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internet browser. tags: politics, science, and pretty things.
US and Canadian Politics. technology.
environment. energy. education. health.
civil rights. social equality. novelty items.
and just maybe 1 lolcat. Glorious and free. in Toronto
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With the Obama administration about to decide whether to green-light a controversial pipeline to take crude oil from Canada’s oil sands to the United States Gulf Coast, e-mails released Monday paint a picture of a sometimes warm and collaborative relationship between lobbyists for the company building the billion-dollar pipeline and officials in the State Department, the agency that has final say over the pipeline.
Environmental groups said the e-mails were disturbing and evidence of “complicity” between TransCanada, the pipeline company, and American officials tasked with evaluating the pipeline’s environmental impact.
The e-mails, the second batch to be released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the environmental group Friends of the Earth, show a senior State Department official at the United States Embassy in Ottawa procuring invitations to Fourth of July parties for TransCanada officials, sharing information with the company about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s meetings and cheering on TransCanada in its quest to gain approval of the giant pipeline, which could carry 700,000 barrels a day.
“You see officials who see it as their business not to be an oversight agency but as a facilitator of TransCanada’s plans,” said Damon Moglen, the director of climate and energy project for Friends of the Earth. While the e-mails refer to multiple meetings between TransCanada officials and assistant secretaries of state, he said, such access was denied to environmental groups seeking input. Environmental groups argue that the pipeline, known as the Keystone XL project, would result in unacceptably high emissions and disrupt pristine ecosystems.
Before he was TransCanada’s chief Washington, D.C., lobbyist, Paul Elliott was a top official in Mrs. Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential campaign.
Many of the new e-mails are between Mr. Elliott and Marja Verloop, the counselor for energy and environment at the embassy in Ottawa. On Sept. 10, 2010, in response to an e-mail from Mr. Elliot announcing that Senator Max Baucus was supporting the pipeline, Ms. Verloop wrote: “Go Paul!” In an e-mail to David Jacobson, United States ambassador to Canada, she described TransCanada as “comfortable and on board” with some developments in the review process.
Wendy Nassmacher, a State Department spokeswoman, disputed that the e-mails showed a pro-pipeline bias. “We are committed to a fair, transparent and thorough process,” she said in an e-mail Sunday. “Throughout the process we have been in communication with industry as well as environmental groups, both in the United States and in Canada.” She noted that the State Department had conducted hearings in communities along the route of the proposed pipeline last week.
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The Sticky Problem With Tar Sands
To understand what tar sands are and why they have a slippery reputation with environmentalists, here’s a cheat sheet on these unconventional oil fields:
WHAT: Tar sands, also known as oil sands, are a mixture of roughly 90 percent sand, clay and water and 10 percent bitumen, a thick hydrocarbon liquid. After extracting that 10 percent of bitumen from the tar-sand mixture, the bitumen can be purified and refined into synthetic crude oil.
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The Damaging Impact of Roy Spencer’s Science … or, “How to Lose Credibility and Alienate Fellow Scientists”
Back in July, a climate researcher named Roy Spencer published a paper that was hyped by climate skeptics to blow a hole in warming models that would sink the Titanic. He used satellite data to make a case that far more heat was escaping into space than we currently think, and that this was prime evidence that climate change is being overblown as a risk.
He is, and was wrong. Of course that didn’t stop “major news outlets” from publishing the work like it was the Watergate papers (thanks, Fox News). However, mainstream climate scientists tore the work to shreds almost as soon as it was released (with no such fanfare, of course).
Dr. Spencer has a history of researching “against the grain”. He also has a history of being wrong.
It gets even better! That work from July that was so hyped and was supposed to sink the threat of global warming? The editor of the journal it was published in resigned on Friday, apologizing that the work was ever published under his watch. He clearly stated that it did not receive proper peer review and should be viewed as such.
It’s sad that this news comes on a holiday weekend here in the U.S., and that the news outlets so eager to publish the hype will make no such effort for the rebuttal and discrediting of that work. We saw this last month when Dr. Michael Mann was cleared of wrongdoing in the “ClimateGate” non-controversy (again).
It’s up to us to spread the word and report, I guess. Climate science is a danger, and the world deserves better effort from the media than this.
they displayed (via Climate Central)
(via jtotheizzoe)
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Conservative Crime Bill No Help To Victims:Advocates
OTTAWA — The Conservative government’s omnibus crime legislation, to be introduced this fall, may put too much focus on offenders, leaving victims in the dark, crime victims advocates say.
