Northman's Fury

Maybe we should have a few "reminder" attacks.

Not actually a new storyline for the right, though Newt's speech is a little more convincing. Still, this point almost makes me laugh.

Gingrich then recommended splitting the FBI into a domestic crime unit, which would respect civil liberties, and a "small but very aggressive anti-terrorism agency" with "extraordinary ability to eavesdrop."

"I think that your liberties in a domestic setting are paramount," Gingrich explained. "I would rather risk crime than risk losing my civil liberties. But I would not rather risk a nuclear weapon. ... I think the greatest danger to our liberty is to actually have the country end up in the kind of attack that would lead us to favor a dictatorship for security."

Which is a fancy way of saying we should give the government all the powers of a police state, (but only for a "small" number, we promise!), in the hopes it will prevent the kind of attack that would make us choose to be ruled by a police state who would use the threat of such attacks to usurp all of these kinds of powers.

Odd that the Republicans are in such trouble these days, isn't it?

The good news is that the Democrats have finally figured out how to choose candidates willing to fight to be elected.

The bad news is that they've decided to fight each other:

Supporters of Barack Obama’s presidential bid are planning to demonstrate outside the Saturday meeting in Washington where Democratic officials are slated to debate the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations at the party’s summer convention.

The move comes days after backers of Hillary Clinton’s White House run announced plans to converge on the Washington, D.C. hotel where members of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee are meeting.

“Hillary Clinton's supporters are going to be bussing in protestors for the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, so it's critical that we show up for the counter-protest,” wrote on organizer in a post on the Daily Kos Web site Tuesday morning.

. . .

Earlier this month, Clinton told a group of bloggers who support her candidacy that she encouraged efforts to lobby the committee.

“I thank you for zeroing in on the May 31 meeting. There will be a lot of activity around that meeting,” she said on a conference call, adding that it was “important your voices are heard” by DNC members.

Nice to see Hillary promote the tactics that cost Democrats the Florida recount in 2000.

In an eerie echo of the “Brooks Brothers riot” depicted in the HBO movie, when shouting Bush operatives and Republican congressional staffers who had been dispatched to Florida managed to shut down the Miami-Dade County recount, CNN reported on Thursday that Clinton supporters “are planning to swarm the capital in a little over a week to pressure Democratic Party leaders as they gather to decide the fate of the Florida and Michigan delegations.” In 2000, the candidate most willing to deploy principles and trash them, according to the tactical needs of the moment, was awarded the prize. In 2008, maybe not

Now with the Kossaks involved, maybe we won't have to wait until the convention in August for the rioting.

Embattled Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier has resigned from cabinet over a security breach involving classified documents, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters on Monday.

Not that leaving classified information lying around unsecured isn't a serious issue, but something tells me that wasn't the real reason Mr. Bernier fell on his sword.

He has been in a weakened position in recent weeks since a gaffe in April during a visit to Afghanistan, where he publicly suggested the removal of the governor of Kandahar.

Earlier this month, the federal government was forced to rent a Russian cargo jet to ship helicopters to Burma to deliver aid after Bernier publicly promised the Canadian military's new C-17 transports, none of which were immediately available.

He also has been under fire for his involvement with his former girlfriend, Julie Couillard, who has links to the criminal biker underworld.

Montreal newspaper Le Devoir reported Monday that Couillard, who was once married to a biker, is the head of a high-tech firm that has been involved in airport security.

Speaking to reporters after the announcement, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe rejected Harper's contention that Bernier's resignation had nothing to do with Couillard's highly anticipated interview on Monday night with private television network TVA.

Duceppe said many questions remain unanswered, including how "people with very strange pasts" can bid on government contracts for airport security.

Safe bet that Bernier's resignation is an attempt to ensure such questions remain unanswered.

An unwitting passenger arriving at Japan's Narita airport has received 142g of cannabis after a customs test went awry, officials say.

A customs officer hid a package of the banned narcotic in a side pocket of a randomly chosen suitcase in order to test airport security.

Sniffer dogs failed to detect the cannabis and the officer could not remember which bag he had put it in.

Heh.

I must admit to being rather late to this debate. I followed the postings of others whose opinions I trust on the subject and even a cursory glance at the snippets of the bill and the comments of its supporters made it clear that it was more of a stealth attempt to make abortion more difficult if not outright illegal, and related to that but more important, to restrict a woman’s right to her own body.

After reading this post by 900 ft Jesus, along with the comments, I actually sat down and read through the bill. It left me rather disturbed and I think it’s important to explain why.

