The Mound of Sound

Did you know that Stephen Harper has always accepted the scientific evidence of global warming? Were you aware that he gets the whole GHG thing?

If you didn’t, that’s probably because you’ve been listening to Harper’s heel-dragging, reality-dodging spin that has left just about all of us dizzy over the past few years.

Harper not only buys the global warming thing, but he wants to make it his government’s first priority. WTF?

In year-end interviews, this unmitigated liar denied that he every disputed the greenhouse gas issue. The Toronto Star, however, dragged this out of their archives:

“At a news conference in the Senate foyer a week ago, Harper said in defence of his environmental plan: ‘As we implement our clean-air agenda, the focus is a little different than the other parties. They focus only on so-called greenhouse gases and ignored smog entirely.’

“Back in the 2004 election campaign, Harper said of climate change: ‘The science is still evolving.’

“And in September 2002, Harper said this when asked about the “greenhouse effect:” ‘It’s a scientific hypothesis, a controversial one and one that I think there is some preliminary evidence for. … This may be a lot of fun for a few scientific and environmental elites in Ottawa, but ordinary Canadians from coast to coast will not put up with what this (Kyoto accord) will do to their economy and lifestyle, when the benefits are negligible.'”

Remember this clown’s pitch for “intensity based” GHG policy?

But it’s all talk anyway. You’ll know he means business when he cracks down on the Athabasca Tar Sands. Don’t hold your breath – you may just need it someday.

These days we like to use China and India as global warming whipping boys. Why should we clean up our GHG emissions unless they do the same? Their position, that they’ll clean up when they see the very nations that have largely created this mess take the first steps – well, that’s just so uppity it doesn’t deserve our consideration.

Actually China and India are taking global warming very seriously because it poses a looming and serious threat to both. They’ve teamed up to chart the status of remote Himalayan glaciers. The glaciers feed two river systems that provide water to agriculture regions that feed a sixth of the world’s population.

”The melting of the ice sheets and the glaciers is a crisis in the Himalayas,” said H.P.S. Ahluwalia, who runs the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, which is organizing the expedition with China’s Institute of Geology and Geophysics.

”In three to four decades these rivers that feed more than a billion people in our society and adjoining countries will become seasonal rivers,” Ahluwalia said.

It’s the Battle of Panjwai, Round 2. The first Battle of Panjwai was fought in September under the name “Operation Medusa.” We kicked those Taliban asses or at least we would have if they didn’t just gather up their weapons and walk away, straight through our lines. No matter. Operation Medusa drove the Taliban out of Panjwai district for good. Okay, maybe for a week.

So we’ve got’em this time. Round 2, Operation Falcon’s Summit. This time it’s the Brits and the Americans and us. They’re gonna get it now. Or maybe not.

In this morning’s Globe, mission cheerleader Christie Blatchford reports that our forces have moved into place “without a shot being fired.” Christie doesn’t know what to make of this and, she claims, neither do the unit commanders for whom, “…the calm that greeted them was almost unprecedented and even spooky.”

I’m sorry Christie, I should have explained. This is an insurgency and, so long as they hold the initiative, the insurgents decide when they will offer battle and when they will deny battle. If they’re not where we expect to fight them that means two things: (a) they’re able to deny battle and therefore (b) they hold the initiative, not us. That means that the bad guys will probably be content to let us occupy this little nest of vipers until we leave, empty handed. Or maybe it just means that they all got the plague and died or took up watch repair or maybe the aliens got’em or who knows?

It seems not a day passes without some Western or Asian reporter filing a story relating the Taliban’s massive build up in Quetta in preparation for their Spring offensive. Even the Los Angeles Times has a staffer, Laura King, over in the badlands keeping an eye on the automatic weapons fire echoing from behind the walls of the madrassas.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Strange Loner, the Texas Shrub, has made it obvious that he’s planning on winning his war of whim in Iraq, even if that means breaking his own army. That’s not what we need to hear from this guy. But, then again, this is a leader of the free world who has made just about every wrong move possible since his office towers were attacked in 2001. He’s a rollicking barrel of screw-ups. How did we put ourselves in a position of having to depend on a bozo like this?

Oh, did I mention that we’re dependent on Mr. Bush? Yeah, sorry. NATO doesn’t have remotely enough soldiers in Afghanistan to even secure the countryside much less fight off a skilled and determined aggressor steeped in the knowledge of how to kick foreigners out of their country.

Even if Canada did have another 10-12,000 soldiers that would be needed to defend Kandahar province, we don’t have the means to get them on the scene in time to be useful. Don’t worry about that last part, we don’t have the soldiers anyway. No, for us it’ll be a “come as you are” party with the same 2,500 soldier force (1,000 strong battle group) we’ve deployed already.

That means we may well need a massive infusion of American troops on very short notice if this spring offensive proves even marginally effective. Now, where are we going to get those? Can we count on a president for whom Afghanistan isn’t even on his radar screen?

