Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

How America's Favorite Baby-Goat Club Is Helping Big Ag Take Over Farming in Africa

FRANCIS BAAH DIDN'T ALWAYS want to be a farmer. As a little kid growing up in a village outside the small city of Koforidua, Ghana, he watched his father toil in the fields all day to grow corn that his mother bundled to sell at the market. And even after all that hard work, there wasn't always enough money to send Francis and his four siblings to school.

Francis knew what people thought of farming. When an adult was a farmer, it was because he had been lazy in school. Francis was an excellent student; when his parents were able to afford tuition, he was always at the top of his class. He planned to go to university to get a job as a businessman or lawyer.

Canada: The land of jobless immigrants

Welcome to Canada. We lied about the opportunities.
That is the realistic undertone to the new immigration policy announcement by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander on October 31, 2014, which declared that Canada aims to welcome as many as 285,000 new permanent residents next year.
The last time Canada admitted as many as 280,000 permanent residents was in 2010. According to the Minister, this is the highest planned total "in recent history," and is designed to "attract skilled immigrants" who will "help contribute to our economy and labour market."

Ted Cruz Wants to Shut Down the Internet Just Like He Shut Down the Government

It was not by coincidence that Texas Senator Ted Cruz came out against Net Neutrality almost immediately after President Obama made public comments in support of an open Internet. If Obama is for it, then Cruz must be against it. It's a predictable political move for an aspiring presidential candidate from the Tea Party. It also demonstrates a complete lack of understanding about how the Internet works. Fortunately for Ted Cruz, The Oatmeal does a great job of explaining it.

U.S.-Led Airstrikes Killed 865 People In Syria, Including 50 Civilians: Monitor

BEIRUT, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Air strikes by U.S.-led forces in Syria have killed 865 people, including 50 civilians, since the start of the campaign in late September against Islamic State militants, a group monitoring the war said on Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the majority of the deaths, 746, were Islamic State fighters and that the actual figure could be much higher. Islamic State has seized tracts of territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where it has also been targeted by U.S.-led forces since July.

Officials: Kansas Faces $279M Budget Gap By July

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas will face a $279 million budget shortfall by July, far worse than state officials had thought before a new revenue forecast Monday that will force Gov. Sam Brownback and legislators to consider spending cuts.

The state will also be required to close an even bigger additional gap — $436 million — during the following 12 months, according to the new forecast.

Aides to the Republican governor, who narrowly won re-election last week, said his administration will work in the next weeks to find savings while trying to protect funding for schools and core programs. But a Democratic leader called the new projections "devastating."

No, Regulation Is Not Keeping Banks From Making Money

Michael Bloomberg on Monday told a room full of bankers, traders, and investors that financial regulation was hurting their profitability and the U.S. economy. It was crowd-pleasing, but wrong.
In a speech at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's annual conference in New York, Bloomberg criticized the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, saying, "if you reduce the risk, they can’t make the money, they can’t provide the financing that this country and world needs to create jobs and build infrastructure and all of those things." Bloomberg's anti-regulation comments were applauded by the crowd, BuzzFeed'sMatthew Zeitlin reported.

Israel Approves 200 New Settlement Homes Amid Heightened Tensions

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli authorities gave preliminary approval Wednesday for construction of 200 new homes in a Jewish area of east Jerusalem, a move likely to ratchet up already heightened tensions in the city.

The decision came shortly before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was to arrive in neighboring Jordan on a mission aimed at restoring calm in the Holy Land after weeks of unrest.

Much of the recent violence has stemmed from tensions surrounding a sensitive holy site revered by Muslims and Jews. The collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks, Israel's bloody war last summer in the Gaza Strip and continued Israeli settlement construction in east Jerusalem have added to it.

The Questions John Roberts Has Never Answered

As the Supreme Court prepares to invalidate Obamacare’s federal tax subsidies in yet another assault on the social safety net, it’s a good time to review the promises Chief Justice John Roberts made at his September 2005 Senate confirmation hearing and re-examine the key questions he was never forced to answer.