Here is the part 900’s post didn’t include:

238.1 (1) Every person who, directly or indirectly, causes the death of a child during birth or at any stage of development before birth while committing or attempting to commit an offence against the mother of the child, who the person knows or ought to know is pregnant,

(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of 10 years if the person

(i) means to cause the child’s death, or
(ii) means to cause injury to the child or mother that the person knows is likely to cause the child’s death, and is reckless as to whether death ensues or not;

(b) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life if paragraph (a) does not apply but the person shows wanton or reckless disregard for the life or safety of the child; or

And here is the part that 900 quoted:

(2) An offence that would otherwise be an offence under paragraph (1)(a) may be reduced to an offence under paragraph (1)(b) if the person who committed the offence did so in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation within the meaning of section 232.

Section 232, for thoroughness, reads as follows:

232. (1) Culpable homicide that otherwise would be murder may be reduced to manslaughter if the person who committed it did so in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation.

What is provocation

(2) A wrongful act or an insult that is of such a nature as to be sufficient to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control is provocation for the purposes of this section if the accused acted on it on the sudden and before there was time for his passion to cool.

As explained in most introductory law courses, the provocation in question is usually of the scale of walking in on your significant other shagging somebody else and killing one or the other or both in a fit of rage.

It took me a while to work out why this all bugged me. To begin, paragraph 238.1(1) relates to basically causing a miscarriage, but is only an offense if the person causing said miscarriage is aware, or should be aware, that the woman is pregnant. Causing a miscarriage while being unaware of the pregnant state of the woman you’re beating means you’re free and clear so far as this section is concerned.

The sub-paragraphs speak to the intent of the offender. You’re guilty of an offense under (1)(a) if you have the intent to kill or cause fatal harm to the unborn child. You’re guilty under (1)(b) if, while beating the woman, you’re not being too careful about the child she’s carrying. The difference is significant not only regarding intent, but because later in the bill, another section is amended to make it possible for courts to delay parole for offenses under (1)(a).

You don’t have to go any further than this to see that the focus is on the foetus and not the woman. The severity of the offense in this section is entirely independent of the woman’s fate. Indeed, regardless how badly she’s beaten or otherwise harmed, you are only culpable of the most serious offence if you intended to terminate the pregnancy or were certainly aware that your actions would do so.

The section 900 highlighted merely adds insult to injury. Read in the context of the above, you can attack and beat a woman with the intent to cause the death of the unborn child and still be granted a more lenient sentence and possibility of early parole if you were somehow “provoked” into wanting to terminate the pregnancy through abusive means.

Sickening even to contemplate.

'My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it,'[link]

Much as I hate to defend Clinton these days, it is probable that from the previous times she has referenced the RFK assassination that it is probably more focused on the June part and just worded incredibly badly in this instance, but the reference to a political assassination is still a poor one, and the Clinton campaign used to know that.

Today, in Dover, Francine Torge, a former John Edwards supporter, said this while introducing Mrs. Clinton: “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually” passed the civil rights legislation.

The comment, an apparent reference to Senator Barack Obama, is particularly striking given documented fears among blacks that Mr. Obama will be assassinated if elected.

Phil Singer, a Clinton spokesman said: “We were not aware that this person was going to make those comments and disapprove of them completely. They were totally inappropriate.”

Well, at least the campaign did.

Mrs. Clinton’s expression did not change noticeably when Ms. Torge made the comment.

In any case, I believe the statement was more of a gaffe and forgivable to a degree, but my problem really starts with her not-exactly-an-apology.

"Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history, and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June," Clinton said.

"That's a historic fact. The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator [Edward] Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever. My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I'm honored to hold Senator [Robert] Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family."

I'm sure the Kennedy clan, reeling from the sad news of their current patriarch's medical condition, wasn't entirely amused with the reference, but that really isn't the family Clinton needs to apologize to. Somehow she seems to have missed the whole reason this was a stupid comment. It isn't because she was referencing some traumatic period from the past, it is because she was referencing the assassination of a presidential candidate as a reason for her remaining in a contest against a man about whom there has been a steady if muted drumbeat of stories speculating on just such a fate befalling the man most likely to become America's first African-American President.

Hillary's failure to even acknowledge that her gaffe may have been a little traumatic for the Obama's is the measure of just how low she's fallen. The hole she needs to dig herself out of just got a lot deeper.

Pretty much everyone should be well aware that Iraq War spending hasn’t exactly been a model of accounting discipline. Still, it’s nice to be reminded of the sheer scale of the incompetence.

A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the United States Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received.

The audit also found a sometimes stunning lack of accountability in the way the United States military spent some $1.8 billion in seized or frozen Iraqi assets, which in the early phases of the conflict were often doled out in stacks or pallets of cash. The audit was released Thursday in tandem with a Congressional hearing on the payments.

