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Saudi Arabia gets 84 fighter planes
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- Published on Tuesday, 03 January 2012 07:00
- Hits: 225
The Kindom of Saudi Arabia was in the news twice during the month of December, 2011. On December 12, a woman in her sixties named Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was beheaded for practicing "witchcraft and sorcery." On December 29, a deal between Saudi Arabia and the United States was announced; Saudi Arabia will purchase 84 F-15SA fighter jets for $30 billion.
You can read the details of the fighter plane sale here. The F15 is more sophisticated than the F35's that Canada is buying, and Canada will manage to defend a much longer coast line with only 65 of them. Arms sales to foreign goverments have to be approved by the President and Congress of the United States, and Obama and Congress had no problem with it. That's not hard to understand; the sale will put $3.5 billion annually into the US economy, supporting 50,000 jobs with 600 suppliers in 44 states.
There's so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start, so I'll start here: where were the screams from the wingnuts who believe that Obama is a secret Muslim? The ones who were having a fit over a proposed Muslim cultural centre in a former coat factory in lower Manhattan. (First Amendment? What First Amendment?) Why weren't the talking heads on Faux News devoting a couple of days worth of air time to this subject? Why do we need Stephen Colbert to remind us that "only 15 the the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi citizens?"
We know, of course, that it's US dependence on oil that causes the US government and media to enable the behavior of the Saudi regime. The suggestion I'm going to make here is, the next time you're having a holiday dinner ruined by a relative who spends too much time watching Faux News, you can respond with any of these reality checks:
- Since most Repugnikans (except Ron Paul) are competing with each other over who can be the biggest support of Israel, why is the US supplying a lot of weapons to the regime that doesn't care much for Israel?
- If Repugnikans want to offer us "Sharia Law" as a boogie man, does it make sense to enable the behavior of a regime that really practices Sharia Law? Maybe the people who want to turn the US into a theocracy think that Sharia Law and the beheading of sorceresses aren't such bad things.
- How come Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Beck, Palin, et al aren't going after Obama for supporting this deal? (If you get this answer: "Beck was fired by Faux News because he criticized the Saudi regime", you can respond "touché". It's a fact that the second-largest shareholder in the Fox Network is Alwaleed bin Talal, a Saudi prince.)
- If there is indeed some sort of "war on Christmas" going on, does it make sense to provide weapons to a culture that doesn't celebrate Christmas?
We shouldn't forget for one minute that the Middle East is a very dangerous place, and having nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamic religious fanatics would be a very bad thing. However, making irrational public policy decisions based on Denial over dependence on Middle Eastern oil will make a dangerous situation even more dangerous.
Amtrak stop proposed for Blaine, WA
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- Published on Saturday, 24 December 2011 14:31
- Hits: 393
The topic of an additional stop for Amtrak trains between Vancouver and Bellingham, WA has finally caught the attention of local media.
The need has existed for a long time. People who live in New Westminster, Surrey, and Delta who want to take a train to Seattle or Portland have to either travel to downtown Vancouver in order to catch a train that takes them right back out to New Westminster, Surrey, or Delta, or get a ride to Bellingham and catch the train there.
A possible solution has come for for this because of a seemingly unrelated event. Burlington Northern Santa Fe owns the train station building in Blaine, WA. It's 100 years old, in a state of disrepair, and hasn't been used as a passenger stop since 1980. BNSF announced a plan to demolish it, and people in Blaine decided that this was a bad idea. Not so much because of heritage value of the building, but because they recognize that access to passenger rail service would be beneficial to the community.
The station is within walking distance of the Peace Arch border crossing, although it would seem to be further if you're carrying heavy luggage. It should be possible to arrange secure parking for those people in Surrey, Delta, etc. would would like to catch a train in Blaine, and leave their car there for a few days.
The Prosperity Mine proposal in the Chilcotin - a really bad idea
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- Published on Sunday, 27 November 2011 22:11
- Hits: 430
I'm going to be at the Vancouver Law Courts (specifically, at the corner of Nelson and Hornby) at 9:30 AM on Monday, November 28.