Students of judicial history will recall that Roberts was initially nominated to take the place of retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and was tapped for the chief’s position only after the death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Suddenly thrust into the national spotlight, Roberts declared in his now famous opening statement to the judiciary committee that he was “humbled” by his nomination. In keeping with that humility, he pledged that he would “decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability. And I will remember that it’s my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.”

The US and China Just Announced a Huge Deal on Climate—and It's a Game Changer

In a surprise announcement Tuesday night, the world's two biggest economies and greenhouse gas emitters, United States and China, said they will partner closely on a broad-ranging package of plans to fight climate change, including new targets to reduce carbon pollution, according to a statement from the White House.

Aboriginal Affairs Internal Doc Urges Government To Spend More

OTTAWA - The federal government's own Aboriginal Affairs department believes it needs to spend more money if aboriginal children are to have the same kind of education as other kids in Canada, a newly released document suggests.

But such an increase is off the table until the Assembly of First Nations gets behind the Conservative government's controversial bill to reform aboriginal education, according to the department's own minister, Bernard Valcourt.

The Sino-Russia Partnership Is Stronger Than the West Thinks

WASHINGTON -- Some American pundits are calling for new overtures by the West that would distance China from Russia. In Japan, voices are urging the government to step up diplomacy with Russia to draw it away from China. In these appeals we can discern an assumption that divergent national interests leave either Moscow or Beijing susceptible to enticement by the U.S. and its ally in Tokyo.

Never Mind ISIS, It’s ISDS That’s the Real Threat

The media have been pushing a line, following Republican victory in last week’s midterm election, that the one area where Barack Obama and a now GOP-controlled Senate might find room for compromise is trade, especially the approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a twelve-nation deal. The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The Washington Post and the Daily Beast, among others, along with Obama and few Republicans, have suggested that Mitch McConnell will be more likely to bring the deal to a vote than Harry Reid, who refused to do so.

Stop subsidizing oil exploration: think-tank

Why subsidize the search for oil and gas that we can never burn if we want to limit the damage from climate change?

That's the question asked in a report from an environmental think-tank, which says Canada is one of the most generous countries in the G20 towards energy exploration.

"There's been virtual consensus among the scientific community that we have significantly more proven reserves than we can afford to burn and put into the atmosphere if we're going to meet the international goal for climate change," said Stephen Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, which co-authored the report released Tuesday with the Overseas Development Institute.

Too Many Politicians Suffer From Drug Policy Abuse

Last week, MPs debated Bill C-2 -- an Act to Amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The primary purpose of the bill is to obstruct the establishment of safe injection sites in Canada, despite over a decade of successful harm reduction at Vancouver's Insite.

Obama Can Reform Dark Money With a Stroke of a Pen

There’s a powerful solution for disclosing the secret-money sloshing around in our political system. It does not require an act of Congress or action from any of the effectively toothless campaign-finance watchdogs, like the Federal Election Commission. In fact, this solution could be passed in an instant, and the only requirement for action is political will.

President Barack Obama can issue an executive order today that requires government contractors to disclose their dark-money campaign contributions.

Why doesn’t he? And why don’t campaign-finance-reform organizations push for such a fix?

Tar sands companies win, BC loses, if Kinder Morgan pipeline goes through, report says

A newly released report says the economic benefits from Kinder Morgan’s pipeline are very small and “substantially overstated” by the company.

The collaborative report, created by Simon Fraser University's Centre for Public Policy Research and The Goodman Group consulting firm, demonstrates tiny returns to BC and states that the Trans Mountain Expansion project exaggerated the short-term jobs associated with building the pipeline by a factor of three.

In New China, ‘Hostile’ West Is Still Derided

BEIJING — Even as his government was making red-carpet plans to host President Obama this week, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, praised a young blogger whose writing is best known here for its anti-American vitriol.

In one widely circulated essay published by state news outlets titled “Nine Knockout Blows in America’s Cold War Against China,” the blogger, Zhou Xiaoping, argued that American culture was “eroding the moral foundation and self-confidence of the Chinese people.” He compared unfavorable American news coverage of China to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. In another essay, he said the West had “slaughtered and robbed” China and other civilizations since the 17th century, and was now “brainwashing” it.