This is apparently in addition to the nearly nine billion in cash the US flew in on pallets earlier during the conflict. And I love the examples they give at the end of the article.

Examples of the paperwork for some of those payments, displayed at the hearing, depict a system that became accustomed to making huge payments on the fly, with little oversight or attention to detail. In one instance, a United States Treasury check for $5,674,075.00 was written to pay a company called Al Kasid Specialized Vehicles Trading Company in Baghdad for items that a voucher does not even describe.

In another case, $6,268,320.07 went to the contractor Combat Support Associates with even less explanation. And a scrawl on another piece of paper says only that $8 million had been paid out as “Funds for the Benefit of the Iraqi People.”

But perhaps the masterpiece of elliptic paperwork is the document identified at the top as a “Public Voucher for Purchases and Services Other Than Personal.” It indicates that $320.8 million went for “Iraqi Salary Payment,” with no explanation of what the Iraqis were paid to do.

Whatever it was, the document suggests, each of those Iraqis was handsomely compensated. Under the “quantity” column is the number 1,000, presumably indicating the number of people who were to be paid — to the tune of $320,800 apiece — if the paperwork is to be trusted.

I can’t know for sure, of course, but I’m willing to bet that a fair number of those examples were passed around the office for people’s amusement at the sheer ridiculous incompetence they show with taxpayers’ money.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that fraud was prevalent, but it does mean that any fraud that did take place will be almost impossible to track down and prove.

It also means that the Pentagon will be reluctant to prosecute any fraud it does track down, since such a serious lack of oversight makes the Pentagon itself at least partially culpable for any such actions. After all, under such circumstances, even a relatively honest person would be likely to take advantage of the system.

Controls, the saying goes, are there to keep honest people honest. Without them, nearly everyone strays, and the fact that oversight and spending controls have been allowed to lapse in just about every government function is one of the most pervasive legacies the Bush administration is going to leave the American people.

Really, it's the only way I can explain how Hillary and her crew were able to claim yesterday that the fight over seating the Florida delegation is like, among other things:

Florida 2000
The Civil Rights Movement
Women's Suffrage
and Zimbabwe

I don't envy them the hangover they are likely to have when they finally sober up. It also turns out that making the Florida primary results count as is may in an actual fact be a felony.

Florida election law (Chapter 104.0515) states that “No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of causing such other person to vote for, or not vote for, any candidate for any office at any general, special, or primary election....”

Coerce is largely defined, “to compel by force, intimidation, or authority, esp. without regard for individual desire or volition.”

This Florida election statute makes it clear that if The Democratic Party chooses to use the results of Florida's January primary to determine delegates assigned to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, ignoring it's public edict that results would not count, high-ranking party members will be in violation of Florida election law. The crime is a third degree felony in this case.

If January's election results are used to select delegates, a Florida prosecutor could make a case that The Democratic Party officials used their “authority” to advise voters that their presidential votes would not count, without regard for the voters' “volition,” defined as the exercise of their personal choice. It could then be determined that the party intentionally caused some voters to not vote.

All across Florida, there are residents who admit that their decision to not vote for a presidential candidate in January was directly affected by The Democratic Party stating that the vote was meaningless. Several state newspapers have quoted people who fit this example.

Unlikely to happen of course, but important to remember that only the truly delusional could consider what happened in Florida was a fair vote.

The Weekly Standard has decided that the reason Obama drew such a big crowd in Portland was because of his opening act. That's an attack so weak a newborn would be giggling from the impact.

In bipartisan stupidity, the House has passed a bill to sue OPEC for high oil prices. I'm sure facing the potential cost of a lawsuit will convince the oil-producing nations of the world to immediately drop their prices.

A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word "cult" to describe the Church of Scientology.

The unnamed 15-year-old was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion.

Officers confiscated a placard with the word "cult" on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.

As I said, ridiculous. As to why the City of London police force has decided that they don't like disparaging comments made about the Church of Scientology . . .

The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology.

The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening of its headquarters in 2006.

Last year a video praising Scientology emerged featuring Ken Stewart, another of the City of London's chief superintendents, although he is not a member of the group.

I know Scientology isn't exactly known for its tolerance of critics, but we really don't need the authorities helping them out.

Since the Clinton campaign keeps harping on about ensuring that Florida and Michigan are counted, (which is pretty rich given that in order to claim the popular vote lead they have to toss out the results of four states that held caucuses), I thought I'd do a bit of calculation on what that might mean for the overall count.

