Nine Things We Learnt This Week

Posted on Tuesday, 17 June 2008 by mackthek

1. Margaret Thatcher, rehabilitated?

Scourge of the Left, in an Aquascutum suit
“But this portrayal of Maggie the seductress, ‘twirling through Young Conservative balls in strapless gowns,’ as the Sunday Times gushed at the weekend, sums up everything that’s wrong about the way Mrs T has been repositioned. She wasn’t a harmless socialite, she’s not a style [...]

Filed under: Britain, Canada, China, Environment, Human rights, Islam, Murmurs, Raves and Rants, Saudi Arabia | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

House of Commons Votes to Protect War Resisters

Posted on Thursday, 5 June 2008 by mackthek

Unfortunately, it’s non-binding. The Tories voted against the motion.
From the Canadian Friends Service Committee, the peace and social justice agency of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers):
Today, just after 3 pm, the House of Commons voted 137 – 110 in favour of the 3rd report of the Standing Committee on Immigration and Citizenship, which included this [...]

Filed under: Canada, Canadian politics, Conservative Party of Canada, Human rights, Iraq War, Murmurs, Raves and Rants, Politics, Quakers, Religion, Religious Society of Friends, United States | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Crocodile Tears

Posted on Thursday, 29 May 2008 by mackthek

I’m only sorry I got caught
When Tom Lukiwski’s now infamous (and soused) anti-gay remarks became public two months ago, it was reported the hapless MP cried. The more tenderhearted in the media said Lukiwksi wept for embarassing his family, his party, and the government; more cynical wags suggested tears were shed for shattered political propects. [...]

Filed under: Canada, Canadian politics, Cheesy Right Wing Politicians, Conservative Party of Canada, Murmurs, Raves and Rants, Politics | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

War Resister Ordered Deported

Posted on Thursday, 22 May 2008 by mackthek

A statement issued today by the Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers), The United Church of Canada, the  Mennonite Central Committee – Canada and the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers)
Canada No Longer a Safe Haven for U.S .War Resisters:
A Response to Ottawa’s Decision to Deport Corey Glass
 
Toronto: As signatories to the War Resisters Declaration, our concern for conscientious [...]

Filed under: Canada, Canadian politics, Human rights, Iraq War, Quakers, Religious Society of Friends, United States | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Free Speech Hysteria: Does Anyone Smell a Rat?

Posted on Tuesday, 6 May 2008 by mackthek

Studied outrage over the tribulations of Mark Steyn and Maclean’s before various human rights commissions continued this last week, with editorials appearing in both the National Post and Maclean’s.  Granted, the complaints were an abuse of process, and means need to be found to prevent the frivolous and vexatious from reaching the tribunals.  Freedom of speech [...]

Filed under: Canada, Canadian politics, Human rights, Journalism, Murmurs, Raves and Rants, Politics, United States, media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

A Christian, Persecuted

Posted on Tuesday, 29 April 2008 by mackthek

Several deep threads of irony lace the recent decision of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against Christian Horizons, a provider of services to people with developmental disorders.  The case involved a Christian lesbian named Connie Heintz, who left her job with this agency, and indeed was harassed out of it. Heintz found herself unable to comply [...]

Filed under: Canada, Canadian politics, Christianity, Human rights, Murmurs, Raves and Rants, Politics, Religion | Tagged: , , , | 16 Comments »

The Slow Science of Phenology

Posted on Monday, 21 April 2008 by mackthek

More incontrovertible signs of spring arrived this week: spring peepers and chorus frogs began their eons-old ritual of calling, mating and reproducing, road construction crews are similarly multiplying, and Peterborough County is choking under its first smog alert of the year.
I’m most interested in the frogs.  For a number of years, I’ve been informally recording in my journal [...]

Filed under: Britain, Canada, Environment, Murmurs, Raves and Rants, Peterborough County, Rural, Science, United States | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