China Unveils Sophisticated New Stealth Fighter Jet

ZHUHAI/BEIJING, Nov 11 (Reuters) - China unveiled a sophisticated new stealth fighter jet at an air show on Tuesday, a show of muscle during a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama for an Asia-Pacific summit.

China hopes the much-anticipated J-31 stealth aircraft, developed by the Aviation Industry Corp of China (Avic), the country's top aircraft maker, will compete with U.S.-made hardware in export markets.

Asia-Pacific Leaders Agree To Work Toward Possible Adoption Of Trade Deal

HUAIROU, China (AP) — Leaders of Asia-Pacific economies agreed Tuesday to begin work toward possible adoption of a Chinese-backed free-trade pact, giving Beijing a victory in its push for a bigger role in managing global commerce.

In a joint statement after a two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and Russia's Vladimir Putin agreed to take a first step by launching a two-year study of the initiative.

Anti-Muslim Posters Hit Mosques In Quebec City

Three Quebec City mosques were the target of xenophobic messages over the weekend.

Signs reading “Islam hors de chez moi” — Islam out of my country — were posted on each of the mosques’ front doors.

A mosque in the Limoilou neighbourhood, the Islamic cultural centre of Quebec City in Ste-Foy and the capital city mosque in Quebec City proper were targeted.

Harper's Plan Means Canada Will Be Associated With War Crimes Instead of Peacekeeping

The biggest threat to Canada's national security is internal. It is the offshoot of an extraordinarily successful -- because it remains largely undetected --- coup that imposed itself on the country with the federal election of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) in 2006, and solidified its impacts with the election of a Conservative majority in 2011.

Author, poet, academic, and former Canadian diplomat Prof. Peter Dale Scott recently disclosed a wikileaks cable indicating that the International Republican Institute (IRI), an off-shoot of the CIA, and a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) helped install Stephen Harper as Canada's Prime Minister. This was the coup.

Alberta Service Canada Centres among slowest in the country

Residents of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s own Alberta riding face some of the longest waits in the country to access federal government services at Service Canada centres.

An analysis by iPolitics of data on wait times at Service Canada Centres tabled in the House of Commons reveals that five of the 10 Service Canada centres with the worst wait times in the country are located in Calgary or Edmonton.

Harper isn’t the only member of cabinet with a problem in his own backyard. Of the 10 centres with the worst wait times, five are in ridings represented by Conservative cabinet ministers and two are in ridings represented by parliamentary secretaries.

Remembrance Day marked as veterans groups decry government changes

Canadians will gather to mark Remembrance Day today, but two groups of veterans are expressing anger at the Conservative government over its policies.

The main Remembrance Day event in Ottawa will be held at the National War Memorial, where Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was shot and killed nearly three weeks ago, two days after a man in Quebec drove his car into Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, killing him.

Dishonouring Remembrance Day: Harper's photo-op hop across the Pacific

Stephen Harper left the Beijing APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation) conference early. Following the official photo op, Minister Stephen Harper hopped back across the Pacific to Canada for Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Cenotaph (rebranded as the War Memorial) in Ottawa, and more photo ops.
The APEC meetings took place with world tensions building in the Pacific region. There is bad blood between Russia and the West over Ukraine; relations between China and Japan have deteriorated: and the U.S. "pivot" towards China causes deep concern in Beijing.
To address differences, Putin and Obama were holding private talks at APEC, as were the Chinese President and Japanese Premier Abe. Other APEC countries were taking and offering counsel, assessing each situation for its potential to explode, and looking for ways to reduce heated conflicts.

Judge Rules Landowner May Sue Gov't in Landmark Fracking Case

A landmark lawsuit that challenges the lax regulation of hydraulic fracturing in Canada has just scored a major victory.

In a lengthy decision, Alberta Chief Justice Neil Wittmann dismissed all key arguments made by the government of Alberta against the lawsuit of Jessica Ernst, including the fear that it may unleash a flood of lawsuits against a government that is heavily dependent on hydrocarbon revenue.