It’s too bad George Bush doesn’t read newspapers.

For a guy who’s supposed to be fairly bright, Stephen Harper can sure say some pretty stupid things.

Don’t tell Hamas, make sure word doesn’t leak out to Hezbollah, but Stephen Harper says Canada will not talk with “genocidal” Islamic groups. Says Little Stevie:

“We will not solve the Palestinian-Israeli problem, as difficult as that is, through organizations that advocate violence and advocate wiping Israel off the face of the Earth. …We are not going to sit down with people whose objectives are ultimately genocidal.”

I guess this must be the Leader of an emerging Energy Superpower talking. That much bluster and swagger simply has to come from someplace. Look Stevie, settle down. “We” as in you and me and Canada aren’t about to “solve the Palestinian-Israeli problem.” You, as prime minister, have no clout at all with Hamas or Hezbollah and certainly even less with Israel.

After having trampled on the “honest broker” mantle that Canada once tried to maintain, Harper sided wholeheartedly with Israel in its invasion of Lebanon and stayed that way despite Israel’s excesses and war crimes. Only one side in that little scrap was going to be recognized as having committed war crimes and that sure wasn’t Israel as far as Harper was concerned.

Now this jumped up hick pronounces with unbridled grandiosity that he’s made it “clear to allies in the region” that Canada is prepared to talk to the various sides of the issue, just not those he doesn’t want to talk with. I’m sure they’re all waiting with baited breath to hear from Stevie or for another star to appear in the night sky.

It’s the marriage of genetic engineering and an insanely lucrative cash crop – marijuana.

Mexican troops have encountered a new, hybrid marijuana plant that can be cultivated year round and is resistant to pesticides.

The new plants, known as “Colombians,” mature in about two months and can be planted at any time of year, meaning authorities will no longer be able to time raids to coincide with twice-yearly harvests.

The hybrid first appeared in Mexico two years ago but has become the plant of choice for drug traffickers Michoacan, a remote mountainous region that lends to itself to drug production.

Yields are so high that traffickers can now produce as much marijuana on a plot the size of a football field as they used to harvest in 10 to 12 acres. That makes for smaller, harder-to-detect fields, though some discovered Tuesday had sophisticated irrigation systems with sprinklers, pumps and thousands of yards of tubing.

Maybe it’s time for us to rethink our policies on pot. The problem is bound to get bigger and we’re not beginning to keep pace with it.

Climate wars, wars of sustenance, before long we’ll probably settle on one or two names for what is becoming an increasing tragedy – wars fought by small groups or tribes over inadequate resources without which they may perish.

It’s a phenomenon being closely followed by the United Nations as it spreads, initially in Africa. The Christian Science Monitor reports on Uganda’s Karimojong herders:

“It’s been a bloody first half of the dry season in Uganda’s Karamoja region. October to February is the time when grass turns brittle, mud dries and cracks, and competition for scarce resources increases. More than 40 people have died in recent weeks in fighting between Karimojong warriors and the Ugandan Army in the arid northeast of the country.

“The semi-nomadic Karimojong are pastoralists who protect their cows, violently if necessary. The warriors are well armed and this has put them on a collision course with Uganda’s government. But the recent clashes are a symptom of more universal problems.

“As elsewhere in Africa, the population in eastern Uganda continues to grow as the environment deteriorates, putting more and more pressure on a land that grows ever drier. At a United Nations conference on climate change held in neighboring Kenya last month, environmentalists warned that Africa would bear the brunt of global warming.

“With more people forced to share fewer resources, experts warn that conflict will increase. ‘Climate change will hit pastoral communities very hard,’ says Grace Akumu, executive director of environmental pressure group Climate Network Africa. ‘The conflict is already getting out of hand and we are going to see an increase in this insecurity.’

“Ms. Akumu argues that, while pastoralists who live in arid regions will suffer, it is the Western countries who are to blame, especially the United States, which refuses to sign on to global protocols to reduce greenhouse gases. ‘Pastoralists are the losers – they are not responsible, but they feel the impact of climate change the most. The blame lies squarely at the doorstep of America.’

“A well-established small-arms trade has sprung out of the regional insecurity, with guns flowing in from neighboring Sudan and Somalia. All this means Karamoja is well stocked with weapons and prices are falling: in the 1970s, a gun cost 60-150 cows, by 2004 it had fallen as low as two cows (roughly $100).

“The government estimates that there are up to 40,000 weapons in Karamoja – one for every 24 people – and violent struggles are common. During the first six months of this year, 568 people died violently in Karamoja, many more were injured.”

Get used to this. This is just the start of a phenomenon that’s going to claim countless lives throughout Africa and other parts of the world for the next several decades. After a while this will get as boring as the daily death tolls in Baghdad. Before you know it, you won’t even notice.

Well, it’s not like he hasn’t had plenty of advice to the contrary, but President George Bush made in clear today he’s still dreaming of victory in Iraq.

“I believe we are going to win. I believe that — and, by the way, if I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t have our troops there. That’s what you got to know. We’re going to succeed.”