At present, there are 3,253 pledged delegates, which makes 1,627 the number needed to have a majority of them. Going into tonight, Obama has 1,612, meaning he only needs to pick up 15 from the 103 available in order to claim an absolute majority, which is what Obama plans to do tonight since he can get that many if he breaks 30% in Kentucky alone.

The Clinton camp, on the other hand, wants the delegates from Florida and Michigan seated, which adds another 313 pledged delegates to the mix or another 157 needed for Obama to get the majority. The rules committee is meeting on May 31, and I believe it is likely they will come up with some agreement to seat the delegations.

Under the Clintons' preferred scenario, which has about the same likelihood as my marrying Michelle Trachtenberg, the results of the two unsanctioned primary will stand as is, giving Clinton 163 delegates to Obama's 61 since he gets zero from Michigan. That adds 96 delegates to the 15 above before he can claim a majority. Obama's lead going into tonight is 168.

Under a somewhat more realistic scenario, Obama picks up the 26 Florida delegates that would have went to his supporter Edwards, and gets the uncommitted delegates from Michigan, which should number around 51. That bumps his total up to 138, and means he needs a mere 19 more for the majority.

Further, since the rules committee are still likely to impose some kind of punishment on the two states, it is probable that their delegates will be given half-votes as happened on the Republican side. That makes Obama’s maximum possible deficit 48 delegates, and under the more realistic scenario, only 10.

This is sad.

In the "first nationally representative survey of teachers concerning the teaching of evolution," the authors show that one in eight high school biology teachers present creationism as a scientifically valid alternative to Darwinian evolution.

Bad enough in itself, and there is more from the study to be concerned with regarding the time spent on teaching evolution.

The authors show that the disparity in teaching evolution is not linked to differences in state regulations, but can more likely be attributed to differences of religious belief and education amongst teachers. Less than one-third of high school biology teachers believe that God had no part in evolution, nearly one-half believe God had a hand in evolution, and almost one in six believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. The teachers who hold creationist or intelligent design beliefs spent substantially less time teaching evolution than their Darwinist counterparts. Likewise, teachers with a stronger background in evolution spent 60% more time teaching it than those who had the least education in the subject.

Biology was never my strong suit in science, but even I understand that evolution is the cornerstone of the field. Less time spent teaching it, or time spent pretending creationism is a scientifically valid alternative, is a good way to promote a flawed way of thinking. (I'll spare you my snarky comments regarding how this translates to US politics.)

The study's authors believe that making teachers complete courses in evolutionary biology might ensure that the nation's science teachers actually understand science. It certainly couldn't hurt.

Roland Martin has figured out a way to get the campaign back on track.

Since it is clear that our nation is paralyzed and so not able to close our borders, feed the homeless, develop businesses in the inner cities and save people from having their homes taken by foreclosure due to ruthless mortgage companies, all because some folks don't wear a flag lapel pin, we need to lead a national movement to demand that Congress and the states make requiring officeholders to wear a flag lapel pin the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

See, if it is so important, then take it all the way. Don't make it optional. Don't leave it up to someone to choose to wear a flag lapel pin. Let's really show those politicians that nothing is more important to us than seeing them with the U.S. flag on our chest.

I heartily endorse this completely ridiculous idea.

Even in the worst of times, there are people and professions that do very well. In Iraq, there has been a booming business for undertakers and coffin builders. In the US, the current credit crunch has it's own set of winners:

So many people have so many things they can no longer afford. This is an excellent time to be a repo man.

When a boat owner defaults on his loan, the bank hires Jeff Henderson to seize its property. The former Army detective tracks the boat down in a backyard or a marina or a garage and hauls it to his storage area and later auctions it off. After nearly 20 years in the repossession business, Mr. Henderson has never been busier.

“I used to take the weak ones,” he said. “Now I’m taking the whole herd.”

Turns out old Karl has a couple of maps showing that Hillary would be a better candidate than Obama in the fall against McCain. Outside of the nutcases at No Quarter, who have totally lost the ability for rational thought at this point, (Quite unfortunate really. They used to be a decent blog on foreign affairs.), who in their right mind that calls themselves a Democrat would take Karl Rove's word on who the Democrats should pick as their candidate?

Hillary Clinton defended her reasoning for staying in the presidential race Monday afternoon by pointing out that Karl Rove's analysis shows her to be the strongest candidate against John McCain in November.

Aaahhhh . . . well then . . . um . . .

Man, I can't wait for this to be over.

Getting to know Hubbert

Hubbert of "Hubbert's Peak", or "Peak Oil", that is. In simplified terms, Hubbert postulated that for any given geographical area, up to and including the entire Earth, oil discovery and extraction would follow a bell-shaped curve where the easily exploited reserves would be found and consumed first, driving production to a peak, and then plateau and start declining when roughly half of the available resources had been exploited and the remaining reserves were more expensive and harder to extract.