The occasion is a court hearing on the Prosperity Mine proposal by Taseko Mines Ltd., based in Vancouver. This proposal is for a gold and copper mine in the Nemiah Valley, southwest of Hanceville, BC. It calls for dumping mine tailings in Fish Lake, known to the Nemiah Band (Xeni Gwet'in) as Teztan Biny.
I've been to every part of British Columbia sometime during my life, and the Chilcotin, along and south of route 20 between Williams Lake and Bella Coola, is my favourite. The last time I was there was about 14 years ago. I saw the herd of wild horses in the Brittany Triangle. Several people told me I should go to Fish Lake. I was within 5 km. of it, but didn't go there because the road was too rough for the car I was driving.
Here's a video that shows why Fish Lake is a very special place:
Blue Gold: The Tsilhqot'in Fight for Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) from Susan Smitten on Vimeo.
This project has already been turned down by the Federal Ministry of Environment. Taseko Mines responded by renaming the proposal the New Prosperity Mine, and trotted out the bogus claim that the project would create 71,000 jobs. (Taseko had only 414 employees in 2007.) They're insulting our intelligence, and they're certainly not fooling the Nemiah Band.
Occupy Vancouver, Oct. 15 (includes podcast)
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- Published on Saturday, 15 October 2011 18:28
- Hits: 706
I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery, listened to some speechmaking, saw a number of people I hadn't seen in over a year, and walked up Hornby Street and down Howe Street twice. There were about 5,000 people there. As I headed for the Skytrain to go home, I saw yet another parade going up Granville Street, and additional protest effort unrelated to the one at the art gallery.
I have some harsh words for the organizers. I arrived at 10 AM, and the people on the steps were explaining how to do consensus-based decision making. They didn't give us any idea about just what sort of things we would be making decisions about, and when they introduced some people who would be serving as interpreters, someone in the back made an intelligent suggestion: why not have the interpreters introduce themselves in their own language? (Think about it: if someone doesn't speak English, it doesn't do much good to tell them, in English, that Jan is going to be interpreting in Mandarin.) This suggestion was ignored.
Then, there was a long discussion on whether to use an electronic microphone or use "human mikes" instead. Then, they went through the consensus-based decision-making process three more times, and on the fourth time, I headed for a coffee bar a few blocks away to drink a latte and read a newspaper. When I came back, the electronic microphone had finally been turned over the the speakers.
That time between my arrival at the art gallery and my departure for the coffee bar is an hour of my life I will never get back. The same applies to the large number of other people who were present during that period. If the organizers of Occupy Vancouver want our respect as organizers, they need to respect the fact that our time is valuable. There are a lot of other things we could have been doing on a nice October day. I would have rather been hearing about how the mass media has let down the public, climate change, or Christy Clark's involvement in the BC Rail giveaway.
Airspace President Errol Povah showed up with a placard. We recorded a podcast.
Get MP3 (2.1 MB | 4:20 min)
Podcast: Vancouver's "Occupy Wall Street" starts October 15
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- Published on Wednesday, 05 October 2011 21:59
- Hits: 763
Errol Povah, President of Airspace Action on Smoking and Health, explains why we should be at least as outraged by the tobacco industry as by Bank of America, Bear Stearns, and the Koch brothers.
Get MP3 (4.0 MB | 4:20 min)
Occupy Vancouver starts at the Vancouver Art Gallery on October 15
Click here to buy pizzas for Occupy Wall Street activists
Tobacco Laborers Denied Basic Human Rights in the U.S. Article by Kenneth Quinnell at Crooks and Liars
Child labour: the tobacco industry's smoking gun Article by Kristin Palitza in The Guardian
Vote by mail, not by internet
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- Published on Tuesday, 30 August 2011 17:25
- Hits: 576
An article in the August 30 Vancouver Sun, Cities push province for electronic voting, says that three BC municipalities are trying to get the influential Union of BC Municipalities to endorse the idea of internet voting.
