I don't see how the Liberals can lose the next election, yet, I certainly hope it leads to some gains for the NDP, while the Conservatives flop around trying to decide among a triumvirate of hopeless leadership candidates.

For a few links to articles dealing with this lovely mess take a look at the following:
What did Martin know?
Spinning Buffoons

A Warming Trend

It appears that arctic like chill on democracy in Iowa, has been followed by a warming trend. I'm referring to a story I commented on last Saturday involving the subpoena of anti-war protestors and Drake University in De Moines.

US federal authorities withdrew the subpoenas. It's good to see democracy hasn't frozen over in the US, but it's unfortunate that it takes international publicity and widespread condemnation to halt these kinds of harassment.

But there does seem to be a whiff of change in the air. Bush and his bunch are on the run, or at least a slow trot. The mainstream press is finally starting to ask difficult questions. I just hope it lasts.

Guardian Commentary

Here's a wonderful piece by Alison Kennedy in the Guardian. She captures the essence of the attitudes promoted by the Blair and Bush governments with a rapid spank-you style.

For a little more of Kennedy's work take a look here.

Liberal, No, Criminal with Taxpayer Money

It was worse than I expected. The Auditor General's report into the mishandling of taxpayer money involving Groupaction Marketing in Montreal, among others, revealed what looks like out and out fraud. Her report estimates that some $100 million of the hundreds of millions spent, appears to have paid for commissions on services that have no documented value. She commented on the CBC, that it appears commissions were even paid on transfers of money from one part of the crown (the government) to another.

This sort of corruption has lately been relegated to the business pages, as journalists delve into the excesses of Enron, Tyco, and Hollinger. Seeing it in our federal government, that has trumpeted its fiscal conservatism for the past eight or nine years, is a shock.

Everyone, except perhaps the most wealthy, have experienced some pain due to that fiscal conservatism. If you've been unlucky enough to suffer from poor health, you've undoubtedly had to deal with physician waiting lists, or overcrowded hospital emergency rooms. If you've lost your job, you've probably either had to stay on Employment Insurance longer than you've ever had to before, or you've been kicked off because of ever greater restrictions placed on eligibility. Most of the public in Canada has had to make sacrifices of one form or another. But we've largely done it willingly to help get our fiscal house back in order.

For a government, and a past finance minister, that refused to consider, and in fact cut social programs, programs to help stimulate the economy, and even investment in a crumbling national infrastructure, the federal Liberals and Paul Martin, were amazingly loose with the purse strings when it came to spending taxpayer money on getting themselves re-elected. Or so it appears.

Paul Martin is claiming ignorance of the whole affair. For a man who prided himself on squeezing every penny as finance minister this is a credibility leap that I find impossible to make.

Liberally Corrupt

The Liberal parties, by which I mean the federal Liberals in Ottawa led by Paul Martin, and the BC provincial Liberals led by Gordon Campbell, just can't seem to avoid allegations of sleaze. It seems every other week we're visited by yet another scandal requiring RCMP investigation.

A list of the BC Liberal Party's problems include the resignation of cabinet minister Gordon Hogg over shady transactions in his ministry involving Doug Walls, a former Liberal riding president and cousin by marriage to Gordon Campbell. Then there's their unusual behaviour toward the fish farm industry, which was forgiven hundreds of thousand of dollars in fines and penalties. Of course the fact that the fish farm industry was a major contributor to the BC Liberals election fund adds to the bad smell.

Then of course there are the federal Liberals. First there was the RCMP raid on the offices Dave Basi and Bob Virk, both political aides to the BC Liberals. The allegations in this case concern rumors of illegal drug money being used to help buy party memberships. Despite the BC Liberal connection, this is actually a federal Liberal story. You see the memberships in question were for Paul Martin's leadership bid. For a detailed look at this story see the following website with links to a number of news articles.

The rules and verification procedures surrounding political party memberships in Canada are notoriously lax. Very little or no effort is made to verify who signs up, or at least so it appears in this case. If these allegations are true this is a direct subversion of democracy. Leaders of political parties are exceptionally influential individuals, especially ones who are expected to be the Prime Minister of the country. If they attain their positions through blatantly corrupt means, then that throws into question just what kind of behaviour they will engage in when in office. Just how far are they willing to go to reward themselves and their friends for all their "hard work" in getting elected?

Well a clear example of possible reward should reveal itself with the upcoming federal Auditor General's report, due to be released today. Allegations of the siphoning of money are being revisited around the federal Liberals awarding of contracts to Groupaction Marketing of Montreal.