  • 385 ppm: Chronicles of a Sick Planet

    7. "While southern Spain has always been dry and plagued by cyclical droughts, the average surface temperature in Spain has risen 2.7 degrees compared with about 1.4 degrees globally since 1880, records show. Rainfall here is predicted to fall 20 percent from this year to 2020, and 40 percent by 2070, according to United Nations projections. The changes on the Almarcha family farm in Albanilla over the past three decades are a testament to that hotter, drier climate here. Until two decades ago, the farm grew wheat and barley, watered only by rain. As rainfall dropped, Carlo Almarcha, 51, switched to growing almonds. About 10 years ago, he quit almonds and changed to organic peaches and pears, 'since they need less water,' he explained. Recently he took up olives and figs, 'which resist drought and are less sensitive to weather.' Mr. Almarcha participates in a government water trading system, started last year, in which farmers pay three times the normal price — 33 cents instead of 12 per cubic meter — to get extra water. The black market rate is even higher. Still, his outlook is bleak. 'You used to know that this week in spring there will be rain,' he said, standing in his work boots on parched soil of an olive grove that was once a wheat field. 'Now you never know when or if it will come. Also, there’s no winter any more and plants need cold to rest. So there’s less growth. Sometimes none. Even plants all seem confused.' "
    6. "A tanker from Marseilles with 36 million litres of drinking water unloaded its first cargo this week, one of a mini-fleet contracted to bring water from the Rhone every few days for at least the next three months. So humbled was Barcelona when prolonged drought forced it to ship in domestic water from Tarragona, 50 miles south along the Catalan coast, 12 days ago, that city hall almost delayed shipment and considered an upbeat publicity campaign to lift morale and international prestige. The whole country is suffering from its worst drought in 40 years and the shipments from Tarragona prompted an outcry from regions who insist they need it more. For now the clashes are being soothed by intervention from Madrid, and plans to ship water from desalination plants in parched Almeria in Andalusia are shelved until October. But there is little indication of a strategy to deal not just with an immediate emergency but an ongoing crisis. Buying water on an epic scale from France has given the controversy an international aspect as French environmentalists question whether such a scarce natural resource should be sold as a commodity to another country."

    Is Spain's Drought a Glimpse of Our Future?


    5. "Tourists heading to the tropics were warned yesterday that their suntan lotion can kill off one of the main attractions of their holiday - the colourful corals that thrive in warmer waters. Residues from sunscreens that wash off in the sea were shown by researchers to cause coral bleaching, a condition that leads to the death of the organism and the collapse of delicate ocean eco-systems. Chemical compounds that make up the ultra-violet (UV) filters in sunscreens, which are essential to protect the skin against burning, were shown to be harmful to coral reefs, even in small quantities.The researchers called for regulations to limit human contact with reefs where the coral was already suffering from other environmental threats such as rising sea temperatures."


    4. "Wasps used to be an uncommon sight in Fairbanks until two years ago. Then huge numbers of them swarmed on the city, ten times more than normal. The number of stings grew so bad that outdoor school events were cancelled, 178 patients were treated in hospital for stings and two people died. A study now reveals that wasp stings across northern Alaska have increased sevenfold over the past few years.

    3. "Daniel Boone's road is now the Hal Rogers Parkway, named after one of the Kentucky coal industry's closest friends in Washington, a Republican Congressman of 34 years. It passes through a mountain range older than the Himalayas and is blanketed in broadleaf forests rivalled only by the Amazon basin in its biodiversity. But the canopy of trees which lines the parkway as it rises from the bluegrass horse country to the mountains is a trompe l'oeil. The lush forest gives way to scraggly trees along the ridge-line, and behind those trees is evidence of unspeakable ecological violence. In a process known as mountaintop removal an upland moonscape is being created, which is incapable of regenerating trees. As far as the eye can see, the land is grey and pockmarked with huge black lakes, filled with toxic coal slurry."


    2. "Climate change has become firmly established as an accelerant to many of the factors which have put one in eight of the world's birds at risk of extinction, today’s publication of the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species of birds has found. Long-term drought and sudden extreme weather are putting additional stress on the pockets of habitat that many threatened species depend on. This coupled with extensive and expanding habitat destruction has lead to an increase in the rate of extinction on continents and away from islands, where most historical extinction has occurred. The 2008 Red List makes grim reading with 1,226 species of bird now threatened, and eight species newly uplisted to Critically Endangered, the highest threat category. Of the 26 species that changed category owing to changes in their population size, rate of decline or range size, 24 were uplisted to a higher level of threat. These include widespread continental species like Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata and Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata, both previously of Least Concern, and now regarded as Near Threatened in a global context."


    1. "The Living Planet Index (LPI) follows trends in nearly 4,000 populations of 1,477 vertebrate species and is said to reflect the impact humans have on the planet. It is based on a wide range of population datasets, such as commercial data on fish stocks and projects such as the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring scheme. New figures show that between 1970 and 2005, the global LPI has fallen by 27%. This suggests that the world will fail to meet the target of reducing the rate of biodiversity loss set by the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity."

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