Largely scoffed at when he came out with his theory in 1956, he's since been vindicated, in large part because he predicted the peak of US production in the '70's. Depending on who you talk to, peak oil for the planet is forecast as far out as a couple of decades from now to we're already there. It will be a while before we can determine whether or not production has really peaked, but it's clear from the pricing that demand has caught up, and may be surpassing, the supply.

People looking for places like ANWR or the Alberta tarsands to make up for the lost production are living in a pipe dream. ANWR doesn't hold enough to make much of a difference, and the tarsands, while possessing massive amounts of convertible bitumen, can't increase production fast enough to keep pace even with the inevitable decline in Alberta's traditional oil fields like those around Leduc, let alone deal with the declining production of a place like Russia, or the even more worrisome prospect of Saudi oil production dropping off. The Saudis by the way, unlike certain people in North America, understand that the oil still in the ground is only growing in value the longer they leave it there.

While we haven't yet run out of the black gold, the fact that it's now beginning to be priced at about the same level as the gold gold has finally gotten most people to consider the previously abhorrent thought of not burning so much of the stuff. As David Brin noted a while back, the truly awe-inspiring part of much of the Climate Change debate is that the opponents are generally arguing against measures that would make sense anyway, like efficiency.

As fester noted last week, people are starting to use public transit more and buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, even if they don't plan to drive them quite as often. The tragedy of all this is that many people are only now waking up to these facts, and the transition for them is going to be quite painful.

I don’t feel particularly smug when I stand next to my Honda Fit watching some SUV owner near tears as she puts more than $100 of gas into a car she doesn’t need. It just feels sad to think about how long it’s been since it became obvious to anyone who cared to look that we won’t be able to scare off problems like fuel scarcity and climate change by closing our eyes and wishing.

That lead time was an opportunity to make changes. Some would have been painful and some merely sensible, but it would prevent huge numbers of honest Americans get caught with their pants down. Instead we blew it out the tailpipe of cars that average 15 MPG. Now, instead of a planned transition, we get to see what happens when stubborn denial meets inescapable change. It’s simply unsustainable to live in suburban car country with a negative equity on the house, $6-7 gas (wait until you see what that does to property values in outlying suburbs) and expensive SUVs that nobody wants. The saddest thing for me was that most who will get fucked the worst had no idea this was coming. There was that one guy who warned us, but he had a snooty laugh.

Krugman has a vision of American cities turning into more efficient, densely-packed, transit-serviced, European models, but he also notes the another issue pointed out by fester; buildings and infrastructure don't change on anywhere near a short time scale. Buildings are generational investments at the least, and most infrastructure has even longer time horizons, (though I wonder if the fact that it's all falling apart anyway will make it easier to rebuild in a more efficient manner).

In the meantime, people are looking for alternatives for fueling their rides. The most hyped has been hydrogen fuel cells, but they're a long way off from being helpful. Hydrogen also has the issue of requiring energy to produce the hydrogen, which at present means shifting the burning of fossil fuels to power the vehicles to burning them to produce the power needed to produce hydrogen. The same problem goes for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. Part of the infrastructure that needs to be refurbished to produce a more efficient and climate-friendly North America is the electrical grid and power generation, particularly if more of the power is to be generated by renewables.

Grain-based ethanol was, and in some cases still is, put forward as a possibility for a fuel alternative. It didn't take too long for people to realize that this wasn't the smartest idea, (though this variation does intrigue me), given that it takes land away from food production to turn it into not terribly efficient fuel production. And food production is another thing we all need to be watching. Oil, after all, isn't the only thing that appears to be in short supply.

There have been a rash of stories recently regarding possible rice shortages, and how the near permanent drought in Australia caused wheat prices to spike. Hell, even the price of fertilizer is soaring due to shortages. While for developed nations like the US the main risk is the inflationary pressure of higher food prices, (well, that and crappier beer), crop failures and diversion of food crops to fuel use is causing far greater hardships in countries where life is a lot closer to the edge.

Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia’s largest slum, in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material.

. . .

In some poor countries, desperation is taking hold. Just in the last week, protests have erupted in Pakistan over wheat shortages, and in Indonesia over soybean shortages. Egypt has banned rice exports to keep food at home, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs.

According to the F.A.O., food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

And the situation in Somalia makes those countries look good. War plays a large part of the Horn's troubles, but climate does as well, as a drought has led to crop failures and dying livestock. People point to the situation in Darfur as the world's first conflict caused by Climate Change, as the collapse of the Sahel to drought brought the peoples there into conflict over increasingly scarce water resources. It is unlikely to be the last, as the desperate move to try and escape their fate.