All this is heady stuff. Now perhaps one might argue that one scandal appearing after another might tend to throw the federal Liberals into an unfair light. But the sheer number of scandals, and the very nature of them is revealing. The membership fiasco, Groupaction, but also questions around the enormous miscalculation of government contracts to Paul Martin's former company Canadian Steamship Lines, many of these contracts while he was finance minister and still the owner of the company.

These scandals involve a common thread, they are all about allegations involving the bending or breaking of clear rules governing the trading of favours between elected politicians and their friends and supporters. Corruption tends to get easier over time. It starts out small, like giving yourself an overly generous car allowance, or padding your pension plan. But then it grows as ethics are put aside to focus, not just on retaining power, but furthering the desire for reward which has become second nature. It appears many Liberals, used to the benefits of power, have come to expect these benefits as a right rather than a privledge.

But what to do? Well it appears the federal Liberals are practically guaranteed to control the government come this spring's election. This is partly due to a lack of leadership among opposition parties, but I think it's mostly because the public is largely unconcerned with the taint of scandal....well unconcerned as long as the economy is running. Sadly, until people's lives are directly and negatively affected by the kinds of corruption we've been seeing in government, people will be reluctant to do much about it. But I for one think that it is worth strongly considering alternatives particularly for the next federal elections.

Technopornographer on the GMO bandwagon

I occasionally like reading Wired Magazine. Every now and then there are some interesting articles. The downside of the magazine is that it drowns much of its content in advertising and difficult graphic design, all to evoke a cutting-edginess in its pages. But my biggest difficulty with Wired is its tendency avoid critical thought in areas of technology. Its akin to a porn magazine, but instead of women, the wares spread on Wired's pages are the latest gadget or hi-tech trend. It's a techophiliac's dream. Unfortunately Wired all too often presents technology as a wonderful thing with little or no thought to considering any possible problems it may cause. For a magazine purporting to have some journalistic integrity, it usually falls far short of the mark.

A glaring example of this is Bruce Sterling's recent column on Genetically Modified Organisms, food crops to be specific. Now Sterling is no poster boy for balanced journalism. He's made a career as a cyberpunk sci-fi author and futurist commentator on hi-tech. So I suppose it should come as no surprise that he has little to say about the dangers of technology. But his hopelessly "rah-rah" attitude toward GMO borders on the ineptly lazy.

While I support studying genetic modification of organisms, I am all together alarmed by the haste with which many seem intent on productizing them. Before science even really understands all the functions of DNA, and the interrelation between it and other organic structures at the sub-cellular level, corporations have for quite some time been patenting and selling genetically modified organisms. The intent of corporations is clear. They want to own life. They want to insert themselves as the middleman so they can get their cut, their licensing fee. They make a lot of noise about a green revolution to feed the world. But the simple fact is that we already grow enough food to feed the world. The problems are ones of distribution hampered by greed.

Moreover we do not need to genetically modify plants to improve our environment, as Sterling argues. Solutions are already available to clean our air, and our water, using unmodified plants. But reducing, perhaps even eliminating the blights of pollution, and desertification are more matters of increasing energy efficiency and legislating sustainable farming. But these ideas require some thought, and more than a little work to become reality. It's far easier for a technopornographer of Sterling's ilk to let his imagination run wild with the remote possibilities of future technology, instead of spending even a small amount of time investigating solutions that can be implemented now.

How to Chill Democracy

The world's "shining beacon for freedom and democracy" has gotten a little chillier. And no, I'm not referring to Canadians sending an arctic cold front down to freeze the nether regions of our lovable American neighbours to the south.

The US nether region of corn country Iowa, finds itself at the centre of some police state antics. It appears federal prosecutors and a federal judge are intent on subverting the right to protest through intimidation tactics. They've decided to subpoena a group of anti-Iraq war protestors, and Drake University for records of students and any other participants involved in an anti-war rally. You can read more about it here. Ashcroft and his mob apparently don't like Americans asserting their right to freedom of speech and assembly, at least not when they express a point of view not in lockstep with the current Bush administration.

Ok sure, these people haven't been dragged into some torture chamber or disappeared, like they would have been in Saddam's Iraq. The US government usually only does that to non-Americans. When they do, they ship them off to the concentration camp in Guantanamo or to a state like Syria where they can outsource the torture.

But what is important here is that this move is all about sending a message to those who would dare oppose the Bush Administration. You're being watched. It's also about draining their time and resources with fatuous legal wrangling. And of course it throws a scare into others of like mind who would dare consider adding their voices in protest.

