On February 15, with the Conservatives' typical, quiet Friday afternoon, splash-less launch, the 2012 Progress Report to the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy was tabled in the House of Commons. The following week was a break in the Parliamentary schedule, and, so far, the report has been ignored in the national media.
If you have had any exposure to the talking points repeated, ad nauseum, by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Environment Minister Peter Kent, and Michelle Rempel (Kent's Parliamentary secretary) on Canada's actions in reducing Greenhouse gases (GHG), you will have heard that 'Canada is half way to our Copenhagen target.' This is the target adopted by Stephen Harper when he attended the climate talks, COP15, in 2009.
An inmate hunger strike at Guantanamo prison has entered its 40th day, with more than 100 reportedly taking part. Experts warn of health risks over a strike prompted by the confiscation of prisoners’ belongings and rough handling of Korans.
A star speaker Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference was Senator Rand Paul, whose picture fills out a Mt. Rushmore-like tableau atop the CPAC home page next to portraits of Marco Rubio, Sarah Palin, and Paul Ryan. The freshman Republican from Kentucky devoted most of his speech to his dream of rolling back everything the American people have done for themselves through their government since the McKinley Administration. But the first third was a gloss on the civil-liberties themes that, on March 8th, had handed the Rand brand a brand-new burnish. That was when the Son of Ron mounted a filibuster to beat the band—the talking kind, an old-fashioned bladder-busting blabfest—of President Obama’s nominee for director of the C.I.A., John Brennan. In that one thirteen-hour talkathon, the 2008 McCain campaign guru Steve Schmidt told the “Meet the Press” audience, “Rand Paul arrived as a national figure.”