Drought seems to be a more common word these days, and the US is beginning to feel its effects as well, as the situation last summer over the dwindling Lake Lanier show. While Climate Change may be raising the level of the seas, humans are draining the levels of even the greatest freshwater lakes.

Canada is, by most estimates, blessed with an incredibly abundant supply of freshwater, but as with everything else, abundant doesn't mean limitless. Remember I mentioned that tarsands production would never make up for decline in oil production elsewhere? Well a big part of that reasoning is based on the fact that the water use is massive. Even with recycling, it takes between two and three barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil, and most of the water can't be sent back into the ecosystem because of the toxins it picks up.

Indeed, the lack of environmental safeguards in the area means that we are quite probably poisoning the water supply of the relatively sparsely populated north. Of course, we've never paid too much attention to aboriginal rights in the past, why should we worry about those living downstream from the tarsands now?

The energy intensive extraction is currently run mostly with natural gas, but there is talk of putting in nuclear reactors for that purpose. Doing so would suck up even more water from the rivers in the area, which are unlikely to take the strain. And the climate can be blamed again in part. The warmer weather is leaving smaller snowpacks to feed the rivers.

Shortages of resources can be painful. Shortages in food and water are deadly. This is ultimately what makes Climate Change the frightening prospect it is. Being so close to the edge of what human life the planet can support, even a minor disruption can push us over the edge, particularly given the ease with which large numbers of people can move when conditions in their area go bad. As I noted in the first part of this, our cities, our agriculture, our very lives are dependent on the climate remaining relatively stable. Knock that balance too far out of the norm and disaster follows.

It is likely too late to stop or totally reverse the change that's coming, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a good idea to move beyond symbolic protests and work to at least mitigate the effects. At the very least, we would be smart to at least try and slow down the rate we're pumping carbon into the atmosphere to try and delay the changes long enough to give us a chance to adapt to them, rather than barreling full-speed ahead into an uncertain but likely disastrous future. It is still debatable whether or not we'll choose to do so.

And so, interesting times.

The Climate, it is a-Changing

A number of years ago, my sister asked me if I thought we, as in humanity, would do enough to stop global warming. My answer in short, was no. I said my only real hope was that we’d run out of oil before we burnt too much of it to irreversibly damage the planet.

At the time, I figured it would be mid-century before we had an idea about which would be the case. Instead, it seems the showdown is coming much sooner.

The most visible sign of all this right now is the Arctic sea ice, which hit a record low last summer and is being forecast at about a 60% probability of beating that record this summer.

Arctic sea ice, sometimes billed as Earth's air conditioner for its moderating effects on world climate, will probably shrink to a record low level this year, scientists predicted on Wednesday.

In releasing the forecast, climate researcher Sheldon Drobot of the University of Colorado at Boulder called the changes in Arctic sea ice "one of the more compelling and obvious signs of climate change.

If that prediction holds true, it would be the third time in the past five years that Arctic sea ice retreated to record lows, the scientists said in a statement.

Part of what's happening is that the thick multi-year ice, some of it several thousand years old, is breaking apart and being replaced with thiner, annual ice cover that is more easily melted again the next summer.

The major threat though, is the feedback mechanism of albedo. Sea ice, being a nice bright white, reflects 80% of the sunlight that hits it back into space. Open water absorbs 80%. Less ice, means more sunlight absorbed, means higher ocean temperatures, means even less ice. If the predictions are right and the sea ice cover drops even further this year than last, then it is a good indication that we've passed the tipping point on at least one part of the Climate Change equation.

There are other signs as well, such as islands starting to disappear thanks to rising seas, but the Arctic is referred to as the canary in the coal mine of Climate Change, and the canary is in ill-health.

Of course, the reason for all of this is that we're pumping out carbon dioxide at ever increasing rates and raising it's concentration in the atmosphere to record levels.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to new figures that renew fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control.

Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm – the fourth year in the past six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.

Now, as stated, part of that increase comes from the fact that we keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, but part of it is due to a different, and far more worrisome reason. You see, the world's carbon sinks, like the oceans, aren't soaking up as much carbon as they used to.

The amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world's oceans has reduced, scientists have said.

. . .

Results of their 10-year study in the North Atlantic show CO2 uptake halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005.

. . .

BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin said: "The researchers don't know if the change is due to climate change or to natural variations.

"But they say it is a tremendous surprise and very worrying because there were grounds for believing that in time the ocean might become 'saturated' with our emissions - unable to soak up any more."

He said that would "leave all our emissions to warm the atmosphere".