Boob of the Week

Given all the talk of boobs since the Super Bowl, it gave me an idea for a regular feature here at Hewmon.com. The Boob of the Week. Basically, I'll make an effort to highlight some numbskull, or some personage of relative infamy who pulls a really dumb stunt.

Since the kernel for this idea was Janet Jackson, she gets to star as the inagural boob, which will appear on Fridays as something for people to tease over and nibble on during the weekend.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, Janet Jackson took advantage of a marketing opportunity, to create some controversy, and thus add some perkiness to her sagging career. I suspect she probably did not anticipate the extent of the furor over an instant of exposed flesh. For example, the FCC is intent on coming down hard, and has launched an investigation. This is laughable stuff for an agency that's more than happy to rubber stamp the concentration of broadcasting into an ever smaller number of corporate hands. But I have no doubt that Janet and her marketing staff knew that baring some boob during that icon of Americana the Super Bowl would cause a collective sense of shock among a still largely puritanical American public. She did try slither her way out by taking a page from George W.'s Handbook of Scapegoating, by substituting "Iraq WMD" and "incompetent intelligence services", for "boobs" and "wardrobe malfunction". But I doubt it will work nearly as well for her as it will for George.

But why is she a boob and not a genius? Well I still hold that it was smart marketing on Janet's part whatever the fallout. The exposure, both literally and figuratively, is worth millions in free advertising. Admittedly this kind of move used to be a Madonna trademark, so it isn't exactly original. But the beauty in it for me was that Janet unintentionally subverted, for her own commercial purposes, perhaps the most intensely commercial undertaking in American corporate sports. There is not instant of broadcast advertising time more expensive than the TV commercial slots during the Super Bowl. And there's not anything that corporations hate more than someone making money at their expense, at least not without them getting a sizable cut. What Janet Jackson pointed out, in true poetic irony, was just how crassly commercial the whole project of the Super Bowl is. She reminded Americans on-mass that, yes, it's all about the money baby. The law of unintended consequences can sometimes be a beautiful thing.

Media collusion, or maybe just plain laziness, defeats Dean

I find the spectacle of Howard Dean's candidacy collapse for the US Democratic party presidential nomination fascinating. Dean is no raging liberal, but he certainly isn't a member of the Democratic party's upper crust. Would Dean make a good president? I have no idea, but he certainly would be better than Bush, because Dean is at least a fiscal conservative. Moreover, he would try to do something the US is long overdue for, a shake-up of the neo-corporatist agenda of the entrenched political establishment in the US.

The neo-corporatist policies of the US for the past decade have decimated the poor, and massively increased the divide between the haves and the have-nots. The neo-corporatist agenda is to shrink government to the point that the only thing government has left to do is provide protections for private property. The massive deficit in the US is perhaps the most important step on this path, because by threatening the bankruptcy of the US government they will be able to argue that government programs such as Medicaid, and perhaps even Social Security, largely benefiting the poor, are luxuries the government cannot afford. And given the needs of security for the war on terror, it would be inconceivable to cut military spending. The US military being, of course, the acquisition and protection arm of American property owners. In fact it has been just that for quite a long time.

But what fascinates me is just how closely intertwined the neo-corporatist agenda is with the most prominent sources of news media in North America. I suppose this should come as no surprise, given that most news media is owned by large conglomerates. But there appears to be an omnipresent bandwagon mentality infecting news media in North America. The differences are really only ones of inflection. By inflection I mean slight variations in presentation. Where Fox News is hyperbolic and sensational, the New York Times sounds lucid and rational. Major sources of news and comment seem to have refined their presentation to appeal to different niches of society, but their messages are the same. It's like buying a car, some are faster, some are bigger, some are safer, but they all do essentially the same thing, get you from the same A to the same B. Sure there are alternate and very critical voices out on the internet, and in pockets of radio. But to get a truly global perspective you need to have access to major news media outside North America.

The Dean candidacy is a prime example of North American news media bandwagon mentality. The only story, repeated ad nauseum in the major US news media like Newsweek, Time, CNN and Fox News was on how angry, and by inference, how possibly unstable Dean might be. There was no attempt to give a few column inches or a little air time to his concerns. His combativeness could just as easily have been packaged as feistiness, but no major source of media was interested in that angle. Instead they seemed to put forth a freakishly similar message, "Dean is mean and maybe a little nutty, because of this he can't possibly win against Bush." Well of course Democrats voting in the primaries are totally focused on the win. They want to beat Bush. And with all the sources of major media in lockstep, Democrats would be taking far to great a risk on Dean. Now I want to make clear that I definitely don't think there was any sort of conspiracy in this regard. I think corporate news media took the anti-Dean direction they have in part because of a confluence of interests. He would be an unknown quantity as president, unbeholden to corporate interests, because it was the grassroots that supported his candidacy. But I also think much of the major news media in the US is guilty of shear intellectual laziness, and perhaps more than a little of fear that asking difficult questions about the status quo could have consequences. Dean is a safe target. He's outside the establishment. He's just a former govenor of Vermont, a state of tiny proportions. For a little more on this point of view check out the following article.

