For the Record

Obama's second term

I could not be happier about the changing demographics of the U.S., both in absolute terms and in terms of voting.  This is fantastic.  And it makes me think that, all things considered, I didn't make a huge mistake supporting Obama over Hillary in 2008.

On the other hand, Obama is very far from perfect.

Imran Khan interrogated by U.S. officials for opposition to drones

... upon leaving Toronto, bound for New York:

U.S. border officials boarded the Pakistani politician’s New York-bound American Airlines flight on Friday to escort him off the plane and question him about his views on the U.S. administration’s use of drone warfare.

“I just couldn’t understand,” Khan said in a telephone interview with the Toronto Star after his brief interrogation.

“I was sitting with this guy and he kept asking me these strange questions. Finally, he said, ‘Do you know something about drones?’ And I don’t think he fully understood what he was talking about. It was just so bizarre, the whole thing.”

Khan has been a vocal opponent of the Obama administration’s use of drones to target militants in Pakistan. Earlier this month, he led thousands of anti-war activists in a march to Pakistan’s tribal area.

He again criticized drone warfare during a Thursday interview, calling it “insane” and “immoral” and noting the high number of civilians killed.

“Sheer madness . . . worse, it’s counterproductive,” he told the Star. “All it is doing is creating anti-Americanism. It is helping the militants to recruit people. Collateral damage means anyone losing a family goes and joins the militants.”

Britain’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, one of the organizations that tracks drone deaths, estimates that during U.S. President Barack Obama’s first three years in office, between 282 and 535 civilians were reported killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen — including more than 60 children. The Obama administration’s estimate is much lower.

Walmart workers going on strike

for the first time in the history of that highly exploitative company.

In defense of reason

An excellent discussion here of how science should be, but is not, informing social and political policy.

Planning to retire in the U.S.?

Be sure to put aside $220,000-$240,000 to cover your out-of-pocket medical expenses.

12-year-old Ontarian Victoria Grant describes how Canadians are being defrauded

... by the contemporary banking system.  An eminently sensible tour de force.

Canadian women kick U.S. women's butt

In World Hockey Championship games.  Yes!

George Galloway wins it

Will we have to let him into Canada now that he's an elected official?  I hope so.

German efficiency

Unemployment rate in Germany at 6.6%. Apparently this is because 

Germany deployed a number of instruments to keep people in their jobs even during the most trying days of the financial crisis

OK, so 'democratic' government is supposed to be in the business of advancing the (medium-term, presumably) interests of 'the people' -- in the sense of, if not the 51%, then at least the 97%. Presumably, 'keeping people in their jobs' is in the interests of 'the people' in this sense. Perhaps making the 97% feel as if the state has no interest in keeping them in their jobs is in the interest of (allowing for some borderline feelings of suspended indecision in the 98th %ile) the top 1% -- shock doctrine, give up on organizing, willingly subject themselves to the market and all that. So -- we do not wish to repeat ourselves, and yet we must -- the relatively pathetic efforts toward keeping people in their jobs in the Anglophone world are evidence that government here is not 'democratic'.

Germany did not get the jump on Anglophonia because they knew something we didn't. Their strategy involved:

the government program known as “Kurzarbeit,” which allowed employers to significantly reduce workers’ hours, with the state stepping in to make up most of the shortfall in pay. Another was the so-called work-time accounts, whereby unions and companies agreed to let workers build up a bank of overtime that they could then use to take paid leave when there was a downturn in business

Clever, but not really very clever. And academics and technocrats share ideas globally. Our current predicament is not inevitable but is the product of state activity -- and not state activity directed in any significant way on behalf of 'the people'.

We are so sorry

We (well, we Canadians) screwed up.

Go Cheeseheads!

Over one million signatures served to force recall of union-busting Scott Walker.  Yippee!

Post WWII-US wars: 6 million dead

But who's counting?

Palestinian flag flown at Paris UNESCO headquarters

An important gesture.

Bush and Blair guilty of war crimes by standards of Nuremburg tribunal

For their aggressive, illegal, and mass-murderous invasion of Iraq:

A tribunal in Malaysia, spearheaded by that nation’s former Prime Minister, yesterday found George Bush and Tony Blair guilty of “crimes against peace” and other war crimes for their 2003 aggressive attack on Iraq, as well as fabricating pretexts used to justify the attack. [...]

The tribunal ruled that Bush and Blair’s name should be entered in a register of war criminals, urged that they be recognized as such under the Rome Statute, and will also petition the International Criminal Court to proceed with binding charges. Such efforts are likely to be futile, but one Malaysian lawyer explained the motives of the tribunal to The Associated Press: “For these people who have been immune from prosecution, we want to put them on trial in this forum to prove that they committed war crimes.” In other words, because their own nations refuse to hold them accountable and can use their power to prevent international bodies from doing so, the tribunal wanted at least formal legal recognition of these war crimes to be recorded and the evidence of their guilt assembled. That’s the same reason a separate panel of this tribunal will hold hearings later this year on charges of torture against Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others.

Here’s what I find striking about this. Virtually every Serious political and media elite in America, by definition, would scoff at this tribunal; few things are considered more fringe or ludicrous than the notion that George Bush and Tony Blair should be punished as war criminals just because they aggressively attacked another nation and caused the deaths of at least 150,000 innocent people and the displacement of millions more. But the only thing this Malaysian tribunal is doing is applying the clear principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal as enunciated by lead prosecutor and former U.S. Attorney General Robert Jackson in his Opening and Closing Statements at Nuremberg [..].

Silent shaming

Chancellor Katahi walks past hundreds of silent protestors.

Occupation of abandoned corporate buildings must be met...

with deadly force, of course.  Isn't it the capitalist way?  How lucky the landlords are to have people on the public payroll, so ready to defend their earthly rights.

I <3 Elizabeth Warren

She is so the awesome.

(Sorry for the bad grammar, PHLB99-ers. :) .)

One cop for every protester...

More precisely: 4K cops deployed to harass handle 10K Londoners protesting the tripling (!) of education fees.

The fate of the translators

The ultimate bait and switch.

We are the 99%

Real stories from real people... my brother and sister in the U.S. have been experiencing such a decimated way of life for years now.