May 2007

Kudos to Greg Weston of the Toronto Sun for pointing out the absurdity — and hypocrisy — of Jeffrey Monaghan’s arrest:

Civil servant put on parade

Spectacle of Jeffrey Monaghan’s arrest would have made any police state proud

By GREG WESTON

In the latest chapter of Stevie in Wonderland, the Conservative promise of open and accountable government is fulfilled by RCMP goons slapping handcuffs on a young federal temp and hauling him off in front of his co-workers, all over a leaked piece of Tory propaganda.

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This from the Edmonton Journal, reporting on parliamentary hearings on the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership:

OTTAWA - Amid heated charges of a coverup, Tory MPs on Thursday abruptly shut down parliamentary hearings on a controversial plan to further integrate Canada and the U.S.

The firestorm erupted within minutes of testimony by University of Alberta professor Gordon Laxer that Canadians will be left “to freeze in the dark” if the government forges ahead with plans to integrate energy supplies across North America.

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This from the National Farmers Union, dated today:

LOWEST FOOD SUPPLIES IN 50 OR 100 YEARS:

GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS EMERGING

SASKATOON, Sask.—Today, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its first projections of world grain supply and demand for the coming crop year: 2007/08. USDA predicts supplies will plunge to a 53-day equivalent—their lowest level in the 47-year period for which data exists.

“The USDA projects global grain supplies will drop to their lowest levels on record. Further, it is likely that, outside of wartime, global grain supplies have not been this low in a century, perhaps longer,” said NFU Director of Research Darrin Qualman.

Most important, 2007/08 will mark the seventh year out of the past eight in which global grain production has fallen short of demand. This consistent shortfall has Read the rest of this entry »

Planet S/prairie dog writer Stephen La Rose looks ahead to the central role TILMA could play in shaping the next Saskatchewan provincial election — if the provincial NDP actually decides to oppose it.

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By John W. Warnock

May 3, 2007

Global warming and climate change has dominated political debate over the past year. If the polls are accurate, the great majority of Canadians want action to be taken by our leaders, but little has been forthcoming. The Ecologist and others have called for a “second industrial revolution”, transforming our economy and society from dependence on fossil fuels by switching to alternative energy.

In Saskatchewan we have always depended on coal and natural gas to provide our energy. We also built SaskPower, a Crown corporation, to produce and bring electricity and natural gas to all rural, northern and remote areas. The centralized system has served us well, but we now need a change of direction.

The move to distributed generation

The new trend is toward “distributed generation”, which is a shift to local generation of power and energy for Read the rest of this entry »

This American Life, surely one of the best radio shows on the air, has just updated and rebroadcast its Peabody Award-winning episode on Guantanamo Bay.

Listen to “Habeas Schmabeas” here or here.

In between other reading, I’ve been chipping away at Robert Fisk’s mammoth tome The Great War for Civilization for most of a year now — my “fiskal year” — and marveling still at Fisk’s masterful prose and the depth of knowledge (much of it first-hand) he brings to the narrative. I can’t recommend this book highly enough to anyone wanting a better understanding of recent Middle Eastern history, or to anyone interested in reading literary journalism at its best.

From the opening pages of “Now Thrive the Armourers…” (Chapter Nineteen, pages 921-23), here’s Fisk at his descriptive best:

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