An Incompetent Man of Integrity?

Hutton enabled Blair to claim, on legal technicality, that it is plausible he didn't know the claims of Iraq's WMD were exaggerated in the dossier he presented as the pretext for taking Britain to war. I don't believe that for a second, but let's suppose that Blair's claim is true. If it is it then questions over Blair's competence as a leader have to be raised.

Going to war is serious business. It is bound to result in the deaths of some of your own soldiers. At the same time those very same soldiers will undoubtedly be responsible, perhaps inadvertently, for the deaths of innocent civilians. Murder is a crime, and leaders who engage in war are guilty of it, so they had damn well be sure that conducting war is the last resort open to them. From my point of view, war can be justified to stop genocide, and to defend against or possibly retaliate against a direct attack. Starting a war for oil, starting a war to stop oppression, starting a war because your buddy across the ocean is going to start it anyway, these aren't sufficient reasons in and of themselves to start a war. At the very least you first have to exhaust all other means of coming to a peaceful resolution to a situation.

If Blair didn't engage in exaggerating the claims of Iraq's WMD in his dossier, then he's at least guilty of incompetence. There were clearly many in the intelligence services in the UK who felt Blair's dossier overstated the case on Iraq's WMD. The Hutton inquiry revealed that all too well. That Blair did not bother to consult voices raising concerns clearly demonstrates either extreme incompetence, or a mind already made up to go to war inspite of any evidence. Personally I find it hard to believe Blair is that incompetent, but if he makes the argument that he didn't know the intelligence he received was faulty, at the very least he should resign. It appears Michael Howard the UK Tory leader feels the same.

Flipper Babies

No joke this. The American's get to relive a horrible bit of their past rehashing some of their atrocities in another misguided war they embarked upon in the name of freedom. Yep, I'm talking Vietnam. It appears 30 years after the event, those Vietnamese maimed, disfigured and diseased by Agent Orange are out for compensation from the US companies that created the poison. About bloody time.

For those unfamiliar with Agent Orange, it was a defoliant used by the US military to kill the jungle in Vietnam. You see the Americans had a hard time bombing the North Vietnamese who were hiding in the jungle, so they came up with Agent Orange. The problem was Agent Orange didn't work all that well, and was laced with chemicals that not only killed plants, but caused cancer, birth defects, and a host of other poisonous problems.

But why the focus on this, other than to lambaste the American military? Well I'm juxtaposing it with another atrocious poisoning they've engaged in during the most recent misguided war they've embarked upon in Iraq. The poison this time is called depleted uranium, a metal used to make effective armor piercing ammo that also ignites on impact. It comes from spent fuel rods used in nuclear reactors; and yes boys and girls it is radioactive, with a half-life of thousands and thousands of years. So in a few years if not sooner we'll start to see stories of Iraqis maimed, disfigured and diseased by depleted uranium. They've already been talking about it in the Guardian.

Now at the risk of appearing anti-American, I want to point out that, no in fact, I love Americans. I'm just anti-poison. I don't care who you are, where you're from, or why you're poisoning a bunch of innocent civilians. It's wrong whatever your reasons.

Look at all them British Chickens

The chickens are coming home to roost over in the UK. I could almost feel bad for Tony Blair...uh...well no actually I can't not even a smidgen. His gloating grin last week after the announcement of Hutton's findings was a little too broad. I doubt he realized when he read Hutton's report, just how much the bias in the whitewash would snatch defeat from the jaws of seeming victory. Unfortunately for Blair and his supporters, Hutton chose legal philandery to weasel the establishment out of blame. In other words, Hutton screwed the BBC's pooch. A nasty image to be sure, but one that I suspect only begins to describe how the UK news media feels at the hands of Hutton.

