The Mound of Sound

The world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters are gathering in Honolulu this week to discuss, talk, chat, while away some time and, of course, work on those tans. From ENN:

“The two-day gathering, which starts on Wednesday in Honolulu, is meant to spur U.N. negotiations for an international climate agreement by 2009, so a pact will be ready when the current carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The Bush administration rejects the Kyoto plan, saying it unfairly exempts developing countries from cutting back on emissions, and could cost U.S. jobs. Instead, Washington favors voluntary measures and “aspirational goals” to limit climate change, aided by easier transfer of environmental technology.”

In attendance will be representatives from the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

There hasn’t been much publicity about this conference and there’s a reason for that. Consider how James Connaughton, the head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, described the objectives.

“I think these will be iterative discussions, which the initial goal will be to lay out a variety of options without holding any country to a particular proposal,” Connaughton told reporters at a briefing on Friday. “… We’re trying to do this in a collaborative way, rather than in the more classic ‘You bring your number, I bring my number, and we start kicking them around.”‘

Special Ed has announced he’ll jump on the short bus and split for Edmonton this afternoon while the gettin’s good.

The Alberta premier has decided to head for the foothills before his fellow premiers begin their summit on climate change tomorrow. Stelmach, whose otherwise modest little province churns out a third of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, has apparently been stampeded out of Vancouver by the representatives of every other province in the country.

Instead of explaining and defending his feeble greenhouse gas plan, Ed seems to have figured that what’s good enough for Dick Cheney is good enough for him and for Alberta and for Canada.

Across Argentina, young men and women are discovering the truth, that their real parents were slaughtered and they were then handed out to the butchers’ friends. From The Guardian:

“Horacio Pietragalla felt “like a cat raised in a family of dogs” and was puzzled that, at the age of 14, he was already taller than his father. It was only later that he discovered he was the child of a leftwing activist murdered by the Argentine military during the “dirty war”. The executioners gave Horacio away to a general’s maid more than a quarter of a century ago.

Now Pietragalla and dozens of other young Argentines are discovering who their real parents were and meeting their grandparents for the first time. Some are bringing legal actions against their parents’ kidnappers, while others are going through the painful process of realising the people they thought were their parents had lied to them.

An estimated 30,000 people were killed by the junta that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983 before it finally collapsed in the wake of the defeat in the Falklands war. Most of the victims were young and some were pregnant when arrested. Around 500 babies are believed to have been born in the army’s prisons. After their parents were tortured and killed, the children were handed over to military families.

Others who believe they may be children of the disappeared are now waiting to have their DNA tested, Estela Bravo said yesterday from New York. She added that one of the remarkable aspects of the operation to find them was that many had the same quirks as the parents they never knew. “Juan Cabandié likes to go off to the mountains, look up to the sky and find himself, and his aunt has told him that his mother did exactly the same,” she said.

After the fall of the junta, a number of those in the military fled, many to the US and Miami in particular.

Rudy Giuliani gets his pompous ass booted straight back to the Big Apple tomorrow. In the first Republican primary he’s actually contested the only thing he has to look forward to are the flames.

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy has worked hard in Florida, campaigning for weeks while his rivals squandered their efforts in smaller states. So, how has that paid off? Just fine, actually. Right now Giuliani holds on to a solid fourth place – the ejection seat is armed.

In the blue corner, the Clintons. In the red corner, the Kennedys.

Let’s face it, if Bill Clinton had been run over by a bus a year ago, Hillary Clinton would not be where she is today in the Democratic Party’s presidential race. She’s always had a powerhouse in her corner, the Big Draw, Bill. Oh sure, sometimes he’s put his foot in his mouth but that’s not always been accidental. Backfires happen, even when they’re scripted. Nonetheless it’s been a campaign waged by the Two-headed Clinton.