The legislation, likely to be sweeping in scale and scope, will be bundled into omnibus bills that represent a larger group of about a dozen bills the government was unable to pass in the previous minority Parliament. The Tories have promised to pass the bundled legislation within 100 sitting days of the majority Parliament, which sat for just a few weeks in June.
Advocates for victims of crime are concerned that the bill — expected to dramatically expand mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes, harshen sentencing for certain sexual offences against children and affect the privacy of young offenders — puts more weight on punishment than prevention, and won’t go far enough to help victims.
The government has said that harsher sentencing will help victims of crime by ensuring offenders stay off the streets and behind bars.
(Source: politicalcanuck, via politicsartandstuff)
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Photo gallery: NDP leader Jack Layton loses battle with cancer
Jack Layton has lost his battle with cancer, dying Monday morning at his home, surrounded by those closest to him, his family said.
Layton had recently stepped down as federal NDP leader, but had expressed hope that he would return when Parliament resumed next month.
Photo: NDP leader Jack Layton serenades the media on the campaign plane, April 2, 2011. (Tobi Cohen/Postmedia News)
Jack Layton NDP New Democratic Party politics Canadian politics cancer photos photo gallery news
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The Wolf: While everyone's attention is on the Vancouver riots, here's what happened elsewhere...
In Greece…
A demonstrator runs from riot police during a protest against plans for new austerity measures June 15, 2011 in Athens, Greece. Greece’s largest labor unions have called for a 24-hour strike, while the Socialist government is beginning to push through legislation for cost cutting reforms. (Getty Images)
In Azerbaijan…
Azerbaijan security forces detained 43 people on Friday after anti-government activists used social media to call for street protests in the oil-producing Muslim state, inspired by the Arab uprisings. (Reuters)
And in China…
Unrest in Guangdong, southern China, over the weekend. More disturbances were reported in Zhejiang on Wednesday. (Reuters TV/Reuters)
Chinese security forces mobilised to suppress protests in eastern China, a monitoring group and eyewitnesses said on Thursday, in the latest bout of unrest gripping parts of the country.
The unrest in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, broke out on Tuesday after the head of a local village government confronted petrol station staff during talks over land compensation fees that the station’s owner was due to pay villagers, the reports said.
To read more about what is happening in these three countries, do click on the photos above or the the links provided.
This round-up still does not include protests in Syria, Yemen, and Spain. And then you also have those protest movements which attempted to express their sympathies but have been silenced.
With these events happening elsewhere in the world. Maybe, as @superboink was telling me earlier, the youthful Canucks fans were just looking for an excuse to have their own “cause.” And it was the team’s demise which gave those youth a reason to replicate what they only saw in the news.
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I’m just too tired to write any real response to this. Someone please, for the love of humankind, get Sean Hannity the FUCK off the air.
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Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009
awfuldaring : dangers : moonrat : youthofamerica:
- #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
- # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
- # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
- # 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
- # 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
- # 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
- # 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
- # 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
- #9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
- # 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
- # 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
- # 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
- # 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
- # 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
- # 15 Worldwide Slavery
- # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
- # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
- # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
- # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
- # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
- # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
- # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
- # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
- # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
- # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer
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Focusing on what really matters, are we??
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Planet 100: Oil vs The Amazon (3/4)
Just discovered Discovery’s Planet Green that produces these clips. The latest in envornmental news, compatible with short attention spans.
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Photo by Eugene Richards
I want you to look very closely at this picture and try and keep it in your minds eye. This was a perfectly healthy twenty two-year-old young man who in the service of his country got half of his head blown off. I think that’s important, I think that’s newsworthy. Let me tell you how newsworthy I think it is. I think that it’s more important than chocolate cake recipes and far more important than comic book reviews. It is more important than who fell and whose swell at the winter Olympic games.
It is far more important than any self-serving load of crap banged out by Pseudo doctor Amy. It is more important than American Idol or Lost or any other mindless goat droppings the public chooses to chew on. This is some American mother’s son, her little boy, he may be gay or straight or transgender but his life is fucked forever.
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Send positive energy/prayers/thoughts to folk in Chile and areas in the danger zone right now. Photo from moskom on flickr. Social media is leading the way with live crowd-sourced info and well as relaying media from professionals in the field.
Here are some examples:
#Chile hastags or conversations for those with family in harms way: #terramotto, #moteconhuesillo & live tweeting:http://bit.ly/aIbmBL
Wish I could stay up and talk about this more, but I have to go to bed. Been a long night and I still have to finish packing before the move tomorrow. I enabled photo replying, btw if anyone is so inclined.
Live Google Document via Ushahidi:
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yeah, this about covers it all.
prerequisite for liberals: must wear a hat.