The Alberta government argued that Ernst's $33-million lawsuit had no merit; that the government owed no duty of care to landowners with contaminated water; and that the government had statutory immunity.

Ferguson & Israel? Netanyahu Calls for Stripping Palestinian-Israelis of Citizenship Amid Protests

On Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he was looking into whether Israel could strip citizenship from those who speak out against the continued statelessness of the Palestinians.  (There are millions of stateless Palestinians outside Israel.)

Netanyahu began his political career as a far-right Likud politician calling for the forced deportation of the 20% of the Israeli population that is of Palestinian heritage.  He said Sunday,

The Real Reason Behind the Democrats’ Big Midterm Losses

The President blames himself for the Democrat’s big losses Election Day.

“We have not been successful in going out there and letting people know what it is that we’re trying to do and why this is the right direction,” he said Sunday.

In other words, he didn’t sufficiently tout the Administration’s accomplishments.

I respectfully disagree.

Rights Groups In Egypt Brace For Possible Crackdown

CAIRO (AP) — Rights groups in Egypt are bracing for a possible crackdown as a government-issued ultimatum expires.

The government has ordered non-governmental organizations to register by Monday under a law issued by Egypt's longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak — which gives the state sweeping authority over their activities and financing — or face possible prosecution.

The government claims the ultimatum is a straightforward issue of law enforcement, but many rights groups view it as a direct threat amid a widespread crackdown on government critics.

In a statement Monday, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights — one of the oldest rights groups in Egypt — called on the government to extend the registration deadline so the law could be revised to comply with the constitution.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: AP

Brzezinski: Why We Need a U.S.-China 'Pacific Charter' for Global Stability

In Beijing on Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama called on China to be a "partner in underwriting the international order" instead of "undermining" it. One key American strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, is strongly promoting the idea that Obama's notion should be pushed further and formalized into a "Pacific Charter."

New Jersey Muslims Say De Blasio's Defense Of NYPD Surveillance Is 'Truly Troubling'

NEW YORK -- New Jersey Muslims suing over New York Police Department surveillance called the city's defense of the program under Mayor Bill de Blasio "truly troubling" in a court filing on Friday.

In a brief arguing that an appeals court should overturn a federal judge's ruling that the program was constitutional, lawyers for the plaintiffs rebuked the city for "continued attempts to mount a truly troubling defense of its policy of targeting Muslims alone for suspicionless surveillance."

SNC-Lavalin's Candu To Build Nuclear Reactors With Chinese Corporation

MONTREAL - Candu Energy, a division of SNC-Lavalin, has signed a framework joint venture agreement in China that could lead to construction of nuclear power plants using recycled uranium, a move one executive called a potential "game-changer" for the business.

The framework deal with China National Nuclear Corp. was signed in Beijing over the weekend during Prime Minister Stephen Harper's state visit to China and the company expects to finalize it within six months.

Fracking Linked To Alberta Earthquakes, Study Indicates

Carmen Langer had just left his bed to grab a drink of water when he felt his house northeast of Peace River, Alta., begin to shake.

“At first I thought I wasn’t feeling very good that day... and it was just my blood sugar, but no, it shook pretty good,” Langer said about the Nov. 2 incident.

Moments after the shaking stopped, his neighbours were calling, asking if he had felt what they just felt.

Justin Trudeau To Protesters: 'Take A Minute To Explain'

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau dealt with a small group of people protesting against the Energy East pipeline by briefly giving them the floor during an event in Toronto on Monday.

"Take a minute to explain to people your position and then we'll get back to this," Trudeau said during a Q&A about his memoir, Common Ground, at the Toronto Reference Library.

Canada Enforces Ebola Quarantine Measures For Certain Travellers

TORONTO - People coming to Canada from Ebola-affected countries — including returning health-care workers — will need to undergo a more formal 21-day monitoring period, the federal government announced Monday. And some will be told to stay at home for the duration of that time.