Worse for us, if the oceans are hitting their saturation point, things like the bleaching of coral and other pollution caused die-offs could turn the ocean from a carbon sink into a carbon emitter, which truly puts us in dire circumstances.

And because I can't leave well enough alone, that isn't even the worst news. You see, it turns out that in addition to record levels of carbon dioxide, methane levels have been shooting up as well.

Methane, though short-lived in the atmosphere, has about 25 times the heat trapping capability of CO2, so its effects can be felt at far lower concentrations. And it also happens to be the main threat of the other great Climate Change feedback mechanism tied to warming in the Arctic.

You see, there are massive amounts of methane trapped in the Arctic permafrost, ground which by definition is frozen year-round. If, thanks to higher temperatures, the permafrost starts to melt, it releases the heat-trapping methane, which ups the temperature, which melts more permafrost, which releases more methane, and so on.

So what does this all mean for the Earth's climate? Well, as Ron put it a while back, nobody really knows. There are too many variables to be certain what exactly is going to happen. A good example of this is a recent story from the BBC that suggests global warming will actually decrease the number of hurricanes. Such stories are of course followed by the inevitable claims that climate scientists don't know what they're talking about and therefore Climate Change is nothing to worry about. Also predictable is that they've completely missed the point.

You see, the exact change caused by global warming, and even the exact cause of global warming, isn't what we need to be worried about. It's the fact that the climate will become uncertain, and we're not terribly well set up to deal with that.

Over the last several hundred years we have constructed critical infrastructure on the assumption that the climate regime is going to stay more or less constant over time. We’ve done that all over the world, of course, and while there are some technological fixes available to the rich (see the Dutch engineering of their sub-sea level coastal fortifications), more broadly, we’ve got a lot of life, wealth and property invested in the notion that the ocean will stay more or less where it is.

And of course, it isn’t just coastlines we need to worry about. Global warming is not just an issue of sea level rise; it presents, as Postrel does accept, a much broader range of possible consequences.

Climate change affects rainfall, storm severity, longer term patterns of drought and damp and so on. Global agriculture on industrial scales are built on climate assumptions. Land use and distribution reflect generations of dispute and resolution on the question of access to climate resources and so on. Radical change in the climate regime — an expansion of drought areas, shift of rainfall patterns and so on — might not, as Postrel and others have argued, produce a net loss of ecosystem capacity world wide. But such shifts do devastate human constructions built on a set of beliefs about the climate that are no longer true.

Put this another way: Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. Rather, it was a natural event — category 3 or 4 hurricanes are going to hit in the western gulf with a certain frequency; that’s just the way that part of the system goes.

What made Katrina a human disaster was the fact that since the last major hurricane came that way, New Orleans in all its modern glory and inadequately engineered levees had grown up in the way. Take that and spread it all over the globe, and you have the reason why modern anthropogenic climate change is scarier than the Little Ice Age was. The broad argument we should do nothing because the climate has always varied fails to take into account this change from then to now.

As it works out, even if Climate Change were a purely natural phenomena, (which only the seriously deluded can believe), it would still be a seriously stupid idea to just sit back and allow it to happen.

That said, as I told my sister several years ago, so long as the oil is flowing freely and cheaply, it's pretty damned unlikely that people are going to actually do anything significant to even try and mitigate the effects.

As luck would have it, oil, among other things, is no longer so cheap or flowing so freely. We'll take that up in Part II.

But it's gotta be nice to have an advantage for once,

To confront the Obama juggernaut, Senator John McCain, whose fund-raising has badly trailed that of his Democratic counterparts, is leaning on the Republican National Committee. Mr. McCain’s efforts to raise money suffered a blow this weekend when a key fund-raiser, Tom Loeffler, resigned because of a new campaign policy on conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCain is likely to depend upon the party, which finished April with an impressive $40 million in the bank and has significantly higher contribution limits, to an unprecedented degree to power his campaign, Republican officials said.

To that end, Republican officials said they were enlisting President Bush, a formidable fund-raiser who has raised more than $36 million this year for Republican candidates and committees, for three events on Mr. McCain’s behalf. They will appear together at a fund-raiser in Phoenix on May 27, and the next day the president will take part in a luncheon with Mitt Romney in Salt Lake City and then an exclusive dinner at Mr. Romney’s vacation home in Park City, Utah.

Since donors can write cheques up to $70,000 for the committees compared to the $2,300 max to the candidate, McCain obviously hopes the Republicans wealthy donors can compensate for Obama's massive haul from smaller donors. Of course, the GOP has other problems to deal with besides the presidential race.

The number of Republicans leaving Congress will cost the GOP millions of dollars in party-building funds for the fall congressional elections, campaign-finance records show.