The UBCM should say "no" to this idea. So should Elections BC, the Federal government, and all provincial governments. We shouldn't accept any voting arrangement that doesn't provide paper ballots that can be counted in the presence of multiple election officials and scrutineers, and can, if necessary, be recounted.
Here's a better idea. We got an excellent turnout with the mail-in ballots used in the recent HST referendum. Oregon has been using mail-in ballots since 1998, and Washington State started using mail-in ballots last year. It has worked well for them; voter turnout has gone up, and the cost of conducting elections has gone down. Let's go with something that works, and can be trusted.
What Obama can do about the debt ceiling
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- Published on Friday, 08 July 2011 18:13
- Hits: 2581
The big news item in the US, other than the Casey Anthony trial, has been the need for Congress to raise the national debt ceiling, in order to avoid defaulting on bonds sold by the government, and wrecking the U.S. government's credit rating.
The Repugnikans aren't really going to do anything that upsets their Chamber of Commerce masters, but they are trying to hold Medicare and Social Security hostage; they want Obama to agree to cuts to these programs in exchange for their support to raise the debt ceiling.
One aspect of this we're not hearing about in the media, with the notable exception of Portland-based talk radio host Thom Hartmann, is that Obama has another weapon he can use if he needs to call the Repugnikans' bluff on this; see Does Obama have a secret weapon in the debt ceiling debate?
It works like this: Congress can authorize or not authorize money for programs, but it's the Executive branch that actually writes the cheques.
Here's an analogy that lots of Americans can relate to right now. You haven't taken home much money the past couple of months, your credit cards are maxed out, and you don't have enough money to pay the bills. This is the situation the U.S. Government is faced with.
So what do you do? First, you pay the mortgage payment or the rent, because you don't want to be evicted.
Second, you make the car payment, because you don't want the car to be repossessed.
Third, you'll buy groceries, because you don't want to starve to death.
Fourth, you'll make the minimum payments on your credit cards, because you don't want your credit rating to be downgraded.
Then what? You'll tell other people that you owe money to that you can't pay them right now, but you recognize the fact that you owe them, and you'll pay up later.
Obama's Executive branch can take the same approach. They can pay Social Security, Medicare, government salaries, and bond interest first.
Next, the Government can simply refuse to cut cheques for subsidies to the oil and gas and ethanol industries. This move will give Obama overwhelming public support; they only people who won't like this are the oil and gas and ethanol industries, and the Repugnikans they have in their pockets.
He can also refuse to cut cheques for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the people who do those intrusive searches of airline passengers. Again, the reaction of most people will be "good riddance". The inspection of passengers and baggage will have to be done by someone else, which means airlines and airports. This cost will have to be passed along to passengers, and a lot of them are... Repugnikans.
They can stop writing cheques to defense contractors. If the contract is for delivery of jet fighter planes, the government can say, "we'll take delivery of those planes when we can afford them." If it's for ongoing work, which is paid for on a monthly basis, the contractor can do one of two things; lay people off, or continue with business as usual, with the knowledge that they will get paid eventually. Until then, the contractors will be making daily phone calls to their Congressperson, demanding that the budget impasse is resolved ASAP, or "no post-Congress soft job for you."
Are you starting to get the idea here? If not, here's one more example. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is saying that he will filibuster against any effort to raise the debt ceiling. OK, Rand, how about no Federal money for highway construction in Kentucky for the next few months?
This is what is known in the political arena as "hardball". So far, Obama has shown no ability to play it. In particular, I thought that Obama made a huge mistake by not allowing the tax cuts for the rich to expire. (See The institutionalization of fiscal irresponsibility elsewhere on this blog.) Obama must learn that caving to the Repugnikans won't work this time; the more progressive members of Congress have made it clear that they simply won't vote for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