Some public health officials and aid groups that had been anticipating the release of a new federal policy expressed relief at what they saw, saying earlier iterations had been more restrictive. The fear has been the government might adopt a policy that made health-care workers returning from Ebola missions feel like pariahs, which could discourage others from volunteering to join the battle.

Conservatives make big spending cuts to transport safety while touting safety

OTTAWA - The Harper government has made dramatic cuts in spending on aviation, marine and rail transport safety over the past five years, even as it was touting new safety measures in the transportation sector.

The latest figures from the federal government's public accounts show actual spending by Transport Canada on marine safety has plunged 27 per cent since 2009-10, while aviation and rail safety spending are both down 20 per cent or more.

Without Obamacare, I would have died. I’m scared the Supreme Court is going to gut the part that saved me

The Obamacare subsidies saved my life. Now, I’m scared the Supreme Court is going to gut them.

In 2010, at 54, I was diagnosed with non-alcoholic cirrhosis (end-stage liver disease). It’s debilitating, and a transplant is the only cure.

At that time, I owned a jewelry store with my wife in Pawleys Island, S.C. On weekends we would meet friends, walk on the beach and join in community events.  My wife and I would travel regularly to see our daughters and take annual vacations.  We enjoyed a rich and full life.

The disease quickly robbed me off all that. One of my first symptoms was an accumulation of ammonia in the brain. I became highly forgetful — I forgot how to get out of a car and how to answer the phone. I couldn’t remember how to make change for customers. One day, I tried to go home from work and got lost.

Canadian consulate belongs to group told by "Dr. Evil" to "win ugly" against environmentalists

The Canadian Consulate is a member of the Western Energy Alliance, which sponsored a now-infamous talk by energy consultant Richard Berman telling the group's members, mostly oil and gas companies, they had to prepared to "win ugly" in an "endless war" against environmentalists.  The talk was taped and leaked by a disgruntled member of the group to the New York Times.

Although the Canadian Consulate apparently was not present at Berman's talk at Colorado Springs, it appears to be the only government member of the 480-member group that organized it. It is unclear which Canadian Consulate is a member of the Alliance, but they are managed by the Canadian department of foreign affairs, trade and development (DFATD).

As Bad As You Think It Is, It's Worse: Wage Theft Comes to America

In Denmark fast food workers make $20 an hour plus benefits, and the corporations who employ them are still profitable. Why there and not here?

The answer is simple and painful -- wage theft. In America corporations are systematically stealing our wages. Virtually everyone in the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution now suffers from wage theft... perhaps, including you!

California City Bans Homeless From Sleeping Outside: If They Leave, ‘Then That’s Their Choice’

Last week, the city council of Manteca, CA unanimously passed two ordinances aimed at clearing out the homeless population.
One will ban people from sleeping or setting up encampments on any public or private property as of December 4, although the homeless won’t be jailed or fined. It will, however, allow the police to tear down any homeless sleeping areas as soon as they appear without having to be invited by the property owner, as was the case previously.

Are Fracking Workers Being Poisoned on the Job?

Last week’s Republican election victories will set the stage for more stagnation in Washington, but might also grease the skids for some of the most controversial energy ventures at ground zero in the climate change debate: the long-stalled Keystone XL Pipeline project, and the booming hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," industry. But one thing that might put the brakes on the dirty fuel rush is the mounting research evidence linking oil and gas extraction to massive health risks for workers and communities.

A new study published in Environmental Health reveals air pollution data on major, in some cases previously underestimated, health risks from toxic contamination at gas production sites related to fracking. Air samples gathered around “unconventional oil and gas” sites by community-based environmental research teams contained unsafe levels of several volatile compounds that “exceeded federal guidelines under several operational circumstances,” and that “Benzene, formaldehyde, and hydrogen sulfide were the most common compounds to exceed acute and other health-based risk levels.”

Obama Just Announced His Full Support to Preserve Net Neutrality

In a move strongly backing net neutrality regulations, President Barack Obamaannounced his plan to reclassify the internet as a utility in order to preserve the web's "basic principles of openness and fairness."
Net neutrality has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation — but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas.