Hutton exposed the rule that the Blair government is intent on avoiding any blame for anything; but especially for the idea that Blair manipulated Britain into an illegal, preemptive, and unnecessary war. And Blair seems prepared to rig any inquiry to that effect. Hence Blair's announcement yesterday that he was restricting the field of an inquiry into Iraq's WMD threat to: how on earth it was possible that the British intelligence services could have screwed up so badly. Well, like I said yesterday, Blair is a slippery bugger. But it's not easy to pull the same trick twice. Which leads me back to those roosting chickens I was talking about at the top. Possibly to avoid being setup to be the intelligence service version of the BBC's Andrew Gilligan, one Dr. Brian Jones has decided to start the finger pointing before a rigged inquiry can even get underway. Dr. Jones was head of the UK Defense Intelligence Staff's nuclear, chemical and biological branch. He apparently felt his views over Blair's dossier on Iraq's WMD were ignored, and he used the UK newspaper the Independent to let everyone know.

It'll be interesting to see how many more chickens start to appear in the coming days and weeks. The dossier Blair and his spinmeister Alistair Campbell helped cook up to justify the Iraq War has gone bad. In fact it's been a stinking, fetid mess for quite some time now. Waiting for the result of the Hutton inquiry was the only thing that kept the British media from examining and railing over every smelly bit of it. Hutton added insult to injury, and now they're out for blood. Damn it would be nice to have as rigorous a news media here as they do in the UK.

Blair tries to pull another fast one

After the Hutton whitewash, and the announcement of an American inquiry into the claims of WMD as justification for invading Iraq, Blair has been forced to announce his own inquiry. The thing is he's already intent on hamstringing the investigation before it starts by restricting its field of investigation. Blair is a slippery one, but after Hutton this one won't slither as easily under the radar of the UK media and political opposition. I suspect if he goes forward with this "independent" inquiry as he currently wants to structure it, he'll face constant attack on its credibility both in parliment and in the UK media.

Boobgate

Ah don't you just love the American media's obsession with triviality? Yes I'm referring to the non-event of Janet Jackson's boob baring during the Super Bowl half-time show. That it's even being covered indicates who the real boobs are. I never watch American football, the thought of losing hours of my life watching grown men violently fondle each other isn't especially appealing (now hockey on the other hand....). You don't get those hours back. But coverage of the event was impossible to avoid for a news junkie like myself, so I do have a few things to say.

Janet, Janet, Janet...are you really that hard up for publicity? I guess those record sales must have been suffering what with Jacko arrested, and you getting old and wrinkly after having made a career living on your sex appeal. You're old enough to be Timberlake's mom. And I'm afraid that simulating a sexual assault isn't all that sexy, let alone having to see that ugly piece of ninja hardware you had stapled to your nipple. But hey, it's all about the sale, right? From a purely market driven marketing perspective, the so-called "wardrobe malfunction" was a bit of genius. You know the American market well.

For a slightly more interesting take on Boobgate, take a look at the following article on Commondreams.org. It compares Janet's boob-baring with the CBS banning of a Super Bowl political ad by Moveon.org.

It's Canadians' Fault

Now here's a funny joke. Maclean's has an article suggesting Canadians are to blame for their dislike of George W. Bush.

"MAYBE IT'S THAT SMUG LITTLE SMILE. His penchant for fantastically expensive military photo-ops. Or the swaggering, belt-hitching walk that cries out for a pair of swinging saloon doors. And though, God knows, we have too many of our own syntactically challenged politicians to be casting stones, shouldn't the leader of the free world know that "misunderestimate" isn't a word? Yes, we're cavilling, but clearly there is something about George W. Bush that gets under the skin of Canadians. After all, vehemently disagreeing with the policies of American presidents is almost a national pastime. ..."

Hmmm... I thought negative Canadian reaction to Bush had more to do with:
- Leaving Afghanistan to be ruled by drug dealing warlords...where did all the reconstruction money go?
- Before the smoke had cleared in Afghanistan, trumping up fallacious accusations of WMD to justify preemptively invading and occupying Iraq
- Not simply ignoring the protestations of the international community over the war in Iraq, but attacking many of them for dissenting
- Mis-managing the occupation in Iraq, moving the country ever closer to all-out civil war
- Patriot Act I&II
- a 400 billion US dollar deficit
I could go on, and on, and on...

Ok sure, whenever Bush speaks it looks like he knows he's pulling a fast one over the world, and he's loving every minute of it. But I think the record of his administration is telling. There aren't any American presidents who have done more to damage the reputation of the US than good ol' G.W. has. That Canada's purported "national magazine" would print unbalanced trash like this, suggesting the blame lies with Canadians, just demonstrates the lack of concern prominent media in North America have for insightful dialogue.