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Rants and Raves

  • BC Election Reflection
    by Lauren Kaljur As I walked through Yaletown on election night, peering through a restaurant seated with well to-do clientele smiling as they sipped their fine victory wine, I was reminded that we are divided. With a popular vote split between 47.5% for progressive left parties and 49.2 % for the right we indeed are. Resisting the temptation to storm out of province in frustration, I'd like... Read more...
  • GBR Spring 2013 Election
    GBR Spring 2013 Election Something anything curbing elite destruction, Possibly poking point thorns continuation. Stopping one crime at a time only consolation. Political decisions corporations manipulations. Coastal greens almost all voted NDP. Orange line along greenest coast we see. Even hard core freaks like me voted NDP. Searching some semblance of continuity. Collaborating dreaming from... Read more...
  • Wilderness Committee Assessment of NDP Green Policies for the BC Election
    The Wilderness Committee has taken a close look at the NDP’s platform. Campaign Director (and Watershed Sentinel columnist) Joe Foy gives us an assessment of what the party says it will do if it wins the provincial election on May 14. Joe Foy is National Campaign Organizer for the Wilderness Committee. He speaks with Redeye host Jane Williams. Read more...
  • Syria: Chemical Weapons or Media of Mass Destruction
    Here we go again -- the media howls for war, trotting out the same old variations on a theme to justify war against Syria, and, by all accounts, it will turn out just as well as Iraq and Libya, arming and empowering religious fundamentalists completely opposed to western interests. One really wonders if these "strategies" in the west -- USA and Britain in particular -- are being writen... Read more...
  • Dr. Thierry Vrain on What's Wrong with Genetically Engineered Foods
    Dr. Thierry Vrain, formerly a head of research science at Agriculture Canada, shares his understanding of why the science behind genetic engineering is flawed -- the assumption that one gene makes one protein has been outdated since 2002 and the actions of foreign proteins in the genome are unpredictable and unknown. Read more...
  • Green Energy - Green Illusion
    Here's a critical piece that is well worth a few minutes to read - a discussion of the current trend in environmentalism to boosting green energy and green tech as THE solution, instead of looking at the longer term implications and searching for real solutions to the human ecological problem. This interview by Steve Horn, Power Shift Away from Green Illusions, in truthout explores the... Read more...
  • What ails B.C.'s democracy?
    by Dermod Travis Trivia time: who was the last leader of the BC NDP to lead his party to more than 45 per cent of the popular vote in a provincial election? One would have to go back six leaders and eight elections to 1979 when Dave Barrett won 45.99 per cent of the popular vote and still lost the election to Bill Bennett and the Social Credit party. Read more...
  • Elizabeth May Nails It in Her Discussion of Pipelines West, East, and South
    Writing for Island Tides, Elizabeth May discusses the issues around all the pipeline proposals, eastern Canada's reliance on foreign oil, and comes to the only sensible solution -- slow down the expansion of the tar sands to a managable and steady 2 million barrels a day, which would cool inflation, and construct the refineries needed so that Alberta is shipping conventional oil and gas to... Read more...
  • NDP Will Restore Therapeutics Initiative
    YES! A no-brainer. Read more...
  • Kitimat refinery chicanery, or Shooting fish in a barrel
    Re: David Black signs deal with major Chinese bank to help finance Kitimat refinery Read more...
  • War or Peace with Earth?
    April 15 is the Global Day of Action on Military Spending. In 2012, the Canadian government spent $22.7 billion on National Defence but only $1.6 billion on Environment Canada. The federal government will spend $25 billion on new warships, $16 billion on new fighter jets and $1 billion on armed drones. However, the greatest human security challenges are climate change and poverty. Read more...
  • Bill C-37 Makes National Energy Board Comments Difficult for Public
    The only quarrel we would find with this post by our  colleague Andrew Gage, staff lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law, is the title -- we'd call the National Energy Board requirement to apply to be allowed to comment on running tar sands dilbit in aging pipelines through Ontario cities downright anti-democratic. Here's the lawyer's comments. Read more...
  • Support the Hupacaseth FN Against Canada-China FIPPA
    This is one of the most serious attacks on Canada in history, perpetrated by our own government on behalf of Chinese business oligarchy, giving a handful of industrialists power over our choices about labour, ecology, and Canada's future. Please see this short video and support the Hupacasath First Nation case. Read more...
  • On Replacing Old Unreliable Pipelines
    I see they (the pipeline PR guys, er- sorry - experts asked their opinion by the TV anchor) ) are arguing that the pipeline that burst in that Arkansas neighbourhood Read more...
  • Coastal First Nations Ask: Have You Heard the Radio Call from the Exxon Valdez?
    Read more...
  • Latin America Mourns Chavez: Canada and US Isolated
     http://www.alternet.org/world/america-isolated-latin-american-leaders-mourn-hugo-chavez-us-expresses-contempt Obama and Harper are looking like arrogant, stupid rich boys that don't want (or don't know) how to play ball with the other kids... Eventually, they will realize how isolated, and fragile, they are,  while the other kids keep rising together, helping... Read more...
  • Judge Presiding Over Ernst vs Encana Fracking Case Re-Appointed
    Jessica Ernst (pictured here) is on the road to becoming another unsung Canadian hero. The Harper government has appointed Honourable Justice Barbara L. Veldhuis, a Court of Queen Judge who has been presiding over the case Ernst vs Encan, to the Court of Appeal in Alberta, which means a decision is delayed, until another judge is appointed to this highprofile lawsuit. Read more...
  • Coastal Breeze Blows in Co-operation
    Elizabeth May has all but endorsed Joyce Murray in her bid for leader of the Liberal Party because Murray, like Nathan Cullen and May herself, is advocating co-operation between the parties to stop Stephen Harper's agenda of remaking Canada into a country we do not recognize.   It is most interesting that Cullen, Murray and May, as an elected representative (sort of by... Read more...
  • Evidence Shows Small Uptick in Temps Could Spell 'Massive' Permafrost Melt
    '1.5ºC appears to be something of a tipping point,' says scientist - Jon Queally, staff writer, Common Dreams Scientists studying the geological history inside ancient Siberian caves say that evidence suggests a global temperature increase of just 1.5ºC could trigger massive melting of the northern hemisphere's permafrost, unleashing gigatonnes of carbon and methane into... Read more...
  • BC Forest Tenure: Bill 8 is dangerous and outrageous.
    Bill 8 is dangerous and outrageous.  For example, a corporation may apply to the government for a TFL, notify (not consult with) the public asking for feedback within a short period of time, and, then, the corporation reports back to government telling it what it heard from the public.   Read more...

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"This is it. It's done!" was the message in Alaska in 2008, 19 years after the Exxon Valdes oil spill.  Dave Janka, who runs Auklet Charters in Prince William Sound, ran his boat over to Smith Island to snap this photo.  Dave says, "It's far from done!"

W.L.M. (Bill) Wilson writes: 'Attached is my rewrite of Anne Feeney’s “Have You Been To Jail for Justice”. Anne granted permission to do non-profit performances of this Enbridge version.' Video by Ester Strijbos.