Canada's Pace Of Housing Starts Slows In October: Canada Mortgage And Housing Corp.

OTTAWA - The pace of new home starts in Canada slowed in October due to less construction of multiple-unit homes including condominiums, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says.

The agency estimated Monday the standalone monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate was 183,604 units in October, down from 197,355 the previous month.

Four Months Into Iraq War 3.0, the Cracks Are Showing

Karl von Clausewitz,  the famed Prussian military thinker, is best known for his aphorism “War is the continuation of state policy by other means.” But what happens to a war in the absence of coherent state policy?

Actually, we now know. Washington’s Iraq War 3.0, Operation Inherent Resolve, is what happens. In its early stages, I asked sarcastically, “What could possibly go wrong?”  As the mission enters its fourth month, the answer to that question is already grimly clear: just about everything. It may be time to ask, in all seriousness: What could possibly go right?

Feds keep MANFF audit under wraps

An abridged federal government report on alleged irregularities by the Manitoba Association of Native Fire Fighters criticized catering expenses and lax human-resources and management issues, but fell well short of the full audit observers and critics had been expecting.

And one of the claimants who says the MANFF still owes him $3 million said he would press for that audit to be produced soon.

Pipeline issues scabs on lives: Neil Young

VANCOUVER - Music icon Neil Young says Canadians need to stand up for clean air, land and water by taking on big oil companies because issues involving pipelines are "scabs on our lives."

He said Canadians must band together to ensure the Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes the right to live in a healthy environment.

Young was in Vancouver as part of the lineup of entertainers and artists including Barenaked Ladies, Feist and Robert Bateman for the last stop of the national Blue Dot Tour, which was fronted by scientist and environmental activist David Suzuki.

With Fear of Being Sidelined, Tea Party Sees the Republican Rise as New Threat

WASHINGTON — As most Republicans were taking a victory lap the morning after the elections, a group of conservatives huddled anxiously in a conference room not far from Capitol Hill and agreed that now is the time for confrontation, not compromise and conciliation.

Despite Republicans’ ascension to Senate control and an expanded House majority, many conservatives from the party’s activist wing fear that congressional leaders are already being too timid with President Obama.

Democrats create an ALEC-killer

Chastened by the conservative movement’s startling success at using national money to dominate state legislatures, liberal activists this week will ask top donors to support a plan to reverse the precipitous Democratic decline in state governments, where the party was trounced yet again on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama’s former liaison to the states will launch a major new state-focused organization called the State Innovation Exchange — or SiX for short — before donors on Friday at the annual winter meeting of the Democracy Alliance liberal funding club.

Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu Vows Harsh Response To Violence

JERUSALEM, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday publicly challenged Israeli Arabs protesting against a deadly police shooting in one of their villages to go and live under Palestinian rule in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ahmed Tibi, a prominent Arab legislator, said the comments - some of the most biting Netanyahu has directed at the country's Arab minority - showed the right-wing Likud party leader had "gone off the rails."

Kinder Morgan Overplaying Economic Benefits Of B.C. Pipeline Expansion: Study

CALGARY - A new report says Kinder Morgan is overplaying the economic benefits, and downplaying the costs of its proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Simon Fraser University's Centre for Public Policy Research teamed with The Goodman Group Ltd., a California-based consulting firm, to examine the estimated impacts of the project.

Billions of kilograms of food waste? Now that should have been an election issue!

Suppose they called an election, and not one candidate wasted their breath talking about the 67 billion kilograms of North America food that ends up in landfill, at a yearly cost to Canadian and U.S. taxpayers of $192 billion -- before even getting to impacts that rank food waste as the third-largest source of destructive global warming gases, just behind all the emissions from the U.S. and China.
That just happened in Ontario-wide municipal and in U.S. mid-term elections.
Odd that so much money can be wasted on garbage and so much environmental damage done by garbage, without anyone ranking it high as a hot public policy issue  -- one that, without costing taxpayers an extra dime, could be turned into a $192-billion public policy opportunity to create jobs managing wasted resources, while at the same time preventing incalculable damage from global warming emissions.