That makes it even more surprising that the challenger, underdog Barack Obama, has done as well as he has so far with his win in Iowa and his conquest of South Carolina. He’s had to run uphill while his opponent, the heir presumptive, has enjoyed the high ground advantage.

That playing field is going to be a little more even today thanks to the levelling effect of America’s greatest Democratic family, the Kennedys. Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late JFK, wrote an astonishingly emotive endorsement of Obama in the New York Times on the weekend in which she described the man as cut from the same cloth as her father. Today, the brother of that same president, Senator Ted Kennedy, will also lend his name to the Obama campaign.

I’ve always felt it was somewhat unseemly that the Democratic field should have to run against the Billary tag team. Maybe, just maybe, Caroline and Ted, the Kennedys, can unhorse part of the Clinton behemoth.

Without the intervention of the old man, GHWBush, and the Lee Atwater dirty tricks played by Shrub’s Quasimodo, Rove, America might well have wound up in 2000 with Al Gore or John McCain as chief executive instead of having to splash around in the shallow end of the Bush gene pool for eight years. Imagine.

The hound pictured above is my Mikey. If you’re a dog lover, I thought you might like the following “compare & contrast” of dogs’n cats.

How To Give A Cat A Pill

1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right fore-finger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill In right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.

4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.

5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously.

7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.

8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, Drink 1 beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

10. Retrieve cat from neighbor’s shed. Get another pill.Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door on to neck, to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.

11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw tee shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

12. Call fire department to retrieve the damn cat from tree across the road. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.

13. Tie the little bastard’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of filet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.

14. Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the Emergency room. Sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.

15. Arrange for SPCA to collect mutant cat from hell and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.


How To Give A Dog A Pill

1. Wrap it in bacon.

2. Toss it in the air.

Imagine what our leaders would be like if they could somehow measure the impact of their decisions on the children who’ll be affected as though those children were their own.

Would we be firing cluster bombs into populated areas and then leaving them there to kill the unwary if we knew our kids would be walking through there? Of course we wouldn’t. So then, why is it okay when we do it if the foreseeable victims are someone else’s kids?

This isn’t an attack on Israel but it is about an attack on Israel. The UN Humanitarian Affairs Office has released a report on the psychological toll inflicted on Israeli kids in the town of Sderot from incessant rocket attacks from Gaza. While you read this, eliminate all thoughts of Palestinians or Israelis or their historical grievances. Just think kids.

“At least 75 percent of children aged 4-18 in the southern Israeli town of Sderot suffer from post-traumatic stress, including sleeping disorders and severe anxiety, new findings published in January say.

The report by Natal, the Israel Trauma Centre for Victims of Terror and War, comes after the town first came under Palestinian militant rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in 2001. In the last two years the number of projectiles has risen significantly, and in recent months rocket fire has become an almost daily event.

The Natal report, based on a representative survey, indicates that some 28 percent of adults suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. It suggests that the biggest impact was on the young, who suffer nightmares, loss of appetite and problems at school.

Some 120 children are currently undergoing long-term mental health therapy. This is not surprising, say experts, given that many times the rocket fire is timed for the early morning when children head to school.

During a visit by IRIN to the town on a school day, over 10 rockets landed in or near the city between 7am and 8.30am. Every time rockets triggered the warning siren – the now infamous `Tseva Adom’ or `Red Colour’ system – children ran for cover.

The system is only partially effective. One resident said the siren gives people between zero and 15 seconds to find cover – “and most of the time it’s closer to zero”.

Dalia Yossef, the manager of a local branch of a national organisation for trauma intervention, Hosen, said the challenge in treating the children was that the rockets continued to fall. “It’s ongoing, there is no ‘post’. How do you treat post-trauma in this situation?” she asked.”

I suspect that, as long as each group targets, deliberately or inadvertently, the other side’s children this is simply never going to end. By the way, the picture above is of Israeli kids – writing messages on shells about to be lobbed into Lebanon. I chose this picture to show just how sick both sides can be. That’s nothing short of obscene.