I suspect what this really means is that Bush intends to succeed in keeping America’s army tied down in Iraq so that his successor can take the heat for pulling them out.

Bush warned that continuing the occupation “would require difficult choices and additional sacrifices because the enemy is merciless and violent.” Naturally the sacrifices he has in mind are to be borne at the footsoldier level, not the taxpayers. Requiring a sacrifice of the most advantaged taxpayers by scrubbing the tax breaks for the rich simply is not on. It just wouldn’t be right to ask the wealthy to sacrifice when the cost of the whole war is going to be shouldered by a future generation of lowly wage earners anyway.

According to the online newsjournal, Embassy, the Russian spy recently nabbed in Montreal may have been a KGB orphan, one of many sleepers left behind with the collapse of the Soviet Union:

“A former Canadian spy doubts that a Russian man arrested in Montreal and deported last month for allegedly spying in Canada for the past 10 years was a government agent.

“Janice Cowan believes that in a day and age where economic spying has taken precedent over the state-sponsored military surveillance, the man could be a rogue KGB agent hiring out his skills to private entities for his own personal benefit.

“‘I just can’t see, in 1995, somebody actually planting him there,’ Ms. Cowan said. ‘He probably was at one time with the KGB. I’m sure, living in Montreal, he was using his spycraft.’

“‘But maybe it was going to companies and finding out information, or maybe having information already that he could give to them. Somebody found him useful and he used that training to make himself some money.'”

“In her fast-paced book,”A Spy’s Wife”, Ms. Cowan explains how military attachés assigned to Moscow and other Soviet cities performed their jobs both before and after the Iron Curtain fell. While Western spies continued collecting information because no one knew what would happen next, dozens of KGB agents who had been working abroad were cut off from resources and contact. Many went rogue, using their skills in other ways.

“‘There’s so many of them,’ she said. ‘They fell like dandelion seeds all over the world and they’ve been hired by somebody who’s really, really rich.’

“One hint that this may have been the case with the man arrested in Montreal was his initial decision to fight efforts to have him deported, Ms. Cowan said. The man eventually reversed his decision, but it raised questions.

“‘It seemed strange that he was going to fight deportation,’ she said. “‘I thought: ‘That’s really strange for a spy. Why isn’t he just happy to go home?’ I sort of agree with the Russian ambassador in that he wasn’t connected to anyone.'”

It all makes sense. If this guy was a KGB orphan, it explains why the Canadian government simply wanted to send him home instead of throwing him in prison.

Can there be another conflict on God’s green earth which in the space of a few generations has generated two entire new cultures, two entire new identities, each at war with the other, each dismissing the validity of the other, the rights of the other, the very authenticity of the identity the other is trying so vigorously to hang onto?

There are those on both sides, propagandists, fanatics, columnists, who insist that their own side is the sole heir to antiquity, the sole claimant to the property and the history of the Holy Land, the sole injured party, the sole heroic player.They believe it with everything they have.The best part, of course, is that they tend to believe that anyone who sees things differently is deluded. A victim of self-deception.

In view of this complex reality, how can you know truth from self-deception – Here’s a simple self-test that may help:

1. True or False: One side is regularly condemned internationally for war crimes it is alleged to have committed. The other is shielded, left to commit them at will.

2. True or False: One side desecrates holy places. The other respects religious shrines, and the right of all to worship as they choose.

3. True or False: One side can be trusted to observe negotiated peace accords and agreed cease-fires. The other side violates them at will.

4. True or False: One side takes care to abide by the terms of peace agreements and cease-fires, until such time as the other side blatantly violates them.

5. True or False: One side has learned the lessons of the Holocaust. The actions of the other side are reminiscent of those who perpetrated it.

6. True or False: One side has a legitimate historical claim to territory of the Holy Land, being direct descendants of its ancient inhabitants. The claims of the other do not stand up to factual inspection.

7. True or False: One side repeatedly launches attacks which kill innocent civilians. The actions of the other are acts of legitimate self-defense.

8. True or False: One side genuinely seeks peace. The other side truly wants the land on its own terms, and is prepared to continue to kill people on the other side as long as its actual desires are unattained.

9. True or False: News media are over-sympathetic to one side only.

10. True or False: The people who support and speak for the other side are either lying or self-deceived.

HOW TO SCORE: Count 10 points for every “True” answer, none for every “False.”

If you scored 0 – 20: Chances are that you still harbor a secret belief in the eventual possibility of peace. Chances are that you are reluctant, at this point, to reveal this to anyone.People on both sides are sure to tell you that you are deceiving yourself.

If you scored 30 – 50: Chances are you once harbored a belief in the eventual possibility of peace. Chances are that you have stopped discussing this with people on the other side. People on your side will now tell you that you have finally come to your senses.You are on your way to self-deception.

If you scored 60 – 100: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes perfect sense to you. You are a victim of serious self-deception. Unbeknownst to you.