Of the 32 Republicans who have resigned or announced plans to retire, 26 have political action committees known as leadership PACs — which members of Congress typically use to make donations to colleagues facing tough campaigns. Those 26 PACs raised $17 million in the last campaign cycle, but only $5.3 million for this election, a USA TODAY analysis of the latest campaign reports filed in March and April shows.

There is little evidence that fundraising will pick up: Five current or former members of Congress, including former senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, have closed down their PACs. Others, including Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, have sharply curtailed their fundraising activity.

2008 is truly shaping up to be a blowout year for the Democrats.

Say whatever else you will about Obama, but the man knows how to bring out the crowds.

Some 75,000 people flocked to Portland’s waterfront Sunday to watch Barack Obama speak, making it the biggest rally the campaign has held to date. Thousands stood on the lawn, dozens watched from boats and from the bridge stretching across the Willamette River. A few kayakers held their paddles and tried to keep their kayaks straight as they watched the candidate, who stood on a makeshift platform.

Wild.

When all else fails, go to the smear:

There's irony in Sen. Romeo Dallaire lecturing the Canadian government (and the U.S.) on its attitude towards Omar Khadr, now approaching his eighth year in custody, most of it at Guantanamo Bay.

As well as accusing the U.S. government of "panicking" and behaving like terrorists by prosecuting Khadr for war crimes, Dallaire says Canada is no better by not insisting Khadr be returned to the country of his birth.

Irony in Dallaire's testimony to a Commons foreign affairs committee on human rights, is that he was an abysmal failure in protecting human rights when he was a general in command of the UN mission in Rwanda in 1994.

Some 800,000 Tutsis were murdered in a genocidal rampage that Dallaire was forewarned about. UN headquarters in New York ignored his warnings (it was his first UN command).

Dallaire also did nothing when 10 Belgian soldiers under his command were massacred. (Dallaire has said it would have risked the lives of more soldiers if he'd committed them to try and save the 10.)

Yup, let's blame Dallaire for what happened in Rwanda. And irony? Yeah, I'm sure it's ironic that a man who bore witness to one of the most brutal episodes of man's inhumanity to man while the rest of the world averted it's eyes and twiddled its thumbs might have any kind of insight on human rights. And Worthington doesn't stop there.

Dallaire has become a poster boy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This has resulted in modest wealth and status -- promotions and medals before he retired, a UN post as adviser, a Liberal senator, and a sought-after speaker and authority on human rights in Darfur, China and elsewhere.

A "poster boy for PTSD"? Read: he's not all there and can be safely ignored. And we'll further degrade his successes as though they were gifts given out of pity for this "damaged" man.

Of course, Worthington is only following the example of his ideological bosses in Parliament. After all, attacking the messenger and smearing his service is a lot easier than trying to defend Canada's decision to allow the world's first trial of a child soldier for war crimes in the kangaroo court system of Guantanamo.

Yesterday, I posted over at the Newshoggers that Bush's "appeasement" attack was actually a good thing, since it was an opportunity to see Bush and McCain echoing one another. Even better though, is watching Obama's response.



Nice to see a Democrat who knows how to hit back.

The smell of the general election must be in the air, because McCain seems to be coming under a bit more scrutiny. The latest is a good contrast given all the hype about "appeasement" from Bush and McCain yesterday. You see, apparently McCain was for dealing with Hamas before he thought there would be political advantage in smearing Obama over it.

[Rubin] asked: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCain answered: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”

The Moderate Voice has the video as well.

More important to me is the very reasonableness of McCain’s position, particularly tow years ago just after Hamas won the Palestinian elections. Hamas showed more than a few indications of being willing to focus on governing the occupied territories and not antagonizing Israel with attacks. Engagement at that point would have shown whether or not Hamas was seriously turning over a new leaf or if they would return to form. If the latter, the willingness to engage would have clearly put the blame on Hamas for any resumption of violence.

Instead, the West, led by the US, boycotted the government whose election was a result of their own insistence on holding such elections. Fatah was armed and encouraged to retake power in a coup, and Gaza turned into a massive prison camp.

Even now, with a somewhat abortive attempt by the Bush administration to try and get some sort of peace deal hammered through before he leaves office, freezing out Hamas simply won’t work. Any deal worked out by Fatah won’t be seen as legitimate by many Palestinians, and as a result, Hamas still has veto power over any agreement.

Ultimately, the 2006 McCain was right. One way or another, Hamas needs to be dealt with and Fatah isn’t giving the people peace, security, or democracy. The true tragedy of the “silly season” is that it would likely be damaging for any of the candidates for president to admit that.